FROM 1820 TO 1867
How the Family Compact worked--The old order changeth--"Loyalty
cry"--Gourley driven mad--Richmond's tragic death--Patriots of the
plow--Defeat of patriots--Duncombe's escape--Execution of
patriots--Bloodshed in Quebec--Chenier's tragic death--Durham gives
Canada a Magna Charta--Confederation--What of the future
It will be recalled that on the coming of the United Empire Loyalists
to Canada, the form of government was changed by the Constitutional Act
of 1791, dividing the country into Upper and Lower Canada, the
government of each province to consist of a governor, the legislative
council, and the assembly. Unfortunately, self-government for the
colonies was not yet a recognized principle of English rule. While the
assemblies of the two provinces were elected by the people, the power
of the assemblies was practically a blank, for the governor and council
were the real rulers, and they were appointed by the Crown, which meant
Downing Street, which meant in turn that the two Canadas were regarded
as the happy hunting ground for incompetent office seekers of the great
English parties. From the governor general to the most insignificant
postal clerk, all were appointed from Downing Street. Influence, not
merit, counted, which perhaps explains why one can count on the fingers
of one hand the number of governors and lieutenants from 1791 to 1841
who were worthy of their trust and did not disgrace their position by
blunders that were simply notorious. Prevost's disgraceful retreat
from Lake Champlain in the War of 1812 is a typical example of the
mischief a political jobber can work when placed in position of trust;
but the life-and-death struggle of the war prevented the people turning
their attention to questions of misgovernment, and it is hardly an
exaggeration to say that the Act of 1791 reduced Canadian affairs to
the chaos of a second Ireland and retarded the progress of the country
for a century.
It has become customary for English writers to slur over the disorders
of 1837 as the results of the ignorant rabble following {411} the bad
advice of the hot-heads, MacKenzie and Papineau; but it is worth
remembering that everything the rabble fought for, and hanged for, has
since been incorporated in Canada's constitution as the very woof and
warp of responsible government.
Let us see how the system worked out in detail.
After the War of 1812 Prevost dies before court-martial can pronounce
on his misconduct at Plattsburg, and Sir Gorden Drummond, the hero of
Fort Erie's siege, is sworn in.
Canada is governed from Downing Street, and it is my Lord Bathurst's
brilliant idea that forever after the war there shall be a belt of
twenty miles left waste forest and prairie between Canada and the
United States, presumably to prevent democracy rolling across the
northern boundary. Fortunately the rough horse sense of the
frontiersman is wiser than the wisdom of the British statesman, and
settlement continues along the boundary in spite of Bathurst's
brilliant idea.
Those who fought in the War of 1812 are to be rewarded by grants of
land,--rewarded, of course, by the Crown, which means the Governor; but
the Governor must listen to the advice of his councilors, who are
appointed for life; and to the heroes of 1812 the councilors grant
fifty acres apiece, while to themselves the said councilors vote grants
of land running from twenty thousand to eighty thousand acres apiece.
After the war it is agreed that neither Canada nor the United States
shall keep war vessels on the lakes, except such cruisers as shall be
necessary to maintain order among the fisheries; but the credit for
this wise arrangement does not belong to the councils at Toronto or
Quebec, for the suggestions came from Washington.
As the legislative councilors are appointed for life, they control
enormous patronage, recommending all appointments to government
positions and meeting any applicants for office, who are outside the
"_family_" ring, with the curt refusal that has become famous for its
insolence, "_no one but a gentleman_."
Judges are appointed by favor. So are local magistrates. So are
collectors at the different ports of entry. Smaller cities like {412}
Kingston are year after year refused incorporation, because
incorporation would confer self-government, and that would oust members
of the "_family compact_" who held positions in these places.
Officeholders are responsible to the Crown only, not to the people.
Therefore when Receiver General Caldwell of Quebec does away with
96,000 pounds, or two years' revenue of Lower Canada, he accounts for
the defalcation to his friends with the explanation of unlucky
investments, and goes scot free.
Quebec is a French province, but appointments are made in England; so
that out of 71,000 pounds paid to its civil servants 58,000 pounds go
to the English officeholders, 13,000 pounds to French; out of 36,000
pounds paid to judges only 8,000 pounds go to the French.
And in Upper Canada, Ontario, it was even worse. In Quebec there was
always the division of French against English, and Catholic against
Protestant; but in Upper Canada "_the family compact_" of councilors
against commoners was a solid and unbroken ring. When the assembly
raises objections to some items of expense sent down by the council,
writes Lieutenant Governor Simcoe in high dudgeon, "I will send the
rascals," meaning the commoners, "packing about their business," and he
prorogues the House.
Not all the governors and their lieutenants are as foolishly blind to
the faults of the system as Simcoe of Ontario. Sir John Sherbrooke of
Quebec, who succeeds Drummond in Lower Canada, knows very well he is
surrounded by a pack of thieves; but they are his councilors, appointed
for life, and there he is, bound to abide by their advice.
Nevertheless, he kicks over traces vigorously now and then, like the
old war horse that he is. The commissary general comes to him with
word that 600 pounds is missing from the military chest, and he needs a
warrant for search.
"Search, indeed!" roars Sir John. "There's not the slightest need!
Whenever there is a robbery in _your_ department, it is among
yourselves! Go and find it!"
{413}
[Illustration: SIR JOHN SHERBROOKE, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
1816-1818]
Curious it is how good men reared in the old school, where the masses
exist for the benefit of the classes and the governed are to be allowed
to exist only by favor of those who govern--curious how good men fail
to read the sign of the times. Colonel Tom Talbot's settlement in West
Ontario has, by 1832, increased to 50,000 people, and the mad
harum-scarum of court days is becoming an old man. Talbot has been a
legislative councilor for life, but it is not on record that he ever
attended the council in Toronto. Still he views with high disfavor
this universal discontent with "being governed." The secret meetings
held to agitate for responsible government, Tom Talbot regards as "a
pestilence" leading on to the worst disease from which humanity can
suffer, namely, democracy. The old bear stirs uneasily in his lair, as
reports come in of louder and louder demands that the colony shall be
_permitted to govern itself_. What would become of kings and colonels
and land grants by special favor, if colonies governed themselves?
Colonel Tom Talbot doffs his homespun and his coon cap, and he dons the
satin ruffles of twenty-five years ago, and he mounts his steed and he
rides pompously forth to the market place of St. Thomas Town on St.
George's Day of 1832. Bands play; flags wave; the country people from
twenty miles round come riding to town. Banners {414} inscribed with
"Loyalty to the Constitution" are carried at the head of parades. The
venerable old colonel is greeted with burst after burst of shouting as
he comes prancing on horseback up the hill. The band plays "the
British Grenadiers." The Highland bagpipes skurl a welcome. Then the
old man mounts the rostrum and delivers a speech that ought to be
famous as an exposition of good old Tory doctrine:
Some black sheep have slipped into my flock, and very black they are,
and what is worse, they have got the rot, a distemper not known in this
settlement till some I shall call for short "rebels" began their work
of darkness under cover of organizing Blanked Cold Water Drinking
Societies, where they meet at night to communicate their poisonous
schemes and circulate the infection and delude the unwary! Then they
assumed a more daring aspect under mask of a grievance petition, which,
when it was placed before me, I would not take the trouble to read,
being aware it was trash founded on falsehood, fabricated to create
discontent.
At the end of a half hour's tirade, of which these lines are a sample,
the good old Tory raised his hands, and in the words of the Church's
benediction blessed his people and prayed Heaven to keep their minds
untainted by sedition.
Looking back less than a century, it is almost impossible to believe
that the colonel's speech--it cannot be called reasoning--was applauded
to the echo and regarded as a masterly justification of people "being
governed" rather than governing themselves.
Perhaps, after all, it was not so much the Constitution of Canada that
caused the conflict as the clash between the old-time feudalism and the
spirit of modern, aggressive democracy. The United States _fought_
this question out in 1776. Canada _wrestled_, it cannot be called a
_fight_, the same question out in 1837.
It is necessary to give one or two cases of individual persecution to
understand how the disorders flamed to open rebellion.
One Matthews, an officer of the 1812 War, living on a pension, had
incurred the distrust of the governing ring by expressing sympathy with
the agitators. Now to be an agitator was bad enough in the eyes of
"_the family compact_," but for one of their {415} own social circle to
sympathize with the outsiders was, to the snobocracy clique of the
little city of ten thousand at Toronto, almost an unpardonable sin.
Such sins were punished by social ostracism, by the grand dames of
Toronto not inviting the officer's wife to social functions, by the
families of the upper clique literally freezing the sinner's children
out of the foremost circles of social life. Many a Canadian family is
proud to trace lineage back to some old lady of this tempestuous
period, whose only claim to recognition is that she waged petty
persecution against the heroes of Canadian progress. Now the annals of
the times do not record that this special sinner's wife and children so
suffered. At all events Matthews' spirits were not cast down by social
snobbery. He continued to sympathize with the agitators. The "_family
compact_" bided their time, and their time came a few months later,
when a company of American actors came to Toronto. A band concert had
been given. When the British national air struck up, all hats were
off. Then some one called for "Yankee Doodle," and in compliment to
the visitors, when the American air struck up, Matthews shouted out for
"hats off." For this sin the legislative council ordered the
lieutenant governor to cut off Matthews' pension, and, to the
everlasting shame of Sir Peregrine Maitland, the advice was taken,
though Matthews had twenty-seven years of service to his credit.
