BROCK CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
not merely as a victory that encouraged Canadians to fight for their homes but as a far-reaching world-event.
Tin- year of Queenston, let us remember, was the year of Salamanca and of Moscow the moil glori* oni year in Britiab military anna la Bnl what has Salamanca to do ^v i 1 1 1 Canada? Britain was fight- log alone, aol merely for the freedom of Britons bnl for the freedom of Europe. Since Hiss she had been for more than one-half <»f the one hundred and twenty-four yean actively In armi against Prance. since iT'.i.". then had been peace and only nom* Inal peace <i</<ii>ist Prance for only the two yean following the Treaty of Amiens | ism i. The gen- eration approaching maturity in L812 bad been born and had grown ap u In wan and rnmonn of wars." In this Btruggle against Prance and later against Napoleon, tin- Motherland had Increased the National Debt by £500,000,000, or aearly twenty-five bundred millions of dollars; she had spent every cent she could gather and taxed her posterity t" this extent That is what Britain had done for her children and for the world at large!
But ever since Jefferson had purchased (1803) Louisiana from Napoleon the United States had found she was less dependent <m Britain. Accord' Ingly, Jefferson grew mon and more unfriendly. Ami now in L812, the world campaign of Napoleon
had spread 1«» America, lie had hoped for this, but
on different lines, lie had planned for it. but those plans had (ailed.
•■ The War of 1*1-1 \." as we call it. was merely
a phase, a section, of the greatest Btruggle In the history of mankind— the struggle of Britain against the aggrandisement and cheap ambition of Napoleon to become the Dictator of Europe and the civilised world. Brock, though Invited to take ■ shan- in the long drawn out contest In Spain, decided fortunately for os to remain In Canada Tie- year L812 was the climai of the war with
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