The loyalists of America and their times

by Egerton Ryerson

"I have said that loyalty, like Christianity itself, is an attachment to principles and duties emanating from them, irrespective of rulers or teachers; but if the qualities of our chief rulers were necessary to give intensity to Canadian loyalty, those qualities we have in the highest degree in our Sovereign and in her representative in Canada; for never was a British Sovereign more worthy of our highest respect and warmest affection than our glorious Queen Victoria—(loud cheers)—and never was a British Sovereign more nobly represented in Canada than by the patriotic, the learned, and the eloquent Lord Dufferin. (Loud cheers.) And at no period were we more free or prosperous than now. The feelings of his (the speaker's) heart went far beyond anything that his tongue could express, and the language of his heart that day was, might loyalty ever be the characteristic trait of the people of Canada, might freedom ever be our possession, and might we ever have cause and heart to say 'God save the Queen!'" (Loud cheering.)

Note by the Author.—The Administration of President Madison, and his Declaration of War against Great Britain, are dark spots in the brilliant history of the United States of America, and the American narratives of the war are rather fiction than history—compiled largely from letters of officers and soldiers, who, in writing to their friends, sought to magnify their own heroism, even when suffering disgraceful defeats, and sometimes claiming victory when they were driven from the field. The usual tales on these occasions were that the Canadian forces were vastly superior in numbers and equipments, when it was known that the American armies were ten to one in numbers to those of Canada, and their invading forces were declared, by themselves, to be irresistible in strength and equipments.

The American account of the battle of Lundy's Lane is an example, and is repeated with exaggerations in the latest and most popular history of the war, namely, Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812, page 1084. Lossing says:

"The number of troops engaged in the battle of Niagara Falls was little over 7,000, the British having about 4,500, and the Americans a little less than 2,600." (p. 824.)

The very reverse of this was the fact, as quoted in the foregoing extract from the official report of General Drummond. When the American invading army consisted of 10,000 men, it is absurd to suppose that all but 2,600 would remain on the American side of the river, and the American historian states that every available soldier on the British side of the river was engaged in the battle.

Lossing likewise claims the battle for the Americans "because they drove the enemy from the field and captured his cannon" (p. 824). It is not true that the British were driven from the field at all; they were once pushed back for a few minutes, and their cannon were for a few moments in the hands of the Americans, who, however, were forthwith driven back, the cannon retaken, with two pieces left by the Americans. And how could there possibly be any American victory, when Lossing himself admits that the American army retired from the field during the night to Chippewa (p. 823), with the intention of returning next morning to bring off the cannon and other booty. Is it the characteristic of a victorious army to leave the conquered field and retire two miles from it? Lossing also admits that the Americans did not return to the battle-field next morning, but burnt the bridge which separated the British army from them, and retreated up the Niagara river. Is this the conduct of a conquering army, to flee from the enemy whom he pretends to have conquered? Mr. Lossing's admissions of details contradict the pretence of American victory at Lundy's Lane, and prove American defeat.

It is by such fictions of victories where there were defeats, interspersed with fictitious incidents of individual heroism, that American vanity is fed, and American children taught in the schools what is purely apocryphal for history in regard to Great Britain and Canada.

But it is gratifying to observe a greatly improved feeling in the educated American mind towards Great Britain, and even the causes of the American Revolution, which were magnified in the American Declaration of Independence, and which have been exaggerated in every possible way in American histories and Fourth of July orations, are very much modified in the productions of well-instructed and candid American writers and public speakers. We observe on a late occasion in England, at the Wesleyan Conference, Bishop Simpson, the Massillon of American pulpit orators, said, "The triumph of America was England's triumph. Their object was the same, and they were engaged in the same work. There were more Englishmen who would go to America, than Americans who would come to England (laughter), and while they in England had the wealth, the power, and the elements of usefulness, they were bound to use it in the interests of religion."

On the same occasion, the Rev. Dr. Curry, editor of the New York Christian Advocate, the most widely circulated religious paper in America, uttered the following noble sentiments:

"He was proud," he said, "of England (as the Fatherland of his), and, as he had now gone up and down through that island, and had witnessed its signs of substantial wealth, and of social order, he felt that both the public institutions of the Government and the private virtues of the people were of the most valuable. He did not wonder that Englishmen were warmly attached to their own country, and he would say that were he not an American he should wish to be an Englishman. He rejoiced, too, that there now exists the most cordial good feeling between the two countries, and trusted that this would never be interrupted. They had very many interests in common, and should stand together in support of them."