provisionally appointed Governor-General, which office he held until
Lord Auckland's arrival in the year following. During this short period
he effected many bold and popular reforms, not the least of which was
the liberation of the press of India from all restrictions. Under his
immediate predecessor, Lord William Bentinck, the press had been as free
as it is in England; but there were still certain laws or orders of a
severe character, which at the pleasure of any future Governor might be
called into operation. These Sir Charles Metcalfe repealed. His doing so
gave umbrage to the Directors, and caused his resignation and return to
Europe, when he was appointed Governor of Jamaica. The difficult duties
of this position--the emancipation of the negroes having but recently
occurred--were discharged by him to the satisfaction of the Government
and the colonists. After over two years' residence the climate proved so
unfavourable to his health that he was compelled to resign. The painful
disease of which he afterwards died--cancer of the cheek--had seized him
in a firm grip. Years before this time, when residing at Calcutta, a
friend had one day noticed a red spot upon his cheek, and underneath it
a single drop of blood. The blood was wiped away; the red spot remained.
For a long while it occasioned neither pain nor anxiety. A little time
after his departure from India, disquieting symptoms appeared, and on
his arrival in England he had consulted Sir Benjamin Brodie; but it was
not till his return from Jamaica that it received the attention it
really demanded. Then consultations of the most eminent surgeons and
physicians were held, and the application of a severe caustic was
determined on. When told that it would probably "destroy the cheek
through and through," he only answered, "What you determine shall be
done at once;" and the same afternoon the painful remedy was applied.
The physicians and surgeons of London did what they could for him, and
he retired into the country. The disorder had not been eradicated, but
merely checked. About this time the ill-health of Sir Charles Bagot had
rendered that gentleman's resignation necessary, and the post of
Governor-General of Canada thus became vacant. It was offered to, and
accepted by, Sir Charles Metcalfe. No appointment could have been found
for him at that moment in the whole political world the duties of which
were more difficult, when the nature of his instructions and the
peculiar position of the colony are taken into consideration. Add to
this that his whole life had hitherto been passed in administering
governments which were largely despotic in their character. Responsible
Government, as we have seen, had been conceded to Canada. Sir Charles
professed to approve of this concession, but his conduct throughout the
whole course of his administration was at variance with his professions,
and showed that his sympathies were not on the side of popular rights.
He came over in the month of March, 1843, and on the following day took
charge of the Administration. For the composition of the Government and
an account of the situation of affairs in Canada at this time the reader
is referred to the life of Robert Baldwin which has already appeared in
these pages. The circumstances under which the Governor contrived to
embroil himself with the leading members of the Administration are there
given in sufficient detail, and there is no necessity for repeating them
at length in this place. Sir Charles chose his associates and advisers
from among the members of the defunct Family Compact. He endeavoured to
circumscribe the power of the Executive Council, which demanded that no
office should be filled, no appointment made, without its sanction. We
are, argued the members of Council, in the same relation to the House of
Assembly as Ministers in England to the English Parliament. We are
responsible to it for the acts of Government; these acts must be ours,
or the result of our advice, otherwise we cannot be responsible for
them. Unless our demand is complied with, there is no such thing as
Responsible Government. On the other hand, Sir Charles contended that by
relinquishing his patronage he should be surrendering the prerogatives
of the Crown, and should also incapacitate himself and all future
Governors from acting as moderator between opposite factions. It was not
long before an appointment, made by Sir Charles, brought the contest to
an issue. Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine, the two leading members of the
Executive Council, urged upon the Governor to retract this appointment,
or to promise that no other should be made without their advice. The
Governor was firm in his refusal. The Executive Council resigned. To
form a new Ministry was, under these circumstances, a most difficult
task. Office went begging; a Solicitor-Generalship was offered to six
individuals, and perseveringly refused by all. But Sir Charles was also
persevering in his offers, and at last a seventh was found, who
accepted. At last a weak Ministry was formed, and then followed a
general election. Parliament met at Montreal on the 8th of November,
1844, when, after a hard fight, Sir Allan Macnab was elected Speaker of
the Assembly by a small majority of three. The debate on the address,
after strong opposition, was carried by a Tory majority of six. The
session dragged on without any change in the character of the Ministry,
which was supported by a small and feeble majority in the Assembly. The
popular feeling against the Governor rose to the highest pitch. Meantime
Sir Charles's terrible malady was rapidly doing its work upon him. He
had lost the use of one eye, the eye which was still useful sympathized
with that which was destroyed; nor was there any hope of the eradication
of the cancer. He had now, to his great regret, to use the hand of
another to write his letters and despatches. He was racked by pains
above the eye and down the right side of the face as far as the chin.
