ABSTRACT
IT is not always by big battalions that the British Empire has been extended or preserved: nor have generals whose names are well remembered always been the saviours of the state. In 1912 we celebrated with justifiable pride the centenaries of Wellington’s triumphs at Ciudad Rodrigo, at Badajoz, and at Salamanca, but how few of the subjects of George V on this side of the Atlantic remembered to praise the exploits of Isaac Brock and his gallant handful of British regulars and Canadian militia. We noticed no memorial of their triumphs at Detroit and by the Falls of Niagara, which saved—it is no exaggeration to say—British North America, and determined the future course of all its history. There was a moment, in the autumn of 1812, when nothing seemed more possible than the complete vanishing of the Union Jack from the great Western Continent.
