SINGLE CAMPAIGN MEDALS 14
The unique Boat Service medal which purports to have been awarded to Lieutenant Andrew Bulger, Royal Newfoundland Fencibles, for the capture of two American schooners in Lake Huron in 1814; he also received the medal for Fort Detroit and Chrystler’s Farm
NAVAL GENERAL SERVICE 1793-1840, 1 clasp, 3 & 6 Sep Boat Service 1814 (A. B...... Lieut. R.N. Fencibles) surname mostly erased but parts of some other letters discernible, ‘Fencibles’ engraved in contemporary serif capitals, the clasp rather buckled and the medal generally worn overall, therefore good fine
£2000-3000
This unique clasp was issued to Lieutenant Andrew Bulger, Royal Newfoundland Fencible Infantry, for the capture of the American schooners Tigress and Scorpion by boats in the Detour Passage, Lake Huron. This medal was found recently in an Antique store in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, hidden in an old box of clothing buttons. The dealer has no knowledge of where the buttons came from or how long they were in the back of his shop. With the initial ‘A’ and surname beginning with ‘B’, there does not appear to be any other possible recipient on the rolls as a Lieut. R.N. See web site for enlargement of clasp and naming details.
Andrew Bulger was born in Newfoundland on 30 November 1790, and was appointed ensign in the recently established Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry on 26 October 1804, and within two years he received his commission as lieutenant. He served with his unit, which became the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in 1806, in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Lower Canada until the outbreak of war with the United States in 1812 when he was sent to the Niagara frontier in Upper Canada to serve under Major-General Isaac Brock. He was present at the capture of Detroit in August 1812, and that fall he was attached to the naval force which harassed the enemy along the upper St Lawrence. He also participated in the battles of Fort George (Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.) and Stoney Creek in May and June 1813, and in the battle of Crystler’s Farm in November [For these actions he received the M.G.S. medal with clasps, Fort Detroit and Chrystler’s Farm]. As adjutant to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert McDouall, Bulger was with the reinforcements sent to Fort Michilimackinac (Mackinac Island, Mich.) in 1814. The force of 10 officers and some 200 men left Kingston in early February, and after a difficult winter trek by way of Lake Simcoe to Georgian Bay they proceeded by boat, arriving at the fort on 18 May. The repulse of an American attack on 4 August, coupled with the daring capture of the American schooners Tigress and Scorpion in early September, ensured British supremacy on the upper Great Lakes for the duration of the war. Bulger was prominent in both of these engagements and was slightly wounded during the boarding of the Tigress.
In October Bulger, with the local rank of captain, was appointed commandant of Fort McKay, at Prairie du Chien (Wis.) on the upper Mississippi River, an American fort captured in July by William McKay, commander of the Michigan Fencibles, a provincial corps. The situation at Fort McKay was both dangerous and delicate, but through determined leadership Bulger preserved the security of the 200 French Canadian inhabitants of the area and maintained the Indians’ allegiance to the British flag. In early January 1815 he suppressed a near mutiny among the Michigan Fencibles, stationed at the fort, by convening a general court martial and having the three worst offenders summarily flogged.
Bulger also had an ongoing quarrel with Robert Dickson, agent and superintendent to the Western Indians, stationed at Prairie du Chien, over relations with the Indian allies. In his instructions Bulger was given jurisdiction over the distribution of provisions and gifts to the Indian families, and the young officer refused to allow the Indian agent to interfere with his authority. Dickson was finally recalled to Michilimackinac early in 1815. In spite of this unfortunate power struggle, Bulger’s general conduct was endorsed by the inhabitants of Prairie du Chien in an address of 15 January 1815, thanking him for his leadership and protection. McDouall was equally complimentary and praised him for his “judicious, manly, and energetic conduct.”
News of the peace settlement signed at Ghent on 24 December 1814 reached Prairie du Chien in April 1815. Bulger succeeded, with some difficulty, in convincing the Indian allies on the upper Mississippi to ratify the treaty, which recognized American sovereignty over the area south of the lakes. Then on 24 May, after distributing food and gifts among them, he burned the fort and abandoned the area to American occupation. He proceeded by way of Michilimackinac to Quebec where he learned to his “mortification” that he had not received the captaincy to which McDouall had recommended him in late 1814. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was disbanded in June 1816 and he was placed on the half-pay list as lieutenant. Bulger spent most of the next few years in England where he attempted to gain remuneration for his services during the war, a military appointment, and promotion to half-pay captain. Although his several applications were always fully supported by senior British officers, it was not until 1820 that he finally succeeded in obtaining a compensation of £500 and military allowance equal to the half pay of a captain [in the Royal Navy].
In the winter of 1821–22 Hudson’s Bay Company director Andrew Colvile, upon the recommendation of Sir Gordon Drummond and on behalf of the executors of the estate of Lord Selkirk, offered Bulger a three-year appointment as secretary and registrar for the Red River settlement (Man.). He was also to form and train a militia force of 100 settlers. Bulger accepted the offer and, in order to bolster his authority in the colony, he was made governor locum tenens of Assiniboia, at a salary of £250. He arrived at Red River on 28 June 1822 and within a few weeks he was so thoroughly disillusioned with his “life of slavery and of exposure to the insults and threats of some of the most worthless of God’s creatures, in one of the most miserable countries on the face of the earth,” that he submitted a year’s notice of his intention to retire. Bulger also deplored the lack of a military or police force to provide him with the power to maintain order within the colony and to preserve it from the constant threat of attack from the Sioux.
