The winning of popular government : a chronicle of the Union of 1841

THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA ~
THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED
Edited by GEORGE M. WRONG and H. H. LANGTON

THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

PART I

THE FIRST

EUROPEAN

VISITORS

1. THE DAWN OF CANADIAN HISTORY

By Stephen Leacock.

2. THE MARINER OF ST MALO

By Stephen Leacock.

PART II

THE RISE
OF NEW
FRANCE

3. THE FOUNDER OF NEW FRANCE

By Charles W. Colby.

4. THE JESUIT MISSIONS

By Thomas Guthrie Marquis.

5. THE SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA

By William Bennett Munro.

6. THE GREAT INTEND ANT

By Thomas Chapais.

7. THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR

By Charles W. Colby.

PART III

THE

ENGLISH
INVASION

8. THE GREAT FORTRESS

By William Wood.

Q. THE ACADIAN EXILES

By Arthur G. Doughty.

10. THE PASSING OF NEW FRANCE
By William Wood.

IX. THE WINNING OF CANADA

By William Wood.

THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

12. THE FATHER OF BRITISH CANADA

By William Wood.

13. THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS

By W. Stewart Wallace.

14. THE WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES

By William Wood.

PART iv

THE

BEGINNINGS

OF BRITISH

CANADA

15. THE WAR CHIEF OF THE OTTAWAS

By Thomas Guthrie Marquis.

16. THE WAR CHIEF OF THE SIX NATIONS

By Louis Aubrey Wood.

17. TECUMSEH: THE LAST GREAT LEADER

OF HIS PEOPLE

By Ethel T. Raymond.

PART V
THE

RED MAN
IN CANADA

18. THE 'ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND'

ON HUDSON BAY

By Agnes C. Laut.

19. PATHFINDERS OF THE GREAT

PLAINS

By Lawrence J. Burpee.

20. ADVENTURERS OF THE FAR NORTH

By Stephen Leacock.

a. THE RED RIVER COLONY

By Louis Aubrey Wood.

22. PIONEERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST

By Agnes C. Laut

23. THE CARIBOO TRAIL

By Agnes C. Laut.

PART VI

PIONEERS

OF THE

NORTH AND

WEST

THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

24. THE FAMILY COMPACT

By W. Stewart Wallace.

25. THE 'PATRIOTES' OF '37

•"

By Alfred D. DeCelles.

26. THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA

By William Lawson Grant,

PART VII

THE
STRUGGLE

FOR

POLITICAL
FREEDOM

PART VIII

THE

GROWTH OF
NATIONALITY

27. THE WINNING OF POPULAR
GOVERNMENT

By Archibald MacMechan.

28. THE FATHERS OF CONFEDERA-

TION

By A. H. U. Colquhoun.

29. THE DAY OF SIR JOHN MACDONALD

By Sir Joseph Pope.

30. THE DAY OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER

By Oscar D. Skelton.

PART IX
NATIONAL
HIGHWAYS

31. ALL AFLOAT

By William Wood.

32. THE RAILWAY BUILDERS

By Oscar D. Skelton.

TORONTO : GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY

THE WINNING OF
POPULAR GOVERNMENT

BY ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN

J'.

BURNING OF THE PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS,
MONTREAL, 1849

From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys

THE WINNING OF
POPULAR GOVERNMENT

A Chronicle of the Union of 1841

ARCHIBALD'JMACMECHAN

* \»\

-V

TORONTO

GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY

1016

Copyright in all Countries subscribing to
the Berne Convention

TO

ROBERT ALEXANDER FALCONER

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

STUDENT OF HISTORY AND BNCOURAGER

OF HISTORIANS

CONTENTS

Page
I. DURHAM THE DICTATOR .... I

II. POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER . . 25

III. REFORM IN THE SADDLE .... 66

IV. THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION ... 97
V. THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED . . .132

EPILOGUE . 161

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . .166
INDEX 167

ILLUSTRATIONS

BURNING OF THE PARLIAMENT BUILD-
INGS, MONTREAL, 1849 . . . Frontispiece
From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys.

THE EARL OF DURHAM . . . Facing page 6

After the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

LORD SYDENHAM ,34

From an engraving by G. Browning in M'Gill
University Library.

SIR CHARLES BAGOT 74

From an engraving in the Dominion Archives.

SIR CHARLES METCALFE 82

After a painting by B radish.

CHARLES, EARL GREY , 98

From the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

SIR LOUIS H. LAFONTAINE „ 118

After a photograph by Not man.

THE EARL OF ELGIN „ 136

From a daguerreotype.

CHAPTER I

DURHAM THE DICTATOR

And let him be dictator
For six months and no more.

THE curious sightseer in modern Toronto,
conducted through the well-kept, endless
avenues of handsome dwellings which are
that city's pride, might be surprised to learn
that at the northern end of the street which
cuts the city in two halves, east and west,
bands of armed Canadians met in battle less
than a century ago. If he continued his
travels to Montreal, he might be told, at a
certain point, ' Here stood the Parliament
Buildings, when our city was the capital of
the country ; and here a governor-general of
Canada was mobbed, pelted with rotten eggs
and stones, and narrowly escaped with his
life.' And if the intelligent traveller asked
the reason for such scenes, where now all is
peace, the answer might be given in one word
— Politics.
To the young, politics seems rather a stupid

W.P.G. A

2 THE UNION OF 1841

sort of game played by the bald and obese
middle - aged, for very high stakes, and
governed by no rules that any player is
bound to respect. Between the rival teams
no difference is observable, save that one
enjoys the sweets of office and the mouth of
the other is watering for them. But this is,
of course, the hasty judgment of uncharitable
youth. The struggle between political parties
in Canada arose in the past from a difference
in political principles. It was a difference
that could be defined ; it could be put into
plain words. On the one side and the other
the guiding ideas could be formulated ; they
could be defended and they could be attacked
in logical debate. Sometimes it might pass
the wit of man to explain the difference be-
tween the Ins and the Outs. Sometimes
politics may be a game ; but often it has
been a battle. . In support of their political
principles the strongest passions of men have
been aroused, and their deepest convictions
of right and wrong. The things by which
men live, their religious creeds, their pride of
race, have been enlisted on the one side and
the other. This is true of Canadian politics.
That ominous date, 1837, marks a certain
climax or culmination in the political develop-

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 3

ment of Canada. The constitution of the
country now works with so little friction that
those who have not read history assume that
it must always have worked so. There is a
real danger in forgetting that, not so very
long ago, the whole machinery of government
in one province broke down, that for months,
if not for years, it looked as if civil govern-
ment in Lower Canada had come to an end,
as if the colonial system of Britain had failed
beyond all hope. Dens nobis haec otia fecit.
But Canada's present tranquillity did not
come about by miracle ; it came about
through the efforts of faulty men contending
for political principles in which they believed
and for which they were even ready to die.
The rebellions of 1837 in Upper and Lower
Canada, and what led up to them, the origins
and causes of these rebellions, must be under-
stood if the subsequent warfare of parties and
the evolution of the scattered colonies of
British North America into the compact
united Dominion of Canada are not to be a
confused and meaningless tale.1

1 The story of the rebellions will be found in two other volumes
of the present Series, The Family Compact and The Patriotes of 37.
For earlier cognate history see The Father of British Canada and
The United Empire Loyalists.

4 THE UNION OF 1841

Futile and pitiful as were the rebellions,
whether regarded as attempts to set up new
government or as military adventures, they
had widespread and most serious consequences
within and without the country. In Britain
the news caused consternation. Two more
American colonies were in revolt. Battles
had been fought and British troops had been
defeated. These might prove, as thought
Storrow Brown, one of the leaders of the
* Sons of Liberty ' in Lower Canada, so many
Lexingtons, with a Saratoga and a Yorktown
to follow. Sir John Colborne, the comman-
der-in-chief, was asking for reinforcements.
In Lower Canada civil government was at an
end. There was danger of international com-
plications. For disorders almost without
precedent the British parliament found an
almost unprecedented remedy. It invested
one man with extraordinary powers. He
was to be captain-general and commander-
in-chief over the provinces of British North
America, and also * High Commissioner for
the adjustment of certain important questions
depending in the . . . Provinces of Lower
and Upper Canada respecting the form and
future government of the said Provinces.' He
was given * full power and authority ... by

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 5

all lawful ways and means, to inquire into,
and, as far as may be possible, to adjust all
questions . . . respecting the Form and Ad-
ministration of the Civil Government ' of the
provinces as aforesaid. These extraordinary
powers were conferred upon a distinguished
politician in the name of the young Queen
Victoria and during her pleasure. The usual
and formal language of the commission,
* especial trust and confidence in the courage,
prudence, and loyalty ' of the commissioner,
has in this case deep meaning ; for courage,
prudence, and loyalty were all needed, and
were all to be put to the test.

The man born for the crisis was a type of
a class hardly to be understood by the Cana-
dian democracy. He was an aristocratic
radical. His recently acquired title, Lord
Durham, must not be allowed to obscure the
fact that he was a Lambton, the head of an
old county family, which was entitled by its
long descent to look down upon half the House
of Peers as parvenus. At the family seat,
Lambton Castle, in the county of Durham,
Lambton after Lambton had lived and reigned
like a petty prince. There John George was
born in August 1792. His father had been
a Whig, a consistent friend of Charles James

6 THE UNION OF 1841

Fox, at a time when opposition to the govern-
ment, owing to the wars with France, meant
social ostracism ; and he had refused a
peerage. The son had enjoyed the usual
advantages of the young Englishman in his
position. He had been educated at Eton and
at the university of Cambridge. Three years
in a crack cavalry regiment at a time when
all England was under arms could have done
little to lessen his feeling for his caste. A
Gretna Green marriage with an heiress, while
he was yet a minor, is characteristic of his
impetuous temperament, as is also a duel
which he fought with a Mr Beaumont in
1820 during the heat of an election contest.
After the period of political reaction follow-
ing Waterloo, reaction in which all Europe
shared, England proceeded on the path of
reform towards a modified democracy ; and
Lambton, entering parliament at the lucky
moment, found himself on the crest of the
wave. His Whig principles had gained the
victory ; and his personal ability and energy
set him among the leaders of the new reform
movement. He was a son-in-law of Earl Grey,
the author of the Reform Bill of 1832, and
he became a member of the Grey Cabinet.
Before the Canadian crisis he had shown his

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 7

ability to cope with a difficult situation in a
diplomatic mission to Russia, where he is
said to have succeeded by the exercise of
tact. He was nicknamed ' Radical Jack/
but any one less ' democratic,' as the term is
commonly understood, it would be hard to
find. He surrounded himself with almost
regal state during his brief overlordship of
Canada. In Quebec, at the Castle of St
Louis, he lived like a prince. Many tales are
told of his arrogant self-assertion and hauteur.
In person he was strikingly handsome.
Lawrence painted him when a boy. He was
an able public speaker. He had a fiery
temper which made co-operation with him
almost impossible, and which his weak health
no doubt aggravated. He was vain and
ambitious. But he was gifted with powers
of political insight. He possessed a febrile
energy and an earnest desire to serve the
common weal. Such was the physician
chosen by the British government to cure
the cankers of misrule and disaffection in the
body politic of Canada.

Lord Durham received his commission in
March 1838. But, though the need was
urgent for prompt action, he did not imme-
diately set out for Canada. For the delay

8 THE UNION OF 1841

he was criticized by his political opponents,
particularly by Lord Brougham, once his
friend, but now his bitterest enemy. On the
twenty-fourth of April, however, Durham
sailed from Plymouth in H.M.S. Hastings
with a party of twenty-two persons. Be-
sides his military aides for decorative pur-
poses, he brought in his suite some of the
best brains of the time, Thomas Turton,
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and Carlyle's
gigantic pupil, Charles Buller. It is charac-
teristic of Durham that he should bring a
band of music with him and that he should
work his secretaries hard all the way across
the Atlantic. On the twenty-ninth of May
the Hastings was at Quebec. Lord Durham
was received by the acting administrator, Sir
John Colborne, and conducted through the
crowded streets between a double hedge of
soldiery to the Castle of St Louis, the vice-
regal residence.

If Durham had been slow in setting out for
the scene of his labours, he wasted no time in
attacking his problems upon his arrival in
Canada. ' Princely in his style of living,
indefatigable in business, energetic and de-
cided, though haughty in manner, and de-
sirous to benefit the Canadas,' is the judg-

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 9

ment of a contemporary upon the new
ruler. On the day he was sworn to office
he issued his first proclamation. Its most
significant statements are : * The honest and
conscientious advocates of reform . . . will
receive from me, without distinction of party,
race, or politics, that assistance and en-
couragement which their patriotism has a
right to command . . . but the disturbers of
the public peace, the violators of the law, the
enemies of the Crown and of the British
Empire will find in me an uncompromising
opponent, determined to put in force against
them all the powers civil and military with
which I have been invested.' It was a policy
of firmness united to conciliation that Durham
announced. He came bearing the sheathed
sword in one hand and the olive branch in
the other. The proclamation was well re-
ceived ; the Canadians were ready to accept
him as ' a friend and arbitrator.' He was to
earn the right to both titles.

Durham was determined to begin with a
clean slate. With a characteristic disregard
for precedent, he dismissed the existing
Executive Council as well as Colborne's
special band of advisers, and formed two
new councils in their place, consisting of

io THE UNION OF 1841

members of his personal staff, military officers,
Canadian judges, the provincial secretary,
and the commissary-general. Together they
formed a committee of investigation and
advice ; and, being composed of both local
and non-local elements, it was a committee
specially fitted to supply the necessary in-
formation, and to judge all questions dis-
passionately from an outside point of view.
This committee acting with the High Com-
missioner took the place of regular constitu-
tional government in Lower Canada. It was
an arbitrary makeshift adopted to meet a
crisis.

During the long, tedious voyage of the
Hastings the High Commissioner had not
been idle. He had worked steadily for many
hours a day at the knotty Canadian question,
studying papers, drafting plans, discussing
point after point with his secretaries. Once
in the country, he set to work in the most
thoroughgoing and systematic way to gather
further knowledge. He appointed commis-
sions to report on all special problems of
government — education, immigration, muni-
cipal government, the management of the
crown lands. He obtained reports from all
sources ; he conferred with men of all shades

DURHAM THE DICTATOR n

of political opinion ; he called representative
deputations from the uttermost regions under
his sway ; he made a flying visit to Niagara
in order to see the country with his own eyes
and to study conditions. Such labours were
beyond the capacity of any one man ; but
Durham was ably supported by his band of
loyal helpers and a public eager to co-operate.
The result of all this activity was the amassing
of the priceless data from which was formed
the great document known as Lord Durham's
Report.

It is generally overlooked that at this
period Canada stood in danger from external
as well as internal enemies. Hardly had
Durham landed at Quebec when there
occurred a series of incidents which might
have led to war between Great Britain and
the United States. A Canadian passenger
steamer, the Sir Robert Peel, sailing from
Prescott to Kingston, was boarded at Wells
Island by one ' Bill ' Johnson and a band of
armed men with blackened faces. The pas-
sengers and crew were put ashore without
their effects, and the steamer was set on fire
and destroyed. Very soon afterwards an
American passenger steamer was fired on by
over-zealous sentries at Brockville. Together

12 THE UNION OF 1841

the twin outrages were almost enough, in the
state of feeling on both sides, to set the Em-
pire and the Republic by the ears.

The significance of these and other similar
incidents can only be understood by recalling
the mental attitude of Americans of the day.
They had a robust detestation of everything
British. It is not grossly exaggerated by
Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit. And that
attitude was entirely natural. The Americans
had, or thought they had, beaten the British
in two wars. The very reason for the exist-
ence of their nation was their opposition to
British tyranny. They saw that tyranny in
all its balefulness blighting the two Canadas.
They saw those oppressed colonies rising, as
they themselves had risen, against their
oppressors. To make the danger all the
more acute, the exiled Canadians, notably
William Lyon Mackenzie, went from place
to place in the United States inciting the
freeborn citizens of the Republic to aid the
cause of freedom across the line. There was
precedent for intervention. Just a year
before the fight at St Charles, an American
hero, Sam Houston, had wrested the huge
state of Texas from the misrule of Mexico
and founded a new and independent republic

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 13

Hence arose the huge conspiracy of the
' Hunters' Lodges ' all along the northern
border of the United States, of which more
in the next chapter.

Durham took prompt action. He offered a
reward of a thousand pounds for such in-
formation as should bring the guilty persons
to trial in an American, not a Canadian,
court. Thereby he said in effect, ' This is
not an international affair. It is a plain
offence against the laws of the United States,
and I am confident that the United States
desires to prevent such outrages.' He fol-
lowed up this bold declaration of faith in
American justice by sending his brother-in-
law, Colonel Grey of the 7ist Regiment, to
Washington to lay the facts before President
Van Buren and to remonstrate vigorously
against the laxity which permitted an armed
force to organize within the borders of the
Republic for an attack upon its peaceful
neighbour. Such laxity was against the law
of nations. As a result of Durham's spirited
action, the military forces on both sides of
the boundary-line worked in concert to put
down such lawlessness. President Van Buren's
attitude, however, cost him his popularity in
his own country.

14 THE UNION OF 1841

The most pressing and most thorny ques-
tion was how to deal with the hundreds of
prisoners who, since the rebellion, had filled
the Canadian jails. A large number of these
were only suspected of treason ; some had
been taken in the act of rebellion ; and some
were confined as ringleaders, charged with
crimes no government could overlook and
hope to survive. In some countries the
solution would have been a simple one : the
prisoners would have been backed against
the nearest wall and fusilladed in batches, as
the Communists were dealt with in Paris in
the red quarter of the year 1871. Even in
Canada there were hideous cries for bloody
reprisals. But the ingrained British habit of
giving the worst criminal a fair trial blocked
such a ready and easy way of restoring
tranquillity. Still, a fair trial was impossible.
In the temper then prevailing in the province
no French jury would condemn, no English
jury would acquit, a Frenchman charged
with treason, however great or slight his
fault might prove to be. The process of
trying so many hundreds of prisoners would
be simply so many examples of the law's
burdensome delay. To leave them to rot in
prison, as King Bomba left political offenders

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 15

against his rule, was unthinkable. Durham
met the difficulty in a bold and merciful
way. The young Queen was crowned on
June 28, 1838. Such an event is always a
season of rejoicing and an opportunity for
exercising the royal clemency in the libera-
tion of captives. Following this excellent
custom, Durham proclaimed on that day an
amnesty in his sovereign's name ; and, in
a month after his arrival, he gave freedom
to hundreds of unfortunates, who had en-
dured many hardships in the old, cruel jails
of the time, in addition to the tortures of
suspense as to their ultimate fate.

There were some who could not be so
released. They were only eight in number,
but they were such men as Wolfred Nelson
and Robert Bouchette, whose treason was
open and notorious. They knew, and Durham
knew, that they could not obtain a fair trial.
Therefore the High Commissioner overleapt
the law, and by an ordinance banished these
ringleaders to Bermuda during Her Majesty's
pleasure. Durham was much pleased at this
happy solution of a difficult and delicate
problem. He congratulated himself, as well
he might, on having terminated a rebellion
without shedding a drop of blood. * The

16 THE UNION OF 1841

guilty have received justice, the misguided,
mercy,* he wrote to the Queen, ' but at the
same time, security is afforded to the loyal
and peaceable subjects of this hitherto dis-
tracted Province.* Furthermore, his pro-
ceedings had been ' approved by all parties
— Sir J. Colborne and all the British party,
the Canadians and all the French party.*
Durham fancied that this question was now
settled, and that he could proceed unham-
pered with his main task of reconstruction.
But his justifiable satisfaction was not to
last long.

While the High Commissioner was labour-
ing in Canada, as few officials have ever
laboured, for the good of the Empire, his
enemies and his lukewarm friends in England
were between them preparing his downfall.
Of his foes, the most bitter and unscrupulous
was Brougham, a political Ishmael, a curious
compound of malignity and versatile intel-
lectual power. He had criticized Durham's
delay in starting for Canada ; and he was
only too glad of the handle which the auto-
cratic, czar-like ordinance of banishment to
Bermuda offered him against his enemy. It
is nearly always in the power of a party
politician to distort and misrepresent the act

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 17

of an opponent, however just or blameless
that act may be. Brougham made a great
pother about the rights of freemen, usurpa-
tion, dictatorship. As a lawyer he raised the
legal point, that Durham could not banish
offenders from Canada to a colony over
which he had no jurisdiction. He enlisted
other lawyers on his side to attack the
composition of Durham's council. The storm
Brougham raised might have done no harm,
if Durham's political allies had stood by
him like men. But the prime minister
Melbourne, always a timorous friend, bent
before the blast, and Durham's ordinance
was disallowed. The High Commissioner,
who had been granted such great powers,
was held to have exceeded those powers.
Durham belonged to the caste which felt a
stain upon its honour like a wound. The
disallowance of his ordinance by the home
authorities was a blow fair in the face. It
put an end to his career in Canada, by under-
mining his authority. In those days of slow
communication the news of the disallowance
reached him tardily. By a side wind, from
an American newspaper, he first learned the
fact on the twenty-fifth of September. He
at once sent in his resignation, told the

W.P.G.

i8 THE UNION OF 1841

people of Canada the reason why in a pro-
clamation, and as soon as possible left the
country for ever. Brougham was burned in
effigy at Quebec. The lucky eight, already
in Bermuda, were speedily released. Never
did leaders of an unsuccessful rebellion suffer
less for their indiscretion. From Bermuda
they proceeded to New York to renew their
agitation. On the first of November Durham
left Quebec, as he had entered that city, with
all the pomp of military pageantry and in
a universal display of public interest. He
came in a crisis ; he left amid a crisis. He
had spent five months in office, almost the
exact term for which the Romans chose their
chief magistrate in a national emergency and
named him dictator.

In the eyes of Durham's enemies his
ordinance of banishment was a ukase ; and,
at first blush, it looks like an unwarrantable
stretching of his powers. But Durham was
on the ground and must necessarily have
known the conditions prevailing much better
than his critics three thousand miles away.
Desperate diseases need desperate remedies.
The presumption is always that the man on
the ground will be right ; and posterity has

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 19

passed a final judgment of approval on
Durham's bold slashing of the Gordian knot.
New facts have set the whole matter in a new
light. A paper of Buller's,1 hitherto un-
published, shows that the ordinance was
promulgated only after consultation with the
prisoners. ' The prisoners who expected the
government to avail itself of its power of
packing a jury were very ready to petition
to be disposed of without trial, and as I had
in the meantime ascertained that the pro-
posed mode of dealing with them would not
be condemned by the leading men of the
British party, Lord Durham adopted the
plan proposed.' They regarded banishment
as an unexpected mercy, as well they might.
The only alternative was the dock, the
condemned cell, and the gallows.

