CHAPTER VIII.

American newspapers had a “grim satisfaction” at seeing Canada “scared.” Assertion that Canadians, as a people, during the American civil war sympathised warmly with the legitimate government and loyal citizens of the United States. Extracts from “Canada a Battle Ground,” published 1862. And, “Where is Canada Drifting?” 1863.

Though this chapter may seem to interrupt the story of Canadian operations of defence, its matter forms an integral part of the larger field of circumstances which gave character to those operations. The Fenian invasion only became possible by sufferance of American popular opinion; and that was widely, deeply distempered, as regarded the British American Provinces and Great Britain, A full, true account of the Fenian invasion, cannot be given without the writer adverting to that distemper, speaking, as he believes he is about to do, for five-sixths of the whole people of Canada, and for the true national opinion of the British Islands.

The two following paragraphs are from a journal of New York called theCitizen. The first purports to be the conclusion of a statement made by an officer of the United States army.

“The mistake of the Fenians was, that they allowed too much talking and writing about their contemplated movements. They should have collected all their men and material along the frontier—their equipments were plentiful and good—without allowing one word to leak out of whatthey were doing. This, taught by experience, they promise to do next Fall; and if so their success cannot be doubtful.”

The next is the comment of the Editor of theCitizen, who is styled General Halpine, reprinted in Canadian papers, August 3rd, 1866, with the italics as given here.

“The foregoing remarks we commend to the attention of all American citizens who are not enamored with the course of England and Canada toward the United States during the late rebellion. Here was an opportunity to have avenged the wrongs of the British pirate vessels without costing the American Government one dollar. Here the Canadians might have been allowed to realize the scoundrelism of their conduct in sheltering the raiders of St. Albans, and the yellow fever and assassination conspirators. What Mr. Seward may think about it, we do not know; butare well satisfied a majority of the American people regret that the Fenian flag is not to-day floating over the steeples of a captured Montreal.”

The next two paragraph’s are reprinted from the BuffaloCourierof June 1st, but written on the previous day. Both of them are texts:

“It will be seen by reference to an advertisement, that the collector of this port has issued instructions, forbidding any vessel to clear between the hours of 9 a. m. and 4 p. m., without inspection of her cargo by officers of the custom house, and peremptorily interdicting the departure of vessels at all between the hours of 4 p. m. and 9 a. m., until instructions have been received from the Secretary of the Treasury. It is more than probable that the Fenians are endeavoring to obtain transportation to some point, audit is quite certain that they will be very closely watched, and find it very difficult to leave without discovery.“Our neighbours over the border may be pardoned for indulging in a little excitement under the circumstances; but they claim to be prepared for the worst, and ready to welcome the invaders. There will be no violation of the neutrality laws if our authorities can prevent it; but, looking back two or three years, to the time when Buffalonians were in hourly expectation of Confederate soldiers from Canada, we can ‘phancy the phelinks’ of Victoria’s loyal subjects. We don’t wish them any ill; but a little healthy scaring won’t do them any harm. So soon does time make all things even.”

“Our neighbours over the border may be pardoned for indulging in a little excitement under the circumstances; but they claim to be prepared for the worst, and ready to welcome the invaders. There will be no violation of the neutrality laws if our authorities can prevent it; but, looking back two or three years, to the time when Buffalonians were in hourly expectation of Confederate soldiers from Canada, we can ‘phancy the phelinks’ of Victoria’s loyal subjects. We don’t wish them any ill; but a little healthy scaring won’t do them any harm. So soon does time make all things even.”

I permit the last paragraph to be reprinted to remark, that it was in the month of the invasion, but one of hundreds, published in the United States expressing, what the writers termed a “grim satisfaction” that Canadians were now experiencing a return of the evil wishes they gave American citizens during the war of 1861-65. This allegation, wasnot true. It was the opposite of truth. The widest circulated journals in both the Canadas, and a largely predominating majority of the male adult population of Canada West, who held any political opinions, were throughout the war sympathizers with the legitimate national government of the United States, and were by rational opinion and natural instinct, abhorrent of the Southern insurgents, who, though enjoying co-equal rights with their fellow citizens of the North, and enjoying the privilege of a free press and freedom of speech to discuss public questions, had plunged the great American nation into the horrible calamities of civil war. And added to this numerical majority of political male adults, were the non-political, and all the women and children of the Province, who were guiltless of evil thoughts towards Americans, yet whose risk of life, alarm, terror and plundered homesteads, while fleeing to the woods, the wilderness, to escape the Fenians, were a “grim satisfaction” to some portion of the American newspaper mind.

