Board for Brockville was repealed, and the first Municipal Act governing the town was passed, enlarging the limits of Brockville, creating three Wards, electing three members each, who chose a Mayor from their number, Robert Peden being the first Mayor.

On the 2nd May, 1874, the Council made application to have the limits extended, and the town divided into five Wards, each electing two members, with a Mayor to be elected by the whole vote, and on 21st Aug., 1875, a proclamation issued to take effect on Jan. 3, 1876, and this form of Municipal Government has continued to the present time.

As I have said in the beginning of this paper, the two principal men who seemed to be in a position to largely control the future destiny of the town were men of large and liberal views. Where land was required for public or church purposes, they were prompt and liberal in their giving. Mr. Buell's gifts to the public were the Court House Square and Avenue, the land for the Presbyterian Church, the land on which the first Catholic Church was built, and the land on which the Wall Street Church was built. While the Hon. Charles Jones gave to the public the Market Square from King Street to the River, the lot for the site of St. Peter's Church and for the first Rectory, together with the gift to St. Peter's Church of what is now known as Victoria Park or Square; while the widow of the Hon. Jonas Jones gave the land on which the present rectory of St. Peter's Church now stands. Mr. Ephraim Jones, father of the Hon. Charles Jones, did not own land in Brockville, being a resident of, and large land owner in, the adjoining Township of Augusta, but did business in Brockville, and with his whole family was largely interested in its welfare. And I presume that his descendants, and those of William Buell, have filled as many, if not more, important positions of trust and responsibility than those of any other two men connected with the early history of the town, leaving behind them many tokens of their desire for the welfare of town, province and Empire.

IV.

THE WAR OF 1812-15.

BY J. CASTELL Hopkins, TORONTO

The aggressive war through which the United States, in the early years of the century expressed in active form its hostility toward Great Britain had a more important effect upon the development and the history of British North America than is generally supposed. It meant more than the mere details of skirmishes, battles and the rout of invading armies. It involved considerations greater than may be seen in any ordinary record of campaigns in which Canadian militia and British regulars were able to hold British territory intact upon this continent during a period of over two and a half years of struggle. That a population of 500,000 people, scattered over widely-sundered areas, should be able, almost unaided for a long time, to successfully oppose the invasions of an organized Republic of six millions, was an extraordinary military performance, and it is only natural, and, indeed, inevitable, that in considering the result, it should have been regarded chiefly from the military standpoint.

In the upbuilding of Canada, however, this struggle holds a place similar in national import to that of the Revolution in American history. It consolidated the British sentiment of the whole population from the shores of Lake Huron to the coasts of the Atlantic. It eliminated much of a disloyal element which was beginning to eat into the vitals of Provincial life in Upper Canada, and it modified in some measure the force of the American spirit which remained in the hearts of some sections of the settlers. It checked the growth of republicanism amongst the French of Lower Canada and prevented the Rebellion of 1837 in that Province from being the rising of a whole people united in political sympathies with the great population to the south. It made the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church in the same part of the country feel once more as they did when the Continental Congress of 1775 attacked the Quebec Act, that the only visible danger to what they considered the sacred rights and privileges of their faith came from the other side of the international line. It, for a time, brought Canadians of French and

British and American extraction together in defence of their hearths and homes, and laid in this way an almost invisible foundation for that seemingly vain vision-the permanent Federal union of British America for purposes of common interest, defence and government. It effected religious organizations which were becoming dependent on American pulpits, supplies, and polity. It influenced social life and customs by drawing a more distinct line against innovations from the other side of the border. Finally, it greatly affected political development and assured the ultimate success of those who strove honestly, though often unsuccessfully and mistakenly in detail, to preserve and promote the permanent acceptance of British as opposed to American principles of government upon the northern half of the continent.

It was an unjust, unnecessary, and, to both the United States and Great Britain, an unsatisfactory war. To the British settlements and French colonists of the present Dominion it proved, however, a blessing in disguise, and produced a page of glorious history which few would now like to see eliminated and which all patriotic Canadians treasure as one of their dearest national possessions. The nominal causes of the struggle were simple and yet world-wide in their environment. During many years Great Britain had been facing the perils of Napoleon's stormy progress over Europe. One great Power after another had been shattered by his military genius, and always before the eyes of his towering ambition was the recognized and steady policy of ultimately subjugating the British Isles. The British had fought him on the ocean from the earliest days of his sweeping career, and with a success which his proud spirit found it hard to brook. She had subsidized his opponents with enormous sums of money, and on the sands of Egypt, the plains of Hindostan and the fields of the Iberian Peninsula had presented her thin red line of armed men as the great preservative of European liberty. On November 1st, 1806, Napoleon had issued from Berlin, where he was newly installed as the victor of Jena and Austerlitz, the "Decree" by which he proclaimed the British Isles to be in a state of blockade, and merchandise from Britain to be a prize of war. He, at the same time, arrogantly commanded the cessation of all intercourse with Great Britain by neutral nations. Great Britain naturally retaliated, and early in the following year her Orders-in-Council proclaimed a blockade of the coasts of Europe from Brest to the Elbe, and declared all traffic with France in neutral vessels to be contraband and the vessels and cargoes liable to seizure.

