THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION
On Metcalfe's departure from Canada the administration passed into the
hands of Lord Cathcart, commander-in-chief of the forces. He was one
of the many fine soldiers who have had their part in the upbuilding of
Canada and whose services have received the very slightest recognition.
Of an ancient Scottish family, he had fought in the great Napoleonic
wars from Maida to Waterloo, where he had greatly distinguished
himself. After the peace he had turned his attention to the study of
natural science, and he had made some important contributions to
mineralogy. Cathcart held office from November 26, 1845, until January
30, 1847, some fourteen months. He wisely left Canadian politics to
Canadian politicians, and merely watched the machinery revolve. At
first he was merely administrator, but, on danger threatening from the
unsettled dispute over {98} the Oregon boundary, he was raised to the
rank of governor-general.
[Illustration: Charles, Earl Grey. From the painting by Sir Thomas
Lawrence]
His successor was also a Scot, James Bruce, Earl of Elgin and
Kincardine, directly descended from the patriot king Robert the Bruce.
His father was the British ambassador who salvaged the 'Elgin marbles'
from the Parthenon and sold them to the nation, thus drawing down upon
himself the angry satire of Byron in 'The Curse of Minerva' and 'Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage.' The new governor-general was young, poor, and
able. Far more than his predecessors, he had enjoyed the advantages of
a regular education. At Eton he had Gladstone for a school-mate, and
at Oxford he was in the same college with Dalhousie, the future
governor-general of India. He was also distinguished in two ways: he
was a sincere Christian of the devout evangelical type, and he had a
gift of speech that would have been remarkable in any man, but was
remarkable most of all in a high official of a rather tongue-tied race.
His native gift of eloquence was carefully cultivated and proved to be
of great value in many points in his public career. His family ties
are interesting. His first wife, a Miss Bruce, met a tragic fate. The
vessel in which {99} she accompanied her husband to the West Indies was
wrecked on the voyage out; she never recovered from the shock and
exposure, and died not long after. His second wife was a daughter of
Lord Durham and a niece of Earl Grey, who was, in 1845, colonial
secretary, and to whose influence Elgin owed his appointment as
governor-general. He was thoroughly well qualified for the post. At
the same time it was a way of providing for a relative who was not
rich. Like Metcalfe, Lord Elgin came to Canada by way of Jamaica,
which he had administered in the dark days that followed the
emancipation of the slaves. His broad training, his Liberal politics,
his family affiliations all predisposed him to accept the role which
Metcalfe had definitely refused, the role, namely, of a constitutional
governor-general, guided solely by the advice of a ministry
representing the majority in parliament. In other words, Elgin had his
mind made up to conform entirely to the principle of responsible
government as understood in the colony. He was not long in the country
before he made his intentions public; and to his fixed policy he
adhered through good report and through evil report, at no small cost
to himself, for {100} never were a Canadian governor-general's
principles put to a more severe test.
Elgin reached Montreal in the end of January 1847, and was heartily
welcomed by both political parties. He, on his part, was ready to
admire the 'perfectly independent inhabitants' of this 'glorious
country,' whose demeanour was certainly not that of the recently
liberated slaves in his former satrapy. The 'independent inhabitants'
voted him 'democratic' for walking out to 'Monklands' in a blizzard,
when hardly any one else was stirring abroad. He was made welcome for
another reason. The experiment of popular government was not working
particularly well. The constitution did really 'march,' but with
ominous creakings and groanings, which seemed to threaten a complete
break-down. This must be the case with every government which tried to
perform its functions with but a small majority at its back. The
unanimous welcome accorded to the governor-general by both sides of
politics implied a belief that somehow or other he could find a way out
of the present difficulties and induce the governmental machine to work
smoothly. It was a faith in the efficacy of the god from the machine.
