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In December, 1827, Mr.
Mackenzie appealed to the electors of York (County) as a candidate for
election to the Assembly. Mr. James E. Small, who had been one of this
counsel in the action against the rioters, was his opponent. He had not
been a member of the family compact; but rested his claims
notwithstanding upon his family influence, and remonstrated with Mr.
Mackenzie upon the folly of contesting an election with him. However,
the latter was returned. He was elected in 1828, but the House did not
meet until January, 1829, when that legislative career began which
culminated in the Rebellion. Mackenzie’s opponents knew well that he
would prove a thorn in their sides, and soon discovered that they had
made no mistake. He insisted upon asking questions, and sifting
everything thoroughly. At the same time he was exceedingly useful in
practical committee work. His report on the Post Office department,
especially as regards the defective and costly mail service, paved the
way for extensive postal reforms. [Mr. Lindsey (p. 157) gives some
valuable information regarding the enormous postal charges of the time,
and the wretched agencies employed in carrying the mails.] In other
important departments he was not less useful; but the party in power,
without denying the practical business talent and energy of the man,
were shocked by the persistency with which he pried into abuses, and
disturbed the ease and serenity of office-holders. The position of the
Reform majority in the Assembly, moreover, was sufficiently galling.
They could pass such measures as were agreeable to them; but there the
power of the House was at an end. Finding their opponents in possession,
the Government hastened to deprive them of the only machinery by which
they could compel acquiescence in their policy. In constitutionally
governed countries the great safeguard of popular freedom lies in the
power of the purse; but, in Upper Canada, the Executive was entirely
independent of the Assembly. So far from being in dread of so extreme a
step as the stoppage of the supplies, it was announced by the
Lieutenant-Governor that they need not trouble themselves upon the
subject. The territorial and casual revenues, together with a permanent
grant of £2,500, made some years previously, were in the hands of the
Government, so that, whether "a supply were granted to His
Majesty," or not, was a matter of indifference. The Legislative
Council could be trusted to veto all Bills distasteful to the party in
power, and the lower House was therefore entirely helpless. The only
protection afforded by the Constitution to the popular branch against a
combination between the Executive and the upper House, had been taken
away; and, as "responsible government" was not yet
established, votes of non-confidence were met with supreme contempt—ignored,
in fact, altogether.
It was against this
unconstitutional procedure that Mr. Mackenzie and his fellow Reformers
struggled with desperate energy. During this Session the member for York
presented his "budget of grievances," formulated in thirty-one
resolutions. So far was he from receiving the support of a majority; so
far, as Mr. Lindsey points out, were even Reformers from noting the
signs of the times, that the resolutions were not even pressed to a
division. [Life and Times, p. 157. Three of the Executive
Council, out of six, were Scots, John Strachan, William Campbell, and
James B. Macaulay. Ibid. p. 158, n.] During the only two sessions
of this Parliament, Mr. Mackenzie displayed unusual ability in all
questions touching finance, revenue, banking and currency, and
interested himself in such practical matters as prison reform.
The death of George IV.
rendered a general election necessary. The House, which had requested
Sir John Colborne to dismiss his advisers, would probably have been
dissolved at any rate. The Colonial Secretary had already urged upon the
Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada "the necessity of cultivating a
spirit of conciliation towards the House of Assembly," and the
Executive of the Upper Province read the hand-writing upon the wall. All
that was left them seemed to be to secure, by hook or crook, a House
favourable to their continuance in power; and they succeeded. Mr.
Mackenzie secured his seat for York, but Dr. Baldwin and other prominent
Reformers were left out in the cold. The House met in January, 1831, and
Mr. (afterwards Chief- Justice) Archibald McLean was elected Speaker by
a vote of twenty-six to fourteen A sort of compromise was effected in
the matter of supply. The sum of £6,500 sterling was granted in
perpetuity to pay the salaries of the Lieutenant-Governor, the Judges,
the law officers, and five Executive Councillors, whilst the rest,
amounting to £11,000, was surrendered to the House to deal with as it
pleased.
Mr. Mackenzie, nothing
daunted by the odds against him, moved for a committee of inquiry into
the state of the representation. He pointed out that the members for
York and Lanark represented a larger population than fifteen other
members, and that the House swarmed with office-holders. [McMullen says:
"It (the state of the representation) could not well be worse. When
he rose to address the House, a Collector of Customs sat at his elbow,
the Speaker held the office of Clerk of the Peace at Cornwall, six
postmasters occupied seats in the Assembly, which also embraced a
sheriff, inspectors of tavern and distillery licenses, county registrars
and a revenue commissioner." (p. 376.) "A majority of the
whole House represented less than a third of the population."
Lindsey, p. 191.] Singularly enough, the Assembly, whose composition he
had so trenchantly attacked, not only granted the Committee by
twenty-eight to eleven, but permitted him to nominate them. If this
concession were made in the hope that Mr. Mackenzie wou1d rest
satisfied, that hope was vain. Emboldened by this measure of success, he
at once opened fire upon the majority. Salaries, fees, pensions,
perquisites and everything that he could hinge a complaint upon, were
paraded to be assailed in order.
The ruling party could
endure it no longer, and the resolution was taken to get rid of him at
all hazards. Mr. Mackenzie had printed, at his own expense, some extra
copies of the Journals, and distributed them to outsiders. The appendix
had not been sent out with these copies; had it been otherwise, Mr.
McNab said he should not have been so ready to make it a question of
privilege. As it was, a resolution was submitted, declaring that the
printing and distribution of these copies of the Journals, was a breach
of the privileges of the House. This, however, the majority was not
prepared to assert; and the motion was lost by twenty to fifteen, and so
the matter ended for the time. During the recess, Mr. Mackenzie aroused
the people of Upper Canada, and secured twenty-five thousand signatures
to a petition to the King in favour of "responsible
government" and representative reform. This he afterwards carried
to England. [Lindsey, i. 202-4.] On the 17th of November, 1831, the
House re-assembled, and on the 6th of the following month, an article in
the Advocate, which merely complained of the way Reform petitions
were treated by the House, was voted a "gross, scandalous and
malicious libel" on a division of twenty-seven to fifteen. Three
days after he was expelled from the House. [The final vote stood –
Yeas, 24; Nays, 15.]
The expulsion was a
grievous error, even as a matter of policy; since, instead of
extinguishing the man, it made a popular hero of him. He was at once
returned again for York, amid the wildest popular enthusiasm, by a vote
of one hundred and nineteen, against one for Mr. Street, who, an
hour-and-a-half after the poll opened, abandoned the contest. Mr.
Mackenzie was escorted back to York by a triumphal procession, and
appeared to take his seat in January, 1832. The first attempt at
re-expulsion failed, because the Attorney-General (Hagerman) saw
clearly, probably with the case of John Wilkes in mind, that it would be
dangerous to carry the motion without alleging some new ground for
expulsion. An amendment was therefore carried by twenty-four to twenty
to proceed to the orders of the day. But three days after, the
Attorney-General made an article in the Advocate of the sixth a
pretext for new action, and therefore moved his expulsion, which was
carried by twenty-seven to nineteen. It may be added that the motion not
merely unseated but disqualified Mr. Mackenzie which was a step utterly
indefensible on constitutional grounds. At the next election, he had two
opponents, Mr. Small, who professed to disapprove of the Assembly’s
action, but urged that it would be useless to vote for a candidate who
had been declared ineligible; and Mr. Washburn, who approved of the
expulsion. The latter retired on the second day, having received only
twenty votes; and at the close of the poll the vote stood Mackenzie 628,
Small 96. The House had been prorogued however, before the election. At
Hamilton, Mr. Mackenzie was the victim of a brutal assault, and a York
mob broke up a Reform meeting, proceeded in a body to cheer the
Governor, and on their return broke the windows of the Advocate office
and threatened the life of its proprietor. On this occasion Mr.
Mackenzie was compelled to seek safety in the country for several weeks.
In April, 1832, he went
to England to present petitions at the foot of the Throne. While there
he seems to have thoroughly gained the ear of Lord Grey and of the Whig
Ministry and party generally. He procured the dismissal of both the
Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, the Imperial veto on the Upper
Canada Bank Bill, and also caused a dispatch from the Colonial Secretary
which caused a flutter in the dove-cote of the family compact. Nor was
that all. The Colonial Secretary had repeatedly expressed very decided
objections to the course the Government had pursued towards Mr.
Mackenzie. Mr. Joseph Hume was the first to bring the matter under Lord
Goderich’s notice. Yet notwithstanding his remonstrances, Mr.
Mackenzie had once more been expelled during his absence in England.
Upon the dismissal, Mr. Jameson received the Attorney-Generalship; he
was the husband of a noted writer of considerable literary merit, and
was elevated to the Vice-Chancellorship in 1841. Dr. Rolph had been
pressed for the other law office; but he was so obnoxious to the
dominant party that no appointment was made. Messrs. Boulton and
Hagerman went to England and obtained from the new Colonial Secretary,
Mr. Stanley (the late Lord Derby), the one a Chief-Justiceship in
Newfoundland, and the other restoration to his office of
Solicitor-General.
Mr. Mackenzie’s absence
might have operated against him; but his friends again brought forward
his name. This time, in spite of the resolution disqualifying him, he
was re-elected by acclamation. On his return the Clerk refused to
administer the oath, but the matter was of course discussed in the
House. There was something exceedingly illogical in the course of the
majority. It was acknowledged that Mr. Mackenzie laboured under no legal
disability, and yet they asserted the right to create one by simple
resolution; they admitted also the right of the electors of the County
of York to return him and yet claimed the privilege of excluding the
member they had chosen. In this instance the old resolution affirming
ineligibility was once more adopted by a vote of eighteen to fifteen;
but the motion for a new writ was only passed by a majority of one. In
December, 1833, Mr. Mackenzie was again elected without opposition. When
he presented himself at the bar on this occasion he was accompanied by a
large body of electors who insisted on seeing that their representative
was put in possession of his rights. There was a fracas in consequence,
arising from the circumstance that the Sergeant-at-Arms insisted upon it
that Mackenzie was a stranger, and bound to retire when the order was
given to clear the galleries. The officer tried to eject him by force;
but a stout Highlander aimed a blow at the Sergeant. It was finally
decided that Mackenzie was a stranger, since he had not taken the oaths,
and the process of expulsion was again gone through with, the prominent
movers on the side of the majority being Messrs. McNab, Morris and
Donald Fraser, all Scots. The vote stood twenty-two to eighteen.
Mr. Mackenzie then
addressed the Lieutenant-Governor and requested permission to take the
oath before him, in accordance with a provision in the Constitutional
Act. The Attorney-General, on being consulted, replied that the oath
must be administered, and that no one commissioned for that purpose
could refuse it, "since his office was ministerial and not
judicial." [Lindsey, p. 297.] The oath was taken, but that had, of
course, no effect upon the House. Mr. Mackenzie then walked into the
Chamber and took his seat. The Assembly was in committee, Mr. Donald A.
