GENERAL MURRAY
1759-1766
Both armies spent a terrible winter after the Battle of
the Plains. There was better shelter for the French in
Montreal than for the British among the ruins of Quebec.
But in the matter of food the positions were reversed.
Nevertheless the French gallantly refused the truce
offered them by Murray, who had now succeeded Wolfe. They
were determined to make a supreme effort to regain Quebec
in the spring; and they were equally determined that the
habitants should not be free to supply the British with
provisions.
In spite of the state of war, however, the French and
British officers, even as prisoners and captors, began
to make friends. They had found each other foemen worthy
of their steel. A distinguished French officer, the Comte
de Malartic, writing to Levis, Montcalm's successor,
said: 'I cannot speak too highly of General Murray,
although he is our enemy.' Murray, on his part, was
equally loud and generous in his praise of the French.
The Canadian seigneurs found fellow-gentlemen among
the British officers. The priests and nuns of Quebec
found many fellow-Catholics among the Scottish and Irish
troops, and nothing but courteous treatment from the
soldiers of every rank and form of religion. Murray
directed that 'the compliment of the hat' should be paid
to all religious processions. The Ursuline nuns knitted
long stockings for the bare-legged Highlanders when the
winter came on, and presented each Scottish officer with
an embroidered St Andrew's Cross on the 30th of November,
St Andrew's Day. The whole garrison won the regard of
the town by giving up part of their rations for the hungry
poor; while the habitants from the surrounding country
presently began to find out that the British were honest
to deal with and most humane, though sternly just, as
conquerors.
In the following April Levis made his desperate throw
for victory; and actually did succeed in defeating Murray
outside the walls of Quebec. But the British fleet came
up in May; and that summer three British armies converged
on Montreal, where the last doomed remnants of French
power on the St Lawrence stood despairingly at bay. When
Levis found his two thousand effective French regulars
surrounded by eight times as many British troops he had
no choice but to lay down the arms of France for ever.
On the 8th of September 1760 his gallant little army was
included in the Capitulation of Montreal, by which the
whole of Canada passed into the possession of the British
Crown.
Great Britain had a different general idea for each one
of the four decades which immediately followed the conquest
of Canada. In the sixties the general idea was to kill
refractory old French ways with a double dose of new
British liberty and kindness, so that Canada might
gradually become the loyal fourteenth colony of the Empire
in America. But the fates were against this benevolent
scheme. The French Canadians were firmly wedded to their
old ways of life, except in so far as the new liberty
enabled them to throw off irksome duties and restraints,
while the new English-speaking 'colonists' were so few,
and mostly so bad, that they became the cause of endless
discord where harmony was essential. In the seventies
the idea was to restore the old French-Canadian life so
as not only to make Canada proof against the disaffection
of the Thirteen Colonies but also to make her a safe base
of operations against rebellious Americans. In the eighties
the great concern of the government was to make a harmonious
whole out of two very widely differing parts--the
long-settled French Canadians and the newly arrived United
Empire Loyalists. In the nineties each of these parts
was set to work out its own salvation under its own
provincial constitution.
Carleton's is the only personality which links together
all four decades--the would-be American sixties, the
French-Canadian seventies, the Anglo-French-Canadian
eighties, and the bi-constitutional nineties--though, as
mentioned already, Murray ruled Canada for the first
seven years, 1759-66.
James Murray, the first British governor of Canada, was
a younger son of the fourth Lord Elibank. He was just
over forty, warm-hearted and warm-tempered, an excellent
French scholar, and every inch a soldier. He had been a
witness for the defence of Mordaunt at the court-martial
held to try the authors of the Rochefort fiasco in 1757.
Wolfe, who was a witness on the other side, referred to
him later on as 'my old antagonist Murray.' But Wolfe
knew a good man when he saw one and gave his full confidence
to his 'old antagonist' both at Louisbourg and Quebec.
Murray was not born under a lucky star. He saw three
defeats in three successive wars. He began his service
with the abortive attack on pestilential Cartagena, where
Wolfe's father was present as adjutant-general. In
mid-career he lost the battle of Ste Foy. [Footnote:
See _The Winning of Canada_, chap. viii. See also, for
the best account of this battle and other events of the
year between Wolfe's victory and the surrender of Montreal,
_The Fall of Canada_, by George M. Wrong. Oxford, 1914.]
And his active military life ended with his surrender of
Minorca in 1782. But he was greatly distinguished for
honour and steadfastness on all occasions. An admiring
contemporary described him as a model of all the military
virtues except prudence. But he had more prudence and
less genius than his admirer thought; and he showed a
marked talent for general government. The problem before
him was harder than his superiors could believe. He was
expected to prepare for assimilation some sixty-five
thousand 'new subjects' who were mostly alien in religion
and wholly alien in every other way. But, for the moment,
this proved the least of his many difficulties because
no immediate results were required.
While the war went on in Europe Canada remained nominally
a part of the enemy's dominions, and so, of course, was
subject to military rule. Sir Jeffery Amherst, the British
commander-in-chief in America, took up his headquarters
in New York. Under him Murray commanded Canada from
Quebec. Under Murray, Colonel Burton commanded the district
of Three Rivers while General Gage commanded the district
of Montreal, which then extended to the western wilds.
[Footnote: See _The War Chief of the Ottawas_, chap. iii.]
