DOMESTIC STRIFE.
During the ten or twelve years which succeeded the war with America,
Canada increased more rapidly than at any previous period. The English
Government offered free conveyance and a liberal grant of land to any
person of good character who consented to accept a home in the Upper
Province. Emigration from Great Britain was very inconsiderable during
the Napoleon wars; but when peace was restored, and employment became
scarce and inadequately paid, men sought refuge beyond the Atlantic
from the misery which had fallen so heavily on their native land.
In 1815 only two thousand persons emigrated; next year the number
was twelve thousand; three years later it had risen to thirty-five
thousand. Many of these found their way to Canada. Ten years from the
close of the war the population of the Lower Province numbered four
hundred and twenty thousand; that of the Upper Province was one hundred
and twenty thousand. In fourteen years the population had almost
doubled.
Immediately after the war the British people turned their minds to
the defects of their Government, and the agitation began which gained
its difficult and long-delayed triumph in the Reform Bill of 1832.
The influences of the same reforming spirit extended themselves to
Canada. The measure of political authority enjoyed by the colonists
was still extremely limited, and contrasted unfavourably with that of
their American neighbours. It is true they had the appointment of the
Lower Chamber; but the Executive was not responsible to the legislative
bodies, and was therefore practically despotic. The Governor was the
representative of the Sovereign; the Upper Chamber drew its origin from
the same source. The Governor answered to no one for the course which
he chose to follow; the members of the Legislative Council ordinarily
supported him without reserve, because they expected favours from
him. They desired the increase of his power, because thus he would
be able more bountifully to reward his friends. The sympathies of
the Assembly were with constitutional freedom, purity, and economy
of administration. At a very early period it was found that the men
who were chosen by the people were at variance on every question of
importance with the men who were nominated by the King.
In truth, the kind of government assigned to the Canadian people was
in most respects unsuitable for them. The French colonists did not
desire the popular institutions which they received: they preferred a
mild despotism. The English colonists desired more complete liberty,
and were continually displeased by the arbitrary acts of the Executive.
A still more fatal error was the separation of the provinces, and the
provision thus made for perpetuating the French language and laws, the
gradual extinction of which was urgently desirable. The time had now
arrived when these errors were to bear their proper fruit in jealousy
and strife and mutual frustration.
The people of Lower Canada remained almost devoid of education, and
they bestowed no care upon the cure of that evil. It was quite usual to
have members of the Legislature who were unable to write. [Sidenote:
1828 A.D.] Once the people were so sorely displeased with the conduct
of the Governor that they determined to lay their grievances before
the King. Eighty-seven thousand citizens concurred in a statement of
wrongs; but of these only nine thousand possessed the accomplishment
of being able to write their own names--the remainder did not rise
above the ignominy of expressing their approval by a mark. In the
Upper Province the education of the people received some attention.
[Sidenote: 1816 A.D.] The foundations were laid of the present
common-school system of Canada, although as yet an annual grant of
£600 formed the inadequate provision which the Legislature was able to
supply.
The mutual antipathies of the French and the English colonists
colour all the history of the Lower Province at this period. The
French increased more rapidly than the English. The Council was
mainly British; the Assembly was almost entirely French. The French,
emboldened by their growing numbers, began to dream of forming
themselves into a separate nation. The British did not conceal that
they regarded the French as a conquered people; and they deemed it
a wrong that they, the conquerors, should have no larger influence
on the legislation of the colony. Obscure strifes raged perpetually
among the several branches of the Legislature. Every shilling of
Government expenditure was eagerly scrutinized by the Assembly. The
House wrangled over the amounts and also over the forms and methods
of expenditure. Occasionally it disallowed certain charges, which
the Governor calmly continued to pay on his own responsibility. A
Receiver-General defaulted, and much fiery debate was expended in
fixing the blame of this occurrence on the Governor. [Sidenote: 1822
A.D.] The English minority sought the extinction of French law and
language, and supported a scheme of union which would have secured
that result. The French, alarmed and indignant, loudly expressed in
public meeting and by huge petitions their opposition to the proposal.
Influential persons continually obtained large gifts of land on unfair
terms, and kept their possessions lying waste, waiting speculatively
for an advance in price, to the inconvenience of honest settlers. Not
contented with the rich crop of grievances which sprang luxuriantly
around them, the House revived the troubles of past years, and vainly
impeached certain judges who were supposed to have been the authors of
forgotten oppressions. Even the House was at war with the Governor: not
infrequently that high-handed official freed himself from the irksome
restraint by sending the members to their homes, and conducting the
government of the colony without their help.
Upper Canada had its own special troubles. A military spirit had gone
abroad among the people. When the lavish expenditure of the war ceased,
and the colonists were constrained to return in poverty to their
prosaic, everyday occupations, restlessness and discontent spread over
the land. [Sidenote: 1817 A.D.] When the legislative bodies met, the
Assembly, instead of applying itself to its proper business, proceeded
angrily to inquire into the condition of the province. The Governor
would permit no such investigation, and abruptly dismissed the House.
