pretext for vituperation, for exclusions, for their meriting the stigma
of political inferiority, for deprivation of our rights and ignoring
public interests, the Chamber hereby enters its protest against such
arrogant assumptions, and appeals against them to the justice of the
King and Parliament of Great Britain, likewise to the honourable
feeling of the whole British people. The numerical though not dominant
majority of this colony are not themselves disposed to esteem lightly
the consideration which they inherit from being allied in blood to a
nation equal, at least, to Britain in civilization and excelling her in
knowledge of the arts and sciences--a nation, too, now the worthy rival
of Britain for its institutions.”
Certain it is, the policy of the British Clique, so called, was moulded
more upon old than new country needs and ideas, and was suited to
the times of George I. and Louis XIV. more than to the dawn of the
Victorian era. But ’tis always darkest the hour before day, and the
torch lighted by Papineau was unfortunately to make conflagration
as well as illumination. It was the old, old story of theorists and
political agitators exciting popular discontent and alarm more than
the occasion warranted, by exaggerations retarding instead of speeding
a cause, with another story of procrastination and cross-purposes
from the Mother Country. Further, history was corroborated in that a
demagogue ends as a tyrant. A super-loyal newspaper did not hesitate to
say that the only way to calm Canada was to purge the Colonial Office
from King Stephen _down_ to Glenelg, and to do so by one huge petition
to Majesty signed by every Canadian from Quebec to Amherstburg. For
Lord Glenelg, with the best intentions in the world, had a positive
genius for doing the wrong thing.
But even such evidences of ignorance as did arrive by despatches and
otherwise did not warrant, in the minds of many Liberals, the overthrow
of a monarchy. They made allowance for good disposition in the
abstract, and spoke of “want of knowledge and characteristic apathy.”
The influence of these men cannot now be overestimated. They were then
looked upon with suspicion by either side, for they recognized that
gigantic obstacles and class exclusions were to be met; a recognition
which lessened the credit of their heartfelt “Je suis loyal.” On the
other hand, a good many French Canadians were made to join the rebel
side by intimidation.
If the assurance of “Je suis loyal” did not come quickly enough some
inoffensive Frenchman would find himself popped into the guardhouse,
and the results of jealousy and over-zeal have left us many absurd
stories. A county M.P., at the Château one sultry evening, seeing the
rest all busy at ice-cream, asked for some. The Canadian Solon took a
huge spoonful, his first taste of such a delicacy. With a feeling of
rage at what he thought an insult, or at least neglect, he cried out
what is translated into, “You abominable rascal, had this been for an
Englishman you would have taken the chill off.”
No more condemnatory record exists of the British Clique than that
left of it in its earliest days by Governor Murray, a man not likely,
to judge by the personal anecdotes we have of his reign, to be accused
of French proclivities. For a time everything was given a French turn,
and “Don’t _moushify me_,” in the words of an eminent literary man,
showed the essence of British feeling of the day.
Although Murray said the ignorance of the French-Canadian and his
devotion to his priest ran together, and that the veneration was
in proportion to the ignorance, he has to say also that, with the
exception of nineteen Protestant families and a few half-pay officers,
most of the British population were traders, followers of the army,
men of mean education. All had their fortunes to make: “I fear few are
solicitous about the means when the end can be obtained.... The most
immoral collection of men I ever knew, of course little calculated to
make the new subjects enamoured with our laws, religion and customs,
and far less adapted to enforce these laws which are to govern.”
Canadians were then a frugal, industrious, moral set of men, noblesse
and peasantry alike, knit to each other by ties made in the time of
common danger; the former as much contemned by Murray’s compatriots for
their superior birth and behaviour as the latter were by him for their
ignorance. In his despatch to the king’s advisers he is particularly
hard on the judge and attorney-general, neither of whom knew the
French language,--nor, indeed, did any of the men to whom offices
of greatest trust were bestowed by the sub-letting of posts whose
property they became through favour. In a word, a more worthless set of
officials could not be gathered together than that which carried out
the beginning of British rule in Lower Canada. Haphazard circumstance
placed them where they were, and they scrupled not to make themselves
paramount.