These proceedings affected greatly the large carrying trade of the

United States, and, as Great Britain practically controlled the seas, it was from her privateers and men-of-war that the American shipping interests suffered the most. Hence the "Non-Intercourse Act" of Congress in 1808, by which all commerce with either France or Great Britain was prohibited until the obnoxious regulations were repealed. Another point in dispute was the claim made by Great Britain to search ships upon the high sea, suspected of having deserters from the British Navy amongst their crews, and to remove such as might be found. It was a claim which had for centuries been enforced as a right. Its assertion at this time was rendered necessary not only by the enormous expansion in the number of British ships but also by the fact that in 1805 it was estimated that at least 2,500 deserters of this kind-chiefly from merchant vessels were in the American service. The practice was naturally unpleasant to a highstrung nation such as the people of the United States, but had there been any real desire to smooth over difficulties forced upon Great Britain by her strenuous struggle with France, a means of returning deserters to their legitimate service might easily have been found. A minor cause of trouble was the publication of some unimportant correspondence between Sir James Craig, Governor-General of British America, and an adventurer named Henry who had been sent by the former, rather unwisely, though not unreasonably, to ascertain the condition of public feeling in the States. Henry reported a disposition on the part of New England to secede from the Union, and thenfinding himself unable to force money from the authorities at Quebechad sold the letters for $50,000 to the American Government.

These were the nominal causes of the war. They sufficed to inflame the smouldering embers of pre-revolutionary dislike and distrust and enabled President Madison, when an opportune moment of apparent British weakness arose, to accept the dictum of the war party in the Republic and to receive the Democratic nomination for a second Presidential term upon the pledge that a conflict should be precipitated. That the New England States were averse to the policy; that a Convention held in Albany, N. Y., in September, 1812, composed of delegates from various counties in the State, denounced the action of the Administration in this respect; that the best element in the general population was opposed to it; that the British Orders-in-Council were revoked five days before the declaration of war-did not affect the carrying out of the hostile policy on Madison's triumphant re-election to the supreme place in the national councils. That such was the case is due to the avowed reasons for the war not having been the real ones.

The truth is, that despite the lack of consideration shown to the

United States in many directions by Napoleon, and despite his creation of an arbitrary system of government, which was absolutely the antipodes of democracy, there had been during all these years a feeling of sympathy towards France in the minds of the mass of the American people, which arose, perhaps naturally, from the cherished memories of Lafayette and of French assistance at the most critical juncture of their war for independence. Added to this was an admiration for the military achievements of the Emperor which in later days has resulted in a sort of literary deification of his career. Still more to the point was a feeling of continuous irritation against Great Britain arising out of internal discontent and the lack of material progress; increased by the dominating influence of British manufactures and goods in the local markets and a consequent depression in local industries; inflamed by the voice of demagogues who exaggerated every issue and incident into handles for personal popularity and political power. Back of all, and influencing all, was the partially concealed, but none the less strong, desire of the leaders of the day to round off the Republic by the possession of northern America.

When war was declared by the American President on the 18th of June, 1812, the action afforded an exultant moment of anticipation to the American Republic, an added depression to greatly-burdened Great Britain, and proffered many tragic possibilities to the little British population scattered along the 1,800 miles of the United States frontier. Never in her prolonged struggle with Napoleon had public opinion in Great Britain been so depressed. She stood absolutely alone in Europe. The French Emperor was the practically acknowledged master of Prussia and the minor States of Germany as well as of Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Spain; and with an immense army had begun a march into Russia which promised to be a final triumph before the realization of his intention to combine the forces of the conquered continent in a supreme attack upon British power. No wonder if thoughtful men in the British Isles drew their breath in doubt when the announcement came that the United States had thrown its weight into the scale against their country, and wondered how long the titanic struggle could be maintained by their population of eighteen millions.

Little wonder, also, if Americans thought that their time had come, as well as that of the French, for the complete subjugation of a continent. As to Canada, it was not believed that she could offer anything but a nominal resistance. Jefferson declared the expulsion of Great Britain from the continent to be "a mere matter of marching." Eustis, Secretary of War, announced that "we take Canada without