But this is not all the denial. It is not true that any inhabitants of Canada, political or non-political, sympathizers with the national integrity and lawful authority of the United States or with the rebellion of the slave-owners, were parties to Confederate warfare based in Canada against the Federal States. The Canadian government and people at much cost and inconvenience in 1864 and 1865, posted forces of Militia Volunteers along the frontier to prevent American rebel refugees, resident in Canada, from making raids across the boundary line.

I might be more explicit and elaborate on this matter, which so intimately affects the two great nationalities who in common speak the English language in North America, but for the present refer to a book entitled “Canada a battle ground, by Alexander Somerville” (present writer) published early in 1862. In that publication the sympathy of Canadians, for the lawful government of the United States was asserted, and the estrangement which painfully occurred, foreshadowed. Mr. Seward, in reference to Canada being annexed to the States, writing in 1856, before he was Secretary of State had said “All Southern stars must set though many times they rise again with diminished lustre. But those which illuminate the pole remain for ever shining, for ever increasing in splendour.” To which the author of “Canada a Battle Ground” rejoined in 1862, page 24.

“Remark. It is belief in that bright destiny of Northern free nations which binds Britain, Canada, and other Colonies together. They will not separate. For Britain to willfully pluck her Empire in pieces to set up new nations in conformity to some theory of magnanimity, is an offence to the simplest principles of political philosophy. Were Canada to demand separation, and obtain it; or were she cut adrift, the inevitable fate of absorption, by her more powerful neighbour, and extinction of political existence, would follow. The integrity and perennial vigour of the British empire should be the lofty political faith of all Conservatives and rational Reformers whether at home or in the colonies. And they who desire the permanence of British stability, or deserve the personal safety and freedom guaranteed by imperial laws, and by institutions at once venerable, and youthfully elastic in their adaptability to new circumstances, must by a logical necessity—if they hold any settled conservative principle—cherish a sympathy for other free nations, and hold in abhorrence a rebellious appeal to arms to overturn constitutional government.“New complications may occur between Britain and France, as well as between Canada and America. A recurrence of excitement about French invasion may any day arise with still deeper perplexities than at any time before. The Legislative Chamber at Paris has just been told by a noble member, a legitimist, not a Napoleonist, and so much the worse, that the thirteen hundred millions of francs, spent on the Crimean war would have carried the French army to London. The British uneasiness of 1858 ripened public sentiment in favour of an auxiliary army of volunteers. Other ‘tyrannicide’ pamphlets, as atrocious as that of 1858, may issue from London and inflame France. Again, the ‘French Colonels’ may demand permission of the Emperor, as in that year, to ‘hunt conspirators in their London dens.’“In that hypothesis of complex difficulties, the Engineers and Guards, the Royal Artillery and regiments of the British Line, grandly efficient in quality, but inadequate in number even now, may be recalled to save the venerated soil of Britain from the track of invasion. But should they remain, as pray Heaven they may have no cause to go away nor any employment here; a mass levy of the male population will be an instant necessity in the event of war. The mass levy will be only a mob, yet indispensable, as a source from whence to draft selected levies, and to form working brigades to construct defences; to build Forts, for instance, beyond Toronto on the Yorkville side, and on the heights near Hamilton city, should Huron Lake and Georgian Bay be occupied by gun-boats and floating batteries from the arsenals at Chicago, and Green Bay; and Erie Lake, from docks and arsenals at Toledo and Buffalo. The sooner those Forts are raised after the enemy is at Georgian Bay, at Suspension Bridge, at Port Dover, Port Colborne and Port Dalhousie, the sounder may Toronto and Hamilton sleep in bed, if they can sleep at all.“Concentrated on one point, or distributed to distant places in obedienceto the exigencies of strategy, the rural aggregations of the mass levy, and the rural regiments of militia, while defending towns and cities from hostile occupation and ravage, may be told of their own undefended homesteads laid in ashes; barns plundered and pastures cleared of cattle; women and children fleeing to the wilderness distracted, or dying on the cinders of the homes, in which they live happily this day, believing that none dare make them afraid.“And those aggregations of militia and volunteers, and the mass levy,in this newspaper-made war, may be told of such atrocities, when absent on the frontier service, or may see them after the occurrence. If they do, the fiercest spirits in Canada, not few in number, will volunteer with all the vehemence of revenge; or they may, in desperate frenzy, form expeditions on their own account, to make reprisal on the towns and country opposite. Offended humanity there, which is now as innocent of political feuds or evil intention to Canada, as any non-political farmer and his wife and baby on this side, will in turn cry for a reciprocity of vengeance. Patriotism on that side will be crime on this: the patriotism of Canada will be crime beyond the frontier. They who are least successful in devastation and in victory, will on their Fast days, pray to have a due sense of sin, and better success. The side which enjoys the highest satisfaction for defeats avoided, and battles won, will proclaim a day for thanksgiving and sky-rockets. And what wonder if Eternal Justice should leave them all to the consummation of their own wrath? The only warrant for hope, that they may not be utterly forsaken of merciful Heaven, rests on this; that they who are exposed the most to suffer such calamities are the least guilty in provoking war.