POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER
Wounded and angry at what he considered an intolerable affront, Durham
had placed the reins of government in the firm hands of that fine old
soldier, Sir John Colborne, and had gone to speak with his enemies in
the gate. Not only was the cause of Canada left bleeding; but as soon
as Durham's back was turned, rebellion broke out once more. This
second outbreak arose from the support afforded the Canadian
revolutionists by American 'sympathizers.' The full story of the
'Hunters' Lodges' has never been told, and the sentiment animating that
organization has been quite naturally misunderstood and misrepresented
by Canadian historians. In the thirties of the nineteenth century
western New York was the 'frontier,' and it was peopled by wild,
illiterate frontiersmen, familiar with the use of the rifle and the
bowie-knife, bred in the Revolutionary {26} tradition and nourished on
Fourth of July oratory to a hatred of everything British. The memories
of 1812 were fresh in every mind. These simple souls were told by
their own leaders and by political refugees from Canada, such as
William Lyon Mackenzie, that the two provinces were groaning under the
yoke of the 'bloody Queen of England,' that they were seething with
discontent, that all they needed was a little assistance from free,
chivalrous Americans and the oppressed colonists would shake off
British tyranny for ever. Appeal was made to less exalted sentiment.
Each patriot was to receive a handsome grant of land in the newly
gained territory. Accordingly, in the spring and summer of 1838, a
large scheme to give armed support to the republicans of Canada was
secretly organized all along the northern boundary of the United
States. It was a secret society of 'Hunters' Lodges,' with ritual,
passwords, degrees. Each 'Lodge,' was an independent local body, but a
band of organizers kept control of the whole series from New York to
Detroit. The 'Hunters' are uniformly called 'brigands' and 'banditti'
by the British regular officers who fought them, and the terms have
been {27} handed on without critical examination by Canadian
historians; but not with justice. Misled though they were, the
'Hunters' looked upon Canada only as Englishmen looked upon Greece, or
Poland, or Italy struggling for political freedom: the sentiment,
though misdirected, was anything but ignoble. Acting upon this
sentiment, a Polish refugee, Von Shoultz, led a small force of
'Hunters,' boys and young men from New York State, in an attack on
Prescott, November 10, 1838. He succeeded in surprising the town and
in establishing himself in a strong position in and about the old
windmill, which is now the lighthouse. His position was technically a
'bridge-head,' and he defeated with heavy loss the first attempt to
turn him out of it. If he had been properly supported from the
American side of the river, and if the Canadians had really been ready
to rise _en masse_ as he had been led to believe, the history of Canada
might have been changed. As it was, the invaders were cut off, and, on
the threat of bombardment with heavy guns, surrendered. Their leader
paid for his mistaken chivalry with his life on the gallows within old
Fort Henry at Kingston; and, {28} in recognition of his error, he left
in his will a sum of money to benefit the families of those on the
British side who had lost their lives through his invasion. Of his
followers, some were hanged, some were transported to Tasmania, and
some were set free. During that winter the 'Hunters' made various
other attacks along the border, which were defeated with little effort.
Though now the danger seems to have been slight, it did not seem slight
to the rulers of the Canadas at that time. The numbers and the power
of the 'Hunters' were not known; the sympathy of the American people
was with them, especially while the filibusters were being tried at
drum-head court-martial and hanged; and there was imminent danger of
the United States being hurried by popular clamour into a war with
Great Britain.
All through the summer of 1838 the rebel leaders in the United States
had been plotting for a new insurrection. They were by no means
convinced that their cause was lost. Disaffection was kept alive in
parts of Lower Canada and the habitants were fed with hopes that the
armed assistance of American sympathizers would ensure success for a
second attempt at independence. It may be {29} the sheerest accident
of dates; but Durham took ship at Quebec on the first of November, and
Dr Robert Nelson was declared president of the Canadian republic at
Napierville on the fourth. A copy of Nelson's proclamation preserved
in the Archives at Ottawa furnishes clear evidence of the aims and
intentions of the Canadian radicals: they wanted nothing less than a
separate, independent republic, and they solemnly renounced allegiance
to Great Britain. At two points near the American boundary-line,
Napierville and Odelltown, the loyal militia and regulars clashed with
the rebels and dispersed them. Once more the jails were filled, which
the mercy of Durham had emptied. Once more the cry was raised for
rebel blood, and the winter sky was red with the flame of burning
houses which had sheltered the insurgents. Hundreds of French
Canadians fled across the border; and from this year dates the
immigration from Quebec into New England which has had such an
influence on its manufacturing cities and such a reaction on the
population which remained at home. Another fruit of this ill-starred
rebellion was the haunting dirge of Gerin-Lajoie, _Un Canadien errant_.
