Engineer-officers have little leisure for Book-making--Caution against
iced water--Lake St. Clair in a Thunderstorm--A
Steaming-dinner--Detroit river and town--Windsor--Sandwich--Yankee
Driver--Amherstburgh--French Canadian Politeness--Courtesy not
costly--Good effects of the practice of it illustrated--Naked
Indians--Origin of the Indians derived from Asia--Piratical attempt
and Monument at Amherstburgh--Canadians not disposed to turn
Yankees--Present state of public opinion in those Provinces--Policy of
the Government--Loyalty of the People.
A person employed actively in public life is a very bad hand to engage
in book-making. I often wonder whether this trifle, now intended as an
offering to the reading people, will ever get into print. A little
memorandum-book supplies the _matériel_, and a tolerable memory the
embellishment. An engineer-officer, of all other functionaries, needs
a memory; settling at one moment the expenditure of vast sums; at
another, looking into the merits of a barrack damage worth sixpence;
then, field-officer of the day inspecting guards--next, making
experiments on the destructive effects of gunpowder, commencing with a
percussion-pistol, and ending with a mine; buying land, taking
altitudes of the sun and of the moon, examining a Gunter's chain or a
theodolite, sitting as member of a court-martial, or of a board of
respective officers, or counting the gold and silver in the military
chest; superintending a fortification of the most intricate Vaubanism;
regulating the dip of the needle, or the density of the earth; putting
an awkward squad through the most approved manoeuvres; studying the
integral calculus, or the catenarian curve; bothered by Newton or La
Place; reading German or Spanish; exploring Oregon, or any other terra
incognita; building docks, supervising railways, surveying Ireland,
governing a colony, conducting a siege, leading a forlorn hope; an
Indian chief, or commanding an army (both the latter rather rare);
well may his motto be, as that of his corps is, _Ubique_. So, gentle
reader, if there is wandering in the matter of these pages, put it
down, not to the want of method or manners, but to the want of time;
for, even in a dull Canadian winter, it is only by fits and snatches
that the mysteries of book-making can be practised. The intervals are
uncertain, the opportunities few. At one hour, one is drawing one's
sword; at the next, in one of the two drawing-rooms, namely, that
where ladies congregate, and that in which steel-pens chiefly shine.
But it is necessary, nevertheless, to go on with any thing one
seriously begins; and, although the "art and practique part" of
book-making is, considering the requisite labour of bad penmanship,
rather disgusting, yet the giving "a local habitation and a name" to
the ideas floating on the sensorium is pleasant enough. It would be
better if one had a steam-pen, for I always find my ideas much more
rapid than consists with a goose quill. The unbending of the mind in a
trifle like the present is also agreeable; and if the reader only
likes it, as much as it amuses me and it whiles away graver cares, and
the every-day monotony of a matter-of-fact existence, so much the
better. An engineer-officer has no time to become a _blasé_, but every
body else is not in his position, and thus this "little boke" may be
taken up with the morning paper, and your man of the world may be
induced to go so far as to say, "Wild horses in Canada! I never heard
of them before; I will positively read a page or two more some rainy
morning."
_Blasé_, dear _blasé_, if ever you should muster up courage to go to
Canada for relief, and want to see the wild horses, pray do not go
towards the end of July; and if you do, don't drink iced water on
board the Brothers, with the thermometer at 100° Fahrenheit, as I did,
from very exhaustion. An old farmer on board cautioned me, but I was
proud and thirsty, and did the deed. Sorely was it repented of; for,
when we landed at night, I was seized with a violent pain in the heart
region, accompanied by great uneasiness and lassitude; and, it was
not until after lying down quietly for several hours that the symptoms
abated. I was, however, very well the next day, but will not drink
iced water in the dog-days any more in Canada West. Yet the Yankees do
it with impunity.
