[_Enter_ GENERAL BROCK, _accompanied by_
MACDONELL, NICHOL, ROBINSON _and other Canadian
Officers and friends conversing_.]

BROCK. 'Tis true our Province faces heavy odds:
Of regulars but fifteen hundred men
To guard a frontier of a thousand miles;
Of volunteers what aidance we can draw
From seventy thousand widely scattered souls.
A meagre showing 'gainst the enemy's
If numbers be the test. But odds lie not
In numbers only, but in spirit too--
Witness the might of England's little isle!
And what made England great will keep her so--
The free soul and the valour of her sons;
And what exalts her will sustain you now
If you contain her courage and her faith.
So not the odds so much are to be feared
As private disaffection, treachery--
Those openers of the door to enemies--
And the poor crouching spirit that gives way
Ere it is forced to yield.

ROBINSON. No fear of that!

BROCK. I trust there is not; yet I speak of it
As what is to be feared more than the odds.
For like to forests are communities--
Fair at a distance, entering you find