THE ROYAL COMMISSION
A general election followed soon after the passing of the Ninety-Two
Resolutions and revealed the strength of Papineau's position in the
country. All those members of the _Patriote_ party who had opposed the
Resolutions--Neilson, Cuvillier, Quesnel, Stuart, and two or three
others--suffered defeat at the polls. The first division-list in the
new Assembly showed seventy members voting for Papineau as speaker, and
only six voting against him.
The Resolutions were forwarded to Westminster, both through the
Assembly's agent in London and through Lord Aylmer, who received the
address embodying the Resolutions, despite the fact that they demanded
his own impeachment. The British House of Commons appointed a special
committee to inquire into the grievances of which the Resolutions
complained; but there followed {45} no immediate action by the
government. The years 1834 and 1835 saw much disturbance in British
politics: there were no less than four successive ministers at the
Colonial Office. It was natural that there should be some delay in
dealing with the troubles of Lower Canada. In the spring of 1835,
however, the government made up its mind about the course to pursue.
It decided to send to Canada a royal commission for the purpose of
investigating, and if possible settling, the questions in dispute. It
was thought advisable to combine in one person the office of chief
royal commissioner and that of governor of Canada. To clear the way
for this arrangement Lord Aylmer was recalled. But he was expressly
relieved from all censure: it was merely recognized by the authorities
that his unfortunate relations with the Assembly made it unlikely that
he would be able to offer any assistance in a solution of the problem.
The unenviable position of governor and chief royal commissioner was
offered in turn to several English statesmen and declined by all of
them. It was eventually accepted by Lord Gosford, an Irish peer
without experience in public life. With him were associated as
commissioners Sir Charles Grey, afterwards {46} governor of Jamaica,
and Sir George Gipps, afterwards governor of New South Wales. These
two men were evidently intended to offset each other: Grey was commonly
rated as a Tory, while Gipps was a Liberal. Lord Gosford's appointment
caused much surprise. He was a stranger in politics and in civil
government. There is no doubt that his appointment was a last
resource. But his Irish geniality and his facility in being all things
to all men were no small recommendations for a governor who was to
attempt to set things right in Canada.
The policy of Lord Glenelg, the colonial secretary during Gosford's
period of office, was to do everything in his power to conciliate the
Canadian _Patriotes_, short of making any real constitutional
concessions. By means of a conciliatory attitude he hoped to induce
them to abate some of their demands. There is, indeed, evidence that
he was personally willing to go further: he seems to have proposed to
William IV that the French Canadians should be granted, as they
desired, an elective Legislative Council; but the staunch old Tory king
would not hear of the change. 'The king objects on principle,' the
ministers were told, 'and upon what he {47} considers sound
constitutional principle, to the adoption of the elective principle in
the constitution of the legislative councils in the colonies.' In 1836
the king had not yet become a negligible factor in determining the
policy of the government; and the idea was dropped.
Lord Gosford arrived in Canada at the end of the summer of 1835 to find
himself confronted with a discouraging state of affairs. A short
session of the Assembly in the earlier part of the year had been marked
by unprecedented violence. Papineau had attacked Lord Aylmer in
language breathing passion; and had caused Lord Aylmer's reply to the
address of the Assembly containing the Ninety-Two Resolutions to be
expunged from the journals of the House as 'an insult cast at the whole
nation.' Papineau had professed himself hopeless of any amendment of
grievances by Great Britain. 'When Reform ministries, who called
themselves our friends,' he said, 'have been deaf to our complaints,
can we hope that a Tory ministry, the enemy of Reform, will give us a
better hearing? We have nothing to expect from the Tories unless we
can inspire them with fear or worry them by ceaseless importunity.' It
{48} should be observed, however, that in 1835 Papineau explicitly
disclaimed any intention of stirring up civil war. When Gugy, one of
the English members of the Assembly,[1] accused him of such an
intention, Papineau replied:
Mr Gugy has talked to us again about an outbreak and civil war--a
ridiculous bugbear which is regularly revived every time the House
protests against these abuses, as it was under Craig, under Dalhousie,
and still more persistently under the present governor. Doubtless the
honourable gentleman, having studied military tactics as a lieutenant
in the militia--I do not say as a major, for he has been a major only
for the purposes of the parade-ground and the ball-room--is quite
competent to judge of the results of a civil war and of the forces of
the country, but he need not fancy that he can frighten us by hinting
to us that he will fight in the ranks of the enemy. All his threats
are futile, and his fears but the creatures of imagination.
Papineau did not yet contemplate an appeal {49} to arms; and of course
he could not foresee that only two years later Conrad Gugy would be one
of the first to enter the village of St Eustache after the defeat of
the _Patriote_ forces.
In spite of the inflamed state of public feeling, Lord Gosford tried to
put into effect his policy of conciliation. He sought to win the
confidence of the French Canadians by presiding at their
entertainments, by attending the distribution of prizes at their
seminaries, and by giving balls on their feast days. He entertained
lavishly, and his manners toward his guests were decidedly convivial.
'_Milord_,' exclaimed one of them on one occasion, tapping him on the
back at a certain stage of the after-dinner conversation, '_milord,
vous etes bien aimable_.' 'Pardonnez,' replied Gosford; '_c'est le
vin_.' Even Papineau was induced to accept the governor's hospitality,
though there were not wanting those who warned Gosford that Papineau
was irreconcilable. 'By a wrong-headed and melancholy alchemy,' wrote
an English officer in Quebec to Gosford, 'he will transmute every
public concession into a demand for more, in a ratio equal to its
extent; and his disordered moral palate, beneath the blandest smile and
the {50} softest language, will turn your Burgundy into vinegar.'
