Jump to content

Page:Canada.pdf/19

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.

Of the troublous times, a quarter of a century thereafter, in 1837 and 1838, I have already said a word, and shall not enlarge.

Then we had peace for thirty years. In 1866 a horde of outlaws invaded our shores. Our freemen flew to arms—farmer, clerk, tradesman and student vied with each other as to who should be the most alert. An English officer tells with wonder and admiration of mere boys of the University company breaking out in indignant tears when ordered to leave the ranks on account of their extreme youth. The University of Toronto has on her campus and in her halls, memorials of her dead—who went to meet death, and met it, for Canada.

But "Exegerunt monumentum aere perennius," and so long as Canadian heart continues to beat, so long as Canadian soul shall live, so long will the memory of these slaughtered undergraduate lads be kept green.

The fiasco of 1870-1871 found gallant Quebec as ready to meet the invader as her sister province had been a few years before. Quebec had not, thank God, to mourn sons slain in her defence—but the sons were ready even for that sacrifice.

Two years before, the half insane Riel raised the standard of revolt at Winnipeg—and Canadian troops again proved their mettle, in traversing forest and swamp in wet and cold and all the privations men can suffer. They did not need to fight, but Wolseley's expedition in 1869-70 bears testimony to the endurance and valour of our people.

And in that last and worst struggle in our North-West, not twenty-five years ago, when Indian and

17