The cheek towards the nose and mouth was permanently swelled. He could
not open his mouth to its usual width, and it was with difficulty he
inserted and masticated food. He no longer looked forward to a cure. His
Canadian medical attendants hesitated to apply the powerful caustic
recommended by Sir Benjamin Brodie, and counselled him to return to
England. "I am tied to Canada by my duty," was his constant reply. Mr.
George Pollock, house surgeon of St. George's Hospital, was despatched
from England, to examine the case and apply the most approved remedies.
No aid which science could give was wanting, but the disease was beyond
medical control. Its ravages were now most painful and distressing. So
far as the body was concerned, it was but the wreck of a man that
remained. On this wreck or ruin, however, was to descend, as if in
mockery, the coronet of nobility. He was created Baron Metcalfe. Idle as
the honour was in itself to the childless invalid, it was still a
testimony that his services had been appreciated. "But," says his
biographer, "he was dying, no less surely for the strong will that
sustained him, and the vigorous intellect which glowed in his shattered
frame. A little while and he might die at his post. The winter was
setting in--the navigation was closing. It was necessary at once to
decide whether Metcalfe should now prepare to betake the suffering
remnant of himself to England, or to abide at Montreal, if spared, till
the coming spring. But he would not trust himself to form the decision.
He invited the leading members of his Council to attend him at
Monklands; and there he told them that he left the issue in their hands.
It was a scene never to be forgotten by any who were present in the
Governor-General's darkened room on this memorable occasion. Some were
dissolved in tears. All were agitated by a strong emotion of sorrow and
sympathy, mingled with a sort of wondering admiration of the heroic
constancy of their chief. He told them that if they desired his
continuance at the head of the Government--if they believed that the
cause for which they had fought together so manfully would suffer by his
departure, and that they therefore counselled him to remain at his post,
he would willingly abide by their decision." What their decision was
need hardly be said. Lord Metcalfe embarked for England quietly and
unostentatiously, as his suffering state compelled. He could not, from
the nature of the struggle in which he had been engaged, expect to quit
the shores of Canada with the same unanimous approbation that had
erected to his memory the "Metcalfe Hall" at Calcutta, or raised his
statue in Spanish Town, Jamaica. He returned to England--returned to
doctors and the darkened room. He was in constant pain except when under
the influence of narcotics; but he made no complaint, and endured his
sufferings with fortitude. He died on the 5th of September, 1846, and
was interred in a quiet, private and unostentatious manner in the little
parish church of Winkfield, near Fern Hill. He had often expressed a
wish that this should be his last resting place. On a marble tablet in
this church is an epitaph written by Mr.--afterwards Lord--Macaulay, who
knew and had served with him in India. Thus it runs:--"Near this stone
is laid CHARLES THEOPHILUS, first and last LORD METCALFE, a Statesman
tried in many high posts and difficult conjunctures, and found equal to
all. The Three Greatest Dependencies of the British Crown were
successively intrusted to his care. In India his fortitude, his wisdom,
his probity, and his moderation are held in honourable remembrance by
men of many races, languages, and religions. In Jamaica, still convulsed
by a social revolution, he calmed the evil passions which long suffering
had engendered in one class and long domination in another. In Canada,
not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled
contending factions to each other and to the Mother Country. Public
esteem was the just reward of his public virtue, but those only who
enjoyed the privilege of his friendship could appreciate the whole worth
of his gentle and noble nature. Costly monuments in Asiatic and American
cities attest the gratitude of nations which he ruled; this tablet
records the sorrow and the pride with which his memory is cherished by
private Affection."