We entered Lake St. Clair in a thunderstorm at half-past five, but,
fortunately for us, in this shallow lake, averaging only three fathoms
or eighteen feet in depth, the storm, which in other places was a
tornado, did nothing but frighten us at a distance.
It tore large trees up by the roots, and unroofed houses not many
miles off; and, had it caught us with so much top-hamper as the
steamboat had, perhaps we should have sounded the lake _in propriá
personá_, without being witnesses as to its actual mysteries
afterwards.
We steamed on, however, near the south shore for twenty miles, and
entered the Detroit, or Narrow St. Lawrence, before the light of day
had vanished, observing islands, &c., and arrived safely at Windsor,
at Iron's Inn, at ten p.m., having experienced the pleasures of an
adverse gale and intense heat.
The dinner on board was by no means a luxury, for, although very good,
the company was numerous, the cabin near the boiler, all the dishes
smoking, the room low and small, and the thermometer as aforesaid on
deck, so that we literally were steaming, for it must have been close
to the boiling point.
Thursday morning, the 14th of July, was as hot as ever; and if I
could, I would not have crossed over to the United States, where the
famous city of Detroit stared me in the face on the other side of the
river, about as broad as the Thames just below bridge.
It was, like all recent American cities, very staring and very
juvenile, with large piles of brick buildings scattered amidst white
painted wooden ones, and covered an immense space, with many churches,
looking very fine at a distance, an immense crowd of very large,
bright, white, and green, coarsely painted and loosely built
steam-vessels at the wharfs, and small, dirty, steam ferry-boats,
constantly plying to and from the British shore.
Windsor is a small village, scattered, as most Canadian villages are,
with a little barrack, in which a detachment of the Royal Canadian
Rifle corps is stationed, to watch the frontier. The Americans are now
building a large fort on the opposite side.
I left Windsor at nine a.m., in a light waggon and pair, and rolled
along the bank of the river to Sandwich, the county or district town,
two miles from Windsor, opposite to which the Americans are building a
fortification of some size, but apparently only an extensive
earth-work.
It is a very pleasant drive along the banks of the Straitened River,
or Detroit, close to the water, and occasionally in it, to refresh the
horses. The population, chiefly French Canadians and Indians, occupy
the roadside in detached farms; the Canadian huts and houses being, as
in Lower Canada, invariably whitewashed and planted at short
intervals.
We saw the Indians both industrious and idle: some were hoeing maize,
others harvesting wheat, and the _habitants_ were also very busy in
the fields.
The idle Indians, the most numerous, were lounging along the banks,
under the shade of melancholy boughs, as naked as they were born,
bathing, smoking, or making baskets. In the intense heat I envied
them, and thought of the days of Paradise when tailors were not.
We stopped in this intense heat at Maître Samondon's tavern, having
passed Sandwich, which has church, chapel, jail, and court-house, and
is plentifully inhabited by French, whose domiciles evidently date
from its first settlement. I saw some of the largest pear-trees here
that I had ever seen; they were as big as good-sized walnut-trees in
England.
We had a Yankee driver, a young fellow, whose ease and good-temper
amused me very much. He had good horses, drove well, and had been in
his time all sorts of things; the last trade, that of a mail-driver on
the opposite shores, where, he said, the republic were going ahead
fast, for they were copying Europeans, and had taken to robbing the
mail by way of raising the wind; so that, in some place he mentioned
in Pennsylvania, it was a service of danger to drive, for they fired
out of the Bush and killed the horses occasionally. He told us several
feats of his own against these robbers, but concluded by guessing that
he should not have to carry a six-barrel Colt's revolver in Canaday;
for "them French" never robbed mails.
