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Radoslav Gatev

Introducing Distributed Application

Runtime (Dapr)
Simplifying Microservices Applications
Development Through Proven and Reusable
Patterns and Practices
1st ed.

Foreword by Yaron Schneider, Principal Software Engineer and Dapr

co-founder, Microsoft
Radoslav Gatev
Gorna Oryahovitsa, Bulgaria

ISBN 978-1-4842-6997-8 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-6998-5

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6998-5

© Radoslav Gatev 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
To my girlfriend Desislava who supports me unconditionally.
Foreword
In the year leading up to the first release of Dapr as an open source
project in October 2019, Haishi Bai (my partner in co-founding Dapr)
and I observed just how much the cloud-native space had matured. It
had grown to provide ops and infrastructure teams with first-class
tools to run their workloads either on premises or in the cloud.
With the rise of Kubernetes (K8s), an entire ecosystem of platforms
has sprung up to provide the missing pieces for network security, traffic
routing, monitoring, volume management, and more.
Yet, something was missing.
The mission statement to make infrastructure “boring” was being
realized, but for developers, many if not all of the age-old challenges
around distributed computing continued to exist in cloud-native
platforms, especially in microservice workloads where complexity
grows with each service added.
This is where Dapr comes in. First and foremost a developer-facing
tool, Dapr focuses on solving distributed systems challenges for cloud-
native developers. But just like any new technology, it’s critical to be
able to understand its uses, features, and capabilities.
This book by Radoslav Gatev is the authoritative, technical, hands-
on resource you need to learn Dapr from the ground up. Up to date with
version 1.0 of Dapr, this book gives you all you need to know about the
Dapr building blocks and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces),
when and how to use them, and includes samples in multiple languages
to get you started quickly. In addition to the Dapr APIs, you’ll also find
important information about how to debug Dapr-enabled applications,
which is critical to running Dapr in production.
Radoslav has extensive, in-depth knowledge of Dapr and is an active
Dapr contributor, participating in the Dapr community and helping
others learn to use it as well. He makes the project better by working
with maintainers to report issues and contribute content.
You really can’t go wrong with this book, and I highly recommend it
to anyone who wants to start developing applications with Dapr.
Yaron Schneider
Principal Software Engineer and Dapr Co-founder, Microsoft
Introduction
Being able to work on various projects, one should be able to identify
the common set of issues every project faces. It doesn’t mean you can
always apply the same solution over and over again, but it puts a good
structure. I was very lucky that early in my career, I was pointed to the
proper things to learn. I have already been using object-oriented
programming (OOP) for some time, but I was stunned when I read the
book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by
Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides for the first time. It gave me the
answers to some of the questions I’d been asking myself. From there on,
I am a strong believer that patterns do not only serve as reusable
solutions to common problems, they become a common lingo and teach
you how to think in an abstract way. Being able to work at a conceptual
level, instead of focusing too much on the details, I believe made me a
better professional.
I heard of Distributed Application Runtime (Dapr) for the first time
when it was announced at Microsoft Ignite 2019, Microsoft’s annual
conference for developers and IT professionals. At first, the idea of it
resonated within me but I didn’t completely understand it, and so I
decided to start playing with it. In September 2020, a transition to an
open governance model was announced to ensure that the project is
open and vendor neutral. Fast-forward to February 2021 when Dapr
v1.0 was released. Now that Dapr is stable and production-ready, it is
also in the process of being donated to the Cloud Native Computing
Foundation (CNCF) as an Incubation project. By the time you read this,
it may be finalized.
Dapr greatly simplifies the development of Microservices
applications. It works with any language and any platform. You can
containerize your applications or not, you can use Kubernetes or not,
you can deploy to the cloud or not. You can sense the freedom here.
From a development perspective, Dapr offers a number of capabilities
grouped and packaged as building blocks. Let’s face it. You will have to
use some services that are external to the application you are aiming to
build. It is very normal to not try to reinvent the wheel and build
everything from scratch. By using the building blocks provided by Dapr,
you use those external services without thinking about any SDKs or
specific concepts imposed by the external service you are trying to
integrate with. You just have to know how to work with the building
block. This simplifies the operations you want to execute on the target
external services, and Dapr serves as the common denominator. That’s
why you can swap one technology with another in the scope of the
building block, that is, reconfiguring Dapr from persisting state to, say,
Redis to MySQL, for example.
Some believe Dapr is the service mesh but done right. The reason
for that is that service meshes rely on the sidecar architecture as Dapr
does. However, service meshes are for network infrastructure, while
Dapr provides reusable patterns that are easy to apply and repeatable.
In the future, I expect building blocks to expand in functionality and
maybe new building blocks to come to Dapr. With that, the reach to
potential external services will become so wide. For greenfield projects,
this will mean that Dapr can be put on the foundational level of
decisions. Once you have it, you can, later on, decide what specific
message broker or what specific persistence medium to use for state
storage, for example. This level of freedom unlocks many opportunities.
Introducing Distributed Application Runtime (Dapr) aims to be your
guide to learning Dapr and using it for the first time. Some previous
experience building distributed systems will be helpful but is by no
means required. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part
before diving into Dapr, a chapter is devoted to set the ground for the
basic concepts of Microservices applications. The following chapter
introduces Dapr: how it works and how to initialize and run it locally.
The next chapter covers the basics of containers and Kubernetes. Then
all that knowledge is combined in order to explore how Dapr works
inside Kubernetes. The part wraps up by exploring the various options
to develop and debug Dapr applications, by leveraging the proper
Visual Studio code extensions – both locally and inside Kubernetes.
The second part of the book has a chapter devoted to each building
block that explores it in detail. The building blocks are:
Service Invocation
Publish and Subscribe
State Management
Resource Bindings
The Actor model
 Secrets
Observability
The final part of the book is about integrating Dapr with other
technologies. The first chapter outlines what middleware can be
plugged into the request pipeline of Dapr. Some of the middleware
enable using protocols like the OAuth2 Client Credentials and
Authentication Code grants and OpenID Connect with various Identity
Providers that support them. The examples in the chapter use Azure
Active Directory. The following chapter discusses how to use Dapr with
ASP.NET Core by leveraging the useful attributes that come from the
Dapr .NET SDK. The last two chapters cover how to combine Dapr with
the runtimes of Azure Functions and Azure Logic Apps.
Code samples accompany almost every chapter of the book. Most of
them are implemented in C#, but there are a few of them in Node.js, to
emphasize the multiple-language approach to microservices. You can
find them at https://github.com/Apress/introducing-
dapr . You will need to have .NET and Node.js installed. Some of the
tips and tricks in the book are applicable only to Visual Studio Code
(e.g., the several extensions that are covered in Chapter 5: Debugging
Dapr Applications), but you can also use any code editor or IDE like
Visual Studio. For some of the examples, you will also need Docker on
your machine and any Kubernetes cluster – either locally, as part of
Docker Desktop, or somewhere in the cloud.
I hope you enjoy the book. Good luck on your learning journey. Let’s
start Dapr-izing! I am happy to connect with you on social media:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/radoslavgatev/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RadoslavGatev
Feel free to also check my blog: www.gatevnotes.com .
Acknowledgments
In every venture uncommon to a self, there should be a great catalyst. I
would like to thank Apress and especially Joan Murray, Jill Balzano,
Laura Berendson, Welmoed Spahr, and everyone else involved in the
publishing of this book. I had been thinking about writing a book for
quite some time, and I am grateful that Joan reached out to me. At that
moment I had a few conferences canceled, a few professional
opportunities lost because of the risks and the great uncertainty at the
start of COVID-19. Fast-forward a year from then, the book has been
finished, and I am writing this. A year of lockdowns spent in writing is a
good year, after all.
Additionally, I would like to thank Mark Russinovich for being such
an inspiration and knowledge source for me. Sometimes, it takes just a
tweet to change the life of a person. He retweeted a blog post of mine
about Dapr. It gained a lot of attention, and to a large extent, because of
that, I ntroducing Distributed Application Runtime (Dapr) is now a
reality. I would like to thank Yaron Schneider and all Dapr maintainers
who are always friendly and supportive. They helped a lot by answering
some of the questions I’ve had in the process.
I would also like to thank Kris van der Mast, the technical reviewer,
for the excellent feedback and suggestions that added immense value to
this book.
I would like to thank Mihail Mateev who gave me the opportunity to
do my first public session a couple of years ago. Since then, we have
been collaborating with a lot of other folks to make some of the biggest
conferences in Bulgaria possible. Of course, thanks to the community
that still finds them interesting, and from the fascinating discussions,
they sparkle. I would like to thank Martin Tatar, Cristina Gonzá lez
Herrero, and Irene Otero for their great help and continuous support to
us, the Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals.
I would like to thank Dimitar Mazhlekov with whom we have been
friends, teammates, business partners, and tech junkies. We have
walked a long way and learned a lot together.
I would like to thank all my teachers, professors, and mentors who
supported me a lot throughout the years. To find a good teacher is a
matter of luck. And with you all, I am the lucky person for being your
student.
I would like to express my gratitude for being able to work with
organizations around the globe that gave me exposure to their unique
and intriguing challenges that helped me gain so much knowledge and
experience. Thanks to all the team members I met there and for what I
was able to learn from every one of them.
And last but not least, to my girlfriend Desislava, my parents,
extended family, and friends, thank you for the endless support
throughout the years! Thank you for keeping me sane and forgiving my
absence when I get to work on something challenging.
Table of Contents
Part I: Getting Started
Chapter 1:​Introduction to Microservices
A Brief History of System Design
Hardware Progress
Software Progress
Monolithic Architecture
Benefits of the Monolithic Architecture
Drawbacks of the Monolithic Architecture
Microservices Architecture
Designing Microservices
Benefits
Downsides
Abstract Infrastructure
Some Useful Patterns
Adopting Microservices
Summary
Chapter 2:​Introduction to Dapr
What Is Dapr?​
How Was Complex Made Simple?​
Out-of-the-Box Patterns
Dapr Components
How Does Dapr Work?​
Hosting Modes
Getting Started with Dapr in Self-Hosted Mode
Download Dapr
 Initialize Dapr
Run Applications with Dapr
Exploring the Dapr Dashboard
Using Dapr SDKs
Summary
Chapter 3:​Getting Up to Speed with Kubernetes
Kubernetes:​The Big Picture
Control Plane Components
Node Components
Container Images
Running a Docker Container
Building a Docker Image
Optimizing the Size of a Docker Image
Pushing to Remote Registry
Get Started with Kubernetes
Kubernetes Objects
Pods
Services
Deployments
Packaging Complex Applications
Summary
Chapter 4:​Running Dapr in Kubernetes Mode
Installing Dapr in Kubernetes Mode
Exploring the Dapr Control Plane
Installing the Dapr Helm Chart
Zero-Downtime Upgrades
 Uninstalling Dapr
Dapr Applications in Kubernetes
Dapr and Service Meshes
Isolation of Components and Configuration
Summary
Chapter 5:​Debugging Dapr Applications
Dapr CLI
Dapr Extension for Visual Studio Code
Development Container
Bridge to Kubernetes
Summary
Part II: Building Blocks Overview
Chapter 6:​Service Invocation
Overview
Working with HTTP-Based Services
Name Resolution
Multicast DNS in Self-Hosted Mode
Kubernetes Name Resolution
Cross-Namespace Invocation
Working with gRPC-Based Services
Implementing a gRPC Server
Invoking gRPC Service from HTTP
Implementing a gRPC Client
Securing Service-to-Service Communication
Securing Dapr Sidecars and Dapr Applications
Summary
Chapter 7:​Publish and Subscribe
What Is Publish/​Subscribe?​
What Are the Benefits of Publish and Subscribe?​
When Not to Use Publish and Subscribe?​
How Does Dapr Simplify Publish and Subscribe?​
Defining the Component
Message Format
Receiving a Message
Subscribing to a Topic
Controlling Time-to-Live (TTL)
Controlling Topic Access
What Messaging Systems Are Supported by Dapr?​
A Temperature Sensor Example
Switching Over to Another Messaging System
Limitations of the Publish and Subscribe Building Block
Summary
Chapter 8:​State Management
Stateful vs.​Stateless Services
State Management in Dapr
Defining the Component
Controlling Behavior
Saving State
Getting State
Deleting State
Using State Transactions
Supported Stores
Other documents randomly have
different content
called upon a hundred guests “to fill to the very brim—which was
done accordingly;” John Prince, may long life and prosperity attend
him—nineteen times nine, and one cheer more.

