[Transcriber’s Note:
The corrections listed in the Erratum have been incorporated into the
original.
Italics delimited by underscores.]
HUMOURS OF ’37
GRAVE, GAY AND GRIM
REBELLION TIMES IN THE CANADAS.
BY
ROBINA AND KATHLEEN MACFARLANE LIZARS,
_Authors of “In the Days of the Canada Company: the Story of the
Settlement of the Huron Tract.”_
“The humours are commonly the most important and most
variable parts of the animal body.”
TORONTO:
WILLIAM BRIGGS,
WESLEY BUILDINGS.
C. W. COATES, MONTREAL. S. F. HUESTIS, HALIFAX.
1897.
Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by KATHLEEN
MACFARLANE LIZARS, at the Department of Agriculture.
PREFACE.
The title of this book is built upon the assumption that humour is a
sense of incongruity, not that there was anything specially humorous in
the affairs of ’37 beyond that which arose from the crudeness of the
times.
A medium between the sacrifice of detail attendant on compilation, and
the loss of effect in a whole picture through too close application
of the historic microscope, has been attempted. True proportion is
difficult to compass at short range, yet the motives, ideas and
occurrences which produced the animosities leading to the Rebellion
were the inheritance, the special property, of the men who lived
then; and of them few remain. To those who do and who have so kindly
given their reminiscences special thanks are due. The works of the
documentary and the philosophic historian lie on the shelves ready
to one’s hand; but those who were “Loyalist” and “Rebel” are quickly
dropping into that silence where suffering and injustice, defeat and
victory, meet in common oblivion.
Like lichens on rocks, myths have grown about that time; but the myth
is worth preserving for the sake of the germ of truth which gave it
birth. Historians sometimes tell the truth, not always the whole truth,
certainly never anything but the truth, and nothing is to be despised
which gives a peep at the life as it really was. For complexion of the
times, the local colour of its action, there can be nothing like the
tale of the veteran, of the white-haired, dim-eyed survivor, whose
quaking voice tells out the story of that eventful day. A page from
Pepys or Bellasys lifts a curtain upon what really took place when the
historic essence fails; then some morsels of secret history come to
light, and motives and actions hitherto puzzling stand revealed.
Were all contributed sentences herein to have their rights in inverted
commas the publisher’s stock would be exhausted. The prejudice in
favour of Italics has not been observed in certain cases. “A bas les
prejudices;” in Canada French is not a foreign language.
It is also assumed that every Canadian is familiar with Canadian
history, and that some one or other of its masters is well fixed in
school memories. To those masters, and to many others, an apology
is tendered for wholesale appropriation of their matter. If every
statement made herein were substantiated by the customary foot-note
many unsightly pages would be the result; therefore, as no statement
has been made without due authority, we commend our readers to the
writings of Parkman, Garneau, Dent, McMullen, McCarthy, Macaulay,
Michelet, DeGaspé, LeMoine, David, Morgan, Carrier, Bonnycastle, F.
B. Head, George Head, Macgregor, Bender, Lindsay, Rattray, Scadding,
Thompson and others; to the writings and biographies of the statesmen
and governors quoted; to Governmental Journals and House of Commons
Debates; for the record of events as they daily took place to
innumerable manuscripts, pamphlets and newspapers, written or published
between Sarnia and Quebec and in many American cities, covering in
particular the years ’36, ’37, ’38, ’39, ’40; and to various sources
where Canada is treated as a side issue and not as a main point.
Theller and McLeod have been used where the corroborative testimony of
others warrants a transcription of their humours.
“Whether an eagle or ant in the intellectual world seems to me not to
matter much,” says Joubert. The work of the humble ant is to gather
fragments, and, as the humblest in the tribe, the collectors of
the data from which this mélange has risen offer it to the public,
and as humbly hope they have come within the same writer’s further
observation: “A small talent, if it keeps within its limits and rightly
fulfils its task, may reach the goal just as well as a great one.”
STRATFORD, October, 1897.
Several score of authorities, known or comparatively unknown, have
been drawn on in the compilation of Gallows Hill. Bill Johnston and
Colonel Prince, as they appear here, are derived from twenty-one and
twenty-six authorities respectively. Therefore when the hundredth, and
the twenty-second, and the twenty-seventh, shall arise to contradict,
or disagree with, each and every word herein, the authors beg to be
allowed to see nothing but a humour in the situation.
NEW WORDS TO AN OLD SONG;
OR, JOHN GILPIN TRAVESTIED.
[We are indebted to Miss FitzGibbon for a copy of the Cobourg _Star_
of February 7th, 1838, in which appears, under the above title, an
epitome, from one point of view, of Rebellion events. Its humours make
it a fitting introduction for the papers which follow.]
“_Now puny discord first broke out,
And fools rebelled; but what about
They could not tell._”
There lived in famed Toronto town
A man not very big,
A belted knight was he likewise,--
Knight of the old bay wig.
Mackenzie was this hero called,
From Scotia’s land he came,
To sow and reap--if e’er he could--
The seeds of future fame.
Well taught was he to broil and scold,
To slander and to lie,
The good to libel--but the bad
Around him close to tie.
A precious clan this hero got
To join him in the cause
Of Freedom, which but truly meant
Upturning of our laws.
He travelled all the country round,
With grievances his cry;
Then off to father John, at home,
Right quickly did he hie.
And then he told so many lies
That John began to stare;
And eke he talked so very large
That John began to swear.
Then out Mackenzie pulled the roll
Of those who did complain;
And for redress of grievances
He bawled with might and main.
Now John a so-so clerk had got--
A Janus-looking elf,
Who cared for nothing else of earth
But sleeping and himself.
Glenelg was snoring in his chair
His custom every day--
Then up he got and rubbed his eyes
To brush the sleep away.
Said he, “Rebellion is our love,
In it we do delight;
So now you may go back again,
We’ll soon set things to right;
“For you and all the world must know,
By it our place we keep.”
But scarcely had he spoke these words
When he was fast asleep.
And when he’d slept ten months or so,
He called him for a pen;
But long before it ready was
He’d sunk to sleep again.
Now goodman Stephen in his ear
In whispering accents said--
“Both pens and paper now, my Lord,
Are on your table laid.”
So quick he took the gray goose-quill,
And wrote a neat despatch;
Says he, “I think that that, at least,
Their Tory wiles will match.
“Just as my name, it may be read
Whichever way you like,
Or Whig or Tory, as may best
The reader’s fancy strike.
“So And me now Sir Francis Head,--
A learned knight is he,--
Successor to the brave Sir John
I vow that man shall be.”
Sir Francis came, but long declined
The proffered post to take,
Until convinced by Lord Glenelg
’Twas for Reform’s sake.
“Now take this book,” his Lordship said,
“And in it you may see
The many wrongs that do oppress
A people blest and free.
“And take you also this despatch,
And read it over well;
But to the people you need not
Its whole contents to tell.”
Sir Francis bowed, and off he came
In hurry to be here;
And rabble shout and rabble praise
Fell thick upon his ear.
But full amazed was he to see
The good Sir John depart;
For blessings flowed from many a lip
And sighs from many a heart.
“Good lack!” quoth he, “but this is strange
Which I do now behold,
For that Sir John most hated was
In England we were told!”
And then he made a little speech,
And said he’d let them know,
What his instructions fully were
He meant to them to show.
It happened then our worthy knights
Were met in Parliament,
And unto them a copy neat
Of the despatch he sent.
And then they blustered and they fumed
And acted as if mad,
And said though things were bad before,
They now were twice as bad.
And then they asked that from their ranks
Six Councillors he’d choose--
Six men of wisdom, whose advice
In all behests he’d use.
To humour them he did his best,
And quickly tried the plan, sir:
But quite as quickly he found out
That it would never answer.
He said, “One law shall be my guide,
From which I’ll never swerve--
The Constitution I’ll uphold
With all my might and nerve.”
So shortly to the right-about
He sent them in a hurry,
Which caused among their loving friends
A most outrageous flurry.
The House was filled with witty chaps,
Who of a joke were fond;
They thought it would be mighty fine
To ask him for a “Bond.”
And then were speeches long and thick,
With nonsense and with rant,
And “_Rights of Council_” soon became
Reformers’ fav’rite cant.
And then one Peter Perry rose,
And in a flaming speech
He vowed that he Sir Francis Head
The use of laws would teach.
He said he had a plan which should
The country’s temper try,
And then he moved him that the House
Would stop the year’s supply.
A mighty struggle then arose,
Of who’d be first to vote;
For they their lessons well had read
And knew them all by rote.
Now up the Speaker of the House
With hasty step arose,
A letter from a friend below
He on the table throws.
The letter, read, was found to be
With treason full well pack’d;
It begg’d that rebels from below
Might by that House be back’d.
To print it, it was found too late--
Alas! they were not able,
For, dire mischance, some wicked wight
_Had stole it from the table_.
Sir Francis took them at their word--
He was as quick as they--
And with a speech that made them wince
He sent them all away.
Addresses now from far and near
To him came pouring in,
That he would give the people chance
Of choosing better men.
And now each Briton’s bosom beat chance
Right joyous at the thought,
That they at length had gained the
Which they so long had sought.
Our tried and trusty Governor,
Of rebel well aware,
Defied their malice, and them told
“To come on if they dare.”
Now all around our happy land
Was heard a joyous shout--
Of forty-seven, rebels all,
Full thirty were left out.
Ex-Speaker Bidwell in the dumps
Vow’d politics he’d quit;
For well he know in _that there_ House
He never more could sit.
Mackenzie also lost his place,
“_And whete and phlower_” too,
_Mud Turtle_ and his hopeful gang
Were left their deeds to rue.
And Loyalty triumphant was
In almost every place,
Its bitter foes were left at home
To batten on disgrace.
Of Doctor Duncombe must I tell,
Who off to England hies,
And thought a wondrous job to work
By pawning off his lies.
How, decked with jewels of all kinds,
He looked so mighty gay,
And how his name he quickly changed
When he got well away.
And how he met with Jocky R.,
And Josey Hume, also,
And what a jolly set they were
When planning what to do.
And soon they summ’d up all our wants
The “tottle” for to find;
Said Josey, “Soon a storm I’ll raise,”
Said Duncombe, “That is kind.
“And--for I know you never stick
At trick’ry or at lie;
I think we might make out a case
Twix’t Roebuck, you and I.”