He drove us to Amherstburgh, through a rich and beautiful grain
country, in four hours, eighteen miles, and we stopped an hour at
Samondon's, where nothing but French was spoken, and a long discourse
held upon the crops and the state of the country. As I had an orderly
with me, and as red coats had not been seen in that part of the world
since the rebellion, we caused some emotion and conversation on the
road. A very old, garrulous French Canadian, who was smoking his pipe
in the "kitchen and parlour and hall," came and sat by me, and, after
beating about the bush a long time with all the "_politesse
possible_," at length asked me who I was, and if the army was coming
back among them. I told him who I was, a lieutenant-colonel of
engineers; and the old Jean Jacques, after looking at me a minute or
so, got up and fetched a small glass of whiskey and water, and with
the best grace in the world presented it, with a cigar, taking another
of both himself, and, touching his glass to mine in true French style,
bowed and said, "_A votre santé, mon colonel_; you have got a devilish
good place of it!" The French Canadians on the Detroit river were all
loyal during the rebellion, and this old farmer was a sample of them.
When the horses were fed, and I had, as is customary, treated the
driver, we departed amidst the pleasing sounds of _Bien obligé, bon
voyage_. If they had cheated me, I should have been content, so much
is politeness worth; and the Canadian French peasant is a primitive
being, and as polite as a baron of the _ancien régime_. It was quite
refreshing in such hot weather to meet with a little civilization,
after being occasionally witness to the reverse from the newest people
in the world. _Il coute si peu._
How shocking, a sensitive _parvenu_ will say, to sit down in a common
kitchen, and drink a glass of whiskey and water with peasants! It puts
me in mind of a very fine young lady, whose grandfather had been a
butcher, and her father none of the richest; who, being met in the
streets with some threadpapers or small package of lace in her hand
early on a cold day, said, to a gentleman who stopped to ask her how
she did, "I am very well, I thank you; but this parcel makes my hand
so cold!" Or, for a still finer illustration, I knew a _nouvelle
riche_ who, not being addressed by a tradesman in a little town in his
bill by a factitious title, to which she imagined that she had a
right, sent back his letter open to the post-office, with an
intimation to the postmaster that letters so improperly addressed
would not be received.
I have always perceived that a fuss about family and noble
connections betrays either that the fuss-maker is naturally a vulgar
soul, or that it is deemed necessary, from an excess of weakness, to
support a position of an equivocal nature. A gentleman never derogates
from his true position, let him be placed in whatever circumstances he
may; and an over-fastidious traveller, or a pretender to great
importance in a new country, is the most foolish of all foolish folks.
I remember travelling once in the wild Bush with a person, who, from
long-established military habits of command, thought that he could
order everything as he liked. We were benighted at a farm-house, where
the old lady proprietress eked out her livelihood by receiving casual
visitors, but disdained the thought of "keeping tavern," as it is
called, in the backwoods of Canada West. He ordered, rather
peremptorily, supper and beds for two--it would have been better that
he had ordered pistols and coffee for the same number, for then the
dame would have looked upon him as simply mad. No notice whatever was
taken of his demands, but I saw her choler rising; fortunately, I knew
her character. We were many miles from any habitation: and the horses
jaded out as well as ourselves; so I took no notice either; but,
observing the dame take her seat in the old-fashioned ample chimney, I
took another opposite to her, and, observing her commence lighting her
pipe, asked her for one, and we puffed out volumes of smoke--those
were my smoking days--for a long time at each other in perfect
silence. At last, I broke the ice.
"Mrs. Craig, your tobacco is bad; next time I come by, I will bring
you some excellent."--A gracious nod!--We smoked on, and every now and
then she condescended to speak upon indifferent subjects. At last, she
got up and went into another room. I followed her; for I saw she
wanted to speak to me without my friend.--"Who is that man?" quoth the
dame.--"Colonel So and so," responded I.--"I don't care whether he be
a colonel or a general; all I can say is, that he has got no manners;
and the devil a supper or a bed shall he get here!"--"Oh, my good
lady," said I, "he is not used to travel in the Bush, and is a
stranger, and not over-young, as you see; besides, he is regularly
tired out. Let me give him half my supper, and perhaps he can sleep in
the chimney-corner. I don't care about a bed myself; pine branches
will do for me, and an old buffalo robe, which I have in the waggon."
