Toward the close of a hazy October day, in the year 1813, two small armies might have been seen, and according to history were seen, moving along the banks of the river Thames. Not the Thames which, after winding among the pleasure-grounds of the English gentry and through the great city of London, under ever so many bridges, emptied its waters into the German Ocean; but the Thames which, after winding among the forest-slopes of Canada West and through or by no cities at all, nor under any bridges whatever, discharged its waters into Lake St. Clair. So, along the Canadian Thames, at the time just named, two small armies were to be seen, each measuring ground with uncommon expedition; the foremost hurriedly, being in loose retreat; the hindmost rapidly, being in tight pursuit. Over the van of the retreating army ungallantly dangled the crimson, lion-emblazoned banner of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; over the van of the pursuing army gallantly waved the tri-colored, star-emblazoned, eagle-capped flag of the United States of America. The Second War between Great Britain and the United States had now been going on for many a tedious month; sometimes languidly, sometimes spasmodically, never energetically. Like a slow, dull fever, it had wasted and enfeebled the two countries without redounding more to the profit of the one than to the glory of the other; and the glory being too scant to be divided between them, they wisely left the crimson fog to the humor of the winds. How the winds disposed of it, the world has never heard. And the great Indian sachem had become the ally of the little English king. And why? Because the little English king and his rich people had promised the great Indian sachem and his poor people to restore to them their hereditary lands if they would take up the hatchet and help their great father--the little English king--to wrest the lands in question from the Americans, the children who had behaved so unbecomingly to the great father thirty-seven years before. The hereditary lands in question were in fact but the disputed territory, the principal cause of the contests between the two white powers, hence not so much to be viewed as a lost inheritance to be restored to the rightful owners as a prize to be secured by the rival claimants. John Bull said, "It is mine, because I took it from the French;" Brother Jonathan said, "It is mine, because I took it from the English;" while neither party gave any heed to the poor Indian, who never ceased saying, "It is mine, because my fathers gave it to me, and the Great Spirit gave it to my fathers."