Page:Brock centenary 2nd ed. 1913.djvu/78

 brock CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

MR. ANGUS CLAUDE MACDONKLL, M.l'. i oroota

w ■(• have gathered here to-day ai Oanadiani i.. commemorate an event which will be ever dear to m and onr posterity. One hundred yean ago Sir Isaac Brock, the hero of Upper Canada, died In battle upon this field bo defence of hii country and the flag, in the past we hare learned and heard altogether i<»<> little of this truly great man. and <>f what he accom- pliahed; it is not too much i<> Bay that he preferred Canada to the Empire ami at the same time created a national sentiment in Canada which lias ever grown and expanded to the present day. The national Importance <>f the battle «»f Qneenston I Lights, following the capitulation of Detroit, can*

not be overestimated ; national sentiment or a feel- ing <»f nationhood was even then manifesting its. -if in this young colony. The peoples who had settled in Canada sprang from races which had always stood "in Btrongly for national Identity the Eng- lish glory in their historic past; the Scottish race, to which my forefathers belonged and which to some extent I represent, on this occasion, are noted for their love <d' country; and bo with the other races which made np the United Ehnpire Loyalist settlers of Upper Canada at the time of the War of L812-14. Our national heart was created and siii-fed in this century-old war, and the heartbeats have ever become Btronger down to this day. and we now look bach through the mists of one hundred years to Sir Isaac Brock as the first true source of national sentiment which fertilised our country, and stamped it as British and Canadian forever.

Our object In coming here to-day, after we have enjoyed one hundred years of blessed peace with our neighbours to the south, is not to perpetuate

national hostility, or SVCO 1" Cherish a meiv mili-

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