She said nothing, but, returning to the kitchen, which is the common
reception-room in country places, put a few eggs into the pot over the
fire, and got the tea-pot. I saw several fine hams hanging to the
rafters, so I took one down, got a knife, and was about to cut some
slices to broil, when she stopped me. "You haven't got the best," says
the old dame; "I shall cut you one myself." And so she did, spread the
cloth, set two tea-cups, &c., and a capital supper we had, for a fine
fowl was spitchcocked.
After supper, Mother Craig asked me to smoke another pipe with her and
her good man, who was lame and unable to work, and some of her sons,
&c. came in from the fields. I missed her soon afterwards; but, after
a quarter of an hour, she came in again, whispered that she wanted me,
and I followed her. "It is time," said the dame, "for you to go to
bed; for you must be up by candlelight to-morrow morning, as your
journey is a long one; see if this will do." In an inner chamber were
two beds; one a feather bed, the other a pine-branch one, with clean
blankets, snow-white sheets, a night-cap of the best, water, &c.
"That's your bed," said Mrs. Craig; "the other is for the colonel, as
you call him. Good night; I will call you in the morning--take care,
and put your candle out." I laughed in my sleeve, went out, called the
colonel, who would have been otherwise left in the dark, for the
family soon retired for the night, and I need not say gave him the
best bed, as he thought; the best, however, I kept myself, for a bed
of fresh pine shoots to a weary traveller in Canada is better than all
the feather beds in the world, particularly in the New World.
So much for life in the Bush; and I was then not quite so old as at
present; but, even in youth, experience had taught me the utility of
taking the world easy. My friend the colonel, next morning, after a
sound sleep, said, "Whenever I am obliged to travel in the Bush, I
wish you may be with me;" and old mother Craig, who is now no longer
in this world, thought the next morning, as she afterwards said, that,
after all, the colonel was not so bad as she had imagined.
This is, for one may as well deprecate a little in talking about
fastidiousness, not told by way of evincing superior knowledge of the
world, but just to show you, gentle or simple reader, whichever you
may be, that, in a sentimental journey through Canada, you must
accommodate yourself a little to the manners and customs of the
population, if you expect to get along quietly, and to form any just
opinion of the country.
When we saw the naked Indians under the wide-spreading trees,
literally taking their ease, _sub tegmine fagi_, I thought that, if a
Cockney could be transported in a balloon from Temple Bar right down
here, what a barbarous land he would say Canada was, and his note-book
would run thus: "Landed on the banks of a river twice as broad as the
Thames, and saw the inhabitants burnt brown, and stark naked, under
the trees. Oh, fie!"
Really, however, there is nothing very startling in seeing a naked
Indian, whether it is that the bronze colour of his red skin looks so
artificial, or that white flesh is so rarely observed, except in
fashionable ball-rooms, I do not know; but I do know that I should
most unequivocally feel queer, if I suddenly saw twenty or thirty
naked Cockneys squatting and smoking under the trees on the banks of
the Serpentine River, even if the thermometer was at 110° at the
moment. Such is custom. A naked Indian looks natural, and a naked
Cockney would look _contra bonos mores_, to say the least of it.
The Indian, whether dressed or undressed, is a modest man--not so
always the Cockney; and there is an air of grandeur and natural
freedom about the savage, which civilized man wants, or which modern
coats, waistcoats, trowsers, and hats, are unquestionably not
calculated to inspire.