Twelve of the leaders were {30} tried for treason, were found guilty,
and were hanged in Montreal. Some of these had been pardoned once for
their part in the rising of the previous year; some were implicated in
plain murder; all were guilty; but the chill deliberate formalities of
the gallows, the sufferings of the wretched men, their bearing on the
scaffold, the vain efforts to obtain reprieve, produced a strong
revulsion of popular feeling in their favour. By the common law of
nations they were traitors; but they are still named and accounted
'patriots.'
At Toronto, Lount and Matthews, two of the rebel leaders of Upper
Canada, were hanged in the jail-yard on April 12, 1839. A petition for
mercy was set aside; Lount's wife on her knees begged the
lieutenant-governor to spare her husband's life, but in vain. Here,
too, public feeling was chiefly pity for the unfortunate. But these
executions did not satisfy the extremists. The lieutenant-governor,
Sir George Arthur, who had long been governor of the penal settlement
in Tasmania, was avowedly in favour of further severities; and vengeful
loyalists clamoured in support. All Durham's work seemed undone. The
political outlook of {31} the Canadas in 1839 was, if anything, darker
and more hopeless than it had been two years before.
Almost as grave as the political condition of the country was the
financial situation. The rebellions of '37 coincided with a
wide-spread financial crisis in the United States, which had its
inevitable reaction upon all business in Canada, and matters had gone
from bad to worse. By the summer of 1839 Upper Canada--the present
rich and prosperous Ontario--was on the verge of bankruptcy. The
reason lay in the ambition of this province. The first roads into any
new country are the rivers. Therefore the population of Canada first
followed and settled along the ancient waterway of the St Lawrence and
the Great Lakes. But this wonderful highway was blocked here and there
by natural obstacles to navigation, long series of rapids and the giant
escarpment of Niagara. To overcome these obstacles the costly Cornwall
and Welland canals had been projected and built. The money for such
vast public works was not to be found in a new country in the pioneer
stage of development; it had to be borrowed outside; and the annual
interest on these borrowings amounted {32} to L75,000, more than half
the annual income of the province. And this huge interest charge was
met by the disastrous policy of further borrowings. After Poulett
Thomson, Durham's successor, became acquainted with Upper Canada--'the
finest country I ever saw,' wrote the man who had seen all Europe--he
testified: 'The finances are more deranged than we believed in
England.... All public works suspended. Emigration going on fast
_from_ the province. Every man's property worth only half what it
was.' Decidedly the political and financial problems of Canada
demanded the highest skill for their solution.
While things had come to this pass in Canada, Lord Durham's Report on
Canada had been presented to the British House of Commons and its
proposals of reform had been made known to the British public. It
revealed the incompetency of Lord Glenelg as colonial secretary; he
resigned and made way for Lord John Russell, who was in hearty accord
with the principles and recommendations of the Report. The chief
recommendation was that the only possible solution of the Canadian
problem lay in the political union of the two provinces. At first the
British {33} government was inclined to bring about this desirable end
by direct Imperial fiat, but in view of the determined opposition of
Upper Canada, it wisely decided to obtain the consent of the two
provinces themselves to a new status, and to induce them, if possible,
to unite of their own motion in a new political entity. The essential
thing was to obtain the consent of the governed; but they were
turbulent, torn by factions, and hard to bring to reason.
For a task of such difficulty and delicacy no ordinary man was
required. Sir John Colborne was not equal to it; he was a plain
soldier, but no diplomat. He was raised to the peerage as Lord Seaton
and transferred. A second High Commissioner, with practically the
powers of a dictator, was appointed governor-general in his stead.
This was a young parliamentarian, of antecedents, training, and outlook
very different from those of his predecessors. Instead of the Army or
the county family, the new governor-general represented the dignity of
old-fashioned London mercantile life. Charles Poulett Thomson had been
in trade; he had been a partner in the firm of Thomson, Bonar and Co.,
tallow-chandlers. Now tallow-chandlery is not {34} generally regarded
as a very exalted form of business, or the gateway to high position;
but in the days of candles it was a business of the first importance.
Candles were then the only light for the stately homes of England, the
House of Commons, the theatres. The battle-lanterns of Britain's
thousand ships were lit by candles. Supplies of tallow must be fetched
from far lands, such as Russia. And this business formed the
governor-general of Canada. As a boy in his teens he was sent into the
counting-house, an apprentice to commerce, and so he escaped the
'education of a gentleman' in the brutal public schools and the
degenerate universities of the time. Business in those days had a sort
of sanctity and was governed by punctilious--almost religious--routine.
