THE FIRST YEARS OF BRITISH RULE
The period which immediately succeeded the capitulation of Canada is
known as the _règne militaire_; but the administration so sternly
named was remarkable for the most careful equity. Allowing for
circumstances which made military rule a necessity, it was in fact an
era of almost unexampled tenderness; for though still on the threshold
of her colonial empire, England already realised that the lightest
yoke is the longest borne. She had annexed the vast domain of Canada,
and the sentiment of its seventy thousand French inhabitants was her
first concern. These must be won to a new loyalty and schooled in the
free institutions of a progressive nation.
The note of the new administration was struck in the general orders
issued by General Amherst, September 9th, 1760: "The General is
confident that when the troops are informed that the country is the
King's, they will not disgrace themselves by the least appearance of
inhumanity, or by unsoldierlike behaviour in taking any plunder, more
especially as the Canadians become now good subjects, and will feel
the good effects of His Majesty's protection." This confidence in a
policy of conciliation was fully justified by the event.
Ever since the Battle of the Plains, the _habitants_ and the citizens
of Quebec had been slowly but steadily settling to allegiance, and
now, when the fall of Montreal had destroyed the last vestige of
French dominion, the people generally came forward to enroll
themselves. And that they were received into the British fold with
something more than a perfunctory welcome is proved by an extract from
Amherst's instructions: "These newly acquired subjects," he writes to
General Gage, "when they have taken the oath, are as much His
Majesty's subjects as any of us, and are, so long as they remain
deserving of it, entitled to the same protection. I would have you
particularly give it in charge to the troops to live in good harmony
and brotherhood with them, and avoid all differences soever."
Naturally enough, the recent belligerents were deprived of their
weapons; and commissioners went through the different parishes
administering the oath and collecting arms. A firelock was left to
each native militia officer, and, under certain conditions, the rank
and file also could retain guns for hunting.
[Illustration: _General Townshend_
(_afterwards 1st Marquess of Townshend_)]
The Canadians were allowed the free exercise of their religion; and
although nothing was said about the retention of the French language,
its employment followed as a matter of course, since only the soldiers
of the garrison knew English. The adjustment of civil disputes was
placed in the hands of the officers of militia, who met for that
purpose every Tuesday; and from their tribunal an appeal to the
Governor was also allowed.
Criminal cases were submitted to a court of military officers, civil
misdemeanours being defined in the police regulations. To secure the
city as far as possible from her ancient scourge of fire, and to
lessen the chances of incendiarism, it was ordered that chimneys were
to be swept at least once a month under penalty of six _livres_. The
fire-brigade of the capital consisted, _ex officio_, of all the
carpenters, who were required to attend with axes, the citizens being
compelled to assemble with buckets. The _habitants_, while forbidden
to harbour English deserters, received due recompense for any of the
garrison billeted upon them. For the better regulation of prices, they
were forbidden to sell their produce to strangers--"_coureurs de
côte_"--but were required to bring it to market. Through
representations made by the English Government, France at length
consented to redeem the _billets d'ordonnance_ with which her moribund
administration had hopelessly flooded the country. The hand of the
new government was light, the civic burden easy. The days of the
_corvée_ were now passed, and harsh impressment no longer compelled
the _habitant_ to fight on short rations and without pay. Very soon
the French Canadian, as he felt the improvement in his condition,
ceased to feel resentment against his English conqueror.
That the military rule succeeding to the conquest of the country was
benevolent, that its quality of mercy was not strained, is shown by
the citizens of Montreal, who at the death of George II. "placed
themselves in mourning," and presented the following robust address to
the Governor:--
"To His Excellency General Gage the Governor of Montreal
and its dependencies.
"The address of the Officers of Militia and Merchants of
the City of Montreal.
"Cruel Destiny has thus Cutt short the Glorious Days of
so Great & so Magnanimous a Monarch! We are come to pour
out our Grief into the paternal Bosom of Your Excellency,
the sole Tribute of Gratitude of a People who never Cease
to Exhalt the mildness and Moderation of their New
Masters. The General who has conquered Us has rather
treated Us as a Father than a Vanquisher, & has left us a
precious Pledge (_gage_) by Name & Deed of his Goodness
to Us; What acknowledgments are we not beholden to make
for so many Favours?
