morning of
October 26th, the American army advancing to the ford, the banks of
the river suddenly blazed with musketry fire. For four hours the
invaders strove in vain to force the passages of the river in the face
of De Salaberry's death-dealing trenches, bravely attempting to
outflank the Voltigeurs; but before those unyielding breastworks,
numbers and impetuosity were both unavailing; and, at last, after
heavy losses, Hampton was constrained to recall his men and retire
from the field. This victory, nobly fought and won by the French
Canadians, ranks with Carillon in the annals of the Lower Province,
and the bullet-riven flags of both engagements are still shown among
the trophies of Quebec. The loyalty and courage of the French
population had decided the issue of another campaign in favour of
Great Britain.

[Illustration: A BEGGAR OF COTE BEAUPRE]

In 1814 the chief events of the war in Canada happened once more about
Lake Champlain and Niagara. The invaders were again driven back with
loss at Lacolle Mill; but at the end of the season they recovered
ground in this quarter by dispersing the British army and the fleet
of Lake Champlain at Plattsburg, an engagement which led to the recall
of Sir George Prevost, whose bad generalship was blamed for this
reverse. Meanwhile, the hottest battle of all the war had been fought
in the Upper Province, when the American armies, planning to reach
Kingston, and having won some minor successes, were finally scattered
at Lundy's Lane, near Niagara Falls, and compelled to fall back upon
Lake Erie.

[Illustration: ST. LOUIS STREET, PLACE D'ARMES, AND NEW COURT HOUSE]

But apart from the fortunes of war, when peace was finally proclaimed
by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, the chief gain to the British cause,
so far at least as Canada was concerned, lay not so much in the
undoubted advantage held throughout those three trying years, but
rather in the sure knowledge that the people of French Canada had
remained loyal at a crisis when their disaffection would have turned
the scale and lost to England her remaining North American colonies.
As De Salaberry wrote to the House of Assembly, in reference to the
victory at Chateauguay: "In preventing the enemy from penetrating into
the province, one common sentiment animated the whole of my three
hundred brave companions, and in which I participated, that of doing
our duty, serving our sovereign, and saving our country from the evil
of an