Look at the statue of a Roman Consul, or at Apollo Belvidere, in his
scanty clothing, and then you will understand what I mean; or, what is
better, look at your grandmother's picture, with her hair powdered,
stomacher, and farthingale, and then at the Venus de Medicis, and you
will know better, if you are a man of taste. How the American ladies,
who do not admit such words as _naked_ or _legs_ into their
vocabulary, there being an especial act of Congress forbidding females
to use them, get over the difficulty of Indians in their war costume,
has puzzled me not a little. To draw a curtain before an Indian chief
would be rather a venturous affair, as he is a little sensitive; and,
when well painted, thinks himself extremely _comme il faut_, and very
well dressed. But _de gustibus non est disputandum_, and so forth.
It is a queer country, this Amherstburgh country: French Canadians as
primitive as Père Adam and Mère Eve; Indians of the old stock and of
the new stock, that is to say, very few of the former, but a good many
of the latter; owning both to French and to British half parentage;
negroes in abundance; runaway slaves and their descendants, a mixture
of all three; and plenty of loafers from the United States. In fact,
it would seem as though Shem, Ham, and Japhet, had all representatives
here, for Europeans and Americans of every possible caste are
exhibited along this frontier, only I did not either see or hear of an
Israelite; but some antiquarians contend that the Indians are a
portion of the lost tribes. Their Asiatic origin is more decided. The
feather of an eagle stuck in the warrior's hair is nothing more than
the peacock's plume in a Tartar's bonnet. Then there is the
patriarchal mode of government in the nations. Polybius says that the
Carthaginians (Africans, by the way) scalped their enemies. The
Kalmucks pluck out their beards, so do the Indians. The
Pottawotamies, and most of the more savage tribes, like the Asiatics,
look upon women as inferior in the scale of creation. White is a
sacred colour, as in many parts of Asia. An Indian never eats with his
guest, but serves him. Their nomadic life, their choice of war-chiefs,
the difficulty of pronouncing labials, the use of the battleaxe or
tomahawk, which is absolutely Tartarian, the worship of the Good and
the Evil Spirit, form other points of resemblance. West says, that the
emblems of the Indian nations are similar to those of the Israelitish
tribes, and the Tartars fight under _totems_ of the wolf, the snake,
the bear, &c., in the same way. The belief in a future state and in
transmigration is similar, and the use of charms or amulets common to
both Asiatics and Indians of America. The cross-legged sitting
posture, and the Tartarian contour of the face and head, are very
remarkable. I once saw an Indian chief, whose countenance was
perfectly and purely Asiatic, and that of the Ganges rather than
Mongolian. The shaven crown and single lock of hair are Asiatic and
Chinese; and tattooing is common to both sides of the Pacific. A
thousand other instances may be cited; but the strongest proof of all
is the discovery of vast ruins in Mexico, which, as it is well known,
contain indubitable proofs of a common origin of the people who built
them with the Asiatics, and these ruins extend in a line through that
country from Guatemala as far almost as the Colombia River; whilst
South America produces edifices, not so extraordinary perhaps, but
equally evincing that the worshippers of the Sun might claim descent
from the Guebres and the Parsees.
But to pursue this subject would lead me into a research which would
consume both time and paper, and can only be adequately entered upon
with great leisure. I have collected much upon this interesting
subject, and, having bestowed great attention upon it, have not much
doubt upon the matter.
Singular discoveries are occasionally made in opening the Canadian
forests, though it would seem that ancient civilization had been
chiefly confined to the western shores of the Andean chain, exclusive
of Mexico only. In a former volume was described a vase of Etruscan
shape, which was discovered during the operations of the Canada
Company, near the shores of Lake Huron, and vast quantities of broken
pottery, of beautiful forms, are often turned up by the plough. I have
a specimen, of large size, of an emerald green glassy substance, which
was unfortunately broken when sent to me, but described as presenting
a regular polygonal figure: two of the faces, measuring some inches,
are yet perfect. It is a work of art, and was found in the virgin
forest in digging.
But we are at Amherstburgh, otherwise called Malden, a small town of
two parallel streets and divergencies, famous for a miserable fort,
for Negroes, Indians, fine straw hats, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, and
loyalty.