{101} The Draper government was growing weaker and weaker, being
continually defeated in the House, and consequently discredited before
the country. Its difficulties were increased by events outside of
Canada over which the government could have no control. The hideous
Irish famine of 1846-47 had its reaction upon Canada, for thousands of
starving emigrants tried to escape to the new land, and, after enduring
the long-drawn horrors of the middle passage, reached Canada only to
die like plague-stricken sheep of fever and sheer misery. The monument
at Grosse Isle does not tell half the shame and suffering of that
tragic time. And the Draper government showed no ability to cope with
the problem. At length, in December 1847, Lord Elgin dissolved the
House and a new election took place. It resulted in a complete victory
at the polls for the party of Reform. The leaders, Baldwin,
LaFontaine, and Hincks, were all returned. Only a handful of the other
party came back; but among them were Sir Allan MacNab and the young
Kingston lawyer, John A. Macdonald.
The new House met on February 25, 1848. In the trial of strength over
the Speakership the Reformers won. Sir Allan MacNab was {102} again
the nominee of the Tories; Baldwin nominated his friend, Morin, who had
command of both French and English, a necessary qualification for the
presiding officer of a bilingual parliament. And Morin was chosen
Speaker by a large majority. In accordance with the rules the remnant
of the Draper ministry resigned, and LaFontaine and Baldwin formed a
new Cabinet. This is known in Canadian history as the 'Great
Administration,' which lasted until the retirement in 1851 of both the
noted leaders from public life. The distinction is well deserved, not
only on account of the high character of the leaders, and the value of
the political principles affirmed and put in practice, but also on
account of the permanent value of the legislative programme which it
carried to successful completion. The ensuing session was very short;
for time was needed to prepare the various important measures which the
Reformers intended to bring forward. The troubled year of European
revolution, 1848, was rather colourless in the annals of Canada; not so
the year which followed.
The eventful session of 1849 opened on the eighteenth of January, in a
parliament building improvised out of St Anne's market near {103} what
is now Place d'Youville, Montreal. The Speech from the Throne
announces a programme of the more important measures to be brought
before parliament. In this case the Speech was a promise to deal with
such vital matters as electoral reform, the University of Toronto, the
improvement of the judicial system, and the completion of the St
Lawrence canals. It also contained two announcements most gratifying
to the French: first, that amnesty was to be offered to all political
offenders implicated in the troubles of '37-'38; and second, that the
clause in the Act of Union which made English the sole official
language had been repealed. The governor-general displayed his tact
and his goodwill by reading the Speech in French as well as in English,
a custom which has continued ever since.
A striking incident in the opening debate on the Address was the
passage at arms between LaFontaine and Papineau, between the new and
the old leader of French-Canadian political opinion. In '37 Papineau
had roused his countrymen to armed resistance of the government; but he
had wisely refrained from placing himself at the head of the
insurgents. Together with his secretary, {104} O'Callaghan, he had
witnessed the fight at St Denis from the other side of the river, but
took no part in it. He had afterwards reached the American border in
safety. From the United States he had passed over to France, where he
had consorted with some of the advanced thinkers of the capital. In
1843 LaFontaine, by his personal exertions with Metcalfe, was able to
gain for his exiled chief the privilege of returning without penalty to
his native land. Papineau, however, did not avail himself of the
privilege until four years later; he found life in Paris quite to his
taste. A curious result of his return, a pardoned rebel, was his
claiming and receiving from the provincial treasury the nine years'
arrearage of salary due to him as Speaker in the old Assembly of Lower
Canada. In the elections of 1847 he stood for St Maurice, and he was
elected. In the new parliament he took the role of irreconcilable; his
whole policy was obstruction. What he could not realize was, that
during his ten years of absence the whole country had moved away from
the position it had occupied before the outbreak of the rebellion; and,
in moving away, it had left him hopelessly behind. His only programme
was {105} uncompromising opposition to the government which had
forgiven him, and the vague dream of founding an independent French
republic on the banks of the St Lawrence. In the brief session of 1848
he attempted, but without success, to block the wheels of government.
Now, in the second session, the fateful session of 1849, he delivered
one of his old-time reckless philippics denouncing the tyrannical
British power, the Act of Union--the very measure he was supposed to
have battled for--responsible government, and, above all, those of his
own race who supported the new order. LaFontaine took up the gauntlet.