On the thirtieth of November Durham
landed at Plymouth, and by the middle of
the following January he had finished his
Report. Early in February it was printed
and laid before the House of Commons. The

1 A sketch of Lord Durham's mission to Canada in 1838, by
Charles Buller. See the edition of Lord Durham's Report
edited, with an introduction, by Sir C. P. Lucas : Oxford, 1912.
The original document was given to Dr Arthur G. Doughty,
Dominion Archivist, by the present Earl of Durham.

20 THE UNION OF 1841

curious legend which credits Duller with the
authorship is traceable to Brougham's spite.
Macaulay and Brougham met in a London
street. The great Whig historian praised
the Report. Brougham belittled it. ' The
matter,' he averred, ' came from a felon, the
style from a coxcomb, and the Dictator
furnished only six letters, D-u-r-h-a-m.' The
whole question has been carefully discussed
by Stuart J. Reid in his Life and Letters of the
First Earl of Durham, and the myth has been
given its quietus. Even if direct external
evidence were lacking, a dispassionate ex-
amination of the document itself would dispose
of the legend. In style, temper, and method
it is in the closest agreement with Durham's
public dispatches and private letters.

The drafting of this most notable of state
papers was the last of Durham's services to
the Empire. A little more than a year later
he was dead and laid to rest in his own
county. Fifty thousand people attended his
funeral. A mausoleum in the form of a Greek
temple marks his grave. The funds for this
monument were raised by public subscrip-
tion, such was the force of popular esteem.
His dying words were prophetic : ' Canada
will one day do justice to my memory.'

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 21

The Report was Durham's legacy to his
country. It defined once for all the prin-
ciples that should govern the relations of the
colony with the mother country, and laid the
foundations of the present Canadian unity.
It did not please the factions in Canada ; it
was too plain-spoken. Exception may be
taken, even at the present day, to some of
its recommendations and conclusions. But
its faithful pictures of ' this hitherto tur-
bulent colony ' enable the historical student
and the honest patriot to measure the pro-
gress the country has since made on the road
to nationhood. If unpleasant, it is very
easy reading. Few parliamentary reports are
closer packed with vital facts or couched
in clearer language. To the task of its com-
position the author brought energy, insight,
a sense of public duty, a desire to be fair,
and, best of all, an open mind, a perfect
readiness to relinquish prepossessions or
prejudices in the face of fresh facts. His
ample scheme of investigation, as carried out
by himself and his corps of able helpers, had
put him in control of a huge assemblage of
data. On this he reasoned with admirable
results.

The Report consists of four parts. The

22 THE UNION OF 1841

first, and by far the largest, portion deals
with Lower Canada, as the main storm
centre. The second is concerned with Upper
Canada ; the third, with the Maritime Pro-
vinces and Newfoundland. Having diagnosed
the disease in the body politic, Durham pro-
poses a remedy. The fourth part is an
outline of the curative process suggested.

' I expected to find a contest between a
government and a people ; I found two
nations warring in the bosom of a single
state.' In that one sentence Durham pre-
cises the situation in Lower Canada. Nothing
will surprise the Canadian of to-day more
than the evidence adduced of ' the deadly
animosity ' which then existed between the
two races. The very children in the streets
fought, French against English. Social inter-
course between the two was impossible. The
Report shows the historical origin and care-
fully traces the course of this ' deadly ani-
mosity.' It finds much to admire in the
character of the French habitant, but spares
neither his faults nor the shortcomings of his
political leaders. It shows that the original
racial quarrel was aggravated by the conduct
of the governing officials, both at home and
in Canada, until the French took up arms.

DURHAM THE DICTATOR 23

The consequences were ' evils which no
civilized community can long continue to
bear.* There must be a * decision ' ; and it
must be * prompt and final.'

In Upper Canada Durham found a different
situation. There the people were not ' slavish
tools of a narrow official clique or a few
purse-proud merchants,' but * hardy farmers
and humble mechanics composing a very
independent, not very manageable, and some-
times a rather turbulent democracy.' The
trouble was that a small party had secured a
monopoly of power and resisted the lawful
efforts of moderate reformers to establish
a truly democratic form of government.
Ill-balanced extremists had taken up arms ;
but the sound political instinct of the vast
majority was against them. Here, too, the
original difficulties had been complicated by
official ignorance in England and the un-
wisdom of authorities on the spot. The
result was that these ' ample and fertile
territories' were in a backward, almost des-
perate, condition. Their poverty and stag-
nation were a depressing contrast to the
prosperity and exhilarating stir of the great
American democracy.

The other outlying provinces presented no

24 THE UNION OF 1841

such serious problems. There were various
anomalies and difficulties ; but they were on
their way to removal.

The ' evils which no civilized community
could bear ' were to be cured by a legislative
union of the Canadas. The time had gone
by for a federal union. A door must be
either open or shut; the French province
must become definitely a British province and
find its place in the Empire. To end the
everlasting deadlock between the governor
and the representatives of the people, the
Executive should be made responsible to
the Assembly ; and, in order to bring the
scattered provinces closer together, an inter-
colonial railway should be built. In other
words, the obsolete, bad system of colonial
government must undergo radical reform,
both within and without, because ' while the
present state of things is allowed to last, the
actual inhabitants of these provinces have no
security for person or property, no enjoyment
of what they possess, no stimulus to industry.'

The story of how this reform was under-
taken, and of how, in spite of many obstacles,
it was brought to a triumphant success, must
always remain one of the most important
chapters in the political history of Canada.

CHAPTER II

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER

WOUNDED and angry at what he considered
an intolerable affront, Durham had placed
the reins of government in the firm hands of
that fine old soldier, Sir John Colborne, and
had gone to speak with his enemies in the
gate. Not only was the cause of Canada left
bleeding ; but as soon as Durham's back was
turned, rebellion broke out once more. This
second outbreak arose from the support
afforded the Canadian revolutionists by
American * sympathizers.* The full story of
the ' Hunters' Lodges ' has never been told,
and the sentiment animating that organiza-
tion has been quite naturally misunderstood
and misrepresented by Canadian historians.
In the thirties of the nineteenth century
western New York was the ' frontier,' and it
was peopled by wild, illiterate frontiersmen,
familiar with the use of the rifle and the
bowie-knife, bred in the Revolutionary tradi-

25

26 THE UNION OF 1841

tion and nourished on Fourth of July oratory
to a hatred of everything British. The
memories of 1812 were fresh in every mind.
These simple souls were told by their own
leaders and by political refugees from Canada,
such as William Lyon Mackenzie, that the
two provinces were groaning under the yoke
of the * bloody Queen of England,' that
they were seething with discontent, that
all they needed was a little assistance from
free, chivalrous Americans and the oppressed
colonists would shake off British tyranny
for ever. Appeal was made to less exalted
sentiment. Each patriot was to receive a
handsome grant of land in the newly gained
territory. Accordingly, in the spring and
summer of 1838, a large scheme to give
armed support to the republicans of Canada
was secretly organized all along the northern
boundary of the United States. It was a
secret society of ' Hunters' Lodges,' with
ritual, passwords, degrees. Each ' Lodge,'
was an independent local body, but a
band of organizers kept control of the whole
series from New York to Detroit. The
' Hunters ' are uniformly called ' brigands '
and ' banditti ' by the British regular officers
who fought them, and the terms have been

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 27

handed on without critical examination by
Canadian historians ; but not with justice.
Misled though they were, the ' Hunters '
looked upon Canada only as Englishmen
looked upon Greece, or Poland, or Italy
struggling for political freedom : the senti-
ment, though misdirected, was anything but
ignoble. Acting upon this sentiment, a
Polish refugee, Von Shoultz, led a small
force of ' Hunters,' boys and young men
from New York State, in an attack on
Prescott, November 10, 1838. He succeeded
in surprising the town and in establishing
himself in a strong position in and about
the old windmill, which is now the light-
house. His position was technically a
* bridge-head,' and he defeated with heavy
loss the first attempt to turn him out of it.
If he had been properly supported from the
American side of the river, and if the
Canadians had really been ready to rise en
masse as he had been led to believe, the
history of Canada might have been changed.
As it was, the invaders were cut off, and, on
the threat of bombardment with heavy guns,
surrendered. Their leader paid for his mis-
taken chivalry with his life on the gallows
within old Fort Henry at Kingston ; and,

28 THE UNION OF 1841

in recognition of his error, he left in his will
a sum of money to benefit the families of
those on the British side who had lost their
lives through his invasion. Of his followers,
some were hanged, some were transported to
Tasmania, and some were set free. During
that winter the ' Hunters ' made various
other attacks along the border, which were
defeated with little effort. Though now the
danger seems to have been slight, it did not
seem slight to the rulers of the Canadas at
that time. The numbers and the power of
the ' Hunters ' were not known ; the sym-
pathy of the American people was with them,
especially while the filibusters were being
tried at drum-head court-martial and hanged ;
and there was imminent danger of the United
States being hurried by popular clamour into
a war with Great Britain.

All through the summer of 1838 the rebel
leaders in the United States had been plotting
for a new insurrection. They were by no
means convinced that their cause was lost.
Disaffection was kept alive in parts of Lower
Canada and the habitants were fed with
hopes that the armed assistance of American
sympathizers would ensure success for a
second attempt at independence. It may be

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 29

the sheerest accident of dates ; but Durham
took ship at Quebec on the first of November,
and Dr Robert Nelson was declared president
of the Canadian republic at Napierville on
the fourth. A copy of Nelson's proclamation
preserved in the Archives at Ottawa furnishes
clear evidence of the aims and intentions of
the Canadian radicals : they wanted nothing
less than a separate, independent republic,
and they solemnly renounced allegiance to
Great Britain. At two points near the
American boundary - line, Napierville and
Odelltown, the loyal militia and regulars
clashed with the rebels and dispersed them.
Once more the jails were filled, which the
mercy of Durham had emptied. Once more
the cry was raised for rebel blood, and the
winter sky was red with the flame of burning
houses which had sheltered the insurgents.
Hundreds of French Canadians fled across
the border ; and from this year dates the
immigration from Quebec into New England
which has had such an influence on its
manufacturing cities and such a reaction on
the population which remained at home.
Another fruit of this ill-starred rebellion was
the haunting dirge of Gerin-Lajoie, Un
Canadien errant. Twelve of the leaders were

30 THE UNION OF 1841

tried for treason, were found guilty, and were
hanged in Montreal. Some of these had been
pardoned once for their part in the rising of
the previous year ; some were implicated in
plain murder ; all were guilty ; but the chill
deliberate formalities of the gallows, the
sufferings of the wretched men, their bearing
on the scaffold, the vain efforts to obtain
reprieve, produced a strong revulsion of
popular feeling in their favour. By the
common law of nations they were traitors ;
but they are still named and accounted
* patriots.'

At Toronto, Lount and Matthews, two of
the rebel leaders of Upper Canada, were
hanged in the jail-yard on April 12, 1839. A
petition for mercy was set aside ; Lount's
wife on her knees begged the lieutenant-
governor to spare her husband's life, but in
vain. Here, too, public feeling was chiefly
pity for the unfortunate. But these execu-
tions did not satisfy the extremists. The
lieutenant-governor, Sir George Arthur, who
had long been governor of the penal settle-
ment in Tasmania, was avowedly in favour
of further severities ; and vengeful loyalists
clamoured in support. All Durham's work
seemed undone. The political outlook of

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 31

the Canadas in 1839 was, if anything, darker
and more hopeless than it had been two years
before.

Almost as grave as the political condition
of the country was the financial situation.
The rebellions of '37 coincided with a wide-
spread financial crisis in the United States,
which had its inevitable reaction upon all
business in Canada, and matters had gone
from bad to worse. By the summer of 1839
Upper Canada — the present rich and pros-
perous Ontario — was on the verge of bank-
ruptcy. The reason lay in the ambition of
this province. The first roads into any new
country are the rivers. Therefore the popula-
tion of Canada first followed and settled
along the ancient waterway of the St Lawrence
and the Great Lakes. But this wonderful
highway was blocked here and there by
natural obstacles to navigation, long series of
rapids and the giant escarpment of Niagara.
To overcome these obstacles the costly
Cornwall and Welland canals had been pro-
jected and built. The money for such vast
public works was not to be found in a new
country in the pioneer stage of development ;
it had to be borrowed outside ; and the
annual interest on these borrowings amounted

32 THE UNION OF 1841

to £75,000, more than half the annual income
of the province. And this huge interest
charge was met by the disastrous policy of
further borrowings. After Poulett Thomson,
Durham's successor, became acquainted with
Upper Canada — ' the finest country I ever
saw,' wrote the man who had seen all Europe
—he testified : ' The finances are more de-
ranged than we believed in England. . . .
All public works suspended. Emigration
going on fast from the province. Every
man's property worth only half what it was.'
Decidedly the political and financial problems
of Canada demanded the highest skill for
their solution.

While things had come to this pass in
Canada, Lord Durham's Report on Canada
had been presented to the British House of
Commons and its proposals of reform had
been made known to the British public. It
revealed the incompetency of Lord Glenelg
as colonial secretary ; he resigned and made
way for Lord John Russell, who was in hearty
accord with the principles and recommenda-
tions of the Report. The chief recommenda-
tion was that the only possible solution of the
Canadian problem lay in the political union
of the two provinces. At first the British

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 33

government was inclined to bring about this
desirable end by direct Imperial fiat, but in
view of the determined opposition of Upper
Canada, it wisely decided to obtain the
consent of the two provinces themselves to
a new status, and to induce them, if possible,
to unite of their own motion in a new political
entity. The essential thing was to obtain the
consent of the governed ; but they were
turbulent, torn by factions, and hard to bring
to reason.

For a task of such difficulty and delicacy
no ordinary man was required. Sir John
Colborne was not equal to it ; he was a plain
soldier, but no diplomat. He was raised to
the peerage as Lord Seaton and transferred.
A second High Commissioner, with practically
the powers of a dictator, was appointed
governor-general in his stead. This was a
young parliamentarian, of antecedents, train-
ing, and outlook very different from those of
his predecessors. Instead of the Army or the
county family, the new governor-general repre-
sented the dignity of old-fashioned London
mercantile life. Charles Poulett Thomson
had been in trade ; he had been a partner
in the firm of Thomson, Bonar and Co., tallow-
chandlers. Now tallow-chandlery is not
w.r.c. c

34 THE UNION OF 1841

generally regarded as a very exalted form
of business, or the gateway to high position ;
but in the days of candles it was a business
of the first importance. Candles were then
the only light for the stately homes of Eng-
land, the House of Commons, the theatres.
The battle-lanterns of Britain's thousand
ships were lit by candles. Supplies of tallow
must be fetched from far lands, such as
Russia. And this business formed the
governor-general of Canada. As a boy in his
teens he was sent into the counting-house,
an apprentice to commerce, and so he escaped
the ' education of a gentleman ' in the brutal
public schools and the degenerate universities
of the time. Business in those days had a
sort of sanctity and was governed by punc-
tilious— almost religious — routine. In the
interests of the business he travelled, while
young and impressionable, to Russia, and
mixed to his advantage with the cosmopolitan
society of the capital. Ill-health drove him
to the south of France and Italy, where he
resided for two years. His was the rare
nature which really profits by travel. Thus,
in a nation of one tongue, he became a fluent
speaker of several European languages ; and,
in a nation which prides itself on being blunt

LORD SYDENHAM
From an engraving by G. Browning in M'Gill University Library

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 35

and plain, he was noted for his suave, pleasing,
* foreign ' manners. Poulett Thomson be-
came, in fact, a thorough man of the world,
with well-defined ambitions. He left business
and entered politics as a thoroughgoing
Liberal and a convinced free-trader long
before free trade became England's national
policy. Another title to distinction was his
friendship with Bentham, who assisted per-
sonally in the canvass when Thomson stood
for Dover. From 1830 onwards he was
intimately associated with the leaders of
reform. He was a friend of Durham's, and
they had worked together in negotiating a
commercial treaty with France. Continuity
in the new Canadian policy was assured by
personal consultations with Durham before
Thomson started on his mission. ' Poulett
Thomson's policy was based on the Durham
Report, and most of his schemes in regard to
Canada were devised under Durham's own
roof in Cleveland Row.'

Business, travel, and politics combined to
form the character of Poulett Thomson. His
well-merited titles, Baron Sydenham and
Toronto, tend to obscure the fact that he was
essentially a member of the great middle class,
a civilian who had never worn a sword or

36 THE UNION OF 1841

a military uniform. He represented that
element in English life which is always
enriching the House of Peers by the addition
of sheer intellectual eminence, like that of
Tennyson and Kelvin. He had a sense of
humour, a quality of which Head and Durham
were devoid. He was amused when he was
not bored by the pomp attending his position.
' The worst part of the thing to me, in-
dividually, is the ceremonial,' he writes.
1 The bore of this is unspeakable. Fancy
having to stand for an hour and a half bowing,
and then to sit with one's cocked hat on,
receiving addresses.' In person Thomson
was small, slight, elegant, fragile-looking,
with a notably handsome face. He was one
of those clever, agreeable, plausible, manag-
ing little men who seem always to get their
own way. They are very adroit and not
too scrupulous about the means they use to
attain their ends. They have that absolute
belief in themselves which their friends call
self-confidence and their enemies conceit.

Thomson came to his arduous task
brimming with ambition and belief in his
ability to cope with it. He realized to the
full the difficulty of the problem set him and

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 37

the credit which would accrue if he solved
it. ' After fifteen years/ a friend wrote, ' you
have now the golden opportunity of settling
the affairs of Canada upon a safe and firm
footing, ensuring good government to the
people, and securing ample power to the
Crown.' He was fully aware of this himself.
* It is a great field too,' he notes in his private
Journal, ' if I can bring about the union of
the provinces and stay for a year to meet the
united assembly and set them to work ' ; and
he contrasts the opportunity for distinction
offered by the Canadian imbroglio with the
tame possibilities of a subordinate position
in the Cabinet, which would be his fate if he
remained in England.

The new governor-general reached Quebec
in H.M.S. Pique on October 17, 1839, after
a stormy passage of thirty-three days. His
first task in Canada was the same as Durham's
— to acquaint himself with the actual condi-
tions— and he flung himself into it with
equal energy. Like Durham, too, he was
ably assisted by capable men on his staff,
notably T. W. C. Murdoch, his civil secretary,
and James Stuart, the chief justice of Lower
Canada. From the very first he won golden

38 THE UNION OF 1841

opinions from all sorts of persons. The tone
of his proclamations, the courtesy and tact
of his public utterances, his personal charm
made him speedily popular. The party of
Reform was conciliated because he was known
to be in sympathy with the principles of Lord
Durham's Report, while the Conservatives
were pleased with his avowed purpose of
strengthening the bonds between the colony
and the mother country. Lower Canada was
still a province without a constitution ; but
it must have some machinery of government.
A makeshift for regular government was
provided by a Legislative Council of fourteen
persons of importance appointed by Sir John
Colborne. Their agreement to the principles
of union was soon obtained. The province
now seemed tranquil and the governor-general
hurried on to Upper Canada. His account of
his journey from Montreal to Kingston — the
changes and stoppages, the varieties of con-
veyance— illustrates vividly the difficulties of
travel in those days.

At Toronto Thomson found a totally
different set of conditions. Here was a
constitution functioning and a legislature in
session ; but what a legislature ! Split into
half a dozen little cliques and factions, it was

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 39

trying to work with no cabinet, no opposi-
tion, no party system — an ideal state of
things to which some critics of present
conditions would like to return. The office-
holders, that is, the members of the govern-
ment, took opposite sides in debate. The
Assembly was a house divided and sub-
divided against itself. There was a wide-
spread and persistent clamour for * responsible
government,' but no one knew precisely what
was meant by it. Who was to be ' respon-
sible ' ? for what ? and to whom ? How
was it possible to make the local government
* responsible ' to the people of the colony
without reducing the governor to a figure-
head ? If his authority were reduced to a
shadow, what became of the ' prerogative '
and British connection ? Was not ' re-
sponsible government ' simply the prelude to
the absolute separation of the colony from
the mother country ? Then there was the
question of the Clergy Reserves agitating
every colonial breast. One-seventh of the
public domain had been set aside for the
support of a favoured church : a plain case
of monopoly and privilege, said some ; a wise
provision for the maintenance of religion, said
others. And the shadow of bankruptcy was

40 THE UNION OF 1841

hanging over the unhappy colony. The
situation was one of the utmost difficulty,
calling for an almost superhuman combina-
tion of ability, tact, and firmness. Here, as
in Lower Canada, the governor-general's first
effort was to obtain the consent of the people's
representatives to the great change in the
status of the province which the union would
involve. He carried his point by meeting
men and discussing the project with them —
a process of education. Although there was
some opposition on various grounds, reason-
able and unreasonable, the Assembly finally
consented to the following terms : first, each
province was to have an equal number of
representatives ; secondly, a sufficient civil
list was to be granted ; thirdly, the debt
incurred by Upper Canada for public works
of common interest should be charged upon
the revenue of the new united province.
These terms could not be called ideal, es-
pecially in regard to Lower Canada ; but
union was the only alternative to benevolent
despotism or civil war. In bringing the
legislature of Upper Canada to consent to
these terms Thomson had the valuable aid
of the cohort of Moderate Reformers led by
Baldwin and Hincks.

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 41

No inconsiderable part of the governor-
general's task was a campaign of education
in the ABC of responsible government.
Those elementary ideas of party government
now regarded as axiomatic had to be taught
painfully to our rude forefathers in legislation.
That the government should have a definite
head or leader in the Assembly, who should
speak for the government, introduce and
defend its measures ; that the officials of the
government other than those holding per-
manent posts should form one body — a
ministry — which should automatically relin-
quish office and power when it could no
longer command a majority in the legislature,
were practically new and by no means
welcome ideas to the old-time law-makers
of Canada. The natural corollary that the
opposition also should be organized under a
definite leader, who, on defeating the govern-
ment, should assume the responsibility of
forming a cabinet, was equally novel. Such
a check on reckless criticism was sadly
needed. Of the process by which Thomson
achieved his ends even his fullest biography
gives little information. There must have
been endless conferences of homespun, honest
farmers like Willson, men of breeding like

42 THE UNION OF 1841

Robinson, brilliant lawyers like Sullivan,
plain soldiers like MacNab, with the little,
sickly, understanding governor of the brilliant
eyes, the charming manner, and the per-
suasive tongue. Of all the varied explaining,
discussing, initiating, little record remains.
But the work was done and the results are
manifest to the world. The persuasive little
man succeeded in persuading the law-makers
of Upper Canada that the way out of their
difficulties lay not through division but
through union. He persuaded them to a
change of status which was a reversal to the
old status prior to the Constitutional Act,
and also a prelude to that larger union of the
British colonies in North America which was
destined to embrace half the continent.