“On the frontier homes of Canada, two thousand miles of war-track. One thousand miles open to attack on the frontier of the States. On the one side and the other, three thousand miles of war, among cities, towns, hamlets, homesteads; tracks of plunder in the mansions of the wealthy; houses of the poor; iron safes of the merchants; strong vaults of the banks. Tracks of battle and of marching armies on fields of summer greenness; on harvests of ripe wheat. Tracks of blood on three thousand miles of death-bed snow.“War-tracks of wreck, vessels and canals all a wreck, on lake, river and canal navigation. Mutual destruction along the frontier lines of railway, American and Canadian—populated Canada nearly all a frontier as yet.“Locomotive engines, offspring of genius more godlike than human, now carrying civilization through the primeval forests, dispensing the elements of social happiness as they go, these, compelled to be their own executioners.“The wheels of Human Progress are reversed. Viaducts broken downon this side the frontier and on that. Flying bridges of international amity now spanning the torrent at Niagara; or leviathans of the ferries, breasting the rivers in calm or storm or floods of crashing ice, at Sarnia, Windsor, Erie Ferry, Kingston, Prescott, and other passages of friendly traffic and social courtesies—all a wreck. And noblest victory of science, the monumental bridge at Montreal, each of its four-and-twenty pillars a monument, that overthrown; or besieged and defended as a bulwark of the fair city which with good reason, dreads to be captured.“Barrenness on the fields; emptiness in the granaries of Canada; much of the soil untilled, little sown; husbandmen in the war; wives and families scattered; and a pitiful harvest to reap. The peopled country being nearly all frontier, in Upper Canada, the farmers in those days, or months, for years, happily all a hypothesis as yet, are defending not ploughing.—They march to the battle which was expected yesterday; or counter-march to that which is expected to-day; or they are harassed by sleepless nights on picket and forced marches to meet a fresh invasion expected next week, or next month, yet which may come this night. Canadaclemswith hunger while her enemy is abundantly supplied from the interior of the Union and the prolific North-western States.“Granaries which supplemented deficient harvests in Britain and France are now devastated or blockaded on the seaboard. Britain is in peril of domestic convulsion by insufficiency of food and material for manufactures and external commerce. Continental Europe sharing the disorder.Austria, weakened by revolted provinces is strength to France. France, stronger, is nearer danger to the English coast, and that is new weakness and greater peril to Canada.Our regular troops, as already said, may be called suddenly home. The gun-boats expected may never come. France scorns neutrality and blockades, most probably. Her steam rams-of-war make grim fraternity with the iron rams of America, possibly. The commerce of two oceans and of all the seas and gulfs is plundered, burned or sunk by privateers. Electric telegraphs, ‘our own correspondents’ and unofficial army reports, by facilitating wreck and ruin, and keeping enemies well informed, are curses, no longer utilities. The fire-brand or revolutionary section of the Canada press,happily a very small and misguided minority of the whole, which in mockery of common sense retains the name of ‘conservative,’ or ‘moderate,’ yet has outraged moderation, and put rational conservatism to shame by spreading along and across the peaceful frontier the elements of discord and convulsion—takes its turn of ‘sentry go’ on dark and stormy nights, in sleet, or snow, or rain, or sultry summer heat; the provost-martial keeping the office, types and ink. And ‘special correspondents,’ sent from England are considerably abridged of the liberty which they used so indiscreetly in the United States, while lawful authority there struggled in all the majesty of national conservatism to suppress a rebellion less excusable than any ever known inthe history of the world. And so the war of invasion, which in the incongruities of party servitude the ‘moderate’ newspapers of Canada have done so much to realize as a fact of horrible proportions, goes on; the roar of ocean storms deafened by the roar of naval battles; Great Britain with hands full, yet grand even in that day of extremity, while Canada sweeps up the ashes of her homesteads and wipes her widowed eyes.“Such may that war be which political lunacy, less or more apparent on both sides the boundary line, is now hastening to a hideous birth. Why are two nations of kindred race and language preparing for the world this great agony? The event advances to its fullness of time primarily and chiefly, because they are of kindred race and language.“To describe the cities, towns, hamlets, and happy homesteads on both sides of the boundary line; the social and commercial intercourse of the two countries. To depict, as far as an uninspired pen may, their measureless resources of natural wealth—all pleading for peace. To foreshadow as far as a non-prophetic writer may presume, the nature of the differences from which they may drift into a conflict of mutual devastation. To illustrate the practical elements of military discipline and strength by reference to changed circumstances of social and political life in new communities. To relate incidents of British campaigns, victories, defeats, retreats, army panics, and the difficulties of the greatest generals in all wars, as a study indispensable in Canada, where the new militia of this year, 1862—fifty thousand undisciplined men not yet obtained, are proposed to do what fifty thousand veteran troops continuously in the field, might fail to do—defend Canada against an army of the United States, now trained or being trained, to arms, should it be directed at once against all accessible landing places on her vastly extended frontier.“To ask by the logic of political affinities, that all loyal subjects who can appreciate the freedom and stability of Britain, should extend a lively sympathy to the United States, now struggling in the majesty of a grand conservatism to consolidate civil and religious liberty with an enduring nationality; a result, which only Britain, of all other nations in the world, has practically achieved. To treat of those things; to contribute to the safety of Canada, and like a drop added to the mighty St. Lawrence, river of the life of North America, to contribute my driblet to the well-being of the British empire, and to the happiness of peaceful nations. That is the object of the work now in the reader’s hand.”