His retort was as obvious as it was crushing. If the French Canadians
had refused to come in under the Act of Union, they would have been
depriving themselves of any share whatever in the government of their
country. If they had refused to come in, Papineau would not have been
permitted to return, or to sit once more as a legislator and a free man
in the national parliament. The reply was unanswerable, and it put a
period to the influence of Papineau. Foiled and discredited, the old
leader was never again to sway the masses of his countrymen as the moon
sways the tides. His day was done. None the less, {106} the prestige
of his name drew after him a small following of the younger and more
ardent men to whom he taught the pure Radical doctrine. In _L'Avenir_,
the propagandist journal which he founded, he preached repeal of the
Union and annexation to the United States. Before long he abandoned an
arena in which he was no longer the great central figure for dignified
seclusion on his seigneury of Montebello beside the noble Ottawa.
In spite of all blind opposition a broad and enlightened programme of
legislation was carried out. Nearly two hundred measures, many of
prime importance, stand to the credit of this busy session. The vexed
question of a provincial university was finally settled. Baldwin's
bill for the founding of the University of Toronto, which had been laid
to one side by the Metcalfe crisis, was taken up again and carried
through all its stages to the status of a law. Conceived as the apex
and crown of a comprehensive scheme of education as broad as the
province, the University of Toronto more than met the hopes of its
founder. A straight road had been devised from the first class in the
common school to the highest department of collegiate instruction. The
needs of the {107} democracy had not been neglected, but wise and ample
provision had been made for the ambitious and aspiring few. How
completely the university has justified its existence is attested by
the spectacle of both political parties competing with each other in
their benevolence towards an honoured, national foundation. By the
multiplying generations of Toronto graduates the name of Robert Baldwin
should be held in high esteem as of the man who made possible the seat
of learning they are so proud to name their _alma mater_.
Another wise measure for which Baldwin deserves no little praise is the
Municipal Corporations Act. The title has a dry, legal look, and will
suggest little or nothing to the general reader except, possibly, red
tape. Moreover, the system by which the subdivisions of the
country--the county, the township, the incorporated village--govern
themselves seems so obvious and works so smoothly in actual practice
that it seems part of the order of nature, and must have existed from
the time beyond which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
But the present extended system of home rule in Canada did not descend
from heaven complete, like the {108} Twelve Tables. It was a gradual
growth, or evolution, from the old system, by which the local justices
of the peace, sitting in quarter sessions, assessed the local taxes,
with the difference that it was not an unconscious growth. The plant
set by Sydenham's hand was tended, cultivated, and brought to maturity
by Baldwin. The measure, as it became law in 1849, has proved to be of
the greatest practical value; it has won the approval of competent
critics; and it has served as a model for the organization of other
provinces. Commonplace and humdrum as this measure may seem to
Canadians in the actual domestic working of it, there are other parts
of the Empire--Ireland, for example--which were to lag long behind.
The lack of such privileges is a grievance elsewhere. Even to-day, the
rural districts of England have not as extensive powers of
self-government as the counties of Ontario. If the farmers of the
Tenth Concession had to go to Ottawa and see a bill through the House
every time they wanted a new school, if they had months of waiting for
proper authorization, not to mention expenses of legislation to meet,
they might appreciate more keenly the advantages they enjoy in virtue
of this {109} forgotten Act of 1849. The lover of the picturesque will
not regret that terms with the historic colour of 'reeve' and 'warden'
were made part and parcel of a democratic system in the New World.
