The war had the effect of unifying Canadian feeling. Once more it
had been determined that Canada was not to lose her identity in
the nation to the south. In Upper Canada, especially in the west,
there were many recent American settlers who sympathized openly
with their kinsmen, but of these some departed, some were jailed,
and others had a change of heart. Lower Canada was a unit against
the invader, arid French-Canadian troops on every occasion
covered themselves with glory. To the Canadians, as the smaller
people, and as the people whose country had been the chief battle
ground, the war in later years naturally bulked larger than to
their neighbors. It left behind it unfortunate legacies of
hostility to the United States and, among the governing classes,
of deep-rooted opposition to its democratic institutions. But it
left also memories precious for a young people--the memory of
Brock and Macdonell and De Salaberry, of Laura Secord and her
daring tramp through the woods to warn of American attacks, of
Stony Creek and Lundy's Lane, Chrystler's Farm and Chateauguay,
the memory of sacrifice, of endurance, and of courage that did
not count the odds.

Nor were the evil legacies to last for all time. Three years
after peace had been made the statesmen of the United States and
of Great Britain had the uncommon sense to take a great step
toward banishing war between the neighbor peoples. The Rush-Bagot
Convention, limiting the naval armament on the Great Lakes to
three vessels not exceeding one hundred tons each, and armed only
with one eighteen-pounder, though not always observed in the
letter, proved the beginning of a sane relationship which has
lasted for a century. Had not this agreement nipped naval rivalry