So far so good; from Halifax to Amherstburg every newspaper

exploited him, every mail recorded fresh triumphs; he had only to
show himself to be cheered to the echo. But he had yet to pass
through the hands of Lord Brougham.

The ex-Chancellor was ready to fight any number of duels, rhetorical

or conversational, of black-letter law or black-mouthed insinuation,
upon any conceivable occasion. He now pounced upon the word
outlaw and twisted it through all the maze of meaning. The “mealy-
mouthed” Sir George Arthur’s opinion and the exculpation by court-
martial availed not; nothing but insanity could excuse Colonel Prince.
In his opinion he, Prince, was guilty of murder; he had made
assurance doubly sure by anticipation of legal proceedings and
results. That there was great support given Colonel Prince
throughout Canada, advanced as a mitigating circumstance by Lord
Ellenborough, seemed but to justify the ex-Chancellor in his
sweeping condemnation. The Duke of Wellington drew attention to
the fact that it was not Colonel Prince’s commission that was
involved, or even his life alone, but the conduct of the Upper
Canadian government; that if all alleged were true, another gallant
friend of his, Sir John Colbome, whose duty it was to have brought
Colonel Prince at once to court-martial and punish him, would have
been remiss, and (evidently) warming to his subject, his Grace
predicted that a system of retaliation would be followed, that if Her
Majesty had not the power to protect her Canadian subjects the
colony ought to be abandoned. “Is there a single spot,” he asks,
“except that on which a soldier stands, in which Her Majesty’s
authority is enforced?”

Brougham’s reputation when travelling was that at Inverness he was

Conservative, but, changing his opinions as often as his horses, he
was downright revolutionary by the time he reached Dundee; there
at the full, at Edinburgh he waned. By the time the Duke of
Wellington had finished Brougham’s sympathies were modified, and
he ends with an opinion that if the Government of the United States
had not power to repress such warfare they could hardly be called a
civilized nation.

Upheld by the Duke, with the approval of the Imperial Parliament,

rewarded by a commission in the 71st for his son—a gift straight
from the hand of the great man himself—Colonel Prince held his
head high for the rest of his life, took good care to keep out of
Detroit, fought his remaining enemies to the last, and might well
have said, “Honour and policy, like unsevered friends, i’ the war do
grow together.” Always manly, he was ready to meet his former
vilifiers half-way in a reconciliation in which Sir Allen MacNab, the
Rector of Sandwich, Major Lachlan and John Hillyard Cameron
undertook the rôle of mediators. All reflections contained in the skit
upon the colonel’s valour were withdrawn, and on his side he
expressed, in writing, his regret for his many hasty expressions. It
was, in fact, a true amnesty, in which each party had to pay its own
costs, for more than one bit of litigation had begun.

