Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
History
Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2
Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir
Canada -- Description and travel; Ontario -- Description and travel
Who among the statesmen ever dreams that the Red Man has any rights,
who ever cares about his property in the wilds of the Prairies, of the
Rocky Mountains, of the unknown lands of the Pacific! The United
States declares that all Northern America is hers from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, and the bloody flag of war is unfurled to obtain the
commencement of this crusade against right and against reason,
although the United States has ten times as much land already as ten
times its present population can fill or cultivate, and then, Oregon
is the war cry,
"Truly to speak it, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name;
To pay five _dollars_, five, I would not farm it;
Two thousand souls and twenty _million dollars_
Will not debate the question of this straw;
This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies--"
and then, in case Oregon should fail, advantage is taken of Mexico's
distractions to negotiate for California.
The Red Man, the poor Red Man, may however have a voice in all this,
that may speak in thunder. He is neither so powerless, nor so utterly
contemptible as is supposed. In the wilds of the West, it is said,
including the roaming horsemen of Mexico, 100,000 warriors exist. Even
against 20,000, what army entangled in the forest, hidden in the
Prairie grass, lost in the wilderness defiles of the vast Andes of the
north, could also exist? and can the American government afford to
detach regular troops for such a dreadful warfare? will the militia
undertake it? Can an American fleet of sufficient power and resources
be kept in the Pacific to counteract and send supplies? He who knows
the western wilds well knows that once concentrate Indian warfare, and
it would be impossible to keep together or to supply such an army as
that of the Republic, unsupported, as it must necessarily be, by a
fleet.
The time is coming, and that rapidly, there can be no doubt, when the
white man will possess exclusively the Pacific coast; but this is to
be achieved by the commercial and not by the physical power, and that
it is yet very distant when any one nation will obtain it is the
belief of all reasoning people; for even should the Americans force
Mexico from its proper station, should they obtain California and
Oregon, will Russia look quite quietly on, will France see her great
scheme of Pacific colonization in danger, and will England tamely
submit to have her eastern territories and the new trade with China
put in jeopardy?
I think not, and also conceive that it is as impossible for the United
States to support a lengthened war with any great European power as
it is for any great European power to conquer or to subdue any portion
of the United States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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