This oligarchy, made up “of the driftwood of the army and manned by
buccaneers of the law, knew how to seize occasion and circumstance;”
and the governors, “fascinated by these official anacondas, fell into
their folds and became their prey, were their puppets and servants, and
made ministers of them instead of ministering to them.”
Papineau contended that when all the people in any country unanimously
repudiate a bad law it is thereby abrogated. To which sentiment Mr.
Stuart responded, “This is rebellion.” Unfortunately, with many high
in office, some governors included, any measure of opposition meant
rebellion, and, like Mr. Stuart, they did not hesitate to say so.
Papineau, and those whom he represented, looked upon the British
Government as a mélange of old usages, old charters, old fictions,
and prejudices old and new, new and old corruptions, the right of the
privileged few to govern the mass. The boasted “image and transcript”
in Canada was called by them a veritable Jack-’o-lantern, a chameleon
that assumed colour as required.
In Papineau’s interview with Lord Bathurst some years before
rebellion, that nobleman, after allowing that difficulties existed,
blaming remoteness from England and nearness to the United States
as aggravating circumstances, asked for only twenty-five years of
patriotic resignation to what he considered a hard but, under the
circumstances, natural state of things. But Papineau’s Utopia differed
from Lord Bathurst’s; and he told him so.
It was now that it came to be acknowledged there was something more
powerful than Parliament, governor, or priest. That was opinion after
it had spoken in print. On being asked how much treason a man might
write and not be in danger of criminal prosecution, Horne Tooke
replied: “I don’t know, but I am trying to find out.” Where anything
belonging to Majesty, even so remotely as an article in the military
stores, was irreverently treated, the article in question became of
importance through the importance of its royal owner, and treason could
lurk in a misused garment.
“For grosser wickedness and sin,
As robbery, murder, drinking gin,”
the penalties were then heavy indeed; but the nature of treason,
according to the Common Law of England, is vague, and judges were
sometimes put to rare shifts to find it. Evidently it did not always
dwell in the heart alone, but on occasion could be found by a diligent
judge considerably below that organ. A tailor, tried for the murder of
a soldier, had the following peroration tacked on to his death sentence
by a judge who was loyal enough to have been a Canadian:
“And not only did you murder him, but you did thrust, or push, or
pierce, or project, or propel the lethal weapon through the belly-band
of his breeches, which were His Majesty’s!”
“To slay a judge under specified circumstances” was also a count in
treason, and this knight of the bodkin doubtless longed to thrust his
tool into his wordy antagonist. But as a phrenologist has told us, the
judge could best illustrate his bump of veneration by the feeling with
which Tories of the old school regarded their sovereign. In Canada a
man had not to show sedition in order to be suspended; for there was
a law to banish him if he were “about to endeavour to alienate the
minds of His Majesty’s subjects ... from his person or Government.”
She foreshadowed the methods of the Mikado; when it was desired to
punish a man “a crime was invented to suit his case”--an inversion of
the punishment fitting the crime. Sir James Mackintosh succeeded in
passing two bills lessening the list of crimes punished by hanging; but
Lord Eldon demurred at the noose being done away with in case of five
shillings worth of shoplifting, as the small tradesmen would be ruined.
Then, why not quartering and other horrors for treason?
They certainly left no stone unturned in Canada to find out details in
matters of treason or libel. The _John Bull_ and other English papers
handled some cases without gloves; but it was reserved for Canada
to show what could be done with printers’ ink. The type fairly flew
into place under the willing fingers of compositors who were also
politicians. Minerva in the printing office is oftentimes undignified.