Well might a temperate New York newspaper say, “With all our
hearts we wish those who feel themselves oppressed in Canada
might have the liberty they seek, if they could get it without
resorting to measures endangering the peace of the whole Anglo-
Saxon race.”
“Come, Mighty Must!
Inevitable Shall!
In Thee I trust;
Time weaves my coronal.”
 Huron’s Age Heroic.
“Huron, distinguished by its lake,
Where Manitoulin’s spirits wake,”

before ’37 had but one central point, which, to use a Paddyism, was
on the very confines of the still primeval forest. The mysterious
wilderness had a few spots between Goderich and the other limit of
the Canada Company, Guelph, in which woodmen, thinking solely of
the grain and roots to be grown in the cleared spaces, were
unconsciously ameliorating the climate of their continent by the
patches of sunlight their axes were letting in through the green
gothic above.

At the one end Galt, “churning an inarticulate melody,” with

shoulders straight and upright, caught his foot in a tree root. Pryor,
his right-hand man, said, “Look after your feet, man, and keep your
head out of the stars.” In a moment Pryor hit his head against a
branch. “Man, keep your eyes frae your feet,” rejoined Galt, “or else
you’ll damage all the brains you’ve got.”

They jested; but they made the way of the pioneer. And the pioneer
is the Canadian man of destiny. He is in a thousand valleys and on a
thousand hillsides, sometimes cold and hungry, but he swims on the
crest of the wave, and sees the beginning of a new thing. The spirit
of adventure which bore Columbus, Cabot, Cartier, and Champlain
into untrodden paths, sustains him and makes him brother to them,
even if his scope is but the patch cleared by his own axe.

The British distinction between Whig and Tory, like the London fog,
was supposed not to cross the ocean with these pioneers. But in the
wilderness of Huron they throve by ’37 with a vigour derived from
transplanting. After the Gourlay affair men learned to put bridles on
their tongues; but if, as in Governor Maitland’s opinion, all Reformers
were deluded, unprincipled and designing, there were men in
Dumfries, Guelph, and from the Wilmot Line westward, who could
differ from that opinion and yet sing,

“Far from our Fatherland,

Nobly we’ll fall or stand,
For England’s Queen.
In town and forest free,
Britons unconquered, we
Sing with true loyalty,
God save the Queen.”

Dumfries and all about Galt was largely settled by shepherds from
the neighbourhood of the Ettrick Shepherd, Galashiels, Abbotsford,
and thereabouts. If any of the good Tory sentiments recorded at
Ambrose’s are to be believed, the Ettrick Shepherd would have been
dismayed had he known what manner of opinion some of his fellow-
shepherds held in Canada. Walter Cowan, bailiff to Sir Walter, told
his master he wanted to emigrate. “Well, Walter, if you think it best
to go,” said his genial employer, “I’ll assist you; but if you ever need
to give it up, let me know, and I’ll help bring you back to Scotland.”

But did any ever wish to return? “I have never been home again,”
says one, “although I have often wished to see the place, and I
don’t think my sons or other Canadians appreciate it half enough;
but I never heard of any emigrant wanting to go back to live. If you
have thriven here, you are too high to have aught to do with them
you left; and those above you, no matter how you have thriven, are
too high to have aught to do with you.”

“I was born at Yarrow,” continues a mellow old Radical, bedridden,

but bright as the proverbial shilling, “and I was naught but a poor
shepherd lad; now, at ninety-three, I am one of the most fortunate
men alive. I am sinking down to the grave, bedridden, but I have all
my faculties, and I do not use spectacles by day or night. I came out
in ’34, and that journey across the Atlantic was my wedding jaunt,
for I was married on my way to the ship, sixty-three years ago the
26th of May it was; and there at the foot of my bed they have put
the picture of my good lady, where I can see it all day long. In ’35 I
felt I must have books, so I said, ‘Is there anyone in this place will
help me get some together?’ Then three men, all cobblers, came
forward, and among us we started what is now the Mechanics’
Institute—three cobblers and a former shepherd lad; and that was
the first public work I put my hand to here. When I was naught but
a callant at home I mind how my heart nearly broke because there
were no shillings to buy the books I longed for, and when Mr.
Chambers brought out that journal for the people and we could buy
it for three baubees, I thocht he was the noblest man that ever
lived. On the way out there was a lady who listened to our talk, and
I said I should never be content without a volume of Pollok, on
which I had set all my desires. So when we came through Rochester
she bought the book for a shilling, and made me a present of what I
had so long wanted; and I thought this must be a fine country
where books could be got for a shilling!”

After the arrival of Sir Francis, Judge Jones and Colonel FitzGibbon
had their conversation about the bags of pikes and pike-handles and
signs of their immediate use. Said the Judge, “You do not mean to
say these people are going to rebel?” The Colonel was no Thomas;
he firmly did believe. “Pooh-pooh,” said Jones, turning to Sir Francis,
who wearied for his pillow. So Sir Francis, humane man, addressed
by what he called “the industrious classes,” expressed himself in
“plain and homely language,” with as much care as if intended for
“either branches of the Legislature:” “The grievances of this Province
must be corrected; impartial justice must be administered. The
people have asked for it; their Sovereign has ordained it; I am here
to execute his gracious commands.” Nor did these industrious
classes, one time shepherd laddies and the like, feel more than the
Governor himself allowed.
“I was a Scotch Radical, and would have helped Mackenzie all I
could—until he drew the sword. That proved to me he was not
constitutional, and I wouldna any such doings. I do know that if by
my own puny arm, young and without influence as I was, I could
have got rid of the Family Compact, I would have done it right
willingly. A few days before the outbreak a neighbour told me of the
great doings likely to be in Toronto, and I joked wi’ him. But he said,
‘Mind, man, it’s no joking matter, and it’s sure ye’ll see Mackenzie’s
men through this way;’ and as I was a Scotch Radical he seemed to
think it would be short whiles before I was in gaol. So I laughed, and
said, ‘Well, if Mackenzie comes this way I’ll treat him well, for I have
eight hogs hung in a row, and he shall have the best.’ I would have
fed him and his people, for I would have rid the country of the
Family Compact; but he didna mend matters to draw the sword.”
Even such meritorious work must not be done in opposition to the
Queen and country.

“I count only the hours that are serene,” is the motto on an old
Venetian sun-dial. All the Canadian clocks must have stopped and
the sun hasted not for a space of years in these exciting days when
Canadians, but one remove in complexion from aborigines, allowed
not toil, heat, sun, nor isolation to abate the vigour, ingenuity and
resolution born of circumstances.

“William Lyon Mackenzie, hot-tempered and impulsive,” says another

old Reformer, “had a keen eye for detection of a flaw in an
argument; he lived by complaining, and had no thought beyond
formulating and promoting grievances. So many years of such a tone
of mind totally unfitted him for political life. When a practical
question was put before him for a practical answer, the man was
utterly at sea; his faculty of constructiveness was obliterated.”

