ng arms and brave hearts of our
own sons, aided (here the speaker permitted himself a smile of gentle
humour) by the mighty wing of the American eagle (references to the
Monroe Doctrine and its protection of Canada's shores) we shall abide
in peace and security from all aggression and all alarm. (Thunderous and
continued applause, during which the speaker resumed his seat.)

It was old McTavish who precipitated the trouble. The old Highlander
belonged to a family that boasted a long line of fighting forbears. Ever
since The Forty-five when the German king for the time occupying the
English throne astutely diverted the martial spirit of the Scottish
clans from the business of waging war against his own armies, their
chief occupation, to that of fighting his continental foes, The McTavish
was to be found ever in the foremost ranks of British men-of-war,
joyously doing battle for his clan and for his king, who, if the truth
were told, he regarded with scant loyalty. Like so many of the old
timers in western Canada, this particular McTavish had been at one time
a servant of the Hudson Bay Company and as such had done his part in the
occupation, peaceful and otherwise, of the vast territories administered
by that great trading company. In his fiery fighting soul there burned a
passionate loyalty to the name and fame of the land of his birth, and a
passionate pride in the Empire under whose flag the Company's ships had
safely sailed the northern seas and had safely traded in these vast wild
lands for nearly three hundred years. Deep as this loyalty and pride in
the soul of him there lay a cold suspicion of the Yankee. He had met him
in those old days of trade war, had suffered and had seen his Company
suffer from his wiles, and finally had been compelled to witness with
bitter but unavailing hate the steady encroachment of those rival
traders upon the ancient prerogatives and preserves of his own Company,
once the sole and undisputed lords of the northern half of the American
continent. In the person of Mr. Alvin P. Jones, McTavish saw the
representative of those ancient enemies of his, and in the oration to
which he had just listened he fancied he detected a note of disloyalty
to the flag, a suggestion of a break in the allegiance of Canada to the
Empire, and worst of all, a hint that Canada might safely depend for
protection upon something other than the naval power which had guarded
the shores of his country these many year