“Man’s inhumanity to man— Makes countless thousand’s mourn.” The Fenians were, in Ireland conquerors of the land from an older proprietory. The colonists of Massachusetts, and of the American Atlantic coast invoked in 1757-58-59, the aid of their mother country, Great Britain, to capture the castle of Louisburg on Cape Breton, Quebec in Canada, Fort du Quesne, now Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, to repress or expel the French in North America, for the sake of the ocean fisheries and the fur trade. Thus it was that English, Irish, and Scottish colonists, came to occupy the Provinces, now claimed by Fenians and by such of the Americans as sympathize with Fenianism on the ground that Britain was not justified in subduing the French to gratify the colonies of New England, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and the Carolinas, in 1757, 1758, 1759. Contrary to the prayer of Massachusetts and the conjoint colonies, Great Britain did not seek to expel the French from Canada, nor to suppress their language by legal enactment, as the United States subsequently did in Louisiana and region of the Mississippi; but gave the French co-equal rights political and religious with English, Irish, Scotch and German or any other colonizing race in British America. And thus it was, that enjoying equal rights, laws, and privileges, with a freedom of speech and of publication, as generous and universal, as summer sunshine and fertilizing rain, the people of Canada, French, British, Irish,—all, except perhaps some thinly scattered adherents of delusion led away from better judgment under the fascination of secrecy and hope of future adventures—leapt to their arms, demanding to be led to the frontier, demanding to be armed and placed under responsible leadership. And not alone these, but native Americans now resident in Canada who under other influences might think annexation of the two countries desirable. At Oil Springs, township of Enniskillen, Lambton County, Canada West, situated twenty miles from Sarnia, a strong Volunteer Company was enrolled in a few hours to aid in repelling the invaders of which a third were Pennsylvania oilmen and other Americans. Mr. Read a lawyer; Mr. Robert Mathison printer and editor, both graduates of the Canada military schools, were chosen captain and lieutenant. Mr. Perry, a merchant, was ensign. On remote tributaries of the Upper Ottawa, lumbermen, raftsmen, heard the news through the fleet hurrying of messengers and faster paddling of canoes, and thronged down the streams to the river and upon the river to the cities of Ottawa and Montreal, offering their services, their lives—gifts to the Province. Sons of Canada resident in the United States left employment and social ties, and hastened to their own land to defend it, to assert that British America will remain British. A goodly number of these came from Chicago to Toronto, five hundred miles. Many more would have quickly followed if wanted.