Evidently, he who cannot live happily anywhere will live happily

nowhere, and Mackenzie, “yellow and somewhat dwarfish,” bore out
the supposed likeness to the Yellow Dwarf, a violent weekly journal
published in London by an ultra Radical in 1819 and afterwards. Its
editor, Wooler, set it up without copy, mind and composing-stick
working together.

The Colonial Advocate and Mackenzie’s pamphlets did their work in

the country side. Lords Brougham, Melbourne and Glenelg were
gibbeted in Toronto and afterwards burnt on the night of October
22nd, ’37, and the Advocate informed them of it. It also kept up
excitement about the “Kentish drillmaster,” corporals MacNab and
Robinson, and the general system of rack rent; it stated that a
pound loaf was at a shilling Halifax; that woe and wailing, pauperism
and crime, were rife in a land never meant for the first three; that
many in the new settlements seldom tasted a morsel of bread, and
were glad to gnaw the bark off the trees. “But why are want and
misery come among us? Ah, ye rebels to Christianity, ye detest the
truth, ye shut your ears against that which is right. Your country is
taxed, priest-ridden, sold to strangers and ruined ... Like the
Iazzaroni of Italy, ye delight in cruelty and distress, and lamentation
and woe.” He apostrophized the ruling Pact as false Canadians,
Tories, pensioners, profligates, Orangemen, church-men, spies,
informers, brokers, gamblers, parasites, knaves of every caste and
description. It would be wonderful if each man’s grievance could not
find an outlet with such a number and variety of scapegoats. “Never
was a vagabond race more prosperous,” he writes, “never did
successful villainy rejoice in brighter visions of the future. Ye may
plunder, rob with impunity, your feet are on the people’s necks, they
are transformed into tame, crouching slaves, ready to be trampled
on. Erect your Juggernaut—the people are ready to be sacrificed
under the wheel of the idol.” It is strange that he did not quote
Culpepper: “They dip in our dish, they sit by our fire; we find them
in the dye-fat, the wash-bowls and the powdering tub. They share
with the cutler in his box; they have marked and sealed us from
head to foot.”

When Mackenzie made his appearance in Galt in ’33 a very partial

local critic calls him somewhat of a political firebrand; he certainly
was full of what in Lower Canada just then was called “fusées de la
rhétorique.” He spoke from the south window of the village inn, with
the usual results. One

“Whose rhetoric could rouse the Olympian host,

And scare into fits poor Demosthenes’ ghost,”

was no commonplace figure. Set on steel springs, the hands opening

and shutting, the light-blue eyes sending keen and piercing glances
through the ranks of “these people” before him, who were already in
the best of training from the local agitator Mr. Bennett, the master of
Liberty Cottage, “this fellow” spoke in a way direct and easy to
understand. His writing was sometimes verbose, unequal and
amateurish; but in speech “the superlative littleness of the man” was
lightened by gleams of humour, facial expression and gesture which
would not commit themselves to paper, nor did they hinder the
deadly earnestness that carried conviction to any wavering mind.
Now as he spoke a great clatter arose from an incoming crowd
which bore a blackened, bedizened and hideous effigy of himself;
the likeness was so good that the sight of it provoked a smile from
the original. He paused in his speech and looked on in silent and
grim amusement. Had he but known it, the lay figure held almost an
allegory of the real. It was stuffed with gunpowder and other
combustibles, and, as its original was destined to do, went off
prematurely; it knocked down a man or two, but did no great harm.
The figure wore a pair of very good boots, which someone in the
crowd, not so well furnished, begrudged. The man worked his way
through, seized the burnt brogues, and made off with them as fast
as his legs could carry him.

It is marvellous the bandit was not arrested as a suspect; it took

very small evidence to make a case. One Irish Loyalist, John McCrea,
was sent a summons to join the company then forming in Guelph for
the front; he considered his farm and home duties of more
importance, and was at once reported as “disaffected.” Shortly
afterwards he went to the general store kept by Captain Lamphrey, a
retired English officer, and was asked, as was the usual custom, into
the parlour for a glass of wine. To his surprise he there found three
others, a bench of magistrates, who without further ado began to try
him. Why had he not responded to the command to join the corps?
Because he had private and important domestic concerns on hand.
He asked for the name of his accuser and the specific accusation,
but in reply was told he must give a bond for his good behaviour.
This was surely the Star Chamber, Scroggs and Jeffreys, the secret-
service principle of Mackenzie’s written and spoken diatribes, and Mr.
McCrea’s justified Irish obstinacy rose as a wall against the
combination. One of the trio offered to become the bondsman, but
the accused contended its acceptance would be an admission of
guilt. Mr. McCrea insisted upon knowing their authority; they could
not furnish it, and there was an end of the matter.

Captain Lamphrey’s treats were full of unexpected results. One of

the loyal, who carried despatches to Hamilton, went to him one early
morning with signs of too many glasses already apparent and asked
for more. The captain could not refuse, knew the despatch must go,
and saw its safety was already endangered. He took H. M.’s special
messenger to the cellar and drew a glass of vinegar. “Drink it, man;
down with it! down with it!” which was done, and the lately
demoralized special messenger was “as sober as a clock.”

It was a joke to the Wellington neighbourhood that one company

should be headed by a Captain Poore and another by a Captain Rich.
A brusque Yorkshireman, William Day, volunteered in Poore’s
company. The roads were very bad, food was scarce, and as Day got
hungry his loyalty waned. At last he demanded something to eat.
This was flat rebellion; Poore called it insubordination, and said that
instead of comforts Day should have night guard, and stand upon
his feet until the small hours lengthened.

“So you won’t give me anything to eat?”

“No.”
“Then I know where I can get it, and that’s at Guelph. And I’d like to
see the man that’d stand between me and that door.”

No one offered to do so, and he walked back twenty-six miles, “got

his victuals,” and so ended his active military service.

Captain Poore had been endeavouring for two or three years to form
a volunteer rifle company. There was little time, and less inclination,
to play at soldiering; but by ’35, when agitation among the
progressive begot anxiety in the less progressive, he succeeded in
forming a company sixty strong, which drilled every Saturday in a
corner of his own farm. Many of the settlers were not gushing in
their loyalty to the powers that were, and, while not allying
themselves with Mackenzie, “had the governing party been drowned
in the depths of the sea not a solitary cry would have gone up for
them.” Even the schoolboys were keen politicians, and regarded
those who dwelt in the shadow of the Pact as very poor types of
humanity. Those who were of the required age and ordered to meet
for drill every two weeks at the cross-roads, but who had not
sufficient courage of their convictions to refuse service, performed it
in a half-hearted manner. The most regular attendants were the
schoolboys. They snowballed the men and snowballed the captain,
made game of the execution of the various military movements and
of Mr. Hiscock. The latter was the drill-instructor, an old soldier, who
dressed partly in military uniform and carried a cane. Pompously he
walked back and forth, contemptuous of the roll-call. One little
Englishman, when going through the required answers, was asked,
“Married or single?” “Single, sir, but under promise,” was the reply.

