Page:The empire and the century.djvu/409

 what was then known as Acadia, contained only a handful of about 60,000 settlers, and it is the best possible evidence of the essential equity of the new British administration that these French-Canadians resisted every temptation to join hands with the revolting Colonies. As a consequence, Canada came to be something of a thorn in the side of George Washington. Indeed, he prophesied that the country to the north would be a source of trouble to the Union, and might bring it even to the verge of war. Washington's inability to appreciate the point of view of the United Empire Loyalists is, perhaps, the only regrettable feature in the career of one whom many Britons would be glad to claim as one of their national heroes. The persecutions which the United Empire Loyalists had to undergo at the hands of their insurgent fellow-citizens should not be overlooked in the story of the early days of what is now the Canadian Dominion. For conscience' sake they forsook all and fled, making their way mainly into what we now know as Ontario, as well as into Acadia and the Maritime Provinces. These Ontario settlers had the opportunity, however, of adding a glorious page to their country's annals by the resistance they offered to the American invasion of 1812-1815. They were no more numerous then than the French-Canadians had been at the time of the conquest, and yet they succeeded in showing that the war party in the United States, with its raucous cry of 'On to Canada!' had made as great a miscalculation of actual conditions as Carthage, when she fancied that the invading Hannibal would be able to draw away the Italian tribes from their allegiance to Rome. The story of this short war is full of the record of the prowess of Canadians, English, French, Scotch, Irish, and Indian. And as their successes secured the country from further organized attack, the significance of such engagements as those of Queenston Heights and Chrystler's Farm, and Lundy's Lane and Chateauguay, should be correctly appreciated by all who wish to understand the