THE FAMILY COMPACT.
What was the nature and origin of this powerful organization--this
informally-constituted league, the name whereof has been familiar to the
ears of Upper Canadians during the whole, or nearly the whole, of the
present century; which is referred to in nearly all books dealing with
the political and social life of this Province before the Union of 1841;
which for forty years regulated the public policy of the colony, and
ruled with an iron hand over the liberties of the inhabitants?
Immediately after the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, in 1763,
whereby Canada was ceded by France to Great Britain, it became necessary
for the British Government to appoint a considerable number of officials
to fill the public offices in the country so ceded. It did not suit the
policy of the conquerors to leave much power in the hands of the
conquered. The introduction of the English language and laws was
moreover a practical disqualification for most of the native inhabitants
of the colony, and the new officials were nearly all sent over from
England. Some of the principal personages among them were men of probity
and brains. Others, though possessed of a full share of brains, had but
a younger brother's portion of the other commodity. The underlings,
generally speaking, had but a slender allowance of either. They were for
the most part appointed on the recommendation of various supporters of
the Government of the day, who were thus able to provide for a number of
their needy relatives and dependants--a matter of vastly greater
importance in their eyes than the proper administration of the affairs
of a distant and newly-acquired colony. The Conquest thus proved a boon
to many servile hangers-on of public men in Great Britain, and scores of
the waifs and strays of British aristocracy began to turn their eyes
towards Canada as a possible resource in the last emergency. It was said
to be a cold and comfortless land, but it was surely preferable to the
Fleet Prison or the Marshalsea, with the alternative of starvation or
enlistment in the army. Many of these pimps and panders to the whims or
the passions of those in high station found their way to Quebec and
Montreal, and were provided for at the public expense by being installed
in places of greater or less emolument.[45]
When Upper Canada was set apart as a separate Province, in 1791, the
field of operations was considerably extended. Indeed, the Upper
Province soon came to be regarded with special favour by intending
aspirants to office, as it was in all respects an English colony;
whereas Lower Canada, in spite of all attempts to Anglicize it, remained
much more French than English. Lower Canada, indeed, remained in some
respects more French than any other part of the world, not even
excepting France itself, for in that country the Great Revolution had
swept away many effete institutions which were still retained in all
their decrepitude among the Frenchmen of the New World. Now, the French
Canadians, though most of the avenues to power and office were closed to
them, composed a vast majority of the population. They did not take
kindly to the British colonists, and declined to fraternize with them.
The latter could bear this isolation, as they were comforted by the
spoils of office, but their lives were rendered much less agreeable than
they would have been in a colony where no such disturbing elements were
known. Upper Canada was precisely such a colony. No part of Britain was
more British in sentiment. In no part of the world would an expatriated
Englishman find himself more entirely in harmony with his environment,
from a purely patriotic point of view. What wonder, then, that Upper
Canada was regarded by place-hunting emigrants from England with
wistful eyes? What wonder that an appointment to a public office in
Upper Canada should have been regarded by such persons as a thing
greatly to be coveted? Such aspirants were regarded with but little
favour by Governor Simcoe. His great object was to launch the Province
successfully on its career, and to lay the foundations of good
government. He brought with him his own staff, selected by himself with
a single eye to their fitness for the positions which they were
respectively intended to fill. During his day there was little or no
favouritism in public appointments, and but little, if anything, to find
fault with in the conduct of the administration. His demission of office
was almost immediately followed by a relaxation of discipline, and by a
looseness in the management of the public business. As the years passed
by, the Province became the resort of numerous office-seekers from
beyond sea--half-pay officers and scions of good English, Scotch and
Irish families, who sought to better their fortunes by expatriation. As
they were, generally speaking, men of some education, and of manners
more polished than were ordinarily found among the colonists, they
naturally assimilated, and were drawn towards each other. They likewise
coalesced, to some extent, with a few United Empire Loyalist families of
exclusive pretensions, in whose veins the blood was supposed to possess
an exceptionally cerulean tint. Several persons who had rapidly gained
wealth by trade and speculation, and who had thereby acquired influence
in the community, were also admitted. In an inconceivably short space of
time this union of several influential cliques was followed by important
results. They acquired a strength and influence which, in the then
primitive state of the colony, carried all before them. They wormed
themselves into all the more important offices, directed the Councils of
the Sovereign's representative, and, in a word, became the power behind
the Throne. In the early years of their domination they organized their
forces with much tact and judgment, and did not develop their plans
until they had been carefully matured. They may be said to have
practically absorbed the Executive and Legislative Councils, as those
bodies were entirely made up of persons either selected from among them
or entirely subservient to their influence. No man, whatever his
abilities, could hope to succeed in any profession or calling in Upper
Canada if he dared to declare himself in opposition to them. A few made
the attempt, and failed most signally.
Such was the Family Compact. "For a long time," says Lord Durham,[46]
writing in 1838, "this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its
members, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of
which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the
powers of Government; it maintained influence in the Legislature by
means of its predominance in the Legislative Council; and it disposed of
the large number of petty posts which are in the patronage of the
Government all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in
their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its influence,
or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this
well-organized party the conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy,
the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal
profession, are filled by the adherents of this party: by grant or
purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the
Province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till
lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust
and profit."
The influences which produced the Family Compact were not confined to
Upper Canada. In the Lower Province, as well as in Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, similar causes led to similar results, and the term "Family
Compact" has at one time or another been a familiar one in all the
British North American colonies. But in none of them did the
organization attain to such a plenitude of power as in this Province,
and in none of them did it wield the sceptre of authority with so
thorough an indifference to the principles of right and wrong. Its name
is a rather indefinite, but not inapt characterization. Lord Durham
refers to the term "Family Compact," as being not much more appropriate
than party designations usually are; "inasmuch as," he writes, "there
is, in truth, very little of family connexion among the persons thus
united.[47]" "Much" is a saving clause, but if his Lordship had thought
it worth his while to enquire minutely into the relations subsisting
between the members of this body, he would have found that there had
been a good many intermarriages between them, and that the pecuniary
interests which bound them together had been welded by the most powerful
of social bonds.[48] The designation "Family Compact," however, did not
owe its origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was
borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe. By the treaty signed at
Paris on the 15th of August, 1761, by representatives on behalf of
France and Spain, the contracting parties agreed to guarantee each
other's territories, to provide mutual succours by sea and land, and to
consider the enemy of either as the enemy of both. This treaty, being
contracted between the two branches of the House of Bourbon, is known to
history as the Family Compact Treaty, and the name was adopted in the
Canadas, as well as in the Maritime Provinces, to designate the
combination which enjoyed a monopoly of power and place in the
community, and among the members whereof there seemed to be a perfect,
if unexpressed, understanding, that they were to make common cause
against any and all persons who might attempt to diminish or destroy
their influence.
