Chapter XXII: Under the Three Crosses in Canada

In 1801 the "new" three-cross union had entered into the upper corner of the red ensign of British rule. The Canadians, both French and English, had been faithful to its two-crossed predecessor, and now again their patriotism was to be put to the test.

The parent kingdom of Great Britain had for nineteen years been engaged in its mighty struggle with the great Napoleon for the supremacy of Europe, and the time seemed opportune to a section of the people of the United States for gaining an advantage over the nation from which they had separated their allegiance, and also for striking a blow at the neighbouring people who had refused to become absorbed with them, and had so successfully resisted their previous invasion.

The quarrel was none of Canada's making, nor was it one in which she had any share, yet, although the ostensible reason which had been alleged as the cause of offence was repealed before hostilities had been commenced, war was declared at Washington on the 18th of June, 1812.[147]

[147] The British Orders in Council respecting the "right of search," to which the United States made objection, and had been given as their reason for war, had been repealed in England the day before war was declared.

The population of the United States at that time amounted to no less than eight millions, while in Canada, from end to end, there were but four hundred thousand souls, all told.

The Canadians did not hesitate, though their country was to be the scene of war, and their homes to be the stake for which the nations were to strive. Aid they could not expect from their British friends across the sea, already strained to the utmost in the long conflict with the armies of Europe; their reliance must be upon their own stout hearts and strong right arms. But this was enough, for

"Odds lie not in numbers, but in spirit, too."

So they rallied with eagerness beneath their Country's and Britain's Union flag.

Only four thousand five hundred regular trained soldiers were in Canada in 1812, and in them are included men of the Newfoundland and Glengarry regiments, recruited locally in the colonies; and thus the brunt of the defence was to fall upon the stalwart but untrained militia of the countryside.

The tide of invasion advanced north against Canada from the United States. For three years, from 1812 to 1815, the contest went on. Our French Canadians again bravely took up their arms, and this time, under the new three-crossed Jack, again drove the United States invaders back, making the names of Chateauguay and Chrystler's Farm ring down through history in token of the victories which they won beneath it in defence of their Canadian liberties and homes. So, too, their English-speaking brothers of Upper Canada won equal victories for this same Union Jack. At Mackinac, Captain Roberts,[148] with his Indians and Canadian voyageurs, raised it above the captured American fort. At the capitulation of Fort Detroit to Brock and Tecumseh, the American soldiers laid down their arms before it, and all Michigan was surrendered. At Queenston Heights, under the glorious Brock, at Stoney Creek and Beaver Dams, Niagara and Lundy's Lane, the American invader was sent in quick retreat from Canadian soil, and at the conclusion of the three years' war, after all the varying fluctuations in reverse and success between the contending forces, there was, at its end, not a foot of Canada, occupied or sullied by the foot of the foreign foe.

[148] An ancestor of Lord Roberts of Kandahar and Pretoria.

Thus all along their frontier shores, from Mackinac to far St. John, the Canadians stood shoulder to shoulder in one bold, united line, and held the larger half of North America for the British crown.

Again, when Fenian hordes and restless soldiers, who had been disbanded from the armies of the American Civil War, were assembled and drilled under the protection of the United States, and launched in raids against Canadian homes, the Canadian volunteers mustered around their Union Jack, and along the Niagara frontier, in 1866, and at Eccles Hill, in the Province of Quebec, in 1870, again drove the southern invader back, and held their native soil inviolate beneath its three-crossed folds.

"Since when has a Southerner placed his heel
On the men of the northern zone?

"Shall the mothers that bore us bow the head
And blush for degenerate sons?
Are the patriot fires gone out and dead?
Ho! brothers, stand to the guns!
Let the flag be nailed to the mast,
Defying the coming blast!
For Canada's sons are true as steel,
Their metal is muscle and bone,
The Southerner never shall place his heel
On the men of the northern zone.

"Oh, we are the men of the northern zone,
Where the maples their branches toss;
And the Great Bear rides in his state alone,
Afar from the Southern Cross.
Our people shall aye be free,
They never shall bend the knee,
For this is the land of the true and leal,
Where freedom is bred in the bone--
The Southerner never shall place his heel
On the men of the northern zone."[149]

[149] Kernighan ("The Khan"): "The Men of the Northern Zone."