Murray's first great trouble arose in 1761. It was caused
by an outrageous War Office order that fourpence a day
should be stopped from the soldiers to pay for the rations
they had always got free. Such gross injustice, coming
in time of war and applied to soldiers who richly deserved
reward, made the veterans 'mad with rage.' Quebec promised
to be the scene of a wild mutiny. Murray, like all his
officers, thought the stoppage nothing short of robbery.
But he threw himself into the breach. He assembled the
officers and explained that they must die to the last
man rather than allow the mutineers a free hand. He then
held a general parade at which he ordered the troops to
march between two flag-poles on pain of instant death,
promising to kill with his own hands the first man who
refused. He added that he was ready to hear and forward
any well-founded complaint, but that, since insubordination
had been openly threatened, he would insist on subordination
being publicly shown. Then, amid tense silence, he gave
the word of command--_Quick, March!_--while every officer
felt his trigger. To the immense relief of all concerned
the men stepped off, marched straight between the flags
and back to quarters, tamed. The criminal War Office
blunder was rectified and peace was restored in the ranks.
'Murray's Report' of 1762 gives us a good view of the
Canada of that day and shows the attitude of the British
towards their new possession. Canada had been conquered
by Great Britain, with some help from the American
colonies, for three main reasons: first, to strike a
death-blow at French dominion in America; secondly, to
increase the opportunities of British seaborne trade;
and, thirdly, to enlarge the area available for British
settlement. When Murray was instructed to prepare a report
on Canada he had to keep all this in mind; for the
government wished to satisfy the public both at home and
in the colonies. He had to examine the military strength
of the country and the disposition of its population in
case of future wars with France. He had to satisfy the
natural curiosity of men like the London merchants. And
he had to show how and where English-speaking settlers
could go in and make Canada not only a British possession
but the fourteenth British colony in North America. Burton
and Gage were also instructed to report about their own
districts of Three Rivers and Montreal. The documents
they prepared were tacked on to Murray's. By June 1762
the work was completed and sent on to Amherst, who sent
it to England in ample time to be studied there before
the opening of the impending negotiations for peace.
Murray was greatly concerned about the military strength
of Quebec, then, as always, the key of Canada. Like the
unfortunate Montcalm he found the walls of Quebec badly
built, badly placed, and falling into ruins, and he
thought they could not be defended by three thousand men
against 'a well conducted _Coup-de-main_.' He proposed
to crown Cape Diamond with a proper citadel, which would
overawe the disaffected in Quebec itself and defend the
place against an outside enemy long enough to let a
British fleet come up to its relief. The rest of the
country was defended by little garrisons at Three Rivers
and Montreal as well as by several small detachments
distributed among the trading-posts where the white men
and the red met in the depths of the western wilderness.
The relations between the British garrison and the French
Canadians were so excellent that what Gage reported from
Montreal might be taken as equally true of the rest of
the country: 'The Soldiers live peaceably with the
Inhabitants and they reciprocally acquire an affection
for each other.' The French Canadians numbered sixty-five
thousand altogether, exclusive of the fur traders and
coureurs de bois. Barely fifteen thousand lived in the
three little towns of Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers;
while over fifty thousand lived in the country. Nearly
all the officials had gone back to France. The three
classes of greatest importance were the seigneurs, the
clergy, and the habitants. The lawyers were not of much
account; the petty commercial classes of less account
still. The coureurs de bois and other fur traders formed
an important link between the savage and the civilized
life of the country.
Apart from furs the trade of Canada was contemptibly
small in the eyes of men like the London merchants. But
the opportunity of fostering all the fur trade that could
be carried down the St Lawrence was very well worth while;
and if there was no other existing trade worth capturing
there seemed to be some kinds worth creating. Murray held
out well-grounded hopes of the fisheries and forests. 'A
Most immense Cod Fishery can be established in the River
and Gulph of St Lawrence. A rich tract of country on the
South Side of the Gulph will be settled and improved,
and a port or ports furnished with every material requisite
to repair ships.' He then went on to enumerate the other
kinds of fishery, the abundance of whales, seals, and
walruses in the Gulf, and of salmon up all the tributary
rivers. Burton recommends immediate attention to the iron
mines behind Three Rivers. All the governors expatiate
on the vast amount of forest wealth and remind the home
government that under the French regime the king, when
making out patents for the seigneurs, reserved the right
of taking wood for ship-building and fortifications from
any of the seigneuries. Agriculture was found to be in
a very backward state. The habitants would raise no more
than they required for their own use and for a little
local trade. But the fault was attributed to the gambling
attractions of the fur trade, to the bad governmental
system, and to the frequent interruptions of the _corvee_,
a kind of forced labour which was meant to serve the
public interest, but which Bigot and other thievish
officials always turned to their own private advantage.
On the whole, the reports were most encouraging in the
prospects they held out to honest labour, trade, and
government.
While Murray and his lieutenants had been collecting
information for their reports the home government had
been undergoing many changes for the worse. The
master-statesman Pitt had gone out of power and the
back-stairs politician Bute had come in. Pitt's 'bloody
and expensive war'--the war that more than any other,
laid the foundations of the present British Empire--was
to be ended on any terms the country could be persuaded
to bear. Thus the end of the Seven Years' War, or, as
the British part of it was more correctly called, the
'Maritime War,' was no more glorious in statesmanship
than its beginning had been in arms. But the spirit of
its mighty heart still lived on in the Empire's grateful
memories of Pitt and quickened the English-speaking world
enough to prevent any really disgraceful surrender of
the hard-won fruits of victory.