Macdonald occupying the chair. This time (the fifth) he was forcibly
expelled; but a motion to issue a new writ was lost. As to the illegal
and unconstitutional character of these proceedings there can be no
doubt; and even the active movers afterwards acknowledged their mistake.
["The whole of the proceedings relating to these expulsions were
expunged from the Journals of the Assembly, being declared to be
subversive of the rights of the whole body of election of Upper Canada.
This was done in the first session of the next Provincial Parliament on
the 16th of July, 1835." Mr. McNab frankly confessed
that he had been in error, and voted to expunge his own resolutions.
Lindsey, p. 310.]
In March, 1834, the town
of York was transformed into the city of Toronto, and Mr. Mackenzie
elected first Mayor by the Council. He was also the first Mayor in Upper
Canada. To him the city owes its arms, with the three I’s as its
motto: "Industry, Intelligence, Integrity." In this position
he displayed characteristic energy. The work of organization was not by
any means light, and sagacity and skill were required in arranging the
civic finances. During his term Mr. Mackenzie laboured hard for the good
of the city and retired amidst the general applause of the people. As
Mayor he presided at the police court, and whilst acting in this
capacity kept the city stocks fairly employed in the ease of
incorrigible offenders. Meanwhile the county of York had been divided
into four ridings, and Mr. Mackenzie was returned for the second by a
vote of nearly two to one. At the general election the Reform party once
more secured a majority, and Mr. Bidwell again became Speaker. The
Assembly, instead of re-echoing the Speech from the Throne gave his
Excellency in its Address, a tolerably free expression of opinion on the
acts of the Government. It was during this session that a select
committee obtained by Mr. Mackenzie made the celebrated Seventh Report
on Grievances. In this document everything relating to public affairs
from the questions of "Responsible Government" and the Clergy
Reserves, down to the smallest details touching fees and pensions, was
enumerated. In fact it was the Reform manifesto on the eve of an armed
insurrection.
In his instructions to
the new Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head (December, 1835), Lord Glenelg
in effect replied to the Grievance Report. Into the details it is not
necessary to enter here; it may suffice to remark that the Colonial
Secretary deprecated the threat to stop the supplies, and trusted that
"it would not be made good unless in a case of extreme
emergency." In the body of the document appear some grounds urged
in extenuation of the Government, and a mild promise that some of the
matters complained of would be remedied. The clamour for executive
responsibility he avoided rather than met.
The appointment of so
inexperienced a man as Sir Francis Head, was one of those freaks which
seem almost inexplicable. Probably, as Mr. McMullen suggests, he was
sent as a supposed Liberal, to reconcile the Upper Canadian malcontents.
[History, p. 431.] He himself professed to take his cue from the
Grievance Report; how far he did so will appear in the sequel. At all
events he was totally unfit for the position, as he himself admitted
afterwards. [He admitted that he "was really greatly ignorant of
anything that in any way related to the government of our
colonies." Lindsey, p. 355, n.] He had been a major in the army,
and was, at the time of his appointment, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner
for the County of Kent. Such was the ruler despatched to Toronto at a
perilous crisis. Parliament met soon after the new Governor’s arrival,
and the Address from the Assembly rather sharply criticized the Speech
from the Throne. Still Sir Francis began well. His nomination of Messrs.
Dunn, Baldwin and Rolph, the last two prominent Reformers, to the
Executive Council, was hailed with a satisfaction too lively to be
permanent. In less than a fortnight the whole Council resigned.
Ministers complained that they were held responsible to the people for
measures of which they disapproved; whilst the Governor contended that
he alone was responsible. ["The Lieutenant-Governor
maintains," said he, "that responsibility to the people, who
are already represented in the House of Assembly, is unconstitutional;
that it is the duty of the Council to serve him, not them." For
this he was rebuked by the Colonial Secretary. Lindsey, p. 363.] A new
Council of four was immediately constituted; but the House at once
expressed "their entire want of confidence" in its members,
and expressed regret at His Excellency’s course. The Governor was at
once upon his high horse, and believing it his mission to battle with
the "low-bred antagonist, democracy," resolved to withstand
persistently "the fatal policy of concession." He appealed to
the people by proclamation, replied to addresses, and virtually
"stumped" the Province as the avowed antagonist of Mr.
Mackenzie. There can be little doubt that the intelligent members of the
party whose cause Sir Francis had called his own, disapproved of his
headlong course; but they were bound to support him at all hazards. He
denounced Mr. Baldwin, in a dispatch to Lord Glenelg, as an agent of the
revolutionary party; affected to believe that an invasion was imminent;
and altogether lost his head. Yet there was a method in his madness, and
so ingeniously did he conduct the campaign that, at the general
election, an Assembly was secured after his own heart. Mackenzie and
other Reform leaders lost their seats. To him the blow was a severe one,
and its immediate result was a dangerous illness.
In July, 1836, he issued
the first number of a paper called The Constitution. The period
of despair had set in, and the baffled editor at once struck a new vein.
It was clear that with a Governor who could boldly issue an election
manifesto, in which he advised the people not to quarrel with their
"bread and butter," [Hence the new House of 1836 received the
name of "The Bread and Butter Parliament."] and proclaimed
that his character and the public interest were "embarked in one
and the same boat;" and with a system of election obtaining, under
which votes were manufactured unblushingly, and known Reformers
disfranchised by partizan returning officers on the most frivolous
pretences, there was little hope of success by constitutional means.
Still, the Opposition made an appeal to the Colonial Office. Lord
Glenelg suspected that the Governor had acted most imprudently, yet he
could not understand how he had succeeded so well at the polls. So he
resolved, for the present, to keep him at his post. The Assembly soon
found that the Reform agitation was seriously affecting its popularity,
and yet there was some danger that the period of its existence would be
suddenly cut short by the death of King William IV. A Bill was passed,
therefore, to prevent a dissolution in the event of a demise of the
Crown. The session terminated on the 4th of March, 1837, without any
premonition of approaching trouble being evidenced in the Governor’s
Speech. Mr. Mackenzie certainly did not, at that time, contemplate
extreme measures, for in the same month he went to New York, purchased
several thousand volumes of books, and new "plant" for his
printing office. [Lindsey, i. 401.]
It is clear that no
insurrectionary movement would have been attempted in Upper Canada; had
not Papineau, Nelson, and their coadjutors in the Lower Province taken
the initiative. The leaders there boldly advocated colonial independance,
made an appeal to arms, and solicited assistance from the United States.
Mr. Mackenzie and his friends were soon drawn into the vortex. Their
rage and chagrin at the unconstitutional conduct of Sir Francis Head, at
the sinister means by which the late elections had been carried, and at
the apparent hopelessness of attempting a reform by constitutional
agencies drove them to desperation. The attempt at rebellion was as weak
as it was wicked; yet at the time it probably appeared to be otherwise
to Mr. Mackenzie. He contemplated a revolution with that sanguine
impulsiveness which always characterized him. And, after all, the burden
of responsibility for that futile outbreak must rest upon the shoulders
of the Lieutenant-Governor. ["In short," says Mr. McMullen,
"he (Sir Francis) sowed the wind, by exciting the passions of the
masses, and reaped the whirlwind in the petty rebellion, of which he
must forever stand convicted as the chief presenter. Had he taken time
to acquire a just knowledge of the condition of the country – had he
acted with calm and impartial wisdom, presuming that knowledge to have
been acquired. Upper Canada would not have known the stigma of even
partial rebellion." History, p. 439.] His extravagant
language, his arbitrary acts, his undisguised interference with the
freedom of election, his sublime self-confidence, taken together, stamp
him as at once the rashest, most violent, and yet the feeblest and most
incompetent representative the Crown ever had in British North America.
To the last moment so little prescience did he possess, that he
ridiculed the idea of an armed insurrection. In order to show at once
his confidence and his ignorance, when tidings of impending troubles
reached him, he despatched every regular soldier to the Lower Province.
[Yet when he discovered that he had failed to discern the signs of the
times, and that rebellion, had actually commenced, he placed his family
and all his effects on board a steamer, which was moored out in the
harbour, at a safe distance from shore.] He had evidently not given
sufficient weight to the contagiousness of example; so the insurrection
awoke him from his optimist dream abruptly to find him with his lamp
gone out, and without oil with which to kindle it anew. At this time he
was at daggers drawn with the Colonial Office, whose mandates and
remonstrances he treated with a contempt by no means silent.
In August, 1837, a
manifesto appeared in the Constitution, amounting, as Mr. Lindsey
observes, to a declaration of independence. [The document may be seen
entire in Life and Times, vol. ii., Appendix D., p. 334.] It is a
curious fact that Dr. Morrison and Dr. Rolph, both members of the House,
demurred to attaching their names to this document on account of their
public position. To this Mr. James Lesslie, afterwards proprietor of the
Examiner, a Scot, demurred, and ultimately Dr. Morrison’s name
appeared as chairman of the committee. Then commenced a popular
agitation of rather a boisterous and inflammatory character. Often the
meetings were disturbed by the opposite party, and scenes of riot and
confusion resulted. Meanwhile Mr. Mackenzie added fuel to the flame by
incendiary articles, and attempted a coup by instigating the
farmers to make a run on the Bank of Upper Canada, the main-stay of the
Government. [This was adroited titled over by paying all comers in
silver which was counted out; while the friends of the bank mingled with
the crowd and also demanded specie, which was sent back in wheelbarrows
at night.] The attempt, however, failed, although two other banks found
it necessary to close their doors and Sir Francis Head was compelled to
call the Legislature to pass a measure of relief. Of course so soon as
the rebellion broke out, specie payments were suspended altogether.
All this time a secret
movement in the direction of armed resistance was in progress. Early in
November, fifteen hundred had subscribed their names as volunteers, and
there were weekly drills. After considerable vacillation, on the 18th
November, a plan of attack was decided upon. After the withdrawal of the
troops, no less than four thousand stand of arms were left unprotected.
The Governor, who might have known everything, was living in a fool’s
paradise. It was therefore proposed to take Toronto by surprise, seize
Sir Francis Head, and take possession of the arms. The rendezvous was
fixed at Montgomery’s tavern on Yonge Street, about four miles north
of the city, at a little hamlet now known as Eglinton. It was expected
that at least four thousand men would be present at the appointed time,
and, with prompt action, the capture of the city might easily have been
accomplished in an hour. But the plans of the rebels were disarranged by
a divided headship. The attack had been appointed for the 7th, but Dr.
Rolph appears to have changed the date to the 4th. The consequence was
that there was nothing for it but to make the best of a bad job. In
addition to this, the plans of the conspirators had leaked out, so that
a surprise was no longer possible.
