contending against hostile Indians and fear-stricken followers,
and at last winning through, Mackenzie summed up what will ever
remain one of the great achievements of exploration in the simple
record, painted in vermilion on a rock in Burke Channel:
Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of
July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three. The first bond
had been woven in the union of East and West. Between the eastern
provinces a stronger link was soon to be forged. The War of 1812
gave the scattered British colonies in America for the first time
a living sense of unity that transcended all differences, a
memory of perils and of victories which nourished a common
patriotism.

The War of 1812 was no quarrel of Canada's. It was merely an
incident in the struggle between England and Napoleon. At
desperate grips, both contestants used whatever weapons lay ready
to their hands. Sea power was England's weapon, and in her claim
to forbid all neutral traffic with her enemies and to exercise
the galling right of search, she pressed it far. France trampled
still more ruthlessly on American and neutral rights; but, with
memories of 1776 still fresh, the dominant party in the United
States was disposed to forgive France and to hold England to
strict account.

England had struck at France, regardless of how the blow might
injure neutrals. Now the United States sought to strike at
England through the colonies, regardless of their lack of any
responsibility for English policy. The "war hawks" of the South
and West called loudly for the speedy invasion and capture of
Canada as a means of punishing England. In so far as the British