The Treaty of Paris, signed on the 10th of February 1763,
and the king's proclamation, published in October, were
duly followed by the inauguration of civil government in
Canada. The incompetent Bute, anxious to get Pitt out of
the way, tried to induce him to become the first British
governor of the new colony. Even Bute probably never
dared to hope that Pitt would actually go out to Canada.
But he did hope to lower his prestige by making him the
holder of a sinecure at home. However this may be, Pitt,
mightiest of all parliamentary ministers of war, refused
to be made either a jobber or an exile; whereupon Murray's
position was changed from a military command into that
of 'Governor and Captain-General.'
The changes which ensued in the laws of Canada were
heartily welcomed so far as the adoption of the humaner
criminal code of England was concerned. The new laws
relating to debtor and creditor also gave general
satisfaction, except, as we shall presently see, when
they involved imprisonment for debt. But the tentative
efforts to introduce English civil law side by side with
the old French code resulted in great confusion and much
discontent. The land laws had become so unworkable under
this dual system that they had to be left as they were.
A Court of Common Pleas was set up specially for the
benefit of the French Canadians. If either party demanded
a jury one had to be sworn in; and French Canadians were
to be jurors on equal terms with 'the King's Old Subjects.'
The Roman Catholic Church was to be completely tolerated
but not in any way established. Lord Egremont, in giving
the king's instructions to Murray, reminded him that the
proviso in the Treaty of Paris--_as far as the Laws of
Great Britain permit_--should govern his action whenever
disputes arose. It must be remembered that the last
Jacobite rising was then a comparatively recent affair,
and that France was equally ready to upset either the
Protestant succession in England or the British regime
in Canada.
The Indians were also an object of special solicitude in
the royal proclamation. 'The Indians who live under our
Protection should not be molested in the possession of
such parts of our Dominions and Territories as, not having
been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them.'
The home government was far in advance of the American
colonists in its humane attitude towards the Indians.
The common American attitude then and long afterwards
--indeed, up to a time well within living memory--was
that Indians were a kind of human vermin to be exterminated
without mercy, unless, of course, more money was to be
made out of them alive. The result was an endless struggle
along the ever-receding frontier of the West. And just
at this particular time the 'Conspiracy of Pontiac' had
brought about something like a real war. The story of
this great effort of the Indians to stem the encroachments
of the exterminating colonists is told in another chronicle
of the present Series. [Footnote: The War Chief of the
Ottawas.] The French traders in the West undoubtedly had
a hand in stirring up the Indians. Pontiac, a sort of
Indian Napoleon, was undoubtedly cruel as well as crafty.
And the Indians undoubtedly fought just as the ancestors
of the French and British used to fight when they were
at the corresponding stage of social evolution. But the
mere fact that so many jealously distinct tribes united
in this common cause proves how much they all must have
suffered at the hands of the colonists.
While Pontiac's war continued in the West Murray had to
deal with a political war in Canada which rose to its
height in 1764. The king's proclamation of the previous
October had 'given express Power to our Governor that,
so soon as the state and circumstances of the said Colony
will admit thereof, he shall call a General Assembly in
such manner and form as is used in those Colonies and
Provinces in America which are under our immediate
government.' The intention of establishing parliamentary
institutions was, therefore, perfectly clear. But it was
equally clear that the introduction of such institutions
was to depend on 'circumstances,' and it is well to
remember here that these 'circumstances' were not held
to warrant the opening of a Canadian parliament till
1792. Now, the military government had been a great
success. There was every reason to suppose that civil
government by a governor and council would be the next
best thing. And it was quite certain that calling a
'General Assembly' at once would defeat the very ends
which such bodies are designed to serve. More than
ninety-nine per cent of the population were dead against
an assembly which none of them understood and all
distrusted. On the other hand, the clamorous minority of
less than one per cent were in favour only of a parliament
from which the majority should be rigorously excluded,
even, if possible, as voters. The immense majority
comprised the entire French-Canadian community. The
absurdly small minority consisted mostly of Americanized
camp-following traders, who, having come to fish in
troubled waters, naturally wanted the laws made to suit
poachers. The British garrison, the governing officials,
and the very few other English-speaking people of a more
enlightened class all looked down on the rancorous
minority. The whole question resolved itself into this:
should Canada be handed over to the licensed exploitation
of a few hundred low-class camp-followers, who had done
nothing to win her for the British Empire, who were
despised by those who had, and who promised to be a
dangerous thorn in the side of the new colony?
What this ridiculous minority of grab-alls really wanted
was not a parliament but a rump. Many a representative
assembly has ended in a rump, The grab-alls wished to
begin with one and stop there. It might be supposed that
such pretensions would defeat themselves. But there was
a twofold difficulty in the way of getting the truth
understood by the English-speaking public on both sides
of the Atlantic. In the first place, the French Canadians
were practically dumb to the outside world. In the second,
the vociferous rumpites had the ear of some English and
more American commercial people who were not anxious to
understand; while the great mass of the general public
were inclined to think, if they ever thought at all, that
parliamentary government must mean more liberty for every
one concerned.
A singularly apt commentary on the pretensions of the
camp-followers is supplied by the famous, or infamous,
'Presentment of the Grand Jury of Quebec' in October
1764. The moving spirits of this precious jury were
aspirants to membership in the strictly exclusive, rumpish
little parliament of their own seeking. The signatures
of the French-Canadian members were obtained by fraud,
as was subsequently proved by a sworn official protestation.
