Tight Boots and War Crimes

It is 1882, and Egerton Ryerson, who shaped Ontario’s system of public education as no other individual before or since, speaks to a patriotic gathering at the Bay of Quinte. They have assembled to commemorate the centennial of the arrival of exiled United Empire Loyalists there. His lengthy address winds its way to the subject of 1812; that was when “the true spirit of the Loyalists of America was never exhibited with greater force and brilliancy.” At that time, “the Spartan bands of Canadian Loyalist volunteers, aided by a few hundred English soldiers and civilized Indians, repelled the Persian thousands of democratic American invaders.” Ryerson draws a line stretching from ancient Greece to 1812, both points on that line glowing with underdog victory and the preservation of superior cultural values, Ours versus Theirs.

That myth of 1812 as a vindication of Canada’s ways...