The speech with which Lord Gosford opened the session of the
legislature in the autumn of 1835 was in line with the rest of his
policy. He announced his determination to effect the redress of every
grievance. In some cases the action of the executive government would
be sufficient to supply the remedy. In others the assistance of the
legislature would be necessary. A third class of cases would call for
the sanction of the British parliament. He promised that no
discrimination against French Canadians should be made in appointments
to office. He expressed the opinion that executive councillors should
not sit in the legislature. He announced that the French would be
guaranteed the use of their native tongue. He made an earnest plea for
the settlement of the financial difficulty, and offered some
concessions. The legislature should be given control of the hereditary
revenues of the Crown, if provision were made for the support of the
executive and the judiciary. Finally, he made a plea for the
reconciliation of the French and English races in the country, whom he
described as 'the offspring of the two foremost nations {51} of
mankind.' Not even the most extreme of the _Patriotes_ could fail to
see that Lord Gosford was holding out to them an olive branch.
Great dissatisfaction, of course, arose among the English in the colony
at Lord Gosford's policy. 'Constitutional associations,' which had
been formed in Quebec and Montreal for the defence of the constitution
and the rights and privileges of the English-speaking inhabitants of
Canada, expressed gloomy forebodings as to the probable result of the
policy. The British in Montreal organized among themselves a volunteer
rifle corps, eight hundred strong, 'to protect their persons and
property, and to assist in maintaining the rights and principles
granted them by the constitution'; and there was much indignation when
the rifle corps was forced to disband by order of the governor, who
declared that the constitution was in no danger, and that, even if it
were, the government would be competent to deal with the situation.
Nor did Gosford find it plain sailing with all the French Canadians.
Papineau's followers in the House took up at first a distinctly
independent attitude. Gosford was informed {52} that the appointment
of the royal commission was an insult to the Assembly; it threw doubt
on the assertions which Papineau and his followers had made in
petitions and resolutions. If the report of the commissioners turned
out to be in accord with the views of the House, well and good; but if
not, that would not influence the attitude of the House. They would
not alter their demands.
In spite, however, of the uneasiness of the English official element,
and the obduracy of the extreme _Patriotes_, it is barely possible that
Gosford, with his _bonhomie_ and his Burgundy, might have effected a
modus vivendi, had there not occurred, about six months after Gosford's
arrival in Canada, one of those unfortunate and unforeseen events which
upset the best-laid schemes of mice and men. This was the indiscreet
action of Sir Francis Bond Head, the newly appointed
lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, in communicating to the
legislature of Upper Canada the _ipsissima verba_ of his instructions
from the Colonial Office. It was immediately seen that a discrepancy
existed between the tenor of Sir Francis Bond Head's instructions and
the tenor of Lord Gosford's speech at the opening of the legislature of
Lower Canada in 1835. {53} Sir Francis Bond Head's instructions showed
beyond peradventure that the British government did not contemplate any
real constitutional changes in the Canadas; above all, it did not
propose to yield to the demand for an elective Legislative Council.
This fact was called to the attention of Papineau and his friends by
Marshall Spring Bidwell, the speaker of the Assembly of Upper Canada;
and immediately the fat was in the fire. Papineau was confirmed in his
belief that justice could not be hoped for; those who had been won over
by Gosford's blandishments experienced a revulsion of feeling; and
Gosford saw the fruit of his efforts vanishing into thin air.
A climax came over the question of supply. Lord Gosford had asked the
Assembly to vote a permanent civil list, in view of the fact that the
government offered to hand over to the control of the legislature the
casual and territorial revenues of the Crown. But the publication of
Sir Francis Bond Head's instructions effectually destroyed any hope of
this compromise being accepted. In the session of the House which was
held in the early part of 1836, Papineau and his friends not only
refused to vote a permanent civil {54} list; they declined to grant
more than six months' supply in any case; and with this they made the
threat that if the demands of the _Patriotes_ were not met at the end
of the six months, no more supplies would be voted. This action was
deemed so unsatisfactory that the Legislative Council threw out the
bill of supply. The result was widespread distress among the public
officials of the colony. This was the fourth year in which no
provision had been made for the upkeep of government. In 1833 the bill
of supply had been so cumbered with conditions that it had been
rejected by the Legislative Council. In 1834, owing to disputes
between the Executive and the Assembly, the legislature had separated
without a vote on the estimates. In 1835 the Assembly had declined to
make any vote of supply. In earlier years the Executive had been able,
owing to its control of certain royal and imperial revenues, to carry
on the government after a fashion under such circumstances; but since
it had transferred a large part of these revenues to the control of the
legislature, it was no longer able to meet the situation. Papineau and
his friends doubtless recognized that they now had the 'Bureaucrats' at
their mercy; and {55} they seem to have made up their minds to achieve
the full measure of their demands, or make government impossible by
withholding the supplies, no matter what suffering this course might
inflict on the families of the public servants.
In the autumn of 1836 the royal commissioners brought their labours to
a close. Lord Gosford, it is true, remained in the colony as governor
until the beginning of 1838, and Sir George Gipps remained until the
beginning of 1837, but Sir Charles Grey left for England in November
1836 with the last of the commissioners' reports. These reports, which
were six in number, exercised little direct influence upon the course
of events in Canada. The commissioners pronounced against the
introduction of responsible government, in the modern sense of the
term, on the ground that it would be incompatible with the status of a
colony. They advised against the project of an elective Legislative
Council. In the event of a crisis arising, they submitted the question
whether the total suspension of the constitution would not be less
objectionable than any partial interference with the particular
clauses. It is evident from the reports that the commissioners had
{56} bravely survived their earlier view that the discontented
Canadians might be won over by unctuous blandishments alone. They
could not avoid the conclusion that this policy had failed.
[1] He was really of Swiss extraction.
{57}