was, on the death of the Duke of Richmond, assumed by the senior member
of the Executive Council, Mr. Monk, and President Monk issued his
proclamation to that effect, on the 20th of September. He summoned the
legislature to meet for the despatch of business on the 21st of
February, 1820. Mr. Monk had, however, hardly assumed the government
when Sir Peregrine Maitland arrived in Quebec, from Upper Canada, to
take the administration of affairs into his hands, according to
instructions which, on his appointment to the Lieutenant-Governorship
of Upper Canada, he had received from the imperial government. He did
not stay long. He merely advised Mr. Monk, whom he left in charge of
the government, and on the 9th of February he set out again for Upper
Canada, to dissolve the parliament. The existing parliament had been
very refractory and had been admonished even by the late
Governor-in-Chief. The Parliament was dissolved and writs for an
election, returnable on the 11th of April, issued. Gaspé being very
remotely situated was an exception. The Gaspé writ was not returnable
until the 1st of June. Nothing was gained to the administration by the
resort to dissolution. The new parliament was even more hostile to the
government than the old one. The people approved of the course pursued
by the late Assembly in the matter of the civil list and indeed
approved of their proceedings generally. Sir Peregrine returned to
Quebec on the 17th of March, after he had prorogued the parliament of
Upper Canada, and having assumed the management of the public business,
he convened the parliament on the 11th of April, the very day on which
the writs were returnable, Gaspé only excepted. He opened the House
with a speech remarkable for nothing but its brevity. Mr. Papineau was
re-elected Speaker and the choice approved of. But this was no sooner
done than the Assembly found themselves incompetent for the transaction
of business. The House must, by law, consist of fifty members, and only
forty-nine had been returned. The Gaspé writ was not returnable until
the 1st of June. There was no House. Business could not legally be
carried on. A message came down from the Governor recommending the
renewal of certain Acts of the legislature. The House paid no attention
to the message. The House at last resolved that it could do no
business. The twelve months within which a session was necessary would
expire on the 24th of April, and there could be no return of the Gaspé
writ until the 1st of June. The Governor was informed of his "fix," but
was by no means pleased. He did not believe in such nonsense as the
unavoidable non-return of a single member being a matter of such
importance as the Assembly alleged. He begged that they would go on
with the public business. The House would not budge. A message came
from the Legislative Council, and the messenger knocked, but the door
of the Assembly remained closed. The government had dissolved the
parliament stupidly and the parliament meant stupidly to dissolve the
government. It was the 24th of April when the news of the death of King
George the Third reached Quebec, by way of New York, when the
Administrator was offered an excuse for another dissolution, by which
the accident threatened by the previous dissolution could be escaped.
Parliament was dissolved, during the firing of minute guns and the
tolling of bells; and a new king was proclaimed by the sheriff, after a
salute of 100 guns had been fired, on the Place d'Armes, in presence of
the Governor, the heads of departments, the troops and a crowd of
people. There was no other occurrence of moment until the arrival of
the new Governor General, the Earl of Dalhousie, who arrived from
Halifax, where he had administered the government of Nova Scotia, on
the 18th of June, in H.M.S. _Newcastle_. Lord Dalhousie was a
soldier. He had been altogether educated in the camp. To the trickery
of diplomacy he was quite a stranger. He had not long arrived when the
general elections took place. Mr. Papineau, the Speaker of the late
Assembly, was at the hustings addressing a Montreal constituency. How
strong the feeling was in favor of British constitutional rule in
comparison with the Bourbon fashion of ruling colonies, the Earl of
Dalhousie learned from Mr. Papineau's own lips. A great national
calamity had made it imperative upon Mr. Papineau to court the favor of
his constituents a second time in one year. A sovereign who had reigned
over the inhabitants of Canada since the day in which they had become
British subjects, had ceased to breathe. To express the feeling of
gratitude which was due to him, or to say how much his loss was mourned
would be impossible. Each year of his long reign had been marked by new
favors bestowed on the country. A comparison between the happy
situation of Canada at present, with the situation of Canada under
"our" fore-fathers, when George the Third became their legitimate
monarch, would sufficiently indicate the extent of the calamity which
Canada had sustained in the death of the good old king. Under the
French government the rule was arbitrary and oppressive. Canada had
been neglected by the French Court, and mal-administered by the French
Viceroys. The fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, and
the extent of territory which might even then have been the peaceful
abode of a numerous and happy population was not considered. Canada was
looked upon as a mere military post. The people were compelled to live
in perpetual warfare and insecurity. There was no general trade. Trade
was in the hands of companies. Famine was of frequent occurrence.
Public and private property were insecure. Personal liberty was daily
violated. Year after year the inhabitants of Canada were dragged from
their homes and families to shed their blood, and carry murder and
havoc from the shores of the great lakes and the banks of the
Mississippi and Ohio, to the coasts of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and
Hudson's Bay. And now, how changed! The reign of law has succeeded to
that of violence. Religious toleration; trial by jury; the Habeas
Corpus; and the right to obey no other laws than those of our own
making, have taken the place of perpetual warfare and perpetual
insecurity. Such was the news received by Lord Dalhousie, on his
arrival, and that too immediately preceding a deplorable period of
agricultural distress in both of the Canadas; when the absence of all
demand for wheat had compelled several farmers in the district of
Montreal to send hay, oats, and vegetables, in boats, down the river,
for the chance of a market at Quebec; when in some of the parishes of
Montreal, which formerly sold great quantities of wheat for
exportation, farms partly cleared, with a log house and barn, had been
sold at sheriff's sales, for less than the usual law expenses incurred
to effect the sale; and when one immediate consequence of this distress
was expected to be on the part of the farmers a compulsory resort to
family manufactures for their supply of clothing, as they must soon
otherwise have been without the means of protecting their bodies
against the inclemency of the seasons. Commercial operations had,
however, been tolerably brisk. 585 vessels of 147,754 tons had arrived
from sea, in 1820, and 7 new vessels had been built at Quebec. £674,556
worth of merchandise had been imported.
Lord Dalhousie met the legislature of Lower Canada on the 14th of
December. Mr. Papineau was re-elected Speaker and approved of when the
Governor-in-Chief opened the business of the session. His Lordship made
a semi-theatrical allusion to the death of the late king; mixing it up
with the death of the Duke of Richmond, whom he had known and honored
during thirty years, when he immediately descended to pounds, shillings
and pence. He called attention to the accounts of the general
expenditure for the past two years; he would lay before the Assembly
the accounts of the expense annually incurred in the administration of
the government, and he would add a statement of the annual product of
the permanent taxes, and hereditary territorial revenues of the Crown.
By these documents the Assembly would perceive that the annual
permanent revenue of the province was not equal to the amount of annual
permanent charges upon the provincial civil list, but was deficient in
about £22,000. The king had commanded him to say that having, from past
experience, the fullest confidence in the loyalty and sense of duty of
the Canadian people, he expected that a proper and permanent provision
would be made to supply the deficiency, so that the civil government of
the province might be sustained with honor and advantage to his
subjects. He had made a tour of the province, but could not take upon
himself to point out with confidence those measures of improvement
which would prove of the most advantage to the country. He concurred,
however, in all that had been said on the subject by the late Duke of
Richmond, and the Duke's recommendations were worthy of consideration
by the parliament. A permanent revenue law or a revenue law not liable
to be suddenly changed, would benefit trade. Agriculture should be
encouraged. The militia laws should be renewed. The waste lands should
be settled. A tide of immigration had set in, which promised to
continue. Many of the new comers were poor, and some had been
grievously afflicted with sickness. Not a few had abundant means. The
settlement of these immigrants should not have been impeded by the want
of legislative aid. There were great advantages to be derived from a
new population. Lower Canada, he was aware, had a population
sufficiently numerous to settle the waste lands. There were,
undoubtedly, prejudices against the introduction of strangers to be
overcome, and there were also prejudices in the minds of strangers,
affecting their settlement in Lower Canada, fertile as it was, offering
as it undeniably did, so many facilities for manufacturing operations,
and presenting, as was apparent, so wide a field for internal trade.
Inducements should be held out to new comers, with the view of making
them spread more widely. Parochial churches should be erected. Roads
affording access to distant woodlands should be laid out. For himself,
he would assure the Assembly that he had no object in view but the good
of the country. The Assembly liked the frankness of the
Governor-in-Chief. They had no idea, however, of permanently
appropriating, in the then uncertain state of trade, an amount for the
civil list, exceeding half the usual amount of the whole revenue. They
would vote annually, in accordance with their promise to Sir John
Sherbrooke, all the necessary expenses of the government if His
Excellency pleased, and no more. With regard to permanent taxes they
believed such a mode of taxation to be impracticable. They would,
however, investigate the effects that might result from a long duration
of the revenue laws. They would, if it were possible, inspire the
commercial classes with confidence. Legislation was then proceeded
with. The civil list was first considered. The estimate divided the
list into classes. There was the Governor-in-Chief and his staff; the
Legislature and its officers; the Executive Council and its officers;
the Judges, Sheriffs, Clerks of Courts, and Tipstaffs; the Secretary
and Registrar of the Province; the Receiver General and his clerk; the
Surveyor General and clerks; the Surveyor of Woods; the Auditor of Land
Patents; the Inspector General and clerks; and the contingencies of the
whole. The estimate amounted to £44,877. The Assembly proceeded to the
discussion of the items _con amore_. Item after item was read over
and commented upon, much after the present fashion. John Neilson was
then a member of the Assembly. Mr. Neilson was then as much an
economist as Mr. Mackenzie is or pretends to be now. He was wisely
jealous of the government. Mr. Neilson, the editor of the _Quebec
Gazette_, was in the highest degree intelligent. He was honest and,
consequently independent. He could say more in a sentence than Charles
Richard Ogden could combat in a speech. He was a tall, spare man, with
rugged, but yet prepossessing features. He had always two black eyes,
overshadowed by a low protruding forehead. From the occiput to the
_os frontis_, his head was quite level and extraordinarily long.