“New complications may occur between Britain and France, as well as between Canada and America. A recurrence of excitement about French invasion may any day arise with still deeper perplexities than at any time before. The Legislative Chamber at Paris has just been told by a noble member, a legitimist, not a Napoleonist, and so much the worse, that the thirteen hundred millions of francs, spent on the Crimean war would have carried the French army to London. The British uneasiness of 1858 ripened public sentiment in favour of an auxiliary army of volunteers. Other ‘tyrannicide’ pamphlets, as atrocious as that of 1858, may issue from London and inflame France. Again, the ‘French Colonels’ may demand permission of the Emperor, as in that year, to ‘hunt conspirators in their London dens.’

“In that hypothesis of complex difficulties, the Engineers and Guards, the Royal Artillery and regiments of the British Line, grandly efficient in quality, but inadequate in number even now, may be recalled to save the venerated soil of Britain from the track of invasion. But should they remain, as pray Heaven they may have no cause to go away nor any employment here; a mass levy of the male population will be an instant necessity in the event of war. The mass levy will be only a mob, yet indispensable, as a source from whence to draft selected levies, and to form working brigades to construct defences; to build Forts, for instance, beyond Toronto on the Yorkville side, and on the heights near Hamilton city, should Huron Lake and Georgian Bay be occupied by gun-boats and floating batteries from the arsenals at Chicago, and Green Bay; and Erie Lake, from docks and arsenals at Toledo and Buffalo. The sooner those Forts are raised after the enemy is at Georgian Bay, at Suspension Bridge, at Port Dover, Port Colborne and Port Dalhousie, the sounder may Toronto and Hamilton sleep in bed, if they can sleep at all.

