Canada was then little more than a long, weak line of
settlements on the northern frontier of the United States.
Counting in the Maritime Provinces, the population hardly
exceeded five hundred thousand--as many people, altogether,
as there were soldiers in one of Napoleon's armies, or
Americans enlisted for service in this very war. Nearly
two-thirds of this half-million were French Canadians in
Lower Canada, now the province of Quebec. They were loyal
to the British cause, knowing they could not live a
French-Canadian life except within the British Empire.
The population of Upper Canada, now Ontario, was less
than a hundred thousand. The Anglo-Canadians in it were
of two kinds: British immigrants and United Empire
Loyalists, with sons and grandsons of each. Both kinds
were loyal. But the 'U.E.L.'s' were anti-American through
and through, especially in regard to the war-and-Democratic
party then in power. They could therefore be depended on
to fight to the last against an enemy who, having driven
them into exile once, was now coming to wrest their second
New-World home from its allegiance to the British crown.
They and their descendants in all parts of Canada numbered
more than half the Anglo-Canadian population in 1812.
The few thousand Indians near the scene of action naturally
sided with the British, who treated them better and
dispossessed them less than the Americans did. The only
detrimental part of the population was the twenty-five
thousand Americans, who simply used Canada as a good
ground for exploitation, and who would have preferred to
see it under the Stars and Stripes, provided that the
change put no restriction on their business opportunities.