In the interests of the business he travelled, while young and
impressionable, to Russia, and mixed to his advantage with the
cosmopolitan society of the capital. Ill-health drove him to the south
of France and Italy, where he resided for two years. His was the rare
nature which really profits by travel. Thus, in a nation of one
tongue, he became a fluent speaker of several European languages; and,
in a nation which prides itself on being blunt {35} and plain, he was
noted for his suave, pleasing, 'foreign' manners. Poulett Thomson
became, in fact, a thorough man of the world, with well-defined
ambitions. He left business and entered politics as a thoroughgoing
Liberal and a convinced free-trader long before free trade became
England's national policy. Another title to distinction was his
friendship with Bentham, who assisted personally in the canvass when
Thomson stood for Dover. From 1830 onwards he was intimately
associated with the leaders of reform. He was a friend of Durham's,
and they had worked together in negotiating a commercial treaty with
France. Continuity in the new Canadian policy was assured by personal
consultations with Durham before Thomson started on his mission.
'Poulett Thomson's policy was based on the Durham Report, and most of
his schemes in regard to Canada were devised under Durham's own roof in
Cleveland Row.'
[Illustration: Lord Sydenham. From an engraving by G. Browning in
M'Gill University Library.]
Business, travel, and politics combined to form the character of
Poulett Thomson. His well-merited titles, Baron Sydenham and Toronto,
tend to obscure the fact that he was essentially a member of the great
middle class, a civilian who had never worn a sword or {36} a military
uniform. He represented that element in English life which is always
enriching the House of Peers by the addition of sheer intellectual
eminence, like that of Tennyson and Kelvin. He had a sense of humour,
a quality of which Head and Durham were devoid. He was amused when he
was not bored by the pomp attending his position. 'The worst part of
the thing to me, individually, is the ceremonial,' he writes. 'The
_bore_ of this is unspeakable. Fancy having to stand for an hour and a
half bowing, and then to sit with one's cocked hat on, receiving
addresses.' In person Thomson was small, slight, elegant,
fragile-looking, with a notably handsome face. He was one of those
clever, agreeable, plausible, managing little men who seem always to
get their own way. They are very adroit and not too scrupulous about
the means they use to attain their ends. They have that absolute
belief in themselves which their friends call self-confidence and their
enemies conceit.
Thomson came to his arduous task brimming with ambition and belief in
his ability to cope with it. He realized to the full the difficulty of
the problem set him and {37} the credit which would accrue if he solved
it. 'After fifteen years,' a friend wrote, 'you have now the golden
opportunity of settling the affairs of Canada upon a safe and firm
footing, ensuring good government to the people, and securing ample
power to the Crown.' He was fully aware of this himself. 'It is a
_great field_ too,' he notes in his private Journal, 'if I can bring
about the union of the provinces and stay for a year to meet the united
assembly and set them to work'; and he contrasts the opportunity for
distinction offered by the Canadian imbroglio with the tame
possibilities of a subordinate position in the Cabinet, which would be
his fate if he remained in England.
The new governor-general reached Quebec in H.M.S. _Pique_ on October
17, 1839, after a stormy passage of thirty-three days. His first task
in Canada was the same as Durham's--to acquaint himself with the actual
conditions--and he flung himself into it with equal energy. Like
Durham, too, he was ably assisted by capable men on his staff, notably
T. W. C. Murdoch, his civil secretary, and James Stuart, the chief
justice of Lower Canada. From the very first he won golden {38}
opinions from all sorts of persons. The tone of his proclamations, the
courtesy and tact of his public utterances, his personal charm made him
speedily popular. The party of Reform was conciliated because he was
known to be in sympathy with the principles of Lord Durham's Report,
while the Conservatives were pleased with his avowed purpose of
strengthening the bonds between the colony and the mother country.
Lower Canada was still a province without a constitution; but it must
have some machinery of government. A makeshift for regular government
was provided by a Legislative Council of fourteen persons of importance
appointed by Sir John Colborne. Their agreement to the principles of
union was soon obtained. The province now seemed tranquil and the
governor-general hurried on to Upper Canada. His account of his
journey from Montreal to Kingston--the changes and stoppages, the
varieties of conveyance--illustrates vividly the difficulties of travel
in those days.
At Toronto Thomson found a totally different set of conditions. Here
was a constitution functioning and a legislature in session; but what a
legislature! Split into half a dozen little cliques and factions, it
was {39} trying to work with no cabinet, no opposition, no party
system--an ideal state of things to which some critics of present
conditions would like to return. The office-holders, that is, the
members of the government, took opposite sides in debate. The Assembly
was a house divided and sub-divided against itself. There was a
wide-spread and persistent clamour for 'responsible government,' but no
one knew precisely what was meant by it. Who was to be 'responsible'?
for what? and to whom? How was it possible to make the local
government 'responsible' to the people of the colony without reducing
the governor to a figurehead? If his authority were reduced to a
shadow, what became of the 'prerogative' and British connection? Was
not 'responsible government' simply the prelude to the absolute
separation of the colony from the mother country? Then there was the
question of the Clergy Reserves agitating every colonial breast.