“Concentrated on one point, or distributed to distant places in obedienceto the exigencies of strategy, the rural aggregations of the mass levy, and the rural regiments of militia, while defending towns and cities from hostile occupation and ravage, may be told of their own undefended homesteads laid in ashes; barns plundered and pastures cleared of cattle; women and children fleeing to the wilderness distracted, or dying on the cinders of the homes, in which they live happily this day, believing that none dare make them afraid.

“And those aggregations of militia and volunteers, and the mass levy,in this newspaper-made war, may be told of such atrocities, when absent on the frontier service, or may see them after the occurrence. If they do, the fiercest spirits in Canada, not few in number, will volunteer with all the vehemence of revenge; or they may, in desperate frenzy, form expeditions on their own account, to make reprisal on the towns and country opposite. Offended humanity there, which is now as innocent of political feuds or evil intention to Canada, as any non-political farmer and his wife and baby on this side, will in turn cry for a reciprocity of vengeance. Patriotism on that side will be crime on this: the patriotism of Canada will be crime beyond the frontier. They who are least successful in devastation and in victory, will on their Fast days, pray to have a due sense of sin, and better success. The side which enjoys the highest satisfaction for defeats avoided, and battles won, will proclaim a day for thanksgiving and sky-rockets. And what wonder if Eternal Justice should leave them all to the consummation of their own wrath? The only warrant for hope, that they may not be utterly forsaken of merciful Heaven, rests on this; that they who are exposed the most to suffer such calamities are the least guilty in provoking war.

“On the frontier homes of Canada, two thousand miles of war-track. One thousand miles open to attack on the frontier of the States. On the one side and the other, three thousand miles of war, among cities, towns, hamlets, homesteads; tracks of plunder in the mansions of the wealthy; houses of the poor; iron safes of the merchants; strong vaults of the banks. Tracks of battle and of marching armies on fields of summer greenness; on harvests of ripe wheat. Tracks of blood on three thousand miles of death-bed snow.

“War-tracks of wreck, vessels and canals all a wreck, on lake, river and canal navigation. Mutual destruction along the frontier lines of railway, American and Canadian—populated Canada nearly all a frontier as yet.

“Locomotive engines, offspring of genius more godlike than human, now carrying civilization through the primeval forests, dispensing the elements of social happiness as they go, these, compelled to be their own executioners.

“The wheels of Human Progress are reversed. Viaducts broken downon this side the frontier and on that. Flying bridges of international amity now spanning the torrent at Niagara; or leviathans of the ferries, breasting the rivers in calm or storm or floods of crashing ice, at Sarnia, Windsor, Erie Ferry, Kingston, Prescott, and other passages of friendly traffic and social courtesies—all a wreck. And noblest victory of science, the monumental bridge at Montreal, each of its four-and-twenty pillars a monument, that overthrown; or besieged and defended as a bulwark of the fair city which with good reason, dreads to be captured.

“Barrenness on the fields; emptiness in the granaries of Canada; much of the soil untilled, little sown; husbandmen in the war; wives and families scattered; and a pitiful harvest to reap. The peopled country being nearly all frontier, in Upper Canada, the farmers in those days, or months, for years, happily all a hypothesis as yet, are defending not ploughing.—They march to the battle which was expected yesterday; or counter-march to that which is expected to-day; or they are harassed by sleepless nights on picket and forced marches to meet a fresh invasion expected next week, or next month, yet which may come this night. Canadaclemswith hunger while her enemy is abundantly supplied from the interior of the Union and the prolific North-western States.