Van Egmond, a retired
soldier from the army of Napoleon I., had been appointed
"generalissimo of the insurgent forces," and, under his
direction, the movement began. Mackenzie, with five followers, were out
to reconnoitre when they met Alderman Powell and Archibald Macdonnell,
who were acting as a mounted patrol. The rebel leader informed them of
the insurrection, and also of the fact that they must consider
themselves prisoners. Leaving them in the hands of two of his party to
be conducted to the hotel, Mackenzie proceeded. Powell at once shot his
captor dead and escaped to the city, in order to arouse the Governor and
the citizens. When the leader returned to the hotel he found that
Colonel Moodie, [Colonel Moodie was a native of Fifeshire, and had seen
service throughout the Peninsular War. According to Mr. Lindsey, the man
who shot him was an Irishman named Ryan, who, after enduring terrible
suffering from cold and hunger on the shores of Lake Huron, managed to
escape to the United States.] who was hastening to reach the city to
place his services at the disposal of the Government, had persisted in
forcing his way through the rebels, and had been shot down. Further
delays occurred, and finally, for the purpose of giving the volunteers,
who were expected, time to arrive, a flag of truce was sent out to the
rebels, nominally to ascertain what they wanted. The time was
auspicious, for the death of Anderson, Powell’s victim, had cast a
damper upon the rebels, and they were entirely dispirited. The Governor
sent with the flag of truce Dr. Rolph and Mr. Robert Baldwin, two men
who, he naturally thought, would exert considerable influence over the
insurgents. In reply to the main query propounded, Mackenzie replied
that they wanted independence. [It is not necessary to enter into the
much disputed question whether Dr. Rolph, on this or a subsequent
occasion, advised the rebel leader to come at once into the city. All
the parties concerned are long since dead, and therefore no useful
purpose can be served by reopening the controversy.] A second flag of
truce met the insurrectionary party on their way to the city, and
delivered their message, which was simply a refusal of the rebel
demands. Further advance was delayed until six o’clock, when the
forward movement was resumed. About half a mile from the city they
received the fire of a picket of loyalists lying in ambush behind a
fence. The assailants did not wait even to see the effect of their fire,
and a panic seized the rebels. The majority of them, in spite of the
vigorous efforts of Mackenzie and Lount, returned to their homes. Two
hundred more arrived during the night; but the force now numbered only
four hundred and fifty, and the golden opportunity had been lost. Dr.
Rolph at once fled to the States to avoid arrest, as the loyal
volunteers were pouring into the city.
Early on Thursday, when
an attack was expected from the Government force, Van Egmond arrived,
and, after detaching a small force to seize the Montreal mail and burn
the Don Bridge, settled upon a plan. In the hope that, at night, large
reinforcements would come in, it was resolved to stand upon the
defensive for the present. The parties met near Montgomery’s. The main
body of the loyalists was commanded by Sir Allan McNab; Colonel Jarvis
had the right and Colonel Chisholm and Judge McLean the left. The
conflict was sharp and decisive; and the rebels, although they fought
gallantly, were put to flight, after losing thirty-six killed and
fourteen wounded. The other side had only three wounded. So ended the
Battle of Gallow’s Hill. Mackenzie fled, and a reward of £1,000 was
at once offered for his capture. The account of his escape to the United
States is romantic enough. [See Lindsey, vol. ii. pp. 102-122, where the
narrative is given from Mr. Mackenzie’s own pen.] The fidelity with
which even political opponents who had given their hospitality to a
hunted fugitive, and the ingenuity exhibited in baffling the search, as
he passed through a country swarming with armed men in quest of him and
of the reward, make up an interesting episode. [In what is now the
County of Wentworth, the High Sheriff Macdonell, with a posse, searched
the home from top to bottom, as well as the out-buildings, "and I
the while," writes Mackenzie, "quietly looking on. When I
lived in William Street, some years ago, he called on me, and we had a
hearty laugh over his ineffectual exertions to catch a rebel in
1837."] After wandering for several weeks, with some hair-breadth
escapes almost miraculous, as he himself remarks, he found himself at
Buffalo. Here Mackenzie entered upon a movement which was in no sense
justifiable. In Canada, believing that constitutional agitation was of
no avail, he had engaged in an abortive insurrection, for which,
perhaps, some defence might be offered. But when he initiated, in the
United States, a plan of invasion, there is no apology to urge, save the
natural exasperation and pertinacity of the man. Dr. Rolph, Mackenzie,
and others formed themselves into an executive committee, held public
meetings, and freely offered land and other loot to any one who would
join them in the attack upon the Province. Van Rensselaer, a son of an
General, was made commander-in-chief, "a worthless scamp," as
McMullen terms him.
The residuum of Buffalo
freely enlisted in the service of the patriots, and Navy Island, in the
Niagara river, about two miles above the Falls, was at once seized by
the party. A Provisional Government of Upper Canada, easily improvised,
followed the example of most bodies of the sort in the issue of paper
promises to pay. [An engraving of one of these notes is given in
Lindsey, vol. ii. p. 48.] Having established themselves there, it was
soon found that little or no support was forthcoming from the Province.
The exiles were the only Canadians who cared to embark in the enterprise
which was to free their country. The rebels had some twenty-four pieces
of artillery, of what calibre does not appear, and Van Rensselaer kept
them pounding away upon the farm houses with little or no effect. About
six hundred men were upon the island; but no attempt was made to cross
to the mainland. Cols. Cameron and McNab arrived on the scene, and
commenced a desultory fire, but only one man on the island was killed.
Then followed the episode
of the Caroline, a steamer employed by the rebels to convey men
and stores to the island. On the 28th of December, 1837, she was moored
to the wharf at Fort Schlosser, when Col. (Sir A.) McNab and Lieut.
Drew, R. N., with a party which had gone over in boats, seized and fired
the vessel, and sent her adrift down the rapids. [Many fancy pictures
have been drawn of the Caroline passing all aflame over the
Falls; but it would appear that she went to pieces, and was lost to
sight long before the abyss was reached. The smoke-pipe, it is said, was
distinctly visible at the bottom a few years ago.] The destruction of
the vessel in American waters, naturally caused excitement in the United
States, and some angry diplomatic words passed in consequence. That it
was a breach of neutrality there can be no doubt; and, in 1842, Lord
Ashburton expressed the regret of Her Majesty’s Government at its
commission. Early in January, 1838, finding the island untenable, in the
face of the constant artillery fire poured upon it from the Chippewa
shore, the rebels withdrew to the mainland. Other attempts were made
from the States, one by a Scot, named Sutherland, on Amherstburg,
[Amongst those who were lost to the public service by the assaults of
these foreign marauders, there was no more promising officer than Col.
John Maitland, C.B., a son of the Earl of Lauderdale. Had he lived he
would unquestionably have risen to eminence. During the rebellion he
commanded the 32nd regiment, and utterly defeated the
brigands at Point Pelee Island, in March, 1838. During the march, and
from exposure on the island, however, he caught a cold which carried him
prematurely to his grave. He had previously served in Spain and
Portugal, and was deeply beloved by his men.] and others from lake
ports, all of which failed, and the rebellion was at an end.
Meanwhile Sir George
Arthur was appointed to succeed Sir Francis Head, and the trials of the
many prisoners arrested were proceeded with. [A list of these men, with
the result in each case, will be found in Lindsey, vol. ii., p. 373,
Appendix I. The proportion of Scotsmen is smaller than might have been
anticipated.] It is not necessary to go into details here. Lount and
Matthews were executed, and a large number of their adherents punished
by imprisonment and transportation. Mackenzie’s troubles were not yet
over, indeed they were only beginning. When Van Buren became President,
he was arrested at Rochester for a breach of the neutrality laws, and
sentenced to thirteen months’ imprisonment in the County jail. His
property in Upper Canada had, of course, been confiscated, and now he
himself, a ruined man, was kept in close confinement in a foreign land,
penniless and an exile. During the term of his incarceration, his
mother, who had attained the age of ninety years, breathed her last, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in securing,
"by stratagem," an opportunity of seeing her before she died.
In October, 1839, he was shot at through the bars of the cell, by some
one whose identity was never established. [All that was known seems to
be that "a tall, stout man, with a dog, dressed like a sportsman,
had been seen beyond the mill race." – Lindsey, vol. ii., p.
287.] On the 10th of May, 1840, he was released from prison, and once
more came face to face with the world. It is scarcely necessary to dwell
upon the life of Mr. Mackenzie while in exile. His sufferings were
certainly trying, and, for some time, he could hardly find bread for his
wife and children. Early in 1849, an Act of general amnesty was passed,
and the ex-rebel could once more return to Canada. [It was at this time
that he wrote to Earl Grey, entirely abjuring republicanism, and frankly
confessing that had he succeeded in 1837, "that success would have
deeply injured the people of Canada." Lindsey, ii., 291.] Six years
before, a comprehensive amnesty had been proclaimed; but although
Papineau and Rolph were included, Mackenzie was still left an outlaw. In
March he visited Montreal, where an untoward encounter took place
between him and Col. Prince, in the Parliamentary library. The bluff old
Colonel was somewhat irascible, and afterwards regretted that he had
acted on the impulse of the moment. [The late Mr. Sandfield Macdonald
subsequently took him up to the Library, for which act of courtesy he
was called to account by his Glengarry constituents. His reply, which
fully satisfied the objectors, took the form of a question, "Do you
think I would see an Englishman kick a Scotchman, and not
interfere?"] Mackenzie then repaired to Toronto, where a mob burned
him and Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine in effigy, and broke the windows
of a relative with whom he was staying. In May, 1850, he finally settled
with his family, and took up his permanent residence at Toronto. In
April, 1851, he was elected for Haldimand, defeating the late Senator
Brown, who was the Government candidate, and Mr. McKinnon, a
Conservative. He sat in the House for seven years, resigning in 1858. In
that year he supported the Hon. G. W. Allan as a candidate for the
Legislative Council, notwithstanding his Conservative views. During the
later years of his life he published, somewhat fitfully, a weekly
newspaper, called Mackenzie’s Message. To the last he was a
busy, earnest worker, as he had always been. His political admirers
presented the family with a homestead; but Mackenzie died, as he had
lived, a poor man. Throughout his second political career, he was an
ultra-Reformer, one might almost say an irreconcilab1e. Although he had
seen enough of republicanism to dislike it, he remained a Radical to the
last. Had he been so disposed, he might have taken office in the
short-lived Brown-Dorion administration; but he loved the freedom of his
independent position, and would have proved restive in official harness.
Whatever his faults of judgment and temper may have been, he was beyond
question an honest, warm-hearted and generous man. That he should be a
free lance in politics was to be expected from his antecedents and his
temperament; but there was always a bonhomie about him, which
made even those he opposed most strenuously his warmest personal
friends. [The writer remembers hearing him, in the course of an
obstructive debate, when he indulged in badinage at the expense
of Sir George Cartier. Mackenzie reminded the Attorney-General East that
they had both been rebels in 1837, but that the Government had shown its
estimate of their comparative worth by setting a price upon his head of
1,000 pounds, whilst Mr. Cartier’s was only valued at 300 pounds. In
reading the proclamation he amused the house by beginning "Victoria
Rex."] The later years of his life fall without the period
under consideration. During these years he suffered severely from
pecuniary difficulties, and his buoyant spirits and the almost youthful
sprightliness and activity of his nature gave way. When taken ill, he
refused food and stimulants, and paid no attention to medical advice,
and on the 28th of August, 1861, his troublous life came to a close. In
looking back upon a career so unfruitful on the surface, and so
unprofitable to him, the natural verdict will be that it was a failure.