But when they’d said their utmost say,
And vented all their spleen,
The truth it shortly came to light,
Such things had never been.
And then Sir Francis high was praised
And just applauses met,
And by his King he straightway was
Created Baronet.
Not so Lord Gosford, who, intent
His nat’ral bent to show,
The titled minion had become
Of Speaker Papineau.
In him rebellion evermore
Was sure to find a friend;
His only study seemed to be
His utmost help to lend.
It happen’d that the rebel gang
Some resolutions passed,
To which they swore that they would stick
Unto the very last.
And Melbourne then, to ease their fears,
Three knowing G’s (_geese_) did send,
To see if they could calm the French
And make their murmurs end.
They quickly came, Lord Gosford chief,
A pretty set were they,
And Jean Baptiste, he swore outright
He not a sou would pay.
Lord Johnny Russell then got wrath,
And spoke as lion bold,
That he the money soon should get
As in the time of old.
The Frenchmen at St. Charles then
Did loud assert their right;
But soon they found ’twas easier far
To make a speech than fight.
For quick the Loyalists around
Their much loved flag did rally,
The battle-shout was heard throughout
The broad St. Lawrence valley.
Corunna’s chieftain, he was there,
With gallant Wetherall,
And many loyal men, prepared
To conquer or to fall.
How British bayonets did their Work
Let razed St. Charles tell;
St. Eustache, also, where in scores
The dastard rebels fell.
Of gallant Markham would I sing,
And others if I could;
Of Weir, who most inhumanly
Was murdered in cold blood.
But soon the traitors were compelled
With grief to bite the dust;
They crouched beneath the British flag,
As every traitor must.
But where were they, the _gallant_ chiefs,
Who led the people on?
In vain you searched, for they away
To Yankee-land had gone.
Among the rebels there were found
Some dozen M.P.P.’s;
Who now confined in jail may pass
The winter at their ease.
But to Sir Mac. we now return,
From whom we’ve strayed too long;
This verse, I think, will just conclude
The middle of my song.
Mackenzie and his rebel gang
In Doel’s brewery met,
“A bung-hole pack,” Jim Dalton calls
This mischief-brewing set.
And there they laid down all their plans
Of this great revolution,
And destined Rolph to be the head
Of their new Constitution.
At length unto this crew the Knight
A flaming speech addressed,
And told the plan which after all
Did unto him seem best.
Said he: “My true and trusty friends,
Though we have promised been
Reform these many years, yet we
Reform have never seen.
“So now, my lads, no longer we
In anxious doubt must wait,
The time has come for pulling down
The Church, the Queen, and State.
“For vote by ballot we must have,
And stars and garters too,
And we must hang Sir Francis Head,
With all his Tory crew.
“I’ve written round to all my friends
That they should ready be,
And as of them we are now sure
We’ll gain the victory.
“The Tories all securely sleep,
And dream they’ve naught to fear,
Nor little think that to their end
They now are drawing near.
“John Strachan now is quite at rest,
And Robinson likewise;
But soon at Freedom’s shrine of them
We’ll make a sacrifice.
“The red-coats, too, are far away,
Removed from every station,
And now it is our time to burst
From ‘hateful domination.’
“The Yankees also are prepared
To lend a helping hand
To breed confusion and dismay
Throughout this happy land.
“And now, my friends, in right good truth,
We’ve little time to spare,
Go quick, collect your several bands
And arm them with great care.”
When he had done, all gave a shout
To show their courage high,
And then obedient to his words
In various paths they fly.
The blacksmith Lount, he active was
Both spears and swords to make,
And General Duncombe hoped that soon
Fort Malden he might take.
Mackenzie to mail-robbing took--
A most delightful trade
For one who every blackguard art
Erstwhile had well essayed.
And when he got three hundred men,
All brave ones as himself,
He then marched to Toronto town
To see and gain some pelf.
Their gallant deeds and gallant acts
I’m sure I need not tell,
How full four hundred armed men
_Ran from the College bell_.
Nor how full thirty men at least
Did one old man attack,
Nor dared to fight him face to face,
But shot him in the back.
How good Sir Frank a flag of truce
With Rolph and Baldwin sent
Unto the rebel camp, to ask
Them what was their intent;
And how they (prompted by the twain)
Declared ’twas their intention
To settle all the State affairs
By General Convention.
And then Toronto in a blaze
They threatened for to set,
But nearer than Montgomery’s
They ne’er to it could get.
’Twas on the seventh of that month
Which we do call December,
Sir Francis Head led out his men,--
That day we’ll long remember.
And then ’twas glorious fun to see
What rabble rout could do,--
They every man took to his heels,
The word was, _Sauve qui peut_.
Some hundred taken prisoners were
On that eventful day;
Sir Francis with too kind a heart
He let them all away.
But “Which way did the leaders run?”
I think I hear you ask;
To tell which way they took, I ween,
Would be an arduous task.
Soon as the news of this outbreak
Had gone the country through,
It was a glorious sight to see
How quick to arms they flew;
And ’mongst the foremost in the ranks
To quell the rebel band,
Old Erin’s dauntless shamrock stood
A guardian of the land.
And then was seen old England’s rose
In all its pride and glory;
And Scotland’s thistle, which is known
In many a deathless story.
And with them joined thy valiant sons,
My own adopted land,
To form around the Queen and laws
A glorious valiant band.
