"Your Excellency," he said to the Governor-General, "I _must_ see active service, or had much better quit the army, for I can look for no advantage if I remain buried in inaction in this remote corner of the earth, without the least mention ever likely being made of me."
Unsuspected by our hero, fate in his case was only "marking time."
Day after day Brock saw British ships weigh anchor at Quebec with Canadian timber for the building of English vessels of war. The importance of these Canadian provinces to Great Britain awoke in him dreams of a federation of all the colonies. Cargoes of timber, that would require more than 400 vessels to transport, were then lying on the beaches of the St. Lawrence. "Bonaparte," he wrote, "coveted these vast colonial areas, and desired to repossess them."
Brock's mind was busy trying to solve these problems. "A small French force of 5,000 men," he told the Governor, "could most assuredly conquer the Province of Quebec. In the event of French invasion, would the volatile Lower Canadian people, in spite of all their privileges, remain loyal?" A certain class of _habitant_ argued that Napoleon, who was sure to conquer Europe, would of course seize the Canadas, encouraged by the United States. "Would Englishmen," asked Brock, "if positions were reversed, be any more impatient to escape from possible British rule than were French Canadians from the possible rule of France?"
"Blood, my good FitzGibbon," he declared to his _protégé_, "is thicker than water. You cannot expect to get men to change their nature, or the traditions of their race, through an act of parliament at twenty-four hours' notice. Old thoughts and habits die hard."
Though Brock's perceptive faculties were well developed, his forecasts, built upon the evidences of opposition among certain Lower Canadians, happily proved only in part correct. Later, when his plan of campaign was menaced by still greater disaffection in Upper Canada, he found he had not reckoned on the influence of his own example, which, added to his power of purpose, "disconcerted the disloyal." In proof of this fact Detroit and Queenston Heights were splendid examples.
It was this spirit of unrest among the people of Quebec that moved Sir James Craig to keep Brock within easy reach until the growing discord in Upper Canada called for the presence of a man of tact and resolution, one to whom all things seemed possible--and Brock knew no such word as "impossible." On one occasion the "faithful sergeant-major" had ventured to declare that a certain order was "impossible." "'Impossible!'" repeated Brock, "nothing should be 'impossible' to a soldier. The word 'impossible' must not be found in a soldier's vocabulary."