Public men and public life in Canada; the story of the Canadian confederacy, being recollections of Parliament and the press and embracing a succinct account of the stirring events which led to the confederation of British North America into the Dominion of Canada . States during the night, and had been arrested bythe gunboat Michigan, for infringement ofthe American neutrality laws, and were then in towof that vessel as prisoners. About sixty Fenians and stragglers, who failed tomake their escape, were captured by the Canadianforces. After a fair trial many of these were ulti-mately sent
Public men and public life in Canada; the story of the Canadian confederacy, being recollections of Parliament and the press and embracing a succinct account of the stirring events which led to the confederation of British North America into the Dominion of Canada . States during the night, and had been arrested bythe gunboat Michigan, for infringement ofthe American neutrality laws, and were then in towof that vessel as prisoners. About sixty Fenians and stragglers, who failed tomake their escape, were captured by the Canadianforces. After a fair trial many of these were ulti-mately sentenced to the provincial Penitentiary forlife, but the hasty and cowardly retreat of the mainbody across the river prevented that drastic punish-ment which these rascally marauders so richlydeserved.* The Fenian attacks at the eastern points men-tioned were still greater failures. At Prescott andCornwall they did not succeed in crossing the River at all, and some i,8oo of them whodid cross the Canadian boundary near St. Albanswere met by our forces and quickly driven backacross the lines in a demoralized state, where United * I am chiefly indebted for this brief synopsis of the Fenianraid to Dents Canada Since the Union of 1841, Vol. II., tnWOQ wp., < 17:1Q <; Q oor; O PROSPECTS OF CONFEDERATION BRIGHTEN States officers arrested their ringleaders and heldthem for trial. Thus ended this much-talked-of Fenian proved a complete failure, although nine youngCanadian volunteers, mostly Toronto Universitystudents, were killed and thirty-one wounded atRidgeway, and about an equal number of theFenians. This country was, it must be admitted,poorly equipped to repel such an attack at that time,and Colonel George T. Denison, in his Soldieringin Canada, clearly shows that the Government andMilitia Department were not only warned of thecoming of the Fenians, but were very slow andremiss in making preparations to resist them. Butif such a wanton and wick
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