One-seventh of the public domain had been set aside for the support of
a favoured church: a plain case of monopoly and privilege, said some; a
wise provision for the maintenance of religion, said others. And the
shadow of bankruptcy was {40} hanging over the unhappy colony. The
situation was one of the utmost difficulty, calling for an almost
superhuman combination of ability, tact, and firmness. Here, as in
Lower Canada, the governor-general's first effort was to obtain the
consent of the people's representatives to the great change in the
status of the province which the union would involve. He carried his
point by meeting men and discussing the project with them--a process of
education. Although there was some opposition on various grounds,
reasonable and unreasonable, the Assembly finally consented to the
following terms: first, each province was to have an equal number of
representatives; secondly, a sufficient civil list was to be granted;
thirdly, the debt incurred by Upper Canada for public works of common
interest should be charged upon the revenue of the new united province.
These terms could not be called ideal, especially in regard to Lower
Canada; but union was the only alternative to benevolent despotism or
civil war. In bringing the legislature of Upper Canada to consent to
these terms Thomson had the valuable aid of the cohort of Moderate
Reformers led by Baldwin and Hincks.
{41}
No inconsiderable part of the governor-general's task was a campaign of
education in the _ABC_ of responsible government. Those elementary
ideas of party government now regarded as axiomatic had to be taught
painfully to our rude forefathers in legislation. That the government
should have a definite head or leader in the Assembly, who should speak
for the government, introduce and defend its measures; that the
officials of the government other than those holding permanent posts
should form one body--a ministry--which should automatically relinquish
office and power when it could no longer command a majority in the
legislature, were practically new and by no means welcome ideas to the
old-time law-makers of Canada. The natural corollary that the
opposition also should be organized under a definite leader, who, on
defeating the government, should assume the responsibility of forming a
cabinet, was equally novel. Such a check on reckless criticism was
sadly needed. Of the process by which Thomson achieved his ends even
his fullest biography gives little information. There must have been
endless conferences of homespun, honest farmers like Willson, men of
breeding like {42} Robinson, brilliant lawyers like Sullivan, plain
soldiers like MacNab, with the little, sickly, understanding governor
of the brilliant eyes, the charming manner, and the persuasive tongue.
Of all the varied explaining, discussing, initiating, little record
remains. But the work was done and the results are manifest to the
world. The persuasive little man succeeded in persuading the
law-makers of Upper Canada that the way out of their difficulties lay
not through division but through union. He persuaded them to a change
of status which was a reversal to the old status prior to the
Constitutional Act, and also a prelude to that larger union of the
British colonies in North America which was destined to embrace half
the continent.
Having succeeded almost beyond belief in the first part of his mission,
Thomson turned his attention to the next vexed question. This was the
question of the Clergy Reserves. On this subject much ink had been
spilt and much hard feeling engendered; and it still provokes not a
little ill-directed sarcasm. The whole matter is in danger of being
misunderstood, and eighteenth-century lawmakers are blamed for not
possessing ideas a hundred years ahead of their times.
{43}
By the terms of the Constitutional Act of 1791 one-seventh of the
public lands thereafter to be granted were devoted to 'the Support and
Maintenance of a Protestant Clergy.' The provision was due, it seems,
to the king himself, pious, homely 'Farmer George'; and to men of his
mind no provision could have seemed more natural or right.
'Establishment' had been the rule from time immemorial. The Church of
England was 'established,' that is, provided by law with an income in
England, in Wales, and in Ireland. The 'Kirk' was similarly
'established' in Scotland. In British America itself the Church of
Rome was 'established' very firmly in Lower Canada. What could be more
natural for a Protestant monarch than to make provision for a
'Protestant Clergy' in a British colony settled by British immigrants,
and purchased with such outpouring of British blood and British
treasure? And what more ready and easy way could be found of providing
for that 'clergy' than by endowing it with waste lands which taxed no
one and which would increase in value as the country became settled?
In its essence this endowment was a recognition of the value of the
Christian religion in preserving {44} the state. But trouble arose
almost at once in the interpretation of the terms 'Protestant' and
'clergy.' Was not the Church of Scotland 'Protestant' as well as the
Church of England? Were not the various species of 'Dissenters' also
the most vigorous of 'Protestants'? On the other side it was asked,
Was not the term 'clergy' applied exclusively to the ministers of the
Church of England? It could not apply to any religious teachers
outside the pale; those outside the pale never dreamed of applying it
to themselves. Naturally other denominations wished to share in this
most generous endowment; and quite as naturally the Church of England
desired to stand by the letter of the law and hold what it had of legal
right. Some extremists opposed any and all establishments, holding
that the church should be independent of the state. Let the endowment
be used for the sorely pinched cause of education, and let the
ministers of all denominations depend solely on the Christian
liberality of their people. Perhaps the extremists were in closest
touch with the genius of the new land and the new institutions growing
up in it. To the plain man in the pioneer settlement there seemed
something feudal, something {45} unjust, in creating a privileged
church at the expense of all other churches. Pioneer life brings men
back to primal realities. To the settler in the log-hut the externals
of religion are apt to fade until all churches seem to be much the
same: to set one above all the others seems in his eyes so unjust as to
admit of no argument in its favour. Besides, he had a very real
grievance: the reserved unoccupied lands interfered with his
well-being; they came between farm and farm, increased his taxation,
and prevented the making of the needful roads. How was he to get to
market? to fetch supplies? To-day few will be found to argue for a
state church; but it was not so in the twenties and thirties of the
last century. The battle raged loud and long; and pamphleteer rent
pamphleteer in endless, wordy warfare.
