SECTION I--The first parliament of the Dominion of Canada. 1867--1872.

CANADA UNDER BRITISH RULE 1760-1900

BY

SIR JOHN G. BOURINOT, K.C.M.G., LL.D., LITT.D.

Author of 'Parliamentary Procedure and Practice', 'Constitutional

History of Canada,' 'The Story of Canada,' etc

WITH EIGHT MAPS

1900

CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SERIES

EDITED BY G. W. PROTHERO, LITT.D., LL.D.

Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and Late Professor of

History in the University of Edinburgh.

GENERAL PREFACE.

The aim of this series is to sketch the history of Modern Europe, with

that of its chief colonies and conquests, from about the end of the

fifteenth century down to the present time. In one or two cases the

story commences at an earlier date: in the case of the colonies it

generally begins later. The histories of the different countries are

described, as a rule, separately, for it is believed that, except in

epochs like that of the French Revolution and Napoleon I, the connection

of events will thus be better understood and the continuity of

historical development more clearly displayed.

The series is intended for the use of all persons anxious to understand

the nature of existing political conditions. "The roots of the present

lie deep in the past"; and the real significance of contemporary events

cannot be grasped unless the historical causes which have led to them

are known. The plan adopted makes it possible to treat the history of

the last four centuries in considerable detail, and to embody the most

important results of modern research. It is hoped therefore that the

series will be useful not only to beginners but to students who have

already acquired some general knowledge of European History. For those

who wish to carry their studies further, the bibliography appended to

each volume will act as a guide to original sources of information and

works more detailed and authoritative.

Considerable attention is paid to political geography, and each volume

is furnished with such maps and plans as may be requisite for the

illustration of the text.

G.W. PROTHERO.

PREFACE.

I devote the first chapter of this short history to a brief review of

the colonisation of the valley of the St. Lawrence by the French, and of

their political and social conditions at the Conquest, so that a reader

may be able to compare their weak and impoverished state under the

repressive dominion of France with the prosperous and influential

position they eventually attained under the liberal methods of British

rule. In the succeeding chapters I have dwelt on those important events

which have had the largest influence on the political development of the

several provinces as British possessions.

We have, first, the Quebec Act, which gave permanent guarantees for the

establishment of the Church of Rome and the maintenance of the language

and civil law of France in her old colony. Next, we read of the coming

of the United Empire Loyalists, and the consequent establishment of

British institutions on a stable basis of loyal devotion to the parent

state. Then ensued the war of 1812, to bind the provinces more closely

to Great Britain, and create that national spirit which is the natural

outcome of patriotic endeavour and individual self-sacrifice. Then

followed for several decades a persistent popular struggle for larger

political liberty, which was not successful until British statesmen

awoke at last from their indifference, on the outbreak of a rebellion in

the Canadas, and recognised the necessity of adopting a more liberal

policy towards their North American dependencies. The union of the

Canadas was succeeded by the concession of responsible government and

the complete acknowledgment of the rights of the colonists to manage

their provincial affairs without the constant interference of British

officials. With this extension of political privileges, the people

became still more ambitious, and established a confederation, which has

not only had the effect of supplying a remarkable stimulus to their

political, social and material development, but has given greater

security to British interests on the continent of North America. At

particular points of the historical narrative I have dwelt for a space

on economic, social, and intellectual conditions, so that the reader may

intelligently follow every phase to the development of the people from

the close of the French régime to the beginning of the twentieth century

In my summary of the most important political events for the last

twenty-five years, I have avoided all comment on matters which are "as

yet"--to quote the language of the epilogue to Mr. Green's "Short

History"--"too near to us to admit of a cool and purely historical

treatment." The closing chapter is a short review of the relations

between Canada and the United States since the treaty of 1783--so

conducive to international disputes concerning boundaries and fishing

rights--until the present time, when the Alaskan and other international

controversies are demanding adjustment.

I have thought, too, that it would be useful to students of political

institutions to give in the appendix comparisons between the leading

provisions of the federal systems of the Dominion of Canada and the

Commonwealth of Australia. I must add that, in the revision of the

historical narrative, I have been much aided by the judicious criticism

and apt suggestions of the Editor of the Series, Dr. Prothero.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, OTTAWA, CANADA. 1st October, 1900

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE FRENCH RÉGIME (1534--1760)

Section 1. Introduction

Section 2. Discovery and Settlement of Canada by France

Section 3. French exploration in the valleys of North America

Section 4. End of French Dominion in the valley of the St. Lawrence

Section 5. Political, Economic, and Social Conditions of Canada

during French Rule

CHAPTER II.

BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE (1749--1774)

Section 1. From the Conquest until the Quebec Act

Section 2. The Foundation of Nova Scotia (1749--1783)

CHAPTER III.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS (1763--1784)

Section 1. The successful Revolution of the Thirteen Colonies in America

Section 2. Canada and Nova Scotia during the Revolution.

Section 3. The United Empire Loyalists

CHAPTER IV.

DEVELOPMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS (1784-1812)

Section 1. Beginnings of the Provinces of New Brunswick, Lower Canada

and Upper Canada.

Section 2. Twenty years of Political Development. (1792-1812)

CHAPTER V.

THE WAR OF 1812-1815

Section 1. Origin of the war between Great Britain and the United States

Section 2. Canada during the War

CHAPTER VI.

THE EVOLUTION OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT (1815-1839)

Section 1. The Rebellion in Lower Canada

Section 2. The Rebellion in Upper Canada

Section 3. Social and Economic Conditions of the Provinces in 1838

CHAPTER VII.

A NEW ERA OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT (1839-1867)

Section 1. The Union of the Canadas and the establishment of Responsible

Government

Section 2. Results of Self-government from 1841 to 1864

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EVOLUTION OF CONFEDERATION (1789-1867)

Section 1. The beginnings of Confederation

Section 2. The Quebec Convention of 1864

Section 3. Confederation accomplished

CHAPTER IX.

CONFEDERATION (1867--1900)

Section 1. The First Parliament of the Dominion of Canada (1867--1873)

Section 2. Extension of the Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific

Ocean (1869--1873)

Section 3. Summary of Noteworthy Events from 1873 until 1900

Section 4. Political and Social Conditions of Canada under Confederation

CHAPTER X.

CANADA'S RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES AND HER INFLUENCE IN IMPERIAL

COUNCILS (1783--1900)

APPENDIX A: COMPARISONS BETWEEN CONSTITUTIONS OF THE CANADIAN DOMINION

AND AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH.

APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

INDEX

PLANS AND MAPS.

Map showing Boundary between Canada and the United States by Treaty of

1783.

Map of British America to illustrate the Charter of the Hudson's Bay

Company.

International Boundary as finally established in 1842 at Lake of the

Woods.

Map of the North-Eastern Boundary as established in 1842.

Map of British Columbia and Yukon District showing disputed Boundary

between Canada and the United States.

France, Spain, and Great Britain, in North America, 1756--1760.

Outline map of British Possessions in North America, 1763--1775.

Map of the Dominion of Canada illustrating the boundaries of Provinces

and Provisional Districts.

A SHORT HISTORY OF CANADA UNDER BRITISH RULE.

CHAPTER I.

THE FRENCH RÉGIME. 1534--1760.

SECTION I.--Introduction.

Though the principal object of this book is to review the political,

economic and social progress of the provinces of Canada under British

rule, yet it would be necessarily imperfect, and even unintelligible in

certain important respects, were I to ignore the deeply interesting

history of the sixteen hundred thousand French Canadians, about thirty

per cent of the total population of the Dominion. To apply to Canada an

aphorism of Carlyle, "The present is the living sum-total of the whole

past"; the sum-total not simply of the hundred and thirty years that

have elapsed since the commencement of British dominion, but primarily

of the century and a half that began with the coming of Champlain to the

heights of Quebec and ended with the death of Wolfe on the Plains of

Abraham. The soldiers and sailors, the missionaries and pioneers of

France, speak to us in eloquent tones, whether we linger in summer time

on the shores of the noble gulf which washes the eastern portals of

Canada; whether we ascend the St. Lawrence River and follow the route

taken by the explorers, who discovered the great lakes, and gave to the

world a knowledge of the West and the Mississippi, whether we walk on

the grassy mounds that recall the ruins of the formidable fortress of

Louisbourg, which once defended the eastern entrance to the St.

Lawrence; whether we linger on the rocks of the ancient city of Quebec

with its many memorials of the French régime; whether we travel over the

rich prairies with their sluggish, tortuous rivers, and memories of the

French Canadians who first found their way to that illimitable region.

In fact, Canada has a rich heritage of associations that connect us with

some of the most momentous epochs of the world's history. The victories

of Louisbourg and Quebec belong to the same series of brilliant events

that recall the famous names of Chatham, Clive, and Wolfe, and that gave

to England a mighty empire in Asia and America. Wolfe's signal victory

on the heights of the ancient capital was the prelude to the great drama

of the American revolution. Freed from the fear of France, the people of

the Thirteen Colonies, so long hemmed in between the Atlantic Ocean and

the Appalachian range, found full expression for their love of local

self-government when England asserted her imperial supremacy. After a

struggle of a few years they succeeded in laying the foundation of the

remarkable federal republic, which now embraces forty-five states with a

population of already seventy-five millions of souls, which owes its

national stability and prosperity to the energy and enterprise of the

Anglo-Norman race and the dominant influence of the common law, and the

parliamentary institutions of England. At the same time, the American

Revolution had an immediate and powerful effect upon the future of the

communities that still remained in the possession of England after the

acknowledgement of the independence of her old colonies. It drove to

Canada a large body of men and women, who remained faithful to the crown

and empire and became founders of provinces which are now comprised in a

Dominion extending for over three thousand miles to the north and east

of the federal republic.

The short review of the French régime, with which I am about to

commence this history of Canada, will not give any evidence of

political, economic, or intellectual development under the influence of

French dominion, but it is interesting to the student of comparative

politics on account of the comparisons which it enables us to make

between the absolutism of old France which crushed every semblance of

independent thought and action, and the political freedom which has been

a consequence of the supremacy of England in the province once occupied

by her ancient rival. It is quite true, as Professor Freeman has said,

that in Canada, which is pre-eminently English in the development of its

political institutions, French Canada is still "a distinct and visible

element, which is not English,--an element older than anything English

in the land,--and which shows no sign of being likely to be assimilated

by anything English." As this book will show, though a hundred and forty

years have nearly passed since the signing of the treaty of Paris, many

of the institutions which the French Canadians inherited from France

have become permanently established in the country, and we see

constantly in the various political systems given to Canada from time to

time--notably in the constitution of the federal union--the impress of

these institutions and the influence of the people of the French

section. Still, while the French Canadians by their adherence to their

language, civil law and religion are decidedly "a distinct and visible

element which is not English"--an element kept apart from the English by

positive legal and constitutional guarantees or barriers of

separation,--we shall see that it is the influence and operation of

English institutions, which have made their province one of the most

contented communities of the world. While their old institutions are

inseparably associated with the social and spiritual conditions of their

daily lives, it is after all their political constitution, which derives

its strength from English, principles, that has made the French

Canadians a free, self-governing people and developed the best elements

of their character to a degree which was never possible under the

depressing and enfeebling conditions of the French régime.

SECTION 2.--Discovery and settlement of Canada by France.

Much learning has been devoted to the elucidation of the Icelandic

Sagas, or vague accounts of voyages which Bjorne Heriulfson and Lief

Ericsson, sons of the first Norse settlers of Greenland, are supposed to

have made at the end of the tenth century, to the eastern parts of what

is now British North America, and, in the opinion of some writers, even

as far as the shores of New England. It is just possible that such

voyages were made, and that Norsemen were the first Europeans who saw

the eastern shores of Canada. It is quite certain, however, that no

permanent settlements were made by the Norsemen in any part of these

countries; and their voyages do not appear to have been known to

Columbus or other maritime adventurers of later times, when the veil of

mystery was at last lifted from the western limits of what was so long

truly described as the "sea of darkness." While the subject is

undoubtedly full of interest, it is at the same time as illusive as the

_fata morgana_, or the lakes and rivers that are created by the mists of

a summer's eve on the great prairies of the Canadian west.

Five centuries later than the Norse voyagers, there appeared on the

great field of western exploration an Italian sailor, Giovanni Caboto,

through whose agency England took the first step in the direction of

that remarkable maritime enterprise which, in later centuries, was to be

the admiration and envy of all other nations. John Cabot was a Genoese

by birth and a Venetian citizen by adoption, who came during the last

decade of the fifteenth century, to the historic town of Bristol.

Eventually he obtain from Henry VII letters-patent, granting to himself

and his three sons, Louis, Sebastian, and Sancio, the right, "at their

own cost and charges, to seek out and discover unknown lands," and to

acquire for England the dominion over the countries they might discover.

Early in May, 1497, John Cabot sailed from Bristol in "The Matthew,"

manned by English sailors. In all probability he was accompanied by

Sebastian, then about 21 years of age, who, in later times, through the

credulity of his friends and his own garrulity and vanity, took that

place in the estimation of the world which his father now rightly fills.

Some time toward the end of June, they made a land-fall on the

north-eastern coast of North America. The actual site of the land-fall

will always be a matter of controversy unless some document is found

among musty archives of Europe to solve the question to the satisfaction

of the disputants, who wax hot over the claims of a point near Cape

Chidley on the coast of Labrador, of Bonavista, on the east shore of

Newfoundland, of Cape North, or some other point, on the island of Cape

Breton. Another expedition left Bristol in 1498, but while it is now

generally believed that Cabot coasted the shores of North America from

Labrador or Cape Breton as far as Cape Hatteras, we have no details of

this famous voyage, and are even ignorant of the date when the fleet

returned to England.

The Portuguese, Gaspar and Miguel Cortereal, in the beginning of the

sixteenth century, were lost somewhere on the coast of Labrador or

Newfoundland, but not before they gave to their country a claim to new

lands. The Basques and Bretons, always noted for their love of the sea,

frequented the same prolific waters and some of the latter gave a name

to the picturesque island of Cape Breton. Giovanni da Verrazzano, a

Florentine by birth, who had for years led a roving life on the sea,

sailed in 1524 along the coasts of Nova Scotia and the present United

States and gave a shadowy claim of first discovery of a great region to

France under whose authority he sailed. Ten years later Jacques Cartier

of St. Malo was authorised by Francis I to undertake a voyage to these

new lands, but he did not venture beyond the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

though he took possession of the picturesque Gaspé peninsula in the name

of his royal master. In 1535 he made a second voyage, whose results were

most important for France and the world at large. The great river of

Canada was then discovered by the enterprising Breton, who established a

post for some months at Stadacona, now Quebec, and also visited the

Indian village of Hochelaga on the island of Montreal. Here he gave the

appropriate name of Mount Royal to the beautiful height which dominates

the picturesque country where enterprise has, in the course of

centuries, built a noble city. Hochelaga was probably inhabited by

Indians of the Huron-Iroquois family, who appear, from the best evidence

before us, to have been dwelling at that time on the banks of the St.

Lawrence, whilst the Algonquins, who took their place in later times,

were living to the north of the river.

The name of Canada--obviously the Huron-Iroquois word for Kannata, a

town--began to take a place on the maps soon after Cartier's voyages. It

appears from his _Bref Récit_ to have been applied at the time of his

visit, to a kingdom, or district, extending from Ile-aux-Coudres, which

he named on account of its hazel-nuts, on the lower St. Lawrence, to the

Kingdom of Ochelay, west of Stadacona; east of Canada was Saguenay, and

west of Ochelay was Hochelaga, to which the other communities were

tributary. After a winter of much misery Cartier left Stadacona in the

spring of 1536, and sailed into the Atlantic by the passage between Cape

Breton and Newfoundland, now appropriately called Cabot's Straits on

modern maps. He gave to France a positive claim to a great region, whose

illimitable wealth and possibilities were never fully appreciated by the

king and the people of France even in the later times of her dominion.

Francis, in 1540, gave a commission to Jean François de la Roque, Sieur

de Roberval, to act as his viceroy and lieutenant-general in the

country discovered by Cartier, who was elevated to the position of

captain general and master pilot of the new expedition. As the Viceroy

was unable to complete his arrangements by 1541, Cartier was obliged to

sail in advance, and again passed a winter on the St. Lawrence, not at

Stadacona but at Cap Rouge, a few miles to the west, where he built a

post which he named Charlesbourg-Royal. He appears to have returned to

France some time during the summer of 1542, while Roberval was on his

way to the St. Lawrence. Roberval found his way without his master pilot

to Charlesbourg-Royal, which he renamed France-Roy, and where he erected

buildings of a very substantial character in the hope of establishing a

permanent settlement. His selection of colonists--chiefly taken from

jails and purlieus of towns--was most unhappy, and after a bitter

experience he returned to France, probably in the autumn of 1543, and

disappeared from Canadian history.

From the date of Cartier's last voyage until the beginning of the

seventeenth century, a period of nearly sixty years, nothing was done to

settle the lands of the new continent. Fishermen alone continued to

frequent the great gulf, which was called for years the "Square gulf" or

"Golfo quadrado," or "Quarré," on some European maps, until it assumed,

by the end of the sixteenth century, the name it now bears. The name

Saint-Laurens was first given by Cartier to the harbour known as

Sainte-Geneviève (or sometimes Pillage Bay), on the northern shore of

Canada, and gradually extended to the gulf and river. The name of

Labrador, which was soon established on all maps, had its origin in the

fact that Gaspar Cortereal brought back with him a number of natives who

were considered to be "admirably calculated for labour."

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the English began to take a prominent

part in that maritime enterprise which was to lead to such remarkable

results in the course of three centuries. The names of the ambitious

navigators, Frobisher and Davis, are connected with those arctic waters

where so much money, energy, and heroism have been expended down to the

present time. Under the influence of the great Ralegh, whose fertile

imagination was conceiving plans of colonization in America, Sir

Humphrey Gilbert, his brother-in-law, took possession of Newfoundland on

a hill overlooking the harbour of St. John's. English enterprise,

however, did not extend for many years to any other part of North

Eastern America than Newfoundland, which is styled Baccalaos on the

Hakluyt map of 1597, though the present name appeared from a very early

date in English statutes and records. The island, however, for a century

and longer, was practically little more than "a great ship moored near

the banks during the fishing season, for the convenience of English

fishermen," while English colonizing enterprise found a deeper interest

in Virginia with its more favourable climate and southern products. It

was England's great rival, France, that was the pioneer at the beginning

of the seventeenth century in the work of exploring, and settling the

countries now comprised within the Dominion of Canada.

France first attempted to settle the indefinite region, long known as

_La Cadie_ or _Acadie_[1]. The Sieur de Monts, Samuel Champlain, and the

Baron de Poutrincourt were the pioneers in the exploration of this

country. Their first post was erected on Dochet Island, within the mouth

of the St. Croix River, the present boundary between the state of Maine

and the province of New Brunswick; but this spot was very soon found

unsuitable, and the hopes of the pioneers were immediately turned

towards the beautiful basin, which was first named Port Royal by

Champlain. The Baron de Poutrincourt obtained a grant of land around

this basin, and determined to make his home in so beautiful a spot. De

Monts, whose charter was revoked in 1607, gave up the project of

colonizing Acadia, whose history from that time is associated for years

with the misfortunes of the Biencourts, the family name of Baron de

Poutrincourt; but the hopes of this adventurous nobleman were never

realized. In 1613 an English expedition from Virginia, under the command

of Captain Argall, destroyed the struggling settlement at Fort Royal,

and also prevented the establishment of a Jesuit mission on the island

of Monts-Déserts, which owes its name to Champlain. Acadia had

henceforth a checquered history, chiefly noted for feuds between rival

French leaders and for the efforts of the people of New England to

obtain possession of Acadia. Port Royal was captured in 1710 by General

Nicholson, at the head of an expedition composed of an English fleet and

the militia of New England. Then it received the name of Annapolis Royal

in honour of Queen Anne, and was formally ceded with all of Acadia

"according to its ancient limits" to England by the treaty of Utrecht.

[1: This name is now generally admitted to belong to the language of the

Micmac Indians of the Atlantic provinces. It means a place, or locality,

and is always associated with another word descriptive of some special

natural production; for instance, Shubenacadie, or Segubunakade, is the

place where the ground-nut, or Indian potato, grows. We find the first

official mention of the word in the commission given by Henry IV of

France to the Sieur de Monts in 1604.]

It was not in Acadia, but in the valley of the St. Lawrence, that France

made her great effort to establish her dominion in North America. Samuel

Champlain, the most famous man in the history of French Canada, laid the

foundation of the present city of Quebec in the month of June, 1608, or

three years after the removal of the little Acadian colony from St.

Croix Island to the basin of the Annapolis. The name Quebec is now

generally admitted to be an adaptation of an Indian word, meaning a

contraction of the river or strait, a distinguishing feature of the St.

Lawrence at this important point. The first buildings were constructed

by Champlain on a relatively level piece of ground, now occupied by a

market-house and close to a famous old church erected in the days of

Frontenac, in commemoration of the victorious repulse of the New England

expedition led by Phipps. For twenty-seven years Champlain struggled

against constantly accumulating difficulties to establish a colony on

the St. Lawrence. He won the confidence of the Algonquin and Huron tubes

of Canada, who then lived on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, and in

the vicinity of Georgian Bay. Recognizing the necessity of an alliance

with the Canadian Indians, who controlled all the principal avenues to

the great fur-bearing regions, he led two expeditions, composed of

Frenchmen, Hurons, and Algonquins, against the Iroquois or Confederacy

of the Five Nations[2]--the Mohawks, the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas,

and Senecas--who inhabited the fertile country stretching from the

Genesee to the Hudson River in the present state of New York. Champlain

consequently excited against his own people the inveterate hostility of

the bravest, cruellest and ablest Indians with whom Europeans have ever

come in contact in America. Champlain probably had no other alternative

open to him than to become the active ally of the Canadian Indians, on

whose goodwill and friendship he was forced to rely; but it is also

quite probable that he altogether underrated the ability and bravery of

the Iroquois who, in later years, so often threatened the security of

Canada, and more than once brought the infant colony to the very verge

of ruin.

[2: In 1715 the confederacy was joined by the Tuscaroras, a southern

branch of the same family, and was then called more properly the Six

Nations.]

It was during Champlain's administration of affairs that the Company of

the Hundred Associates was formed under the auspices of Cardinal

Richelieu, with the express object of colonizing Canada and developing

the fur-trade and other commercial enterprises on as large a scale as

possible. The Company had ill-fortune from the outset. The first

expedition it sent to the St. Lawrence was captured by a fleet commanded

by David Kirk, a gentleman of Derbyshire, who in the following year also

took Quebec, and carried Champlain and his followers to England. The

English were already attempting settlements on the shores of

Massachusetts Bay; and the poet and courtier, Sir William Alexander,

afterwards known as the Earl of Stirling, obtained from the King of

England all French Acadia, which he named Nova Scotia and offered to

settlers in baronial giants. A Scotch colony was actually established

for a short time at Port Royal under the auspices of Alexander, but in

1632, by the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, both Acadia and Canada were

restored to France. Champlain returned to Quebec, but the Company of the

Hundred Associates had been severely crippled by the ill-luck which

attended its first venture, and was able to do very little for the

struggling colony during the three remaining years of Champlain's life.

The Recollets or Franciscans, who had first come to the country in 1615,

now disappeared, and the Jesuits assumed full control in the wide field

of effort that Canada offered to the missionary. The Jesuits had, in

fact, made their appearance in Canada as early as 1625, or fourteen

years after two priests of their order, Ennemond Massé and Pierre Biard,

had gone to Acadia to labour among the Micmacs or Souriquois. During the

greater part of the seventeenth century, intrepid Jesuit priests are

associated with some of the most heroic incidents of Canadian history.

When Champlain died, on Christmas-day, 1635, the French population of

Canada did not exceed 150 souls, all dependent on the fur-trade. Canada

so far showed none of the elements of prosperity; it was not a colony

of settlers but of fur-traders. Still Champlain, by his indomitable

will, gave to France a footing in America which she was to retain for a

century and a quarter after his death. His courage amid the difficulties

that surrounded him, his fidelity to his church and country, his ability

to understand the Indian character, his pure unselfishness, are among

the remarkable qualities of a man who stands foremost among the pioneers

of European civilization in America.

From the day of Champlain's death until the arrival of the Marquis de

Tracy, in 1665, Canada was often in a most dangerous and pitiable

position. That period of thirty years was, however, also distinguished

by the foundation of those great religious communities which have always

exercised such an important influence upon the conditions of life

throughout French Canada. In 1652 Montreal was founded under the name of

Ville-Marie by Paul Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, and a number of

other religious enthusiasts. In 1659, the Abbé de Montigny, better known

to Canadians as Monseigneur de Laval, the first Roman Catholic bishop,

arrived in the colony and assumed charge of ecclesiastical affairs under

the titular name of Bishop of Petraea. Probably no single man has ever

exercised such powerful and lasting influence on Canadian institutions

as that famous divine. Possessed of great tenacity of purpose, most

ascetic in his habits, regardless of all worldly considerations, always

working for the welfare and extension of his church, Bishop Laval was

eminently fitted to give it that predominance in civil as well as

religious affairs which it so long possessed in Canada.

While the Church of Rome was perfecting its organization throughout

Canada, the Iroquois were constantly making raids upon the unprotected

settlements, especially in the vicinity of Montreal. The Hurons in the

Georgian Bay district were eventually driven from their comfortable

villages, and now the only remnants of a powerful nation are to be found

in the community of mixed blood at Lorette, near Quebec, or on the

banks of the Detroit River, where they are known as Wyandots. The Jesuit

mission of Sainte-Marie in their country was broken up, and Jean de

Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant suffered torture and death.

Such was the pitiable condition of things in 1663, when Louis XIV made

of Canada a royal government. At this time the total population of the

province did not exceed 2500 souls, grouped chiefly in and around

Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal. In 1665 the Marquis de Tracy and

Governor de Courcelles, with a brilliant retinue of officers and a

regiment of soldiers, arrived in the colony, and brought with them

conditions of peace and prosperity. A small stream of immigration flowed

steadily into the country for some years, as a result of the new policy

adopted by the French government. The Mohawks, the most daring and

dangerous nation of the Iroquois confederacy, were humbled by Tracy in

1667, and forced to sue for peace. Under the influence of Talon, the

ablest intendant who ever administered Canadian affairs, the country

enjoyed a moderate degree of prosperity, although trade continued

entirely dependent on the orders and regulations of the King and his

officials.

Among the ablest governors of Canada was undoubtedly Louis de la Buade,

Count de Frontenac, who administered public affairs from 1672-1687 and

from 1689-1698. He was certainly impatient, choleric and selfish

whenever his pecuniary interests were concerned; but, despite his faults

of character, he was a brave soldier, dignified and courteous on

important occasions, a close student of the character of the Indians,

always ready when the necessity arose to adapt himself to their foibles

and at the same time able to win their confidence. He found Canada weak,

and left it a power in the affairs of America. He infused his own

never-failing confidence into the hearts of the struggling colonists on

the St. Lawrence, repulsed Sir William Phipps and his New England

expedition when they attacked Quebec in 1690, wisely erected a fort on

Lake Ontario as a fur-trading post and a bulwark against the Iroquois,

encouraged the fur-trade, and stimulated exploration in the west and in

the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The settlements of New

England trembled at his name, and its annals contain many a painful

story of the misery inflicted by his cruel bands of Frenchmen and

Indians.

Despite all the efforts of the French government for some years, the

total immigration from 1663 until 1713, when the great war between

France and the Grand Alliance came to an end by the treaty of Utrecht,

did not exceed 6000 souls, and the whole population of the province in

that year was only 20,000, a small number for a century of colonization.

For some years after the formation of the royal government, a large

number of marriageable women were brought to the country under the

auspices of the religious communities, and marriages and births were

encouraged by exhortations and bounties. A considerable number of the

officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salières regiment, who followed

the Marquis de Tracy into Canada, were induced to remain and settle new

seigniories, chiefly in palisaded villages in the Richelieu district for

purposes of defence against Iroquois expeditions. Despite all the

paternal efforts of the government to stimulate the growth of a large

population, the natural increase was small during the seventeenth

century. The disturbing influence, no doubt, was the fur-trade, which

allured so many young men into the wilderness, made them unfit for a

steady life, and destroyed their domestic habits. The emigrants from

France came chiefly from Anjou, Saintonge, Paris and its suburbs,

Normandy, Poitou, Beauce, Perche, and Picardy. The Carignan-Salières

regiment brought men from all parts of the parent state. It does not

appear that any number of persons ever came from Brittany. The larger

proportion of the settlers were natives of the north-western provinces

of France, especially from Perche and Normandy, and formed an excellent

stock on which to build up a thrifty, moral people. The seigniorial

tenure of French Canada was an adaptation of the feudal system of France

to the conditions of a new country, and was calculated in some respects

to stimulate settlement. Ambitious persons of limited means were able to

form a class of colonial _noblesse_. But unless the seignior cleared a

certain portion of his grant within a limited time, he would forfeit it

all. The conditions by which the _censitaires_ or tenants of the

seigniorial domain held their grants of land were by no means

burdensome, but they signified a dependency of tenure inconsistent with

the free nature of American life. A large portion of the best lands of

French Canada were granted under this seigniorial system to men whose

names frequently occur in the records of the colony down to the present

day: Rimouski, Bic and Métis, Kamouraska, Nicolet, Verchères,

Lotbinière, Berthier, Beloeil, Rouville, Juliette, Terrebonne,

Champlain, Sillery, Beaupré, Bellechasse, Portneuf, Chambly, Sorel,

Longueuil, Boucherville, Chateauguay, Lachine, are memorials of the

seigniorial grants of the seventeenth century.

The whole population of the Acadian Peninsula in 1710-13, was not more

than 1500 souls, nearly all descendants of the people brought to the

country by Poutrincourt and his successors Razilly and Charnisay. At no

time did the French government interest itself in immigration to

neglected Acadia. Of the total population, nearly 1000 persons were

settled in the beautiful country which the industry and ingenuity of the

Acadian peasants, in the course of many years, reclaimed from the

restless tides of the Bay of Fundy at Grand Pré and Minas. The remaining

settlements were at Beau Bassin, Annapolis, Piziquit (now Windsor),

Cobequit (now Truro), and Cape Sable. Some small settlements were also

founded on the banks of the St. John River and on the eastern bays of

the present province of New Brunswick.

SECTION 3.--French exploration in the great valleys of North America.

The hope of finding a short route to the rich lands of Asia by the St.

Lawrence River and its tributary lakes and streams, influenced French

voyagers and explorers well into the middle of the eighteenth century.

When Cartier stood on Mount Royal and saw the waters of the Ottawa there

must have flashed across his mind the thought that perhaps by this river

would be found that passage to the western sea of which he and other

sailors often dreamed both in earlier and later times. L'Escarbot tells

us that Champlain in his western explorations always hoped to reach Asia

by a Canadian route. He was able, however, long before his death to

make valuable contributions to the geography of Canada. He was the first

Frenchman to ascend the River of the Iroquois, now the Richelieu, and to

see the beautiful lake which still bears his name. In 1615 he found his

way to Georgian Bay by the route of the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers, Lake

Nipissing and French River. Here he visited the Huron villages which

were situated in the district now known as Simcoe county in the province

of Ontario. Father le Caron, a Recollet, had preceded the French

explorer, and was performing missionary duties among the Indians, who

probably numbered 20,000 in all. This brave priest was the pioneer of an

army of faithful missionaries--mostly of a different order--who lived

for years among the Indians, suffered torture and death, and connected

their names not only with the martyrs of their faith but also with the

explorers of this continent. From this time forward we find the trader

and the priest advancing in the wilderness; sometimes one is first,

sometimes the other.

Champlain accompanied his Indian allies on an expedition against the

Onondagas, one of the five nations who occupied the country immediately

to the south of the upper St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. The party

reached Lake Ontario by the system of inland navigation which stretches

from Lake Simcoe to the Bay of Quinté. The Onondagas repulsed the

Canadian allies who returned to their settlements, where Champlain

remained during the winter of 1616. It was during this expedition, which

did much to weaken Champlain's prestige among the Indians, that Étienne

Brulé an interpreter, was sent to the Andastes, who were then living

about the headwaters of the Susquehanna, with the hope of bringing them

to the support of the Canadian savages. He was not seen again until

1618, when he returned to Canada with a story, doubtless correct, of

having found himself on the shores of a great lake where there were

mines of copper, probably Lake Superior.

With the new era of peace that followed the coming of the Viceroy Tracy

in 1665, and the establishment of a royal government, a fresh impulse

was given to exploration and mission work in the west. Priests,

fur-traders, gentlemen-adventurers, _coureurs de bois_, now appeared

frequently on the lakes and rivers of the west, and gave in the course

of years a vast region to the dominion of France. As early as 1665

Father Allouez established a mission at La Pointe, the modern Ashland,

on the shores of Lake Superior. In 1668 one of the most interesting

persons who ever appeared in early Canada, the missionary and explorer,

Father Marquette, founded the mission of Sainte-Marie on the southern

side of the Sault, which may be considered the oldest settlement of the

north-west, as it alone has a continuous history to the present time.

In the record of those times we see strikingly displayed certain

propensities of the Canadian people which seriously interfered with the

settlement and industry of the country. The fur-trade had far more

attractions for the young and adventurous than the regular and active

life of farming on the seigniories. The French immigrant as well as the

native Canadian adapted himself to the conditions of Indian life.

Wherever the Indian tribes were camped in the forest or by the river,

and the fur-trade could be prosecuted to the best advantage, we see the

_coureurs de bois_, not the least picturesque figures of these grand

woods, then in the primeval sublimity of their solitude and vastness.

Despite the vices and weaknesses of a large proportion of this class,

not a few were most useful in the work of exploration and exercised a

great influence among the Indians of the West. But for these

forest-rangers the Michigan region would have fallen into the possession

of the English who were always intriguing with the Iroquois and

endeavouring to obtain a share of the fur-trade of the west. Joliet, the

companion of Marquette, in his ever-memorable voyage to the Mississippi,

was a type of the best class of the Canadian fur-trader.

In 1671 Sieur St. Lusson took formal possession of the Sault and the

adjacent country in the name of Louis XIV. In 1673 Fort Frontenac was

built at Cataraqui, now Kingston, as a barrier to the aggressive

movements of the Iroquois and an _entrepôt_ for the fur-trade on Lake

Ontario. In the same year Joliet and Marquette solved a part of the

problem which had so long perplexed the explorers of the West. The

trader and priest reached the Mississippi by the way of Green Bay, the

Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. They went down the Mississippi as far as the

Arkansas. Though they were still many hundreds of miles from the mouth

of the river, they grasped the fact that it must reach, not the western

ocean, but the southern gulf first discovered by the Spaniards.

Marquette died not long afterwards, worn out by his labours in the

wilderness, and was buried beneath the little chapel at St. Ignace.

Joliet's name henceforth disappears from the annals of the West.

Réné Robert Cavelier, better known as the Sieur de la Salle, completed

the work commenced by the trader and missionary. In 1666 he obtained a

grant of land at the head of the rapids above Montreal by the side of

that beautiful expanse of the St. Lawrence, still called Lachine, a name

first given in derisive allusion to his hope of finding a short route to

China. In 1679 he saw the Niagara Falls for the first time, and the

earliest sketch is to be found in _La Nouvelle Découverte_ written or

compiled by that garrulous, vain, and often mendacious Recollet Friar,

Louis Hennepin, who accompanied La Salle on this expedition. In the

winter of 1681-82 this famous explorer reached the Mississippi, and for

weeks followed its course through the novel and wondrous scenery of a

southern land. On the 9th of April, 1682, at a point just above the

mouth of the great river, La Salle took formal possession of the

Mississippi valley in the name of Louis XIV, with the same imposing

ceremonies that distinguished the claim asserted by St. Lusson at the

Sault in the lake region. By the irony of fate, La Salle failed to

discover the mouth of the river when he came direct from France to the

Gulf of Mexico in 1685, but landed somewhere on Matagorda Bay on the

Texan coast, where he built a fort for temporary protection. Finding his

position untenable, he decided in 1687 to make an effort to reach the

Illinois country, but when he had been a few days on this perilous

journey he was treacherously murdered by some of his companions near the

southern branch of Trinity River. His body was left to the beasts and

birds of prey. Two of the murderers were themselves killed by their

accomplices, none of whom appear ever to have been brought to justice

for their participation in a crime by which France lost one of the

bravest and ablest men who ever struggled for her dominion in North

America.

Some years later the famous Canadians, Iberville and Bienville, founded

a colony in the great valley, known by the name of Louisiana, which was

first given to it by La Salle himself. By the possession of the Sault,

Mackinac, and Detroit, the French were for many years supreme on the

lakes, and had full control of Indian trade. The Iroquois and their

English friends were effectively shut out of the west by the French

posts and settlements which followed the explorations of Joliet, La

Salle, Du Luth, and other adventurers. Plans continued to be formed for

reaching the Western or Pacific ocean even in the middle of the

eighteenth century. The Jesuit Charlevoix, the historian of New France,

was sent out to Canada by the French government to enquire into the

feasibility of a route which Frenchmen always hoped for. Nothing

definite came out of this mission, but the Jesuit was soon followed by

an enterprising native of Three Rivers, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes,

generally called the Sieur de la Verendrye, who with his sons ventured

into the region now known as the province of Manitoba and the north-west

territory of Canada. He built several forts, including one on the site

of the city of Winnipeg. Two of his sons are believed to have reached

the Big Horn Range, an "outlying buttress" of the Rocky Mountains, in

1743, and to have taken possession of what is now territory of the

United States. The youngest son, Chevalier de la Verendrye, who was the

first to see the Rocky Mountains, subsequently discovered the

Saskatchewan (Poskoiac) and even ascended it as far as the forks--the

furthest western limits so far touched by a white man in America. A few

years later, in 1751, M. de Niverville, under the orders of M. de St.

Pierre, then acting in the interest of the infamous Intendant Bigot, who

coveted the western fur-trade, reached the foot-hills of the Rocky

Mountains and built a fort on the Saskatchewan not far from the present

town of Calgary.

We have now followed the paths of French adventurers for nearly a

century and a half, from the day Champlain landed on the rocks of Quebec

until the Verendryes traversed the prairies and plains of the

North-west. French explorers had discovered the three great waterways of

this continent--the Mississippi, which pours its enormous volume of

water, drawn from hundreds of tributaries, into a southern gulf; the St.

Lawrence, which bears the tribute of the great lakes to the Atlantic

Ocean; the Winnipeg, with its connecting rivers and lakes which stretch

from the Rocky Mountains to the dreary Arctic sea. La Verendrye was the

first Frenchman who stood on the height of land or elevated plateau of

the continent, almost within sight of the sources of those great rivers

which flow, after devious courses, north, south and east. It has been

well said that if three men should ascend these three waterways to their

farthest sources, they would find themselves in the heart of North

America; and, so to speak, within a stone's throw of one another. Nearly

all the vast territory, through which these great waterways flow, then

belonged to France, so far as exploration, discovery and partial

occupation gave her a right to exercise dominion. Only in the great

North, where summer is a season of a very few weeks, where icebergs bar

the way for many months, where the fur-trade and the whale-fishery alone

offered an incentive to capital and enterprise, had England a right to

an indefinite dominion. Here a "Company of Gentlemen-Adventurers

trading into Hudson's Bay" occupied some fortified stations which,

during the seventeenth century, had been seized by the daring

French-Canadian corsair, Iberville, who ranks with the famous

Englishman, Drake. On the Atlantic coast the prosperous English colonies

occupied a narrow range of country bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the

Alleghanies. It was only in the middle of the eighteenth century--nearly

three-quarters of a century after Joliet's and La Salle's explorations,

and even later than the date at which Frenchmen had followed the

Saskatchewan to the Rocky Mountains--that some enterprising Virginians

and Pennsylvanians worked their way into the beautiful country watered

by the affluents of the Ohio. New France may be said to have extended at

that time from Cape Breton or Isle Royale west to the Rocky Mountains,

and from the basin of the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

SECTION 4.--End of French dominion in the valley of the St. Lawrence.

After the treaty of Utrecht, France recognized the mistake she had made

in giving up Acadia, and devoted her attention to the island of Cape

Breton, or Isle Royale, on whose southeastern coast soon rose the

fortifications of Louisbourg. In the course of years this fortress

became a menace to English interests in Acadia and New England. In 1745

the town was taken by a force of New England volunteers, led by General

Pepperrell, a discreet and able colonist, and a small English squadron

under the command of Commodore, afterwards Admiral, Warren, both of whom

were rewarded by the British government for their distinguished services

on this memorable occasion. France, however, appreciated the importance

of Isle Royale, and obtained its restoration in exchange for Madras

which at that time was the most important British settlement in the East

Indies. England then decided to strengthen herself in Acadia, where

France retained her hold of the French Acadian population through the

secret influence of her emissaries, chiefly missionaries, and

accordingly established a town on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia,

ever since known as Halifax, in honour of a prominent statesman of those

times. The French settlers, who by the middle of the eighteenth century

numbered 12,000, a thrifty, industrious and simple-minded people, easily

influenced by French agents, called themselves "Neutrals," and could not

be forced to take the unqualified oath of allegiance which was demanded

of them by the authorities of Halifax. The English Government was now

determined to act with firmness in a province where British interests

had been so long neglected, and where the French inhabitants had in the

course of forty years shown no disposition to consider themselves

British subjects and discharge their obligations to the British Crown.

France had raised the contention that the Acadia ceded to England by the

treaty of Utrecht comprised only the present province of Nova Scotia,

and indeed only a portion of that peninsula according to some French

authorities. Commissioners were appointed by the two Powers to settle

the question of boundaries--of the meaning of "Acadie, with its ancient

boundaries"--but their negotiations came to naught and the issue was

only settled by the arbitrament of war. The French built the forts of

Beauséjour and Gaspereau--the latter a mere palisade--on the Isthmus of

Chignecto, which became the rendezvous of the French Acadians, whom the

former persuaded by promises or threats to join their fortunes. In 1755

a force of English and Colonial troops, under the command of Colonels

Moncton, Winslow and Scott, captured these forts, and this success was

followed by the banishment of the Acadian French. This cruel act of

Governor Lawrence and the English authorities at Halifax was no doubt

largely influenced by the sentiment of leading men in New England, who

were apprehensive of the neighbourhood of so large a number of an alien

people, who could not be induced to prove their loyalty to Great

Britain, and might, in case of continued French successes in America,

become open and dangerous foes. But while there are writers who defend

this sad incident of American history on the ground of stern national

necessity at a critical period in the affairs of the continent, all

humanity that listens to the dictates of the heart and tender feeling

will ever deplore the exile of those hapless people.