The members of the Family Compact, with very few exceptions, were
members of the Church of England, which, owing to the before-mentioned
provisions in the Constitutional Act, they regarded as the State Church
of Upper Canada, established by law, and entitled to the special
veneration of the inhabitants. They accounted all persons as members of
the Church of England who were not actual members of some other
religious body, and in enumerating the people for statistical purposes
they sometimes even went so far as to include the infant children of
Dissenters as Episcopalians. They sought to defend the alleged
establishment of a State Church in Canada by arguments which it is
astonishing to think that men of education and intelligence should ever
have stooped to employ. "There should be in every Christian country an
established religion," said Dr. Strachan, in his evidence before the
Select Committee on Grievances, in 1835, "otherwise it is not a
Christian but an infidel country."[49] According to their theory, one of
the principal ends of the Government of Upper Canada was the propagation
of religious truth as set forth in the doctrines of the Church of
England. True, the arguments on the subject were not so well understood
then as now. Mr. Gladstone's little volume on "The State in its
Relations with the Church," and Macaulay's answer thereto in the
_Edinburgh Review_, had not then been published. But some of the most
conclusive arguments adduced by Macaulay were as old as the world
itself; and even Mr. Gladstone, in all his youthful exuberance, did not
venture to take so preposterous a stand as was assumed by the upholders
of a State Church in this Province. Their bigotry and intolerance were
utterly out of keeping with the times in which they lived, and were
better suited to the days of Archbishop Laud or Sir Robert Filmer. Of
that heaven-born charity which suffereth long, and is kind; which
vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up; which seeketh not her own,
and is not easily provoked; which thinketh no evil; which rejoiceth not
in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things,
believeth all things, endureth all things--of the spirit which impels to
such a state of mind as this, we find few traces in the lives and
writings of the upholders of State-Churchism in Upper Canada in those
days. We find, on the contrary, much unkindness, much vaunting of
themselves, much selfish conceit, much seeking, not only of their own,
but of that which of right belonged to their neighbours. The champions
of ecclesiastical monopoly were easily provoked to anger, and to
thinking and speaking all manner of evil of those who differed from them
as to the distribution of the Clergy Reserves. Roman Catholicism they
contemplated with a certain amount of toleration, as the Roman Catholic
hierarchy yielded the Government an unwavering support in return for the
freedom and privileges which they enjoyed. But their toleration was not
broad enough to cover any other form of religious belief. Dissent, in
all its multiform phases, they looked upon with mingled abhorrence and
contempt--as a thing to be shunned and tabooed by all right-minded
persons. Dissenting ministers of religion were regarded as "low
fellows," whom it was no sin to persecute, and, if possible, drive out
of the country. Comparatively few of the latter were permitted to
solemnize matrimony during the first forty years of the Province's
history. By the statute 38 George III., chapter 4, passed in 1798, the
privilege of doing so was accorded to ministers of "The Church of
Scotland, or Lutherans or Calvinists;" but it was hedged about with
cumbrous restrictions which must have been felt as humiliating and
unnecessary. No person was to be regarded as a minister under the Act
until he had appeared before the Justices of the Peace in Quarter
Sessions, and had produced satisfactory credentials of his ordination.
He was also compelled to take the oath of allegiance. Even after
complying with all formalities, his functions were restricted to cases
where one or both of the parties to be joined together belonged to his
own religious society. Ministers of other denominations, including those
of the Methodist body, which was the most numerous religious community
in the Province, were not allowed the privilege of solemnizing marriage
rites till the year 1831. The ignominous disqualification was removed
by the statute 11 George IV., chapter 36, which was passed in 1830, but
which did not receive the royal assent until the following year. A
similar measure had repeatedly been passed by the Assembly in former
sessions, but had as often been rejected by the Upper House. Before the
law was finally and equitably settled as above mentioned, several
ministers of religion had been tried and banished from the Province for
having ventured to solemnize matrimony without legal authority. It is
said that in one case where a minister was tried on a charge of this
kind, the accused protested against his sentence, alleging that the
Chief Justice, who presided at the trial, had himself sanctioned the
performance of the ceremony. The Chief Justice, being called upon to
descend from the judgment seat and give evidence as to this fact,
declined to do so; but he afterwards procured a pardon for the
prisoner.[50]
The Compact always contained within its ranks a few persons of more than
average ability. Some of them doubtless believed that the course pursued
by their organization was for the advantage of the colony, though,
reasoning by the light of present knowledge, it is difficult to
comprehend how men of even moderate perspicacity and judgment could have
brought themselves to such a conclusion. It was, however, inevitable
that persons of such narrow and contracted views--persons to whom self
and pelf were the mainsprings of life--should degenerate, mentally as
well as morally. The persons composing the second generation were, with
very few exceptions, striking illustrations of the doctrine of the
descent of man. Their sires had been men of energy and force of
character. They themselves were--to borrow a phrase from the acting
drama--the mere walking gentlemen of the colony. The sires had
originated a bold and determined policy, and had from first to last
pursued it with consistent vigour. The sons had neither brains to
conceive nor discretion to carry out the conceptions of others. The
sires had been persons whom it had been possible for the commonalty to
respect. The sons were persons whom it was impossible not to despise.
Surely a more superlatively commonplace and contemptible race of human
beings has seldom been seen on the earth than four-fifths of the second
generation of this bastard aristocracy of Upper Canada. It bore no
resemblance to any other aristocracy whereof history has preserved any
record. The old Roman commonalty, while they groaned beneath the iron
heel of tyranny, were one and all conscious of a secret pride in their
imperial oppressors. For the Roman aristocracy was an aristocracy of
nature. The Roman patricians made foreign rulers to crouch and tremble
at the name of Rome. Their triumphs were the triumphs of the nation.