Having succeeded almost beyond belief in
the first part of his mission, Thomson turned
his attention to the next vexed question.
This was the question of the Clergy Reserves.
On this subject much ink had been spilt and
much hard feeling engendered ; and it still
provokes not a little ill-directed sarcasm.
The whole matter is in danger of being
misunderstood, and eighteenth-century law-
makers are blamed for not possessing ideas a
hundred years ahead of their times.

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 43

By the terms of the Constitutional Act of
1791 one-seventh of the public lands there-
after to be granted were devoted to ' the
Support and Maintenance of a Protestant
Clergy.' The provision was due, it seems, to
the king himself, pious, homely ' Farmer
George ' ; and to men of his mind no pro-
vision could have seemed more natural or
right. * Establishment ' had been the rule
from time immemorial. The Church of Eng-
land was ' established,' that is, provided by
law with an income in England, in Wales, and
in Ireland. The ' Kirk ' was similarly ' estab-
lished ' in Scotland. In British America
itself the Church of Rome was ' established '
very firmly in Lower Canada. What could
be more natural for a Protestant monarch
than to make provision for a * Protestant
Clergy ' in a British colony settled by British
immigrants, and purchased with such out-
pouring of British blood and British treasure ?
And what more ready and easy way could be
found of providing for that ' clergy ' than by
endowing it with waste lands which taxed
no one and which would increase in value as
the country became settled ? In its essence
this endowment was a recognition of the
value of the Christian religion in preserving

44 THE UNION OF 1841

the state. But trouble arose almost at once
in the interpretation of the terms ' Pro-
testant ' and ' clergy/ Was not the Church of
Scotland ' Protestant ' as well as the Church
of England ? Were not the various species
of ' Dissenters ' also the most vigorous of
* Protestants ' ? On the other side it was
asked, Was not the term * clergy ' applied
exclusively to the ministers of the Church of
England ? It could not apply to any religious
teachers outside the pale ; those outside the
pale never dreamed of applying it to them-
selves. Naturally other denominations wished
to share in this most generous endowment ;
and quite as naturally the Church of England
desired to stand by the letter of the law and
hold what it had of legal right. Some ex-
tremists opposed any and all establishments,
holding that the church should be indepen-
dent of the state. Let the endowment be
used for the sorely pinched cause of education,
and let the ministers of all denominations
depend solely on the Christian liberality of
their people. Perhaps the extremists were in
closest touch with the genius of the new land
and the new institutions growing up in it.
To the plain man in the pioneer settlement
there seemed something feudal, something

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 45

unjust, in creating a privileged church at
the expense of all other churches. Pioneer
life brings men back to primal realities. To
the settler in the log-hut the externals of
religion are apt to fade until all churches
seem to be much the same : to set one above
all the others seems in his eyes so unjust as
to admit of no argument in its favour. Be-
sides, he had a very real grievance: the
reserved unoccupied lands interfered with
/ his well-being ; they came between farm and
u farm, increased his taxation, and prevented
\ the making of the needful roads. How was
he to get to market ? to fetch supplies ?
To-day few will be found to argue for a state
church ; but it was not so in the twenties
and thirties of the last century. The battle
raged loud and long ; and pamphleteer rent
pamphleteer in endless, wordy warfare.

By 1817 the grievance had become
clamant ; and when that inquisitive agitator,
Robert Gourlay, asked the farmers of Upper
Canada what hindered settlement, he re-
ceived the answer — Clergy Reserves. Two
years later the Assembly asked for a return
of the lands leased and the revenue derived
from them. Up to this time the annual
revenue had not exceeded £700. In the same

46 THE UNION OF 1841

year, 1819, the * Kirk ' parish of Niagara
applied for a grant of £100, and the law-
officers of the Crown supported the claim.
This decision stirred up the Anglicans. They
formed themselves into a corporation in each
province to oversee the administration of the
Clergy Reserves. Ownership in the lands was
to be obtained, if obtained at all, through the
establishment and endowment of separate
rectories, as provided for in the original act.
Why the directing minds among the Anglicans
did not adopt this ready and easy method of
obtaining at least the bulk of the disputed
land is something of a mystery. Apparently
they adopted a policy of all or none. Only
in 1836, just before the outbreak of the
rebellions, when political feeling was at fever
pitch, did Sir John Colborne, at the bidding
of Bishop Strachan, sign patents for forty-
four parishes to be erected in Upper Canada.
The total amount of land devoted to this pur-
pose was seventeen thousand acres. ' This,'
declared Lord Durham, ' is regarded by all
other teachers of religion in the country as
having at once degraded them to a position
of legal inferiority to the clergy of the Church
of England ; and it has been most warmly
resented. In the opinion of many persons,

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 47

this was the chief predisposing cause of the
recent insurrection, and it is an abiding and
unabated cause of discontent.'

Thomson's way of dealing with this cause
of discontent did not dispose of it for ever,
but it at least provided a lenitive. With the
business man's respect for property and
vested interests, he was opposed to the
diversion of the grant from its original
purpose to the support of education. He
used his powers of persuasion upon * the
leading individuals among the principal re-
ligious communities.' After * many inter-
views ' he secured the support of the religious
communities to a measure which he had
prepared. By the terms of this bill the
remainder of the reserved land was to be sold
and the proceeds were to form a fund, the
income from which should be distributed
annually among the Church of England, the
Church of Scotland, and other specified religious
bodies, ' in proportion to their respective
numbers.' This measure was not really
acceptable to the Reformers, who wanted to
see the land used in the cause of education ;
it was distasteful to the Kirk men ; it was
gall and wormwood to extreme Anglicans like
Bishop Strachan. None the less, the personal

48 THE UNION OF 1841

influence of the diplomatic, strong-willed
little man carried it through ; and although
the Act itself was disallowed, on excellent
grounds, by the Imperial government, as
exceeding the powers of the provincial legisla-
ture, yet the Imperial parliament passed an
Act exactly to the same effect. Thomson had
applied a plaster to the sore.

His general view of the political conditions
is shown in a private letter to his chief, Lord
John Russell. The picture he draws is lively,
unflattering, but instructive. ' I am satisfied
that the mass of the people are sound —
moderate in their demands and attached to
British institutions ; but they have been
oppressed by a miserable little oligarchy on
the one hand and excited by a few factious
demagogues on the other. I can make a
middle reforming party, I am sure, that will
put down both.' The record of seventy-five
years and of two wars shows the attachment
of the Canadians to British institutions, and
how justly the governor-general appraised
the * mass of the people.' Not less clearly
did he judge the politicians of the day, their
pettiness, their naive selfishness, their dis-
regard of rule and form, shocking all the
instincts of the British man of business and

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 49

the trained parliamentary hand. * You can
form no idea,' he continues, * of the way a
Colonial Parliament transacts its business. I
got them into comparative order and decency
by having measures brought forward by the
Government and well and steadily worked
through. But when they came to their own
affairs, and, above all, to money matters,
there was a scene of confusion and riot of
which no one in England can have any idea.
Every man proposes a vote for his own job ;
and bills are introduced without notice and
carried through all their stages in a quarter
of an hour ! One of the greatest advantages
of the Union will be that it will be possible
to introduce a new system of legislating, and
above all, a restriction upon the initiation of
money-votes. Without the last I would not
give a farthing for my bill : and the change
would be decidedly popular ; for the members
all complain that under the present system
they cannot refuse to move a job for any
constituent who desires it.' Canadians of the
present day should study those words without
flinching.

When the session was over Thomson
posted back to Montreal, assembled his
Special Council, and set to work, in the role of

W.P.G. n

50 THE UNION OF 1841

benevolent despot, introducing many much-
needed reforms. The wheels of government
had been definitely blocked by racial hatred ;
the constitution was still suspended. ' There
is positively no machinery of government,'
Thomson wrote in a private letter. ' Every-
thing is to be done by the governor and his
secretary.' There were no heads of depart-
ments accessible. When a vacancy occurred,
the practice was to appoint two men to fill it,
one French and the other English. There
were joint sheriffs, and joint crown surveyors,
who worked against each other. Ably
seconded by the chief justice Stuart, the
energetic governor succeeded in reforming
the procedure of the higher courts of judicature
and in establishing district courts after the
model of Upper Canada. Altogether, twenty-
one ordinances were passed which had the
force of law. They were indispensable, in
Thomson's opinion, in paving the way for
the Union. He was under no illusions as to
his methods. ' Nothing but a despotism
could have got them through. A House of
Assembly, whether single or double, would
have spent ten years at them,' he writes,
with perfect truth.

The Maritime Provinces next claimed his

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 51

attention, as they came within the scope of
his commission. In Nova Scotia, likewise, a
struggle for responsible government was in
progress, but with striking differences. The
protagonist of the movement, Howe, was the
very reverse of a separatist. He was passion-
ately attached to Britain and British institu-
tions, and he thought not in terms of his
little province, but of the Empire. Over-
topping all other politicians of his day in native
power and breadth of vision, he was successful
in working out the problem of responsible
government by purely constitutional methods,
without a symptom of rebellion, the loss of
a single life or any deus ex machina dictator
or pacificator from across the seas. Howe,
indeed, was fitted to educate statesmen in
the true principles of democratic government,
as his famous letters to Lord John Russell
testify. Howe's achievement must be com-
pared with the failure of Mackenzie and
Papineau, if his true greatness is to appear.
When Thomson and he met, they found that
they were at one in principle and in respect
to the measures necessary to bring about the
desired reforms. That month of July 1840
was a very busy one for the governor-general.
He reached Halifax on the ninth and left on

52 THE UNION OF 1841

the twenty-eighth for Quebec. In the mean-
time he had met many men, discussed many
measures, gauged the situation correctly,
drafted a clear memorandum of it, and made
a flying visit to St John and Fredericton.
He found New Brunswick happy and con-
tented, a very oasis of peace in the howling
wilderness of colonial politics. His policy
was to get into personal touch with every
part of his government and to see it with
his own eyes. On his way back to Montreal
from Quebec he made a detour through the
Eastern Townships. Everywhere he increased
his already great popularity.

Apart from his natural and commendable
desire to inform himself by the evidence of
his own eyes and ears, these tours were
dictated by sound policy. The governor-
general was his own minister, the approach-
ing election was his election, the Union was
his measure ; so his public appearances,
speeches, replies to addresses, personal inter-
views were all in the nature of an election
tour by a modern political leader to influence
public opinion, a legitimate part of his
campaign. After touring the Eastern Town-
ships he made a thorough visitation of the
western province, going round by water, and

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 53

being nearly wrecked on Lake Erie and again
on Lake Huron, where he found that the
inland freshwater sea could be as turbulent
as the Bay of Biscay. Elsewhere the Canadian
autumn weather was delightful. His pre-
carious health improved. His tour was a
triumphal progress. ' All parties,' he writes,
* uniting in addresses in every place, full of
confidence in my government, and of a
determination to forget their former dis-
putes.' He adds a little pen-picture, which
shows that the Canadian pioneer had a knack
of impromptu pageantry which his descen-
dants have lost. ' Escorts of two and three
hundred farmers on horseback at every place
from township to township, with all the
etceteras of guns, music, and flags/ The
governor rode a good deal himself, taking
saddle-horses with him as well as a carriage.
Those musical, gun-firing, flag-flying caval-
cades from township to township in the
pleasant autumn weather of 1840 enliven the
background of a political struggle. ' What
is of more importance,' continues the astute
and businesslike little man, ' my candidates
everywhere taken for the ensuing elections.'
This western tour had an important reaction
upon public opinion in Toronto, bringing the

54 THE UNION OF 1841

divers factions into something like harmony
for a time. Thomson himself was genuinely
pleased with what he had seen of that rich,
heart-shaped peninsula lying behind the moat
of three inland seas, with the flowing names,
Huron, Erie, Ontario. He writes in justifiable
superlatives. * You can conceive nothing
finer. The most magnificent soil in the world
— four feet of vegetable mould — a climate
certainly the best in North America — the
greater part of it admirably watered. In a
word, there is land enough and capabilities
enough for some millions of people and for
one of the finest provinces in the world.'
Half a century from the time of writing the
governor's vision was realized and Ontario
was the ' banner province ' of the Dominion.
During that busy month of July which the
governor had spent in the Maritime Provinces
the Act of Union passed by the Imperial
parliament had taken effect. The two pro-
vinces were proclaimed to be one province
with one legislature. It was necessary to
issue a new commission for the governor of
the new province, and, to mark the import-
ance of his achievement, Charles Poulett
Thomson was created a peer, Baron Sydenham
of Sydenham in Kent and Toronto in Canada.

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 55

One advantage of a monarchy is its ability to
reward service to the state in a splendid way.
Sydenham's honour was well deserved, but
he was not destined to enjoy it long. His
activity in no way relaxed. An essential part
of the scheme of union, as he saw it, was
local home rule. The country was to be
divided into small self-governing units —
municipalities — taxing themselves for their
own necessary expenditures and controlling
the revenues so raised. v This is now such a
familiar idea, an institution which works so
well, that it is hard to conceive of Canada
ever lacking it. Even more difficult to
conceive is why the idea should have been
opposed by the Imperial parliament so
strongly that an advanced Liberal like Lord
John Russell was forced to exclude it from
the Act of Union. But Sydenham was not
easily balked. Being on the ground and
seeing the urgent need of such an institution,
he called together his wonderful Special
Council for one last session. Between them
they organized the municipal system which,
in modified form, still functions in Quebec.
After the Union the system was extended to
Ontario, to the great advantage of that
province. So thoroughly are Canadians accus-

56 THE UNION OF 1841

tomed to managing their own affairs, that
they do not realize what a privilege they
possess in their municipal system, and how
far Great Britain then lagged behind.

Another important measure passed by the
expiring Special Council was the Registry
Act. To the habitant the selling, mort-
gaging, and transfer of property was a
private affair ; he did not see the need for
publicity. So the habit of clandestine transfer
of land was almost a French habit. The
same habit prevailed among the Acadians
and had to be dealt with by the English
governors. The attempt to put the transfer
of land upon a business basis was regarded
as an insidious attack upon a national custom.
Once more the benevolent despot succeeded
in bringing about a much -needed reform.
The ' ass's bridge,' as he calls it, had been
impassable for twenty years. Now that it
was crossed, the exploit met ' the nearly
universal assent of French and English.'
Some thirty other ukases, all tending to
order and the common weal, were issued in
the last session of this extraordinary legisla-
tive body. One fixed the place of the capital.
After much debate on the rival claims of
Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Bytown, and

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 57

Kingston, it was decided that the town with
the martello towers guarding the gateway to
the Thousand Islands, with its memories of
Frontenac and the War of 1812, should be
the capital of the new united province.
And it was so. About the quiet university
town, where Queen's is Grant's monument —
si monumentum requiris, circumspice — there
lingers still the distinction of the old vice-
regal days.

Then came the first election for the new
Assembly of the united province, perhaps the
most momentous in the history of Canada.
Lower Canada was vehemently opposed to
the whole scheme. To elect a Union member
was, in the words of the Quebec Committee,
* stretching forth the neck to the yoke which
is attempted to be placed upon us.' The
French were organized into a solid phalanx
of opposition. In the western province the
Tory and Orange opposition was equally
violent towards a measure which was deemed
to favour the French. The elections of 1841
were held with the bad old-fashioned accom-
paniments of riot and bloodshed, especially
in the centres, Montreal and Toronto. Neither
side was free from the blame of irregular
methods. Certainly the government was not

58 THE UNION OF 1841

scrupulous in the means it employed to
secure the return of Union candidates. The
results were known early in April. They
were as follows : for the government, twenty-
four members ; French, twenty ; Moderate
Reformers, twenty ; ultra- Reformers, five ;
Compact party, five ; doubtful, seven. The
curse of petty faction was not lifted, nor the
machinery of two-party government really
installed, for it was quite possible for several
of these groups to combine in voting down
government measures without having suffi-
cient cohesion among themselves to form a
ministry and assume control.

The session opened at Kingston on June 14,
1841. A hospital was turned into a parlia-
ment house, a row of warehouses was appro-
priated for government offices, and the fine
old stone mansion by the waterside known
as ' Alwington ' became the residence of the
governor-general. That last summer of his
life was crowded with toil and anxiety, but
crowned with triumph. Acting as his own
minister, he had to press through a chaotic
and factious legislature, far-seeing measures
of vital importance to the country ; he had
to reconcile differences, to smooth opposition,
to continue his campaign of education in

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 59

parliamentary procedure. In addition to the
immediate problem of remaking the Canadas
into one province, Sydenham was deep in
diplomatic difficulties arising over disputes as
to the Maine boundary. , This difficulty was
settled in 1842 by the^ Asfiburton Treaty,
which finally delimited the frontier lines. The
strain on the governor-general was severe,
and his health, never robust, gave way under
it ; but the frail form was upborne by the
indomitable spirit of the man, and by the
consciousness that he was winning the long-
desired and doubtful victory. His success
was plain to other eyes across the sea. His
chief, Lord John Russell, sent gratifying
commendations and obtained for him the
coveted honour of the Grand Cross of the
Bath. Feeling that his mission was accom-
plished, he sent in his resignation and made
his preparations to return to England. The
sound he longed to hear was the pealing of
the guns from the citadel of Quebec in a final
salute to the departing proconsul. He was
to obtain release in another way.

Some idea of Sydenham's difficulties may
be formed by a consideration of the Baldwin
incident, as it has been called. Just before
the session opened an effort was made to

60 THE UNION OF 1841

combine the Moderate Reformers of Upper
Canada and the ' solid ' French-Canadian
party of Lower Canada into a compact
parliamentary phalanx of forty which would,
of course, take charge of the House. Baldwin
was skilfully approached and played upon
until he supported this intrigue. The sequel
is best told in Sydenham's own words.

Acting upon some principle of conduct,
which I can reconcile neither with honour
nor common sense, he strove to bring
about this Union, and at last having as
he thought effected it, coolly proposed to
me, on the day before Parliament was to
meet, to break up the Government alto-
gether, dismiss several of his Colleagues
and replace them by men whom I be-
lieve he had not known for twenty-four
hours, but who are most of them thor-
oughly well known in Lower Canada (with-
out going back to darker times) as the
principal opponents to every measure for
the improvement of that Province which
has been passed by me, and as the most
uncompromising enemies to the whole of
my administration of affairs there.

I had been made aware of this Gentle-

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 61

man's proceedings for two or three days,
and certainly could hardly bring myself
to tolerate them, but in my great anxiety
to avoid if possible any disturbance, I
had delayed taking any step. Upon
receiving, however, from himself this
extraordinary demand, I at once treated
it, joined to his previous conduct, as a
resignation of his office, and informed
him that I accepted it without the least
regret.

Of Baldwin's personal integrity there was no
doubt ; but the honest man had been used
as a tool. If the intrigue had succeeded,
all Sydenham's labour must have been lost,
the Union would have been wrecked in
the launching, and the country thrown back
into chaos. Fortunately the intrigue failed.
Baldwin passed over to the opposition, but
he was unable to lead the Reformers of
Upper Canada into killing government mea-
sures such as extension of the main high-
ways, reform of the usury laws, establishment
of a comprehensive municipal system. They
followed the sounder leadership of Hincks
and supported Sydenham in his wise efforts
to promote the country's good.

62 THE UNION OF 1841

The whole session was a series of crises.
Sydenham stood pledged to the cardinal
principle of democratic government, that
the majority must rule. Parliamentary
procedure, as they have it in England, was
a new thing in Canada. In Great Britain
the government does not always resign when
defeated on a vote, nor does the opposition
defeat the government when it has no power
to form an alternative government. The
only consistent opposition was Neilson's band
of French Canadians, and their policy was
pure obstruction and their object to separate
the two provinces once more. By combining
the factions it was possible sometimes to
defeat a government, but for the government
to throw down the reins of power, with no
one on the other side capable of taking them
up, would have been madness. The situation
craved wary walking and most delicate
balancing ; but Sydenham was equal to it.
Later in the session, when the members had
learned their lesson, the governor-general
affirmed his position in a series of resolutions
moved by Harrison, the leader of the govern-
ment. In these he asserted : first, his
position as representative of the monarch,
and, as such, responsible to Imperial

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMAKER 63

authority alone ; secondly, the administra-
tion must possess the confidence of the
representatives of the people ; and thirdly,
that the administration shall act in accord-
ance with the well-understood wishes and
interests of the people. In other words, he
declared himself for British connection plus
majority rule.

Critics found the first session of the new
parliament of Canada a ' do-nothing-but-talk'
session. There was indeed a flow of eloquence
in various kinds during the first few weeks
until the different parties found the proper
relations and the serious work of legislation
began. Constructive measures of the first
importance became law in due course. Syden-
ham's own words sum up his achievement.
1 With a most difficult opening, almost a min-
ority, with passions at boiling heat, and pre-
judices such as I never saw, to contend with,
I have brought the Assembly by degrees into
perfect order ready to follow wherever I may
lead ; have carried all my measures, avoided
or beaten off all disputed topics, and have got
a ministry with an avowed and recognized
majority, capable of doing what they think
right, and not to be upset by my successor.
I have now accomplished all that I set much

64 THE UNION OF 1841

value on ; for whether the rest be done now,
or some sessions hence, matters little. The
five great works I aimed at have been got
through : the establishment of a board of
works with ample powers ; the admission of
aliens ; the regulation of the public lands
ceded by the Crown under the Union Act ;
and lastly this District Council Bill.' The
financial difficulties of the province had been
met by guaranteed Imperial loan, and pro-
gress had been made in remedying the evils
of pauper immigration. Not often does a
constructive statesman live to see his labours
so richly rewarded by success.

Then the end came. A stumble of Syden-
ham's horse as he mounted a rise near
' Alwington ' threw him to the ground and
broke his right leg. His constitution, never
strong, had been weakened by disease, un-
sparing work, and ceaseless anxieties. The
bones would not set, the laceration would
not heal, and at last lockjaw set in. It was
impossible for him to recover. One does not
expect the heroic from a fragile man of the
world, but Sydenham's last thoughts were
for the state he had served so well. In the
agonies of tetanus he composed the speech
with which he had hoped to bring the session

POULETT THOMSON, PEACEMA£ 67

to a close. The last words were the dyin^
governor's prayer for Canada. ' May Al-
mighty God bless your labours, and pour
down upon this province all those blessings
which in my heart I am desirous it should
enjoy.'

His accident occurred on the fourth of
September : he was not released from his
sufferings until the nineteenth. A stately
funeral testified tot the universal regret. St
George's Cathedral at Kingston, where his
bones lie, should be among the high places
of the land, a shrine doubly sacred, as the
tomb of one who had no small part in making
Canada.

