236 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
who dreaded their approach as if they were savages.! The whole force 
then advanced to the village and encamped on the farm of Lieut.-Colonel 
Baptiste Baby, where there was ample pasturage for their horses, and 
Hull established his headquarters in that officer’s unfinished brick 
house. 
In anticipation of this movement General Hull had prepared a 
carefully worded proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada which was 
felicitously described by the Governor-General as “artful and insidi- 
ous.” ? After the General’s death its authorship was claimed for Cass, 
and it certainly contains certain flights of rhetoric which may possibly 
have been inspired by him. It had been translated into French and 
a considerable number of broadsides were printed in both languages.* 
Promises and threats were skilfully mingled in pompous and stilted lan- 
guage. Different arguments were addressed to different classes. To 
the older inhabitants of the province, the loyalists and British-born 
colonists, he said :— 
“Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive wilderness from 
Great Britain, you have no participation in her councils, no interest. in 
her conduct; you have felt her tyranny, you have seen her injustice, but 
I do not ask you to avenge the one or to redress the other. The 
United States are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security 
consistent with their rights and your expectations. I tender you the 
invaluable blessings of civil, political, and religious liberty, and their 
necessary results, individual and general prosperity.” 
Then plainly appealing to the recent immigrants from the United 
States so numerous in the London District, he continued :— 
“Raise not your hands against your brethren. Many of your fore- 
fathers fought for the freedom and Independence.we now enjoy; being 
children therefore of the same family with us and heirs to the same 
heritage, the arrival of an army of friends must be hailed by you with 
a cordial welcome. | You will be emancipated from tyranny and oppres- 
sion and restored to the dignified position of freemen. Had I any 
doubt of eventual success, I might ask your assistance, but I do not. 
Ï come prepared for every contingency. TI have a force which will look 
down all opposition, and that force is but the vanguard of a much 
greater.” Finally, the language of menace was substituted for that of 
persuasion. 
“Tf, contrary to your own interests and the just expectation of 
my country, you should take part in the approaching contest, you will 
* Major Denny to John Carlisle, New York Gazette, 4th September, 1812. 
* Prevost to Lord Liverpool, 30th July, 1812. 
* Hull to Hustis, 13th July, 1812, Forbes, Appendix Il, p. 10. 


