Volume 2 / Part 2 — CHAPTER LX.

Close of the War and of the History of the U.E. Loyalists—Defeat and Disgrace of the Democratic Invaders of Canada—Honour and Success of its Defenders—Comparative State of the United States and Canada at the Close of the War—Mutual Respect and Friendship between Americans and Canadians—Concluding Remarks.

Thus closed the war of the United States against Great Britain, in 1812-15—a war undertaken at the prompting of the scourge of Europe, Napoleon, but upon pretexts which were never so much as mentioned, much less reiterated, by the United States Commissioners when peace was proposed between Great Britain and America in 1815—a war in which the democratic rulers of the United States suffered both defeat and disgrace, while the loyal inhabitants of Canada maintained inviolate their honour and independence.

With the close of that war terminates the history of the United Empire Loyalists of Canada as a distinct and controlling class of the inhabitants; for their numbers had become so reduced by the ravages of time and war, and other classes of immigrants had become so numerous, between whom and the families of old Loyalists so many intermarriages had taken and were taking place, that the latter became merged in the mass of the population; and therefore my history of them as a distinct class comes to an end. All classes were Loyalists, and all had fought as one man in defence of their country during the recent war, although all had not fought for the life of the nation and the unity of the empire from 1776 to 1783, or been driven from their homes to Canada, to become the fathers of the inhabitants and founders of the institutions of our country. It would be out of place, and at variance with the title of my book, did I proceed to narrate and discuss the history of Upper Canada after the close of the war; but I may properly conclude my work by referring to a few facts leading to and arising out of the war, and the state of our country at its close.

The democratic party in the United States, which had confiscated the property of our forefathers, and exiled them from their homes, and compelled them to seek a home in the wilderness of Canada, had followed them with their enmities into their new place of refuge, and, by their emissaries, in conjunction with those of the French revolutionists, sought to insinuate a disturbing element into Canadian peace and safety from the commencement of the bloody French revolution to 1812, when it culminated, under the promptings of Napoleon and his obsequious tools, in the war of 1812-15, with a view to wrest Canada from Great Britain, and to divide the commerce of Europe between France and the United States. But how vain are the devices of men against the laws of God and of human society! The Gideon hundreds of loyal Canadians repelled and scattered, for more than two years, the Midian and Amalekite thousands of democratic invaders, until Great Britain, having chained the marauding tiger of Europe to the rock of St. Helena, despatched her thousands of soldiers to the aid of Canada, and sent her fleets across the Atlantic—sweeping the American coasts from Maine to Georgia—taking and burning their capital in retaliation for the American raid upon the capital of Upper Canada, and soon compelling the heretofore boasting Madison partizans to seek for peace without even the mention of their alleged causes of war with England. If the American armies were defeated and driven back in their repeated invasions of Canada, their commerce and commercial men suffered not less before the end of the war. Their annual exports declined, between 1811 and 1814, from £22,000,000 sterling to £1,500,000; their vessels to the number of 3,000 were captured; two-thirds of their commercial class were reduced to bankruptcy; an immense war tax was incurred; many thousands of lives had been sacrificed, and the Union itself imperilled by the threatened secession of the New England States.

On the other hand, Canada had felt deeply the calamities of war, it being the seat of the conflict, a large portion of its revenue and inhabitants having been diverted from their ordinary employments—having themselves chiefly to depend upon for their defence, while England was engaged in a twenty years' conflict for law and liberty in Europe. In the extremity of this contest, the democratic President of the United States combined with the tyrant despot of Europe to seduce and sever the Canadians from their British connection; but the Canadians nobly maintained their fidelity and triumphantly vindicated their honour and independence, though, in doing so, they suffered the desolation of many of their homes, shed many bitter tears for sires, and sons, and brothers, who had poured out their life's blood in defence of their country on the battle fields of both Upper and Lower Canada. Yet, upon the whole, the war did much good to Canada, apart from the success of its arms; it tended to cement the people together as one family; English, French, Scotch, Irish, and Americans had forgotten former distinctions and jealousies, and had all become Canadians, with increased devotion not only to the land of their nativity or adoption, but to the glorious mother country which had become the victorious champion of the liberties of Europe, and leader in the civilization of mankind.