W. P.C.

CHAPTER III

REFORM IN THE SADDLE

ON Parliament Hill at Ottawa is a monument
of bronze and marble. It »epresents two men
standing in close converse ; and, in spite of
the dull and untempering effect of modern
coats and trousers, the monument is an
artistic success worthy of the noble eminence
on which it stands above the broad-bosomed
river and looking towards the distant hills.
It is designed to keep in memory LaFontaine,
the man of French blood, and Baldwin, the
man of English blood, who worked together
as leaders in the first parliament of re-
united Canada. That they so worked together
for the good of their common country de-
serves commemoration in enduring brass ;
for, happily, ever since their time English and
French have been found working side by side
and vying in fraternal efforts towards the
same glorious end.

LaFontaine and Baldwin are typical Cana-

M

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 67

dian politicians of the new order. They carried
on a government under modern conditions.
Sydenham's work had been done once for
fill. In spite of ignorance, and errors, and
worse, the parliamentarians had really learned
the lessons of procedure which he had so
deftly taught, and they now settled down to
the regular game of Ins and Outs, according
to established and accepted rules. The irre-
concilables were gradually tamed as wild
animals are — by hunger first, and then by
being fed with sufficient quantities of the
loaves and fishes. Power, office, good per-
manent positions, fat salaries, proved strong
sedatives of yeasty aspirations towards vague
political ideals. There were still to be grave
difficulties, crises, reactions towards the old
order of things ; but the cardinal principle of
popular government was finally accepted, and,
ever since 1841, has been in continuous opera-
tion, as part and parcel of the constitution.

If Canadian politicians had, in the words
of the Shorter Catechism, been left to the
freedom of their own will, it is difficult to see
how they could ever have brought about
either the union of the jarring provinces, or
established the principles of popular govern-
ment. It is not apparent how half a dozen

68 THE UNION OF 1841

irreconcilable little factions could have com-
bined to thwart the sullen determination of
John Neilson's French-Canadian party to
wreck the Union. There was a crying need
for intervention by a true statesman from
without, who, with his eyes unblinded by
local prejudices and passions, could take his
stand above all parties, and, in benevolent
despotism, lead them into concerted action
for their own good and the good of the
country. Equally clamant was the need
of information and instruction. Sometimes
Canadians are inclined to write the tale of
the building of the nation as if that splendid
fabric were all the work of their own hands,
as if ' our own arm had brought salvation
unto us.' This is manifest fallacy. Without
a Durham to diagnose the malady and a
Sydenham to apply the remedy, the condition
of the body politic must have been past cure.
At least, no other physicians could avail.
Now, it was a matter of treatment and careful
nursing, and being instructed, we were capable
of following the doctor's orders.

The Reform leaders were very unlike each
other in character and antecedents. Robert
Baldwin was the son of William Warren
Baldwin, whose father (also a Robert Baldwin)

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 69

belonged to the humbler class of landed
gentry in Ireland. Tempted, like so many
others of his class, by the bait of cheap land,
he came to Canada to ' farm.' His son
William studied medicine at Edinburgh, be-
came a doctor, and, with Irish powers of
adaptation, soon exchanged physic for the
more profitable pursuit of law. Robert the
grandson was born in York (now Toronto)
in 1804. He became one of ' Johnny '
Strachan's pupils at the Grammar School,
achieving in time the distinction of being
' head boy ' ; after which he studied law in
the old, leisurely, articled-clerk system, and
finally became his father's partner. An
opportune legacy enabled his father to buy
a large property outside ' muddy York,' on
which, in accordance with hereditary land-
holding instinct, he endeavoured to establish
his family, after the old-world fashion. A
broad thoroughfare in Toronto preserves the
name of Baldwin's ambition, ' Spadina.'

Like his father, Robert Baldwin was a
Moderate Reformer. He entered public life
(1829) in his native town as draftsman of a
petition to George IV in what was known as
the Willis affair. In the same year he was
elected to the Assembly as member for York.

70 THE UNION OF 1841

Unseated on a technicality, he was at once
re-elected, and took his seat in the House the
following year. In the new elections, however,
following the demise of George IV in 1830,
when the House was dissolved, Baldwin was
defeated. He had recently entered into
partnership with his wife's brother, who was
also his own cousin, Robert Baldwin Sullivan,
a handsome Irishman with more than a touch
of Irish brilliancy. Sullivan played no small
part in the politics of the time. He is the
author of the wittiest pamphlet ever evoked
by Canadian party struggles.

Another young Irishman with whom Bald-
win became closely associated was Francis
Hincks, who also left his mark on the history
of Canada. The son of a Presbyterian
minister, he had received a good general
education, and a sound and extensive business
training in Belfast. Coming to Toronto by
way of the West Indies, he became inter-
ested in various local business concerns and
speedily proved his outstanding capacity for
all matters of commerce and finance. Be-
sides being the manager of a bank and the
secretary of an insurance company, Hincks
carried on at his house in Yonge Street, next
door to Robert Baldwin's (number 21), a

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 71

general warehousing business ; and, as if
these enterprises did not afford sufficient
scope for his energy, he launched a weekly
newspaper, the Examiner, in the interests of
Reform. The successful man of business soon
became the expert in finance, to whom all
eyes turned in difficulty. In 1833 he was
appointed one of the inspectors of the Welland
Canal accounts in a parliamentary investiga-
tion, so swiftly had he come to the front.
Though much unlike in temperament, he
and Baldwin were agreed in their views of
political reform, siding with the Moderates
as against the Mackenzie faction of ex-
tremists. When in 1836 the Constitutional
Reform Society of Upper Canada was or-
ganized, with William Warren Baldwin as
president, Hincks became the secretary. The
main objects of this society were to secure
* responsible advisers to the governor,' and
the abolition of the forty-four rectories estab-
lished by Sir John Colborne in accordance
with the well-known provisions of the Con-
stitutional Act. The success of any organiza-
tion often depends on one man, the secretary,
and in this capacity Hincks evinced his
wonted ability and extraordinary energy.
These two men, Robert Baldwin, with his

72 THE UNION OF 1841

high principle and solid character, and Francis
Hincks, with his talent for affairs, are figures
of prime importance in this critical stage of
the experiment called responsible govern-
ment.

But the new province of Canada, as a union
of French and English populations, demanded,
as a natural consequence, a union in leader-
ship. The French-Canadian politician, who
in his own province represented Moderate
Reform, was Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine.
His grandfather had been a member of the
old Assembly of Lower Canada ; his father
was a farmer at Boucherville in Chambly,
where Louis Hippolyte was born in 1804.
Educated at the college of Montreal, he
afterwards studied law and began to practise
in that city. In 1830 he was elected member
for Terrebonne, and soon showed himself in
the House to be a thoroughgoing follower of
Papineau and an agitator for radical change.
But when reform passed over into rebellion
and an appeal to armed force, he tried to
dissuade his compatriots from their mad
enterprise, and also approached the governor,
Lord Gosford, with a proposal to assemble
parliament, in order to prevent further
violence. He then went to England, from

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 73

motives which do not seem clear. Fearing
arrest in that country for his share in the
agitation before the rebellion, he fled to
France. He did not, in fact, return to
Canada until May 1838, when he was caught
in the widespread net of arrests and spent
several painful and indignant months in the
Montreal jail, demanding release, but in vain.
Incarceration for a political offence is a rare
event in the career of a chief justice and an
English baronet, as this prisoner was to be
later. Arrested on suspicion, he was released
without trial. On the tragic collapse of the
extremists LaFontaine became the hope of
the moderate men among the French-
Canadian politicians. Like the most of his
compatriots, he was strongly opposed to the
union of the Canadas, as threatening the
extinction of his nationality ; but seeing no
possible alternative to union, he made it his
fixed policy to win, by constitutional methods,
whatever could be won for his people. In
appearance he was strikingly like the first
Napoleon, the resemblance being noticed by
the old soldiers when he visited the Hotel
des Invalides at Paris. A contemporary
cartoon, representing him flinging money to
the habitants, shows the likeness, even to the

74 THE UNION OF 1841

lock of hair on the forehead, more plainly
than his portrait. His few years of leader-
ship in parliament, though of great import-
ance to the country, formed only an episode
in a larger legal career.

In the elections of 1841 LaFontaine was
defeated ; it is said, by illegal methods.
Baldwin was returned for two constituencies,
York and Hastings, and Hincks for Oxford,
on the strength of his articles in the Ex-
aminer. Bitterly disappointed as LaFon-
taine was at his defeat and the means by
which it was accomplished, he could see no
hope of redress except by constitutional
means. For the present he could do no more
than protest angrily at the injustice. He
was, however, not long excluded from the
House. Through the good offices of Baldwin
he was elected for the fourth riding of York,
an act of courtesy and common sense which
was not to lose its reward.

Such was the posture of affairs when
Sydenham died.

The next governor-general of Canada was
Sir Charles Bagot, the Tory nominee of the
now Tory government of Great Britain.
Bagot's familiar portrait in the full insignia
of the Order of the Bath shows us the hand-

SIR CHARLES BAGOT
From an engraving in the Dominion Archives

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 75

some, thoroughbred face of a typical English
gentleman. Although Queen Victoria doubted
his ability for the post, her distrust was un-
founded. Bagot was a man of broad experi-
ence and calm wisdom. He possessed poise
and real kindness of heart, as well as real
courtesy ; but he seems also to have been
too sensitive to criticism and to opposition.
He reached Kingston, the seat of his govern-
ment, in January 1842. Visits to the various
centres of Canada, according to the practice
of his predecessors, soon gave him an under-
standing of popular opinion and feeling ; and,
although he was expected by the extreme
Conservatives to bring back the old, halcyon,
ante bellum days, he was most careful to
follow the lines of Sydenham's policy. To-
wards the French he was amiable and con-
ciliatory and made several appointments of
French Canadians to positions of trust and
emolument. Ever ready to meet courtesy
half-way, the French gave their new governor
their entire confidence.

During the eight months before parliament
should reassemble Bagot wisely set about
learning for himself the actual conditions of
his new government. Like Sydenham, he
was to act as his own prime minister, and

76 THE UNION OF 1841

his initial difficulty was in forming a suitable
Cabinet to act with him. He offered Hincks
the post of inspector-general, corresponding
in effect to minister of Finance, and Hincks
accepted it. He offered the post of solicitor-
general to Richard Cartwright (grandfather
of the Sir Richard Cartwright of a later day),
who refused it because Hincks was in the
Cabinet. The position was finally filled by
Henry Sherwood, who was, like Cartwright,
a Conservative. To LaFontaine the governor
offered the attorney-generalship in the most
courteous terms, but, for a number of reasons,
LaFontaine declined to accept it. Bagot's
plan was to form a coalition government,
which should embrace all interests ; but the
Reformers refused to take their place in a
Cabinet which contained men of the opposite
party. So William Henry Draper, who had
acted under Sydenham, continued as leader
of a composite Cabinet under Bagot.

The House met at Kingston on September
8, 1842. In the game of Ins and Outs the
debate on the Address is recognized as a trial
of strength, as a method of ascertaining which
party is in a majority. It was found that the
Draper government did not command the
confidence of the House ; and, after a spirited

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 77

fight, Draper resigned and made way for a
new ministry, led by LaFontaine and Bald-
win. The principle involved, which seems
now the merest common sense, was then
scouted as government ' by dint of miserable
majorities.' Sullivan was the senior member
in the new ministry, though it is known by
the names of its leaders. It included Hincks
and five other members of the previous
Cabinet.

In accordance with another rule of the
political game the new ministers had to seek
re-election. LaFontaine was peaceably re-
turned for his ' pocket borough,' the fourth
riding of York, but the candidacy of Baldwin
for Hastings had another issue. In those
good old days of open voting an election was
no such tame affair as walking into a booth
and marking a cross on a piece of paper
opposite a name. An election lasted for days
or even weeks. There was only one polling-
place for the district, and an election was
rarely held without an election row. It seems
impossible that it is of Canada one reads : ' A
number of shanty-men having no votes were
hired by Mr Baldwin's party to create a
disturbance. They did so and ill-treated
Mr Murney's supporters. The latter, however,

78 THE UNION OF 1841

rallied and drove their dastardly assailants
from the field. Two companies of the 23rd
Regiment were sent from Kingston to keep
the peace, and polling was most unjustly
discontinued for one day.* Free fights be-
tween bands of rival voters armed with clubs,
swords, and firearms, injuries from which
men were not expected to recover, order
restored by the intervention of the military
— these were no unusual incidents in an old-
time Canadian election. The contest in
Hastings was of this description, and Baldwin
was defeated. He stood for election in the
second riding of York, and he was again
defeated. Finally LaFontaine did for him
what he had done for LaFontaine. The
French member for Rimouski resigned his
seat, and Baldwin was returned for it in
January 1843. The French leader and the
English leader had thus given unmistakable
proofs of their sincere desire to be friends
and to work together for the common weal.
French and English were found at last work-
ing in harmony, side by side. They had
formed the first colonial ministry on the
approved constitutional model.

The new idea was fiercely assailed. To the
British colonial partisan of that day it

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 79

seemed the height of absurdity to entrust
the government of the country to men who
had done their best to wreck that govern-
ment but a few years before. The Tories
would have been more than human if they
were not exasperated to see actual rebels like
Girouard, who fought with rebels at St
Eustache, offered a position in the Cabinet.
They could not, as yet, accept the hard
saying of Macaulay : ' There is only one cure
for the evils which newly-acquired freedom
produces, and that cure is freedom.' How
would they have regarded Britain's three
years' war with the Dutch republics of South
Africa and the entrusting of them imme-
diately afterwards to the Boers and General
Louis Botha ? For accepting the principle
of popular government, that the majority
must rule, Bagot was assailed with an in-
human vehemence, which astounds the reader
of the present day by its venom and its
indecency. Because the governor was a just
man and loyally followed constitutional usage,
he was abused as a fool and a traitor not only
in the colony but in England. It is small
wonder that his health began to give way
under the strain.

That historical first session of 1842 was

8o THE UNION OF 1841

very short ; it lasted only a month. Nor
could it be said to have accomplished very
much in the way of actual legislation. The
criticism of the opposition press was not ill-
founded — that there was much cry and little
wool. That the criticism was made at all
shows how much was expected from the
establishment of a principle. Mankind has a
pathetic faith in the efficacy of political
machinery, remade or remodelled, to grind
out happiness and bring in the Age of Gold.
None the less, a great political principle had
been affirmed, and had been seen in trium-
phant action. The new constitution was at
last set on its legs, and, at last, it really did
begin to ' march.'

Shortly after the session closed Bagot's
administration came to an end. The governor
was no longer young, and the factious opposi-
tion in the colony and the want of support
in England wrought upon his health and
spirits. The oncoming of the bitter Canadian
winter tried severely the shaken man. On
medical advice he resigned his post, but when
his resignation was accepted he was too ill to
travel. He too died at ' Alwington,' Kings-
ton, on May 30, 1843 ; but the voice of
rancorous detraction was not hushed around

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 81

his death-bed. ' Imbecile ' and ' slave ' were
among the milder terms of abuse. Bagot was
the second governor in swift succession to
render up his life in the discharge of his duty.
And he was not the last. It was as if some
blight or curse rested on the office which
made it fatal to the holder. The Canadian
treatment of Bagot, a high-minded gentle-
man who honestly performed a thankless
task, should make every Canadian hang his
head.

Bagot's successor was Sir Charles Metcalfe.
He arrived at Kingston from the American
side on March 29, 1843, in a close-bodied
sleigh drawn by four greys. His experience
must have been novel since he landed at
Boston and posted overland to reach the
capital of the colony. The whole country
was still deep in snow and must have pre-
sented the strangest aspect to a man who
had spent his life in the tropics. He was
received at the foot of Arthur Street by an
enthusiastic concourse of citizens, with ap-
propriate ceremony and show. ' A thorough-
looking Englishman with a jolly visage,' as
he was characterized by an eye-witness, he
made a favourable first impression upon the
people- of his government.

W.P.G. F

82 THE UNION OF 1841

Metcalfe had received his training as a
* writer ' in the old East India Company
and must have been a contemporary of
Thackeray's Joseph Sedley. He was born
in India, at Lecture House, Calcutta, on
January 30, 1785. Eleven years later he
entered Eton, where he at once evinced
remarkable powers of application and a
marked distaste for athletic sports, two traits
which would mark him off as an oddity from
the herd of English schoolboys. At the age
of sixteen he was back in the land of his
birth. His was a distinguished career. By
1827 he had risen to membership in the
Supreme Council of India. Later he acted
as provisional governor-general, and obtained
the Grand Cross of the Bath. In 1838 he
resigned his position and became governor of
Jamaica. Perhaps the most significant inci-
dent in his career was his fighting as a volun-
teer in the storming of Deeg, on Christmas
Day 1804. The courage which sends a
civilian into a desperate hand-to-hand fight,
to which he is not obliged to go, must be
above proof. Metcalfe had no pecuniary
interest in his position. He was a wealthy
man, who spent far more than his official
salary in the various ways a governor-general

SIR CHARLES MKTCALFK
After a painting by liradish

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 83

is expected to bestow largesse. His ' jolly
visage ' bore the marks of a cruel and in-
curable disease. He is still remembered in
India as the author of the bill which estab-
lished the freedom of the press. The his-
torian Macaulay calls him * the ablest civil
servant I ever knew in India.' Durham,
Sydenham, Bagot, Metcalfe — Britain had few
more distinguished or more able servants of
the state ; and they devoted all their powers,
without a thought of the cost to themselves,
to solving a vital problem in the maintenance
of the Empire. Their more obvious rewards
were obloquy and death.

The misfortune of Metcalfe was that his
entire political training had been gained in
governing subject racss, Hindus in India and
negroes in Jamaica, races ' so accustomed to
be trampled on by the strong that they
always consider humanity as a sign of weak-
ness.' Now old, and fixed in his mental set,
autocratic as an Indian civil servant must be,
he came to deal with a rude, unlicked, white
democracy, impatient of control as Durham
discovered, and acutely jealous of its rights.
In theory Metcalfe should have been most
sympathetic, for in English politics he was
an advanced Whig, strongly in favour of such

84 THE UNION OF 1841

popular measures as abolition of the Corn
Laws, vote by ballot, the extension of the
franchise. Besides, he was honestly desirous
•f playing the peacemaker. None the less,
his administration was marked by a reaction
towards the old Tory state of affairs, and
produced a ministerial crisis which threatened
to bring back the reign of Chaos and old
Night.

The primal difficulty lay in the governor's
mental attitude. He saw with perfect clear-
ness what had already been done. Durham
had enunciated a theory, which Sydenham
had put into effect by being his own minister,
and Bagot had followed resolutely in Syden-
ham's footsteps. The group of colonial
officials known as the Executive Council
had in the meantime tasted power. They
now ventured to speak of themselves as
1 ministers,' as a ' cabinet,' as the ' govern-
ment,' as the ' administration ' ; and these
terms, with their corollaries and implications,
had met with general acceptance. But Met-
calfe considered them inadmissible, as limit-
ing too much the power of the governor, and,
as a consequence, the authority he repre-
sented. He was determined not to be a mere
figurehead on the ship of state ; he would

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 85

be captain, in undisputed command. Theo-
retically, if he were to be guided solely by
the advice of the local ministry, he would
be 'responsible' to them instead of to his
sovereign ; his office would be a nullity, and
the difference between a colony and an
independent state would have disappeared.
Theoretically Metcalfe and the Tory pamphle-
teers who supported him were right in their
contentions. Complete freedom to manage
its own affairs should, if logic were strictly
followed, separate the colony from the mother
country ; but the British genius for com-
promise has met the difficulty in a thoroughly
British way by avoiding any precise and
rigid definition of the relations existing be-
tween the mother country and the daughter
state. That ' mere sentiment ' should hold
the two more firmly together than the most
deftly worded treaty or legal enactment is
proved to the world in these later days by
the sacrifices of Canada to the common cause
during the Great War. But there was little
reason for holding this belief in the forties of
the nineteenth century. Conflict between
a masterful governor like Metcalfe, accus-
tomed to the old order, and political leaders
like Baldwin and LaFontaine, trying to

86 THE UNION OF 1841

bring in a new order, was inevitable ; their
modes of thought were diametrically opposed ;
the only question was when the clash should
come.

The third session of the first parliament of
Canada opened towards the end of September
1843. In an Assembly of eighty-four members
the party of Reform numbered sixty, an over-
whelming majority ; for the rapprochement
between the sympathetic parties of the two
provinces was now complete. The leader of
the opposition was Sir Allan MacNab of
Caroline fame, a typical soldier-politician,
narrow but honest in his views, and, like his
countryman Alan Breck, a ' bonny fighter.'
It was a momentous session. Reform was
firmly in the saddle at last. No opposition
could hope to defeat whatever measure the
government might choose to bring forward.
Nor could the government be reproached, as
before, with merely talking and doing nothing.
Much legislation of the first importance
stands to its credit. One of the measures
passed at this session provided that the
seat of government should be removed from
Kingston to the commercial metropolis,
Montreal. For how short a time Montreal
should have this honour, none could imagine

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 87

or foresee. By another wise measure place-
men were removed from the Assembly ; that
is to say, permanent officials, such as judges
and registrars, could not hold their positions
and be members of parliament. For this
important change LaFontaine was respon-
sible, as well as for another bill which simpli-
fied the judicial system of Lower Canada.
An attempt was made to bridle the turbulence
of Irish factions, which had brought to Canada
the long-standing, cankered quarrels of the
Old World. A bill was passed to suppress all
secret societies except the Freemasons. It
was, of course, aimed straight at the Orange
Society, that vigorous politico-religious or-
ganization which preserves the memory of
a Dutch prince and of a battle he fought in
the seventeenth century. To this bill Met-
calfe did not assent, but * reserved ' it, as
was his undoubted right, for the royal
sanction. In the end that sanction was not
given, and the Act did not become law. The
* reserving ' of this bill seems to have
occasioned little comment ; but, as will be
seen in a subsequent chapter, the refusal of
another governor to ' reserve ' another bill
caused a storm. Hincks, the man of finance,
gave the country ' protection ' against the

88 THE UNION OF 1841

competition of the American farmer, a politi-
cal device which was destined to much wider
use. The all-important matter of education
received the attention of the Assembly.
What had been done before was, most
significantly, to make provision for higher
education by establishing ' grammar schools '
in the different districts, as foundations for
the superstructure of a university. It might
have been called a provision for aristocratic
education. Now a measure became law for
the better support of the common schools.
This was provision for democratic education,
a necessary corollary to popular government,
for if Demos is to rule, Demos cannot be left
in ignorance ; the peril of an ignorant ruler
is too frightful.

