If Brock’s prowess at Detroit called forth universal admiration, his death was the occasion of a wonderful outpouring of affectionate regard and regret. When the news reached England Earl Bathurst wrote to Sir George Prevost: “His Majesty has lost in him not only an able and meritorious officer, but one who displayed qualities admirably adapted to dismay the disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the great mass of the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy to invade the province.” Nor was British gratitude a matter of words only. On July 20th, 1813, the House of Commons voted a monument to Brock in appreciation of what he had done. The monument, at a cost of £1,575, was erected in St. Paul’s cathedral. Each of Brock’s four brothers was granted twelve thousand acres of land in Upper Canada, and a pension of £200 a year for life. A memorial coin was struck in Brock’s honor. Thus Great Britain tried to show how much she thought of the man who had held his life so lightly beside the safety and honor of the Empire.

In Canada the sorrow was just as great and more immediate. Colonel Nichol, Brock’s militia quarter-master, wrote of his death: “Our situation has materially changed for the worse. Confidence seems to have vanished, and gloom and despondency seem to have taken its place.” “His moderation and impartiality had united all parties in pronouncing him the only man worthy to be at the head of affairs” was the tribute of Lieutenant Ridout, who himself fought bravely at Queenston Heights. The newspapers of Canada were genuinely sorrowful, and the Quebec Gazette declared his death was received as “a public calamity.”

A lasting mark of Canada’s esteem was to be found in a fine monument erected on Queenston Heights. This column which was 135 feet high, and stood 485 feet above the river, covered a vault to which, on October 13th, 1824—just twelve years after his death—Brock’s remains and those of his gallant aide were removed. On the occasion of this transference, a great crowd, in which were almost as many Americans as Canadians, gathered to honor the memory of Canada’s great general.

This monument unhappily was entirely ruined through the agency of a man named Lett who, on April 17th, 1840, exploded gunpowder under it. This man was one of the rebels of 1837 who fled to the United States when his sedition was discovered. The motives that animated him were petty and spiteful, but if he thought that by destroying the outward and visible sign of Brock’s wonderful work, he was besmirching the memory of a great man, he was very wrong. Canadians flocked to Queenston, and at a public meeting there it was decided to build a monument even more imposing than the one so meanly destroyed. The foundation stone for this new monument was laid in 1853 and it was completed three years later. The formal inauguration took place on October 13th, 1859. From its base to its summit, a splendid image of Brock, the monument is 190 feet in height.

So this man of action has been honored, but the greatest monument to his deed and his memory is in the hearts of the Canadian people. Canada may well be proud of him, for he saved our country in a very real and vital sense. He managed to crowd the few short years he was in Canada full of earnest and devoted service to the country he had adopted and had come to love. The splendor of his achievement shines out as a beacon, at once drawing attention to itself as a proof that Canada had its great ones a hundred years ago, and imposing on all Canadians the same high privilege of doing something to make glorious and keep stainless the fair name of their country.

Reuben Butchart, a Canadian poet of power, has written a sonnet in commemoration of Brock, and this little book could not leave a better message with its readers than the beautiful words and even more beautiful thoughts that this poet gives us: