UPPER AND LOWER CANADA 1802
The year 1802 was a critical time in Canada, and so it was felt to be
by the few who were there to guard it. If Bonaparte had succeeded in
his plans on the American continent, and had occupied Louisiana with
an army of twenty thousand men, Canada would probably have been
immediately the scene of war between Great Britain and France.
Another enemy, however, was nearer her borders, although ten years
passed before hostilities broke out.
When Brock arrived, Sir Robert Shore Milnes, formerly governor of the
island of Martinique, was the lieutenant-governor residing at Quebec.
He was not of military rank, so in the absence of Sir Robert
Prescott, then in England, General Hunter, the lieutenant-governor of
Upper Canada, was commander-in-chief of the forces in Canada. The
latter was stationed at York (Toronto) which was, therefore, at that
time headquarters. The population of Lower Canada in 1801 is given
as 160,000. In Haldimand's census of 1784 it was 110,837 of which
108,000 were French Canadians. The towns of Quebec and Montreal were
given as containing each about six thousand inhabitants, of which the
{46} proportion of French to English was two to one. In country
parishes the proportion was forty to one. These were almost
exclusively French; for the families of the English soldiers, who
after the conquest remained in Canada and married French Canadian
wives, had taken the religion and language of the mothers, and were
French in all but in name.
[Sidenote: The French Canadians]
Quebec in the early days of the century remained, as formerly, the
centre of society and civilization in Canada. It had then about
twelve thousand inhabitants, of whom half were English, including the
garrison. The government officials were exclusively English, and, if
report be true, formed a rather arrogant and supercilious set. The
French residents of the upper class, whose very names smacked of the
old _régime_, were still as gay and brilliant as when Frontenac and
de Vaudreuil reigned in the Chateau St. Louis. A glance at a
subscription list of 1799 for a patriotic fund to send to England in
aid of the expenses of her great war with France, shows, however,
that the two races, French and English, dwelt together in amity.
Mingled with the names of Sewell, Forsyth, Molson, Osgoode, Pownell
and Coffin are those of Taschereau, de Boucherville, de Lotbinière,
de Lévis and de Salaberry. The sum of eight thousand pounds was
raised and the contributions came, not only from Quebec and Montreal,
but from the parishes of Trois Rivières and Sorel. Another proof of
the good feeling towards {47} England that existed at the time on the
part of the French inhabitants was that Nelson's victory of the Nile
was celebrated by a solemn mass, and by a Te Deum which was chanted
in the parish churches by order of the bishop. His _mandement_
was:--"Messieurs les curés ne manqueront pas de prendre occasion de
cette fête pour faire sentir vivement à leurs paroissiens les
obligations qu'ils ont au ciel de les avoir mis sous l'empire et la
protection de sa majesté brittannique, et les exhorter tout de
nouveau à s'y maintenir avec fidélité et reconnaissance."[1]
Throughout the most trying days of the administration of Carleton and
Haldimand, the priests and the _seigneurs_ had remained faithful to
British rule. It is probable that the former recognized that under
it their church was more likely to hold its ancient privileges than
under the sway of the new republic.
The administration of Sir Robert Milnes was not favourable to the
continuance of this friendly feeling. He always distrusted the
French Canadians and advised that the militia should be disbanded
because, he said, it was not proper to arm and train the people of a
conquered province. He possibly saw through the eyes of his private
secretary, Ryland, an able but prejudiced man who had a {48} most
pronounced aversion to French Canadians and Roman Catholics.
Colonel Brock was not long allowed to enjoy the society and
comparative comfort of Quebec. His regiment was ordered to the Upper
Province where the greater part of it was stationed at Fort George
under Lieutenant-Colonel Sheaffe, while he himself remained at
headquarters in York.
The long journey from Quebec was accomplished by water, for although
a road had been cut in 1799 from the Bay of Quinte, near Kingston, to
York, and although in 1803 there was a passable highway from Quebec
to Sandwich, a distance of eight hundred miles, yet transport by
water was much easier. No steamboat had as yet been launched on the
St. Lawrence and even the large Durham boat was unknown, but the
_bateau_, about eighteen or twenty feet long and six feet wide, was
in general use. It was capable of carrying about three tons. In
ascending the St. Lawrence there were many rapids to pass and
portages were long and difficult. To avoid these, Governor
Haldimand, in 1784, had designed and built small canals, the first on
the American continent, and the forerunners of those magnificent
canals which have done so much for the development of Canada. When
the river was passed, schooners from Kingston conveyed freight and
passengers by Lake Ontario to York and Niagara.
