6 ALL AFLOAT 



navigation, naval armaments on the Great 

 Lakes, canals, drainage, and many more. The 

 British ambassador who left Washington in 

 19 13 declared officially that most of his atten- 

 tion had been devoted to Canadian affairs ; and 

 most of these Canadian affairs were connected 

 with the water. Nor was there anything new 

 in this, or in its implication that Canadian 

 waters brought Canada into touch with inter- 

 national questions, whether she wished it or 

 not. The French shore of Newfoundland ; the 

 Alabama claims ; the San Juan boundary ; 

 the whole purport of the Treaty of Washington 

 in 1 87 1 ; the Trent affair of ten years earlier; 

 the Panama Canal tolls of to-day ; the War of 

 1812 ; the war which others called the Seven 

 Years' War, but which contemporary England 

 called the ' Maritime War ' ; all the invasions 

 of Canada, all the trade with the Indians, all 

 Spanish, French, Dutch, British, and American 

 complications — everything, in fact, which 

 helped to shape Canadian destinies — were in- 

 evitably connected with the sea ; and, more 

 often than not, were considered and settled 

 mainly as a part of what those prescient 

 pioneers of oversea dominion, the great Eliza- 

 bethan statesmen, always used to call ' the 

 sea affair.' 



