In course of years the English Government fought out its quarrel with the revolted American colonists and was defeated.1783 A.D.A treaty of peace was concluded, and the independence which America had proved herself able to maintain was now acknowledged. At the opening of the war England had borrowed a suggestion from France, and sought, by attaching the valley of the Mississippi to Canada, to shut in the Americans on the west as on the north by Canadian settlements breathing the spirit of loyalty and submissiveness. The Americans would endure no such restriction. The southern boundary of Canada was now the St. Lawrence river and the great lakes out of which it flows. The vast western region with its boundless capability was made over to the victorious colonists. England held only the north. The two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family had divided in nearly equal proportions the whole enormous area of the North American continent.
As one of the results of the revolutionary war, Canada gained a large accession to her population and her prosperity. There were among the Americans a considerable number of persons who did not sympathize with the aims of the majority, and who had given good wishes and occasionally active support to the royal cause. Congress had given to the British Government a promise that it would endeavour to mitigate the discomfortswhich the unpopularity of the cause those persons had clung to now entailed. But the victors did not at once forgive those who resisted the national desire, and the position of the royalists became intolerable. It was resolved to make provision for them in Canada, where they could still enjoy those relations with the English monarchy their love for which had cost them so dear.
Western Canada was still almost wholly unpeopled. There were a few soldiers at Niagara, and some inconsiderable French settlements near Detroit. Kingston had been abandoned; the settlers at Toronto had been chased away during the troubles which preceded the conquest, and the traces which they left had been long covered by the luxuriant growth of the fertile wilderness. The vast expanse of rich land which lies along the upper waters of the St. Lawrence and the northern shores of Lake Ontario still waited the coming of the husbandman.
Here was the home chosen for the men who had incurred the hatred of their neighbours by seeking to perpetuate English rule over the American colonies. The English Government honestly desired to requite those unfortunate supporters. It desired also to plant them far away from the colonists who were of French origin and sentiment. For England mistrusted now her own children who lived within range of American influences, and it was her aim to preserve unimpaired the submissive loyalty of her French subjects. Therefore she chose that while the Frenchmen prospered and increased in the lower valley of the St. Lawrence, those Englishmen who were fleeing from triumphant republicanism, but who had probably not altogether escaped its taint, should open their new career on the shores of Lake Ontario. They came in such numbers, that within a year there were ten thousand settlers in the new colony. They came so miserably poor, that for a time England required to feed and clothe them. But they bore stout hearts, and hands not unaccustomed to wield the axe and guide the plough. The countrywas one vast forest, and the labour of clearing was great. Every man received, free of charge, a grant of two hundred acres; and for each child of those who had borne arms a like endowment was reserved. The settlers worked with good-will. In a short time each man’s lands were ready for the plough, and the landscape was lighted up with corn-fields and the dwellings of man.
During the course of peaceful years which she now enjoyed Canada increased steadily. Emigrants were drawn from England by the inducement of free lands in the western province; in the east there were constant additions both to the French and to the English section of the population. Shortly after the close of the American War it was found that in the whole colony there were not fewer than one hundred and fifty thousand souls. Canada had doubled her population in the twenty years which had elapsed since she became an English possession.
Her government was still administered according to the pleasure of the English Crown, without any concession being made to the wishes of the people. But events now occurred in Europe which quickened, for a space, the democratic tendency, and disposed governments to listen to the wishes of their subjects. The French Revolution had vindicated the right of a nation to guide its own destiny. The influences of that great change were keenly felt in Canada. The English colonists, who had long been dissatisfied with the system under which they lived, earnestly desired a representative government. Many of the Frenchmen, who had hitherto been indifferent to the privilege, partook of the same desire, in sympathy with the revolution which their countrymen had effected. The English Government, wiser now than when it undertook to deal with the discontents of the American colonies, listened with favour to the prayer of the Canadians.1791 A.D.A Bill was introduced by Mr. Pitt to confer upon the colonists the long-withheld privilege of self-government. It was not the desire of England that the Canadians should grow strong in the enjoymentof a union which might result in their independence. It seemed prudent that the Frenchmen, who cared little for liberty, should form a separate colony with power to bridle the more democratic Englishmen. Therefore Canada was divided into two provinces, which were named Upper and Lower Canada, the boundary line being for the greater part of the distance the Ottawa river. Each of the colonies received from the King a Governor, an Executive Council to act as his advisers, a Legislative Council, and a Legislative Assembly elected once in four years by a somewhat restricted suffrage. The Roman Catholic clergy were already endowed, and a similar provision was now made for Protestants. One-seventh of all Crown lands which were being settled was reserved for the teachers of Protestantism—a reservation which proved in the coming years a source of infinite vexation and strife. The criminal law of England was set up in both provinces; but in all civil laws and usages Upper Canada became wholly English; Lower Canada remained wholly French. The English settlers opposed with all their might this ill-advised separation. They foresaw the enfeebling divisions which it must produce: living as they did far in the interior, they felt that they were wronged when the river, by which alone their products could reach the sea, was placed under control of neighbours who must be rivals and might be enemies. But their opposition was unheeded. The Bill became law, and continued during fifty unquiet years to foster strife between the provinces and hinder their growth.