MacNab his gallant volunteers
Led anxious to the fight,
And all the west poured in her troops
To stand in freedom’s right.
Newcastle, too, her quota sent
Of men both good and true;
In truth it was a cheering sight
Their bearing high to view.
Of Cobourg, too, I needs must sing,
Which on that trying day
The fire of virtuous loyalty
Did to our eyes display.
There Conger with his company,
With Calcutt and with Clarke,
And Warren, with his rifle band,
Whom every eye did mark.
And on they went, a gallant set,
To stop the foes rebelling;
How many prisoners they took
Would take some time in telling.
Meanwhile Mackenzie, safe and sound,
Had got to Buffalo;
The Yankees sympathized with him
And made him quite a show.
Neutrality it was their law,
But that they never minded,
They sympathized with rebels so
It quite their reason blinded.
Their papers, too, were filled with stuff,
With nonsense and with lies:
So fast they told them, that you’d think
They lied but for some prize.
At length, when after much ado
They got two hundred men,
Mackenzie in high spunk set off
To try the job again.
At first I hear ’twas their intent
At Waterloo to land,
But Newcastle’s good rifles there
Were ready to their hand.
Rensselaer then took the command
Of those degraded wretches,
For some had neither coat nor hat,
And some not even breeches.
To Navy Island then they went,
And there made a great splutter,--
A Constitution printed off,
And many threats did utter.
Alas, for Yankee modesty!
It really is quite shocking,
Some _ladies_ made the rebels _shirts_,
And some, too, sent them stocking.
Of many acts which by our men
Right gallantly were done,
I’ve spun my verse to such a length
I can relate but one.
And that the very gallant act
Of Captain Andrew Drew,
Whose name must be immortalized,
Likewise his daring crew.
A Yankee steamer oft had tried
The rebels aid to bring;
This English seaman swore that he
Would not allow the thing.
The Captain and his valiant crew,
Whose names I wot not all,
From Schlosser cut the steamboat out
And sent her o’er the Fall.
Oh! then the Yankees stormed outright,
And spoke of reparation;
A mighty flame then rose through this
Tobacco-chewing nation.
But little Mat was far too wise
The risk of war to run,
For he was one who never thought
In fighting there was fun.
So quickly to the frontier he
Sent General Winfield Scott,
Who in last war at Lundy’s Lane
A right good drubbing got.
Meanwhile upon the rebel host
Our guns so well did play
With shot and shell that they right soon
Were glad to run away.
And Duncombe, too, oh! where is he,
The Doctor, brave and bold?
Some say that he is dead and gone,
Being perished in the cold.
And now that the rebellion’s o’er
Let each true Briton sing,
Long live the Queen in health and peace,
And may each rebel swing.
And good Sir Francis Head, may he
With health and peace be crowned;
May earthly happiness to him
For evermore abound.
God prosper, too, my own loved land,
Thy sons so brave and true,
A heavy debt of loyalty
Doth England owe to you.
But as for those said Yankee chaps,
They well may pine and fret,
For, by lord Harry, they will have
To pay us all the debt.
And now to Mac. there’s still one step
To end his life of evil;
Soon may he take the last long leap
From gibbet to the----.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
BANEFUL DOMINATION 13
MORE BANEFUL DOMINATION 44
THE CANADAS AT WESTMINSTER 63
A CALL TO UMBRELLAS 91
LE GRAND BRULE 132
GALLOWS HILL 161
AUTOCRATS ALL 202
HURON’S AGE HEROIC 272
DEBORAHS OF ’37 308
HUMOURS OF ’37.
Baneful Domination.
“_Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a
private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age._”
The vivacious Pompadour enlivens the twenty years of her boudoir
conspiracies playing _les graces_ with her lord’s colonies. She throws
the ring; Pitt, at the other end of the game, catches Canada.
The mills of the gods in their slow grind have reversed the conditions
of the contestants; the Norman conquest of England becomes a British
conquest of New France. The descendants of the twenty thousand
barbarians who landed at Hastings have but come to claim their own.
Life is “moving music.” The third movement in this historic sonata
comes back to the original subject, even if the return to the tonic
opens in a minor mode.
“Gentlemen, I commend to your keeping the honour of France,” says the
dying Montcalm.
“Now, God be praised, I die in peace!” and Wolfe expires.
The fiercest of the conflict ever rages round a bit of bunting on the
end of a stick. The lilies of France come down; up goes the Union Jack
to usher in the birthday of the Greater Britain, and Horace Walpole
says, “We are forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for
fear of missing one.”
Voltaire gives a fête at Fernay to celebrate the deliverance from
fifteen hundred leagues of frozen country; the Pompadour tells her
Louis that now he may sleep in peace; and outsiders ask of Pitt that
which a celebrated novelist, a century later, asks of his hero--“What
will he do with it?” “The more a man is versed in business,” said the
experienced Pitt, “the more he finds the hand of Providence everywhere.”
But Providence would need to have broad shoulders if generals, kings
and statesmen are to place all their doings there.
* * * * *
By 1837 Canada was no longer a giant in its cradle. Colonial boyhood
had arrived; a most obstreperous and well-nigh unmanageable youth, with
many of the usual mistakes of alternate harshness and indulgence from
the parent. For it was not all wisdom that came from Downing Street,
either in despatches or in the gubernatorial flesh. It is easy now to
see that much emanating therefrom came from those whose vision was
confined to the limits of a small island.