I shall never forget the heat of this place, having had the exceeding
luxury of a sitting-room to myself, quite large enough to turn round
in, with one door and one window, and a bed-closet off it, without the
latter. If ever a mortal was fried without a gridiron, it was the
inhabitant of that bed-closet; and right glad was I the next day to
get into a gallant row-boat, belonging to the commandant of the
Canadian riflemen, rowed by a gallant crew, and take the air on the
River Detroit, as well as the breezes on Bois Blanc Island. Bois
blanc, in Western Canadian parlance, is the white wood tree, with
which this island formerly abounded, and now converted into several
blockhouses for its defence.
Amherstburgh was the scene of piratical exploit during the rebellion,
and bravely did the militia beat off the _soi-disant+ general and his
sympathizing vagabond patriots; but this is a page of Canadian history
for hereafter, and need not be repeated here. The sufferers have had a
monument erected to their memory in these words by the spirited
inhabitants:--
This Monument is erected by
the Inhabitants of Amherstburgh,
in memory of
Thomas Mac Cartan, Samuel Holmes, Edwin Millar,
Thomas Symonds, of H.M. 32nd Regiment of Foot, and
of Thomas Parish, of the St. Thomas Volunteer
Cavalry, who gloriously fell in repelling a band of
Brigands from Pelé Island, on the 3rd March, 1838.
Many of those who escaped from this villanous aggression upon a people
at peace with the United States afterwards lost their lives from
exposure to cold at such a season, the coldest portion of a Canadian
winter, and misery and distress were brought home to the bosom of many
a sorrowing family.
The annexation of Canada was contemplated by these hordes of
semi-barbarians, the offscouring of society, bred in bar-rooms. Alas!
for poor human nature, should this scum ever overlay the surface of
American freedom! It would indeed be the nightmare of intellect, the
incubus of morality. A commonwealth well managed may be a decent
government for an honest man to exist under, but a _loaferism_, to use
a Yankee term, would indeed be frightful. The recklessness of life
among the least civilized portions of the States is quite sufficient
already, without its assuming a power and a place.
That there is at present but little prospect for American dominion
taking root in Canada, is evident to every person well acquainted with
the country, although dislike to British rule and "the baneful
domination" is also obvious enough among a large class of inhabitants,
who are swayed by a small portion of the press, and by disappointed
speculators in politics--men who have lost high offices, for which
they were never fitted, either by capacity or connection with the best
interests of the people, and who allied themselves to the French
Canadian party merely to accomplish their own ends.
The real substance, or, as Cobbett called it, the bone and marrow of
Canada, is not composed of needy politicians or of reckless
adventurers, caring not whether they plunge their adopted country into
all the horrors of revolution or of anarchy.
A man possessing a few hundred acres of land, with every comfort
about him, paying no taxes but those for the improvement of his
property, feeling the government rein only as a salutary check to
lawlessness, and looking stedfastly abroad, is not very likely, for
abstract notions of right and equality, to sacrifice reality, or to
suppose that Mr. Baldwin, amiable as he is, is infallible: whilst Mr.
Baldwin himself, the ostensible, but not the real leader of the
out-and-out reformers, will pause before he even dreams of alienating
the country in which he, from being a very poor man originally, has,
through the industry and talent of his father, and a fortuitous train
of circumstances, connected with the rise and progress of the city of
Toronto, and the rise of the price of land as Canada advances in
population and wealth, become a great land-holder.
I have no idea that this Corypheus of Canadian reform has the most
remote idea of annexing Canada to the United States, or that he is
mentally fighting for anything more than an Utopia similar to that of
O'Connell in Ireland. In short, the grand struggle of the radical
reform party of Upper Canada has been, and for which they joined the
French Canadian party, to have a repeal of the union as far as control
over the provincial funds and offices exists, on the side of England.
