AN UPPER CANADIAN HOUSEHOLD.
The breakfast-room of Pine Towers, on a bright, sunny morning, some
three or four days after the death of its much-respected mistress,
held a large concourse of the notables of York, and other private and
official gentry of the Province. They had come to take part, on the
previous day, in the funeral obsequies; and were now, after a night's
rest and bountiful morning repast, about to return to the Capital.
Among the number gathered to pay respect to the deceased lady's
memory, as well as to show their regard and sympathy for the bereaved
husband, the good old Commodore, were many whose names were "household
words" in the early days of Upper Canada. Sixty years have passed over
the Province since the notable gathering, and all who were then
present have paid the debt of nature. Hushed now as are their voices,
the Macleod breakfast-room, on the morning we have indicated, was a
perfect babel of noise. The solemn pageant of the previous day, and
the sacred griefs of those whom the grim Enemy had made desolate,
seemed at the moment to have been forgotten by the departing throng;
and for a time the young master of Pine Towers, as he bade adieu to
his father's guests, witnessed a scene in sharp contrast to yesterday's
orderly decorum. It was with a sigh of relief that Edward Macleod saw
the last of the miscellaneous vehicles move off, and the final guest
take the road to the bateaux on the lake, to convey him and those who
were returning by water to Holland Landing, there to find the means of
reaching the Capital.
Entering the house, empty now of all but those who were left of its
usual inmates, including his sister's friend, the beautiful
Helene--whom he had hardly had an opportunity to more than greet on
his return from England--an overpowering sense of desolation fell upon
him. Seating himself near his mother's favourite window, the young
man's loneliness and bereavement found vent in tears. All the past
came vividly before him--a mother's life-long devotion and tender
care; her thousand winning ways and loving endearments; her pride in
his future career and prospects; and the recollection of the many
innocent confidences which a mother loves to pour into the ear of a
handsome, grown-up son, whose filial affection and chivalrous devotion
assure her that she still possesses charms to which her husband and
his contemporaries of a previous generation had been wont sedulously
to pay tribute. "Ah, beautiful mother, it is not to-day nor to-morrow
that I shall fully realize that I am to see thee no more on earth,"
said the young man musingly, as he left his seat and strode nervously
up and down the room, while his favourite hound from a rug by the
large open fire-place eyed his agitated movements.
Presently the young man's soliloquies were interrupted by the timid
entrance of his sister, Rose, followed by the more decided and stately
tread of the charming Helene.
"Ah, Edward," said his sister, "you are alone. Have all our guests
gone?"
"Yes," was the reply, "and I am not sorry to have the house again to
ourselves."
"You, of course, include Helene among the latter," observed Rose
interrogatively.
"I do, certainly," was Edward's instant and cordial response, as he
offered Helene his hand to conduct her down the steps into the
conservatory and out on to the lawn. "Miss DeBerczy, of course, is one
of us, though you told me this morning that she, too, expressed a wish
to be gone."
Helene interrupted these remarks with the explanation that her wish to
take leave was owing to a mandate of her mother's which had reached
her that morning.
"We shall all be sorry at your leaving us so soon," was Edward's
courteous rejoinder. "But, when you go," he added, "you must permit me
to accompany you to 'Bellevue,' for I wish to pay my respects to your
mamma; it is a long time now since we met. Besides, I have to deliver
to her the cameos I brought her from England and the family trinkets
your uncle entrusted to my care."
"Mamma, I know, is eager to receive them, and will be delighted to
welcome you back. In her note, by the way, she tells me that Captain
John Franklin has written to her from York, asking permission to call
upon her on his way north. You know that the Arctic Expedition is to
go overland, by way of Penetanguishene and Rupert's Land, and is to
effect a junction with Captain Beechey's party operating from Hudson's
Bay."
"So I learned before I left England," replied Edward. "I hope my
father," he added, "will be able to meet the members of the Expedition.
It would rouse him from his grief, and I know that he takes a great
interest in Captain Franklin's project."
The conversation was now monopolized by the ladies, for Helene took
Rose aside to tell that young lady that her mamma had given her some
news of a young and handsome land-surveyor, of Barrie, of whom she had
heard Rose speak in terms of warm admiration.
The gentleman referred to was Allan Dunlop, who, Helene related, had
been very useful at York to Captain Franklin, in giving him information
as to the route to be followed by his Expedition on its way to the
"hoarse North sea."