Great, then, was the excitement when the news came that “Toronto
had fallen.” On the day of the engagement at Montgomery’s Captain
Poore and his men left Guelph, and Lamphrey, by now a colonel,
with Colonel Young was left in charge of the portion which was to
protect Guelph. The knowledge that Galt and Eramosa were strongly
disaffected did not tend to reassure the home-guard. It was feared
that Guelph, too, might “fall.” For days men busied themselves
running bullets, and it was soothing to know that a quantity of
powder lay in the octagon house should they keep possession of it—
such stores, no doubt, would be seized by the rebelliously inclined
once they were in action. In the town of Guelph itself it was proudly
claimed that only one man was disloyal, and that he, poor fellow,
was only driven so by too long and silent study of grievances, “an
honest, decent man otherwise.” As the chief evidence against him
was that he went through Preston and other outlying hamlets to buy
up all the lead he could find, it seems rather hard that when this was
reported he should be apprehended, taken to Hamilton, and lie there
in gaol for six or eight months without trial. Mr. James Peters,
maliciously termed Captain Peters and said to be at the head of fifty
men who were on their way to burn Guelph, was awakened before
daylight on the morning of December 13th by the entry of sixteen
armed men; the leader drew his glittering sword by Mr. Peters’
bedside and ordered him to get at once into one of the sleighs
waiting at the door. After leaving the Peters’ farm these valiant
special constables stopped at the house of a farmer magistrate, who
not only bade them welcome, put up their horses, and gave the
entire party a good breakfast, but delivered an encouraging homily
to the magistrate in charge—an officiously zealous Irishman—saying
he was glad to see the latter perform his duty so faithfully. When
they were well refreshed and ready for the balance of the journey
they took their departure, after arresting the host’s son. After that
this farmer was not quite so loyal, nor had he such exalted views of
a magistrate’s duty; moreover, he wished that he had saved that
breakfast. The document upon which the arrests were founded set
forth: “That (those enumerated) not having the fear of God in their
hearts, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil,
and entirely withdrawing the love, and true and due obedience,
which every subject of our said lady the Queen should, and of right
ought to, bear towards our said present lady the Queen, and
wickedly devising and intending to disturb the peace and public
tranquillity of this Province ... on divers other days and times, with
force and arms at the township of Eramosa, in the said district,
unlawfully, maliciously and traitorously, did compass, imagine, and
intend to bring and put our said lady the Queen to death.” In spite of
efforts of judge and Crown, a jury took eight minutes to return a
verdict of “Not guilty.” But in the meantime the building in which the
prisoners were confined at Hamilton had been used by Government
to store fifty kegs of gunpowder, protected by sand. Early in the
morning the seven men, asleep in their two narrow cells, were
roused to the fact that the tinder-wood building was on fire. They
shouted until they were hoarse, pounded with all their strength, but
failed to wake the sleeping guards. Exhausted, they threw
themselves on the floor to await the horrible fate which seemed
inevitable. But an alarm from without at last roused the guards, who
at once set about saving the gunpowder, and gave no thought to the
anxiety and terror of those within the cells. For long there was a
popular idea that the fire was malicious incendiarism, but there
appears to be no definite ground for such a belief.

To ensure safety, a night-watch was set on the Eramosa bridge, as

well as at one other point. One night a son of the too well-fed Irish
magistrate was on duty. It so happened that at the witching hour a
Scotch miller came across the bridge with a wee drap in his ’ee—a
strong, muscular fellow, and muscular in his language. His answer to
whither was he going and what his errand, was, without preliminary
words, to seize the guard by his coat collar and a convenient handful
of his trousers, remove him from his path, and, with some oaths,
declare that if interfered with he would pitch him into the river.

It did not take much to frighten either guard or pedestrian at such

times. Not far from the Galt bridge an old Highlander, who was a bit
of a character, successfully tried for a few “treats” from the regulars
whom he saw one night in the cosy brightness of the village inn. He
also made away with a regular’s red coat. Some of the home corps
were on guard that night, and as in the clear atmosphere they saw
him coming toward the bridge they guessed his double sin. They
demanded his business and the countersign, and fired into the air.
He fell flat, vowing he was killed, and never afterwards had he peace
in the streets of Galt.
There are some ludicrous magistrate stories in all districts. As in the
first days of Franco-Anglo-Canada it had not been thought requisite
that officials should know both languages, so in these early
provincial days it was not a sine qua non that magistrates should
read and write. A “dockyment” was brought before one, a
blacksmith by trade. He sat down on his anvil to “execute,” looking
ineffably wise while he held the paper head down. “But, your
worship, the document is upside down,” said the humble bailiff. “By
the virtue of my office, I hold it whichever way I d—- please,” said
his worship, stamping his foot, and convinced he was as well in his
wits as any man in Middlesex. On the other hand, one western bailiff
never lost a chance to display his knowledge of whatever language,
dead or living, he might opportunely happen to think. When
questioned by his magistrate as to the non-appearance of an
expected prisoner, the bailiff proudly replied, “Non est comeatibus,
c’est in an awful mess, parceque cum swampibus.”

In Huron proper, while the people were devising means to secure

recognition of what they deemed their rights locally, not one man
rebel to his country was to be found; indeed, no one who knew his
circumstances will apply that term even to the unfortunate Van
Egmond. “Blame Van Egmond? I blame the Family Compact a
devilish sight more than I blame him,” says one. Sir Francis Bond
Head ought to be considered an authority, and he affirms the Queen
to be the head of this Family. “And what are we going to fight for?”
asked one western man, with his draft-slip in his hand. “Against
Mackenzie? Never!—the only man who dared to speak for us—
never!” These true reformers considered that they were most loyal
to their Queen when loyal to her and themselves too, and the
remembrance of the day which called them to arms carries with it a
regretful thought for Van Egmond.
In Goderich the arms consisted mainly of pitchforks, scythes and
pikes, the latter made for the occasion by George Vivian, of that
place. Each had a cruel crosspiece, with all points sharpened, to be
used either as bayonet or battle-axe. A few lucky warriors had
flintlocks.

One great source of complaint was the class of firearms supplied.

Some relics of one lot of “useless lumber” sent up under the charge
of the present Mr. Justice Robertson’s father are still about the
Goderich gaol, and the specimens extant show the complaint to have
been a just one.

There was also “a plentiful crop of captains and colonels.” Drill was
held in the large room at Read’s hotel, and the boys who looked on
were much edified by such display of valour and clanking of metal.
This regiment has been handed down to local fame as “The
Invincibles,” “Huron’s True Blues,” “The Huron Braves” and “The
Bloody Useless.” When the call to arms came all turned out with
good-will, and the fact that lone fishermen, pigs and ponies proved
to be their only visible enemies can cast no discredit on the valour of
their intention. Their hardships were many, and the complaints heard
few.

Somewhere on the lake border, where the juniper and tamarack

made the best undergrowth, wandered Ryan, a fugitive from Gallows
Hill, the man made famous by the death of Colonel Moodie. Many
miseries were his until the opening of navigation, and by the time he
was taken off by a friendly American schooner he was reduced to a
skeleton.

It was on Christmas Day, in the rain, that Captain Hyndman and his
followers set out for Walpole Island, a journey which meant the
extreme of roughing it. Captain Gooding and his Rifles left on the
7th of January, and were fortunate in being able to return all
together when their service was over; but those who were with
Captain Luard at Navy Island had to get back just as their strength
would allow. Captain Lizars and Lieutenant Bescoby took their men
to Rattenbury’s Corners, where they spent most of the winter, thus
being saved many hardships suffered by their townsmen. Edouard
Van Egmond was a most unwilling volunteer, for his ill-advised father,
brave soldier and good pioneer as he had been proved, was by that
time with Mackenzie in Toronto. Edouard resisted the press; but his
horses were pressed into service, and their young owner said that
wherever they were he must follow. The Invincibles were evidently
at liberty to display individual taste in uniform, and Major Pryor took
his way to the frontier picturesque in blanket-coat, sugar-loaf toque
and sword; nor was the line drawn at the combination of blanket-
coat, epaulets and spurs. The regulars among them did not disdain
to be gorgeous, too, and one tall, handsome Irishman looked
particularly magnificent in a uniform specially procured from
England. He was a truly warlike and awe-inspiring sight, and having
served through the Spanish campaign, and at Waterloo, had the
usual regular’s contempt for militia. His charge was the commissariat
from Niagara to Hamilton and London, and on one occasion, at a
certain point on the Governor’s Road, was challenged by a guard,
Private McFadden. His Magnificence merely vouchsafed, “Get out of
my way, you young whippersnapper!” disgust and indignation
making a strong brogue stronger. McFadden lifted his musket and
was just about to fire, when a mutual acquaintance opportunely
arrived to save the regular from the volunteer.

