Happy Canada Day!

“England’s a big place all right, but not as big as it would like to be.
Couple a years back they was all fired up over there ’bout Canada
rebellin’ and the U.S. givin’ them an assist. There was English ships
burned on the border lakes, and it looked like war all over again.”
....“But the threat of war with England is past! Why, even I know that
Sir Robert Peel has been working to maintain more cordial relations
between the two nations!”
“Well, now, if that’s so, darlin’,” said Washburn softly, “then why
is some English lord and ship owner bringin’ in counterfeit banknotes,
which are sure as hell goin’ to stir up a hornet’s nest of trouble if he’s
caught?”
She didn’t know the answer to that, but she knew there were some
hard-line politicians in England who still saw the United States, or parts
of it, as territory to be regained. Sir Edmund Whitehead was one of the
most vocal in this camp, insisting that a strong Canada and a British
presence on the American continent would help check the growth of a
potential economic and military rival.

--Smuggler's Bride

To all my friends and readers north of the border, enjoy your day, relax with a good book, and I hope that you're over all that War of 1812 invasion silliness (and the subsequent issues later in the 19th C.). Really, I don't know what we were thinking!