Still when it is considered that he was the pioneer of reform, the first
who formulated distinctly the principle of responsible government, among
the first to advocate a confederation of the Provinces, and, above all
others, the man who infused political vitality into the electorate, we
cannot say that he lived in vain. Like other harbingers of a freer time,
he suffered that the community might enjoy the fruits of his labour, the
recompense for his misfortunes. When responsible government was at
length established, he was chafing as an exile in a foreign land. When
he again re-entered politics, the battle had been won, and others had
reaped the reward. With all his faults, and he had many, no man has
figured upon the political stage in Canada whose memory should be held
in warmer esteem than William Lyon Mackenzie.
To resume the thread of
the narrative in chronological order. It has been stated that the Navy
island fiasco was not the last attempt at insurrection; but the isolated
efforts which followed usually took the form of invasion. The Hunters’
Lodges along the American frontier busied themselves with expeditions
which were simply piratical. Into the details of these futile raids it
is unnecessary to enter; it will suffice to mention simply the assaults
upon Prescott and Sandwich from Ogdensburg and Detroit respectively.
[The former affair was known as the battle of the Windmill, from the
fact that the invaders had taken possession of a mill; and the latter
was chiefly remarkable for the summary justice executed upon the raiders
by Col. Prince. "I ordered them to be shot," he wrote,
"and they were shot accordingly."] Meanwhile, Sir Francis Head
had been recalled, and Sir George Arthur reigned in his stead. He was in
every sense a better ruler than his predecessor, but only held office
for a brief time, and gave place to Mr. C. Poulett Thompson (Lord
Sydenham) at the Union. The appointment of Lord Durham as High
Commissioner marks a turning-point in the constitutional struggle. After
a tour through the Provinces, the noble Earl drafted his famous Report,
bearing date January 31st, 1839, returned home without leave,
disappointed at the want of support he had received from the Colonial
office, and, died in 1840. [The edition of the Report before us,
containing 142 closely printed pages, was printed at Toronto, by Robert
Stanton, in 1839. The Upper Canadian portion will be found in pp.
64-82.] The concluding pages of his Report contain the recommendations
made by the Earl for the future government of the Canadas. The High
Commissioner preferred a Legislative Union of all the B. N. A.
Provinces; but as a preliminary step suggested the union of Upper and
Lower Canada. Although, however, the Earl’s scheme seemed promising,
the reasons by which he enforced its propriety were not cogent or
far-seeing. His notion apparently was that the French element would be
swamped by the measure, and "that the surplus revenue of Lower
Canada would supply the deficiency, on that part, of the Upper
Province." [Page 132.] On the other hand, Lord Durham exhibited a
catholic liberality of view in treating of constitutional questions
generally, which must have alarmed both the rulers here and the
Conservative Whigs at Home. He proposed a radical change in the
constitution of the Upper House; that all the revenues, except those
derived from the Crown lands, "should at once be given up to the
united Legislature;" that the independence of the judges should be
secured; that the Clergy Reserves should be disposed of; and finally,
that "the responsibility to the Legislature of all officers, except
the Governor and his secretary, should be secured by every means known
to the British Constitution." The Governor should be instructed
"that he must carry on the government by heads of departments in
whom the united Legislature shall repose confidence; and that he must
look for no support in any contest with the Legislature, except on
points involving strictly Imperial interests." [Report, pp.
138-9.] Now, had these concessions been only made three years before,
there would have been no rebellion; and it may safely be affirmed
likewise that, but for the Rebellion, responsible government would not
even now have been granted. At the same time that, of itself, is no
justification for the abortive uprising in 1837; since it had never had
a prospect of success, and came at last to be merely an outlet for the
unruly passions of marauders from the other side. All one can safely
affirm is that good was evolved from evil.
The Home Government did
not accept Lord Durham’s scheme in its entirety. Even pronounced
Liberals, like Lord John Russell, rejected the notion of responsible
government, as untenable and chimerical. Still, though in a hazy form,
the system was acknowledged, yet not with the peremptoriness desired by
the High Commissioner. The Provinces severed in 1791 were re-united by
the Act of 1840, and Lord Sydenham became the first Governor-General. It
is not difficult to lay one’s finger now upon the weak spots in the
Act of Union. The great object which Lord Durham and the Home Government
proposed to themselves was the swamping of the French population, by
giving both Provinces an equality in the representation, notwithstanding
the obvious injustice to Lower Canada involved in that arrangement. The
French protested against the measure in vain; but there was a nemesis at
the heels of the promoters of it; which, while it did not overtake them,
fell upon the state in after years. The sins of the fathers were visited
upon the children, as will be seen hereafter.
It now becomes necessary
to turn to the affairs of Lower Canada from the conclusion of the war
until the Union of 1841. No sooner had the international conflict come
to an end, than discontent once more manifested itself in the Province.
The great bone of contention here was the supplies. It mattered very
little whether the Legislature voted them or not. The Government
collected the money, and used it freely with the consent of the House,
if possible; if not, without it. The French population cared very little
at that time for abstract theories of government; but they saw clearly
the importance of securing the power of the purse. Sir Gordon Drummond
had, for a short time, held the post of Administrator of the Government;
but in 1816 he was superseded by a regular Lieutenant-Governor in the
person of Sir John Cope Sherbrooke. [It has not been thought necessary
to refer to the agitation caused by Judge Sewell; because, although it
involved the Assembly’s right of impeachment, the discussion is only
an epistle in the general course of affairs.] This officer appears to
have been sincerely desirous of conciliating the French population, and
succeeded fairly well in his object. At that time the Provincial
revenues were in a most unsatisfactory state. There were three sources
of income, the Crown duties, levied under Imperial statute, the
"casual and territorial revenues" arising from the landed
property of the Crown, and the provincial duties, paid under local laws,
either within legislative control or made permanent by Imperial statute.
Evidently under such a system, the control of the people’s
representatives over the revenue was practically no control at all. It
was, therefore, about this point that the battle raged as will appear in
the sequel.
Meanwhile we may call
attention to two distinguished men who occupied conspicuous positions in
public estimation at this time. Mr. James (afterwards Sir J.) Stuart was
the son of the Rev. Dr. Stuart, who has been called the founder of the
English Church in Upper Canada. The future rector’s father was a
strict Presbyterian, and had settled in Pennsylvania. After some
scruples Mr. Andrew Stuart consented to his son’s ardent desire to
enter the Episcopal ministry, and he was ordained in 1770. James Stuart
was born in the Province of New York in 1780. After studying at Windsor
College, N. S., he entered the law office of Mr. Reid, and studied law
for four years. He subsequently completed his term with Jonathan Sewell,
afterwards Chief Justice, and was called to the bar in 1801. In 1805 he
became Solicitor General of the Province, and, in 1808 was returned for
two constituencies, but elected to sit for the county of Montreal. Mr.
Stuart was a champion of the English party. He used all his eloquence
against Chief Justice Sewell, and yet at the last was abandoned by his
party. ["Never was a cause more powerfully advocated nor a more
brilliant display of oratory and talents exhibited, than by Mr. Stuart
on this occasion, who must have felt that he was contending against the
current, and that there was pre-concerted and foregone conclusion on the
subject which it was in vain to struggle against." Christie, Vol.
ii., p. 289.] Finding himself, on a division of twenty-two to ten, in
the minority, he retired for five years from political life. In 1822, he
was sent to England to urge the re-union of the Provinces, and while
there was offered the post of Attorney-General which he accepted. In
1827 he became an Executive Councillor, but was suspended in 1831 by
Lord Aylmer for the part he had taken in the political conflicts of the
time. He subsequently received from Mr. Stanley (the late Earl of Derby)
an acknowledgment of the injustice done him, accompanied by an offer of
the Chief-Justiceship of Newfoundland. This he declined, and resumed his
practice. In 1838, the Earl of Durham made him Chief-Justice of Lower
Canada in the place of Sewell, retired. ["Public opinion,"
asserts his Lordship, "with no universal a consent, points to him
as the ablest lawyer in the Province, that there cannot be a doubt that
it would be injustice and folly to place any other person in the highest
judicial office in the Province." Morgan, p. 325. Bibliotheca
Canadensis, p. 363.] His services to the Government, however, were
not yet concluded. Under Sir John Colborne, he was chairman of the
Special Council of Lower Canada, and rendered essential service to the
Governor by drafting the Union Act between the Provinces. In 1840, he
was created a baronet, choosing as his motto what has been called an
epitome of his character— "Justitiae et propositi tenax."
Sir James died in 1853, universally respected. He was a man of singular
ability, rare eloquence, and extended usefulness, and, after all his
political reverses, was spared to see the scheme he had devised carried,
under his own guidance, into practical effect.
His brother Andrew, who
was also one of the minority of ten in 1817, may be briefly noticed in
connection with him. He was one of the pupils of Dr. Strachan at
Cornwall, and subsequently, like Sir James, was admitted to the bar. In
1810, he was engaged for the defence in the political prosecution of
Judge Bedard, and on this occasion approved himself almost the equal of
his brother in eloquence. In 1815 he entered the Assembly, and sat there
until the constitution was suspended in 1838. During that year he became
Solicitor General. In that year also, as Chairman of the Constitutional
Association he went to England to press the question of union.
Throughout he was a staunch Liberal, yet well esteemed by all parties,
and made his mark also as a journalist and litterateur.
The other distinguished
man of Lower Canada referred to above, is the Hon. John Neilson, a Scot
by birth. Born at Dornald, in Kircudbright in 1776, and educated at the
parish school, he was sent out to Canada at the age of fourteen to seek
his fortune. His elder brother Samuel, had at that time become
proprietor of the Quebec Gazette, on the death of his uncle, Mr.
Brown. Samuel died in 1793, but so soon as John Neilson came of age, he
undertook the editorship, and gave a stimulus to Canadian journalism, by
his energy, it had never known before. He at once enlarged the
journal and published it twice a week. His editorials were
moderate in tone, yet their power was at once felt throughout the
Province. It was not till 1818, that he found his way into the Assembly,
as member of Quebec. In all discussions concerning the control of the
revenue, he took an active part upon the Liberal side. Mr Neilson was
not a violent partisan; but still the firmness and vigour with which he
sustained any cause he fe1t impelled to espouse, made him formidable. As
the Quebec Gazette was the vehicle of governmental notices, the
proprietor, in order to be unshackled as a member of the Assembly, made
over the journal to his son, who became King’s Printer. In the
following year, however, owing probably to the father’s political
course, the license was revoked, and the Gazette entered upon an
independent career. In 1822, a measure had been introduced into the
Imperial Commons, to arrange disputed matters of finance between the
Provinces. Lower Canada took alarm, and Messrs. Neilson and Papineau
were sent to England where they succeeded in inducing the Government to
abandon the measure.
