A LAND OF WATERWAYS 13 



the merchant service is no more a government 

 service than any other kind of trade is. 



Ignorance about the Navy is commoner still. 

 Canadian history' is full of sea-power, but 

 Canadian histories are not. It was only in 

 1909, a hundred and fifty years after the Battle 

 of the Plains, that the first attempt was made 

 to introduce the actual naval evidence into the 

 story of the Conquest by publishing a selection 

 from the more than thirty thousand daily 

 entries made in the logs of the men-of-war 

 engaged in the three campaigns of Louisbourg, 

 Quebec, and Montreal. Yet there were twice 

 as many sailors under Saunders as there were 

 soldiers under Wolfe, and the fleet that 

 carried them was the greatest single fleet which, 

 up to that time, had ever appeared in any 

 waters. How many people, even among 

 Canadians born and bred, know that there have 

 already been two local Canadian navies of 

 different kinds and two Canadian branches of 

 Imperial navies oversea ; that in 1697 a naval 

 battle was fought in the waters of Hudson Bay, 

 opposite Port Nelson ; that seigneurial grants 

 during the French regime made reservations of 

 man-of-war oak for the service of the crown ; 

 that while Bougainville, the famous French 

 circumnavigator, was trying to keep Wolfe 



