in Canada. He is driven out of the little
backwoods schoolhouse, pricked across the field with bayonets, out of
the children's view, and shot on Canadian soil by American soldiers, an
outrage almost the same in spirit as the British crew's outrage on the
_Chesapeake_. Also, in spite of apologies, the war ships clash again.
The English sloop _Little Belt_ is cruising off Cape Henry in May of
1811, looking for a French privateer, when a sail appears over the sea.
The _Little Belt_ pursues till she sights the commodore's blue flag of
the United States frigate _President_, then she turns about; but by
this time the _President_ has turned the tables on the little sloop,
and is pursuing to find out what the former's conduct meant. Darkness
settles over the two ships beating about the wind.

"What sloop is that?" shouts an officer through a speaking trumpet from
the American's decks.

"What ship is _that_?" bawls back a voice through the darkness from the
little Englander.

Then, before any one can tell who fired first (in fact, each accuses
the other of firing first), the cannon are pouring hot shot into each
other's hulls till thirty men have fallen on the decks of the _Little
Belt_. Apologies follow, of course, and explanations; but that does
not remedy the ill. In fact, when nations and people want to quarrel,
they can always find a cause. War is declared in June of 1812 by
Congress. It is war against England; but that means war against
Canada, though there are not forty-five hundred soldiers from Halifax
to Lake Huron. As for {338} the American forces, they muster an army
of some one hundred and fifty thousand; but their generals complain
they are "an untrained mob"; and events justified the complaints.

There is nothing for Canada to do but stand up to the war of England's
making and fight for hearth and home. Canada on the defensive, there
is nothing for the States to do but invade; and the American generals
don't relish the task with their "untrained mob."

[Illustration: WILLIAM HULL]

Upper Canada or Ontario has not four hundred soldiers from Kingston to
Detroit River; but Major General Isaac Brock calls for volunteers. The
clang of arms, of drill, of target practice, resounds in every hamlet
through Canada. At Kingston, at Toronto, at Fort George (Niagara), at
Erie where Niagara River comes from the lake, at Amherstburg, southeast
of Detroit, are stationed garrisons to repel invasion, with hastily