It was possibly due to Mr. Neilson's intelligence that, after some
reductions had been made, the required supply was voted, not in a bill,
providing for the payment of stipulated sums to certain individuals,
but in a bill in which allowances were made for six different
departments and a supply voted for the whole. The sum voted,
notwithstanding certain reductions was more than the estimate. £46,000
sterling was appropriated towards defraying the expenses of the civil
government. £3,083, the charge upon the pension list, and £1,543, the
annual cost of the militia staff were added to the civil list. The
supply was voted _en bloc_, or almost so, with the view of
reconciling the Legislative Council to an annual appropriation, and
because that House had objected to the previous supply bill in which
certain sums were appropriated for the payment of certain
functionaries. Nevertheless, the bill was rejected by the Legislative
Council. The bill had not made a permanent provision for the civil
list, and it interfered with monies already appropriated. The Council
resolved that it would not proceed upon any bill of supply, which
should not have been applied for by the king's representative; the
Council would not proceed upon any bill appropriating public money that
should not have been recommended by the king's representative; the
Council would not proceed upon any bill of appropriation, for money
issued, in consequence of an address of the Assembly to the king's
representative, unless upon some extraordinary emergency; the Council
would not proceed upon any appropriation of public money for any salary
or pension hereafter to be created, unless the _quantum_ of such
salary or pension had been recommended by the king's representative;
and the Council would not proceed upon any bill of appropriation for
the civil list, which should contain specifications therein, by
chapters or items, nor unless the same should be granted during the
life of the king. The Assembly were also quite resolved as to the
course to be pursued by them. They would pass no bill of supply without
specifications, nor for any period longer than a year. They would not
pass any bill at all for the purposes of defraying the expenses of the
government, unless the right of applying and apportioning by vote, the
monies previously appropriated towards the support of the civil
government, was also conceded to them. This quarrel between the two
Houses was an exceedingly interesting one. The members of the Upper
House, or the majority of them, felt themselves to be personally
interested--and were uneasy, while the Assembly, having no other
interest in the matter, than principle and a sense of expediency, could
maintain their position, without flinching, for almost any length of
time. Nay, the Assembly were positively generous. As the rejection of
the supply bill had left the Executive without the means of defraying
the civil expenditure for the year, the Assembly tendered the sum of
£46,060 sterling to His Excellency, pledging themselves to make good
the amount by a bill at the ensuing session. But His Excellency would
not have it. He was of opinion that the grant, now proposed, was wholly
ineffectual without the concurrence of the Legislative Council. There
was no answer. Mr. Neilson moved, and the Assembly resolved that, the
speech of His Grace the Governor-in-Chief, on the 24th of April, 1819,
contained a censure of the proceedings of the Assembly; that all
censure of any proceeding of the Assembly, by either of the branches of
the legislature, was an assumption and exercise of power contrary to
law, a breach of the undoubted rights and privileges of the House of
Assembly, and subversive of the constitution of the government, as by
law established in the province; and that it was the undoubted right of
the Assembly, in voting aids or supplies, or offering money bills for
the consent of the other branches of the legislature, to adopt such
order or mode of proceedings, as it might find conformable to its
rules, and to propound such matter as in its judgment should seem
fitted and most conducive to the peace, welfare, and good government of
the province.
Mr. Andrew Stuart, a man of brilliant attainments, was busily engaged
in the exposure of the enormous abuses that had prevailed in the
improvident and prodigal grants of the Crown lands. A bill was brought
forward in the Assembly for more effectually ascertaining the state of
the public funds in the hands of the Receiver General. The Receiver
General was to account annually to the legislature for his
expenditures, and he was to tell over, for its disposal by the
Assembly, the balance which he should have remaining in hand. He was to
be allowed a commission on all monies paid into his hands, in lieu of a
salary. And he was not to be engaged in trade. The bill did not,
however, receive a third reading, and the Receiver General still
continued to carry on the business of a lumber merchant. A bill was
also introduced for the trial of impeachments by the Legislative
Council, but was afterwards relinquished. An effort was made to obtain
a per diem allowance for the members of the Assembly, but it was not
successful. Mr. James Stuart was named agent for the province in
London, and the sum of £2,000 was voted to defray his expenses in that
capacity; but the appointment was set aside by the Council, because a
Mr. Gordon, who held a situation in the Colonial Office, had been
previously appointed agent for the province by the Executive
government, with a salary of £200 a year. Several messages, relative to
public improvements were sent down to the Assembly in the course of the
session, but the House only promised to consider them next session. One
bill, of great importance, was, however, passed:--that to open a canal
between Montreal and Lachine, at the public expense. Before the close
of the session the House represented that if a Lieutenant-Governor of
the Province, with a salary of £1,500 a year, was necessary, he should
be resident in the province; that the Lieutenant-Governorship of Gaspé,
to which a salary of £300 a year was attached, was a sinecure; that the
Secretary of the Province, with a salary of £400 a year, resided in
London, while his duties were performed by a deputy, who only received
the fees incidental to the office; that the agent of the province, who
received £200 a year, did nothing for his salary, and had no services
to perform, being merely the agent of the Executive; and that it was
the opinion of the Assembly that no salary should be allowed to any of
the members of the Executive Council, non-resident in the province. It
was further represented that the offices of Judge of the Vice-Admiralty
and Judge of the Court of King's Bench were incompatible, and that the
offices of Judge of the King's Bench and of French Translator to the
Court could not be held by the same person. The exaction of fees, too,
by the Judge of the Vice-Admiralty, while he received a salary of £200
a year, in lieu of fees, was improper and contrary to law. And the
Governor-in-Chief was requested to effect remedies. On the 17th of
March, the session was prorogued. Lord Dalhousie could not express his
satisfaction at the general result of the Assembly's deliberations. He
regretted that the expectations of His Majesty, with respect to the
civil list, had not been realised. He was disappointed. The
administration of the civil government had been left without any
pecuniary means, but what he should advance upon his own personal
responsibility. Individuals would suffer under severe and unmerited
hardships, caused by the want of that constitutional authority
necessary for the payment of the expenses of the civil government; the
improvements of the country were nearly at a stand; and the executive
government was palsied and powerless. When parliament should be again
summoned for legislation, it would be summoned to decide whether
government should be restored to its constitutional energy, or whether
the prospect of lasting misfortune was to be deplored by a continuance
of the present state of things. The Assembly inwardly chuckled as the
Governor concluded his speech. All that they wanted had been in part
effected. The government had acknowledged itself to be constitutionally
dependent on the Assembly for its energy and for its pecuniary means.
It was hoped, indeed, that sooner or later, the propriety of permitting
the Assembly to vote the supplies, after its own fashion, would be
conceded.
Shortly after the prorogation, Mr. Papineau, the Speaker of the
Assembly, Mr. Hale, a member of the Legislative Council, and Colonel
Ready, Civil Secretary, were added to the Executive Council.
On the 7th of July, the construction of the Lachine Canal was
commenced.
In the course of the summer, Lord Dalhousie proceeded on a tour to
Upper Canada, returning by the Ottawa, in August.
The legislature of Lower Canada was again opened by the
Governor-in-Chief, on the 11th of December. He brought under the
consideration of parliament the state of the province, recommending
immediate attention to its financial affairs, with the view of making a
suitable provision for the support of the civil government. He had
adopted a course for the payment of the current expenses of government
as consistent as possible with the existing laws. He had been commanded
to recommend that a provision for the civil list should be granted
permanently, during His Majesty's life. He felt assured that the
Council would attend to the recommendation, and he would not advert to
topics of far inferior importance, for the present. The Council
considered it to be their paramount duty to adopt what had been
established in the British parliament, as a constitutional principle,
the granting of the civil list during the life of the king. The
Assembly were not so submissive. They requested His Excellency, the
Governor, to convey to the king that they had received with all due
humility the communication of His Majesty's recommendation that such
provision, as should appear necessary for the payment of the expenses
of the civil list should be granted permanently, during His Majesty's
life, as well as the information that such was the practice of the
British parliament, and that the recommendation would have due weight
with them. The Governor on receiving the address of the Commons, in
reply to his speech from the throne, was not particularly well pleased.
He assured the Assembly that until the expenses of the government were
provided for, in the manner he had indicated, that there would be
neither harmony, union, nor cordial co-operation in the three branches
of the legislature, and that the real prosperity of the province would
be decidedly arrested. The Assembly were quite indifferent as to
consequences. They had a duty to perform to their constituents, and
meant to perform it. The estimates of the civil list were sent down.
The House asked the Governor to lay before it his instructions. The
Governor refused. His instructions were confidential and he would not
suffer any part of them to become the subject of discussion by the
House. A motion to grant a permanent civil list was made and negatived.
There were only five ayes to thirty-one nays. The House adhered to the
opinion that the supplies ought to be voted and appropriated annually,
and not otherwise. The Governor was requested to mention the
circumstance to the King, and he promised to do so. The Assembly
proceeded to the transaction of other business. The expediency of
having an agent to represent the interests of the people, not the
Executive of Canada only, in England, was next considered. It occurred
to the House that some member of the imperial parliament might be
induced to accept the agency, and it was resolved that Joseph Marryatt,
Esquire, M.P., should be requested to act as such agent. The
resolution of the Assembly was transmitted to Mr. Marryatt, who was
also put in possession of the civil list difficulty, with instructions
relative to the course of action which it was expected he would adopt.
The Council felt annoyed. They looked upon the appointment of Mr.
Marryatt as a dangerous assumption of legislative power by the Assembly
alone. They considered it a breach of the constitution, a breach of the
king's prerogative, a breach of the privileges of the Legislative
Council, and as a something which tended to subvert the constitution of
the province. This protest had the effect desired by the Council. Mr.
Marryatt would not act. Unless the Council concurred in his appointment
he could have no weight with the government in England, nor would he be
even acknowledged. There was nothing now to be done but to starve the
government into submission. The government was not to be conquered by
assault. The Assembly determined upon cutting off the supplies
entirely. The revenue Acts were, one after the other, suffered to
expire. No appropriation was made even for the current expenses of the
year. A revenue of thirty thousand pounds a year, or more, part of
which belonged to Upper Canada, was sacrificed. The Governor might make
advances to the officers of the government, on his own responsibility,
or not, as he pleased. But the House would hold the Receiver General
personally responsible for all monies levied on His Majesty's subjects,
paid over by him on any authority whatever, unless such payments should
be authorised by an express provision of law. If anything could arrest
the real prosperity of the province, it was now arrested. Some members
of the Legislative Council took alarm. Afraid that their resolutions of
the previous session interfered with the privileges of the Assembly,
they wished to rescind them. The Assembly, in the opinion of a section
even of the Council, ought not to be dictated to. The Commons had
exclusively the right of dictating their own terms and conditions, with
regard to all aids to the Crown. And the object, for which such aids
were sought, was of no consequence, as far as their right was
concerned. The majority of the Council took quite another view of the
matter. One member was particularly severe on the Assembly. The
Honorable John Richardson, considered the course pursued by the
Assembly, as unconstitutional and overbearing. He characterised their
pretensions as subversive of the prerogatives of the Crown, and
indicative of a desire to have the absolute control of the government.
Their proceedings were revolutionary. From day to day secret committees
were in session. Grievances were mischievously hunted up. Their
measures were precisely similar to those which preceded the fall of
Charles the First, and the French revolution. And, at that very moment,
there was a committee of the Assembly sitting, the members of which
were in consultation, about replacing the distinguished personage who
resided at the Castle of St. Lewis. Mr. Richardson was being quietly
listened to by several members of the Assembly. They resolved to move
in the matter. The sayings and doings of Mr. Richardson were
accordingly brought under the notice of the Assembly. Mr. Quirouet
informed the Lower House that he had heard the Honorable John
Richardson, one of the members of the Legislative Council say, in reply
to the Honorable Mr. Debartzch, who had moved for the rescission of the
rules relating to the civil list, that there was a secret committee
sitting in the House of Assembly, deliberating on the appointment of a
governor of their choice, and on the removal of the person now in the
castle; and that the committee, which was, perhaps, one of public
safety, sat without the knowledge of several members of the House, a
thing without example in England, except in the time of Charles the
First. A committee of five members was appointed to obtain further
information. The committee ascertained that everything reported by Mr.
Quirouet was true. A spirited debate ensued. The conduct of Mr.
Richardson was looked upon as atrocious. Mr. Richardson too was the
senior member of the Executive Council, and on him the government of
the province might devolve. He was entirely unworthy of confidence. He
was the enemy of his country. It was resolved that his language was
false, scandalous, and malicious; that he had been guilty of a high
contempt of the Assembly; that he had made an odious attempt to destroy
His Majesty's confidence in the fidelity and loyalty of the Assembly,
and of the people of the province, and that he had been guilty of a
breach of the rights and privileges of one branch of the legislature.
It was further resolved to inform the Legislative Council of the
Assembly's opinion of the discourse of the Honorable John Richardson,
with the request that the Council would inquire into the charge which
they preferred against him and were prepared to substantiate, so that
the Honorable John Richardson might be adequately punished. And it was
still further resolved that the Governor General should be informed of
the libelous language of the Honorable John Richardson, and of the
desire of the Assembly that he should be removed and dismissed from
every place of honor, trust, or profit, which he might hold under the
Crown. These resolutions of the Assembly, respecting the conduct of the
Honorable John Richardson were taken by special messengers to the
Governor and to the Legislative Council. The Governor considered the
resolutions undignified. They were as much a breach of the privileges
of the Council as the remarks of Mr. Richardson would have been a
breach of the privileges of the Assembly if uttered anywhere else than
in the Council. Mr. Richardson had a perfect right to express himself
freely in parliament. Freedom of debate was as necessary to the Upper
as it was to the Lower House. He distinctly refused to dismiss Mr.
Richardson from any office of honor, trust, or profit, which he might
hold. The Council, so far from proceeding to punish Mr. Richardson for
his outspokenness, looked upon the resolutions of the Assembly as a
flagrant breach of its privileges, and would take no measures with
regard to the language made use of towards the Assembly, by Mr.
Richardson, until the Assembly apologised to the Council for its
interference with the rights of the Legislative Council. Mr. Richardson
even repeated the substance of his observations in the debate which had
given offence, in still stronger language. He had little to fear, and
he knew that the Assembly had taken a position which they could not
sustain. He held no office under the Crown. He was a legislator and
Executive Councillor, but not a placeman. Indeed the Assembly were
becoming ashamed of themselves. Instead of attacking the Council in
return for the attack made upon them, they had taken it for granted
that their proceedings were not liable to be commented upon at all.
They pretended to represent public opinion and yet would not tolerate
the expression of any opinion adverse to themselves. But public opinion
prevailed. They were compelled to edge out of their difficulty by
representing in a resolution that it was the incontestable right of the
Assembly to prevent any breach of their privileges, by every
constitutional means in their power. So the matter rested.
A message came to the Assembly from the Governor. It had reference to
certain grievances submitted by the Assembly to the King. The Governor
had been commanded to inform the Assembly that the Lieutenant-Governor
had been ordered to repair to Quebec, and to reside in the province
during his tenure of office; that a Lieutenant-Governor for Gaspé was
necessary and should be provided for; that the successor to the
Provincial Secretary should be a resident officer, but that the present
absent incumbent was not to be dispossessed without adequate
compensation; and that the present agent of the province, in the
colonial office, had not been guilty of misconduct, and the office of
agent which he held was not to be abolished. The message was anything
but satisfactory, and the Assembly grumbled audibly.
Another message was sent to the Assembly informing the House that the
Governor intended to apply the territorial and casual revenues, fines,
rents, and profits, which were reserved to the French King, at the
conquest, and belonged to the King of Great Britain on the surrender of
the country, the monies raised by statutes of the imperial parliament,
and the sum of £5,000 sterling raised by the provincial statute 35th
George the Third, chapter 9, towards the support of the civil
government and the administration of justice. And he called upon the
Assembly, as they had refused the civil list, to defray the cost of
certain local establishments, the expenses of the legislature and the
necessary expense of collecting the revenue. The Assembly assured the
Governor of their great satisfaction that he had not questioned the
constitutional doctrine which they had enunciated, that the public
money should only be applied conformably to law. They were indeed sorry
that the standing rules of the Council prevented their House from
entertaining even the hope that its invariable disposition to provide
for the necessary expenses of the civil government could have its
proper and legal effect. But they would grant no supplies whatever.
This manoeuvre might have been most successfully practised upon the
government of Lower Canada, if it had not also affected Upper Canada.
The supplies of Upper, as well as of Lower Canada, were cut off. Quebec
was the only seaport the two provinces had. It was in Lower Canada that
the duties on imports were levied. Of these import duties Upper Canada
was now entitled to a fifth, instead of an eighth, as at first agreed
upon. And if the whole was sacrificed, the value of a fifth of the
whole would not amount to much. The government, and, indeed, the whole
people of Upper Canada were annoyed at the loss of revenue inflicted
upon the country, for the sake merely of principle. But that was not
all. Upper Canada was already so rapidly increasing in population that
a fifth of the whole duties collected was not looked upon as her fair
share of receipts. Her commissioners desired a larger share of the
incomings. Lower Canada would not grant the increase and there was
another difficulty between the provinces. The subject was brought under
the consideration of the imperial parliament, by Upper Canada, through
the instrumentality of an agent, in London, appointed to communicate
with the government at home. The parliament of Lower Canada was
prorogued on the 18th of February. Lord Dalhousie was satisfied that no
benefit to the public could be expected from a continuance of the
session, and had come to prorogue the parliament. He regretted that the
supplies had been withheld, but neither the civil government, nor the
officers of justice, nor any of the officers of the government or of
the courts would be at all affected. The mischievous effects of their
proceeding would fall upon trade and of course be highly injurious to
His Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects, who should know how to bring
about a remedy. He was much pleased with the conduct of the Council.
The Governor General had received an idea from Mr. Ryland, with which
he was quite delighted. It now seemed to His Excellency that he would
soon bring the Commons of Canada to their senses. Had Mr. Ryland been
called upon to point out a remedy for the existing difficulties in the
government, he would have said to lord Dalhousie:--either unite the
legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada, or, by giving a fair
representation to the townships, secure an English influence in the
House of Assembly. Perfect the constitution by creating an hereditary
aristocracy, for which the Crown Reserves were originally set apart,
and make the Legislative Council so respectable as to render a seat
therein an object of ambition to every man of character and talent.
Exercise decidedly the patronage of the Romish Church, and give the
Romish Bishop clearly to understand that the slightest opposition on
his part to this regulation would put an end to his allowance of £1,500
sterling per annum. Admit no more coadjutors, secure a permanent
revenue, adequate or nearly adequate to the expenses of the civil
government. Ascertain to a farthing the monies that actually are or
ought to be in the Receiver General's chest. Give to that officer an
adequate salary, and take effectual means to prevent one shilling of
the public monies from being employed by him in future in commercial
speculations. Accomplish these objects, as you easily may, and be
assured that good sense and upright intentions, on the part of His
Majesty's representative, will thereafter be fully adequate to get the
better of every difficulty that has hitherto attended the provincial
government. This scheme of a remedy for existing difficulties was
submitted by the Earl of Dalhousie to the government of England. A bill
was indeed introduced into the imperial parliament, for a legislative
union of the two provinces, and for the regulation of trade in Canada.
A majority of the Commons of England would not, however, listen to the
proposal for a legislative union of the provinces, for which no desire
had been expressed by either Upper or Lower Canada. The sense of the
inhabitants of the Canadas should first have been obtained. To this
opposition the imperial ministry were compelled to yield, and therefore
that part of the bill which related to the union was relinquished. The
other part of the bill, afterwards known as "The Canada Trade Act,"
became law. By it the claims of Upper Canada were recognised, and to
guard that province against the caprice of the lower province, all the
duties payable under Acts of the legislature of Lower Canada, on
imports, were to be permanently continued, according to the latest
agreement, in July, 1819. The two temporary provincial Acts, 53 and 55,
George III, chapter 2, and 85, George III, chapter 3, including that
which had been suffered to expire were revived, and became permanent
Acts, only liable to repeal or alteration, by Lower Canada, with the
concurrence of Upper Canada. New duties on imports by sea could not be
imposed by Lower Canada without the consent of Upper Canada, without
the special interference of the imperial parliament. It was no wonder
that Lord Dalhousie spoke ironically of the effect to be produced by
the stoppage of the supplies. The measure was not, however, judicious.
It was in the highest degree irritating to Lower Canada. It was a
positive grievance, and indeed it was a partial destruction of the
constitution, at the instance of a placeman. There was one good thing
in the Act. The power of commuting the seigniorial or feudal tenure
into free and common soccage was given to the censitaire in
transactions with the crown.
This rude assault upon the Commons of Lower Canada came at an
unfortunate period. Both provinces were suffering. Agriculture and
commerce were in distress. Agricultural and commercial distress had
also afflicted the mother country. People were unwillingly idle, and
consequently, discontented. The regulations then existing in Great
Britain, with respect to the importation of grain and flour from the
Canadas were alleged to amount almost to a prohibition. To the
operation of these regulations Canadian distress was attributed. Unless
relief were speedily obtained, the certain ruin of the entire farming
and commercial interests was expected to ensue. The difficulties
occasioned by the obstruction to Canadian navigation, in winter,
rendered it impossible for the Canadian farmer to compete fairly or
with a reasonable chance of success, in the English markets, with the
United States. American produce was admitted into Lower Canada, for
consumption, free of duty, to the prejudice of Upper Canada, and was a
direct violation of the reciprocity which ought to exist between the
two provinces, as it depressed the price of Upper Canada produce, and
rendered nugatory the laws existing for its protection. And unless the
flour of Upper Canada should be admitted into the English market on
terms of greater favor, the imports from Great Britain would entirely
cease. The Upper Canadians wished the repeal of the corn bill. They
wanted the monopoly of the supply of the West Indies. They desired a
corn bill for themselves. And they did not know precisely what they
desired for the riddance of their distress. It was at this season that
the "Canada Trade Act" came into force, and that the propriety of
uniting the two provinces was to be considered by the people. In Lower
Canada the contemplated re-union of the provinces was not relished.
Upper Canada was indifferent and perhaps rather in favor than opposed
to the scheme. To Lower Canada it forboded the loss of caste, usages,
and religion, while to Upper Canada it indicated only a more extended
sphere of legislative action, and the direct control of the general
revenue for improvements. The Union Bill was well conceived. The
Governor was to have erected the townships, previously unrepresented,
into counties, of six townships each, with a member for every county.
The qualification for a seat in the Assembly was to be the unincumbered
possession of landed property to the value of £500 sterling. The House
was to consist of not more than one hundred and twenty members, and of
not more than sixty members for either province. Four ministers were to
have seats in the House and to have the liberty of speech without the
right of votes, in the shape of two members from each of the Executive
Councils of Upper Canada and of Lower Canada. The duration of the
parliament was to be five years. There was to be no power of
imprisonment for alleged contempts given to either House. The
proceedings of both Houses were to be recorded in the English language,
and in fifteen years afterwards, the English language only was to be
made use of in debate. The free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion
was to be respected, subject to the king's supremacy, and to the
collation or induction into cures--a privilege until then enjoyed by
the Bishop superintending the Romish Church in Canada. Here was Mr.