In 1828, in company with
Messrs. Viger and Cuvillier, he once more went to England on a mission
of a different sort. By this time the antagonism between the Provincial
Government and the Assembly had become so marked as to call for some
speedy remedy. The three delegates were therefore despatched to London,
bearing a petition of grievance signed by 80,000 inhabitants. A
committee of enquiry was appointed by the Commons, before which the
delegates stated the case of those for whom they appeared. Mr. Neilson
always repudiated any desire for fundamental changes in the
constitution, and in this respect differed widely from the French
Canadian Radical school then springing up. He was quite satisfied that
the Home Government, if properly approached, would do justice to the
colonists. The committee’s report recommended greater liberality in
the Provincial Government, and the delegates returned contented with the
results of their work. In 1830, Mr. Neilson received the thanks of the
Assembly, and was, in addition, the recipient of a silver vase, valued
at one hundred and fifty guineas from his Quebec fellow-citizens, for
his able exertions for the Province, during the two missions to England.
It was not long before
symptoms of disagreement between Mr. Neilson and his French Canadian
allies became apparent. There was already a wide divergence of opinion
regarding several public questions of importance, and, in 1834, he was
deprived, of the representation of Quebec county after sitting for it
during a period of fifteen years. In the same year Mr. Neilson strongly
opposed the celebrated ninety-two resolutions, because he had always set
his face against organic changes in the constitution. He became a member
of the Constitutional Association, and once more proceeded to England as
a delegate to resist the proposed innovations. Nothing practical,
however, came of this mission. During 1837 and 1838, Mr. Neilson
remained staunch in his loyalty, and although feeling the warmest
sympathy with his French fellow-citizens, he never, for a moment,
sanctioned the armed insurrection. He opposed the Union Act because he
thought it unjust to the bulk of the French Canadian population.
In 1841 he was once more
returned for his old constituency, still clinging to the ancient
landmarks, and opposing "responsible government" as a
revolutionary change on the old system of colonial government. He was
invited, in 1843, to accept the post of Speaker of the Legislative
Council; but he had resolved early in his career, not to take any office
of emolument under government, and firmly declined. In 1844, however, he
became a member of that body. A chill, caught at the Quebec reception of
Lord Elgin in 1847, brought on the illness from which he died. Up to the
last, however, he was active in the discharge of his editorial duties—his
son had died before him. In the Gazette of the 31st of January,
1848, appeared two articles from his pen of more than usual earnestness
and power. They formed his valedictory, for on the morrow he died in his
seventy-second year. In whatever respect the character of John Neilson
may be viewed, there appears to be substantial cause for eulogy, and but
little reason for blame. His spotless, and unwavering integrity, more
than any other quality of head or heart, won for him the sincere
respect of all his contemporaries. He was not only a good man, but also
a patriot, willing to spend and he spent in the cause of Canada, active,
eloquent, able and persistent in all that he set his hand to do.
Although he declined to be moved by a hair’s-breadth from his
convictions, at the bidding of the French Canadian leaders, he loved the
race, whose history, customs and institutions fascinated him. In the
family, as in public life, he was the same unswerving devotee to duty;
only there his affections had full scope, and he loved as he was
be1oved. It seems a fair subject for regret that a man who possessed so
great power, capacity and vigour should, after all, leave so little
behind him. His best thoughts lie entombed in thirty neglected volumes
of the Quebec Gazette. But his name is not forgotten in the
Province of Quebec; and to this day the type of an ideally honest,
active and independent public man would be recognised there in a moment
as the portraiture of John Neilson.
It may be as well here to
sketch briefly the career of several Scots who filled the office of
Crown representatives during the period under consideration. George
Ramsay, Earl of Dalhousie, a Scottish peer, was born in 1770. He
embraced the profession of arms, entering the 3rd Dragoon Guards as a
cornet. Having raised a company, he was made captain, and subsequently
held a corresponding position in the Royals. At Martinique he was
severely wounded. From that time his life was passed for many years in
active service—in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in the expedition to
the Helder, at Belleisle, at Minorca, and in Egypt under his
fellow-countryman, Sir Ralph Abercrombie. In 1805 he attained the rank
of Major-General. After a respite from active duty, during which he
married and devoted himself to the care of his estates, Lord Dalhousie
once more went abroad. He was at the Scheldt, at Flushing, and in the
Peninsula under Wellington, who specially mentioned his services at the
battles of Vittoria and the Pyrenees; for his valour, especially in the
crowning exploit at Waterloo, he received the thanks of Parliament.
In July, 1815, he was
created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Ramsay, the title under
which his successor votes in the Lords at this day. In 1816, he was sent
out as General-commanding in Nova Scotia, and upon the sudden death of
the Duke of Richmond, from hydrophobia, became Governor-General of
British North America. This office he filled, with an interval of
fifteen months, during the years 1820 to 1828. [Garneau, as usual,
charged the Governor-General with trying to sow seeds of civil war and
ecclesiastical dissension amongst the Lower Canadians, (See Book xv.,
chap. ii.) but all his statements where his compatriots are concerned,
must be taken cum grano salis.] During his administration the
dead-lock between the two Houses continued, and the Assembly proved more
and more unmanageable. The attempt at a Union of the Provinces
exasperated the French population, and interminable disputes between the
Executive and the Assembly about the civil list and the Crown lands,
kept the Province in a fever of agitation. It was in vain that Papineau
was called to a seat in the Council; the battle went on as before.
Naturally enough the Governor depended for support upon the British
population; but the recognition of popular rights was not exactly what
they wanted. It would be uninteresting to enter into details here,
because apart from the vexed questions having been fully discussed in
published histories, [See Garneau, Christie and McMullen in their
accounts of this troubled period.] they are not pertinent to the object
of this work. Earl Dalhousie was a Conservative, though not inaccessible
to arguments for change and progress; but he found himself in a strange
atmosphere at Quebec, and if he did not succeed in conciliating
opposition, he at all events endeavoured to do so. It is altogether
improbable that anything that he could have done, or advised, would have
satisfied the dominant party in Lower Canada; and that he should have
failed was his misfortune rather than his fault. After leaving Canada in
September, 1828, he became commander-in-Chief of the forces in India,
but returned after a short time in broken health. He died in the sixty
eighth year of his age at his seat, Dalhousie Castle, on the 21st of
March, 1838, "after a noble, an honourable and useful career."
[Morgan, p. 250. It is worthy of note that it was under Lord Dalhousie’s
auspices that the first memorial to Wolfe and Champlain was erected on
the plains of Abraham. He was no enemy to the French race, although he
did not like French Canadian claims to a domineering supremacy.]
Sir James Kempt, who
succeeded Lord Dalhousie was born at Edinburgh in 1765. He also became a
soldier and saw service during the long war. He was engaged at the
Helder in Egypt under Abercrombie, at Naples, and in Calabria. In 1811,
he became a Major-General in Spain and Portugal; took a prominent part
at the siege of Badajos, where he was severely wounded, commanded a
brigade at Vittoria, and at the attack on Vera, at Nivelle, Orthes, and
Toulouse. His military career, after a campaign in Flanders, culminated
at Waterloo, where he was again wounded severely. In 1820, he succeeded
Lord Dalhousie in Nova Scotia, and in 1828 in the government of Canada,
where he remained only two years. The Imperial Government had resolved
upon policy of conciliation, and Sir James Kempt was deputed to carry it
out. [McMullen, p. 336. Garneau on the other hand says, "Sir James
Kempt had received very exact directions how to act. He was to play a
one-sided part under the guise of the most perfect impartiality. . .He
performed the task with great address, and disappeared from the scene in
the nick of time when vague professions would no longer serve his
masters."] Christie gives a very fair account of the real
difficulties in the new Governor’s way. He was known to be the friend
of Mr. Huskisson, one of the most liberal minded of English politicians;
but Kempt "from his previous acquaintance with Lower Canada, the
impracticable pretensions set up by the dominant party, must have felt,
before entering upon his work, the utter hopelessness of the
enterprise." [History of Lower Canada, iii., p. 216.] What
could be done to conciliate the agitators he did, apparently going so
far as to avoid studiously the leaders of the British minority; but all
to no purpose. He even endeavoured to silence the press which had
supported Lord Dalhousie’s Administration. [Garneau, Book xvii., chap.
I; Christie, vol. iii., p. 217.] Nor was this all. A vicious practice
had early established itself, under which members of the Legislature
were entrusted, not merely with local patronage; but with sums from the
treasury, to be used for the benefit of their constituencies. In plain
English, the means were afforded to partizans of "nursing"
their constituencies, and securing re-election by infusing into the
electorate a lively sense of gratitude for favours received. Sir James
Kempt resolved to call these public benefactors to account. Meanwhile
the Assembly carried matters with a high hand. In 1829, complaints
flowed in against the judges; to the Supply Bill was tacked on an
assertion of the right of the House to deal with all the Crown revenues;
and Robert Christie, the historian of the Province, was expelled from
the Assembly for procuring the dismissal of certain magistrates who
belonged to the "patriot" party. [McMullen, p. 385.] Mr.
Christie, like Mackenzie, was re-expelled a number of times when
reelected, although even a decent regard for constitutional law was not
preserved in Lower Canada. [Robert Christie, though a native of Nova
Scotia, was of Scottish parentage. Born at Windsor in 1788, and was
educated there; originally intended for mercantile life, he studied for
the Bar, and subsequently entered the Assembly as member for Gaspe. He
was an ardent Conservative, and during the prolonged contest in the
Legislature, was strenuously opposed to the "patriots." After
his expulsion in 1829, he did not again sit until the Union in 1841.