They would have no objection to see a British prince on the Canadian
throne, or a British viceroy sitting at the council board of Montreal,
but they want to be governed without the intervention of the colonial
office; and perhaps, rather than not have the loaves and fishes at
their own entire disposal, they would in the end go so far as to
desire entire separation from the Mother Country, and seek the armed
protection of that enormous power which is so rapidly rising into
notice on their borders.
But then they calculate--for there is a good sprinkling of Jonathanism
in their ranks--that that enormous power is grasping at too much
already, defying the whole world, and seeking to establish a perfectly
despotic dominion itself over the whole continent which Columbus and
Cabot discovered, and not excluding the archipelago of the Western
Indies.
They live too near the littorale of the Republic, or rather the
democracy of America, not to see hourly the effects of Lynch law and
mob rule; and, however some of the most daring or reckless among them
may occasionally employ that very mob rule to intimidate and carry
elections, they very well know that the peaceable inhabitants of both
Canadas are too respectable and too numerous to permit such courses to
arrive at a head. Once rouse the yeomanry of Canada West, and their
energies would soon manifest themselves in truly British honesty and
British feeling. John Bull is not enamoured of the tender mercies of
canallers and loafers, and the French Canadian peasantry and small
farmers are innocent of the desire to imitate the heroes of
Poissardism.
No person in public life can judge better of the feelings of the
people as a mass, in Canada, than those who have commanded large
bodies of the militia. Put the query to any officer in the army who
has had such a charge, and the universal answer will be: "The militia
of Canada are loyal to Britain, without vapouring or boasting of that
loyalty; for they are not by natural constitution a very speaking
race, or given at every moment to magnify; but they will fight, should
need be, for Victoria, her crown, and dignity."
It may be said that an officer in the army is not the best judge of
the feelings of the people, as they would not express them in his
presence; but when an officer has been intimately mingled with them by
such events as those of the troubles of 1837 and 1838, and has so long
known the country, the case is altered; he comes to have a personal as
well as a general knowledge of all ranks, degrees, and classes, and
can weigh the ultimate objects of popular expression. I have no
hesitation in saying, possessed as I have been of this knowledge, that
_the people_ of Canada have not a desire to become independent now,
any more than they have a desire to be annexed to and fraternize with
the United States.
Many years ago, on my first visit to Canada, in 1826, when such a
thing as expressions of disloyalty was almost unknown, and long before
Mackenzie's folly, I remember being struck with the speech at a
private dinner party of a person who has since held high office,
respecting the independence of Canada: he observed that it must
ultimately be brought about. The colony then was in its mere infancy,
and this person no doubt had dreams of glory, although in outward life
he was one of the most uncompromising of the colonial ultra-tories.
Just before the rebellion broke out, I was conversing with another
person, now no more, of a similar stamp, but possessing much more
influence, who began to be alarmed for his extensive lands, all of
which he had obtained by grants from the Crown, and he feared that the
time specified by the first-mentioned person had arrived. His
observations to me were revelations of an astounding nature; for he
thought that we were too near a republic to continue long under a
monarchy, and that, in fact, absurd titles, such as those borne by the
then governor, Sir Francis Head, alluding to his being merely a knight
bachelor, were likely to create contempt in Canada, instead of
affection. My friend, who, like the first-mentioned, was rather weak,
although acute enough when self-interest was concerned, was evidently
casting about in his mind's eye for a new order of things, in which to
secure _his_ property and _his_ official influence.
Lord Sydenham and Lord Durham saw and knew a great deal of this
vacillation among all parties in Canada. They saw that the great game
of the leaders was office, office, office; and when Lord Metcalfe had
had sufficient time to discover the real state of the country, he saw
it too. Hence arose the absolute necessity for removing the seat of
government from Toronto to Kingston. The ultra-tories were just as
troublesome as the ultra-levellers, and it was requisite to neutralize
both, by getting out of the sphere of their hourly influence. The
inhabitants of Kingston, a naval and military town, whose revenues had
been chiefly derived from those sources, were loyal, without
considering it of the utmost consequence that their loyalty should
form the basis of every government, or that the governor was not to
open his mouth, or use his pen, unless by permission. They were the
true medium party.