It was a session of constructive statesmanship. The judicial system of
the province needed to be revised, extended, and simplified; and these
things were done. The economic condition of Canada was anything but
satisfactory. For years the country had 'enjoyed a preference' in the
British markets, in accordance with the old, plausible theory that
mother country and colony were best held together by trade arrangements
of mutual advantage, by which the colony should supply the mother
country with raw material and the mother country should supply the
colony with manufactured products. Suddenly all Canada's business was
dislocated by Peel's adoption of free trade in 1846. In consequence
Canada had no longer any advantage in the British market over the rest
of the world, and Canadian timber-merchants and grain-growers had an
undoubted grievance. The general commercial depression, which had set
in at the time of the rebellions, became worse and worse. {110} Lord
Elgin's often-quoted words picture the deplorable state of the country:
'Property in most of the Canadian towns, and more especially in the
capital, has fallen fifty per cent in value within the last three
years. Three-fourths of the commercial men are bankrupt, owing to free
trade; a large proportion of the exportable produce of Canada is
obliged to seek a market in the United States. It pays a duty of
twenty per cent on the frontier. How long can such a state of things
be expected to endure?' For a remedy the active mind of Hincks turned
to the obvious alternative of the British market, the natural market
just across the line; and he opened up negotiations with the United
States looking towards reciprocal trade. He could scarcely obtain a
hearing. The way was blocked by the complete indifference of the
United States Senate towards the whole project. Not until five years
later did relief come; and it came through the initiative and personal
diplomacy of Lord Elgin. To him belongs the credit for the famous
Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. This signifies that for the twelve years
during which the treaty was in force the artificial barriers to the
currents of trade between {111} adjacent countries were, to a large
extent, removed, certainly to the great advantage of all British North
America. It was a unique period in Canadian history. Never before had
the trade relations between Canada and the United States been so
friendly, and never have they been so friendly since.
In another great enterprise of national importance Hincks was more
successful. The forties of the nineteenth century saw the first great
era of railway building. This novel method of transportation was
perceived to have immense undeveloped possibilities. In Britain, where
steam traction was invented, companies were formed by the score and
lines were projected in every direction. It was a time of wild
speculation, in which emerged for the first time the new type of
company promoter. From England the rage for railways spread to the
Continent and to America. While Hincks was working at the problem in
Canada, Howe was working at it in Nova Scotia. To link the East with
the West, Montreal with Toronto, Montreal with the Atlantic seaboard,
Montreal with the Lake Champlain waterways to the southward, was the
general design of the first Canadian railways. It was in this period
that the first {112} sections were built of those Canadian lines which,
in half a century, have grown into immense systems radiating across the
continent. Hincks's idea was to aid private enterprise by government
guarantees of the interest on half the cost of construction. Canada is
now laced with iron roads from ocean to ocean. The man who laid the
foundation of these immense systems in the day of small beginnings
should never be forgotten.
So the busy session went on, until a measure was introduced which
aroused a storm of opposition, threatened a renewal of civil war, and
tested the principle of responsible government almost to the breaking
strain. This was the Act of Indemnification, a part of the bitter
aftermath of the rebellion twelve years before.
War, even on the smallest scale, means the destruction of property. In
the troubles of '37 buildings were burned down in the course of
military operations. For example, good Father Paquin of St Eustache
had long to mourn the loss of his church and the adjoining school. As
it stood on a point of land at the junction of two streams and was
strongly built of stone, it was an excellent {113} place of defence
against the attack of Colborne's troops. On the fatal fourteenth of
December 1837 it was stoutly held by Chenier and his men, until two
British officers broke into the sacristy and overset the stove. Soon
the fire drove the garrison out of the building, which was destroyed
along with the new school-house near by. His parishioners were loyal,
Father Paquin contended in a well-reasoned petition; it was not they
but the discontented people of Grand Brule who had seized the town; yet
the result was ruin. In the affair of Odelltown in 1838 a citizen's
barn was burnt down by orders of the British officer commanding because
it gave shelter to the rebels. Near St Eustache the Swiss adventurer
and leader of the rebels, Amury Girod, took possession of a farm
belonging to a loyal Scottish family. His men cut down the trees about
the farm-house, fortified it rudely, and lived in it at rack and manger
until Colborne came to St Eustache. These were typical cases of loss,
and surely, when order was again restored, they were cases for
compensation. The loyal and the innocent should not have to suffer in
their goods for their innocence and their loyalty.
{114}
Claims for compensation were made early. In the very year of the
rebellion the Assembly of Upper Canada passed an Act appointing
commissioners to inquire into the amount of damage done to the property
of loyal citizens; and in the following year it voted a sum of L4000 to
make good the losses. Men were paid for a cow driven off, or for an
old musket commandeered. The Special Council of Lower Canada made
similar provision, as was only natural and right; but its task was much
harder than that of the Assembly's. Clearly, the property of loyalists
destroyed or injured during the civil strife should be made good. This
was mere justice. It was equally clear that the property of open
rebels which had been destroyed or injured should _not_ be made good.
