THE NEW CENTURY
Quebec entered upon the nineteenth century equipped with the machinery
of constitutional government, which was, however, clogged in action by
unhappy divisions within the city. The four years of Sir James Craig's
rule were disturbed by a truceless war between the Legislative
Assembly and the Governor, whose arbitrary temper ill qualified him to
lead a people still groping for standing-ground within the area of
their new constitution. He looked at popular institutions with the
distrust natural to an old soldier, and the period of his
administration became known in the annals of the province as "the
reign of little King Craig." Born at Gibraltar, he had entered the
army at the tender age of fifteen, and having earned rapid promotion
on many battlefields, he finally reached the rank of major-general at
the close of the American revolutionary war. Further experience in
India and the Mediterranean increased his reputation, and in the
autumn of 1807 he arrived in Quebec full of military honours, and
imbued with the high political views then held by the most exclusive
wing of the Tory party. The members of the Legislative Council and the
administrative clique drew close about the person of this new
champion, and in the same degree the French majority in the
Legislative Assembly held aloof. The burning questions of the day,
whether the judges should sit and vote in Parliament, whether the
Assembly could communicate directly with the Home Government--these
were but the occasions of an antagonism really due to diversity of
race and temperament; for, as Lord Durham discovered a generation
later, "this sensitive and polite people" revolted, not so much
against political disability, as against the exclusive manners and
practices of a ruling class far removed from themselves by language
and mode and code, who ruffled their racial pride at every turn.
[Illustration: FERRY-BOAT ON THE ST. LAWRENCE]
The new Governor was now the forcible instrument of this unsympathetic
power. With an undue sense of the importance of the vice-royalty, the
_ipse dixit_ of "the little king" dissolved Parliament on more than
one occasion. On the other side, _Le Canadien_, the journal of the
French party, rhetorically stood for liberty, fraternity, and equality
as against arbitrary government. Moderate men, wavering for a time,
were at last scandalised by its editorial violence, and rallied to the
side of the Governor. The situation quickly became acute, and
stringent measures of repression were adopted by Sir James Craig and
his councillors. The offending journal was suppressed; five
recalcitrant officers of militia were relieved of their command; and,
finally, the city guards were strengthened to meet the peril of a
possible insurrection. Soon a new element of danger appeared in the
threatened war between England and the United States, offering to the
aggrieved party a tempting occasion for redress. Fortunately, however,
neither the unwisdom of the English Government nor the neighbourhood
of a hostile power availed to drive or lure the Canadians into the
crooked path of rebellion. As the past had already proved, their
country's peril was sufficient to unite in hearty concord all parties,
French and English, in the defence of the common heritage; the
experience of half a century of British rule having convinced even the
survivors of the _Ancien Régime_ that however haughty or aloof
officials might be, security, order, and justice prevailed under the
British flag.
[Illustration: Lord Sydenham.
Governor General of Canada 1839-1841.]
Considering the especial temptations to treason bearing upon the
French population at this crisis, such loyal conduct is the more
praiseworthy. In the first place, it was maintained throughout a war
which was part of England's life-and-death struggle against France,
the mother-country of French Canadians. Again, apart from this natural
affinity with the chiefest enemy of England, material causes operated
yet further to strain their faith; for the enterprise of Montgomery
and Arnold was about to be resumed; and the French must choose either
to suffer the terrors of a hostile invasion, or to join the armies of
the United States in driving the British power for ever from the
Continent. Finally, as if these tests of loyalty were not enough, the
port of Quebec was invaded by English press-gangs, who terrorised the
quays of the Lower Town and kidnapped able-bodied youths of both
races. But notwithstanding so many temptations to swerve from
allegiance, when news came in June, 1812, that the Americans had
declared war against England, the loyal sentiment of the Canadians was
unanimous, the Maritime Provinces joining their forces with those of
Lower and Upper Canada to repel the invaders; and Major-General Isaac
Brock, the Lieutenant-Governor, in his speech to the Legislature of
the Upper Province, thus expressed the feeling of the entire
country:--
"We are engaged," he declared, "in an awful and eventful
contest. By unanimity and despatch in our councils, and
vigour in our operations, we may teach the enemy this
lesson, that a country defended by free men
enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their king and
constitution can never be conquered."