Then came the difficult problem of the
provincial university. It is interesting to
note how the educational history of one
Canadian province is repeated in another.
In Nova Scotia, King's College was founded
by the exiled Loyalists from the United
States towards the end of the eighteenth
century. It was the child of the Church of
England. The first bishop of Nova Scotia
secured for it the support of the provincial
Assembly. Naturally, it was modelled on the

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 89

great English university of Oxford, and, like
the Oxford of that day, was designed solely
for the education of those within the pale of
the national church. But this provincial
university, which has the honour of being
the oldest in the British dominions overseas,
was supported by public funds partly con-
tributed by * dissenters/ whose creed excluded
them from it. Only at the price of their re-
ligious principles could the ' dissenters ' of
Nova Scotia obtain the boon of higher edu-
cation. Therefore they set to work to found
an independent * academy ' of their own. In
Upper Canada events marched down the
same road. There, another privileged ' King's
College,' exclusively Anglican, was founded
early in the nineteenth century, and richly
endowed with public lands. The excluded
* dissenters ' set about founding colleges of
their own ; and thus Queen's College and
Victoria College took their rise. Robert
Baldwin had the vision of a comprehensive
state university, on a broad non-denomina-
tional basis, in which all these colleges should
be component parts. He brought in a bill
to found the University of Toronto, a measure
on which time has set its approving seal.
The many stately buildings which adorn

90 THE UNION OF 1841

Queen's Park, the long distinguished roll of
graduates, the noble group of affiliated col-
leges, Knox, St Michael's, Trinity, Wycliffe,
Victoria, attest the wisdom of Baldwin's
far-seeing measure. Bishop Strachan, the
doughty Aberdonian champion of Anglican
rights and privileges, led a crusade against
this ' godless institution ' and raised the cry
of spoliation. The echoes of that wordy
warfare have even now hardly died away.
Having failed to prevent the founding of
Toronto, the indefatigable bishop founded a
new Anglican university, Trinity, which in
the fullness of time was merged in the great
provincial university. But this is to antici-
pate. Baldwin's bill had reached its second
reading, when the ministry blew up.

In the end of November the inevitable
clash occurred. Metcalfe was no believer in
responsible government as understood by the
Reformers ; and he was determined to up-
hold the prerogative of the Crown. For one
thing, he was not going to surrender the right
of appointment. He had made several ap-
pointments without consulting his ministers.
When, on his own authority, he appointed a
clerk of the peace, they determined to make
it a test case. They considered that, by

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 91

ignoring them, he had violated an important
constitutional principle ; and when they were
unable to convince him cf this in a personal
conference, they resigned in a body (with a
single exception) on November 26, 1843.
This produced what is known as the Met-
calfe Crisis. In a formal statement before
the House the Reformers took the ground
that they could not be ' responsible ' for
appointments made without their knowledge.
The governor was to act on their advice ; but
he had acted without giving them a chance
to advise him. Metcalfe, on the other hand,
maintained that the Reformers wanted him
to surrender the patronage of the Crown ' for
the purchase of parliamentary support.* He
opposed patronage for party purposes. Let
the long history of political appointments since
that day, of patronage committees, attest
that the governor was partly in the right.
The formal statements of both sides in the
dispute were at once made public and pro-
duced a popular furore, second in intensity
only to that which had led up to and attended
the rebellion. Sydenham's confidence that
his work could not be undone by any successor
seemed for a time ill-founded.

The resignation of the ministry was only

92 THE UNION OF 1841

the opening gun in a political campaign, the
•bject of which was to drive the governor
from office. On laying the reasons for their
action before the House the ministry received
an enthusiastic vote of confidence ; but their
resignation took effect, and on the ninth of
December the Assembly was prorogued. Both
parties then set the battle in array against the
coming election. An agitation of almost un-
paralleled violence began. Public meetings,
banquets, speeches, pamphlets, newspapers,
all contributed not so much to agitate as to
convulse the country. For all his easy manner
Metcaife was an indomitable fighter, and into
this, his last fight, he threw himself with an
amazing energy. And he did not have to
fight alone. There was no little dislike for the
LaFontaine-Baldwin Cabinet and no slight
exultation when it was supposed to be ' dis-
missed ' by a loyal and manly governor.
There is no doubt that in this struggle Met-
caife overstepped the metes and bounds
within which a colonial governor could rightly
act. He abandoned any attitude of official
impartiality. He espoused the cause of one
party, and used his great influence to aid that
party to power. In the meantime he had no
executive, or an executive of one; and all

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 93

through the summer of 1844 he was tireless
in his efforts to persuade men of standing to
accept office under Draper. The crux of the
situation was to obtain French-Canadian
support for an English Tory governor. One
prominent Frenchman after another was
' approached,' but without success. Finally
Metcalfe managed to scrape together a
ministry which included such noted French
Canadians as ' Beau ' Viger and D. B.
Papineau, a brother of the leader of '37. Then,
having dissolved the Assembly, the governor
issued writs for a new election. That election
in the autumn of 1844 was attended with
great riot and disorder. Both sides resorted
to violence. When^the House assembled, it
was found that Metcalfe and the Tories had
triumphed. The Reformers were in the
minority. While Lower Canada had returned
LaFontainewith a strong following, the western
province had sent a phalanx to support the
governor. Among the other curiosities of this
remarkable election was the defeat of Viger
by Wolfred Nelson, lately in arms against Her
Majesty's government. In this contest a young
lawyer of Scottish descent carried Kingston for
the .Tories. He was destined to go far. His
name was John Alexander Macdonald.

94 THE UNION OF 1841

Metcalfe had triumphed, but he held power
by a very narrow majority ; the parties stood
forty-six to thirty-eight. In the usual trial
of strength — the election of a Speaker — Sir
Allan MacNab was chosen by a majority of
only three votes. And yet Draper, that
expert balancer on the tight rope, managed
to carry on a government under these con-
ditions for three full years. Perceiving that
he must secure the support of the French if
his party was to survive at all, he adroitly
brought in favourite Reform measures as if
they were his own, thus cutting the ground
from under his opponents' feet. For example,
English had been made the sole official
language of the legislature. Now, the astute
party leader managed to get this obnoxious
clause in the Act of Union repealed. He
even went further and endeavoured to win
over the French -Canadian party wholesale
by offering desirable positions; but in this
intrigue he failed.

In the meantime the Act appointing a new
capital had come into effect. Kingston gave
place to Montreal, for a season. The huge
Ste Anne's market building in the west of the
city was turned into a parliament house,
destined to the fate of Troy. Here was held

REFORM IN THE SADDLE 95

the session of 1844-45. Such legislation as
was passed had no direct bearing on the
question of responsible government. Before
the session ended news came that the home
government intended to raise the governor to
the peerage as Baron Metcalfe of Fern Hill.
His brief two years in Canada formed only
an episode in the long career of a distin-
guished public servant. He had made his
name and spent his life in India. The con-
templated honour was well deserved ; and it
was designed by the home government as
recognition of his services to the state as a
whole, rather than as special approval of his
administration of Canada. But so the Re-
formers construed Metcalfe's elevation; and
they were furious. Even the moderate Bald-
win was betrayed into unwonted vehemence.
What would have happened, if Metcalfe had
remained in office, none can tell. Perhaps
a second civil war. But ' death cut the
inextricable knot.1 His deadly disease re-
turned after a delusive interval, as is its
hideous custom. His health failed ; the
cancer ate into his eye and destroyed the
sight. It was apparent that he could no
longer perform the duties of his office. He
asked to be recalled ; but the authorities at

96 THE UNION OF 1841

home, knowing of his malady, had anticipated
his desire. The courage that sent the boy
' writer ' into the deadly assault on Deeg
sustained the old proconsul through the slow
torture of the months of life remaining to
him. He quitted Canada in November 1845,
a dying man, and, to the shame of Canada,
amid the untimely exultation of his political
opponents. In less than a year he was dead.
Macaulay composed his epitaph. Metcalfe
was a man of mark ; and he had his share in
building up the British Empire. His name
distinguishes a street in Ottawa and a hall in
Calcutta ; and his statue stands in the former
capital of Jamaica.

CHAPTER IV

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION

ON Metcalfe's departure from Canada the
administration passed into the hands of Lord
Cathcart, commander-in-chief of the forces.
He was one of the many fine soldiers who
have had their part in the upbuilding of
Canada and whose services have received the
very slightest recognition. Of an ancient
Scottish family, he had fought in the great
Napoleonic wars from Maida to Waterloo,
where he had greatly distinguished himself.
After the peace he had turned his atten-
tion to the study of natural science, and he
had made some important contributions to
mineralogy. Cathcart held office from Nov-
ember 26, 1845, until January 30, 1847, some
fourteen months. He wisely left Canadian
politics to Canadian politicians, and merely
watched the machinery revolve. At first he
was merely administrator, but, on danger
threatening from the unsettled dispute over

W.P.O. G

98 THE UNION OF 1841

the Oregon boundary, he was raised to the
rank of governor-general.

His successor was also a Scot, James Bruce,
Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, directly de-
scended from the patriot king Robert the
Bruce. His father was the British ambassa-
dor who salvaged the ' Elgin marbles ' from
the Parthenon and sold them to the nation,
thus drawing down upon himself the angry
satire of Byron in * The Curse of Minerva '
and ' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.' The new
governor-general was young, poor, and able.
Far more than his predecessors, he had en-
joyed the advantages of a regular education.
At Eton he had Gladstone for a school-mate,
and at Oxford he was in the same college
with Dalhousie, the future governor-general
of India. He was also distinguished in two
ways : he was a sincere Christian of the devout
evangelical type, and he had a gift of speech
that would have been remarkable in any man,
but was remarkable most of all in a high
official of a rather tongue-tied race. His
native gift of eloquence was carefully culti-
vated and proved to be of great value in
many points in his public career. His family
ties are interesting. His first wife, a Miss
Bruce, met a tragic fate. The vessel in which

CHARLES, EARL GREY
From the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence

tt

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 99

she accompanied her husband to the West
Indies was wrecked on the voyage out ; she
never recovered from the shock and exposure,
and died not long after. His second wife was
a daughter of Lord Durham and a niece
of Earl Grey, who was, in 1845, colonial
secretary, and to whose influence Elgin owed
his appointment as governor-general. He
was thoroughly well qualified for the post.
At the same time it was a way of providing
for a relative who was not rich. Like Met-
calfe, Lord Elgin came to Canada by way of
Jamaica, which he had administered in the
dark days that followed the emancipation of
the slaves. His broad training, his Liberal
politics, his family affiliations all predisposed
him to accept the role which Metcalfe had
definitely refused, the role, namely, of a
constitutional governor-general, guided solely
by the advice of a ministry representing the
majority in parliament. In other words,
Elgin had his mind made up to conform
entirely to the principle of responsible govern-
ment as understood in the colony. He was
not long in the country before he made his
intentions public ; and to his fixed policy he
adhered through good report and through
evil report, at no small cost to himself, for

ioo THE UNION OF 1841

never were a Canadian governor-general's
principles put to a more severe test.

Elgin reached Montreal in the end of
January 1847, and was heartily welcomed by
both political parties. He, on his part, was
ready to admire the ' perfectly independent
inhabitants ' of this ' glorious country,' whose
demeanour was certainly not that of the
recently liberated slaves in his former satrapy.
The ' independent inhabitants ' voted him
' democratic ' for walking out to ' Monk-
lands ' in a blizzard, when hardly any one
else was stirring abroad. He was made
welcome for another reason. The experiment
of popular government was not working
particularly well. The constitution did really
1 march,' but with ominous creakings and
groanings, which seemed to threaten a com-
plete break-down. This must be the case
with every government which tried to per-
form its functions with but a small majority
at its back. The unanimous welcome accorded
to the governor-general by both sides of
politics implied a belief that somehow or
other he could find a way out of the present
difficulties and induce the governmental
machine to work smoothly. It was a faith
in the efficacy of the god from the machine

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 101

The Draper government was growing weaker
and weaker, being continually defeated in the
House, and consequently discredited before
the country. Its difficulties were increased
by events outside of Canada over which the
government could have no control. The
hideous Irish famine of 1846-47 had its
reaction upon Canada, for thousands of starv-
ing emigrants tried to escape to the new land,
and, after enduring the long-drawn horrors
of the middle passage, reached Canada only
to die like plague-stricken sheep of fever and
sheer misery. The monument at Grosse Isle
does not tell half the shame and suffering
of that tragic time. And the Draper govern-
ment showed no ability to cope with the
problem. At length, in December 1847, Lord
Elgin dissolved the House and a new election
took place. It resulted in a complete victory
at the polls for the party of Reform. The
leaders, Baldwin, LaFontaine, and Hincks,
were all returned. Only a handful of the
other party came back ; but among them
were Sir Allan MacNab and the young
Kingston lawyer, John A. Macdonald.

The new House met on February 25, 1848.
In the trial of strength over the Speakership
the Reformers won. Sir Allan MacNab was

102 THE UNION OF 1841

again the nominee of the Tories ; Baldwin
nominated his friend, Morin, who had com-
mand of both French and English, a necessary
qualification for the presiding officer of a
bilingual parliament. And Morin was chosen
Speaker by a large majority. In accordance
with the rules the remnant of the Draper
ministry resigned, and LaFontaine and
Baldwin formed a new Cabinet. This is
known in Canadian history as the ' Great
Administration,' which lasted until the retire-
ment in 1851 of both the noted leaders from
public life. The distinction is well deserved,
not only on account of the high character of
the leaders, and the value of the political
principles affirmed and put in practice, but
also on account of the permanent value of
the legislative programme which it carried
to successful completion. The ensuing session
was very short ; for time was needed to
prepare the various important measures which
the Reformers intended to bring forward.
The troubled year of European revolution,
1848, was rather colourless in the annals of
Canada ; not so the year which followed.

The eventful session of 1849 opened on the
eighteenth of January, in a parliament build-
ing improvised out of St Anne's market near

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 103

what is now Place d'Youville, Montreal.
The Speech from the Throne announces a
programme of the more important measures
to be brought before parliament. In this
case the Speech was a promise to deal with
such vital matters as electoral reform, the
University of Toronto, the improvement of
the judicial system, and the completion of
the St Lawrence canals. It also contained
two announcements most gratifying to the
French : first, that amnesty was to be offered
to all political offenders implicated in the
troubles of '37-'s8 ; and second, that the
clause in the Act of Union which made Eng-
lish the sole official language had been re-
pealed. The governor-general displayed his
tact and his goodwill by reading the Speech
in French as well as in English, a custom
which has continued ever since.

A striking incident in the opening debate
on the Address was the passage at arms
between LaFontaine and Papineau, between
the new and the old leader of French- Cana-
dian political opinion. In '37 Papineau had
roused his countrymen to armed resistance
of the government ; but he had wisely re-
frained from placing himself at the head of
the insurgents. Together with his secretary,

104 THE UNION OF 1841

O'Callaghan, he had witnessed the fight at
St Denis from the other side of the river,
but took no part in it. He had afterwards
reached the American border in safety. From
the United States he had passed over to
France, where he had consorted with some
of the advanced thinkers of the capital. In
1843 LaFontaine, by his personal exertions
with Metcalfe, was able to gain for his exiled
chief the privilege of returning without penalty
to his native land. Papineau, however, did
not avail himself of the privilege until four
years later ; he found life in Paris quite to
his taste. A curious result of his return, a
pardoned rebel, was his claiming and receiv-
ing from the provincial treasury the nine
years' arrearage of salary due to him as
Speaker in the old Assembly of Lower Canada.
In the elections of 1847 he stood for St
Maurice, and he was elected. In the new
parliament he took the role of irreconcilable ;
his whole policy was obstruction. What he
could not realize was, that during his ten
years of absence the whole country had
moved away from the position it had occupied
before the outbreak of the rebellion ; and, in
moving away, it had left him hopelessly
behind. His only programme was uncom-

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 105

promising opposition to the government which
had forgiven him, and the vague dream of
founding an independent French republic on
the banks of the St Lawrence. In the brief
session of 1848 he attempted, but without
success, to block the wheels of government.
Now, in the second session, the fateful session
of 1849, he delivered one of his old-time
reckless philippics denouncing the tyrannical
British power, the Act of Union — the very
measure he was supposed to have battled for
— responsible government, and, above all,
those of his own race who supported the new
order. LaFontaine took up the gauntlet.
His retort was as obvious as it was crushing.
If the French Canadians had refused to come
in under the Act of Union, they would have
been depriving themselves of any share what-
ever in the government of their country. If
they had refused to come in, Papineau would
not have been permitted to return, or to sit
once more as a legislator and a free man in
the national parliament. The reply was un-
answerable, and it put a period to the in-
fluence of Papineau. Foiled and discredited,
the old leader was never again to sway the
masses of his countrymen as the moon sways
the tides. His day was done. None the less,

io6 THE UNION OF 1841

the prestige of his name drew after him a
small following of the younger and more
ardent men to whom he taught the pure Radi-
cal doctrine. In UAvenir, the propagandist
journal which he founded, he preached repeal
of the Union and annexation to the United
States. Before long he abandoned an arena
in which he was no longer the great central
figure for dignified seclusion on his seigneury
of Montebello beside the noble Ottawa.

In spite of all blind opposition a broad and
enlightened programme of legislation was
carried out. Nearly two hundred measures,
many of prime importance, stand to the
credit of this busy session. The vexed ques-
tion of a provincial university was finally
settled. Baldwin's bill for the founding of
the University of Toronto, which had been
laid to one side by the Metcalfe crisis, was
taken up again and carried through all its
stages to the status of a law. Conceived as
the apex and crown of a comprehensive
scheme of education as broad as the province,
the University of Toronto more than met the
hopes of its founder. A straight road had
been devised from the first class in the
common school to the highest department
of collegiate instruction. The needs of the

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 107

democracy had not been neglected, but wise
and ample provision had been made for the
ambitious and aspiring few. How completely
the university has justified its existence is
attested by the spectacle of both political
parties competing with each other in their
benevolence towards an honoured, national
foundation. By the multiplying generations
of Toronto graduates the name of Robert
Baldwin should be held in high esteem as of
the man who made possible the seat of learn-
ing they are so proud to name their alma
mater.

Another wise measure for which Baldwin
deserves no little praise is the Municipal
Corporations Act. The title has a dry, legal
look, and will suggest little or nothing to the
general reader except, possibly, red tape.
Moreover, the system by which the subdivi-
sions of the country — the county, the town-
ship, the incorporated village — govern them-
selves seems so obvious and works so smoothly
in actual practice that it seems part of the
order of nature, and must have existed from
the time beyond which the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary. But the present
extended system of home rule in Canada did
not descend from heaven complete, like the

io8 THE UNION OF 1841

Twelve Tables. It was a gradual growth, or
evolution, from the old system, by which the
local justices of the peace, sitting in quarter
sessions, assessed the local taxes, with the
difference that it was not an unconscious
growth. The plant set by Sydenham's hand
was tended, cultivated, and brought to
maturity by Baldwin. The measure, as it
became law in 1849, has proved to be of the
greatest practical value ; it has won the
approval of competent critics ; and it has
served as a model for the organization of
other provinces. Commonplace and humdrum
as this measure may seem to Canadians in the
actual domestic working of it, there are other
parts of the Empire — Ireland, for example —
which were to lag long behind. The lack of
such privileges is a grievance elsewhere.
Even to-day, the rural districts of England
have not as extensive powers of self-govern-
ment as the counties of Ontario. If the
farmers of the Tenth Concession had to go
to Ottawa and see a bill through the House
every time they wanted a new school, if they
had months of waiting for proper authoriza-
tion, not to mention expenses of legislation
to meet, they might appreciate more keenly
the advantages they enjoy in virtue of this

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 109

forgotten Act of 1849. The lover of the
picturesque will not regret that terms with
the historic colour of ' reeve ' and ' warden '
were made part and parcel of a democratic
system in the New World.

It was a session of constructive statesman-
ship. The judicial system of the province
needed to be revised, extended, and simpli-
fied ; and these things were done. The
economic condition of Canada was anything
but satisfactory. For years the country had
.' enjoyed a preference ' in the British mar-
kets, in accordance with the old, plausible
theory that mother country and colony were
best held together by trade arrangements of
mutual advantage, by which the colony
should supply the mother country with raw
material and the mother country should
supply the colony with manufactured pro-
ducts. Suddenly all Canada's business was
dislocated by Peel's adoption of free trade
in 1846. In consequence Canada had no
longer any advantage in the British market
over the rest of the world, and Canadian
timber-merchants and grain-growers had an
undoubted grievance. The general commer-
cial depression, which had set in at the time
of the rebellions, became worse and worse*

no THE UNION OF 1841

Lord Elgin's often-quoted words picture the
deplorable state of the country : * Property
in most of the Canadian towns, and more
especially in the capital, has fallen fifty per
cent in value within the last three years.
Three-fourths of the commercial men are
bankrupt, owing to free trade ; a large
proportion of the exportable produce of
Canada is obliged to seek a market in the
United States. It pays a duty of twenty per
cent on the frontier. How long can such a
state of things be expected to endure ? ' For
a remedy the active mind of Hincks turned
to the obvious alternative of the British
market, the natural market just across the
line ; and he opened up negotiations with
the United States looking towards reciprocal
trade. He could scarcely obtain a hearing.
The way was blocked by the complete in-
difference of the United States Senate towards
the whole project. Not until five years later
did relief come ; and it came through the
initiative and personal diplomacy of Lord
Elgin. To him belongs the credit for the
famous Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. This
signifies that for the twelve years during
which the treaty was in force the artificial
barriers to the currents of trade between

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION in

adjacent countries were, to a large extent,
removed, certainly to the great advantage
of all British North America. It was a unique
period in Canadian history. Never before had
the trade relations between Canada and the
United States been so friendly, and never
have they been so friendly since.

In another great enterprise of national
importance Hincks was more successful. The
forties of the nineteenth century saw the first
great era of railway building. This novel
method of transportation was perceived to
have immense undeveloped possibilities. In
Britain, where steam traction was invented,
companies were formed by the score and lines
were projected in every direction. It was a
time of wild speculation, in which emerged
for the first time the new type of company
promoter. From England the rage for rail-
ways spread to the Continent and to America.
While Hincks was working at the problem in
Canada, Howe was working at it in Nova
Scotia. To link the East with the West,
Montreal with Toronto, Montreal with the
Atlantic seaboard, Montreal with the Lake
Champlain waterways to the southward, was
the general design of the first Canadian rail-
ways. It was in this period that the first

112 THE UNION OF 1841

sections were built of those Canadian lines
which, in half a century, have grown into
immense systems radiating across the con-
tinent. Hincks's idea was to aid private
enterprise by government guarantees of the
interest on half the cost of construction.
Canada is now laced with iron roads from
ocean to ocean. The man who laid the
foundation of these immense systems in the
day of small beginnings should never be
forgotten.

So the busy session went on, until a measure
was introduced which aroused a storm of
opposition, threatened a renewal of civil war,
and tested the principle of responsible govern-
ment almost to the breaking strain. This was
the Act of Indemnification, a part of the
bitter aftermath of the rebellion twelve years
before.