Some of the distressing events which centred in the Windsor

neighbourhood had a direct or indirect connection with Huron
names. Peter Green, of Goderich, the garrison tailor, who lived in a
house almost adjoining the barracks, with his family was shut up in
it by the patriots, who intended to roast them to death. Green, a
staunch Mason, but who nevertheless had given up his Goderich
lodge through his distaste towards a brother Mason (Thomas Mercer
Jones, the Huron exponent of the Family Compact), put his trust in
Providence, and thrusting out his hand made a Masonic sign. He was
understood by one of the enemy and allowed to leave his burning
house. As he went he was carrying his youngest child; in spite of
masonry a stab was made at his burden, which Green warded off at
the expense of his own hand. Bad as matters were, his membership
saved him and his from death. Ronald MacGregor and his family,
who had moved from Goderich to Windsor in ’36, were burned out
at the same time, escaping in their night-clothes.

When the Bloody Useless were at the front they saw no active
service; but their sufferings were not inconsiderable. Some of them
had quarters in a church, where the narrowness of the pews and
benches and the scantiness of the blankets led to much discomfort.
But the real hardship fell to those whose lot took them to some
deserted Indian shanties where filth of all kinds and melted snow on
a clay floor were poor inducements to rest. The snow shovelled out
to the depth of a foot still left enough behind to be melted by the
warmth of the wearied bodies, which, stretched side by side, were
by morning held fast by the snow-water again frozen. The hearty,
cheery spirit of Dunlop, who doubled the rations, was better than
medicine, or even than his liberal allowance of grog. When they
moped he would order them out for a march, leading them in his
homespun checkered dress and Tam o’ Shanter, closely followed by
the Fords (“the sons of Anak,” because they were all six feet six), the
Youngs, the Annands, and other stalwart township pioneers, not
forgetting some sailors who had been pressed into the service, each
man shouldering a pike ten feet in length. “Ah me, what perils do
environ the man that meddles with cold iron,” quoted the Doctor; “in
the British army it was understood that the only use of a musket was
supposed to be that it could carry a bayonet at the end of it.” But his
own armament was chiefly that supplied by George Vivian. The
Doctor’s hardy frame knew nothing of the sufferings of his men. On
one occasion when he took a company of sixty from Bayfield, he
expected to make Brewster’s Mills easily; but the men were half
tired, and he appropriated for their rest two shanties by the way.
Next day they went on to the Sable, but the men were completely
done by the time Kettle Point (Ipperwash) was reached. Get on they
must, as many as might; so the Doctor proposed, “All of you as are
fit, come with me.” Of the sixty, twenty-six went on with him, and
one survivor tells that that march was the hardest work he ever did;
“but the Doctor stood it finely.” About the same time Dunlop and his
men found themselves dependent for shelter on two women who
had no comforts to offer such a company. Some of the men
grumbled, but the Doctor asked for whiskey. The women showed
him a barrel newly opened; whereupon he put a man in charge, and
ordered horns all round. The hostesses were anxious to give a bed
to the Doctor, but he would have nothing that his men had not.
Calling to Jim Young to bring him a beech log, he disposed himself in
his blanket on the floor; when the log came he put one end of his
blanket over it for a pillow and slept soundly until morning. “Our
fathers ... have lain full oft ... with a good round under their heads
instead of a pillow. Pillows, said they, were thought meet only for
women.”

The hopes and the fears, the occasional feasts and many involuntary
fasts, hardened all consciences when a search for supplies was on
hand. In these times even the future first sheriff of Huron did not
consider house-breaking criminal nor a raid upon a potato-pit
larceny. Once Colonel Hyndman and some others had three-weeks’
leave and started on their homeward trip by the lake-shore, some
seventy-five miles at the least, and unnecessarily added to by a false
calculation which caused them to retrace their steps and increase
their already long walk by ten miles. Sergeant Healy was twice
nearly lost on the way; first by falling in a creek, and afterwards
through exposure to cold—for their tramp led them through a
country covered with two feet of snow. Healy begged them to leave
him to his fate, saying that although he was an old soldier, and had
served his sovereign in all parts of the world for twenty-one years,
he had never suffered as he was suffering then. Needless to say
they did not desert him, and they got him to Goderich as best they
could; but he served no more on the Canadian frontier.

The men were much interested in the droves of half-wild cattle and
horses to be seen on both sides of the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers.
The horses were so numerous that it is said strings of them could be
seen each way as far as the eye could reach, and as late as ’46 fifty
dollars would buy a good one. In various “Legends of the Detroit”
many interesting stories are told of these hardy, clever little animals,
the direct descendants of one of the most celebrated of the stock of
1665—the French horses called by the Indians the Moose Deer of
Europe. The French river settlers cut their fodder in the summer,
stacked it, and turned it over to the ponies in the winter for them to
feed from at will. Water-holes in the ice were made for the wise little
animals, and beyond these two items they received little attention
from their owners. One of the Invincibles thus describes a raid on
our men by the enemy:

“Skimmings, of Goderich, was on guard, and reported that he heard

the rebels galloping through the bush. Young told him that that was
an impossibility, as they would have to come from the opposite
direction. Skimmings was sure he heard the tread and gallop, and
was loaded to the muzzle to receive them. Presently a drove of
ponies appeared, making for their water-holes—and there was
another scare over, and Skimmings never heard the last of it.”

At Colonel Hyndman’s quarters on Walpole Island a challenge was

given to three of these inoffensive Indian ponies, by a sentry who
had an infirmity of stuttering. Fearing that he had not been
understood, he repeated his challenge; and still once again,
unwilling that any should perish through his poor speech.
Determined to be merciful in spite of this contemptuous silence he
called out the guard, who were some time in arriving at a knowledge
of the matter, for between the sentry’s fright and his stutter he was
unintelligible. The lanterns of the guard revealed the homeless trio,
supplementing their scanty supper by picking up stray bits of fodder
which lay about the camp.

Of the practical jokes most of them were played on officers, either

by their subordinates or brother officers. Major Pryor was at Sarnia
with Colonel Hyndman, and the latter was very anxious indeed to
break the monotony of the times. His chance came one evening
when there was exchange of sentries, and Pryor had gone off to
spend a convivial hour. Hyndman gave very strict orders as to the
enforcing of the password, and then waited results. Major Pryor
staggered back to the line, very drunk indeed. When challenged he
stuttered that he was the f-f-fellow’s major.

“I don’t care who you are—what’s the password?”

“Don’t know, b-b-but I’m your Major!”

“Into the guardhouse with you then, if you don’t know the pass,”
and the major was ignominiously hurried off. When he got there he
was clear enough to see that the men knew him.

“Very well, then,” said one; “if you give us an order on the
Commissary for a gallon of grog we’ll let you go.”