The HBC’s chief factor at Fort Garry (Winnipeg), John Clarke, quickly antagonized Bulger by officially serving notice to him that he was prohibited from trafficking in furs, and as a consequence any hope of cooperation between Bulger as civil governor and Clarke as the company’s chief representative vanished. This situation contributed to the poor state of health from which Bulger suffered for most of the winter of 1822–23. Much of the difficulty he experienced in managing the colony arose from the ill-defined relationship between the settlement and the fur trade and from the confusion surrounding the rights of the settlers, given the fur-trade monopoly granted to the HBC by its charter. Nevertheless, after learning of the dispute between Clarke and Bulger, in May 1823 the London committee of the HBC exonerated the governor and condemned their own officer as “imprudent and indiscreet,” and on some counts “preposterous and indecorous.”
Bulger had written a lengthy letter to Colvile in December 1822 about the state of the colony. He recommended that a system of courts and magistrates be set up, that a company of troops be sent to the colony to enforce the laws and keep the natives in order, that the settlers be allowed to purchase provisions and skins for clothing from the Indians and Métis, and that money be circulated. He also asked Colvile to find a market for the colony’s surplus grain. “If these things cannot be done,” he warned, “spend no more of Lord Selkirk’s money upon Red River.”
www.dnw.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286 |
Page 287 |
Page 288 |
Page 289 |
Page 290 |
Page 291 |
Page 292 |
Page 293 |
Page 294 |
Page 295 |
Page 296 |
Page 297 |
Page 298 |
Page 299 |
Page 300 |
Page 301 |
Page 302 |
Page 303 |
Page 304 |
Page 305 |
Page 306 |
Page 307 |
Page 308 |
Page 309 |
Page 310 |
Page 311 |
Page 312 |
Page 313 |
Page 314 |
Page 315 |
Page 316 |
Page 317 |
Page 318 |
Page 319 |
Page 320 |
Page 321 |
Page 322 |
Page 323 |
Page 324 |
Page 325 |
Page 326 |
Page 327 |
Page 328 |
Page 329 |
Page 330 |
Page 331 |
Page 332 |
Page 333 |
Page 334 |
Page 335 |
Page 336 |
Page 337 |
Page 338 |
Page 339 |
Page 340 |
Page 341 |
Page 342 |
Page 343 |
Page 344 |
Page 345 |
Page 346 |
Page 347 |
Page 348 |
Page 349 |
Page 350 |
Page 351 |
Page 352 |
Page 353 |
Page 354 |
Page 355 |
Page 356 |
Page 357 |
Page 358 |
Page 359 |
Page 360 |
Page 361 |
Page 362 |
Page 363 |
Page 364 |
Page 365 |
Page 366 |
Page 367 |
Page 368 |
Page 369 |
Page 370 |
Page 371 |
Page 372 |
Page 373 |
Page 374 |
Page 375 |
Page 376 |
Page 377 |
Page 378 |
Page 379 |
Page 380 |
Page 381 |
Page 382 |
Page 383 |
Page 384 |
Page 385 |
Page 386 |
Page 387 |
Page 388 |
Page 389 |
Page 390 |
Page 391 |
Page 392 |
Page 393 |
Page 394 |
Page 395 |
Page 396 |
Page 397 |
Page 398 |
Page 399 |
Page 400 |
Page 401 |
Page 402 |
Page 403 |
Page 404 |
Page 405 |
Page 406 |
Page 407 |
Page 408 |
Page 409 |
Page 410 |
Page 411 |
Page 412 |
Page 413 |
Page 414 |
Page 415 |
Page 416 |
Page 417 |
Page 418 |
Page 419 |
Page 420 |
Page 421 |
Page 422 |
Page 423 |
Page 424 |
Page 425 |
Page 426 |
Page 427 |
Page 428 |
Page 429 |
Page 430 |
Page 431 |
Page 432 |
Page 433 |
Page 434 |
Page 435 |
Page 436 |
Page 437 |
Page 438 |
Page 439 |
Page 440 |
Page 441 |
Page 442 |
Page 443 |
Page 444 |
Page 445 |
Page 446 |
Page 447 |
Page 448 |
Page 449 |
Page 450 |
Page 451 |
Page 452 |
Page 453 |
Page 454 |
Page 455 |
Page 456 |
Page 457 |
Page 458 |
Page 459 |
Page 460 |
Page 461 |
Page 462 |
Page 463 |
Page 464 |
Page 465 |
Page 466 |
Page 467 |
Page 468 |
Page 469 |
Page 470 |
Page 471 |
Page 472 |
Page 473 |
Page 474 |
Page 475 |
Page 476 |
Page 477 |
Page 478 |
Page 479 |
Page 480 |
Page 481 |
Page 482 |
Page 483 |
Page 484 |
Page 485 |
Page 486 |
Page 487