Not many days after this unseemly encounter, Colonel Scott was brought to York in one of the small gunboats which we had then on Lake Ontario for the defence of the lake ports. These boats, it is true, were not very elegant in their lines, nor were they formidably armed. All haste had been made to construct them; only a few weeks before the timber of which they were constructed was growing in the parent trees. Green timber and lumber, as any one will know, must make a very indifferent boat, and not a lasting one. It is a fact, nevertheless, that the single swivel gun which each boat carried did good service when called upon and was no mean antagonist. Be that as it may, we should not look in contempt on these mean gunboats, or compare them with the monster fighting ships of this day. These were the ships our fathers used, and the people of the United States also, and well they served their day. An engraving of York at this early day will be found on the opposite page, the little town which has become imperial and palatial Toronto, with more than a fifth of a million of people, and the change has been wrought in eighty-nine years. Following, however, the fortunes of Colonel Scott until he came to Quebec, we shall find him a prisoner in the cabin of a large ship lying at anchor at the foot of the cliff on which that ancient city stands. Not among a lot of other prisoners from the United States do we find the Colonel on this ship--for there were many of them on board--but aft in the cabin with the officers. One day his quick ear heard the prisoners being interrogated on deck. With a few eager strides he ascends the cabin steps and is on deck. He finds many of the United States prisoners drawn up in line and an officer questioning them. Those who showed by the burr on their tongues to be unmistakably of Irish or Scotch origin were [Illustration: VIEW OF YORK. FROM THE OLDEST EXTANT ENGRAVING. (By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.) ] called out and sent away to an adjoining man-of-war, there to serve in the Royal Navy, although protesting they were American citizens. Five of those in the line Colonel Scott heard called, and saw them sent away. “Silence!” he cried. “Men, not another word out of you. Don’t let them catch you by the tongue”; and every man’s mouth closed like a trap. It was Britain’s old contention, “Once a British subject, always a British subject,” and no latitude was allowed for transference of citizenship to the United States with residence in that country. To-day we never cease to wonder that Great Britain could be so impolitic as to take such a high-handed course. Time, however, has changed all that, and a war such as that of 1812 will never again stain the escutcheons of Great Britain, Canada or the United States. Very soon after this Colonel Scott was exchanged, and quickly shook the dust of Canada from his feet and found his way back to the United States.