Caius of Corioli, Furius Camillus, Titus Capitolinus, were names the
mere utterance of which stirred the Roman blood like the blast of a
trumpet. For many a long year after one haughty dictator had slept his
last sleep beneath the walls of Praeneste, and after another had taken
his final plunge beneath the yellow Tiber or from the Tarpeian rock,
their exploits furnished themes for tale and song around the Roman
camp-fires. These puissant representatives of the dominant class had
shown little sympathy for the plebeians, upon whom they had looked down
from a lofty height, and towards whom they had ever borne themselves
with haughtiness and disdain. But their pride was a something to be
tolerated by Romans of every degree, for they had achieved much glory
for the Roman name. In the words of one who has interpreted the
sentiment of those times with rare felicity, Rome could bear the pride
of him of whom herself was proud. The old French noblesse, again, were
not devoid of redeeming qualities. Their galling yoke would not have
been borne from reign to reign, and through century after century, even
by such seeming reconcilables as constituted the bulk of the French
populace during the ante-Revolutionary period, if they had all been like
the wicked St. Evremonde of Mr. Dickens's tragic story. As a class, they
had a subtle French grace about them which rendered their most grievous
exactions less hard to bear than were the exactions of their eastern
neighbours. They were an unmistakable _haute noblesse_, ever polished
and dignified. Some of them, like Philippe Egalite, had the cunning,
when the time of trial arrived, to bend to the popular storm, and even
to affect a zeal for citizenship. Comparatively few of them were at once
_blase_ and brainless. It may be doubted if a single one of them
combined--as did many of the rank and file of the second generation of
the Family Compact of Upper Canada--the pretensions of an aristocrat
with the sentiments of a boor and the intellectual development of a
child. Yet further. The feeling of veneration with which the English
commonalty have for centuries regarded the House of Lords is easy enough
to understand. That feeling seems to be rapidly passing away, if,
indeed, it has not already departed. But it would not have endured from
the time of the Plantagenets to the time of Queen Victoria if it had not
had some substantial foundation to rest upon. The House of Lords has
always contained a number of men of high integrity and ability. Take it
for all and all, it is probably the most just-minded and intellectual
aristocratic assembly the world has ever seen. This may not be very high
praise, but it may at least be taken for what it is worth. Its
individual members are seldom brought sufficiently near to the lower
order of the commonalty to enable the latter to detect their weaknesses.
Their wealth, prestige and social position give them a vast influence,
while at the same time their legislative powers are held in check by the
direct representatives of the people. Most of these conditions were
directly reversed in Upper Canada, where the members of the dominant
faction were brought into the closest relations with the people
generally, insomuch that their many deficiencies could not be concealed.
Such wealth as they had they were too often known to have obtained at
the expense of the rest of the community. The Lower House formed no
efficacious check upon them, for they either managed to return a
sufficient number of their tools to control the vote in that body, or
else they rendered the Assembly's operations of no avail by means of
their influence in the Legislative Council. They had none of the
graceful suavity of the Lower Canadian seigneurs. Nor could they boast
of the superiority derived from a liberal education. Many of them--even
including some of those who held high public offices--were so illiterate
that they were unable to write a simple business letter without
committing errors of orthography of which any one but Artemus Ward or
Jeames de la Pluche might well feel ashamed.
Nearly all the leading spirits of this strangely-assorted oligarchy were
either wealthy or on the direct road to wealth. Being comfortably
provided for at the public cost, in the form of fat offices or wild
lands, or both, they assumed a swelling port, and aped, as best they
knew how, the manners and customs of the upper classes in Great Britain.
They built their dwellings in imitation of old-fashioned English
manor-houses, with a variety of wings and gables, and with broad
entrance halls which in an emergency might have served the purpose of
presence-chambers. They dined long and late, and with much old-world
pomp and ceremonial. They drove out in coaches emblazoned with heraldic
bearings, and attended by broad-calved flunkeys in family livery.
Certain social observances of the early Georgian era, long since effete
and worn out in England, flourished in the social life of Little York
down to a period within the memory of many persons who are still living.
The aristocratic clique which preserved these customs was in the highest
degree rigid and exclusive. No outsider was admitted into the charmed
circle unless he came duly ticketed and accredited. The attempt to
transplant the usages of an old and advanced state of society into the
primitive streets and lanes of such places as York, Kingston, and
Woodstock was for a time more successful than might be supposed. Such of
the families as had been to the manner born carried off these
observances with considerable grace. They had brought their traditions
with them across the Atlantic, and though such traditions were not well
suited to the genius of a young and sparsely-settled colony, they were
at least maintained with some regard to the sources whence they had been
derived. With the pretenders who formed a portion of the clique, and who
had been admitted into it for special political reasons, the attempt to
copy the habits of their social superiors was, generally speaking, less
satisfactory. There was, in truth, an inner social circle which these
latter were never invited to join. They, however, enjoyed all the
political and pecuniary advantages arising from their connection, and
were not easily distinguishable by outsiders from the very head and
front of the organization.
So far as to the wealthy members of the ruling faction. But there were a
good many of them who not only were not wealthy, but who were in
positively indigent circumstances. These, for the most part, were
members of old country families who had sent them to Canada with the
sole object of getting rid of them. Others were half-pay officers who
had spent their whole fortunes in settling on land, after which they had
found themselves unable to make a livelihood, and had then sold their
property for as much--or as little--as they could manage to get. These
latter, after having disposed of their lands, generally repaired to the
towns, and most of them sooner or later found their way to the
Provincial capital. There they became obedient slaves of those in
authority, and picked up a precarious livelihood by making themselves
useful in various ways. The Executive could always find a certain amount
of work for such persons, though, if the truth must be told, the supply
was often greater than the demand. The code of social ethics in vogue
among this class was such as might have been expected from persons who
had been reared to regard themselves as the objects of a special
dispensation of fortune. They looked upon manual labour as degrading.
