By 1814, what was the result of the American attempt to conquer Canada?

Discover Canada reaches a single, plain conclusion about the War of 1812 in one sentence. The guide writes: By 1814, the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed. The result the test wants is therefore the simplest of the four answer choices — it failed.

The same passage in Discover Canada tells readers what came of the failure. "The British paid for a costly Canadian defence system, including the Citadels at Halifax and Québec City, the naval drydock at Halifax and Fort Henry at Kingston — today popular historic sites." So the failed invasion left behind real military infrastructure across what is now Canada, much of which still stands.

The strategic legacy is the most important part of the answer. Discover Canada writes: The present-day Canada-U.S.A. border is partly an outcome of the War of 1812, which ensured that Canada would remain independent of the United States. So the failure of the American invasion is not just a past military fact — the guide explicitly ties the modern Canadian border to that 1812-1814 outcome. Canada exists as a separate country in part because the War of 1812 ended in "failed" for the American side.

How the war ended is also bracketed by named engagements. The Americans burned Government House and the Parliament Buildings in York (now Toronto) in 1813. In retaliation in 1814, Major-General Robert Ross led an expedition from Nova Scotia that burned the White House and other public buildings in Washington, D.C. Together with the earlier defences by Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, Chief Tecumseh and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry, those events made conquest of Canada impossible.

This is one of the simplest test questions in Discover Canada's War of 1812 chapter — the guide gives a one-line verdict and the test repeats it. New citizens are expected to remember that by 1814, the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed, full stop. No partial result, no truce, no ongoing war.

The guide's framing matters. Discover Canada uses the failure of the 1812 invasion to argue for Canadian distinctiveness — explicitly stating that the modern Canada–U.S.A. border is in part an outcome of that war. So "it failed" is not just a battle outcome but a foundational fact about why Canada exists as an independent country.