"They shall be for ever Engraven in our Hearts in
Indelible Character. We Entreat Your Excellency to
continue Us the Honour of Your Protection. We will
endeavour to Deserve it by our Zeal & by the Earnest
Prayers We shall ever offer up to the Immortal Being for
Your Health and Preservation."
[Illustration: _A Perspective View of MONTREAL in Canada, 1760_
MONTREAL IN 1760]
On the other hand, there were those whose temperaments were opposed to
acceptance of the new order of things--those to whom conquest by the
hereditary enemy was intolerable. These irreconcilable spirits were
mainly civil and military officers, seigneurial families, and
_émigrés_ of the first generation. To them estates in the New World
meant much, but the motherland and the Bourbon lilies meant yet more;
and as for the more recent arrivals, not having yet struck deep root
in the land of their adoption, they were content to return to France.
Accordingly, many of these availed themselves of the transportation
provided for in the terms of capitulation, and their departure robbed
Canada of much of her best blood. The new government was hard pressed
to find ships to accommodate these distinguished passengers, as well
as the two thousand disarmed soldiers of De Lévis. At last, however,
they were all embarked, and the crowded vessels set sail, only to be
attacked by furious gales. De Lévis narrowly escaped a watery grave
off the rocks of Newfoundland, while the ship carrying Vaudreuil and
his suite fared little better.
But the most distressing disaster of all befell the _Auguste_, a
frigate bearing the French officer La Corne, his family, his friends,
and a large number of soldiers. Scarcely had the ill-fated ship passed
the island of Anticosti when a dreadful storm overtook her from the
west and drove her into the Gulf. A few days later, a fire broke out
in the cook's galley, which was extinguished only by the most
desperate energy of passengers and crew, and not before most of the
provisions had been destroyed. Off Isle Royale another storm arose, in
which they helplessly tossed for several days, being finally driven
upon the coast. The _Auguste_ went to pieces on the reefs. La Corne
and six companions gained the shore, and unable to render assistance,
saw their families drown in the surf. De Gaspé, in his work _Les
Anciens Canadiens_, recounts the tragic story in the words of La Corne
himself:
"From the 13th to the 15th [of November] we were driven
at the mercy of a violent storm, without knowing where we
were. We were obliged as best we could to replace the
crew, for the men, worn out with fatigue, had taken
refuge in their hammocks and would not leave them;
threats, promises, even blows, had been tried in vain.
Our mizzen-mast being broken, our sails torn to shreds,
and incapable of being clewed up or lowered, the first
mate proposed as a last resource in this extremity to run
into shore. It was a desperate act. The fatal moment
arrived! The captain and mate looked sadly at me with
clasped hands. I but too well understood this mute
language of men who from their profession were accustomed
to brave death. We made the land to starboard, where we
perceived the mouth of a river, which might prove to be
navigable. Without concealing anything, I informed the
passengers of both sexes of this manoeuvre, which was for
life or death....Who could describe the fury of the
waves! The storm had burst upon us in all its violence;
our masts seemed to reach up to the clouds, and then to
plunge into the abyss. A terrible shock told us that the
ship had touched the bottom. We then cut away the cordage
and masts to lighten her and try to float her again; this
came to pass, but the force of the waves turned her over
on her side....As the ship was already leaking in every
part, the passengers all rushed on deck; and some...threw
themselves into the sea and perished....The passengers
and crew had lashed themselves to the shrouds and spars
in order to resist the waves which, breaking over the
ship, were snatching fresh victims every moment....Our
only remaining resource was the two boats, the larger of
which was carried away by a wave and dashed to pieces.
The other was lowered into the water....I hastily seized
a rope, and by means of a tremendous leap fell into the
boat; the same wave which saved my life carried away my
two children....It would be difficult to describe the
horror of this terrible disaster, the cries of those
still on board the ship, and the harrowing spectacle of
those who, having thrown themselves into the waves, were
making useless efforts to gain the beach....Seven living
men at last found themselves on the shore of that unknown
land...and (in the evening) it was a heartrending sight
which presented itself when a hundred and fourteen
corpses were stretched on the sand, many of them with
arms and legs broken, or bearing other marks of the fury
of the elements."