Had it been his good fortune to die before receiving the appointment of
Governor-General of Canada, Sir Charles Metcalfe would have left behind
him a high reputation on all hands, and there would have been nothing to
detract from the praise which would have been justly his due. His tenure
of office in this country was a somewhat inglorious close to a long and
useful public career. As Governor of a colony to which Responsible
Government had been conceded he was altogether out of his element. He
was simply unfit for the position, as well by reason of his personal
character as by the training to which he had been subjected. Good
intentions were undoubtedly his, and he acted up to the light that was
in him; but to this modicum of praise no Canadian writer can justly add
much in the way of commendation.
THE HON. ALEXANDER MORRIS.
Mr. Morris is the eldest son of the late Hon. William Morris, whose name
is prominently identified with the history of the Clergy Reserve and
School Land questions in this country; and a nephew of the late Hon.
James Morris, who held the portfolio of Postmaster-General in the
Baldwin-Lafontaine Administration, and who was subsequently
Receiver-General in the Administration organized under the leadership of
Messrs. John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis Victor Sicotte. The chief
points of public interest connected with the family history are outlined
in the sketch of his father's life, which appears elsewhere in these
pages. The subject of the present memoir was born at Perth, Upper
Canada--where his father then resided and carried on business--on the
17th of March, 1826. In boyhood he attended the local Grammar School,
which enjoyed a high reputation for the efficiency of its educational
training. His father, who was desirous that his son should enjoy higher
scholastic advantages than were then obtainable in this country, sent
him, while he was still in early youth, to Scotland, where he entered as
a student at Madras College, St. Andrews. After spending about a year at
that establishment he was transferred to the University of Glasgow,
where another industrious year was passed. Returning to his native land,
he began to devote himself to the business of life. He at this time was
intended for commercial pursuits, and spent three years in the
establishment of Messrs. Thorne & Heward, commission merchants, at
Montreal. The knowledge and experience gained during these three years
have since proved of great service to him, although he was not destined
to engage in commercial business on his own behalf. He had meanwhile
resolved to enter the legal profession in Upper Canada, and was
accordingly articled as a clerk to Mr.--now the Hon. Sir--John A.
Macdonald, in the office of Messrs. Macdonald & Campbell, Barristers, of
Kingston. Here he studied with such assiduity that his health gave way,
and he was compelled to relinquish his studies for some months. His
father having previously removed to Montreal, he returned to that city
and resumed his scholastic studies in the University of McGill College,
where he took the degrees successively of B.A., M.A., B.C.L., and D.C.L.
He was the first graduate in the Arts course of that institution, and
was subsequently elected by the graduates one of the first Fellows in
Arts, and thence was promoted to be one of the Governors of the
University, which position he held for several years. He entered the
office of the then Attorney-General Badgley, who subsequently became a
Judge of the Court of Queen's Bench in Quebec. He completed his course
of studies in the office of Messrs. Badgley & Abbott, and then proceeded
to Toronto, where he presented his credentials to the Benchers of the
Law Society and requested to be called to the Bar, under the provisions
of the law which enabled any person who had been duly registered as a
clerk or student during the necessary period for the Bar of Lower
Canada, to be called to the Bar of Upper Canada, after passing the
necessary examination. He was examined in due course by the Benchers of
Upper Canada, admitted to the degree of Barrister-at-Law, and was
thereafter sworn in as an Attorney--both in Hilary Term of the year
1851. He was then about to establish himself in the practice of the law
in the city of Toronto, having been offered a partnership by the then
Attorney-General, the late Hon. John Ross, when family circumstances led
to his return to Montreal, where, having presented his diploma as a
Barrister-at-Law of Upper Canada, he was after examination called to the
Bar of Lower Canada as an Advocate. In November of the same year he
married Miss Margaret Cline, daughter of the late Mr. William Cline, of
Cornwall, and niece of the late Hon. Philip Vankoughnet, of the same
place. He entered upon the practice of his profession in Montreal. His
ability and social connections soon secured for him a large and
lucrative practice, and having entered into partnership with the present
Mr. Justice Torrance, he became known as one of the most successful
practitioners in the Province, devoting himself mainly to commercial
law. Like his father before him, he attached himself to the Conservative
side in politics, and first entered active political life in 1861, when
he contested the constituency of South Lanark, in Upper Canada, for the
Legislative Assembly, in opposition to Mr. John Doran. His father had
represented that constituency for twenty years, and he had no difficulty
in securing his election. Upon the opening of the session he took his
seat in the House, and made his first speech, on the debate on the
Speech from the Throne, which was on the question of Representation by
Population--a measure which he did not believe to be the true remedy for
the unsatisfactory state of things which existed throughout the country.