But there was a third category not so easy to deal with. There were
those who were not openly in rebellion, but who were grievously suspect
of sympathy with declared insurgents of their own race and religion.
How far sympathy might have become aid and comfort to opponents of the
government was hard to say. The village of St Eustache, for example,
was set on fire the night following the fight; the troops turned out in
the bitter cold to fight the fire, {115} but did not master it until
some eighty houses were burned. What claim could the owners have upon
the government for their losses? In the winter of 1838 the sky was red
with the flames of burning hamlets, says the _Montreal Herald_.
The law's delay is proverbial. Compensatory legislation dragged its
slow length along for years, and the loyalists who had suffered in
their pocket saw session after session pass, and their claims still
unsatisfied. In 1840 the Assembly of Upper Canada passed an Act
authorizing the expenditure not of four thousand, but of forty thousand
pounds, to indemnify the loyalists who had lost by the 'troubles.'
However, as the Assembly, at the same time, forbore to provide any
funds for the purpose, the Act remained with the force of a pious wish.
The claimants for compensation were none the better for it. Then came
the union of the Canadas. Five more years rolled away, and, in spite
of the usual siege operations of those who have money claims against a
government, nothing was done. The various barns and cows and muskets
were still a dead loss. Then in 1845 the Tory administration of Draper
put the necessary finishing touch to the quaker act of 1840 by {116}
providing the sum of money required. By drawing on the receipts from
tavern licences collected in Upper Canada over a period of four years,
the government was in the possession of L38,000 for this specific
purpose. But, after the Union, it was manifestly unjust to pay
rebellion losses, as they came to be known, in Upper Canada and not in
Lower Canada. The Reformers of Lower Canada pointed out with emphasis
the manifest injustice of such a proceeding. It therefore became
necessary to extend the scope of the Act. Accordingly, in November
1845, a commission consisting of five persons was appointed to
investigate the claims for 'indemnity for just losses sustained' during
the rebellion in Lower Canada. This commission was instructed to
distinguish between the loyal and the rebellious, but, in making this
vital distinction, they were not to 'be guided by any other description
of evidence than that furnished by the sentences of the courts of law.'
The commission was also given to understand that its investigation was
not to be final. It was to prepare only a 'general estimate' which
would be subject to more particular scrutiny and revision. Appointed
in the end of November 1845, the {117} commission had finished its task
and was ready to report in April 1846. Its 'general estimate' was a
handsome total of more than L240,000; it gave as its opinion that
L100,000 would cover all the 'just losses sustained.' Of the larger
amount, it is said that L25,000 was claimed by those who had actually
been convicted of treason by court-martial. Not unnaturally an outcry
rose at once against taking public money to reward treason. The report
could not very well be acted upon; and the government voted L10,000 to
pay claims in Lower Canada which had been certified before the union of
the provinces. Another delay of three years followed, until LaFontaine
took the matter up in the session of 1849.
His general idea was simply to continue and complete the legislation
already in force, in order to do justice to those who had 'sustained
just losses' in the 'troubles' of '37 and '38. The bill provided for a
new commission of five, with power to examine witnesses on oath. In
accordance with the finding of the previous commission, the total sum
to be expended was limited to L100,000. If the losses exceeded that
sum, the individual claims were to be proportionally reduced. {118}
The necessary funds were to be raised on twenty-year debentures bearing
interest at six per cent. LaFontaine introduced and explained the
bill, and Baldwin supported it in a brief speech. It was easy enough,
with their unbroken majority, to vote the measure through; but the
storm of opposition it raised might have made less determined leaders
hesitate or draw back.
[Illustration: Sir Louis H. LaFontaine. After a photograph by Notman]
The vehemence of the opposition was not due merely to the readiness
with which the faction out of power will seize on the weak aspects of a
question in order to embarrass the government. Such sham-fight tactics
are common enough and may be rated at their proper value. The leaders
of the British party were sincere in their belief that the success of
this measure meant the triumph of the French and the reversal of all
that had been done to hold the colonies for the Empire against rebels
whose avowed purpose was separation. Twelve years had gone by since
they had failed in the overt act. Now Papineau was back in the House,
about to receive his arrears of salary as Speaker. In Elgin's eyes he
was a Guy Fawkes waving flaming brands among all sorts of combustibles.
