ABSTRACT
Writers in Canada and the United States have picked up national myths and adapted them to the current Zeitgeist. The results of this process of retention and adaptation provide reader with a comparative history of ideas of the two nations. The forces that determine a nation's boundaries, characteristics of a people, and distinctive qualities of the literature that they produce are so numerous and complex that only the most dramatic can be isolated. The War of 1812 was a footnote to the Napoleonic wars and an addendum to the American Revolution, but to the Loyalists it was of considerable significance and it looms large in Canadian history. The Loyalists were Americans who still hoped to reunite the empire, a hope that was dashed with the 1814 Treaty of Ghent. To the Patriots, liberty was threatened by government, particularly traditional institutions such as monarchy, aristocracy, and an established church.