By 1817 the grievance had become clamant; and when that inquisitive
agitator, Robert Gourlay, asked the farmers of Upper Canada what
hindered settlement, he received the answer--Clergy Reserves. Two
years later the Assembly asked for a return of the lands leased and the
revenue derived from them. Up to this time the annual revenue had not
exceeded L700. In the same {46} year, 1819, the 'Kirk' parish of
Niagara applied for a grant of L100, and the law-officers of the Crown
supported the claim. This decision stirred up the Anglicans. They
formed themselves into a corporation in each province to oversee the
administration of the Clergy Reserves. Ownership in the lands was to
be obtained, if obtained at all, through the establishment and
endowment of separate rectories, as provided for in the original act.
Why the directing minds among the Anglicans did not adopt this ready
and easy method of obtaining at least the bulk of the disputed land is
something of a mystery. Apparently they adopted a policy of all or
none. Only in 1836, just before the outbreak of the rebellions, when
political feeling was at fever pitch, did Sir John Colborne, at the
bidding of Bishop Strachan, sign patents for forty-four parishes to be
erected in Upper Canada. The total amount of land devoted to this
purpose was seventeen thousand acres. 'This,' declared Lord Durham,
'is regarded by all other teachers of religion in the country as having
at once degraded them to a position of legal inferiority to the clergy
of the Church of England; and it has been most warmly resented. In the
opinion of many persons, {47} this was the chief predisposing cause of
the recent insurrection, and it is an abiding and unabated cause of
discontent.'
Thomson's way of dealing with this cause of discontent did not dispose
of it for ever, but it at least provided a lenitive. With the business
man's respect for property and vested interests, he was opposed to the
diversion of the grant from its original purpose to the support of
education. He used his powers of persuasion upon 'the leading
individuals among the principal religious communities.' After 'many
interviews' he secured the support of the religious communities to a
measure which he had prepared. By the terms of this bill the remainder
of the reserved land was to be sold and the proceeds were to form a
fund, the income from which should be distributed annually among the
Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and other specified
religious bodies, 'in proportion to their respective numbers.' This
measure was not really acceptable to the Reformers, who wanted to see
the land used in the cause of education; it was distasteful to the Kirk
men; it was gall and wormwood to extreme Anglicans like Bishop
Strachan. None the less, the personal {48} influence of the
diplomatic, strong-willed little man carried it through; and although
the Act itself was disallowed, on excellent grounds, by the Imperial
government, as exceeding the powers of the provincial legislature, yet
the Imperial parliament passed an Act exactly to the same effect.
Thomson had applied a plaster to the sore.
His general view of the political conditions is shown in a private
letter to his chief, Lord John Russell. The picture he draws is
lively, unflattering, but instructive. 'I am satisfied that the mass
of the people are sound--moderate in their demands and attached to
British institutions; but they have been oppressed by a miserable
little oligarchy on the one hand and excited by a few factious
demagogues on the other. I can make a middle reforming party, I am
sure, that will put down both.' The record of seventy-five years and
of two wars shows the attachment of the Canadians to British
institutions, and how justly the governor-general appraised the 'mass
of the people.' Not less clearly did he judge the politicians of the
day, their pettiness, their naive selfishness, their disregard of rule
and form, shocking all the instincts of the British man of business and
{49} the trained parliamentary hand. 'You can form no idea,' he
continues, 'of the way a Colonial Parliament transacts its business. I
got them into comparative order and decency by having measures brought
forward by the Government and well and steadily worked through. But
when they came to their own affairs, and, above all, to money matters,
there was a scene of confusion and riot of which no one in England can
have any idea. Every man proposes a vote for his own job; and bills
are introduced without notice and carried through _all_ their stages in
a quarter of an hour! One of the greatest advantages of the Union will
be that it will be possible to introduce a new system of legislating,
and above all, a restriction upon the initiation of money-votes.
Without the last I would not give a farthing for my bill: and the
change would be decidedly popular; for the members all complain that
under the present system they cannot refuse to move a job for any
constituent who desires it.' Canadians of the present day should study
those words without flinching.