The great lubberly youth was given to measuring himself from time to
time; for Canadian epochs are much like the marks made by ambitious
children on the door jamb, marks to show increase in height and a
nearer approach to the stature of the parent.
Canadians’ privileges, like children’s, existed only during the
good pleasure of those who governed them. Some meant well and did
foolishly; others were “somewhat whimsical, fond of military pomp,
accustomed to address deputations, parliamentary or others, as if
they had been so many recruits liable to the quickening influence
of the cat-o’-nine-tails.” One peer in the House of Lords, during a
debate on the vexed Canadian question, demurred at the members of
Colonial Assemblies being treated like froward children, forever tied
to the Executive leading-strings. Canada was, in fact, bound to the
Mother Country by bonds of red tape and nothing else. “Who made you?”
catechized Great Britain. In the words of Mr. Henry Labouchere’s
precocious young catechumen: “Let bygones be bygones; I intend to make
myself,” replied the colony.
The problem of assimilation created by the influx of all nations,
and the fact of two divisions, a conquering and a conquered, with
languages, customs and creeds as diverse as the peoples, made up an
enigma the solution of which still occupies French and English wits
alike.
The English and the French temperaments, each the antipodes of the
other, called for mutual patience and forbearance. But historic truth
compels many admissions: first, that British rule with British freedom
left out made a dark period from the Conquest to the Rebellion;
second, that the national, religious and intellectual ideas of the
French-Canadians, their whole mental attitude, were dominated by
the Quebec Act; and the motto given them by Etienne Parent, “Nos
institutions, notre langue et nos lois,” had become a kind of fetich.
They looked upon themselves as the agents of their mother country
and the Church in the New World; and they argued did they give up
these laws, institutions and language, and become Anglicized, their
nationality would be forever lost.
The toast among officers en route to the Conquest had been, “British
colours on every fort, port and garrison in America.” For many years
after the British flag had first waved on the citadel the habitant
on the plain lifted his eyes to where he had seen the lilies of
France, and with heavy heart said to himself that which has become an
historic saying, “Still we shall see the old folks back again”--words
as pathetic in their hope as the Highlanders’ despairing “We return no
more, no more.”
It is doubtful if at this period the old folks bothered themselves much
about their late colony. Like their own proverb, “In love there is
always one who kisses and one who holds the cheek,” French Canada was
expending a good deal of sentiment upon people who had forgotten that
tucked away in a remote corner of the new world was “a relic preserved
in ice,” a relic of France before the Revolution, its capital the
farthermost point of manner and civilization, a town with an Indian
sounding name, which yet bore upon its front the impress of nobility.
For Quebec is and should be the central point of interest for all
Canadians; the history of the old rock city for many a day was in
effect the history of Canada. History speaks from every stone in its
ruined walls--walls that have sustained five sieges.
The Revolution did not create the same excited interest in Canada that
might have been looked for, yet there were those who “wept bitterly”
when they heard of the execution of the King. The patois, ignorance,
superstition, devotion of its inhabitants, were identical with a time
prior to the Revolution; and with them were the same social ideas and
the same piety.
But the power divided in France among king, nobles, and priest, in
Canada was confined to priest alone; and when the dream of a republic
was dreamt it was the priest and not the British soldier who made the
awakening. The British soldier and those who sent him seem to have
been not a whit better informed about the colony gained than France
was about the colony lost. Some London journalists were not sure
whether Canada formed part of the Cape of Good Hope or of the Argentine
Republic. For a long time the English Government annually sent a
flagpole for the citadel, probably grown in a Canadian forest. Nor
did time improve their knowledge, for as late as the Trent affair one
statesman in the House of Commons informed his more ignorant brethren
that Canada was separated from the United States by the Straits of
Panama.
The acts of Regicide France inspired horror in Canada, yet were not
without their fruits. Despite his title of the “Corsican ogre” and
their horror of revolution, the submission of all Europe to Napoleon
did not make the French of Canadian birth more submissive. Nor did
the nation of shop-keepers, whom he despised and who were to cut his
ambition and send him to his island prison, become more plausible,
courteous or conciliatory, through their sense of victory. Many a
thing, had the positions been reversed, which would have been passed
unnoticed by a phlegmatic Briton, was to the Gallican a national insult.
And LeMoine, that past grand master of the Franco-Anglo-Canadian
complexion, says all too truthfully that conciliation was not a
vice-regal virtue; and one of the singers of the day, a Briton of the
Britons, confirms the opinion:
“So triumph to the Tories and woe to the Whigs,
And to all other foes of the nation;
Let us be through thick and thin caring nothing for the prigs
Who prate about conciliation.”