She seems to have been particularly so in the case of _Le Canadien_,
a paper founded in 1806. Its wood-cut frontispiece had the arms and
emblems of Canada, with two beavers hard at work biting the slender
tie which attached the scroll to the insignia of Great Britain,
and, of course, a suitable motto. Two reporters of that stormy time
added to the excitement of the Assembly by throwing assafœtida on
the stoves. The odour was insupportable, and the too enthusiastic
scribes were taken in charge by the sergeant-at-arms. Like many others
whose freedom that functionary sought to curtail, they could not be
found when wanted. When the type, paper and presses of _Le Canadien_
office, under a warrant from Judge Sewell, were seized in 1810, the
magistrate, attended by a file of soldiers, removed all to the vaults
of the Courthouse. This act, with the long imprisonment without trial
which followed, was considered one of the most arbitrary committed
since Hanoverian rule began. The printers were arrested, as were also
the leading members of the Assembly, Messrs. Pierre Bedard, Tachereau
and Blanchet. When some of these members had been admitted to the bar,
M. Perrault, one of those discreet men who were the saving of their
country, patriotic but prudent, made the caustic remark: “So many men
forced to steal in order to make a living! I shall certainly yet see
some of you hanged.” It was quite easy to hang a man in days when the
death penalty covered an incredible number of offences, when a boy
could receive that sentence for killing a cow or a child for stealing
sweets from a pastry cook’s window. So M. Perrault had a margin for
his prediction. This half-jocular condemnation of the legal profession
was prevalent to a degree which made many believe that in a corner of
the Protestant hell, which was separate from and hotter than the Roman
Catholic one, was a place reserved for lawyers. “There they will have
a little hell of their own, and even well lighted for them to see each
other the better; and there, after having deceived their poor clients
on earth, they will tear each other to pieces without the devil having
the bother of helping them.”
In ’37, when three of the members had become judges, Perrault made his
pun by saying, “I have often predicted that I should see some of you
hanged (_pendu_); there are now three of you suspended (_suspendu_),
which is nearly the same thing.” Those who were partners in guilt in
the writings of this “seditious paper” were sent to gaol, and we learn
that the article which gave chief offence was one entitled “Take hold
of your nose by the tip.” Maladministration was evidently malodorous.
Such proceedings naturally caused excitement, and the fears of those
in power made them redouble the city guards and patrols.
But if _Le Canadien_ had been conducted with animosity, it was also
marked by much ability. Nor had it a monopoly of the former. The
Anglo-Canadian papers, too, knew how to be bitter and violent. The
press of those times indulged in wonderful prophecies. But the future
is in the lap of the gods, so said the more knowing ancients; and if
any of those ’37 prophecies had the flavour of truth it is to be found
in those of the contemned Reformers.
* * * * *
Early in the century Judge Sewell had got into trouble. He was accused
of usurping parliamentary authority, by undue influence persuading the
Governor (Craig) to dissolve the House and also to address the members
in an insulting manner; and later there were the Bedards’ affairs.
Judge Monk was also accused. Judge Sewell went to London to defend
himself, which he did to such good purpose, backed by the influence of
Prince Edward, that he gained the ear and confidence of Lord Bathurst.
His explanations were accepted, and fresh favours were in store for him
from the incoming Governor Sherbrooke.
Although “each new muddler” blamed his predecessor for his own
misgovernment, the tasks falling to the Governors were not easy.
Under Kempt came up the question of giving legal status to Jews and
Methodists, the question regarding the former going back some twenty
years, when, under the administration of “little king Craig,” there
was endless trouble over Mr. Ezekiel Hart’s presence in the House.