When the session was over Thomson posted back to Montreal, assembled
his Special Council, and set to work, in the role of {50} benevolent
despot, introducing many much-needed reforms. The wheels of government
had been definitely blocked by racial hatred; the constitution was
still suspended. 'There is positively no machinery of government,'
Thomson wrote in a private letter. 'Everything is to be done by the
governor and his secretary.' There were no heads of departments
accessible. When a vacancy occurred, the practice was to appoint two
men to fill it, one French and the other English. There were joint
sheriffs, and joint crown surveyors, who worked against each other.
Ably seconded by the chief justice Stuart, the energetic governor
succeeded in reforming the procedure of the higher courts of judicature
and in establishing district courts after the model of Upper Canada.
Altogether, twenty-one ordinances were passed which had the force of
law. They were indispensable, in Thomson's opinion, in paving the way
for the Union. He was under no illusions as to his methods. 'Nothing
but a despotism could have got them through. A House of Assembly,
whether single or double, would have spent ten years at them,' he
writes, with perfect truth.
The Maritime Provinces next claimed his {51} attention, as they came
within the scope of his commission. In Nova Scotia, likewise, a
struggle for responsible government was in progress, but with striking
differences. The protagonist of the movement, Howe, was the very
reverse of a separatist. He was passionately attached to Britain and
British institutions, and he thought not in terms of his little
province, but of the Empire. Over-topping all other politicians of his
day in native power and breadth of vision, he was successful in working
out the problem of responsible government by purely constitutional
methods, without a symptom of rebellion, the loss of a single life or
any _deus ex machina_ dictator or pacificator from across the seas.
Howe, indeed, was fitted to educate statesmen in the true principles of
democratic government, as his famous letters to Lord John Russell
testify. Howe's achievement must be compared with the failure of
Mackenzie and Papineau, if his true greatness is to appear. When
Thomson and he met, they found that they were at one in principle and
in respect to the measures necessary to bring about the desired
reforms. That month of July 1840 was a very busy one for the
governor-general. He reached Halifax on the ninth and left on {52} the
twenty-eighth for Quebec. In the meantime he had met many men,
discussed many measures, gauged the situation correctly, drafted a
clear memorandum of it, and made a flying visit to St John and
Fredericton. He found New Brunswick happy and contented, a very oasis
of peace in the howling wilderness of colonial politics. His policy
was to get into personal touch with every part of his government and to
see it with his own eyes. On his way back to Montreal from Quebec he
made a detour through the Eastern Townships. Everywhere he increased
his already great popularity.
Apart from his natural and commendable desire to inform himself by the
evidence of his own eyes and ears, these tours were dictated by sound
policy. The governor-general was his own minister, the approaching
election was his election, the Union was his measure; so his public
appearances, speeches, replies to addresses, personal interviews were
all in the nature of an election tour by a modern political leader to
influence public opinion, a legitimate part of his campaign. After
touring the Eastern Townships he made a thorough visitation of the
western province, going round by water, and {53} being nearly wrecked
on Lake Erie and again on Lake Huron, where he found that the inland
freshwater sea could be as turbulent as the Bay of Biscay. Elsewhere
the Canadian autumn weather was delightful. His precarious health
improved. His tour was a triumphal progress. '_All_ parties,' he
writes, 'uniting in addresses in every place, full of confidence in my
government, and of a determination to forget their former disputes.'
He adds a little pen-picture, which shows that the Canadian pioneer had
a knack of impromptu pageantry which his descendants have lost.
'Escorts of two and three hundred farmers on horseback at every place
from township to township, with all the etceteras of guns, music, and
flags.' The governor rode a good deal himself, taking saddle-horses
with him as well as a carriage. Those musical, gun-firing, flag-flying
cavalcades from township to township in the pleasant autumn weather of
1840 enliven the background of a political struggle. 'What is of more
importance,' continues the astute and businesslike little man, 'my
candidates everywhere taken for the ensuing elections.' This western
tour had an important reaction upon public opinion in Toronto, bringing
the {54} divers factions into something like harmony for a time.
Thomson himself was genuinely pleased with what he had seen of that
rich, heart-shaped peninsula lying behind the moat of three inland
seas, with the flowing names, Huron, Erie, Ontario. He writes in
justifiable superlatives. 'You can conceive nothing finer. The most
magnificent soil in the world--four feet of vegetable mould--a climate
certainly the best in North America--the greater part of it admirably
watered. In a word, there is land enough and capabilities enough for
some millions of people and for one of the finest provinces in the
world.' Half a century from the time of writing the governor's vision
was realized and Ontario was the 'banner province' of the Dominion.
