"In a few days, General Hull's army, which had been captured by General Brock at Detroit, arrived as prisoners of war at Lachine, a village nine miles above Motreal; and as I felt a strong desire to see them, I set out, with my brother and a gentleman of the 49th regiment, to meet them. On our way we met a calash, in which we had the unexpected satisfaction to recognize my father and the Colonel of his regiment, who had come down from Kingston, attached to the escort of the prisoners, the latter having the command.
"We returned to town with them, and about nine o'clock in the evening we had the pleasure of witnessing the arrival of the first fruits of this useless and too disasterous war. I was a very young boy at the time; and, having been born and brought up in the army, it is natural to suppose that my ideas ran early upon military exploits. Scenes of war, conquered enemies, etc. had long been familiar to me in idea, but in reality had always been remote from me; and I had been in the habit, when thinking of a foreign enemy, to picture to my mind something very unlike what i had daily before my eyes.
"Upon this occasion, however, I witnessed the reality; and my youthful heart, big with warlike achievements, and too inconsiderate to sympathize in misfortunes of this description, triumphantly exalted in the sight of a fallen enemy... Though after a long journey, as prisoners, it is natural to suppose that their appearance was not very brilliant; yet it is evident, from its shabbiness, that their appointments had not been, at any time, of the most splendid description.
"The band of the 8th regiment marched at the head of them, playing the well known air, "Yankee Doodle." General Hull, a venerable looking old gentleman, and his son with the other officers, in calashes, followed the band; and were succeeded by the soldiers, guarded on either side by a rank of our own troops. As it was dark when they reached the town, the streets they passed through were quite illuminated by numbers of candles, held out from the windows of all the houses which were crowded with people assembled to witness the scene."