Matthews appealed to England, and his pension was restored, so that in
this case "_the family compact_" for political reasons was pretending
to be more British than Great Britain. It was not to be the last
occasion on which "the loyalty cry" was to be used as a political dodge.
The persecution of Robert Gourlay was yet more outrageous.
He had come to Canada soon after the War of 1812, and in the course of
collecting statistics for a book on the colony was quick to realize how
Canada's progress was being literally gagged by the policy of the
ruling clique. Gourlay attacked the local magistrates in the press.
He pointed out that the land grants were notorious. He advocated
bombarding the evils from two sides at once, by appealing to the home
government and by {416} holding local conventions of protest. The pass
to which things had come may be realized by the attitude of the
council. It held that the colony must hold no communications with the
imperial government except through the Governor General; in other
words, individual appeals not passing through the hands of the
legislative council were to be regarded as illegal. It is sad to have
to acknowledge that such a palpably dishonest measure was ever
countenanced by people in their right minds. But "_the family
compact_" went a step farther. It passed an order forbidding meetings
to discuss public grievances. This part of Canada's story reads more
like Russia than America, and shows to what length men will go when
special privileges rather than equal rights prevail in a country.
Gourlay met these infamous measures by penning some witty doggerel,
headed "Gagged, gagged, by Jingo!" The editor in whose paper Gourlay's
writings had appeared, was arrested, and the offending sheet was
compelled to suspend. Gourlay himself is arrested for sedition and
libel at least four times, but each time the jury acquits him. At any
cost the governing clique must get rid of this scribbling fellow, whose
pen voices the rising discontent. An alien act, passed before the War
of 1812, compelling the deportation of seditious persons, is revived.
Under the terms of the act Gourlay is arrested, tried, and sentenced to
be exiled, but Gourlay declares he is not an alien. He is a British
subject, and he refuses to leave the country. He is thrown in jail at
Niagara, and for a year and a half left in a moldy, close cell. One
dislikes to write that this outrage on British justice was perpetrated
under Chief Justice Powell, whose failure to obtain decisions from the
jury in the Red River trials brought down such harsh criticism on the
bench. At the end of twenty months Gourlay is again hauled before the
jury and sentenced to deportation on pain of death if he refuses. He
was calmly asked if he had anything to say, if there were any reason
why sentence should not be pronounced.
"Anything . . . to . . . say? Any reason . . . why . . .
sentence . . . should not be pronounced?" From 1818 to 1820 {417}
Gourlay had been having things "to say," had been giving good and
sufficient reasons why sentence should not be pronounced! The question
is repeated: "Robert Gourlay stand up! Have you anything to say?" The
court waits, Chief Justice Powell, bewigged and wearing his grandest
manner, all unconscious that the scene is to go down to history with
blot of ignominy against _his_ name, not Gourlay's.
Gourlay's face twitches, and he breaks into shrieks of maniacal
laughter. The petty persecutions of a provincial tyranny have driven a
man, who is true patriot, out of his mind. As Gourlay drops out of
Canada's story here, it may be added that the English government later
pronounced the whole trial an outrage, and Gourlay was invited back to
Canada.
If at this stage a man had come to Canada as governor, big enough and
just enough to realize that colonies had some rights, there might have
been remedy; for the imperial government, eager to right the wrong, was
misled by the legislative councilors, and all at sea as to the source
of the trouble. While men were being actually driven out of Canada by
the governing ring on the charge of disloyalty, the colonial minister
of England was sending secret dispatches to the Governor General,
instructing him plainly that if independence was what Canada wanted,
then the mother country, rather than risk a second war with the United
States, or press conclusions with the Canadas themselves, would
willingly cede independence. It is as well to be emphatic and clear on
this point. _It was not the tyranny of England that caused the
troubles of 1837_. It was the dishonesty of the ruling rings at Quebec
and Toronto, and this dishonesty was possible because of the
Constitutional Act of 1791.
Unfortunately, just when imperial statesmen of the modern school were
needed, governors of the old school were appointed to Canada. After
Sir John Sherbrooke came the Duke of Richmond to Quebec, and his
son-in-law, Sir Peregrine Maitland, as lieutenant governor to Ontario.
Men of more courtly manners never graced the vice-regal chairs of
Quebec and Toronto. {418} Richmond, who was some fifty years of age,
had won notoriety in his early days by a duel with a prince of the
blood royal, honor on both sides being satisfied by Richmond shooting
away a curl from the royal brow; but presto, an Irish barrister takes
up the quarrel by challenging Richmond to a second duel for having
dared to fight a prince; and here Richmond satisfies claims of honor by
a well-directed ball aimed to wound, not kill. Long years after, when
the duke became viceroy of Ireland, the Irishman appeared at one of
Richmond's state balls.
"Hah," laughed the barrister, "the last time we met, your Grace gave
_me_ a ball."
"Best give you a brace of 'em now," retorted the witty Richmond; and he
sent his quondam foe invitation to two more balls.
Richmond it was who gave the famous ball before the defeat of Napoleon
at Waterloo. The story of his daughter's love match with Sir Peregrine
Maitland is of a piece with the rest of the romance in Richmond's life.
Richmond and Maitland had been friends in the army, but when the duke
began to observe that his daughter, Lady Sarah, and the younger man
were falling in love, he thought to discourage the union with a poor
man by omitting Maitland's name from invitation lists. When Lady Sarah
came downstairs to a ball she surmised that Maitland had not been
invited, and, withdrawing from the assembled guests, drove to her
lover's apartments. She married Maitland without her father's consent,
but a reconciliation had been patched up. Father and son-in-law now
came to Canada as governor and lieutenant governor.
The military and social life of both unfitted them to appreciate the
conditions in Canada. Socially both were the lions of the hour. As a
man and gentleman Richmond was simply adored, and Quebec's love of all
the pomp of monarchy was glutted to the full. No more distinguished
governor ever played host in the old Château St. Louis; but as rulers,
as pacifiers, as guides of the ship of state, Richmond and Maitland
were dismal failures. To them Canada's demand for responsible {419}
government seemed the rallying cry of an impending republic. "We must
overcome democracy or it will overcome us," pronounced Richmond. He
failed to see that resistance to the demand for self-government would
bring about the same results in Canada as resistance had brought about
in the United States, and he could not guess--for the thing was new in
the world's history--that the grant of self-government would but bind
the colony the closer to the mother land.
[Illustration: THE FOURTH DUKE OF RICHMOND, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
1818-1819]
It is sad to write of two such high-minded, well-intentioned rulers,
that the worst acts of misgovernment in Canada took place in their
régime.
Richmond's death was as unusual as his life. Two accounts are given of
the cause. One states that he permitted a pet dog to touch a cut in
his face. The other account has it that he was bitten by a tame fox at
a fair in Sorel, and the date of Richmond's death, late in August of
1819, exactly two months from the time he was bitten at Sorel,--which
is the length of time that hydrophobia takes to develop in a grown
person,--would seem to substantiate the latter story. He was traveling
on horseback from Perth to Richmond, on the Ottawa, and had complained
of feeling poorly. A small stream had to be crossed. The sight of the
stream brought the strange water delirium to Richmond, when he begged
his attendants to take him quickly to Montreal. It need scarcely be
explained here that hydrophobia {420} is not caused by lack of water,
but by contagious transmission. The feeling passed, as the first
terrors of the disease are usually spasmodic, and the Governor was
proceeding through the woods with his attendants, when he suddenly
broke away deliriously, leading them a wild race to a farm shed. There
he died during the night, crying out as the lucid intervals broke the
delirium of his agonies: "For shame! for shame Lenox! Richmond, be a
man! Can you not bear it?"
Public affairs are meanwhile passing from bad to worse. William Lyon
MacKenzie has become leader of the agitators in his newspaper, _The
Advocate_, of Toronto. A band of young vandals, sons of the ruling
clique, wreck his newspaper office and throw the type into Toronto Bay,
but MacKenzie recovers $3000 damages and goes on agitating. Four times
he is publicly expelled from the House, and four times he is returned
by the electors. What are they asking, these agitators, branded as
rebels, expelled from the assembly, in some cases cast in prison by the
councilors, in others threatened with death?
Control of public revenues.
Reform in the land system.
Municipal rights for towns and cities.
The exclusion of judges from Parliament.
That the council be directly responsible to the people
rather than the Crown.
Since 1818 the reformers have been agitating to have wrongs righted,
and for nineteen years the clique has prevented official inquiry,
gagged the press, bludgeoned conventions out of existence, and thrown
leaders of opposition in prison.