For weeks the fugitives wandered about the woods, and at last were
rescued by a party of Indians thirty leagues from Louisbourg. The
indefatigible La Corne crossed in a birch-bark canoe from Cape Breton
to the mainland, and, travelling five hundred and fifty leagues on
snow-shoes, came again to Quebec. Here, in spite of his own dire
predictions, he found a gaiety and contentment which fairly startled
him. Within the walls of the grim old river-fortress the ancient foes
were making peace in the reconstruction of industry. The wise
forbearance of the conquerors, and the facile temper of the
conquered, provided, far beyond hope, a solution for what was, _prima
facie_, a difficult situation. "It is very surprising," writes an
officer of the Highlanders, "with what ease the gaiety of their
tempers enables them to bear misfortunes which to us would be
insupportable. Families, whom the calamities of war have reduced from
the height of luxury to the want of common necessaries, laugh, dance,
and sing, comforting themselves with this reflection--_Fortune de
guerre_. Their young ladies take the utmost pains to teach our
officers French; with what views I know not, if it is not that they
may hear themselves praised, flattered, and courted without loss of
time," Those who remained behind, sacrificing allegiance to their old
flag for the sake of allegiance to the soil, were indeed far happier
than the irreconcilables who had elected to return to the motherland,
bereft of all but their movable property. And among these homing
Frenchmen were some whose reception caused them a very reasonable
anxiety. Vaudreuil, Bigot, Péan, Cadet, Varin, Penisseault, and
several others who had held offices in Canada, were cast into the
Bastille, charged with the corruptions which had sapped the life-blood
of New France. For months they contemplated their misdeeds in the
sombre silence of the dungeon, and the next year were brought forth
for trial. Vaudreuil, for lack of evidence, was acquitted properly
acquitted, so far as can be known, his chief fault having been a fatal
ill-judgment; but a just fate overtook Bigot, Cadet, and their knavish
parasites. The Intendant was banished from France for life, and all
his property confiscated; Cadet was banished for nine years and fined
six million _livres_; the others received sentences in keeping with
the measure of their guilt.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in Quebec, a decade of English rule slipped uneventfully
by, marked chiefly by new perceptions of citizenship on the part of
the French. The _ancien régime_ had been conducted on the principle of
centralised authority, allowing no place to personal liberty. Neither
on its civil nor its military side were any rights extended to the
individual. Up to the Conquest, the citizens of Quebec had been no
more than cogs in the wheel of State, driven fast or slow according to
the spasmodic interest felt by the Home government in her always
troublesome colony--a land which had first claimed consideration as
the gateway to Cathay, and presently appeared to be nothing better
than a "thousand leagues of snow and ice." This decline from the
equator of enthusiasm to the north pole of neglect indicated the
unstable fortunes of the colony. National spirit was left to fill up
the ranks of her army when danger threatened the frontiers; and to
the simple _habitant_, who had no interest to keep alive the memory of
France, Quebec and Louisbourg were the ends of the earth, and the
annals of his parish the Alpha and Omega of knowledge.
With British rule all this was changed. In Quebec the _Tiers État_
awoke to its latent destiny thirty years before the same realisation
came to Paris; and it was the new principles of government which
achieved this bloodless revolution. The rights of man were no longer
confined to the Governor, Intendant, and the Sovereign Council; and
the plainest citizen felt a new pulse within him as soon as he saw the
trend of the English system. Instead of being kept in the dark as to
what was taking place in the outside world, he found a strange
solicitude in high quarters to keep him informed on every subject of
public importance. Under General Murray a newspaper was established,
the _Quebec Gazette_, which began as a weekly in 1764.[34] The first
issue of this pioneer of Canadian journalism consisted of four folio
pages, two columns to a page, one French, one English; and the outline
of its policy is given in the _Printer's Address to the Public_,
promising:--
"A view of foreign affairs and political transactions
from which a judgment may be formed of the interests and
connections of the several powers of Europe; to collect
the transactions and occurrences of our mother-country;
and to introduce every remarkable event, uncommon
debates, extraordinary performances, and interesting turn
of affairs that shall be thought to merit the notice of
the reader as matter of entertainment, or that can be of
service to the public as inhabitants of an English
colony....And here we beg leave to observe that we shall
have nothing so much at heart as the support of virtue
and morality and the noble cause of liberty. The refined
amusements of literature and the pleasing veins of
well-pointed wit shall also be considered as necessary to
the collection--interspersed with other chosen pieces and
curious essays extracted from the most celebrated
authors--so that, blending philosophy with politics,
history, etc., the youth of both sexes will be improved,
and persons of all ranks agreeably and usefully
entertained."[35] With such a high conception of its
functions, the _Quebec Gazette_ launched itself
twenty-four years in advance of the London _Times_, and
fourteen years before Benjamin Franklin founded the
_Montreal Gazette_.
