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48 ARCHIVARIA 20 the fighting raging in Belgium 16-18 June 1815. For the reader not acquainted with the complexities of British Army uniforms, all the Royal Regiments had blue facings, lapels, cuffs, and collars as depicted in the miniature. Moreover, the sitter should have been an officer entitled or obliged to wear wings as a distinction of rank. (A wing can be recognized by its location: it is above the seam joining the sleeve to the coat and covers the shoulder from front to rear; figure 7 shows a very fine specimen of a wing.) Last, but by no means least, such a person should have been someone whose portrait could reasonably have come into the hands of the Short family. The matter of the medal in the portrait justifies further consideration. Two of Brock's uniforms have survived. One is a dress coatee, now in the McCord Museum, and the other is a plain coatee (the one in which he was killed at Queenston Heights on 13 October 1812) on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.64 Both coatees are those of a brigadier-general, an "appointment rather than a rank" as Colonel Stacey has pointed out; Brock held this distinction from 1808 until 1811.65It can be estimated that he wore these tunics for about four years. The plain coatee is marked by signs of heavy wear around the cuffs, collar, and skirts. Consequently, had Brock been awarded a medal, it is reasonable to think that he would have worn such a decoration with his uniforms. In all likelihood the pin used to secure the ribbon holding the medal to the uniform would have caused small holes in the course of time. There might also have been less fading of those parts covered by such a medal and ribbon. But marks of this kind are not found on his surviving coatees, so that Brock's own garments contradict the claim that he is the officer in the miniature. Nor did any of the eyewitnesses who had seen Brock ever mention anything about Brock wearing a medal. Thus, the depiction of a medal in the miniature is convincing evidence that the sitter was not B r o ~ k . ~ ~ In his analysis of the uniform in the miniature, Colonel Groves paid much attention to the wing on the left shoulder. He wrote Miss FitzGibbon of his inability to inform her of "the year when 'wings' were adopted by Light-Infantry officers, but they certainly wore them as early as 1799."67 He was not far off the mark because the Dress Regulations of 26 May 1798 prescribe "Scarlet Wings for Grenadiers and Lt. Infantry with Bullion and Fringe besides E p a ~ l e t t e s . " But ~ ~ regulations then, as today, are often more honoured in the breach than observance. The Dress Regulations of 1822 (revised and corrected in 1826) demonstrate the point: "Much inconvenience having arisen from the practice of Colonels and Commanding Officers taking upon themselves to alter the Ornaments and Appointments of Regimental officer^...."^^ Differently stated, precise identification of uniforms of the late 1700s and early 1800s is not always feasible. In the present instance, the Dress Regulation of 24 December 1811 may be of assistance: "Field Officers of Fusileers and Light Infantry Corps ...are to wear wings in addition to their epaulette~."~~ 64 Photographs of these coatees are included in Kosche, "Relics," p. 81-86. 65 C.P. Stacey, "Sir Isaac Brock," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto, 1983), vol. 5, p. 1 1 1 . 66 The author's statements are based on personal examination of both coatees. The fact that Brock was awarded a knighthood,but never knew of it, needs no elaboration in the present context.The Archives of Ontario, William Gilkison MSS, pkg. 4, has a chromolithograph by J.D. Kelly after William Gilkison showing Brock with the Order of the Bath; that is, of course, an imaginary depiction. 67 Fitzgibbon notebook, folio 173. 68 Carman, "Regulations, 1802," p. 205. 69 Regulations for the Dress of General, Stajj and Regimental Officers.... (revised and corrected) 25th December, 1826 (London, 1827), p. 2. 70 Percy Sumner,"Officers' Dress Regulations, 18 11 ,"Journal of the Societyfor Army Hkorical Research, 22 (1943/44), p. 340.