MacKenzie now makes the mistake of publishing in his papers a letter
from the English radical Hume, advocating the freedom of Canada "from
the baneful domination of the mother country." At once, with a jingo
whoop, the loyalty cry is emitted by "_the family compact_." Is not
this what they have been telling the Governor from the first,--these
reformers are republicans in {421} disguise? By trickery and
manipulation they swing the next election so that MacKenzie is
defeated. From that moment MacKenzie's tone changed. It may be that,
losing all hope of reform, he became a republican. If this were
treason, then the English ministers, who were advocating the same
remedy, were guilty of the same treason. With MacKenzie, secretly and
openly, are a host of sympathizers,--Dr. Rolph, Tom Talbot's old
friend, come up from the London district to practice medicine in
Toronto, and Van Egmond, who has helped to settle the Huron Tract of
the Canada Company, founded by John Galt, the novelist, and some four
thousand others whose names MacKenzie has on a list in his carpet bag.
[Illustration: WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE]
All the autumn of 1837 Fitzgibbons, now commander of the troops in
Toronto, hears vague rumors of farmers secretly drilling, of workmen
extemporizing swords out of scythes, of old soldiers furbishing up
their arms of the 1812 War. What does it mean? Sir Francis Bond Head,
the new governor of Ontario, refuses to believe his own ears. Neither
does _the family compact_ realize that there is any danger to their
long tenure of power. They affect to sneer at these poor patriots of
the plow, little dreaming that the rights which these poor patriots of
the scythe swords are burning to defend, will, by and by, be the pride
of England's colonial system. The story of plot and counter plot
cannot be told in detail here; it is too {422} long. But on the night
of Monday, December 4, Toronto wakes up to a wild ringing of college
bells. The rebel patriots have collected at Montgomery's Tavern
outside Toronto, and are advancing on the city.
Poor MacKenzie's plans have gone all awry. Four thousand patriots had
pledged themselves to assemble at the tavern on December 7, but Dr.
Rolph, or some other friend in the city, sends word that the date has
been discovered. The only hope of seizing the city is for them to come
sooner; and MacKenzie arrives at the tavern on December 3, with only a
few hundred followers, who have neither food nor firearms; and I doubt
much if they had even definite plans; of such there are no records.
Before Van Egmond comes from Seaforth, doubt and dissension and
distrust of success depress the insurgents; and it does n't help their
spirits any to have four Toronto scouts break through their lines in
the dark and back again with word of their weakness, though they plant
a fatal bullet neatly in the back of one poor loyalist. If they had
advanced promptly on the 4th, as planned, they might have given Sir
Francis Bond Head and Fitzgibbons a stiff tussle for possession of the
city, for Toronto's defenders at this time numbered scarcely three
hundred; but during the days MacKenzie's followers delayed north of
Yonge Street, Allan McNab came up from Hamilton with more troops. By
Wednesday, the 6th, there were twelve hundred loyalist troops in
Toronto; and noon of the 7th, out marches the loyalist army by way of
Yonge Street, bands playing, flags flying, horses prancing under
Fitzgibbons and McNab. It was a warm, sunny day. From the windows of
Yonge Street women waved handkerchiefs and cheered. At street corners
the rabble shouted itself hoarse, just as it would have cheered
MacKenzie had he come down Yonge Street victorious.
MacKenzie's sentries had warned the insurgents of the loyalists'
coming. MacKenzie was for immediate advance. Van Egmond thought it
stark madness for five hundred poorly armed men to meet twelve hundred
troopers in pitched battle; but it was too late now for stark madness
to retreat. The loyalist {423} bands could be heard from Rosedale; the
loyalists' bayonets could be seen glittering in the sun. MacKenzie
posted his men a short distance south of the tavern in some woods; one
hundred and fifty on one side of the road west of Yonge Street, one
hundred on the other side. The rest of the insurgents, being without
arms, did not leave the rendezvous. In the confusion and haste the
tragic mistake was made of leaving MacKenzie's carpet bag with the list
of patriots at the tavern. This gave the loyalists a complete roster
of the agitators' names.
[Illustration: ALLAN McNAB]
Fifteen minutes later it was all over with MacKenzie. The big guns of
the Toronto troops shelled the woods, killing one patriot rebel and
wounding eleven, four fatally. In answer, only a clattering spatter of
shots came from the rebel side. The patriots were in headlong flight
with the mounted men of Toronto in pursuit.
It was over with MacKenzie, but, as the sequence of events will show,
it was not all over with the cause. A book of soldiers' yarns might be
told of hairbreadth escapes, the aftermath of the rebellion. Knowing
his side was doomed to defeat, Dr. Rolph tried to escape from Toronto.
He was stopped by a loyalist sentry, but explained he was leaving the
city to visit a patient. Farther on he had been arrested by a loyalist
picket, when luckily a young doctor who had attended Rolph's medical
lectures, all unconscious of MacKenzie's plot, vouched for his {424}
loyalty. Riding like a madman all that night, Rolph reached Niagara
and escaped to the American frontier. A reward of 1000 pounds had been
offered for MacKenzie dead or alive. He had waited only till his
followers fled, when he mounted his big bay horse and galloped for the
woods, pursued by Fitzgibbons' men. The big bay carried him safely to
the country, where he wandered openly for four days. It speaks volumes
for the stanch fidelity of the country people to the cause which
MacKenzie represented, that during these wanderings he was unbetrayed,
spite of the 1000 pounds reward. Finally he too succeeded in crossing
Niagara. Van Egmond was captured north of Yonge Street, but died from
disease contracted in his prison cell before he could be tried. Lount,
another of the leaders, had succeeded in reaching Long Point, Lake
Erie. With a fellow patriot, a French voyageur, and a boy, he started
to cross Lake Erie in an open boat. It was wintry, stormy weather.
For two days and two nights the boat tossed, a plaything of the waves,
the drenching spray freezing as it fell, till the craft was almost
ice-logged. For food they had brought only a small piece of meat, and
this had frozen so hard that their numbed hands could not break it.
Weakening at each oar stroke, they at last saw the south shore of Lake
Erie rise on the sky line; but before the close-muffled refugees had
dared to hope for safety on the American side, a strong south wind had
sprung up that drove the boat back across the lake towards Grand River.
To remain exposed longer meant certain death. They landed, were
mistaken for smugglers, and thrown into jail, where Lount was at once
recognized.
In West Ontario one Dr. Duncombe had acted as MacKenzie's lieutenant.
Allan McNab had come west with six hundred men to suppress the
rebellion. Realizing the hopelessness of further resistance, Duncombe
had tried to save his men by ordering them to disperse to their homes.
He himself, with his white horse, took to the woods, where he lay in
hiding all day--and it was a Canadian December--and foraged at night
for berries and roots. Judge Ermatinger gives the graphic story of
{425} Duncombe's escape. Starvation drove him to the house of a
friend. The friend was out, and when the wife asked who he was,
Duncombe laid his revolver on the table and made answer, "I am
Duncombe; and I must have food." Here he lay disguised so completely
with nightcap, nightdress, and all, as the visiting grandmother of the
family, that loyalists who saw his white horse and came in to search
the house, looked squarely at the recumbent figure beneath the
bedclothes and did not recognize him. Duncombe at last reached his
sister's home near London.
"Don't you know me?" he asked, standing in the open door, waiting for
her recognition. In the few weeks of exposure and pursuit his hair had
turned snow-white.
His friends suggested that he cross to the American frontier dressed as
a woman, and the disguise was so perfect, curls of his sister's hair
bobbing from beneath his bonnet, that two loyalist soldiers gallantly
escorted the lady's sleigh across unsafe places in the ice. Duncombe
waited till he was well on the American side, and his escorts on the
way back to Sarnia. Then he emitted a yell over the back of the
cutter, "Go tell your officers you have just helped Dr. Duncombe
across!"
Having lost the fight for a cause which events have since justified, it
is not surprising that the patriots on the American frontier now lost
their heads. They formed organizations from Detroit to Vermont for the
invasion of Canada and the establishment of a republic. These bands
were known as "Hunter's Lodges." Rolph and Duncombe repudiated
connection with them, but MacKenzie was head and heart for armed
invasion from Buffalo. Space forbids the story of these raids. They
would fill a book with such thrilling tales as make up the border wars
of Scotland.
The tumultuous year of 1837 closed with the burning of the _Caroline_.
MacKenzie had taken up quarters on Navy Island in Niagara River. The
_Caroline_, an American ship, was being employed to convey guns and
provisions to the insurgents' camp. On the Canadian side of the river
camped Allan McNab with {426} twenty-five hundred loyalist troops.
Looking across the river with field glasses, McNab sees the boat
landing field guns on Navy Island for MacKenzie.
"I say," exclaims the future Sir Allan, "this won't do! Can't you cut
that vessel out, Drew?" addressing a young officer.
"Nothing easier," answers Drew.
"Do it, then," orders McNab.