War, even on the smallest scale, means the
destruction of property. In the troubles of
'37 buildings were burned down in the course
of military operations. For example, good
Father Paquin of St Eustache had long to
mourn the loss of his church and the ad-
joining school. As it stood on a point of
land at the junction of two streams and was
strongly built of stone, it was an excellent

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 113

place of defence against the attack of Col-
borne's troops. On the fatal fourteenth of
December 1837 it was stoutly held by
Chenier and his men, until two British
officers broke into the sacristy and overset
the stove. Soon the fire drove the garrison
out of the building, which was destroyed
along with the new school-house near by. His
parishioners were loyal, Father Paquin con-
tended in a well-reasoned petition ; it was
not they but the discontented people of
Grand Brule who had seized the town ;
yet the result was ruin. In the affair of
Odelltown in 1838 a citizen's barn was burnt
down by orders of the British officer com-
manding because it gave shelter to the rebels.
Near St Eustache the Swiss adventurer and
leader of the rebels, Amury Girod, took
possession of a farm belonging to a loyal
Scottish family. His men cut down the trees
about the farm-house, fortified it rudely, and
lived in it at rack and manger until Colborne
came to St Eustache. These were typical
cases of loss, and surely, when order was
again restored, they were cases for compensa-
tion. The loyal and the innocent should not
have to suffer in their goods for their innocence
and their loyalty.

W.P.G. H

114 THE UNION OF 1841

Claims for compensation were made early.
In the very year of the rebellion the Assembly
of Upper Canada passed an Act appointing
commissioners to inquire into the amount of
damage done to the property of loyal citizens ;
and in the following year it voted a sum of
£4000 to make good the losses. Men were
paid for a cow driven off, or for an old musket
commandeered. The Special Council of Lower
Canada made similar provision, as was only
natural and right ; but its task was much
harder than that of the Assembly's. Clearly,
the property of loyalists destroyed or injured
during the civil strife should be made good.
This was mere justice. It was equally clear
that the property of open rebels which had
been destroyed or injured should not be made
good. But there was a third category not so
easy to deal with. There were those who
were not openly in rebellion, but who were
grievously suspect of sympathy with de-
clared insurgents of their own race and
religion. How far sympathy might have
become aid and comfort to opponents of the
government was hard to say. The village
of St Eustache, for example, was set on fire
the night following the fight ; the troops
turned out in the bitter cold to fight the fire,

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 115

but did not master it until some eighty houses
were burned. What claim could the owners
have upon the government for their losses ?
In the winter of 1838 the sky was red with
the flames of burning hamlets, says the
Montreal Herald.

The law's delay is proverbial. Compensa-
tory legislation dragged its slow length along
for years, and the loyalists who had suffered
in their pocket saw session after session pass,
and their claims still unsatisfied. In 1840 the
Assembly of Upper Canada passed an Act
authorizing the expenditure not of four
thousand, but of forty thousand pounds, to
indemnify the loyalists who had lost by the
' troubles.' However, as the Assembly, at the
same time, forbore to provide any funds for
the purpose, the Act remained with the force
of a pious wish. The claimants for compensa-
tion were none the better for it. Then came
the union of the Canadas. Five more years
rolled away, and, in spite of the usual siege
operations of those who have money claims
against a government, nothing was done. The
various barns and cows and muskets were still
a dead loss. Then in 1845 the Tory adminis-
tration of Draper put the necessary finishing
touch to the quaker act of 1840 by pro-

n6 THE UNION OF 1841

viding the sum of money required. By
drawing on the receipts from tavern licences
collected in Upper Canada over a period of
four years, the government was in the
possession of £38,000 for this specific purpose.
But, after the Union, it was manifestly
unjust to pay rebellion losses, as they came
to be known, in Upper Canada and not in
Lower Canada. The Reformers of Lower
Canada pointed out with emphasis the mani-
fest injustice of such a proceeding. It there-
fore became necessary to extend the scope of
the Act. Accordingly, in November 1845, a
commission consisting of five persons was
appointed to investigate the claims for ' in-
demnity for just losses sustained ' during the
rebellion in Lower Canada. This commission
was instructed to distinguish between the
loyal and the rebellious, but, in making this
vital distinction, they were not to ' be
guided by any other description of evidence
than that furnished by the sentences of the
courts of law.' The commission was also
given to understand that its investigation
was not to be final. It was to prepare only
a ' general estimate ' which would be subject
to more particular scrutiny and revision.
Appointed in the end of November 1845, tne

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 117

commission had finished its task and was
ready to report in April 1846. Its ' general
estimate ' was a handsome total of more than
£240,000 ; it gave as its opinion that £100,000
would cover all the ' just losses sustained.'
Of the larger amount, it is said that £25,000
was claimed by those who had actually been
convicted of treason by court-martial. Not
unnaturally an outcry rose at once against
taking public money to reward treason. The
report could not very well be acted upon ;
and the government voted £10,000 to pay
claims in Lower Canada which had been
certified before the union of the provinces.
Another delay of three years followed, until
LaFontaine took the matter up in the session
of 1849.

His general idea was simply to continue
and complete the legislation already in force,
in order to do justice to those who had
' sustained just losses ' in the ' troubles ' of
J37 and '38. The bill provided for a new
commission of five, with power to examine
witnesses on oath. In accordance with the
finding of the previous commission, the total
sum to be expended was limited to £100,000.
If the losses exceeded that sum, the individual
claims were to be proportionally reduced.

n8 THE UNION OF 1841

The necessary funds were to be raised on
twenty-year debentures bearing interest at
six per cent. LaFontaine introduced and
explained the bill, and Baldwin supported it
in a brief speech. It was easy enough, with
their unbroken majority, to vote the measure
through ; but the storm of opposition it
raised might have made less determined
leaders hesitate or draw back.

The vehemence of the opposition was not
due merely to the readiness with which the
faction out of power will seize on the weak
aspects of a question in order to embarrass
the government. Such sham-fight tactics
are common enough and may be rated at
their proper value. The leaders of the British
party were sincere in their belief that the
success of this measure meant the triumph of
the French and the reversal of all that had
been done to hold the colonies for the Empire
against rebels whose avowed purpose was
separation. Twelve years had gone by since
they had failed in the overt act. N ow Papineau
was back in the House, about to receive his
arrears of salary as Speaker. In Elgin's eyes
he was a Guy Fawkes waving flaming brands
among all sorts of combustibles. Mackenzie
had been granted amnesty by the monarch

SIR LOUIS H. LAFONTAINE
After a photograph by Notman

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 119

he had called ' the bloody Queen of England.'
Wolfred Nelson, who had resisted Her
Majesty's forces at St Denis, was to have
his claim for damages considered. It was
not in the flesh and blood of politicians to
endure all this ; and before condemning the
opposition to this bill, as is the fashion with
Canadian historians, we might ask what we
should have done ourselves in such circum-
stances. What the Tories did was to raise
the war-cry, ' No pay to rebels.' It re-
sounded from one end of the province to the
other and roused to life all the passion that
had slumbered since the rebellion.

In the debate on the second reading of the
bill a scene almost without parallel took
place on the floor of the House. The Tories
taunted the French with being ' aliens and
rebels.' Blake, the solicitor-general for Upper
Canada, retorted the charge, and accused the
Tories of being * rebels to their constitution
and country.' In a rage Sir Allan MacNab
gave him ' the lie with circumstance,' and
the two honourable members made at each
other. Only the prompt intervention of the
sergeant-at-arms prevented actual assault.
The two belligerents were taken into his
custody. Some of the excited spectators who

120 THE UNION OF 1841

hissed and shouted were also taken into
custody ; and the debate came to a sudden
end that day. Those were the days of * the
code,' and why a ' meeting ' was not
1 arranged ' and why Sir Allan did not have
an opportunity of using his silver-mounted
duelling pistols is not quite clear. The
tempers of our politicians have much im-
proved since that violent scene occurred.
No slur on the word of an honourable gentle-
man, no imputation of falsehood, would now
be so hotly resented in our legislative halls.

The violence and the excitement which
prevailed in parliament were repeated and
intensified throughout the country. Every-
thing that could be effected by public meet-
ings, petitions, protests, was done to prevent
the bill from passing, or, if it passed, to
prevent the governor-general from giving his
assent to it, or, as a last resource, to induce
the Queen to disallow the obnoxious measure.
The whole machinery of agitation was set in
motion and speeded up, to prevent the bill
becoming law. ' Demonstrations ' — in plain
English, rows — took place everywhere. Sedate
little Belleville was the scene of fierce riots.
Effigies of Baldwin, Blake, and Mackenzie
were paraded through the streets of Toronto

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 121

on long poles ' amid the cheers and exulta-
tions of the largest concourse of people
beheld in Toronto since the election of Dunn
and Buchanan/ Finally the effigies were
burned in a burlesque auto-da-fe. This ancient
English custom was a milder method of ex-
pressing political disapproval than the native
American invention of tar-and-feathers ; but
it seems to have been equally soothing to the
feelings. An outside observer, the New York
Herald, expected the disturbance to end in
' a complete and perfect separation of those
provinces from the rule of England * ; but
in those days American critics were always
expecting separation.

No clearer mirror of the crisis is to be
found than in the words of the man on
whom lay the heaviest responsibility, the
governor-general himself. This is his private
opinion of the bill : ' The measure itself is
not free from objection, and I very much
regret that an addition should be made to
our debt for such an object at this time.
Nevertheless I must say I do not see how
my present government could have taken any
other course.' He also calls it * a strict
logical following out ' of the Tory party's
own acts ; and he has ' no doubt whatsoever

122 THE UNION OF 1841

that a great deal of property was wantonly
and cruelly destroyed at that time in Lower
Canada.' He was petitioned to dissolve
parliament if the bill should pass ; his
judgment on this alternative runs : ' If I
had dissolved parliament, I might have
produced a rebellion, but most assuredly I
should not have produced a change of
ministry.' The other alternative of reserv-
ing the bill seemed, as he balanced it in his
mind, cowardly. He would create no pre-
cedent. Bills had been reserved before, and
had been refused the royal sanction ; to
reserve this one would be no departure from
established custom ; but, he writes to Lord
Grey, ' by reserving the Bill, I should only
throw upon Her Majesty's Government . . .
a responsibility which rests, and ought, I
think, to rest, on my own shoulders.' The
sentences which follow evince an ideal of
public service that can only be called knightly.
The executive head of the government was
ready to face failure and disgrace, to the
ruin of his career, rather than shirk the
responsibility which was really his. * If I
pass the Bill, whatever mischief ensues may
possibly be repaired, if the worst comes to
the worst, by the sacrifice of me. Whereas

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 123

if the case be referred to England, it is not
impossible that Her Majesty may have before
her the alternative of provoking a rebellion
in Lower Canada ... or of wounding the
susceptibilities of some of the best subjects
she has in the province.* From the first
Elgin had firmly made up his mind to fill the
role of constitutional governor ; he believed
that the best justification of Durham's
memory, and of what he had done in Canada,
would be a governor-general working out
fairly the Dictator's views of government.
Although he had definitely made up his
mind what course of action to follow, he was
never betrayed into committing himself be-
fore the proper time. Deputations waited
on him with provocative addresses ; but
none was cunning enough to snare him in
his speech. The ' sacrifice ' came soon
enough.

In spite of all the furies of opposition
within the House and out of it, the Indemnity
Bill passed by a majority of more than two
to one. The next question was what would
Lord Elgin do ? Would he give his assent to
the bill, the finishing vice-regal touch which
would make it law, or would he reserve it
for Her Majesty's sanction ? Some unnamed

124 THE UNION OF 1841

persons of respectability had a shrewd sus-
picion of what he would do, as the sequel
proved. An accident hastened the crisis.
In 1849 the navigation of the St Lawrence
opened early ; and on the twenty-fifth of
April the first vessel of the season was sighted
approaching the port of Montreal. In order
to make his new Tariff Bill immediately
operative on the nearing cargo, Hincks posted
out to ' Monklands,' Lord Elgin's residence,
in order to obtain the governor-general's
formal assent to this particular bill. The
governor did as he was asked. He drove in
from ' Monklands ' in state to the Parlia-
ment House for the purpose. The time
seemed opportune to give his assent to
several other bills. Among the rest he
assented in Her Majesty's name to the
'Act to provide for the indemnification of
parties in Lower Canada whose property
was destroyed during the Rebellion of 1837
and 1838.' What happened in consequence
is best told in his own words. ' When I left
the House of Parliament, I was received with
mingled cheers and hootings by a crowd by
no means numerous, which surrounded the
entrance of the building. A small knot of
individuals consisting, it has since been ascer-

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 125

tained, of persons of a respectable class in
society, pelted the carriage with missiles
which they must have brought with them
for the purpose.' The ' missiles ' which
could not be picked up in the street were
rotten eggs. One of them struck Lord Elgin
in the face. That was the Canadian method
of expressing disapproval of a governor-
general for acting in strict accordance with
the principles of responsible government.
But this was only part of the price he had
to pay for doing right. Worse was to follow.
Immediately after this outrage a notice
was issued from one of the newspapers calling
an open-air meeting in the Champ de Mars.
Towards evening the excitement increased,
and the fire-bells jangled a tocsin to call the
people into the streets. The Champ de Mars
soon filled with a tumultuous mob, roaring
its approbation of wild speeches which de-
nounced the ' tyranny ' of the governor-
general and the Reformers. A cry arose,
' To the Parliament House ! ' and the mob
streamed westward, wrecking in its passage
the office of Hincks's paper the Pilot. The
House was in session, and though warned by
Sir Allan MacNab that a riot was in progress,
it hesitated to take the extreme step of

126 THE UNION OF 1841

calling out the military to protect its dignity.
At this time the whole police force of the
city numbered only seventy-two men, and,
in emergencies, law and order were main-
tained with the aid of the regiments in
garrison, or by a force of special constables.
Soon the House found that Sir Allan's warn-
ing was against no imaginary danger. Volleys
of stones suddenly crashed through the lighted
windows, and the members fled for their
lives. The rabble flowed into the building
and took possession of the Assembly hall.
Here they broke in pieces the furniture, the
fittings, the chandeliers. One of the rioters,
a man with a broken nose, seated himself in
the Speaker's chair and shouted, * I dissolve
this House.' It seems like a scene from a
Paris 6meute rather than an actual event in
a staid Canadian city. Soon a cry was heard,
* The Parliament House is on fire.' Another
band of rioters had set the western wing
alight, and, in a quarter of an hour, the whole
building was a mass of flames. Although the
firemen turned out promptly, they were
forcibly prevented by the mob from doing
their duty, until the soldiers came to their
support, and then it was too late to save the
building. Next day only the ruined walls

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 127

were standing. The Library of Parliament
was burned in spite of efforts to save it, and
the student of Canadian history will always
mourn the loss of irreplaceable records and
manuscripts in that tragic blaze. One thing
was rescued. Young Sandford Fleming and
three others carried out the portrait of the
Queen. It was almost as gallant an act as
rescuing the Lady in person.

Nor was the destruction of the Parliament
Building the final outbreak. Next evening
the mob was at its work again, attacking the
houses or lodgings of the various Reform
leaders. LaFontaine's government ordered
the arrest of four ringleaders in the last
night's riot. In revenge his house was
entered forcibly, the furniture smashed, the
library destroyed, and the stable set on fire.
In fact, for three days Montreal was like a
city in revolution. A thousand special con-
stables, armed with pistols and cutlasses, in
addition to the soldiery were needed to restore
something like order in the streets. But the
rioting was not over even yet. The most
violent scene of all took place on the thirtieth
of April. The House was naturally incensed
at the insults offered to the governor-general,
and drew up an address expressing the

128 THE UNION OF 1841

members* detestation of mob violence, their
loyalty to the Queen, and their approval of
his just and impartial administration. It was
decided to present the address to him, not
at the suburban seat of ' Monklands,' but
publicly at Government House, the Chateau
de Ramezay in the heart of the city. Such
a decision showed no little courage on both
sides, but the end was almost a tragedy.
Lord Elgin came very near being murdered
in the streets of Montreal. On the day
appointed he drove into the city, having for
escort a troop of volunteer dragoons. All
through the streets his carriage was pelted
with stones and other missiles, and his entry
to Government House was blocked by a
howling mob. His escort forced the crowd
to give way, and the governor-general entered,
carrying with him a two-pound stone which
had been hurled into his carriage. It was a
piece of unmistakable evidence as to the
treatment the Queen's representative in
Canada had received at the hands of Her
Majesty's faithful subjects. When the cere-
mony was over he attempted to avoid
trouble by taking a different route back to
' Monklands,' but he was discovered, and
literally hunted out of the city. * Cabs,

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 129

caleches, and everything that would run
were at once launched in pursuit, and cross-
ing his route, the governor-general's carriage
was bitterly assailed in the main street of
the St Lawrence suburbs. The good and
rapid driving of his postilions enabled him
to clear the desperate mob, but not till the
head of his brother, Colonel Bruce, had been
cut, injuries inflicted on the chief of police,
Colonel Ermatinger, and on Captain Jones,
commanding the escort, and every panel of
the carriage driven in.' Even at * Monk-
lands ' Lord Elgin was not entirely safe.
The mob threatened to attack him there,
and the house was put in a state of defence.
Ladies of his household driving to church
were insulted. To avoid occasion of strife
he remained quietly at his country-seat ;
and, for his consideration of the public weal,
was ridiculed, caricatured, and dubbed, in
contempt, the Hermit of Monklands.

The riots did not end without bloodshed.
Once more the rioters attacked LaFontaine's
house by night ; shots were fired from the
windows on the mob, and one man was
killed. The appeal to racial passion was
irresistible. A man of British blood had
been slain by a Frenchman. The funeral

W.P.G. T

130 THE UNION OF 1841

of the chance victim was made a politi-
cal demonstration. LaFontaine was actually
tried for complicity in the accident, but was
acquitted. Montreal underwent something
like a Reign of Terror ; a murderous clash
between French and English might come at
any moment. Elgin was urged to proclaim
martial law and put down mob rule by the
use of troops. Wisely he refused to go to
such extremes. The city authorities them-
selves should restore order, and at last they
did so with their thousand special con-
stables. Those April riots of '49 cost Mont-
real the honour of being the capital of
Canada, and ultimately caused the trans-
formation of queer little lumbering Bytown
into the stately city of Ottawa, proudly
eminent, with the halls of legislature tower-
ing on the great bluff above the glassy
river.

Of Elgin's conduct during this long-drawn
ordeal it is almost impossible to speak in
terms of moderate praise. He must have
been less or more than human not to feel
bitterly the insults heaped upon him. The
natural man spoke in the American who
' could not understand why you did not
shoot them down ' ; and also in the Canadian

THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION 131

who ' would have reduced Montreal to ashes '
before enduring half that the governor en-
dured. But Elgin acted not as the natural
man, but as the Christian and the statesman.
He refused to meet violence with violence ;
and he refused to nullify the principles of
popular government by bowing before the
blast of popular clamour. But a more un-
popular governor-general never held office
in Canada.

CHAPTER V

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED

THE storm raised by the Rebellion Losses
Bill did not soon sink to a calm. It did not
end with rabbling the viceroy, burning the
House of Parliament, homicide, and mob
rule in the streets of Montreal. In the
British House of Commons the whole matter
was thoroughly discussed. Young Mr Dis-
raeli, the dandified Jewish novelist, held
that there were no rebels in Upper Canada,
while young Mr Gladstone, * the rising hope
of those stern and unbending Tories,' proved
that there were virtual rebels who would be
rewarded for their treason under the Canadian
statute. In a letter to The Times Hincks
showed, in rebuttal, that rebels in Upper
Canada had already received compensation
by the Act of a Tory government. Who says
A must also say B. Between the arguments
of Gladstone and Hincks it is perfectly clear
that the Rebellion Losses Bill was anything
but a perfect measure. Its passage had one

182

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 133

more important reaction, the Annexation
movement of 1849.

This episode in Canadian history is usually
slurred over by our writers. It is considered
to be a national disgrace, a shameful con-
fession of cowardice, like an attempt at
suicide in a man. It did undoubtedly show
want of faith in the future. Those who
organized the movement did * despair of the
republic.* But it is possible to blame them
too much. Annexation to the United States
was in the air. Lord Elgin writes that it
was considered to be the remedy for every
kind of Canadian discontent. He was haunted
by the fear of it all through his tenure of
office. Annexation had been preached by the
Radical journals for years in Canada ; and it
was confidently expected by politicians in the
United States. As late as 1866 a bill pro-
viding for the admission of the states of Upper
Canada, Nova Scotia, etc., to the Union
passed two readings in the House of Repre-
sentatives. The Dominion elections of a
quarter of a century later (1891) gave the
death-blow to the notion that Annexation was
Canada's manifest destiny ; but the idea died
hard.

Action and reaction are equal and opposite.

134 THE UNION OF 1841

Embittered by defeat, the very party that
had stood like a rock for British connection
now moved definitely for separation. The
circular issued by the Annexation Association
of Montreal is a document too seldom studied,
but it repays study. In tone it is the reverse
of inflammatory ; it is markedly temperate
and reasonable. After a dispassionate review
of the present situation, it considers the
possibilities that lie before the colony —
federal union, independence, or reciprocity
with the United States. All that Goldwin
Smith was to say about Canada's manifest
destiny is said here. His ideas and arguments
are perfectly familiar to the Annexationists of
'49. The appeal at the close contains this
sentence :

Fellow-Colonists, We have thus laid
before you our views and convictions on a
momentous question — involving a change
which, though contemplated by many of
us with varied feelings and emotions, we
all believe to be inevitable ; — one which
it is our duty to provide for, and law-
fully to promote.

There were those who protested against
Annexation ; but they were denounced as

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 135

' known monopolists and protectionists.' One
speaker said : ' Were it necessary I might
multiply citation on citation to prove that
England considers, and has for years con-
sidered, our present relations to her both
burdensome and unprofitable.' Another said :
' It is admitted, I may almost say, on all
hands, that Canada must eventually form a
portion of the Great American Republic —
that it is a mere question of time.' There
follows a list of some nine hundred names,
beginning with John Torrance and ending
with Andrew Stevenson. There are French
names as well as English. Some bearers of
thosa names to-day are not proud of the fact
that they are to be found in that list. One
Tory refused to sign the manifesto : his monu-
ment bears the inscription, ' A British sub-
ject I was born, a British subject I will die.'