[Footnote 34: It was changed into a bi-weekly in 1818, and in 1874 was
merged into the _Chronicle_ as a daily paper.]
[Footnote 35: Article by John S. Reade in the Centenary number,
_Quebec Gazette_, 1864.]
Since the Conquest, Quebec had been governed under the terms of a
royal proclamation which, remarkable to relate, prescribed no definite
forms of administration; and by the articles of capitulation almost
everything was left to the discretion of the Governor. General Murray
proved himself a discreet ruler; but friction of some sort was almost
inevitable in a situation presenting such conflicting interests and
delicate problems; and it now came from those few hundred British
settlers who wrongly supposed that their nationality gave them
privileges over ten times their number of French fellow-subjects.
Governor Murray, fortunately, held no partisan views; and his policy
was followed with equal firmness and greater success by Sir Guy
Carleton, who next assumed the administration in 1766.
The new Governor had, indeed, a remarkable connection with the history
of Quebec. In 1759 he had accompanied his friend James Wolfe to the
siege of the city, and like his General, was wounded on the Plains of
Abraham. He remained with Murray in Quebec during the trying winter of
1760, and fought in the battle of Ste. Foye. And now, after a
brilliant campaign in the West Indies, the gallant soldier was
returning to the fortress on the St. Lawrence at another critical
moment in its history.
Events were rapidly moving to a crisis in the English colonies to the
south. In spite of Burke and Pitt, England was blindly imperilling her
possessions in America by the imposition of the Stamp Act, and a
failure to realise that the Thirteen Colonies had long outgrown a
state of tutelage, and were not prepared to accept legislation from
the motherland. But as a preliminary measure of offence, the newly
assembled congress determined to detach Canada from the British crown,
and, naturally, they counted most of all upon disaffection among the
French Canadian population. It is not possible to give in full the
letter which George Washington despatched on this occasion to "The
Inhabitants of Canada"; but the following is part of it:--
"FRIENDS AND BRETHREN--The unnatural contest between the
English colonies and Great Britain has now risen to such
a height that arms alone must decide it. The colonies,
confiding in the justice of their cause, and the purity
of their intention, have reluctantly appealed to that
Being in whose hands are all human events....Above all,
we rejoice that our enemies have been deceived with
regard to you. They have persuaded themselves, they have
even dared to say, that the Canadians were not capable of
distinguishing between the blessings of liberty and the
wretchedness of slavery;...but they have been deceived;
instead of finding in you a poverty of soul and baseness
of spirit, they see with a chagrin, equal to our joy,
that you are enlightened, generous, and virtuous; that
you will not renounce your own rights, or serve as
instruments to deprive your fellow-subjects of theirs.
Come then, my brethren, unite with us in an indissoluble
union, let us run together to the same goal....Come then,
ye generous citizens, range yourselves under the standard
of general liberty, against which all the force and
artifices of tyranny will never be able to prevail.
GEORGE WASHINGTON."
The blandishments of the Thirteen Colonies, or "The Provincials," as
they were called, found almost no response in Canada. Sir Guy Carleton
had left nothing undone to foster loyalty in the hearts of the French
Canadians; and the passing of the Quebec Act in 1774, which secured to
them freedom of worship and confirmed their own system of
jurisprudence, held the French fast to their allegiance at a time when
disaffection would have been ruinous to the Empire.
Controversies still rage over the propriety of legalising the French
language in a British dominion; but any one who examines well the
circumstances which induced it must see that not only justice but
military expediency required liberal treatment and wide consideration
for seventy thousand subjects speaking an alien tongue, if the fruits
of the Seven Years' War were not to be heedlessly thrown away. The
solution of the language problem lies in the peaceful assimilation
which time and growing population alone can bring. Almost a thousand
years ago a Norman race was grafted upon a Saxon stock, and the
blending of these elements has produced Great Britain, the strongest
nation of the modern world. In Canada religious, industrial, and
social conditions have as yet prevented definite fusion of the two
races; but the march of events and the pressure of common interests
must secure it in good time.