JEFFERSON'S DEFINITION OF "LIBERTY"--HOW IT WAS ACTED UPON--THE CANADIAN
RENAISSANCE--BURNING POLITICAL QUESTIONS IN CANADA HALF A CENTURY AGO--
LOCOMOTION--MRS. JAMESON ON CANADIAN STAGE COACHES--BATTEAUX AND DURHAM
BOATS.
The American Revolution developed two striking pictures of the
inconsistency of human nature. The author of the Declaration of
Independence lays down at the very first this axiom: "We hold this truth
to be self-evident, that all men are created _equal_; that among
these, are life, _liberty_, and the pursuit of happiness." And yet
this man, with members of others who signed the famous document, was a
slave-holder, and contributed to the maintenance of a system which was a
reproach and a stain upon the fair fame of the land, until it was wiped
out with the blood of tens of thousands of its sons. The next picture
that stands out in open contradiction to the declaration of equality of
birth and liberty of action appears at the end of every war. The very
men who had clamoured against oppression, and had fought for and won
their freedom, in turn became the most intolerant oppressors. The men
who had differed from them, and had adhered to the cause of the mother
land, had their property confiscated, and were expelled from the
country. Revolutions have ever been marked by cruelty. Liberty in France
inaugurated the guillotine. The fathers of the American Revolution cast
out their kindred, who found a refuge in the wilderness of Canada, where
they endured for a time the most severe privations and hardships. This
was the first illustration or definition of "liberty and the pursuit of
happiness," from an American point of view.
The result was not, perhaps, what was anticipated. The ten thousand or
more of their expatriated countrymen were not to be subdued by acts of
despotic injustice. Their opinions were dear to them, and were as fondly
cherished as were the opinions of those who had succeeded in wrenching
away a part of the old Empire under a plea of being oppressed. They
claimed only the natural and sacred right of acting upon their honest
convictions; and surely no one will pretend to say that their position
was not as just and tenable, or that it was less honourable than that of
those who had rebelled. I am not going to say that there was no cause of
complaint on the part of those who threw down the gage of war. The truth
about that matter has been conceded long ago. The enactments of the Home
Government which brought about the revolt are matters with which we have
nothing to do at this time. But when the war terminated and peace was
declared, the attitude of the new Government toward those of their
countrymen who had adhered to the Old Land from a sense of duty, was
cruel, if not barbarous. It has no parallel in modern history, unless it
be the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. The refugees,
however, did not, like the Huguenots, find a home in an old settled
country, but in the fastness of a Canadian forest; and it is wonderful
that so many men and women, out of love for a distant land whose
subjects they had been, and whose cause they had espoused, should have
sacrificed everything, and passed from comfortable homes and dearly-
loved kindred to desolation and poverty. It shows of what unbending
material they were made. With their strong wills and stronger arms they
laid the foundation of another country that yet may rival the land
whence they were driven. This act no doubt occasioned the settlement of
the Western Province many years earlier than it would have occurred
under other circumstances; and notwithstanding the attempts that were
made to subdue the country, our fathers proved, when the struggle came,
that they had lost none of their patriotic fire, and though they were
comparatively few in number, they were not slow to shoulder their
muskets and march away in defence of the land of their adoption. There
were no differences of opinion on this point. A people who had first
been robbed of their worldly goods and then driven from the homes of
their youth, were not likely soon to forget either their wrongs or their
sufferings, nor to give up, without a struggle, the new homes they had
made for themselves under the keenest privations and severest toils. As
our fathers successfully resisted the one, so have their children
treated the threats and blandishments that have been used from time to
time to bring them under the protecting aegis of the stars and stripes.
The wounds that were inflicted nearly a century ago have happily
cicatrized, and we can now look with admiration on the happy progress of
the American people in all that goes to make up a great and prosperous
country. We hope to live in peace and unity with them. Still, we like
our own country and its system of government better, and feel that we
have no reason either to be discontented with its progress, or to doubt
as to its future.