The true remedy, as he believed, and as he repeatedly urged, both from
his place in Parliament and elsewhere, was the Confederation scheme
which was subsequently adopted. In the negotiations which led to the
formation of the Coalition Government, of which Sir John A. Macdonald
and the late Hon. George Brown were members, and which secured the
necessary Imperial legislation in order to bring about Confederation, he
took an active and initiatory part, as appears by the record of the
steps taken to form the Government, and secure that policy submitted to
the Parliament of Canada at the time. He continued to represent South
Lanark in the Assembly until Confederation, after which he represented
it in the House of Commons until the general election of 1872. He was an
active member, and stood high in the esteem of his Party. In the month
of November, 1869, he accepted office in the then-existing Government as
Minister of Inland Revenue, which he retained until, having resigned his
position in the Government owing to broken health, he received the
appointment of Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba,
in July, 1872. Of this office he was the first incumbent, no Court of
Queen's Bench having previously existed there. The highest judicial
tribunal which had existed in the Prairie Province up to that time was
the Quarterly Court, as it was called, organized under the authority of
the Hudson's Bay Company's Charter, and conducted in a rather primitive
way. A short time prior to the date last mentioned this tribunal was
abolished, and the Court of Queen's Bench established in its place.
After accepting the office of Chief Justice, Mr. Morris prepared a
series of rules introducing the English practice into the Court. He did
not long retain his seat on the Judicial Bench, as, two months after his
appointment as Chief Justice, he was nominated as Administrator, in
place of Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, who was absent on leave. On the
2nd of December, 1872, he received the appointment of
Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, a
position which he retained for five years. On the creation of the
District of Keewatin he became Lieutenant-Governor of that territory _ex
officio_. He was also appointed Chief Superintendent of Indian Affairs
in the Manitoba Superintendency, and one of the Special Commissioners
for the making of treaties three, four, five and six, and the revision
of treaties one and two; and, as will be seen from the last report of
the Minister of the Interior, he suggested the making of the last and
seventh treaty--that with the Blackfeet. In the making of these treaties
he was the active Commissioner and chief spokesman, and was very
successful in winning the confidence of the Indian tribes. The treaties
in question extinguished the natural title of the Indian tribes to the
vast region extending from the Height of Land beyond Lake Superior to
the Blackfeet country in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, covering
the route of the Canada Pacific Railway, and opening up a vast extent of
fertile territory to settlement. When Mr. Morris assumed the government
of Manitoba the Province was in a very disturbed condition. He had the
satisfaction of leaving it reduced to order, and far advanced in
settlement and legislative progress. On his departure from Manitoba, the
_Free Press_, the organ of the Liberal Party, thus referred to his
career in the North-West: "To-morrow is the last day of Hon. Alexander
Morris's connection with Manitoba as Lieutenant-Governor. When, five
years ago, the announcement was made that Chief Justice Morris had been
appointed to the position which he is now just about vacating, very
general satisfaction was manifested by the people of the Province. Mr.
Morris succeeded to the office when it was surrounded by difficulties
great and complicated; and the task before its incumbent was by no means
an easy one. The Province occupied a most peculiar position; having just
had constitutional self-government thrust upon it, without any
preparatory training. The Lieutenant-Governor necessarily found himself
at the head of a people who, no matter how good their intentions, could
not reasonably be expected to have a very perfect appreciation of the
true position of a Lieutenant-Governor under such a government.
Lieutenant-Governor Morris during the early part of his official career
had plenty of evidence of this, and it devolved upon him, in no small
degree, to impress upon them exactly what such government entailed--that
the Lieutenant-Governor was supposed to act almost solely upon the
advice of the Crown Ministers of the day, who in turn were responsible
to the people's chosen representatives in Parliament. And in no one way
has Governor Morris more distinguished himself than in the observance of
this fundamental principle of our constitution, however much he may
actually have assisted in the government of the country by his ripe
experience and statesmanship. The smallest Province though Manitoba is,
the office of its Lieutenant-Governor has entailed more extensive
responsibilities than that of any other Province in the Dominion."