“Granaries which supplemented deficient harvests in Britain and France are now devastated or blockaded on the seaboard. Britain is in peril of domestic convulsion by insufficiency of food and material for manufactures and external commerce. Continental Europe sharing the disorder.Austria, weakened by revolted provinces is strength to France. France, stronger, is nearer danger to the English coast, and that is new weakness and greater peril to Canada.Our regular troops, as already said, may be called suddenly home. The gun-boats expected may never come. France scorns neutrality and blockades, most probably. Her steam rams-of-war make grim fraternity with the iron rams of America, possibly. The commerce of two oceans and of all the seas and gulfs is plundered, burned or sunk by privateers. Electric telegraphs, ‘our own correspondents’ and unofficial army reports, by facilitating wreck and ruin, and keeping enemies well informed, are curses, no longer utilities. The fire-brand or revolutionary section of the Canada press,happily a very small and misguided minority of the whole, which in mockery of common sense retains the name of ‘conservative,’ or ‘moderate,’ yet has outraged moderation, and put rational conservatism to shame by spreading along and across the peaceful frontier the elements of discord and convulsion—takes its turn of ‘sentry go’ on dark and stormy nights, in sleet, or snow, or rain, or sultry summer heat; the provost-martial keeping the office, types and ink. And ‘special correspondents,’ sent from England are considerably abridged of the liberty which they used so indiscreetly in the United States, while lawful authority there struggled in all the majesty of national conservatism to suppress a rebellion less excusable than any ever known inthe history of the world. And so the war of invasion, which in the incongruities of party servitude the ‘moderate’ newspapers of Canada have done so much to realize as a fact of horrible proportions, goes on; the roar of ocean storms deafened by the roar of naval battles; Great Britain with hands full, yet grand even in that day of extremity, while Canada sweeps up the ashes of her homesteads and wipes her widowed eyes.

“Such may that war be which political lunacy, less or more apparent on both sides the boundary line, is now hastening to a hideous birth. Why are two nations of kindred race and language preparing for the world this great agony? The event advances to its fullness of time primarily and chiefly, because they are of kindred race and language.

“To describe the cities, towns, hamlets, and happy homesteads on both sides of the boundary line; the social and commercial intercourse of the two countries. To depict, as far as an uninspired pen may, their measureless resources of natural wealth—all pleading for peace. To foreshadow as far as a non-prophetic writer may presume, the nature of the differences from which they may drift into a conflict of mutual devastation. To illustrate the practical elements of military discipline and strength by reference to changed circumstances of social and political life in new communities. To relate incidents of British campaigns, victories, defeats, retreats, army panics, and the difficulties of the greatest generals in all wars, as a study indispensable in Canada, where the new militia of this year, 1862—fifty thousand undisciplined men not yet obtained, are proposed to do what fifty thousand veteran troops continuously in the field, might fail to do—defend Canada against an army of the United States, now trained or being trained, to arms, should it be directed at once against all accessible landing places on her vastly extended frontier.

“To ask by the logic of political affinities, that all loyal subjects who can appreciate the freedom and stability of Britain, should extend a lively sympathy to the United States, now struggling in the majesty of a grand conservatism to consolidate civil and religious liberty with an enduring nationality; a result, which only Britain, of all other nations in the world, has practically achieved. To treat of those things; to contribute to the safety of Canada, and like a drop added to the mighty St. Lawrence, river of the life of North America, to contribute my driblet to the well-being of the British empire, and to the happiness of peaceful nations. That is the object of the work now in the reader’s hand.”

Battle of Bull’s Run.That was still a topic of popular conversation when “Canada a Battle Ground” was written. Of that, it was remarked; p. 59,

“It would have been to the advantage of international amity if Mr. Russell of theTimeshad seen and described the actual battle of ManassasaliasBull’s Run, which, while it lasted, was a valiant conflict, carried on by troops, on the Government side,famishing for want of water and food, and unsupported by the necessary adjuncts of a campaign, all difficulties caused by a too early advance without the means of transport, and all aggravated by the battle occurring in a thickly wooded country. Killed and wounded at Bull Run, 18 per cent of all engaged, in five hours. Killed and wounded at Waterloo, in the year 1815, 24 per cent of all engaged of British and Allies, in twelve hours. The defeated veterans ran six times farther from Waterloo, than the defeated troops at Bull Run.”