The year 1830 may be taken as the commencement of a new order of things
in Canada. The people were prosperous; immigration was rapidly
increasing. A system of Government had been inaugurated which, if not
all that could be desired, was capable of being moulded into a shape fit
to meet the wants of a young and growing country. There were laws to
protect society, encourage education, and foster trade and commerce. The
application of steam in England and the United States, not only to
manufacturing purposes but to navigation, which had made some progress,
rapidly increased after this date, and the illustration given by
Stephenson, in September of this year, of its capabilities as a motor in
land transit, completely revolutionized the commerce of the world. It
assailed every branch of industry, and in a few years transformed all.
The inventive genius of mankind seemed to gather new energy. A clearer
insight was obtained into the vast results opening out before it and
into the innumerable inventions which have succeeded; for the more
uniform and rapid production of almost every conceivable thing used by
man has had its origin in this Nineteenth Century Renaissance. Our
Province, though remote from this "new birth," could not but feel a
touch of the pulsation that was stirring in the world, and, though but
in its infancy, it was not backward in laying hold of these discoveries,
and applying them as far as its limited resources would admit. As early
as 1816 we had a steamer--the _Frontenac_--running on Lake
Ontario, and others soon followed. The increase was much more rapid
after the date referred to, and the improvement in construction and
speed was equally marked. Owing to our sparse and scattered population,
as well as our inability to build, we did not undertake the construction
of railroads until 1853, when the Northern Railroad was opened to
Bradford; but after that, we went at it in earnest, and we have kept at
it until we have made our Province a network of railways. In order more
fully to realize our position at this time, it must be borne in mind
that our population only reached 210,437.
Those whose recollection runs back to that time have witnessed changes
in this Province difficult to realize as having taken place during the
fifty years which have intervened. The first settlers found themselves
in a position which, owing to the then existing state of things, can
never occur again. They were cut off from communication, except by very
slow and inadequate means, with the older and more advanced parts of
America, and were, therefore, almost totally isolated. They adhered to
the manners and customs of their fathers, and though they acquired
property and grew up in sturdy independence, their habits and modes of
living remained unchanged. But now the steamboat and locomotive brought
them into contact with the world outside. They began to feel and see
that a new state of things had been inaugurated; that the old paths had
been forsaken; that the world had faced about and taken up a new line of
march. And, as their lives had theretofore been lives of exigency, they
were skilled in adapting themselves to the needs of the hour. Men who
have been trained in such a school are quick at catching improvements
and turning them to their advantage. It matters not in what direction
these improvements tend, whether to agriculture, manufactures,
education, or government; and we shall find that in all these our
fathers were not slow to move, or unequal to the emergency when it was
pressed upon them.
One of the dearest privileges of a British subject is the right of free
discussion on all topics, whether sacred or secular--more especially
those of a political character--and of giving effect to his opinions at
the polls. No people have exercised these privileges with more practical
intelligence than the Anglo-Canadian. It must be confessed that half a
century ago, and even much later, colonial affairs were not managed by
the Home Government altogether in a satisfactory manner. At the same
time there can hardly be a doubt that the measures emanating from the
Colonial Office received careful consideration, or that they were
designed with an honest wish to promote the well-being of the colonists,
and not in the perfunctory manner which some writers have represented.