The first presentment tells its own tale, as it refers
to the only courts in which French-Canadian lawyers were
allowed to plead. 'The great number of inferior Courts
are tiresome, litigious, and expensive to this poor
Colony.' Then came a hit at the previous military
rule--'That Decrees of the military Courts may be amended
[after having been confirmed by legal ordinance] by
allowing Appeals if the matter decided exceed Ten Pounds,'
which would put it out of the reach of the 'inferior
Courts' and into the clutches of 'the King's Old Subjects.'
But the gist of it all was contained in the following:
'We represent that as the Grand Jury must be considered
at present as the only Body representative of the Colony,
... We propose that the Publick Accounts be laid before
the Grand Jury at least twice a year.' That the grand
jury was to be purged of all its French-Canadian members
is evident from the addendum slipped in behind their
backs. This addendum is a fine specimen of verbose
invective against 'the Church of Rome,' the Pope, Bulls,
Briefs, absolutions, etc., the empanelling 'en Grand and
petty Jurys' of 'papist or popish Recusants Convict,'
and so on.
The 'Presentment of the Grand Jury' was presently followed
by _The Humble Petition of Your Majesty's most faithful
and loyal Subjects, British Merchants and Traders, in
behalf of Themselves and their fellow Subjects, Inhabitants
of Your Majesty's Province of Quebec_. 'Their fellow
Subjects' did not, of course, include any 'papist or
popish Recusants Convict.' Among the 'Grievances and
Distresses' enumerated were 'the oppressive and severely
felt Military government,' the inability to 'reap the
fruit of our Industry' under such a martinet as Murray,
who, in one paragraph, is accused of 'suppressing dutyfull
Remonstrances in Silence' and, in the next, of 'treating
them with a Rage and Rudeness of Language and Demeanor
as dishonourable to the Trust he holds of Your Majesty
as painfull to Those who suffer from it.' Finally, the
petitioners solemnly warn His Majesty that their 'Lives
in the Province are so very unhappy that we must be under
the Necessity of removing from it, unless timely prevented
by a Removal of the present Governor.'
In forwarding this document Murray poured out the vials
of his wrath on 'the Licentious Fanaticks Trading here,'
while he boldly championed the cause of the French
Canadians, 'a Race, who, could they be indulged with a
few priveledges which the Laws of England deny to Roman
Catholicks at home, would soon get the better of every
National Antipathy to their Conquerors and become the
most faithful and most useful set of Men in this American
Empire.'
While these charges and counter-charges were crossing
the Atlantic another, and much more violent, trouble came
to a head. As there were no barracks in Canada billeting
was a necessity. It was made as little burdensome as
possible and the houses of magistrates were specially
exempt. This, however, did not prevent the magistrates
from baiting the military whenever they got the chance.
Fines, imprisonments, and other sentences, out of all
proportion to the offence committed, were heaped on every
redcoat in much the same way as was then being practised
in Boston and other hotbeds of disaffection. The redcoats
had done their work in ridding America of the old French
menace. They were doing it now in ridding the colonies
of the last serious menace from the Indians. And so the
colonists, having no further use for them, began trying
to make the land they had delivered too hot to hold them.
There were, of course, exceptions; and the American
colonists had some real as well as pretended grievances.
But wantonly baiting the redcoats had already become a
most discreditable general practice.
Montreal was most in touch with the disaffected people
to the south. It also had a magistrate of the name of
Walker, the most rancorous of all the disaffected
magistrates in Canada. This Walker, well mated with an
equally rancorous wife, was the same man who entertained
Benjamin Franklin and the other commissioners sent by
Congress into Canada in 1776, the year in which both the
American Republic and a truly British Canada were born.
He would not have been flattered could he have seen the
entry Franklin made about him and his wife in a diary
which is still extant. The gist of it was that wherever
the Walkers might be they would soon set the place by
the ears. Walker, of course, was foremost in the persecution
of the redcoats; and he eagerly seized his opportunity
when an officer was billeted in a house where a brother
magistrate happened to be living as a lodger. Under such
circumstances the magistrate could not claim exemption.
But this made no difference either to him or to Walker.
Captain Payne, the gentleman whose presence enraged these
boors, was seized and thrown into gaol. The chief justice
granted a writ of habeas corpus. But the mischief was
done and resentment waxed high. The French-Canadian
seigneurs sympathized with Payne, which added fuel to
the magisterial flame; and Murray, scenting danger,
summoned the whole bench down to Quebec.
But before this bench of bumbles started some masked men
seized Walker in his own house and gave him a good sound
thrashing. Unfortunately they spoilt the fair reprisal
by cutting off his ear. That very night the news had run
round Montreal and made a start for Boston and Quebec.
Feeling ran high; and higher still when, a few weeks
later, the civil magistrates vented their rage on several
redcoats by imposing sentences exceeding even the utmost
limits of their previous vindictive action. Montreal
became panic-stricken lest the soldiers, baited past
endurance, should break out in open violence. Murray
drove up, post-haste, from Quebec, ordered the affected
regiment to another station, reproved the offending
magistrates, and re-established public confidence. Official
and private rewards were offered to any witnesses who
would identify Walker's assailants. But in vain. The
smouldering fire burst out again under Carleton. But the
mystery was never cleared up.
Things had now come to a crisis. The London merchants,
knowing nothing about the internal affairs of Canada,
backed the petition of the Quebec traders, who were quite
unworthy of such support from men of real business probity
and knowledge. The magisterial faction in Canada advertised
their side of the case all over the colonies and in any
sympathetic quarter they could find in England. The
seigneurs sent home a warm defence of Murray; and Murray
himself sent Cramahe, a very able Swiss officer in the
British Army. The home government thus had plenty of
contradictory evidence before it in 1765. The result was
that Murray was called home in 1766, rather in a spirit
of open-minded and sympathetic inquiry into his conduct
than with any idea of censuring him. He never returned
to Canada. But as he held the titular governorship for
some time longer, and as he was afterwards employed in
positions of great responsibility and trust, the verdict
of the home authorities was clearly given in his favour.
The troublous year of 1764 saw another innovation almost
as revolutionary, compared with the old regime, as the
introduction of civil government itself. This was the
issue of the first newspaper in Canada, where, indeed,
it was also the first printed thing of any kind. Nova
Scotia had produced an earlier paper, the _Halifax
Gazette_, which lived an intermittent life from 1752 to
1800. But no press had ever been allowed in New France.
The few documents that required printing had always been
done in the mother country. Brown and Gilmore, two
Philadelphians, were thus undertaking a pioneer business
when they announced that 'Our Design is, in case we are
fortunate enough to succeed, early in this spring to
settle in this City [Quebec] in the capacity of Printers,
and forthwith to publish a weekly newspaper in French
and English.' The _Quebec Gazette_, which first appeared
on the 21st of the following June, has continued to the
present time, though it is now a daily and is known as
the _Quebec Chronicle_. Centenarian papers are not common
in any country; and those that have lived over a century
and a half are very few indeed. So the _Quebec Chronicle_,
which is the second surviving senior in America, is also
among the great press seniors of the world.
The original number is one of the curiosities of journalism.
The publishers felt tolerably sure of having what was
then considered a good deal of recent news for their
three hundred readers during the open season. But, knowing
that the supply would be both short and stale in winter,
they held out prospects of a Canadian _Tatler_ or _Spectator_,
without, however, being rash enough to promise a supply
of Addisons and Steeles. Their announcement makes curious
reading at the present day.
The Rigour of Winter preventing the arrival of ships
from _Europe_, and in a great measure interrupting
the ordinary intercourse with the Southern Provinces,
it will be necessary, in a paper designed for General
Perusal, and Publick Utility, to provide some things
of general Entertainment, independent of foreign
intelligence: we shall therefore, on such occasions,
present our Readers with such _Originals_, both in
_Prose_ and _Verse_, as will please the FANCY and
instruct the JUDGMENT. And here we beg leave to observe
that we shall have nothing so much at heart as the
support of VIRTUE and MORALITY and the noble cause of
LIBERTY. The refined amusements of LITERATURE, and
the pleasing veins of well pointed wit, shall also be
considered as necessary to this collection; interspersed
with chosen pieces, and curious essays, extracted from
the most celebrated authors; So that, blending PHILOSOPHY
with POLITICKS, HISTORY, &c., the youth of both sexes
will be improved and persons of all ranks agreeably
and usefully entertained. And upon the whole we will
labour to attain to all the exactness that so much
variety will permit, and give as much variety as will
consist with a reasonable exactness. And as this part
of our project cannot be carried into execution without
the correspondence of the INGENIOUS, we shall take
all opportunities of acknowledging our obligations,
to those who take the trouble of furnishing any matter
which shall tend to entertainment or instruction. Our
Intentions to please the _Whole_, without offence to
any _Individual_, will be better evinced by our practice,
than by writing volumes on the subject. This one thing
we beg may be believed, that PARTY PREJUDICE, or
PRIVATE SCANDAL, will never find a place in this PAPER.
GOVERNOR CARLETON
1766-1774
The twelve years of Carleton's first administration
naturally fall into three distinct periods of equal
length. During the first he was busily employed settling
as many difficulties as he could, examining the general
state of the country, and gradually growing into the
change that was developing in the minds of the home
government, the change, that is, from the Americanizing
sixties to the French-Canadian seventies. During the
second period he was in England, helping to shape the
famous Quebec Act. During the third he was defending
Canada from American attack and aiding the British
counterstroke by every means in his power.
On the 22nd of September 1766 Carleton arrived at Quebec
and began his thirty years' experience as a Canadian
administrator by taking over the government from Colonel
Irving, who had held it since Murray's departure in the
spring. Irving had succeeded Murray simply because he
happened to be the senior officer present at the time.
Carleton himself was technically Murray's lieutenant till
1768. But neither of these facts really affected the
course of Canadian history.
The Council, the magistrates, and the traders each
presented. the new governor with an address containing
the usual professions of loyal devotion. Carleton remarked
in his dispatch that these separate addresses, and the
marked absence of any united address, showed how much
the population was divided. He also noted that a good
many of the English-speaking minority had objected to
the addresses on account of their own opposition to the
Stamp Act, and that there had been some broken heads in
consequence. Troubles enough soon engaged his anxious
attention--troubles over the Indian trade, the rights
and wrongs of the Canadian Jesuits, the wounded dignity
of some members of the Council, and the still smouldering
and ever mysterious Walker affair.
The strife between Canada and the Thirteen Colonies over
the Indian trade of the West remained the same in principle
as under the old regime. The Conquest had merely changed
the old rivalry between two foreign powers into one
between two widely differing British possessions; and
this, because of the general unrest among the Americans,
made the competition more bitter, if possible, than ever.