Any person, no matter what his abilities, who earned a livelihood by the
sweat of his brow, or even by honest trade, was considered as no fit
company for the brood of parasites who hung on to the heels of the
Compact, and who nevertheless did not hesitate to perform tasks from
which the average costermonger would have shrunk in disgust. Their
employers occasionally admitted them to their tables, and even to some
degree of social intimacy. More frequently they presented them with
their cast-off clothing, with new gowns for their wives at Christmas,
or--when things were at a remarkably low ebb--with a hundredweight of
flour or half a barrel of mess pork. Yet the recipients of these favours
piqued themselves upon their good birth and high connexions, and would
have felt themselves insulted if anyone had ventured to hint that they
should visit, upon terms of equality, with the grocer or the butcher in
the next street.
The reader now has before him a sufficient array of facts to enable him
to form a pretty accurate conception of the state of social life in
Upper Canada during ante-Rebellion times. It was a matter of course that
such a monopoly of power as was possessed and exercised by the ruling
faction should excite envy and opposition on the part of those who did
not revel in its smiles or share in its plunder. Loud murmurings began
to make themselves heard against the delay and partiality in the
land-granting department, and against the corrupt manner in which the
public affairs of the Province generally were carried on. Before the
close of Governor Hunter's _regime_ these murmurings had become loud
enough to occasion no little disquiet to some of the officials who had
most reason to dread enquiry and investigation. The abuses were greater
in some branches of the service than in others, but peculation prevailed
to a greater or less extent almost everywhere. The Indian department was
notorious for the corruption of its officials. A sum of sixty thousand
pounds sterling was annually granted by the Imperial Government for
distribution among the various tribes, and for the payment of agents and
interpreters. The distribution among the Indians chiefly took the form
of commodities which had a particular fascination for the mind of the
noble savage--such commodities, for instance, as muskets, powder,
bullets, knives, tomahawks, hatchets, blankets, spangles, pocket
mirrors, and--last, but by no means least--fire-water. The opportunities
which this grant afforded for peculation and plunder were too tempting
to be resisted. The agents and their subordinates, from highest to
lowest, owed their positions to their servility and usefulness to those
in authority. So long as they proved serviceable and obedient to their
masters, there was not much likelihood of their being called to serious
account for any iniquities they might commit towards Mohawk or Seneca,
Oneida or Mississauga. By way of consequence, the Indians were robbed and
the Government was robbed; and the robbers, feeling secure of protection
from their superiors, plied their nefarious traffic with impunity.[51]
There were equally culpable but less notorious abuses of power in other
branches of the service. Probably not one in ten of these ever came to
light, but from time to time there were awkward revelations which could
not be suppressed. All these things combined to beget a widespread lack
of confidence in the official clique. The want of confidence, not
without good reason, extended even to the administrators of the law. The
judges, as already mentioned, held office at the will of the Executive,
and, at least in some instances, were shamelessly servile and corrupt.
This led to their dicta being disregarded by sturdy juries who cared
less for the letter of the law than for its spirit. Mr. John Mills
Jackson, in his "View of the Political Situation of the Province of
Upper Canada," published in 1809, speaks of an instance where the people
became tumultuous, and broke the public stocks in the presence of the
Chief Justice.[52] The public distrust of the administrators of the law
does not seem to have been confined to the judges of the Superior
Courts. It extended to the rural magistrates, some of whom turned their
offices to commodity in a manner which would have excited the admiration
of Falstaff himself. "The shop-keepers," writes Mr. Jackson, "are
Justices of Peace. They have the means of extortion, and the power of
enforcing payments. They are first the criminals, then the judges; and
the court of appeal seems to be so constructed as to prevent an honest
verdict from passing into effect. The practice of the court is unjust,
oppressive, and influenced. Favourite attorneys were made deputy clerks
of the peace, so that process might be entered and writs obtained most
partially. The crown lawyer is allowed nearly seven pounds sterling for
every criminal prosecution! an inducement to listen to trifling
complaints, and prefer frivolous indictments, when, if power was
gratified and independence harassed, it was a sufficient excuse for an
inflated contingent account." The author of this scathing philippic
against petty oppression proceeds to recount a case wherein an action
was brought against a magistrate who had exerted his authority in an
illegal and oppressive manner. A verdict was obtained against him for a
hundred pounds. An application was made to the Court of King's Bench to
set the verdict aside, which was rejected; whereupon the clerk of the
court in which the judgment had been obtained was ordered by the Crown
lawyer not to issue execution. The clerk knew better than to disobey an
order from such a source, and the plaintiff accordingly took nothing by
his verdict. The unrighteous magistrate escaped the penalty of his
misdeeds, and furnished a sort of standing precedent for magisterial
iniquity. Other equally flagrant perversions of justice are recorded by
the same authority. An illegal and unjustifiable extent issued, at the
suit of the Crown, against one of the civil officers. It lasted for
years; yet the officer dared not resist oppression by applying for
justice. "When [the extent] was as imperiously taken off as it was
arbitrarily laid on," writes Mr. Jackson, "the sheriff dared not apply
for fees expended in holding possession under the writ, or the printer
sue for the money voted him by the House of Assembly for printing their
journals. The surveyors could not obtain the money they had actually
expended in the public service, nor the people find redress for extorted
fees. Therefore, when there was neither substance nor shadow of law or
justice, but the will of power was the rule of decision, the public mind
was agitated in the extreme, and universal gloom pervaded the Province."
The discontent produced by official tyranny was however almost impotent
as against the wrong-doers, who were so strongly entrenched in their
places that it seemed as though nothing could shake them. Many of them,
conscious of their misconduct, doubtless felt secret misgivings whenever
any specially significant outburst of popular dissatisfaction occurred.
But for many years they were able to present a united and brazen front,
and to crush anyone who dared to so much as wag a finger against them.
