The unprovoked declaration of war by the United States of
America against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, and its dependencies, has been followed by the actual
invasion of this province, in a remote frontier of the western
district, by a detachment of the armed force of the United
States.

The officer commanding that detachment has thought proper to
invite his majesty's subjects, not merely to a quiet and
unresisting submission, but insults them with a cell to seek
voluntarily the protection of his government.

Without condescending to repeat the illiberal epithets
bestowed in this appeal of the American commander to the
people of Upper Canada, on the administration of his majesty,
every inhabitant of the province is desired to seek the
confutation of such indecent slander in the review of his own
particular circumstances. Where is the Canadian subject who
can truly affirm to himself that he has been injured by the
government, in his person, his property, or his liberty? Where
is to be found, in any part of the world, a growth so rapid in
prosperity and wealth, as this colony exhibits? Settled, not
thirty years, by a band of veterans, exiled from their former
possessions on account of their loyalty, not a descendant of
these brave people is to be found, who, under the fostering
liberality of their sovereign, has not acquired a property and
means of enjoyment superior to what were possessed by their
ancestors.

This unequalled prosperity would not have been attained by the
utmost liberality of the government, or the persevering
industry of the people, had not the maritime power of the
mother country secured to its colonists a safe access to every
market, where the produce of their labour was in request.

The unavoidable and immediate consequences of a separation
from Great Britain must be the loss of this inestimable
advantage; and what is offered you in exchange? To become a
territory of the United States, and share with them that
exclusion from the ocean which the policy of their government
enforces; you are not even flattered with a participation of
their boasted independence; and it is but too obvious that,
once estranged from the powerful protection of the United
Kingdom, you must be reannexed to the dominion of France, from
which th