Rose visibly coloured as she listened to the young man's praises, in
the extract Helene's mother had enclosed from Captain Franklin's
communication. That young lady protested, however, that Allan Dunlop
was her brother's friend, not hers. "Indeed," she added, "we have only
occasionally met at the Church at Barrie, and I have not even been
introduced to him."
"Ah, and how is it that his name is always on your lips after every
service I hear you have attended across the bay?" queried Helene
archly.
The tints deepened on Rose's sweet, bright face as she apologetically
urged "that at such times there was doubtless nothing better to talk
about."
Happily for Rose the embarrassing conversation was interrupted by the
return of her brother, who rejoined the ladies to say that on the
highway, at the end of the avenue down which he had strolled, a party
of marines and English shipwrights, in command of a naval officer, had
just passed on their way to the post, near Barrie, to proceed on the
morrow by the Notawassaga river to the Georgian Bay, and on to the new
naval station at Penetanguishene. A Mr. Galt, who accompanied the
party, and was on his way to the Canada Land Company's reserve in the
Huron district, had brought him letters from York, among which, he
added, was one from his old friend, Allan Dunlop, condoling with him
on the loss of his mother and sending his respectful compliments to
his father and his family.
"How curious!" observed Helene, "why, we've just been talking of Mr.
Dunlop."
"You mean to say," interposed Rose, "that _you_ have just been talking
of him."
"Well! that is quite a coincidence, Miss DeBerczy, but do you know my
friend?" asked Edward.
"No, I've not that pleasure," replied the beautiful Huguenot, "but
your sister, I believe, knows him--"
"Oh, Helene! I do _not_!" said Rose, interruptingly.
Edward turned towards his sister, and for a moment regarded her
lovingly. After a pause, he said, "Well, Sis, if you _do_ know him,
you know one of the best and most promising of my early acquaintances,
and from what I have heard of him since my return, I feel that I want
to improve my own acquaintance with him, and shall not be sorry to
know that he has become your friend as well as mine."
"But, Edward, you must wait till I _do_ know him," said Rose with some
emphasis. "I know your friend by sight only, and have never spoken to
him; though, I confess, I have heard a good deal of him in the recent
election, and much that is favourable, though papa has taken a great
dislike to him on account of his political opinions."
"Ah, papa's Tory prejudices would be sure to do injustice to Dunlop,"
Edward rejoined; "but, I fear," he added, "there is need in the
political arena of Upper Canada of just such a Reformer as he."
At this stage of the conversation the old Commodore was observed on
the veranda, and Tredway approached the group to announce that lunch
was on the table.
Commodore Macleod, as may be inferred from his son's remark about his
father's Tory prejudices, was a Tory of the old school, a member of
the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, and a firm ally and stiff
upholder of the Provincial Executive, who had earned for themselves,
by their autocratic rule, the rather sinister designation of "the
Family Compact." As a trusted friend and loyal supporter of the
oligarchy of the day, whom a well-known radical who figured prominently
in the later history of the Province was wont to speak of as that army
of placemen and pensioners, "Paymasters, Receivers, Auditors, King,
Lords and Commons, who swallowed the whole revenue of Upper
Canada"--the reference to a man of the type of young Dunlop, who
aspired to political honours, was particularly distasteful, and sure
to bring upon the object of his bitter animadversion the full vials of
his wrath.
Ralph Macleod was a grand specimen of the sturdy British seamen, who
contributed by their prowess to make England mistress of the seas. He
entered the navy during the war with Holland, and served under Lord
Howe, when that old "sea-dog," in 1782, came to the relief of
Gibraltar, against the combined forces of France and Spain. He served
subsequently under Lord Rodney, in the West Indies, and was a shipmate
of Nelson's in Sir John Jervis' victory over the Spanish fleet off
Cape St. Vincent. For his share in that action Macleod gained his
captaincy, while his friend Commodore Nelson was made a Rear-Admiral.
In 1797 he was wounded at Camperdown while serving under Admiral
Duncan, and retired with the rank of Commodore.
Early in the century, he married an English lady and came to Canada,
where for a time he held various posts on the naval stations on the
Lakes, and was with Barclay, on his flagship, _The Detroit_, in the
disaster on Lake Erie, in September, 1813. Narrowly escaping capture
by Commander Perry's forces at Put-in-Bay, he joined General Proctor
in his retreat from Amherstburg to the Thames, and was present at the
battle of Moravian Town, where the Indian chief, Tecumseh, lost his
life.
