Perhaps then the British Constitution will have bridged the oceans and the "Seven Seas"; perhaps then Canada will be more British than Britain itself--the very core, the centre, the heart of the Empire in territory and population, in wealth and in influence, in spirit and in vital activities. Then Queenston Heights may be regarded not merely as a victory that encouraged Canadians to fight for their homes but as a far-reaching world-event. The year of Queenston, let us remember, was the year of Salamanca and of Moscow--the most glorious year in British military annals. But what has Salamanca to do with Canada? Britain was fighting alone, not merely for the freedom of Britons but for the freedom of Europe. Since 1688 she had been for more than one-half of the one hundred and twenty-four years actively in arms against France. Since 1793 there had been peace--and only nominal peace--_against_ France for only the two years following the Treaty of Amiens (1801). The generation approaching maturity in 1812 had been born and had grown up "in wars and rumours of wars." In this struggle against France and later against Napoleon, the Motherland had increased the National Debt by L500,000,000, or nearly twenty-five hundred millions of dollars; she had spent every cent she could gather and taxed her posterity to 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 on Britain. Accordingly, Jefferson grew more and more unfriendly. And now in 1812, the world campaign of Napoleon had spread to America. He had hoped for this, but on different lines. He had planned for it, but those plans had failed. "The War of 1812-14," as we call it, was merely a phase, a section, of the greatest struggle 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 civilized world. Brock, though invited to take a share in the long drawn out contest in Spain, decided--fortunately for us--to remain in Canada.