Canada was now, for a space of two and a half years, to be involved in war, and subjected to the miseries of invasion. It was a war with which she had no proper concern. The measures adopted by England and France in order to accomplish the ruin of each other fell injuriously upon American commerce, and the American people were reasonably displeased that their occupations and those of the world should be interrupted by the strifes of two unwisely guided nations. Certain high-handed proceedings of British ships[18]so aggravated this irritation, that America declared war against Great Britain. She had no quarrel with the Canadians, but she could not elsewhere express the hostile impulses by which she was now animated. An invasion of Canada was instantly resolved upon, and an easy victory was expected. The country was almost undefended, for England at that time was putting forth her utmost strength in the effort to overthrow Napoleon, and she required, for the bloody battle-fields of Spain, every soldier of whom she could possess herself. In all Canada there were only four thousand regular troops and two thousand militiamen. Many weeks must elapse before help could come from England. Canada had grown steadily during forty years of peace, and had now a population of three hundred thousand. But the progress of the United States had beengreatly more rapid, and Canada had now to encounter a hostile nation of eight million. The expectation that the Americans would subdue and possess the valley of the St. Lawrence seemed easy of fulfilment.
Many Americans clung to the belief that the Canadians were dissatisfied with their government, and would be found ready to avail themselves of an opportunity to adopt republican institutions. But no trace of any such disposition manifested itself. The colonists were tenaciously loyal, and were no more moved by the blandishments than they were by the arms of their republican invaders.
July, 1812 A.D.Soon after the declaration of war, an American army of two thousand five hundred men set out to conquer Western Canada. The commander of this force was General Hull, who announced to the Canadians that he had come to bring them “peace, liberty, and security,” and was able to overbear with ease any resistance which it was in their power to offer. But victory did not attach herself to the standards of General Hull. The English commander, General Brock, was able to hold the Americans in check, and to furnish General Hull with reasons for withdrawing his troops from Canada and taking up position at Detroit. Thither he was quickly followed by the daring Englishman, leading a force of seven hundred soldiers and militia and six hundred Indians. He was proceeding to attack General Hull, but that irresolute warrior averted the danger by an ignominious capitulation.
October.A little later a second invasion was attempted, the aim of which was to possess Queenstown. It was equally unsuccessful, and reached a similar termination—the surrender of the invading force. Still further, an attempt to seize Montreal resulted in failure. Thus closed the first campaign of this lamentable war. Everywhere the American invaders had been foiled by greatly inferior forces of militia, supported by a handful of regular troops. The war had been always distasteful toa large portion of the American people. On the day when the tidings of its declaration were received in Boston, flags were hung out half-mast high in token of general mourning. The New England States refused to contribute troops to fight in a cause which they condemned. The shameful defeats which had been sustained in Canada encouraged the friends of peace, and the policy of invasion was loudly denounced as unwise and unjust. But the disposition to fight still inspired the larger number, and although there was no longer any hope of assistance from disaffected Canadians, a fresh campaign was planned and new miseries prepared for the unoffending colonists.
During the next campaign the Americans gained some important advantages. Both combatants had exerted themselves to build and equip fleets on Lake Erie—the command of the lake being of high importance for the defence or the attack of Western Canada.Sept. 1813 A.D.The hostile fleets met and fought near the western shores of the lake. The battle was fiercely contested, and ended in the complete defeat of the British and the capture of their entire fleet—one-third of the crews of which were killed or wounded. Soon after this decisive victory a small force of British and Indians was encountered and nearly annihilated, and the conquest of Western Canada seemed complete. An attempt to seize Montreal was, however, baffled by a small body of Canadians. Nothing further of importance was effected on either side. But during these many months of alternating victory and defeat the combatants had learned to hate each other with the wild, unreasoning hatred which war often inspires. The Americans, in utter wantonness, burned down a large Canadian village: the Canadians avenged themselves by giving to the flames the town of Buffalo and several American villages. When the campaign closed much loss and suffering had been inflicted upon peaceful inhabitants on both sides of the border; America held some positions inthe extreme west, but no real progress had been made towards the conquest of Canada.