Previous to the expulsion of the Acadians from their pleasant homes on

the meadows of Grand Pré and Minas, England sustained a severe defeat in

the valley of the Ohio, which created much alarm throughout the English

colonies, and probably had some influence on the fortunes of those

people. France had formally taken possession of the Ohio country and

established forts in 1753 on French Creek, at its junction with the

Alleghany, and also at the forks of the Ohio. Adventurous British

pioneers were at last commencing to cross the Alleghanies, and a company

had been formed with the express intention of stimulating settlement in

the valley. George Washington, at the head of a small Colonial force,

was defeated in his attempt to drive the French from the Ohio; and the

English Government was compelled to send out a large body of regular

troops under the command of General Braddock, who met defeat and death

on the banks of the Monongahela, General Johnson, on the other hand,

defeated a force of French regulars, Canadian Militia and Indians, under

General Dieskau, at the southern end of Lake George.

In 1756 war was publicly proclaimed between France and England,

although, as we have just seen, it had already broken out many months

previously in the forests of America. During the first two years of the

war the English forces sustained several disasters through the

incompetency of the English commanders on land and sea. The French in

Canada were now led by the Marquis de Montcalm, distinguished both as a

soldier of great ability and as a man of varied intellectual

accomplishments. In the early part of the Canadian campaign he was most

fortunate. Fort William Henry, at the foot of Lake George, and Fort

Oswego, on the south side of Lake Ontario, were captured, but his signal

victory at the former place was sullied by the massacre of defenceless

men, women and children by his Indian allies, although it is now

admitted by all impartial writers that he did his utmost to prevent so

sad a sequel to his triumph. The English Commander-in-Chief, Lord

Loudoun, assembled a large military force at Halifax in 1757 for the

purpose of making a descent on Louisbourg; but he returned to New York

without accomplishing anything, when he heard of the disastrous affair

of William Henry, for which he was largely responsible on account of

having failed to give sufficient support to the defenders of the fort.

Admiral Holbourne sailed to Louisbourg, but he did not succeed in coming

to an engagement with the French fleet then anchored in the harbour, and

the only result of his expedition was the loss of several of his ships

on the reefs of that foggy, rocky coast.

In 1758 Pitt determined to enter on a vigorous campaign against France

in Europe and America. For America he chose Amherst, Boscawen, Howe,

Forbes, Wolfe, Lawrence and Whitman. Abercromby was unfortunately

allowed to remain in place of Loudoun, but it was expected by Pitt and

others that Lord Howe, one of the best soldiers in the British army,

would make up for the military weakness of that commander. Louisbourg,

Fort Duquesne, and the forts on Lake George, were the immediate objects

of attack. Abercromby at the head of a large force failed ignominiously

in his assault on Ticonderoga, and Lord Howe was one of the first to

fall in that unhappy and ill-managed battle. Amherst and Boscawen, on

the other hand, took Louisbourg, where Wolfe displayed great energy and

contributed largely to the success of the enterprise. Forbes was able to

occupy the important fort at the forks of the Ohio, now Pittsburg, which

gave to the English control of the beautiful country to the west of the

Alleghanies. Fort Frontenac was taken by Bradstreet, and Prince Edward

Island, then called Isle St. Jean, was occupied by an English force as

the necessary consequence of the fall of the Cape Breton fortress. The

nation felt that its confidence in Pitt was fully justified, and that

the power of France in America was soon to be effectually broken.

In 1759 and 1760 Pitt's designs were crowned with signal success. Wolfe

proved at Quebec that the statesman had not overestimated his value as a

soldier and leader. Wolfe was supported by Brigadiers Moncton,

Townshend, Murray, and Guy Carleton--the latter a distinguished figure

in the later annals of Canada. The fleet was commanded by Admirals

Saunders, Durell and Holmes, all of whom rendered most effective

service. The English occupied the Island of Orleans and the heights of

Lévis, from which they were able to keep up a most destructive fire on

the capital. The whole effective force under Wolfe did not reach 9000

men, or 5000 less than the regular and Colonial army under Montcalm,

whose lines extended behind batteries and earthworks from the St.

Charles River, which washes the base of the rocky heights of the town,

as far as the falls of Montmorency. The French held an impregnable

position which their general decided to maintain at all hazards, despite

the constant efforts of Wolfe for weeks to force him to the issue of

battle. Above the city for many miles there were steep heights, believed

to be unapproachable, and guarded at all important points by detachments

of soldiery. Wolfe failed in an attempt which he made at Beauport to

force Montcalm from his defences, and suffered a considerable loss

through the rashness of his grenadiers. He then resolved on a bold

stroke which succeeded by its very audacity in deceiving his opponent,

and giving the victory to the English. A rugged and dangerous path was

used at night up those very heights which, Montcalm confidently

believed, "a hundred men could easily defend against the whole British

army." On the morning of the 13th September, 1759, Wolfe marshalled an

army of four thousand five hundred men on the Plains of Abraham where he

was soon face to face with the French army. Montcalm had lost no time in

accepting the challenge of the English, in the hope that his superior

numbers would make up for their inferiority in discipline and equipment

compared with the smaller English force. His expectations were never

realized. In a few minutes the French fell in hundreds before the steady

deadly fire of the English lines, and Montcalm was forced to retreat

precipitately with the beaten remnant of his army. Wolfe received

several wounds, and died on the battlefield, but not before he was

conscious of his victory. "God be praised," were his dying words, "I now

die in peace." His brave adversary was mortally wounded while seeking

the protection of Quebec, and was buried in a cavity which a shell had

made in the floor of the chapel of the Ursuline Convent. A few days

later Quebec capitulated. Wolfe's body was taken to England, where it

was received with all the honours due to his great achievement. General

Murray was left in command at Quebec, and was defeated in the following

spring by Lévis in the battle of St. Foye, which raised the hopes of the

French until the appearance of English ships in the river relieved the

beleaguered garrison and decided for ever the fate of Quebec. A few

weeks later Montreal capitulated to Amherst, whose extreme caution

throughout the campaign was in remarkable contrast with the dash and

energy of the hero of Quebec. The war in Canada was now at an end, and

in 1763 the treaty of Paris closed the interesting chapter of French

dominion on the banks of the St. Lawrence and in the valleys of the Ohio

and the Mississippi.

SECTION 5.--Political, economic and social conditions of Canada during

French ride.

France and England entered on the struggle for dominion in America about

the same time, but long before the conquest of Canada the communities

founded by the latter had exhibited a vigour and vitality which were

never shown in the development of the relatively poor and struggling

colonies of Canada and Louisiana. The total population of New France in

1759--that is, of all the French possessions in North America--did not

exceed 70,000 souls, of whom 60,000 were inhabitants of the country of

the St. Lawrence, chiefly of the Montreal and Quebec districts. France

had a few struggling villages and posts in the very "garden of the

North-west," as the Illinois country has been aptly called; but the

total population of New France from the great lakes to the Gulf of

Mexico did not exceed 10,000 souls, the greater number of whom dwelt on

the lower banks of the Mississippi. At this time the British colonies in

America, pent up between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian

mountains, had a population twenty times larger than that of Canada and

Louisiana combined, and there was not any comparison whatever between

these French and British colonies with respect to trade, wealth or any

of the essentials of prosperity.

Under the system of government established by Louis XIV, under the

advice of Colbert, the governor and intendant of Canada were, to all

intents and purposes in point of authority, the same officials who

presided over the affairs of a province of France. In Canada, as in

France, governors-general had only such powers as were expressly given

them by the king, who, jealous of all authority in others, kept them

rigidly in check. In those days the king was supreme; "I am the state,"

said Louis Quatorze in the arrogance of his power; and it is thus easy

to understand that there could be no such free government or

representative institutions in Canada as were enjoyed from the very

commencement of their history by the old English colonies.

The governor had command of the militia and troops, and was nominally

superior in authority to the intendant, but in the course of time the

latter became virtually the most influential officer in the colony and

even presided at the council-board. This official, who had the right to

report directly to the king on colonial affairs, had large civil,

commercial and maritime jurisdiction, and could issue ordinances which

had full legal effect in the country. Associated with the governor and

intendant was a council comprising in the first instance five, and

eventually twelve, persons, chosen from the leading people of the

colony. The change of name, from the "Supreme Council" to the "Superior

Council," is of itself some evidence of the determination of the king to

restrain the pretensions of all official bodies throughout the kingdom

and its dependencies. This body exercised legislative and judicial

powers. The bishop was one of its most important members, and the

history of the colony is full of the quarrels that arose between him and

the governor on points of official etiquette or with respect to more

important matters affecting the government of the country.

Protestantism was unknown in Canada under French rule, and the

enterprise of the Huguenots was consequently lost to a country always

suffering from a want of population. Even the merchants of La Rochelle,

who traded with the country, found themselves invariably subject to

restrictions which placed them at an enormous disadvantage in their

competition with their Roman Catholic rivals. The Roman Catholic Church

was all powerful at the council-board as well as in the parish. In the

past as in the present century, a large Roman Catholic church rose, the

most prominent building in every town and village, illustrating its

dominating influence in the homes of every community of the province.

The parishes were established at an early date for ecclesiastical

purposes, and their extent was defined wherever necessary by the

council at Quebec. They were practically territorial divisions for the

administration of local affairs, and were conterminous, whenever

practicable, with the seigniory. The curé, the seignior, the militia

captain (often identical with the seignior), were the important

functionaries in every parish. Even at the present time, when a

canonical parish has been once formed by the proper ecclesiastical

authority, it may be erected into a municipal or civil division after

certain legal formalities by the government of the province. Tithes were

first imposed by Bishop Laval, who practically established the basis of

ecclesiastical authority in the province. It was only in church matters

that the people had the right to meet and express their opinions, and

even then the intendant alone could give the power of assembling for

such purposes.

The civil law of French Canada relating to "property," inheritance,

marriage, and the personal or civil rights of the community generally,

had its origin, like all similar systems, in the Roman law, on which

were engrafted, in the course of centuries, those customs and usages

which were adapted to the social conditions of France. The customary law

of Paris became the fundamental law of French Canada, and despite the

changes that it has necessarily undergone in the course of many years,

its principles can still be traced throughout the present system as it

has been modified under the influences of the British regime. The

superior council of Canada gave judgment in civil and criminal cases

according to the _coutume de Paris_, and below it there were inferior

courts for the judicial districts of Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal.

The bishop had also special jurisdiction over ecclesiastical matters.

The intendant had authority to deal with cases involving royal, or

seigniorial, rights, and to call before him any case whatever for final

review and judgment. In all cases appeals were allowable to the king

himself, but the difficulty of communication with Europe in those days

practically confined such references to a few special causes. The

seigniors had also certain judicial or magisterial powers, but they

never acted except in very trivial cases. Torture was sometimes applied

to condemned felons as in France and other parts of the old world. On

the whole justice appears to have been honestly and fairly administered.

Parkman, in a terse sentence, sums up the conditions which fettered all

Canadian trade and industry, "A system of authority, monopoly and

exclusion in which the government, and not the individual, acted always

the foremost part." Whether it was a question of ship-building, of a

brewery or a tannery, of iron works or a new fishery, appeals must be

made in the first instance to the king for aid; and the people were

never taught to depend exclusively on their individual or associated

enterprise. At the time of the conquest, and in fact for many years

previously, the principal products of the country were beaver skins,

timber, agricultural products, fish, fish oil, ginseng (for some years

only), beer, cider, rug carpets, homespun cloths--made chiefly by the

inmates of the religious houses--soap, potash, leather, stoves, tools

and other iron manufactures--made in the St. Maurice forges--never a

profitable industry, whether carried on by companies or the government

itself. All these industries were fostered by the state, but, despite

all the encouragement they received, the total value of the exports,

principally furs, seal and other oils, lumber, peas, grain and ginseng

never exceeded 3,500,000 francs, or about one-tenth of the export trade

of the English colonies to Great Britain. Two-thirds of this amount

represented beaver skins, the profits on which were very fluctuating, on

account of the unwise regulations by which, the trade was constantly

crippled. This business was heavily taxed to meet the necessities of

colonial government, which were always heavy, and could never have been

met had it not been for the liberality of the king. In the year 1755 the

amount of all exports did not reach 2,500,000 francs, while the imports

were valued at 8,000,000 francs. These imports represented wines,

brandies, hardware and various luxuries, but the bulk was made up of the

supplies required for the use of the military and civil authorities.

The whole trade of the country was carried in about thirty sea-going

vessels, none of them of heavy tonnage. The royal government attempted

to stimulate ship-building in the country, and a few war vessels were

actually built in the course of many years, though it does not appear

that this industry was ever conducted with energy or enterprise. During

the last fifty years of French rule, in all probability, not a hundred

sea-going vessels were launched in the valley of the St. Lawrence.

Duties of import, before 1748, were only imposed on wines, brandies, and

Brazilian tobacco; but after the commencement of the war with England,

the king found it necessary to establish export and import duties: a

special exception was however made in favour of the produce of the farm,

forest and sea, which were allowed to enter or go out free. The whole

amount of duties raised in ordinary years did not reach above 300,000

francs.

In the closing years of French dominion the total population of Quebec,

Montreal and Three Rivers, the only towns in the province, did not

exceed 13,000 souls--about the population of Boston. Quebec alone had

8000 inhabitants, Montreal 4000, and Three Rivers 1000. The architecture

of these places was more remarkable for solidity than elegance or

symmetry of proportions. The churches, religious and educational

establishments, official buildings and residences--notably the

intendant's palace at Quebec--were built of stone. The most pretentious

edifice was the château of St. Louis--the residence of the

governor-general--which was rebuilt by Count de Frontenac within the

limits of the fort of St. Louis, first erected by Champlain on the

historic height always associated with his name. The best buildings in

the towns were generally of one story and constructed of stone. In the

rural parishes, the villages, properly speaking, consisted of a church,

presbytery, school, and tradesmen's houses, while the farms of the

_habitants_ stretched on either side. The size and shape of the farms

were governed by the form of the seigniories throughout the province. M.

Bourdon, the first Canadian surveyor-general, originally mapped out the

seigniories in oblong shapes with very narrow frontage along the

river--a frontage of two or three _arpents_ against a depth of from

forty to eighty _arpents_--and the same inconvenient oblong plan was

followed in making sub-grants to the _censitaire_ or _habitant_. The

result was a disfigurement of a large portion of the country, as the

civil law governing the succession of estates gradually cut up all the

seigniories into a number of small farms, each in the form of the

parallelogram originally given to the seigniorial grants. The houses of

the _habitants_, then as now, were generally built of logs or sawn

lumber, all whitewashed, with thatched or wooden roofs projecting over

the front so as to form a sort of porch or verandah. The farm-houses

were generally close together, especially in the best cultivated and

most thickly settled districts between Quebec and Montreal. Travellers,

just before the Seven Years' War, tell us that the farms in that

district appeared to be well cultivated on the whole, and the homes of

the _habitants_ gave evidences of thrift and comfort. Some farmers had

orchards from which cider was made, and patches of the coarse strong

tobacco which they continue to use to this day, and which is now an

important product of their province. Until the war the condition of the

French Canadian _habitant_ was one of rude comfort. He could never

become rich, in a country where there was no enterprise or trade which

encouraged him to strenuous efforts to make and save money. Gold and

silver were to him curiosities, and paper promises to pay, paper or card

money, were widely circulated from early times, and were never for the

most part redeemed, though the British authorities after the peace of

1763 made every possible effort to induce the French government to

discharge its obligations to the French Canadian people. The life of the

_habitants_ in peaceful times was far easier and happier than that of

the peasants of old France. They had few direct taxes to bear, except

the tithes required for the support of the church and such small

contributions as were necessary for local purposes. They were, however,

liable to be called out at any moment for military duties and were

subject to _corvées_ or forced labour for which they were never paid by

the authorities.

The outbreak of the Seven Years' War was a serious blow to a people who

had at last surmounted the greatest difficulties of pioneer life, and

attained a moderate degree of comfort. The demands upon the people

capable of bearing arms were necessarily fatal to steady farming

occupations; indeed, in the towns of Quebec and Montreal there was more

than once an insufficiency of food for the garrisons, and horse-flesh

had to be served out, to the great disgust of the soldiers who at first

refused to take it. Had it not been for the opportune arrival of a ship

laden with provisions in the spring of 1759, the government would have

been unable to feed the army or the inhabitants of Quebec. The gravity

of the situation was aggravated for years by the jobbery and corruption

of the men who had the fate of the country largely in their hands. A few

French merchants, and monopolists in league with corrupt officials,

controlled the markets and robbed a long-suffering and too patient

people. The names of Bigot, Péan, and other officials of the last years

of French administration, are justly execrated by French Canadians as

robbers of the state and people in the days when the country was on the

verge of war, and Montcalm, a brave, incorruptible man, was fighting

against tremendous odds to save this unfortunate country to which he

gave up his own life in vain.

So long as France governed Canada, education was entirely in the hands

of the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits, Franciscans, and other

religious orders, male and female, at an early date, commenced the

establishment of those colleges and seminaries which have always had so

important a share in the education of Lower Canada. The Jesuits founded

a college at Quebec in 1635, or three years before the establishment of

Harvard, and the Ursulines opened their convent in the same city four

years later. Sister Bourgeoys of Troyes founded at Montreal in 1659 the

Congrégation de Notre-Dame for the education of girls of humble rank;

the commencement of an institution which has now its buildings in many

parts of Canada. In the latter part of the seventeenth century Bishop

Laval carried out a project for providing education for Canadian priests

drawn from the people of the country. Consequently, in addition to the

great seminary at Quebec, there was the lesser seminary where boys were

taught in the hope that they would take orders. In the inception of

education the French endeavoured in more than one of their institutions

to combine industrial pursuits with the ordinary branches of an

elementary education. But all accounts of the days of the French régime

go to show that, despite the zealous efforts of the religious bodies to

improve the education of the colonists, secular instruction was at a

very low ebb and hardly reached the seigniories. One writer tells us

that "even the children of officers and gentlemen scarcely knew how to

read and write; they were ignorant of the first elements of geography

and history." Still, dull and devoid of intellectual life as was the

life of the Canadian, he had his place of worship where he received a

moral training which elevated him immeasurably above the peasantry of

England as well as of his old home. The clergy of Lower Canada

confessedly did their best to relieve the ignorance of the people, but

they were naturally unable to accomplish, by themselves, a task which

properly devolved on the governing class. Under the French régime in

Canada the civil authorities were as little anxious to enlighten the

people by the establishment of public or common schools as they were to

give them a voice in the government of the country.

Evidence of some culture and intellectual aspirations in social circles

of the ancient capital attracted the surprise of travellers who visited

the country before the close of the French dominion. "Science and the

fine arts," wrote Charlevoix, in 1744, "have their turn and conversation

does not fail. The Canadians breathe from their birth an air of liberty,

which makes them very pleasant in the intercourse of life, and our

language is nowhere more purely spoken." La Gallissonière, a highly

cultured governor, spared no effort to encourage a sympathetic study of

scientific pursuits. Dr. Michel Sarrasin, who was a practising physician

in Quebec for nearly half a century, devoted himself most assiduously to

the natural history of the colony, and made some valuable contributions

to the French Academy. The Swedish botanist, Peter Kalm, was impressed

with the liking for scientific study which he observed in the French

colony. But such intellectual culture, as Kalm and Charlevoix mentioned,

never showed itself beyond the walls of Quebec or Montreal. The

province, as a whole, was in a state of mental sluggishness at the time

of the conquest by England, under whose benign influence the French

Canadian people were now to enter on a new career of political and

intellectual development.

Pitt and Wolfe must take a high place among the makers of the Dominion

of Canada. It was they who gave relief to French Canada from the

absolutism of old France, and started her in a career of self-government

and political liberty. When the great procession passed before the Queen

of England on the day of the "Diamond Jubilee"--when delegates from all

parts of a mighty, world-embracing empire gave her their loyal and

heartfelt homage--Canada was represented by a Prime Minister who

belonged to that race which has steadily gained in intellectual

strength, political freedom, and material prosperity, since the

memorable events of 1759 and 1760. In that imperial procession nearly

half the American Continent was represented--Acadia and Canada first

settled by France, the north-west prairies first traversed by French

Canadian adventurers, the Pacific coast first seen by Cook and

Vancouver. There, too, marched men from Bengal, Madras, Bombay,

Jeypore, Haidarabad, Kashmir, Punjaub, from all sections of that great

empire of India which was won for England by Clive and the men who, like

Wolfe, became famous for their achievements in the days of Pitt. Perhaps

there were in that imperial pageant some Canadians whose thoughts

wandered from the Present to the Past, and recalled the memory of that

illustrious statesman and of all he did for Canada and England, when

they stood in Westminster Abbey, and looked on his expressive effigy,

which, in the eloquent language of a great English historian, "seems

still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good

cheer and to hurl defiance at her foes."

CHAPTER II.

BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH RULE. 1760-1774.

SECTION I.--From the Conquest until the Quebec Act.

For nearly four years after the surrender of Vaudreuil at Montreal,

Canada was under a government of military men, whose headquarters were

at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal--the capitals of the old French

districts of the same name. General Murray and the other commanders

laboured to be just and considerate in all their relations with the new

subjects of the Crown, who were permitted to prosecute their ordinary

pursuits without the least interference on the part of the conquerors.

The conditions of the capitulations of Quebec and Montreal, which

allowed the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, were

honourably kept. All that was required then, and for many years later,

was that the priests and curés should confine themselves exclusively to

their parochial duties, and not take part in public matters. It had been

also stipulated at Montreal that the communities of nuns should not be

disturbed in their convents; and while the same privileges were not

granted by the articles of capitulation to the Jesuits, Recollets, and

Sulpitians, they had every facility given to them to dispose of their

property and remove to France. As a matter of fact there was practically

no interference with any of the religious fraternities during the early

years of British rule; and when in the course of time the Jesuits

disappeared entirely from the country their estates passed by law into

the possession of the government for the use of the people, while the

Sulpitians were eventually allowed to continue their work and develope

property which became of great value on the island of Montreal. (The

French merchants and traders were allowed all the commercial and trading

privileges that were enjoyed by the old subjects of the British

Sovereign, not only in the valley of the St. Lawrence, but in the rich

fur regions of the West and North-West.) The articles of capitulation

did not give any guarantees or pledges for the continuance of the civil

law under which French Canada had been governed for over a century, but

while that was one of the questions dependent on the ultimate fate of

Canada, the British military rulers took every possible care during the

continuance of the military régime to respect so far as possible the old

customs and laws by which the people had been previously governed.

French writers of those days admit the generosity and justice of the

administration of affairs during this military régime.

The treaty of Paris, signed on the 10th February, 1763, formally ceded

to England Canada as well as Acadia, with all their dependencies. The

French Canadians were allowed full liberty "to profess the worship of

their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church, as far as

the laws of Great Britain permit." The people had permission to retire

from Canada with all their effects within eighteen months from the date

of the ratification of the treaty. All the evidence before us goes to

show that only a few officials and seigniors ever availed themselves of

this permission to leave the country. At this time there was not a

single French settlement beyond Vaudreuil until the traveller reached

the banks of the Detroit between Lakes Erie and Huron. A chain of forts

and posts connected Montreal with the basin of the great lakes and the

country watered by the Ohio, Illinois, and other tributaries of the

Mississippi. The forts on the Niagara, at Detroit, at Michillimackinac,

at Great Bay, on the Maumee and Wabash, at Presqu' isle, at the junction

of French Creek with the Alleghany, at the forks of the Ohio, and at

less important localities in the West and South-West, were held by small

English garrisons, while the French still occupied Vincennes on the

Wabash and Chartres on the Mississippi, in the vicinity of the French

settlements at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and the present site of St. Louis.

Soon after the fall of Montreal, French traders from New Orleans and the

French settlements on the Mississippi commenced to foment disaffection

among the western Indians, who had strong sympathy with France, and were

quite ready to believe the story that she would ere long regain Canada.

The consequence was the rising of all the western tribes under the

leadership of Pontiac, the principal chief of the Ottawas, whose

warriors surrounded and besieged Detroit when he failed to capture it by

a trick. Niagara was never attacked, and Detroit itself was successfully

defended by Major Gladwin, a fearless soldier; but all the other forts

and posts very soon fell into the hands of the Indians, who massacred

the garrisons in several places. They also ravaged the border

settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and carried off a number of

women and children to their wigwams. Fort Pitt at the confluence of the

Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers--the site of the present city of

Pittsburg--was in serious peril for a time, until Colonel Bouquet, a

brave and skilful officer, won a signal victory over the Indians, who

fled in dismay to their forest fastnesses. Pontiac failed to capture

Detroit, and Bouquet followed up his first success by a direct march

into the country of the Shawnees, Mingoes and Delawares, and forced them

to agree to stern conditions of peace on the banks of the Muskingum. The

power of the western Indians was broken for the time, and the British in

1765 took possession of the French forts of Chartres and Vincennes, when

the _fleur-de-lys_ disappeared for ever from the valley of the

Mississippi. The French settlers on the Illinois and the Mississippi

preferred to remain under British rule rather than cross the great river

and become subjects of Spain, to whom Western Louisiana had been ceded

by France. From this time forward France ceased to be an influential

factor in the affairs of Canada or New France, and the Indian tribes

recognized the fact that they could no longer expect any favour or aid

from their old ally. They therefore transferred their friendship to

England, whose power they had felt in the Ohio valley, and whose policy

was now framed with a special regard to their just treatment.

This Indian war was still in progress when King George III issued his

proclamation for the temporary government of his new dependencies in

North America. As a matter of fact, though the proclamation was issued

in England on the 7th October, 1763, it did not reach Canada and come

into effect until the 10th August, 1764. The four governments of Quebec,

Grenada, East Florida, and West Florida were established in the

territories ceded by France and Spain. The eastern limit of the province

of Quebec did not extend beyond St. John's River at the mouth of the St.

Lawrence, nearly opposite to Anticosti, while that island itself and the

Labrador country, east of the St. John's as far as the Straits of

Hudson, were placed under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland. The islands

of Cape Breton and St. John, now Prince Edward, became subject to the

Government of Nova Scotia, which then included the present province of

New Brunswick. The northern limit of the province did not extend beyond

the territory known as Rupert's Land under the charter given to the

Hudson's Bay Company in 1670, while the western boundary was drawn

obliquely from Lake Nipissing as far as Lake St. Francis on the St.

Lawrence; the southern boundary then followed line 45° across the upper

part of Lake Champlain, whence it passed along the highlands which

divide the rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence from those

that flow into the sea--an absurdly defined boundary since it gave to

Canada as far as Cape Rosier on the Gaspé peninsula a territory only a

few miles wide. No provision whatever was made in the proclamation for

the government of the country west of the Appalachian range, which was

claimed by Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other colonies under the

indefinite terms of their original charters, which practically gave

them no western limits. Consequently the proclamation was regarded with

much disfavour by the English colonists on the Atlantic coast. No

provision was even made for the great territory which extended beyond

Nipissing as far as the Mississippi and included the basin of the great

lakes. It is easy to form the conclusion that the intention of the

British government was to restrain the ambition of the old English

colonies east of the Appalachian range, and to divide the immense

territory to their north-west at some future and convenient time into

several distinct and independent governments. No doubt the British

government also found it expedient for the time being to keep the

control of the fur-trade so far as possible in its own hands, and in

order to achieve this object it was necessary in the first place to

conciliate the Indian tribes, and not allow them to come in any way

under the jurisdiction of the chartered colonies. The proclamation

itself, in fact, laid down entirely new, and certainly equitable,

methods of dealing with the Indians within the limits of British

sovereignty. The governors of the old colonies were expressly forbidden

to grant authority to survey lands beyond the settled territorial limits

of their respective governments. No person was allowed to purchase land

directly from the Indians. The government itself thenceforth could alone

give a legal title to Indian lands, which must, in the first place, be

secured by treaty with the tribes that claimed to own them. This was the

beginning of that honest policy which has distinguished the relations of

England and Canada with the Indian nations for over a hundred years, and

which has obtained for the present Dominion the confidence and

friendship of the many thousand Indians, who roamed for many centuries

in Rupert's Land and in the Indian Territories where the Hudson's Bay

Company long enjoyed exclusive privileges of trade.

The language of the proclamation with respect to the government of the

province of Quebec was extremely unsatisfactory. It was ordered that so

soon as the state and circumstances of the colony admitted, the

governor-general could with the advice and consent of the members of the

council summon a general assembly, "in such manner and form as is used

and directed in those colonies and provinces in America which are under

our immediate government." Laws could be made by the governor, council,

and representatives of the people for the good government of the colony,

"as near as may be agreeable to the laws of England, and under such

regulations and restrictions as are used in other colonies." Until such

an assembly could be called, the governor could with the advice of his

council constitute courts for the trial and determination of all civil

and criminal cases, "according to law and equity, and as near as may be

agreeable to the laws of England," with liberty to appeal, in all civil

cases, to the privy council of England. General Murray, who had been in

the province since the battle on the Plains of Abraham, was appointed to

administer the government. Any persons elected to serve in an assembly

were required, by his commission and instructions, before they could sit

and vote, to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribe a

declaration against transubstantiation, the adoration of the Virgin, and

the Sacrifice of the Mass.

This proclamation--in reality a mere temporary expedient to give time

for considering the whole state of the colony--was calculated to do

infinite harm, since its principal importance lay in the fact that it

attempted to establish English civil as well as criminal law, and at the

same time required oaths which effectively prevented the French

Canadians from serving in the very assembly which it professed a desire

on the part of the king to establish. The English-speaking or Protestant

people in the colony did not number in 1764 more than three hundred

persons, of little or no standing, and it was impossible to place all

power in their hands and to ignore nearly seventy thousand French

Canadian Roman Catholics. Happily the governor, General Murray, was not

only an able soldier, as his defence of Quebec against Lévis had

proved, but also a man of statesmanlike ideas, animated by a high sense

of duty and a sincere desire to do justice to the foreign people

committed to his care. He refused to lend himself to the designs of the

insignificant British minority, chiefly from the New England colonies,

or to be guided by their advice in carrying on his government. His

difficulties were lessened by the fact that the French had no conception

of representative institutions in the English sense, and were quite

content with any system of government that left them their language,

religion, and civil law without interference. The stipulations of the

capitulations of 1759-1760, and of the treaty of Paris, with respect to

the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, were always observed

in a spirit of great fairness: and in 1766 Monseigneur Briand was

chosen, with the governor's approval, Roman Catholic bishop of Quebec.

He was consecrated at Paris after his election by the chapter of Quebec,

and it does not appear that his recognition ever became the subject of

parliamentary discussion. This policy did much to reconcile the French

Canadians to their new rulers, and to make them believe that eventually

they would receive full consideration in other essential respects.

For ten years the government of Canada was in a very unsatisfactory

condition, while the British ministry was all the while worried with the

condition of things in the old colonies, then in a revolutionary

ferment. The Protestant minority continued to clamour for an assembly,

and a mixed system of French and English law, in case it was not

possible to establish the latter in its entirety. Attorney-General

Masères, an able lawyer and constitutional writer, was in favour of a

mixed system, but his views were notably influenced by his strong

prejudices against Roman Catholics. The administration of the law was

extremely confused until 1774, not only on account of the ignorance and

incapacity of the men first sent out from England to preside over the

courts, but also as a consequence of the steady determination of the

majority of French Canadians to ignore laws to which they had naturally

an insuperable objection. In fact, the condition of things became

practically chaotic. It might have been much worse had not General

Murray, at first, and Sir Guy Carleton, at a later time, endeavoured, so

far as lay in their power, to mitigate the hardships to which the people

were subject by being forced to observe laws of which they were entirely

ignorant.

At this time the governor-general was advised by an executive council,

composed of officials and some other persons chosen from the small

Protestant minority of the province. Only one French Canadian appears to

have been ever admitted to this executive body. The English residents

ignored the French as far as possible, and made the most unwarrantable

claims to rule the whole province.

A close study of official documents from 1764 until 1774 goes to show

that all this while the British government was influenced by an anxious

desire to show every justice to French Canada, and to adopt a system of

government most conducive to its best interests In 1767 Lord Shelburne

wrote to Sir Guy Carleton that "the improvement of the civil

constitution of the province was under their most serious

consideration." They were desirous of obtaining all information "which

can tend to elucidate how far it is practicable and expedient to blend

the English with the French laws, in order to form such a system as

shall be at once equitable and convenient for His Majesty's old and new

subjects." From time to time the points at issue were referred to the

law officers of the crown for their opinion, so anxious was the

government to come to a just conclusion. Attorney-General Yorke and

Solicitor-General De Grey in 1766 severely condemned any system that

would permanently "impose new, unnecessary and arbitrary rules

(especially as to the titles of land, and the mode of descent,

alienation and settlement), which would tend to confound and subvert

rights instead of supporting them." In 1772 and 1773 Attorney-General

Thurlow and Solicitor-General Wedderburne dwelt on the necessity of

dealing on principles of justice with the province of Quebec. The French

Canadians, said the former, "seem to have been strictly entitled by the

_jus gentium_ to their property, as they possessed it upon the

capitulation and treaty of peace, together with all its qualities and

incidents by tenure or otherwise." It seemed a necessary consequence

that all those laws by which that property was created, defined, and

secured, must be continued to them. The Advocate-General Marriott, in

1773, also made a number of valuable suggestions in the same spirit, and

at the same time expressed the opinion that under the existent

conditions of the country it was not possible or expedient to call an

assembly. Before the imperial government came to a positive conclusion

on the vexed questions before it, they had the advantage of the wise

experience of Sir Guy Carleton, who visited England and remained there

for some time. The result of the deliberation of years was the passage

through the British parliament of the measure known as "The Quebec Act,"

which has always been considered the charter of the special privileges

which the French Canadians have enjoyed ever since, and which, in the

course of a century, made their province one of the most influential

sections of British North America.

The preamble of the Quebec Act fixed new territorial limits for the

province. It comprised not only the country affected by the proclamation

of 1763, but also all the eastern territory which had been previously

annexed to Newfoundland. In the west and south-west the province was

extended to the Ohio and the Mississippi, and in fact embraced all the

lands beyond the Alleghanies coveted and claimed by the old English

colonies, now hemmed in between the Atlantic and the Appalachian range.

It was now expressly enacted that the Roman Catholic inhabitants of

Canada should thenceforth "enjoy the free exercise" of their religion,

"subject to the king's supremacy declared and established" by law, and

on condition of taking an oath of allegiance, set forth in the act. The

Roman Catholic clergy were allowed "to hold, receive, and enjoy their

accustomed dues and rights, with respect to such persons only as shall

confess the said religion"--that is, one twenty-sixth part of the

produce of the land, Protestants being specially exempted. The French

Canadians were allowed to enjoy all their property, together with all

customs and usages incident thereto, "in as large, ample and beneficial

manner," as if the proclamation or other acts of the crown "had not been

made", but the religious orders and communities were excepted in

accordance with the terms of the capitulation of Montreal--the effect of

which exception I have already briefly stated. In "all matters of

controversy relative to property and civil rights," resort was to be had

to the old civil law of French Canada "as the rule for the decision of

the same", but the criminal law of England was extended to the province

on the indisputable ground that its "certainty and lenity" were already

"sensibly felt by the inhabitants from an experience of more than nine

years." The government of the province was entrusted to a governor and a

legislative council appointed by the crown, "inasmuch as it was

inexpedient to call an assembly." The council was to be composed of not

more than twenty-three residents of the province. At the same time the

British parliament made special enactments for the imposition of certain

customs duties "towards defraying the charges of the administration of

justice and the support of the civil government of the province." All

deficiencies in the revenues derived from these and other sources had to

be supplied by the imperial treasury. During the passage of the act

through parliament, it evoked the bitter hostility of Lord Chatham, who

was then the self-constituted champion of the old colonies, who found

the act most objectionable, not only because it established the Roman

Catholic religion, but placed under the government of Quebec the rich

territory west of the Alleghanies. Similar views were expressed by the

Mayor and Council of London, but they had no effect. The king, in giving

his assent, declared that the measure "was founded on the clearest

principles of justice and humanity, and would have the best effect in

quieting the minds and promoting the happiness of our Canadian

subjects." In French Canada the act was received without any popular

demonstration by the French Canadians, but the men to whom the great

body of that people always looked for advice and guidance--the priests,

curés, and seigniors--naturally regarded these concessions to their

nationality as giving most unquestionable evidence of the considerate

and liberal spirit in which the British government was determined to

rule the province. They had had ever since the conquest satisfactory

proof that their religion was secure from all interference, and now the

British parliament itself came forward with legal guarantees, not only

for the free exercise of that religion, with all its incidents and

tithes, but also for the permanent establishment of the civil law to

which they attached so much importance. The fact that no provision was

made for a popular assembly could not possibly offend a people to whom

local self-government in any form was entirely unknown. It was

impossible to constitute an assembly from the few hundred Protestants

who were living in Montreal and Quebec, and it was equally impossible,

in view of the religious prejudices dominant in England and the English

colonies, to give eighty thousand French Canadian Roman Catholics

privileges which their co-religionists did not enjoy in Great Britain

and to allow them to sit in an elected assembly. Lord North seemed to

voice the general opinion of the British parliament on this difficult

subject, when he closed the debate with an expression of "the earnest

hope that the Canadians will, in the course of time, enjoy as much of

our laws and as much of our constitution as may be beneficial to that

country and safe for this", but "that time," he concluded, "had not yet

come." It does not appear from the evidence before us that the British

had any other motive in passing the Quebec Act than to do justice to

the French Canadian people, now subjects of the crown of England. It was

not a measure primarily intended to check the growth of popular

institutions, but solely framed to meet the actual conditions of a

people entirely unaccustomed to the working of representative or popular

institutions. It was a preliminary step in the development of

self-government.

On the other hand the act was received with loud expressions of

dissatisfaction by the small English minority who had hoped to see

themselves paramount in the government of the province. In Montreal, the

headquarters of the disaffected, an attempt was made to set fire to the

town, and the king's bust was set up in one of the public squares,

daubed with black, and decorated with a necklace made of potatoes, and

bearing the inscription _Voilà le pape du Canada & le sot Anglais_. The

author of this outrage was never discovered, and all the influential

French Canadian inhabitants of the community were deeply incensed that

their language should have been used to insult a king whose only offence

was his assent to a measure of justice to themselves.

Sir Guy Carleton, who had been absent in England for four years,

returned to Canada on the 18th September, 1774, and was well received in

Quebec. The first legislative council under the Quebec Act was not

appointed until the beginning of August, 1775. Of the twenty-two members

who composed it, eight were influential French Canadians bearing

historic names. The council met on the 17th August, but was forced to

adjourn on the 7th September, on account of the invasion of Canada by

the troops of the Continental Congress, composed of representatives of

the rebellious element of the Thirteen Colonies. In a later chapter I

shall very shortly review the effects of the American revolution upon

the people of Canada; but before I proceed to do so it is necessary to

take my readers first to Nova Scotia on the eastern seaboard of British

North America and give a brief summary of its political development

from the beginning of British rule.

SECTION 2.--The foundation of Nova Scotia (1749--1783).

The foundation of Halifax practically put an end to the Acadian period

of Nova Scotian settlement. Until that time the English occupation of

the country was merely nominal. Owing largely to the representations of

Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts--a statesman of considerable ability,

who distinguished himself in American affairs during a most critical

period of colonial history--the British government decided at last on a

vigorous policy in the province, which seemed more than once on the

point of passing out of their hands. Halifax was founded by the

Honourable Edward Cornwallis on the slope of a hill, whose woods then

dipped their branches into the very waters of the noble harbour long

known as Chebuctou, and renamed in honour of a distinguished member of

the Montague family, who had in those days full control of the

administration of colonial affairs.

Colonel Cornwallis, a son of the Baron of that name--a man of firmness

and discretion--entered the harbour, on the 21st of June, old style, or

2nd July present style, and soon afterwards assumed his, duties as

governor of the province. The members of his first council were sworn in

on board one of the transports in the harbour. Between 2000 and 3000

persons were brought at this time to settle the town and country. These

people were chiefly made up of retired military and naval officers,

soldiers and sailors, gentlemen, mechanics, farmers--far too few--and

some Swiss, who were extremely industrious and useful. On the whole,

they were not the best colonists to build up a prosperous industrial

community. The government gave the settlers large inducements in the

shape of free grants of land, and practically supported them for the

first two or three years. It was not until the Acadian population were

removed, and their lands were available, that the foundation of the

agricultural prosperity of the peninsula was really laid. In the summer

of 1753 a considerable number of Germans were placed in the present

county of Lunenburg, where their descendants still prosper, and take a

most active part in all the occupations of life.

With the disappearance of the French Acadian settlers Nova Scotia became

a British colony in the full sense of the phrase. The settlement of 1749

was supplemented in 1760, and subsequent years, by a valuable and large

addition of people who were induced to leave Massachusetts and other

colonies of New England and settle in townships of the present counties

of Annapolis, King's, Hants, Queen's, Yarmouth, Cumberland, and

Colchester, especially in the beautiful townships of Cornwallis and

Horton, where the Acadian meadows were the richest. A small number also

settled at Maugerville and other places on the St. John River.

During the few years that had elapsed since the Acadians were driven

from their lands, the sea had once more found its way through the ruined

dykes, which had no longer the skilful attention of their old builders.

The new owners of the Acadian lands had none of the special knowledge

that the French had acquired, and were unable for years to keep back the

ever-encroaching tides. Still there were some rich uplands and low-lying

meadows, raised above the sea, which richly rewarded the industrious

cultivator. The historian, Haliburton, describes the melancholy scene

that met the eyes of the new settlers when they reached, in 1760, the

old homes of the Acadians at Mines. They came across a few straggling

families of Acadians who "had eaten no bread for years, and had

subsisted on vegetables, fish, and the more hardy part of the cattle

that had survived the severity of the first winter of their

abandonment." They saw everywhere "ruins of the houses that had been

burned by the Provincials, small gardens encircled by cherry-trees and

currant-bushes, and clumps of apple-trees." In all parts of the country,

where the new colonists established themselves, the Indians were

unfriendly for years, and it was necessary to erect stockaded houses for

the protection of the settlements.

No better class probably could have been selected to settle Nova Scotia

than these American immigrants. The majority were descendants of the

Puritans who settled in New England, and some were actually sprung from

men and women who had landed from "The Mayflower" in 1620. Governor

Lawrence recognized the necessity of having a sturdy class of settlers,

accustomed to the climatic conditions and to agricultural labour in

America, and it was through his strenuous efforts that these immigrants

were brought into the province. They had, indeed, the choice of the best

land of the province, and everything was made as pleasant as possible

for them by a paternal government, only anxious to establish British

authority on a sound basis of industrial development.

In 1767, according to an official return in the archives of Nova Scotia,

the total population of what are now the provinces of Nova Scotia, New

Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, reached 13,374 souls; of whom 6913

are given as Americans, 912 as English, 2165 as Irish, 1946 as Germans,

and 1265 as Acadian French, the latter being probably a low estimate.