The manifesto was supported by various
pamphleteers and journalists. Elgin records
his fear of the ' cry for Annexation spread-
ing like wildfire through the province.' But
it did not spread * like wildfire.' The ori-
ginal impulse, which may have been partly
1 petulance,' seemed to spend itself. Not all
English opinion was in favour of * cutting
the painter ' ; and one of the most determined

136 THE UNION OF 1841

opponents of Annexation was that very alert
politician, the young Queen. Equally deter-
mined was the governor-general of Canada.
' To render Annexation by violence impossible,
and by any other means, as improbable as
may be, is,' he wrote, ' the polar star of my
policy.' When he could, he showed clearly
enough what his policy was. The manifesto
of the Annexationists contained not a few
names of men holding office under the govern-
ment, magistrates, queen's counsel, militia
officers, and others. Elgin had a circular
letter sent to these eminently respectable
persons holding commissions at the pleasure
of the Crown, asking pertinently if they had
really signed the document in question.
Some affirmed, and some denied ; others,
again, questioned the governor's right to
make the inquiry. He then removed from
office all who did not disavow their signatures
as well as those who admitted them. His
action had an excellent effect and showed
that he was no weakling. He was warmly
supported by the colonial secretary, Earl
Grey. Hitherto he had been only a peer of
Scotland, but now, in token of the govern-
ment's approval, was made a peer of the
United Kingdom. Soon the commercial con-

THE EARL OF ELGIN
From a daguerreotype

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 137

ditions, which had no small part in the political
discontent, began to mend.

The services of Hincks to his adopted
country at this time were of the greatest
value. A financier as well as a journalist, he
was able to secure the capital needed for the
great public works, and to set the resources
of Canada before the British investor in a
most convincing way. The Welland Canal
was completed ; the era of railway develop-
ment began. Immigration increased and
business began to lift its head. In 1849 the
last of the old Navigation Laws, which
forbade foreign ships to trade with Canada,
were repealed. They were an inheritance
from the imperialism of Cromwell, but were
now outworn. Although the Maritime Pro-
vinces did not benefit, the port of Montreal
began to come to its own, as the head of
navigation. In 1850 nearly a hundred foreign
vessels sought its wharves.

The next session of parliament was held in
Toronto, according to the odd agreement by
which that city was to alternate with Quebec
as the seat of government. Every four years
the government with all its impedimenta was
to migrate from the one to the other. The
Liberal party was soon to find that a crushing

138 THE UNION OF 1841

victory at the polls and a puny opposition
in the House were not unmixed blessings.
It began to fall apart by its own sheer weight.
A Radical wing, both English and French, soon
developed. The ' Clear Grit ' party in Upper
Canada was moving straight towards re-
publicanism, and so was Papineau's Parti
Rouge, with its organ L'Avenir openly preach-
ing Annexation. Canadian eyes were still
dazzled by the marvellously rapid growth of
the United States. American democracy was
manifestly triumphant, and Canada's shortest
road to equal prosperity lay through direct
imitation. Salvation was to be found in the
universal application of the elective principle,
from policeman to governor. This was be-
fore the unforeseen tendencies of democracy
had startled Americans out of their attitude
of self-complacent belief in it, and converted
them first into thoroughgoing critics, and
then into determined reformers of the system
that they once thought flawless. The legisla-
tion of the session of 1849-50 has still measures
of value. Canada for the first time assumed
full control of her own postal system. The
principle of separate schools for Roman
Catholics was confirmed, a measure which
reveals Canada in sharp contrast to the

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 139

United States, where sectarian teaching is
excluded from a state-aided school system.
Not a single bill was ' reserved,' which the
Globe called a fact ' unprecedented in Canadian
history.' The colony was now entirely free
to manage its own affairs, well or ill, to mis-
govern itself if it chose to do so. Lord Elgin
had almost laid down his life for this idea ;
henceforth it was never to be called in
question.

Two outstanding grievances were finally
removed by the Great Administration during
this session. They were both land questions ;
one afflicted the English, and the other the
French, half of the province; For a whole
decade the grievance of the Clergy Reserves
had slumbered ; now it came up for settle-
ment. The Clergy Reserves were finally
secularized. Hincks, the astute parliamentary
hand, led the House in requesting the British
parliament to repeal the Act of 1840. This
was the first step, preliminary to devoting
the unappropriated land to the maintenance
of the school system. In voting on this
measure LaFontaine opposed, while Baldwin
supported it. The divergence of opinion
marked the weakening of the ministry.

The other question, which affected French

140 THE UNION OF 1841

Canada, was the seigneurial tenure of the
land. The system was an inheritance from
the time of Richelieu. Unlike the English,
who allowed their colonies to grow up hap-
hazard, the French, from the first, organized
and regulated theirs according to a definite
scheme. Upon the banks of the St Lawrence
they established the feudal system of holding
land, the only system they knew. There
were the seigneurs, or landlords, with their
permanent tenants, or censitaires. There
were the ancient usages — cens et rentes, lods
et ventes, droit de banalite,1 the seigneurs'
court, and so on. Seigneuries were also
established in Acadia ; but they were bought
out by the Crown about 1730, after the
cession of that province to Great Britain. In
the opinion of such authorities as Suite and
Munro the seigneurial system answered its
purpose very well. At first the French
would not have it touched. In the troubles
of '37 the simple habitants thought they
were fighting for the abolition of the seigneurs'
dues. By the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury it had become almost as complete
an anomaly as trial by combat. But the
question of reform bristled with difficulties.
1 See The Seigneurs of Old Canada, chap, iv.

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 141

Which were the rightful owners of the eight
million arpents of land — the seigneurs, or the
censitaires ? To whom should all this land
be given ? Was there a third method, ad-
justment of rights with adequate compensa-
tion ? The Reformers were not agreed among
themselves. Some were for abolition of the
seigneurs' rights : some were for voluntary
arrangement with the aid of law. LaFontaine
was averse from change, and Papineau, who
was himself a seigneur, held by the ancient
usages. The whole question was referred to
a committee, but all attempts to deal with it
during the sessions of 1850 and 1851 came to
nothing. Not until 1854 was definite action
taken. All feudal rights and duties, whether
bearing on censitaire or seigneur, were
abolished by law, and a double court was
appointed to inquire into the claims of all
parties and to secure compensation in equity
for the loss of the seigneurs' vested interests.
It took five years of patient investigation,
and over ten million dollars, to get rid of this
anomaly, but at last it was accomplished to
the benefit of the country. Says Bourinot,
' The money was well spent in bringing about
so thorough a revolution in so peaceable and
conclusive a manner.'

142 THE UNION OF 1841

Both these questions gave rise to differences
of opinion in the Cabinet. The Clear Grits,
or Radical wing, were in constant opposition,
simply because the progress of Reform was
not rapid enough. William Lyon Mackenzie,
once more in parliament, rendered them
effective aid. In June 1851 he brought in a
motion to abolish the Court of Chancery,
which had been reorganized by Baldwin only
two years before and seemed to be working
fairly well. Although the motion was de-
feated Baldwin realized that the leadership
of the party was passing from him and his
friends, and he resigned from office at the
end of the month. One of the pleasing
episodes in the history of Canadian parlia-
ments was Sir Allan MacNab's sincere ex-
pression of regret on the retirement of his
political opponent. There are few enough of
such amenities. In October of the same year
LaFontaine also resigned, sickened of political
life. A letter of his to Baldwin, as early as
1845, lifts the veil. * I sincerely hope,' he
says, * I will never be placed in a situation
to be obliged to take office again. The more
I see the more I feel disgusted. It seems as
if duplicity, deceit, want of sincerity, selfish-
ness were virtues. It gives me a poor idea of

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 143

human nature.' This is not the utterance of
a cynic, but of an honest man smarting from
disillusion. His exit from public life was
final. He was made chief justice for Lower
Canada and presided with distinction over
the sessions of the Seigneurial Court. His
political career thus closed while he was yet
a young man with years of valuable service
before him. Baldwin attempted to re-enter
political life. The resignation of the two
leaders involved a new election, and Baldwin
was defeated in his own ' pocket borough '
by Hartman, a Clear Grit. That was the end.
He retired to his estate ' Spadina,' his health
shattered by his close attention to the service
of the state. He was an entirely honest
politician, deservedly remembered for the
integrity of his life and his share in upbuilding
Canada. So the Great Administration reacned
its period.

It was succeeded by a ministry in which
Hincks and Morin were the leaders. The new
parliament included a new force in politics,
George Brown, creator of the Globe news-
paper. A Scot by birth, a Radical in politics,
hard-headed, bitter of speech, a foe to com-
promise, with Caledonian fire and fondness
for facts, he soon commanded a large follow-

144 THE UNION OF 1841

ing in the country and became a dreaded
critic in the House. He had disapproved of
the late ministry for its failure to carry out
the programme approved by the Globe,
especially the secularization of the Clergy
Reserves. He became the Protestant cham-
pion, the denouncer of such acts as that
of the Pope in dividing England into Roman
Catholic sees and naming Cardinal Wiseman
Archbishop of Westminster, and the pug-
nacious foe of ' French domination.' His
activities did not tend to draw French and
English closer together. He lacked the gift
of his successful rival, John A. Macdonald,
for making friends and inspiring personal
loyalty.

The Hincks-Morin government was a busi-
ness man's administration. It is noteworthy
for its successful promotion of various railway,
maritime, and commercial enterprises. It
aided in the establishment of a line of steamers
to Britain by offering a substantial subsidy
for the carriage of mails, a policy which has
continued, with the approval of the nation,
to the present time. It was this ministry
also which pushed the building of the Grand
Trunk, and ultimately succeeded in creating
a national highway from Riviere du Loup to

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 145

Sarnia and Windsor. This was the era of
reckless railway speculation. Municipalities
were empowered to borrow money on de-
bentures for railway building guaranteed by
the provincial government. Unfortunately
they borrowed extravagant sums and ran
into debt, from which, at last, the province
had to rescue them. But, unlike what hap-
pened in the case of some of the American
states, there was no repudiation of debts by
Canadian municipalities.

The year 1851 is likewise famous for the
Great Exhibition. Britain had adopted free
trade, to her great advantage. All the
nations of the world were expected to follow
her example and remove the barriers to
commerce to the benefit of all. The freedom
of intercourse between nation and nation was
to slay the jealousy and suspicion which lead
to war. To inaugurate the new era of peace
and unfettered trade the Crystal Palace was
reared in Hyde Park — ' the palace made of
windies,' as Thackeray calls it — and filled
with the products of the world. The idea
originated with the Prince Consort, and it
was worthy of him. For the first time the
various nations could compare their resources
and manufactures with one another. Canada

W.P.G. K

146 THE UNION OF 1841

had her share in it. As a demonstration of
general British superiority in manufactures
the Great Exhibition was a great success ;
but as heralding an era of universal peace it
was a mournful failure. Three years later
England, France, and Sardinia were fighting
Russia to prop the rotten empire of the Turk.
Then came the Great Mutiny ; then the four
years of fratricidal strife between the Northern
and Southern States ; then the war of Prussia
and Austria ; then the overthrow of France
by Germany. All these events had their
influence on Canada. The looth Regiment
was raised in Canada for the Crimea. Joseph
Howe went to New York on a desperate
recruiting mission. Nova Scotia ordained a
public fast on the news of the massacre of
white women and children by the Sepoys.
Thousands of Canadians enlisted in the
Northern armies. The Papal Zouaves went
from Quebec to the aid of the Pope against
Garibaldi. All these were symptoms that
Canadians were beginning to outgrow their
narrow provincialism and to perceive their
relations to the outer world, and especially
towards Britain. The country was reaching
out towards the role which in our own day
she has played in the Great War.

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 147

Meanwhile Lord Elgin was playing his part
as constitutional governor, standing by his
principle of accepting democracy even when
democracy went wrong. Though incon-
spicuous, he was always planning for the
benefit of the country he had in charge. He
had visions of an Imperial zollverein, but
he perceived clearly the immense and im-
mediate advantages of freer trade relations
between the British American colonies and
the United States. Those once attained, he
thought the danger of Annexation past. His
activities in his last year of office prove that
a man of ability may be a strictly constitu-
tional governor and yet preserve a power of
initiative, of almost inestimable value. In
1853 Lord Elgin paid a visit to England,
and while there obtained full powers to
negotiate with the United States. For several
years Hincks had been doing his best to
induce the American government to consider
the question of reciprocity in natural pro-
ducts with Canada, but without avail. Bills
to this effect had even been introduced into
Congress ; but they never got beyond the
preliminary stages. New England was in-
clined to favour the proposal, for agriculture
was declining there before the growth of

148 THE UNION OF 1841

manufactures. The South favoured reciprocity
rather than Annexation, for the ' irrepres-
sible conflict ' between the slave states and
the free states was every day coming closer
to observant eyes, and including Canada in the
Union meant a great accession of strength
to the already populous North. Opposition
came from the farmers of the Northern states,
who feared the competition of a country, as
yet, almost entirely devoted to agriculture.
General indifference, the opposition of a
section, combined with the feeling that Canada
had nothing adequate to offer in return for
access to the huge American market, removed
reciprocity from the domain of practical
politics. The scale was turned by the codfish
question.

Ever since the success of the Revolution
the fishermen of New England had a grievance
against the British government and against
the colonies which did not revolt. They
thought it most unjust that, as successful
rebels, they could not enjoy the fishing
privileges of the North Atlantic which they
had enjoyed as loyal subjects. They wanted
to eat their cake and have their penny too.
Of course no power on earth could exclude
them from the Banks, the great shoals in the

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 149

open sea, where fish feed by millions ; but
territorial waters were another matter. By
the law of nations the power of a country
extends over the waters which bound it for
three miles, the range of a cannon shot, as
the old phrase runs. Now it is precisely in
the territorial waters of the British American
provinces that the vast schools of mackerel
and herring strike. To these waters American
fishermen had not a shadow of a right ; but
Yankee ingenuity was equal to the difficulty
and proposed the question, Where does the
three-mile limit extend ? The American
jurists and diplomats insisted that it followed
all the sinuosities of the shore. If admitted,
this claim would give American fishermen the
right of entrance to huge British bights and
bays full of valuable fish. The Canadian
contention was that the three-mile limit ran
from headland to headland, thus excluding
the Americans from fishing within the deeper
indentations of the coast-line. By the treaty
of 1818 the Americans were definitely ex-
cluded from the territorial waters, but still
they poached on Canada's preserves. It was
maddening to Nova Scotians to see aliens
insolently hauling their nets within sight of
shore and taking the bread from their mouths.

ISO THE UNION OF 1841

The Americans applied the headland to head-
land rule to their own territorial waters ;
no ' Bluenose ' fisherman could venture into
the Chesapeake ; but for the ' Britishers ' to
insist on the same rule was another matter.
In 1852 the constant clash of interests almost
led to war ; for Britain backed up the just
complaints of her colonies by detaching a
force of six cruisers to protect our fisheries
and stop the poachers, and the American
government also sent ships to protect their
fishermen. There was no further action,
beyond a recommendation in the President's
message to Congress that the whole matter
should be settled by treaty.

Such was the situation when Lord Elgin
arrived at Washington in May 1854. His
suite included Hincks and Laurence Oli-
phant, the writer, whose humorous and
satiric account of what he saw during the
negotiations makes most amusing reading.
The diplomats reached the American capital
at one of the most dramatic moments of
American history. On the very day of their
arrival the Kansas - Nebraska Bill passed
Congress. It meant the momentary triumph of
the South and the extension of slavery into
the great hinterland beyond the Mississippi

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 151

The passage of the bill was celebrated by
the salute of a hundred guns ; and, fearing
trouble, legislators sat in the House armed
to the teeth.

Lord Elgin at once began operations which
can hardly be distinguished from an ordinary
lobby. From Marcy, the secretary of state,
he ascertained that the kernel of opposition
to reciprocity was the Democratic majority
in the Senate, and he set about cultivating
the Democratic senators. There was a round
of pleasant dinners and other entertainments,
at which Lord Elgin shone. A British peer is
always an object of interest in a democracy.
This one possessed most agreeable manners,
a charm to which Southerners are peculiarly
susceptible, and also an unusual gift of oratory
which won him favour with a public accus-
tomed to the eloquence of Daniel Webster
and Wendell Phillips. These things told with
the Democratic majority. That the treaty
' was floated through on champagne ' is an
exaggeration ; but there was undoubtedly
much hospitality shown on both sides and
much good fellowship. Ten days after his
arrival at Washington Lord Elgin was able
to tell Mr Marcy that the Democrats would
not oppose the treaty, and on the fifth of

152 THE UNION OF 1841

June it was actually signed. Oliphant fur-
nishes most amusing details of the actual
ceremony of appending the signatures. It
went into force only after it had been formally
ratified by the legislatures of Great Britain
and the United States. The most important
provisions were as follows.

Natural products were to be admitted free
of duty to both countries, the principal being
grain, flour, lumber, bread-stuffs, animals,
fresh, smoked and salted meats, lumber of all
kinds, poultry, cotton, wool, hides, metallic
ores, pitch, tar, ashes, flax, hemp, rice, and
unmanufactured tobacco. In return the
American fishermen obtained the coveted
privilege of fishing within the territorial
waters of the Maritime Provinces, without
any restriction as to distance or headlands.
Canadians were accorded the right to fish in
the depleted American grounds, north of the
36th parallel N. latitude. Nova Scotians
were not pleased at these concessions, es-
pecially as they were not allowed to share
in the American coasting trade ; but as
trade grew up and prices rose, their discon-
tent naturally vanished.

The benefits accruing to Canada from the
treaty were immediate and plain to every

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 153

eye. In the first year of its operation the
value of commodities interchanged between
the two countries rose from an annual average
of fourteen million dollars to thirty-three
millions, an increase of more than one hundred
per cent. The volume of trade rose steadily
at the rate of eight or nine millions per
annum. When the war broke out between
the North and the South, prices jumped, and,
during the four years of the struggle, Canada
had a greedy market for everything she could
produce. The benefit to both countries was
obvious. For the first time since the Revolu-
tion the currents of North American trade
flowed unchecked in their natural channels.
Canada had never known such a period of
prosperity, and was never to know such
another, until the great West was opened up
by the railways and until immigrants began
to flock in by hundreds of thousands, to draw
from the rich loam of the prairies the bounti-
ful harvests of man-sustaining wheat. Lord
Elgin's pact held good for twelve years. In
the last year the volume of trade was more
than eighty-four millions. The agreement
ended from a variety of causes, economic
and political. Canada had raised the tariff
on American manufactures in order to meet

154 THE UNION OF 1841

her increasing expenditure; and she tried to
divert American commerce from its regular
routes to a profitable transit through Canadian
territory. But the chief cause was the bitter-
ness of the United States at the attitude of
Britain during the Civil War. The Trent
affair, the ravages of the Alabama and other
commerce destroyers, the open and avowed
sympathy with the South expressed in British
journals and elsewhere, convinced the Ameri-
can people that Britain would be glad to see
the Republic broken up. That, with such
provocation, the Americans should deprive
a British colony of a commercial advantage
was not unnatural. One statesman even
proposed that the whole of Canada should
be handed over to the United States in
compensation for the Alabama claims. That
the treaty was negotiated at all, and that
the experiment in trade was so beneficial to
both countries, has certain important lessons.
The episode proves that a colonial governor,
while governing in strict accordance with the
constitution, can do for his government what
no one else can do. Lord Elgin's success has
never been repeated. Delegation after delega-
tion of Canada's ablest politicians have pil-
grimed from Ottawa to Washington, seeking

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 155

better trade relations, with no result. The
second lesson is the tendency of trade to
mock at political boundaries and to wed
geography. Even now, with high tariffs on
both sides of the line, Canada spends fifty-
one dollars in the United States for every
thirty-three she spends in England.

From his triumph at Washington the
governor-general returned to Canada to un-
dergo another experience of democratic
manners. The Hincks-Morin government
was nearing its end. Parliament had no
sooner assembled in the ancient capital,
Quebec, than it was dissolved. In the politi-
cal tug-of-war known as the debate on the
Address the government was defeated. In-
stead of resigning, the leaders recommended
the governor-general to dissolve the House,
so that there might be a new election, and
that the mind of the people might be ascer-
tained on the two great issues, the Clergy
Reserves and Seigneurial Tenure. The op-
position contended that the ministry should
either resign, or else bring in some piece
of legislation as a trial of strength. Lord
Elgin's position was precisely the same as
in the time of the Rebellion Losses Bill.
He acted on the advice of his ministers.

156 THE UNION OF 1841

When he came in state to prorogue the House,
a most extraordinary scene occurred. He
was kept waiting for an hour while the
parties wrangled, and when Her Majesty's
faithful Commons did present themselves, the
Speaker, John Sandfield Macdonald, read,
first in English and then in French, a reply
to the Address which was a calculated insult
to Her Majesty's representative. The point
of the reply was that, as no legislation had
been passed, there had been no session ; and
that this failure to follow custom was * owing
to the command which your Excellency has
laid upon us to meet you this day for the
purpose of prorogation.' Sandfield Mac-
donald was an ambitious and vindictive
man. He was wrong, too, in his interpreta-
tion of the constitution. Hincks had denied
him a cabinet position which he coveted, and
this was his mode of retaliating upon him.
None the less, the House was prorogued, and
the elections were held.

According to the old, bad custom, they
were spread over several weeks, instead of
being held on a single day. The result was
unfavourable to the government. Repre-
sentation had been increased, and out of
the total number of members returned the

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 157

ministry had only thirty at its back. The
Conservatives numbered - twenty - two, the
Clear Grits seven, Independents six, and
Rouges nineteen. Papineau was defeated
and retired to his seigneury. Hincks was
returned for two constituencies. In the
election of the Speaker he very adroitly
thwarted the ambition of Sandfield Mac-
donald to fill that post ; but, soon afterwards,
the ministry was defeated on a trifling
question and resigned. Hincks was after-
wards knighted and made governor of Bar-
bados and Guiana. He returned to Canada
in 1869 to be a member of Sir John Mac-
donald's Cabinet. He made a fortune for
himself and he had no small part in making
Canada. He died of smallpox in Montreal
in 1885. His Reminiscences is an authority
of prime importance for the history of his
times.

That consistent, life-long Tory, Sir Allan
MacNab, became the head of the new ministry.
The attorney-general for Upper Canada was
John A. Macdonald. Six members of the old
Reform Cabinet sat in the new ministry side
by side with four Conservatives. This signi-
fied the formation of a new party in Canada,
the Liberal-Conservative, an exactly descrip-

158 THE UNION OF 1841

tive name, because it composed the best
elements of both parties. Under the leader-
ship of John A. Macdonald it held power for
practically thirty years. That able politician,
formed by education in this country, not
outside, perceived instinctively the essential
moderation of the Canadian temperament,
and how alien to it was the extravagance of
Rouge and Clear Grit. The national tempera-
ment is cautious and bent to ' shun the
falsehood of extremes.' Under the dominance
of the new-formed party the jarring scattered
provinces became one and grew to the stature
of a nation.

