Page:Brock centenary 2nd ed. 1913.djvu/20

 BBOCS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

from the Detroit to the Ottawa, born Lake Ontario tall Bte, Marie, Now there irere seventy-five thousand Inhabitants; and under ;i wis.- Militia Act they ' 1;l( ' Imposed yearly military service on themselves; every male Inhabitant had to tarnish his own gun and appear im distances. The men at Qneennton won their victory with guns that were captured two monthe before at Detroit Throughout the war, when our mills had >»«-•- 1 1 burnt by a ruthleai

enemy ih.it made war on women and children and

old men. supplies were brought up the toilsome

COUrae of the St. Lawrence in Durham h<>ats and

bateaMB. The devoted militia of the river CO unties

guarded the frontier, ami only once did they lose

a convoy, part of which they afterwards recovered

by a raid into the em-niv's territory at Wadding- tun. N.V.

in front of Brock was a nation of eight or nine millions, a nation that bejieved they could "take the Canadas without soldiers;" as the ftnited

States Secretary <>f War said — " we have only to send officer! into the Province and the people, dis-

affected towards their own Government, will rally r«»und our standard." Yet they placed, during the

three years «.f the war, 527,000 men in the field and

were defeated in thirty-two engagements The

Oddl were twenty-six t«> on.- BgalnSl OS That was

Brock'i grand bequest t<> this land the spirit to tiL'ht against <>dds that were at first sight positively overwhelming.

Por yean sedition ami disloyalty had been L r ain- ing ground in Upper Canada in 1802, Colonel Talbot classified the Inhabitants of the western part "f 'h«- Province as iii those enticed hither by

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