1September 1993 2 3 The War of 1812 and the Rise of Canadian Nationalism 4 5 ....edited by Marijan Salopek 6 7 =============================== 8 9 Extract from the work of John Beverley Robinson, former Attorney- 10 General of Upper Canada. 11 12 Again, if we admit, as I think we must, that the 13 circumstance of the older colonies having severed the connexion 14 at so early a date, has been in fact the means of saving the 15 present British provinces to the mother-country, it is scarcely 16 less certain that the war of 1812, which was engaged in by the 17 United States, mainly for the purpose of subjugating the Canadas, 18 has had the effect of binding them, as well as Nova Scotia and 19 New Brunswick, much more strongly to the crown. Before that war 20 the United were scarcely looked upon by the subjects of the 21 British Empire as a foreign country; the probability of 22 hostilities was not anticipated, and of course not guarded 23 against; the citizens of the republic came in numbers to settle, 24 especially in Upper Canada, and, but for the war, in a few years 25 thousands of those fertile acres, which have since afforded a 26 home to loyal and grateful emigrants from England, Ireland, and 27 Scotland, would have been occupied in a manner much less 28 conducive to the maintenance of British connexion. 29 The war was happily undertaken at a time when the adjoining 30 states of America were but thinly inhabited, and when the 31 invasion of Canada was, in consequence, attended with many 32 difficulties which time has removed. It has had the effect of 33 calling the attention of England to the danger which Lord 34 Selkirk, in his very able book on emigration, pointed out to the 35 government so early as the year 1805; it has produced in the 36 British colonists a national character and feeling, and has 37 taught both countries to appreciate their position more 38 correctly. 39 40 Source: Robinson, J. B. . London: 41 1840, p. 15.