Canada -- Social life and customs; Ontario -- Description and travel
To those who did military service in this war 200 acres of the public
lands were due. Roger Conant did not receive his 200 acres, although
most justly entitled to them. To know the cause why he did not receive
his land grant it will be necessary to go back a little. After the
conquest of Canada and the Treaty of Paris (in 1763) which followed,
some British officers were given appointments and places in Canada--no
doubt to provide for them. When Upper Canada was made a separate
province in 1791, more of these officials were given places. These
persons seemed to have nothing in common with the people. On the
contrary they seemed to seek to rule and get good livings out of them,
and essayed to keep their places, becoming in time the Family Compact.
It was their acts and those of their successors that caused the outbreak
in 1837 which led to the Canadian Revolution. To these pampered
office-holders it did not appear that the U. E. Loyalists, who had made
most magnificent sacrifices for our country, were worthy of even civil
treatment. So to Roger Conant they never gave the military land grant,
and this treatment was meted out to most of the U. E. Loyalists who so
faithfully served through that most unfortunate and deplorable war.
Peace! peace! Peace tardily came at last in 1814, the Treaty of Ghent
having been signed on the 24th day of that year. The author realizes
that, to-day, Canadians in their well-appointed and refined homes fail
to enter into the feelings of our forefathers whose hearts leaped for
joy as they thanked the great God for that inestimable blessing of
peace. Fond mothers told it to the infants at the breast as they bounced
them aloft and reiterated again and again, “Peace, darling, peace!” The
gray-haired sire, whose days were numbered, dropped unchecked, unbidden
tears of joy, silently and without a voice, as he too thanked his Maker
again and again for that peace between neighbors and kindred that never
should have been broken. No more would the neighborless settler fear
peril as the darkening shadows of evening came about his log cabin in
the great forest, or dread that before the light of another dawn armed
foemen might come and take him prisoner, and drive his wife and little
ones into an inclement winter night by the application of the torch.
Strong men grasped each others’ hands, and shook, and bawled themselves
hoarse in simple exuberance of spirits, and in the intensest feeling of
thankfulness that peace had come to them once again. Nor was this
outburst of feeling mere exultation over the Americans. All felt that we
had honorably acquitted ourselves in a military point of view, but the
Americans at the same time had fought with valor, and we really had not
much to taunt them with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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