During that busy month of July which the governor had spent in the
Maritime Provinces the Act of Union passed by the Imperial parliament
had taken effect. The two provinces were proclaimed to be one province
with one legislature. It was necessary to issue a new commission for
the governor of the new province, and, to mark the importance of his
achievement, Charles Poulett Thomson was created a peer, Baron Sydenham
of Sydenham in Kent and Toronto in Canada. {55} One advantage of a
monarchy is its ability to reward service to the state in a splendid
way. Sydenham's honour was well deserved, but he was not destined to
enjoy it long. His activity in no way relaxed. An essential part of
the scheme of union, as he saw it, was local home rule. The country
was to be divided into small self-governing
units--municipalities--taxing themselves for their own necessary
expenditures and controlling the revenues so raised. This is now such
a familiar idea, an institution which works so well, that it is hard to
conceive of Canada ever lacking it. Even more difficult to conceive is
why the idea should have been opposed by the Imperial parliament so
strongly that an advanced Liberal like Lord John Russell was forced to
exclude it from the Act of Union. But Sydenham was not easily balked.
Being on the ground and seeing the urgent need of such an institution,
he called together his wonderful Special Council for one last session.
Between them they organized the municipal system which, in modified
form, still functions in Quebec. After the Union the system was
extended to Ontario, to the great advantage of that province. So
thoroughly are Canadians {56} accustomed to managing their own affairs,
that they do not realize what a privilege they possess in their
municipal system, and how far Great Britain then lagged behind.
Another important measure passed by the expiring Special Council was
the Registry Act. To the habitant the selling, mortgaging, and
transfer of property was a private affair; he did not see the need for
publicity. So the habit of clandestine transfer of land was almost a
French habit. The same habit prevailed among the Acadians and had to
be dealt with by the English governors. The attempt to put the
transfer of land upon a business basis was regarded as an insidious
attack upon a national custom. Once more the benevolent despot
succeeded in bringing about a much-needed reform. The 'ass's bridge,'
as he calls it, had been impassable for twenty years. Now that it was
crossed, the exploit met 'the nearly universal assent of French and
English.' Some thirty other ukases, all tending to order and the
common weal, were issued in the last session of this extraordinary
legislative body. One fixed the place of the capital. After much
debate on the rival claims of Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Bytown, and
{57} Kingston, it was decided that the town with the martello towers
guarding the gateway to the Thousand Islands, with its memories of
Frontenac and the War of 1812, should be the capital of the new united
province. And it was so. About the quiet university town, where
Queen's is Grant's monument--_si monumentum requiris,
circumspice_--there lingers still the distinction of the old vice-regal
days.
Then came the first election for the new Assembly of the united
province, perhaps the most momentous in the history of Canada. Lower
Canada was vehemently opposed to the whole scheme. To elect a Union
member was, in the words of the Quebec Committee, 'stretching forth the
neck to the yoke which is attempted to be placed upon us.' The French
were organized into a solid phalanx of opposition. In the western
province the Tory and Orange opposition was equally violent towards a
measure which was deemed to favour the French. The elections of 1841
were held with the bad old-fashioned accompaniments of riot and
bloodshed, especially in the centres, Montreal and Toronto. Neither
side was free from the blame of irregular methods. Certainly the
government was not {58} scrupulous in the means it employed to secure
the return of Union candidates. The results were known early in April.
They were as follows: for the government, twenty-four members; French,
twenty; Moderate Reformers, twenty; ultra-Reformers, five; Compact
party, five; doubtful, seven. The curse of petty faction was not
lifted, nor the machinery of two-party government really installed, for
it was quite possible for several of these groups to combine in voting
down government measures without having sufficient cohesion among
themselves to form a ministry and assume control.
The session opened at Kingston on June 14, 1841. A hospital was turned
into a parliament house, a row of warehouses was appropriated for
government offices, and the fine old stone mansion by the waterside
known as 'Alwington' became the residence of the governor-general.
That last summer of his life was crowded with toil and anxiety, but
crowned with triumph. Acting as his own minister, he had to press
through a chaotic and factious legislature, far-seeing measures of
vital importance to the country; he had to reconcile differences, to
smooth opposition, to continue his campaign of education in {59}
parliamentary procedure. In addition to the immediate problem of
remaking the Canadas into one province, Sydenham was deep in diplomatic
difficulties arising over disputes as to the Maine boundary. This
difficulty was settled in 1842 by the Ashburton Treaty, which finally
delimited the frontier lines. The strain on the governor-general was
severe, and his health, never robust, gave way under it; but the frail
form was upborne by the indomitable spirit of the man, and by the
consciousness that he was winning the long-desired and doubtful
victory. His success was plain to other eyes across the sea. His
chief, Lord John Russell, sent gratifying commendations and obtained
for him the coveted honour of the Grand Cross of the Bath. Feeling
that his mission was accomplished, he sent in his resignation and made
his preparations to return to England. The sound he longed to hear was
the pealing of the guns from the citadel of Quebec in a final salute to
the departing proconsul. He was to obtain release in another way.
Some idea of Sydenham's difficulties may be formed by a consideration
of the Baldwin incident, as it has been called. Just before the
session opened an effort was made to {60} combine the Moderate
Reformers of Upper Canada and the 'solid' French-Canadian party of
Lower Canada into a compact parliamentary phalanx of forty which would,
of course, take charge of the House. Baldwin was skilfully approached
and played upon until he supported this intrigue. The sequel is best
told in Sydenham's own words.