But, under its fossil simplicity, Quebec, the “relic preserved in ice,”
untrue to its formation, burned with a fearsome heat and glow in the
years ’37-’38, and those prior to them. The thoughtless words of such
birds of passage as commandants and governors were not calculated to
put out the fire. The very origin of the name Jean Baptiste, applied
generically, arose from a Jean Baptiste answering to every second name
or so of a roll called in 1812, when he turned out in force to defend
the British flag. Getting tired of the monotony of them, said the
officer in his cheerful English way: “D---- them, they are all Jean
Baptistes.” And so the name stuck. General Murray, outraged at any
gold and scarlet apart from his own soldiers, lost all patience at the
sight of French officers in the streets of Quebec. “One cannot tell
the conquering from the conquered when one sees these ---- Frenchmen
walking about with their uniforms and their swords.”[1]
But the French-Canadians did not struggle against individuals except
as they represented a system considered vicious. With the British
Constitution Jean Baptiste was a veritable Oliver Twist. He was not
satisfied with the morsels doled out, but ever asked for more.
True, there were many--at any rate, some--of the higher class French
whose horizon was not bounded by petty feelings regarding race and
religion. These men accepted British rule as one of the fortunes of
war and enjoyed its benefits. An old seigneur, when dying, counselled
his grandson, “Serve your English sovereign with as much zeal and
devotion and loyalty as I have served the French monarch, and receive
my last blessing.” And that king in whose reign insurrection was on
the eve of breaking--irreverently called “Hooked-Nose Old Glorious
Billy”--strangely enough had great sympathy with French-Canadian
feeling, a sympathy which did much to hearten the minority who
counselled abiding by the fortunes of war. But “Old Glorious” was also
called the “People’s Friend,” and the Quebecers had lively and pleasant
memories of him.
In the nine years preceding the fateful one of ’37 there had been
eight colonial ministers, the policy of each differing from that
of his predecessor, and all of them with at best but an elementary
knowledge of colonial affairs and the complexities arising from dual
language, despite the object-lesson daily under their eyes in the
Channel Islands. A little learning is a dangerous thing. Each Colonial
Secretary had that little, and it proved the proverbial pistol which
no one knew was loaded. By them Canadians were spoken of as “aliens
to our nation and constitution,” and it was not thought possible that
Lower Canada, any more than Hindostan or the Cape, could ever become
other than foreign. It was popular and fashionable in some quarters to
underrate the historic recollections which were bound up in religion
and language; and as for Canadian independence, that was an orchid
not yet in vogue. By 1837 he who sat in state in the Château St.
Louis (says LeMoine) in the name of majesty had very decided views on
that subject. H. M. William IV.’s Attorney-General, Charles Ogden, by
virtue of his office “the King’s own Devil,” who was an uncompromising
foe to all evil-doers, held it to mean a hempen collar.
The question of British or French rule grew steadily for a half
century, until Melbourne’s cabinet and Sir John Colborne made effort
to settle it in one way and forever. “Les sacres Anglais” was, in
consequence, the name applied to the followers of the latter; and as
to the former, probably the illiterate habitant, who could not read
the papers but who had an instinct wherewith to reach conclusions,
had his own patois rendering of an English colonial’s opinion that
the politicians comprising the cabinet might “talk summat less and do
summat more.” All classes, indeed, of all sections, were not backward
in giving opinion as to the quality of ministerial despatches; for a
titled lady, writing from a far-off land where she did much work for
the Home Government, dipped her pen in good strong ink and wrote, “My
Lord, if your diplomatic despatches are as obscure as the one which
lies before me, it is no wonder that England should cease to have that
proud preponderance in her foreign relations which she once could boast
of.”
A humorous naturalist had said that the three blessings conferred upon
England by the Hanoverian succession were the suppression of popery,
the national debt, and the importation of the brown or Hanoverian rat.
Strange to say, one of the complexities of the Canadian situation was
the position taken by that very popery which in England was still
looked upon with distrust and suspicion. In 1794, not a decade’s remove
from when the streets of London ran alike with rum and Catholic blood,
through Protestant intolerance and the efforts of a mad nobleman,
Bishop Plessis had thanked God in his Canadian Catholic Cathedral that
the colony was English and free from the horrors enacted in the French
colonies of the day. “Thank your stars,” cried another from the pulpit,
“that you live here under the British flag.”
“The Revolution, so deplorable in itself,” wrote Bishop Hubert of
Quebec, “ensures at this moment three great advantages to Canada:
that of sheltering illustrious exiles; that of procuring for it new
colonists; and that of an increase of its orthodox clergy.” “The French
emigrants have experienced most consolingly the nature of British
generosity. Those of them who shall come to Canada are not likely to
expect that great pecuniary aid will be extended; but the two provinces
offer them resources on all sides.”
Many of the French officers whom the fear of the guillotine sent
over in numbers to England found their way to that country which the
Catholic Canadian priesthood so appreciated. Uncleared land and these
fragments of French noblesse came together in this unforeseen way. But
there was another view of their position when Burke referred to them as
having “taken refuge in the frozen regions and under the despotism of
Britain.” Truly has Britain shouldered many sins, made while you wait
in the factory of rhetoric; nor is it less true that glorious sunny
Canada has suffered equally unjustly as a lesser Siberia from a long
line of writers, beginning with Voltaire, ending--let us hope--with
Kipling.