The great difficulty has been for an old country like the mother land,
with its long established usages, its time-honoured institutions, its
veneration for precedent, its dislike to change, and its faith in its
own wisdom and power, either to appreciate the wants of a new country,
or to yield hastily to its demands. British statesmen took for granted
that what was good for them was equally beneficial to us. Their system
of government, though it had undergone many a change, even in its
monarchical type, was the model on which the colonial governments were
based; and when the time came we were set up with a Governor appointed
by the Crown, a Council chosen by the Governor, and an Assembly elected
by the people. They had an Established Church, an outcome of the
Reformation, supported by the State. It was necessary for the welfare of
the people and for their future salvation that we should have one, and
it was given us, large grants of land being made for its support. A
hereditary nobility was an impossibility, for the entire revenue of the
Province in its early days would not have been a sufficient income for a
noble lord. Still, there were needy gentlemen of good families, as there
always have been, and probably ever will be, who were willing to
sacrifice themselves for a government stipend. They were provided for
and sent across the sea to this new land of ours, to fill the few
offices that were of any importance. There was nothing strange or
unnatural in all this, and if these newcomers had honestly applied
themselves to the development of the country instead of to advancing
their own interests, many of the difficulties which afterwards sprang up
would have been avoided. The men who had made the country began to feel
that they knew more about its wants than the Colonial Office, and that
they could manage its affairs better than the appointees of the Crown,
who had become grasping and arrogant. They began to discuss the
question. A strong feeling pervaded the minds of many of the leading men
of the day that a radical change was necessary for the well-being of the
country, and they began to apply the lever of public opinion to the
great fulcrum of agitation, in order to overturn the evils that had
crept into the administration of public affairs. They demanded a
government which should be responsible to the people, and not
independent of them. They urged that the system of representation was
unjust, and should be equalized. They assailed the party in power as
being corrupt, and applied to them the epithet of the "Family Compact"--
a name which has stuck to them ever since, because they held every
office of emolument, and dispensed the patronage to friends, to the
exclusion of every man outside of a restricted pale. Another grievance
which began to be talked about, and which remained a bone of contention
for years, was the large grants of lands for the support of the Church
of England. As the majority of the people did not belong to that body,
they could not see why it should be taken under the protecting care of
the State, while every other denomination was left in the cold. Hence a
clamour for the secularization of the Clergy Reserves began to be heard
throughout the land. These, with many other questions, which were termed
abuses, raised up a political party the members whereof came to be known
as Radicals, and who, later, were stigmatized by the opposing party as
Rebels. The party lines between these two sides were soon sharply drawn
and when Parliament met at York, early in January, 1830, it was
discovered that a breach existed between the Executive Council and the
House of Assembly which could not be closed up until sweeping changes
had been effected.
The Province at this time was divided into eleven districts, or twenty-
six counties, which returned forty-one members to the Assembly, and the
towns of York, Kingston, Brockville and Niagara returned one member
each, making in all forty-five representatives. Obedient to the command
of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Colborne, the members of the
different constituencies were finding their way with sleighs (the only
means of conveyance in those days) through snow-drifts, on the first of
the year, to the capital--the Town of York. The Province had not yet
reached the dignity of possessing a city, and indeed the only towns were
the four we have named, of which Kingston was the largest and most
important. It had a population of 3,635, and York 2,860. A member from
Winnipeg could reach Ottawa quicker, and with much more comfort now,
than York could be reached from the Eastern and Western limits of the
Province in those days. [Footnote: Fancy such an announcement as the
following appearing in our newspapers in these days, prior to the
opening of the House of Assembly:--
"To the proprietors and editors of the different papers in the Eastern
part of the Province. Gentlemen: Presuming that the public will desire
to be put in possession of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor's
speech at the approaching Session of Parliament at an early date, and
feeling desirous to gratify a public to which we are so much indebted,
we shall make arrangements for having it delivered, free of expense, at
Kingston, the day after it is issued from the press at York, that it may
be forwarded to Montreal by mail on the Monday following.
"We are, Gentlemen,
"Your obedient servants,
"H. NORTON & Co., Kingston,
"W. WELLER, York.
"January 2nd, 1830."
The foregoing is clipped from an old number of the _Christian
Guardian_.]
Marshall Spring Bidwell was Speaker to the Assembly, and the following
formed the Executive Council:--J. Baby, Inspector-General; John H. Dunn,
Receiver-General; Henry John Boulton, Attorney-General; and Christopher
A. Hagerman, Solicitor-General. On the opening of the House, the address
was replied to by the Governor in one of the briefest speeches ever
listened to on the floor of the Legislative Assembly: "Gentlemen of the
House of Assembly, I thank you for your Address." The expense of
Hansards would not be very considerable if the legislators of the
present day followed the example of such brevity as this.
Any one looking over the Journals of the Second Session of the Tenth
Parliament will see that there was a liberal bill of fare provided.