Upon the completion of his term of office Mr. Morris returned from
Manitoba to his native town of Perth, in Ontario, where he had a
residence. At the last general election for the House of Commons, in
1878, he contested the constituency of Selkirk, Manitoba, with the Hon.
Donald A. Smith, but was defeated by nine votes. Mr. Smith was, however,
unseated on petition. About two months later the Hon. Matthew Crooks
Cameron, who sat in the Local Legislature of Ontario for East Toronto,
was appointed to a Puisné Judgeship of the Court of Queen's Bench. This
left a vacancy in the representation of East Toronto, and Mr. Morris,
who was then a resident of Perth, was nominated for the vacancy by a
Conservative Convention. He offered himself as a candidate for the
constituency, and was elected by a considerable majority over his
opponent, Mr. John Leys. At the general local elections held on the 5th
of June following Mr. Morris was again returned for East Toronto--of
which he had in the interval become a resident--by a majority of 57 over
the Hon. Oliver Mowat, Premier of Ontario. He continues to represent
that constituency, and occupies a prominent place as a member of the
Opposition.
Mr. Morris has also made a creditable name for himself in literature. In
1854 he published a quasi-professional work embodying the Railway
Consolidation Acts of Canada, with notes of cases. In 1855 appeared
"Canada and Her Resources," an essay to which was awarded the second
prize offered by the Paris Exhibition Committee of Canada--the first
prize having been awarded to the well-known essay by the late Mr. John
Sheridan Hogan by Sir Edmund Head, then Governor-General. Three years
later--in 1858--he delivered a lecture before the Mercantile Library
Association of Montreal, in which was predicted the federation of the
British American Provinces and the construction of the Intercolonial and
Pacific Railways--subjects to which Mr. Morris had given a good deal of
attention ever since, when a youth, he had read and studied Lord
Durham's famous "Report" on Canada. This lecture was published, in
pamphlet form, under the title of "Nova Britannia; or, British North
America, its extent and future," by the Library Association. It was
widely circulated, and attracted a good deal of attention, not only in
this country but in Great Britain and the United States. No fewer than
three thousand copies of it were sold in ten days. A contemporary notice
of this pamphlet thus refers to the author and his theory: "Mr. Morris
is at once statistical, patriotic and prophetic. The lecturer sees in
the future a fusion of races, a union of all the existing provinces,
with new provinces to grow up in the west, and a railway to the Pacific.
The design of the lecture is excellent, and its facts seem to have been
carefully collected." In 1859 Mr. Morris delivered and published another
lecture of a somewhat similar nature, under the title of "The Hudson's
Bay and Pacific Territories," advocating the withdrawal of the
North-West Territories from the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, and
their incorporation with the Confederacy of Canada along with British
Columbia. His latest work, published during the month of May last, is
entitled, "The Treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the
North-West Territories." It gives an account of all the treaties made
with these Indians, from the original one made by Lord Selkirk down to
the present time; contains suggestions for dealing with them, and
predicts a hopeful future for them.
Mr. Morris has for many years taken an active part in the Church Courts
of, first, the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the
Church of Scotland, and since the union of the four Presbyterian
Churches of the Dominion as the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as a
representative to the Assembly of that Church. He has been for twenty
years a Trustee of Queen's College, Kingston, of which his father was
one of the active founders. Mr. Morris actively assisted in bringing
about the union of the Churches above alluded to, affirming it to be in
the highest interests of Presbyterianism and religion in the Dominion
that such a consummation should be brought about.
[Illustration: THOMAS TALBOT, signed as Thomas Talbot]
THE HON. THOMAS TALBOT.
