SECTION 2.—­Canada during the war.

In 1812 there were five hundred thousand people living in the provinces of British North America.  Of this number, the French people of Lower Canada made up at least one half.  These people had some grievances, and political agitators, notably the writers of the Canadien, were creating jealousies and rivalries between the French and English races chiefly on the ground of the dominant influence of the British minority in the administration of public affairs.  On the whole, however, the country was prosperous and the people generally contented with British rule, the freedom of which presented such striking contrast to the absolutism of the old French regime.  The great majority of the eighty thousand inhabitants of Upper or Western Canada were Loyalists or descendants of Loyalists, who had become deeply attached to their new homes, whilst recalling with feelings of deep bitterness the sufferings and trials of the American revolution.  This class was naturally attached to British rule and hostile to every innovation which had the least semblance of American republicanism.  In the western part of the province of Upper Canada there was, however, an American element composed of people who had been brought into the country by the liberal grants of land made to settlers, and who were not animated by the high sentiments of the Loyalists of 1783 and succeeding years.  These people, for some years previous to 1812, were misled by political demagogues like Wilcox and Marcle, both of whom deserted to the enemy soon after the outbreak of the war.  Emissaries from the republic were busily engaged for months, we now know, in fomenting a feeling against England among these later immigrants, and in persuading them that the time was close at hand when Canada would be annexed to the federal republic.  Some attempts were even made to create discontent among the French Canadians, but no success appears to have followed these efforts in a country where the bishop, priests and leading men of the rural communities perfectly appreciated the value of British connection.

The statesmen of the United States, who were responsible for the war, looked on the provinces as so many weak communities which could be easily invaded and conquered by the republican armies.  Upper Canada, with its long and exposed frontier and its small and scattered population, was considered utterly indefensible and almost certain to be successfully occupied by the invading forces.  There was not a town of one thousand souls in the whole of that province, and the only forts of any pretension were those on the Niagara frontier.  Kingston was a fortified town of some importance in the eastern part of the province, but Toronto had no adequate means of defence.  At the commencement of the war there were only fourteen hundred and fifty regular troops in the whole country west of Montreal, and these men were scattered at Kingston, York, Niagara, Chippewa, Erie, Amherstburg, and St.