Expelled and returned alternately, Hart was doubly obnoxious as a
Jew and an Englishman. Methodism had an equally hard time since the
First Gentleman in Europe had said that that faith was not the faith
of a gentleman. The characteristics of the personnel of the House of
Assembly in the years of the century prior to the Rebellion could
doubtless fill volumes of humours. Most of the members from the Lower
St. Lawrence arrived in schooners, sometimes remaining in them as
boarders; or they put up at some Lower Town hostelry, content with
their cowpacks and scorning Day & Martin. The members from down the
Gulf were sure to be of the right political stripe, from a clerical
point of view, or their constituents stood a chance of being “locked
out of heaven.” One head of a house who dared to be a Liberal in those
illiberal times, an educated man, and likely to have possessed weight
in character as well as by his appointments in his native village, so
locked himself out. His child of seven came home from school in tears
one day, and after much coaxing to disburden his woe confided to his
mother that in seven years his father, a parent much-beloved, would be
a loup-garou. The end of this persecution was a removal over the border.
But there were not many who had the courage of their convictions in the
face of the Church’s No--they were all too good Catholics then. Stories
of their religious life provide material for a picture whose beauty
cannot be surpassed. A niche was hollowed in a wall of most Canadian
homes to hold a figure of the “Blessed Lord,” or His equally dear
Mother; and it is recorded of one of the first of Canadian gentlemen of
his time that he never passed a wayside cross without baring his head,
saying once in explanation, “One should always bare the head before the
sign of our redemption and perform an act of penitence.” The humbler
sort began no dangerous work, such as roofing, without a prayer. With
heads uncovered, the workers knelt down, while some one of the oldest
of the company recited the prayer to which all made response and Amen.
Nor was thanksgiving omitted when the harvest firstfruits were sold at
the door of the parish church. Close by the housewife’s bedhead hung
her chaplet, black temperance cross and bottle of holy water; from the
last the floor was sprinkled before every thunderstorm. And nothing was
done by natural agency. Even the old, worn-out curé, who met death by
the bursting of the powder-magazine on board the ship in which he was
returning to France, was “blown into heaven.”
But once the primitive ones left their village they were much at sea,
and we have a member for Berthier, whom we shall credit as being
both pious and Tory, arriving in Quebec with his wife one winter’s
evening in his traineau. They drew up at the parliamentary buildings
and surveyed the four-and-twenty windows above them, wondering which
one would fall to their lot for the season. They descended, boxes and
bundles after them, rapped at the door and presented their compliments
to the grinning messenger. “He was the member for Berthier, and this
was Madame his wife;” they had brought their winter’s provisions
with them, and all in life needed to allow him to pursue his work of
serving his country as a statesman was a cooking stove, which he looked
to a paternal government to supply. When told that not one of the
four-and-twenty windows belonged to him, and that family accommodation
did not enter into the estimates, the member from Berthier stowed his
wife and bundles back in the traineau, gave his steed a smart cut, and
indignantly and forever turned his back upon the Legislative walls of
his province.
What did he not miss? Within them Papineau was making rounded periods,
holding men entranced by his eloquence; Andrew Stuart was defending
British rights; yet another Stuart thundered against the tyranny of the
oligarchy, the privileged few; and Nielson and other discreet Liberals
sought to steer a middle course of justice without rebellion. No wonder
that from this concert discords met the ears of the audiences without.
Peculiarities and eccentricities were not confined to the rural
populace and members of Parliament. “Go on board, my men, go on board
without fear,” was a magistrate’s dismissal to two evil-faced tars
who had deserted their ship at sailing time because they thought her
unseaworthy; “I tell you you are born to be hanged, so therefore you
cannot be drowned.”
“If anyone has a cause,” said one dignified prothonotary, “let him
appear, for the Court is about to close.” “But,” said the judge
above him, “the law states we must sit to-morrow.” Turning to the
public the prothonotary made further announcement: “The judge says
he will sit to-morrow, but the prothonotary will not be here.” And
in his Louis XIV. costume, cut-away coat with stiff and embroidered
collar, knee-breeches of black cloth, black silk stockings, frills on
shirt-bosom and cuffs, the silver-buckled shoes of the prothonotary
bore their somewhat stubborn wearer away.