The French Revolution over, and a mimic one threatening in the colony,
the clergy did not hesitate to remind one another of the fate of
their orders in France, to congratulate themselves they were under a
different régime, nor fail to remember that the War Fund to sustain
British action against the Republicans of France in 1799 had been
subscribed to heavily by many of their brethren and themselves. _Le
Seminaire_ stands in that list, in the midst of many historic names,
against the sum of fifty pounds “per annum during the war.” One point
of great difference between new and old was that the habitants, who
were more enlightened and more religious than their brother peasants
left behind in France, had, with the noblesse, a common calamity in any
prospect which threatened subjugation. The variance ’twixt priest and
people could only end in one way where the people were devout; and the
Lower Canadian has ever been devout and true to Mother Church. But the
“patriot,” who was more apt in diatribe against Tories than in prayers,
spared not the priests in their historical leanings. “Who was the first
Tory?” cries a patriot from his palpitating pages. “The first Tory was
Cain, and the last will be the State-paid priest.”
But if the British Government had in some things acted so kindly and
justly to those of French extraction as to merit such words, in other
matters there had been much of harshness increased by ignorance and
indifference, and the time had come when all had to suffer for such
inconsistencies, and, unfortunately, those most severely who already
were the victims of them.
“C’est la force et le droit qui reglent toutes choses dans le monde.”
Said one of their own writers, “la force en attendant le droit.” In
both Canadas “la force” was local supremacy. The painful development as
to when it should be superseded proved “le droit” and British supremacy
identical.
It was a political struggle prolonged beyond endurance, more than a
real wish to shake free from Britain; a political struggle, where the
combatants were often greedy and abusive partisans who appealed to the
vilest passions of the populace and who were unscrupulous in choosing
their instruments of attack. Capital was made out of sentiment most
likely to appeal to the suffering:
“Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ----”
and Papineau, by speech, manifesto and admission, looked toward the
seat of vice-royalty and made plain the homely sentiment, “Ote toi de
là que moi je m’y mette.” He did not agree with the humble habitant
saying, “C’est le bon Dieu qui nous envoya ça, il faut l’endurer.”
His opinion leaned more to that of O’Connell, who said the French
were the only rightful inhabitants of the country. How much baneful
domination had it taken to so change the Papineau of 1820, when on the
occasion of the death of George III. he says, “... a great national
calamity--the decease of that beloved sovereign who had reigned over
the inhabitants of this country since the day they became British
subjects; it is impossible not to express the feeling of gratitude for
the many benefits received from him, and those of sorrow for his loss
so deeply felt in _this_, as in every other portion of his extensive
dominions. And how could it be otherwise, when each year of his long
reign has been marked by new favours bestowed upon the country?...
Suffice it then at a glance to compare our present happy situation with
that of our fathers on the eve of the day when George III. became their
legitimate monarch ... from that day the reign of the law succeeded to
that of violence.... All these advantages have become our birthright,
and shall, I hope, be the lasting inheritance of our posterity. To
secure them let us only act as British subjects and freemen.”
About ’31 the Lower Canadian Assembly received a lot of new blood; and
very hot, adventurous and zealous blood it was. Young men like Bleury,
Lafontaine, and their confreres, were not backward in naming what they
considered their rights; and they had somewhat unlimited ideas. The
most ardent of the group centred round Papineau and excited him still
further. They scouted Lord Goderich (Robinson) and his concessions so
long as his countrymen formed a majority in their government. This
was a “demarcation insultante” between victor and vanquished. Lord
Dalhousie, “glowing with scarlet and gold,” and followed by a numerous
staff, had brought a session to a close in a peremptory manner, with
words which might have furnished a cue to himself and others. “Many
years of continued discussion ... have proved unavailing to clear
up and set at rest a dispute which moderation and reason might have
speedily terminated.”
To the Loyalist Papineau was the root of all evil. A French
loyal ditty attributed every calamity of the era to him, cholera
morbus, earthquakes and potato-rot included, each stanza finishing
with the refrain, “C’est la faute de Papineau.” “It is certain,”
said the latter, “that before long the whole of America will be
republicanized.... In the days of the Stuarts those who maintained that
the monarchic principle was paramount in Britain lost their heads on
the scaffold.” This, surely, was the proverbial word to the wise.
Naturally, such sentiments made him receive cool treatment in Downing
Street, even when his Ninety-Two Resolutions embodied much truth
and called for affirmative answers. Nothing but the most absolute
democratic rule would satisfy the irreconcilables. Their act in the
House had led to Lord Aylmer being forced to advance the supplies
from the Military Chest, and to embody his disapproval in a resolution
of censure. They in turn voted his censures should be expunged from
the journals of the House. Then Papineau, from the Speaker’s chair,
inveighed against the Mother Country. After the presentation of the
Resolutions, Lord Aylmer, alluding to them, imprudently said that
dissatisfaction was mostly confined to within the walls of the Assembly
rooms, that outside of them the country was at peace and contented.
The men who framed them lost no time in giving him a practical
denial. Resolutions from many parishes approved of the acts of the
Assembly, and the newspaper columns teemed with accounts of popular
demonstrations. Lord Aylmer, however, supposed himself within his
rights. After his recall, at his interview with the King, and supported
by Palmerston and Minto on either side, the monarch declared he
entirely approved of Aylmer’s official conduct, that he had acted like
a true and loyal subject towards a set of traitors and conspirators,
and as became a British officer under the circumstances.