Lord Elgin's reign was over. In the
autumn of 1854 ne made a tour of the pro-
vince and was everywhere received with un-
mistakable tokens of appreciation and good-
will. He was right in thinking * I have a
strong hold on the people of this country.'
His administration represented the triumph
of a statesman's principle over every con-
sideration of convenience, popularity, and
even safety. Thanks to his firmness and his
chivalrous conception of his office, govern-
ment by the popular will became established
beyond shadow of change. To estimate the
value of his services to the commonwealth,

THE PRINCIPLE ESTABLISHED 159

one has only to imagine a Sir Francis Bond
Head in his place during the crisis of the
Rebellion Losses Bill. A weaker man would
have plunged the country into anarchy, or
have paltered and postponed indefinitely the
true solution of a vital constitutional problem.
No governor of Canada was ever worse
treated by the Canadian people ; and yet no
proconsul is entitled to more grateful remem-
brance in Canada. In spite of that ill-treat-
ment he grew to like the country. His
eloquent farewell speech at Quebec evinces
genuine affection for the land and genuine
regret at having to leave it for ever. Like
every traveller who has known both coun-
tries, he was struck by the contrast between
' the whole landscape bathed in a flood of
that bright Canadian sun ' and * our murky
atmosphere on the other side of the Atlantic.'
The majestic beauty of the St Lawrence and
citadel-crowned Quebec had won his heart.
Like a wise man and a Christian, he looked
forward to the end ; and he imagined that
the memory of the sights and sounds he had
grown to love would soothe his dying
moments. He left Canada for service in
India, like Dufferin and Lansdowne, and
never returned. His grave is at Dhurmsala

160 THE UNION OF 1841

under the shadow of the Himalayas. It is
marked by an elaborate monument sur-
mounted by the universal symbol of the
Christian faith ; but a nobler and more
lasting memorial is the stable government he
gave to * that true North.'

EPILOGUE

THE twelve years that followed Elgin's
regime saw the flood-tide of Canada's pros-
perity. Apart altogether from the advan-
tage of the Reciprocity Treaty, the country
flourished. The extension of railways, the
influx of population, developed rapidly the
immense natural resources of the country.
Politically, however, things did not move so
well. The old difficulties had disappeared,
but new difficulties took their place. There
was no longer any question of the constitu-
tion, or the relation of the governor to it, or
of orderly procedure in the mechanics of
administration ; but there was violent strife
between parties too evenly balanced. The
remedy lay in the formation of a larger unity,
and, in 1867, the four provinces effected a
confederation, which was soon to embrace
half the continent from ocean to ocean.
Dominion Day 1867 was the birthday of a
new nation, and a true poet has precised

W.P.G T,

162 THE UNION OF 1841

Canada's relation to Britain and the world
in a single stanza.

A Nation spoke to a Nation,

A Throne sent word to a Throne :
' Daughter am I in my mother's house,

But mistress in my own 1
The doors are mine to open,

As the doors are mine to close,
And I abide by my mother's house,'

Said our Lady of the Snows.

Quis separabitP The confident prophecies of
' cutting the painter ' have all come to
naught. In the supreme test of the Great
War, Canada never for a moment faltered.
She gave her blood and treasure freely in
support of the Empire and the Right. No
severer trial of those bonds that knit British
peoples together can be imagined. To look
back upon the time when British soldiers had
to be sent to suppress a Canadian insurrection
from a time when French Canadians and
English Canadians are fighting side by side
three thousand miles from their homes for
the maintenance of the Empire is to envisage
the most startling of historical paradoxes.
That old, bad time seems as unsubstantial
as a dream ; this seems the only reality ;
and yet the two periods are separated only
by the span of a not very long human life.

EPILOGUE 163

The truth is that in those days there were
no Canadians. There were French on the
banks of the St Lawrence, but their political
horizon was bounded by the parish limits.
Their most renowned leader had no vision
but of an independent French republic, or of
one more state in the Union. The people
of the western province consisted of diverse
elements. The solid kernel was of United
Empire Loyalist stock, which gave the pro-
vince its distinctive character. The Scottish,
Irish, English immigration could not be
reckoned among the genuine sons of the
soil. They built their log-huts in the wild-
wood clearings, but their hearts were in the
sheiling, the cabin, the cottage they had left
beyond the sea. Their allegiance was divided,
a fact of which the perpetuation of the various
national societies is indubitable evidence.
They were the pioneers ; they made the wil-
derness a garden ; and their children entered
into a large inheritance. More inharmoni-
ous still was the immigration from south of
the border, of persons brought up on the
Declaration of Independence and Fourth
of July oratory. Colonel Cruikshanks's re-
searches have proved how numerous they
were and how disaffected. Mrs Moodie found

164 THE UNION OF 1841

them and the Americanized natives just as
disagreeable in Ontario as Mrs Trollope did
in Cincinnati, and for the same reasons. Ex-
cept the Loyalists, all these elements were
divided in their political affections and ideals.
Their leaders saw only two possibilities.
British connection was the sheet-anchor of
the old colonial Tories ; but their vision of
the country's future was an aristocracy, a
landed gentry, a decorous union of church
and state — in short, a colonial replica of old
Tory England. On the other hand, the
Radical leaders, French and English alike,
saw before them only an independent re-
public, or fusion with the United States.
How limited was the vision of both time has
made blindingly clear. The instinct of the
nascent nation decided for the golden mean,
and chose the middle path. Canada has
stood firm by the Empire — how firm let the
blood-soaked trenches of Flanders attest —
and yet she had stood just as firmly by the
creed of democracy and her determination
to control her own affairs.

One son of the soil had a vision wider than
that of his contemporaries. Years before the
rebellion the editor of a Halifax newspaper
saw the scattered, jarring British colonies

EPILOGUE 165

united under the old flag, and bound together
by fellowship within the Empire. He saw
iron roads spanning the continent and the
white sails of Canadian commerce dotting the
Pacific. Canadians of this day see what
Howe foresaw — the eye among the blind.
Let it be repeated. In those old days there
were no Canadians of Canada. Confederation
had to be achieved, a new generation had to
be born and grow to manhood, before a
national sentiment was possible. These new
Canadians saw little or nothing of provinces
with outworn feuds and divisions. They saw
only the Dominion of Canada. Their imagina-
tion was stirred by the ideal of half a con-
tinent staked out for a second great experi-
ment in democracy, of a vast domain to be
tilled and subdued and raised to power by a
new nation. In spite of many faults and
failures and disappointments, Canadians have
been true to that ideal. The Canada of to-
day is something far grander than the Mac-
kenzies and Papineaus ever dreamed of ;
she has disappointed the fears and exceeded
the hopes of the Durhams and the Elgins ;
and she stands on the threshold, as Canadians
firmly trust, of a more illustrious future.

W.P.G. L2

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

THE following are a few of the works which
should be consulted :

Lord Durham, Report on the Affairs of British

North America (1839).
Sir Francis Hincks, Reminiscences (1884).
Dent, The Last Forty Years (1881).
Reid, Life and Letters of the First Earl of

Durham (1906).

Shortt, Lord Sydenham (1908).
Wrong, The Earl of Elgin (1906).
Bourinot, Lord Elgin (1905).
Walrond, Letters and Journals of James,

Eighth Earl of Elgin (1872).
Leacock, Baldwin, LaFontalne, Hincks (1907).
Pope, Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald (1894).
Canada and its Provinces, vol. v (1913), the

chapters by W. L. Grant, J. L. M orison,

Edward Kylie, Duncan M 'Arthur, and Adam

Shortt.

Consult also, for individual biographies of the
various persons mentioned in the narrative,
Taylor, Portraits of British Americans (1865);
Dent, The Canadian Portrait Gallery (1880) ; and
The Dictionary of National Biography (1903).

166

INDEX

Annexation movement of 1849,

the, 133-6.
Arthur, Sir George, his severity,

30.

Assembly: the first election
after Union, 57-8 ; composi-
tion of parties, 58 ; the Bald-
win incident, 59-61 ; measures
passed, 61, 63-4; majority
rule principle, 62-3 ; the
Draper government defeated,
76, 115-17; — LaFontaine-
Baldwin (Reform) Adminis-
tration, 76-7, 79-8o, 84, 85-7 ;
placemen removed from As-
sembly, 87; the Common
Schools Act, 88 ; University
of Toronto, 89-90, 106-7;
the Metcalfe Crisis, 90^3;—
Draper (Tory) Administra-
tion, 93-4, 101 ;— LaFontaine-
Baldwin (the Great) Admini-
stration, 101-3, 106, 109-12;
142-3 ; Municipal Corpora-
tions Act, 107-9; Rebellion
Losses Bill, 117-18, 119-27;
a breeze in the House, 119-
120; Clergy Reserves, 139;
Seigneurial Tenure, 141 ; —
Hincks - Morin Administra-
tion, 143; a business man's
government, 144-5, 155-6;—
MacNab (Liberal-Conserva-
tive) Administration, 157.

Bagot, Sir Charles, governor-
general, 74-5, 79; forms a
coalition government, 75-6;
his death a reproach to
Canada, 80-1.

Baldwin, Robert, 68-9 ; a
Moderate Reformer, 40, 69-
70, 71-2 ; his cool proposal to
Sy den ham, 60-1 ; his associa-
tion with LaFontaine, 66, 74,
77-8, 101-2, 118 j his first
administration, 77-8, 85, 89-
90 ; the Metcalfe peerage,
95 ; the Great Administration,
101-2, 106-8, 118, 120, 139 ;
resigns the leadership, 142;
retires from public life, 143.

Baldwin, W. W., 68-9; presi-
dent of Constitutional Reform
Society, 71.

Blake, W. H., causes an up-
roar in the House, 119-20;
burned in effigy, 120.

Bouchette, Robert, 15.

Brougham, Lord, his malign
attacks on Durham, 8, 16-17,
20 ; burned in effigy in Quebec,
18.

Brown, George, the Protestant
champion, 143-4.

Brown, Thomas Storrow, 4.

Bruce, Colonel, wounded in
the attack on Lord Elgin,
129.

167

i68

THE UNION OF 1841

Buller, Charles, 8; with Dur-
ham in Canada, 19.

Canada, political development
in, 3 ; strained relations with
United States, 11-13, 25-8 ;
Lord Durham's Report, 21-4 ;
the ' Hunters' Lodges,' 25-8 ;
political and financial situa-
tion in 1839, 30'1 5 the capital
city. 56-7, 86, 137, 130; the
Irish famine of 1846-47, 101 ;
Municipal Corporations Act,
107-9 ; trade relations dis-
located by Britain's adoption
of free trade, 109 ; the dis-
turbances in connection with
the Rebellion Losses Bill,
112-31 ; the Annexation move-
ment of 1849, 133-6; boom
periods, 137, 153, 161 ; as-
sumes control of the postal
system, 138 ; separate schools,
138-9 ; attains full self-gov-
ernment, 139 ; her interest in
world affairs, 146 ; the Reci-
procity Treaty. 147-8, 150-5,
1 10- 1 1 ; the fishery question,
148-50, 152; Confederation,
ioi-2 ; and the Empire, 162,
164. See Assembly and Re-
sponsible Government.

Cartwright, Richard, and
Hincks, 76.

Cathcart, Lord, governor-gen-
eral, 97-8.

Church of England, and the
Clergy Reserves, 43-4, 46, 47.

Church of Scotland, and the
Clergy Reserves, 44, 46, 47.

'Clear Grit' party, the, 138, 142.

Clergy Reserves question, the,
39, 42-6; Colborne's forty-
four parishes, 46, 71 ; Syden-

ham's solution, 47-8, 64;
secularized, 139, 155.

Colborne, Sir John, lieutenant-
governor of Upper Canada,
46 ; quells the Rebellion
and acts as administrator in
Lower Canada, 4, 8, 9, 16,
25, 38, 113; raised to the
peerage, 33.

Constitutional Reform Society,
the, 71.

Disraeli, Benjamin, and Canada,
132.

District Council Bill, the, 64.

Draper, W. H., his adminis-
trations, 76, 93-4.

Durham, Lord, his early career,
5-7 ; invested with extraordin-
ary powers in the governance
of Canada, 4-5, 7-8 ; firmness
with conciliation his policy,
9 ; the composition of his
councils, 9-10 ; takes prompt
action in connection with the
border troubles, 11-13; pro-
claims a general amnesty to
the rebels, 14-15 ; the dis-
allowance of his ordinance
banishing the ringleaders,
15-19; his resignation and
departure, 17-18, 25, 29 ; pos-
terity's judgment, 18-19 ; his
dying words, 20 ; his person-
ality and family ties, 7, 8-9, 99 ;
his enemy Lord Brougham,
8, 16-17, 2° > his Report, 10-
II, 19-24, 32, 35, 46, 68.

Elgin, Earl of, 98-9 ; a constitu-
tional governor-general, 99-
100, loi, 118, 123, 131, 147,
155; initiates the custom of
reading the Speech in both

INDEX

169

French and English, 103 ; the
Rebellion Losses Bill, 121-3 >
attacked by the mob on the
occasions of giving his assent
and on receiving an Address,
124-5, 127-9; the Hermit
of Monklands, 129, 130-1 ;
on Annexation sentiment in
Canada, 133, 135-6; nego-
tiates the Reciprocity Treaty
with United States, 147, 150-
152, no ; insulted in the
House, 155-6 ; his adminis-
trative triumph, 158-60; his
gift of oratory, 98, 151 ; his
connection with Durham, 99.
Ermatinger, Colonel, and the
Montreal riots, 129.

Fishery question, the, 148-50,

152.
Fleming, Sandford, his act of

gallantry, 127.

Girouard, a rebel, 79.

Gladstone, W. E., and Canada,
132.

Glenelg, Lord, his incom-
petency, 32.

Gosford, Lord, 72.

Gourlay, Robert, and the
Clergy Reserves, 45.

Great Britain, and the 1837
rebellions, 4, 33 ; the Clergy
Reserves, 48 ; parliamentary
procedure, 62 ; ner free trade
policy, 109; the Rebellion
Losses Bill, 132 ; Navigation
Laws repealed, 137; her
colonial policy, 140; the Great
Exhibition, 145-6 ; the fishery
question, 148-50, 152 ; her sym-
pathies with the South in the
American Civil War, 154.

Grey, Earl, and Durham, 6.
Grey, Earl (son of above), and

Elgin, 99, 136.
Grey, Colonel, his mission of

remonstrance, 13.

Harrison, S. B., leader of
Sydenham's government, 62.

Hincks, Francis, 70 ; a Reform
leader, 40, 61 ; his many in-
terests, 70-1 ; his talent for
affairs, 71-2, 74 ; minister of
Finance, 76, 77, 132, 137, 157 ;
his policy of protection, 87-8,
124; his railway policy, in-
112 ; precipitates a crisis,
124-5 » the Clergy Reserves,
139 ; his administration, 143,
T56, I57> the Reciprocity
Treaty, 147, 150, no; his
valuable services, 137 ; gover-
nor of Barbados, 157.

Howe, Joseph, and responsible
government, 51 ; and rail-
ways, in ; his recruiting
mission, 146 ; his vision of
Canada's future, 164-5.

' Hunters' Lodges, 'the, 13,25-8.

Kingston, as the capital, 56-7,
58, 86, 94 ; Sydenham's tomb,
65-

La Fontaine, L. H., his early
career and appearance, 72-4 ;
his association with Baldwin,
66, 74, 77-8, 101-2, 118; his
first ministry, 77-8, 85, 87, 93 ;
the Great Administration,
101-2, 117-18, 127, 129, 139,
141 ; his crushing reply to
Papineau's onslaught, 103-5;
resigns, 142 ; chief justice for
Lower Canada, 143.

THE UNION OF 1841

Liberal party, a split in the

ranks, 137-8. See Reform.
Liberal-Conservative party, the,

157-8.
Lount, Samuel, his execution,

3°.

Lower Canada, racial feeling in,
22 ; the Rebellion, 3, 4, 25,
28-30 ; Durham's amnesty and
ordinance, 14-19 ; Durham's
Report, 21-3 ; political state
before Union, 50 ; the Regis-
try Act, 56 ; the opposition to
Union, 57, 62, 68, 93 ; amnesty
to all political offenders, 103 ;
the Rebellion Losses Bill,
112-14, 116-17; Seigneurial
Tenure, 140-1. See Quebec
and Special Council.

Macaulay, Lord, quoted, 20, 79,
83,96.

Macdonald, John A., his entry
into politics, 93, 101 ; ' a
British subject I will die,'
135; attorney -general, 157;
his Liberal-Conservative ad-
ministration, 158, 144.

Macdonald, J. S., his studied
insult, 156, 157.

Mackenzie, W. L., incites anti-
British feeling in the States,
12, 26 ; granted amnesty and
returns to Canada, 118-19,

120, 142.

MacNab, Sir Allan, leader of
the Conservative Opposition,
86, 101 ; Speaker, 94 ; gives
'the lie with circumstance,'
119-20, 125; his tribute to
Baldwin, 142 ; prime minister,

IS7-

Marcy, W. L., and reciprocity
with Canada, 151.

Melbourne, Lord, and Durham,

17-

Metcalfe, Sir Charles, his early
career, 82-3 ; his arrival at
Kingston, 81 ; upholds the
prerogative of the Crown,
84-6, 87 ; refuses to surrender
right of appointment, 90-1 ;
triumphs over the Reformers,
92-4 ; his peerage and death,
95-6.

Montreal, 124, 137 ; as the
capital, 86, 94; the riots in
connection with the passing
of the Indemnity Bill, 120-1 ;
the burning of the Parlia-
ment Buildings, 124-7, i ;
the attacks on Lord Elgin,
124-5, 128-9; the capital no
more, 130; the Annexation
Association, 134-5.

Morin, A. N., Speaker of the
Assembly, 102; his adminis-
tration, 143.

Municipal system of Canada,
the, 55-6, 64 ; the Municipal
Corporations Act, 107-9 !
municipalities and railways,

145-

Murdoch, T. W. C., secretary
to Sydenham, 37.

Neilson, John, his policy of

obstruction, 62, 68.
Nelson, Robert, proclaims a

Canadian republic, 29.
Nelson, Wolfred, a Rebellion

leader, 15, 93 ; his claim for

indemnity, 119.
New Brunswick, Sydenham's

visit to, 52.
Nova Scotia, the struggle for

responsible government in,

51 ; the rise of the colleges,

INDEX

171

88-9; the fishery question,
149-50, 152.

O'Callaghan, E. B., a rebel

leader, 104.
Oliphant, Laurence, and the

Reciprocity negotiations, 150,

152-

Ontario, Sydenham's tour in,
53-4 ; its municipal system,
55, 64. See Upper Canada.

Orange Society, the, 87.

Ottawa, the capital city, 130.

Papineau, D. B., 93.

Papineau. L. J., takes refuge in
France after Rebellion, 103-4 ;
returns to the House, claim-

- ing and receiving arrearage
of salary as Speaker, 104 ; his
uncompromising attitude to-
wards the Union, 104-6, 118,
138, 141, 157 ; his retiral,
157, 100.

Paquin, Father, petitions for
indemnity, 112-13.

Politics, the game of, 1-2, 67, 76,
77 ; an old-time election, 77-8.

Quebec, its municipal system,
55, 64 ; the seat of govern-
ment, 137, 155. See Lower
Canada.

Railway building in Canada,
ui-12, 144-5.

Rebellion Losses Bill, the, 112-
118, 132 ; the violent scenes
in connection with, 119-31.

Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, the,
no-ix, M7-55-

Reform party, the, supports
Sydenham, 38, 40, 60- 1 ; the
Clergy Reserves, 47 ; opposes

Bagot's coalition, 76 ; the
struggle with Metcalfe, 86,
90-3, 95 ; the Great Adminis-
tration, xoi ; Liberals and
4 Clear Grits,' 137-8 ; Liberal-
Conservatives, 157-8.

Registry Act, the, 56.

Reid, Stuart J., on the author-
ship of Durham's Report, 20.

Responsible Government : Dur-
ham's remedy, 24; Syden-
ham's campaign of education,
41, 58-9, 67 ; Howe's achieve-
ment, 51 ; majority rule, 62-3,
79 ; the Executive begin to
presume, 84 ; the difficulty of
reconciling with the colonial
status, 84-5 ; placemen re-
moved from Assembly, 87 ;
education of the democracy,
88 ; right of appointment, 90-
91 ; the difficulty of govern-
ment with a small majority,
zoo ; from colony to free equal
state, 161-2.

Rouge party, the, 138.

Russell, Lord John, colonial
secretary, 32, 55.

Seigneurial tenure, 140-1, 155 ;
abolished, 141.

Sherwood, Henry, solicitor-
general, 76. _

Special Council of Quebec, and
Sydenham, 38, 49-50, 55, 56,
114-15.

Strachan, Bishop, 69 ; and the
Clergy Reserves, 46, 47 ; his
crusade against Baldwin's
'godless institution,' 90.

Stuart, James, chief justice of
Lower Canada, 37, 50.

Sullivan, R. B., a Reform
leader, 70, 77.

172

THE UNION OF 1841

Sydenham, Lord, 68. See
Thomson.

Thomson, Charles Poulett, his
early career and personality,
33-8 ; his mission of Union of
the Canadas, 38-40, 68 ; his
responsible government cam-
paign of education, 41-2 ; the
Clergy Reserves, 42, 47-8;
on political and financial con-
ditions in Canada, 48-50, 32 ;
his triumphal progress, 50-4 ;
his vision of Ontario, 54 ;
Baron Sydenham, 54-5 ; in-
itiates Canada's municipal
%stem, 55-6 ; the first Union
ssembly, 58-9, 61, 63-4 ; the
Baldwin incident, 60-1 ;
majority rule, 62-3 ; his five
great works, 63-4; G.C.B.,
59 ; his tragic and heroic end,

64-5-

Toronto, i ; the founding of
the University, 89-90, 106-7 J
scenes in connection with the
Indemnity Bill, 120-1 ; the
seat of government, 137.

Turton, Thomas, with Durham
in Canada, 8.

Union Act of 1840, the, 54-5.
United Empire Loyalists, the,
163.

United States : American de-
testation of the British, n-
13; 'Hunters' Lodges,' 25-
28; her mistaken views re-
garding Canada, 121, 133-6;
her elective system of gov-
ernment, 138; her educational
system, 139 ; the Reciprocity
Treaty with Canada, 147-8,
150-5, no-ii ; the fishery
question, 148-50, 152; the
Civil War, 148, 153, 154.

University of Toronto, the
founding of, 89-90, 106-7.

Upper Canada: its political
and financial state prior to
Union, 23, 31-2, 38-9, 48-9,
114, 115; the execution of
the Rebellion leaders, 30 ;
opposition to Union, 33, 57 ;
the terms of Union, 40;
Clergy Reserves, 45 ; Syden-
ham's tour, 53-4 ; the nse of
the colleges, 88-90 ; the Met-
calfe Crisis, 93.

Van Buren, President, and

Durham, 13.

Victoria, Queen, 75, 136.
Viger, « Beau,' 93.
Von Shoultz, his chivalrous

sacrifice, 27-8.

Wakefield, Edward Gibbon,
with Durham, 8.

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

MacMechan, Archibald

The winning of
Popular Government

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY