[The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock by Ferdinand Brock Tupper]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock CHAPTER III 10/26
They must have recourse to loans at a time when they have only six frigates in commission, and about five thousand men embodied. To what a state of poverty and wretchedness would the accumulated expenses of war reduce them! But they look to the success of their privateers for a supply, and contemplate the sweeping away of all foreign debts as the means of reducing the calls upon their treasury.
Whatever steps England may adopt, I think she cannot, in prudence, avoid sending a strong military force to these provinces, as they are now become of infinite importance to her.
You can scarcely conceive the quantity of timber and spars of all kinds which are lying on the beach, ready for shipment to England in the spring: four hundred vessels would not be sufficient to take all away. Whence can England be supplied with these essential articles but from the Canadas? Bonaparte, it is known, has expressed a strong desire to be in possession of the colonies formerly belonging to France, and now that they are become so valuable to England, his anxiety to wrest them from us will naturally increase.
A small French force, 4 or 5,000 men, with plenty of muskets, would most assuredly conquer this province.
The Canadians would join them almost to a man--at least, the exceptions would be so few as to be of little avail.
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