Some of these Irish emigrated directly from the north of Ireland, and

were Presbyterians. They were brought out by one Alexander McNutt, who

did much for the work of early colonization; others came from New

Hampshire, where they had been settled for some years. The name of

Londonderry in New Hampshire is a memorial of this important class, just

as the same name recalls them in the present county of Colchester, in

Nova Scotia.

The Scottish immigration, which has exercised such an important

influence on the eastern counties of Nova Scotia--and I include Cape

Breton--commenced in 1772, when about thirty families arrived from

Scotland and settled in the present county of Pictou, where a very few

American colonists from Philadelphia had preceded them. In later years a

steady tide of Scotch population flowed into eastern Nova Scotia and did

not cease until 1820. Gaelic is still the dominant tongue in the eastern

counties, where we find numerous names recalling the glens, lochs, and

mountains of old Scotland. Sir William Alexander's dream of a new

Scotland has been realised in a measure in the province where his

ambition would have made him "lord paramount."

Until the foundation of Halifax the government of Nova Scotia was vested

solely in a governor who had command of the garrison stationed at

Annapolis. In 1719 a commission was issued to Governor Phillips, who was

authorised to appoint a council of not less than twelve persons. This

council had advisory and judicial functions, but its legislative

authority was of a very limited scope. This provisional system of

government lasted until 1749, when Halifax became the seat of the new

administration of public affairs. The governor had a right to appoint a

council of twelve persons--as we have already seen, he did so

immediately--and to summon a general assembly "according to the usage of

the rest of our colonies and plantations in America." He was, "with the

advice and consent" of the council and assembly, "to make, constitute

and ordain laws" for the good government of the province. During nine

years the governor-in-council carried on the government without an

assembly, and passed a number of ordinances, some of which imposed

duties on trade for the purpose of raising revenue. The legality of

their acts was questioned by Chief Justice Belcher, and he was sustained

by the opinion of the English law officers, who called attention to the

governor's commission, which limited the council's powers. The result of

this decision was the establishment of a representative assembly, which

met for the first time at Halifax on the 2nd October, 1758.

Governor Lawrence, whose name will be always unhappily associated with

the merciless expatriation of the French Acadians, had the honour of

opening the first legislative assembly of Nova Scotia in 1758. One

Robert Sanderson, of whom we know nothing else, was chosen as the first

speaker, but he held his office for only one session, and was succeeded

by William Nesbitt, who presided over the house for many years. The

first sittings of the legislature were held in the court house, and

subsequently in the old grammar school at the corner of Barrington and

Sackville Streets, for very many years one of the historic memorials of

the Halifax of the eighteenth century.

At this time the present province of New Brunswick was for the most part

comprised in a county known as Sunbury, with one representative in the

assembly of Nova Scotia. The island of Cape Breton also formed a part of

the province, and had the right to send two members to the assembly, but

the only election held for that purpose was declared void on account of

there not being any freeholders entitled by law to vote. The island of

St. John, named Prince Edward in 1798, in honour of the Duke of Kent,

who was commander-in-chief of the British forces for some years in North

America, was also annexed to Nova Scotia in 1763, but it never sent

representatives to its legislature. In the following year a survey was

commenced of all the imperial dominions on the Atlantic. Various schemes

for the cultivation and settlement of the island were proposed as soon

as the surveys were in progress. The most notable suggestion was made by

the Earl of Egmont, first lord of the admiralty; he proposed the

division of the island into baronies, each with a castle or stronghold

under a feudal lord, subject to himself as lord paramount, under the

customs of the feudal system of Europe. The imperial authorities

rejected this scheme, but at the same time they adopted one which was as

unwise as that of the noble earl. The whole island, with the exception

of certain small reservations and royalties, was given away by lottery

in a single day to officers of the army and navy who had served in the

preceding war, and to other persons who were ambitious to be great

landowners, on the easy condition of paying certain quit-rents--a

condition constantly broken. This ill-advised measure led to many

troublesome complications for a hundred years, until at last they were

removed by the terms of the arrangement which brought the island into

the federal union of British North America in 1873. In 1769 the island

was separated from Nova Scotia and granted a distinct government,

although its total population at the time did not exceed one hundred and

fifty families. An assembly of eighteen representatives was called so

early as 1773, when the first governor, Captain Walter Paterson, still

administered public affairs. The assembly was not allowed to meet with

regularity during many years of the early history of the island. During

one administration it was practically without parliamentary government

for ten years. The land question always dominated public affairs in the

island for a hundred years.

From the very beginning of a regular system of government in Nova Scotia

the legislature appears to have practically controlled the

administration of local affairs except so far as it gave, from time to

time, powers to the courts of quarter sessions to regulate taxation and

carry out certain small public works and improvements. In the first

session of the legislature a joint committee of the council and assembly

chose the town officers for Halifax. We have abundant evidence that at

this time the authorities viewed with disfavour any attempt to establish

a system of town government similar to that so long in operation in New

England. The town meeting was considered the nursery of sedition in New

England, and it is no wonder that the British authorities in Halifax

frowned upon all attempts to reproduce it in their province.

Soon after his arrival in Nova Scotia, Governor Cornwallis established

courts of law to try and determine civil and criminal cases in

accordance with the laws of England. In 1774 there were in the province

courts of general session, similar to the courts of the same name in

England; courts of common pleas, formed on the practice of New England

and the mother country, and a supreme court, court of assize and general

gaol delivery, composed of a chief justice and two assistant judges. The

governor-in-council constituted a court of error in certain cases, and

from its decisions an appeal could be made to the king-in-council.

Justices of peace were also appointed in the counties and townships,

with jurisdiction over the collection of small debts.

We must now leave the province of Nova Scotia and follow the

revolutionary movement, which commenced, soon after the signing of the

Treaty of Paris, in the old British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard,

and ended in the acknowledgement of their independence in 1783, and in

the forced migration of a large body of loyal people who found their way

to the British provinces.

CHAPTER III.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS (1763--1784).

SECTION I.--The successful Revolution of the Thirteen Colonies in

America.

When Canada was formally ceded to Great Britain the Thirteen Colonies

were relieved from the menace of the presence of France in the valleys

of the St. Lawrence, the Ohio, and the Mississippi. Nowhere were there

more rejoicings on account of this auspicious event than in the homes of

the democratic Puritans. The names of Pitt and Wolfe were honoured above

all others of their countrymen, and no one in England, certainly not

among its statesmen, imagined that in the colonies, which stretched from

the river Penobscot to the peninsula of Florida, there was latent a

spirit of independence which might at any moment threaten the rule of

Great Britain on the American continent. The great expenses of the Seven

Years' War were now pressing heavily on the British taxpayer. British

statesmen were forced to consider how best they could make the colonies

themselves contribute towards their own protection in the future, and

relieve Great Britain in some measure from the serious burden which

their defence had heretofore imposed on her. In those days colonies were

considered as so many possessions to be used for the commercial

advantage of the parent state. Their commerce and industries had been

fettered for many years by acts of parliament which were intended to

give Great Britain a monopoly of their trade and at the same time

prevent them from manufacturing any article that they could buy from the

British factories. As a matter of fact, however, these restrictive

measures of imperial protection had been for a long time practically

dead-letters. The merchants and seamen of New England carried on

smuggling with the French and Spanish Indies with impunity, and

practically traded where they pleased.

The stamp act was only evidence of a vigorous colonial policy, which was

to make the people of the colonies contribute directly to their own

defence and security, and at the same time enforce the navigation laws

and acts of trade and put an end to the general system of smuggling by

which men, some of the best known merchants of Boston, had acquired a

fortune. George Grenville, who was responsible for the rigid enforcement

of the navigation laws and the stamp act, had none of that worldly

wisdom which Sir Robert Walpole showed when, years before, it was

proposed to him to tax the colonies. "No," said that astute politician,

"I have old England set against me already, and do you think I will have

New England likewise?" But Grenville and his successors, in attempting

to carry out a new colonial policy, entirely misunderstood the

conditions and feelings of the colonial communities affected and raised

a storm of indignation which eventually led to independence. The stamp

act was in itself an equitable measure, the proceeds of which were to be

exclusively used for the benefit of the colonies themselves; but its

enactment was most unfortunate at a time when the influential classes in

New England were deeply irritated at the enforcement of a policy which

was to stop the illicit trade from which they had so largely profited in

the past. The popular indignation, however, vented itself against the

stamp act, which imposed internal taxation, was declared to be in direct

violation of the principles of political liberty and self-government

long enjoyed by the colonists as British subjects, and was repealed as a

result of the violent opposition it met in the colonies. Parliament

contented itself with a statutory declaration of its supremacy in all

matters over every part of the empire; but not long afterwards the

determination of some English statesmen to bring the colonies as far as

practicable directly under the dominion of British law in all matters of

commerce and taxation, and to control their government as far as

possible, found full expression in the Townshend acts of 1767 which

imposed port duties on a few commodities, including tea, imported into

those countries. At the same time provision was made for the due

execution of existing laws relating to trade. The province of New York

was punished for openly refusing to obey an act of parliament which

required the authorities to furnish the British troops with the

necessaries of life. Writs of assistance, which allowed officials to

search everywhere for smuggled goods, were duly legalised. These writs

were the logical sequence of a rigid enforcement of the laws of trade

and navigation, and had been vehemently denounced by James Otis, so far

back as 1761, as not only irreconcilable with the colonial charters, but

as inconsistent with those natural rights which a people "derived from

nature and the Author of nature"--an assertion which obtained great

prominence for the speaker. This bold expression of opinion in

Massachusetts should be studied by the historian of those times in

connection with the equally emphatic revolutionary argument advanced by

Patrick Henry of Virginia, two years later, against the ecclesiastical

supremacy of the Anglican clergy and the right of the king to veto

legislation of the colony. Though the prerogative of the crown was thus

directly called into question in a Virginia court, the British

government did not take a determined stand on the undoubted rights of

the crown in the case. English statesmen and lawyers probably regarded

such arguments, if they paid any attention to them at all in days when

they neglected colonial opinion, as only temporary ebullitions of local

feeling, though in reality they were so many evidences of the opposition

that was sure to show itself whenever there was a direct interference

with the privileges and rights of self-governing communities. Both Henry

and Otis touched a key-note of the revolution, which was stimulated by

the revenue and stamp acts and later measures affecting the colonies.

It is somewhat remarkable that it was in aristocratic Virginia, founded

by Cavaliers, as well as in democratic Massachusetts, founded by

Puritans, that the revolutionary element gained its principal strength

during the controversy with the parent state. The makers of

Massachusetts were independents in church government and democrats in

political principle. The whole history of New England, in fact, from the

first charters until the argument on the writs of assistance, is full of

incidents which show the growth of republican ideas. The Anglican church

had no strength in the northern colonies, and the great majority of

their people were bitterly opposed to the pretensions of the English

hierarchy to establish an episcopate in America. It is not therefore

surprising that Massachusetts should have been the leader in the

revolutionary agitation; on the other hand in Virginia the Anglican

clergy belonged to what was essentially an established church, and the

whole social fabric of the colony rested on an aristocratic basis. No

doubt before the outbreak of the revolution there was a decided feeling

against England on account of the restrictions on the sale of tobacco;

and the quarrel, which I have just referred to, with respect to the

stipends of the clergy, which were to be paid in this staple commodity

according to its market value at the time of payment, had spread

discontent among a large body of the people. But above all such causes

of dissatisfaction was the growing belief that the political freedom of

the people, and the very existence of the colony as a self-governing

community, were jeopardised by the indiscreet acts of the imperial

authorities after 1763. It is easy then to understand that the action of

the British government in 1767 renewed the agitation, which had been

allayed for the moment by the repeal of the stamp act and the general

belief that there would be no rigid enforcement of old regulations which

meant the ruin of the most profitable trade of New England. The measures

of the ministry were violently assailed in parliament by Burke and

other eminent men who availed themselves of so excellent an opportunity

of exciting the public mind against a government which was doing so much

to irritate the colonies and injure British trade. All the political

conditions were unfavourable to a satisfactory adjustment of the

colonial difficulty. Chatham had been one of the earnest opponents of

the stamp act, but he was now buried in retirement--labouring under some

mental trouble--and Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the exchequer

in the cabinet of which Chatham was the real head, was responsible for

measures which his chief would have repudiated as most impolitic and

inexpedient in the existing temper of the colonies.

The action of the ministry was for years at once weak and irritating.

One day they asserted the supremacy of the British parliament, and on

the next yielded to the violent opposition of the colonies and the

appeals of British merchants whose interests were at stake. Nothing

remained eventually but the tea duty, and even that was so arranged that

the colonists could buy their tea at a much cheaper rate than the

British consumer. But by this time a strong anti-British party was in

course of formation throughout the colonies. Samuel Adams of

Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia, and a few other political

managers of consummate ability, had learned their own power, and the

weakness of English ministers. Samuel Adams, who had no love in his

heart for England, was undoubtedly by this time insidiously working

towards the independence of the colonies. Violence and outrage formed

part of his secret policy. The tea in Boston harbour was destroyed by a

mob disguised as Mohawk Indians, and was nowhere allowed to enter into

domestic consumption. The patience of English ministers was now

exhausted, and they determined to enter on a vigorous system of

repression, which might have had some effect at an earlier stage of the

revolutionary movement, when the large and influential loyal body of

people in the colonies ought to have been vigorously supported, and not

left exposed to the threats, insults, and even violence of a resolute

minority, comprising many persons influenced by purely selfish

reasons--the stoppage of illicit trade from which they had profited--as

well as men who objected on principle to a policy which seemed to them

irreconcilable with the rights of the people to the fullest possible

measure of local self-government. As it was, however, the insults and

injuries to British officials bound to obey the law, the shameless and

continuous rioting, the destruction of private property, the defiant

attitude of the opposition to England, had at last awakened the home

authorities to the dangers latent in the rebellious spirit that reckless

agitators had aroused in colonies for which England had sacrificed so

much of her blood and treasure when their integrity and dearest

interests were threatened by France. The port of Boston, where the

agitators were most influential and the most discreditable acts of

violence had taken place, was closed to trade; and important

modifications were made in the charter granted to Massachusetts by

William III in 1692. Another obnoxious act provided that persons

"questioned for any acts in execution of the laws" should be tried in

England--a measure intended to protect officials and soldiers in the

discharge of their duty against the rancour of the colonial community

where they might be at that time. These measures, undoubtedly unwise at

this juncture, were calculated to evoke the hostility of the other

colonies and to show them what was probably in store for themselves. But

while the issue certainly proved this to be the case, the course pursued

by the government under existing conditions had an appearance of

justification. Even Professor Goldwin Smith, who will not be accused of

any sympathy with the British cabinet of that day, or of antagonism to

liberal principles, admits that "a government thus bearded and insulted

had its choice between abdication and repression," and "that repression

was the most natural" course to pursue under the circumstances. Lord

North gave expression to what was then a largely prevailing sentiment in

England when he said "to repeal the tea duty would stamp us with

timidity," and that the destruction of the property of private

individuals, such as took place at Boston, "was a fitting culmination of

years of riot and lawlessness." Lord North, we all know now, was really

desirous of bringing about a reconciliation between the colonies and the

parent state, but he servilely yielded his convictions to the king, who

was determined to govern all parts of his empire, and was in favour of

coercive measures. It is quite evident that the British ministry and

their supporters entirely underrated the strength of the colonial party

that was opposing England. Even those persons who, when the war broke

out, remained faithful to their allegiance to the crown, were of opinion

that the British government was pursuing a policy unwise in the extreme,

although they had no doubt of the abstract legal right of that

government to pass the Grenville and Townshend acts for taxing the

colonies. Chatham, Burke, Conway, and Barré were the most prominent

public men who, in powerful language, showed the dangers of the unwise

course pursued by the "king's friends" in parliament.

As we review the events of those miserable years we can see that every

step taken by the British government, from the stamp act until the

closing of the port of Boston and other coercive measures, had the

effect of strengthening the hands of Samuel Adams and the other

revolutionary agitators. Their measures to create a feeling against

England exhibited great cunning and skill. The revolutionary movement

was aided by the formation of "Sons of Liberty"--a phrase taken from one

of Barré's speeches,--by circular letters and committees of

correspondence between the colonies, by petitions to the king winch were

framed in a tone of independence not calculated to conciliate that

uncompromising sovereign, by clever ingenious appeals to public

patriotism, by the assembling of a "continental congress," by acts of

"association" which meant the stoppage of all commercial intercourse

with Great Britain. New England was the head and front of the whole

revolution, and Samuel Adams was its animating spirit. Even those famous

committees of correspondence between the towns of Massachusetts, which

gave expression to public opinion and stimulated united action when the

legislative authority was prevented by the royal governor from working,

were the inspiration of this astute political manager. Prominent

Virginians saw the importance of carrying out this idea on a wider field

of action, and Virginia accordingly inaugurated a system of

intercolonial correspondence which led to the meeting of a continental

congress, and was the first practical step towards political

independence of the parent state. Adams's decision to work for

independence was made, or confirmed, as early as 1767, when Charles

Townshend succeeded in passing the measures which were so obnoxious to

the colonists, and finally led to civil war.

At a most critical moment, when the feelings of a large body of people

were aroused to a violent pitch, when ideas of independence were

ripening in the minds of others besides Samuel Adams, General Gage, then

in command of the British regular troops in Boston, sent a military

force to make prisoners of Adams and Hancock at Lexington, and seize

some stores at Concord. Then the "embattled farmers" fired the shot

"which was heard around the world." Then followed the capture of

Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and the battle of Bunker's Hill, on the

same day that Washington was appointed by congress to command the

continental army. At this critical juncture, John Adams and other

prominent colonists--not excepting Washington--were actually disavowing

all desire to sever their relations with the parent state in the face of

the warlike attitude of congress--an attitude justified by the

declaration that it was intended to force a redress of grievances. Tom

Paine, a mere adventurer, who had not been long in the country, now

issued his pamphlet, "Common Sense," which was conceived in a spirit

and written in a style admirably calculated to give strength and

cohesion to the arguments of the people, who had been for some time

coming to the conclusion that to aim at independence was the only

consistent and logical course in the actual state of controversy between

England and the colonies. On March 14th, 1776, the town of Boston, then

the most important in America, was given up to the rebels; and British

ships carried the first large body of unhappy and disappointed Loyalists

to Halifax. On July the fourth of the same year the Declaration of

Independence was passed, after much hesitation and discussion, and

published to the world by the continental congress assembled at

Philadelphia. The signal victory won by the continental army over

Burgoyne at Saratoga in the autumn of the following year led to an

alliance with France, without whose effective aid the eventual success

of the revolutionists would have been very doubtful The revolutionists

won their final triumph at Yorktown in the autumn of 1781, when a small

army of regulars and Loyalists, led by Cornwallis, was obliged to

surrender to the superior American and French forces, commanded by

Washington and Rochambeau, and supported by a French fleet which

effectively controlled the approaches to Chesapeake Bay.

The conduct of the war on the part of England was noted for the singular

incapacity of her generals. Had there been one of any energy or ability

at the head of her troops, when hostilities commenced, the undisciplined

American army might easily have been beaten and annihilated Boston need

never have been evacuated had Howe taken the most ordinary precautions

to occupy the heights of Dorchester that commanded the town. Washington

could never have organised an army had not Howe given him every possible

opportunity for months to do so. The British probably had another grand

opportunity of ending the war on their occupation of New York, when

Washington and his relatively insignificant army were virtually in their

power while in retreat. The history of the war is full of similar

instances of lost opportunities to overwhelm the continental troops. All

the efforts of the British generals appear to have been devoted to the

occupation of the important towns in a country stretching for a thousand

miles from north to south, instead of following and crushing the

constantly retreating, diminishing, and discouraged forces of the

revolutionists. The evacuation of Philadelphia at a critical moment of

the war was another signal illustration of the absence of all military

foresight and judgment, since it disheartened the Loyalists and gave up

an important base of operation against the South. Even Cornwallis, who

fought so bravely and successfully in the southern provinces, made a

most serious mistake when he chose so weak a position as Yorktown, which

was only defensible whilst the army of occupation had free access to the

sea. Admiral Rodney, then at St. Eustatius, is open to censure for not

having sent such naval reinforcements as would have enabled the British

to command Chesapeake Bay, and his failure in this respect explains the

inability of Clinton, an able general, to support Cornwallis in his hour

of need. The moment the French fleet appeared in the Chesapeake,

Cornwallis's position became perfectly untenable, and he was obliged to

surrender to the allied armies, who were vastly superior in number and

equipment to his small force, which had not even the advantage of

fighting behind well-constructed and perfect defences. No doubt, from

the beginning to the end of the war--notably in the case of

Burgoyne--the British were seriously hampered by the dilatory and unsafe

counsels of Lord George Germaine, who was allowed by the favour of the

king to direct military operations, and who, we remember, had disgraced

himself on the famous battlefield of Minden.

All the conditions in the country at large were favourable to the

imperial troops had they been commanded by generals of ability. The

Loyalists formed a large available force, rendered valueless time after

time by the incapacity of the men who directed operations. At no time

did the great body of the American people warmly respond to the demands

made upon them by congress to support Washington. Had it not been for

New England and Virginia the war must have more than once collapsed for

want of men and supplies. It is impossible to exaggerate the absence of

public spirit in the States during this critical period of their

history. The English historian, Lecky, who has reviewed the annals of

those times with great fairness, has truly said: "The nobility and

beauty of the character of Washington can hardly be surpassed; several

of the other leaders of the revolution were men of ability and public

spirit, and few armies have ever shown a nobler self-devotion than that

which remained with Washington through the dreary winter at Valley

Forge. But the army that bore those sufferings was a very small one, and

the general aspect of the American people during the contest was far

from heroic or sublime." This opinion is fully borne out by those

American historians who have reviewed the records of their national

struggle in a spirit of dispassionate criticism. We know that in the

spring of 1780 Washington himself wrote that his troops were "constantly

on the point of starving for want of provisions and forage." He saw "in

every line of the army the most serious features of mutiny and

sedition." Indeed he had "almost ceased to hope," for he found the

country in general "in such a state of insensibility and indifference to

its interests" that he dare not flatter himself "with any change for the

better." The war under such circumstances would have come to a sudden

end had not France liberally responded to Washington's appeals and

supported him with her money, her sailors and her soldiers. In the

closing years of the war Great Britain had not only to fight France,

Spain, Holland and her own colonies, but she was without a single ally

in Europe. Her dominion was threatened in India, and the king prevented

the intervention of the only statesman in the kingdom to whom the

colonists at any time were likely to listen with respect. When Chatham

died with a protest on his lips "against the dismemberment of this

ancient monarchy," the last hope of bringing about a reconciliation

between the revolutionists and the parent state disappeared for ever,

and the Thirteen Colonies became independent at Yorktown.

SECTION 2.--Canada and Nova Scotia during the Revolution.

If Canada was saved to England during the American Revolution it was not

on account of the energy and foresight shown by the king and his

ministers in providing adequately for its defence, but mainly through

the coolness and excellent judgment displayed by Governor Carleton. The

Quebec act, for which he was largely responsible, was extremely

unpopular in the Thirteen Colonies, on account of its having extended

the boundaries of the province and the civil law to that western country

beyond the Alleghanies, which the frontiersmen of Pennsylvania and

Virginia regarded as specially their own domain. The fact that the

Quebec act was passed by parliament simultaneously with the Boston port

bill and other measures especially levelled against Massachusetts, gave

additional fuel to the indignation of the people, who regarded this

group of acts as part of a settled policy to crush the British-speaking

colonies.

Under these circumstances, the invasion of Canada by Arnold in 1775,

with the full approval of the continental congress, soon after the

taking of Crown Point and Ticonderoga by the "Green Mountain boys" of

Vermont, was a most popular movement which, it was hoped generally,

would end in the easy conquest of a province, occupied by an alien

people, and likely to be a menace in the future to the country south of

the St. Lawrence. The capture of Chambly and St. John's--the keys of

Canada, by way of Lake Champlain--was immediately followed by the

surrender of Montreal, which was quite indefensible, and the flight of

Carleton to Quebec, where he wisely decided to make a stand against the

invaders. At this time there were not one thousand regular troops in the

country, and Carleton's endeavour to obtain reinforcements from Boston

had failed in consequence of the timidity of Admiral Graves, who

expressed his opinion that it was not safe to send vessels up the St.

Lawrence towards the end of the month of October. No dependence

apparently could be placed at this critical juncture on a number of the

French _habitants_, as soon as the districts of Richelieu, Montreal and

Three Rivers were occupied by the continental troops. Many of them were

quite ready to sell provisions to the invaders, provided they were paid

in coin, and a few of them even joined Montgomery on his march to

Quebec. Happily, however, the influence of the clergy and the

_seigneurs_ was sufficiently powerful to make the great mass of the

people neutral during this struggle for supremacy in the province.

The bishop and the priests, from the outset, were quite alive to the

gravity of the situation. They could not forget that the delegates to

the continental congress, who were now appealing to French Canada to

join the rebellious colonists, had only a few weeks before issued an

address to the people of England in which they expressed their

astonishment that the British parliament should have established in

Canada "a religion that had deluged their land in blood and dispersed

impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part

of the world." Almost simultaneously with the capture of the forts on

Lake Champlain, Bishop Briand issued a _mandement_ in which he dwelt

with emphasis on the great benefits which the people of French Canada

had already derived from the British connection and called upon them all

to unite in the defence of their province. No doubt can exist that these

opinions had much effect at a time when Carleton had reason to doubt

even the loyalty of the English population, some of whom were

notoriously in league with the rebels across the frontier, and gave

material aid to the invaders as soon as they occupied Montreal. It was

assuredly the influence of the French clergy that rendered entirely

ineffectual the mission of Chase, Franklin, and the Carrolls of

Maryland--one of whom became the first Roman Catholic archbishop of the

United States--who were instructed by congress to offer every possible

inducement to the Roman Catholic subjects of England in Canada to join

the revolutionary movement.

Richard Montgomery, who had commanded the troops invading Canada, had

served at Louisbourg and Quebec, and had subsequently become a resident

of New York, where his political opinions on the outbreak of the

revolution had been influenced by his connection, through marriage, with

the Livingstones, bitter opponents of the British government. His merit

as a soldier naturally brought him into prominence when the war began,

and his own ambition gladly led him to obey the order to go to Canada,

where he hoped to emulate the fame of Wolfe and become the captor of

Quebec. He formed a junction, close to the ancient capital, with the

force under Benedict Arnold, who was at a later time to sully a

memorable career by an act of the most deliberate treachery to his

compatriots. When Montgomery and Arnold united their forces before

Quebec, the whole of Canada, from Lake Champlain to Montreal, and from

that town to the walls of the old capital, was under the control of the

continental troops. Despite the great disadvantages under which he

laboured, Carleton was able to perfect his defences of the city, which

he determined to hold until reinforcements should arrive in the spring

from England. Montgomery had neither men nor artillery to storm the

fortified city which he had hoped to surprise and easily occupy with the

aid of secret friends within its walls. Carleton, however, rallied all

loyal men to his support, and the traitors on whom the invaders had

relied were powerless to carry out any treacherous design they may have

formed. The American commanders at once recognised the folly of a

regular investment of the fortress during a long and severe winter, and

decided to attempt to surprise the garrison by a night assault. This

plan was earned out in the early morning of the thirty-first of

December, 1775, when the darkness was intensified by flurries of light

blinding snow, but it failed before the assailants could force the

barricades which barred the way to the upper town, where all the

principal offices and buildings were grouped, just below the château and

fort of St. Louis, which towers above the historic heights. Montgomery

was killed, Arnold was wounded at the very outset, and a considerable

number of their officers and men were killed or wounded.

Carleton saved Quebec at this critical hour and was able in the course

of the same year, when General Burgoyne arrived with reinforcements

largely composed of subsidised German regiments, to drive the

continental troops in confusion from the province and destroy the fleet

which congress had formed on Lake Champlain. Carleton took possession of

Crown Point but found the season too late--it was now towards the end of

autumn--to attempt an attack on Ticonderoga, which was occupied by a

strong and well-equipped garrison. After a careful view of the situation

he concluded to abandon Crown Point until the spring, when he could

easily occupy it again, and attack Ticonderoga with every prospect of

success. But Carleton, soon afterwards, was ordered to give up the

command of the royal troops to Burgoyne, who was instructed by Germaine

to proceed to the Hudson River, where Howe was to join him. Carleton

naturally resented the insult that he received and resigned the

governor-generalship, to which General Haldimand was appointed. Carleton

certainly brought Canada securely through one of the most critical

epochs of her history, and there is every reason to believe that he

would have saved the honour of England and the reputation of her

generals, had he rather than Burgoyne and Howe been entrusted with the

direction of her armies in North America.

Carleton's administration of the civil government of the province was

distinguished by a spirit of discretion and energy which deservedly

places him among the ablest governors who ever presided over the public

affairs of a colony. During the progress of the American war the

legislative council was not able to meet until nearly two years after

its abrupt adjournment in September, 1775. At this session, in 1777,

ordinances were passed for the establishment of courts of King's bench,

common pleas, and probate.

A critical perusal of the valuable documents, placed of late years in

the archives of the Dominion, clearly proves that it was a fortunate day

for Canada when so resolute a soldier and far-sighted administrator as

General Haldimand was in charge of the civil and military government of

the country after the departure of Carleton. His conduct appears to have

been dictated by a desire to do justice to all classes, and it is most

unfair to his memory to declare that he was antagonistic to French

Canadians. During the critical time when he was entrusted with the

public defence it is impossible to accuse him of an arrogant or

unwarrantable exercise of authority, even when he was sorely beset by

open and secret enemies of the British connection. The French Canadian

_habitant_ found himself treated with a generous consideration that he

never obtained during the French régime, and wherever his services were

required by the state, he was paid, not in worthless card money, but in

British coin. During Haldimand's administration the country was in a

perilous condition on account of the restlessness and uncertainty that

prevailed while the French naval and military expeditions were in

America, using every means of exciting a public sentiment hostile to

England and favourable to France among the French Canadians. Admiral

D'Estaing's proclamation in 1778 was a passionate appeal to the old

national sentiment of the people, and was distributed in every part of

the province. Dr. Kingsford believes that it had large influence in

creating a powerful feeling which might have seriously threatened

British dominion had the French been able to obtain permission from

congress to send an army into the country. Whatever may have been the

temper of the great majority of the French Canadians, it does not appear

that many of them openly expressed their sympathy with France, for whom

they would naturally still feel a deep love as their motherland. The

assertion that many priests secretly hoped for the appearance of the

French army is not justified by any substantial evidence except the fact

that one La Valinière was arrested for his disloyalty, and sent a

prisoner to England. It appears, however, that this course was taken

with the approval of the bishop himself, who was a sincere friend of the

English connection throughout the war. Haldimand arrested a number of

persons who were believed to be engaged in treasonable practices against

England, and effectively prevented any successful movement being made by

the supporters of the revolutionists, or sympathisers with France, whose

emissaries were secretly working in the parishes.

Haldimand's principal opponent during these troublous times was one

Pierre du Calvet, an unscrupulous and able intriguer, whom he imprisoned

on the strong suspicion of treasonable practices; but the evidence

against Calvet at that time appears to have been inadequate, as he

succeeded in obtaining damages against the governor-general in an

English court. The imperial government, however, in view of all the

circumstances brought to their notice, paid the cost of the defence of

the suit. History now fully justifies the action of Haldimand, for the

publication of Franklin's correspondence in these later times shows that

Calvet--who was drowned at sea and never again appeared in Canada--was

in direct correspondence with congress, and the recognised emissary of

the revolutionists at the very time he was declaring himself devoted to

the continuance of British rule in Canada.

Leaving the valley of the St. Lawrence, and reviewing the conditions of

affairs in the maritime provinces, during the American revolution, we

see that some of the settlers from New England sympathised with their

rebellious countrymen. The people of Truro, Onslow, and Londonderry,

with the exception of five persons, refused to take the oath of

allegiance, and were not allowed for some time to be represented in the

legislature. The assembly was always loyal to the crown, and refused to

consider the appeals that were made to it by circular letters, and

otherwise, to give active aid and sympathy to the rebellious colonies

During the war armed cruisers pillaged the small settlements at

Charlottetown, Annapolis, Lunenburg, and the entrance of the St. John

River. One expedition fitted out at Machias, in the present state of

Maine, under the command of a Colonel Eddy, who had been a resident of

Cumberland, attempted to seize Fort Cumberland--known as Beauséjour in

French Acadian days--at the mouth of the Missiquash. In this section of

the country there were many sympathisers with the rebels, and Eddy

expected to have an easy triumph. The military authorities were happily

on the alert, and the only result was the arrest of a number of persons

on the suspicion of treasonable designs. The inhabitants of the county

of Yarmouth--a district especially exposed to attack--only escaped the

frequent visits of privateers by secret negotiations with influential

persons in Massachusetts. The settlers on the St. John River, at

Maugerville, took measures to assist their fellow-countrymen in New

England, but the defeat of the Cumberland expedition and the activity of

the British authorities prevented the disaffected in Sunbury county--in

which the original settlements of New Brunswick were then

comprised--from rendering any practical aid to the revolutionists. The

authorities at Halifax authorised the fitting out of privateers in

retaliation for the damages inflicted on western ports by the same class

of cruisers sailing from New England. The province was generally

impoverished by the impossibility of carrying on the coasting trade and

fisheries with security in these circumstances. The constant demand for

men to fill the army and the fleet drained the country when labour was

imperatively needed for necessary industrial pursuits, including the

cultivation of the land. Some Halifax merchants and traders alone found

profit in the constant arrival of troops and ships. Apart, however, from

the signs of disaffection shown in the few localities I have mentioned,

the people generally appear to have been loyal to England, and rallied,

notably in the townships of Annapolis, Horton and Windsor, to the

defence of the country, at the call of the authorities.

In 1783 the humiliated king of England consented to a peace with his old

colonies, who owed their success not so much to the unselfishness and

determination of the great body of the rebels as to the incapacity of

British generals and to the patience, calmness, and resolution of the

one great man of the revolution, George Washington. I shall in a later

chapter refer to this treaty in which the boundaries between Canada and

the new republic were so ignorantly and clumsily defined that it took

half a century and longer to settle the vexed questions that arose in

connection with territorial rights, and then the settlement was to the

injury of Canada. So far as the treaty affected the Provinces its most

important result was the forced migration of that large body of people

who had remained faithful to the crown and empire during the revolution.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING BOUNDARY BETWEEN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

BY TREATY OF 1783]

SECTION 3.--The United Empire Loyalists

John Adams and other authorities in the United States have admitted that

when the first shot of the revolution was fired by "the embattled

farmers" of Concord and Lexington, the Loyalists numbered one-third of

the whole population of the colonies, or seven hundred thousand whites.

Others believe that the number was larger, and that the revolutionary

party was in a minority even after the declaration of independence. The

greater number of the Loyalists were to be found in the present state of

New York, where the capital was in possession of the British from

September, 1776, until the evacuation in 1783. They were also the

majority in Pennsylvania and the southern colonies of South Carolina and

Georgia. In all the other states they represented a large minority of

the best class of their respective communities. It is estimated that

there were actually from thirty to thirty-five thousand, at one time or

other, enrolled in regularly organised corps, without including the

bodies which waged guerilla warfare in South Carolina and elsewhere.

It is only within a decade of years that some historical writers in the

United States have had the courage and honesty to point out the false

impressions long entertained by the majority of Americans with respect

to the Loyalists, who were in their way as worthy of historical eulogy

as the people whose efforts to win independence were crowned with

success. Professor Tyler, of Cornell University, points out that these

people comprised "in general a clear majority of those who, of whatever

grade of culture or of wealth, would now be described as conservative

people." A clear majority of the official class, of men representing

large commercial interests and capital, of professional training and

occupation, clergymen, physicians, lawyers and teachers, "seem to have

been set against the ultimate measures of the revolution". He assumes

with justice that, within this conservative class, one may "usually find

at least a fair portion of the cultivation, of the moral thoughtfulness,

of the personal purity and honour, existing in the community to which

they happen to belong." He agrees with Dr. John Fiske, and other

historical writers of eminence in the United States, in comparing the

Loyalists of 1776 to the Unionists of the southern war of secession from

1861 until 1865. They were "the champions of national unity, as resting

on the paramount authority of the general government." In other words

they were the champions of a United British Empire in the eighteenth

century.

"The old colonial system," says that thoughtful writer Sir J.R. Seeley,

"was not at all tyrannous; and when the breach came the grievances of

which the Americans complained, though perfectly real, were smaller than

ever before or since led to such mighty consequences." The leaders among

the Loyalists, excepting a few rash and angry officials probably,

recognised that there were grievances which ought to be remedied. They

looked on the policy of the party in power in Great Britain as

injudicious in the extreme, but they believed that the relations between

the colonies and the mother-state could be placed on a more satisfactory

basis by a spirit of mutual compromise, and not by such methods as were

insidiously followed by the agitators against England. The Loyalists

generally contended for the legality of the action of parliament, and

were supported by the opinion of all high legal authorities; but the

causes of difficulty were not to be adjusted by mere lawyers, who

adhered to the strict letter of the law, but by statesmen who recognised

that the time had come for reconsidering the relations between the

colonies and the parent state, and meeting the new conditions of their

rapid development and political freedom. These relations were not to be

placed on an equitable and satisfactory basis by mob-violence and

revolution. All the questions at issue were of a constitutional

character, to be settled by constitutional methods.

Unhappily, English statesmen of that day paid no attention to, and had

no conception of, the aspirations, sentiments and conditions of the

colonial peoples when the revolutionary war broke out. The king wished

to govern in the colonies as well as in the British Isles, and

unfortunately the unwise assertion of his arrogant will gave dangerous

men like Samuel Adams, more than once, the opportunity they wanted to

stimulate public irritation and indignation against England.

It is an interesting fact, that the relations between Great Britain and

the Canadian Dominion are now regulated by just such principles as were

urged in the interests of England and her colonies a hundred and twenty

years ago by Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a great Loyalist, to whom

justice is at last being done by impartial historians in the country

where his motives and acts were so long misunderstood and

misrepresented. "Whatever measures," he wrote to a correspondent in

England, "you may take to maintain the authority of parliament, give me

leave to pray they may be accompanied with a declaration that it is not

the intention of parliament to deprive the colonies of their subordinate

power of legislation, nor to exercise the supreme power except in such

cases and upon such occasions as an equitable regard to the interests of

the whole empire shall make necessary." But it took three-quarters of a

century after the coming of the Loyalists to realise these statesmanlike

conceptions of Hutchinson in the colonial dominions of England to the

north of the dependencies which she lost in the latter part of the

eighteenth century.

Similar opinions were entertained by Joseph Galloway, Jonathan Boucher,

Jonathan Odell, Samuel Seabury, Chief Justice Smith, Judge Thomas Jones,

Beverley Robinson and other men of weight and ability among the

Loyalists, who recognised the short-sightedness and ignorance of the

British authorities, and the existence of real grievances. Galloway, one

of the ablest men on the constitutional side, and a member of the first

continental congress, suggested a practical scheme of imperial

federation, well worthy of earnest consideration at that crisis in

imperial affairs. Eminent men in the congress of 1774 supported this

statesmanlike mode of placing the relations of England and the colonies

on a basis which would enable them to work harmoniously, and at the same

time give full scope to the ambition and the liberties of the colonial

communities thus closely united; but unhappily for the empire the

revolutionary element carried the day. The people at large were never

given an opportunity of considering this wise proposition, and the

motion was erased from the records of congress. In its place, the people

were asked to sign "articles of association" which bound them to cease

all commercial relations with England. Had Galloway's idea been carried

out to a successful issue, we might have now presented to the world the

noble spectacle of an empire greater by half a continent and

seventy-five millions of people.

But while Galloway and other Loyalists failed in their measures of

adjusting existing difficulties and remedying grievances, history can

still do full justice to their wise counsel and resolute loyalty, which

refused to assist in tearing the empire to fragments. These men, who

remained faithful to this ideal to the very bitter end, suffered many

indignities at the hands of the professed lovers of liberty, even in

those days when the questions at issue had not got beyond the stage of

legitimate argument and agitation. The courts of law were closed and the

judges prevented from fulfilling their judicial functions. No class of

persons, not even women, were safe from the insults of intoxicated

ruffians. The clergy of the Church of England were especially the object

of contumely.

During the war the passions of both parties to the controversy were

aroused to the highest pitch, and some allowance must be made for

conditions which were different from those which existed when the

questions at issue were still matters of argument. It is impossible in

times of civil strife to cool the passions of men and prevent them from

perpetrating cruelties and outrages which would be repugnant to their

sense of humanity in moments of calmness and reflection. Both sides,

more than once, displayed a hatred of each other that was worthy of the

American Iroquois themselves. The legislative bodies were fully as

vindictive as individuals in the persecution of the Loyalists.

Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, disqualification for office,

banishment, and even death in case of return from exile, were among the

penalties to which these people were subject by the legislative acts of

the revolutionary party.

If allowance can be made for the feelings of revenge and passion which

animate persons under the abnormal conditions of civil war, no

extenuating circumstances appear at that later period when peace was

proclaimed and congress was called upon to fulfil the terms of the

treaty and recommend to the several independent states the restoration

of the confiscated property of Loyalists. Even persons who had taken up

arms were to have an opportunity of receiving their estates back on

condition of refunding the money which had been paid for them, and

protection was to be afforded to those persons during twelve months

while they were engaged in obtaining the restoration of their property.

It was also solemnly agreed by the sixth article of the treaty that

there should be no future confiscations or prosecutions, and that no

person should "suffer any future loss or damage, either in his person,

liberty or property," for the part he might have taken in the war. Now

was the time for generous terms, such terms as were even shown by the

triumphant North to the rebellious South at the close of the war of

secession. The recommendations of congress were treated with contempt by

the legislatures in all the states except in South Carolina, and even

there the popular feeling was entirely opposed to any favour or justice

being shown to the beaten party. The sixth article of the treaty, a

solemn obligation, was violated with malice and premeditation. The

Loyalists, many of whom had returned from Great Britain with the hope of

receiving back their estates, or of being allowed to remain in the

country, soon found they could expect no generous treatment from the

successful republicans. The favourite Whig occupation of tarring and

feathering was renewed. Loyalists were warned to leave the country as

soon as possible, and in the south some were shot and hanged because

they did not obey the warning. The Loyalists, for the most part, had no

other course open to them than to leave the country they still loved and

where they had hoped to die.