The Jesuits pressed their claims for recognition, for
their original estates, and for compensation. But their
order had fallen on evil days all over the world. It was
not popular even in Canada. And the arrangement was that
while the existing members were to be treated with every
consideration the Society itself was to be allowed to
die out.
The offended councillors went so far as to present Carleton
with a remonstrance which Irving himself had the misfortune
to sign. Carleton had consulted some members on points
with which they were specially acquainted. The members
who had not been consulted thereupon protested to Irving,
who assured them that Carleton must have done so by
accident, not design. But when Carleton received a joint
letter in which they said, 'As you are pleased to signifye
to Us by Coll. Irving that it was accident, & not
Intention,' he at once replied: 'As Lieutenant Colonel
Irving has signified to you that the Part of my Conduct
you think worthy of your Reprehension happened by Accident
let him explain his reasons for so doing. He had no
authority from me.' Carleton then went on to say that he
would consult any 'Men of Good Sense, Truth, Candour,
and Impartial Justice' whenever he chose, no matter
whether they were councillors or not.
The Walker affair, which now broke out again, was much
more serious than the storm in the Council's teacup. It
agitated the whole of Canada and threatened to range the
population of Montreal and Quebec into two irreconcilable
factions, the civil and the military. For the whole of
the two years since Murray had been called upon to deal
with it cleverly presented versions of Walker's views
had been spread all over the colonies and worked into
influential Opposition circles in England. The invectives
against the redcoats and their friends the seigneurs were
of the usual abusive type. But they had an unusually
powerful effect at that particular time in the Thirteen
Colonies as well as in what their authors hoped to make
a Fourteenth Colony after a fashion of their own; and
they looked plausible enough to mislead a good many
moderate men in the mother country too. Walker's case
was that he had an actual witness, as to the identity of
his assailants, in the person of McGovoch, a discharged
soldier, who laid information against one civilian, three
British officers, and the celebrated French-Canadian
leader, La Corne de St Luc. All the accused were arrested
in their beds in Montreal and thrown into the common
gaol. Walker objected to bail on the plea that his life
would be in danger if they were allowed at large. He also
sought to postpone the trial in order to punish the
accused as much as possible, guilty or innocent. But
William Hey, the chief justice, an able and upright man,
would consent to postponement only on condition that bail
should be allowed; so the trial proceeded. When the grand
jury threw out the case against one of the prisoners
Walker let loose such a flood of virulent abuse that
moderate men were turned against him. In the end all the
accused were honourably acquitted, while McGovoch, who
was proved to have been a false witness from the first,
was convicted of perjury. Carleton remained absolutely
impartial all through, and even dismissed Colonel Irving
and another member of the Council for heading a petition
on behalf of the military prisoners.
The Walker affair was an instance of a bad case in which
the law at last worked well. But there were many others
in which it did not. What with the _Coutume de Paris_,
which is still quoted in the province of Quebec; the
other complexities of the old French law; the doubtful
meanings drawn from the capitulation, the treaty, the
proclamation, and the various ordinances; the instinctive
opposition between the French Canadians and the
English-speaking civilians; and, finally, what with the
portents of subversive change that were already beginning
to overshadow all America,--what with all this and more,
Carleton found himself faced with a problem which no man
could have solved to the satisfaction of every one
concerned. Each side in a lawsuit took whatever amalgam
of French and English codes was best for its own argument.
But, generally speaking, the ingrained feeling of the
French Canadians was against any change of their own laws
that was not visibly and immediately beneficial to their
own particular interests. Moreover, the use of the unknown
English language, the worthlessness of the rapacious
English-speaking magistrates, and the detested innovation
of imprisonment for debt, all combined to make every part
of English civil law hated simply because it happened to
be English and not French. The home authorities were
anxious to find some workable compromise. In 1767 Carleton
exchanged several important dispatches with them; and in
1768 they sent out Maurice Morgan to study and report,
after consultation with the chief justice and 'other well
instructed persons.' Morgan was an indefatigable and
clear-sighted man who deserves to be gratefully remembered
by both races; for he was a good friend both to the French
Canadians before the Quebec Act and to the United Empire
Loyalists just before their great migration, when he was
Carleton's secretary at New York. In 1769 the official
correspondence entered the 'secret and confidential'
stage with a dispatch from the home government to Carleton
suggesting a House of Representatives to which, practically
speaking, the towns would send Protestant members and
the country districts Roman Catholics.
In 1770 Carleton sailed for England. He carried a good
deal of hard-won experience with him, both on this point
and on many others. He went home with a strong opinion
not only against an assembly but against any immediate
attempts at Anglicization in any form. The royal
instructions that had accompanied his commission as
'Captain-General and Governor-in-chief' in 1768 contained
directions for establishing the Church of England with a
view to converting the whole population to its tenets later
on. But no steps had been taken, and, needless to say, the
French Canadians remained as Roman Catholic as ever.
An increasingly important question, soon to overshadow
all others, was defence. In April 1768 Carleton had
proposed the restoration of the seigneurial militia
system. 'All the Lands here are held of His Majesty's
Castle of St Lewis [the governor's official residence in
Quebec]. The Oath which the Vassals [seigneurs] take is
very Solemn and Binding. They are obliged to appear in
Arms for the King's defence, in case his Province is
attacked.' Carleton pointed out that a hundred men of
the Canadian seigneurial families were being kept on full
pay in France, ready to return and raise the Canadians
at the first opportunity. 'On the other hand, there are
only about seventy of these officers in Canada who have
been in the French service. Not one of them has been
given a commission in the King's [George's] Service, nor
is there One who, from any motive whatever, is induced
to support His Government.' The few French Canadians
raised for Pontiac's war had of course been properly paid
during the continuance of their active service. But they
had been disbanded like mere militia afterwards, without
either gratuities or half-pay for the officers. This
naturally made the class from which officers were drawn
think that no career was open to them under the Union
Jack and turned their thoughts towards France, where
their fellows were enjoying full pay without a break.
