The Canadian Dominion [16]
Salaberry, of Laura Secord and her daring tramp through the woods to warn of American attacks, of Stony Creek and Lundy's Lane, Chrystler's Farm and Chateauguay, the memory of sacrifice, of endurance, and of courage that did not count the odds.
Nor were the evil legacies to last for all time. Three years after peace had been made the statesmen of the United States and of Great Britain had the uncommon sense to take a great step toward banishing war between the neighbor peoples. The Rush-Bagot Convention, limiting the naval armament on the Great Lakes to three vessels not exceeding one hundred tons each, and armed only with one eighteen-pounder, though not always observed in the letter, proved the beginning of a sane relationship which has lasted for a century. Had not this agreement nipped naval rivalry in the bud, fleets and forts might have lined the shores and increased the strain of policy and the likelihood of conflict. The New World was already preparing to sound its message to the Old.
CHAPTER II. THE FIGHT FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT
The history of British North America in the quarter of a century that followed the War of 1812 is in the main the homely tale of pioneer life. Slowly little clearings in the vast forest were widened and won to order and abundance; slowly community was linked to community; and out of the growing intercourse there developed the complex of ways and habits and interests that make up the everyday life of a people.
All the provinces called for settlers, and they did not call in vain. For a time northern New England continued to overflow into the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, the rolling lands south of the St. Lawrence which had been left untouched by riverbound seigneur and habitant. Into Upper Canada, as well, many individual immigrants came from the south, some of the best the Republic had to give, merchants and manufacturers with little capital but much shrewd enterprise, but also some it could best spare, fugitives from justice and keepers of the taverns that adorned every four corners. Yet slowly this inflow slackened. After the war the Canadian authorities sought to avoid republican contagion and moreover the West of the United States itself was calling for men.
But if fewer came in across the border, many more sailed from across the seas. Not again until the twentieth century were the northern provinces to receive so large a share of British emigrants as came across in the twenties and thirties. Swarms were preparing to leave the overcrowded British hives. Corn laws and poor laws and famine, power-driven looms that starved the cottage weaver, peace that threw an army on a crowded and callous labor market, landlords who rack-rented the Connaughtman's last potato or cleared Highland glens of folks to make way for sheep, rulers who persisted in denying the masses any voice in their own government--all these combined to drive men forth in tens of thousands. Australia was still a land of convict settlements and did not attract free men. To most the United States was the land of promise. Yet, thanks to state aid, private philanthropy, landlords' urging and cheap fares on the ships that came to St. John and Quebec for timber, Canada and the provinces by the sea received a notable share. In the quarter of a century following the peace with Napoleon, British North America received more British emigrants than the United States and the Australian colonies together, though many were merely birds of passage.
The country west of the Great Lakes did not share in this flood of settlement, except for one tragic interlude. Lord Selkirk, a Scotchman of large sympathy and vision, convinced that emigration was the cure for the hopeless misery he saw around him, acquired a controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company, and sought to plant colonies in a vast estate granted from its domains. Between 1811 and 1815 he sent out to Hudson Bay, and thence to the Red River, two or three hundred crofters from the Highlands and the Orkneys. A little later these were joined by some Swiss soldiers
Nor were the evil legacies to last for all time. Three years after peace had been made the statesmen of the United States and of Great Britain had the uncommon sense to take a great step toward banishing war between the neighbor peoples. The Rush-Bagot Convention, limiting the naval armament on the Great Lakes to three vessels not exceeding one hundred tons each, and armed only with one eighteen-pounder, though not always observed in the letter, proved the beginning of a sane relationship which has lasted for a century. Had not this agreement nipped naval rivalry in the bud, fleets and forts might have lined the shores and increased the strain of policy and the likelihood of conflict. The New World was already preparing to sound its message to the Old.
CHAPTER II. THE FIGHT FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT
The history of British North America in the quarter of a century that followed the War of 1812 is in the main the homely tale of pioneer life. Slowly little clearings in the vast forest were widened and won to order and abundance; slowly community was linked to community; and out of the growing intercourse there developed the complex of ways and habits and interests that make up the everyday life of a people.
All the provinces called for settlers, and they did not call in vain. For a time northern New England continued to overflow into the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, the rolling lands south of the St. Lawrence which had been left untouched by riverbound seigneur and habitant. Into Upper Canada, as well, many individual immigrants came from the south, some of the best the Republic had to give, merchants and manufacturers with little capital but much shrewd enterprise, but also some it could best spare, fugitives from justice and keepers of the taverns that adorned every four corners. Yet slowly this inflow slackened. After the war the Canadian authorities sought to avoid republican contagion and moreover the West of the United States itself was calling for men.
But if fewer came in across the border, many more sailed from across the seas. Not again until the twentieth century were the northern provinces to receive so large a share of British emigrants as came across in the twenties and thirties. Swarms were preparing to leave the overcrowded British hives. Corn laws and poor laws and famine, power-driven looms that starved the cottage weaver, peace that threw an army on a crowded and callous labor market, landlords who rack-rented the Connaughtman's last potato or cleared Highland glens of folks to make way for sheep, rulers who persisted in denying the masses any voice in their own government--all these combined to drive men forth in tens of thousands. Australia was still a land of convict settlements and did not attract free men. To most the United States was the land of promise. Yet, thanks to state aid, private philanthropy, landlords' urging and cheap fares on the ships that came to St. John and Quebec for timber, Canada and the provinces by the sea received a notable share. In the quarter of a century following the peace with Napoleon, British North America received more British emigrants than the United States and the Australian colonies together, though many were merely birds of passage.
The country west of the Great Lakes did not share in this flood of settlement, except for one tragic interlude. Lord Selkirk, a Scotchman of large sympathy and vision, convinced that emigration was the cure for the hopeless misery he saw around him, acquired a controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company, and sought to plant colonies in a vast estate granted from its domains. Between 1811 and 1815 he sent out to Hudson Bay, and thence to the Red River, two or three hundred crofters from the Highlands and the Orkneys. A little later these were joined by some Swiss soldiers