When the Treaty of Ghent terminated the war and left Canada in
possession of her own, Commodore Macleod, with other old naval
officers, retired from the service, and took grants of land in the
neighbourhood of Lake Simcoe. Being possessed of considerable private
means, the Commodore built a palatial residence on the borders of that
lake, and varied the monotony of a life ashore by an engrossing
interest in politics and the active duties of a Legislative Councillor.
The illness of his wife, to whom he was devoted, had in the past two
years almost entirely withdrawn him from political life, and lost to
his colleagues in the Upper House the services of one who took grim
pleasure in strangling bills obnoxious to the dominant faction which
originated in the Lower Chamber. His temporary withdrawal from the
Legislative Council, and the lengthened absence in England of Dr.
Strachan, that sturdy ecclesiastic who was long the ruling spirit of
the "Family Compact," emboldened the leaders of Reform to inveigh
against the Hydra-headed abuses of the time, and sow broadcast the
dragon-teeth of discontent and the seeds of a speedy harvest of
sedition.
Already, Wm. Lyon Mackenzie had unfolded, in the lively columns of
_The Colonial Advocate_, his "plentiful crop of grievances;" while the
harsh operations of the Alien Act, the interdicting of immigrants from
the United States, the arrogant claims of the Anglican Church to the
exclusive possession of the Clergy Reserves, and the jobbery and
corruption that prevailed in the Land-granting Department of the
Government, all contributed to fan the flame of discontent and sap the
loyalty of the colony. In the Legislative Assembly each recurring
session added to the clamour of opposition, and emphasized the demand
for Responsible Government and Popular Rights. But as yet such demands
were looked upon as the ravings of lunacy or the impertinences of
treason. Constitutional Government, even in the mother-land, was not
yet fully attained; and, in a distant dependency, it was not to be
expected that the prerogative of the Crown, or the rights and
privileges of its nominee, an irresponsible Executive, were to be made
subordinate to the will of the people. "Take care what you are about
in Canada," were the irate words William IV. hurled at his ministers,
some few years after the period of which we are writing. "By--!" added
this constitutional monarch, "I will never consent to alienate the
Crown Lands nor to make the Council elective."
With such outbursts of royal petulance and old-time kingcraft, and
similar ebullitions from Downing Street, exhorting the Upper Canadian
Administration to hold tight the reins of government, the reforming
spirit of the period had a hard time of it in entering on its many
years conflict with an arrogant and bureaucratic Executive. Of many of
the members of the ruling faction of the time it may not become us now
to speak harshly, for most of them were men of education and
refinement, and in their day did good service to the State. If, in the
exercise of their office, they lacked consideration at times for the
less favoured of their fellow-colonists, they had the instincts and
bearing of gentlemen, save, it may be, when, in conclave, occasion
drove them to a violent and contemptuous opposition to the will of the
people. But men--most of all politicians--naturally defend the
privileges which, they enjoy; and the exceptional circumstances of the
country seemed at the time to give to the holders of office a
prescriptive right to their position and emoluments.
At the period of which we are writing, there was much need of wise
moderation on the side of the governed as well as on that of the
governing class. But of moderation there was little; and the nature of
the evils complained of, the non-conciliatory attitude of the ruling
oligarchy, and the licence which a "Free Press,"--recently introduced
into the colony,--gave in formulating charges of corruption, and in
loosening the tongue of invective, made it almost impossible to
discuss affairs of State, save in the heated terms familiar to
irritated and incensed combatants. It was at this period that the
young land-surveyor, Allan Dunlop, entered the Legislative Assembly
and took his seat as member for the Northern division of the Home
District. Though warmly espousing the cause of the people in the
ever-recurring collisions with the different branches of the
Government, and as warmly asserting the rights and privileges of the
popular Chamber in its struggles with the autocracy of the Upper
House, the young Parliamentarian was equally jealous of the reasonable
prerogative of the Crown, and temperate in the language he used when
he had occasion to decry its abuse. He was one of the few in the
Legislature who, while they recognized that the old system of
government was becoming less and less suited to the genius and wants
of the young Canadian community, at the same time wished to usher in
the new _regime_ with the moderation and tact which mark the work of
the thoughtful politician and the aims of the true statesman. It has
been said that one never knows what is inside a politician. What was
inside the Reformer, Allan Dunlop, was all that became a patriot and
a high-minded gentleman.