Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
History
Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 1
Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
Canada -- Description and travel; Ontario -- Description and travel
We forget that each individual State of the present Union repudiates
centralization, and acts independently. Little Maine wanted to go to
war with mighty England on its own bottom; and there was a rebellion in
Lesser Rhode Island, which puzzled all the diplomatists very
considerably. Now let us sketch a military picture, and bring out the
lights and shades boldly.
Suppose that the United States determines upon a war with Great Britain,
let us look to the consequences. Firstly, an immense re-action has taken
place in Canada, and a mass of growlers, who two years ago would perhaps
have been neutral, would readily take arms now in favour of British
institutions, simply because "impartiality" has been evinced in
governing them.
Next, the French Canadians have no idea of surrendering their homes,
their laws, their language, their altars, to the restless and
destructive people whose motto is "Liberty!" but whose mind is
"Submission," without reservation of creed or colour.
Then, on the boundless West, innumerable Indians, disgusted by the
unceremonious manner in which the Big Knife has driven them out, are
ready, at the call of another Tecumseh, to hoist the red-cross flag.
In the South, the negro, already taught very carefully by the North a
lesson of emancipation, only waits the hour to commence a servile and
horrible war, worse than that exercised by the poor Cherokees and Creeks
in Florida, which, miserable as were the numbers, scanty the resources,
and indomitable the courage, defied the united means and skill of the
American armies to quell.
A person who ponders on these matters deplores the infatuation of the
mob, or of the western backwoodsmen, who advocate war to the knife with
England; for, should it unhappily occur and continue, war to the knife
it must be.
American orators have asserted that England, base as she is, dare not,
in this enlightened age, let loose the blacks. I fear that, self-defence
being the first law of Nature, rather than lose Canada, and rather than
not gain it, both England and the United States will have recourse to
every expedient likely to bring the matter to an issue, and will abide
by that Machiavelian axiom--the end sanctifies the means.
An abominable outcry was raised during the last war against the
employment of the savage Indians with our armies; but the loudest in
this vituperation forgot that the Americans did the same, as far as
their scanty control over the Red Man permitted, and that, where it
failed, the barbarous backwoodsman completed the tragedy.
Making razor-strops of Tecumsehs' skin was not a very Christian
employment, in retaliation for a scalp found wrapped up in paper in the
writing-desk of a clerk, when the public offices were sacked at Little
York. The poor man most likely thought it a very great curiosity; and I
dare say there are some in the British Museum, as well as preserved
heads of the South Sea islanders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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