“Give me a p-p-pen then,” said Pryor, “and you can have your g-g-
grog.”

He duly wrote the order, which one of the men altered from one to
two gallons, and was thereupon set at liberty.

There was little ceremony spent on the furnishing of the

commissariat. When a beast was noticed by an officer it was decided
that that animal must at once be annexed; but as far as can be
learned now there was always a fair remuneration made to the
owner. It was claimed by the rival messes that equal fairness was
not observed in the distribution of a suddenly acquired dainty.
Dunlop had become possessed of a sheep, and great was the rage
of Pryor when it was found that the former had requisitioned for the
whole animal, for they had all been living on pork for weeks. The
Doctor could not resist such opportunity for jokes, and mutton
versus pork caused Pryor many an irritation. Nicknames, too, grew
from the work and doings of ’37 as easily as they were coined by
Dunlop at other times. “Toddy Tam” was the head of the
Commissariat, and Robert Young, of Glasgow, who was butcher to
the Huron militia, was in consequence called Killit-and-Curit.
Thereafter he was best known as Killie Young.

A grand dinner had been the cause of Major Pryor’s guard-house

experience. A baker and a butcher had been sent to ransack the
countryside for provisions for it, and extraordinary success had
crowned their efforts. Colonel Hyndman asked “Toddy Tam” not to
serve the major with any of the new-gotten delicacies until he,
Hyndman, had entertained his fellow-officers at a dinner. And such a
dinner, to men who had been half starved! Mutton and turkey boiled
and roast, fowls, and pastry of all sorts and descriptions. “Good God,
Hyndman!” exclaimed Pryor, “where did you get all that?”

Hyndman gravely replied that these were his rations. Toddy Tam
arrived at the head of the stairway just in time to hear Pryor heaping
abuse upon him, saying that “that d—— fellow, the Commissary, had
served him with nothing but salt pork ever since he came to Sarnia.”
The irate major just then caught sight of the offender, and would
have thrown him down the stairway but for the interference of
Captains Gooding and Lizars. Careful management and pre-
arrangement on the part of his tormentors lodged the gallant and
stuttering major in guard-house.

On another occasion, when Hyndman was in advance of Pryor by a

day’s march, the former halted his men for rest at Mrs. Westlake’s,
where comforts and food were in plenty. Reckoning on the major’s
usual blustering manner to bear him out, Colonel Hyndman advised
Mrs. Westlake that Major Pryor would arrive next day, and that she
had best be on her guard. When Pryor and his men arrived he at
once ordered this and shouted for that, desiring the household to
bring him every thing at once. To his amazement in marched Mrs.
Westlake, a huge pistol in her hand, who without more ado began
the work of converting a bully into the most civil and astonished of
officers. But with all his faults of manner Pryor had his good points,
and only two days previous to this had sent home his man-servant
and horses, determined to march with his men and share their
hardships.

Doctor Dunlop, “who commanded six hundred and fifty fine fellows
at the front,” was much distressed at the lack of money to pay his
men. He was advised that a line of express horses had been
established between London and Sarnia, and he accordingly detailed
Captain Kydd as messenger with a despatch to Colonel John Askin.
Captain Kydd tried to evade the commission, as his regimentals were
in no trim for appearance at headquarters. His brown moleskin
shooting-jacket had seen three sousings in the Maitland, besides
much other hard usage as pillow or blanket on mud floors; his Black
Hawk cap was too small and sat awkwardly on his head, and the
rest of his attire was in keeping. However, he went. After many
adventures he reached a station where a retired naval officer and his
young and pretty wife were domiciled in a log hut some eight feet
high, which was roofed with bass-wood troughs and contained but
one room. The kitchen was a bark shanty, a few feet away. There
were no signs of cattle about, but the frequent ringing of a cow-bell
gave the impression that one must be stabled in the kitchen. Not so,
however. A rope connected the “parlour” with the second building,
the bell in use being an old cow-bell, the ringing of which was the
work of the pretty young wife, who in her own apartment tried, poor
soul, to forget her surroundings by keeping up what semblance she
could of her former state. The bush in those days was full of such
anomalies. When the express equine was brought to the door he
had neither saddle nor bridle, a hair halter, perhaps provided by his
own tail, his only garnishing. Nothing but the bell-rope could be
found to assist in improvising a harness. Captain Kydd had not the
heart to deprive the lady of that, and he continued his journey
caparisoned with hair halter alone. His tale of danger and
discomfort, through what seemed an interminable swamp, can well
be believed,—wet, cold and hungry, without sight of another soul
until he reached the next station, where he was received and kindly
treated by the women relatives of our own Edward Blake. These
ladies looked at the half-drowned horse and mud-bespattered man;
and full of pity for a supposed backwoodsman in dire distress, were
ready to offer him their best hospitality. When he put into their
hands his passport as “Captain Kydd of the First Hurons, abroad on
special service,” they did not attempt to disguise their amusement,
but laughed long and heartily. After a rest of an hour or two, a bath,
a rubbing down which deprived him of his coat of mud, and a hearty
appreciation from himself and his beast of the good fare set before
them, he was ready to pursue his journey. At length London was
reached, and the precious despatch put into Colonel Askin’s hands—
but with no result, for there was neither official money nor credit.
Instead of coin, Colonel Askin gave the messenger a packet
addressed to Captain James Strachan, Military Secretary at
Government House, Toronto. In vain did Kydd bring forward his coat
and Black Hawk cap as sufficient reason for not undertaking a
further trip; nor yet were his sufferings from hunger and fatigue on
his recent journey allowed to stand in the way of his undergoing
fresh distress. The best mode of conveyance obtainable was a
common farm-waggon, in which he made his way at a foot pace. He
met many people en route, most of them as shabby as himself, and
all talking war to the knife. He arrived in Toronto late at night on the
third day, but waited until morning to present his despatches at
Government House. There the much befogged Secretary not
unreasonably looked with disdain at the coat and cap of the special
messenger; the despatch was taken within for Sir Francis’ perusal,
with the result that another packet, of large size and said to contain
the necessary money, was put into Captain Kydd’s hands, and an
order given him to return to London by express. Express meant a
dirty farm-sleigh with a torn canvas cover. His only travelling
companion was a Brant Indian returning to the Reserve, an
intelligent, well-educated man and a most pleasant companion.
Together they were upset from the sleigh, and together they righted
it and its sail-like cover, to resume the weary journey. Upon
presentation to Colonel Askin, the important-looking packet was
found to be worthless, for the document bore no signature. Captain
Kydd was given his original Rosinante, with the same hair halter, and
sent back to Sarnia, while another special messenger was
despatched to Toronto for the necessary signatures.

The despatch and its bearer had variations. When Black Willie
Wallace, of Dunlop’s Scouts, was sent with one from Clinton to
Goderich it took nine days to travel the twelve miles and pass the
various taverns on the way. The importance of the despatch entered
even the childish mind, and one small daughter, whose father was a
bearer, cried out as the latter rode up to the gate in full regimentals,
“Here’s father with another dampatch.” Always warlike and
politicians, these small babes sometimes dealt unpleasant truths to
the untrue. One Tory atom when questioned “Where’s your father?”
replied, “Father gone to fight the dirty rebels, and brother Dan’el
gone to fight the dirty rebels, too.”