What made this the more serious was the weakness of the
regular garrisons, all of which, put together, numbered
only 1,627 men. Carleton calculated that about five
hundred of 'the King's Old Subjects' were capable of
bearing arms; though most of them were better at talking
than fighting. He had nothing but contempt for 'the flimsy
wall round Montreal,' and relied little more on the very
defective works at Quebec. Thus with all his wonderful
equanimity, 'grave Carleton' left Canada with no light
heart when he took six months' leave of absence in 1770;
and he would have been more anxious still if he could
have foreseen that his absence was to be prolonged to no
less than four years.
He had, however, two great satisfactions. He was
represented at Quebec by a most steadfast lieutenant,
the quiet, alert, discreet, and determined Cramahe; and
he was leaving Canada after having given proof of a
disinterestedness which was worthy of the elder Pitt
himself. When Pitt became Paymaster-General of England
he at once declined to use the two chief perquisites of
his office, the interest on the government balance and
the half per cent commission on foreign subsidies, though
both were regarded as a kind of indirect salary. When
Carleton became governor of Canada he at once issued a
proclamation abolishing all the fees and perquisites
attached to his position and explained his action to the
home authorities in the following words: 'There is a
certain appearance of dirt, a sort of meanness, in exacting
fees on every occasion. I think it necessary for the
King's service that his representative should be thought
unsullied.' Murray, who had accepted the fees, at first
took umbrage. But Carleton soon put matters straight with
him. The fact was that fees, and even certain perquisites,
were no dishonour to receive, as they nearly always formed
a recognized part, and often the whole, of a perfectly
legal salary. But fees and perquisites could be abused;
and they did lead to misunderstandings, even when they
were not abused; while fixed salaries were free from both
objections. So Carleton, surrounded by shamelessly
rapacious magistrates and the whole vile camp-following
gang, as well as by French Canadians who had suffered
from the robberies of Bigot and his like, decided to
sacrifice everything but his indispensable fixed salary
in order that even the most malicious critics could not
bring any accusation, however false, against the man who
represented Britain and her king.
An interesting personal interlude, which was not without
considerable effect on Canadian history, took place in
the middle of Carleton's four years' stay in England. He
was forty-eight and still a bachelor. Tradition whispers
that these long years of single life were the result of
a disappointing love affair with Jane Carleton, a pretty
cousin, when both he and she were young. However that
may be, he now proposed to Lady Anne Howard, whose father,
the Earl of Effingham, was one of his greatest friends.
But he was doomed to a second, though doubtless very
minor, disappointment. Lady Anne, who probably looked on
'grave Carleton' as a sort of amiable, middle-aged uncle,
had fallen in love with his nephew, whom she presently
married, and with whom she afterwards went out to Canada,
where her husband served under the rejected uncle himself.
What added spice to this peculiar situation was the fact
that Carleton actually married the younger sister of the
too-youthful Lady Anne. When Lady Anne rejoined her sister
and their bosom friend, Miss Seymour, after the
disconcerting interview with Carleton, she explained her
tears by saying they were due to her having been 'obliged
to refuse the best man on earth.' 'The more fool you!'
answered the younger sister, Lady Maria, then just
eighteen, 'I only wish he had given me the chance!' There,
for the time, the matter ended. Carleton went back to
his official duties in furtherance of the Quebec Act.
His nephew and the elder sister made mutual love. Lady
Maria held her tongue. But Miss Seymour had not forgotten;
and one day she mustered up courage to tell Carleton the
story of 'the more fool you!' This decided him to act at
once. He proposed; was accepted; and lived happily married
for the rest of his long life. Lady Maria was small,
fair-haired, and blue-eyed, which heightened her girlish
appearance when, like Madame de Champlain, she came out
to Canada with a husband more than old enough to be her
father. But she had been brought up at Versailles. She
knew all the aristocratic graces of the old regime. And
her slight, upright figure--erect as any soldier's to
her dying day--almost matched her husband's stalwart form
in dignity of carriage.
The Quebec Act of 1774--the Magna Charta of the
French-Canadian race--finally passed the House of Lords
on the 18th of June. The general idea of the Act was to
reverse the unsuccessful policy of ultimate assimilation
with the other American colonies by making Canada a
distinctly French-Canadian province. The Maritime Provinces,
with a population of some thirty thousand, were to be as
English as they chose. But a greatly enlarged Quebec,
with a population of ninety thousand, and stretching far
into the unsettled West, was to remain equally
French-Canadian; though the rights of what it was then
thought would be a perpetual English-speaking minority
were to be safeguarded in every reasonable way. The whole
country between the American colonies and the domains of
the Hudson's Bay Company was included in this new Quebec,
which comprised the southern half of what is now the
Newfoundland Labrador, practically the whole of the modern
provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and all the western
lands between the Ohio and the Great Lakes as far as the
Mississippi, that is, the modern American states of Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The Act gave Canada the English criminal code. It recognized
most of the French civil law, including the seigneurial
tenure of land. Roman Catholics were given 'the free
Exercise' of their religion, 'subject to the King's
Supremacy' as defined 'by an Act made in the First Year
of Queen Elizabeth,' which Act, with a magnificently
prophetic outlook on the future British Empire, was to
apply to 'all the Dominions and Countries which then did,
or thereafter should, belong to the Imperial Crown.' The
Roman Catholic clergy were authorized to collect 'their
accustomed Dues and Rights' from members of their own
communion. The new oath of allegiance to the Crown was
silent about differences of religion, so that Roman
Catholics might take it without question. The clergy and
seigneurs were thus restored to an acknowledged leadership
in church and state. Those who wanted a parliament were
distinctly told that 'It is at present inexpedient to
call an Assembly,' and that a Council of from seventeen
to twenty-three members, all appointed by the Crown,
would attend to local government and have power to levy
taxes for roads and public buildings only. Lands held
'in free and common socage' were to be dealt with by the
laws of England, as was all property which could be freely
willed away. A possible establishment of the Church of
England was provided for but never put in operation.