The British government endeavoured, so far as it was in its power, to

compensate the Loyalists for the loss of their property by liberal

grants of money and land, but despite all that was done for them the

majority felt a deep bitterness in their hearts as they landed on new

shores of which they had heard most depressing accounts. More than

thirty-five thousand men, women and children, made their homes within

the limits of the present Dominion. In addition to these actual American

Loyalists, there were several thousands of negroes, fugitives from their

owners, or servants of the exiles, who have been generally counted in

the loose estimates made of the migration of 1783, and the greater

number of whom were at a later time deported from Nova Scotia to Sierra

Leone. Of the exiles at least twenty-five thousand went to the maritime

colonies, and built up the province of New Brunswick, where

representative institutions were established in 1784. Of the ten

thousand people who sought the valley of the St Lawrence, some settled

in Montreal, at Chambly, and in parts of the present Eastern Townships,

but the great majority accepted grants of land on the banks of the St.

Lawrence--from River Beaudette, on Lake St. Francis, as far as the

beautiful Bay of Quinté--in the Niagara District, and on the shores of

Lake Erie. The coming of these people, subsequently known by the name of

"U.E. Loyalists"--a name appropriately given to them in recognition of

their fidelity to a United Empire--was a most auspicious event for the

British-American provinces, the greater part of which was still a

wilderness. As we have seen in the previous chapters, there was in the

Acadian provinces, afterwards divided into New Brunswick and Nova

Scotia, a British population of only some 14,000 souls, mostly confined

to the peninsula. In the valley of the St. Lawrence there was a French

population of probably 100,000 persons, dwelling chiefly on the banks of

the St. Lawrence between Quebec and Montreal. The total British

population of the province of Quebec did not exceed 2000, residing for

the most part in the towns of Quebec and Montreal. No English people

were found west of Lake St. Louis; and what is now the populous province

of Ontario was a mere wilderness, except where loyal refugees had

gathered about the English fort at Niagara, or a few French settlers had

made homes for themselves on the banks of the Detroit River and Lake St.

Clair. The migration of between 30,000 and 40,000 Loyalists to the

maritime provinces and the valley of the St. Lawrence was the saving of

British interests in the great region which England still happily

retained in North America.

The refugees who arrived in Halifax in 1783 were so numerous that

hundreds had to be placed in the churches or in cabooses taken from the

transports and ranged along the streets. At Guysborough, in Nova

Scotia--so named after Sir Guy Carleton--the first village, which was

hastily built by the settlers, was destroyed by a bush fire, and many

persons only saved their lives by rushing into the sea. At Shelburne, on

the first arrival of the exiles, there were seen "lines of women sitting

on the rocky shore and weeping at their altered condition." Towns and

villages, however, were soon built for the accommodation of the people.

At Shelburne, or Port Roseway--anglicised from the French _Razoir_--a

town of fourteen thousand people, with wide streets, fine houses, some

of them containing furniture and mantel-pieces brought from New York,

arose in two or three years. The name of New Jerusalem had been given to

the same locality some years before, but it seemed a mockery to the

Loyalists when they found that the place they had chosen for their new

home was quite unsuited for settlement. A beautiful harbour lay in

front, and a rocky country unfit for farmers in the rear of their

ambitious town, which at one time was the most populous in British North

America. In the course of a few years the place was almost deserted, and

sank for a time into insignificance. A pretty town now nestles by the

side of the beautiful and spacious harbour which attracted the first too

hopeful settlers; and its residents point out to the tourist the sites

of the buildings of last century, one or two of which still stand, and

can show many documents and relics of those early days.

Over twelve thousand Loyalists, largely drawn from the disbanded loyal

regiments of the old colonies, settled in New Brunswick. The name of

Parrtown was first given, in honour of the governor of Nova Scotia, to

the infant settlement which became the city of St. John, in 1785, when

it was incorporated. The first landing of the loyal pioneers took place

on the 18th of May, 1783, at what is now the Market Slip of this

interesting city. Previous to 1783, the total population of the province

did not exceed seven hundred souls, chiefly at Maugerville and other

places on the great river. The number of Loyalists who settled on the

St. John River was at least ten thousand, of whom the greater proportion

were established at the mouth of the river, which was the base of

operations for the peopling of the new province. Some adventurous

spirits took possession of the abandoned French settlements at Grimross

and St. Anne's, where they repaired some ruined huts of the original

Acadian occupants, or built temporary cabins. This was the beginning of

the settlement of Fredericton, which four years later became the

political capital on account of its central position, its greater

security in time of war, and its location on the land route to Quebec.

Many of the people spent their first winter in log-huts, bark camps, and

tents covered with spruce, or rendered habitable only by the heavy banks

of snow which were piled against them. A number of persons died through

exposure, and "strong, proud men"--to quote the words of one who lived

in those sorrowful days--"wept like children and lay down in their

snow-bound tents to die."

A small number of loyal refugees had found their way to the valley of

the St. Lawrence as early as 1778, and obtained employment in the

regiments organised under Sir John Johnson and others. It was not until

1783 and 1784 that the large proportion of the exiles came to Western

Canada. They settled chiefly on the northern banks of the St. Lawrence,

in what are now the counties of Glengarry, Stormont, Dundas, Grenville,

Leeds, Frontenac, Addington, Lennox, Hastings and Prince Edward, where

their descendants have acquired wealth and positions of honour and

trust. The first township laid out in Upper Canada, now Ontario, was

Kingston. The beautiful Bay of Quinté is surrounded by a country full of

the memories of this people, and the same is true of the picturesque

district of Niagara.

Among the Loyalists of Canada must also be honourably mentioned Joseph

Brant (Thayendanega), the astute and courageous chief of the Mohawks,

the bravest nation of the Iroquois confederacy, who fought on the side

of England during the war. At its close he and his people settled in

Canada, where they received large grants from the government, some in a

township by the Bay of Quinté, which still bears the Indian title of the

great warrior, and the majority on the Grand River, where a beautiful

city and county perpetuate the memory of this loyal subject of the

British crown. The first Anglican church built in Upper Canada was that

of the Mohawks, near Brantford, and here the church bell first broke the

silence of the illimitable forest.

The difficulties which the Upper Canadian immigrants had to undergo

before reaching their destination were much greater than was the case

with the people who went direct in ships from American ports to Halifax

and other places on the Atlantic coast. The former had to make toilsome

journeys by land, or by _bateaux_ and canoes up the St. Lawrence, the

Richelieu, the Genesee, and other streams which gave access from the

interior of the United States to the new Canadian land. The British

government did its best to supply the wants of the population suddenly

thrown upon its charitable care, but, despite all that could be done for

them in the way of food and means of fighting the wilderness, they

suffered naturally a great deal of hardship. The most influential

immigration found its way to the maritime provinces, where many received

congenial employment and adequate salaries in the new government of New

Brunswick. Many others, with the wrecks of their fortunes or the

pecuniary aid granted them by the British government, were able to make

comfortable homes and cultivate estates in the valleys of the St. John

and Annapolis, and in other fertile parts of the lower provinces. Of the

large population that founded Shelburne a few returned to the United

States, but the greater number scattered all over the provinces. The

settlers in Upper Canada had to suffer many trials for years after their

arrival, and especially in a year of famine, when large numbers had to

depend on wild fruits and roots. Indeed, had it not been for the fish

and game which were found in some, but not in all, places, starvation

and death would have been the lot of many hundreds of helpless people.

Many of the refugees could trace their descent to the early immigration

that founded the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. Some were

connected with the Cavalier and Church families of Virginia. Others were

of the blood of persecuted Huguenots and German Protestants from the

Rhenish or Lower Palatinate. Not a few were Highland Scotchmen, who had

been followers of the Stuarts, and yet fought for King George and the

British connection during the American revolution. Among the number were

notable Anglican clergymen, eminent judges and lawyers, and probably one

hundred graduates of Harvard, Yale, King's, Pennsylvania, and William

and Mary Colleges. In the records of industrial enterprise, of social

and intellectual progress, of political development for a hundred

years, we find the names of many eminent men, sprung from these people,

to whom Canada owes a deep debt of gratitude for the services they

rendered her in the most critical period of her chequered history.

CHAPTER IV.

DEVELOPMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS (1784--1812).

SECTION I--Beginnings of the provinces of New Brunswick, Lower Canada

and Upper Canada.

On the 16th August, 1784, as a consequence of the coming of over ten

thousand Loyalists to the valley of the St. John River, a new province

was formed out of that portion of the ancient limits of Acadia, which

extended northward from the isthmus of Chignecto to the province of

Quebec, and eastward from the uncertain boundary of the St. Croix to the

Gulf of St. Lawrence. It received its present name in honour of the

Brunswick-Luneburg or Hanoverian line which had given a royal dynasty to

England, and its first governor was Colonel Thomas Carleton, a brother

of the distinguished governor-general, whose name is so intimately

associated with the fortunes of Canada during a most critical period of

its history. The first executive council, which was also the legislative

council, comprised some of the most eminent men of the Loyalist

migration. For instance, George Duncan Ludlow; who had been a judge of

the supreme court of New York; Jonathan Odell, the famous satirist and

divine; William Hazen, a merchant of high reputation, who had large

interests on the St. John River from 1763, and had proved his fidelity

to the crown at a time when his countrymen at Maugerville were disposed

to join the revolutionary party; Gabriel G. Ludlow, previously a colonel

in a royal regiment; Edward Winslow, Daniel Bliss and Isaac Allen, all

of whom had borne arms in the royal service and had suffered the loss of

valuable property, confiscated by the successful rebels.

The constitution of 1784 provided for an assembly of twenty-six members

who were elected in 1785, and met for the first time on the 3rd of

January, 1786, at the Mallard House, a plain two-storey building on the

north side of King Street. The city of St. John ceased to be the seat of

government in 1787, when the present capital, Fredericton, first known

as St. Anne's, was chosen. Of the twenty-six members elected to this

assembly, twenty-three were Loyalists, and the same class necessarily

continued for many years to predominate in the legislature. The first

speaker was Amos Botsford, the pioneer of the Loyalist migration to New

Brunswick, whose grandson occupied the same position for a short time in

the senate of the Dominion of Canada.

Coming to the province of Lower Canada we find it contained at this time

a population of about a hundred thousand souls, of whom six thousand

lived in Quebec and Montreal respectively. Only two thousand

English-speaking persons resided in the province, almost entirely in the

towns. Small as was the British minority, it continued that agitation

for an assembly which had been commenced long before the passage of the

Quebec act. A nominated council did not satisfy the political ambition

of this class, who obtained little support from the French Canadian

people. The objections of the latter arose from the working of the act

itself. Difficulties had grown up in the administration of the law,

chiefly in consequence of its being entrusted exclusively to men

acquainted only with English jurisprudence, and not disposed to comply

with the letter and intention of the imperial statute. As a matter of

practice, French law was only followed as equity suggested; and the

consequence was great legal confusion in the province. A question had

also arisen as to the legality of the issue of writs of _habeas corpus_,

and it was eventually necessary to pass an ordinance to remove all

doubts on this important point.

The Loyalist settlers on the St. Lawrence and Niagara Rivers sent a

petition in 1785 to the home government, praying for the establishment

of a new district west of the River Beaudette "with the blessings of

British laws and British government, and of exemption from French tenure

of property." While such matters were under the consideration of the

imperial authorities, Sir Guy Carleton, once more governor-general of

Canada, and lately raised to the peerage as Lord Dorchester,

established, in 1788, five new districts for the express object of

providing for the temporary government of the territory where the

Loyalists had settled. These districts were known as Luneburg,

Mecklenburg, Nassau and Hesse, in the western country, and Gaspé in the

extreme east of the province of Quebec, where a small number of the same

class of people had also found new homes. Townships, ranging from eighty

to forty thousand acres each, were also surveyed within these districts

and parcelled out with great liberality among the Loyalists. Magistrates

wore appointed to administer justice with the simplest possible

machinery at a time when men trained in the law were not available.

The grants of land made to the Loyalists and their children were large,

and in later years a considerable portion passed into the hands of

speculators who bought them up at nominal sums. It was in connection

with these grants that the name of "United Empire Loyalists" originated.

An order-in-council was passed on the 9th of November, 1780, in

accordance with the wish of Lord Dorchester "to put a mark of honour

upon the families who had adhered to the _unity of the empire_ and

joined the royal standard in America before the treaty of separation in

1783." Accordingly the names of all persons falling under this

designation were to be recorded as far as possible, in order that "their

posterity may be discriminated from future settlers in the parish lists

and rolls of militia of their respective districts, and other public

remembrances of the province."

The British cabinet, of which Mr. Pitt, the famous son of the Earl of

Chatham, was first minister, now decided to divide the province of

Quebec into two districts, with separate legislatures and governments.

Lord Grenville, while in charge of the department of colonial affairs,

wrote in 1789 to Lord Dorchester that the "general object of the plan is

to assimilate the constitution of the province to that of Great Britain

as nearly as the differences arising from the names of the people and

from the present situation of the province will admit." He also

emphatically expressed the opinion that "a considerable degree of

attention is due to the prejudices and habits of the French inhabitants,

and every degree of caution should be used to continue to them the

enjoyment of those civil and religious rights which were secured to them

by the capitulation of the province, or have since been granted by the

liberal and enlightened spirit of the British government." When the bill

for the formation of the two provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada

came before the house of commons, Mr. Adam Lymburner, an influential

merchant of Quebec, appeared at the Bar and ably opposed the separation

"as dangerous in every point of view to British interests in America,

and to the safety, tranquillity and prosperity of the inhabitants of the

province of Quebec" He pressed the repeal of the Quebec act in its

entirety and the enactment of a perfectly new constitution "unclogged

and unembarrassed with any laws prior to this period" He professed to

represent the views "of the most intelligent and respectable of the

French Canadians"; but their antagonism was not directed against the

Quebec act in itself, but against the administration of the law,

influenced as this was by the opposition of the British people to the

French civil code. Nor does it appear, as Mr. Lymburner asserted, that

the western Loyalists were hostile to the formation of two distinct

provinces. He represented simply the views of the English-speaking

inhabitants of Lower Canada, who believed that the proposed division

would place them in a very small minority in the legislature and, as the

issue finally proved, at the mercy of the great majority of the French

Canadian representatives, while on the other hand the formation of one

large province extending from Gaspé to the head of the great lakes would

ensure an English representation sufficiently formidable to lessen the

danger of French Canadian domination. However, the British government

seems to have been actuated by a sincere desire to do justice to the

French Canadians and the Loyalists of the upper province at one and the

same time. When introducing the bill in the house of commons on the 7th

March, 1791, Mr. Pitt expressed the hope that "the division would remove

the differences of opinion which had arisen between the old and new

inhabitants, since each province would have the right of enacting laws

desired in its own house of assembly." He believed a division to be

essential, as "otherwise he could not reconcile the clashing interests

known to exist." Mr. Burke was of opinion that "to attempt to amalgamate

two populations composed of races of men diverse in language, laws and

customs, was a complete absurdity", and he consequently approved of the

division. Mr. Fox, from whom Burke became alienated during this debate,

looked at the question in an entirely different light and was strongly

of opinion that "it was most desirable to see the French and English

inhabitants coalesce into one body, and the different distinctions of

people extinguished for ever."

The Constitutional act of 1791 established in each province a

legislative council and assembly, with powers to make laws. The

legislative council was to be appointed by the king for life, in Upper

Canada it was to consist of not less than seven, and in Lower Canada of

not less than fifteen members. The sovereign might, if he thought

proper, annex hereditary titles of honour to the right of being summoned

to the legislative council in either province--a provision which was

never brought into operation. The whole number of members in the

assembly of Upper Canada was not to be less than sixteen; in Lower

Canada not less than fifty--to be chosen by a majority of votes in

either case. The British parliament reserved to itself the right of

levying and collecting customs-duties, for the regulation of navigation

and commerce to be carried on between the two provinces, or between

either of them and any other part of the British dominions or any

foreign country. Parliament also reserved the power of directing the

payment of these duties, but at the same time left the exclusive

apportionment of all moneys levied in this way to the legislature, which

could apply them to such public uses as it might deem expedient. The

free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was guaranteed permanently.

The king was to have the right to set apart, for the use of the

Protestant clergy in the colony, a seventh part of all uncleared crown

lands. The governor might also be empowered to erect parsonages and

endow them, and to present incumbents or ministers of the Church of

England. The English criminal law was to obtain in both provinces.

In the absence of Lord Dorchester in England, the duty devolved on

Major-General Alured Clarke, as lieutenant-governor, to bring the Lower

Canadian constitution into force by a proclamation on the 18th February,

1791. On the 7th May, in the following year, the new province of Lower

Canada was divided into fifty electoral districts, composed of

twenty-one counties, the towns of Montreal and Quebec, and the boroughs

of Three Rivers and William Henry (now Sorel). The elections to the

assembly took place in June, and a legislative council of fifteen

influential Canadians was appointed. The new legislature was convoked

"for the despatch of business" on the 17th December, in the same year,

in an old stone building known as the Bishop's Palace, which stood on a

rocky eminence in the upper town of the old capital.

Chief Justice Smith took the chair of the legislative council under

appointment by the crown, and the assembly elected as its speaker Mr.

Joseph Antome Panet, an eminent advocate, who was able to speak the two

languages. In the house there were only sixteen members of British

origin--and in later parliaments there was even a still smaller

representation--while the council was nearly divided between the two

nationalities. When the house proceeded to business, one of its first

acts was to order that all motions, bills and other proceedings should

be put in the two languages. We find in the list of French Canadian

members of the two houses representatives of the most ancient and

distinguished families of the province. A descendant of Pierre Boucher,

governor of Three Rivers in 1653, and the author of a rare history of

Canada, sat in the council of 1792 just as a Boucherville sits

now-a-days in the senate of the Dominion. A Lotbinière had been king's

councillor in 1680. A Chaussegros de Lery had been an engineer in the

royal colonial corps; a Lanaudière had been an officer in the Carignan

regiment in 1652; a Salaberry was a captain in the royal navy, and his

family won further honours on the field of Chateauguay in the war of

1812-15, when the soil of Lower Canada was invaded. A Taschereau had

been a royal councillor in 1732. The names of Belestre, Valtric, Bonne,

Rouville, St. Ours, and Duchesnay, are often met in the annals of the

French régime, and show the high character of the representation in the

first parliament of Lower Canada.

The village of Newark was chosen as the capital of Upper Canada by

Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor

of the province. He had served with much distinction during the

revolution as the commander of the Queen's Rangers, some of whom had

settled in the Niagara district. He was remarkable for his decision of

character and for his ardent desire to establish the principles of

British government in the new province. He was a sincere friend of the

Loyalists, whose attachment to the crown he had had many opportunities

of appreciating during his career in the rebellious colonies, and,

consequently, was an uncompromising opponent of the new republic and of

the people who were labouring to make it a success on the other side of

the border. The new parliament met in a wooden building nearly completed

on the sloping bank of the river, at a spot subsequently covered by a

rampart of Fort George, which was constructed by Governor Simcoe on the

surrender of Fort Niagara. A large boulder has been placed on the top of

the rampart to mark the site of the humble parliament house of Upper

Canada, which had to be eventually demolished to make place for new

fortifications. The sittings of the first legislature were not

unfrequently held under a large tent set up in front of the house, and

having an interesting history of its own, since it had been carried

around the world by the famous navigator, Captain Cook.

As soon as Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe assumed the direction of the

government, he issued a proclamation dividing the province of Upper

Canada into nineteen counties, some of winch were again divided into

ridings for the purpose of electing the sixteen representatives to which

the province was entitled under the act of 1791. One of the first acts

of the legislature was to change the names of the divisions, proclaimed

in 1788, to Eastern, Midland, Home, and Western Districts, which

received additions in the course of years until they were entirely

superseded by the county organisations. These districts were originally

intended for judicial and legal purposes.

The legislature met under these humble circumstances at Newark on the

17th September, 1792. Chief Justice Osgoode was the speaker of the

council, and Colonel John Macdonell, of Aberchalder, who had gallantly

served in the royal forces during the revolution, was chosen presiding

officer of the assembly. Besides him, there were eleven Loyalists among

the sixteen members of the lower house. In the council of nine members

there were also several Loyalists, the most prominent being the

Honourable Richard Cartwright, the grandfather of the minister of trade

and commerce in the Dominion ministry of 1896-1900.

SECTION 2.--Twenty years of political development (1792-1812).

The political conditions of the two decades from 1792 until 1812, when

war broke out between England and the United States, were for the

greater part of the time quite free from political agitation, and the

representatives of the people in both the provinces of Canada were

mostly occupied with the consideration of measures of purely provincial

and local import. Nevertheless a year or two before the close of this

period we can see in the province of Lower Canada premonitions of that

irrepressible conflict between the two houses--one elected by the

people and the other nominated by and under the influence of the

crown--which eventually clogged the machinery of legislation. We can

also see the beginnings of that strife of races which ultimately led to

bloodshed and the suspension of the constitution given to Lower Canada

in 1791.

In 1806 _Le Canadien_, published in the special interest of "Nos

institutions, notre langue, et nos lois," commenced that career of

bitter hostility to the government which steadily inflamed the

antagonism between the races. The arrogance of the principal officials,

who had the ear of the governor, and practically engrossed all the

influence in the management of public affairs, alienated the French

Canadians, who came to believe that they were regarded by the British as

an inferior race. As a matter of fact, many of the British inhabitants

themselves had no very cordial feelings towards the officials, whose

social exclusiveness offended all who did not belong to their special

"set." In those days the principal officials were appointed by the

colonial office and the governor-general, and had little or no respect

for the assembly, on which they depended in no wise for their

continuance in office or their salaries. The French Canadians eventually

made few distinctions among the British but looked on them as, generally

speaking, enemies to their institutions.

It was unfortunate, at a time when great discretion and good temper were

so essential, that Sir James Craig should have been entrusted with the

administration of the government of Lower Canada. The critical state of

relations with the United States no doubt influenced his appointment,

which, from a purely military point of view, was excellent. As it was,

however, his qualities as a soldier were not called into requisition,

while his want of political experience, his utter incapacity to

understand the political conditions of the country, his supreme

indifference to the wishes of the assembly, made his administration an

egregious failure. Indeed it may he said that it was during his time

that the seed was sown for the growth of that political and racial

antagonism which led to the rebellion of 1837. It is not possible to

exaggerate the importance of the consequences of his unjustifiable

dismissal of Mr. Speaker Panet, and other prominent French Canadians,

from the militia on the ground that they had an interest in the

_Canadien_, or of his having followed up this very indiscreet act by the

unwarrantable arrest of Mr. Bedard and some other persons, on the charge

that they were the authors or publishers of what he declared to be

treasonable writings. It is believed that the governor's action was

largely influenced by the statements and advice of Chief Justice Sewell,

the head of the legislative council and the official class. Several

persons were released when they expressed regret for the expression of

any opinions considered extreme by the governor and his advisers, but

Mr. Bedard remained in prison for a year rather than directly or

indirectly admit that the governor had any justification for his

arbitrary act Sir James attempted to obtain the approval of the home

government; but his agent, a Mr. Ryland, a man of ability and suavity,

prominent always in the official life of the country, signally failed to

obtain the endorsement of his master's action. He was unable to secure a

promise that the constitution of 1791 should be repealed, and the

legislative council of the Quebec act again given the supremacy in the

province. Mr. Bedard was released just before the governor left the

country, with the declaration that "his detention had been a matter of

precaution and not of punishment"--by no means a manly or graceful

withdrawal from what was assuredly a most untenable position from the

very first moment Mr. Bedard was thrown into prison. Sir James Craig

left the province a disappointed man, and died in England a few months

after his return, from the effects of an incurable disease to which he

had been a victim for many years. He was hospitable, generous and

charitable, but the qualities of a soldier dominated all his acts of

civil government.

In the other provinces, happily, there were no racial differences to

divide the community and aggravate those political disputes that are

sure to arise in the working of representative institutions in a British

country. In Upper Canada for years the questions under discussion were

chiefly connected with the disposal of the public lands, which in early

times were too lavishly granted by Simcoe; and this led to the bringing

in for a while of some undesirable immigrants from the United States

--undesirable because they were imbued with republican and levelling

ideas by no means favourable to the development and stability of English

institutions of government. One of the first acts of the legislature was

the establishment of courts of law and equity, in accordance with the

practice and principles of English jurisprudence. Another very important

measure was one for the legalisation of marriages which had been

irregularly performed during early times in the absence of the clergy of

the Anglican Church by justices of the peace, and even the officers in

charge of military posts. Magistrates were still allowed to perform the

marriage ceremony according to the ritual of the Church of England, when

the services of a clergyman of that denomination were not available. Not

until 1830 were more liberal provisions passed and the clergy of any

recognised creed permitted to unite persons legally in wedlock.

It was in the second session of the first parliament of Upper Canada,

where the Loyalists were in so huge a majority, that an act was passed

"to prevent the further introduction of slaves and to limit the term of

contract for servitude within this province." A considerable number of

slave servants accompanied their Loyalist masters to the provinces at

the end of the war, and we find for many years after in the newspapers

advertisements relating to runaway servants of this class. The Loyalists

in the maritime provinces, like the same class in Upper Canada, never

gave their approval to the continuance of slavery. So early as 1800 some

prominent persons brought before the supreme court of New Brunswick the

case of one Nancy Morton, a slave, on a writ of _habeas corpus_; and her

right to freedom was argued by Ward Chipmim, one of the Loyalist makers

of New Brunswick. Although the argument in this case was not followed by

a judicial conclusion--the four judges being divided in opinion--slavery

thereafter practically ceased to exist, not only in New Brunswick, but

in the other maritime provinces, leaving behind it a memory so faint,

that the mere suggestion that there ever was a slave in either of these

provinces is very generally received with surprise, if not with

incredulity.

The early history of representative government in Prince Edward Island

is chiefly a dull narrative of political conflict between the governors

and the assemblies, and of difficulties and controversies arising out of

the extraordinary concessions of lands to a few proprietors, who

generally infringed the conditions of their grants and retarded the

settlement of the island. In New Brunswick the legislature was entirely

occupied with the consideration of measures for the administration of

justice and local affairs in an entirely new country. Party government

had not yet declared itself, and the Loyalists who had founded the

province controlled the legislature for many years until a spirit of

liberalism and reform found full expression and led to the enlargement

of the public liberty.

In Nova Scotia the Loyalists gradually acquired considerable influence

in the government of the province, as the imperial authorities felt it

incumbent on them to provide official positions for those men who had

sacrificed so much for the empire. Their power was increased after the

arrival of Governor John Wentworth--afterwards made a baronet--who had

been the royal governor of New Hampshire, and had naturally a strong

antipathy to democratic principles in any form. In his time there grew

up an official oligarchy, chiefly composed of members of the legislative

council, then embodying within itself executive, legislative and

judicial powers. A Liberal party soon arose in Nova Scotia, not only

among the early New England settlers of the time of Governor Lawrence,

but among the Loyalists themselves, for it is inevitable that wherever

we find an English people, the spirit of popular liberty and the

determination to enjoy self-government in a complete sense will sooner

or later assert itself among all classes of men. The first prominent

leader of the opposition to the Tory methods of the government was one

William Cottnam Tonge, who was for some years in the employ of the naval

department. Sir John Wentworth carried his hostility to the extent of

dismissing him from his naval office and also of refusing to accept him

as speaker of the assembly--the first example in colonial history of an

extreme exercise of the royal prerogative by a governor. Mr. Tonge's

only crime appears to have been his bold assertion from time to time of

the privileges of the house of assembly, as the guardian of the revenues

and expenditures, against the interference of the governor and council.

We find in Nova Scotia, as in the other provinces, during the period in

question, the elements of perpetual discord, which found more serious

expression after the war of 1812-15, and led to important constitutional

changes.

The governors of those times became, from the very nature of their

position, so many provincial autocrats, brought constantly into

conflict with the popular body, and unable to conceive any system of

government possible that did not place the province directly under the

control of the imperial authorities, to whom appeals must be made in the

most trivial cases of doubt or difficulty. The representative of the

crown brooked no interference on the part of the assembly with what he

considered his prerogatives and rights, and as a rule threw himself into

the arms of the council, composed of the official oligarchy. In the

course of time, the whole effort of the Liberal or Reform party, which

gathered strength after 1815, was directed against the power of the

legislative council. We hear nothing in the assemblies or the literature

of the period under review in advocacy of the system of parliamentary or

responsible government which was then in existence in the parent state

and which we now enjoy in British North America. In fact, it was not

until the beginning of the fourth decade of the nineteenth century that

the Liberal politicians of Nova Scotia, like those of Upper Canada,

recognised that the real remedy for existing political grievances was to

be found in the harmonious operation of the three branches of the

legislature. Even then we look in vain for an enunciation of this

essential principle of representative government in the speeches or

writings of a single French Canadian from 1791 until 1838, when the

constitution of Lower Canada was suspended as a result of rebellion.

During the twenty years of which I am writing the government of Canada

had much reason for anxiety on account of the unsatisfactory state of

the relations between Great Britain and the United States, and of the

attempts of French emissaries after the outbreak of the revolution in

France to stir up sedition in Lower Canada. One of the causes of the war

of 1812-15 was undoubtedly the irritation that was caused by the

retention of the western posts by Great Britain despite the stipulation

in the definitive treaty of peace to give them up "with all convenient

speed." This policy of delay was largely influenced by the fact that the

new republic had failed to take effective measures for the restitution

of the estates of the Loyalists or for the payment of debts due to

British creditors; but in addition there was probably still, as in 1763

and 1774, a desire to control the fur-trade and the Indians of the west,

who claimed that the lands between the Canadian frontier and the Ohio

were exclusively their hunting-grounds, not properly included within the

territory ceded to the United States. Jay's treaty, arranged in 1794,

with the entire approval of Washington, who thereby incurred the

hostility of the anti-British party, was a mere temporary expedient for

tiding over the difficulties between England and the United States. Its

most important result so far as it affected Canada was the giving up in

1797 of the western posts including Old Fort Niagara. It became then

necessary to remove the seat of government from Niagara, as an insecure

position, and York, which regained its original Indian name of Toronto

in 1834, was chosen as the capital by Lord Dorchester in preference to a

place suggested by Simcoe on the Tranche, now the Thames, near where

London now stands. The second parliament of Upper Canada met in York on

the first of June, 1797, when Mr. Russell, who had been secretary to Sir

Henry Clinton during the American war, was administrator of the

government after the departure of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe from a

province whose interests he had so deeply at heart.

After the declaration of war against England by the republican

convention of France in 1793, French agents found their way into the

French parishes of Lower Canada, and endeavoured to make the credulous

and ignorant _habitants_ believe that France would soon regain dominion

in her old colony. During General Prescott's administration, one McLane,

who was said to be not quite mentally responsible for his acts, was

convicted at Quebec for complicity in the designs of French agents, and

was executed near St. John's gate with all the revolting incidents of a

traitor's death in those relentless times. His illiterate accomplice,

Frechétte, was sentenced to imprisonment for life, but was soon released

on the grounds of his ignorance of the serious crime he was committing.

No doubt in these days some restlessness existed in the French Canadian

districts, and the English authorities found it difficult for a time to

enforce the provisions of the militia act. Happily for the peace and

security of Canada, the influence of the Bishop and Roman Catholic

clergy, who looked with horror on the murderous acts of the

revolutionists of France, was successfully exerted for the support of

British rule, whose justice and benignity their church had felt ever

since the conquest. The name of Bishop Plessis must always be mentioned

in terms of sincere praise by every English writer who reviews the

history of those trying times, when British interests would have been

more than once in jeopardy had it not been for the loyal conduct of this

distinguished prelate and the priests under his direction.

I shall now proceed to narrate the events of the unfortunate war which

broke out in 1812 between England and the United States, as a result of

the unsettled relations of years, and made Canada a battle ground on

which were given many illustrations of the patriotism and devotion of

the Canadian people, whose conquest, the invaders thought, would be a

very easy task.

CHAPTER V.

THE WAR OF 1812--15.

SECTION I.--Origin of the war between England and the United States.

The causes of the war of 1812-15 must be sought in the history of Europe

and the relations between England and the United States for several

decades before it actually broke out. Great Britain was engaged in a

supreme struggle not only for national existence but even for the

liberties of Europe, from the moment when Napoleon, in pursuance of his

overweening ambition, led his armies over the continent on those

victorious marches which only ended amid the ice and snow of Russia.

Britain's battles were mainly to be fought on the sea where her great

fleet made her supreme. The restriction of all commerce that was not

British was a necessary element in the assertion of her naval

superiority. If neutral nations were to be allowed freely to carry the

produce of the colonies of Powers with whom Great Britain was at war,

then they were practically acting as allies of her enemies, and were

liable to search and seizure. For some time, however, Great Britain

thought it expedient to concur in the practice that when a cargo was

trans-shipped in the United States, and paid a duty there, it became to

all intents and purposes American property and might be carried to a

foreign country and there sold, as if it were the actual produce of the

republic itself. This became a very profitable business to the merchants

of the United States, as a neutral nation, during the years when Great

Britain was at war with France, since they controlled a large proportion

of all foreign commerce. Frauds constantly occurred during the

continuance of this traffic, and at last British statesmen felt the

injury to their commerce was so great that the practice was changed to

one which made American vessels liable to be seized and condemned in

British prize courts whenever it was clear that their cargoes were not

American produce, but were actually purchased at the port of an enemy.

Even provisions purchased from an enemy or its colonies were considered

"contraband of war" on the ground that they afforded actual aid and

encouragement to an enemy. The United States urged at first that only

military stores could fall under this category, and eventually went so

far as to assert the principle that under all circumstances "free ships

make free goods," and that neutral ships had a right to carry any

property, even that of a nation at war with another power, and to trade

when and where they liked without fear of capture. England, however,

would not admit in those days of trial principles which would

practically make a neutral nation an ally of her foe. She persisted in

restricting the commerce of the United States by all the force she had

upon the sea.

This restrictive policy, which touched the American pocket and

consequently the American heart so deeply, was complicated by another

question of equal, if not greater, import. The forcible impressment of

men to man the British fleet had been for many years a necessary evil in

view of the national emergency, and of the increase in the mercantile

marine which attracted large numbers to its service. Great abuses were

perpetrated in the operation of this harsh method of maintaining an

efficient naval force, and there was no part of the British Isles where

the presence of a press gang did not bring dismay into many a home.

Great Britain, then and for many years later, upheld to an extreme

degree the doctrine of perpetual allegiance; she refused to recognise

the right of any of her citizens to divest themselves of their national

fealty and become by naturalisation the subject of a foreign power or a

citizen of the United States Such a doctrine was necessarily most

obnoxious to the government and people of a new republic like the United

States, whose future development rested on the basis of a steady and

large immigration, which lost much of its strength and usefulness as

long as the men who came into the country were not recognised as

American citizens at home and abroad. Great Britain claimed the right,

as a corollary of this doctrine of indefeasible allegiance, to search

the neutral ships of the United States during the war with France, to

enquire into the nationality of the seaman on board of those vessels, to

impress all those whom her officers had reason to consider British

subjects by birth, and to pay no respect to the fact that they may have

been naturalised in the country of their adoption. The assertion of the

right to search a neutral vessel and to impress seamen who were British

subjects has in these modern times been condemned as a breach of the

sound principle, that a right of search can only be properly exercised

in the case of a neutral's violation of his neutrality--that is to say,

the giving of aid to one of the parties to the war The forcible

abduction of a seaman under the circumstances stated was simply an

unwarrantable attempt to enforce municipal law on board a neutral

vessel, which was in effect foreign territory, to be regarded as sacred

and inviolate except in a case where it was brought under the operation

of a recognised doctrine of international law. Great Britain at that

critical period of her national existence would not look beyond the fact

that the acts of the United States as a neutral were most antagonistic

to the energetic efforts she was making to maintain her naval supremacy

during the European crisis created by Napoleon's ambitious designs.

The desertion of British seamen from British ships, for the purpose of

finding refuge in the United States and then taking service in American

vessels, caused great irritation in Great Britain and justified, in the

opinion of some statesmen and publicists who only regarded national

necessities, the harsh and arbitrary manner in which English officials

stopped and searched American shipping on the high seas, seized men whom

they claimed to be deserters, and impressed any whom they asserted to be

still British subjects. In 1807 the British frigate "Leopard," acting

directly under the orders of the admiral at Halifax, even ventured to

fire a broadside into the United States cruiser "Chesapeake" a few miles

from Chesapeake Bay, killed and wounded a number of her crew, and then

carried off several sailors who were said to be, and no doubt were,

deserters from the English service and who were the primary cause of the

detention of this American man-of-war. For this unjustifiable act

England subsequently made some reparation, but nevertheless it rankled

for years in the minds of the party hostile to Great Britain and helped

to swell the list of grievances which the American government in the

course of years accumulated against the parent state as a reason for

war.

The difficulties between England and the United States, which culminated

in war before the present century was far advanced, were also

intensified by disputes which commenced soon after the treaty of 1783. I

have already shown that for some years the north-west posts were still

retained by the English on the ground, it is understood, that the claims

of English creditors, and especially those of the Loyalists, should be

first settled before all the conditions of the treaty could be carried

out. The subsequent treaty of 1794, negotiated by Chief Justice Jay,

adjusted these and other questions, and led for some years to a better

understanding with Great Britain, but at the same time led to a rupture

of friendly relations with the French Directory, who demanded the repeal

of that treaty as in conflict with the one made with France in 1778, and

looked for some tangible evidence of sympathetic interest with the

French revolution. The war that followed with the French republic was

insignificant in its operations, and was immediately terminated by

Napoleon when he overthrew the Directory, and seized the government for

his own ambitious objects. Subsequently, the administration of the

United States refused to renew the Jay Treaty when it duly expired, and

as a consequence the relatively amicable relations that had existed

between the Republic and England again became critical, since American

commerce and shipping were exposed to all the irritating measures that

England felt compelled under existing conditions to carry out in

pursuance of the policy of restricting the trade of neutral vessels.

Several attempts were made by the British government, between the expiry

of the Jay Treaty and the actual rupture of friendly relations with the

United States, to come to a better understanding with respect to some of

the questions in dispute, but the differences between the two Powers

were so radical that all negotiations came to naught. Difficulties were

also complicated by the condition of political parties in the American

republic and the ambition of American statesmen. When the democratic

republicans or "Strict constructionists," as they have been happily

named, with Jefferson at their head, obtained office, French ideas came

into favour; while the federalists or "Broad constitutionalists," of

whom Washington, Hamilton and Adams had been the first exponents, were

anxious to keep the nation free from European complications and to

settle international difficulties by treaty and not by war. But this

party was in a hopeless minority, during the critical times when

international difficulties were resolving themselves into war, and was

unable to influence public opinion sufficiently to make negotiations for

the maintenance of peace successful, despite the fact that it had a

considerable weight in the states of New England.

The international difficulties of the United States entered upon a

critical condition when Great Britain, in her assertion of naval

supremacy and restricted commerce as absolutely essential to her

national security, issued an order-in-council which declared a strict

blockade of the European coast from Brest to the Elbe. Napoleon

retaliated with the Berlin decree, which merely promulgated a paper

blockade of the British Isles. Then followed the later British

orders-in-council, which prevented the shipping of the United States

from trading with any country where British vessels could not enter, and

allowed them only to trade with other European ports where they made

entries and paid duties in English custom-houses. Napoleon increased the

duties of neutral commerce by the Milan decree of 1807, which ordered

the seizure of all neutral vessels which might have been searched by

English cruisers. These orders meant the ruin of American commerce,

which had become so profitable; and the Washington government attempted

to retaliate, first by forbidding the importation of manufactures from

England and her colonies, and, when this effort was ineffective, by

declaring an embargo in its own ports, which had only the result of

still further crippling American commerce at home and abroad.

Eventually, in place of this unwise measure, which, despite its

systematic evasion, brought serious losses to the whole nation and

seemed likely to result in civil war in the east, where the discontent

was greatest, a system of non-intercourse with both England and France

was adopted, to last so long as either should press its restrictive

measures against the republic, but this new policy of retaliation hardly

impeded American commerce, of which the profits were far greater than

the risks. The leaders of the Democratic party were now anxious to

conciliate France, and endeavoured to persuade the nation that Napoleon

had practically freed the United States from the restrictions to which

it so strongly objected. It is a matter beyond dispute that the French

decrees were never exactly annulled; and the Emperor was pursuing an

insidious policy which confiscated American vessels in French ports at

the very moment he was professing friendship with the United States. His

object was to force the government of that country into war with

England, and, unfortunately for its interests, its statesmen lent

themselves to his designs.

The Democratic leaders, determined to continue in power, fanned the

flame against England, whose maritime superiority enabled her to inflict

the greatest injury on American shipping and commerce. The governing

party looked to the south and west for their principal support. In these

sections the interests were exclusively agricultural, while in New

England, where the Federalists were generally in the majority, the

commercial and maritime elements predominated. In Kentucky, Ohio, and

other states there was a strong feeling against England on account of

the current belief that the English authorities in Canada had tampered

with the Indian tribes and induced them to harass the settlers until

Harrison, on the eve of the war of 1812, effectually cowed them. It is,

however, now well established by the Canadian archives that Sir James

Craig, when governor-general in 1807, actually warned the Washington

government of the restlessness of the western Indians, and of the

anxiety of the Canadian authorities to avoid an Indian war in the

north-west, which might prejudicially operate against the western

province. This fact was not, however, generally known, and the feeling

against Canada and England was kept alive by the dominant party in the

United States by the disclosure that one John Henry had been sent by the

Canadian government in 1808 to ascertain the sentiment of the people of

New England with respect to the relations between the two countries and

the maintenance of peace. Henry's correspondence was really quite

harmless, but when it had been purchased from him by Madison, on the

refusal of the imperial government to buy his silence, it served the

temporary purpose of making the people of the west believe that England

was all the while intriguing against the national interests, and

endeavouring to create a discontent which might end in civil strife.

Under these circumstances the southern leaders, Clay of Kentucky, and

Calhoun of South Carolina, who always showed an inveterate animosity

against England, forced Madison, then anxious to be re-elected

president, to send a warlike message to congress, which culminated in a

formal declaration of hostilities on the 18th of June, 1812, only one

day later than the repeal of the obnoxious order-in-council by England.

When the repeal became known some weeks later in Canada and the United

States, the province of Upper Canada had been actually invaded by Hull,

and the government of the United States had no desire whatever to desist

from warlike operations, which, they confidently believed, would end in

the successful occupation of Canada at a time when England was unable,

on account of her European responsibilities, to extend to its defenders

effective assistance.

SECTION 2.--Canada during the war.