Lord Glenelg sent to the rescue that commission of enquiry, the prelude
to the later Durham one, whereof Lord Gosford was chief. This nobleman,
who became governor of the province, was Irish, and a Protestant,
an opponent of Orangeism, a man of liberal opinions and decisive in
speech and action. He tried every means to make friends in the French
quarter; visited schools and colleges, enchanted all by his charming
politeness of manner, gave a grand ball on the festival day of a
favourite saint, and by his marked attentions at it to Madame Bedard
showed at once his taste and his ability to play a part. He made a
long address to the Chambers, breathing naught but patriotism and
justice; so some still had hope. “To the Canadians, both of French and
British origin, I would say, consider the blessings you might enjoy
but for your dissensions. Offsprings as you are of the two foremost
nations of the earth, you hold a vast and beautiful country, having a
fertile soil with a healthful climate, whilst the noblest river in the
world makes sea-ports of your most remote towns.” He replied to the
Assembly first in French, then in English. There is a possibility of
doing too much, and the _Montreal Gazette_ censured this little bit of
courteous precedence so far as to deny the right of a governor to speak
publicly in any language but his own, and construed this innovation
by the amiable Earl into one that would lead to the Mother-Country’s
degradation. Then what of the Channel Islands, where loyalty was and
is above suspicion; where the Legislature declared that members had
not the right to use English in debate, and “that only in the event
of Jersey having to choose between giving up the French language, or
the protection of England, would they consent to accept the first
alternative.”
Matters progressed till rulers were burned in effigy, and bands of
armed men, prowling about the most disaffected parts, confirmed M.
Lafontaine’s saying, “Every one in the colony is malcontent.” “We have
demanded reforms,” said he, “and not obtained them. It is time to be up
and doing.” “We are despised!” cried M. Morin, “oppression is in store
for us, and even annihilation.... But this state of things need endure
no longer than while we are unable to redress it.”
“It is a second conquest that is wanted in that colony,” said Mr.
Willmot in the House of Commons, when he heard the Canadian news _via_
the _Montreal Gazette_.
So Lord Gosford asked for his recall, got it, stepped into a canoe
after a progress through streets lined with guards of honour composed
of regular and irregular troops, amid “some perfunctory cheering,” and
was paddled to his ship, the band of the 66th playing “Rule Britannia.”
She might rule the waves, but many of those who listened were more than
ever determined that she should not rule Canadians.
The Gosford report was vehemently protested against by Lord Brougham
and Mr. Roebuck, who did not mince matters, but predicted the rebellion
and outlined a probable war with the neighbouring republic.
But Lord John Russell, like Sir Francis Bond Head, did not anticipate
a rebellion.
Lord Gosford had found his task more difficult than he expected. His
predecessor, Sir James Kempt, had done his best and failed, through no
fault of his own but because there was a determination in the majority
of his subjects not to be satisfied. Lord Gosford tried the effect of
a proclamation as an antidote for revolutions. But the habitants tore
it to shreds, crying, “A bas le proclamation! Vive Papineau, vive la
liberté, point de despotisme,” and made their enthusiasm sacred by
holding their meetings at parish church doors. Papineau was omnipotent;
one would imagine ubiquitous, for he seems everywhere. He made the
tour of the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, while his supporters,
Girouard and Lafontaine, took the southern, making the excited people
still more discontented. In after years, as a refugee in Paris,
Papineau disclaimed any practical treason at this time: “None of us
had prepared, desired, or foreseen armed resistance.” Yet the pikes
were further sharpened, and the firelocks looked to; and at St. Thomas
(Que.) alone sixty men on horseback, carrying flags and maple boughs,
preceded him, and following him were several pieces of artillery and
the remainder of the two thousand people who formed his procession.
Bishop Lartigue, a relative of Papineau, warned his people to beware
of revolt, declaring himself impelled by no external influence, only
actuated by motives of conscience. Addressing one hundred and forty
priests, he used unmistakable terms as to how they were to resist
rebellion in the people; no Roman Catholic was permitted to transgress
the laws of the land, nor to set himself up against lawful authority.
He even speaks of “the Government under which we have the happiness to
live,” while his relative was contending that the yoke on the necks of
the Canadians was made in a fashion then obsolete--the Stuart pattern.
But he spoke too late; his people were beyond his control, and they
in turn condemned clerical interference in politics, and the curé in
charge at the combustible Two Mountains had his barns burned in answer
to his exhortation. On the first Monday of every month these sons
of Liberty, organized by Storrow Brown, met--“Son projet réuissoit
à merveille, chaque jours le corps augmentoit en nombre et déjà de
pareilles sociétés se formaient dans la campagne.”
The chronic state of eruption in unhappy Lower Canada had intervals of
quiet only when some governor, with manners of oil and policy of peace,
made an interregnum. All time was not like that of the little Reign of
Terror, full of fear and arbitrary measures, after the suppression of
_Le Canadien_ and the arrest of the judges; but the country felt itself
to be a plaything of not much more weight than the cushion dandled by
Melbourne or the feather blown about by that minister of deceptive
manner. The famous Ninety-two Resolutions embodied the Canadian view of
what was wrong, and the remedy for it. Papineau, their author, owed
much in their construction to his colleague, M. Morin, a gentle, polite
man of letters, with the suave manners of a divine, who neither looked
nor acted the conspirator, despite his many fiery words--as fervid
as those of the idol of the people, the eloquent leader in Canadian
debate, who was nightly carried home to his hotel on the shoulders of
the enthusiastic crowd.