Canada: The Empire of the North — From 1820 to 1867, part 1

It will be recalled that on the coming of the United Empire Loyalists to Canada, the form of government was changed by the Constitutional Act of 1791, dividing the country into Upper and Lower Canada, the government of each province to consist of a governor, the legislative council, and the assembly.

Unfortunately, self-government for the colonies was not yet a recognized principle of English rule.

While the assemblies of the two provinces were elected by the people, the power of the assemblies was practically a blank, for the governor and council were the real rulers, and they were appointed by the Crown, which meant Downing Street, which meant in turn that the two Canadas were regarded as the happy hunting ground for incompetent office seekers of the great English parties.

From the governor general to the most insignificant postal clerk, all were appointed from Downing Street.

Influence, not merit, counted, which perhaps explains why one can count on the fingers of one hand the number of governors and lieutenants from 1791 to 1841 who were worthy of their trust and did not disgrace their position by blunders that were simply notorious.

Prevost's disgraceful retreat from Lake Champlain in the War of 1812 is a typical example of the mischief a political jobber can work when placed in position of trust;

but the life-and-death struggle of the war prevented the people turning their attention to questions of misgovernment, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Act of 1791 reduced Canadian affairs to the chaos of a second Ireland and retarded the progress of the country for a century.

It has become customary for English writers to slur over the disorders of 1837 as the results of the ignorant rabble following {411} the bad advice of the hot-heads, MacKenzie and Papineau; but it is worth remembering that everything the rabble fought for, and hanged for, has since been incorporated in Canada's constitution as the very woof and warp of responsible government.

Let us see how the system worked out in detail.

After the War of 1812 Prevost dies before court-martial can pronounce on his misconduct at Plattsburg, and Sir Gorden Drummond, the hero of Fort Erie's siege, is sworn in.

Canada is governed from Downing Street, and it is my Lord Bathurst's brilliant idea that forever after the war there shall be a belt of twenty miles left waste forest and prairie between Canada and the United States, presumably to prevent democracy rolling across the northern boundary.

Fortunately the rough horse sense of the frontiersman is wiser than the wisdom of the British statesman, and settlement continues along the boundary in spite of Bathurst's brilliant idea.

Those who fought in the War of 1812 are to be rewarded by grants of land,--rewarded, of course, by the Crown, which means the Governor; but the Governor must listen to the advice of his councilors, who are appointed for life; and to the heroes of 1812 the councilors grant fifty acres apiece, while to themselves the said councilors vote grants of land running from twenty thousand to eighty thousand acres apiece.

After the war it is agreed that neither Canada nor the United States shall keep war vessels on the lakes, except such cruisers as shall be necessary to maintain order among the fisheries; but the credit for this wise arrangement does not belong to the councils at Toronto or Quebec, for the suggestions came from Washington.

As the legislative councilors are appointed for life, they control enormous patronage, recommending all appointments to government positions and meeting any applicants for office, who are outside the "_family_" ring, with the curt refusal that has become famous for its insolence, "_no one but a gentleman_."

Judges are appointed by favor.

So are local magistrates.

So are collectors at the different ports of entry.

Smaller cities like {412} Kingston are year after year refused incorporation, because incorporation would confer self-government, and that would oust members of the "_family compact_" who held positions in these places.

Officeholders are responsible to the Crown only, not to the people.

Therefore when Receiver General Caldwell of Quebec does away with 96,000 pounds, or two years' revenue of Lower Canada, he accounts for the defalcation to his friends with the explanation of unlucky investments, and goes scot free.

Quebec is a French province, but appointments are made in England; so that out of 71,000 pounds paid to its civil servants 58,000 pounds go to the English officeholders, 13,000 pounds to French; out of 36,000 pounds paid to judges only 8,000 pounds go to the French.

And in Upper Canada, Ontario, it was even worse.

In Quebec there was always the division of French against English, and Catholic against Protestant; but in Upper Canada "_the family compact_" of councilors against commoners was a solid and unbroken ring.

When the assembly raises objections to some items of expense sent down by the council, writes Lieutenant Governor Simcoe in high dudgeon, "I will send the rascals," meaning the commoners, "packing about their business," and he prorogues the House.

Not all the governors and their lieutenants are as foolishly blind to the faults of the system as Simcoe of Ontario.

Sir John Sherbrooke of Quebec, who succeeds Drummond in Lower Canada, knows very well he is surrounded by a pack of thieves; but they are his councilors, appointed for life, and there he is, bound to abide by their advice.

Nevertheless, he kicks over traces vigorously now and then, like the old war horse that he is.

The commissary general comes to him with word that 600 pounds is missing from the military chest, and he needs a warrant for search.

"Search, indeed!"

roars Sir John.

"There's not the slightest need!

Whenever there is a robbery in _your_ department, it is among yourselves!

Go and find it!"

{413} [Illustration: SIR JOHN SHERBROOKE, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1816-1818] Curious it is how good men reared in the old school, where the masses exist for the benefit of the classes and the governed are to be allowed to exist only by favor of those who govern--curious how good men fail to read the sign of the times.

