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"Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighbouring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."

I prefer rather to speak of what lies nearer home and more affects Canada as I know it.

At the time of the Revolutionary War, many whose loyalty to their Sovereign and to their flag was more potent than attachment to the land of their birth or desire to retain their worldly goods, came to the wilds of the Northland—these United Empire Loyalists whose history is all too little known, martyrs to principle—wrong-headed, if you like, or nobly right, as may be thought —endured suffering and want, cold and hunger, because they could not forswear their allegiance. "Endured," did I say? Nay, all their own physical suffering was little in comparison with the torture of soul with which they were forced to witness the tenderly nurtured wife, born to be the happy mistress of a wealthy home, and the babe which had been cradled in silk, subjected to hardships which would have tried a veteran—a stoic. Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of their principles—and that, I am free to admit, may in this land be a matter of opinion, in mine there is but one—their conduct in sacrificing all to principle is deserving of nothing but admiring approbation. Two champions there are to whose ward I leave the fair fame of these heroes when but their tale is fairly told—one, the Union soldier, who gave up all and took his life in his hand that the flag he loved might continue to float

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