Every member had at least one petition to present, and altogether there
were one hundred and fifty-one presented, some of which read strangely
in the light of the present day. Among them was one from Addington,
praying that means might be adopted "to secure these Provinces the trade
of the West Indies, free from the United States competition." Another
was from the Midland District, praying that an Act be passed to prevent
itinerant preachers from coming over from the United States and
spreading sedition, &c.; and another from Hastings, to dispose of the
Clergy Reserves. "Mr. McKenzie gives notice that he will to-morrow move
for leave to bring in a bill to establish finger posts;" and a few years
later these "finger posts" could be seen at all the principal cross-
roads in the Province. Among the bills there was a tavern and shop
license bill; a bill establishing the Kingston Bank with a capital of
L100,000; a bill authorizing a grant of L57,412 10s, for the relief of
sufferers in the American War; and one authorizing a grant to the
Kingston Benevolent Society, and also to the York Hospital and
Dispensary established the year before. Among the one hundred and
thirty-seven bills passed by the House of Assembly, nearly one hundred
were rejected by the Legislative Council, which shows how near the two
Houses had come to a dead-lock. In other respects there was nothing
remarkable about the session. The really most important thing done was
the formation of Agricultural Societies, and the aid granted them. But
in looking over the returns asked for, and the grievance motions brought
forward from time to time, one can see the gathering of the storm that
broke upon the country in 1837-8, and, however much that outbreak is to
be deplored, it hastened, no doubt, the settlement of the vexed
questions which had agitated the public mind for years. The union of the
two Provinces, Upper and Lower Canada, followed in 1841, and in 1867
Confederation took place, when our Province lost its old appellation,
and has ever since been known as the Province of Ontario--the keystone
Province of the Confederation.
It was in 1830 that the name of Robert Baldwin first appeared in the
list of members, and of the forty-five persons who represented the
Province at that time I do not know that one survives. The death of
George IV. brought about a dissolution, and an election took place in
October. There was considerable excitement, and a good many seats
changed occupants, but the Family Compact party were returned to power.
A general election in those days was a weighty matter, because of the
large extent of the constituencies, and the distance the widely-
scattered electors had to travel--often over roads that were almost
impassable--to exercise their franchise. There was but one polling place
in each county, and that was made as central as possible for the
convenience of the people. Often two weeks elapsed before all the votes
could be got in, and during the contest it was not an uncommon thing for
one side or the other to make an effort to get possession of the poll,
and keep their opponents from voting. This frequently led to disgraceful
fights, when sticks and stones were used with a freedom that would have
done no discredit to Irish faction fights in their palmiest days.
Happily, this is all changed now. The numerous polling places prevent a
crowd of excited men from collecting together. Voters have but a short
distance to go, and the whole thing is accomplished with ease in a day.
Our representation, both for the Dominion and Provincial Parliaments, is
now based upon population, and the older and more densely-populated
counties are divided into ridings, so that the forty-eight counties and
some cities and towns return to the Ontario Government eighty-eight
members.
Fifty years ago the Post Office Department was under the control of the
British Government, and Thomas A. Stayner was Deputy Postmaster General
of British North America. Whatever else the Deputy may have had to
complain of, he certainly could not grumble at the extent of territory
under his jurisdiction. The gross receipts of the Department were L8,029
2s 6d. [Footnote: I am indebted to W.H. Griffin, Esq., Deputy Postmaster
General, for information, kindly furnished, respecting the Post Office
Department, &c.] There were ninety-one post offices in Upper Canada. On
the main line between York and Montreal the mails were carried by a
public stage, and in spring and fall, owing to the bad roads, and even
in winter, with its storms and snow-drifts, its progress was slow, and
often difficult. There are persons still living who remember many a
weary hour and trying adventure between these points. Passengers, almost
perished with cold or famished with hunger, were often forced to trudge
through mud and slush up to their knees, because the jaded horses could
barely pull the empty vehicle through the mire or up the weary hill.