Colonel Tom Talbot's settlement in West Ontario has, by 1832, increased to 50,000 people, and the mad harum-scarum of court days is becoming an old man.

Talbot has been a legislative councilor for life, but it is not on record that he ever attended the council in Toronto.

Still he views with high disfavor this universal discontent with "being governed."

The secret meetings held to agitate for responsible government, Tom Talbot regards as "a pestilence" leading on to the worst disease from which humanity can suffer, namely, democracy.

The old bear stirs uneasily in his lair, as reports come in of louder and louder demands that the colony shall be _permitted to govern itself_.

What would become of kings and colonels and land grants by special favor, if colonies governed themselves?

Colonel Tom Talbot doffs his homespun and his coon cap, and he dons the satin ruffles of twenty-five years ago, and he mounts his steed and he rides pompously forth to the market place of St. Thomas Town on St. George's Day of 1832. Bands play; flags wave; the country people from twenty miles round come riding to town.

Banners {414} inscribed with "Loyalty to the Constitution" are carried at the head of parades.

The venerable old colonel is greeted with burst after burst of shouting as he comes prancing on horseback up the hill.

The band plays "the British Grenadiers."

The Highland bagpipes skurl a welcome.

Then the old man mounts the rostrum and delivers a speech that ought to be famous as an exposition of good old Tory doctrine: Some black sheep have slipped into my flock, and very black they are, and what is worse, they have got the rot, a distemper not known in this settlement till some I shall call for short "rebels" began their work of darkness under cover of organizing Blanked Cold Water Drinking Societies, where they meet at night to communicate their poisonous schemes and circulate the infection and delude the unwary!

Then they assumed a more daring aspect under mask of a grievance petition, which, when it was placed before me, I would not take the trouble to read, being aware it was trash founded on falsehood, fabricated to create discontent.

At the end of a half hour's tirade, of which these lines are a sample, the good old Tory raised his hands, and in the words of the Church's benediction blessed his people and prayed Heaven to keep their minds untainted by sedition.

Looking back less than a century, it is almost impossible to believe that the colonel's speech--it cannot be called reasoning--was applauded to the echo and regarded as a masterly justification of people "being governed" rather than governing themselves.

Perhaps, after all, it was not so much the Constitution of Canada that caused the conflict as the clash between the old-time feudalism and the spirit of modern, aggressive democracy.

The United States _fought_ this question out in 1776. Canada _wrestled_, it cannot be called a _fight_, the same question out in 1837. It is necessary to give one or two cases of individual persecution to understand how the disorders flamed to open rebellion.

One Matthews, an officer of the 1812 War, living on a pension, had incurred the distrust of the governing ring by expressing sympathy with the agitators.

Now to be an agitator was bad enough in the eyes of "_the family compact_," but for one of their {415} own social circle to sympathize with the outsiders was, to the snobocracy clique of the little city of ten thousand at Toronto, almost an unpardonable sin.

Such sins were punished by social ostracism, by the grand dames of Toronto not inviting the officer's wife to social functions, by the families of the upper clique literally freezing the sinner's children out of the foremost circles of social life.

Many a Canadian family is proud to trace lineage back to some old lady of this tempestuous period, whose only claim to recognition is that she waged petty persecution against the heroes of Canadian progress.

Now the annals of the times do not record that this special sinner's wife and children so suffered.

At all events Matthews' spirits were not cast down by social snobbery.

He continued to sympathize with the agitators.

The "_family compact_" bided their time, and their time came a few months later, when a company of American actors came to Toronto.

A band concert had been given.

When the British national air struck up, all hats were off.

Then some one called for "Yankee Doodle," and in compliment to the visitors, when the American air struck up, Matthews shouted out for "hats off."

For this sin the legislative council ordered the lieutenant governor to cut off Matthews' pension, and, to the everlasting shame of Sir Peregrine Maitland, the advice was taken, though Matthews had twenty-seven years of service to his credit.

Matthews appealed to England, and his pension was restored, so that in this case "_the family compact_" for political reasons was pretending to be more British than Great Britain.

It was not to be the last occasion on which "the loyalty cry" was to be used as a political dodge.

The persecution of Robert Gourlay was yet more outrageous.

He had come to Canada soon after the War of 1812, and in the course of collecting statistics for a book on the colony was quick to realize how Canada's progress was being literally gagged by the policy of the ruling clique.

Gourlay attacked the local magistrates in the press.

He pointed out that the land grants were notorious.

He advocated bombarding the evils from two sides at once, by appealing to the home government and by {416} holding local conventions of protest.

The pass to which things had come may be realized by the attitude of the council.

It held that the colony must hold no communications with the imperial government except through the Governor General; in other words, individual appeals not passing through the hands of the legislative council were to be regarded as illegal.

It is sad to have to acknowledge that such a palpably dishonest measure was ever countenanced by people in their right minds.

But "_the family compact_" went a step farther.

It passed an order forbidding meetings to discuss public grievances.

This part of Canada's story reads more like Russia than America, and shows to what length men will go when special privileges rather than equal rights prevail in a country.

Gourlay met these infamous measures by penning some witty doggerel, headed "Gagged, gagged, by Jingo!"