Mackenzie had been granted amnesty by the monarch {119} he had called
'the bloody Queen of England.' Wolfred Nelson, who had resisted Her
Majesty's forces at St Denis, was to have his claim for damages
considered. It was not in the flesh and blood of politicians to endure
all this; and before condemning the opposition to this bill, as is the
fashion with Canadian historians, we might ask what we should have done
ourselves in such circumstances. What the Tories did was to raise the
war-cry, 'No pay to rebels.' It resounded from one end of the province
to the other and roused to life all the passion that had slumbered
since the rebellion.
In the debate on the second reading of the bill a scene almost without
parallel took place on the floor of the House. The Tories taunted the
French with being 'aliens and rebels.' Blake, the solicitor-general
for Upper Canada, retorted the charge, and accused the Tories of being
'rebels to their constitution and country.' In a rage Sir Allan MacNab
gave him 'the lie with circumstance,' and the two honourable members
made at each other. Only the prompt intervention of the
sergeant-at-arms prevented actual assault. The two belligerents were
taken into his custody. Some of the excited spectators who {120}
hissed and shouted were also taken into custody; and the debate came to
a sudden end that day. Those were the days of 'the code,' and why a
'meeting' was not 'arranged' and why Sir Allan did not have an
opportunity of using his silver-mounted duelling pistols is not quite
clear. The tempers of our politicians have much improved since that
violent scene occurred. No slur on the word of an honourable
gentleman, no imputation of falsehood, would now be so hotly resented
in our legislative halls.
The violence and the excitement which prevailed in parliament were
repeated and intensified throughout the country. Everything that could
be effected by public meetings, petitions, protests, was done to
prevent the bill from passing, or, if it passed, to prevent the
governor-general from giving his assent to it, or, as a last resource,
to induce the Queen to disallow the obnoxious measure. The whole
machinery of agitation was set in motion and speeded up, to prevent the
bill becoming law. 'Demonstrations'--in plain English, rows--took
place everywhere. Sedate little Belleville was the scene of fierce
riots. Effigies of Baldwin, Blake, and Mackenzie were paraded through
the streets of Toronto {121} on long poles 'amid the cheers and
exultations of the largest concourse of people beheld in Toronto since
the election of Dunn and Buchanan.' Finally the effigies were burned
in a burlesque _auto-da-fe_. This ancient English custom was a milder
method of expressing political disapproval than the native American
invention of tar-and-feathers; but it seems to have been equally
soothing to the feelings. An outside observer, the _New York Herald_,
expected the disturbance to end in 'a complete and perfect separation
of those provinces from the rule of England'; but in those days
American critics were always expecting separation.
No clearer mirror of the crisis is to be found than in the words of the
man on whom lay the heaviest responsibility, the governor-general
himself. This is his private opinion of the bill: 'The measure itself
is not free from objection, and I very much regret that an addition
should be made to our debt for such an object at this time.
Nevertheless I must say I do not see how my present government could
have taken any other course.' He also calls it 'a strict logical
following out' of the Tory party's own acts; and he has 'no doubt
whatsoever {122} that a great deal of property was wantonly and cruelly
destroyed at that time in Lower Canada.' He was petitioned to dissolve
parliament if the bill should pass; his judgment on this alternative
runs: 'If I had dissolved parliament, I might have produced a
rebellion, but most assuredly I should not have produced a change of
ministry.' The other alternative of reserving the bill seemed, as he
balanced it in his mind, cowardly. He would create no precedent.