It was intimated on a former page that Robert Gourlay was not the first
victim of Executive tyranny. The first conspicuous victim of whom any
record has been preserved was Mr. Robert Thorpe, an English barrister of
much learning and acumen, who in 1805 was appointed a puisne judge of
the Court of King's Bench for Upper Canada. Previous to his arrival in
this country Mr. Thorpe had never been remarkable for any specially
liberal opinions, but he was a man of enlightened mind, and actuated by
an honest desire to do his duty. He was not long in perceiving that the
administration of justice in this Province was little better than a
hollow mockery. He resolved to do what one man could to restore public
confidence in the judicial bench, and his court erelong became a popular
forum for honest litigants, for it was evident to all that he held the
scales of justice with an even hand, and was not to be either cajoled or
bullied into perverting the law. Before he had been a twelvemonth in the
country he was known far and wide as an upright judge, and as a sort of
champion of popular rights. Grand juries took him into their confidence,
and tabulated their grievances before him. These were laid by him
before the authorities at York, upon his return from circuit; a
proceeding which was quite sufficient to bring down upon his head
the opposition of the faction which flourished by reason of those very
grievances. The whole of the Family Compact influence arrayed itself
against him in deadly enmity. Francis Gore arrived in the capacity of
Lieutenant-Governor in the summer of 1806. He was informed by his
Councillors that Judge Thorpe was a dangerous and revolutionary
personage. It was certain that the past year had been signalized by a
decided propensity on the part of the people to assert themselves
against the intolerable exactions of their oppressors, and that a spirit
of opposition was on the increase throughout the land. Governor Gore and
his Councillors reversed the inductive process, and attributed the
popular discontent to the influence of the new judge. This seeming
conviction on their parts was strengthened by certain remarks of Judge
Thorpe himself, made in reply to an address from the Grand Jury of the
London District. "The art of governing," said he, "is a difficult
science. Knowledge is not instinctive, and the days of inspiration have
passed away. Therefore, when there was neither talent, education,
information, nor even manners in the Administration, little could be
expected, and nothing was produced." The reference here is manifestly to
the _regime_ of Governor Hunter and Commodore Grant; and the intimation
is that better things are to be hoped for under the recently-arrived
Governor. "But," continued the judge, "there is an ultimate point of
depression, as well as of exaltation, from whence all human affairs
naturally advance or recede. Therefore, proportionate to your
depression, we may expect your progress in prosperity will advance with
accelerated velocity." He also in the course of his address, inveighed
against the Alien Act of 1804. When he reached York, at the close of the
circuit, he laid before the new Lieutenant-Governor the various
recapitulations of grievances which had been entrusted to him. They were
received by Mr. Gore and his Councillors with a very ill grace. The
complaints from the London District were stated with great vigour and
lucidity, and as they had got into print they could not be suppressed or
wholly ignored. An attempt was made to show that the chapter of
grievances had been presented by the jurors, not because there was
really anything of importance to complain of, but because Judge Thorpe
himself had instigated them to such a course. As this charge was openly
made, Mr. Thorpe in his capacity of a Justice of the King's Bench,
caused a proceeding of the nature of _scandalum magnatum_ to be
instituted. His brother judges, however, some of whom were members of
the Executive Council, and all of whom were subject to strong influences
from that quarter, ruled that the proceeding could not be maintained,
and it accordingly fell through. An attempt was also made, first to
intimidate, and afterwards to corrupt the Grand Jury. A letter was sent
to them from the office of the Lieutenant-Governor, requesting them to
state the grounds of their complaints more specifically. The recipients
responded by preparing and forwarding a stronger case than before. A
recantation was then drawn up by a skilful hand, and presented to each
individual member of the Jury, a reward being at the same time offered
as an inducement to sign it. The jurymen, however, were not prepared to
barter away their liberties in this manner, and the attempt wholly
failed. While the Executive were deliberating as to how they could most
effectually strike Judge Thorpe, a vacancy occurred in the
representation of one of the constituencies in the Home District. In
those times, as has already been seen, a judgeship was no
disqualification for political life, and a deputation waited on Mr.
Thorpe with a numerously signed address, requesting him to become their
representative. He replied that he would not become a partisan, but that
if he were returned to Parliament he would not hesitate to do his duty.
No sooner did it become known that "the Radical Judge," as he was
called, was a candidate for the Assembly than the leading spirits of the
Compact aroused themselves to defeat him. This was natural enough. That
they should employ against him every means which their ingenuity could
devise--among others, bribery, vilification and deliberate slander--that
also was natural, when the time and persons are considered. "Every
engine within the reach of authority," writes Mr. Jackson, "was used for
the purpose of defeating the wishes of the people on this occasion. All
interests were required to yield in favour of the candidate most likely
to succeed as against Mr. Thorpe. Any person in employment, in
expectation of, or entitled to land, was gratified, promised, or
threatened; magistrates were made and unmade, as best suited the
purposes of electioneering; grants were given; fees excused, or promised
to be paid by those high in authority. Even domestics were bribed with
places, land, and money, to vilify and accuse, by direct falsehoods, the
most upright, serviceable and esteemed persons in the Province." For
once public opinion proved too strong for Family Compact influence.
Judge Thorpe was returned, and great things were hoped for from his
career in Parliament. But the triumph of freedom was short-lived. The
Compact was too strong to be opposed by the multitude with impunity.
Lieutenant-Governor Gore was subservient to its wishes, and besides he
had by this time come to hate the popular judge on his own account, and
his mind was fully made up to solicit from the Colonial Secretary Judge
Thorpe's recall. One of his private letters, written from Kingston,
during a journey from York to Montreal, several months after the Judge's
election to the Assembly, announces this resolution in unmistakable
terms. "The object of Mr. T.'s [Thorpe's] emissions," he writes,
"appears to be to persuade the people to turn every gentleman out of the
House of Assembly. However, keep your temper with the rascals, I beseech
you. I shall represent everything at St. James'." He was as good as his
word, and in October, 1807, the announcement was made in the _Gazette_
that the Lieutenant-Governor had been instructed to suspend Mr. Thorpe
from his judgeship, which we may be quite sure was done without
unnecessary loss of time.