Ryland's scheme to the letter. It gave evidence of some ability. It was
the scheme of a lifetime, of one zealous in the cause of the Church of
England. How the Lower Canadians were to have been induced to consent,
is not easily guessed at. It is true Mr. Ryland intimates that the
Bishop's salary could be withdrawn, and that no more coadjutors should
be allowed. But the Bishop was not the only clergyman of the Church of
Rome in the province, and the See of Rome has its instruments in every
ecclesiastical grade. The priests, as a body were very much annoyed at
the Union Bill. They did not fail to declaim against it. Nor were they
to be blamed. The French Canadians were indeed, to a man, opposed to
the union. The English population were, of course, in favor of the
scheme. Horrified at popery, an Englishman honestly believed that
popery had no rights in a country possessed by a protestant king. It
could be tolerated but not legally maintained. Of course when the King
became Bishop of the Church in Canada, the Pope was virtually deposed,
and the deposition of the Pope in England is indeed the most essential
difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome. The
people of Montreal were most actively in favor of Mr. Ryland's
admirable scheme of religious conversion. Of 80,000 people who had come
into the province since the American war scarcely a twentieth part had
remained within the limits of the province, the rest having been
induced by the foreign character of the country in which they had
sought an asylum, and the discouragements they experienced, to try
their fortune in the United States. The division of the Province of
Quebec, into Upper and Lower Canada, had been impolitic. Had a fit plan
of representation been adopted the British population would have now
exceeded the French, and the imports and exports of the country have
been greatly beyond their present amount.[34] It is not a little
extraordinary to find that the English speaking inhabitants of the
province complained of the unreasonable extent of political rights
which had been conceded to Lower Canada. Mr. Neilson was not of these
complainants. Mr. James Stuart was. The Canadians had deserted Mr.
Stuart and he now deserted them. Mr. Neilson had not been yet deserted
by those whom he had served, and he had not therefore cause for
desertion. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau went home in charge of
petitions against the contemplated union of the provinces, while Mr.
Stuart went to London with the petition of the unionists in his pocket.
The mob was merely prejudiced. There was no politics in the heads of
the ordinary people, whether of French or English extraction. But the
English hated the French, and the French disliked the English, because
neither understood the other. It was enough for the English speaking
population that the government was English, to secure their sympathies
to the government, and it was enough for the French speaking part of
the population to know that the Assembly was chiefly Franco-Canadian to
secure their sympathies to the Assembly. Lord Dalhousie and the
red-tape-nobility looked upon both only as _canaille_. His
lordship was the emperor; the judges, the bishops, and the secretaries,
were the marshals and princes of an empire of serfs--of crown serfs and
of serfs of the soil. But, however that may have been, two events of
some importance had occurred. The Lieutenant-Governor of the province,
Sir Francis Burton, had arrived at the scene of his labors, and Sir
John Caldwell, the Receiver General, had become insolvent towards the
province, in the sum of £100,000. The difficulties of Lord Dalhousie's
reign were on the increase. The union and intended extinction of Lower
Canadian nationality was not a matter to be so easily effected as at
first anticipated. His lordship again assembled parliament on the 10th
of January, 1823. The Clerk of the Assembly informed the noble Earl, at
the head of the government, that the Speaker, Mr. Papineau, had gone to
England. The Governor ordered the Assembly to elect another Speaker in
his stead. They did so, and their choice fell upon Mr. Vallières de St.
Réal. The choice was approved of. Lord Dalhousie thereupon opened the
session. He told the Houses that an Act had been passed regulating the
trade of Lower Canada with the United States of America, and the
intercourse between Upper and Lower Canada, an adjustment of the
differences subsisting between the two provinces being provided for. He
further intimated that the imperial government contemplated the union
of the two provinces, but had withdrawn the measure until the next
session of the imperial legislature, with the view of ascertaining the
sentiments of the Canadian people on the matter. He hoped that the
subject would receive attention, and the deliberations of the
parliament be distinguished for moderation. He had been somewhat
embarrassed by the stoppage of the supplies, but had done as much as he
could to avert inconvenience, by paying up the usual expenses for the
half year then current, though he had not felt himself justified in
doing so beyond that period, and there consequently remained a very
considerable arrear due to the public servants. A full statement of the
receipts and expenditures for the year would be laid before the
Assembly, together with an estimate of the probable expense in the
present year of those local establishments for which the Assembly were
bound in duty to provide. He trusted that the whole financial accounts
would be brought to a clear and final arrangement. He was convinced
that the Assembly regretted that the progress of the public interests
had been interrupted. And without dwelling upon the past, he would
earnestly recommend them to consider the incalculable injuries which
had been accumulated on the province, while the executive branch of the
constitution remained disabled from exercising its just and legitimate
and most useful powers. The Assembly were pleased to learn that the
imperial parliament had suffered the measure for the union of the two
provinces to lie over until the opinion of the Canadian people had been
ascertained, and indeed they fairly echoed in their reply the speech
from the throne. A call of the Assembly was ordered for the 21st of
January, to consider the union question. The Upper House, with the
exception of the Honorables John Richardson, Herman W. Ryland, Charles
W. Grant, James Irvine, Roderick McKenzie, and Wm. B. Felton, were
decidedly opposed to the contemplated union. The Assembly believed that
the union of two provinces, having laws, civil and religious
institutions, and usages essentially different, would endanger the laws
and institutions of either province; and that there would thence result
well-founded apprehensions respecting the stability of those laws and
institutions, fatal doubts of the future lot of these colonies, and a
relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people, and of the bonds
which so strongly attached them to the mother country. The resolutions
of both Houses were embodied in addresses to the King and Parliament of
Great Britain. Those to the King the Governor was requested to
transmit, and those to the two Imperial Houses of legislation were
forwarded to the delegates of the anti-unionists, Messrs. Neilson and
Papineau.
[34] To-day an agitation has begun for a repeal of the present
Act of Union.
A message was sent to the Assembly, officially informing the House of
the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Burton. The message
contained another bit of information to the effect that it was
necessary that a residence should be provided for His Excellency. It
stated still further that a furnished House had been taken for His
Excellency, at a yearly rent of £500, for which it was desirable that
the Assembly should provide. And the message concluded by recommending
the addition of £1,000 a year to the salary of His Excellency, which
was then only £1,500, so that with £2,500 a year, and house rent free,
he might live in becoming style. The Assembly cheerfully voted these
extra allowances to the Lieutenant-Governor. A bill was this session
passed, erecting, for judicial purposes, the Eastern Townships into the
Inferior District of St. Francis. There was to be a provincial court in
the district, and a resident judge, who was to have jurisdiction in
personal actions of £20 sterling. A Court of Quarter Sessions in the
district was also established. The bill was introduced into the
Assembly, and passed, to increase the representation, by giving the
Eastern Townships a representation precisely as recommended in the
contemplated Act of Union; but the Assembly, to counterbalance the
effect which might result from the introduction of six new members into
the Assembly, also created an overbalancing number of new French
constituencies. The Council consequently rejected the representation
bill. Then the estimates of supply were submitted by message. They had
been classed into two schedules. One comprehending the Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor, certain officers attached to the Governor-in-Chief,
including the provincial agent in London, the Surveyor General and
contingencies of his department; the judges and officers of the Courts;
the Executive Councillors (£100 a year each); the Clerk of the Council,
and the contingencies of his office and of the committee of audit;
the Inspector General of Accounts; the Receiver General's department;
and the Clerk of the Terrars, the whole sum to be supplied being
£32,083 11s. 3d. sterling. The second schedule included the local
establishments--the legislature and its officers; the cost of printing
the laws; the salaries to public schoolmasters; the pension list; rents
and repairs of public buildings, and the salaries and disbursements in
connection with such buildings; the expense of collecting the revenues:
the expenses of the Trinity House; the militia staff and contingencies;
the expenses for criminals and houses of correction; and miscellaneous
expenses, such as the salaries of the Grand Voyer and others, the
grants to residents on Anticosti, for the assistance of shipwrecked
seamen; and the assessments on public buildings, in all amounting to
£30,225 sterling. The Assembly voted the local schedule but not the
other. Indeed they protested against being required to do so in the
particular manner required. The Assembly next passed bills to reimburse
and indemnify His Majesty for monies expended without the sanction of
the legislature. The Council did not think it decorous to speak of
"indemnifying" the King and rejected the bills. There was yet another
money bill to pass the Council. A bill to defray the expenses of the
local establishments, in which the different items of expenditure were
specified, was sent up for concurrence and was only not rejected on
account of the distress to individuals which its rejection would have
caused. The Assembly had appropriated monies for the payment of the
local establishments, which was to be taken from the general funds of
the province. The Council passed the bill under protest because by the
term "general," appropriated as well as unappropriated monies might be
indicated as under the control of the Assembly. An attempt was made to
induce the Council to agree to the nomination of Mr. Marryatt as agent
for the province, but the Council refused, and the Assembly allowed the
matter to drop. To render the proceedings of the Assembly still more
attractive, a breach of privilege case occurred again this session. The
_Montreal Times_, a stiffishly unionist paper, had dealt harshly both
with the Assembly and Council, in speaking of these two august bodies,
as anti-British. The Council was quite indifferent to the imputation,
but the Assembly pronounced the assertion of the _Times_ to be a false
and scandalous libel upon the House, and a breach of its privileges. In
accordance with this judgment, Mr. Speaker was instructed to issue
warrants for the arrests of the editor and publishers of the _Times_.
One offender, Mr. Ariel Bowman, was taken into custody, but Mr. Edward
Sparhawk, the other offender, could not be found. Mr. Bowman was not
long a prisoner. He escaped from custody soon after being taken, and
neither of the offenders were subsequently caught during the session,
so that both eluded the punishment due to an offence which was very
heinous only in the sight of the Assembly. After this important matter
was disposed of, the Governor General intimated that he had advanced
£30,000 to the Receiver General, out of the military chest, to enable
him to pay the expenses of the civil government, for the half year
ending in May, 1822. He called upon the House for re-payment. The reply
was pertinent. The House would at once have authorised the Receiver
General to return the money out of the sum of £100,000, the balance of
the public money which should have been in his hands, if it could have
been done, but a balance being due to the province, the Assembly could
only look upon the accommodation afforded to the Receiver General as a
personal favor to that officer. Indeed the Assembly voted all the sums
required for other public purposes, without taking into any account
whatever the emptiness of the public chest. The financial affairs of
the province were in a curious condition. "My earnest entreaties," says
Lord Dalhousie to Mr. Vallières de St. Réal, "to ascertain the state of
our finances, have been unavailing. Whilst the legislature has been
contending about forms, the substance of the treasury has been used,
and the province now stands without any funds which can be called its
own, or, worse than that, it has incurred a debt to the military chest
of £30,000, advanced in 1822, and £30,000 more advanced this summer of
1823, to which must be added the amount of all unpaid appropriations in
last session, a sum not less than £240,000, exclusive of the grant of
the Chambly Canal:
Our debt contracted is £ 60,000
Appropriations of 1823 unpaid 24,000
Our necessary expenses for 1824 70,000
Our probable appropriation, including the
award to Upper Canada 25,000
---------
£179,000
And our revenue to meet this 90,000."