Thus, instead of the support on which they calculated, the invading
army was to encounter a resolute and united foe. Nor were the causes
of Canadian loyalty far to seek. The French population, by nature
loyal and content, were unwilling to sever the ties of noble
monarchical tradition binding them to the past, and embark upon the
troubled seas of American politics, there to be lost among loose and
powerful majorities out of sympathy with their conservative ideals,
their temperament, and those racial rights so fully acknowledged by
England after the Conquest. Also east and west, the Maritime Provinces
and Upper Canada contained an element already devotedly attached to
the Crown. The sacrifices of the United Empire loyalists made almost
sacred the soil of Upper Canada, now Ontario. Men who had already
braved the anger of their fellow-citizens in the American Colonies,
and abandoned their homes to witness to the ideal of a united empire,
were not likely at the last to throw away their crown of service and
stultify themselves before the world.
[Illustration: SIR GORDON DRUMMOND
(Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, December 1813 to April 1815)]
Upper Canada was already a flourishing colony, containing at the
outbreak of this American war about a quarter of the population of the
two provinces combined. To balance inferiority in point of numbers,
the peculiar circumstances of the English colonists--affinity of race
to the mother-country, a fertile territory, the memory of special
benefits received--combined to bring the zealous British sentiment of
the new province into special prominence at this crisis. Inspired by
the wise counsels of Sir Guy Carleton, the British Government had
there formerly pursued a generous policy now about to bear opportune
fruit; for when, at the end of the War of Independence, the loyalist
refugees were crowding to the appointed places of rendezvous along the
northern frontier, facing the future unprovided, the large sum of
£3,000,000 sterling had been granted to recompense their losses, in
addition to further help allowed more needy settlers. Under the four
years of Colonel Simcoe's sympathetic rule (1791-95), the province had
trebled its population, a vigorous immigration policy enticing crowds
of wavering loyalists or enterprising speculators from the south.
"Where," asks Brock in his proclamation at the opening of the war,
"where is to be found, in any part of the world, a growth so rapid in
prosperity and wealth as this colony exhibits?"
Yet the inhabitants of Upper Canada, for all their special interest in
the British connection, hardly exceeded the Lower Province in the zeal
with which they rose to meet the new invasion. Indeed, the United
States had entirely miscalculated the strength of this spirit of
loyalty, which proved a more potent inspiration than their own
vaunted superiority in resources and population: for, on the American
side, recruits came slowly forward, and the movement had none of the
spontaneity evident among their adversaries. The "Loyal and Patriotic
Society," established by Bishop Strachan, then rector of York,
undertook to provide for the national wants of Canada created by the
war. The sum of £120,000 was raised in Upper Canada and the Maritime
Provinces, while the Quebec Legislature contributed no less than
£250,000 towards preparations for defence. At the same time, the
colonials were zealously enlisting, all men between the ages of
sixteen and forty-five being required to serve in the militia; and
their strength was further supplemented by more than four thousand
regulars, scattered throughout the country.
The Commander-in-Chief of these forces was Sir George Prevost, who had
come to Quebec as Governor in succession to Sir James Craig, a change
much welcomed by the French Canadians; for although the new Governor
was not an able general, he possessed the gentle art of conciliation,
a gift of almost equal value at that critical time. As the New England
States had been averse to war from the beginning, the adjoining
Maritime Provinces of Canada were spared the trial of invasion, and
the quarrel was fought out along the southern border of Upper and
Lower Canada.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ISAAC BROCK, K. B.
(Administrator of Upper Canada, 1812)]
The American Commander, General Dearborn, divided his army of invasion
into three parts, intending first to secure a base of operations at
the three important points of Detroit, Niagara, and Queenston, and
thence to overrun the Upper Province. He was confident that, with the
help of the disaffected colonists, these columns would soon be able
to converge and march together upon the capital. General Hull, of
Michigan, commanded the army of the west; Van Rensselaer led the army
of the centre against Niagara and Queenston; while the army of the
north, under Dearborn himself, moved from Albany by Lake Champlain
towards Ontario.
On the Canadian side, Major-General Brock appeared to realise most
clearly the need for decided measures. His commanding presence--he was
six feet three inches in height--and his immense muscular strength
were joined to an intense and chivalrous spirit which was a deciding
influence in uniting the colonists to energetic defence. His practical
sense appears in an order directing officers "On every occasion when
in the field to dress in conformity to the men, in order to avoid the
bad consequence of a conspicuous dress,"--an expedient only lately
adopted in more modern warfare, and not until bitter necessity forced
it.
