On the continent of America the impetuous Brock, facing enormous odds, and leading his Canadian volunteers in defence of their native land, gave up his life for it on the cedar-clad slopes of Queenston Heights, and beneath it the French Canadians of Beauharnois knelt on the battlefield, and rising, won, with the brave De Salaberry as their leader, the victory of glorious Chateauguay.[138] [138] "Captain Langtin caused his men of the Beauharnois militia to kneel, went through a short prayer with them, and then, rising, said: '_Now that they had fulfilled their duty to their God, they would fulfil that to their King._'"--LIGHTHALL: "The Battle of Chateauguay." It was carried far to the Arctic north by Sir John Franklin, in 1846, and in October, 1908, Shackleton planted this ancient Union Jack, with all its crosses and broad white border,[139] upon the farthest Antarctic south (52). [139] A Union Jack given him by Her Majesty Queen Alexandra. Such a flag with such a history should be held sacred and inviolable. CHAPTER XX. _THE LESSONS OF THE CROSSES._ The combinations of the Jacks have at length been completed, and the three crosses placed together in the one flag of 1801. If some of the heralds are not entirely satisfied with the way the divisions are made, due honour has at least been done to each of the Jacks of the three kingdoms, while at the same time the historical value of the "Union" has been greatly enhanced, and its beauty as a flag most certainly increased. If the object of heraldry is the teaching of lessons by the combinations of colour and of forms, then the flag as made is yet more heraldically successful. In the heraldic and traditional interpretations of colours, red indicates courage, white is the emblem of purity, and blue the emblem of truth. "Red, white and blue, Brave, pure and true." By this better and more equal division of the colours in the flag much additional emphasis is given to the story which those colours tell. Lessons are taught which may be deeply impressed upon the minds of our children, so that by reading the history of their nation in its folds they may endeavour to live lives worthy of the ideals of their national flag, and frame their own characters and the character of their empire by its lofty teachings. That it is a beautiful and easily distinguished flag is admitted on all hands, but it has the still further quality, of immeasurable value in a national flag, that its parts and colours tell the history of the nation whose emblem it is. To those who have acquainted themselves with the story of the three separate national flags, the Union Jack, with its three crosses, its broad white borders and eight blue triangles, tells the story of the influences under which the present Empire has been built up by the three kingdoms which were combined to make it.