And English laborers came to Canada to do battle for fortune and subdue the wilderness, for the same reasons and with similar objects in view as the Irish and Scotch. So also the French of an older day, and the Germans and Dutch. American Republicans. We are not ignorant of political freedom. As a people, we in Canada, warmly, earnestly sympathized with you in your great war of four years, waged to conserve your nationality, to vindicate legitimate government, and the laws against rebellion, (see chapter eight of this Narrative). We possess freedom in the widest amplitude; religious, political, civic, social, industrial. We venerate what is old in the British Constitution, which being at the same time youthful, vigorous and easily adapted to new circumstances, is favorable to stability, public morality, social safety, general happiness. And the people here will stand by the political constitution and laws of Canada and by their allegiance to the British Empire, loving you not the less, trusting to live side by side with you in all the harmony of people inheriting and enjoying a kindred freedom; but resolved before Heaven and in the name of Almighty God to defend this freedom, and this country. As I have presumed to comment on persons and occurrences in the following Narrative, it may be proper to say that in youth I had considerable experience in a field of war, and as a writer have often had occasion to advert to the subject of national defences. A military education of the manhood of Great Britain, was, to my pen a frequent theme. Letter from Lord Stanley, M. P., late Secretary of State for the Colonies; afterwards Secretary of State for India, and now, 1866, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, dated London, May 12, 1863, to Alexander Somerville, Hamilton, Canada West, acknowledging receipt of “Somerville’s Diligent Life in the Service of Public Safety,” and “Canada a Battle Ground.” (About latter work see chapter eight of this Narrative). Extract: “Your life and writings have long been known to me. I remember on the occasion of some military debate, your name being appealed to. I think it was when the Militia Bill was in question, and the laudatory reference made to you by Lord Palmerston, was received with general applause by the House of Commons.” The late Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, House of Commons, 1860: “Somerville was a man of great ability. He wrote remarkably well, and in after life raised himself to a good social position.” “If we did know the earnest nature of the man, some of the statements in this remarkable book might be set down as the figments of a diseased brain. But truth, unsullied truth, we know to be, as it ever has been the rule and guide of Alexander Somerville.” G. P. Ure, _Montreal Family Herald_, 1860.