all-natural enough; no one blames the people of the republic
for desiring extended fame and empire; but is it to be extended by the
Caesaric mode, _Veni, vidi, vici_, or by deluging two-thirds of that
continent with the blood of man?

A calm view of antecedent human affairs tells us another tale.

A black population in the south and in the vast Island of Hayti, in
Jamaica and in the West Indies; a brave and enterprising mixed race in
Cuba; the remorseless Indian of the West, whose tribes are countless
and driven to desperation; the multitudinous Irish, equally ready for
fighting as for vengeance for their insulted church; the Anglo-Saxon
blood on the northern borders, combined with the Norman Catholics of
the St. Lawrence; innumerable steam-vessels pouring from every part
of Europe and of Asia--are these nothing in the scale? Are the
feelings of the wealthy, the intelligent, and the peaceful in the
United States not to be taken into account?

Is the total annihilation for a long period of all external commerce
nothing? Are blazing cities, beleaguered harbours, internal
discontent, servile war, nothing in the scale of aggrandizement? Is
the great possibility of the European powers interfering as nothing?
Will not Russia, aware now of the value of her North American
possessions, look with a jealous eye upon the Bald Eagle's attempt at
a too close investigation of her eaglets' nest in the north? Would not
France, just beginning to colonize largely, like a share in the
spoils?

To avoid all this, is the reason that England clings to Canada, that
Canada _must not_ be sold or given away. Canada is in short the
important State which holds the balance of power on the North American
Continent; and, when her Eagle is strong enough to fly alone, it will
not be either from having false wings, or without the previous
nursing and tender care of her European mother, who will launch her
safely from the pinnacle of glory into the clear sky of powers and
principalities.

CHAPTER XI.

Ekfrid and Saxonisms--Greek _unde derivaturs_--The Grand
River--Brantford--Plaster of Paris--Mohawks--Dutch
forgetfulness--George the Third, a Republican King--Church of the
Indians--The Five Nations--A good Samaritan denies a drop of
water--Loafers--Keep your Temper, a story of the Army of
Occupation--Tortoise in trouble--Burford.

But to resume the journey. We passed the Ekfrid Hotel. Saxon names
creep steadily over Canada, w