The editor in whose paper Gourlay's writings had appeared, was arrested, and the offending sheet was compelled to suspend.

Gourlay himself is arrested for sedition and libel at least four times, but each time the jury acquits him.

At any cost the governing clique must get rid of this scribbling fellow, whose pen voices the rising discontent.

An alien act, passed before the War of 1812, compelling the deportation of seditious persons, is revived.

Under the terms of the act Gourlay is arrested, tried, and sentenced to be exiled, but Gourlay declares he is not an alien.

He is a British subject, and he refuses to leave the country.

He is thrown in jail at Niagara, and for a year and a half left in a moldy, close cell.

One dislikes to write that this outrage on British justice was perpetrated under Chief Justice Powell, whose failure to obtain decisions from the jury in the Red River trials brought down such harsh criticism on the bench.

At the end of twenty months Gourlay is again hauled before the jury and sentenced to deportation on pain of death if he refuses.

He was calmly asked if he had anything to say, if there were any reason why sentence should not be pronounced.

"Anything .

.

.

to .

.

.

say?

Any reason .

.

.

why .

.

.

sentence .

.

.

should not be pronounced?"

From 1818 to 1820 {417} Gourlay had been having things "to say," had been giving good and sufficient reasons why sentence should not be pronounced!

The question is repeated: "Robert Gourlay stand up!

Have you anything to say?"

The court waits, Chief Justice Powell, bewigged and wearing his grandest manner, all unconscious that the scene is to go down to history with blot of ignominy against _his_ name, not Gourlay's. Gourlay's face twitches, and he breaks into shrieks of maniacal laughter.

The petty persecutions of a provincial tyranny have driven a man, who is true patriot, out of his mind.

As Gourlay drops out of Canada's story here, it may be added that the English government later pronounced the whole trial an outrage, and Gourlay was invited back to Canada.

If at this stage a man had come to Canada as governor, big enough and just enough to realize that colonies had some rights, there might have been remedy; for the imperial government, eager to right the wrong, was misled by the legislative councilors, and all at sea as to the source of the trouble.

While men were being actually driven out of Canada by the governing ring on the charge of disloyalty, the colonial minister of England was sending secret dispatches to the Governor General, instructing him plainly that if independence was what Canada wanted, then the mother country, rather than risk a second war with the United States, or press conclusions with the Canadas themselves, would willingly cede independence.

It is as well to be emphatic and clear on this point.

_It was not the tyranny of England that caused the troubles of 1837_.

It was the dishonesty of the ruling rings at Quebec and Toronto, and this dishonesty was possible because of the Constitutional Act of 1791. Unfortunately, just when imperial statesmen of the modern school were needed, governors of the old school were appointed to Canada.

After Sir John Sherbrooke came the Duke of Richmond to Quebec, and his son-in-law, Sir Peregrine Maitland, as lieutenant governor to Ontario.

Men of more courtly manners never graced the vice-regal chairs of Quebec and Toronto.

{418} Richmond, who was some fifty years of age, had won notoriety in his early days by a duel with a prince of the blood royal, honor on both sides being satisfied by Richmond shooting away a curl from the royal brow; but presto, an Irish barrister takes up the quarrel by challenging Richmond to a second duel for having dared to fight a prince; and here Richmond satisfies claims of honor by a well-directed ball aimed to wound, not kill.

Long years after, when the duke became viceroy of Ireland, the Irishman appeared at one of Richmond's state balls.

"Hah," laughed the barrister, "the last time we met, your Grace gave _me_ a ball."

"Best give you a brace of 'em now," retorted the witty Richmond; and he sent his quondam foe invitation to two more balls.

Richmond it was who gave the famous ball before the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

The story of his daughter's love match with Sir Peregrine Maitland is of a piece with the rest of the romance in Richmond's life.

Richmond and Maitland had been friends in the army, but when the duke began to observe that his daughter, Lady Sarah, and the younger man were falling in love, he thought to discourage the union with a poor man by omitting Maitland's name from invitation lists.

When Lady Sarah came downstairs to a ball she surmised that Maitland had not been invited, and, withdrawing from the assembled guests, drove to her lover's apartments.

She married Maitland without her father's consent, but a reconciliation had been patched up.

Father and son-in-law now came to Canada as governor and lieutenant governor.

The military and social life of both unfitted them to appreciate the conditions in Canada.

Socially both were the lions of the hour.

As a man and gentleman Richmond was simply adored, and Quebec's love of all the pomp of monarchy was glutted to the full.

No more distinguished governor ever played host in the old Château St. Louis; but as rulers, as pacifiers, as guides of the ship of state, Richmond and Maitland were dismal failures.

To them Canada's demand for responsible {419} government seemed the rallying cry of an impending republic.

"We must overcome democracy or it will overcome us," pronounced Richmond.

He failed to see that resistance to the demand for self-government would bring about the same results in Canada as resistance had brought about in the United States, and he could not guess--for the thing was new in the world's history--that the grant of self-government would but bind the colony the closer to the mother land.

[Illustration: THE FOURTH DUKE OF RICHMOND, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1818-1819]