It was not a promising outlook to an American military eye—­the cart before the horse, the thick end of the wedge turned towards the enemy, three incompetent men giving disconnected orders on the northern frontier, and the western posts neglected.  But Eustis was full of self-confidence.  Hull was ‘enthusing’ his militiamen.  And Dearborn was for the moment surpassing both, by proposing to ’operate, with effect, at the same moment, against Niagara, Kingston, and Montreal.’

From the Canadian side the outlook was also dark enough to the trained eye; though not for the same reasons.  The menace here was from an enemy whose general resources exceeded those in Canada by almost twenty to one.  The silver lining to the cloud was the ubiquitous British Navy and the superior training and discipline of the various little military forces immediately available for defence.

The Maritime Provinces formed a subordinate command, based on the strong naval station of Halifax, where a regular garrison was always maintained by the Imperial government.  They were never invaded, or even seriously threatened.  It was only in 1814 that they came directly into the scene of action, and then only as the base from which the invasion of Maine was carried out.

We must therefore turn to Quebec as the real centre of Canadian defence, which, indeed, it was best fitted to be, not only from its strategical situation, but from the fact that it was the seat of the governor-general and commander-in-chief, Sir George Prevost.  Like Sir John Sherbrooke, the governor of Nova Scotia, Prevost was a professional soldier with an unblemished record in the Army.  But, though naturally anxious to do well, and though very suavely diplomatic, he was not the man, as we shall often see, either to face a military crisis or to stop the Americans from stealing marches on him by negotiation.  On the outbreak of war he was at headquarters in Quebec, dividing his time between his civil and military duties, greatly concerned with international diplomacy, and always full of caution.

At York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada a very different man was meanwhile preparing to checkmate Hull’s ‘north-western army’ of Americans, which was threatening to invade the province.  Isaac Brock was not only a soldier born and bred, but, alone among the leaders on either side, he had the priceless gift of genius.  He was now forty-two, having been born in Guernsey on October 6, 1769, in the same year as Napoleon and Wellington.  Like the Wolfes and the Montcalms, the Brocks had followed the noble profession of arms for many generations.  Nor were the De Lisles, his mother’s family, less distinguished for the number of soldiers and sailors they had been giving to England ever since the Norman Conquest.  Brock himself, when only twenty-nine, had commanded the 49th Foot in Holland under Sir John Moore, the future hero of Corunna, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was so soon to fall victorious in Egypt.  Two years after this he had stood beside another and still greater man at Copenhagen, ‘mighty Nelson,’ who there gave a striking instance of how a subordinate inspired by genius can win the day by disregarding the over-caution of a commonplace superior.  We may be sure that when Nelson turned his blind eye on Parker’s signal of recall the lesson was not thrown away on Brock.