“Truths about Battles—Wellington and Waterloo.Even Generals in command can only make a guess at the incidents of battle. Civilian correspondents, viewing the smoke from afar, can tell nothing but by hearsay. Nor do Generals find it desirable to publish all occurrences in their dispatches. A historian having applied to Wellington for a full account of Waterloo, that he might exactly describe it, the great General replied as follows:—“You cannot write a true history of the battle without including the faults and misbehavior of part of those who were engaged,and whose faults and misbehaviour were the cause of material losses. Believe me, that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero; and that although in the account given of a general action, such as that of Waterloo, many instances of individual heroism must be passed over unrelated, it is better for the general interests to leave those parts of the story untold than to tell the whole truth.Wellington.”

Wellington.”

“Victory is not always a certainty even with the ablest Generals in command of the best troops. Many unreflective admirers of Wellington, military men as well as civilians, have asserted that he never engaged in battle but with the certainty of success. He has himself affirmed the contrary, and what he said should be treasured as words of caution to over confident officers in command of armies or detachments. Writing to Sir Charles Stuart, British Envoy at Lisbon, in March, 1811, previous to a new campaign, he said:—“I have but little doubt of success; but as I have fought a sufficient number of battlesto know that the result of any one of them was not certain, even with the best arrangements, I am anxious that the Government should adopt preparatory arrangements and take out of the enemy’s way those persons and their families who would suffer if they were to fall into the enemy’s hands.”

Where was Canada drifting in 1863?—The following passage from theCanadian Illustrated Newsof May, 16, 1863, was widely reprinted in British newspapers, its sentiments meeting the popular British opinion of that time, as it expressed the opinions of the press and people of Canada with but few exceptions. It is given here that Americans who peruse this Book of the Fenian invasion, may see that sympathy for thepeople who were loyal to the legitimate authority in the United States was in Canada a fact in the years of the war, not an after-thought in this year of the Fenian trouble, 1866, as some of them now allege. One of the exceptions just noted, a Brantford paper, had jeered at the American army then on the Potomac; and spoke lightly of a rupture which it said, “might occur between England and the Federal States at any time.” A rejoinder of rebuke by the present writer, which accorded with the popular voice of Canada, was in these terms, necessarily now abbreviated:

“‘May lead at any time to an open rupture.’ And what might that be to Brantford? Read the selections from the report of the committee of Congress on page 4 of this journal. ‘An open rupture’ means the probable sequences of war; the stoppage of all through traffic on the Buffalo and Lake Huron railroad, whose central works are at Brantford. It means the enemy’s occupation or bombardment of Goderich town from Lake Huron. It means the approach of an army of invasion from Buffalo and Port Dover, and all the ports on the north shore of Lake Erie towards Brantford and Hamilton; and a battle perhaps the bloodiest in the annals of time, the Thermopylæ of Canada fought on the banks of the Grand River near the village of Caledonia, or between that village and the lake shore, but more probably in and around Brantford town. Then will every brick of that place be battered to rubbish heaps, in the battle which decides which army shall hold the key-ground of Canada West. The key-ground of Canada West extends from the Grand River below Caledonia, by way of Brantford to Paris, and northerly to Guelph; from thence to Toronto eastward, and to London westward. The three railways, Buffalo and Lake Huron, Great Western, and Grand Trunk, will be kept open to the last extremity, for though we may be terribly tried, Canada will submit willingly,—never.“I will not describe in these columns the probable disposition of forces. I direct the reader’s eye through the curtain of the future to take that one glimpse, because of the fervency of a terrible apprehension that the wilful negligence of the Government of Canada to organize, or provide means for organizing a defensive force, may leave the Province to the appalling hazard of seeing a time of war with insufficiency of means to resist the invasion at the beginning.“What, to Great Britain, are the aspects of the contingency of an ‘open rupture’ or Roebuck’s ‘declaration of war?’ War with the United States, the Southern blockade broken, and secession achieved, involves either the defence of Canada by all the might of the Mother country or abandonment. Abandonment means, the confiscation of every man’s estate, every child’s heritage.“Then we may see Alabamas playing havoc on the wrong side. Thesordid traitors to their Queen and country who, in 1862 and 1863, have built them on the Mersey and the Clyde, in breach of British neutrality, standing accursed in the presence of the British Empire immersed in the three-fold baptism of convulsion famine and pestilence, weird offspring of havoc and of war.“Such, Mr. Roebuck, of Sheffield, would be the probable result of your crazy counsels. Such, Mr. Laird, of Birkenhead, will possibly be the early convulsion of nations in which your sordid iniquity is preparing to plunge the British Empire.“And you, the suicidal section of the newspaper press of Canada, happily a minority of the whole, mocking common sense by retaining the otherwise respectable name of ‘conservative,’ outraging all moderation in blindly, prodigally goading to implacable anger our next-door national neighbour, struggling as that great nation has been during the last two years, in the noblest efforts that could engage the sympathy of conservatives—the conservation of nationality, the repression of internal rebellion—what of you in that day which I have depicted; in that conflagration which you will have contributed to kindle? you will stand, not as Cassandra stood, in frantic joy at the havoc of your torch, but you will be whiffed out, extinguished in the dread convulsion of this distracted Province, your types and presses in the custody of the provost-martial. That is where Canada is drifting to.”—Alexander Somerville, ‘Whistler at the Plough.’

