I erected . . . a famous battery, which the public voice named after me; but Sir James, thinking very properly that anything so very pre-eminent should be distinguished by the most exalted appellation, has called it the King's Battery, the greatest compliment, I conceive, that he could pay to my judgment. The true modesty of the really great man shines out in these charming words. As the war cloud seemed to dissipate toward the close of 1808, General Brock seems to have set his eyes toward Europe in the hope of opportunity of active service; on November 19th he writes quite despondently: My object is to get home as soon as I can obtain permission; but unless our affairs with America be amicably adjusted, of which I see no probability, I scarcely can expect to be permitted to move. I rejoice Savery [Brock] has begun to exert himself to get me appointed to a more active situation. I must see service, or I may as well, and indeed much better, quit the army at once, for no one advantage can I reasonably look to hereafter if I remain buried in this inactive, remote corner, without the least mention being made of me. It is exceedingly noticeable that Brock now seems to pin all his hope to being recalled in order that he might win his laurels in the tremendously spectacular campaigns against Napoleon in Spain. From his letters we learn that the French-Canadians looked for the Corsican's ultimate triumph and his final possession of Canada itself, and adds that under like circumstances Englishmen would be even more restless under French rule than the French-Canadians were under English; "Every victory which Napoleon has gained," he observes, "for the last nine years has made the disposition here to resist more manifest." In the middle of July Brock writes his sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brock, that the die is cast and that he is ordered to Upper Canada. If it is character, rather than mere performance that, in the last analysis, gives every man his historic position in the annals of the world, the truth is nowhere better shown than here in the case of this splendid Canadian hero. Could his Governor have spared him Brock would have, ere this, been at home or en route to Spain and fame; but the conditions demanded a strong, diplomatic officer at Fort George, and there was nothing for it but that Brock must go; and there followed war--and bloody Queenston Heights. "Since I cannot get to Europe," are his gloomy words, "I care little where I am placed."