From that period until 1854, when he was defeated in his old
constituency, he continued to represent it – a well-known figure in
the House. He was a voluminous writer, his earlier work being a history
of Sir James Craig’s Administration, published in 1818, and his latest
"A History of the late Province of Lower Canada," the sixth
and concluding volume of which appeared in 1855. He died at Quebec in
the autumn of 1856, aged sixty-eight years. Morgan: Bibliotheca
Canadensis, p. 75.] There were other vexed questions of the time
which need not engage our attention. The salient event of 1829 was the
adoption of a memorial to the Home Government, embodying certain
resolutions of the Assembly in favour of reform. So far as Sir James
Kempt was concerned, there can be no question that he not only adopted
the policy of conciliation from choice, but persevered in it from the
sincerest motives. He felt, however, that he could effect little with an
Assembly resolute in its determination not to be satisfied. He had
estranged the British population without being able to attach the
majority to himself. All his efforts for pacification were met by
renewed onslaughts from the irreconcilables, and muttered discontent
from the oligarchical faction. He had done his best, and failed from no
fault of his own. He threw up the ungrateful and unpromising task in
1830, and was succeeded by Lord Aylmer. On his return to England, Sir
James was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, and sworn in a Privy
Councillor. His last military promotion bore date 7th of August, 1846,
and he died in London in December, 1855, at the mature age of ninety
years. So far as Canada is concerned, Sir James Kempt’s acts speak for
themselves. He had reinstated magistrates and militia officers who had
been dismissed for party reasons; he endeavoured to secure for his
Executive Council a broader basis by introducing members who possessed
the confidence of the majority, and urged the judges, who were members
of that body, to retire from the Legislative Council. There can be
little doubt that when he retired, it was with the general regret of the
majority of those over whom he had ruled. The time was out of joint, and
notwithstanding all the Governor’s tact and conciliatory temper, his
efforts were in vain. The fault, however, was not his; and if he failed
it was not because he did not deserve success. As Christie says, he
plainly saw that success was impossible "from the ultra
expectations of the party he courted." [There was, it is true, the
appearance of harmony, the best of accord and reciprocal confidence
between the administrator and the Assembly, but it was on both sides,
rather that of courtesy, not to call it hypocrisy, than of cordiality.
Distrust lay at the bottom, neither of them, as there is reason to
believe, having faith in the professions or sincerity of the other, not
that there was any want of candour or frankness in the administrator,
for both were characteristic of him, but that he had to perform a part
in a drama he must have disliked, feeling that neither success nor
gratitude would attend his labours." Christie, vol. iii. p. 287-8.
Of course the historian’s position as a British Conservative must be
taken into account here.]
In 1830, Lord Aylmer, of
Balrath, succeeded Sir James Kempt, and pursued the same policy of
conciliation in vain. At the beginning of the Session the Governor
announced that the Imperial Government intended to surrender the control
of Crown revenues to the amount of £38,000, on the condition that a
civil list of £19,000 should be guaranteed; the casual and territorial
revenues, however, were still reserved. At this time they were estimated
at a little over £11,000. The Assembly, however, was not to be
conciliated; they would have all or nothing. There were now ten members
of the Executive Council French Canadians; the Legislative Council
[Amongst the members of the Upper House at this time we find the name of
Bishop Stuart, the fifth son of the Earl of Galloway, born in
Wigtonshire, Scotland, who was Speaker, Roderick Mackenzie, C.W. Grant,
James Kerr, Matthew Bell, John Forsyth, and John Stewart; Christie,
iii., 303.] had been remodelled; the Jesuits’ estates were surrendered
for educational purposes; and an improved system of Crown lands
management was inaugurated. But all to no purpose. The Assembly would be
content with nothing short of absolute submission on the part of the
Imperial Government. Its object evidently was to obtain control, not
only over the Executive Council, but over the Judges and the Governor
himself. A demand was put forth that the Legislative Council should be
elective. In short, nothing would satisfy the majority but the wildest
form of democratic rule. The civil list was placed on a very moderate
footing; yet the House refused to grant it. In 1833, the Supply Bill was
£7,000 short of the necessary amount. Riots occurred in the streets of
Montreal, and all the symptoms of a popular outbreak appeared. In 1834,
the celebrated "ninety-two resolutions" were passed by a
committee and sent in the form of a petition to England. [Mr. McMullen
attributes their authorship to Papineau; but it is generally understood
that Mr. Morin drafted them.] At the close of the session this year,
Lord Aylmer complained of the parsimony of the House, and stated that
the judges and other Crown officers had suffered severely from the
course it had chosen to adopt. No Supply Bill had been passed for two
sessions, and the Governor had been compelled to make advances from the
military chest.
The Assembly at once
showed its disposition by voting that Lord Aylmer’s censures should be
expunged from the journals of the House. On his part, the Governor
refused to pay the expenses of the House, and as the majority had for
the first time voted payment to themselves, the breach was widened. Lord
Glenelg, Colonial Secretary, offered to surrender all the revenues if
the Assembly would vote a civil list for at least ten years. He stated
that the Home Government would not interfere in the local affairs of the
Province, yet, at the same time, declared that it would not consent to
make the Legislative Council elective. The Assembly continued its
opposition, and affairs were brought to a dead-lock.
A commission of inquiry
was sent out, and, on its report, Lord John Russell founded ten
resolutions in 1837. The Assembly had voted no supplies since 1832, and
it was proposed that the Governor-General should be authorized, without
the sanction of the Assembly, to take £142,000 out of the moneys in the
hands of the Receiver-General to meet the arrears of the civil list.
Against this proposal Lord Brougham, in the Lords, and Mr. Roebuck, the
Lower Canadian agent, in the Commons, vehemently protested. They assured
Parliament that the effect would be a rebellion and perhaps war with the
United States. Lord J. Russell declared that he had no fear for the
future; that he did not propose any sequestration of Provincial funds
for Imperial purposes, but simply as a matter of justice to the servants
of the Crown in the Province; and that, as a matter of fact, the French
Canadians had no grievances. He had always objected to responsible
government in the colonies, because the executive there occupied a
different position altogether from that of a Cabinet in England. In his
view the Governor of Lower Canada did not occupy the same position as a
monarch of Great Britain. He was responsible to the Crown, and received
instructions for his guidance it was imperative upon him to obey,
whatever view the Colonial Assembly might take of them. The weakness of
this protest against what the Colonial Secretary termed "double
responsibility," is more evident to us than it was in 1837. We know
that under the system now prevailing, the substance, and not the forms
merely, of the British constitution may be secured without any conflict
of responsibilities. The Governor, with us, occupies the position of the
monarch at home; and there never was any promise of tranquillity in
Canada until this crucial principle was definitively acknowledged. That
the Assembly was altogether too exigent and unreasonable, is quite
certain. They, and not the Colonial office, precipitated the rebellion;
the one party was wrong in practice, the other faulty in theory.
Lord Gosford, one of the
Commission, became Governor in 1837, taking up the reins which had
dropped from the hands of Lord Aylmer at the moment when the steeds were
getting beyond control. In obedience to his instructions, the new
Governor once more attempted conciliation; but with the usual result.
Papineau inveighed against the Governor and the mother-country from the
Speaker’s chair. There can be little doubt that dreams of future power
as head of a French Canadian nation, free, independent and democratic,
had intoxicated his brain. The majority of the Assembly were as clay in
the hands of the potter; and it soon appeared that his goal was not the
redress of grievances by constitutional means, but rebellion. On the
18th of August, 1837, the Lower Canada Assembly met for the last time.
There was nothing for it to do but vapour and threaten. Many of the
members appeared in home-spun, and declared their intention not again to
use cloth of English manufacture. A dream of a North-west Republic of
Lower Canada, about the idlest one can imagine, passed over the fevered
brains of the recalcitrants; military drill was commenced, and the law
become for the time a dead letter. No jury dared convict any man
prosecuted by the Government, and a reign of terror of the wildest type
began. The moment this republican spectre appeared, the Roman Catholic
Church entered a protest. Bishop Lartigue called upon all faithful
children of the Church to withstand the revolutionary spirit, and he
largely succeeded. To his timely interference it was due that the
Rebellion, after all, achieved so little success. But Papineau and the
other leaders had gone too far to draw back, and at once sank in the
vortex of insurrection.
It had been for some time
apparent to the Governor and the Colonial Office that the
"patriots" were not to be satisfied by concessions. Their
leader was evidently bent upon armed revolts, and he precipitated it by
every means in his power. [Mr. McMullen thus limns this obstreperous
patriot: "It is evident that Louis Joseph Papineau, the great
master spirit, had never counted the cost. He had neither a good cause,
good counsel, nor money to reward his friends. He was a brilliant
orator, but no statesman; a clever partisan leader, but a miserable
general officer; a tyrant in the forum, a coward in the field. He
excited a storm which he neither knew how to allay nor how to
direct." History, p. 414.] He had as effective aids Dr.
Wolfred Nelson, and his brother Robert, the former of whom has been
described as "a Frenchified Englishman." Insurrectionary
meetings were held, and secret drill was indulged in. On the 28th of
October, a demonstration took place at St. Charles on the Richelieu,
called "the Meeting of the four Counties;" violent harangues
were delivered, and the resolutions were declared carried by a volley of
musketry. Early in November, a conflict occurred at Montreal, where the
British Doric Club dispersed, by force, a gathering of the "Sons of
Liberty." This precipitated the outbreak, and on the 22nd the
forces were face to face with the rebels under Dr. Nelson at St. Denis.
The latter were strongly posted in a stone house, and as the loyalists
had only one small gun, nothing could be done but retreat. [It was at
this time that Lieutenant Weir, a promising young Scottish officer, was
wantonly murdered while carrying dispatches.] Meanwhile, Col. Wetherall
was on the way to St. Charles, where "General" Brown had a
thousand habitans under his command. Their leader fled at the first
shot; but the French Canadians made a determined resistance, no less
than fifty-six being left dead on the field. The result was a complete
defeat of the rebels, and Papineau, consulting his own safety, fled to
the United States. Nelson retired from St. Denis, and attempted to
escape, but was captured and lodged in Kingston jail.
In 1838, the insurrection
broke out again, and the affair of St. Eustache occurred. Finally six
hundred habitans re-crossed the border under Robert Nelson, who signed
himself "President of the Provisional Government." This force
was concentrated at Napierville, in the county of Laprairie and against
it advanced General Sir James Macdonell. Nelson expected aid from the
United States, and therefore retreated towards the frontier. He made a
final stand in a church, but was immediately dislodged, and fled across
the lines, leaving fifty killed and an equal number wounded behind him.
Thus ended the Lower Canadian rebellion. The Constitution had meanwhile
been suspended, and the Province was governed by a Special Council. On
the 27th of May, Lord Durham had arrived at Quebec, and it was upon his
departure the final spurt mentioned above under Nelson was made in
Laprairie. It should have been mentioned that the rebel post at
Beauharnois was taken by one thousand Glengarry militia under Cols.
Macdonell and Fraser, with a detachment of the 71st Highlanders. After
the suppression of these outbreaks, Lower Canadian history remains a
blank until the Union.
