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28 THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CANADIAN MILITIA DURING THE WAR George F. G. Stanley I The principle that the male population of a country owes military service to the state in times of war has roots deep in Canadian history . In the seventeenth century, in the early years of the Ancien Régime , Louis XIV informed Governor Courcelle that steps should be taken to organize militia companies in the various parishes, to appoint officers to command them, and to assemble the men monthly for drill. Some years passed before these instructions were put into effect. However, in 1673, Governor Frontenac appointed captains of militia in each parish and issued orders that all male inhabitants between the ages of sixteen and sixty were liable for military duty, excepting only the clergy and those who held administrative appointments under the government. From that date until the capitulation of Montreal, eighty-seven years later, the militia played an important role in the defense of New France. Canadian militiamen became adept in all the arts of bush warfare—“la petite guerre” the Canadians called it—where initiative and mobility were the principal requisites. It was only as the fighting between France and Great. Britain became a matter of formal encounters between Europeantrained regulars during the Seven Years War, that the militia, lacking equipment, training and discipline, was relegated to a secondary position in Canadian defense. Immediately following the cessation of hostilities in 1760, the victorious British disarmed the militia. Nevertheless, it was not long before they recalled the splendid efforts the Canadians had put forth in’times past, and when Pontiac rose in protest against the encroachments of the white man, an effort was made to enroll Canadians in the force that was assembled to suppress him. The Canadians, much to the annoyance of the British, came forward but slowly; and Governor 29 Murray threatened to have recourse to the old French militia laws if the necessary numbers were not forthcoming.1 During the American Revolutionary War, the Canadians were again called upon for assistance. On this occasion, Governor Guy Carleton looked to the seigneurs for help. Service on the basis of military land tenure had never been a feature of Canadian feudalism , and if few Canadians showed much enthusiasm for giving their lives for George III, it was because Carleton had missed the essential feature of the old militia system, that it was based upon the parish and the captain of militia, and not upon the seigneur and the seigneury. Canadian militiamen were, however, among the troops who defended Quebec against Montgomery and Arnold in 1775-76, and who struck southwards towards the Hudson under General Burgoyne in 1777.2 With the successful conclusion of the American rebellion in 1783, the British were faced with the problem of defending the frontier which the Treaty of Paris had created. Regulars could be provided from Great Britain to man the defenses of Canada; but what about the Canadians themselves? Following the precedent of the Ancien Régime , the British undertook to raise provincial regiments in the several British North American provinces, and to reconstitute the militia. In 1787 the Council of Quebec adopted a militia law which Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, believed would “have the effect of curing the dangerous supineness produced by the disuse of all militia service to train up youth in discipline and obedience, and to teach the people that the defense of the country is their own immediate concern. . . .”3 A general enrollment of the militia was undertaken which showed, in that portion of Canada which is now Ontario, a strength of thirty-four hundred and ninety-two English-speaking and seven hundred twentyone French-speaking officers and men.4 After the division of the old province of Quebec into two separate colonies, Upper and Lower Canada, in 1791, new militia laws were necessary. In Upper Canada, i.e., the region we call Ontario, the militia regulations were drafted by the Lieutenant-Governor, John Graves Simcoe, who followed English precedents. He divided the province into counties and over each he proposed to appoint a county Lieutenant, who would possess general oversight of the militia and who would enjoy the power of command or of recommending officers to command the county battalions or companies in their respective districts. Simcoe’s ideas did not, however, take deep root in the uncultivated soil of Upper Canada, and the county Lieutenants never played the part in Canada that they played in England. The power to...

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