'NUNC DIMITTIS'
1796-1808
Our tale is told.
The _Active_ was wrecked on the island of Anticosti,
where the estuary of the St Lawrence joins the Gulf. No
lives were lost, and the Carletons reached Perce in Gaspe
quite safely in a little coasting vessel. Then a ship
came round from Halifax and sailed the family over to
England at the end of September, just thirty years after
Carleton had come out to Canada to take up a burden of
oversea governance such as no other viceroy, in any part
of the world-encircling British Empire, has ever borne
so long.
He lived to become a wonderful link with the past. When
he died at home in England he was in the sixty-seventh
year of his connection with the Army and in the eighty-fifth
of his age. More than any other man of note he brought
the days of Marlborough into touch with those of Wellington,
though a century lay between. At the time he received
his first commission most of the senior officers were
old Marlburians. At the time of his death Nelson had
already won Trafalgar, Napoleon had already been emperor
of the French for nearly three years, and Wellington had
already begun the great Peninsular campaigns. Carleton's
own life thus constitutes a most remarkable link between
two very different eras of Imperial history. But he and
his wife together constitute a still more remarkable link
between two eras of Canadian history which are still
farther apart. At first sight it seems almost impossible
that he, who was the trusted friend o Wolfe, and she,
who learned deportment at Versailles in the reign of
Louis Quinze, should together make up a living link
between 1690, when Frontenac saved Quebec from the American
Colonials under Phips, and 1867, when the new Dominion
was proclaimed there. But it is true. Carleton, born in
the first quarter of the eighteenth century, knew several
old men who had served at the Battle of the Boyne, which
was fought three months before Frontenac sent his defiance
to Phips 'from the mouth of my cannon.' Carleton's wife,
living far on into the second quarter of the nineteenth
century, knew several rising young men who saw the Dominion
of Canada well started on its great career.
All Carleton's sons went into the Army and all died on
active service. The fourth was killed in 1814 at
Bergen-op-Zoom carrying the same sword that Carleton
himself had used there sixty-seven years before. A picture
of the first siege of Bergen-op-Zoom hangs in the
dining-room of the family seat at Greywell Hill to remind
successive generations of their martial ancestors. But
no Carleton needs to be reminded of a man's first duty
at the call to arms. The present holder of the Dorchester
estates and title is a woman. But her son and heir went
straight to the front with the cavalry of the first
British army corps to take the field in Belgium during
the Great World War of 1914.
Carleton spent most of his last twelve years at Kempshot
near Basingstoke because he kept his stud there and horses
were his chief delight. But he died at Stubbings, his
place near Maidenhead beside the silver Thames, on the
10th of November 1808.
Thus, after an unadventurous youth and early manhood, he
spent his long maturity steering the ship of state through
troublous seas abroad; then passed life's evening in the
quiet haven of his home.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The Seigneurs and the Loyalists, both closely associated
with Carleton's Canadian career, are treated in two
volumes of the present Series: _The Seigneurs of Old
Canada_ and _The United Empire Loyalists_. Two other
volumes also provide profitable reading: _The War Chief
of the Six Nations: A Chronicle of Brant_, the Indian
leader who was to Carleton's day what Tecumseh was to
Brock's, and _The War Chief of the Ottawas: A Chronicle
of the Pontiac War_.
Only one life of Carleton has been written, _Lord
Dorchester_, by A. G. Bradley (1907). The student should
also consult _John Graves Simcoe_, by Duncan Campbell
Scott (1905), _Sir Frederick Haldimand_, by Jean McIlwraith
(1904), and _A History of Canada from 1763 to 1812_ by
Sir Charles Lucas. Carleton is the leading character in
the first half of the third volume of _Canada and its
Provinces_, which, being the work of different authors,
throws light on his character from several different
British points of view as well as from several different
kinds of evidence. Kingsford's _History of Canada_,
volumes iv to vii, treats the period in considerable
detail. Justin Smith's two volumes, _Our Struggle for
the Fourteenth Colony_, is the work of a most painstaking
American scholar who had already produced an excellent
account of _Arnold's March from Cambridge to Quebec_, in
which, for the first time, _Arnold's Journal_ was printed
word for word. _Arnold's Expedition to Quebec_, by J.
Codman, is another careful work. These are the complements
of the British books mentioned above, as they emphasize
the American point of view and draw more from American
than from British sources of original information. The
unfortunate defect of _Our Struggle for the Fourteenth
Colony_ is that the author's efforts to be sprightly at
all costs tend to repel the serious student, while his
very thoroughness itself repels the merely casual reader.
So many absurd or perverting mistakes are still made
about the life and times of Carleton, and a full
understanding of his career is of such vital importance
to Canadian history, that no accounts given in the general
run of books--including many so-called 'standard
works'--should be accepted without reference to the
original authorities. Justin Smith's books, cited above,
have useful lists of authorities; though there is no
discrimination between documents of very different value.
The original British diaries kept during Montgomery and
Arnold's beleaguerment have been published by the Literary
and Historical Society of Quebec in two volumes, at the
end of which there is a very useful bibliography showing
the whereabouts of the actual manuscripts of these and
many other documents in English, French, and German. In
addition to the American and British diarists who wrote
in English there were several prominent French Canadians
and German officers who kept most interesting journals
which are still extant. The Dominion Archives at Ottawa
possess an immense mass of originals, facsimiles, and
verbatim copies of every kind, including maps and
illustrations. The Dominion Archivist, Dr Doughty, has
himself edited, in collaboration with Professor Shortt,
all the _Documents relating to the Constitutional History
of Canada from 1759 to 1791_.
The present Chronicle is based on the original evidence
of both sides.
END