In the Maritime
Provinces, the course of events was, in most respects similar, with the
important exception that the struggle for responsible government was
carried on without resorting to physical force. Both in New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia, the same system prevailed. The "family
compact" party ruled throughout the years succeeding the war, with
undisputed authority, yet the progress of freer constitutional views was
silent, though not less secure. In Nova Scotia, the earliest efforts of
the people were put forth on behalf of material and educational
improvement. The letters of "Agricola" in 1818, mainly
intended to stimulate scientific agriculture, were written by John
Young, a native of Falkirk, Scotland. He had come out to this country in
1815, with his wife and four sons, and settled in Nova Scotia. His
letters at once made an impression upon the public mind, and he was
toasted by the Governor-General at Halifax, before his identity as the
author had been traced. [At a dinner at Halifax in 1818, the Earl of
Dalhousie said that "he rose to propose the health of a gentleman,
who though unknown to him, it was certain, from his writings, deserved
the appellation of a scholar and a patriot, and whose exertions in the
cause of the prosperity of the country, called forth the esteem of every
friend to its welfare." After further remarks he gave the toast of
"Agricola," and success to his labours.] Mr. Young filled
several important offices in the public service, and died at Halifax in
the autumn of 1837. During Lord Dalhousie’s term, the Presbyterian
College, which bears his name, was founded for the benefit, chiefly, of
Scottish Presbyterians. King’s College, at Windsor, had been founded
upon the firmest Anglican basis, [Not only were tests required as in
England, but one of the by-laws read as follows: - "No member of
the University shall frequent the Romish mass, or the meeting-house of
the Presbyterians, Baptists or Methodists, or the conventicles, or place
of worship of any other dissenters from the Church of England, or where
divine service shall not be performed according to the liturgy of the
Church of England." It is to the credit of the Anglican Bishop (Inglis)
that he strongly, though ineffectually, opposed this by-law. Campbell’s
Nova Scotia, p. 236.] and all but members of the Church of
England were rigorously excluded. In 1805, the Rev. Dr. Thomas McCulloch
proposed the establishment of an institution for higher learning, open
to students of all denominations. The result was the opening of Pictou
academy in 1819, which ultimately became Dalhousie College and
University. Dr. McCulloch appears to have been a man of singularly
versatile learning; and it may be mentioned that one of his pupils was
Dr. Dawson, Principal of McGill University, Montreal. During Lord
Dalhousie’s term an attempt was made to unite the two universities,
but it unfortunately fell through. [The negotiations were conducted on
the part of Lord Dalhousie by S.G.W. Archibald, Speaker of the Assembly,
and the Hon. Michael Wallace, Provincial Treasurer, The Hon. A. G.
Archibald, who succeeded Mr. Howe as Lieutenant-Governor of the
Province, was a son of the former.]
Lord Dalhousie’s
administration was of an eminently practiced character. His chief aim
was to develop the agricultural resources of the Province, and to
stimulate road-making and other works for its material improvement. In
1820, Sir James Kempt became Lieutenant-Governor, and remained in that
position until 1826. One of the first measures of the Imperial
Government, during this period, was the annexation of Cape Breton to
Nova Scotia. In 1827, a Roman Catholic member having been elected to the
Assembly, by a unanimous vote, the House solicited the Crown to remove
the obnoxious religious test. This was two years before Catholic
Emancipation triumphed in England. The Lieutenant-Governor pursued the
same policy as his predecessor in the prosecution of road-making.
Complete surveys of the Province were made, and the timber trade
received a powerful stimulus. It can hardly be said that politics, in
the party sense, had any existence during the eight years of Sir James’
tenure of office. After a brief interregnum, during which the Hon. Mr.
Wallace, a Scot, administered the Government, Sir Peregrine Maitland
succeeded. He arrived in August, 1829, and in that year a conflict
occurred between the Council and the Assembly on the subject of the
brandy duties. In 1826, on a revision of the revenue laws, a duty of one
shilling and four-pence had been imposed on brandy. By some mistake only
one shilling was levied; the House, therefore in 1880, resolved that it
should be raised to the intended rate. The Legislative Council demurred
to this measure, and asked for a conference. A grave constitutional
question was thus raised, touching which neither branch of the
Legislature would give way. In the Assembly, Mr. John Young ("Agricola"),
the Speaker, Mr. Archibald, and Mr. Beamish Murdock, the historian of
the Province, vindicated the right of the Assembly to exclusive control
over matters of supply. [During the debate, Mr. Young, in the course of
a luminous speech, said: "It was not merely that four-pence per
gallon to be imposed upon brandy and gin, for value in money weighted
nothing in the balance compared with the constitutional right which the
imposition of the duty involved." Campbell, p. 260. Chief Justice
Young, it may be noted, was a son of "Agricola."] A dead-lock
ensued, and the session came to a close. Next year the dispute was
renewed, but it ended in triumph of the House.
It was clear that life
had been infused in the body politic of Nova Scotia, and
thenceforth we rise above the dead level of the more primitive time. In
the autumn of 1832, Sir Peregrine Maitland left finally for England,
just before the coming storm fell upon the Province. Another interregnum
followed, during which the symptoms of uneasiness became more marked.
Events in the Canadian Provinces were rapidly approaching a crisis, and
the contagion spread, first to New Brunswick, and subsequently to Nova
Scotia. In February, 1833, the Legislature was convoked by the
President, and a dispatch read from the Colonial Secretary recommending
an increase in the salaries of the judges. Mr. Stewart at once moved a
resolution in favour of the increase, but tacked to it a prayer, that
whilst the Assembly would concede what was asked, "when required to
do so in the manner prescribed in by the British Constitution," his
Majesty "would be pleased to make such an order respecting the
casual and other revenues of the Province, now expended without the
consent of the House, as would render the same subject to the disposal
and control of the House." During the debate Mr. (afterwards Chief
Justice) Sir William Young, delivered a moderate speech, recommending a
conciliatory course. The debates had now become much livelier, and
embraced a wider range of subjects. In 1834, Mr. Stewart attacked the
Council, and proposed a reform in its constitution, but for the present
nothing came of the motion.
At the beginning of July,
1834, Sir Colin Campbell arrived at Halifax and the administration of
Thomas Jeffery, President, came to a close. Sir Colin was every inch a
soldier and a Highland Scot to boot. Born in 1792, he entered the army
as ensign in 1808, and within a few weeks, when yet too juvenile to
carry the colours, was engaged with his regiment (the 9th foot) on the
heights of Vimiera. He served during Sir John Moore’s campaign and was
present at the closing scene, when his General fell at Corunna. He was
with the Walcheren expedition, and then back to the Peninsula. At the
storming of St. Sebastian, he led a forlorn hope, and was twice wounded,
and fought subsequently at Vittoria and the passage of Bidessoa. In 1814
he took part in the American war, then in the West Indies, and in 1842
in China. It was in the second Sikh war, however, that his rare
qualities as a general first attracted public attention. At the battle
of Chillianwalla, he won by a somewhat rash manoeuvre, and at Goojerat
he made a brilliant coup, capturing one hundred and fifty-eight
guns. In 1851 he was sent against the hill tribes, and forced the Kohat
Pass. With only a few horsemen and some guns he forced the submission of
the combined tribes—numbering 8,000 men. And yet after forty-four
years’ service he returned to England a simple colonel. But there was
no jealousy in his nature, and he saw carpet warriors promoted over his
head without uttering a complaint. He bided his time and, although his
friends were more angry and impatient than he, it came at last with the
outbreak of the Crimean War. Even then he was only appointed to the
command of a brigade, not of a division, and remained a colonel until
June, 1854. In the Crimea, Sir Colin commanded one half of the First
Division under H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge. The other brigade
consisted of a battalion of Grenadier Guards, one of the Scots Fusilier
Guards, and another of the Coldstreams. Sir Colin Campbell had under him
the Highland Brigade comprising the 42nd, 79th and 93rd Highlanders. On
the 20th of September, 1854, the battle of the Alma was fought. The
advance across the river had been made by the First Division and they
were "formed up" on the opposite bank, the Guards to the
right, the Highland Brigade to the left. So steadily they marched up the
steep, that Lord Raglan exclaimed to his staff: "Look how well the
Guards and the Highlanders advance!" Sir Colin Campbell had made a
brief speech to his men, concluding with the words: "Now, men, the
army will watch us; make me proud of the Highland Brigade." That
was before the battle; when the onset began, the General had only two
words for the Black Watch which was in the advance— "Forward,
42nd." He himself rode with them. He then went forward to
reconnoitre, and his horse was twice shot. "Smoothly, easily,
swiftly," says Kinglake, "the Black Watch seemed to glide up
the hill. A few minutes before, and their tartans ranged dark in the
valley—now, their plumes wave on the crest." [The First Division
formed up after crossing the Alma, and although they incurred
considerable loss, they nevertheless advanced in most beautiful order
– really as if on parade. I shall never forget the sight – one felt
so proud of them." Letters from Headquarters.] How gallantly
the battle was won may be learned from the historians. Lord Raglan met
Sir Colin, who was on foot, having lost his horse, and warmly
congratulated him on the valour displayed by the Highlanders. Campbell
only made one request, that so long as he commanded the Brigade, he
should be permitted to lead them into action wearing, like his men, the
Highland bonnet. Throughout the battles in the Crimea and the weary
siege of Sebastopol the Highlanders were "aye the foremost"
under their bluff, warm-hearted commander. They had not yet done with
war, however. Shortly after peace had been proclaimed, the three
regiments of the old Highland Brigade were together in India to assist
in quelling the Sepoy Rebellion, and Sir Colin Campbell was with them.
In addition to the 42nd, 79th and 93rd, there was notably the 78th
[Sir James Outram, after one of the many actions of this war, addressed
this regiment as follows: "Your exemplary conduct, 78th,
in every respect through this eventful year, I can truly say, and I
do most emphatically declare, has never been surpassed by any troops
of any nation, in any age, whether for indomitable valour in the field,
or steady discipline in the camp, under an amount of fighting, hardship
and privation such as British troops have seldom, if ever, heretofore
been exposed."] and jointly they performed prodigies of valour. At
the relief of Cawnpore and siege of Lucknow, Sir Colin Campbell was the
conspicuous figure. He remained at his post until the last spark of
rebellion had been stamped out. Created Lord Clyde in recognition of his
inestimable services in the field, the old Lieutenant Governor of Nova
Scotia survived until August the 14th, 1863, when he died shortly before
completing his seventy-first year. [Since this brief sketch of Lord
Clyde was written, Lieutenant-General Shadwell has published his
biography. A reviewer in Blackwood (April, 1881) thus speaks of
his last hours; "The writer of this notice was once witness of a
touching scene in a village hospital after a great battle. A cavalry
trumpeter, whose death was close at hand, sprang suddenly from his bed,
seized his trumpet that lay beside him, blew, with thrilling notes, the
‘charge,’ and then fell back and died. The same spirit moved in Lord
Clyde. When the bugle sounded in the barrack square, outside the
quarters where he lay, he sprang up and exclaimed, ‘I am ready.’
Yes, he was ready: ready in life for the call of duty – ready to die
as a soldier and a Christian should die. ‘Mind this, Eyre,’ he said,
‘I die in peace with all this world.’"]