“I will not describe in these columns the probable disposition of forces. I direct the reader’s eye through the curtain of the future to take that one glimpse, because of the fervency of a terrible apprehension that the wilful negligence of the Government of Canada to organize, or provide means for organizing a defensive force, may leave the Province to the appalling hazard of seeing a time of war with insufficiency of means to resist the invasion at the beginning.

“What, to Great Britain, are the aspects of the contingency of an ‘open rupture’ or Roebuck’s ‘declaration of war?’ War with the United States, the Southern blockade broken, and secession achieved, involves either the defence of Canada by all the might of the Mother country or abandonment. Abandonment means, the confiscation of every man’s estate, every child’s heritage.

“Then we may see Alabamas playing havoc on the wrong side. Thesordid traitors to their Queen and country who, in 1862 and 1863, have built them on the Mersey and the Clyde, in breach of British neutrality, standing accursed in the presence of the British Empire immersed in the three-fold baptism of convulsion famine and pestilence, weird offspring of havoc and of war.

“Such, Mr. Roebuck, of Sheffield, would be the probable result of your crazy counsels. Such, Mr. Laird, of Birkenhead, will possibly be the early convulsion of nations in which your sordid iniquity is preparing to plunge the British Empire.

“And you, the suicidal section of the newspaper press of Canada, happily a minority of the whole, mocking common sense by retaining the otherwise respectable name of ‘conservative,’ outraging all moderation in blindly, prodigally goading to implacable anger our next-door national neighbour, struggling as that great nation has been during the last two years, in the noblest efforts that could engage the sympathy of conservatives—the conservation of nationality, the repression of internal rebellion—what of you in that day which I have depicted; in that conflagration which you will have contributed to kindle? you will stand, not as Cassandra stood, in frantic joy at the havoc of your torch, but you will be whiffed out, extinguished in the dread convulsion of this distracted Province, your types and presses in the custody of the provost-martial. That is where Canada is drifting to.”—Alexander Somerville, ‘Whistler at the Plough.’

American journalists—orators—statesmen. Such were the sentiments of Canadians towards the United States, with only the small exceptions indicated in the years of the war. Some of you now enjoy, what you term a “grim satisfaction” at the thought of the women and children of Canada being exposed to ravage, plunder, murder, who in no way offended you. And the large majority of men who felt your cause to be theirs—the cause of constitutional freedom, national stability, true conservatism, you are grimly satisfied because they are now, or but lately were, exposed to the contingencies of invasion. History will judge that you cruelly wrong this Province. And Almighty God whom you worship, is witness, that the people of Canada, as a people never did you wrong, never spoke of you but in friendliness.

Note for to-day—While this sheet is passing through the press intelligence from Britain informs Canada that the new conservative government comprehends and will act on a just conception of conservative philosophy towards the United States. In society the first characteristic of a gentleman is courtesy towards his neighbors. In international policy the first duty of true conservatism is promotion of friendship with other nations. August, 1866.

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