The recent declaration and exposure of the Receiver General undoubtedly
did shew the evils arising from not annually settling the public
accounts. The Receiver General had not, however, positively wasted the
public revenue. Largely engaged in business he had built sawmills,
dammed rivers, and constructed viaducts. He was an enterprising man of
business, and doubtless his enterprise had indirectly enriched the
province, although as far as the immediate recovery of the money was
concerned, for the payment of the civil expenses of the government, the
investments had been somewhat selfish and rather injudicious. The
Receiver Generalship should not have been in the hands of a person
engaged in trade. That was the mistake, and it was one, which the
Assembly even had endeavored to remedy when perhaps it was too late.
There were still some other matters of finance meriting legislative
attention. The "Canada Trade Act" of the imperial parliament had
wonderfully deranged the siege operations of the House. The Assembly
was now on the defensive, the governor of the province having been very
considerably re-inforced by the energetic measures of the imperial
authorities. It was not even considered prudent to make further zigzag
approaches. The Assembly resolved upon keeping within their own lines
and to defend themselves as well as they could from the vigorous
sorties of the enemy, led on by Mr. Ryland. They requested that copies
of any addresses to His Majesty by the Legislative Council of Lower
Canada or by the Parliament of Upper Canada to the King, or his
representative in Lower Canada, might be laid before them. The Governor
sent to them an able report of a joint committee of the Legislative
Council and Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, alluding to the
fruitless negotiations, which had been carried on between the duties'
commissioners of the two provinces, a document which had had such
weight with the imperial parliament as to have led to the passage of
the Canada Trade Act. The Assembly scanned the paper carefully but did
nothing. They only said that the Act would receive their most serious
attention in the next session of the parliament. They were rather
inclined to do business on a more liberal scale than they had
manifested at the previous session. An Act was passed to enable the
province to commence the construction of a canal between the town of
St. Johns, in Canada East, and the village of Chambly, which the
company, incorporated in 1818, had been unable, for want of funds to
commence. Fifty thousand pounds were appropriated for this purpose.
They voted also twelve thousands pounds as an additional appropriation
towards the construction of the Lachine Canal; two thousand one hundred
pounds for the encouragement of agriculture; eight hundred and fifty
pounds were granted to the Montreal General Hospital Society; two
hundred pounds were awarded to the Education Society of Quebec; Chief
Justice Monk was pensioned in the sum of five hundred and fifty pounds
sterling a year; and Mr. Justice Ogden was voted a retiring annual
pension of four hundred and fifty pounds sterling. The House then
applied to the Governor for a copy of his instructions relative to the
application of the Jesuits' Estates Revenues for educational purposes;
but the Governor refused to comply with the Assembly's request, because
he had not been specially permitted to lay his instructions before the
Assembly. The business of the session was concluded, and Lord Dalhousie
went down in State to the Legislative Council Chamber, to prorogue the
parliament. In his closing speech he expressed the satisfaction with
which he had witnessed so much diligence and attention to the business
of the country. He was exceedingly well pleased to have had to give the
royal assent to the Acts passed to facilitate the administration of
justice, to encourage agriculture, to construct canals, to assist
trade, and to aid charitable and educational institutions. He thanked
the Assembly for the supplies. He regretted that offices for the
enregistration of property had not been established. He had transmitted
the addresses of both Houses on the subject of the union of the
provinces to the king. And he assured the Houses that he esteemed the
result of the session at once honorable to parliament and useful to the
country.
There was still much anxiety in the country about the contemplated
union. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau had not, however, been idle in
London. They had strongly pointed out to the imperial government the
probability of a relaxation of the energy and confidence of the people
of Lower Canada and of the bonds which so strongly attached them to the
mother country, if the union was consummated, and their representations
weighed with the government, for not long after the prorogation of the
Lower Canada parliament it was officially announced by Lord Dalhousie
that His Majesty's government had, for the present, determined to
relinquish the proposed measure for the legislative union of the
provinces.
The parliament of Upper Canada was opened on the 23rd of March.
Governor Maitland, in his opening address, spoke of the temporary
diminution of receipts from Quebec, as having interfered with the
prosperity of the province. He recommended the establishment of an
additional circuit and of a second assize. He probably addressed the
House for the last time, and he took the opportunity of remarking that
he had ever found them guided in their deliberations by a scrupulous
attention to the interests of the people as by a proper regard for the
honorable support of His Majesty's government. And he concluded by
alluding to the contemplated union of the two provinces which, if
effected, would extend the field of legislation. In the course of the
session, the Assembly represented to the Lieutenant-Governor that they
found the travelling expenses of the Judges too high, and that the
salaries of all the officers of the government and of the courts were
too high. It was recommended that there should be retrenchment, and it
was suggested that the scale of remuneration, which existed previous to
1796, was sufficient. The Governor would not hear of a retrenchment,
which could only have the effect of placing respectable men in the
situation of struggling against actual penury, with the gloomy prospect
of starving in old age. A second representation was made by the
Assembly, to the effect that confusion resulted from the manner in
which the public accounts were kept. There was a want of detail which
should be obviated. Sir Peregrine Maitland was quite indignant at this
representation. He was answerable for the necessities of the public,
and the House of Assembly approached him with the deliberate intention
of misrepresenting his administration. Any information, solicited by
the Assembly, to be afforded by him, as an act of courtesy, would have
been most cheerfully afforded. He did not care for secrecy, and any
information desired concerning the public accounts he would, at any
time, on a proper application, afford. The House respectfully informed
His Excellency that they had not the slightest intention of
misrepresenting his administration, but merely ventured to suggest an
improvement in the mode of keeping the accounts. So the matter ended.
The parliamentary session was rather a protracted one. The Kingston
Bank Bill had been a long time before the House, and almost at the
close of the session some amendments were made to it. An Orange Society
Bill was thrown out of the House, by the casting vote of the Speaker.
Mr. Gourlay, when in Upper Canada, in 1819, strongly recommended, in a
letter to the _Niagara Spectator_, the advisability of constructing
canals for the improvement of the navigation of the great lakes and the
St. Lawrence. His views were most enlightened. He advised the
construction of canals on a scale to admit vessels of 200 tons burthen,
large enough to brave the ocean, and not inconveniently large for
internal navigation. Should it be deemed advisable, says Mr. Gourlay,
to have larger vessels in the trade, any additional expense should not
for a moment be thought of as an objection. The Lachine Canal is to
admit only of boats. This may suit the merchant of Montreal, but will
not do for Upper Canada. Indeed I am doubtful if our great navigation
should at all touch Montreal, and rather think it should be carried to
the northward. As to the line within the province, my mind is made up,
not only from inquiries commenced on my first arrival here, but from
considerable personal inspection of the ground, as well between Lake
Ontario and Lake Erie, as below. My opinion is that the navigation
ought to be taken out of the river St. Lawrence, near the village of
Johnstown, in Edwardsburgh, and let into the Ottawa, somewhere below
the Hawkesbury Rapids; probably in that part of the river called the
Lake of Two Mountains. By a bold cut, of a few miles, at the first
mentioned place, the waters of the St. Lawrence might be conducted to a
command of level, which would make the rest of the way practicable,
with very ordinary exertion. The idea which has been started by some of
raising the navigation by two stages, first into Lake St. Francis, and
thence to the higher level, may do for boat navigation; but, for
vessels of a large scale it is greatly objectionable. Any benefit to be
gained from the lake considered as part of the canal already formed,
would be quite overbalanced by the want of a good towing path. A boat
navigation may, I think, with benefit to the parts adjoining, be
brought up so far as Milrush, through Lake St. Francis, and thence be
taken into the line of the grand canal. The advantages to Upper Canada
from a navigation on a large scale would be infinite. Only think of the
difference of having goods brought here from England, in the same
bottoms to which they were first committed, instead of being unshipped
at Quebec, unboated and warehoused in Montreal, carted to the ditch
canal, and there parcelled out, among petty craft for forwarding to
Kingston. Then again at Kingston tumbled about for transport across
Lake Ontario; and again, if Amherstburgh is the destination, a third
time boated, unboated, and reshipped. Think of the difference in point
of comfort and convenience to the merchants here. Think of the greater
despatch. Think of the saving of trouble and risk. Think of being
unburdened of immediate commissions and profits. Think of the closer
connexion which it would form between this province and England. Think
of the greater comfort it would afford to emigrants, and how much it
would facilitate and encourage emigration. With navigation on a large
scale, shipbuilding would become an object of great importance here,
and new vessels might be ready loaded with produce to depart with the
first opening in the spring. There are but few vessels trading from
England to Quebec, which make two voyages in a season, and then it is
with increase of risk that the second voyage is performed. Every vessel
could leave England, proceed to the extremities of Lakes Michigan or
Superior, and get back with ease in a season, or every vessel could
leave Lakes Erie or Ontario in the spring, proceed to England, get back
here, and again take home a second cargo of produce. In time of war
what security would such a scale of navigation yield. It would put all
competition on the lakes out of the question. Upper Canada would then
possess a vast body of thorough bred seamen and ship carpenters, with
abundance of vessels fit to mount guns, not only for their own
individual defence, but to constitute a navy at a moment's notice. In a
commercial competition too, the Great Western Canal of the States would
be quite outrivalled by such a superior navigation. Upwards, except at
the Falls of St. Mary, where a very short canal would give a free
passage, navigation is clear for more than a thousand miles, and when
population thickens on the wide-extended shores of the Upper Lakes,
only think how the importance increases of having the transport of
goods and produce uninterrupted by transhipment. Such was Mr. Gourlay's
dream in the jail of Niagara. It is now reality. Ships of war, American
and British, have passed from Lake Ontario down the St. Lawrence to the
ocean, the ship _Eureka_ embarked passengers for California, at
Cleveland, in Ohio, and passed down the St. Lawrence to sea, safely
reaching her destination on the Pacific, and sea-going vessels have
been built in Kingston to ply between that port and Liverpool direct.
Steamships pass up the St. Lawrence canals and down the St. Lawrence
rapids. Canada is advancing with giant strides, small as her beginning
was. It was in November, 1823, that George Keefer, J. Northrop, Thomas
Merritt, William Chisholm, Joseph Smith, Paul Shipman, George Adams,
John Decoes, and William Hamilton Merritt, advertised in the _Upper
Canada Gazette_ that, as freeholders of the district of Niagara, they
intended to petition the legislature at the next session of parliament,
to incorporate a company for the purpose of connecting the Lakes Erie
and Ontario, by a canal capable of carrying boats of from twenty to
forty tons burthen, by the following route:--To commence at Chippewa,
ten miles above the mouth of that creek, on the farm of John Brown,
from thence to the head of the middle branch of the twelve mile creek,
at G. Vanderbarrack's, from thence to John Decoes, passing over to the
west branch of the twelve mile creek, on the farm of Adam Brown, and
continuing along the said stream to Lake Ontario. From the Chippewa to
Grand River, either from the forks of the Chippewa, through the marsh,
or from Oswego, whichever may prove most advantageous,--and for the
erection of machinery for hydraulic purposes, on the entire route.
