BURNING THE DON BRIDGE.
(From a sketch by Isaac Bellamy.)
precautionary measure in order to impede the progress of the victorious Americans, should they choose to follow in pursuit.
To those who did military service in this war 200 acres of the public lands were due. Roger Conant did not receive his 200 acres, although most justly entitled to them. To know the cause why he did not receive his land grant it will be necessary to go back a little. After the conquest of Canada and the Treaty of Paris (in 1763) which followed, some British officers were given appointments and places in Canada—no doubt to provide for them. When Upper Canada was made a separate province in 1791, more of these officials were given places. These persons seemed to have nothing in common with the people. On the contrary they seemed to seek to rule and get good livings out of them, and essayed to keep their places, becoming in time the Family Compact. It was their acts and those of their successors that caused the outbreak in 1837 which led to the Canadian Revolution. To these pampered office-holders it did not appear that the U. E. Loyalists, who had made most magnificent sacrifices for our country, were worthy of even civil treatment. So to Roger Conant they never gave the military land grant, and this treatment was meted out to most of the U. E. Loyalists who so faithfully served through that most unfortunate and deplorable war.
Peace! peace! Peace tardily came at last in 1814, the Treaty of Ghent having been signed on the 24th day of that year. The author realizes that, to-day, Canadians in their well-appointed and refined homes fail to enter into the feelings of our forefathers whose hearts leaped for joy as they thanked the great God for that inestimable blessing of peace. Fond mothers told it to the infants at the breast as they bounced them aloft and reiterated again and again, “Peace, darling, peace!” The gray-haired sire, whose days were numbered, dropped unchecked, unbidden tears of joy, silently and without a voice, as he too thanked his Maker again and again for that peace between neighbors and kindred that never should have been broken. No more would the neighborless settler fear peril as the darkening shadows of evening came about his log cabin in the great forest, or dread that before the light of another dawn armed foemen might come and take him prisoner, and drive his wife and little ones into an inclement winter night by the application of the torch. Strong men grasped each others’ hands, and shook, and bawled themselves hoarse in simple exuberance of spirits, and in the intensest feeling of thankfulness that peace had come to them once again. Nor was this outburst of feeling mere exultation over the Americans. All felt that we had honorably acquitted ourselves in a military point of view, but the Americans at the same time had fought with valor, and we really had not much to taunt them with.
It would perhaps be superfluous to record many of the particular charges which our people laid at the door of the Americans during the war. It is in evidence equally that the Americans laid quite as many sins to our people for their acts, while making forays on United States soil. So far as one may judge there is not any preponderating weight of evidence for either side. It is true we do accuse the Americans of burning the public buildings in York after the taking of the place, when the fort blew up on April 27th, 1813. The author is inclined to think that the Americans should not have applied the torch. On the other hand, we blew up the fort and utterly destroyed many hundreds of Americans in an instant, including their general.
The testimony of the great General Sherman, who, in 1865, marched with an army of 70,000 men through Georgia, Alabama, the Carolinas and Virginia, destroying everything in a belt fifty miles wide, and than whom no one was better qualified to judge, was this: “War is hell.” It would have been futile for our people to expect humane war. There are no recriminations to make. In closing the records of the War of 1812 let us realize with our forefathers that peace, blessed peace, came to them and has ever since been with us. God be thanked.