In spite of the fact "nothing was easier," Drew's men came near
disaster on their midnight escapade. The river below Navy Island was
three miles wide, and only a mile and a half from the rapids above the
Falls, with a current like a mill race. Secretly seven boats, with
four men in each, set out at half past eleven, a few friends on the
river bank wishing Drew Godspeed. Out from shore Drew draws his boats
together, and tells the men the perilous task they have to do: if any
one wishes to go back let him do so now. Not a man speaks. Halfway
across, firing from the island drives two of the boats back. The rest
get under shadow from the bright moonlight and go on. The roar of the
Falls now became deafening, and some of the rowers called out they were
being drawn down the center of the river astern. Drew fastens his eyes
on a light against the American shore to judge of their progress. For
a moment, though the men were rowing with all their might, the light
ashore and the boats in mid-river seemed to remain absolutely still.
Finally the boats gained an oar's length. Then a mighty pull, and all
forge ahead. A strip of land hides approach to the _Caroline_. The
Canadian boatmen lie in hiding till the moon goes down, then glide in
on the _Caroline_, when Drew mounts the decks. Three unarmed men are
found on the shore side. Drew orders them to land. One fires
point-blank; Drew slashes him down with a single saber cut. The rest
of the crew are roused from sleep and sent ashore. The _Caroline_ is
set on fire in four places. She is moored to the shore ice; axes chop
her free. She is adrift; Drew the last to jump from her flaming decks
to his place in the small boats. The flames are seen from the Canadian
side, and huge bonfires light up the Canadian shore; by their gleam
{427} Drew steers back for McNab's army, and is welcomed with cheers
that split the welkin. Slowly the flaming vessel drifted down the
channel to the Falls. Suddenly the lights went out; the _Caroline_ had
either sunk on a reef or gone over the Falls. One man had been killed
on the decks. As the vessel was American, and had been raided in
American ports, the episode raised an international dispute that might
in another mood have caused war.
Lount and Matthews pay for the rebellion on the gallows, upon which the
imperial government expressed regret that the Toronto Executive "found
such severity necessary." Later, when "the Hunters' Lodges" raid
Prescott, and Van Shoultz, the Polish leader, with nine others, is
executed at Kingston, a great revulsion of feeling takes place against
_the family compact_. The execution of the patriots did more for their
cause than all their efforts of twenty years. The Canadian people had
supported the agitators up to the point of armed rebellion. That gave
British blood pause, for the Britisher reveres the law next to God; but
when the governing ring began to glut its vengeance under cloak of
loyalty that was another matter. After the execution of Lount and
Matthews _the family compact_ could scarcely count a friend outside its
own circle in Upper Canada. It is worth remembering that the young
lawyer who defended Van Shoultz in the trial at Kingston was a John A.
Macdonald, who later took foremost part in framing a new constitution
for Canada.
Affairs had gone faster in Quebec. There the rebellion almost became
war. Papineau was leader of the agitators,--Papineau, fiery,
impetuous, eloquent, followed by the bold boys in the bonnets blue,
marching the streets of Montreal singing revolutionary songs and
planting liberty trees. In Lower Canada, too, things have come to the
pass where the agitators advocate armed resistance. From the first, in
Quebec, the struggle has waged round two questions,--the exclusion of
the French from the council, and the right of the colony to spend its
own revenues; but boil down the ninety-two resolutions of 1834, and the
demands {428} of the agitators in Lower Canada are the same as in Upper
Canada, for complete self-government. A dozen clashes of authority
lead up to the final outbreak. For instance, the House elects
Papineau, the agitator, speaker. The Governor General refuses to
recognize him, and Parliament is dissolved.
Failing to obtain redress by constitutional methods, the agitators now
advocate the right of a colony to abolish government unsuited to it.
The constitutional party takes alarm and organizes volunteers.
Papineau's party, early in 1837, begin violently advocating that all
French magistrates resign their commissions from the English
government. On Richelieu River and up in Two Mountains, north of
Montreal, are the strongholds of the agitators, where men have been
drilling, and the boys in the bonnets blue rioting through the villages
to the great scandal of parish priests.
[Illustration: LOUIS J. PAPINEAU]
There are riots in Montreal early in November of 1837, and "the Sons of
Liberty" are chased through the town. Then in the third week of
November a troop of Montreal cavalry is sent to St. John's to arrest
three agitators, who have been threatening a magistrate for refusing to
resign his commission. The agitators are arrested and handcuffed, and
at three in the morning the troops are moving along across country
towards Longueuil with the prisoners in a wagon, when suddenly three
hundred armed men rise on either side of the road to the fore. Shots
are exchanged. In the confusion the prisoners jump from the wagon.
This is not resistance to authority. It is open rebellion. Papineau
intrusts the management of affairs in St. Eustache, north of Montreal,
to Girod, a Swiss, and to {429} Dr. Chenier, a local patriot. Papineau
himself and Dr. Nelson and O'Callaghan are down on the Richelieu at St.
Denis.
Take the Richelieu region first. Colonel Gore is to strike up the
river southward to St. Denis. Colonel Wetherell is to cross country
from Montreal and strike down the river north to St. Charles, thus
hemming in the insurgents between Gore on the north and himself on the
south. There are eight hundred rebels at St. Denis, one hundred and
fifty armed, and twelve hundred at St. Charles. Papineau and
O'Callaghan for safety's sake slip across the line to Swanton in
Vermont. One could wish that, having led their faithful followers up
to the sticking point of stark madness, the agitators had remained
shoulder to shoulder with the brave fellows on the field.
Colonel Gore came from Montreal by boat to the mouth of the Richelieu.
At seven-thirty on the night of November 22 two hundred and fifty
troopers landed to march up the Richelieu road to St. Denis. Rain
turning to sleet was falling in a deluge. The roads were swimming
knee-deep in slush. Bridges had been cut, and in the darkness the
loyalists had to diverge to fording places, which lengthened out the
march twenty-four miles. At St. Denis was Dr. Nelson with the
agitators in a three-story stone house, windows bristling with muskets.
By dawn Papineau and O'Callaghan had fled, and at nine o'clock came
Colonel Gore's loyalist troopers, exhausted from the march, soaked to
the skin, their water-sagged clothes freezing in the cold wind. The
loyalists went into the fight unfed, and with a whoop; but it is not
surprising that the peppering of bullets from the windows drove the
troopers back, and Gore's bugles sounded retreat. Unaware of Gore's
defeat, one Lieutenant Weir has been sent across country with
dispatches. He is captured and bound, and, in a futile attempt to
escape, shot and stabbed to death.
Wetherell comes down the river from Chambly with three hundred men. He
finds St. Charles village protected by outworks of felled trees, and
the houses are literally loopholed with muskets; but Wetherell has
brought cannon along, and the cannon begin to sing on November 25.
Then Wetherell's {430} men charge through the village with leveled
bayonets. The poor habitants scatter like frightened sheep; they
surrender; one hundred perish. It is estimated that on both sides
three hundred are wounded, though some English writers give the list of
wounded as low as forty. Messengers galloped with news of the
patriots' defeat at St. Charles to Dr. Nelson at St. Denis. The
habitants fled to their homes. Nelson was left without a follower. He
escaped to the woods, and for two weeks wandered in the forests of the
boundary, exposed to cold and hunger, not daring to kindle a fire that
would betray him, afraid to let himself sleep for fear of freezing to
death. He was captured near the Vermont line and carried prisoner to
Montreal.
[Illustration: SIR JOHN COLBORNE, GOVERNOR OF CANADA, 1838-1841]
And still worse fared the fortunes of war with the patriots north of
Montreal. Their defense and defeat were almost pitiable in childish
ignorance of what war might mean. Boys' marbles had been gathered
together for bullets. Scythes were carried as swords, and old
flintlocks that had not seen service for twenty years were taken down
from the chimney places. With their bonnets blue hanging down their
backs, rusty firearms over their shoulders, and the village fiddler
leading the march, one thousand "Sons of Liberty" had paraded the
streets of St. Eustache, singing, rollicking, speechifying, unconscious
as {431} children playing war that they were dancing to ruin above a
volcano. Chenier, the beloved country doctor, is their leader. Girod,
the Swiss, has come up to show them how to drill. They take possession
of a newly built convent. Then on Sunday, the 3d of December, comes
word of the defeat down on the Richelieu. The moderate men plead with
Chenier to stop now before it is too late; but Chenier will not listen.
He knows the cause is right, and with the credulity or faith of a
simple child hopes some mad miracle will win the day. Still he is much
moved; tears stream down his face. Then on December 14 the church
bells ring a crazy alarm. The troops are coming, two thousand of them
from Montreal under Sir John Colborne, the governor. The insurgent
army melts like frost before the sun. Less than one hundred men stand
by poor Chenier. At eleven-thirty the troops sweep in at both ends of
the village at once, Girod, the Swiss commander, suicides in panic
flight. Cooped up in the church steeple with the flames mounting
closer round them and the troopers whooping jubilantly outside, Chenier
and his eighty followers call out: "We are done! We are sold! Let us
jump!" Chenier jumps from the steeple, is hit by the flying bullets,
and perishes as he falls. His men cower back in the flaming steeple
till it falls with a crash into the burning ruins. Amid the ash heap
are afterwards found the corpses of seventy-two patriots. The troopers
take one hundred prisoners in the region, then set fire to all houses
where loyalist flags are not waved from the windows.
