defenders of the soil, could be assembled against them—­they must retire from the land which they had invaded, his cause was hopeless.  If he had begun to compare numbers, and had reserved his small force in order to make a safer effort on a future day, then would thousands upon thousands of the people of the neighbouring States have been found pouring into the western portions of this province; and when at last our mother country could send, as it was certain she would, her armies to our assistance, they would have had to expend their courage and their strength in taking one strong position after another, that had been erected by the enemy within our own territory.

And at the moment when the noble soldier fell, it is true, he fell in discharging a duty which might have been committed to a subordinate hand; true, he might have reserved himself for a more deliberate and stronger effort; but he felt that hesitation might be ruin—­that all depended upon his example of dauntless courage—­of fearless self-devotion.  Had it pleased Divine Providence to spare his invaluable life, who will say that his effort would have failed?  It is true his gallant course was arrested by a fatal wound—­such is the fortune of war; but the people of Canada did not feel that his precious life was therefore thrown away, deeply as they deplored his fall.  In later periods of the contest, it sometimes happened that the example of General Brock was not very closely followed.  It was that cautious calculation, which some suppose he wanted, which decided the day against us at Sackett’s Harbour—­it was the same cautious calculation which decided the day at Plattsburg; but no monuments have been erected to record the triumphs of those fields—­it is not thus that trophies are won.

The Hon. Mr. Justice Macaulay, in moving the third resolution, thus elegantly expressed himself: 

It was not my good fortune to serve in the field under the illustrious Brock, but I was under his command for a short period, when commandant of the garrison of Quebec, thirty years ago, and well remember his congratulating me upon receiving a commission in the army, accompanied with good wishes for my welfare, which I shall never forget.  I feel myself a humble subaltern still when called upon to address such an auditory, and upon such a topic as the memory of Brock.  Looking at the animated mass covering these heights in 1840, to do further honour to the unfortunate victim of a war now old in history, one is prompted to ask, how it happens that the gallant general, who has so long slept the sleep of death, left the lasting impression on the hearts of his countrymen which this scene exhibits; how comes it that the fame of Brock thus floats down the stream of time, broad, deep, and fresh as the waters of the famed river with whose waters, it might be almost said, his life’s blood mingled?  In reply, we might dwell upon his civil and military virtues, his