Bills had been reserved before, and had been refused the royal
sanction; to reserve this one would be no departure from established
custom; but, he writes to Lord Grey, 'by reserving the Bill, I should
only throw upon Her Majesty's Government ... a responsibility which
rests, and ought, I think, to rest, on my own shoulders.' The
sentences which follow evince an ideal of public service that can only
be called knightly. The executive head of the government was ready to
face failure and disgrace, to the ruin of his career, rather than shirk
the responsibility which was really his. 'If I pass the Bill, whatever
mischief ensues may possibly be repaired, if the worst comes to the
worst, by the sacrifice of me. Whereas {123} if the case be referred
to England, it is not impossible that Her Majesty may have before her
the alternative of provoking a rebellion in Lower Canada ... or of
wounding the susceptibilities of some of the best subjects she has in
the province.' From the first Elgin had firmly made up his mind to
fill the role of constitutional governor; he believed that the best
justification of Durham's memory, and of what he had done in Canada,
would be a governor-general working out fairly the Dictator's views of
government. Although he had definitely made up his mind what course of
action to follow, he was never betrayed into committing himself before
the proper time. Deputations waited on him with provocative addresses;
but none was cunning enough to snare him in his speech. The
'sacrifice' came soon enough.
In spite of all the furies of opposition within the House and out of
it, the Indemnity Bill passed by a majority of more than two to one.
The next question was what would Lord Elgin do? Would he give his
assent to the bill, the finishing vice-regal touch which would make it
law, or would he reserve it for Her Majesty's sanction? Some unnamed
{124} persons of respectability had a shrewd suspicion of what he would
do, as the sequel proved. An accident hastened the crisis. In 1849
the navigation of the St Lawrence opened early; and on the twenty-fifth
of April the first vessel of the season was sighted approaching the
port of Montreal. In order to make his new Tariff Bill immediately
operative on the nearing cargo, Hincks posted out to 'Monklands,' Lord
Elgin's residence, in order to obtain the governor-general's formal
assent to this particular bill. The governor did as he was asked. He
drove in from 'Monklands' in state to the Parliament House for the
purpose. The time seemed opportune to give his assent to several other
bills. Among the rest he assented in Her Majesty's name to the 'Act to
provide for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose
property was destroyed during the Rebellion of 1837 and 1838.' What
happened in consequence is best told in his own words. 'When I left
the House of Parliament, I was received with mingled cheers and
hootings by a crowd by no means numerous, which surrounded the entrance
of the building. A small knot of individuals consisting, it has since
been {125} ascertained, of persons of a respectable class in society,
pelted the carriage with missiles which they must have brought with
them for the purpose.' The 'missiles' which could not be picked up in
the street were rotten eggs. One of them struck Lord Elgin in the
face. That was the Canadian method of expressing disapproval of a
governor-general for acting in strict accordance with the principles of
responsible government. But this was only part of the price he had to
pay for doing right. Worse was to follow.
Immediately after this outrage a notice was issued from one of the
newspapers calling an open-air meeting in the Champ de Mars. Towards
evening the excitement increased, and the fire-bells jangled a tocsin
to call the people into the streets. The Champ de Mars soon filled
with a tumultuous mob, roaring its approbation of wild speeches which
denounced the 'tyranny' of the governor-general and the Reformers. A
cry arose, 'To the Parliament House!' and the mob streamed westward,
wrecking in its passage the office of Hincks's paper the _Pilot_. The
House was in session, and though warned by Sir Allan MacNab that a riot
was in progress, it hesitated to take the extreme step of {126} calling
out the military to protect its dignity. At this time the whole police
force of the city numbered only seventy-two men, and, in emergencies,
law and order were maintained with the aid of the regiments in
garrison, or by a force of special constables. Soon the House found
that Sir Allan's warning was against no imaginary danger. Volleys of
stones suddenly crashed through the lighted windows, and the members
fled for their lives. The rabble flowed into the building and took
possession of the Assembly hall. Here they broke in pieces the
furniture, the fittings, the chandeliers. One of the rioters, a man
with a broken nose, seated himself in the Speaker's chair and shouted,
'I dissolve this House.' It seems like a scene from a Paris _emeute_
rather than an actual event in a staid Canadian city. Soon a cry was
heard, 'The Parliament House is on fire.' Another band of rioters had
set the western wing alight, and, in a quarter of an hour, the whole
building was a mass of flames. Although the firemen turned out
promptly, they were forcibly prevented by the mob from doing their
duty, until the soldiers came to their support, and then it was too
late to save the building. Next day only the ruined walls {127} were
standing. The Library of Parliament was burned in spite of efforts to
save it, and the student of Canadian history will always mourn the loss
of irreplaceable records and manuscripts in that tragic blaze. One
thing was rescued. Young Sandford Fleming and three others carried out
the portrait of the Queen. It was almost as gallant an act as rescuing
the Lady in person.