In 1812 there were five hundred thousand people living in the provinces

of British North America. Of this number, the French people of Lower

Canada made up at least one half. These people had some grievances, and

political agitators, notably the writers of the _Canadien_, were

creating jealousies and rivalries between the French and English races

chiefly on the ground of the dominant influence of the British minority

in the administration of public affairs. On the whole, however, the

country was prosperous and the people generally contented with British

rule, the freedom of which presented such striking contrast to the

absolutism of the old French régime. The great majority of the eighty

thousand inhabitants of Upper or Western Canada were Loyalists or

descendants of Loyalists, who had become deeply attached to their new

homes, whilst recalling with feelings of deep bitterness the sufferings

and trials of the American revolution. This class was naturally attached

to British rule and hostile to every innovation which had the least

semblance of American republicanism. In the western part of the province

of Upper Canada there was, however, an American element composed of

people who had been brought into the country by the liberal grants of

land made to settlers, and who were not animated by the high sentiments

of the Loyalists of 1783 and succeeding years. These people, for some

years previous to 1812, were misled by political demagogues like Wilcox

and Marcle, both of whom deserted to the enemy soon after the outbreak

of the war. Emissaries from the republic were busily engaged for months,

we now know, in fomenting a feeling against England among these later

immigrants, and in persuading them that the time was close at hand when

Canada would be annexed to the federal republic. Some attempts were even

made to create discontent among the French Canadians, but no success

appears to have followed these efforts in a country where the bishop,

priests and leading men of the rural communities perfectly appreciated

the value of British connection.

The statesmen of the United States, who were responsible for the war,

looked on the provinces as so many weak communities which could be

easily invaded and conquered by the republican armies. Upper Canada,

with its long and exposed frontier and its small and scattered

population, was considered utterly indefensible and almost certain to be

successfully occupied by the invading forces. There was not a town of

one thousand souls in the whole of that province, and the only forts of

any pretension were those on the Niagara frontier. Kingston was a

fortified town of some importance in the eastern part of the province,

but Toronto had no adequate means of defence. At the commencement of the

war there were only fourteen hundred and fifty regular troops in the

whole country west of Montreal, and these men were scattered at

Kingston, York, Niagara, Chippewa, Erie, Amherstburg, and St. Joseph.

The total available militia did not exceed four thousand men, the

majority of whom had little or no knowledge of military discipline, and

were not even in the possession of suitable arms and accoutrements,

though, happily, all were animated by the loftiest sentiments of courage

and patriotism. In the lower provinces of Eastern Canada and Nova

Scotia there was a considerable military force, varying in the aggregate

from four to five thousand men. The fortifications of Quebec were in a

tolerable state of repair, but the citadel which dominates Halifax was

in a dilapidated condition. The latter port was, however, the rendezvous

of the English fleet, which always afforded adequate protection to

British interests on the Atlantic coasts of British North America,

despite the depredations of privateers and the successes attained during

the first months of the war by the superior tonnage and equipment of the

frigates of the republic. But the hopes that were entertained by the war

party in the United States could be gathered from the speeches of Henry

Clay of Kentucky, who believed that the issue would be favourable to

their invading forces, who would even "negotiate terms of peace at

Quebec or Halifax."

The United States had now a population of at least six millions and a

half of whites. It was estimated that during the war the government had

a militia force of between four and five hundred thousand men available

for service, while the regular army amounted to thirty-four thousand

officers and privates. The forces that invaded Canada by the way of Lake

Champlain, Sackett's Harbour, the Niagara and Detroit Rivers, were

vastly superior in numbers to the Canadian army of defence, except in

the closing months of the war, when Prevost had under his command a

large body of Peninsular veterans. One condition was always in favour of

Canada, and that was the sullen apathy or antagonism felt by the people

of New England with respect to the war. Had they been in a different

spirit, Lower Canada would have been in far greater danger of successful

invasion and occupation than was the case at any time during the

progress of the conflict. The famous march of Arnold on Quebec by the

Kennebec and Chaudière Rivers might have been repeated with more serious

consequences while Prevost, and not Guy Carleton, was in supreme command

in the French Canadian province.

I can attempt to limn only the events which stand out most plainly on

the graphic pages of this momentous epoch in Canadian history, and to

pay a humble tribute to the memory of men, whose achievements saved

Canada for England in those days of trial. From the beginning to the end

of the conflict, Upper Canada was the principal battle ground upon which

the combatants fought for the supremacy in North America. Its frontiers

were frequently crossed, its territory was invaded, and its towns and

villages were destroyed by the ruthless hand of a foe who entered the

province not only with the sword of the soldier but even with the torch

of the incendiary. The plan of operations at the outset of the campaign

was to invade the province across the Niagara and Detroit Rivers,

neither of which offered any real obstacles to the passage of a

determined and well-managed army in the absence of strong

fortifications, or a superior defensive force, at every vulnerable point

along the Canadian banks. Queenston was to be a base of operations for a

large force, which would overrun the whole province and eventually

co-operate with troops which could come up from Lake Champlain and march

on Montreal. The forces of the United States in 1812 acted with

considerable promptitude as soon as war was officially declared, and had

they been led by able commanders the result might have been most

unfortunate for Canada. The resources for defence were relatively

insignificant, and indecision and weakness were shown by Sir George

Prevost, then commander-in-chief and governor-general--a well meaning

man but wanting in ability as a military leader, who was also hampered

by the vacillating counsels of the Liverpool administration, which did

not believe in war until the province was actually invaded. It was

fortunate for Canada that she had then at the head of the government in

the upper province General Brock, who possessed decision of character

and the ability to comprehend the serious situation of affairs at a

critical juncture, when his superiors both in England and Canada did

not appear to understand its full significance.

The assembly of Upper Canada passed an address giving full expression to

the patriotic sentiments which animated all classes of people when the

perilous state of affairs and the necessity for energetic action became

apparent to the dullest minds. The Loyalists and their descendants, as

well as other loyal people, rallied at the moment of danger to the

support of Brock; and the immediate result of his decided orders was the

capture of the post of Michillimackinac, which had been, ever since the

days of the French régime, a position of great importance on the upper

lakes. Then followed the ignominious surrender of General Hull and his

army to Brock, and the consequent occupation of Detroit and the present

state of Michigan by the British troops. Later, on the Niagara frontier,

an army of invaders was driven from Queenston Heights, but this victory

cost the life of the great English general, whose promptitude at the

commencement of hostilities had saved the province. Among other brave

men who fell with Brock was the attorney-general of the province,

Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell, who was one of the general's aides.

General Sheaffe, the son of a Loyalist, took command and drove the enemy

across the river, in whose rapid waters many were drowned while

struggling to save themselves from the pursuing British soldiery,

determined to avenge the death of their honoured chief. A later attempt

by General Smyth to invade Canadian territory opposite Black Rock on the

Niagara River, was also attended with the same failure that attended the

futile attempts to cross the Detroit and to occupy the heights of

Queenston. At the close of 1812 Upper Canada was entirely free from the

army of the republic, the Union Jack floated above the fort at Detroit,

and the ambitious plan of invading the French province and seizing

Montreal was given up as a result of the disasters to the enemy in the

west. The party of peace in New England gathered strength, and the

promoters of the war had no consolation except the triumphs obtained at

sea by some heavily armed and well manned frigates of the United States

to the surprise of the government and people of England, who never

anticipated that their maritime superiority could be in any way

endangered by a nation whose naval strength was considered so

insignificant. But these victories of the republic on the ocean during

the first year of the war were soon effaced by the records of the two

subsequent years when "The Chesapeake" was captured by "The Shannon" and

other successes of the British ships restored the prestige of England on

the sea.

During the second year of the war the United States won some military

and naval successes in the upper province, although the final results of

the campaign were largely in favour of the defenders of Canada. The war

opened with the defeat of General Winchester at Frenchtown on the River

Raisins in the present state of Michigan; but this success, which was

won by General Procter, was soon forgotten in the taking of York, the

capital of the province, and the destruction of its public buildings.

This event forced General Sheaffe to retire to Kingston, while General

Vincent retreated to Burlington Heights as soon as the invading army

occupied Fort George and dominated the Niagara frontier. Sir George

Prevost showed his military incapacity at Sackett's Harbour, where he

had it in his power to capture a post which was an important base of

operations against the province. On the other hand Colonel George

Macdonell made a successful attack on Ogdensburg and fittingly avenged

the raid that an American force had made a short time previously on

Elizabethtown, which was called Brockville not long afterwards in honour

of the noted general. An advance of the invading army against General

Vincent was checked by the memorable success won at Stoney Creek by

Colonel Harvey and the surrender at Beaver Dams of Colonel Boerstler to

Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, whose clever strategy enabled him to capture a

large force of the enemy while in command of a few soldiers and Indians.

When September arrived, the small, though all-important, British fleet

on Lake Erie, under the command of Captain Barclay, sustained a fatal

defeat at Put-in-Bay, and the United States vessels under Commodore

Perry held full control of Lake Erie. A few weeks later, General Procter

lost the reputation which he had won in January by his defeat of

Winchester, and was beaten, under circumstances which disgraced him in

the opinion of his superiors, on the River Thames not far from the

Indian village of Moraviantown. The American forces were led by General

Harrison, who had won some reputation in the Indian campaign in the

north-west and who subsequently became, as his son in later times, a

president of the United States.

It was in this engagement that the Shawenese chief, Tecumseh, was

killed, in him England lost a faithful and brave ally. English prospects

in the west were consequently gloomy for some time, until the autumn of

1813, when the auspicious tidings spread from the lakes to the Atlantic

that the forces of the republic, while on their march to Montreal by the

way of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, had been successfully met

and repulsed at Chateauguay and Chrysler's Farm, two of the most

memorable engagements of the war, when we consider the insignificant

forces that checked the invasion and saved Canada at a most critical

time.

In the last month of the same year Fort George was evacuated by the

American garrison, but not before General McLure had shamelessly burned

the pretty town of Niagara, and driven helpless women and children into

the ice and snow of a Canadian winter. General Drummond, who was in

command of the western army, retaliated by the capture of Fort Niagara

and the destruction of all the villages on the American side of the

river as far as Buffalo, then a very insignificant place. When the new

year dawned the only Canadian place in possession of the enemy was

Amherstburg on the western frontier.

The third and last year of the war was distinguished by the capture of

Oswego and Prairie-des-Chiens by British expeditions; the repulse of a

large force of the invaders at Lacolle Mills in Lower Canada; the

surrender of Fort Erie to the enemy, the defeat of General Riall at

Street's or Usher's Creek in the Niagara district, the hotly contested

battle won at Lundy's Lane by Drummond, and the ignominious retreat from

Plattsburg of Sir George Prevost, in command of a splendid force of

peninsular veterans, after the defeat of Commodore Downey's fleet on

Lake Champlain. Before the year closed and peace was proclaimed, Fort

Erie was evacuated, the stars and stripes were driven from Lake Ontario,

and all Canadian territory except Amherstburg was free from the invader.

The capital of the United States had been captured by the British and

its public buildings burned as a severe retaliation for the conduct of

the invading forces at York, Niagara, Moraviantown, St. David's and Port

Dover. Both combatants were by this time heartily tired of the war, and

terms of peace were arranged by the treaty of Ghent at the close of

1814; but before the news reached the south, General Jackson repulsed

General Packenham with heavy losses at New Orleans, and won a reputation

which made him president a few years later.

The maritime provinces never suffered from invasion, but on the contrary

obtained some advantages from the presence of large numbers of British

men-of-war in their seaports, and the expenditure on military and naval

supplies during the three years of war. Following the example of the

Canadas, the assemblies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia voted large

sums of money and embodied the militia for active service or general

purposes of defence. The assembly of New Brunswick, essentially the

province of the Loyalists, declared in 1813 that the people were "ready

and determined to repel every aggression which the infatuated policy of

the American government may induce it to commit on the soil of New

Brunswick." But the war was so unpopular in the state of Maine and other

parts of New England that the provinces by the sea were comparatively

safe from aggression and conflict. Soon after the commencement of

hostilities the governors of Maine and New Brunswick issued

proclamations which prevented hostilities for two years along their

respective borders. In Nova Scotia there was much activity during the

war, and letters of marque were issued to privateers which made many

captures, and offered some compensation for the losses inflicted on the

coasting and fishing interests by the same class of American vessels. In

1814 it was decided by the imperial authorities to break the truce which

had practically left Maine free from invasion, and Sir John Sherbrooke,

then governor of Nova Scotia, and Rear-Admiral Griffith took possession

of Machias, Eastport, Moose, and other islands in Passamaquoddy Bay.

The people of the United States generally welcomed the end of a war

which brought them neither honour nor profit and seemed likely to break

the union into fragments in consequence of the hostility that had

existed in New England through the conflict from the very beginning. The

news of Prevost's retreat from Plattsburg no doubt hastened the decision

of the British government to enter into negotiations for peace, which

was settled on terms by no means favourable to Canadian interests. The

question of the New Brunswick boundary might have been then adjusted on

conditions which would have prevented at a later day the sacrifice of a

large tract of territory in Maine which would be now of great value to

the Dominion. The only advantage which accrued to the Canadians was a

later convention which gave the people of the provinces full control of

fisheries, ignorantly sacrificed by the treaty of 1783.

No class of the people of Canada contributed more to the effectiveness

of the militia and the successful defence of the country than the

descendants of the Loyalists, who formed so large and influential a

portion of the English population of British North America. All the

loyal settlements on the banks of the St. Lawrence, on the Niagara

frontier, and on the shores of Lake Erie, sent many men to fight by the

side of the regular British forces. Even aged men, who had borne arms in

the revolutionary war, came forward with an enthusiasm which showed that

age had not impaired their courage or patriotism, and although they were

exempted from active service, they were found most useful in stationary

duties at a time when Canada demanded the experience of such veterans.

"Their lessons and example," wrote General Sheaffe, "will have a happy

influence on the youth of the militia ranks." When Hull invaded the

province and issued his boastful and threatening proclamation he used

language which must have seemed a mockery to the children of the

Loyalists. They remembered too well the sufferings of their fathers and

brothers during "the stormy period of the revolution," and it seemed

derisive to tell them now that they were to be "emancipated from tyranny

and oppression and restored to the dignified station of free men." The

proclamation issued by Governor Brock touched the loyal hearts of a

people whose family histories were full of examples of "oppression and

tyranny," and of the kind consideration and justice of England in their

new homes. "Where," asked Brock, with the confidence of truth, "is the

Canadian subject who can truly affirm to himself that he has been

injured by the government in his person, his property, or his liberty?

Where is to be found, in any part of the world, a growth so rapid in

prosperity and wealth as this colony exhibits?" These people, to whom

this special appeal was made at this national crisis, responded with a

heartiness which showed that gratitude and affection lay deep in their

hearts. Even the women worked in the field that their husbands, brothers

and sons might drive the invaders from Canadian soil. The 104th

Regiment, which accomplished a remarkable march of thirteen days in the

depth of winter, from Fredericton to Quebec--a distance of three hundred

and fifty miles--and lost only one man by illness, was composed of

descendants of the loyal founders of New Brunswick. This march was

accomplished practically without loss, while more than three hundred

men were lost by Benedict Arnold in his expedition of 1777 against

Quebec by the way of Kennebec--a journey not more dangerous or arduous

than that so successfully accomplished by the New Brunswick Loyalists.

In 1814 considerable numbers of seamen for service in the upper lakes

passed through New Brunswick to Quebec, and were soon followed by

several companies of the 8th or King's Regiment. The patriotism of the

Loyalists of New Brunswick was shown by grants of public money and every

other means in their power, while these expeditions were on their way to

the seat of war in the upper provinces.

Historians and poets have often dwelt on the heroism of Laura Secord,

daughter and wife of Loyalists, who made a perilous journey in 1814

through the Niagara district, and succeeded in warning Lieutenant

Fitzgibbon of the approach of the enemy, thus enabling him with a few

soldiers and Indians to surprise Colonel Boerstler near Beaver Dams and

force him by clever strategy to surrender with nearly 600 men and

several cannon. Even boys fled from home and were found fighting in the

field. The Prince Regent, at the close of the war, expressly thanked the

Canadian militia, who had "mainly contributed to the immediate

preservation of the province and its future security." The Loyalists,

who could not save the old colonies to England, did their full share in

maintaining her supremacy in the country she still owned in the valley

of the St. Lawrence and on the shores of the Atlantic.

As Bishop Plessis stimulated a patriotic sentiment among the French

Canadians, so Vicar-General Macdonell of Glengarry, subsequently the

first Roman Catholic bishop of Upper Canada, performed good service by

assisting in the formation of a Glengarry regiment, and otherwise taking

an active part in the defence of the province, where his will always be

an honoured name. Equally indefatigable in patriotic endeavour was

Bishop Strachan, then rector of York, who established "The Loyal and

Patriotic Society," which did incalculable good by relieving the

necessities of women and children, when the men were serving in the

battlefield, by providing clothing and food for the soldiery, and

otherwise contributing towards the comfort and succour of all those who

were taking part in the public defences. Of the engagements of the war

there are two which, above all others, possess features on which the

historian must always like to dwell. The battle which was fought against

such tremendous odds on the banks of the Chateauguay by less than a

thousand French Canadians, led by Salaberry and Macdonell, recalls in

some respects the defeat of Braddock in 1755. The disaster to the

British forces near the Monongahela was mainly the result of the

strategy of the Indians, who were dispersed in the woods which reechoed

to their wild yells and their ever fatal shots fired under cover of

trees, rocks and stumps. The British were paralysed as they saw their

ranks steadily decimated by the fire of an enemy whom they could never

see, and who seemed multitudinous as their shrieks and shouts were heard

far and wide in that Bedlam of the forest. The leaves that lay thick and

deep on the ground were reddened with the blood of many victims helpless

against the concealed, relentless savages. The woods of the Chateauguay

did not present such a scene of carnage as was witnessed at the battle

of the Monongahela, but nevertheless they seemed to the panic-stricken

invaders, who numbered many thousands, alive with an enemy whose

strength was enormously exaggerated as bugle sounds and Indian yells

made a fearful din on every side. Believing themselves surrounded by

forces far superior in numbers, the invaders became paralysed with fear

and fled in disorder from an enemy whom they could not see, and who

might close upon them at any moment. In this way Canadian pluck and

strategy won a famous victory which saved the province of Lower Canada

at a most critical moment of the war.

If we leave the woods of Chateauguay, where a monument has been raised

in recognition of this brilliant episode of the war, and come to the

country above which rises the mist of the cataract of Niagara, we see a

little acclivity over which passes that famous thoroughfare called

"Lundy's Lane." Here too rises a stately shaft in commemoration of

another famous victory--in many respects the most notable of the

war--won by a gallant Englishman, whose name still clings to the pretty

town close by.

This battle was fought on a midsummer night, when less than three

thousand British and Canadian troops fought six hours against a much

superior force, led by the ablest officers who had taken part in the

war. For three hours, from six to nine o'clock at night, less than two

thousand held the height, which was the main object of attack from the

beginning to the end of the conflict, and kept at bay the forces that

were led against them with a stern determination to win the position.

Sunlight gave way to the twilight of a July evening, and dense darkness

at last covered the combatants, but still the fight went on. Columns of

the enemy charged in such close and rapid succession that the British

artillerymen were constantly assailed in the very act of sponging and

loading their guns. The assailants once won the height, but only to find

themselves repulsed the next instant by the resolute daring of the

British. Happily at the most critical moment, when the defenders of the

hill were almost exhausted by the heroic struggle, reinforcements

arrived, and the battle was renewed with a supreme effort on both sides.

For three hours longer, from nine o'clock to midnight, the battle was

fought in the darkness, only relieved by the unceasing flashes from the

guns, whose sharp reports mingled with the deep and monotonous roar of

the great falls. It was a scene worthy of a painter whose imagination

could grasp all the incidents of a situation essentially dramatic in its

nature. The assailants of the Canadian position gave way at last and

withdrew their wearied and disheartened forces. It was in all respects a

victory for England and Canada, since the United States army did not

attempt to renew the battle on the next day, but retired to Fort Erie,

then in their possession. As Canadians look down "the corridors of

time," they will always see those flashes from the musketry and cannon

of Lundy's Lane, and hear the bugles which drove the invaders of their

country from the woods of Chateauguay.

The war did much to solidify the various racial elements of British

North America during its formative stage. Frenchmen, Englishmen,

Scotsmen from the Lowlands and Highlands, Irishmen and Americans, united

to support the British connection. The character of the people,

especially in Upper Canada, was strengthened from a national point of

view by the severe strain to which it was subjected. Men and women alike

were elevated above the conditions of a mere colonial life and the

struggle for purely material necessities, and became animated by that

spirit of self-sacrifice and patriotic endeavour which tend to make a

people truly great.

CHAPTER VI.

THE EVOLUTION OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT (1815--1839)

SECTION I.--The rebellion in Lower Canada.

Responsible government in Canada is the logical sequence of the

political struggles, which commenced soon after the close of the war of

1812-15. As we review the history of Canada since the conquest we can

recognise "one ever increasing purpose" through all political changes,

and the ardent desire of men, entrusted at the outset with a very

moderate degree of political responsibility, to win for themselves a

larger measure of political liberty in the management of their own local

affairs. Grave mistakes were often made by the advocates of reform in

the government of the several provinces--notably, as I shall show, in

Lower Canada, where the French Canadian majority were carried often

beyond reason at the dictation of Papineau--but, whatever may have been

the indiscretions of politicians, there were always at the bottom of

their demands the germs of political development.

The political troubles that continued from 1817 until 1836 in Lower

Canada eventually made the working of legislative institutions

impracticable. The contest gradually became one between the

governor-general representing the crown and the assembly controlled

almost entirely by a French Canadian majority, with respect to the

disposition of the public revenues and expenditures. Imperial statutes,

passed as far back as 1774-1775, provided for the levying of duties, to

be applied solely by the crown, primarily "towards defraying the

expenses of the administration of justice and the support of the civil

government of the province", and any sums that remained in the hands of

the government were "for the future disposition of parliament." Then

there were "the casual or territorial revenues," such as money arising

from the Jesuits' estates, royal seigniorial dues, timber and land, all

of which were also exclusively under the control of the government. The

assembly had been given jurisdiction only over the amount of duties

payable into the treasury under the authority of laws passed by the

legislature itself. In case the royal revenues were not sufficient to

meet the annual expenditure of the government, the deficiency was met

until the war of 1812-15 by drawing on the military exchequer. As the

expenses of the provincial administration increased the royal revenues

became inadequate, while the provincial revenues gradually showed a

considerable surplus over the expenditure voted by the legislature. In

1813 the cost of the war made it impossible for the government to use

the military funds, and it resorted to the provincial moneys for the

expenses of justice and civil government. In this way, by 1817, the

government had incurred a debt of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds

to the province without the direct authority of the legislature. The

assembly of Lower Canada was not disposed to raise troublesome issues

during the war, or in any way to embarrass the action of Sir George

Prevost, who, whatever may have been his incompetency as a military

chief, succeeded by his conciliatory and persuasive methods in winning

the good opinions of the French Canadian majority and making himself an

exceptionally popular civil governor. After closing the accounts of the

war, the government felt it expedient to stop such irregular

proceedings, to obtain from the legislature a general appropriation act,

covering the amount of expenditures in the past, and to prevent the

necessity of such a questionable application of provincial funds in the

future. This may be considered the beginning of the financial

controversies that were so constant, as years passed by, between the

governors and the assemblies, and never ended until the rebellion broke

out. The assembly, desirous of obtaining power in the management of

public affairs, learned that it could best embarrass the government and

force them to consider and adjust public grievances, as set forth by the

majority in the house, by means of the appropriation bills required for

the public service. The assembly not only determined to exercise sole

control over its own funds but eventually demanded the disposal of the

duties imposed and regulated by imperial statutes. The conflict was

remarkable for the hot and uncompromising temper constantly exhibited by

the majority on the discussion of the generally moderate and fair

propositions submitted by the government for settling vexed questions.

The assembly found a powerful argument in favour of their persistent

contention for a complete control of the public revenues and

expenditures in the defalcation of Mr. Caldwell, the receiver-general,

who had been allowed for years to use the public funds in his business

speculations, and whose property was entirely inadequate to cover the

deficiency in his accounts.

The legislative council was always ready to resist what it often

asserted to be unconstitutional acts on the part of the house and direct

infringements of "the rights of the crown" sometimes a mere convenient

phrase used in an emergency to justify resistance to the assembly. It

often happened, however, that the upper chamber had law on its side,

when the house became perfectly unreasonable and uncompromising in its

attitude of hostility to the government. The council, on several

occasions, rejected a supply bill because it contained provisions

asserting the assembly's right to control the crown revenues and to vote

the estimates, item by item, from the governor's salary down to that of

the humblest official. Every part of the official and legislative

machinery became clogged by the obstinacy of governor, councils, and

assembly. To such an extent, indeed, did the assembly's assumption of

power carry it in 1836, that the majority actually asserted its own

right to amend the constitution of the council as defined in the

imperial statute of 1791. Its indiscreet acts eventually alienated the

sympathy and support of such English members as Mr. Neilson, a

journalist and politician of repute, Mr. Andrew Stuart, a lawyer of

ability, and others who believed in the necessity of constitutional

reforms, but could not follow Mr. Papineau and his party in their

reckless career of attack on the government, which they thought would

probably in the end imperil British connection.

The government was in the habit of regularly submitting its accounts and

estimates to the legislature, and expressed its desire eventually to

grant that body the disposal of all the crown revenues, provided it

would consent to vote a civil list for the king's life, or even for a

fixed number of years, but the assembly was not willing to agree to any

proposal which prevented it from annually taking up the expenditures for

the civil government item by item, and making them matters of yearly

vote. In this way every person in the public service would be subject to

the caprice, or ill-feeling, of any single member of the legislature,

and the whole administration of the public departments would probably be

made ineffective. Under the plan suggested by the government in

accordance with English constitutional forms, the assembly would have

every opportunity of criticising all the public expenditures, and even

reducing the gross sum in cases of extravagance. But the same

contumacious spirit, which several times expelled Mr. Christie, member

for Gaspé, on purely vexatious and frivolous charges, and constantly

impeached judges without the least legal justification, simply to

satisfy personal spite or political malice, would probably have been

exhibited towards all officials had the majority in the assembly been

given the right of voting each salary separately. The assembly never

once showed a disposition to meet the wishes of the government even

half-way. Whatever may have been the vacillation or blundering of

officials in Downing Street, it must be admitted that the imperial

government showed a conciliatory spirit throughout the whole financial

controversy. Step by step it yielded to all the demands of the assembly

on this point. In 1831, when Lord Grey was premier, the British

parliament passed an act, making it lawful for the legislatures of Upper

and Lower Canada to appropriate the duties raised by imperial statutes

for the purpose of defraying the charges of the administration of

justice and the support of civil government. The government consequently

retained only the relatively small sum arising from casual and

territorial dues. When Lord Aylmer, the governor-general, communicated

this important concession to the legislature, he also sent a message

setting forth the fact that it was the settled policy of the crown on no

future occasion to nominate a judge either to the executive or the

legislative council, the sole exception being the chief justice of

Quebec. He also gave the consent of the government to the passage of an

act declaring that judges of the supreme court should thereafter hold

office "during good behaviour," on the essential condition that their

salaries were made permanent by the legislature. The position of the

judiciary had long been a source of great and even just complaint, and,

in the time of Sir James Craig, judges were disqualified from sitting in

the assembly on the demand of that body. They continued, however, to

hold office "during the pleasure" of the crown, and to be called at its

will to the executive and legislative councils. Under these

circumstances they were, with some reason, believed to be more or less

under the influence of the governor-general; and particular judges

consequently fell at times under the ban of the assembly, and were

attacked on the most frivolous grounds. The assembly passed a bill

providing for the independence of the judiciary, but it had to be

reserved because it was not in accordance with the conditions considered

necessary by the crown for the protection of the bench.

The governor-general also in his message promised reforms of the

judicial and legal systems, the disposal of the funds arising from the

Jesuits' estates by the legislature, and, in fact, nearly all the

reforms which had been demanded by the house for years. Yet when the

government asked at the same time for a permanent civil list, the

message was simply referred to a committee of the whole house which

never reported. Until this time the efforts of the assembly to obtain

complete control of the public revenues and expenditures had a

justification in the fact that it is a recognised English principle that

the elected house should impose the taxes and vote the supplies; but

their action on this occasion, when the imperial government made most

important concessions, giving them full control over the public funds,

simply on condition that they should follow the English system of voting

the salaries of the judiciary and civil list, showed that the majority

were earned away by a purely factious spirit. During the progress of

these controversies, Mr. Louis Joseph Papineau, a brilliant but an

unsafe leader, had become the recognised chief of the French Canadian

majority, who for years elected him speaker of the assembly. In the

absence of responsible government, there was witnessed in those times

the extraordinary spectacle--only now-a-days seen in the American

congress--of the speaker, who should be above all political antagonisms,

acting as the leader of an arrogant majority, and urging them to

continue in their hostility to the government. It was Mr. Papineau who

first brought the governor-general directly into the arena of political

conflict by violent personal attacks; and indeed he went so far in the

case of Lord Dalhousie, a fair-minded man anxious to act moderately

within the limits of the constitution, that the latter felt compelled by

a sense of dignity to refuse the confirmation of the great agitator as

speaker in 1827. The majority in the assembly vehemently asserted their

right to elect their speaker independently of the governor, whose

confirmation was a mere matter of form, and not of statutory right; and

the only course at last open to Lord Dalhousie was to prorogue the

legislature. Mr. Papineau was re-elected speaker at the next session,

when Lord Dalhousie had gone to England and Sir James Kempt was

administrator.

After 1831, Mr. Papineau steadily evoked the opposition of the more

conservative and thoughtful British Liberals who were not disposed to be

carried into a questionable position, inimical to British connection and

the peace of the country, Dr. Wolfred Nelson, and Dr. O'Callaghan, a

journalist, were soon the only supporters of ability left him among the

British and Irish, the great majority of whom rallied to the support of

the government when a perilous crisis arrived in the affairs of the

province. The British party dwindled away in every appeal to the people,

and no French Canadian representative who presumed to differ from Mr.

Papineau was ever again returned to the assembly. Mr. Papineau became

not only a political despot but an "irreconcilable," whose vanity led

him to believe that he would soon become supreme in French Canada, and

the founder of _La Nation Canadienne_ in the valley of the St. Lawrence.

The ninety-two resolutions passed in 1834 may be considered the climax

of the demands of his party, which for years had resisted immigration as

certain to strengthen the British population, had opposed the

establishment of registry offices as inconsistent with the French

institutions of the province, and had thrown every possible opposition

in the way of the progress of the Eastern Townships, which were

attracting year by year an industrious and energetic British population

from the British Isles and New England.

In these resolutions of 1834 there is not a single paragraph or even

phrase which can be tortured into showing that the French Canadian

agitator and his friends were in favour of responsible government. The

key-note of the whole document is an elective legislative council, which

would inevitably increase the power of the French Canadians and place

the British in a hopeless minority. Mr. Roebuck, the paid agent of the

assembly in England, is said to have suggested the idea of this elective

body, and assuredly his writings and speeches were always calculated to

do infinite harm, by helping to inflame discontent in Canada, and

misrepresenting in England the true condition of affairs in the

province. The resolutions are noteworthy for their verbosity and entire

absence of moderate and wise suggestion. They were obviously written

under the inspiration of Mr. Papineau with the object of irritating the

British government, and preventing the settlement of political

difficulties. They even eulogised the institutions of the neighbouring

states which "commanded the affection of the people in a larger measure

than those of any other country," and should be regarded "as models of

government for Canada." They even went so far as "to remind parliament

of the consequences of its efforts to overrule the wishes of the

American colonies," in case they should make any "modification" in the

constitution of the province "independently of the wishes of its

people." Colonel Gugy, Mr. Andrew Stuart, Mr. Neilson and other

prominent Englishmen opposed the passage of these resolutions, as

calculated to do infinite harm, but they were carried by a very large

French Canadian majority at the dictation of Mr. Papineau. Whatever may

have been its effect for the moment, this wordy effusion has long since

been assigned to the limbo where are buried other examples of the

demagogism of those trying times.

In 1835 the imperial government decided to send three commissioners to

examine into the various questions which had been so long matters of

agitation in Lower Canada. Lord Aberdeen, then Colonial Secretary of

State, emphatically stated that it was the intention of the government

"to review and enquire into every alleged grievance and examine every

cause of complaint, and apply a remedy to every abuse that may still be

found to prevail."

The choice of the government as chief commissioner and governor-general

was Lord Gosford, an amiable, inexperienced and weak man, who failed

either to conciliate the French Canadian majority to whom he was even

humble for a while, or to obtain the confidence of the British party to

whose counsels and warnings he did not pay sufficient heed at the

outset of the crisis which culminated during his administration. The

majority in the assembly were determined not to abate one iota of their

pretensions, which now included the control of the casual and

territorial revenues; and no provision whatever was made for four years

for the payment of the public service. The commissioners reported

strongly against the establishment of an elected council, and in favour

of a modified system of responsible government, not dependent on the

vote of the house. They recommended also the surrender of the casual and

territorial revenues on condition of proper provision for the payment of

the civil service, and the administration of justice.

The imperial government immediately recognised that they had to face a

very serious crisis in the affairs of Lower Canada. On the 6th March,

1836, Lord John Russell, then home secretary in Lord Melbourne's

administration, introduced a series of ten resolutions, providing for

the immediate payment of the arrears of £142,160. 14s. 6d., due to the

public service, out of the moneys in the hands of the receiver-general.

While it was admitted that measures should be taken to secure for the

legislative council a greater degree of public confidence, the

government deemed it inexpedient to make that body elective. The

necessity of improving the position of the executive council was also

acknowledged, but the suggestion of a ministry responsible to the

assembly was not approved. This disapproval was quite in accordance with

the policy adopted by Englishmen since 1822, when a measure had been

introduced in parliament for the reunion of the two Canadas--the

precursor of the measure of 1840. This measure originally provided that

two members of the executive council should sit and speak in the

assembly but not vote. Those parts of the bill of 1822 which provided

for a union were not pressed on account of the objections raised in both

the provinces, but certain other provisions became law under the title

of "The Canadian Trade Acts," relieving Upper Canada from the

capricious action of Lower Canada with respect to the duties from which

the former obtained the principal part of her fund for carrying on her

government. This share had been originally fixed at one-fifth of the

proceeds of the customs duties collected by the province of Lower

Canada, but when the population of the western section increased

considerably and consumed a far greater quantity of dutiable goods, its

government justly demanded a larger proportion of the revenues collected

in the ports of the lower St. Lawrence. The legislature of Lower Canada

paid no attention to this equitable demand, and eventually even refused

to renew the legislation providing for the payment of one-fifth of the

duties. Under these circumstances the imperial government found it

necessary to intervene, and pass the "Trade Acts," making the past

legislation of Lower Canada on the subject permanent, and preventing its

legislature from imposing new duties on imports without the consent of

the upper province. As this was a question of grave import, the

resolutions of 1836 gave authority to the legislatures of Upper and

Lower Canada to provide joint legislation "for determining and adjusting

all questions respecting the trade and commerce of the provinces."

As soon as the passage of these resolutions became known throughout

Lower Canada, Papineau and his supporters commenced an active campaign

of denunciation against England, from whom, they declared, there was no

redress whatever to be expected. Wherever the revolutionists were in the

majority, they shouted, "_Vive la liberté!" "Vive la Nation Canadienne!"

"Vive Papineau!" "Point de despotisme_!": while flags and placards were

displayed with similar illustrations of popular frenzy. _La Nation

Canadienne_ was now launched on the turbulent waves of a little

rebellion in which the phrases of the French revolution were glibly

shouted by the _habitants_ with very little conception of their real

significance. The British or Constitutional party took active steps in

support of British connection, but Lord Gosford, unhappily still

governor-general, did not for some time awaken to the reality of the

public danger. Happily for British interests, Sir John Culhorne,

afterwards Lord Seaforth, a courageous and vigilant soldier, was in the

country, and was able, when orders were given him by the reluctant

governor, to deal determinedly with the rebels who had taken up arms in

the Richelieu district. Dr. Wolfred Nelson made a brave stand at St.

Denis, and repulsed Colonel Gore's small detachment of regulars.

Papineau was present for a while at the scene of conflict, but he took

no part in it and lost no time in making a hurried flight to the United

States--an ignominious close to a successful career of rhetorical

flashes which had kindled a conflagration that he took very good care

should not even scorch him. Colonel Wetherall defeated another band of

rebels at St. Charles, and their commander, Mr. Thomas Storrow Brown, a

well-meaning but gullible man, fled across the border. Dr. Wolfred

Nelson was captured, and a number of other rebels of less importance

were equally unfortunate. Some of the refugees made a public

demonstration from Vermont, but precipitately fled before a small force

which met them. At St. Eustache, one Girod, a plausible, mendacious

Swiss or Alsatian, who had become a leader in the rebellious movement,

and Dr. Chenier, a rash but courageous man, collected a considerable

body of rebels, chiefly from St. Benoit, despite the remonstrances of

Mr. Paquin, the curé of the village, and defended the stone church and

adjacent buildings against a large force, led by Sir John Colborne

himself. Dr. Chenier and many others--at least seventy, it is said on

good authority--were killed, and the former has in the course of time

been elevated to the dignity of a national hero and a monument raised in

his honour on a public square of the French Canadian quarters of

Montreal. Mad recklessness rather than true heroism signalised his

action in this unhappy affair, when he led so many of his credulous

compatriots to certain death, but at least he gave up his life manfully

to a lost cause rather than fly like Papineau who had beguiled him to

this melancholy conclusion. Even Girod showed courage and ended his own

life when he found that he could not evade the law. The rebellious

element at St. Benoit was cowed by the results at St. Eustache; and the

Abbé Chartier, who had taken an active part in urging the people to

resistance, fled to the United States whence he never returned. The

greater part of the village was destroyed by fire, probably in

retaliation for the losses and injuries suffered by the volunteers at

the hands of the rebels in different parts of the district of Montreal.

One of the most unfortunate and discreditable incidents of the rising in

the Richelieu district was the murder of Lieutenant Weir, who had been

taken prisoner while carrying despatches to Sorel, and was literally

hacked to pieces, when he tried to escape from a _calèche_ in which he

was being conveyed to St. Charles. An equally unhappy incident was the

cold-blooded execution, after a mock trial, of one Chartrand, a harmless

non-combatant who was accused, without a tittle of evidence, of being a

spy. The temper of the country can be gauged by the fact that when it

was attempted, some time later, to convict the murderers on clear

evidence, it was impossible to obtain a verdict. Jolbert, the alleged

murderer of Weir, was never punished, but François Nicholas and Amable

Daumais, who had aided in the trial and execution of Chartrand, were

subsequently hanged for having taken an active part in the second

insurrection of 1838.

The rebellion of 1837 never reached any large proportions, and very few

French Canadians of social or political standing openly participated in

the movement. Monseigneur Lartigue, Roman Catholic bishop of Montreal,

issued a _mandement_ severely censuring the misguided men who had joined

in the rebellious movement and caused so much misery throughout the

province. In England, strange to say, there were men found, even in

parliament, ready to misrepresent the facts and glory in a rebellion the

causes of which they did not understand. The animating motive with

these persons was then--and there were similar examples during the

American revolution--to assail the government of the day and make

political capital against them, but, it must be admitted, in all

fairness to the reform ministry of that day and even to preceding

cabinets for some years, that the policy of all was to be just and

conciliatory in their relations with the provincial agitators, though it

is also evident that a more thorough knowledge of political conditions

and a more resolute effort to a reach the bottom of grievances might

have long before removed causes of irritation and saved the loss of

property and life in 1837 and 1838.

In the presence of a grave emergency, the British government felt

compelled to suspend the constitution of Lower Canada, and send out Lord

Durham, a Liberal statesman of great ability, to act as governor-general

and high commissioner "for the determining of certain important

questions depending in the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada

respecting the form and future government of the said provinces" Despite

a certain haughtiness of manner which was apt to wound his inferiors and

irritate his equals in position, he was possessed of a great fund of

accurate political knowledge and a happy faculty of grasping all the

essential facts of a difficult situation, and suggesting the best remedy

to apply under all the circumstances. He endeavoured, to the utmost of

his ability, to redeem the pledge with which he entered on his mission

to Canada, in the first instance "to assert the supremacy of her

majesty's government," in the next "to vindicate the honour and dignity

of the law," and above all "to know nothing of a British, a French, or a

Canadian party," but "to look on them all alike as her majesty's

subjects." After he had appointed a special council he set to work

energetically to secure the peace of the country. Humanity was the

distinguishing feature of his too short career in Canada. A

comprehensive amnesty was proclaimed to all those engaged in the

rebellion with the exception of Dr. Wolfred Nelson, R.S.M. Bouchette,

Bonaventure Viger, Dr. Masson, and four others of less importance, who

were ordered by an ordinance to be transported to Bermuda during the

queen's pleasure. These persons, as well as sixteen others, including

Papineau, who had fled from justice, were declared to be subject to

death should they venture to enter the province. Not a single rebel

suffered death on the scaffold during Lord Durham's administration.

Unfortunately the ordinance, transporting a number of persons without

trial to an island where the governor-general had no jurisdiction, gave

an opportunity to Lord Brougham, who hated the high commissioner, to

attack him in the house of lords. Lord Melbourne, then premier, was

forced to repeal the ordinance and to consent to the passage of a bill

indemnifying all those who had acted under its provisions Lord Glenelg,

colonial secretary, endeavoured to diminish the force of this

parliamentary censure by writing to the high commissioner that "her

majesty's government repeat their approbation of the spirit in which

these measures were conceived and state their conviction that they have

been dictated by a judicious and enlightened humanity"; but a statesman

of Lord Durham's haughty character was not ready to submit to such a

rebuke as he had sustained in parliament He therefore immediately placed

his resignation in the hands of the government which had commissioned

him with powers to give peace and justice to distracted Canada, and yet

failed to sustain him at the crucial moment. Before leaving the country

he issued a proclamation in defence of his public acts. His course in

this particular offended the ministry who, according to Lord Glenelg,

considered it a dangerous innovation, as it was practically an appeal by

a public officer to the public against the measures of parliament. Lord

Durham may be pardoned under all the circumstances for resenting at the

earliest possible moment his desertion by the government, who were bound

in honour to defend him, at all hazards, in his absence, and should not

have given him over for the moment to his enemies, led by a spiteful

Scotch lawyer. Lord Durham left Canada with the assurance that he had

won the confidence of all loyal British subjects and proved to all

French Canadians that there were English statesmen prepared to treat

them with patience, humanity and justice.

Sir John Colborne became administrator on the departure of Lord Durham,

and subsequently governor-general. Unhappily he was immediately called

upon to crush another outbreak of the rebels, in November, 1838, in the

counties watered by the Richelieu River, and in the district immediately

south of Montreal. Dr. Robert Nelson and some other rebels, who had

found refuge in the frontier towns and villages of Vermont and New York,

organised this second insurrection, which had the support of a

considerable number of _habitants_, though only a few actually took up

arms. The rising, which began at Caughnawaga, was put down at

Beauharnois, within a week from the day on which it commenced. The

authorities now felt that the time had passed for such leniency as had

been shown by Lord Durham; and Sir John Colborne accordingly established

courts-martial for the trial of the prisoners taken during this second

insurrection, as it was utterly impossible to obtain justice through the

ordinary process of the courts. Only twelve persons, however, suffered

the extreme penalty of the law; some were sent to New South Wales--where

however they were detained only a short time; and the great majority

were pardoned on giving security for good behaviour.

