NOTE 6, [page 18].

We'll have it though, and more, if Boerstler.

It has generally been stated that Mr. Secord heard of the intended surprise of Fitzgibbon by accident. The facts of the case are, however, related in the poem, Mrs. Smith, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Secord, who yet survives, being the authority.

Mrs. Smith states that with the insolence of the victorious invader, Dearborn's men came and went, ordered, or possessed themselves of, whatever they chose, and took every form of familiarity in the homes of the residents within their lines, and that it was fast becoming an anxious question with the farmers and others, what they should do for supplies if Dearborn were not ousted within the season.

NOTE 7, [page 19].

—and fell a-talking, loud,
As in defiance, of some private plan
To make the British wince.

The ill-feeling of the Americans towards British subjects can scarcely be too strongly represented for the facts. A bitter antagonism was naturally the feeling of each side so lately in the deadly struggle of a civil war. To gloss over this state of things, deplorable as it was, and as its results have often been, is to belie history, and to no good or useful end. Had the contention been akin to a mere friendly tug-of-war, as some would have it represented now, lest a growing friendliness should be endangered, it would be necessary for the historian to re-write all that has been written, for otherwise the arguments of contention would have no meaning, no raison d'être; in fact, they could never have been formulated, for the premisses would have been wanting. "He is the best cosmopolite, who for his country lives." says some one, and it is to this truth that the peace of the world, which we all wish to see established, will be owing, not to any false representations in place of facts.

NOTE 8, [page 25].

That hate to England, not our country's name
And weal, impelled mad Madison upon this war,
And shut the mouths of thousand higher men than be.

"The Democratic Party," says Col. Coffin (see "Chronicle of the War," pp. 30-1-3), "eager to humble Britain, accepted any humiliation rather than quarrel with France. They submitted to the capture of ships, the sequestration of cargoes, the ransom of merchandise, with a faint remonstrance. French war ships seized American merchantmen at sea—plundered and burnt them. They consoled themselves with the belief that the anticipated triumph of the French Emperor in Europe would ensure their supremacy on this continent. They were prepared to divide the world between them...." In the words of the historian Alison, "the ostensible object of the war was to establish the principle that the flag covers the merchandise, [!-- Begin Page 179 --] and that the right of search for seamen who have deserted is inadmissible; the real object was to wrest from Great Britain the Canadas, and, in conjunction with Napoleon, extinguish its maritime and colonial empire. Politicians, too, of this early American school had a notion that French connection and the conquest of Canada were synonymous terms. This was a great mistake ... but ... it had an unexpected good effect, for the very suggestion of a French policy, or the exercise of French influence, tested the British feeling still latent in the hearts of thousands of Americans. In the New England States a war with England was denounced.... Citizens of these States expressed an abhorrence of France, and of its rule, and protested against the contemplated introduction of French troops on this continent, which, under the pretext of subduing or seducing the French-Canadians, might prove to be subversive of their own liberties.