Acting upon some principle of conduct, which I can reconcile neither
with honour nor common sense, he strove to bring about this Union, and
at last having as he thought effected it, coolly proposed to me, on the
day before Parliament was to meet, to break up the Government
altogether, dismiss several of his Colleagues and replace them by men
whom I believe he had not known for twenty-four hours, but who are most
of them thoroughly well known in Lower Canada (without going back to
darker times) as the principal opponents to every measure for the
improvement of that Province which has been passed by me, and as the
most uncompromising enemies to the whole of my administration of
affairs there.
I had been made aware of this Gentleman's {61} proceedings for two or
three days, and certainly could hardly bring myself to tolerate them,
but in my great anxiety to avoid if possible any disturbance, I had
delayed taking any step. Upon receiving, however, from himself this
extraordinary demand, I at once treated it, joined to his previous
conduct, as a resignation of his office, and informed him that I
accepted it without the least regret.
Of Baldwin's personal integrity there was no doubt; but the honest man
had been used as a tool. If the intrigue had succeeded, all Sydenham's
labour must have been lost, the Union would have been wrecked in the
launching, and the country thrown back into chaos. Fortunately the
intrigue failed. Baldwin passed over to the opposition, but he was
unable to lead the Reformers of Upper Canada into killing government
measures such as extension of the main highways, reform of the usury
laws, establishment of a comprehensive municipal system. They followed
the sounder leadership of Hincks and supported Sydenham in his wise
efforts to promote the country's good.
{62}
The whole session was a series of crises. Sydenham stood pledged to
the cardinal principle of democratic government, that the majority must
rule. Parliamentary procedure, as they have it in England, was a new
thing in Canada. In Great Britain the government does not always
resign when defeated on a vote, nor does the opposition defeat the
government when it has no power to form an alternative government. The
only consistent opposition was Neilson's band of French Canadians, and
their policy was pure obstruction and their object to separate the two
provinces once more. By combining the factions it was possible
sometimes to defeat a government, but for the government to throw down
the reins of power, with no one on the other side capable of taking
them up, would have been madness. The situation craved wary walking
and most delicate balancing; but Sydenham was equal to it. Later in
the session, when the members had learned their lesson, the
governor-general affirmed his position in a series of resolutions moved
by Harrison, the leader of the government. In these he asserted:
first, his position as representative of the monarch, and, as such,
responsible to Imperial {63} authority alone; secondly, the
administration must possess the confidence of the representatives of
the people; and thirdly, that the administration shall act in
accordance with the well-understood wishes and interests of the people.
In other words, he declared himself for British connection plus
majority rule.
Critics found the first session of the new parliament of Canada a
'do-nothing-but-talk' session. There was indeed a flow of eloquence in
various kinds during the first few weeks until the different parties
found the proper relations and the serious work of legislation began.
Constructive measures of the first importance became law in due course.
Sydenham's own words sum up his achievement. 'With a most difficult
opening, almost a minority, with passions at boiling heat, and
prejudices such as I never saw, to contend with, I have brought the
Assembly by degrees into perfect order ready to follow wherever I may
lead; have carried all my measures, avoided or beaten off all disputed
topics, and have got a ministry with an avowed and recognized majority,
capable of doing what they think right, and not to be upset by my
successor. I have now accomplished all that I set much {64} value on;
for whether the rest be done now, or some sessions hence, matters
little. The five great works I aimed at have been got through: the
establishment of a board of works with ample powers; the admission of
aliens; the regulation of the public lands ceded by the Crown under the
Union Act; and lastly this District Council Bill.' The financial
difficulties of the province had been met by guaranteed Imperial loan,
and progress had been made in remedying the evils of pauper
immigration. Not often does a constructive statesman live to see his
labours so richly rewarded by success.
Then the end came. A stumble of Sydenham's horse as he mounted a rise
near 'Alwington' threw him to the ground and broke his right leg. His
constitution, never strong, had been weakened by disease, unsparing
work, and ceaseless anxieties. The bones would not set, the laceration
would not heal, and at last lockjaw set in. It was impossible for him
to recover. One does not expect the heroic from a fragile man of the
world, but Sydenham's last thoughts were for the state he had served so
well. In the agonies of tetanus he composed the speech with which he
had hoped to bring the session {65} to a close. The last words were
the dying governor's prayer for Canada. 'May Almighty God bless your
labours, and pour down upon this province all those blessings which in
my heart I am desirous it should enjoy.'
His accident occurred on the fourth of September: he was not released
from his sufferings until the nineteenth. A stately funeral testified
to the universal regret. St George's Cathedral at Kingston, where his
bones lie, should be among the high places of the land, a shrine doubly
sacred, as the tomb of one who had no small part in making Canada.
{66}