Matters have now come to such an outrageous pass that the British
government can no longer ignore the fact that the colony has been
goaded to desperation by the misgovernment of the ruling clique. Lord
Durham is appointed special commissioner with extraordinary powers to
proceed to Canada and investigate the whole subject of colonial
government. One may guess that the ruling clique were prepared to take
possession of the new commissioner and prime him with facts favorable
to their side; but Durham was not a man to be monopolized by any
faction. {432} When he arrived, in May of 1838, he quickly gave proof
that he would follow his own counsels and choose his own councilors.
His first official declaration was practically an act of amnesty to the
rebels, eight only of the leading prisoners, among them Dr. Nelson,
being punished by banishment to Bermuda, the rest being simply expelled
from Canada.
This act was tantamount to a declaration that the rebels possessed some
rights and had suffered real grievances, and the governing rings in
both Toronto and Quebec took furious offense. Complaints against
Durham poured into the English colonial office,--complaints, oddly
enough, that he had violated the spirit of the English Constitution by
sentencing subjects of the Crown without trial. Though every one knew
that in Canada's turbulent condition trial by jury was impossible,
Durham's political foes in England took up the cry. In addition to
political complaints were grudges against Durham for personal slight;
and it must be confessed the haughty earl had ridden roughshod over all
the petty prejudices and little dignities of the colonial magnates.
The upshot was, Durham resigned in high dudgeon and sailed for England
in November of 1838.
[Illustration: LORD DURHAM, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER TO CANADA, 1838]
On his way home he dictated to his secretary, Charles Buller, the
famous report which is to Canada what the Magna Charta is to England or
the Declaration of Independence to the United States. Without going
into detail, it may be said that it {433} recommended complete
self-government for the colonies. As disorders had again broken out in
Canada, the English government hastened to embody the main
recommendations of Durham's report in the Union Act of 1840, which came
into force a year later. By it Upper and Lower Canada were united on a
basis of equal representation each, though Quebec's population was six
hundred thousand to Ontario's five hundred thousand. The colonies were
to have the entire management of their revenues and civil lists. The
government was to consist of an Upper Chamber appointed by the Crown
for life, a representative assembly, and the governor with a cabinet of
advisers responsible to the assembly.
In all, more than seven hundred arrests had been made in Quebec
Province. Of these all were released but some one hundred and thirty,
and the state trials resulted in sentence of banishment against fifty,
death to twelve. In modern days it is almost impossible to realize the
degree of fanatical hatred generated by this half century of
misgovernment. Declared one of the governing clique's official
newspapers in Montreal: "Peace must be maintained, even if we make the
country a solitude. French Canadians must be swept from the face of
the earth. . . . The empire must be respected, even at the cost of the
entire French Canadian people." With such sentiments openly uttered,
one may surely say that the Constitutional Act of 1791 turned back the
pendulum of Canada's progress fifty years, and it certainly took fifty
more years to eradicate the bitterness generated by the era of
misgovernment.
With the Upper and Lower Canadas united in a federation of two
provinces, it was a foregone conclusion that all parts of British North
America must sooner or later come into the fold. It would be hard to
say from whom the idea of confederation of all the provinces first
sprang. Purely as a theory the idea may be traced back as early as
1791. The truth is, Destiny, Providence, or whatever we like to call
that great stream of concurrent events which carries men and nations
out to the ocean {434} highway of a larger life, forced British North
America into the Confederation of 1867.
In the first place, while the Union worked well in theory, it was
exceedingly difficult in practice. Ontario and Quebec had equal
representation. One was Protestant, the other Catholic; one French,
the other English. Deadlocks, or, to use the slang of the street, even
tugs of war, were inevitable and continual. All Ontario had to do to
thwart Quebec, or Quebec had to do to thwart Ontario, was to stand
together and keep the votes solid. Coalition ministries proved a
failure.
In the second place, Ontario was practically dependent on the customs
duties collected at Quebec ports of entry for a provincial revenue.
The goods might be billed for Ontario; Quebec collected the tax.
Ontario was also dependent on Quebec for access to the sea. Which
province was to pay for the system of canals being developed, and the
deepening of the St. Lawrence?
Then the Oregon Treaty of 1846 had actually brought a cloud of war on
the horizon. In case of war, there was the question of defense.
Then railways had become a very live question. Quebec wanted
connection with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. How was the cost of a
railroad to be apportioned? Red River was agitating for freedom from
fur-trade monopoly. How were railways to be built to Red River?
Ontario's population in twenty years jumped past the million mark. Was
it fair that her million people should have only the same number of
representatives as Quebec with her half million? Reformers of Ontario,
voiced by George Brown of _The Globe_, called for "Rep. by
Pop.,"--representation by population.
Civil war was raging in the United States, threatening to tear the
Union to tatters. Why? Because the balance of power had been left
with the states governments, and not enough authority centralized in
the federal government. The lesson was not lost on struggling Canada.
{435} England's declaration of free trade brought the colonies face to
face with the need of some united action to raise revenue by tariff.
Then the Hudson's Bay Company's license of monopoly over the fur trade
of the west was nearing expiration. Should the license be renewed for
another twenty years, or should Canada take over Red River as a new
province, which was the wish of the people both east and west? And if
Canada did buy out the Hudson's Bay Company's vested rights, who was to
pay down the cost?
[Illustration: JOHN A. MACDONALD]
Lastly, was John A. Macdonald, the young lawyer who had pleaded the
defense of the patriot trials at Kingston in 1838, now a leading
politician of the United Canadas, weary of the hopeless deadlocks
between Ontario and Quebec. With almost a sixth sense of divination in
reading the signs of the times in the trend of events, John A.
Macdonald saw that Canada's one hope of becoming a national power lay
in union,--confederation. The same thing was seen by other leaders of
the day, by all that grand old guard known as the Fathers of
Confederation, sent from the different provinces to the conference at
Quebec in October of 1864. There the outline of what is known as the
British North America Act was drafted,--in the main but an
amplification of Durham's scheme, made broad enough to receive all
{436} the provinces whenever they might decide to come into
Confederation. The delegates then go back to be indorsed by their
provinces. By some provinces the scheme is rejected. Newfoundland is
not yet part of Canada, but by 1867 Confederation is an accomplished
fact. By 1871 the new Dominion has bought out the rights of the
Hudson's Bay Company in the West and Manitoba joins the Eastern
Provinces. By 1885 a railway links British Columbia with Nova Scotia.
By 1905 the great hunting field of the Saskatchewan prairies has been
divided into two new provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, each larger
than France.
Such is barest outline of Canada's past. What of the future for this
Empire of the North? That future is now in the making. It lies in the
hands of the men and women who are living to-day. In the past Canada's
makers dreamed greatly, and they dared greatly, and they took no heed
of impossibles, and they spent without stint of blood and happiness for
high aim. When Canada lost ground in the progress of the nations, as
in the corrupt days of Bigot's rule during the French régime, or the
equally corrupt days of _the family compact_ after the Conquest, it was
because the altar fires of her ideals were allowed to burn low.
It has been said that the past is but a rear light marking the back
trail of the ship's passage. Say rather it is the search light on the
ship's prow, pointing the way over the waters.
[Illustration: FATHERS OF CONFEDERATION, 1867. (From the painting by
Robert Hariss)]
To-day Canada is in the very vanguard of the nations. Her wheat fields
fill the granaries of the world; and to her ample borders come the
peoples of earth's ends, bringing tribute not of incense and
frankincense as of old, but of manhood and strength, of push and lift,
of fire and hope and enthusiasm and the daring that conquers all the
difficulties of life; bringing too, all the outworn vices of an Old
World, all the vicious instincts of the powers that prey in the Under
World. Canada's prosperity is literally overflowing from a cornucopia
of super-abundant plenty. Will her constitution, wrested from
political and civil strife; will her moral stamina, bred from the
heroism of an heroic past, stand the strain, the tremendous strain of
the {437} new conditions? Will she assimilate the strange new
peoples--strange in thought and life and morals--coming to her borders?
Will she eradicate their vices like the strong body of a healthy
constitution throwing off disease; or will she be poisoned by the
toxins of vicious traits inherited from centuries of vicious living?
Will she remake the men, regenerate the aliens, coming to her hearth
fire; or will they drag her down to their degeneracy? Above all, will
she stand the strain, the tremendous strain, of prosperity, and the
corruption that is attendant on prosperity? _Quien sabe_? Let him
answer who can; and the question is best answered by watching the
criminal calendar. (Is the percentage of convictions as certain and
relentless as under the old régime? What manner of crimes is growing
up in the land?) And the question may be answered, too, by watching
whether the press and platform and pulpit stand as everlastingly and
relentlessly for sharp demarkation between right and wrong, for the
sharp demarkation between truth, plain truth, and intentional
mendacity, as under the régime of the old hard days. When political
life grows corrupt, is it now cleansed, or condoned? Let each Canadian
answer for himself. If the altar fires of Canada's ideals again burn
low, again she will lag in the progress of the world's great builders.
