THE AMERICAN MIGRATION
From the first the problem of governing the settlements above Montreal
perplexed the authorities. It was very early proposed to erect them into
a separate province, as New Brunswick had been erected into a separate
province. But Lord Dorchester was opposed to any such arrangement. ‘It
appears to me,’ he wrote to Lord Sydney, ‘that the western settlements
are as yet unprepared for any organization superior to that of a county.’
In 1787, therefore, the country west of Montreal was divided into four
districts, for a time named Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nassau, and Hesse.
Lunenburg stretched from the western boundary of the province of Quebec
to the Gananoqui; Mecklenburg, from the Gananoqui to the Trent, flowing
into the Bay of Quinté; Nassau, from the Trent to a line drawn due north
from Long Point on Lake Erie; and Hesse, from this line to Detroit. We
do not know who was responsible for inflicting these names on a new
and unoffending country. Perhaps they were thought a compliment to the
Hanoverian ruler of England. Fortunately they were soon dropped, and the
names Eastern, Midland, Home, and Western were substituted.
This division of the settlements proved only temporary. It left the
Loyalists under the arbitrary system of government set up in Quebec
by the Quebec Act of 1774, under which they enjoyed no representative
institutions whatever. It was not long before petitions began to pour in
from them asking that they should be granted a representative assembly.
Undoubtedly Lord Dorchester had underestimated the desire among them for
representative institutions. In 1791, therefore, the country west of the
Ottawa river, with the exception of a triangle of land at the junction
of the Ottawa and the St Lawrence, was erected by the Constitutional
Act into a separate province, with the name of Upper Canada; and this
province was granted a representative assembly of fifteen members.
The lieutenant-governor appointed for the new province was Colonel John
Graves Simcoe. During the war Colonel Simcoe had been the commanding
officer of the Queen’s Rangers, which had been largely composed of
Loyalists, and he was therefore not unfitted to govern the new province.
He was theoretically under the control of Lord Dorchester at Quebec; but
his relations with Dorchester were somewhat strained, and he succeeded
in making himself virtually independent in his western jurisdiction.
Though he seemed phlegmatic, he possessed a vigorous and enterprising
disposition, and he planned great things for Upper Canada. He explored
the country in search of the best site for a capital; and it is
interesting to know that he had such faith in the future of Upper Canada
that he actually contemplated placing the capital in what was then the
virgin wilderness about the river Thames. He inaugurated a policy of
building roads and improving communications which showed great foresight;
and he entered upon an immigration propaganda, by means of proclamations
advertising free land grants, which brought a great increase of
population to the province.
[Illustration: JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE
From the bust in Exeter Cathedral]
Simcoe believed that there were still in the United States after 1791
many people who had remained loyal at heart to Great Britain, and who
were profoundly dissatisfied with their lot under the new American
government. It was his object to attract these people to Upper Canada
by means of his proclamations; and there is no doubt that he was partly
successful. But he also attracted many who had no other motive in coming
to Canada than their desire to obtain free land grants, and whose
attachment to the British crown was of the most recent origin. These
people were freely branded by the original settlers as ‘Americans’;
and there is no doubt that in many cases the name expressed their real
sympathies.
The War of the Revolution had hardly been brought to a conclusion when
some of the Americans showed a tendency to migrate into Canada. In 1783,
when the American Colonel Willet was attempting an attack on the British
garrison at Oswego, American traders, with an impudence which was superb,
were arriving at Niagara. In 1784 some rebels who had attempted to pose
as Loyalists were ejected from the settlements at Cataraqui. And after
Simcoe began to advertise free land grants to all who would take the
oath of allegiance to King George, hundreds of Americans flocked across
the border. The Duc de la Rochefoucauld, a French _émigré_ who travelled
through Upper Canada in 1795, and who has given us the best account of
the province at that time, asserted that there were in Upper Canada many
who ‘falsely profess an attachment to the British monarch and curse the
Government of the Union for the mere purpose of getting possession of
the lands.’ ‘We met in this excursion,’ says La Rochefoucauld in another
place, ‘an American family who, with some oxen, cows, and sheep, were
emigrating to Canada. “We come,” said they, “to the governor,” whom they
did not know, “to see whether he will give us land.” “Aye, aye,” the
governor replied, “you are tired of the federal government; you like not
any longer to have so many kings; you wish again for your old father”
(it is thus the governor calls the British monarch when he speaks with
Americans); “you are perfectly right; come along, we love such good
Royalists as you are; we will give you land.”’
Other testimony is not lacking. Writing in 1799 Richard Cartwright said,
‘It has so happened that a great portion of the population of that part
of the province which extends from the head of the Bay of Kenty upwards
is composed of persons who have evidently no claim to the appellation of
Loyalists.’ In some districts it was a cause of grievance that persons
from the States entered the province, petitioned for lands, took the
necessary oaths, and, having obtained possession of the land, resold
it, pocketed the money, and returned to build up the American Union. As
late as 1816 a letter appeared in the Kingston _Gazette_ in which the
complaint is made that ‘people who have come into the country from the
States, marry into a family, and obtain a lot of wild land, get John
Ryder to move the landmarks, and instead of a wild lot, take by force a
fine house and barn and orchard, and a well-cultivated farm, and turn the
old Tory (as he is called) out of his house, and all his labor for thirty
years.’
Never at any other time perhaps have conditions been so favourable in
Canada for land-grabbing and land-speculation as they were then. Owing to
the large amount of land granted to absentee owners, and to the policy
of free land grants announced by Simcoe, land was sold at a very low
price. In some cases two hundred acre lots were sold for a gallon of rum.
In 1791 Sir William Pullency, an English speculator, bought 1,500,000
acres of land in Upper Canada at one shilling an acre, and sold 700,000
acres later for an average of eight shillings an acre. Under these
circumstances it was not surprising that many Americans, with their
shrewd business instincts, flocked into the country.
It is clear, then, that a large part of the immigration which took place
under Simcoe was not Loyalist in its character. From this, it must not
be understood that the new-comers were not good settlers. Even Richard
Cartwright confessed that they had ‘resources in themselves which other
people are usually strangers to.’ They compared very favourably with the
Loyalists who came from England and the Maritime Provinces, who were
described by Cartwright as ‘idle and profligate.’ The great majority
of the American settlers became loyal subjects of the British crown;
and it was only when the American army invaded Canada in 1812, and when
William Lyon Mackenzie made a push for independence in 1837, that the
non-Loyalist character of some of the early immigration became apparent.