In other respects, however, we have outgrown the ideas entertained at
that time on the subject of martial appearance, for the writer of the
_Ridout Letters_[44] says, immediately after the battle on Queenston
Heights--
"The American prisoners, officers, and men are the most
savage-looking fellows I ever saw. To strike a greater
terror in their enemies they had allowed their beards on
their upper lips to grow. This, however, had no other
effect upon us than to raise sensations of disgust."
[Footnote 44: _Ten Years of Upper Canada in Peace and War_, 1805-1815,
_being the Ridout Letters, with Annotations_, by Matilda Edgar, 1891.]
Brock was a native of the Island of Guernsey, and had served with the
armies of Britain in many parts of the world, being also present with
Nelson at Copenhagen; but had already served officially in Canada for
ten years before the war. He now found himself opposed to the
vainglorious Hull; nor was it long before he justified his reputation
and won glory for the arms of Canada by capturing the American General
at Detroit, together with 2500 troops and thirty-three cannon. Brock's
ally on this occasion was the Chief Tecumseh, an Indian of reputed
supernatural birth, the natives having been induced to throw in their
lot with the British colonists in consequence of the seizure of the
old port of Michillimackinac by a small force of regulars and Canadian
voyageurs. Following his career of victory, Brock was soon afterwards
confronted by the army of the Centre, consisting of six thousand
Americans, and engaged in the memorable battle on Queenston Heights.
Here, after a long and doubtful fight, the colonial forces were once
more successful, though they paid a heavy price for victory in the
loss of their wise and brave commander, whose name is endeared to all
Canadians, and whose renown grows with succeeding generations.
Meanwhile General Dearborn had undertaken the invasion of Lower Canada
with the army of the north, setting out from Albany to attack Montreal
by way of Lake Champlain; and to oppose him Colonel De Salaberry, at
the head of the French Canadian regiment of Voltigeurs, together with
three hundred Indians and a force of rural militia, held an advanced
post on the River Lacolle. De Salaberry was distinguished by long
experience of foreign service in the British army, having already
confronted the Americans, when as a mere boy-subaltern he had covered
the evacuation of Matilda. In 1795 he commanded a company of
Grenadiers in the expedition to Martinique; and some years later held
the post of honour with the Light Brigade at the capture of Flushing.
And now at last he brought his experience to the defence of his native
province, where his name and fame are not more deeply venerated than
in the English provinces.
Reaching the outpost of Lacolle late in November, a strong force of
Dearborn's army found the Canadian militia securely intrenched at
Blairfindie. But the season was already far advanced; and now
successive blows fell in the news of Hull's surrender at Detroit and
of the defeat on the Oueenston Heights; so that at last the American
commander despaired of success against the spirited defenders of Lower
Canada, and decided to abandon the plans against Montreal and to fall
back forthwith on Albany. Thus, apart from some successes won by the
United States upon the sea, the result of the first campaign was
altogether favourable to the Colonies.
The second year of the war put the loyalty of Lower Canada to more
crucial tests. Once more the Americans planned and exploited a
threefold attack, in the west, centre, and east. In the west, they
were repulsed at Frenchtown by General Proctor; but in the centre this
loss was more than counter-balanced by the control of Lake Ontario by
American vessels, leading to the capture of Fort York,[45] the capital
of the Upper Province, and of Fort George, near Niagara, the Canadian
generals, Sheaffe and Vincent, being compelled to fall back upon
Kingston and Burlington Heights. In following up these successes,
however, the Americans were severely checked at Stoney Creek, near
Hamilton; while another blow was inflicted upon them by the skilful
strategy of Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, who, having been warned of the
enemy's advance by the heroic Laura Secord, devised a trap in which,
with a handful of Canadians and Indians, he captured a large force
under Colonel Boerstler, at Beaver Dams.
[Footnote 45: Now Toronto.]
[Illustration: Sir Charles Bagot.
Governor General of Canada 1842-1843.]
[Illustration: DE SALABERRY
(1778-1829)]
But the tide of war turned once more against the Canadians, when the
British fleet on Lake Erie surrendered to Commodore Perry, and
Proctor, the victor of Frenchtown, met with a humiliating defeat at
the hands of General Harrison, a future President of the Republic,
Chief Tecumseh being among the slain. On the ocean, however, British
naval prestige was restored, and among the events of this year was the
celebrated duel between the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_. But while,
in the west and centre, the issue was hanging thus in doubt, events
more decisive were happening in the east.
