engagements of the war, an
engagement, as we shall learn, of the greatest importance
in this early stage of the conflict.

Tecumseh had taken his stand for the coming war: the flag of
Britain should be his flag, and her soldiers his comrades-in-arms.
To him, indeed, it was that Britain owed her Indian allies in the
War of 1812. Canadians and Indians stood side by side in face of
a common peril and were inspired by a common purpose. To Canada
defeat meant absorption in the United States and the loss of national
life; to the red men it meant expulsion from their homes and
hunting-grounds and the ultimate extinction of their race.

Long before the formal declaration of was by the United
States (June 18, 1812) the inevitable conflict had been
foreseen. The Democrats, then in power in the United
States, were determined to have it. To many Americans it
appeared as a necessary sequel to the Revolution, a second
War of Independence; to others it seemed a short and easy
means of adding to the United States that northern territory, the
inhabitants of which had refused the opportunity to join the Thirteen
Colonies in the War of the Revolution. But the causes of this
unhappy war are too complex and manifold to be discussed here.
[Footnote: See _The War with the United States_ in this Series.]

Canada's position at the opening of hostilities was far from
reassuring. The population of all British North America was only
half a million of whites at most, as compared with about eight
million in the United States. Great Britain was engaged elsewhere
in a life-and-death struggle and could spare but few troops to
support the Canadian militia. Indeed, there were not fifteen hundred
British soldiers along the whole Canadian frontier; while, even
before the declaration of war, to Detroit alone had been dispatched
more than two thousand American troops. The Americans had, therefore,
reasonable grounds for confidence in the ultimate result,
notwithstanding a somewhat depleted treasury and the opposition of
a considerable party in the northern, especially the New England,
States. Canadians, however, loyally answered the call to arms, and
proved the truth of the words that 'a country defended by free men
enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their king and constitution
can never be conquered.' Canada, too, had a tower of strength in
Isaac Brock, a distinguished British soldier, who had seen active
service in the West Indies and in Holla