It was complained that a small group of influential persons--named with
abhorrence the Family Compact--monopolized all positions of trust and
power, and ruled the province despotically. The Government connived at
the shutting up of large masses of land, of which speculators had been
allowed improperly to possess themselves. Emigration from the United
States into Canada was forbidden, to the injury of the colony, lest the
political opinions of the colonists should be tainted by association
with republicans. But the ecclesiastical grievance of Upper Canada
surpassed all others in its power to implant mutual hatred in the
minds of the people. An Act passed many years ago (1791) had set apart
one-seventh of all lands granted by Government, “for the support of a
Protestant clergy.” The Church of England set up the monstrous claim
that there were no Protestant clergymen but hers. The Presbyterians,
the Methodists, the Baptists claimed an equal right to the appellation
and to a share in the inheritance. The Roman Catholics proposed that
the “Clergy Reserves,” now extending to three million acres, should
be sold, and the proceeds applied in the interests of religion and
education. No question could have been imagined more amply fitted
to break up the colony into discordant factions. In actual fact the
question of the Clergy Reserves was for upwards of half a century a
perennial source of bitter sectarian strife.
[Sidenote: 1817 A.D.] While the Canadians were thus dissatisfied with
the political arrangements under which they lived, there arrived
among them one Robert Gourlay, an energetic, restless, erratic
Scotchman, inspired by an intense hatred to despotism, and a passionate
intolerance of abuses. Mr. Gourlay began at once to investigate the
causes which retarded the progress of the colony. He found many evils
which were distinctly traceable to the corruption of the governing
power, and these he mercilessly exposed. The Government replied by a
prosecution for libel, and succeeded after a time in shutting up their
assailant in prison, and ultimately sending him from the country. These
arbitrary proceedings greatly incensed the people, and deepened the
prevailing discord.
In addition to these internal variances, the provinces had a standing
dispute on a question of revenue. Of the duties levied on goods which
passed up the St. Lawrence river, only one-fifth was paid to Upper
Canada. As the commerce of the province increased, the unfairness of
this distribution was more loudly complained of. The men of the East
were slow to perceive the justice of the complaint, and maintained
their hold upon the revenue despite the exasperation of their brethren
in the West.
But although these now obscure strifes have been regarded as composing
the history of Canada, they were happily not its life. The increase
of its people and of their intelligence and comfort; the growth of
order and of industry; the unrecorded spread of cultivation along
the banks of the great river and far up its tributary valleys--these
silent operations of natural causes were the life of the provinces.
Their shores were sought by crowds of emigrants. New settlements were
being continually formed. [Sidenote: 1821 A.D.] Steamships began to
ply on the river and on the great lakes, and the improved facilities
of communication quickened the industrial development of the country.
The navigation of the river was grievously impeded by rapids and
waterfalls--the _portages_ of the olden time, at which the red man was
accustomed to draw his canoe from the water and carry it toilsomely
through the forest till he had rounded the obstacle. Canals were now
formed at such points, and ships were enabled to continue their voyages
without interruption. The revenue steadily increased, and every class
was fairly prosperous. Banks had been established in all leading towns.
Agriculture was still exceedingly rude. All agricultural implements
were in insufficient supply; the poor farmers could not obtain so much
as the ploughs they needed, and they were fain to draw out the wealth
of the fertile soil with no better means than manual labour afforded.
But these evils were in due course of years surmounted, and in the
year 1831, when an estimate of the possessions of the Canadians was
made, the result disclosed an amount of successful industry for which
the world had not given them credit. During the seventy years which
had elapsed since England conquered the valley of the St. Lawrence,
the population had increased from sixty thousand to nearly nine
hundred thousand. With the addition of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
and the smaller colonies, the American subjects of England numbered
now a million and a quarter. The lands which their toil had redeemed
from wilderness were now valued at seventeen million sterling. Their
cattle and horses were worth seven million; their dwellings and
public buildings had cost them fifteen million; they had two million
invested in the machinery by which the timber of their boundless
forests was prepared for market; in their great cod and seal fisheries
they had a fixed capital of a million and a half. Eight hundred ships
annually visited their ports from Great Britain; in all the branches
of their maritime industry two thousand five hundred arrivals were
registered. They received every year foreign or colonial goods to the
value of two million; and they exported to a somewhat larger extent.
They built ships, and sold them to England; they sent many cargoes of
timber, and much valuable fur; already they produced food beyond their
own consumption, and they sent to Europe wheat and flour and oats
and salted provisions. They shipped fish and fish oils. They burned
down masses of their abundant timber, and having obtained the salts
which combustion set free, they manufactured them into pot and pearl
ashes, and shipped them to Europe for service in bleaching and other
operations. They supplied themselves with sugar from the sap of their
maple trees. They brewed much excellent cider and beer; they distilled
from rye, potatoes, apples, much whisky which was not excellent.
Quebec and Montreal had grown up into considerable towns, each with a
population of nearly forty thousand, the vast majority of whom were
French. In the bay where Wolfe’s boats stole unobserved and in silence
to the shore, there lay now a fleet of merchant-vessels ministering to
a large and growing commerce. The lower town which the English guns had
destroyed was a bustling, thriving sea-port. Far above, where Montcalm
and Wolfe fought, was now a well-built city, bright with towers and
spires; with its impregnable Citadel; with its Parliament House, said
to be more imposing than that in which the Commons of Great Britain
then assembled; with its Palace for the Governor-General, and its
aspect and tone of metropolitan dignity; with college and schools; with
newspapers and banks, and libraries and charitable societies; with
ship-building, manufacturing, and all the busy marketing which beseems
one of the great haunts of commerce. Those seventy years of English
rule had raised Quebec from the rank of little more than a village to
that of an important city; and had seen the valley of the St. Lawrence
pass out of the condition of wilderness and become the home of a
numerous and prospering population.