While these trials were in progress, and the government were anxious to

give peace and security to the province, refugees in the border states

were despatching hands of ruffians to attack and plunder the Loyalists

in the Eastern Townships; but the government of the United States

intervened and instructed its officers to take decisive measures for the

repression of every movement in the territory of a friendly Power. Thus

the mad insurrection incited by Papineau, but actually led by the

Nelsons, Chenier and Brown, came at last to an end.

A new era of political development was now to dawn on the province, as a

result of a more vigorous and remedial policy initiated by the imperial

government, at last thoroughly awakened to an intelligent comprehension

of the political conditions of the Canadas. But before I proceed to

explain the details of measures fraught with such important

consequences, I must give an historical summary of the events which led

also to a rash uprising in Upper Canada, simultaneously with the one

which ended so disastrously for its leaders in the French province.

SECTION 2.--The rebellion in Upper Canada.

The financial disputes between the executive and the assembly never

attained such prominence in Upper Canada as in the lower province. In

1831 the assembly consented to make permanent provision for the civil

list and the judiciary, on condition of the government's giving up to

the legislature all the revenues previously at its own disposition.

Three years later the legislature also passed an act to provide that the

judges should hold their offices during good behaviour, and not at the

pleasure of the crown--a measure rendered possible by the fact that the

assembly had made the salaries of the bench permanent.

Nor did the differences between the assembly and the legislative council

ever assume such serious proportions as they did in the French province.

Still the leaders of the reform party of Upper Canada had strong

objections to the constitution of the council; and a committee of

grievances reported in 1835 in favour of an elected body as well as a

responsible council, although it did not very clearly outline the

methods of working out the system in a colony where the head of the

executive was an imperial officer acting under royal instructions. The

different lieutenant-governors, the executive and legislative

councillors, and the whole body of officials, from the very moment

responsible government was suggested in any form, threw every possible

obstacle in the way of its concession by the imperial government.

It was largely the dominant influence of the official combination, long

known in Canadian history as the "family compact," which prevented the

concession of responsible government before the union of the Canadas.

This phrase, as Lord Durham said in his report, was misleading inasmuch

as there "was very little of family connection between the persons thus

united." As a matter of fact the phrase represented a political and

aristocratic combination, which grew up as a consequence of the social

conditions of the province and eventually monopolised all offices and

influence in government. This bureaucracy permeated all branches of

government--the executive, the legislative council, and even the

assembly where for years there sat several members holding offices of

emolument under the crown. It practically controlled the banks and

monetary circles. The Church of England was bound up in its interests.

The judiciary was more or less under its influence while judges were

appointed during pleasure and held seats in the councils. This governing

class was largely composed of the descendants of the Loyalists of 1784,

who had taken so important a part in the war with the United States and

always asserted their claims to special consideration in the

distribution of government favour. The old settlers--all those who had

come into the country before the war--demanded and obtained greater

consideration at the hands of the government than the later immigrants,

who eventually found themselves shut out of office and influence. The

result was the growth of a Liberal or Reform party, which, while

generally composed of the later immigrants, comprised several persons of

Loyalist extraction, who did not happen to belong to the favoured class

or church, but recognised the necessity for a change in the methods of

administration. Among these Loyalists must be specially mentioned Peter

Perry, who was really the founder of the Reform party in 1834, and the

Reverend Egerton Ryerson, a Methodist minister of great natural ability.

Unfortunately creed also became a powerful factor in the political

controversies of Upper Canada. By the constitutional act of 1791 large

tracts of land were set aside for the support of a "Protestant clergy",

and the Church of England successfully claimed for years an exclusive

right to these "clergy reserves" on the ground that it was the

Protestant church recognised by the state. The clergy of the Church of

Scotland in Canada, though very few in number for years, at a later time

obtained a share of these grants as a national religious body; but all

the dissentient denominations did not participate in the advantages of

these reserves. The Methodists claimed in the course of years to be

numerically equal to, if not more numerous than, the English

Episcopalians, and were deeply irritated at the inferior position they

long occupied in the province. So late as 1824 the legislative council,

composed of members of the dominant church, rejected a bill allowing

Methodist ministers to solemnise marriages, and it was not until 1831

that recognised ministers of all denominations were placed on an

equality in this respect. Christian charity was not more a

characteristic of those times than political liberality. Methodism was

considered by the governing class as a sign of democracy and social

inferiority. History repeated itself in Upper Canada. As the Puritans of

New England feared the establishment of an Anglican episcopacy, and used

it to stimulate a feeling against the parent state during the beginnings

of the revolution, so in Upper Canada the dissenting religious bodies

made political capital out of the favouritism shown to the Church of

England in the distribution of the public lands and public patronage.

The Roman Catholics and members of all Protestant sects eventually

demanded the secularisation of the reserves for educational or other

public purposes, or the application of the funds to the use of all

religious creeds. The feeling against that church culminated in 1836,

when Sir John Colborne, then lieutenant-governor, established forty-four

rectories in accordance with a suggestion made by Lord Goderich some

years previously. While the legality of Sir John Colborne's course was

undoubted, it was calculated to create much indignant feeling among the

dissenting bodies, who saw in the establishment of these rectories an

evidence of the intention of the British government to create a state

church so far as practicable by law within the province. This act, so

impolitic at a critical time of political discussion, was an

illustration of the potent influence exercised in the councils of the

government by Archdeacon Strachan, who had come into the province from

Scotland in 1799 as a schoolmaster. He had been brought up in the tenets

of the Presbyterian Church, but some time after his arrival in Canada he

became an ordained minister of the Church of England, in which he rose

step by step to the episcopacy. He became a member of both the executive

and legislative councils in 1816 and 1817, and exercised continuously

until the union of 1841 a singular influence in the government of the

province. He was endowed with that indomitable will, which distinguished

his great countryman, John Knox. His unbending toryism was the natural

outcome of his determination to sustain what he considered the just

rights of his church against the liberalism of her opponents--chiefly

dissenters--who wished to rob her of her clergy reserves and destroy her

influence in education and public affairs generally. This very fidelity

to his church became to some extent her weakness, since it evoked the

bitter hostility of a large body of persons and created the impression

that she was the church of the aristocratic and official class rather

than that of the people--an impression which existed for many years

after the fall of the "family compact."

The public grievances connected with the disposition of the public

lands were clearly exposed by one Robert Gourlay, a somewhat meddlesome

Scotchman, who had addressed a circular, soon after his arrival in

Canada, to a number of townships with regard to the causes which

retarded improvement and the best means of developing the resources of

the province. An answer from Sandwich virtually set forth the feeling of

the rural districts generally on these points. It stated that the

reasons for the existing depression were the reserves of land for the

crown and clergy, "which must for a long time keep the country a

wilderness, a harbour for wolves, and a hindrance to compact and good

neighbourhood; defects in the system of colonisation; too great a

quantity of lands in the hands of individuals who do not reside in the

province, and are not assessed for their property." Mr. Gourlay's

questions were certainly asked in the public interest, but they excited

the indignation of the official class who resented any interference with

a state of things which favoured themselves and their friends, and were

not desirous of an investigation into the management of public affairs.

The subsequent treatment of Mr. Gourlay was shameful in the extreme. He

was declared a most dangerous character when he followed up his circular

by a pamphlet, attacking the methods by which public affairs generally

were conducted, and contrasting them with the energetic and progressive

system on the other side of the border. The indignation of the officials

became a positive fever when he suggested the calling of public meetings

to elect delegates to a provincial convention--a term which recalled the

days of the American revolution, and was cleverly used by Gourlay's

enemies to excite the ire and fear of the descendants of the Loyalists.

Sir Peregrine Maitland succeeded in obtaining from the legislature an

opinion against conventions as "repugnant to the constitution," and

declaring the holding of such public meetings a misdemeanour, while

admitting the constitutional right of the people to petition. These

proceedings evoked a satirical reply from Gourlay, who was arrested for

seditious libel, but the prosecutions failed. It was then decided to

resort to the provisions of a practically obsolete statute passed in

1804, authorising the arrest of any person who had resided in the

province for six months without taking the oath of allegiance, and was

suspected to be a seditious character. Such a person could be ordered by

the authorities to leave the province, or give security for good

behaviour. This act had been originally passed to prevent the

immigration of aliens unfavourable to England, especially of Irishmen

who had taken part in the rebellion of 1798 and found refuge in the

United States. Gourlay had been a resident of Upper Canada for nearly

two years, and in no single instance had the law been construed to apply

to an immigrant from the British Isles. Gourlay was imprisoned in the

Niagara gaol, and when his friends attempted to bring him out on a writ

of _habeas corpus_ they failed simply because Chief Justice Powell, an

able lawyer of a Loyalist family and head of the official party, refused

to grant the writ on a mere technical plea, afterwards declared by the

highest legal authorities in England to be entirely contrary to sound

law. Gourlay consequently remained in prison for nearly eight months,

and when he was brought again before the chief justice, his mental

faculties were obviously impaired for the moment, but despite his

wretched condition, which prevented him from conducting his defence, he

was summarily convicted and ordered to leave the province within

twenty-four hours, under penalty of death should he not obey the order

or return to the country.

This unjust sentence created wide-spread indignation among all

right-thinking people, especially as it followed a message of the

lieutenant-governor to the legislature, that he did not feel justified

in extending the grants of land, made to actors in the war of 1812-15,

to "any of the inhabitants who composed the late convention of

delegates, the proceedings of which were very properly subjected to your

very severe animadversion" This undoubtedly illegal action of the

lieutenant-governor only escaped the censure of the assembly by the

casting vote of the speaker, but was naturally justified in the

legislative council where Chief Justice Powell presided. Gourlay became

a martyr in the opinion of a large body of people, and a Reform party

began to grow up in the country. The man himself disappeared for years

from Canadian history, and did not return to the province until 1856,

after a chequered and unhappy career in Great Britain and the United

States. The assembly of the United Canadas in 1842 declared his arrest

to be "unjust and illegal," and his sentence "null and void," and he was

offered a pension as some compensation for the injuries he had received;

but he refused it unless it was accompanied by an official declaration

of the illegality of the conviction and its elision from the records of

the courts. The Canadian government thought he should be satisfied with

the action of the assembly and the offer of the pension. Gourlay died

abroad, and his daughters on his death received the money which he

rejected with the obstinacy so characteristic of his life.

During these days of struggle we find most prominent among the official

class Attorney-General Robinson, afterwards chief justice of Upper

Canada for many years. He was the son of a Virginian Loyalist, and a

Tory of extreme views, calm, polished, and judicial in his demeanour.

But whatever his opinions on the questions of the day he was too

discreet a politician and too honest a judge ever to have descended to

such a travesty of justice as had been shown by his predecessor in the

case of Gourlay. His influence, however was never in the direction of

liberal measures. He opposed responsible government and the union of the

two provinces, both when proposed unsuccessfully in 1822, and when

carried in Upper Canada eighteen years later.

The elections of 1825 had a very important influence on the political

conditions of the upper province, since they brought into the assembly

Peter Perry, Dr. Rolph, and Marshall Spring Bidwell, who became leading

actors in the Reform movement which culminated in the concession of

responsible government. But the most conspicuous man from 1826 until

1837 was William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scotchman of fair education, who came

to Canada in 1820, and eventually embraced journalism as the profession

most suited to his controversial temperament. Deeply imbued with a

spirit of liberalism in politics, courageous and even defiant in the

expression of his opinions, sadly wanting in sound judgment and common

sense when his feelings were excited, able to write with vigour, but

more inclined to emphatic vituperation than well-reasoned argument, he

made himself a force in the politics of the province. In the _Colonial

Advocate_, which he established in 1824, he commenced a series of

attacks on the government which naturally evoked the resentment of the

official class, and culminated in the destruction of his printing office

in 1826 by a number of young men, relatives of the principal

officials--one of them actually the private secretary of the

lieutenant-governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland. Mr. Mackenzie obtained

large damages in the courts, and was consequently able to continue the

publication of his paper at a time when he was financially embarrassed.

The sympathy felt for Mr. Mackenzie brought him into the assembly as

member for York during the session of 1829. So obnoxious did he become

to the governing class that he was expelled four times from the assembly

between 1831 and 1834, and prevented from taking his seat by the orders

of the speaker in 1835--practically the fifth expulsion. In 1832 he went

to England and presented largely signed petitions asking for a redress

of grievances. He appears to have made some impression on English

statesmen, and the colonial minister recommended a few reforms to the

lieutenant-governor, but they were entirely ignored by the official

party. Lord Glenelg also disapproved of the part taken by

Attorney-General Boulton--Mr. Robinson being then chief justice--and

Solicitor-General Hagerman in the expulsion of Mr. Mackenzie; but they

treated the rebuke with contempt and were removed from office for again

assisting in the expulsion of Mr. Mackenzie.

In 1834 he was elected first mayor of Toronto, then incorporated under

its present name, as a consequence of the public sympathy aroused in his

favour by his several expulsions. Previous to the election of 1835, in

which he was returned to the assembly, he made one of the most serious

blunders of his life, in the publication of a letter from Mr. Joseph

Hume, the famous Radical, whose acquaintance he had made while in

England. Mr. Hume emphatically stated his opinion that "a crisis was

fast approaching in the affairs of Canada which would terminate in

independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother

country, and the tyrannical conduct of a small and despicable faction in

the colony." The official class availed themselves of this egregious

blunder to excite the indignation of the Loyalist population against Mr.

Mackenzie and other Reformers, many of whom, like the Baldwins and

Perrys, disavowed all sympathy with such language. Mr. Mackenzie's

motive was really to insult Mr. Ryerson, with whom he had quarrelled.

Mr. Ryerson in the _Christian Guardian_, organ of the Methodists, had

attacked Mr. Hume as a person unfit to present petitions from the

Liberals of Canada, since he had opposed the measure for the

emancipation of slaves in the West Indies, and had consequently

alienated the confidence and sympathy of the best part of the nation.

Mr. Hume then wrote the letter in question, in which he also stated that

he "never knew a more worthless hypocrite or so base a man as Mr.

Ryerson proved himself to be." Mr. Mackenzie in this way incurred the

wrath of a wily clergyman and religious journalist who exercised much

influence over the Methodists, and at the same time fell under the ban

of all people who were deeply attached to the British connection.

Moderate Reformers now looked doubtfully on Mackenzie, whose principal

supporters were Dr. Duncombe, Samuel Lount, Peter Matthews, and other

men who took an active part in the insurrection of 1837.

In the session of 1835 a committee of grievances, appointed on the

motion of Mr. Mackenzie himself, reported in favour of a system of

responsible government, an elective legislative council, the appointment

of civil governors, a diminution of the patronage exercised by the

crown, the independence of the legislature, and other reforms declared

to be in the interest of good government. The report was temperately

expressed, and created some effect for a time in England, but the

colonial minister could not yet be induced to move in the direction of

positive reform in the restrictive system of colonial government.

Unhappily, at this juncture, when good judgment and discretion were so

necessary in political affairs, all the circumstances combined to hasten

a perilous crisis, and to give full scope to the passionate impulses of

Mackenzie's nature. Sir John Colborne was replaced in the government of

the province by one of the most incapable governors ever chosen by the

colonial office, Sir Francis Bond Head. He had been chiefly known in

England as a sprightly writer of travels, and had had no political

experience except such as could be gathered in the discharge of the

duties of a poor-law commissioner in Wales. His first official act was

an indiscretion. He communicated to the legislature the full text of the

instructions which he had received from the king, although he had been

advised to give only their substance, as least calculated to hamper Lord

Gosford, who was then attempting to conciliate the French Canadian

majority in Lower Canada. These instructions, in express terms,

disapproved of a responsible executive and particularly of an elected

legislative council, to obtain which was the great object of Papineau

and his friends. Mr. Bidwell, then speaker of the assembly, recognised

the importance of this despatch, and forwarded it immediately to Mr.

Papineau, at that time speaker of the Lower Canadian house, with whom he

and other Reformers had correspondence from time to time. Lord Gosford

was consequently forced to lay his own instructions in full before the

legislature and to show the majority that the British government was

opposed to such vital changes in the provincial constitution as they

persistently demanded. The action of the Lower Canadian house on this

matter was communicated to the assembly of Upper Canada by a letter of

Mr. Papineau to Mr. Bidwell, who laid it before his house just before

the prorogation in 1835. In this communication the policy of the

imperial government was described as "the naked deformity of the

colonial system," and the royal commissioners were styled "deceitful

agents," while the methods of government in the neighbouring states were

again eulogised as in the ninety-two resolutions of 1834. Sir Francis

Bond Head seized the opportunity to create a feeling against the

Reformers, to whom he was now hostile. Shortly after he sent his

indiscreet message to the legislature he persuaded Dr. Rolph, Mr.

Bidwell and Receiver-General Dunn to enter the executive council on the

pretence that he wished to bring that body more into harmony with public

opinion. The new councillors soon found that they were not to be

consulted in public affairs, and when the whole council actually

resigned Sir Francis told them plainly that he alone was responsible for

his acts, and that he would only consult them when he deemed it

expedient in the public interest. This action of the lieutenant-governor

showed the Reformers that he was determined to initiate no changes which

would disturb the official party, or give self-government to the people.

The assembly, in which the Liberals were dominant, passed an address to

the king, declaring the lieutenant-governor's conduct "derogatory to the

honour of the king," and also a memorial to the British house of commons

charging him with "misrepresentation, and a deviation from candour and

truth."

Under these circumstances Sir Francis eagerly availed himself of

Papineau's letter to show the country the dangerous tendencies of the

opinions and acts of the Reformers in the two provinces. In an answer he

made to an address from some inhabitants of the Home District, he warned

the people that there were individuals in Lower Canada, who were

inculcating the idea that "this province is to be disturbed by the

interference of foreigners, whose powers and influence will prove

invincible"--an allusion to the sympathy shown by Papineau and his

friends for the institutions of the United States. Then Sir Francis

closed his reply with this rhodomontade: "In the name of every regiment

of militia in Upper Canada, I publicly promulgate 'Let them come if they

dare'" He dissolved the legislature and went directly to the country on

the issue that the British connection was endangered by the Reformers.

"He succeeded, in fact," said Lord Durham in his report of 1839, "in

putting the issue in such a light before the province, that a great

portion of the people really imagined that they were called upon to

decide the question of separation by their votes." These strong appeals

to the loyalty of a province founded by the Loyalists of 1784, combined

with the influence exercised by the "family compact," who had all

offices and lands at their disposal, defeated Mackenzie, Bidwell, Perry

and other Reformers of less note, and brought into the legislature a

solid phalanx of forty-two supporters of the government against eighteen

elected by the opposition. It was a triumph dearly paid for in the end.

The unfair tactics of the lieutenant-governor rankled in the minds of a

large body of people, and hastened the outbreak of the insurrection of

1837. The British government seems for a time to have been deceived by

this victory of the lieutenant-governor and actually lauded his

"foresight, energy and moral courage"; but ere long, after more mature

consideration of the political conditions of the province, it dawned

upon the dense mind of Lord Glenelg that the situation was not very

satisfactory, and that it would be well to conciliate the moderate

element among the Reformers. Sir Francis was accordingly instructed to

appoint Mr. Bidwell to the Bench, but he stated emphatically that such

an appointment would be a recognition on disloyalty. He preferred to

resign rather than obey the instructions of the colonial department, and

greatly to his surprise and chagrin his proffer of resignation was

accepted without the least demur. The colonial office by this time

recognised the mistake they had made in appointing Sir Francis to a

position, for which he was utterly unfit, but unhappily for the province

they awoke too late to a sense of their own folly.

Mackenzie became so embittered by his defeat in 1836, and the

unscrupulous methods by which it was accomplished, that he made up his

mind that reform in government was not to be obtained except by a resort

to extreme measures. At meetings of Reformers, held at Lloydtown and

other places during the summer of 1837, resolutions were carried that it

was their duty to arm in defence of their rights and those of their

countrymen. Mackenzie visited many parts of the province, in order to

stimulate a revolutionary movement among the disaffected people, a

system of training volunteers was organised; pikes were manufactured and

old arms were put in order. It was decided that Dr. Rolph should be the

executive chief of the provisional government, and Mackenzie in the

meantime had charge of all the details of the movement. Mr. Bidwell

appears to have steadily kept aloof from the disloyal party, but Dr.

Rolph was secretly in communication with Mackenzie, Lount, Matthews,

Lloyd, Morrison, Duncombe, and other actors in the rebellion. The plan

was to march on Toronto, where it was notorious that no precautions for

defence were being taken, to seize the lieutenant-governor, to proclaim

a provisional government, and to declare the independence of the

province unless Sir Francis should give a solemn promise to constitute a

responsible council. It is quite certain that Mackenzie entirely

misunderstood the sentiment of the country, and exaggerated the support

that would be given to a disloyal movement. Lord Durham truly said that

the insurrectionary movements which did take place were "indicative of

no deep rooted disaffection," and that "almost the entire body of the

Reformers of the province sought only by constitutional means to obtain

those objects for which they had so long peacefully struggled before

the unhappy troubles occasioned by the violence of a few unprincipled

adventurers and heated enthusiasts."

Despite the warnings that he was constantly receiving of the seditious

doings of Mackenzie and his lieutenants, Sir Francis Bond Head could not

be persuaded an uprising was imminent. So complete was his fatuity that

he allowed all the regular troops to be withdrawn to Lower Canada at the

request of Sir John Colborne. Had he taken adequate measures for the

defence of Toronto, and showed he was prepared for any contingency, the

rising of Mackenzie's immediate followers would never have occurred. His

apathy and negligence at this crisis actually incited an insurrection.

The repulse of Gore at St. Denis on the 23rd November (p. 134) no doubt

hastened the rebellious movement in Upper Canada, and it was decided to

collect all available men and assemble at Montgomery's tavern, only four

miles from Toronto by way of Yonge Street, the road connecting Toronto

with Lake Simcoe. The subsequent news of the dispersion of the rebels at

St. Charles was very discouraging to Mackenzie and Lount, but they felt

that matters had proceeded too far for them to stop at that juncture.

They still hoped to surprise Toronto and occupy it without much

difficulty. A Colonel Moodie, who had taken part in the war of 1812-15,

had heard of the march of the insurgents from Lake Simcoe, and was

riding rapidly to Toronto to warn the lieutenant-governor, when he was

suddenly shot down and died immediately. Sir Francis was unconscious of

danger when he was aroused late at night by Alderman Powell, who had

been taken prisoner by the rebels but succeeded in making his escape and

finding his way to Government House. Sir Francis at last awoke from his

lethargy and listened to the counsels of Colonel Fitzgibbon--the hero of

Beaver Dams in 1813--and other residents of Toronto, who had constantly

endeavoured to force him to take measures for the public security. The

loyal people of the province rallied with great alacrity to put down the

revolt. The men of the western district of Gore came up in force, and

the first man to arrive on the scene was Allan MacNab, the son of a

Loyalist and afterwards prime minister of Canada. A large and well

equipped force was at once organised under the command of Colonel

Fitzgibbon.

The insurrection was effectually quelled on the 7th December at

Montgomery's tavern by the militia and volunteer forces under Colonel

Fitzgibbon. The insurgents had at no time mustered more than eight

hundred men, and in the engagement on the 7th there were only four

hundred, badly armed and already disheartened. In twenty minutes, or

less time, the fight was over and the insurgents fled with the loss of

one man killed and several seriously wounded. The Loyalists, who did not

lose a single man, took a number of prisoners, who were immediately

released by the lieutenant-governor on condition of returning quietly to

their homes. Mackenzie succeeded in escaping across the Niagara

frontier, but Matthews was taken prisoner as he was leading a detachment

across the Don into Toronto. Lount was identified at Chippewa while

attempting to find his way to the United States and brought back to

Toronto. Rolph, Gibson and Duncombe found a refuge in the republic, but

Van Egmond, who had served under Napoleon, and commanded the insurgents,

was arrested and died in prison of inflammatory rheumatism. Mr. Bidwell

was induced to fly from the province by the insidious representations of

the lieutenant-governor, who used the fact of his flight as an argument

that he had been perfectly justified in not appointing him to the Bench.

In later years, the Canadian government, recognising the injustice Mr.

Bidwell had received, offered him a judgeship, but he never could be

induced to return to Canada Mackenzie had definite grievances against

Sir Francis and his party; and a British people, always ready to

sympathise with men who resent injustice and assert principles of

popular government, might have soon condoned the serious mistake he had

made in exciting a rash revolt against his sovereign. But his

apologists can find no extenuating circumstances for his mad conduct in

stirring up bands of ruffians at Buffalo and other places on the

frontier to invade the province. The base of operations for these raids

was Navy Island, just above the Niagara Falls in British territory. A

small steamer, "The Caroline," was purchased from some Americans, and

used to bring munitions of war to the island. Colonel MacNab was sent to

the frontier, and successfully organised an expedition of boats under

the charge of Captain Drew--afterwards an Admiral--to seize the steamer

at Fort Schlosser, an insignificant place on the American side. The

capture was successfully accomplished and the steamer set on fire and

sent down the river, where she soon sank before reaching the cataract.

Only one man was killed--one Durfee, a citizen of the United States.

This audacious act of the Canadians was deeply resented in the republic

as a violation of its territorial rights, and was a subject of

international controversy until 1842 when it was settled with other

questions at issue between Great Britain and the United States.

Mackenzie now disappeared for some years from Canadian history, as the

United States authorities felt compelled to imprison him for a time. It

was not until the end of 1838 that the people of the Canada were free

from filibustering expeditions organised in the neighboring states.

"Hunters' Lodges" were formed under the pledge "never to rest until all

tyrants of Britain cease to have any dominion or footing whatever in

North America." These marauding expeditions on the exposed parts of the

western frontier--especially on the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers--were

successfully resisted. At Prescott, a considerable body of persons,

chiefly youths under age, under the leadership of Von Schoultz, a Pole,

were beaten at the Old Stone Windmill, which they attempted to hold

against a Loyalist force. At Sandwich, Colonel Prince, a conspicuous

figure in Canadian political history of later years, routed a band of

filibusters, four of whom he ordered to instant death. This resolute

deed created some excitement in England, where it was condemned by some

and justified by others. Canadians, who were in constant fear of such

raids, naturally approved of summary justice in the case of persons who

were really brigands, not entitled to any consideration under the laws

of war.

In 1838 President Buren issued a proclamation calling upon all citizens

of the United States to observe the neutrality laws; but the difficulty

in those days was the indisposition of the federal government to

interfere with the states where such expeditions were organised. The

vigilance of the Canadian authorities and the loyalty of the people

alone saved the country in these trying times. A great many of the

raiders were taken prisoners and punished with the severity due to their

unjustifiable acts. Von Schoultz and eight others were hanged, a good

many were pardoned, while others were transported to Van Diemen's Land,

whence they were soon allowed to return. The names of these filibusters

are forgotten, but those of Lount and Matthews, who perished on the

scaffold, have been inscribed on some Canadian hearts as patriots. Sir

George Arthur, who succeeded Sir Francis Head, was a soldier, who had

had experience as a governor among the convicts of Van Diemen's Land,

and the negro population of Honduras, where he had crushed a revolt of

slaves. Powerful appeals were made to him on behalf of Lount and

Matthews, but not even the tears and prayers of Lount's distracted wife

could reach his heart. Such clemency as was shown by Lord Durham would

have been a bright incident in Sir George Arthur's career in Canada, but

he looked only to the approval of the Loyalists, deeply incensed against

the rebels of 1837. His action in these two cases was regarded with

disapprobation in England, and the colonial minister expressed the hope

that no further executions would occur--advice followed in the case of

other actors of the revolt of 1837. Sir George Arthur's place in

colonial annals is not one of high distinction. Like his predecessors,

he became the resolute opponent of responsible government, which he

declared in a despatch to be "Mackenzie's scheme for getting rid of what

Mr. Hume called 'the baneful domination' of the mother country"; "and

never" he added, "was any scheme better devised to bring about such an

end speedily".

SECTION 3.--Social and economic conditions of the Provinces in 1838.

We have now reached a turning-point in the political development of the

provinces of British North America, and may well pause for a moment to

review the social and economic condition of their people. Since the

beginning of the century there had been a large immigration into the

provinces, except during the war of 1812. In the nine years preceding

1837, 263,089 British and Irish immigrants arrived at Quebec, and in one

year alone there were over 50,000. By 1838 the population of the five

provinces of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and

Prince Edward Island had reached about 1,400,000 souls. In Upper Canada,

with the exception of a very few people of German or Dutch descent, and

some French Canadians opposite Detroit and on the Ottawa River, there

was an entirely British population of at least 400,000 souls. The

population of Lower Canada was estimated at 600,000, of whom hardly

one-quarter were of British origin, living chiefly in Montreal, the

Townships, and Quebec. Nova Scotia had nearly 200,000 inhabitants, of

whom probably 16,000 were French Acadians, resident in Cape Breton and

in Western Nova Scotia. In New Brunswick there were at least 150,000

people, of whom some 15,000 were descendants of the original inhabitants

of Acadie. The Island of Prince Edward had 30,000 people, of whom the

French Acadians made up nearly one-sixth. The total trade of the country

amounted, in round figures, to about £5,000,000 sterling in imports,

and somewhat less in exports The imports were chiefly manufactures from

Great Britain, and the exports were lumber, wheat and fish. Those were

days when colonial trade was stimulated by differential duties in favour

of colonial products, and the building of vessels was encouraged by the

old navigation laws which shut out foreign commerce from the St.

Lawrence and the Atlantic ports, and kept the carrying trade between

Great Britain and the colonies in the hands of British and colonial

merchants, by means of British registered ships. While colonists could

not trade directly with foreign ports, they were given a monopoly for

their timber, fish, and provisions in the profitable markets of the

British West Indies.

The character of the immigration varied considerably, but on the whole

the thrifty and industrious formed the larger proportion. In 1833 the

immigrants deposited 300,000 sovereigns, or nearly a million and a half

of dollars, in the Upper Canadian banks. An important influence in the

settlement of Upper Canada was exercised by one Colonel Talbot, the

founder of the county of Elgin. Mrs. Anna Jameson, the wife of a

vice-chancellor of Upper Canada, describes in her _Winter Studies and

Summer Rambles_, written in 1838, the home of this great proprietor, a

Talbot of Malahide, one of the oldest families in the parent state. The

château--as she calls it, perhaps sarcastically--was a "long wooden

building, chiefly of rough logs, with a covered porch running along the

south side." Such homes as Colonel Talbot's were common enough in the

country. Some of the higher class of immigrants, however, made efforts

to surround themselves with some of the luxuries of the old world. Mrs.

Jameson tells us of an old Admiral, who had settled in the London

district--now the most prosperous agricultural part of Ontario--and had

the best of society in his neighbourhood; "several gentlemen of family,

superior education, and large capital (among them the brother of an

English and the son of an Irish peer, a colonel and a major in the army)

whose estates were in a flourishing state." The common characteristic

of the Canadian settlements was the humble log hut of the poor

immigrant, struggling with axe and hoe amid the stumps to make a home

for his family. Year by year the sunlight was let into the dense

forests, and fertile meadows soon stretched far and wide in the once

untrodden wilderness. Despite all the difficulties of a pioneer's life,

industry reaped its adequate rewards in the fruitful lands of the west,

bread was easily raised in abundance, and animals of all kinds thrived.

Unhappily the great bane of the province was the inordinate use of

liquor. "The erection of a church or chapel," says Mrs. Jameson,

"generally preceded that of a school-house in Upper Canada, but the mill

and the tavern invariably preceded both." The roads were of the most

wretched character and at some seasons actually prohibitory of all

social intercourse. The towns were small and ill-built. Toronto, long

known as "muddy little York," had a population of about 10,000, but with

the exception of the new parliament house, it had no public buildings of

architectural pretensions. The houses were generally of wood, a few of

staring ugly red brick; the streets had not a single side-walk until

1834, and in 1838 this comfort for the pedestrian was still exceptional.

Kingston, the ancient Cataraqui, was even a better built town than

Toronto, and had in 1838 a population of perhaps 4500 persons. Hamilton

and London were beginning to be places of importance. Bytown, now

Ottawa, had its beginnings in 1826, when Colonel By of the Royal

Engineers, commenced the construction of the Rideau Canal on the chain

of lakes and rivers between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence at Kingston.

The ambition of the people of Upper Canada was always to obtain a

continuous and secure system of water navigation from the lakes to

Montreal. The Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario was commenced

as early as 1824 through the enterprise of Mr. William Hamilton Merritt,

but it was very badly managed; and the legislature, which had from year

to year aided the undertaking, was obliged eventually to acquire it as

a provincial work. The Cornwall Canal was also undertaken, but work was

stopped when it was certain that Lower Canada would not respond to the

aspirations of the West and improve that portion of the St. Lawrence

within its direct control. Flat-bottomed _bateaux_ and Durham boats were

generally in use for the carriage of goods on the inland waters, and it

was not until the completion of a canal system between the lakes and

Montreal, after the Union, that steamers came into vogue.

The province of Upper Canada had in 1838 reached a crisis in its

affairs. In the course of the seven years preceding the rebellion,

probably eighty thousand or one half of the immigrants, who had come to

the province, had crossed the frontier into the United States, where

greater inducements were held out to capital and population. As Mrs.

Jameson floated in a canoe, in the middle of the Detroit River, she saw

on the one side "all the bustle of prosperity and commerce," and on the

other "all the symptoms of apathy, indolence, mistrust, hopelessness."

At the time such comparisons were made, Upper Canada was on the very

verge of bankruptcy.

Turning to Lower Canada, we find that the financial position of the

province was very different from that of Upper Canada. The public

accounts showed an annual surplus, and the financial difficulties of the

province were caused entirely by the disputes between the executive and

the assembly which would not vote the necessary supplies. The timber

trade had grown to large proportions and constituted the principal

export to Great Britain from Quebec, which presented a scene of much

activity in the summer. Montreal was already showing its great

advantages as a headquarters of commerce on account of its natural

relations to the West and the United States. Quebec and Montreal had

each about 35,000 inhabitants. Travellers admitted that Montreal, on

account of the solidity of its buildings, generally of stone, compared

most favourably with many of the finest and oldest towns in the United

States. The Parish Church of Notre Dame was the largest ecclesiastical

edifice in America, and notable for its simple grandeur. With its

ancient walls girdling the heights first seen by Jacques Cartier, with

its numerous churches and convents, illustrating the power and wealth of

the Romish religion, with its rugged, erratic streets creeping through

hewn rock, with its picturesque crowd of red-coated soldiers of England

mingling with priests and sisters in sombre attire, or with the

_habitants_ in _étoffe du pays_,--the old city of Quebec, whose history

went back to the beginning of the seventeenth century, was certainly a

piece of mediaevalism transported from northern France. The plain stone

buildings of 1837 still remain in all their evidences of sombre

antiquity. None of the religious or government edifices were

distinguished for architectural beauty--except perhaps the English

cathedral--but represented solidity and convenience, while harmonising

with the rocks amid which they had risen.

The parliament of Lower Canada still met in the Bishop's Palace, which

was in want of repair. The old Château St. Louis had been destroyed by

fire in 1834, and a terrace bearing the name of Durham was in course of

construction over its ruins. It now gives one of the most picturesque

views in the world on a summer evening as the descending sun lights up

the dark green of the western hills, or brightens the tin spires and

roofs of the churches and convents, or lingers amid the masts of the

ships moored in the river or in the coves, filled with great rafts of

timber.

As in the days of French rule, the environs of Quebec and Montreal, and

the north side of the St. Lawrence between these two towns, presented

French Canadian life in its most picturesque and favourable aspect.

These settlements on the river formed one continuous village, with

tinned spires rising every few miles amid poplars, maples and elms.

While the homes of the seigniors and of a few professional men were more

commodious and comfortable than in the days of French rule, while the

churches and presbyteries illustrated the increasing prosperity of the

dominant religion, the surroundings of the _habitants_ gave evidences of

their want of energy and enterprise. But crime was rare in the rural

districts and intemperance was not so prevalent as in parts of the west.

Nearly 150,000 people of British origin resided in Lower Canada--a

British people animated for the most part by that spirit of energy

natural to their race. What prosperity Montreal and Quebec enjoyed as

commercial communities was largely due to the enterprise of British

merchants. The timber trade was chiefly in their hands, and the bank of

Montreal was founded by this class in 1817--seven years before the bank

of Upper Canada was established in Toronto. As political strife

increased in bitterness, the differences between the races became

accentuated. Papineau alienated all the British by his determination to

found a "_Nation Canadienne_" in which the British would occupy a very

inferior place. "French and British," said Lord Durham, "combined for no

public objects or improvements, and could not harmonise even in

associations of charity." The French Canadians looked with jealousy and

dislike on the increase and prosperity of what they regarded as a

foreign and hostile race. It is quite intelligible, then, why trade

languished, internal development ceased, landed property decreased in

value, the revenue showed a diminution, roads and all classes of local

improvements were neglected, agricultural industry was stagnant, wheat

had to be imported for the consumption of the people, and immigration

fell off from 52,000 in 1832 to less than 5000 in 1838.

In the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince

Edward Island, there were no racial antagonisms to affect internal

development; and the political conflict never reached such proportions

as to threaten the peace and security of the people. In New Brunswick

the chief industry was the timber trade--deals especially--which

received its first stimulus in 1809, when a heavy duty was placed on

Baltic timber, while that from the colonies came free into the British

Isles. Shipbuilding was also profitably followed in New Brunswick, and

was beginning to be prosecuted in Nova Scotia, where, a few years later,

it made that province one of the greatest ship-owning and ship-sailing

communities of the world until iron steamers gradually drove wooden

vessels from the carrying trade. The cod, mackerel, and herring

fisheries--chiefly the first--were the staple industry of Nova Scotia,

and kept up a large trade with the British West Indies, whence sugar,

molasses and rum were imported. Prince Edward Island was chiefly an

agricultural community, whose development was greatly retarded by the

wholesale grant of lands in 1767 to absentee proprietors. Halifax and

St. John had each a population of twenty thousand. The houses were

mostly of wood, the only buildings of importance being the government

house, finished in 1805, and the provincial or parliament house,

considered in its day one of the handsomest structures in North America.

In the beautiful valleys of Kings and Annapolis--now famous for their

fruit--there was a prosperous farming population. Yarmouth illustrated

the thrift and enterprise of the Puritan element that came into the

province from New England at an early date in its development. The

eastern counties, with the exception of Pictou, showed no sign of

progress. The Scotch population of Cape Breton, drawn from a poor class

of people in the north of Scotland, for years added nothing to the

wealth of an island whose resources were long dormant from the absence

of capital and enterprise.

Popular education in those days was at the lowest possible ebb. In 1837

there were in all the private and public schools of the provinces only

one-fifteenth of the total population. In Lower Canada not one-tenth

could write. The children of the _habitants_ repeated the Catechism by

rote, and yet could not read as a rule. In Upper Canada things were no

better. Dr. Thomas Rolph tells us that, so late as 1833, Americans or

other anti-British adventurers carried on the greater proportion of the

common schools, where the youth were taught sentiments "hostile to the

parent state" from books used in the United States--a practice stopped

by statute in 1846.

Adequate provision, however, was made for the higher education of youth

in all the provinces. "I know of no people," wrote Lord Durham of Lower

Canada, "among whom a larger provision exists for the higher kinds of

elementary education." The piety and benevolence of the early possessors

of the country founded seminaries and colleges, which gave an education

resembling the kind given in the English public schools, though more

varied. In Upper Canada, so early as 1807, grammar schools were

established by the government. By 1837 Upper Canada College--an

institution still flourishing--offered special advantages to youths

whose parents had some money. In Nova Scotia King's College--the oldest

university in Canada--had its beginning as an academy as early as 1788,

and educated many eminent men during its palmy days. Pictou Academy was

established by the Reverend Dr. McCulloch as a remonstrance against the

sectarianism of King's; and the political history of the province was

long disturbed by the struggle of its promoters against the narrowness

of the Anglicans, who dominated the legislative council, and frequently

rejected the grant made by the assembly. Dalhousie College was founded

in 1820 by Lord Dalhousie, then governor of Nova Scotia, to afford that

higher education to all denominations which old King's denied. Acadia

College was founded by the Baptists at Wolfville, on a gently rising

ground overlooking the fertile meadows of Grand Pré. The foundations of

the University of New Brunswick were laid in 1800. McGill University,

founded by one of those generous Montreal merchants who have always been

its benefactors, received a charter in 1821, but it was not opened until

1829. The Methodists laid the foundation of Victoria College at Cobourg

in 1834, but it did not commence its work until after the Union; and the

same was the case with King's College, the beginning of the University

of Toronto.

We need not linger on the literary output of those early times. Joseph

Bouchette, surveyor-general, had made in the first part of the century a

notable contribution to the geography and cartography of Lower Canada.

Major Richardson, who had served in the war of 1812 and in the Spanish

peninsula, wrote in 1833 "Wacousta or the Prophecy," a spirited romance

of Indian life. In Nova Scotia the "Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick, of

Slickville"--truly a remarkable original creation in humorous

literature--first appeared in a Halifax paper. The author, Judge

Haliburton, also published as early as 1829 an excellent work in two

volumes on the history of his native province. Small libraries and book

stores could only be seen in the cities.

In these early times of the provinces, when books and magazines were

rarities, the newspaper press naturally exercised much influence on the

social and intellectual conditions of the people at large. By 1838 there

were no less than forty papers printed in the province of Upper Canada

alone, some of them written with ability, though too often in a bitter,

personal tone. In those days English papers did not circulate to any

extent in a country where postage was exorbitant. People could hardly

afford to pay postage rates on letters. The poor settler was often

unable to pay the three or four shillings or even more, imposed on

letters from their old homes across the sea; and it was not unusual to

find in country post-offices a large accumulation of dead letters,

refused or neglected on account of the expense. The management of the

post-office by imperial officers was one of the grievances of the people

of the provinces generally. It was carried on for the benefit of a few

persons, and not for the convenience or solace of the many thousands who

were anxious for news of their kin across the ocean.

CHAPTER VII.

A NEW ERA OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT (1839--1867).

SECTION I.--The union of the Canadas and the establishment of

responsible government.