They were frequently compelled to alight and grope around in
impenetrable darkness and beating storm for rails from a neighbouring
fence, with which to pry the wheels out of a mud-hole, into which they
had, to all appearance, hopelessly sunk, or to dig themselves out of
snow banks in which both horses and stage were firmly wedged. If they
were so fortunate as to escape these mishaps, the deep ruts and corduroy
bridges tried their powers of endurance to the utmost, and made the old
coach creak and groan under the strain. Sometimes it toppled over with a
crash, leaving the worried passengers to find shelter, if they could, in
the nearest farm-house, until the damage was repaired. But with good
roads and no break-downs they were enabled to spank along at the rate of
seventy-five miles in a day, which was considered rapid travelling.
Four-and-a-half days were required, and often more; to reach Montreal
from York. A merchant posting a letter from the latter place, under the
most favourable circumstances, could not get a reply from Montreal in
less than ten days, or sometimes fifteen; and from Quebec the time
required was from three weeks to a month. The English mails were brought
by sailing vessels. Everything moved in those days with slow and uneven
pace. The other parts of the Province were served by couriers on
horseback, who announced their approach with blast of tin horn. That the
offices were widely separated in most cases may be judged from their
number. I recently came upon an entry made by my father in an old
account book against his father's estate: "To one day going to the post
office, 3s 9d." The charge, looked at in the light of these days,
certainly is not large, but the idea of taking a day to go to and from a
post office struck me as a good illustration of the inconveniences
endured in those days. The correspondent, at that time, had never been
blessed with a vision of the coming envelope, but carefully folded his
sheet of paper into the desired shape, pushed one end of the fold into
the other, and secured it with a wafer or sealing-wax. Envelopes, now
universally used, were not introduced until about 1845-50, and even
blotting paper, that indispensable requisite on every writing-table, was
unknown. Every desk had its sand-box, filled with fine dry sand, which
the writer sprinkled over his sheet to absorb the ink. Sometimes, at a
pinch, ashes were used. Goose quill was the only pen. There was not such
a thing, I suppose, as a steel pen in the Province. Gillott and Perry
had invented them in 1828; but they were sold at $36 a gross, and were
too expensive to come into general use. Neither was there such a thing
as a bit of india rubber, so very common now. Erasures had to be made
with a knife. Single rates of letter postage were, for distances not
exceeding 60 miles, 4 1/2 d; not exceeding 100 miles, 7d; and not over
200 miles, 9d, increasing 2 1/4 d on every additional 100 miles. Letters
weighing less than one ounce were rated as single, double or treble, as
they consisted of one, two or more sheets. If weighing an ounce, or
over, the charge was a single rate for every quarter of an ounce in
weight.
How is it now? The Post Office Department has been for many years under
the control of our Government. There are in Ontario 2,353 Post-Offices,
with a revenue of $914,382. The mails are carried by rail to all the
principal points, and to outlying places and country villages by stage,
and by couriers in light vehicles, with much greater despatch, owing to
the improved condition of the highways. A letter of not over half an
ounce in weight can be sent from Halifax to Vancouver for three cents. A
book weighing five pounds can be sent the same distance for twenty
cents, and parcels and samples at equally low rates. To England the rate
for half an ounce is five cents, and for every additional half-ounce a
single rate is added. Postage stamps and cards, the money order system,
and Post Office savings banks have all been added since 1851. The
merchant of Toronto can post a letter to-day, and get a reply from
London; England, in less time than he could in the old days from Quebec.
In 1830 correspondence was expensive and tedious. Letters were written
only under the pressure of necessity. Now every one writes, and the
number of letters and the revenue have increased a thousand fold. The
steamship, locomotive and telegraph, all the growth of the last half
century, have not only almost annihilated time and space, but have
changed the face of the world. It is true there were steamboats running
between York and Kingston on the Bay of Quinte and the St. Lawrence
prior to 1830; but after that date they increased rapidly in number, and
were greatly improved. It was on the 15th of September of that year that
George Stephenson ran the first locomotive over the line between
Liverpool and Manchester--a distance of thirty miles--so that fifty
years ago this was the only railway with a locomotive in the world--a
fact that can hardly be realised when the number of miles now in
operation, and the vast sums of money expended in their construction,
are considered. What have these agents done for us, apart from the
wonderful impetus given to trade and commerce? You can post to your
correspondent at Montreal at 6 p.m., and your letter is delivered at 11
a.m., and the next day at noon you have your answer. You take up your
morning's paper, and you have the news from the very antipodes every
day. The merchant has quotations placed before him, daily and hourly,
from every great commercial centre in the world; and even the sporting
man can deposit his money here, and have his bet booked in London the
day before.