There was a beginning by men whose names are familiar to the Canadians.
These were some of the pioneers of improvement, and some of them yet
living have to combat the vulgar or interested reproach of being
possessed with ideas of utopian schemes. But it is time to turn again
to the baser things of Lower Canada. Lord Dalhousie, who had paid a
visit to Nova Scotia, immediately after the prorogation of the
parliament of Lower Canada, returned to Quebec in August. In October he
established a new official Gazette. The commission of King's Printer
given to Mr. Samuel Neilson, in 1812, was revoked, and Dr. John
Charlton Fisher, who had been the editor of the _Albion_,
published in New York, was commissioned as the printer in Canada, to
the King's Most Excellent Majesty. Dr. Fisher was a man of
gentlemanlike exterior, of good address, of superior educational
acquirements, of fair mental capacity, and, in a word, a gentleman and
a scholar. He was an Englishman, and passionately loyal. But he was no
match in shrewdness for Mr. Neilson, who was now more bitterly opposed
to the government than ever. Dr. Fisher was, however, beyond any
question, better suited for the management of a court journal than Mr.
Neilson could have been. Mr. Neilson was a colonist and deeply imbued
with that spirit of independence which is natural to the resident of a
country far removed from the extremes of majesty and misery. Dr. Fisher
had been the resident of a town in England, an officer of the English
militia, and having had long to live on smiles, he smiled again to
live. He was a courtier.
There was a considerable immigration both in 1822 and 1823. In 1822,
10,465 immigrants had arrived at Quebec. This year 10,188 immigrants
had arrived. Nearly 60 families, consisting of 200 persons, the
majority of whom were Quakers, had come from Bristol, in England to
settle in Upper Canada.
The legislature of Lower Canada was again summoned to meet for the
despatch of business, on the 25th of November. It was the last session
of the parliament. Lord Dalhousie in opening the session apologised for
the statements about financial difficulties, which he was obliged to
make so frequently. He entreated the House to proceed with the public
business harmoniously. He recommended the further consideration of the
judicature bill, and his message of the 4th of February, calling
attention to the expediency of enacting a law for the public registry
of instruments conveying, changing, or affecting real property, with a
view to give greater security to the possession and transfer of such
property, and to commercial transactions in general, which had been
overlooked in the previous session. And the Assembly proceeded to
business. Thereupon Lord Dalhousie officially informed the House that
he had suspended the Receiver General from the performance of the
duties of his office. The Governor had directed his attention after the
close of the previous session, to ascertain the state of the funds upon
which large appropriations had been granted, and there appeared to be
£96,000 in the hands of the Receiver General. But when His Excellency
had called upon that officer to declare whether he was prepared to meet
warrants to that amount, various accounts and statements shewing claims
on the part of the province, on the imperial treasury, and the military
chest, the payment of which into his hands would enable him to meet the
demands of the government and, in time, to pay up the actual balance of
his accounts with the public men, were submitted to him. He was not
then prepared with the balance required to meet the warrants for the
public salaries, and he requested that the warrants might not be issued
until the 1st of July, when the revenue of the current year would place
funds in the chest. Lord Dalhousie agreed to the Receiver General's
request, concerning the time of issuing the warrants; but the question
as to the repayment of the sums claimed by the Receiver General as due
to the province, being one on which His Majesty's government alone
could decide, Mr. Davidson was sent to England, on the part both of the
government and of the Receiver General, with voluminous papers to be
submitted to the Lords of the Treasury. When, however, Lord Dalhousie
returned to Quebec from Nova Scotia, he was informed by the Receiver
General that he was unable to meet any further warrants to be drawn
upon him. Under such circumstances it only remained for the
Governor-in-Chief to appoint a commission of two gentlemen to inspect
and control the operations of the Receiver General; and he took upon
himself the responsibility of granting loans from the military chest,
to meet the urgent necessities of the civil government. But two days
before the House had been assembled, no intimation having been received
from the imperial authorities, that the claims advanced by the Receiver
General, on the part of the province, would be admitted, he had been
compelled to suspend the Receiver General until the pleasure of the
king should be known with regard to him, or, at least, until
arrangements should be made for replacing the deficient balance in the
public chest. Mr. Caldwell was to be pitied, if not excused. His
father, his predecessor in the Receiver Generalship, had left him a
defalcation of £40,000 to be made good from a salary of £500 a year.
Mr. Caldwell was compelled to engage in trade, and he did engage in
trade successfully. He acquired large property. His estate at Lauzon
was worth £1,500 a year, but then he bought his estate, to make good
his father's deficiencies, by trading on the public monies, and he
entailed the estate on his son, to prevent its falling into the hands
of the province, with whose means he had improved it, previously to
announcing that he was a defaulter towards the province to the extent
of £96,117. This was not honorable and deserves neither pity nor
excuse. The courts of law would not countenance the entail. The
pretended entail was dismissed in the Canadian courts and dismissed in
the courts of law in England. It was not to be supposed that Mr.
Caldwell could keep an estate improved at the public expense, on the
condition only of paying, during his life, £1,500 a year, out of it, to
government. But Mr. Caldwell had a claim upon the province. He had paid
out large sums of money, for which he was as much entitled to 3 per
cent as was the Receiver General of Upper Canada. He and his father had
received a million and a half, the per centage on which, at 3 per cent,
was £45,471, which ought in equity to be allowed him. He would pay,
moreover, £1,000 a year, in the event of his restoration to office,
with a provision, by the legislature, suited to its responsibility. Now
it does seem that if Mr. Caldwell was prepared to pay so many thousands
a year, on certain conditions, there was no necessity for his default.
The House would have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Caldwell. He was
not their officer, and he was a defaulter. The imperial government were
bound to make good the Receiver General's defalcation, and they would
address His Majesty on the subject. They did so. It was alleged that
Mr. Caldwell was an officer of the imperial government, over whom the
provincial government had no control, and that he had lost to the
province £96,117 13s. and one farthing, which it was right that the
government of England should make good to the government of Canada. The
Assembly proceeded to another matter. On the motion of Mr. Bourdages a
committee was appointed to consider the propriety of erecting an
equestrian statue "_in memoriam illustrissimi viri D. Georgii
Prevost, Baroneti, Hujusce Provinciæ, Gubernatoris, Atque Copiarum
Ducis Canadarum Servatoris_." The statue was never erected, the
excuse being simply "no funds." The subject of tea smuggling was
brought before the House. The revenue had been seriously affected by
the illicit importation of Bohay, Souchong, and Oolong, from the United
States. Canada was desirous of obtaining "Gunpowder" from other and
more profitable sources, and addressed the king to know if tea could
not be obtained direct, either by some arrangement with the East India
Company, for an annual supply, or by granting to His Majesty's subjects
the benefit of direct importation. The king's ministers advised the
East India Company to have no more colonial tea difficulties, and tea
sufficient for the consumption of the province of Canada was annually
sent to Quebec, in the company's ships, until the company ceased to be
concerned in the tea trade. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau had returned
to Quebec from London, and had reported that the consideration of the
union of the provinces would not be resumed without previous notice
being given to the inhabitants of the province. The Canada Trade Act
was discussed and defended by Mr. Papineau on the plea of necessity.
The supplies were then considered, voted as before, _item_ by
_item_, and twenty-five per cent discounted on every salary, to
make up for the Receiver General's defalcation. The Legislative Council
rejected the supply bill as soon as it appeared in their chamber, and
implored His Majesty to consider the state of the province, out of
tenderness to his loyal subjects in Lower Canada, and to grant a remedy
for the withholding of the supplies. But there was a subject of
somewhat greater importance brought to the attention of the parliament
in a message to Congress by the President of the United States. The
American government claimed the right of freely navigating the St.
Lawrence from their territories, in the west, to the sea. It certainly
was a pity that the right was not conceded. The whole province of
Canada would have gained by the increase of shipping to its waters. The
Council were, however, much alarmed and addressed the Governor,
deprecating such a concession, as contrary to the law of nations, in
similar cases; dangerously calculated to affect the dependence of the
colony, on the parent state; as having a tendency to systematize
smuggling and as pernicious to British interests, in a variety of ways.
They had further learned that Barnharts' Island, in the St. Lawrence,
situated above Cornwall, in the Upper Province, was to be conceded to
the Americans. They were apprehensive that the navigation of the St.
Lawrence, between Upper and Lower Canada, was to be impeded or placed
at the mercy of the States, and they suggested a reciprocal right of
navigation, during peace, of the several channels of the St. Lawrence,
south of the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, although they had
prayed the king not to grant the reciprocal right of navigation in the
St. Lawrence, north of that latitude, in time of peace. The Assembly
paid no attention to the matter.
The Lower House, however, was beginning to be, on the whole, somewhat
factiously disposed. For the most part, the positions assumed by the
Commons of Canada, were correct positions, but they were not incapable
of doing mischievously silly things. Indeed, while jealous to an
extreme, of power in others, they claimed extraordinary powers, rights,
and privileges for themselves. They would not have their proceedings
commented upon either by the Governor, the Legislative Council, or the
press. The slightest attempt to curb them was a breach of privilege, a
simple remonstrance was something malicious, false, or libellous. They
were occasionally pettish. A war losses Act had been passed in Upper
Canada. The brunt of the war of 1812, had fallen upon the inhabitants
of the Upper Province. There, whole villages, had been burned, by the
enemy, and grain fields laid waste. It was only right to indemnify the
sufferers. Upper Canada was, however, totally destitute of means. The
cost of her civil government had been altogether defrayed out of the
imperial treasury, until very recently. She only received, for all
purposes, a fifth of the duties on imports collected at Quebec. To
enable the government of Upper Canada to carry out the objects sought
to be attained by the passage of the War Losses Act, the British
government had consented to a loan of £100,000, the interest on one
half of which the British government guaranteed. The other half,
£2,500, was to be provided for by Upper Canada. How to manage it was
the difficulty. Already the government had been compelled to resort to
the miserable stratagem of heavily taxing traders, so that any dumb
inhabitant of the province, and every implement of trade appeared to be
the absolute property of the government, distributed among the people
for a consideration. Neither a man's ox nor ass was his own. He paid to
government a consideration, not for the land on which the cattle
grazed, nor on the profits which they yielded, but for using them. It
was a similar kind of stupidity to that which in Scotland and England
refused to permit a man to make a pair of trowsers, sole a boot, or set
up types, however capable he might have been, unless he had served an
apprenticeship to the craft of seven years. It was not considered that
while the horses of a pleasure carriage would be a proper source of
revenue to a government, a carter's horse is not a proper subject for
taxation. It was not considered that the laborer should give of the
fruits of his labor an offering to the State which countenances and
protects him, while labor is not to be prevented by taxation. It was
not considered that while manufactured goods are properly dutiable, it
is unwise to tax the raw material. An occupation ought not to be taxed.