Though, in the course of the war, Canada—especially Upper Canada, which had to bear the brunt of it—was greatly exhausted, emigration being checked, agriculture partially neglected, by the embodiments of militia and frequent mobilization of sedentary corps,—requiring some time after the war for the inhabitants to return to their old habits and resume their peaceful pursuits; yet Canada flourished financially during the war. Owing to England's supremacy on the ocean, Canadian trade and commerce were not seriously affected; taxes were light; not a few fortunes were made; money was plentiful, as the mother country paid most of the expenses of the war.

It is worthy of remark, as one of the notable features of the war, that no class of Canadians were more loyal, none more brave and devoted to the defence of the Government and institutions of the country, than were the Americans who had become settlers in Canada—not the United Empire Loyalists alone, but those who had from time to time emigrated from the United States of their own accord, and not on account of political persecution, as was the case with the old Loyalists.

The unfriendly feelings and even enmities which had been excited by the war between Canadians and Americans, soon changed into mutual respect and friendship; trade and commerce between the two countries were renewed and increased; intermarriages multiplied, with all the amenities and intimacies of social life. Though there has always been a democratic mob faction—latterly mostly Fenian—in the United States, which has seized every opportunity to invade and disturb the peace of Canada, yet it is well understood that this freebooting faction does not represent the sentiments or feelings of the industrious, business, commercial, intelligent, and Christian people of the United States, who, with few exceptions, are, as most of them were when Madison declared war against England in June, 1812, lovers of peace, law, and order, and friends of England and Canada, as well as of mankind; and we believe there are no more ardent well-wishers on the continent of America for the happiness and prosperity of the citizens of the American Republic than the loyal and patriotic inhabitants of Canada.

I may perhaps be expected to add a few words on the chief public occurrences which took place in Upper Canada after the war, but without discussing any of the questions which they involved.

From 1791 to the close of the war in 1815, and for some years afterwards, the Executive Government of the day commanded the votes of a majority of the House of Assembly. Public questions and measures were freely discussed; but no organized opposition appeared in the Assembly against the Administration. Shortly after the close of the war, however, the elements of discord began to be developed in the country. Many discharged officers of the British army, at the termination of the long European war, came to Canada with instructions from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (himself an English officer), to provide for them; and they were appointed to all offices of emolument (with few exceptions), to the exclusion of the old Loyalists and their descendants and other inhabitants who had felled the wilderness, and made the country valuable, and had borne the burden and heat of the war in its defence. The administration of the Crown or Public Lands was sadly defective and partial, giving whole blocks to friends and speculators, while the applications of the legitimate settler were often rejected. It also began to be complained of that these large blocks of land given to individuals, and the one-seventh of the lands set apart as Clergy Reserves, greatly impeded the settlement and improvement of the country; that those who had occupied the Clergy Reserves on leases were required to pay higher rents on the renewal of their leases, or the purchase of the Reserves, on account of their increased value created by the labour of the tenants and their neighbours. A special Board of Management was appointed for these Reserves in the interest of the clerical claimants of them. The representatives of the Church of Scotland claimed to share in the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves, and a co-ordinate standing with the Church of England, as the endowed Church establishment of Upper Canada. The other religious persuasions had not the privilege of having matrimony solemnized by their own ministers, or the right of holding a bit of ground on which to worship God, or in which to bury their dead. It soon began to be claimed by the leaders of the Church of England that their Church had the sole right to the Clergy Reserves and to all the prerogatives of the Established Church, whose supremacy and endowments, it was now pretended, were essential to the loyalty of the people; notwithstanding, no people could have been more loyal than the Canadian people during the then recent war in defence of British supremacy, and who were as brave as they were loyal, though there were not then three settled Episcopal clergymen in all Upper Canada.

These, with various co-ordinate and minor causes, lost to the Lieutenant-Governor and his Executive Council the control and confidence of the representatives of the people, and in less than ten years after the war, the Governor and Council fell into a hopeless minority in the House of Assembly, but in opposition to it actually governed the country for fifteen years, until the dissatisfaction of the people became so general and strong that Commissions of Inquiry were sent out from England, which resulted in placing all religious persuasions on an equal footing before the law, in applying the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves to the general purposes of the education and improvement of the country, in making the heads of public departments (who were to be Executive Councillors) responsible to the House of Assembly, and holding their offices no longer than they enjoyed its confidence. From that time forward the Government became strong, the people contented, and the country prosperous and rapidly increasing in wealth, education, and intelligence—rendering, at this day, the inhabitants of the vast Dominion of Canada the lightest-taxed and the freest people on the American continent.