In some ways the Act did, in other ways it did not, fulfil
the objects of its framers. It was undoubtedly a generous
concession to the leading French Canadians. It did help
to keep Canada both British and Canadian. And it did open
the way for what ought to have been a crushing attack on
the American revolutionary forces. But it was not, and
neither it nor any other Act could possibly have been,
at that late hour, completely successful. It conciliated
the seigneurs and the parochial clergy. But it did not,
and it could not, also conciliate the lesser townsfolk
and the habitants. For the last fourteen years the
habitants had been gradually drifting away from their
former habits of obedience and former obligations towards
their leaders in church and state. The leaders had lost
their old followers. The followers had found no new
leaders of their own.
Naturally enough, there was great satisfaction among the
seigneurs and the clergy, with a general feeling among
government supporters, both in England and Canada, that
the best solution of a very refractory problem had been
found at last. On the other hand, the Opposition in
England, nearly every one in the American colonies, and
the great majority of English-speaking people in
Newfoundland, the Maritime Provinces, and Canada itself
were dead against the Act; while the habitants, resenting
the privileges already reaffirmed in favour of the
seigneurs and clergy, and suspicious of further changes
in the same unwelcome direction, were neutral at the best
and hostile at the worst.
The American colonists would have been angered in any
case. But when they saw Canada proper made as unlike a
'fourteenth colony' as could be, and when they also saw
the gates of the coveted western lands closed against
them by the same detested Act--the last of the 'five
intolerable acts' to which they most objected--their fury
knew no bounds. They cursed the king, the pope, and the
French Canadians with as much violence as any temporal
or spiritual rulers had ever cursed heretics and rebels.
The 'infamous and tyrannical ministry' in England was
accused of 'contemptible subservience' to the 'bloodthirsty,
idolatrous, and hypocritical creed' of the French Canadians.
To think that people whose religion had spread 'murder,
persecution, and revolt throughout the world' were to be
entrenched along the St Lawrence was bad enough. But to
see Crown protection given to the Indian lands which the
Americans considered their own western 'birthright' was
infinitely worse. Was the king of England to steal the
valley of the Mississippi in the same way as the king of
France?
It is easy to be wise after the event and hard to follow
any counsel of perfection. But it must always be a subject
of keen, if unavailing, regret that the French Canadians
were not guaranteed their own way of life, within the
limits of the modern province of Quebec, immediately
after the capitulation of Montreal in 1760. They would
then have entered the British Empire, as a whole people,
on terms which they must all have understood to be
exceedingly generous from any conquering power, and which
they would have soon found out to be far better than
anything they had experienced under the government of
France. In return for such unexampled generosity they
might have become convinced defenders of the only flag
in the world under which they could possibly live as
French Canadians. Their relations to each other, to the
rest of a changing Canada, and to the Empire would have
followed the natural course of political evolution, with
the burning questions of language, laws, and religion
safely removed from general controversy in after years.
The rights of the English-speaking minority could, of
course, have been still better safeguarded under this
system than under the distracting series of half-measures
which took its place. There should have been no question
of a parliament in the immediate future. Then, with the
peopling of Ontario by the United Empire Loyalists and
the growth of the Maritime Provinces on the other side,
Quebec could have entered Carleton's proposed Confederation
in the nineties to her own and every one else's best
advantage.
On the other hand, the delay of fourteen years after the
Capitulation of 1760 and the unwarrantable extension of
the provincial boundaries were cardinal errors of the
most disastrous kind. The delay, filled with a futile
attempt at mistaken Americanization, bred doubts and
dissensions not only between the two races but between
the different kinds of French Canadians. When the hour
of trial came disintegration had already gone too far.
The mistake about the boundaries was equally bad. The
western wilds ought to have been administered by a
lieutenant-governor under the supervision of a
governor-general. Even leasing them for a short term of
years to the Hudson's Bay Company would have been better
than annexing them to a preposterous province of Quebec.
The American colonists would have doubtless objected to
either alternative. But both could have been defended on
sound principles of administration; while the sudden
invasion of a new and inflated Quebec into the colonial
hinterlands was little less than a declaration of war.
The whole problem bristled with enormous difficulties,
and the circumstances under which it had to be faced made
an ideal solution impossible. But an earlier Quebec Act,
without its outrageous boundary clause, would have been
well worth the risk of passing; for the delay led many
French Canadians to suppose, however falsely, that the
Empire's need might always be their opportunity; and this
idea, however repugnant to their best minds and better
feelings, has persisted among their extreme particularists
until the present day.