* * * * *
At the beginning of the century it was only occasionally that foreign
news reached Canada. With time postal matters improved; but news was
still only occasional. At the advent of a vessel at Father Point the
primitive telegraph of the yard and balls was used, and at night
fires were lighted to carry the tidings from cape to cape. The means
of intercommunication depended upon the size of the post-bag, the
fidelity of the carrier, and on the state of the storm-strewn paths or
trackless wastes which had to be crossed. The bag for Gaspé and Baie
des Chaleurs was made up once in a winter and sent to Quebec, dark
leather with heavy clasps and strapped on an Indian’s back. The man
travelled on snowshoes, and when tired would transfer his load to the
sled drawn by his faithful Indian dog. There were others whose mode
of transit was much the same, but whose beats were shorter and trips
more frequent. “Do not forget,” would say a certain old Seigneur, “to
have Seguin’s supper prepared for him.” Seguin was postman for that
large country-side, and generally arrived during the night at the manor
house. The doors, under early Canadian habit, were unlatched; Seguin
would quietly enter, sit down, take his supper, and produce from his
pockets the letters and papers which made the Seigneur’s mail, leave
them on the table, then as quietly let himself out into the night
again, to pursue his journey to the next point. Such latitude in trust
was possible in a country where law in its beginning was a matter of
personal administration aided by keep, and four-post gibbet whose iron
collar might bear the family arms.
Nor was other travel in a very advanced state. The palm of beauty
was then, as now, accorded the St. Lawrence, but one traveller from
abroad wrote, “’Tis a sad waste of life to ascend the St. Lawrence in
a bateau.” By 1818 “a first-class steamer” made its exhausted way from
Quebec to Montreal; aided by a strong wind it covered seven leagues in
nine hours. This exhilarating motion caused the historian Christie, one
of the pleased passengers, to open his window and hail his friends, “We
are going famously!” By the third day’s voyage they were at the foot of
the current below Montreal, and with the united aid of forty-two oxen
they reached the haven for which they were bound.
With news so transmitted and the bulk of the population unable to
read or write, and with only the comparatively wealthy and the
adventurous able or willing to travel, it is not surprising that
“the focus of sedition, that asylum for all the demagogic turbulence
of the province,” the Assembly rooms at Quebec, had not succeeded
in disseminating their beliefs and hopes among the most rural of
the population. One thing which made remote villages loath to be
disturbed was that they had more than once seen noisy demagogues and
blatant liberators side with the alien powers when opportunity for
self-aggrandizement came. Also, in many cases their isolated lot
precluded feeling governmental pressure. But in the county of Two
Mountains, at St. Denis, St. Charles, and also at Berthier, they were
alert enough, and the most stirring pages in the coming revolt were
to be written in blood in these localities. There secret associations
flourished; open resistance only waited opportunity. There the Sons
of Liberty drilled and wrote themselves into fervour, with pikes made
by local blacksmiths and manifestoes founded on French and Irish
models for outward tokens of the inward faith: “The diabolical policy
of England towards her Canadian subjects, like to her policy towards
Ireland, forever staining her bloody escutcheon.” The history of “my
own, my native land,” inspires all words written from this point of
view; one patriot, “plethoric with rhethoric,” had many fine lines,
such as “the torch, the sword, and the savage,” and pages devoted to
the “tyrannical government of palace pets.”
Away back in 1807 many militia officers of fluctuating loyalty had
been dismissed, and the precedent established by Governor Craig was
continued. Papineau was one of these officers; he had made an insolent
reply--“The pretension of the Governor to interrogate me respecting my
conduct at St. Laurent is an impertinence which I repel with contempt
and silence”--to the Governor’s secretary, and had to suffer for it.
The political compact called the Confederation of the Six Counties was
governed by some of those so dismissed, and they all grew still more
enthusiastic from the sight of such banner legends as “Papineau and the
Elective System,” “Our Friends of Upper Canada,” “Independence.” The
Legislative Council was pictorially represented by a skull and cross
bones, and the declaration of the rights of man was voiced.