The answer to this kind of talk was supplied by the Canadians at the battle of Chrysler's Farm. It happened in this wise. While the American general descended the St. Lawrence by water, some 3000 of his troops marched abreast by land on the way to Montreal. In their rear a force of 800 {274} Canadians from Kingston followed them day and night, attacking whenever they had the chance. At last the invaders received their General's command to set upon these Canadian skirmishers and "brush away the annoyance." On a November afternoon a little force under Colonel Morrison drew up at a spot called Chrysler's Farm to receive the foe, three or four times outnumbering them. They fought fiercely, and when the struggle was over the Americans had received signal defeat; their general had fallen mortally wounded, they had lost several hundred men, and the British took more than a hundred prisoners. Thus, completely routed, Wilkinson's sole hope lay in joining Hampton at Lachine. But, alas, the news of the defeat at Chateauguay caused him to change his plans; the attack on Montreal was given up, and the army of the invaders retired for the winter. One of the most hotly-fought contests of this war occurred in the following year at Lundy's Lane. Here 3000 British faced 4600 Americans, and this again was a British victory of which Canada has reason to be proud. In the following year the war was over, and an American statesman, Quincey, could say in Congress: "Since the invasion of the Buccaneers, there is nothing in history more disgraceful than this war." As far as Canada was concerned the enemy had gained nothing. They had been repeatedly defeated by people fighting against many odds, whose territory they had wantonly invaded. To retaliate for their destruction of York, the capital of Upper Canada, {275} the American capitol and other public buildings at Washington had been burned, 3000 of their ships had been captured by Britain, and two-thirds of their merchants were bankrupt at the close of the war. But Canada, baptized by fire, came out of the ordeal with a new spirit, a new self-reliance and pride in her achievements and destiny. While the forces of America and Canada were eyeing each other angrily across the border, in the far west a new colony which would some day form a great and vigorous portion of the Dominion was born. You may remember that all these lands between the Red River in the north and Hudson's Bay were claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company. But it seemed to many an unfair thing that this large and fertile district should be given up as haunts for the fox and the beaver, the moose and the buffalo.