It is a wrong policy to tax an auctioneer, a pedlar, a carter, a
merchant, a tavern keeper, or an editor, because of his occupation; but
the stuffs which are traded in may very properly be taxed. Yet
occupations were taxed in Upper Canada, and, of course, rather to the
disadvantage than advantage of the province. It would not do to
increase the taxation on inn keepers, pedlars, hawkers, boatmen, and on
public carriages on land or water. The only way in which money could be
raised was by the imposition of higher duties on imported goods, and
the Upper Canada Assembly therefore requested the Assembly of Lower
Canada to impose new duties on imports sufficient to make up the annual
interest on the war losses loan, required from Upper Canada. But the
Lower Canadian Assembly would not impose new taxes upon imports for any
such purpose. They sympathised with the sufferers, but as all the
disposable resources of both provinces had been employed in resisting
the unjust charges of the war, it was not now expedient to increase the
taxation on imported goods, such as wines, refined sugar, muscovado
sugar, or by so much per cent, according to value, on merchandise. The
Assembly of Lower Canada would not do anything in furtherance of the
views of those who had made such representations to England as had led
to the "Canada Trade Act." They did not of course say so. They,
however, immediately afterwards, passed a vote of thanks to Sir James
Mackintosh and some other members of the House of Commons, who had
succeeded in persuading His Majesty's ministers to relinquish their
support of a bill introduced into the imperial parliament in 1822, with
the view of altering the established constitution of Canada, and the
remains of which bill was the "Canada Trade Act." Upper Canada had
another way to obtain money from Lower Canada. The Upper had a claim
upon the Lower province. There were arrears of drawbacks due by Lower
Canada upon importations into Upper Canada during the war, of which no
exact entries had been made at the Custom House. The "Canada Trade Act"
had provided that the amount due was to be decided by arbitration, and
arbitrators appointed, in 1823, had awarded to Upper Canada £12,220.
Upper Canada applied to Lord Dalhousie for the money, but his lordship
was so embarrassed with financial difficulties that he was compelled to
refer the matter to the Assembly. The Assembly would not pay the same
sum twice. The Governor had used the money in paying the public
officers of Lower Canada, inasmuch as the award had been made in 1823,
and from the time of the award the amount due to Upper Canada was not
at the disposal either of the government or of the Assembly, but should
have been paid to Upper Canada. The Governor had virtually suspended
the execution of the Canada Trade Act and had, in consequence, exposed
Lower Canada to the misfortune of a renewal of the difficulties with
Upper Canada. Lord Dalhousie was pestered with considerable ingenuity.
The Assembly of Lower Canada were rapidly becoming conservative or
non-progressive. They reported against any attempt being made to
abolish the seigniorial tenure, or change any of the institutions of
the country, the continuance of which was granted by the capitulations
of the colony. They were liberal enough in matters which did not
peculiarly interest the French-Canadian population. The Church of
Scotland, in Canada, having applied for a proportion of the lands
reserved for the clergy of the protestant churches, which had hitherto
been exclusively claimed by the clergy of the Church of England, in
Canada, the Assembly at once consented and addressed the king on the
subject. They were strongly of opinion that even protestant dissenters,
from the Churches of England and Scotland had an equitable claim, if
not an equal right to enjoy the advantages and revenues to arise from
the reserves in proportion to their numbers and their usefulness. The
Church of England, in Canada was wroth. It was a pretty thing, indeed,
for a Roman Catholic House of Assembly, to presume to represent to the
King of Great Britain, and the head of their church, that the word
"Protestant" was not exclusively the property of the Church of England.
It was high time to close the session, and accordingly, the
Governor-in-Chief went down to the Council Chamber, on the 9th of
March. He was not pleased. He said, in his prorogation speech, that he
did not think the session would prove of much advantage to the public.
He would most respectfully tell both Houses his sentiments upon the
general result of their proceedings. A claim had been made to an
unlimited right, in one branch of the legislature, to appropriate the
whole revenue of the province according to its pleasure. Even that
portion of the revenue raised by the authority of the imperial
parliament and directed by an Act of that parliament to be applied to
the payment of the expenses of the administration of justice, and of
the civil government of the province, the Assembly claimed the control
of. By the other two branches of the legislature that claim had been
denied, but it had, nevertheless, been persisted in by the Assembly,
and recourse had been had to the unusual course of withholding the
supplies, except on conditions, which would amount to an acknowledgment
of its constitutional validity. The stoppage of the supplies had caused
incalculable mischief to the province; but the country was,
nevertheless, powerfully advancing in improvement. The people,
generally, were contented. He had hitherto averted the unhappy
consequences of the stoppage of the supplies, by taking upon himself
certain responsibilities, but as his advice with regard to the payment
of the civil list, had been, even yet, unavailing, he would in future
guide the measures of the government by the strict letter of the law.
He thanked the Council for the calm, firm, and dignified character of
their deliberations. And he fervently prayed that the wisdom of the
proceedings of the Legislative Council would make a just impression
upon the loyal inhabitants of the province and lead them to that
temperate and conciliating disposition which is always best calculated
to give energy to public spirit, to promote public harmony, and ensure
public happiness, the great advantages which resulted from a wise
exercise of the powers and privileges of parliament. The
Governor-in-Chief of Lower Canada was on his knees fervently praying
for that which was not very likely to happen. Energy or public spirit
does not ordinarily spring from the temperate and conciliatory tone of
such inhabitants of a province as Lord Dalhousie would have considered
loyal.
It is desirable to know what Sir Peregrine Maitland was about in Upper
Canada. He had made a speech to parliament which he considered to be
his last. It was little wonder--Sir Peregrine Maitland was intolerably
tyrannical. He had gagged Mr. Gourlay. He had destroyed conventions. He
had suppressed public meetings. And he had been censured for it by Sir
George Murray. In 1822 the Honorable Barnabas Bidwell was returned to
the Upper Canada Assembly as a reformer. Mr. Bidwell was a man of very
considerable ability. He was eloquent, and his ideas of civil and
religious liberty were liberal. Born a British subject, during the
period of the revolution, but too young to take a part in it, he
remained in the United States, after the declaration of independence.
It was not long before he attained an elevated station in Congress. His
talents, however, coupled with his independence of spirit and love of
truth made him enemies. A hostility so vindictive was raised against
him by his political enemies, that he removed to Upper Canada, in
disgust, there only to meet with similar treatment, the result of
similar causes. No sooner did the people of Upper Canada begin to show
an appreciation of his talents, than the Upper Canadian oligarchy saw
in him a formidable rival to be got rid of by any means. A special Act
was passed to incapacitate Mr. Bidwell from holding a seat in the
Assembly. He was to be considered an alien and to be treated as an
alien as the Act directed. Mr. Barnabas Bidwell was expelled. The
spirit of opposition to a bad government was not, however, lessened by
such a course of action. New champions of the people's privileges
arose. Colonial red-tapism and colonial empiric aristocracy could with
difficulty sustain itself. Mr. Bidwell's son was brought to the
hustings by the supporters of his father. He was not, without
difficulty to obtain a seat. At the first election, the returning
officer, one of the original Timothy Brodeurs, contrived to give his
adversary a majority. A protest was entered, however, and after
distinguishing himself in an able defence of his rights at the Bar of
the House, the return was set aside.[35] Another election ensued, and
the returning officer refused to receive any votes for Mr. Bidwell, on
the ground of his being an alien. The return was again protested
against, and the election again set aside. At last a fair election was
allowed, when Mr. Bidwell, junior, was triumphantly returned to
parliament. In 1824, many other reform members were elected to
parliament, and on several questions, there was a decided majority
against the faction. A new expedient was hit upon to get rid of these
intruders. An "Alien Bill," to make aliens of those who had taken
advantage of the various proclamations to United Empire loyalists to
enter and settle in the province was attempted to be carried. Sir
Peregrine Maitland and his advisers were not content with interdicting
liberty of speech and liberty of action. They attempted to seize the
property and very means of those to whom the faith of the government
was pledged for protection. They attempted to sweep out of the country
those who had received their titles to lands, thirty years back, and
had, for that length of time occupied their farms. And they,
consequently, attempted to alienate, and so get rid of men who had
enjoyed, for a great length of time, the full privileges of British
subjects, and who were British subjects in sympathy and in reality as
in law. Indeed it was only by the united exertions of the people that
the calamity was turned aside. The concoctors of the scheme took
nothing by their motion. Had they succeeded, the advantage would only
have been temporary, and the reaction more terrible than it was. Having
failed in a design, which the word iniquitous is scarcely sufficient to
characterise, the House of Assembly decidedly assumed a progressive or
reform character. It was while this silly, as well as unjust measure
was being attempted to be carried that an attack of a novel kind was
made upon Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie. Mr. Mackenzie had some years
previously emigrated to Toronto, from Dundee, in Scotland, where he had
been engaged in business, as a merchant's clerk. An excellent
accountant, he was probably instrumental in causing it to be pointed
out to Sir Peregrine Maitland that the public accounts of Upper Canada
were not properly kept. He would have had at any rate no hesitation in
doing so. Very small in stature, he had a large head, ornamented with a
moderately sized and sparkling light blue eye, and with a nose
peculiarly short, and in comparison with his other features, altogether
ridiculously small. His nose was in wonderful contrast with a massive
fore-head and well-shaped mouth, which even when his tongue stood
still, rare as that occurrence was, ever moved. He was peculiarly
thin-skinned. The blue veins of his fair face made him seem to have
been tatooed. Mr. Mackenzie was then astonishingly active, persevering,
and intelligent, as he still is. A more able or a more indefatigable
exposer of colonial abuses could not have appeared at a more fitting
time. He was undoubtedly the right man in the right place. He had
engaged in business, and prospered, in York. He was, at this period,
the proprietor of a periodical called the _Colonial Advocate_,
wherein the corruptionists of the period were unmasked with very little
ceremony or consideration. The "corruptionists," very naturally,
desired to put him down. It was a matter, however, daily becoming more
difficult to put a man in prison and toss him out of the country on the
plea that he entertained opinions which he might give expression to,
and revolutionize the country. It was suspected, indeed, by the
magnates, that the state of feeling in the country was such that
prosecutions could not be maintained against Mr. Mackenzie. It was even
believed that they would increase his popularity. Mr. Mackenzie
travelled often to pick up information. He went about not so much to
create a public opinion as to ascertain it. He was at Niagara with this
view when a mob of "gentlemen" stormed his printing office in York.
Like all other assaults of the kind, it was, of course, a night attack,
and being well managed was quite successful! It was not. In the broad
light of day, the press was captured and destroyed, and the type of the
_Colonial Advocate_ seized and thrown into Lake Ontario. Nor was
this all. Mr. Mackenzie's family and his infirm old mother received the
most brutal treatment.[36] The authorities took very little notice of
the occurrence. But Mr. Mackenzie appealed to a jury, who, "to the no
small discomfiture of the tories, from Sir Peregrine Maitland, down to
the lowest menial employed in the political shambles," gave exemplary
damages. This had some effect, but not the weight which punishment for
the crime would have produced. The risk of having to pay for damages
would certainly not have prevented similar violence. The employees or
relatives of the Executive Councillors, the Judges, the Attornies, and
Solicitors General, and of such distinguished families at home would
have continued to destroy presses to this day, gaining more by the
suppression of truth and the prevention of free discussion, than they
lost in damages, had not an obstacle stood in their way, which it was
dangerous to encounter. The liberal press took up a bold position. The
speeches in the Assembly, by the leading independents, told upon the
country. A spirit of retributive justice had been stirred up, which
awed and intimidated the ruling compact. Open violence could not again
be resorted to. The subtleties of the law were, however, brought into
requisition. Under a show of justice and a pretended bridling of
licentiousness, the press might be muzzled or compelled to play one
monotonous hymn of praise to the powers above. The libel laws were
sufficiently odious to accomplish anything. Mr. Mackenzie was
prosecuted for libel. Prosecution followed prosecution, and where truth
constitutes a libel, it is surprising how he escaped. The juries would
not convict. The eyes of the whole country had been opened, and the
conspiracies against the public liberties were observable. Besides, Mr.