Then arose the desire to do justice to the Gallo-Canadians, who had
before been wholly neglected, and looked upon as too insignificant to
have any voice in public affairs, whilst they were mistrusted also,
owing to the Papineau demonstration.
The British government, superior to all these petty colonial
interests, saw at once that to ensure loyalty it was only proper to
administer justice impartially to all creeds and to all classes, and
that the French Canadians, whose numbers were at least equal to the
British Canadians, had a positive right to be heard and a positive
claim to be equitably treated.
There was no actual innate desire in the Canadian mind to shake off
the British domination for that of the democracy of the United States.
An absurd notion had gathered strength in 1837 that they were at last
powerful enough to set up for themselves, to constitute _la Nation
Canadienne_, forgetting that Great Britain could swallow them up at a
mouthful, and that the Americans would, if John Bull did not. The
proclamation of General Nelson or Brown, or some such patriot, set the
affair in its true point of view. No longer any religion was to be
predominant; the feudal laws were to be abolished; and the celebrated
ninety-two resolutions, which had cost Papineau and his legion so much
care and anxiety, were swept away as if they were dust. A Jack Cade
had started up, whose laws were to be administered at the point of the
bayonet.
The eyes of the leading French Canadians, gentlemen of education, were
soon opened, and the vision of glory evaporated into thin air. But
still they felt themselves oppressed, they enjoyed not the coveted
rights of subjects of England; and accordingly the successive
governments of Lord Durham, Lord Sydenham, and Sir Charles Bagot were
eras of political struggles to obtain it.
Lord Metcalfe had had experience in colonies of long standing, had
been successful, bore the character of a just, patient, and decided
man, and had wealth enough to cause his independence to be respected.
The fight for supremacy between the ultra-tory and ultra-radical
parties became fiercer and more fierce, and it was dolefully augured
that the province was lost to England, as he would not yield to the
haughty demands of the first, nor to the threats and menaces of the
latter.
When the Baldwin ministry was dismissed, even cautious people were
heard to say, that new troubles were at hand; and the ultra-tories did
not scruple to avow that the country was in danger, unless they were
readmitted to power.
Placed between these belligerents, Lord Metcalfe, who kept his own
counsel to the last secret and undivulged, steered a course which has
hitherto worked well. He chose a medium party, and removed the seat of
government to Montreal, not in the heart of French Canada, as it is
supposed in England, but within a few miles of British Canada and
close to the eastern townships, where a British population is
dominant, whilst in the city itself British interests surpass all
others; it being the heart and lungs of the Canadian mercantile world,
whilst it has the advantage of easy steam communication with Quebec,
the seat of military power, and with Upper Canada, both by the St.
Lawrence and the Rideau Canals.
The French, no longer neglected and seeing the seat of government
permanently located in their country, seeing also that they had been
admitted to share power and office, have been tranquillized; and the
result of the elections placed Lord Metcalfe comparatively at ease,
and rendered the task of his successor less onerous. Had his health
been spared, the blessing of his wise rule would long have been felt.
He is deeply and universally regretted throughout Canada.
As a proof of the loyalty of the Canadians, it is right to mention
that, whilst I am penning these pages, the press is teeming with calls
to the volunteers and militia to sustain Britain in the Oregon war;
and, because the militia is not prematurely called out, the
administrator of the government is attacked on all sides. Whilst I am
writing, the Hibernian Society, in an immense Roman Catholic
procession, passes by. There are four banners. The first is St.
Patrick, the second Queen Victoria, the third Father Matthew, the
fourth the glorious Union flag. Reader, it is the 17th of March, St.
Patrick's Day, and the band plays God save the Queen!