Lord Durham's report on the affairs of British North America was

presented to the British government on the 31st January, 1839, and

attracted an extraordinary amount of interest in England, where the two

rebellions had at last awakened statesmen to the absolute necessity of

providing an effective remedy for difficulties which had been pressing

upon their attention for years, but had never been thoroughly understood

until the appearance of this famous state paper. A legislative union of

the two Canadas and the concession of responsible government were the

two radical changes which stood out prominently in the report among

minor suggestions in the direction of stable government. On the question

of responsible government Lord Durham expressed opinions of the deepest

political wisdom. He found it impossible "to understand how any English

statesman could have ever imagined that representative and irresponsible

government could be successfully combined....To suppose that such a

system would work well there, implied a belief that the French Canadians

have enjoyed representative institutions for half a century, without

acquiring any of the characteristics of a free people; that Englishmen

renounce every political opinion and feeling when they enter a colony,

or that the spirit of Anglo-Saxon freedom is utterly changed and

weakened among those who are transplanted across the Atlantic[3]."

[3: For the full text of Lord Durham's report, which was laid before

Parliament, 11 February, 1839, see _English Parliamentary Papers_ for

1839.]

In June, 1839, Lord John Russell introduced a bill to reunite the two

provinces, but it was allowed, after its second reading, to lie over for

that session of parliament, in order that the matter might be fully

considered in Canada. Mr. Poulett Thomson was appointed governor-general

with the avowed object of carrying out the policy of the imperial

government. Immediately after his arrival in Canada, in the autumn of

1839, the special council of Lower Canada and the legislature of Upper

Canada passed addresses in favour of a union of the two provinces. These

necessary preliminaries having been made, Lord John Russell, in the

session of 1840, again brought forward "An act to reunite the provinces

of Upper and Lower Canada, and for the government of Canada," which was

assented to on the 23rd of July, but did not come into effect until the

10th of February in the following year.

The act provided for a legislative council of not less than twenty

members, and for a legislative assembly in which each section of the

united provinces would be represented by an equal number of

members--that is to say, forty-two for each or eighty-four in all. The

number of representatives allotted to each province could not be changed

except with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of each house.

The members of the legislative council were appointed by the crown for

life, and the members of the assembly were chosen by electors possessing

a small property qualification. Members of both bodies were required to

hold property to a certain amount. The assembly had a duration of four

years, subject of course to be sooner dissolved by the governor-general.

Provision was made for a consolidated revenue fund, on which the first

charges were expenses of collection, management and receipt of revenues,

interest of public debt, payment of the clergy, and civil list. The

English language alone was to be used in the legislative records. All

votes, resolutions or bills involving the expenditure of public money

were to be first recommended by the governor-general.

The first parliament of the United Canadas was opened on the 14th June,

1841, in the city of Kingston, by the governor-general, who had been

created Baron Sydenham of Sydenham and of Toronto. This session was the

commencement of a series of parliaments which lasted until the

confederation of all the provinces in 1867, and forcibly illustrated the

capacity of the people of Canada to manage their internal affairs. For

the moment, I propose to refer exclusively to those political conditions

which brought about responsible government, and the removal of

grievances which had so long perplexed the imperial state and distracted

the whole of British North America.

In Lord John Russell's despatches of 1839,--the sequence of Lord

Durham's report--we can clearly see the doubt in the minds of the

imperial authorities whether it was possible to work the system of

responsible government on the basis of a governor directly responsible

to the parent state, and at the same time acting under the advice of

ministers who would be responsible to a colonial legislature. But the

colonial secretary had obviously come to the opinion that it was

necessary to make a radical change which would insure greater harmony

between the executive and the popular bodies of the provinces. Her

Majesty, he stated emphatically, "had no desire to maintain any system

of policy among her North American subjects which opinion condemns", and

there was "no surer way of gaining the approbation of the Queen than by

maintaining the harmony of the executive with the legislative

authorities." The new governor-general was expressly appointed to carry

out this new policy. If he was extremely vain, at all events he was also

astute, practical, and well able to gauge the public sentiment by which

he should be guided at so critical a period of Canadian history. The

evidence is clear that he was not individually in favour of responsible

government, as it was understood by men like Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Howe,

when he arrived in Canada. He believed that the council should be one

"for the governor to consult and no more"; and voicing the doubts that

existed in the minds of imperial statesmen, he added, the governor

"cannot be responsible to the government at home" and also to the

legislature of the province, if it were so, "then all colonial

government becomes impossible." The governor, in his opinion, "must

therefore be the minister [i.e. the colonial secretary], in which case

he cannot be under control of men in the colony."

When the assembly met it was soon evident that the Reformers in that

body were determined to have a definite understanding on the

all-important question of responsible government; and the result was

that the governor-general, a keen politician, immediately recognised the

fact that, unless he yielded to the feeling of the majority, he would

lose all his influence. There is every reason to believe that the

resolutions which were eventually passed in favour of responsible

government, in amendment to those moved by Mr. Baldwin, had his approval

before their introduction. The two sets of resolutions practically

differed little from each other, and the inference to be drawn from the

political situation of these times is that the governor's friends in the

council thought it advisable to gain all the credit possible with the

public for the passage of resolutions on the all-absorbing question of

the day, since it was obvious that it had to be settled in some

satisfactory and definite form. These resolutions embodying the

principles of the new constitution of Canada, were as follows: (1) "That

the head of the executive government of the province, being within the

limits of his government the representative of the sovereign, is

responsible to the imperial authority alone, but that, nevertheless, the

management of our local affairs can only be conducted by him with the

assistance, counsel, and information of subordinate officers in the

province. (2) That, in order to preserve between the different branches

of the provincial parliament that harmony which is essential to the

peace, welfare and good government of the province, the chief advisers

of the representative of the sovereign, constituting a provincial

administration under him, ought to be men possessed of the confidence of

the representatives of the people; thus affording a guarantee that the

well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our gracious

sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the provincial government,

will on all occasions be faithfully represented and advocated. (3) That

the people of this province have, moreover, the right to expect from

such provincial administration, the exertion of their best endeavours

that the imperial authority, within its constitutional limits, shall be

exercised in the manner most consistent with their well-understood

wishes and interests."

On the 4th September, 1841, Lord Sydenham met with a serious accident

while riding, and as his constitution had been impaired for years he

died a fortnight later, to the regret of all political parties. He was

succeeded by Sir Charles Bagot, a Conservative and High Churchman, whose

brief administration was notable for the display of infinite discretion

on his part, and for his desire to do justice to the French Canadians

even at the risk of offending the ultra-loyal party, who claimed special

consideration in the management of public affairs. Responsible

government was in a fair way of being permanently established when Sir

Charles Bagot unhappily died in 1843 of dropsy, complicated by

heart-disease; and Lord Metcalfe was brought from India to create--as it

soon appeared--confusion and discord in the political affairs of the

province. His ideas of responsible government were those which had been

steadily inculcated by colonial secretaries since 1839, and were even

entertained by Lord Sydenham himself, namely, that the governor should

be as influential a factor as possible in the government, and should

always remember that he was directly responsible to the crown, and

should consider its prerogatives and interests as superior to all local

considerations.

When Lord Metcalfe assumed the responsibilities of his post, he found in

office a Liberal administration, led by Mr. Baldwin, the eminent Reform

leader of Upper Canada, and Mr. Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine, afterwards

chief justice of Lower Canada and a baronet, who had been at the outset,

like all his countrymen, opposed to the union, as unjust to their

province. What originally excited their antagonism were the conditions

exacted by the legislature of Upper Canada: an equality of

representation, though the French section had a population of two

hundred thousand more than the western province, the exclusion of the

French language from the legislature, and the imposition of the heavy

debt of Upper Canada on the revenues of the united provinces. But unlike

Mr. Papineau, with whom he had acted during the political struggles in

Lower Canada, Mr. Lafontaine developed a high order of discreet

statesmanship after the union, and recognised the possibility of making

French Canada a force in government. He did not follow the example of

Mr. John Neilson, who steadily opposed the union--but determined to work

it out fairly and patiently on the principles of responsible government.

Lord Metcalfe, at the very outset, decided not to distribute the

patronage of the crown under the advice of his responsible advisers, but

to ignore them, as he declared, whenever he deemed it expedient. No

responsible ministers could, with any regard to their own self-respect,

or to the public interests, submit to a practice directly antagonistic

to responsible government, then on its trial. Consequently, all the

members of the Baldwin-Lafontaine government, with the exception of Mr.

Daly, immediately resigned, when Lord Metcalfe followed so

unconstitutional a course. Mr. Dominick Daly, afterwards knighted when

governor of Prince Edward's Island--who had no party proclivities, and

was always ready to support the crown in a crisis--became nominally

head of a weak administration. The ministry was only completed after a

most unconstitutional delay of several months, and was even then only

composed of men whose chief merit was their friendliness to the

governor, who dissolved the assembly and threw all the weight of the

crown into the contest. The governor's party was returned with a very

small majority, but it was a victory, like that of Sir Francis Bond Head

in 1835, won at the sacrifice of the dignity of the crown, and at the

risk of exciting once more public discontent to a dangerous degree. Lord

Metcalfe's administration was strengthened when Mr. Draper resigned his

legislative councillorship and took a seat in the assembly as leader.

Lord Metcalfe's conduct received the approval of the imperial

authorities, who elevated him to the peerage--so much evidence that they

were not yet ready to concede responsible government in a complete

sense. The result was a return to the days of old paternal government,

when the parliamentary opposition was directed against the governor

himself and the British government of which he was the organ. Lord

Metcalfe had been a sufferer from cancer, and when it appeared again in

its most aggravated form he returned to England, where he died a few

months later (1846). The abuse that followed him almost to the grave was

a discreditable exhibition of party rancour, but it indicated the

condition to which the public mind had been brought by his unwise and

unconstitutional conduct of public affairs--conduct for which his only

apology must be the half-hearted, doubtful policy of the imperial

authorities with regard to the province, and his own inability to

understand the fundamental principles of responsible government.

Lord Metcalfe's successor was Lord Cathcart, who had served with

distinction in the Peninsular War, and was appointed with a view to

contingencies that might arise out of the dispute between England and

the United States on the Oregon boundary question, to which I shall

refer in another chapter. He pursued a judicious course at a time when

politics were complicated by the fact that the industry and commerce of

the country were seriously deranged by the adoption of free trade in

England, and the consequent removal of duties which had given the

preference in the British market to Canadian wheat, flour and other

products. What aggravated the commercial situation was the fact that the

navigation laws, being still in force, closed the St. Lawrence to

foreign shipping and prevented the extension of trade to other markets

so as to compensate Canadians for the loss of that with the parent

state. Lord Cathcart was recalled within less than a year, when all

prospect of war with the United States had disappeared, and was followed

(1847) by a civil governor, the Earl of Elgin, who was chosen by the

Whig ministry, in which Lord John Russell was prime minister, and Earl

Grey the secretary of state for the colonies. It had dawned upon English

statesmen that the time had come for giving the colonists of British

North America a system of responsible government without such reserves

as had so seriously shackled its beginnings. In all probability they

thought that the free-trade policy of England had momentarily weakened

the ties that had bound the colonies to the parent state, and that it

was advisable to follow up the new commercial policy by removing causes

of public discontent in the province.

Lord Elgin was happily chosen to inaugurate a new era of colonial

self-government. Gifted with a judicial mind and no ordinary amount of

political sagacity, able to originate as well as carry out a

statesmanlike policy, animated, like Lord Durham--whose daughter he had

married--by a sincere desire to give full scope to the aspirations of

the people for self-government, so far as compatible with the supremacy

of the crown, possessed of eloquence which at once charmed and

convinced, Lord Elgin was able to establish on sure foundations the

principles of responsible government, and eventually to leave Canada

with the conviction that no subsequent representative of the crown

could again impair its efficient operation, and convulse the public

mind, as Lord Metcalfe had done. On his arrival he gave his confidence

to the Draper ministry, who were still in office; but shortly afterwards

its ablest member was elevated to the bench, and Mr. Sherwood became

attorney-general and head of a government, chiefly interesting now for

the fact that one of its members was Mr. John Alexander Macdonald, who,

on becoming a member of the assembly in 1844, had commenced a public

career which made him one of the most notable figures in the history of

the colonial empire of England.

Parliament was dissolved, and the elections were held in January, 1848,

when the government were defeated by a large majority and the second

Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry was formed; a ministry conspicuous for the

ability of its members, and the useful character of its legislation

during the four years it remained in power. It is noteworthy here that

Lord Elgin did not follow the example of his predecessors and select the

ministers himself, but followed the strict constitutional usage of

calling upon Mr. Lafontaine as a recognised leader of a party in

parliament to form a government. It does not fall within the scope of

this chapter to go into the merits of this great administration, whose

coming into office may be considered the crowning of the principles

adopted by Lord Elgin for the unreserved concession of responsible

government, and never violated from that time forward by any governor of

Canada.

We must now direct our attention to the maritime provinces, that we may

complete this review of the progress of responsible government in

British North America. In 1836 the revenues of New Brunswick had been

placed at the disposal of the legislature, and administrative power

entrusted to those who possessed the confidence of the assembly. The

lieutenant-governor, Sir John Harvey, who had distinguished himself in

the war of 1812-15, recognised in Lord John Russell's despatches "a new

and improved constitution," and by an official memorandum informed the

heads of departments that "thenceforward their offices would be held by

the tenure of public confidence"; but after his departure (in 1841) an

attempt was made by Sir William Colebrooke to imitate the example of

Lord Metcalfe. He appointed to the provincial secretaryship a Mr. Reade,

who had been only a few months in the province, and never represented a

constituency or earned promotion in the public service. The members of

the executive council were never consulted, and four of the most popular

and influential councillors soon resigned. One of them, Mr. Lemuel A.

Wilmot, the recognised leader of the Liberals, addressed a strong

remonstrance to the lieutenant-governor, and vindicated those principles

of colonial government "which require the administration to be conducted

by heads of departments responsible to the legislature, and holding

their offices contingently upon the approbation and confidence of the

country, as expressed through the representatives of the people." The

colonial secretary of state disapproved of the action of the

lieutenant-governor, and constitutional government was strengthened in

this province of the Loyalists. From that time there was a regularly

organised administration and an opposition contending for office and

popular favour.

In Nova Scotia a despatch from Lord Glenelg brought to a close in 1838

the agitation which had been going on for years for a separation of the

executive from the legislative functions of the legislative council, and

the formation of two distinct bodies in accordance with the existing

English system. In this state paper--the first important step towards

responsible government in the province--the secretary of state, Lord

Glenelg, stated that it was her Majesty's pleasure that neither the

chief justice nor any of his colleagues should sit in the council, that

all the judges should entirely withdraw from all political discussions;

that the assembly's claim to control and appropriate all the revenues

arising in the province should be fully recognised by the government;

that the two councils should be thereafter divided, and that the members

of these bodies should be drawn from different parts of the

province--Halifax previously having obtained all the appointments except

one or two--and selected without reference to distinctions of religious

opinions. Unfortunately for Nova Scotia there was at that time at the

head of the executive a brave, obstinate old soldier, Sir Colin

Campbell, who had petrified ideas on the subject of colonial

administration, and showed no disposition to carry out the obvious

desire of the imperial authorities to give a more popular form to the

government of the province. One of his first official acts was to give

to the Anglican Church a numerical superiority to which it had no valid

claim. As in Upper Canada, at that time, there was a combination or

compact, composed of descendants of English Tories or of the Loyalists

of 1783, who belonged to the Anglican Church, and were opposed to

popular government. Two men were now becoming most prominent in

politics. One of these was Mr. James William Johnston, the son of a

Georgia Loyalist, an able lawyer, gifted with a persuasive tongue which

chimed most harmoniously with the views of Sir Colin. On the other side

was Mr. Joseph Howe, the son of a Loyalist printer of Boston, who had no

such aristocratic connections as Mr. Johnston, and soon became the

dominant influence in the Reform party, which had within its ranks such

able and eloquent men as S.G.W. Archibald, Herbert Huntington, Lawrence

O'Connor Doyle, William and George R. Young, and, very soon, James Boyle

Uniacke. Sir Colin Campbell completely ignored the despatches of Lord

John Russell, which were recognised by Sir John Harvey as conferring "an

improved constitution" upon the colonies. In February, 1840, Mr. Howe

moved a series of resolutions, in which it was emphatically stated that

"no satisfactory settlement of questions before the country could be

obtained until the executive council was remodelled," and that, as then

constituted, "it did not enjoy the confidence of the country." The

motion was carried by a majority of eighteen votes, in a house of

forty-two members, and indeed, so untenable was the position of the

executive council that Mr. James Boyle Uniacke, a member of the

government, retired, rather than vote, and subsequently placed his

resignation in the hands of the lieutenant-governor, on the ground that

it was his duty to yield to the opinions of the representative house,

and facilitate the introduction of a better system of government, in

accordance with the well-understood wishes of the people. From that time

Mr. Uniacke became one of Mr. Howe's ablest allies in the struggle for

self-government. Sir Colin, however, would not recede from the attitude

he had assumed, but expressed the opinion, in his reply to the address

of the legislature, that he could not recognise in the despatch of the

colonial secretary of state "any instruction for a fundamental change in

the colonial constitution." The assembly then prayed her Majesty, in a

powerful and temperate address, to recall Sir Colin Campbell. Though

Lord John Russell did not present the address to the Queen, the imperial

government soon afterwards appointed Lord Falkland to succeed Sir Colin

Campbell, whose honesty of purpose had won the respect of all parties.

Lord Falkland was a Whig, a lord of the bedchamber, and married to one

of the Fitzclarences--a daughter of William IV and Mrs. Jordan. He

arrived at Halifax in September, 1840, and his first political act was

in the direction of conciliating the Liberals, who were in the majority

in the assembly. He dismissed--to the disgust of the official

party--four members of the executive who had no seats in either branch

of the legislature, and induced Mr. Howe and Mr. James MacNab to enter

the government, on the understanding that other Liberals would be

brought in according as vacancies occurred, and that the members of the

council should hold their seats only upon the tenure of public

confidence. A dissolution took place, the coalition government was

sustained, and the Liberals came into the assembly with a majority. Mr.

Howe was elected speaker of the assembly, though an executive

councillor--without salary; but he and others began to recognise the

impropriety of one man occupying such positions, and in a later session

a resolution was passed against the continuance of what was really an

un-British and unconstitutional practice. It was also an illustration of

the ignorance that prevailed as to the principles that should guide the

words and acts of a cabinet, that members of the executive, who had

seats in the legislative council, notably Mr. Stewart, stated openly, in

contradiction of the assertions of Mr. Howe and his Liberal colleagues,

that "no change had been made in the constitution of the country, and

that responsible government in a colony was responsible nonsense, and

meant independence." It was at last found necessary to give some sort of

explanation of such extraordinary opinions, to avert a political crisis

in the assembly. Then, to add to the political embarrassment, there was

brought before the people the question of abandoning the practice of

endowing denominational colleges, and of establishing in their place one

large non-sectarian University. At this time the legislature voted

annual grants to five sectarian educational institutions of a high

class. The most important were King's College, belonging to the Anglican

Church, and Acadia College, supported by the Baptists. The Anglican

Church was still influential in the councils of the province, and the

Baptists had now the support of Mr. Johnston, the able attorney-general,

who had seceded from the Church of England. This able lawyer and

politician had won the favour of the aristocratic governor, and

persuaded him to dissolve the assembly, during the absence of Mr. Howe

in the country, though it had continuously supported the government, and

the people had given no signs of a want of confidence in the house as

then constituted. The fact was, Mr. Johnston and his friends in the

council thought it necessary to lose no time in arousing the feelings of

the supporters of denominational colleges against Mr. Howe and other

Liberals, who had commenced to hold meetings throughout the country in

favour of a non-sectarian University. The two parties came back from

the electors almost evenly divided, and Mr. Howe had an interview with

Lord Falkland. He consented to remain in the cabinet until the assembly

had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the question at issue,

when the governor himself precipitated a crisis by appointing to the

executive and legislative councils Mr. M.B. Almon, a wealthy banker, and

a brother-in-law of the attorney-general. Mr. Howe and Mr. MacNab at

once resigned their seats in the government on the ground that Mr.

Almon's appointment was a violation of the compact by which two Liberals

had been induced to join the ministry, and was most unjust to the forty

or fifty gentlemen who, in both branches, had sustained the

administration for several years. Instead of authorising Mr. Johnston to

fill the two vacancies and justify the course taken by the governor, the

latter actually published a letter in a newspaper, in which he boldly

stated that he was entirely opposed to the formation of a government

composed of individuals of one political party, that he would steadily

resist any invasion of the royal prerogatives with respect to

appointments, and that he had chosen Mr. Almon, not simply on the ground

that he had not been previously engaged in political life to any extent,

but chiefly because he wished to show his own confidence in Mr.

Johnston, Mr. Almon's brother-in-law. Lord Falkland had obviously thrown

himself into the arms of the astute attorney-general and his political

friends.

It was now a political war _à outrance_ between Lord Falkland and Mr.

Howe, from 1842 until the governor left the province in 1846. Lord

Falkland made strenuous efforts to detach Mr. MacNab, Mr. Uniacke and

other Liberals from Mr. Howe, and induce them to enter the government,

but all to no purpose. He now gave up writing letters to the press, and

attacked his opponents in official communications addressed to the

colonial office, which supported him, as it did Lord Metcalfe, under

analogous circumstances. These despatches were laid without delay on

the tables of the houses, to be used far and wide against the

recalcitrant Liberals. Mr. Howe had again renewed his connection with

the press, which he had left on becoming speaker and councillor, and had

become editor of the _Nova Scotian_, and the _Morning Chronicle_, of

which Mr. Annand was the proprietor. In these influential organs of the

Liberal party--papers still in existence--Mr. Howe attacked Lord

Falkland, both in bitter prose and sarcastic verse. All this while the

governor and his council contrived to control the assembly, sometimes by

two or three votes, sometimes by a prorogation when it was necessary to

dispose summarily of a troublesome question. Public opinion began to set

in steadily against the government. The controversy between Lord

Falkland and Mr. Howe reached its climax on the 21st February, 1846,

when a despatch was brought down to the house, referring to the speaker,

Mr. William Young, and his brother, George R. Young, as the associates

of "reckless" and "insolvent" men--the reference being to Mr. Howe and

his immediate political friends. When the despatch had been read, Mr.

Howe became greatly excited, and declared amid much disorder that if

"the infamous system" of libelling respectable colonists in despatches

sent to the colonial office was continued, "without their having any

means of redress ... some colonist would by-and-by, or he was much

mistaken, hire a black fellow to horsewhip a lieutenant-governor."

It was time that this unhappy conflict should end. The imperial

authorities wisely transferred Lord Falkland to Bombay, where he could

do no harm, and appointed Sir John Harvey to the government of Nova

Scotia. Like Lord Elgin in Canada, he was discreetly chosen by the

Reform ministry, as the sequel showed. He was at first in favour of a

coalition government like his predecessors, but he wisely dissolved the

assembly when he found that the leading Liberals positively refused to

go into an alliance with the members of the executive council, or any

other set of men, until the people had decided between parties at the

polls. The result was a victory for the Liberals, and as soon as the

assembly met a direct motion of want of confidence was carried against

the government, and for the first time in the history of the country the

governor called to his council men exclusively belonging to the

opposition in the popular branch. Mr. Howe was not called upon to form a

cabinet--his quarrel with Lord Falkland had to be resented somehow--but

the governor's choice was Mr. James Boyle Uniacke, who gave a prominent

position in the new government to the great Liberal, to whom responsible

government owed its final success in this maritime province.

Responsible government was not introduced into Prince Edward Island

until 1851, when an address on the prosperous state of the island was

presented to the imperial authorities, who at once consented to concede

responsible government on the condition that adequate provision was made

for certain public officers affected by the new order of things. The

leader of the new government was the Honourable George Coles.

In the history of the past there is much to deplore, the blunders of

English ministers, the want of judgment on the part of governors, the

selfishness of "family compacts," the arrogance of office-holders, the

recklessness of Canadian politicians. But the very trials of the crisis

through which Canada passed brought out the fact, that if English

statesmen had mistaken the spirit of the Canadian people, and had not

always taken the best methods of removing grievances, it was not from

any studied disposition to do these countries an injustice, but rather

because they were unable to see until the very last moment that, even in

a colony, a representative system must be worked in accordance with

those principles that obtained in England, and that it was impossible to

direct the internal affairs of dependencies many thousand miles distant

through a colonial office, generally managed by a few clerks.

Of all the conspicuous figures of these memorable times, which already

seem so far away from Canadians of the present day, who possess so many

political rights, there are several who stand out more prominently than

all others, and represent the distinct types of politicians, who

influenced the public mind during the first half of the nineteenth

century, when responsible government was in slow process of evolution

from the political struggles which arose in the operation of

representative institutions. Around the figure of Louis Joseph Papineau

there has always been a sort of glamour which has helped to conceal his

vanity, his rashness and his want of political sagacity, which would,

under any circumstances, have prevented his success as a safe statesman,

capable of guiding a people through a trying ordeal. His eloquence was

fervid and had much influence over his impulsive countrymen, his

sincerity was undoubted, and in all likelihood his very indiscretions

made more palpable the defects of the political system against which he

so persistently and so often justly declaimed. He lived to see his

countrymen enjoy power and influence under the very union which they

resented, and to find himself no longer a leader among men, but isolated

from a great majority of his own people, and representing a past whose

methods were antagonistic to the new régime that had grown up since

1838. It would have been well for his reputation had he remained in

obscurity on his return from exile in 1847, when he and other rebels of

1837 were wisely pardoned, and had he never stood again on the floor of

the parliament of Canada, as he did from 1848 until 1854, since he could

only prove, in those later times, that he had never understood the true

working of responsible government. While the Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry

were in power, he revived an agitation for an elective legislative

council and declared himself utterly hostile to responsible government;

but his influence was at an end in the country, and he could make little

impression on the assembly. The days of reckless agitation had passed,

and the time for astute and calm statesmanship had come. Lafontaine and

Morin were now safer political guides for his countrymen. He soon

disappeared entirely from public view, and in the solitude of his

picturesque château, amid the groves that overhang the Ottawa River,

only visited from time to time by a few staunch friends, or by curious

tourists who found their way to that quiet spot, he passed the remainder

of his days with a tranquillity in wondrous contrast to the stormy and

eventful drama of his life. The writer often saw his noble, dignified

figure--erect even in age--passing unnoticed on the streets of Ottawa,

when perhaps at the same time there were strangers, walking through the

lobbies of the parliament house, asking for his portrait.

William Lyon Mackenzie is a far less picturesque figure in Canadian

history than Papineau, who possessed an eloquence of tongue and a grace

of demeanour which were not the attributes of the little peppery,

undignified Scotchman who, for a few years, played so important a part

in the English-speaking province. With his disinterestedness and

unselfishness, with his hatred of political injustice and oppression,

Canadians who remember the history of the constitutional struggles of

England will always sympathise. Revolt against absolutism and tyranny is

permissible in the opinion of men who love political freedom, but the

conditions of Upper Canada were hardly such as justified the rash

insurrection into which he led his deluded followers, many to misery and

some to death. Mackenzie lived long enough to regret these sad mistakes

of a reckless period of his life, and to admit that "the success of the

rebellion would have deeply injured the people of Canada," whom he

believed he was then serving, and that it was the interest of the

Canadian people to strengthen in every way the connection with England.

Like Papineau, he returned to Canada in 1849 to find himself entirely

unequal to the new conditions of political life, where a large

constitutional knowledge, a spirit of moderation and a statesmanlike

conduct could alone give a man influence in the councils of his country.

One historian has attempted to elevate Dr. Rolph at his expense, but a

careful study of the career of those two actors will lead fair-minded

readers to the conclusion that even the reckless course followed at the

last by Mackenzie was preferable to the double-dealing of his more

astute colleague. Dr. Rolph came again into prominence as one of the

founders of the Clear Grits, who formed in 1849 an extreme branch of the

Reform party. Dr. Rolph's qualities ensured him success in political

intrigue, and he soon became a member of the Hincks-Morin government,

which was formed on the reconstruction of the Lafontaine-Baldwin

ministry in 1851, when its two moderate leaders were practically pushed

aside by men more in harmony with the aggressive elements of the Reform

party. But Mr. Mackenzie could never win such triumphs as were won by

his wily and more manageable associate of old times. He published a

newspaper--_The Weekly Message_--replete with the eccentricities of the

editor, but it was never a financial success, while his career in the

assembly from 1851 until 1858 only proved him almost a nullity in public

affairs. Until his death in 1861 his life was a constant fight with

poverty, although his closing years were somewhat soothed by the gift of

a homestead. He might have received some public position which would

have given him comfort and rest, but he would not surrender what he

called his political freedom to the men in office, who, he believed,

wished to purchase his silence--the veriest delusion, as his influence

had practically disappeared with his flight to the United States.

Joseph Howe, unlike the majority of his compeers who struggled for

popular rights, was a prominent figure in public life until the very

close of his career in 1873. All his days, even when his spirit was

sorely tried by the obstinacy and indifference of some English

ministers, he loved England, for he knew--like the Loyalists, from one

of whom he sprung--it was in her institutions, after all, his country

could best find prosperity and happiness. It is an interesting fact

that, among the many able essays and addresses which the question of

imperial federation has drawn forth, none can equal his great speech on

the consolidation of the empire in eloquence, breadth, and fervour. Of

all the able men Nova Scotia has produced no one has surpassed that

great tribune of the people in his power to persuade and delight the

masses by his oratory. Yet, strange to say, his native province has

never raised a monument to his memory.

One of the most admirable figures in the political history of the

Dominion was undoubtedly Robert Baldwin. Compared with other popular

leaders of his generation, he was calm in council, unselfish in motive,

and moderate in opinion. If there is any significance in the political

phrase "Liberal-Conservative," it could be applied with justice

to him. The "great ministry," of which he and Louis Hippolyte

Lafontaine--afterwards a baronet and chief justice--were the leaders,

left behind it many monuments of broad statesmanship, and made a deep

impression on the institutions of the country. In 1851 he resigned from

the Reform ministry, of which he had been the Upper Canadian leader, in

consequence of a vote of the Reformers of that province adverse to the

continuance of the court of chancery, the constitution of which had been

improved chiefly by himself. When he presented himself as a candidate

before his old constituency he was defeated by a nominee of the Clear

Grits, who were then, as always, pressing their opinions with great

vehemence and hostility to all moderate men. He illustrated the fickle

character of popular favour, when a man will not surrender his

principles and descend to the arts of the politician. He lived until

1858 in retirement, almost forgotten by the people for whom he had

worked so fearlessly and sincerely.

In New Brunswick the triumph of responsible government must always be

associated with the name of Lemuel A. Wilmot, the descendant of

a famous United Empire Loyalist stock, afterwards a judge and a

lieutenant-governor of his native province. He was in some respects the

most notable figure, after Joseph Howe and J.W. Johnston, the leaders

of the Liberal and Conservative parties in Nova Scotia, in that famous

body of public men who so long brightened the political life of the

maritime provinces. But neither those two leaders nor their

distinguished compeers, James Boyle Uniacke, William Young, John

Hamilton Gray and Charles Fisher, all names familiar to students of Nova

Scotia and New Brunswick history, surpassed Mr. Wilmot in that magnetic

eloquence which carries an audience off its feet, in versatility of

knowledge, in humorous sarcasm, and in conversational gifts, which made

him a most interesting personality in social life. He impressed his

strong individuality upon his countrymen until the latest hour of his

useful career.

In Prince Edward Island, the name most intimately connected with the

struggle for responsible government is that of George Coles, who,

despite the absence of educational and social advantages in his youth,

eventually triumphed over all obstacles, and occupied a most prominent

position by dint of unconquerable courage and ability to influence the

opinions of the great mass of people.

SECTION 2.--Results of self-government from 1841 to 1864.

The new colonial policy, adopted by the imperial government immediately

after the presentation of Lord Durham's report, had a remarkable effect

upon the political and social development of the British North American

provinces during the quarter of a century that elapsed between the union

of the Canadas in 1841 and the federal union of 1867. In 1841 Mr.

Harrison, provincial secretary of the upper province in the coalition

government formed by Lord Sydenham, brought in a measure which laid the

foundations of the elaborate system of municipal institutions which the

Canadian provinces now enjoy. In 1843 Attorney-General Lafontaine

presented a bill "for better serving the independence of the legislative

assembly of this province," which became law in 1844 and formed the

basis of all subsequent legislation in Canada.

The question of the clergy reserves continued for some years after the

union to perplex politicians and harass governments. At last in 1854 the

Hincks government was defeated by a combination of factions, and the

Liberal-Conservative party was formed out of the union of the

Conservatives and the moderate Reformers. Sir Allan MacNab was the

leader of this coalition government, but the most influential member was

Mr. John A. Macdonald, then attorney-general of Upper Canada, whose

first important act was the settlement of the clergy reserves. Reform

ministers had for years evaded the question, and it was now left to a

government, largely composed of men who had been Tories in the early

part of their political career, to yield to the force of public opinion

and take it out of the arena of political agitation by means of

legislation which handed over this property to the municipal

corporations of the province for secular purposes, and at the same time

made a small endowment for the protection of the clergy who had legal

claims on the fund. The same government had also the honour of removing

the old French seigniorial system, recognised to be incompatible with

the modern condition of a country of free government, and injurious to

the agricultural development of the province at large. The question was

practically settled in 1854, when Mr. Drummond, then attorney-general

for Lower Canada, brought in a bill providing for the appointment of a

commission to ascertain the amount of compensation that could be fairly

asked by the seigniors for the cession of their seigniorial rights. The

seigniors, from first to last, received about a million of dollars, and

it also became necessary to revise those old French laws which affected

the land tenure of Lower Canada. Accordingly in 1856 Mr. George Cartier,

attorney-general for Lower Canada in the Taché-Macdonald ministry,

introduced the legislation necessary for the codification of the civil

law. In 1857 Mr. Spence, post-master-general in the same ministry,

brought in a measure to organise the civil service, on whose character

and ability so much depends in the working of parliamentary

institutions. From that day to this the Canadian government has

practically recognised the British principle of retaining public

officers without reference to a change of political administration.

Soon after the union the legislating obtained full control of the civil

list and the post-office. The last tariff framed by the imperial

parliament for British North America was mentioned in the speech at the

opening of the Canadian legislature in 1842. In 1846 the British

colonies in America were authorised by an imperial statute to reduce or

repeal by their own legislation duties imposed by imperial acts upon

foreign goods imported from foreign countries into the colonies in

question. Canada soon availed herself of this privilege, which was

granted to her as the logical sequence of the free-trade policy of Great

Britain, and, from that time to the present, she has been enabled to

legislate very freely with regard to her own commercial interests. In

1849 the imperial parliament repealed the navigation laws, and allowed

the river St. Lawrence to be used by vessels of all nations. With the

repeal of laws, the continuance of which had seriously crippled Canadian

trade after the adoption of free trade by England, the provinces

gradually entered on a new career of industrial enterprise.

No part of the constitution of 1840 gave greater offence to the French

Canadian population than the clause restricting the use of the French

language in the legislature. It was considered as a part of the policy,

foreshadowed in Lord Durham's report, to denationalise, if possible, the

French Canadian province. The repeal of the clause, in 1848, was one

evidence of the harmonious operation of the union, and of a better

feeling between the two sections of the population. Still later,

provision was made for the gradual establishment of an elective

legislative council, so long and earnestly demanded by the old

legislature of Lower Canada.

The members of the Lafontaine-Baldwin government became the legislative

executors of a troublesome legacy left to them by a Conservative

ministry. In 1839 acts had been passed by the special council of Lower

Canada and the legislature of Upper Canada to compensate the loyal

inhabitants of those provinces for the loss they had sustained during

the rebellions. In the first session of the union parliament the Upper

Canadian act was amended, and money voted to reimburse all persons in

Upper Canada whose property had been unnecessarily, or wantonly,

destroyed by persons acting, or pretending to act, on behalf of the

crown. An agitation then commenced for the application of the same

principle to Lower Canada, and in 1845 commissioners were appointed by

the Draper administration to inquire into the nature and value of the

losses suffered by her Majesty's loyal subjects in Lower Canada. When

their report was presented in favour of certain claims the Draper

ministry brought in some legislation on the subject, but went out of

office before any action could be taken thereon. The Lafontaine-Baldwin

government then determined to set the question at rest, and introduced

legislation for the issue of debentures to the amount of $400,000 for

the payment of losses sustained by persons who had not been convicted

of, or charged with, high treason or other offences of a treasonable

nature, or had been committed to the custody of the sheriff in the gaol

of Montreal and subsequently transported to the island of Bermuda.

Although the principle of this measure was fully justified by the action

of the Tory Draper government, extreme Loyalists and even some Reformers

of Upper Canada declaimed against it in the most violent terms, and a

few persons even declared that they would prefer annexation to the

United States to the payment of the rebels. The bill, however, passed

the legislature by a large majority, and received the crown's assent

through Lord Elgin on the 25th April, 1849. A large crowd immediately

assembled around the parliament house--formerly the St. Anne Market

House--and insulted the governor-general by opprobrious epithets, and by

throwing missiles at him as he drove away to Monklands, his residence in

the country. The government and members of the legislature appear to

have been unconscious of the danger to which they were exposed until a

great crowd rushed into the building, which was immediately destroyed by

fire with its fine collection of books and archives. A few days later,

when the assembly, then temporarily housed in the hall of Bonsecours

Market, attempted to present an address to Lord Elgin, he was in

imminent danger of his life while on his way to the government

house--then the old Château de Ramesay in Nôtre-Dame Street--and the

consequences might have been most serious had he not evaded the mob on

his return to Monklands. This disgraceful affair was a remarkable

illustration not simply of the violence of faction, but largely of the

discontent then so prevalent in Montreal and other industrial centres,

on account of the commercial policy of Great Britain, which seriously

crippled colonial trade and was the main cause of the creation of a

small party which actually advocated for a short time annexation to the

United States as preferable to the existing state of things. The result

was the removal of the seat of government from Montreal, and the

establishment of a nomadic system of government by which the legislature

met alternately at Toronto and Quebec every five years until Ottawa was

chosen by the Queen as a permanent political capital. Lord Elgin felt

his position keenly, and offered his resignation to the imperial

government, but they refused to entertain it, and his course as a

constitutional governor under such trying circumstances was approved by

parliament.

The material condition of the provinces--especially of Upper Canada,

which now became the first in population and wealth--kept pace with the

rapid progress of the people in self-government. The population of the

five provinces had increased from about 1,500,000, in 1841, to about

3,200,000 when the census was taken in 1861 The greatest increase had

been in the province of Upper Canada, chiefly in consequence of the

large immigration which flowed into the country from Ireland, where the

potato rot had caused wide-spread destitution and misery. The population

of this province had now reached 1,396,091, or nearly 300,000 more than

the population of Lower Canada--an increase which, as I shall show in

the next chapter, had important effects on the political conditions of

the two provinces. The eastern or maritime provinces received but a

small part of the yearly immigration from Europe, and even that was

balanced by an exodus to the United States. Montreal had a population of

100,000, or double that of Quebec, and was now recognised as the

commercial capital of British North America. Toronto had reached 60,000,

and was making more steady progress in population and wealth than any

other city, except Montreal. Towns and villages were springing up with

great rapidity in the midst of the enterprising farming population of

the western province. In Lower Canada the townships showed the energy of

a British people, but the _habitants_ pursued the even tenor of ways

which did not include enterprise and improved methods of agriculture.

The value of the total exports and imports of the provinces reached

$150,000,000 by 1864, or an increase of $100,000,000 in a quarter of a

century. The great bulk of the import trade was with Great Britain and

the United States, but the value of the exports to the United States was

largely in excess of the goods purchased by Great Britain--especially

after 1854, when Lord Elgin arranged a reciprocity treaty with the

United States. Lord Elgin represented Great Britain in the negotiations

at Washington, and the Congress of the United States and the several

legislatures of the Canadian provinces passed the legislation necessary

to give effect to the treaty. Its most important provisions established

free trade between British North America and the United States in

products of the forest, mine, and sea, conceded the navigation of the

St. Lawrence to the Americans, and the use of the canals of Canada on

the same terms as were imposed upon British subjects, gave Canadians the

right to navigate Lake Michigan, and allowed the fishermen of the United

States to fish on the sea-coasts of the British provinces without

regard to distance from the shore, in return for a similar but

relatively worthless privilege on the eastern shores of the republic,

north of the 30th parallel of north latitude. During the thirteen years

the treaty lasted the trade between the two countries rose from over

thirty-three million dollars in 1854 to over eighty million dollars in

1866, when it was repealed by the action of the United States government

itself, for reasons which I shall explain in a later chapter.

The navigation of the St. Lawrence was now made continuous and secure by

the enlargement of the Welland and Lachine canals, and the construction

of the Cornwall, Williamsburgh, and Beauharnois canals. Railways

received their great stimulus during the government of Sir Francis

Hincks, who largely increased the debt of Canada by guaranteeing in 1852

the bonds of the Grand Trunk Railway--a noble, national work, now

extending from Quebec to Lake Michigan, with branches in every

direction, but whose early history was marred by jobbery and

mismanagement, which not only ruined or crippled many of the original

shareholders, but cost Canada eventually twenty-three million dollars.

In 1864 there were two thousand miles of railway working in British

North America, of which the Grand Trunk Railway owned at least one-half.

The railways in the maritime provinces were very insignificant, and all

attempts to obtain the co-operation of the imperial and Canadian

governments for the construction of an Intercolonial Railway through

British American territory failed, despite the energetic efforts of Mr.

Howe to bring it about.

After the union of the Canadas in 1841, a steady movement for the

improvement of the elementary, public, or common schools continued for

years, and the services of the Reverend Egerton Ryerson were engaged as

chief superintendent of education with signal advantage to the country.

In 1850, when the Lafontaine-Baldwin government was in office, the

results of the superintendent's studies of the systems of other

countries were embodied in a bill based on the principle of local

assessment, aided by legislative grants, for the carrying on of the

public schools. This measure is the basis of the present admirable

school system of Upper Canada, and to a large extent of that of the

other English-speaking provinces. In Lower Canada the history of public

schools must be always associated with the names of Dr. Meilleur and the

Honourable Mr. Chauveau; but the system has never been as effective as

in the upper province. In both provinces, separate or dissentient

schools were eventually established for the benefit of the Roman

Catholics in Upper or Protestant Canada, and of the Protestants in Lower

or Catholic Canada. In the maritime provinces satisfactory progress was

also made in the development of a sound school system. In Nova Scotia

Dr. Tupper, when provincial secretary (1863-1867), laid the foundations

of the excellent schools that the province now enjoys.

During this period the newspaper press increased remarkably in influence

and circulation. The most important newspaper in the Dominion, the

_Globe_, was established at Toronto in 1844 by Mr. George Brown, a

Scotchman by birth, who became a power from that time among the Liberal

politicians of Canada. No notable books were produced in the

English-speaking provinces except "Acadian Geology," a work by Dr.

