who are interested in the philosophy and ethics of history is as to whether Daniel Webster should have acted as an advocate or as an arbiter. He was at all events much too powerful a personality for the genial statesman who was appointed by the British Government.

In the Oregon dispute, too, there was no realization on the part of Old Country statesmen of the vastness of the issues involved. The story may be apocryphal, but if not true it might very well be true, that the settlement which was reached was made all the easier for the Government of Lord Aberdeen by the knowledge that the salmon of the Columbia River would not rise to the fly. These are, however. matters now of ancient history, which we might as well lose our temper over, as over the fact of the Battle of Bunker's Hill. Whatever difficulties may emerge in the future, they will not be difficulties relating to boundaries. Much more likely are they to be difficulties relatively slight in themselves, but accentuated by the actions and utterances of irresponsible groups, bent on making trouble. We all know how the Irish situation has created difficulty during the last few years. Whatever your sympathies may be in that issue, you will admit that loyal subjects of the British Empire have oftentimes been placed in difficulty. An incident in a Boston theatre during the summer of 1920 is typical of such. During the intermission an officer of your army, a very gallant and soldierly figure in full uniform, came on the stage and made an impassioned appeal for the Irish Republic. After his speech, girls, dressed in green, went through the audience, which obviously was in sympathy with the Irish cause, and gathered large quantities of money. Had a similar demonstration been made in a London theatre on behalf of the legal rights and liberties of the negroes of Georgia it would possibly have given rise to a diplomatic incident. And yet in the early 'sixties, when you had your backs to the wall, equally irritating demonstrations were made on behalf of the Secessionists. The fact that we have come through such times of trouble without natural feelings of anger finding an expression that might have led to the tragedy of war is the best of all guarantees of future peace.

Let me dwell for a minute upon a crucial incident that

took place more than eighty years ago at a time when the possibilities of trouble were far more acute than now, to show the temper in which disputes can be dealt with, and the attitude which makes men on either side realize that they are the citizens of no mean people.

The story of the struggle of Upper and Lower Canada for Responsible Government is full of interest and it produced one document of first rate historical value-the Report of Lord Durham. The relationship of the British Government to its various dominions and dependencies is to-day strong only as it is undefined. Our loyalty increases in proportion as we are left alone. We rule ourselves: we will not be ruled from Westminster. But up till 1840 a very different view held the field. The position then accepted in England was that the Crown ruled in Canada through the Crown's representative, and that policy was shaped in London. In effect this came to mean in Upper Canada that all power got into the hands of a closely related group of definitely conservative tendency. All patronage was held by this group and the popular Assemblies were not able to dissociate the Family Compact from the representative of the Crown. The Old Country was afraid of giving the colonies self-government. It thought that to grant any such liberty would mean the immediate severance of Canada from the Empire. The theory, however, of the paternal Crown relationship could not hold in the conditions that were arising in Canada. Eventually, of course, complete self-government was given to the Dominion, but before this liberty, which has been chiefest parent of loyalty, was reached, the country was in a condition of actual revolution. Among the French, Papineau led a rebellion which was crushed with ease, but in Upper Canada William Lyon Mackenzie brought about a situation that all but threw Great Britain and the Republic into war.

The cry that liberty is in danger is, of course, one that appeals to every generous spirit, and in Canada, as in the northern parts of the United States, there was a great deal of sympathy with the liberal views of Mackenzie. There is, however, a great gulf between the holding of liberal sentiments and the willingness to rush into revolution. Mackenzie, a hotheaded Scotchman, assembled in December, 1837, on Navy Island, just above the Falls of Niagara, a nondescript group