Mackenzie defended himself, and gave his persecutors nothing to boast
of in the rencontres. He never failed to improve these occasions. He
entered into every swindling transaction with greater severity than he
could have done in his newspaper. Mackenzie always succeeded in an
appeal to the people. There were others of his class not so fortunate.
A gentleman named Francis Collins, lately arrived in the country, from
Ireland, with a small competency, established a newspaper which he
called _The Canadian Freeman_. Mr. Collins commented on the
ruinous policy of the administration. But he did it too fervently for
the tories. Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Governor, ordered him to be
prosecuted, and upon what grounds may be gained from the fact of the
trial being put off, and the proceedings afterwards discontinued. The
end was answered. Smarting under a sense of ill-usage, he became more
severe upon the government, and perhaps did ascribe to them more than
was true. He was prosecuted by Mr. Attorney General Robinson, a
wonderfully able man then, and now Sir John Beverly Robinson, and Chief
Justice in Canada West, and with the aid of Messrs. Justices Hagerman
and Sherwood, a verdict of guilty was brought in against him. According
to a "resolution" of the House of Assembly an "oppressive and
unwarrantable sentence" was passed upon him. Whether or no, he was
thrust into prison. The House of Assembly applied to the Governor for
his release in vain. It was not until the king came to hear of his
situation that he was released, with a broken constitution, which
brought him to the grave in the flower of his manhood. It was so that
Sir Peregrine Maitland and the clique who surrounded him persecuted the
press, with the view of concealing from England the true state of
public opinion, in the colony. Men submit to terrible injustice before
they rebel. An able despot might so manage as to inflict almost unheard
of cruelties upon individuals without driving a population to arms. Men
with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value
such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the tap of
the drum, until wrought up to it by desperation. There is a feeling of
respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a
peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents
them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion of
their rights. In a colony there are thousands who bring with them
recollections of home and of home institutions, and who cannot be
brought to believe that an English gentleman will pursue a course of
policy, as the governor of a colony, which the Queen of England has too
much good sense to assume, even if she could do it, in the United
Kingdom. Indeed, if a glance is taken behind the curtain, English
statesmen will be noticed to have been liberal and well inclined
towards the colonists, and have only erred when purposely misled by
those whom they had appointed to places of which it was and is a
serious mistake for any ministry to have the patronage. Sir Peregrine
Maitland did not confine his persecuting operations to gentlemen who
gathered statistics, or printed newspapers, and wrote political
articles, commenting on an administration for which he only was
responsible to the Secretary of State for the colonies. He was not
satisfied with having seen a printing press destroyed and the types of
a newspaper office sunk in Ontario, but must needs throw a building
belonging to a private gentleman over the Falls of Niagara. He was
recalled because, in the supposition that the law was too slow for
redress, and impatient of contradiction, as some military men are, he
caused an armed force to trespass on the property of a gentleman named
Forsyth, on the plea that his land belonged to the Crown. The property
was situated at the Falls of Niagara. A building stood upon a part of
the land claimed for the Crown by Sir Peregrine. The soldiery tumbled
the building over the precipice, and the land was free of all
incumbrances. The House of Assembly interfered in this matter too. They
attempted to obtain the evidence of the officers engaged in the
business, but the government would not permit them to testify, the
consequence of which was that the Assembly imprisoned them for
contempt. So far was their reluctance to give evidence carried, that
the Serjeant-at-Arms was compelled to enter by force the house in which
they had barricaded themselves. The king was made aware of the whole
proceedings, Mr. Forsyth's claim for redress acknowledged, and Sir
Peregrine Maitland recalled. It was not too soon. Before this, His
Excellency managed to juggle Mr. Robert Randall, the agent of the
people to England, against the alien bill, and who was, therefore, one
of the proscribed, out of his ample estates on the Niagara frontier,
and out of his valuable mill privileges on the Ottawa, by the formality
of law, so that he was left bankrupt and penniless, and died in sorrow.
Indeed anything in the semblance of a liberal was in those days
proscribed in a country possessed of the image and transcript of the
British constitution. A peninsular officer, Captain Matthew, a member
of the Assembly, who would not receive "new light" at command was set
upon by spies. The object was the contemptible one of robbing him of
his half-pay. A spy declared that he had once heard him call for
"Yankee Doodle," at a play in the metropolis. It was a grievous
offence, certainly, even had it been true. But it was enough to deprive
a man who had served his country in battle of his half-pay. Indeed, he
only could get it back again on condition of repairing to England. He
went there to seek redress and died. There were yet other sufferers.
Mr. Justice Willis had been elevated from the English bar to the Bench
of Upper Canada. There were but three Judges of the King's Bench, in
the country, the Chief Justice Campbell and two Puisne Judges. The
Chief Justice went to England in search of a knighthood. Mr. Willis was
not in favor at Court. He had studiously abstained from mixing himself
up with politics. He had indeed refused to be an obsequious Jefferies,
and was looked upon, therefore, as opposed to the administration. When
term time came, the Chief Justice being in England, Mr. Willis refused
to go on with the business of the Court, because there was no one to
decide in case of a difference of opinion between him and his brother
Justice. It was enough. Sir Peregrine Maitland dismissed him, and
appointed Mr. Hagerman, _pro tempore_, in his stead. The newly
appointed Judge must have been surprised at his elevation. He was at
the very moment of his appointment discharging the onerous and
important duties of an officer of the Customs at Kingston. Mr. Willis
appealed to the English government and was sustained in the position
which he had assumed, but instead of being reinstated in Canada,
another office was provided for him in Demerara. The Chief Justice
shortly afterwards returned from England as Sir William Campbell, and
resigned to make way for the election of Mr. Attorney General Robinson.
Hagerman was succeeded by Mr. M'Aulay, a barrister of six years
standing, and very cheerfully accepted the humbler office of Solicitor
General. Again the House of Assembly interfered with Sir Peregrine
Maitland. They represented that Willis had been grossly ill-used, and
explained the cause. It was without effect. The beauties of colonial
irresponsible government were as discernible in Upper Canada, where
there were no seditious, English-hating, Frenchmen, as in Lower Canada.
A private gentleman, two editors of newspapers, a member of parliament,
a captain in the army, and a judge had experienced some of the benefits
derivable from a constitution, the very transcript and image of that of
Great Britain, managed by a General of Division and a clique of
placemen. The clique were, on the whole, men of genteel education and
refined tastes. They formed an exclusive circle of associates. Officers
of the army, on full pay, were admitted to the society of their wives
and daughters, and no one else but one of themselves, and indeed the
gentry of the country consisted of the Governor, the Bishop, a Chief
Justice, the Clerk of the Executive Council, a few of the leading
merchants, who were members of the Legislative Council, or who were the
descendants of an Executive Councillor, or of an Aid-de-Camp, the
Colonels of Engineers and Artillery, with such of the other officers of
these corps who cared for the society of an honorable possessor of
waste lands or Timber Broker, and the officers of the regiments of the
line. In the principal towns the clergy of the Church of Scotland were
sometimes looked upon as gentlemen. Elsewhere, in common with the
clergy of dissenting congregations, they were only on a footing with
those many respectable people who cultivated farms, kept shops, or
owned steamboats. The banker had not even yet reached that scale of
importance which would have entitled him to be considered one of the
gentry. Among Governors, Bishops, Chief Justices, Clerks of Council,
and officers of the army, it would have been wonderful had there not
been men of literary tastes. These tastes did prevail and required
gratification. In Lower Canada, it was suggested to Lord Dalhousie that
it would do him honor were he to be the founder of a Literary and
Historical Society. Lord Dalhousie--who was a really excellent
man--although a blundering governor in Lower Canada, where he had such
men as Neilson, Stuart, Papineau and even the supple Vallières to
thwart him--and anxious to benefit the colony as much as he could at
once took the hint. He founded it in Quebec, and became its patron. It
was founded for the purpose of investigating points of history,
immediately connected with the Canadas; to discover and rescue from the
unsparing hand of time the records which remained of the earliest
history of New France; to preserve such documents as might be found
amid the dust of unexplored depositories, and which might prove
important to general history and to the particular history of the
province. The Society has not been unproductive of good. Indeed it
acquired at one time even a distant reputation. There have been both
able and educated men connected with it. The Reverend Daniel Wilkie,
LL.D., one of the most eminent teachers of youth, which the country
has yet known, a man of great learning, and capable of profound
thought, contributed many valuable papers to it. The Honorable Andrew
William Cochran, an accomplished scholar, was its President. The Skeys,
the Badgleys, the Fishers, the Sewells, the Vallières, the Stuarts, the
Blacks, the Sheppards, the Morrins, the Doluglasses, the Reverend Dr.
Cook, the Bishops Mountain, the Greens, the Faribaults, and indeed all
the men of learning and note in the country were associated with it.
But it is decaying. The men, a greater part of whom were, in a
political sense, injurious to the country, who were capable of holding
up such a society, are being supplanted by more practicable men of
inferior literary acquirements, such as the Camerons, the Richards, the
Smiths, or the Browns. The literature of the country is increasing in
quantity and diminishing in quality, and so it will continue to do
until the wealth of the country becomes more considerable. The means
for the obtainment of a simply classical education are now at the very
door. There are universities in Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and
Toronto, but there are yet only a very few men with time sufficient at
their disposal, even in winter, to become Icelandically learned. The
society should, however, be maintained, and it would reflect credit on
any government to vote it a yearly grant of at least £300. Lord
Dalhousie was a benevolent and personally upright man. Among other good
things which he did, unconnected with politics, was the gift from the
Jesuits' Estates Fund of £300, and a large donation out of his privy
purse to assist in the enlargement of St. Andrew's Church; which at an
expense of £2,300 was completed in 1824. As a gentleman, no man could
have been more respected than the Earl of Dalhousie was. There was
nothing despicably mean about him. He was liable to be deceived by
others. He never intentionally deceived himself or others. He did not
like the French. He did not like diplomacy. The trickeries of the
hustings were distasteful to him. He rejoiced in being a good soldier
and an honest man, and he would have been glad had all the world been
as he was. He should not, however, have been the Governor of Canada, or
the Governor of any colony with a constitution, which could only be
successfully worked by the most skilful manoeuvring and adroit
trickery. His Lordship sailed for England on the 6th of June, 1824, and
the government of Lower Canada devolved on the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir
Francis Nathaniel Burton.
[35] Well's Canadiana, page 162.
[36] Well's Canadiana, page 164.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.