{439}
INDEX
NOTE. In all names of persons, names have been spelled as signed by
the person; in names of places, as written in early state documents.
In all other cases the rulings of the Canadian Geographic Board have
been followed, with the exception of _Montagnais_, which is given
_Montaignais_, _Tadousac_ as _Tadoussac_, _Saut_ as _Sault_,
_Louisbourg_ as _Louisburg_, _Denys_ as _Denis_.
Abenaki Indians, 171, 192, 193
Abercrombie, 252, 256, 258, 259
Acadia, 40, 41, 61, 64, 65, 69, 70, 192, 196, 197, 204, 214, 216, 220,
231, 233, 235, 236, 241
Agona, 19
Alaska, 321, 324
Albanel, Father, 143, 144
Albany, 97, 153, 159, 160, 162
Alberta, 297, 436
Alexander, 208
Alexander, Sir William, 61
Algonquin Indians, 52, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108
Allen, Ethan, 298
Allumette Island, 51, 52
Alymer, 50
Amherst, 236
Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, 252, 253, 256, 261, 268, 274, 277
André, Mademoiselle, 122
Annapolis, 200, 201, 215, 231
Annapolis Basin, 35, 37, 44, 61, 65, 67, 69, 177
Anticosti Island, 12, 134, 177
Appleton, Colonel, 197
Argall, Samuel, 43, 44, 61
Arnold, Benedict, 300-309
Astor, John Jacob, 294, 330, 333
Astoria, 333, 379
Athabasca, 324, 327, 390, 391, 398, 399, 401, 402
Aubert, 7
Aubry, 34, 35, 36, 44, 236
Aulneau, 208, 209
Bad River, 329, 330
Balboa, 6
Barclay, Captain, 363, 364
Barré, Charlotte, 78
Basin of Mines, 195
Basques, 44, 45, 46, 58
Basset, 195
Bathurst, Lord, 411
Bay of Islands, 10
Bayly, Governor, 144, 187
Beaubassin, 195, 236
Beauharnois, Governor, 206
Beaujeu, 141
Beauport, 269, 275
Beaupré, 19
Beauséjour, 231, 236
Beaver Dams, 362
Bella Coola, 330
Belle Isle, 10, 19, 20
Belle Isle Straits, 10, 12
Bering, Vitus, 212
Berkeley, Admiral, 335, 336
Biard, Father, 41, 42, 44
Biencourt, 34, 40, 42, 61
Bigot, Intendant, 241-247, 274
Black Rock, 369
Blackwater River, 330
Blanc Sablon, 10, 11, 12
Bloody Brook, 202
Boerstler, Lieutenant, 360, 362
Bona Vista, 5, 8
Bonaventure, 195
Boscawen, 226, 234, 252, 256
Boston, 66, 194, 195, 203, 216
Boucher, 394
Bougainville, 243, 261, 270
Bouquet, 287, 288, 289, 290
Bourgeoys, Marguerite, 117
Bourlamaque, 243, 262
Braddock, General, 226-230
Bradstreet, General, 260, 287, 288
Brant, Joseph, 310, 315
Bras d'Or Lakes, 7
Brébeuf, Jean de, 71, 80, 82-90
Bridgar, 149
British Columbia, 323, 436
Brock, Isaac, 338-348, 363
Brockville, 349
Brown, George, 371, 434
Brulé, Etienne, 48, 50, 52-57, 83, 127
Buffalo, 369, 371
Buller, Charles, 432
Burlington Heights, 365, 372
Burton, Colonel, 272
Cabot, John, 3-7, 26, 61
Cabot, Sebastian, 5
Cadillac, La Motte, 119, 124, 163, 165, 205
Caldwell, General, 412
California, 319, 408
Cameron, Duncan, 389, 391
Campbell, Captain, 285
Cape Breton, 5, 6, 7, 38, 43, 61, 62, 65, 124, 204, 214, 215
Cape Cod, 30, 37
Cape Diamond, 13, 19, 45, 80
Cape Rouge, 19, 22
Cape Sable, 61, 65
Garden, Major, 299
Carillon, 50
Carleton, 62
Carleton, Sir Guy, 279, 280, 281, 298-312
Carterett, George, 114
Cartier, Jacques, 7-22, 33, 40, 45, 77, 79
Casson, Dollier de, 121, 126, 128, 130
Castle Island, 10
Catalina, 8
Chaleur, Bay of, 11, 188
Chambly, Fort, 125
Champlain, Lake, 47, 203, 237, 242, 298, 299, 378
Champlain, Madame, 57
Champlain, Samuel, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 46, 48-60, 77,
80, 82, 83, 115
Chandler, 356, 357, 359
Charity Island, 92
Charles II, 114, 115
Charlottetown, 314
Charlton Island, 156, 160, 161
Charnisay, Sieur d'Aulnay de, 65-69
Chasteaufort, Marc Antoine de, 115
Château Bay, 10
Chateauguay River, 368, 369
Chatham, 279
Chats Rapids, 51
Chaudière Falls, 50, 104
Chauncey, 349, 351-356, 366
Chenier, Dr., 429, 431
Chicago Portage, 133
Chignecto, 231
Chippewa, 371, 372, 373
Chippewyan, Fort, 325, 402
Chomedey, Paul de, 75
Christian Islands, 92, 99
Chrysler's Farm, 367
Church, Ben, 195
Churchill, Fort, 297, 318, 319
Clark, Lieutenant, 175
Clark, William, 310, 330
Clarke, John, 391, 398, 401, 402
Cobequid, 236
Cocking, Matthew, 297
Coffin, John, 306
Colborne, Sir John, 431
Columbia River, 321-323
Columbus, 3, 6
Contrecoeur, 230
Cook, James, 263, 319-321
Coppermine River, 296
Cornwallis, Edward, 221, 232
Cortereal, Caspar, 6
Courcelle, Governor, 125, 126
Craig, Governor, 336, 337
Cree Indians, 103, 110, 112, 208, 210, 386
Crèvecoeur, Fort, 138, 139
Cumberland, 236
Dablon, 132
D'Ailleboust, Louis, 78, 79, 115, 119, 120, 172
Dalzell, 285
Daniel, Father, 27, 84, 87
D'Anville, Duke, 220
D'Argenson, 110, 115
Dauversière, Jérôme le Royer de la, 74, 117
D'Avaugour, 111, 115
Davis, 30
Davost, Father, 84
Dearborn, General, 353, 356
Deerfield, 193, 195
De Mezy, 115
De Monts, Sieur, 33-37, 40, 44, 45, 48
Denis, 7
Denonville, Marquis de, 163, 164, 167, 168
De Salaberry, 368, 369
Detroit, 93, 205, 276, 286, 291, 310, 338, 339, 340, 363
De Troyes, Chevalier, 157, 158, 159, 160
Dieskau, Baron, 226, 237, 240
Digge's Island, 154
Dinwiddie, Governor, 224
Dobbs, Captain, 376
Dochet Island, 35
Dog Rib Indians, 326
Dollard, Adam, 107, 108, 109, 110
Don Quadra, 322
Donnacona, 13, 18, 19
Douglas, Fort, 386, 387, 390, 391, 393, 395-397
Douglas, Governor, 408
Drake, Sir Francis, 26, 27
Drew, 426
Drucourt, 253
Drummond, Sir Gordon, 369, 370, 372, 374, 376, 377, 378
Du Chêne, Lake, 50, 105
Duchambon, 219
Ducharme, 362
Duluth, 112, 146, 163, 165
Duluth, Daniel G., 118, 124, 205
Duncombe, Dr., 424, 425
Dupuis, Major, 98
Duquesne, Fort, 224, 226, 227, 228, 252, 260
Duquesne, Marquis, 224
Durell, 261
Durham, Lord, 431, 432
Duval, 46
Egg Islands, 203
Elizabeth, Queen, 26
Elliott, Lieutenant, 343, 344
Eric, Earl, 1
Erie, Fort, 344, 376, 377
Erie, Lake, 129, 130, 131, 137, 341, 349
Ermatinger, Judge, 424
Etherington, Major, 286
Evans, 344
Fidler, Peter, 389
Findley, 295
Fitzgibbons, 357, 359, 360, 362, 373, 421, 422
Fleury, 42, 43
Fontaine, Marguerite, 170
Fontaine, Sieur Pierre, 170
Forbes, John, 260
Forsyth, 353
Franklin, Benjamin, 309
Fraser, Simon, 330, 331, 332
Fraser River, 330, 331, 332
French Bay, 35
French River, 53, 54
Frenchman's Bay, 42
Freneuse, Madame, 195, 196, 202
Frobisher, Martin, 25, 30
Frontenac, Count, 132, 134, 135, 136, 140, 150, 167, 171, 176-188
Frontenac, Fort, 135, 136, 137, 141, 163, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 252,
260
Fundy, Bay of, 35, 42, 62, 63, 66
Funk Island, 9
Gâlet, 170
Galinée, 129, 130, 131
