12 READJUSTMENT AFTER WAR 



among the Loyalists in Canada is manifest in a 

 remark of Alexander Baring (later Lord Ash- 

 burton) to John Quincy Adams in 1816: &quot;. . . 

 it is in vain for us to think of growing strong 

 there [in Canada] in the same proportion as 

 America. ... He wished the British govern 

 ment would give us Canada at once. It ... 

 was fit for nothing but to breed quarrels.&quot; 

 Baring s pessimistic observation was made in 

 the course of a conversation on the question 

 of disarmament on the Great Lakes, and was 

 premonitory of a feeling among British pub 

 licists that was to become wide-spread and no 

 torious by the middle of the century. At the 

 time when Baring s private opinion was re 

 vealed and was recorded with grim satisfaction 

 by Adams, the feeling that gave rise to it was 

 probably shared by very few leaders of Brit 

 ish policy. Yet the events of the war had 

 served to give the officials of the Colonial De 

 partment much uneasiness about the exposed 

 condition of Upper Canada and had thus led 

 to the demand for territorial readjustments that 

 should bar the Americans from the shores of 

 Lakes Erie, Huron, and Superior. The demand 

 was peremptorily rejected, but the purpose 

 behind it remained active. When, therefore, 