Thus did might continue to triumph over right. There was not the
slightest imputation of any sort against the Judge's character. His
professional attainments were high; his personal character without a
stain. His continued presence in Canada would have been a blessing to
all but the race of tyrants who trampled on popular liberty. Yet he was
removed because he respected himself and his office too highly to
pervert judgment, and because he bade fair to abridge the rule of
corruption. Upon his return to England the Colonial Office urged nothing
whatever against him, and merely suggested, by way of justification for
his recall, that his stay in Upper Canada would have led to perpetual
disturbance of the public tranquillity. He instituted proceedings in one
of the English courts against Mr. Gore, who was convicted of libel, but
who escaped much more easily than he deserved with a fine of trifling
amount. By way of recompense for his recall from Upper Canada, Judge
Thorpe was appointed Chief Justice of Sierra Leone. There he remained
for two years, by which time his constitution had become so much broken
by the climate that he was compelled to return home. At the request of a
number of the inhabitants he carried with him to England a petition
complaining of certain abuses of power there. For this he was discarded
by the Ministry of the day. His appointment as Chief Justice was
cancelled, and another judge was sent out to West Africa in his stead.
The rest of his life was passed in obscurity and neglect, and when he
died his family were left without any provision for their future. Such
was the untoward fate of an honourable and high-minded man, whose only
fault was that he was too pure for the times in which he lived, and for
the people among whom his lot was cast.
Another early victim, whose life record seems to contradict the adage
that honesty is the best policy, was Surveyor-General Wyatt. There is no
need to go minutely into the particulars of his case. He was universally
recognized as a competent and honest official, insomuch that it was
currently said of him that he was too good for the masters whom he
served. But he ventured to interfere on behalf of one of the
subordinates in his office, who had been refused a stipend to which Mr.
Wyatt considered him entitled. Then, he presumed to oppose the Council
in respect of an irregular purchase of a large tract of land from the
Mississauga Indians. Finally, he went so far as to profess a high degree
of respect for the manly and independent conduct of Judge Thorpe. The
secret conclave speedily pronounced his doom. No one ventured to allege
any fault against him, yet he was deprived of his situation by the
Lieutenant-Governor, and a pliable tool was installed in his office.
Joseph Willcocks had a more bitter experience still. He was an Irishman,
of liberal education, and of much energy of character, whose influence
in official circles was wide enough to obtain for him the post of
Sheriff of the Home District. For several years no occasion for any
difference of opinion arose between him and his superiors. He was known
as a competent officer, who discharged his duties with great
consideration for the impecunious and unfortunate. But his frequent
official peregrinations through the Home District enabled him to see
with his own eyes the disastrous effects of the Clergy Reserves, of the
land-granting system, and of Family Compact domination generally; and on
several occasions he had sufficient courage to express his opinions
thereupon. Attempts were made to silence him, first by remonstrances,
and afterwards by threats, but all to no purpose. When Judge Thorpe
began to figure as a sort of popular tribune, Willcocks declared himself
as being also on the side of the people. When the Judge became a
candidate for Parliament, the Sheriff, who had a vote in the
constituency, recorded it in his favour. For this he shared the fate of
the Surveyor-General, and was promptly dismissed from office by the
Lieutenant-Governor. But he came of a fighting stock, and was not to be
suppressed by the mere circumstance of being deprived of an official
income. He started a newspaper called _The Upper Canada Guardian, or
Freeman's Journal_. In this sheet, which was edited by Mr. Willcocks
himself, various desirable measures of reform were advocated, and the
dominant faction were from time to time referred to in opprobrious, but
certainly not untruthful or unmerited language. The paper obtained a
considerable circulation, and soon made its editor an object of bitter
hatred on the part of the authorities. The vilest abuse was poured out
upon him, and he was subjected to a course of persecution well-nigh as
grievous as subsequently fell to the lot of Robert Gourlay. Governor
Gore himself, in a letter still extant, written in 1807, refers to him
as "that execrable monster who would deluge the Province with blood."
The execrable monster's influence, however, continued to grow, and upon
Judge Thorpe's retirement from Upper Canada, he was returned to the
Assembly in his stead, for the West Riding of the County of York, the
First Riding of the County of Lincoln, and the County of Haldimand. As
he was a ready and powerful speaker, as well as a vigorous writer, it
was felt that he would soon become intolerable if his career were not
effectively checked. He was accordingly tried before the Assembly on a
frivolous charge of having, in a private conversation held at the house
of a Mr. Glennan, in York, spoken disrespectfully of some of the
members. The proceedings were the veriest travesty of the forms of
justice. The accused was found guilty, and committed to the common jail
of the Home District, there to remain during the sitting of
Parliament.[53] This indignity he was compelled to suffer, being
confined for many weeks in a small close cell, which he was not
permitted to leave for a single moment. He was further wrought upon by
informations for libel, as well as by secret inquisitions into his
private affairs. After his enlargement he continued to publish his
paper, but he was so tortured by the incessant persecutions to which he
was subjected that he could accomplish little or nothing in the way of
reform. From some of his votes in the Assembly it would appear that he
made tacit overtures towards reconciliation with his enemies,[54] but he
had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and their rancour was not to be
appeased. Eventually he was compelled to relinquish the publication of
the _Guardian_ for want of funds to carry it on. Notwithstanding all
that he had endured, his loyalty remained unshaken, and when the War of
1812[55] broke out he responded to the call for volunteers by
shouldering his musket and doing his devoirs like a man at the battle of
Queenston Heights. Even this obtained for him neither complaisance nor
immunity from abuse. He found himself ruined in fortune, opposed and
hated by those in authority, without any prospect before him but
starvation. It is not singular that a man subjected to such conditions
should become disheartened. In a moment of exasperation he deserted the
ranks where he had been held as of so little account. Accompanied by a
small body of Canadian volunteers, he repaired to the camp of the enemy,
where he offered his services, and obtained a colonel's commission. He
served under Major-General Brown at the siege of Fort Erie, where he was
slain while planting a guard.
Such are three of the most notable examples of ministerial tyranny in
comparatively early times. As before mentioned, they attracted less
widespread attention than did Mr. Gourlay's case some years later,
because, though they were signal instances of the abuse of power, they
were not marked by such refinement in cruelty, and because they appealed
to the political sympathies of comparatively few. In the time of Judge
Thorpe, Wyatt and Willcocks, the dominating class not only held a
monopoly of power, but they and their adherents were numerically in the
ascendant. At the time of Gourlay's persecution the population was much
more evenly divided. The oligarchy still had control of all the avenues
to power, but there was a large and steadily-increasing class in the
community who recognized the fact that many changes were necessary
before Upper Canada could become a prosperous and well-governed colony,
and a satisfactory place of abode for the average British immigrant.
