BBOCS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
from the Detroit to the Ottawa, born Lake Ontario tall Bte, Marie, Now there irere seventy-five thousand Inhabitants; and under ;i wis.- Militia Act they ' 1;l( ' Imposed yearly military service on themselves; every male Inhabitant had to tarnish his own gun and appear <ui parade or be heavily fined. Thai there wan i volunteer force more or
less trained amount in^ to ahont ten thonaand men
■ militia that under Brock rendered iplendid sen Ice.
Hut armi were ■caret 1 ami supplies had to 1k» brought h>im distances. The men at Qneennton won their victory with guns that were captured two monthe before at Detroit Throughout the war, when our mills had >»«-•- 1 1 burnt by a ruthleai
enemy ih.it made war on women and children and
old men. supplies were brought up the toilsome
COUrae of the St. Lawrence in Durham h<>ats and
bateaMB. The devoted militia of the river CO unties
guarded the frontier, ami only once did they lose
a convoy, part of which they afterwards recovered
by a raid into the em-niv's territory at Wadding- tun. N.V.
in front of Brock was a nation of eight or nine millions, a nation that bejieved they could "take the Canadas without soldiers;" as the ftnited
States Secretary <>f War said — " we have only to send officer! into the Province and the people, dis-
affected towards their own Government, will rally r«»und our standard." Yet they placed, during the
three years «.f the war, 527,000 men in the field and
were defeated in thirty-two engagements The
Oddl were twenty-six t«> on.- BgalnSl OS That was
Brock'i grand bequest t<> this land the spirit to tiL'ht against <>dds that were at first sight positively overwhelming.
Por yean sedition ami disloyalty had been L r ain- ing ground in Upper Canada in 1802, Colonel Talbot classified the Inhabitants of the western part "f 'h«- Province as iii those enticed hither by
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