Garry, Nicholas, 406
Gaspé, 11, 12, 32, 124, 177, 256
Gatineau, 50, 104
George, Fort, 342, 344, 348, 355, 356, 360, 372
George, Lake, 240, 242
Georgian Bay, 54, 83, 84, 92
Gibraltar, Fort, 386, 387
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 25-29
Gilbert du Thet, 42, 43
Gillam, Ben, 148, 149, 150
Gillam, Captain, 144, 145, 149
Gillam, Zechariah, 113
Gillam's Island, 148
Girod, 428, 431
Gladwin, 284
Glen Rae, Dr., 407, 408
Glenn, 174
Goat Island, 44
Gore, Colonel, 429
Gorham, 248
Gourlay, Robert, 415, 416, 417
Grand Pré, 231, 236, 241
Grant, Cuthbert, 390, 391, 394
Gray, Robert, 321-323
Great Lakes, 53, 71
Green, Henry, 31
Green, Piper, 387
Green Bay, 93, 103, 105, 132
Greenland, 1, 2, 5
Griguet, 9
Grimmington, 154
Groseillers, Chouart, 150, 151, 152, 153, 156
Groseillers, Medard Chouart de, 85, 98-115, 118, 144-153
Gudrid, 1, 2, 3
Gulf of Mexico, 140, 141
Gulf Stream, 6
Gull Island, 9
Ha-Ha Bay, 9
Haldimand, General, 311, 312
Halifax, 231, 232, 233, 248, 317
Hamilton, 129
Hampton, General, 367, 368
Harrison, General, 363
Harvey, 357, 358
Haverhill, 198
Hayes River, 148, 385
Head, Sir Francis, 421
Hearne, Samuel, 296, 297, 318, 319
Hebert, Louis, 44, 57
Hebert, Madame, 79
Hendry, Anthony, 243, 295
Hennepin, Louis, 137, 138, 139
Henry, Alexander, 286, 287
Henry, John, 337
Henry VII, 3, 4
Hertel, François, 174, 175
Hill, Jack, 202, 203
Hochelaga, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18
Holmes, Admiral, 269
Horton, 236
Hudson, Henry, 30, 31, 32, 49
Hudson Bay, 30, 32, 103, 110, 113, 115, 134, 143, 144, 146, 148, 161,
162, 164, 191, 204, 318, 406
Hudson River, 30
Hudson Straits, 30
Hull, 338-340
Hume, 420
Hume, Captain, 154
Huron, Lake, 54
Huron Indians, 46, 48, 52-57, 82-93, 98, 108-110, 126
Iberville, 157-163, 165, 172, 174, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188
Iberville, Châteauguay, 183
Iceland, 3
Ihonateria, 84
Illinois Indians, 133, 138, 163, 189
Illinois River, 133, 139
Iroquois Indians, 46-48, 52-57, 78, 79, 86, 87-102, 103, 105, 106, 108,
110, 125, 128-130, 135, 162-171, 183, 204
Island of Orleans, 13
Isle of Demons, 10, 20, 21
Jacqueline, Frances Marie, 67
Jalobert, Captain, 12, 19
James Bay, 30, 31, 113, 144, 158
Jogues, Father, 85, 94, 97
Johnson, William, 237, 240
Jolliet, Louis, 118, 130, 132-134, 139, 146, 152, 177, 205
Jolliet, Madame, 183
Joseph, Louis, 243
Juett, 30
Jumonville, 225
Kaministiquia, 139, 143, 205, 207
Kidd, Captain, 150
King's Cove, 5
Kingston, 135, 260, 354, 370, 427
Kirke, David, 58, 60, 63
Kirke, Gervaise, 58, 63
Kirke, Louis, 58, 63
Kirke, Mary, 114, 115, 145
Kirke, Thomas, 58, 63
La Barre, 140, 150, 163, 168
La Bonté, 170
Labrador, 1, 6, 7, 10, 30, 46, 121, 143, 147
Lachine Rapids, 17
La Fléche, Father, 41
La Fôrest, 146
Lake of the Woods, 112
Lalemant, 88, 89, 90
La Martinière, 153
La Monnerie, Lieutenant de, 171
Lamont, 19
La Motte, Admiral, 226
La Naudière, M. de, 171
Langdale, 287
La Peltrie, Madame de, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78
La Pérouse, Admiral, 318, 319
La Place, 298
La Reine, Fort de, 211
La Roche, Marquis de, 23-25, 40
La Salle, Robert Cavalier de, 19, 118, 128-142, 146, 205
La Saussaye, 42
La Tour, Charles de, 61-69
La Tour, Claude de, 63, 64
La Tour, Madame Charles de, 67-69
Laurentian Hills, 50
Lauson, 75
Lauzon, Jean de, 98, 115
Lauzon-Charny, Charles de, 115
Laval, Bishop, 122
La Vérendrye, Jean, 207-209
La Vérendrye, Jemmeraie, 206-208
La Vérendrye, Pierre Gauthier, 206-212
Lawrence, Colonel, 231, 233, 234, 235, 253
Le Bers, 172
Le Breton, Captain, 12
Le Caron, Joseph, 52, 53
Le Chesnaye, 146, 150, 157
Leif, 1
Le Jeune, Pierre, 79, 80, 81, 82
Le Loutre, Louis Joseph, 213-216, 220, 231, 232, 241, 278
Le Moyne, Charles, 108, 118, 126, 146, 157
Le Moyne, Father, 98
Le Moyne, Maricourt, 157-161, 172, 173, 179, 182
Le Moyne, Ste. Helène, 157-159, 172, 173, 179, 182
Le Moyne, Sérigny, 183, 184, 187
Lery, Baron de, 7, 24
Lescarbot, Marc, 37-40, 63
Leslie, Captain, 286
Lévis, Chevalier de, 243, 245, 246, 249, 250, 267, 274
Lewis, 330
Lewiston, 342-348, 369
Long Sault Rapids, 108
Long Saut, 50
Lorette mission, 93
Loudon, Earl, 243, 248, 252
Louisburg, 215, 216, 218, 220, 234, 241, 248, 252
Louisiana, 140
Lount, 424, 427
Lundy's Lane, 373-375
Macdonald, John A., 427, 435
MacDonell, Miles, 381, 385, 388-390, 396, 397
McDonnell, 368, 369
M'Donnell, 350
Macdonnell, Major, 346, 348
Macdillivray, William, 380, 381
Mackay, Alexander, 327, 328
McKay, Tom, 407
MacKenzie, Alexander, 324-331, 380, 398
Mackenzie, Roderick, 325, 327
MacKenzie, William Lyon, 420-426
MacKenzie River, 327
Mackinac, Straits of, 105
McLean, Hector, 300, 387
McLoughlin, Dr. John, 407, 409
McNab, Allan, 422, 424-426
Magellan, 6
Maine, 42, 192, 204, 310
Maisonneuve, Sieur de, 75-79, 108, 118, 119, 120
Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 415, 417, 418
Mance, Jeanne, 76, 78, 117
Mandanes, 211
Manitoba, 436
Manitoulin Island, 84, 93
Maquinna, 322
March, Colonel, 196, 197
Marco Polo, 3
Marie of the Incarnation, 72-74
Marquette, Father, 118, 132, 133, 134, 205
Martin, Abraham, 44, 57
Mascarene, Paul, 201, 202, 215
Mascoutin Indians, 132, 138
Massacre Island, 209
Massé, Father, 42
Matonabbee, 296, 297, 319
Mattawa, 52
Matthews, 414, 415, 427
Meares, 321
Meigs, Fort, 363
Membertou, Henry, 38, 39, 41, 42
Meneval, 177
Mercer, Colonel, 247
Miami, Fort, 284
Michigan, 339
Michigan, Lake, 103, 133
Michilimackinac, 137, 276, 286, 310, 339, 379
Micmac Indians, 220
Midland, 54
Mingan, 12
Minnesota, 205, 208
Miquelon, 204, 277
Miramichi Indians, 10, 11, 256
Mississippi River, 106, 128, 133, 139, 141
Missouri River, 133, 139, 211
Mohawk River, 127
Monckton, 231, 234-235, 261, 265, 270
Monro, Lieutenant, 250
Montaignais Indians, 6, 10, 46, 81, 82
Montana, 212
Montcalm, Marquis de, 44, 243-250, 257, 265-269, 271, 273
Montgomery, Richard, 300-308
Montmagny, Charles de, 71, 72, 74, 76-78, 115
Montmorency, 13
Montreal, 16, 48-51, 72-78, 94, 107, 108, 117, 120, 165, 191, 267,
274-302, 340, 367, 400, 427, 428
Moon, Captain, 162
Moose Factory, 153, 157, 158
Moraviantown, 365, 366
Mount Desert, 42, 44
Mount Royal, 49, 78
Murray, Lord John, 234, 235, 258, 261, 270, 274, 277-280
Muskoka, 84
Nelson, Dr., 429, 430, 432
Nelson, Port, 152, 153, 183, 185, 384
Nelson River, 148, 385
Nepigon, 206
