We have been greatly amused in Canada during the winter of 1845, after Mr. Polk's "all Oregon or none of it," to find in the neighbouring republic a force of brave militia-men or volunteers turn out for a field day with Canada and Oregon painted on their cartouche-boxes.—Mr. Polk did not go quite so far, it is true; but a great mass of the people in the United States prophesy that, if war lasts, all the North American Continent, from the Polar seas to the Isthmus of Darien, will have the tricoloured stripes and the galaxy of stars for its national flag.
This is all-natural enough; no one blames the people of the republic for desiring extended fame and empire; but is it to be extended by the Cæsaric mode, Veni, vidi, vici, or by deluging two-thirds of that continent with the blood of man?
A calm view of antecedent human affairs tells us another tale.
A black population in the south and in the vast Island of Hayti, in Jamaica and in the West Indies; a brave and enterprising mixed race in Cuba; the remorseless Indian of the West, whose tribes are countless and driven to desperation; the multitudinous Irish, equally ready for fighting as for vengeance for their insulted church; the Anglo-Saxon blood on the northern borders, combined with the Norman Catholics of the St. Lawrence; innumerable steam-vessels pouring from every part of Europe and of Asia—are these nothing in the scale? Are the feelings of the wealthy, the intelligent, and the peaceful in the United States not to be taken into account?
Is the total annihilation for a long period of all external commerce nothing? Are blazing cities, beleaguered harbours, internal discontent, servile war, nothing in the scale of aggrandizement? Is the great possibility of the European powers interfering as nothing? Will not Russia, aware now of the value of her North American possessions, look with a jealous eye upon the Bald Eagle's attempt at a too close investigation of her eaglets' nest in the north? Would not France, just beginning to colonize largely, like a share in the spoils?
To avoid all this, is the reason that England clings to Canada, that Canada must not be sold or given away. Canada is in short the important State which holds the balance of power on the North American Continent; and, when her Eagle is strong enough to fly alone, it will not be either from having false wings, or without the previous nursing and tender care of her European mother, who will launch her safely from the pinnacle of glory into the clear sky of powers and principalities.
CHAPTER XI.
Ekfrid and Saxonisms—Greek unde derivaturs— The Grand River—Brantford—Plaster of Paris—Mohawks— Dutch forgetfulness—George the Third, a Republican King—Church of the Indians—The Five Nations—A good Samaritan denies a drop of water—Loafers—Keep your Temper, a story of the Army of Occupation—Tortoise in trouble—Burford.
But to resume the journey. We passed the Ekfrid Hotel. Saxon names creep steadily over Canada, whilst barbarous adaptations of Greek and Latin find favour in the United States. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Cicero and Pompey never dreamed or desired that a white and green wooden village in a wilderness, where patent pails and patent ploughs are the staple, should be dignified thus; but, as the French say, chacun à son goût.