In closing this hasty review of the nature and effects of Family Compact
domination in Upper Canada, I would not be understood as pronouncing a
sweeping condemnation upon all the individual members of that body. John
Beverley Robinson, for instance, though he lent himself to many
high-handed acts of oppression, was a man of undoubted ability, and of a
character which inspired respect. His descendants are to-day among the
most respected and influential members of society in our Provincial
capital. Several others were men of high personal character, and of
abilities above the average. They acted in accordance with time and
circumstance, and must be supposed to have done so conscientiously. But
such persons as these composed but a very slender proportion of the
Compact's entire membership. The rank and file were of a totally
different complexion. The characteristics of the more poverty-stricken
among them have already been hinted at; but, independently of these,
there were many who were well-to-do, and who held their heads high in
the air, who were nevertheless very ill qualified to win admiration for
the caste to which they belonged. To state the simple truth, most of
them were very ordinary commonplace personages, respectable, sapless,
idealess--what Dr. Johnson would have characterized as exceedingly
barren rascals. Some were of obscure origin, and would have been hard
put to it if required to trace their ancestry beyond a single
generation. Of these latter, a few, as has already been seen, had
amassed wealth by trade or speculation, and had made their way into the
exclusive circle by a fortunate combination of circumstances.
Among the Compact, then, the number of persons of good birth and
descent, possessed of sufficient qualifications to justify their
aristocratic predilections, and of sufficient capacity to enable them to
direct the colonial policy, was small. And it must by no means be
supposed that all the good blood in the Province was confined to the
Compact. There were many persons among the pioneers of Upper Canada of
gentle nurture and breeding, who nevertheless scorned to pose in the
character of aristocrats in a land where such assumptions were
altogether out of place, and who manfully accommodated themselves to
their primitive surroundings. As has been well remarked by Mr.
MacMullen,[56] "While they learned to wield the axe and swing the cradle
with the energy and skill of the roughest backwoodsman, they retained
their polished manners, their literary tastes, their love for the
beautiful and the elegant; and thus exercised the most beneficial
influence upon their rustic neighbours. In the absence of schools, of
churches, of most of the refining influences of civilized society, this
class of the early settlers of Upper Canada were foremost in usefulness.
Their superior education, their well-bred manners, their more refined
habits, raised them in the estimation of the rural population, who soon
tacitly admitted a superiority which would never have been conceded [had
it been] more directly asserted." Most, though not all, of these
gentlemen were Tories, and, with hardly an exception, preserved their
loyalty through all chances and changes. During the War of 1812-15, and
again during the agitation arising out of the Rebellion, they proved
true to their Tory instincts, and rallied to the side of the Government
with ready fervour. Their social proclivities were equally removed from
the rude boorishness of the ordinary settler as from the pretence and
ceremonial of the clique of self-constituted aristocrats. They generally
preserved a modicum of state in the regulation of their household
affairs, though they kept aloof from the Compact and its practices, and
devoted themselves to various branches of industry--among others, to the
education of youth; to the practice of the learned professions; to the
opening and cultivating of new avenues of commerce; and to reducing the
pathless forests to arable and smiling fields.
One other fact it is essential to bear in mind, in estimating the
effects of the Compact's _regime_. In seizing upon all the official and
other spoils within their reach, and in trampling upon the liberties of
the people, the magnates of Upper Canada were merely treading in the
footsteps of the Tite Barnacles of Great Britain. The period was one of
transition, all over the civilized world. Popular rights were but
imperfectly understood, and the idea that good government is best served
by the extension of justice and equal rights to all classes was only
beginning to dawn upon the minds of public men, even in old and
long-established communities. That Canada was not in advance of the
times is not to be wondered at; but the ordeal through which she was
compelled to pass on the way to full and assured liberty forms an epoch
highly necessary to be understood and frequently remembered by all who
appreciate the blessings which are the birthright of every Canadian of
the present day. A knowledge of the principles and practices of the
Family Compact in the olden days constitutes the most effectual
guarantee that such days can never return, and that neither our children
nor our children's children will ever be compelled to fight over again
the battle which was so long and so patiently waged by their ancestors.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] It may perhaps be thought by some readers that the closing
sentences of this paragraph are pitched in too high a key. Those who
entertain that opinion will receive light on the subject by a careful
perusal of various official reports issued just prior to the passing of
the Quebec Act in 1774, and more especially of _A Cry from Quebec_,
published at Montreal in 1809.
[46] _Report on the Affairs of British North America_, English folio
edition, p. 53.
[47] _Ib._
[48] How far Lord Durham was justified in saying that there was "little
of family connexion" among the members of the Compact will appear from
the following "curious but accurate statement," prepared by Mr. W. L.
Mackenzie for his _Sketches of Canada and the United States_, published
in England in 1833. It will be found on pp. 405-409 of that work. "When
I left Upper Canada last year," writes Mr. Mackenzie, "some of the
offices, sinecures, and pensions of the Government were divided as
follows:--No. 1. D'ARCY BOULTON, senior, a retired pensioner, L500
sterling. 2. HENRY, son to No. 1, Attorney-General and Bank Solicitor,
L2400. 3. D'ARCY, son to No. 1, Auditor-General, Master in Chancery,
Police Justice, etc. Income unknown. 4. WILLIAM, son to No. 1, Church
Missionary, King's College Professor, etc., L650. 5. GEORGE, son to No.
1, Registrar of Northumberland, Member of Assembly for Durham, etc.