New Brunswick, 10, 62-65, 204, 220, 312, 313, 434
New Caledonia, 406, 407
New Hampshire, 172
New York, 97, 165, 221
Newfoundland, 5-7, 9, 10, 12, 19, 23, 30, 183, 184, 204
Niagara, 129, 267, 316, 340, 351, 369, 370, 379
Nicholson, Francis, 198-203
Nicolet, Jean, 71, 103, 127
Nipissing Indians, 51, 53
Nipissing Lake, 51, 53, 103
Noel, 19
Nootka, 320-322
Norsemen, 2
Nova Scotia, 1, 34, 35, 61, 220, 312, 317, 379, 434, 436
O'Callaghan, 429
Ochagach, Chief, 206
Ochiltree, Lord, 62
Ogden, 407
Ogdensburg, 350
Ohio River, 128, 130, 133, 224, 226, 241
Olier, Jean Jacques, 75, 76
Onondaga, Lake,98
Onondagas, 55, 98, 99, 100
Ontario, 84, 127, 312, 315, 316, 338, 349
Ontario, Lake, 54, 57, 127, 129, 134, 349
Oregon, 406, 407
Orleans Island, 13, 76
Oswego, 247, 250
Ottawa, 46
Ottawa Indians, 51
Ottawa River, 17, 49, 51, 52, 57, 86
Papineau, 427-429
Parliament Hill, 50, 104
Parry Sound, 54
Parsnip River, 328
Passamaquoddy, 195
Pays d'en Haut, 182
Peace River, 326, 327
Péan, Madame, 245
Peguis, Chief, 392, 393, 395
Penetang, 54, 83, 85
Pepperrell, William, 216, 219
Pepys, Samuel, 153
Peré, Jan, 130, 132, 152-159
Perrot, Nicholas, 132, 163
Perry, 349
Phips, Sir William, 176-178, 182
Pierre, 80, 81, 82
Pierre, Fort, 208
Pike, 353, 354
Pitt, Fort, 290
Pittsburg, 224, 228, 260
Place d'Armes, 79
Place Royale, 48
Placentia, 183
Plenderleath, Major, 358
Poncet, Père, 94, 97
Pontgravé, 32-38, 42, 45, 71
Pontiac, 276, 281, 286, 291, 292
Port Dover, 131
Port Royal, 35-44, 57, 61, 64-70, 114, 191, 194, 202
Port Royal Basin, 198
Port Stanley, 130
Portland, Me., 171, 175
Portneuf, 175
Poutrincourt, Baron de, 34-42
Powell, 416, 417
Presqu' Isle, 276, 284, 348, 363
Preston, Major, 300
Prevost, Sir George, 349, 370, 376, 378, 410, 411
Primeau, Louis, 297
Prince Edward Island, 214, 215, 232, 256, 312, 314
Procter, 363, 365, 366
Puget Sound, 322
Quebec, 13, 17, 44, 45, 52, 57, 59, 60, 63, 71-82, 94, 107, 117, 156,
168, 171, 178-188, 202, 232, 252, 260-275, 276-309, 316, 317, 412, 432,
434, 435
Queenston Heights, 342-347, 352, 360, 372
Quesnel, 331
Quinte, Bay of, 127
Quirpon, 9
Radisson, Pierre Esprit, 95, 96, 98-115, 118, 144-154, 205
Ragueneau, Father, 91-93, 99, 100
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 25, 26, 30
Ramezay, 271
Rasle, Père, 213
Rat, 164, 165
Razilli, Isaac, 65
Red River, 381, 388-392
Riall, 374
Richelieu, Cardinal, 57, 58, 65
Richelieu River, 46, 48, 125, 429
Richmond, Duke of, 417, 418, 419
Richmond Gulf, 30
Rideau River, 50, 104
Robertson, Colin, 380-383, 390, 391, 393, 396, 400-403
Roberval, Marguerite, 20, 21
Roberval, Sieur de, 18-23, 40
Rogers, Robert, 242, 276, 281, 285
Rolph, Dr., 421-425
Ross, 407
Rouville, Hertel de, 193, 194, 198
Rupert, 32, 153
Rupert River, 113, 115, 161
Rupert's Fort, 158, 161
Sable Island, 7, 23, 65, 114, 220
Sackett's Harbor, 370
Saguenay, 12, 22, 32, 73, 113
St. Anne de Beaupré, 120
St. Anthony, Falls of, 139
St. Charles, Fort, 208
St. Charles River, 13, 14, 15, 17, 429, 430
St. Denys, 65, 71
St. Eustache, 430
St. Francis, Lake, 129
St. Helen's Island, 49, 77
St. Ignace, 85, 88, 89, 91
St. Jean Ba'tiste, 85
St. John, Fort, 65, 67, 70
St. John River, 35, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67
St. John's, 19, 26, 28, 300
St. Joseph, 85, 87, 88, 284
St. Joseph Island, 92
St. Lawrence River, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 46, 71, 73, 126
St. Louis, 61, 85, 88, 89, 91, 292
St. Louis, Lake, 129
St. Lusson, 132
St. Malo, 43
St. Mary's Bay, 34, 36, 236
St. Peter, Lake, 15, 71
St. Pierre, 204, 224, 277, 279, 280, 281
St. Thomas Town, 413
St. Vallière, Bishop, 122
Ste. Anne's, 49
Ste. Croix River, 35, 37, 44, 310
Ste. Marie Mission, 85-92
Saint-Castin, Baron de, 175, 195, 197, 200, 201, 202
Salmon Falls, 174, 175
San Francisco, 407, 408
Sandusky, 276, 313
Sandwich Islands, 321
Sargeant, Governor, 155, 156, 159, 160
Saskatchewan, 212, 243, 297, 401, 403, 436
Sault Ste. Marie, 106, 132, 378
Saunders, 261, 269
Schenectady, 173, 174
Schuyler, Captain, 176
Scott, Hercules, 373, 374
Secord, James, 360
Secord, Laura, 360-362
Sedgwick, Major, 70
Selkirk, 385
Selkirk, Lord, 317, 380, 381, 384, 388, 390, 396, 397, 398, 400
Semple, Robert, 390, 392, 393, 394
Seven Oaks, 394, 399
Sheaffe, General, 346, 347, 354
Sherbrooke, Sir John, 412, 417
Simcoe, Lake, 54, 84, 85
Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor, 316, 412
Simpson, Sir George, 406
Sioux Indians, 103
Skraelings, 1
Smithsend, 154
Smyth, 348
Sorcerer Indians, 51
Sorel, Dame, 146
Sorel, Fort, 125
Stadacona, 13
Staring Hairs, 53
Stobo, Robert, 268
Stony Creek, 357, 358
Stopford, Major, 300
Stuart, 331
Subercase, 197-200
Superior, Lake, 85, 112
Susquehanna Indians, 54
Swanton, Vt., 429
Sylvie, 157
Tadoussac, 32, 34, 44, 58, 63, 73, 74, 94, 134, 177
Talbot, Tom, 413
Talon, Jean, 123-125, 128, 132, 136, 143
Tecumseh, 339, 363
Tessouat, Chief, 51
Texas, 141
Thomas, General, 309
Thompson, David, 332, 333
Thornstein, 1, 2
Thorwald, 1
Three Rivers, 71, 82, 83, 94, 95, 98, 107, 113, 124, 206, 277
Ticonderoga, Fort, 242, 249, 252, 256, 260, 298
Tobacco Indians, 85, 93
Tonty, Henry, 137-141
Toronto, 351, 353, 355, 415, 420, 422, 423, 432
Townshend, 261, 265, 270
Tracy, Marquis de, 125, 126
Trent River, 54
Trinity River, 141
Truro, 236
Twin Cities, 139
Twin Mountains Lake, 49
Ungava Bay, 30
Van Egmond, 421, 422, 424
Van Rensselaer, 342-348
Van Shoultz, 427
Vancouver, George, 319, 321-323
Vancouver Island, 320-322
Vaudreuil, Governor de, 193, 197, 243, 262, 274
Vaughan, 216
Verchéres, Jared of, 198
Verchères, M. de, 169
Verchères, Madame de, 169
Vergor, 231
Vermont, 429, 430
Verrazano, 7
Vetch, Colonel, 198, 201
Victoria, 409
Vignau, Nicholas, 49-51, 127
Vikings, 1
Ville Marie, 78
Vimont, Father, 73, 77, 78
Vincent, General, 355, 356, 358, 359
Vinland, 1, 2, 3
Walker, Sir Hovender, 202, 203
Warren, 219
Washington, George, 224, 229, 260, 310
Webb, General, 250
Weir, Lieutenant, 429
Wetherell, Colonel, 429
Wilkinson, 367, 368
William, Fort, 112, 397, 398, 399
William of Orange, 165, 166
Williams, William, 403
Winchester, General, 363
Winder, 356, 357, 358
Winnipeg, 210, 387, 394
Winnipeg Lake, 208
Winthrop, 176
Wisconsin, 106
Wisconsin River, 132
Wolfe, James, 44, 252-257
Wye River, 85, 88, 89, 92
Yeo, Sir James, 358, 366, 377
York Fort, 384, 385