Not often does it fall to the lot of the biographer to chronicle a more
singular piece of history than is afforded by the life of the founder of
the Talbot Settlement in Western Canada. A contemporary writer has
proved to us that Ireland has, at one time and another, contributed her
full share of notable personages to our population; and Colonel Talbot
is certainly entitled to rank among the most remarkable of them all. A
man of high birth and social position, of good abilities, with a decided
natural turn for an active military career, and with excellent prospects
of success before him, he voluntarily forsook the influences under which
he had been reared, and spent by far the greater part of a long life in
the solitude of the Canadian wilderness. He was the early associate and
life-long friend of the illustrious Duke of Wellington. At the outset of
their careers, any impartial friend of the two youths might not
unreasonably have predicted a higher and wider fame for the scion of the
House of Talbot than for Arthur Wellesley; for the former was the
brighter, and apparently the more ambitious of the two, and his
connections were at least equally influential. Had any one indulged in
such a vaticination, however, his prediction would have been most
ignominiously falsified by subsequent events. Arthur Wellesley lived to
achieve a reputation second to that of scarcely any name in history. He
became the most famous and successful military commander of modern
times. Nations vied with each other in heaping well-deserved honours
upon his head, and his Sovereign characterized him as "the greatest
general England ever saw." Statesmen and princes hung upon his words,
and even upon his nod; and lovely women languished for his smiles. When
he died, full of years and honours, and everything of good which a
grateful nation has to bestow, his body lay in state at Chelsea
Hospital. It was visited by the high and mighty ones of the Empire, and
was contemplated with an almost superstitious awe. It was finally borne
with regal pomp, through streets draped in mourning, and thronged by a
countless multitude, to its final resting-place in the crypt of the
noblest of English cathedrals. The funeral rites were solemnized amid
the tears of a nation, and formed an event in that nation's history. The
obsequies of "the Iron Duke" took place on the 18th of November, 1852.
In less than three months from that date his friend Colonel Talbot also
went the way of all flesh. But by how different a road! His life, though
it had by no means been spent in vain, had had little to commend it to
the emulation or envy of mankind. Its most vigorous season had been
passed amid the solitude of the Canadian forest, and in its decline it
had become the prey of selfishness and neglect. Colonel Talbot died in a
small room in the house of a man who had once been his servant. He must
have tasted the bitterness of death many times before he finally entered
into his rest. Neither wife, child, nor relative ministered to his
wants. But scant ceremony was vouchsafed to his remains. His body,
instead of lying in state, was deposited in a barn, and was finally
attended to its last obscure resting-place in a little Canadian village
by a handful of friends and acquaintances. The weather was piercingly
cold, and we may be sure that the obsequies were not unnecessarily
prolonged. Surely the force of antithesis could not much farther go!
And yet, as we review the widely diverse careers of these two remarkable
men, it is difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that the
result in each case was the legitimate outgrowth of their respective
qualities. Arthur Wellesley, in his earliest boyhood, formed a definite
purpose in life; and that purpose, during all the years of his
probation, was kept constantly in view. Every other passion was kept in
due subordination to it. Fortune was kind to him, and he well knew how
to avail himself of her favours. The acquisition of fame, moreover,
bears some analogy to the acquisition of wealth. The first step is by
far the most difficult. Dr. Johnson once said that any man of strong
will has it in his power to make a fortune, if he can only contrive to
tide over the time while he is scraping together the first hundred
pounds. Arthur Wellesley, having got his foot firmly on the first rung
of the ladder, found the rest of the ascent feasible enough. Now, Thomas
Talbot was endowed by nature with a will so strong as almost to deserve
the name of stubbornness, but that was almost the only quality which he
shared in common with his friend. If he ever formed any definite scheme
of life he was certainly very inconsistent in pursuing it. His moods
were as erratic as were those of the hero of Locksley Hall. He was
unable to bring his mind into harmony with the inevitable, and knew not
how to subordinate himself to the existing order of things. Even as an
army-officer he was not always amenable to discipline. The follies and
frivolities of society disgusted him, and his mind early received a warp
from which it never recovered. He lived in a time when there was plenty
of work ready to his hand, if he would but have condescended to take his
share of it. The work, however, was not to his taste, and his ambition
seems to have deserted him at a most inopportune time. He "burst all
links of habit," withdrew himself from his proper place in the world,
and passed the rest of his days in solitude and obscurity. As the
founder of an important settlement in a new Province, he certainly
accomplished some good in his day and generation. The enterprise,
however, does not seem to have been undertaken with any definite design
of accomplishing good, but merely with a view to securing a more
congenial mode of life for himself. That a man reared as he had been
should find anything congenial in such a life is a problem which is
insoluble to ordinary humanity.