From the first discovery of the country up to 1800, a period of about
three hundred years, the bark canoe was the only mode of conveyance for
long distances. Governor Simcoe made his journeys from Kingston to
Detroit in a large bark canoe, rowed by twelve chasseurs, followed by
another containing the tents and provisions. The cost of conveying
merchandise between Kingston and Montreal before the Rideau and St.
Lawrence canals were built is hardly credible to people of this day. Sir
J. Murray stated in the House of Commons, in 1828, that the carriage of
a twenty-four pound cannon cost between L150 and L200 sterling. In the
early days of the Talbot Settlement (about 1817), Mr. Ermatinger states
that eighteen bushels of wheat were required to pay for one barrel of
salt, and that one bushel of wheat would no more than pay for one yard
of cotton.
Our fathers did not travel much, and there was a good reason, as we have
seen, why they did not. The ordinary means of transit was the stage,
which Mrs. Jameson describes as a "heavy lumbering vehicle, well
calculated to live in roads where any decent carriage must needs
founder." Another kind, used on rougher roads, consisted of "large
oblong wooden boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together, and placed
on wheels, in which you enter by the window, there being no door to open
or shut, and no springs." On two or three wooden seats, suspended in
leather straps, the passengers were perched. The behaviour of the better
sort, in a journey from Niagara to Hamilton, is described by this writer
as consisting of a "rolling and tumbling along the detestable road,
pitching like a scow among the breakers of a lake storm." The road was
knee-deep in mud, the "forest on either side dark, grim, and
impenetrable." There were but three or four steamboats in existence, and
these were not much more expeditious. Fares were high. The rate from
York to Montreal was about $24. Nearly the only people who travelled
were the merchants and officials, and they were not numerous. The former
often took passage on sailing vessels or batteaux, and if engaged in the
lumber trade, as many of them were, they went down on board their rafts
and returned in the batteaux. "These boats were flat-bottomed, and made
of pine boards, narrowed at bow and stern, forty feet by six, with a
crew of four men and a pilot, provided with oars, sails, and iron-shod
poles for pushing. They continued to carry, in cargoes of five tons, all
the merchandise that passed to Upper Canada. Sometimes these boats were
provided with a makeshift upper cabin, which consisted of an awning of
oilcloth, supported on hoops like the roof of an American, Quaker, or
gipsy waggon. If further provided with half a dozen chairs and a table,
this cabin was deemed the height of primitive luxury. The batteaux went
in brigades, which generally consisted of five boats. Against the
swiftest currents and rapids the men poled their way up; and when the
resisting element was too much for their strength, they fastened a rope
to the bow, and, plunging into the water, dragged her by main strength
up the boiling cataract. From Lachine to Kingston, the average voyage
was ten to twelve days, though it was occasionally made in seven; an
average as long as a voyage across the Atlantic now. The Durham boat,
also then doing duty on this route, was a flat-bottomed barge, but it
differed from the batteaux in having a slip-keel and nearly twice its
capacity. This primitive mode of travelling had its poetic side. Amid
all the hardships of their vocation, the French Canadian boatmen were
ever light of spirit, and they enlivened the passage by carolling their
boat songs; one of which inspired Moore to write his immortal ballad."
[Footnote: Trout's Railways of Canada, 1870-1.]
The country squire, if he had occasion to go from home, mounted his
horse, and, with his saddle-bags strapped behind him, jogged along the
highway or through the bush at the rate of forty or fifty miles a day. I
remember my father going to New York in 1839. He crossed by steamboat
from Kingston to Oswego; thence to Rome, in New York State, by canal-
boat, and thence by rail and steamer to New York.