Recollections & Extracts From The Journals Of Miss Anne Prevost Anne Prevost - Biography Women and War

Part 12: Defeat at Plattsburg! Monday 12th [1814], the mortifying news arrived that our Squadron was defeated, captured, and Captain Downie killed. I was breathless till I heard what the Army was about; the loss of the Fleet seemed to me a secondary consideration, and when Mr. B. went on to say the Army is to retreat, it seemed to me I heard a death's knell ringing in my ears. I never was given to shedding tears, far from it–but I now wept bitter tears–not for poor Captain Downie or his Squadron, but because the Army was to retreat without having first destroyed Plattsburg! I felt certain that however necessary this determination might be, it would bring the greatest odium on my Father–it would not be tolerated at a period especially when our troops were so perpetually victorious. That my Father acted from the purest motives, who can doubt. He must have known that not one individual in that Army could be blamed for the retreat but himself; he took upon himself all the odium which he knew would be exited by an unpopular measure, and acted as he thought best. As the fleet was lost, Plattsburg must have been abandoned as soon as captured,–I never heard but one opinion on that point. The weather was very rainy and the difficulty of moving artillery, stores, etc., increased every hour.–But it is useless to dwell on this most painful subject. Military fame cannot be rescued by argument–like woman's honour it is sullied even by the breath of calumny. And I know too well that not even the gracious approval of my Father's services, which George IV. granted to his family, is sufficient to raise his memory to the estimation which it merits. On 12th October [1814], my Mother and myself and the children returned by the Steam Boat to Quebec. My Father had previously gone to Kingston. He had frequent intercourse with Sir J. Yeo–he even staid in the Government House, thus accepting my Father's hospitality after he had written a public letter calculated to wound his fame for ever–and which he was really afterwards obliged to follow up by the three charges which would have been investigated. No man with a nice sense of honour would have acted in this manner.