of Canadians and Americans, bound together as much by lawlessness of temperament as by any special political view. Navy Island was in Canadian territory, but Grand Island, lying just above it, belonged to the United States, and the neighbourhood of both places to so large a city as Buffalo assured that many discontented spirits would find their way to the scene of trouble. There is no question, but that the sympathy with Mackenzie was widespread. Even if the thing had been possible there was no consuming desire on the part of the authorities of New York State to enforce neutrality. A gun, for instance, was allowed to get out of the charge of the State Artillery on the ground that it was being taken to Navy Island to shoot wild ducks! It was, however, the actions of those in charge of the steamer "Caroline" which precipitated trouble. This little steamer in the middle of December was held in the ice at Buffalo, but she was cut out of her winter quarters and taken down the river to Fort Schlosser, opposite Navy Island. The owner, William Wells, of Buffalo, was indemnified against loss by the bonds of a number of his fellow-citizens, and the ship was given a clearance from the port of Buffalo by the collector of the port. Meanwhile the forces that had been assembled on Navy Island began to bombard the mainland with little other damage than the killing of a horse on which a Canadian soldier was riding. It was, however, noticed that on the afternoon of the 28th of December, in broad daylight, the "Caroline" was running between Schlosser and Navy Island carrying men and stores. Colonel Allan MacNab determined that he would stop the career of this piratical little vessel. Instructions were given to Captain Drew to take and destroy the "Caroline," "wherever he should find her,' five words which as has been said "nearly fired the Continent as well as the "Caroline." On the night of the 29th of December accordingly five boats, each manned by nine men, set out to deal with the "Caroline." On rounding the southern end of Navy Island they found that the vessel was moored to the wharf at Schlosser. The boats were unseen until they were almost alongside of the "Caroline," which was practically unguarded and was giving shelter for the night to some twenty-three men of the nondescript forces being gathered under Mackenzie and Van Rensselaer. The attack on the

"Caroline" lasted only a few minutes. The ship was towed out from the wharf, set on fire, and allowed to drift with the current. Mackenzie declares that she went over the Falls, but as a matter of fact the steamer sank on the American side where the remains of her engines were for many years afterwards visible. One man, Amos Durfee, was found lying dead upon the wharf with his brains blown out. It was asserted that several of the men who had been asleep on board the steamer were drowned in the scuffle, but this point was never proved, and it would have been in any case an extremely difficult thing to trace the identity of men recruited for such lawless purposes.

In Canada the news of the destruction of the "Caroline" was hailed with rapture. Colonel MacNab received a knighthood; Captain Drew, who had led the cutting-out party, was given a sword of honour, and it was only when heads had time to cool that it was seen how serious a situation had been created. Unquestionably there had been on the part of individual citizens of the United States breaches of neutrality. Van Rensselaer, who was Mackenzie's military adviser, was himself a citizen of the United States. But it is one thing when individuals engage in lawless acts and quite another when a State makes a descent upon the shores of a friendly power. One has to make allowances in considering the action of the Canadians for the intense irritation caused by seeing this little steamer in broad daylight run back and forward with supplies for rebels. The situation, however, was one which should have been dealt with, not in this headstrong way, but by the regular channels of political action. Mackenzie's movement had up to this time met with no real sympathy among responsible Americans, but the violation of neutrality created a complete change of view.

The "Caroline" incident, however, had a sequel which created another critical situation. Three years after the Navy Island incident, Alexander McLeod, a deputy sheriff of the Niagara district, was arrested at Lewiston and charged with murder and arson, the murder being alleged to be the death of Amos Durfee. McLeod, who had been in Buffalo on the 24th of December, 1837, had heard there, as a matter of common talk, of the purposes to which the "Caroline" was

to be devoted. Returning to the Canadian side he reconnoitred the river on the 28th of December with Captain Drew, and saw the "Caroline" engaged in her nefarious work. He was a man of boastful temper and there was some evidence which went to show that he had declared himself to be one of the attacking party on the 29th of December. It is perfectly certain that he was not one of the members of the cutting-out expedition. The forty-five men who did that deed were all of them known from the hour of the attack. The case, however, speedily assumed a grave international character. The grand jury of Niagara County found a true bill against the prisoner, who was committed to stand his trial and confined in Lockport jail.

When the British minister in Washington, Mr. H. S. Fox, heard the details of the story, he demanded the immediate release of the prisoner on the ground that, as the destruction of the "Caroline" was the public act of certain known individuals in the British forces, it could not be alleged as a ground of indictment against an individual, even if he were concerned in it. It is precisely the argument which was raised by the defence of the German prisoners recently tried in Leipzig for actions contrary to the laws of war. The Federal Government refused the claim of Mr. Fox on the ground that each State of the Union had control of its own judicial affairs, and that, therefore, the offense committed within the State of New York must be answered for before the Courts of the State. In March, 1841, Mr. Fox again renewed his demand upon Washington in these terms, "I am instructed to demand formally and in the name of the British Government the immediate release of Alexander McLeod for the reason that the transgression was one of a public character, planned and executed by persons duly authorized by the Colonial Government to take such measures as might be necessary for protecting the property and lives of her Majesty's subjects, and being, therefore, an act of public duty, they cannot be held responsible to the laws and tribunals of any foreign country." It is not necessary here to go further into the details of the A writ of Habeas Corpus was applied for and discharged. McLeod was brought to trial and acquitted after he had been in prison for nearly a year.

case.