Income unknown. 6. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON, brother-in-law to No. 3,
Chief Justice of Upper Canada, Member for life of the Legislative
Council, Speaker of ditto, L2000. 7. PETER, brother to No. 6, Member of
the Executive Council, Member for life of the Legislative Council, Crown
Land Commissioner, Surveyor-General of Woods, Clergy Reserve
Commissioner, etc. L1300. 8. WILLIAM, brother to Nos. 6 and 7,
Postmaster of Newmarket, Member of Assembly for Simcoe, Government
Contractor, Colonel of Militia, Justice of the Peace, etc. Income
unknown. 9. JONAS JONES, brother-in-law to No. 2, Judge of the District
Court in three districts containing eight counties, and filling a number
of other offices. Income about L1000. 10. CHARLES, brother to No. 9,
Member for life of Legislative Council, Justice of the Peace in twenty
seven counties, etc. 11. ALPHEUS, brother to Nos. 9 and 10, Collector of
Customs, Prescott, Postmaster at ditto, Agent for Government Bank at
ditto, etc. Income L900. 12. LEVIUS P. SHERWOOD, brother-in-law to Nos.
9, 10, 11, one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench. Income
L1000. 13. HENRY, son to No. 12, Clerk of Assize, etc. 14. JOHN ELMSLEY,
son-in-law to No. 12, Member of the Legislative Council for life, Bank
Director, Justice of the Peace, etc. 15. CHARLES HEWARD, nephew to No.
6, Clerk of the District Court, etc. Income L100. 16. JAMES B. MACAULAY,
brother-in-law to Nos. 17 and 19, one of the Justices of the Court of
King's Bench. Income L1000. 17. CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER HAGERMAN,
brother-in-law to No. 16, Solicitor-General. L800. 18. JOHN MCGILL, a
relation of Nos. 16 and 17, Legislative Councillor for life. Pensioner,
L500. 19 and 20. W. ALLAN AND GEORGE CROOKSHANKS, connexions by marriage
of 16 and 17, Legislative Councillors for life, the latter President of
the Bank. L500. 21. HENRY JONES, cousin to Nos. 9, 10, etc., Postmaster
of Brockville, Justice of the Peace, Member of Assembly for Brockville,
Income unknown. 22. WILLIAM DUMMER POWELL, father of No. 24, Legislative
Councillor for life, Justice of the Peace, Pensioner. Pension, L1000.
23. SAMUEL PETERS JARVIS, son-in-law to No. 22, Clerk of the Crown in
Chancery, Deputy-Secretary of the Province, Bank Director, etc. Income
unknown. 24. GRANT, son to No. 22, Clerk of the Legislative Council,
Police Justice, Judge Home District Court, Official Principal of Probate
Court, Commissioner of Customs, etc. Income L675. 25. WILLIAM M.,
brother to 23, High Sheriff Gore District. Income from L500 to L800. 26.
WILLIAM B., cousin to Nos. 23 and 25, High Sheriff, Home District,
Member of Assembly. Income L900. 27. ADIEL SHERWOOD, cousin to No. 12,
High Sheriff of Johnstown, and Treasurer of that district. Income from
L500 to L800. 28. GEORGE SHERWOOD, son to No. 12, Clerk of Assize. 29.
JOHN STRACHAN, their family tutor and political schoolmaster, archdeacon
and rector of York, Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils,
President of the University, President of the Board of Education, and
twenty other situations. Income, on an average of years, upwards of
L1800. 30. THOMAS MERCER JONES, son-in-law to No. 29, associated with
No. 19, as the Canada Company's Agents and Managers in Canada. This
family connexion rules Upper Canada according to its own good pleasure,
and has no efficient check from this country to guard the people against
its acts of tyranny and oppression. It includes the whole of the judges
of the supreme civil and criminal tribunal (Nos. 6, 12, and 16)--active
Tory politicians. Judge Macaulay was a clerk in the office of No. 2, not
long since. It includes half the Executive Council or provincial
cabinet. It includes the Speaker and other eight Members of the
Legislative Council. It includes the persons who have the control of the
Canada Land Company's monopoly. It includes the President and Solicitor
of the Bank, and about half the Bank Directors; together with
shareholders, holding, to the best of my recollection, about 1800
shares. And it included the crown lawyers until last March, when they
carried their opposition to Viscount Goderich's measures of reform to
such a height as personally to insult the government, and to declare
their belief that he had not the royal authority for his despatches.
They were then removed; but, with this exception, the chain remains
unbroken. This family compact surround the Lieutenant-Governor, and
mould him, like wax, to their will; they fill every office with their
relatives, dependants, and partisans; by them justices of the peace and
officers of the militia are made and unmade; they have increased the
number of the Legislative Council by recommending, through the Governor,
half a dozen of nobodies and a few placemen, pensioners, and individuals
of well-known narrow and bigoted principle; the whole of the revenues of
Upper Canada are in reality at their mercy;--they are Paymasters,
Receivers, Auditors, King, Lords, and Commons!"
[49] See his evidence annexed to the Committee's Report, p. 86.
[50] Gourlay, commenting upon this episode, remarks: "Who pardoned all
the poor sinners that for years had been getting bastards, and who
legitimized these, was not determined when I bade farewell to Upper
Canada."--_Statistical Account_, Vol. 2, p. 348.
[51] Those who wish to gain an insight into some of the most revolting
features of this traffic may consult _Claws and the Clauses_, a pamphlet
published at Buffalo in 1818; also _Gourlay_, vol. 2, pp. 486, 487;
together with Jackson's pamphlet referred to in the text.
[52] This must have been Chief Justice Thomas Scott, after whom Scott
Street, Toronto, was called. He was Chief Justice from August, 1806, to
Michaelmas Term, 1816. He is referred to by Dr. Scadding in _Toronto of
Old_, p. 51, as "a man of fine culture, spoken of affectionately by
those who knew him." A picture of him in his decline is presented on
page 130 of the same work.
[53] For a full account of these infamous proceedings, the reader is
referred to _The Upper Canada Guardian_ of February 6th and March 18th,
1808, quoted by Gourlay in his _Statistical Account_, Vol. 2, pp.
655-662.
[54] See an extract from the minutes of the proceedings in the Assembly,
10th March, 1810, quoted by Gourlay, Vol. 2, pp. 328, 329. See also
Gourlay's remarks thereon, Vol. 2, pp. 334, 335.
[55] There is reason to believe that the discontent begotten of the
abuse of power in Canada was one of the inducements to this attempt on
the part of the United States, the Government of which was led to
believe that Canadians generally would welcome any relief from the yoke
which the Compact had placed upon their necks.
[56] _History of Canada_, p. 243.