Colonel Dunlop swore not a little when Kydd reported himself empty-
handed, but tried to keep up his own hopes as well as those of his
men. Weeks and months went by, and no money came; privations
were great, and the mental trial was added of the knowledge of
farms at home going to ruin, families unprovided for, and no
prospect for the future. In March the order for return came; but
there was no word of any money. The companies were told off for
the homeward trip, one day apart, and the record is of a terrible
journey in the broken March weather, with roads at their very worst.
Dunlop remained behind with others of the officers, for, as he wrote
Government in terms not to be mistaken, he had become personally
liable to the local stores for clothing and necessaries, and would not
leave the place with such indebtedness unpaid.

“Glory is not a very productive appanage, it is true, but in the

absence of everything else it is better than nothing”—but these
impoverished lads had little or no glory, and they returned without
having seen what was technically known as active service. Dunlop’s
illustration of the ne plus ultra of bad pay was Waterloo, where each
private there performed the hardest day’s work ever done for a
shilling. Now he thought the brave Hurons in a still worse plight. By
the time pay day did arrive they were not few who expressed the
opinion that the Canadian rebellion was due to the machinations of a
“parcel of poor rogues and a few, a very few, rich fools, one party
deserving accommodation in the penitentiary and the other lodgings
in bedlam.” Dunlop did not allow himself such free speech in regard
to the policy of the Colonial Office, which let numbers be brought to
the scaffold or to the foot of it; but he used no circumspection in
words when he dealt with local mismanagement.

“As syllabubs without a head,

As jokes not laughed at when they’re said,
As needles used without a thread,
Such are Bachelors,”

says an old song. Now Tiger Dunlop might have said, “And when I
fell into some fits of love I was soon cured.” But bachelor as he was,
the well-springs of fraternal love were not dried up in him; nor were
his syllabubs wont to be without a head, nor his jokes unlaughed at.
When he spoke others listened, and his dissatisfaction ended in his
resignation, upon which he addressed the following letter to his
brave Hurons:

“Comrades,—When I resigned the command of the St. Clair frontier in

March last I endeavoured to express to you in my farewell Order my
gratitude for the generous confidence you had reposed in me, and
my thanks for the steady soldier-like conduct with which you had
borne every privation and met every difficulty. I have now to explain
to you the reason why I voluntarily abandoned a situation in every
respect gratifying to my feelings as the honourable command I then
held.

“From the day that I resigned the command to the present hour I
have, at great expense and total neglect of my own personal affairs,
been travelling from one commissariat station to another in order to
get something like justice done you. To the superior military officers
my best thanks are due—Sir John Colborne, Sir F. B. Head, and
latterly Sir G. Arthur, Colonel Foster, and our immediate commanding
officer, the Hon. Colonel Maitland, have treated me with the greatest
kindness and you with the greatest consideration. From men of their
rank we might possibly have submitted to a little hauteur; on the
contrary we have met with the most courteous condescension. The
Commissariat, on the other hand, men infinitely inferior to many of
us in birth, rank, and education, have treated us with the most
overweening arrogance and the most cruel neglect. They have never
personally insulted me, for I am six feet high and proportionately
broad across the shoulders; but the poor farmers have to a man
complained to me of their treatment by these

Very magnificent three-tailed Bashaws

of Beef and Biscuit. I grudge none of the labour I have spent, nor
any of the pecuniary sacrifices I have made in your service. My life
and my property are my country’s, and I am willing cheerfully to lay
either or both down when my Sovereign may require them, but my
honour is unalienably my own, and I cannot submit to be made, as I
lately unwittingly have been, the instrument of the most cruel and
grinding oppression, to snatch, without remuneration, his pittance
from the peasant or the bread from his children’s mouths. I have
therefore submitted my resignation, but with no intention of leaving
you; I shall stand with you in all danger, shoulder to shoulder, but it
shall be in the ranks.

“I have to warn you not to judge of a government by the meanest of

its servants, nor let the upstart insolence of a body so contemptible
alienate your affections from your Queen and country; the people of
England are both liberal and just, and were your case fairly
represented to them there is not the slightest doubt immediate steps
would be taken to redress your grievances. The Queen, like other
people, has dirty work to do, and must have dirty fellows do it. The
royal chimney-sweepers who exercise their professional functions in
Buckingham Palace and St. James’s may be very pleasant fellows in
their way, but I doubt much if they are the kind of people that either
you or I would borrow money to drink with, as Shakespeare’s fat
Knight says.

“Some little excuse must be had for the poor fellows after all. That
the Commissariat are ‘saucy dogs’ we all must allow, have felt it; but
that they are not too saucy to eat dirty puddings we know, for
cursed dirty puddings they are obliged to bolt, without even daring
to make a wry face at them. Witness the correspondence which the
House of Assembly last winter elicited between the arrogant,
insolent, empty-headed coxcomb at the head of that department
and the Commissaries at Toronto and Penetanguishene. To this the
poor devils are obliged to submit for their piece of silver or morsel of
bread. It is natural, therefore, that the people who have studied so
long in the school of arrogant ill-breeding should be anxious to
exhibit the proficiency they have attained when their turn comes;
and it is possible they may suppose that a Canadian yeoman, who is
afraid of losing all that has been taken from him by offending their
High Mightinesses, may for a time submit to it.

“A broken head or two might remove this delusion and convince

them that a man is still a man though clad in a homespun coat, and
that to get rid of their redundant bile safely they must make it go as
hereditary property does by law, downwards, and alight on the
heads of clerks and issuers, who, living in the hope of one day
having it in their power to abuse their inferiors, will probably submit
with more equanimity.

“In applying to the British Parliament for redress, I give you warning
that the Commissariat is the most powerful body you can well
attack. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey, Lord Brougham and
Lord Lyndhurst, Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Daniel O’Connell may talk,
and all, when in their turn of power, have provided for the sons of
faithful butlers and respectable valets in the Commissariat—a
department particularly favourable for the offspring of the lower
orders (the pay being good and the work little or nothing), the
attainments necessary for its duties being easily acquired in any
parish school, they being comprised in writing a legible hand and a
tolerable acquaintance with the first four rules of arithmetic. The
experiment, however, is well worth trying, and I trust will be
successful.

“With best wishes for your prosperity and hope that you may
henceforward, under the protecting arm of a just Government,
cultivate your fields in peace, I subscribe myself, my comrades and
fellow-soldiers,

“W. Dunlop,
“Your late Colonel,
“Commanding the St. Clair Frontier.”

This letter found its way into all the provincial journals, and made no
little talk. The Kingston Whig says, “Among many other endearing
epithets he calls Mr. Commissary-General Routh an empty-headed,
arrogant, insolent coxcomb. Now the gallant ex-Colonel, according to
his own confession, stands six feet high and is proportionately broad
across the shoulders, and Mr. Commissary is an aged and feeble
man, altogether past the prime of life; would a duel therefore be fair
between the parties? We think not; and yet according to the absurd
notions of modern honour what else can Mr. Commissary do than
fight, unless, indeed, one of his younger and subordinate officers
equally insulted by the gallant ex-Colonel takes up the cudgels in his
own and his chief’s behalf.” But there was no duel. Dunlop had a
sovereign contempt for what he called a lobster-coated puppy, and
took his grievances straight to Colonel Maitland, Commandant at
London. There are always wheels within wheels. The Doctor’s
requisitions for food and drink had been on a generous scale; an
assistant commissary had peremptorily brought things under
different conditions, with an amount of unnecessary red tape which
aggravated the Doctor beyond endurance. A stop was put to the
whiskey in toto, not on temperance but on military principles, and
that he could not thole. He reached London at night. Next morning,
instead of reporting himself in an ordinary way, he arrived at