The army of the north was sent once more against Montreal and Quebec,
this time in two divisions, the first of which was to march northward
from Albany, and at Châteauguay to effect a junction with the second
division, coming down the St. Lawrence in three hundred boats from
Sackett's Harbor. The St. Lawrence army, commanded by General
Wilkinson, was intercepted by a force of French Canadians, and
sustained a memorable defeat at Chrystler's Farm, near Long Sault
Rapids; and the force from Albany was now to meet a similar fate. Late
in September this first division, under General Hampton, crossed the
Canadian frontier south of the historical outpost of Isle-aux-Noix;
but as De Salaberry was once more in command of the advanced line of
defence, again holding a strong position at Blairfindie, the enemy, in
order to effect the necessary junction with the other division, was
compelled to make a long detour by way of the Châteauguay River. In
spite of the difficulties of the route, they pressed forward towards
the shore of Lake St. Louis. De Salaberry was not dismayed by this new
movement, and hastening westward from Blairfindie, he ascended the
Châteauguay and took up a strong position on ground intersected by
deep ravines. The same tactics which had destroyed Braddock's legion
at Monongahela in 1775, were now brought to bear with equal effect
upon the Americans themselves. The Canadian general, having destroyed
the bridges, erected a triple line of defence, under cover of which he
held his force, consisting of only three hundred Canadians, a band of
Indians, and a few companies of Highlanders. Early in the morning of
October 26th, the American army advancing to the ford, the banks of
the river suddenly blazed with musketry fire. For four hours the
invaders strove in vain to force the passages of the river in the face
of De Salaberry's death-dealing trenches, bravely attempting to
outflank the Voltigeurs; but before those unyielding breastworks,
numbers and impetuosity were both unavailing; and, at last, after
heavy losses, Hampton was constrained to recall his men and retire
from the field. This victory, nobly fought and won by the French
Canadians, ranks with Carillon in the annals of the Lower Province,
and the bullet-riven flags of both engagements are still shown among
the trophies of Quebec. The loyalty and courage of the French
population had decided the issue of another campaign in favour of
Great Britain.
[Illustration: A BEGGAR OF CÔTE BEAUPRÉ]
In 1814 the chief events of the war in Canada happened once more about
Lake Champlain and Niagara. The invaders were again driven back with
loss at Lacolle Mill; but at the end of the season they recovered
ground in this quarter by dispersing the British army and the fleet
of Lake Champlain at Plattsburg, an engagement which led to the recall
of Sir George Prevost, whose bad generalship was blamed for this
reverse. Meanwhile, the hottest battle of all the war had been fought
in the Upper Province, when the American armies, planning to reach
Kingston, and having won some minor successes, were finally scattered
at Lundy's Lane, near Niagara Falls, and compelled to fall back upon
Lake Erie.
[Illustration: ST. LOUIS STREET, PLACE D'ARMES, AND NEW COURT HOUSE]
But apart from the fortunes of war, when peace was finally proclaimed
by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, the chief gain to the British cause,
so far at least as Canada was concerned, lay not so much in the
undoubted advantage held throughout those three trying years, but
rather in the sure knowledge that the people of French Canada had
remained loyal at a crisis when their disaffection would have turned
the scale and lost to England her remaining North American colonies.
As De Salaberry wrote to the House of Assembly, in reference to the
victory at Châteauguay: "In preventing the enemy from penetrating into
the province, one common sentiment animated the whole of my three
hundred brave companions, and in which I participated, that of doing
our duty, serving our sovereign, and saving our country from the evil
of an invasion. The satisfaction arising from our success was to us
adequate recompense...."
Temptations to treason had been multiplied; for besides many
grievances at home, the French inhabitants were constantly exposed to
the emissaries of the United States, who preached specious doctrines
of liberty throughout the parishes of Quebec; and it was indeed
fortunate that the unique influence of the Catholic clergy, powerfully
led by Bishop Plessis, was actively exerted on the side of loyalty,
just as at a later time they earned a sincere tribute from Lord
Durham, and "a grateful recognition of their eminent services in
resisting the arts of the disaffected."
"I know of no parochial clergy in the world," wrote Lord
Durham, "whose practice of all the Christian virtues,
and zealous discharge of their clerical duties, is more
universally admitted, and has been productive of more
beneficial consequences.... In the general absence of any
permanent institutions of civil government, the Catholic
Church has presented almost the only semblance of
stability and organisation, and furnished the only
effectual support for civilisation and order."
But the loyalty of the French population, which would not permit them
to take advantage of the foreign difficulties of their rulers, was
soon to be further tried and shaken through a prolonged period of
political agitation.
[Illustration: General Earl Cathcart.
Governor General of Canada 1846-1847.]