Nor was the destruction of the Parliament Building the final outbreak.
Next evening the mob was at its work again, attacking the houses or
lodgings of the various Reform leaders. LaFontaine's government
ordered the arrest of four ringleaders in the last night's riot. In
revenge his house was entered forcibly, the furniture smashed, the
library destroyed, and the stable set on fire. In fact, for three days
Montreal was like a city in revolution. A thousand special constables,
armed with pistols and cutlasses, in addition to the soldiery were
needed to restore something like order in the streets. But the rioting
was not over even yet. The most violent scene of all took place on the
thirtieth of April. The House was naturally incensed at the insults
offered to the governor-general and drew up an address expressing the
{128} members' detestation of mob violence, their loyalty to the Queen,
and their approval of his just and impartial administration. It was
decided to present the address to him, not at the suburban seat of
'Monklands,' but publicly at Government House, the Chateau de Ramezay
in the heart of the city. Such a decision showed no little courage on
both sides, but the end was almost a tragedy. Lord Elgin came very
near being murdered in the streets of Montreal. On the day appointed
he drove into the city, having for escort a troop of volunteer
dragoons. All through the streets his carriage was pelted with stones
and other missiles, and his entry to Government House was blocked by a
howling mob. His escort forced the crowd to give way, and the
governor-general entered, carrying with him a two-pound stone which had
been hurled into his carriage. It was a piece of unmistakable evidence
as to the treatment the Queen's representative in Canada had received
at the hands of Her Majesty's faithful subjects. When the ceremony was
over he attempted to avoid trouble by taking a different route back to
'Monklands,' but he was discovered, and literally hunted out of the
city. 'Cabs, {129} caleches, and everything that would run were at
once launched in pursuit, and crossing his route, the
governor-general's carriage was bitterly assailed in the main street of
the St Lawrence suburbs. The good and rapid driving of his postilions
enabled him to clear the desperate mob, but not till the head of his
brother, Colonel Bruce, had been cut, injuries inflicted on the chief
of police, Colonel Ermatinger, and on Captain Jones, commanding the
escort, and every panel of the carriage driven in.' Even at
'Monklands' Lord Elgin was not entirely safe. The mob threatened to
attack him there, and the house was put in a state of defence. Ladies
of his household driving to church were insulted. To avoid occasion of
strife he remained quietly at his country-seat; and, for his
consideration of the public weal, was ridiculed, caricatured, and
dubbed, in contempt, the Hermit of Monklands.
The riots did not end without bloodshed. Once more the rioters
attacked LaFontaine's house by night; shots were fired from the windows
on the mob, and one man was killed. The appeal to racial passion was
irresistible. A man of British blood had been slain by a Frenchman.
The funeral {130} of the chance victim was made a political
demonstration. LaFontaine was actually tried for complicity in the
accident, but was acquitted. Montreal underwent something like a Reign
of Terror; a murderous clash between French and English might come at
any moment. Elgin was urged to proclaim martial law and put down mob
rule by the use of troops. Wisely he refused to go to such extremes.
The city authorities themselves should restore order, and at last they
did so with their thousand special constables. Those April riots of
'49 cost Montreal the honour of being the capital of Canada, and
ultimately caused the transformation of queer little lumbering Bytown
into the stately city of Ottawa, proudly eminent, with the halls of
legislature towering on the great bluff above the glassy river.
Of Elgin's conduct during this long-drawn ordeal it is almost
impossible to speak in terms of moderate praise. He must have been
less or more than human not to feel bitterly the insults heaped upon
him. The natural man spoke in the American who 'could not understand
why you did not shoot them down'; and also in the Canadian {131} who
'would have reduced Montreal to ashes' before enduring half that the
governor endured. But Elgin acted not as the natural man, but as the
Christian and the statesman, He refused to meet violence with violence;
and he refused to nullify the principles of popular government by
bowing before the blast of popular clamour. But a more unpopular
governor-general never held office in Canada.
{132}