Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: Advance of the British troops on the village of St.
Denis, 1837. From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys.]
THE
'PATRIOTES' OF '37
A Chronicle of the Lower
Canadian Rebellion
BY
ALFRED D. DECELLES
TORONTO
GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY
1916
_Copyright in all Countries subscribing to
the Berne Convention_
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PREFATORY NOTE
The manuscript for this little book, written by me in French, was
handed over for translation to Mr Stewart Wallace. The result as here
presented is therefore a joint product. Mr Wallace, himself a writer
of ability and a student of Canadian history, naturally made a very
free translation of my work and introduced some ideas of his own. He
insists, however, that the work is mine; and, with this acknowledgment
of his part in it, I can do no less than acquiesce, at the same time
expressing my pleasure at having had as collaborator a young writer of
such good insight. And it is surely appropriate that an English
Canadian and a French Canadian should join in a narrative of the
political war between the two races which forms the subject of this
book.
A. D. DECELLES.
OTTAWA, 1915.
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CONTENTS
Page
I. CANADIANS, OLD AND NEW . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. THE RIGHTS OF THE DEFEATED . . . . . . . . . . 7
III. 'THE REIGN OF TERROR' . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
IV. THE RISE OF PAPINEAU . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
V. THE NINETY-TWO RESOLUTIONS . . . . . . . . . . 33
VI. THE ROYAL COMMISSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
VII. THE RUSSELL RESOLUTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
VIII. THE DOGS OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
IX. _FORCE MAJEURE_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
X. THE LORD HIGH COMMISSIONER . . . . . . . . . . 104
XI. THE SECOND REBELLION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
XII. A POSTSCRIPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
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ILLUSTRATIONS
ADVANCE OF THE BRITISH TROOPS ON
THE VILLAGE OF ST DENIS, 1837 . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys.
SIR JAMES CRAIG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Facing page_ 16
From a portrait in the Dominion Archives.
LOUIS JOSEPH PAPINEAU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " " 22
After a lithograph by Maurin, Paris.
WOLFRED NELSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " " 60
From a print in the Chateau de Ramezay.
SOUTH-WESTERN LOWER CANADA, 1837 . . . . . . . . . . " " 69
Map by Bartholomew.
DENIS BENJAMIN VIGER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " " 128
From a print in M'Gill University Library.
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CHAPTER I
CANADIANS, OLD AND NEW
The conquest of Canada by British arms in the Seven Years' War gave
rise to a situation in the colony which was fraught with tragic
possibilities. It placed the French inhabitants under the sway of an
alien race--a race of another language, of another religion, of other
laws, and which differed from them profoundly in temperament and
political outlook. Elsewhere--in Ireland, in Poland, and in the
Balkans--such conquests have been followed by centuries of bitter
racial warfare. In Canada, however, for a hundred and fifty years
French Canadians and English Canadians have, on the whole, dwelt
together in peace and amity. Only on the one occasion, of which the
story is to be told in these pages, has there been anything resembling
civil war between the two races; and this unhappy outbreak was neither
widespread nor prolonged. The record {2} is one which Canadians,
whether they be English or French, have reason to view with
satisfaction.
It does not appear that the Canadians of 1760 felt any profound regret
at the change from French to British rule. So corrupt and oppressive
had been the administration of Bigot, in the last days of the Old
Regime, that the rough-and-ready rule of the British army officers
doubtless seemed benignant in comparison. Comparatively few Canadians
left the country, although they were afforded facilities for so doing.
One evidence of good feeling between the victors and the vanquished is
found in the marriages which were celebrated between Canadian women and
some of the disbanded Highland soldiers. Traces of these unions are
found at the present day, in the province of Quebec, in a few Scottish
names of habitants who cannot speak English.
When the American colonies broke out in revolution in 1775, the
Continental Congress thought to induce the French Canadians to join
hands with them. But the conciliatory policy of the successive
governors Murray and Carleton, and the concessions granted by the
Quebec Act of the year before, had borne {3} fruit; and when the
American leaders Arnold and Montgomery invaded Canada, the great
majority of the habitants remained at least passively loyal. A few
hundred of them may have joined the invaders, but a much larger number
enlisted under Carleton. The clergy, the seigneurs, and the
professional classes--lawyers and physicians and notaries--remained
firm in their allegiance to Great Britain; while the mass of the people
resisted the eloquent appeals of Congress, represented by its
emissaries Franklin, Chase, and Carroll, and even those of the
distinguished Frenchmen, Lafayette and Count d'Estaing, who strongly
urged them to join the rebels. Nor should it be forgotten that at the
siege of Quebec by Arnold the Canadian officers Colonel Dupre and
Captains Dambourges, Dumas, and Marcoux, with many others, were among
Carleton's most trusted and efficient aides in driving back the
invading Americans. True, in 1781, Sir Frederick Haldimand, then
governor of Canada, wrote that although the clergy had been firmly
loyal in 1775 and had exerted their powerful influence in favour of
Great Britain, they had since then changed their opinions and were no
longer to be relied upon. But it must be {4} borne in mind that
Haldimand ruled the province in the manner of a soldier. His
high-handed orders caused dissatisfaction, which he probably mistook
for a want of loyalty among the clergy. No more devoted subject of
Great Britain lived at the time in Lower Canada than Mgr Briand, the
bishop of Quebec; and the priests shaped their conduct after that of
their superior. At any rate, the danger which Haldimand feared did not
take form; and the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 made it
more unlikely than ever.
The French Revolution profoundly affected the attitude of the French
Canadians toward France. Canada was the child of the _ancien regime_.
Within her borders the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau had found no
shelter. Canada had nothing in common with the anti-clerical and
republican tendencies of the Revolution. That movement created a gap
between France and Canada which has not been bridged to this day. In
the Napoleonic wars the sympathies of Canada were almost wholly with
Great Britain. When news arrived of the defeat of the French fleet at
Trafalgar, a _Te Deum_ was sung in the Catholic cathedral at Quebec;
and, in a sermon {5} preached on that occasion, a future bishop of the
French-Canadian Church enunciated the principle that 'all events which
tend to broaden the gap separating us from France should be welcome.'
It was during the War of 1812-14, however, that the most striking
manifestation of French-Canadian loyalty to the British crown appeared.
In that war, in which Canada was repeatedly invaded by American armies,
French-Canadian militiamen under French-Canadian officers fought
shoulder to shoulder with their English-speaking fellow-countrymen on
several stricken fields of battle; and in one engagement, fought at
Chateauguay in the French province of Lower Canada, the day was won for
British arms by the heroic prowess of Major de Salaberry and his
French-Canadian soldiers. The history of the war with the United
States provides indelible testimony to the loyalty of French Canada.
A quarter of a century passed. Once again the crack of muskets was
heard on Canadian soil. This time, however, there was no foreign
invader to repel. The two races which had fought side by side in 1812
were now arrayed against each other. French-Canadian veterans of
Chateauguay were on {6} one side, and English-Canadian veterans of
Chrystler's Farm on the other. Some real fighting took place. Before
peace was restored, the fowling-pieces of the French-Canadian rebels
had repulsed a force of British regulars at the village of St Denis,
and brisk skirmishes had taken place at the villages of St Charles and
St Eustache. How this unhappy interlude came to pass, in a century and
a half of British rule in Canada, it is the object of this book to
explain.
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