ly ended his own long service
in America. He had left Canada, after saving her from
obliteration, because, so long as he remained her governor,
the war minister at home remained her enemy. He had then
returned to serve in New York, and had stayed there to
the bitter end, because there was no other man whom the
new government would trust to command the rearguard of
the Empire in retreat.

CHAPTER IX

FOUNDING MODERN CANADA
1786-1796

Carleton now enjoyed two years of uninterrupted peace at
his country seat in England. His active career seemed to
have closed at last. He had no taste for party politics.
He was not anxious to fill any position of civil or
military trust, even if it had been pressed upon him.
And he had said farewell to America for good and all when
he had left New York. Though as full of public spirit as
before and only just turned sixty, he bid fair to spend
the rest of his life as an English country gentleman.
His young wife was well contented with her lot. His manly
boys promised to become worthy followers of the noble
profession of arms. And the overseeing of his little
estate occupied his time very pleasantly indeed. Like
most healthy Englishmen he was devoted to horses, and,
unlike some others, he was very successful with his
thoroughbreds.

He had first bought a place near Maidenhead, beside the
Thames, which is nowhere lovelier than in that sylvan
neighbourhood. Then he bought the present family seat of
Greywill Hill near the little village of Odiham in
Hampshire. As an ex-governor and commander-in-chief, a
county magnate, a personage of great importance to the
Empire, and the one victorious British general in the
unhappy American war, he had more than earned a peerage.
But it was not till 1786, on the eve of his sixty-second
birthday, and at a time when his services were urgently
required again, that he received it. Needless to say this
peerage had nothing whatever to do with his acceptance
of another self-sacrificing duty. It was not given till
several months after he had promised to return to Canada;
and he would certainly have refused it if it had been
held out to him as an inducement to go there. He became
Baron Dorchester and was granted the not very extravagant
addition to his income of a thousand pounds a year payable
during four lives, his own, his wife's, and those of his
two eldest sons. His elevation to the House of Lords met
with the almost unanimous approval of his