One year was called the Year of Famine in the Lake region, for in that year the crops had failed, and many families had to live on roots and beech-nuts. A sack of flour then, it was said, would have purchased an entire farm. In that year some of the old and feeble perished, but none of the living lost courage, none would have exchanged their new lot {260} with its prospects for even luxury under the flag of the Republic across the border. No one will know, because none has told, all that these brave pioneers underwent for their devotion and fidelity. You will see to-day on the outskirts of the older settlements little mounds, moss-covered tombstones which record the last resting-places of the forefathers of the hamlet. They do not tell you of the brave hearts laid low by hunger and exposure, of the girlish forms wasted away, of the babes and little children who perished for want of proper food and raiment. They have nothing to tell of the courageous, high-minded mothers, wives, and daughters who bore themselves as bravely as men, complaining never, toiling with the men in the fields, banishing all regrets for the life they might have led had they sacrificed their loyalty. No distinction that the Congress could give them equalled to their minds the distinction which their King accorded them of affixing to their names the letters U.E.L. To-day the Canadians who can trace their descent from the U.E.L. dwell upon it as proudly as if there flowed in their veins the blood of the Howards, Vernons, and Montmorencys. No great monument has been raised to their memory; none is needed; it is enshrined for ever in the hearts of every true Canadian, and of every one who admires fidelity to principle, devotion, and self-sacrifice. {261} CHAPTER XVII HOW CANADA'S ENEMY WAS FOILED Slowly under the labour of the Loyalists and their children did the forests of Canada give way to civilisation. Smiling fields, trim homesteads, and flourishing gardens replaced the rude and solitary wigwams of the red-men of Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces to the east. English, Scotch, and Irish emigrants found their way in shiploads to Prince Edward Island, which you may remember as the Isle St. Jean of the French. Lord Selkirk, the founder of the Red River Settlement, of which we shall soon hear, brought whole colonies of thrifty Scotch families; the name of the island was changed and that of the father of the future Queen Victoria bestowed upon it. For Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, was now commander of the British forces in Quebec.