Remembrance Day - HMS NANCY

HM Schooner NANCY
Memorial Speech
November 10th 2009

We come together again today filled with sorrow and remembrance as we do each year at this time of Remembrance Day to remember those who fought for this Country on this sacred soil of Canada, for those who served during that fatefull week from Saturday August 13 and 14, 1814 to Wednesday September 7 and 8, 1814 during the War of 1812. The little schooner HM Schooner NANCY never lost a running engagement during this entire conflict. We especially remember when the eighteen brave crewmen of HM Schooner NANCY and 50 men from a detachment of Major General Sir Isaac Brock’s 49th and 41st Regiment under Lt. Livingston and Lt. McDouall and 380 Potowatani and Ojibwa warriors under the joint command of General & War Chief Blackhawk [Michigan territories] and General & War Chief Blackbird [Grand Manitoulin Council] respectively who in the process of losing HM Schooner NANCY to overwhelming odds in turn took the USS SCORPION later named HMS CONFIANCE and the USS TIGRESS later renamed HMS SURPRISE to replace HM Schooner NANCY and the subsequent re-taking of the American Fort, Fort Mackinaw on Mackinaw Island at the headwaters of Lake Michigan. It was this running engagement under the commands of Lt. Commander Miller Worsley of the British navy, Great Lakes Command under Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo that won the boundary rights for all those of Upper and Lower Canada, now Canada’s the 49th parallel under the Treaty of Ghent ratified on February 17, 1815. We remember those who died during that engagement and remember with gratitude the lives that they led; and with a determination to honour them through the work we carry on today.
This is a time of war. And yet these brave Canadians did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on Canadian soil, in the heart of this great country called Canada. It is this fact that makes their sacrifice and ultimate victory over enormous odds even more painful and even more incomprehensible.
For those families who had lost a loved one, no words can fill the void that was left to them. We knew these men and women as soldiers and caregivers. You come to know them and their heroic efforts through the history pages as mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; sisters and brothers.
But here is what you must also know: your loved ones endure through the life of our new nation. Their memory will be honoured in the places they lived and by the people whose lives they touched. Their life's work is our security, and the freedom that we too often take for granted. Every evening as the sun sets on a glimmering Georgian Bay, a tranquil town; every day at sun rise as that flag is unfurled; every moment that an Canadian enjoys life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness - that is their legacy to us.
Neither this country - nor the values that we were founded upon from the days of the Magna Carta signed on June 15, 1215 - could exist without men and women like those eighteen Canadians onboard the little war schooner, the NANCY, and their allies. And that is why we must continue to pay tribute to their stories. Let us remember that crew today in their role call from the Procedings of the NANCY’s Log:
- Lt. Commander Miller Worsley RN
- Alexander MacIntosh - Captain
- Jacob Hammond - Masters Mate
- Richard Evans – Cook
- Jonas Butler Parker – Carpenter
- John Lamotte – Carpenter’s Mate
- Richard McGregor – Able Seaman
- John Morrison – Able Seaman
- Joseph Paquet – Able Seaman
- John Baptsite Tromp – Able Seaman
- Peter Jean Tromp – Able Seaman
- John Mears – Able Seaman – Chief Gunner
- Robert Warren- Able Seaman – Gunner
- John Fearson – Able Seaman – Gunner
- Evan Richards – Able Seaman – Gunner
- William Baker – Able Seaman – Gunner
- William Forier – Able Seaman – Gunner
- Andrew Lumsden – Able Seaman – Gunner
These brave men and native warriors came from all parts of the country. Some had long careers in the navy, the Provicial Marine and Provincial Militias and military. Some had signed up to serve in the shadow of the contineantal wars in Europe and some from right here in Upper and Lower Canadas when President Madsion decided to invade. Some had known intense combat on land with Wellington, some on the high seas with Nelson, and some cared for those did. Their lives spoke, and speak to us still, to the strength, the dignity and the decency of those who served, and that is how they will continue to be remembered today in peace with our cousins.
That same spirit of the soul which they exemplified will be embodied in the new HM Schooner NANCY and the communities she will again serve around Ontario (Upper Canada) and here at her new home base, at the NANCY HERITAGE RESOURCE CENTER here in Port McNicoll. The NANCY and her crew represented the best that we can be when called upon. This heritage will live on again in the new NANCY.
Again, these are trying times for our country. In the Persian Gulf and in Afghanistan and other foreign theaters of war, both as peace deliverers and as peace preservers Canadians continue to protect the interests of Canadians and our allies. We as Canadians are working to bring a war to a successful end and to allow us the gift to live as friends, but in each case this requires the soul of spirit that is so richly that of the Canadian people. The NANCY represented and will represent again all that is best of our naval and miltary historical traditions.
As we face these challenges, the stories of those men who served onboard and with the NANCY reaffirms the core values that we are fighting for, and the strengths that we must draw upon. Theirs are the tales of Canadian men and women answering an extraordinary call - the call to serve their comrades, their communities, and their country. In an age of selflessness, they embodied and embody still that keenly felt responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Canadians.
We are a nation that endures because of the courage of those who defend it. We saw that valor in those who braved the musket balls and cannon then and the bullets and roadside bombs now, just as surely as we see it in those who signed up knowing that they would serve in harm's way. We are a nation that believes in due process here and abroad and pray to be on the side of God.
Tomorrow is November 11, Remembrance Day. It is a chance to pause, and to pay tribute - for students to learn of the struggles that preceded them; for families to honour the service of parents and grandparents and their grandparents and our forebearers; for citizens to reflect upon the sacrifices that have been made in pursuit of a more perfect union, that which is Canada.
For history is filled with heroes. You may remember the stories of a grandfather who marched across Europe; a great granfather who fought in the Crimea or Boer War; a son who served in the Persian Gulf. But as we honour the many generations who have served, I think all of us - every single Canadian - must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those generations who have gone before.
We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes. The NANCY returns.
In today's wars, there is not always a simple ceremony or single cenotaph or war memorial that signals the success of our service men - no surrender papers to be signed, or capital to be claimed. But the measure of their impact is no less great - in a world of threats that know no borders, it will be marked in the safety of our cities and towns, and the security and opportunity that is extended abroad. And it will serve as apt testimony to the character of those who served and serve, and the example that you set for Canada and for the world.
Here now, at Port McNicoll, we will pay tribute to those eighteen men who served us so well onboard the NANCY and their brave fellow service men and native warriors. They were but one community gathered then as we gather now, to remember the so few who accomplished so much in so short a time for so great a country.
Long after they were all laid to rest - when the fighting had finished, and the Canadas [our nation] had endured; when today's servicemen and women are veterans, and their children have grown - it will be said of that generation that they believed, under the most trying of tests, that they persevered, not just when it was a tough slog on the inland seas of the Upper Lakes far away from the main conflict and in the vastness of the great northern forests, but when it was hard; and that they paid the price and bore the burden to secure this nation’s future, and stood up for the values that live in the hearts of all free peoples. Remember in the Book of Prophets - Isaiah 6:1-8 “Here I am Lord, send me”.
Remember the NANCY