Dawson, who became in 1855 principal of McGill University, and was, in

later years, knighted by the Queen; but the polished verses of Crémazie

and the lucid histories of Canada by Ferland and Garneau already showed

that French Canada had both a history and a literature.

Towards the close of this memorable period of Canadian development, the

Prince of Wales, heir-apparent to the throne, visited the British

American provinces, where the people gave full expression to their loyal

feelings. This was the third occasion on which these communities had

been favoured by the presence of members of the royal family. Prince

William Henry, afterward William IV, visited Nova Scotia during the

years 1786-1788, in command of a frigate. From 1791 until 1797 Prince

Edward, Duke of Kent, father of the present sovereign, was in command of

the imperial forces, first at Quebec, and later at Halifax. The year

1860 was an opportune time for a royal visit to provinces where the

people were in the full enjoyment of the results of the liberal system

of self-government extended to them at the commencement of the Queen's

reign by the mother-country.

A quarter of a century had passed after the union of the Canadas when

the necessities of the provinces of British North America forced them to

a momentous constitutional change, which gave a greater scope to the

statesmanship of their public men, and opened up a wider sphere of

effort to capital and enterprise. In the following chapter I shall show

the nature of the conditions which brought about this union.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EVOLUTION OF CONFEDERATION (1789--1864).

SECTION 1--The beginnings of confederation.

The idea of a union of the provinces of British North America had been

under discussion for half a century before it reached the domain of

practical statesmanship. The eminent Loyalist, Chief Justice Smith of

Quebec, so early as 1789, in a letter to Lord Dorchester, gave an

outline of a scheme for uniting all the provinces of British North

America "under one general direction." A quarter of a century later

Chief Justice Sewell of Quebec, also a Loyalist, addressed a letter to

the father of the present Queen, the Duke of Kent, in which he urged a

federal union of the isolated provinces. Lord Durham was also of opinion

in 1839 that a legislative union of all the provinces "would at once

decisively settle the question of races," but he did not find it

possible to carry it out at that critical time in the history of the

Canadas.

Some ten years later, at a meeting of prominent public men in Toronto,

known as the British American League, the project of a federal union was

submitted to the favourable consideration of the provinces. In 1854 the

subject was formally brought before the legislature of Nova Scotia by

the Honourable James William Johnston, the able leader of the

Conservative party, and found its most eloquent exposition in the speech

of the Honourable Joseph Howe, one of the fathers of responsible

government. The result of the discussion was the unanimous adoption of a

resolution--the first formally adopted by any provincial

legislature--setting forth that "the union or confederation of the

British provinces, while calculated to perpetuate their connection with

the parent state, will promote their advancement and prosperity,

increase their strength, and influence and elevate their position." Mr.

Howe, on that occasion, expressed himself in favour of a federation of

the empire, of which he was always an earnest advocate until his death.

In the legislature of Canada Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Tilloch Galt

was an able exponent of union, and when he became a member of the

Cartier-Macdonald government in 1858 the question was made a part of the

ministerial policy, and received special mention in the speech of Sir

Edmund Head, the governor-general, at the end of the session. The matter

was brought to the attention of the imperial government on more than one

occasion during these years by delegates from Canada and Nova Scotia,

but no definite conclusion could be reached in view of the fact that the

question had not been taken up generally in the provinces.

The political condition of the Canadas brought about a union much sooner

than was anticipated by its most sanguine promoters. In a despatch

written to the colonial minister by the Canadian delegates,--members of

the Cartier-Macdonald ministry--who visited England in 1858 and laid the

question of union before the government, they represented that "very

grave difficulties now present themselves in conducting the government

of Canada"; that "the progress of population has been more rapid in the

western province, and claims are now made on behalf of its inhabitants

for giving them representation in the legislature in proportion to their

numbers"; that "the result is shown by agitation fraught with great

danger to the peaceful and harmonious working of our constitutional

system, and, consequently, detrimental to the progress of the province"

that "this state of things is yearly becoming worse"; and that "the

Canadian government are impressed with the necessity for seeking such a

mode of dealing with these difficulties as may for ever remove them." In

addition to this expression of opinion on the part of the

representatives of the Conservative government of 1858, the Reformers of

Upper Canada held a large and influential convention at Toronto in

1859, and adopted a resolution in which it was emphatically set forth,

"that the best practicable remedy for the evils now encountered in the

government of Canada is to be found in the formation of two or more

local governments to which shall be committed the control of all matters

of a local and sectional character, and some general authority charged

with such matters as are necessarily common to both sections of the

provinces"--language almost identical with that used by the Quebec

convention six years later in one of its resolutions with respect to the

larger scheme of federation. Mr. George Brown brought this scheme before

the assembly in 1860, but it was rejected by a large majority. At this

time constitutional and political difficulties of a serious nature had

arisen between the French and English speaking sections of the united

Canadian provinces. A large and influential party in Upper Canada had

become deeply dissatisfied with the conditions of the union of 1840,

which maintained equality of representation to the two provinces when

statistics clearly showed that the western section exceeded French

Canada both in population and wealth.

A demand was persistently and even fiercely made at times for such a

readjustment of the representation in the assembly as would do full

justice to the more populous and richer province. The French Canadian

leaders resented this demand as an attempt to violate the terms on which

they were brought into the union, and as calculated, and indeed

intended, to place them in a position of inferiority to the people of a

province where such fierce and unjust attacks were systematically made

on their language, religion, and institutions generally. With much

justice they pressed the fact that at the commencement of, and for some

years subsequent to, the union, the French Canadians were numerically in

the majority, and yet had no larger representation in the assembly than

the inhabitants of the upper province, then inferior in population. Mr.

George Brown, who had under his control a powerful newspaper, the

_Globe_, of Toronto, was remarkable for his power of invective and his

tenacity of purpose, and he made persistent and violent attacks upon the

conditions of the union, and upon the French and English Conservatives,

who were not willing to violate a solemn contract.

The difficulties between the Canadian provinces at last became so

intensified by the public opinion created by Mr. Brown in Upper Canada

in favour of representation by population, that good and stable

government was no longer possible on account of the close division of

parties in the legislature. Appeals were made frequently to the people,

and new ministries formed,--in fact, five within two years--but the

sectional difficulties had obviously reached a point where it was not

possible to carry on successfully the administration of public affairs.

On the 14th June, 1864, a committee of the legislative assembly of

Canada, of whom Mr. Brown was chairman, reported that "a strong feeling

was found to exist among the members of the committee in favour of

changes in the direction of a federal system, applied either to Canada

alone or to the whole of the British North American provinces." On the

day when this report was presented, the Conservative government, known

as the Taché-Macdonald ministry, suffered the fate of many previous

governments for years, and it became necessary either to appeal at once

to the people, or find some other practical solution of the political

difficulties which prevented the formation of a stable government. Then

it was that Mr. Brown rose above the level of mere party selfishness,

and assumed the attitude of a statesman, animated by patriotic and noble

impulses which must help us to forget the spirit of sectionalism and

illiberality which so often animated him in his career of heated

partisanship. Negotiations took place between Mr. John A. Macdonald, Mr.

Brown, Mr. Cartier, Mr. Galt, Mr. Morris, Mr. McDougall, Mr. Mowat, and

other prominent members of the Conservative and Reform parties, with the

result that a coalition government was formed on the distinct

understanding that it would "bring in a measure next session for the

purpose of removing existing difficulties by introducing the federal

principle into Canada, coupled with such provisions as will permit the

maritime provinces and the north-west territories to be incorporated

into the same system of government." The Reformers who entered the

government with Macdonald and Cartier on this fundamental condition were

Mr. Brown, Mr. Oliver Mowat, and Mr. William McDougall, who stood

deservedly high in public estimation.

While these events were happening in the Canadas, the maritime provinces

were taking steps in the direction of their own union. In 1861 Mr. Howe,

the leader of a Liberal government in Nova Scotia, carried a resolution

in favour of such a scheme. Three years later the Conservative ministry

of which Dr., now Sir, Charles Tupper, was premier, took measures in the

legislature of Nova Scotia to carry out the proposition of his

predecessor; and a conference was arranged at Charlottetown between

delegates from the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and

Prince Edward Island By a happy forethought the government of Canada,

immediately on hearing of this important conference, decided to send a

delegation, composed of Messrs J.A. Macdonald, Brown, Cartier, Galt,

McGee, Langevin, McDougall, and Campbell. The result of the conference

was favourable to the consideration of the larger question of the union

of all the provinces; and it was decided to hold a further conference at

Quebec in October for the purpose of discussing the question as fully as

its great importance demanded.

SECTION 2.--The Quebec convention of 1864.

Thirty-three delegates met in the parliament house of this historic

city. They were all men of large experience in the work of

administration or legislation in their respective provinces. Not a few

of them were noted lawyers who had thoroughly studied the systems of

government in other countries. Some were gifted with rare eloquence and

power of argument. At no time, before or since, has the city of Quebec

been visited by an assemblage of notables with so many high

qualifications for the foundation of a nation. Descendants of the

pioneers of French Canada, English Canadians sprung from the Loyalists

of the eighteenth century, eloquent Irishmen and astute Scotchmen, all,

thoroughly conversant with Canadian interests, met in a convention

summoned to discharge the greatest responsibilities ever entrusted to

any body of men in Canada.

The chairman was Sir Etienne Paschal Taché, who had proved in his youth

his fidelity to England on the famous battlefield of Chateauguay, and

had won the respect of all classes and parties by the display of many

admirable qualities. Like the majority of his compatriots he had learned

to believe thoroughly in the government and institutions of Great

Britain, and never lost an opportunity of recognising the benefits which

his race derived from British connection. He it was who gave utterance

to the oft-quoted words: "That the last gun that would be fired for

British supremacy in America would be fired by a French Canadian." He

lived to move the resolutions of the Quebec convention in the

legislative council of Canada, but he died a few months before the union

was formally established in 1867, and never had an opportunity of

experiencing the positive advantages which his race, of whose interests

he was always an earnest exponent, derived from a condition of things

which gave additional guarantees for the preservation of their special

institutions. But there were in the convention other men of much greater

political force, more deeply versed in constitutional knowledge, more

capable of framing a plan of union than the esteemed and discreet

president. Most prominent among these was Mr., afterwards Sir, John A.

Macdonald, who had been for years one of the most conspicuous figures in

Canadian politics, and had been able to win to a remarkable degree the

confidence not only or the great majority of the French Canadians but

also of a powerful minority in the western province where his able

antagonist, Mr. Brown, until 1864 held the vantage ground by his

persistency in urging its claims to greater weight in the administration

of public affairs. Mr. Macdonald had a great knowledge of men and did

not hesitate to avail himself of their weaknesses in order to strengthen

his political power. His greatest faults were those of a politician

anxious for the success of his party. His strength lay largely in his

ability to understand the working of British institutions, and in his

recognition of the necessity of carrying on the government in a country

of diverse nationalities, on principles of justice and compromise. He

had a happy faculty of adapting himself to the decided current of public

opinion even at the risk of leaving himself open to a charge of

inconsistency, and he was just as ready to adopt the measures of his

opponents as he was willing to enter their ranks and steal away some

prominent men whose support he thought necessary to his political

success.

So early as 1861 he had emphatically expressed himself on the floor of

the assembly in favour of the main principles of just such a federal

union as was initiated at Quebec. The moment he found that the question

of union was likely to be something more than a mere subject for

academic discussion or eloquent expression in legislative halls, he

recognised immediately the great advantages it offered, not only for the

solution of the difficulties of his own party, but also for the

consolidation of British American as well as imperial interests on the

continent of North America From the hour when he became convinced of

this fact he devoted his consummate ability not merely as a party

leader, but as a statesman of broad national views, to the perfection of

a measure which promised so much for the welfare and security of the

British provinces. It was his good fortune, after the establishment of

the federation, to be the first premier of the new Dominion and to mould

its destinies with a firm and capable hand. He saw it extended to the

Pacific shores long before he died, amid the regrets of all classes and

creeds and races of a country he loved and in whose future he had the

most perfect confidence.

The name of the Right Honourable Sir John Macdonald, to give him the

titles he afterwards received from the crown, naturally brings up that

of Mr., afterwards Sir, George Etienne Cartier, who was his faithful

colleague and ally for many years in the legislature of old Canada, and

for a short time after the completion of the federal union, until his

death. This able French Canadian had taken an insignificant part in the

unfortunate rising of 1837, but like many other men of his nationality

he recognised the mistakes of his impetuous youth, and, unlike Papineau

after the union of 1840, endeavoured to work out earnestly and honestly

the principles of responsible government. While a true friend of his

race, he was generous and fair in his relations with other

nationalities, and understood the necessity of compromise and

conciliation in a country of diverse races, needs, and interests. Sir

John Macdonald appreciated at their full value his statesmanlike

qualities, and succeeded in winning his sympathetic and faithful

co-operation during the many years they acted together in opposition to

the war of nationalities which would have been the eventual consequence

of Mr. Brown's determined agitation if it had been carried to its

logical and natural conclusion--conclusion happily averted by the wise

stand taken by Mr. Brown himself with respect to the settlement of

provincial troubles. In the settlement of the terms of union, we can see

not only the master hand of Sir John Macdonald in the British framework

of the system, but also the successful effort of Sir George Cartier to

preserve intact the peculiar institutions of his native province.

All those who have studied Mr. Brown's career know something of his

independent and uncompromising character; but for some time after he

entered the coalition government his speeches in favour of federation

assumed a dignified style and a breadth of view which stand out in great

contrast with his bitter arguments as leader of the Clear Grits. In the

framing of the Quebec resolutions his part was chiefly in arranging the

financial terms with a regard to the interests of his own province.

Another influential member of the Canadian delegation was Mr.,

afterwards Sir, Alexander Galt, the son of the creator of that original

character in fiction, Laurie Todd, who had been a resident for many

years in Western Canada, where a pretty city perpetuates his name. His

able son had been for a long time a prominent figure in Canadian

politics, and was distinguished for his intelligent advocacy of railway

construction and political union as measures essential to the material

and political development of the provinces. His earnest and eloquent

exposition of the necessity of union had no doubt much to do with

creating a wide-spread public sentiment in its favour, and with

preparing the way for the formation of the coalition government of 1864,

on the basis of such a political measure. His knowledge of financial and

commercial questions was found to be invaluable in the settlement of the

financial basis of the union, while his recognised position as a

representative of the Protestant English-speaking people in French

Canada gave him much weight when it was a question of securing their

rights and interests in the Quebec resolutions.

The other members of the Canadian delegation were men of varied

accomplishments, some of whom played an important part in the working

out of the federal system, the foundations of which they laid. There was

a brilliant Irishman, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, poet, historian and orator,

who had been in his rash youth obliged to fly from Ireland to the United

States on account of his connection with the rebellious party known as

Young Ireland during the troubles of 1848. When he removed from the

United States in 1857 he advocated with much force a union of the

provinces in the _New Era_, of which he was editor during its short

existence. He was elected to parliament in 1858, and became a notable

figure in Canadian politics on account of his eloquence and _bonhomie_.

His most elaborate addresses had never the easy flow of Joseph Howe's

speeches, but were laboured essays, showing too obviously the results of

careful compilation in libraries, while brightened by touches of natural

humour. He had been president of the council in the Sandfield Macdonald

government of 1862--a moderate Reform ministry--but later he joined the

Liberal-Conservative party as less sectional in its aspirations and more

generous in its general policy than the one led by Mr. Brown. Mr. McGee

was during his residence in Canada a firm friend of the British

connection, having observed the beneficent character of British rule in

his new Canadian home, with whose interests he so thoroughly identified

himself.

Mr. William McDougall, the descendant of a Loyalist, had been long

connected with the advocacy of Reform principles in the press and on the

floor of parliament, and was distinguished for his clear, incisive style

of debating. He had been for years a firm believer in the advantages of

union, which he had been the first to urge at the Reform convention of

1859. Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Campbell, who had been for some

years a legal partner of Sir John Macdonald, was gifted with a

remarkably clear intellect, great common sense, and business capacity,

which he displayed later as leader of the senate and as minister of the

crown. Mr., afterwards Sir, Oliver Mowat, who had been a student of law

in Sir John Macdonald's office at Kingston, brought to the discharge of

the important positions he held in later times as minister,

vice-chancellor, and premier of the province of Ontario, great legal

learning, and admirable judgment. Mr., now Sir, Hector Langevin was

considered a man of promise, likely to exercise in the future much

influence among his countrymen. For some years after the establishment

of the new Dominion he occupied important positions in the government of

the country, and led the French Conservative party after the death of

Sir George Cartier. Mr. James Cockburn was an excellent lawyer, who

three years later was chosen speaker of the first house of commons of

the federal parliament--a position which his sound judgment, knowledge

of parliamentary law, and dignity of manner enabled him to discharge

with signal ability. Mr. J.C. Chapais was a man of sound judgment, which

made him equal to the administrative duties entrusted to him from time

to time.

Of the five men sent by Nova Scotia, the two ablest were Dr., now Sir,

Charles Tupper, who was first minister of the Conservative government,

and Mr., later Sir, Adams G. Archibald, who was leader of the Liberal

opposition in the assembly. The former was then as now distinguished for

his great power as a debater and for the forcible expression of his

opinions on the public questions on which he had made up his mind. When

he had a great end in view he followed it with a tenacity of purpose

that generally gave him success. Ever since he entered public life as an

opponent of Mr. Howe, he has been a dominant force in the politics of

Nova Scotia. While Conservative in name he entertained broad Liberal

views which found expression in the improvement of the school system, at

a very low ebb when he came into office, and in the readiness and energy

with which he identified himself with the cause of the union of the

provinces. Mr. Archibald was noted for his dignified demeanour, sound

legal attainments, and clear plausible style of oratory, well calculated

to instruct a learned audience. Mr. William A. Henry was a lawyer of

considerable ability, who was at a later time elevated to the bench of

the supreme court of Canada. Mr. Jonathan J. McCully, afterwards a judge

in Nova Scotia, had never sat in the assembly, but he exercised

influence in the legislative council on the Liberal side and was an

editorial writer of no mean ability. Mr. Dickey was a leader of the

Conservatives in the upper house and distinguished for his general

culture and legal knowledge.

New Brunswick sent seven delegates, drawn from the government and

opposition. The Loyalists who founded this province were represented by

four of the most prominent members of the delegation, Tilley, Chandler,

Gray, and Fisher. Mr., afterwards Sir, Samuel Leonard Tilley had been

long engaged in public life and possessed admirable ability as an

administrator. He had for years taken a deep interest in questions of

intercolonial trade, railway intercourse and political union. He was a

Reformer of pronounced opinions, most earnest in the advocacy of

temperance, possessed of great tact and respected for his high character

in all the relations of life. In later times he became finance minister

of the Dominion and lieutenant-governor of his native province.

Mr. John Hamilton Gray, later a judge in British Columbia, was one of

the most eloquent and accomplished men in the convention, and brought to

the consideration of legal and constitutional questions much knowledge

and experience. Mr. Fisher, afterwards a judge in his province, was also

a well equipped lawyer and speaker who displayed a cultured mind. Like

all the delegates from New Brunswick he was animated by a great love for

British connection and institutions. Mr. Peter Mitchell was a Liberal,

conspicuous for the energy he brought to the administration of public

affairs, both in his own province and at a later time in the new

Dominion as a minister of the crown. Mr. Edward Barron Chandler had long

been a notable figure in the politics of New Brunswick, and was

universally respected for his probity and worth. He had the honour of

being at a later time the lieutenant-governor of the province with which

he had been so long and honourably associated. Mr. John Johnson and Mr.

William H. Steeves were also fully qualified to deal intelligently with

the questions submitted to the convention.

Of the seven members of the Prince Edward Island delegation, four were

members of the government and the rest were prominent men in one or

other branch of the legislature. Colonel Gray--a descendant of a

Virginia Loyalist--was prime minister of the island. Mr. George Coles

was one of the fathers of responsible government in the island, and long

associated with the advocacy and passage of many progressive measures,

including the improvement of the educational system. Mr. Edward Whelan

was a journalist, an Irishman by birth, and endowed, like so many of his

countrymen, with a natural gift of eloquence. Mr. Thomas Heath Haviland,

afterwards lieutenant-governor of the island, was a man of culture, and

Mr. Edward Palmer was a lawyer of good reputation. Mr. William H. Pope

and Mr. Andrew Archibald Macdonald were also thoroughly capable of

watching over the special interests of the island.

Newfoundland had the advantage of being represented by Mr. Frederick

B.T. Carter, then speaker of the house of assembly, and by Mr. Ambrose

Shea, also a distinguished politician of the great island. Both were

knighted at later times; the former became chief justice of his own

province, and the latter governor of the Bahamas.

SECTION 3.--Confederation accomplished.

The Quebec convention sat with closed doors for eighteen days, and

agreed to seventy-two resolutions, which form the basis of the Act of

Union, subsequently passed by the imperial parliament. These resolutions

set forth at the outset that in a federation of the British American

provinces "the system of government best adapted under existing

circumstances to protect the diversified interests of the several

provinces, and secure harmony and permanency in the working of the

union, would be a general government charged with matters of common

interest to the whole country, and local governments for each of the

Canadas, and for the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince

Edward Island, charged with the control of local matters in their

respective sections" In another paragraph the resolutions declared that

"in forming a constitution for a general government, the conference,

with a view to the perpetuation of our connection with the

mother-country, and the promotion of the best interests of the people of

these provinces, desire to follow the model of the British constitution

so far as our circumstances permit" In a subsequent paragraph it was set

forth: "the executive authority or government shall be vested in the

sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and be

administered according to the well-understood principles of the British

constitution, by a sovereign personally, or by the representative of the

sovereign duly authorised."

In these three paragraphs of the Quebec resolutions we see clearly

expressed the leading principles on which the Canadian federation

rests--a federation, with a central government having jurisdiction over

matters of common interest to the whole country comprised in the union,

and a number of provincial governments having the control and management

of certain local matters naturally and conveniently belonging to them,

each government being administered in accordance with the

well-understood principles of the British system of parliamentary

institutions.

The resolutions also defined in express terms the respective powers of

the central and provincial governments. Any subject that did not fall

within the enumerated powers of the provincial legislatures was placed

under the control of the general parliament. The convention recognised

the necessity of preventing, as far as possible, the difficulties that

had arisen in the working of the constitution of the United States,

where the residuary power of legislation is given to the people of the

respective states and not to the federal government. In a subsequent

chapter I give a brief summary of these and other details of the system

of government, generally laid down in the Quebec resolutions and

practically embodied in an imperial statute three years later.

Although we have no official report of the discussions of the Quebec

convention, we know on good authority that the question of providing

revenues for the provinces was one that gave the delegates the greatest

difficulty. In all the provinces the sources of revenue were chiefly

customs and excise-duties which had to be set apart for the general

government of the federation. Some of the delegates from Ontario, where

there had existed for many years an admirable system of municipal

government, which provided funds for education and local improvements,

recognised the advantages of direct taxation; but the representatives of

the other provinces would not consent to such a system, especially in

the case of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, where

there were no municipal institutions, and the people depended almost

exclusively on the annual votes of the legislature for the means to meet

their local necessities. All of the delegates, in fact, felt that to

force the maritime provinces to resort to direct taxes as the only

method of carrying on their government, would be probably fatal to the

success of the scheme, and it was finally decided that the central

government should grant annual subsidies, based on population, relative

debts, financial position, and such other facts as should be fairly

brought into the consideration of the case.

It is unfortunate that we have no full report of the deliberations and

debates of this great conference. We have only a fragmentary record from

which it is difficult to form any adequate conclusions as to the part

taken by the several delegates in the numerous questions which

necessarily came under their purview.[4] Under these circumstances, a

careful writer hesitates to form any positive opinion based upon these

reports of the discussions, but no one can doubt that the directing

spirit of the conference was Sir John Macdonald. Meagre as is the record

of what he said, we can yet see that his words were those of a man who

rose above the level of the mere politician, and grasped the magnitude

of the questions involved. What he aimed at especially was to follow as

closely as possible the fundamental principles of English parliamentary

government, and to engraft them upon the general system of federal

union. Mr. George Brown took a prominent part in the deliberations. His

opinions read curiously now. He was in favour of having the

lieutenant-governors appointed by the general government, and he was

willing to give them an effective veto over provincial legislation. He

advocated the election of a legislative chamber on a fixed day every

third year, not subject to a dissolution during its term--also an

adaptation of the American system. He went so far as to urge the

advisability of having the executive council elected for three years--by

the assembly, we may assume, though the imperfect report before us does

not state so--and also of giving the lieutenant-governor the right of

dismissing any of its members when the house was not sitting. Mr. Brown

consequently appears to have been the advocate, so far as the provinces

were concerned, of principles that prevail in the federal republic

across the border. He opposed the introduction of responsible

government, as it now obtains, in all the provinces of the Dominion,

while conceding its necessity for the central government.

[4: Mr. Joseph Pope, for years the able confidential secretary of Sir

John Macdonald, has edited and published all the official documents

bearing on the origin and evolution of the British North America Act of

1867; but despite all the ability and fidelity he has devoted to the

task the result is most imperfect and unsatisfactory on account of the

absence of any full or exact original report of proceedings.]

We gather from the report of discussions that the Prince Edward Island

delegates hesitated from the beginning to enter a union where their

province would necessarily have so small a numerical representation--one

of the main objections which subsequently operated against the island

coming into the confederation. With respect to education we see that it

was Mr., afterwards Sir, Alexander Galt, who was responsible for the

provision in the constitution which gives the general government and

parliament a certain control over provincial legislation in case the

rights of a Protestant or a Roman Catholic minority are prejudicially

affected. The minutes on this point are defective, but we have the

original motion on the subject, and a note of Sir John Macdonald himself

that it was passed, with the assent of all the provinces, at the

subsequent London conference in 1867. The majority of the delegates

appear from the outset to have supported strenuously the principle which

lies at the basis of the confederation, that all powers not expressly

reserved to the provinces should appertain to the general government, as

against the opposite principle, which, as Sir John Macdonald pointed

out, had led to great difficulties in the working of the federal system

in the United States. Sir John Macdonald also, with his usual sagacity,

showed that, in all cases of conflict of jurisdiction, recourse would be

necessarily made to the courts, as was the practice even then whenever

there was a conflict between imperial and Canadian statutes.

Addresses to the Queen embodying the Quebec resolutions were submitted

to the legislature of Canada during the winter of 1865, and passed in

both houses by large majorities after a very full discussion of the

merits of the scheme. The opposition in the assembly came chiefly from

Mr. Antoine A. Dorion, Mr. Luther H. Holton, Mr. Dunkin, Mr. Lucius Seth

Huntington, Mr. John Sandfield Macdonald, and other able Liberals who

were not disposed to follow Mr. Brown and his two colleagues in their

patriotic abandonment of "partyism."

The vote on the address was, in the council--Contents 45, Non-contents

15. In the assembly it stood--Yeas 91, Nays 33. The minority in the

assembly comprised 25 out of 65 representatives of French Canada, and

only 8 out of the 65 from Upper Canada. With the speaker in the chair

there were only 5 members absent on the taking of the final vote.

Efforts were made both in the council and assembly to obtain an

unequivocal expression of public opinion at the polls before the address

was submitted to the imperial government for final action. It was argued

with much force that the legislature had had no special mandate from the

people to carry out so vital a change in the political condition of the

provinces, but this argument had relatively little weight in either

house in view of the dominant public sentiment which, as it was obvious

to the most superficial observer, existed in the valley of the St.

Lawrence in favour of a scheme which seemed certain to settle the

difficulties so long in the way of stable government, and offered so

many auspicious auguries for the development of the provinces embraced

in federation.

Soon after the close of the session Messrs Macdonald, Galt, Cartier, and

Brown went to England to confer with the imperial authorities on various

matters of grave public import. The British government agreed to

guarantee a loan for the construction of the Intercolonial Railway and

gave additional assurances of their deep interest in the proposed

confederation. An understanding was reached with respect to the mutual

obligations of the parent state and the dependency to provide for the

defences of the country. Preliminary steps were taken in the direction

of acquiring the north-west from the Hudson's Bay Company on equitable

terms whenever their exact legal rights were ascertained. The report of

the delegates was laid before the Canadian parliament during a very

short session held in August and September of 1865. It was then that

parliament formally ratified the Civil Code of Lower Canada, with which

must be always honourably associated the name of Mr. Cartier.

In the maritime provinces, however, the prospect for some months was far

from encouraging. Much dissatisfaction was expressed with the financial

terms, and the haste with which the maritime delegates had yielded to

the propositions of the Canadian government and given their adhesion to

the larger scheme, when they were only authorised in the first instance

by their respective legislatures to consider the feasibility of a union

of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In New

Brunswick Mr. Tilley found himself in a minority as a result of an

appeal to the people on the question in 1865, but his successor Mr.,

afterwards Sir, Albert Smith, minister of marine in the Mackenzie

government of 1873-78, was forced to resign a year later on some

question purposely raised by Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton Gordon, then

very anxious to carry the union before he left the province. A new

government was immediately formed by Mr. Peter Mitchell, a very

energetic Liberal politician--the first minister of marine in

the first Dominion ministry--who had notoriously influenced the

lieutenant-governor in his arbitrary action of practically dismissing

the Smith cabinet. On an appeal to the people Mr. Mitchell was

sustained, and the new legislature gave its approval to the union by a

large majority. The opinion then generally prevailed in New Brunswick

that a federation was essential to the security of the provinces, then

threatened by the Fenians, and would strengthen the hands of the parent

state on the American continent. In Nova Scotia the situation was

aggravated by the fact that the opposition was led by Mr. Howe, who had

always been the idol of a large party in the country, and an earnest and

consistent supporter of the right of the people to be first consulted on

every measure immediately affecting their interests. He succeeded

in creating a powerful sentiment against the terms of the

measure--especially the financial conditions--and it was not possible

during 1865 to carry it in the legislature. It was not attempted to

submit the question to the polls, as was done in New Brunswick, indeed

such a course would have been fatal to its progress; but it was

eventually sanctioned by a large vote of the two houses. A strong

influence was exerted by the fact that confederation was approved by the

imperial government, which sent out Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars as

lieutenant-governor with special instructions that, both Canada and New

Brunswick having given their consent, it was proposed to make such

changes in the financial terms as would be more favourable to the

maritime provinces. In Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland it was not

possible for the advocates of federation to move successfully in the

matter. The opposition to the scheme of union, as proposed at Quebec,

was so bitter in these two provinces that the delegates found it useless

to press the matter in their legislatures.

In the meantime, while confederation was on the eve of accomplishment,

the people of Canada were subjected to an attack which supplied the

strongest possible evidence of the necessity for a union enabling them

to combine for purposes of general defence as well as other matters of

national importance. In the month of April, 1866, the Fenians, an Irish

organisation in the United States, made an insignificant demonstration

on the New Brunswick frontier, which had no other effect than to excite

the loyal action of the people of the province and strengthen the hands

of the advocates of confederation. In the beginning of June a

considerable body of the same order, under the command of one O'Neil,

crossed from Buffalo into the Niagara district of Upper Canada and won a

temporary success near Ridgeway, where the Queen's Own, a body of

Toronto Volunteers, chiefly students and other young men, were badly

handled by Colonel Booker. Subsequently Colonel Dennis and a small

detachment of militia were surprised at Fort Erie by O'Neil. The

knowledge that a large force of regulars and volunteers were marching

against him under Colonel Peacock forced O'Neil and his men to disperse

and find their way back to the United States, where a number were

arrested by the orders of the Washington government. The Eastern

Townships of Lower Canada were also invaded but the raiders retreated

before a Canadian force with greater rapidity than they had shown in

entering the province, and found themselves prisoners as soon as they

crossed the frontier. Canada was kept in a state of anxiety for some

months after these reckless invasions of a country where the Irish like

all other nationalities have always had the greatest possible freedom;

but the vigilance of the authorities and the readiness of the people of

Canada to defend their soil prevented any more hostile demonstrations

from the United States. The prisoners taken in the Niagara district were

treated with a degree of clemency which their shameless conduct did not

merit from an outraged people. No persons were ever executed, though a

number were confined for a while in Kingston penitentiary. The invasion

had the effect of stimulating the patriotism of the Canadian people to

an extraordinary degree, and of showing them the necessity that existed

for improving their home forces, whose organisation and equipment proved

sadly defective during the invasion.

In the summer of 1866 the Canadian legislature met for the last time

under the provisions of the Union Act of 1840, and passed addresses to

the Queen, setting forth constitutions for the new provinces of Upper

and Lower Canada, afterwards incorporated in the imperial act of union.

A conference of delegates from the provinces of Nova Scotia, New

Brunswick, and Canada was held in the December of 1866 at the

Westminster Palace Hotel in the City of London. The members on behalf of

Canada were Messrs Macdonald, Cartier, Galt, McDougall, Langevin, and

W.P. Howland (in the place of Mr. Brown); on behalf of Nova Scotia,

Messrs Tupper, Henry, McCully, Archibald, and J.W. Ritchie (who took Mr.

Dickey's place); of New Brunswick, Messrs Tilley, Johnson, Mitchell,

Fisher, and R.D. Wilmot. The last named, who took the place of Mr.

Steeves, was a Loyalist by descent, and afterwards became speaker of

the senate and a lieutenant-governor of his native province. Their

deliberations led to some changes in the financial provisions of the

Quebec plan, made with the view of satisfying the opposition as far as

possible in the maritime provinces but without disturbing the

fundamental basis to which Canada had already pledged itself in the

legislative session of 1865. All the difficulties being now removed the

Earl of Carnarvon, then secretary of state for the colonies, submitted

to the house of lords on the 17th of February, 1867, a bill intituled,

"An act for the union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the

government thereof; and for purposes connected therewith." It passed the

two houses with very little discussion, and the royal assent was given

to it on the 29th of March of the same year as "The British North

America Act, 1867." It is interesting to know that in the original draft

of the bill the united provinces were called the "Kingdom of Canada,"

but when it came eventually before parliament they were designated as

the "Dominion of Canada"; and the writer had it from Sir John Macdonald

himself that this amendment did not emanate from the colonial delegates

but from the imperial ministry, one of whose members was afraid of

wounding the susceptibilities of United States statesmen.

During the same session the imperial parliament passed a bill to

guarantee a loan of three million pounds sterling for the construction

of an intercolonial railway between Quebec and the coast of the maritime

provinces--a work recognised as indispensable to the success of the new

federation. Her Majesty's proclamation, giving effect to the Union Act,

was issued on the 22nd May, 1867, declaring that "on and after the first

of July, 1867, the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick,

shall form and be one Dominion, under the name of Canada."

CHAPTER IX.

CONFEDERATION. 1867--1900.

SECTION I--The first parliament of the Dominion of Canada. 1867--1872.

The Dominion of Canada took its place among the federal states of the

world on the first of July, 1867. Upper and Lower Canada now became

known as Ontario and Quebec, while Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

retained their original historic names. The first governor-general was

Viscount Monk, who had been head of the executive government of Canada

throughout all the stages of confederation. He was an Irish nobleman,

who had been a junior lord of the treasury in Lord Palmerston's

government. He was a collateral descendant of the famous general of the

commonwealth, created Duke of Albemarle after the Restoration. Without

being a man of remarkable ability he was gifted with much discretion,

and gave all the weight of his influence to bring about a federation,

whose great benefits from an imperial as well as a colonial point of

view he fully recognised.

The prime minister of the first federal government was naturally Sir

John Macdonald, who chose as his colleagues Sir George E. Cartier, Sir

S.L. Tilley,--to give them all their later titles--Sir A.T. Galt, Sir

W.P. Howland, Mr. William McDougall, Mr. P. Mitchell, Sir A.G.

Archibald, Mr. A.F. Blair, Sir A. Campbell, Sir H.L. Langevin, Sir E.

Kenny, and Mr. J.C. Chapais. Mr. Brown had retired from the coalition

government of 1864 some months before the union, nominally on a

disagreement with his colleagues as to the best mode of conducting

negotiations for a new reciprocity treaty with the United States. The

ministry had appointed delegates to confer with the Washington

government on the subject, but, while Mr. Brown recognised the

desirability of reciprocal trade relations with the United States on

equitable conditions, he did not deem it expedient to appear before

American statesmen "as suitors for any terms they might be pleased to

grant." A general impression, however, prevailed that this difference of

opinion was not the real reason of Mr. Brown's resignation, but that

the animating motive was his intense jealousy of Sir John Macdonald,

whose dominant influence in the government he could no longer brook.

The governments of the four provinces were also regularly constituted at

this time in accordance with the act of union. The first

lieutenant-governor of Ontario was Lieutenant-General Stisted, of

Quebec, Sir Narcisse Belleau; of Nova Scotia, Lieutenant-General Sir

Fenwick Williams, the hero of Kars; of New Brunswick, Major-General

Doyle, but only for three months. With the exception of the case of

Quebec, these appointments were only temporary. It was considered

prudent to select military men in view of the continuous reports of

Fenian aggression. Sir William Howland became, a year later,

lieutenant-governor of Ontario, Major-General Sir Francis Hastings Doyle

of Nova Scotia in the fall of 1867, and Hon. L.A. Wilmot, of New

Brunswick in July 1868. The first prime minister of Ontario was Mr. John

Sandfield Macdonald, who had been leader of a Canadian ministry before

confederation. He had been a moderate Liberal in politics, and opposed

at the outset to the federal union, but before 1867 he became identified

with the Liberal-Conservative party and gave his best assistance to the

success of the federation. In Quebec, Mr. Pierre Chauveau, a man of high

culture, formed the first government, which was also associated with the

Liberal-Conservative party. In New Brunswick, Attorney-General Wetmore

was the first prime minister, but he was appointed a judge in 1870, and

Mr. George E. King, a judge of the supreme court of Canada some years

later, became his successor. In Nova Scotia, Mr. Hiram Blanchard, a

Liberal and unionist, formed a government, but it was defeated at the

elections by an overwhelming majority by the anti-unionists, and Mr.

Annand, the old friend of Mr. Howe, became first minister.

The elections for the Dominion house of commons took place in the

summer of 1867, and Sir John Macdonald's government was sustained by

nearly three-fourths of the entire representation. The most notable

incident in this contest was the defeat of Mr. Brown. Soon after his

resignation in 1866 he assumed his old position of hostility to Sir John

Macdonald and the Conservatives. At a later date, when the Liberals were

in office, he accepted a seat in the senate, but in the meantime he

continued to manage the _Globe_ and denounce his too successful and wily

antagonist in its columns with his usual vehemence.

The first parliament of the new Dominion met in the autumn of 1867 in

the new buildings at Ottawa--also chosen as the seat of government of

the federation--and was probably the ablest body of men that ever

assembled for legislative purposes within the limits of old or new

Canada. In the absence of the legislation which was subsequently passed

both in Ontario and Quebec against dual representation--or the election

of the same representatives to both the Dominion parliament and the

local legislatures--it comprised the leading public men of all parties

in the two provinces in question. Such legislation had been enacted in

the maritime provinces before 1867, but it did not prevent the ablest

men of New Brunswick from selecting the larger and more ambitious field

of parliamentary action. In Nova Scotia Sir Charles Tupper was the only

man who emerged from the battle in which so many unionists were for the

moment defeated. Even Sir Adams Archibald, the secretary of state, was

defeated in a county where he had been always returned by a large

majority. Mr. Howe came in at the head of a strong phalanx of

anti-unionists--"Repealers" as they called themselves for a short time.

The legislation of the first parliament during its five years of

existence was noteworthy in many respects. The departments of government

were reorganised with due regard to the larger interests now intrusted

to their care. The new department of marine and fisheries, rendered

necessary by the admission of the maritime provinces, was placed under

the direction of Mr. Peter Mitchell, then a member of the senate, who

had done so much to bring New Brunswick into the union. An act was

passed to provide for the immediate commencement of the Intercolonial

Railway, which was actually completed by the 1st of July, 1876, under

the supervision of Mr., now Sir, Sandford Fleming, as chief government

engineer; and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec were at last directly

connected with the maritime sections of the Dominion.

The repeal agitation in Nova Scotia received its first blow by the

defection of Mr. Howe, who had been elected to the house of commons. He

proceeded to England in 1868 with an address from the assembly of Nova

Scotia, demanding a repeal of the union, but he made no impression

whatever on a government and parliament convinced of the necessity of

the measure from an imperial as well as colonial point of view. Dr.

Tupper was present on behalf of the Dominion government to answer any

arguments that the Repealers might advance against the union. The visit

to England convinced Mr. Howe that further agitation on the question

might be injurious to British connection, and that the wisest course was

to make the union as useful as possible to the provinces. Then, as

always, he was true to those principles of fidelity to the crown and

empire which had forced his father to seek refuge in Nova Scotia, and

which had been ever the mainspring of his action, even in the trying

days when he and others were struggling for responsible government. He

believed always in constitutional agitation, not in rebellion. He now

agreed to enter the ministry as president of the council on condition

that the financial basis, on which Nova Scotia had been admitted to the

federation, was enlarged by the parliament of Canada. These "better

terms" were brought before the Canadian parliament in the session of

1869, and provided for the granting of additional allowances to the

provinces, calculated on increased amounts of debt as compared with the

maximum fixed by the terms of the British North America Act of 1867.

They met with strong opposition from Edward Blake, a very eminent

lawyer and Reformer of Ontario, on the ground that they violated the

original compact of union as set forth in the British North America Act;

but despite the opposition of the western Reformers they were ratified

by a large majority, who recognised the supreme necessity of

conciliating Nova Scotia. On account of his decision to yield to the

inevitable, Mr. Howe incurred the bitter antagonism of many men who had

been his staunch followers in all the political contests of Nova Scotia,

and it was with the greatest difficulty that he was re-elected for the

county of Hants as a minister of the crown. He remained in the

government until May, 1873, when he was appointed lieutenant-governor of

Nova Scotia. The worries of a long life of political struggles, and

especially the fatigue and exposure of the last election in Hants, had

impaired his health and made it absolutely necessary that he should

retire from active politics. Only a month after his appointment, the

printer, poet and politician died in the famous old government house,

admittance to which had been denied him in the stormy days when he

fought Lord Falkland. It was a fit ending, assuredly, to the life of the

statesman, who, with eloquent pen and voice, in the days when his

opinions were even offensive to governors and social leaders, ever urged

the right of his countrymen to a full measure of self-government.

Canada and all other parts of the British empire were deeply shocked on

an April day of 1868 by the tragic announcement of the assassination of

the brilliant Irishman, Thomas D'Arcy McGee on his return late at night

from his parliamentary duties. He had never been forgiven by the Irish

enemies of England for his strenuous efforts in Canada to atone for the

indiscretion of his thoughtless youth. His remains were buried with all

the honours that the state could give him, and proper provision was made

for the members of his family by that parliament of which he had been

one of the most notable figures. The murderer, Thomas Whelan, a member

of the secret society that had ordered his death, was executed at

Ottawa on the 11th February, 1869.