if they would but remain passive, others would revolt for them. The promise was fulfilled; yet, instead of hailing their "liberators," they had attacked them, had defeated them, and had driven them from the face of the land they wished to liberate; and now, although they had rushed to the frontier of their country to repel foreigners, whose avowed object was to force them, against their wills, to become republicans—although they had power to overwhelm them, and were burning to do so-in calm obedience to their laws and to the administration of their Government, they submitted with patience to insults they were competent to punish, and to aggressions they had power to revenge. And did this obedience exist only on the Niagara frontier? and was it merely created by the presence of the administrator of their Government? No! It pervaded the whole province: it was indigenous to British soil. The supremacy of the law was the will of the Canadian people: it was what they were fighting for; it was what they themselves were upholding, not because it was a gaudy transatlantic European theory, but because it was a practical substantial blessing-because it formed the title-deeds of their lands, the guardian of their liberty, the protector of their lives-because it was the suppressor of vice and immorality, and because it implanted, fostered, and encouraged in the minds of their wives and of their little children, gratitude and submission to the Great Author of their exist

ence.

It was under the influence of this feeling, of this general submission to laws human and divine, that a small detachment of the militia had just been enabled to conduct, from the western frontier of the Province to Toronto, the American "Major-General T. S. Sutherland, commanding second division Patriot Army."

This vagabond, for he deserves no other appellation, had had the cruelty, as well as the audacity, to direct a heavy fire of cannon upon the inhabitants (women and children) of Sandwich, from an American vessel, which he had conducted into the harbour of that town, under the pretence of liberating (Anglicè, massacring) the British people. The Canada militia flew to arms. With feelings of indignation which need not be described, they rushed at their assailants; many, regardless of extreme cold, jumped into the water, and then, in clothes frozen like armour, assisted their comrades in carrying the vessel; but, having attained this object, their sense of obedience to their laws admonished them, instead of massacring their prisoner, "to bring him to justice."

That sacred monarchical feeling saved the life of this republican miscreant; it protected him as he passed in irons through the town of Sandwich; it protected him during his march for 190 miles through dense districts of the forest, in which a single rifle bullet from an impervious ambush could have despatched him; and on his arrival at Toronto

it protected him, as he passed through a large assemblage of people to appear before me at Government House.

Now, when, on the British bank of the Niagara, I gazed at, and reflected on, the two pictures before me, it was evident to me that, even divesting the one of the chivalrous and enthusiastic feelings which characterized it, and the other of the base passions which disgraced it, the problem was clearly demonstrated that, under equal excitement, life and property were insecure in the republican country, while under monarchical institutions both were protected. The contrast was so clear, the facts so strong, the evidence so convincing, and the conclusion so inevitable, that I felt convinced that, the longer I could keep open the exhibition of these two pictures, the longer should I afford to the inhabitants of our North American Colonies, as well as to our politicians at home, of all descriptions, an opportunity of forming their own opinions, and of arriving at their own conclusions, on the important question in dispute; in short, that with the case before them, they would act as jurymen and as judges in a cause in which the whole family of mankind were interested.

But besides this, I felt that inasmuch as "honesty is always the best policy," so forbearance (as long as it could be maintained) was the best means I could use to repel the invasion of the American people. I knew that hard shot tend to irritate, rather than convince republicans. On the other hand, the whole civilized world knows, that how

ever thick may be the hide of their consciences, the skin that covers their vanity is ridiculously thin, and I therefore felt, that so soon as they should clearly see that the finger of scorn was pointed at their institutions, so soon as the disgraceful fact of there being nothing but mob-government in the State of New York became demonstrated, the American Congress would feel that, unless they very quickly recovered their artillery from the disreputable service in which it was engaged, American Ministers at every court in Europe would be required at all public dinners to sit below the salt, at all state ceremonies to act as the menials of the other ministers, to remain like impostors at hard labour, and to continue under political quarantine until clean bills of health should be granted to them from the Corps Diplomatique of the civilized world, certifying to their creditors as well as to their allies that the Government of the dis-United Republican States of North America had become something more substantial than the roar of a tyrannical mob; in short, I was fully convinced that the citizens of the State of New York must inevitably, ere long, become arrantly ashamed of themselves, and that, smarting under the ridicule and contempt of every respectable foreigner sojourning in their "land of liberty," they would, in due time, see the necessity of retiring from Her Majesty's territory, and of restoring to their emasculated Government that artillery which had so long been the vile emblem, as well as the criminal advocate of lawless democracy.

For the above reasons, although I had made all necessary preparations for carrying Navy Island by assault, I determined that, in spite of the arguments that were assailing me, I would, so long as it was possible, calmly remain on the defensive.

A new feature, however, now presented itself. Although the American pirates on Navy Island had been fearfully increasing, it had been evident, that whatever might become their numbers, they would have a heavy day's work to perform, whenever they should endeavour, in their small boats-which were all the craft they possessed-to invade the main land of Upper Canada; and upon this physical difficulty we had principally relied. Our invaders, however, were equally aware of the difficulty they would have to encounter, and they accordingly determined to take effectual means for overcoming it.

In broad daylight, in the presence of the United States Marshal, who had been sent from Washington to the frontier, in the presence of other high authorities of the Federal Government, of the State Government, and of a militia regiment quartered in the immediate vicinity, a thousand men were set to work to cut the Caroline steamer from the ice in which she had been firmly imbedded. Seventeen American citizens openly and publicly signed a bond to indemnify her proprietors in case of her loss. The Collector of Customs, acting under the influence of the existing Government, i. e. the mob, unblushingly gave her a licence, under the authority of which, and amidst acclamations of triumph, she

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