How Lower Canada Won the War of 1812: Text of a speech to the Stanstead Historical Society at the Colby-Curtis Museum on April 14, 2012 by Desmond Morton, professor of history emeritus at McGill University in Montreal

Between the summer of 1812 and the fall of 1814, Canada was engaged in a strange war with its young neighbor, the United States. Tradition has named the conflict the War of 1812 and a further tradition has extended a debate about the winner. Largely because the war ended with some American military successes, at Baltimore and New Orleans, Americans have claimed the war as a national triumph. So have Canadians. Had not the Americans set out to conquer Canada? Their invasion failed utterly. The border, although vague in several places, continued as before. Americans might well boast of pillaging Gananoque and burning the Upper Canadian legislature in York or even burning Newark, a town Canadians now call Niagara-on-the-Lake, leaving its population to freeze in the winter cold, but the invaders retreated and suffered predictable reprisals. The White House is white because the British left the original presidential residence coated in soot as retribution for what happened at York. American towns on the Niagara frontier soon shared the unhappy fate of Newark. Honors -- or dishonors -- were even. Adapted from the source document.