[Sidenote: United Empire Loyalists]
In Upper Canada there were at this time, 1803, {49} about forty
thousand new settlers, for, in addition to the United Empire
Loyalists, reckoned in 1791 at ten thousand, there had been an
emigration from the north of Scotland and Ireland and also from the
United States, the latter being chiefly of Dutch farmers and Quakers
from Pennsylvania. The number of regular troops in Lower Canada was
a little over two thousand, in Upper Canada about six hundred,
scattered at various posts along the frontier. The settlements in
the Lower Province were on the banks of the St. Lawrence and its
tributary streams. In Upper Canada there were small hamlets on the
shores of Lake Ontario, of which Kingston, York and Niagara were the
principal, and military training-posts at great distances apart on
Lakes Erie and Huron. Trappers, hunters and wandering tribes of
Indians roamed through the vast forests that lay beyond.
So scanty was the population of Upper Canada, and so unknown its
capabilities, that there had been many protests against the division
of the country into Upper and Lower Provinces. The English residents
of Lower Canada wished rather for the total repeal of the Quebec Act
of 1774 and the retention of the old boundaries, and sent Adam
Lymburner, a merchant of Quebec, to represent them in 1791, before a
committee of the House of Commons. In his argument he said there was
no reason for the division of the province, as Niagara must be the
limit of Upper Canada. The country {50} beyond, he represented,
could not be of importance for settlement as the falls of Niagara
would be an insurmountable barrier to the transportation of the
produce of the land. Burke, in parliament, speaking against the
passage of the act, had declaimed against settlement in "the bleak
and barren regions of Canada."
[Sidenote: Lieutenant-Governor Hunter]
In the ten years that followed this protest, despite Lymburner's
prophecy, trade had much increased on the lakes, and had even found
its way west of Lake Erie. Merchandise was brought from Albany by
the Mohawk River, Oneida Lake and the Onondaga River to Oswego, and
then shipped on schooners for Prescott, York and Niagara. There were
ports of entry at Cornwall, Johnstone (Brockville), Amherstburg and
Sandwich. York, the infant capital of the province, was, in 1803,
much smaller than Newark, or Niagara, the former seat of government.
In 1793 there was on its site one solitary Indian wigwam, and
although in ten years the solitary wigwam had multiplied into many
frame and log dwellings of the rudest description, there were as yet
no public buildings of any kind. Lieutenant-Governor Hunter
represented to the government in England that the executive had to
meet in a room in the clerk of the council's house, and the only
place for the meetings of the assembly was a room in a building
originally designed as a residence for the governor. The courts of
law also held their sittings there. The governor asked for {51}
eighty thousand pounds for the purpose of erecting suitable quarters
for the legislature, for various public offices and for courts of
law. He represented also that contributions from England had been
given to erect a Protestant cathedral at Quebec, while the
inhabitants of York had subscribed amongst themselves for a church.
Lieutenant-Governor Hunter, who was in command when Brock arrived at
York, was a Scotsman of whom but little is known except that he had
been governor of Barbadoes. There are few records of his
administration, and he is but a shadowy figure in the annals of the
time. He seems to have lived, as government house was occupied for
offices, in the barracks, which were about two miles west of the
town. These barracks consisted of a wooden blockhouse, and some
cottages of the same material, little better than temporary huts.
Another blockhouse was at the eastern end of the town, and between
were jutting points of land clothed with spreading oak trees. The
harbour was considered the safest on Lake Ontario. The long
peninsula that enclosed the beautiful bay was fringed with trees,
whose reflection in the placid waters was said to have been the
origin of the Indian name Toronto. The wild grape vine threw its
tendrils around them, and in their shade were refreshing springs of
water. Wild fowl made its sandy beaches and reedy marshes their
home, so that it was a very paradise for sportsmen. There were
salmon in the lake and in the rivers {52} that flowed into it, and
game of all kinds abounded in the neighbourhood. A road that had
been cut through the wilderness north of the town by the orders of
Governor Simcoe, led to Cook's Bay, Lake Simcoe, which was
thirty-seven miles distant, and by that lake there was water
communication of seventy miles north to Matchedash Bay on Lake Huron.
Another military highway west of the town led to Coote's Paradise
(Hamilton) and thence to New London on the Thames, thus opening up an
inland way to Lake Erie. Settlers were slowly hewing out homes for
themselves in these remote districts.
[1] Translation.--"The _curés_ will not fail to take the opportunity
afforded by this festival to make their parishioners realize the
obligations they owe to heaven for having placed them under the
empire and protection of His Brittanic Majesty, and to exhort them
anew to maintain themselves in it with fidelity and gratitude."
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