To return to Nova Scotia
and 1834. Sir Colin Campbell arrived at Halifax, as already stated, at
the beginning of July. The Province was in an exceedingly depressed
condition. There had been two bad harvests, the currency was deranged by
an unlimited issue of inconvertible paper, and goods and property
generally were seriously depreciated in value. But that was not all. In
August, the cholera made its appearance, and cut down its victims by the
hundred. In November, the Assembly met, and the Governor read a Speech
from the Throne, of rather unusual length. The Crown had offered a
surrender of the casual and territorial revenues, provided the Assembly
gave in exchange a permanent civil list. As, however, the House had not
accepted the proposal, Sir Colin stated that he was instructed not to
repeat it. The quit-rents, another ground of dispute, were to be
surrendered, however, if the Assembly would grant the Crown two thousand
pounds a year. This offer was accepted, with the promise that the
annuity should be applied to the payment of the Lieutenant-Governor’s
salary. Thus far the course of political events had been much the same
as in Lower Canada, and the appearance of Mr. Joseph Howe in the
Assembly of 1837 was the signal for another movement which made the
resemblance closer. An agitation for responsible government arose, which
was to bring forth fruit in years to come. Meanwhile Messrs. Young and
Howe attacked the Council. Both in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, this
body was singularly anomalous in its constitution. It not only possessed
legislative, but also executive functions, and its deliberations were
conducted with closed doors. In short, what purported to be a second
Chamber, turned out in practice to be a sort of legislative Privy
Council, responsible to no one, except the representative of the Crown.
As an executive body, of course, there was reason for the exclusion of
strangers; but in its other capacity there was no excuse for so
antiquated a system. Mr. John Young attacked also the Septennial Act,
and proposed that general elections should be held every four years. The
Council threw out a Bill passed by the House to this effect, but it was
forced through in the following year. In 1838, probably quickened by
what had occurred in Canada, the Colonial Office, under Lord Glenelg,
reluctantly consented to divide the Council in two, to be styled the
Executive, and the Legislative Council respectively. Of course the
appointments made by Sir Colin Campbell did not suit the majority in the
House, and discontent continued. [At the close of the Session, the
Governor said that it was impossible to give satisfaction to all. Some
persons were, no doubt, dissatisfied that they were not named to the
Council; but as he was responsible to Her Majesty for the selection he
had made, he would firmly resist any attempt to encroach on the Royal
prerogative, or to influence him in the fulfillment of his duties.
Campbell, p. 325.] His Excellency spoke like a strict military
disciplinarian, and through all his utterances the soldier type of rule
peeps forth. Both parties appealed to England, and some concessions
were, in consequence, made to the Assembly. In 1840, the Cunard Company
put their first steamer afloat on the route between Liverpool and
Halifax and Boston. Mr. Cunard, who was a Haligonian, put himself in
communication with Mr. Robert Napier, the great ship-builder of the
Clyde, and associated himself in partnership with Messrs. McIver and
Burns, of Glasgow. The company was essentially Scottish in all but the
name. To this period belonged Judge Haliburton (Sam Slick), whose
ancestors had emigrated from Scotland in the reign of Queen Anne, and
settled in the New England colonies; Charles R. Fairbanks, born at
Halifax, and pupil of the Rev. Dr. Cochran, at Windsor academy; and Hugh
Bell, who was not only a public man but a philanthropist.
During 1840 political
agitation was at fever heat in Nova Scotia. It was a time of general
agitation by public meeting and otherwise. Lord Durham’s report had
given emphasis to the demand for responsible government. Lord John
Russell had, notwithstanding his prejudices, partially conceded the
principle in dispute. But the Nova Scotia Council ignored the
instructions sent to Governor Sir John Harvey, of New Brunswick. In the
end, though with great reluctance, the Assembly petitioned for the
recall of the Lieutenant Governor. Sir Colin Campbell left the Province
in the autumn of the year, personally respected by all parties, even
those most at variance with him on public questions. ["The
political opponents of Sir Colin Campbell and his administration
cherished no vindictive feeling towards him. In their intercourse with
him he had been always pleasant and courteous; but the old soldier
belonged to an unbending school, and was utterly unfitted by habit and
training for the position which he occupied. He deemed it a point of
honour to defend the Executive Council, and well nigh sacrificed his
honour in his infatuated resistance to the explicit instructions of the
Colonial Office." Campbell, p. 345. Sir William Young, in an
address delivered at the Centennial of the North British Society in
1868, in referring to past Presidents and patrons said: "Then comes
the honoured name of Sir Colin Campbell, our Lieutenant Governor at the
time when the new principles of government were first developed in the
Province. I differed with him in politics, but he always honoured me
with his personal confidence and friendship. He was a manly,
true-hearted Scotchman, and the Society did itself honour by the
steadiness and enthusiasm with which they sustained him." Annals
of the North British Society of Halifax. By James S. Macdonald.]
Viscount Falkland succeeded, and here the course of events in the
Province may be left to be taken up again in a subsequent chapter.
In New Brunswick the
course of events ran in much the same groove, with the important
difference that the contest was over in this Province before it had well
begun in Nova Scotia. Prior to the political period strictly so-called,
the efforts of rulers were here also devoted entirely to the material
improvement of the Province. The Government was in the hands of a caste,
whilst the people were too earnestly engaged in subduing nature to pay
much attention to public affairs. Amongst the Governors of New Brunswick
we find a number of Scots, chiefly military men, Generals Hunter,
Balfour, and Sir Howard Douglas; and the Hon. A. Black was President in
the interval between the Doug1as and Campbell regimes, or from
1829 to 1832. In the latter year Sir Archibald Campbell became Governor
of New Brunswick. Like his namesake Sir Colin, he was above all things a
soldier, and an unyielding champion of prerogative. At that time no
doubt there was something to be said on behalf of the military theory of
government; but that writers who wielded the pen fourteen years
afterwards should, when the entire system had been given up, still plead
for it, seems strange to us. [See especially Gesner’s New Brunswick,
p. 335. "Of late years there has been a constant effort of the
popular branch to advance upon the rights and privileges of the
Sovereign, and which in Canada was carried to an alarming extent. To
maintain the prerogative of the Crown, which, by the Constitution,
cannot take away the liberties of the people, and to secure to the
subject his just rights, should be the aim of the Government; and there
are perhaps no people in the world who have less cause to complain of
their rulers than those of the British American Colonies." The
refreshing simplicity of this authoritative verdict upon public affairs
will be better appreciated when the reader notes that the work was
published in 1846.] According the dictum of these political
writers the rulers, not the ruled, were the best judges of what was good
for them. Paternal government was much to their advantage, if only they
had known their true interests. Unfortunately the people fancied that
they did understand their own interests better than Colonial Secretaries
or Governors, who backed, with all the power of the Crown, the small
oligarchical faction which had turned the State into a political
game-preserve. In the end the Imperial Government was constrained to
admit that the people had been all along in the right, and that their
own wisdom had proved to be egregious folly.
In 1832 the first step in
the path of progress was made by the separation into two bodies of the
Legislature and Executive Council. How they ever came to be united is a
question not to be readily solved. The Executive was, by its nature, a
secret body, the advising council of the Governor, and yet, as in Nova
Scotia, possessed Legislative duties, and sat with closed doors. Two
branches of the Legislature were thus practically one, and its heads had
the entire power of government. The Assembly was utterly powerless,
since the only check they possessed upon arbitrary rule was denied them;
they could not effectively withhold the supplies until popular demands
were complied with. The next ground of complaint was the management of
the Crown Lands. No system could have been devised so likely to lead to
abuses. The Chief Commissioner was an officer entirely independent of
legislative control. He received a splendid salary, which fees and
perquisites augmented, and lived in a style of ostentatious
magnificence. In 1832, the Assembly called for an account of the revenue
derived from this source, and was politely told to mind its own
business. Delegates were sent to England to represent the state of
affairs to the Colonial Office, and an arrangement, agreeable to the
House, was made by Mr. Stanley (the late Lord Derby), at that time
Secretary for the Colonies. Through some crooked manoeuvring by the back
stairs, however, the reform was not carried out. The Land Company was a
monopoly of the most objectionable type, and made matters worse. The
Joseph Howe of New Brunswick then appeared in the person of Mr. Wilmot
(afterwards Lieutenant Governor). In 1836, he moved for a return of the
Crown Land funds, but only received a bald general statement from the
Governor. Another deputation visited England with a petition in favour
of a surrender of all the revenues to the Assembly. Lord Glenelg acceded
this time, and the casual and territorial revenues were surrendered on
condition that a permanent civil list were provided. Sir Archibald
Campbell refused to sign the Civil List Bill, [The pretext for this
extreme measure was, that the amount (14,500 pounds) was not sufficient
to repay the needs of civil government, since some expenses, such as the
salaries of the Circuit Court judges, had not been provided for. The
truth was, the dominant party dreaded the power conferred upon the
Assembly; and Sir Archibald Campbell apprehended that the House might
launch out into lavish expenditure, so soon as the large sum of 171,000
pounds odd was handed over to them for distribution. As a matter of fact
his fears proved to be well-grounded.] and resigned. His successor, Sir
John Harvey, to whom reference has already been made, succeeded in
restoring harmony in 1837, and the crisis was over. The Civil List Bill
became law on the 17th of July amidst demonstrations of joy from the
Reform party, and its chiefs found themselves now in the Executive
Council. The year 1837, which brought the New Brunswick struggle to an
end, witnessed, as we have seen, the commencement of another in Nova
Scotia.
Public affairs in Prince
Edward Island do not call for very minute attention. There the great
bone of contention was the land system, of which a fuller account may be
given hereafter. The breeze of discontent which affected the other North
American colonies from Halifax to Sandwich, was long in making any
impression upon the feudal system established in the island. In 1813, so
secure were those in power, that Mr. Charles Douglas Smith, the
Governor, reenacted, in a small way the unconstitutional rule of Charles
I. In 1813, he prorogued Parliament in a brusque manner, and did without
one very comfortably for four years. Three Assemblies were then
successively called, all of which were found unmanageable, and therefore
sent about their business. In fact, for a whole decade, there was no
such thing as parliamentary government in Prince Edward Island. The
Governor took upon himself all the functions of government, collecting
the quit-rents, forcing sales, and plunging the entire colony into
distress. Then followed riotous assemblages, at which open charges were
made against Mr. Smith. A Mr. Stewart, who had protested against these
arbitrary acts, only saved himself from arrest by flight. He reached
England, and upon his representations and proof of the facts, Governor
Smith was recalled. The succeeding Governors were of a different stamp;
yet the popular spirit had been aroused, and nothing would satisfy it
save the establishment of responsible government; but the time had not
yet arrived for that concession. Still much was done in the way of
reform. The Catholics were emancipated in 1830; in 1837, the Governor
attempted to deal with the land question. The soil of the island was
owned mainly by a few absentee landlords, who intended their property to
remain in a state of nature, so that they might profit by the energy of
those who tilled the land. The House had suggested a heavy tax upon wild
lands, and the forfeiture to the Crown of all estates upon which arrears
of the tax were due. But the Colonial Office, whose ears the land-owners
had gained, would not listen to the proposal. In this state were public
affairs in Prince Edward Island at the opening of the year 1841.
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