Such was the British patriotism of which the flag was the Union signal, and now another parliamentary union is to be included in the career of the Union Jack in Canada.

Up to 1867 the Eastern British Provinces in North America had remained under separate local governments, such as had been established in the previous century; but in this year Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Upper and Lower Canada were all united in the one "Dominion" of Canada, then extending only as far as Lake Superior. This "Act of Confederation" was passed in London, at Westminster, by the Parliament of Great Britain, and thus again the Union Parliament of the Union Jack was parent to a new Union Parliament established in united Canada. Each Province continues to have its own "Provincial Assembly," in which legislation is conducted on matters pertaining to its own local or home rule, but all general powers are centred in the Dominion Parliament of Canada. Hitherto the spirit of the flag had been solely that of union with the Motherland; thereafter it had an added and local meaning, for it became also the symbol of Canadian union, the patriot flag of the new daughter nation which had thus been brought into existence in the outer British American realm. Inspired by this union, the older Provinces thus combined began to extend their borders, and soon Manitoba and the Hudson Bay Territories of the central prairies[150] were added, in 1869, and British Columbia joined in 1871, followed by Prince Edward Island in 1873, to make the enlarged Dominion of Canada, now stretching across the continent of America from sea to sea.

[150] Out of a part of these the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905.

Difficulties, of course, were met in this consolidating of the territories, but the sign of Union was flying from the flagstaff, and the new-born patriotism surmounted them all. In March, 1885, when the spirit of discontent arose among the Metis of the North-West, and a rebellion broke out, the courage of the united Canadians was aroused with electric flash, and the volunteer battalions from the Maritime Atlantic shores, from French-speaking Quebec, from the great Ontario lakes, and from all parts of the Dominion, vied with one another in bearing the privations of forced marches across the frozen lakes, or over the pathless prairies, to reach the scene of action, and join in maintaining the supremacy of their native union. The rebellion was quickly suppressed; but the events at Fish Creek, Batoche and on the banks of the Saskatchewan left gaps in the loyal ranks.

"Not in the quiet churchyard, near those who loved them best,
But by the wild Saskatchewan we laid them to their rest;
A simple soldier's funeral in that lonely spot was theirs,
Made consecrate and holy by a nation's tears and prayers.
Their requiem, the music of the river's singing tide;
Their funeral wreaths, the wild flowers that grew on every side;
Their monument, undying praise from each Canadian heart
That hears how, for their country's sake, they nobly bore their part."

Three medals[151] have been granted by their sovereign to commemorate the gallantry of the Canadians who thus fought beneath the Union Jack: In 1812-15, for union with the Motherland (62); in 1866-70, for service in defence of their country during the Fenian raids (63); and in 1885, for union within Canada itself (64). Such are some of the events which have given rise to the stirring patriotism evinced by Canadians for their national flag, and which have kept aflame the passionate fervour of their loyalty not only at home, but when they joined hands in 1900 with their brothers-in-arms from British Isles and Colonies to fight and die for union in South Africa.

[151] See Appendix C--"Canadian War Medals."

Four times within the century--in 1775, 1812, 1866, and 1870--have Canadians raised their Union Jack in defence of home and native land, and once, in 1885, for maintenance of union within themselves.

As Canadians see it waving above their school-houses, and on the ships, or over their homes, they read in the crosses the stories that they tell, and remember that the deep red tones in its folds have been freshened and coloured by the heart-blood of Canada's sons, poured out for it in ungrudging loyalty on their own loved soil. The sons of the parent nations have carried it in many a far-off strife, but in their own island homes, "compassed by the inviolate sea," they sleep secure, and never have had to fight beneath it in defence of native land. It is in this regard that Canadians can cherish this flag even more than they who first carried it, and their sons may now rightly wear it as their very own, for the Union Jack is so bound up with love of country, defence of home, and all that is glorious in Canada's history, that it is the union flag of Canada itself.