1814 A.D.During the third campaign the Americans persisted in their ill-judged efforts to subdue Canada. Much desultory and indecisive fighting occurred. The British Government, during the pause in European strife which occurred while Napoleon occupied the island of Elba, was able to send several regiments to Canada. The militia on both sides had gained the experience of veterans. Larger forces were now afoot, and were handled with increased skill. The fighting was growing ever more obstinate, as the mutual hatred of those engaged in it became more intense. The most protracted and bloody of all the battles of the war occurred near the close. A British officer, having sixteen hundred men under his command, took up position on a little eminence at Lundy’s Lane, hard by the Falls of Niagara. Here, about five o’clock of a July afternoon, this force was attacked by five thousand Americans. The assailants charged fiercely their outnumbered enemies, but were met by a destructive fire from a few well-placed and well-served pieces of artillery. Night fell, and the moon shone over the field where men of the same race strove to slaughter one another in a worthless quarrel. After some hours of battle a short pause occurred, during which the groans of the many wounded men who lay in agony on the slope where the British fought, mingled with the dull roar of the neighbouring cataract. The battle was resumed: the assailants pushed forward their artillery till the muzzles of the guns almost met; furious charges were met and repelled by the bayonets of the unyielding British. Not till midnight did the Americans desist from the attack and draw back their baffled forces. The killed and wounded of the Americans in this pitiless slaughter were nearly a thousand men; the British suffered a loss almost as heavy.
Many other engagements occurred, worthless in respectof result, having no claim on the notice of men, excepting for the vain heroism and the wasted lives of those who took part in them.Dec. 1814 A.D.At length Britain and America accomplished a settlement of their quarrel, and Canada had rest from war.
During the ten or twelve years which succeeded the war with America, Canada increased more rapidly than at any previous period. The English Government offered free conveyance and a liberal grant of land to any person of good character who consented to accept a home in the Upper Province. Emigration from Great Britain was very inconsiderable during the Napoleon wars; but when peace was restored, and employment became scarce and inadequately paid, men sought refuge beyond the Atlantic from the misery which had fallen so heavily on their native land. In 1815 only two thousand persons emigrated; next year the number was twelve thousand; three years later it had risen to thirty-five thousand. Many of these found their way to Canada. Ten years from the close of the war the population of the Lower Province numbered four hundred and twenty thousand; that of the Upper Province was one hundred and twenty thousand. In fourteen years the population had almost doubled.
Immediately after the war the British people turned their minds to the defects of their Government, and the agitation began which gained its difficult and long-delayed triumph in the Reform Bill of 1832. The influences of the same reforming spirit extended themselves to Canada. The measure of political authority enjoyed by the colonists was still extremely limited, and contrasted unfavourably with that of their American neighbours.It is true they had the appointment of the Lower Chamber; but the Executive was not responsible to the legislative bodies, and was therefore practically despotic. The Governor was the representative of the Sovereign; the Upper Chamber drew its origin from the same source. The Governor answered to no one for the course which he chose to follow; the members of the Legislative Council ordinarily supported him without reserve, because they expected favours from him. They desired the increase of his power, because thus he would be able more bountifully to reward his friends. The sympathies of the Assembly were with constitutional freedom, purity, and economy of administration. At a very early period it was found that the men who were chosen by the people were at variance on every question of importance with the men who were nominated by the King.
In truth, the kind of government assigned to the Canadian people was in most respects unsuitable for them. The French colonists did not desire the popular institutions which they received: they preferred a mild despotism. The English colonists desired more complete liberty, and were continually displeased by the arbitrary acts of the Executive. A still more fatal error was the separation of the provinces, and the provision thus made for perpetuating the French language and laws, the gradual extinction of which was urgently desirable. The time had now arrived when these errors were to bear their proper fruit in jealousy and strife and mutual frustration.
The people of Lower Canada remained almost devoid of education, and they bestowed no care upon the cure of that evil. It was quite usual to have members of the Legislature who were unable to write.1828 A.D.Once the people were so sorely displeased with the conduct of the Governor that they determined to lay their grievances before the King. Eighty-seven thousand citizens concurred in a statement of wrongs; but of these only nine thousand possessed the accomplishmentof being able to write their own names—the remainder did not rise above the ignominy of expressing their approval by a mark. In the Upper Province the education of the people received some attention.1816 A.D.The foundations were laid of the present common-school system of Canada, although as yet an annual grant of £600 formed the inadequate provision which the Legislature was able to supply.
The mutual antipathies of the French and the English colonists colour all the history of the Lower Province at this period. The French increased more rapidly than the English. The Council was mainly British; the Assembly was almost entirely French. The French, emboldened by their growing numbers, began to dream of forming themselves into a separate nation. The British did not conceal that they regarded the French as a conquered people; and they deemed it a wrong that they, the conquerors, should have no larger influence on the legislation of the colony. Obscure strifes raged perpetually among the several branches of the Legislature. Every shilling of Government expenditure was eagerly scrutinized by the Assembly. The House wrangled over the amounts and also over the forms and methods of expenditure. Occasionally it disallowed certain charges, which the Governor calmly continued to pay on his own responsibility. A Receiver-General defaulted, and much fiery debate was expended in fixing the blame of this occurrence on the Governor.1822 A.D.The English minority sought the extinction of French law and language, and supported a scheme of union which would have secured that result. The French, alarmed and indignant, loudly expressed in public meeting and by huge petitions their opposition to the proposal. Influential persons continually obtained large gifts of land on unfair terms, and kept their possessions lying waste, waiting speculatively for an advance in price, to the inconvenience of honest settlers. Not contented with the rich crop of grievances which sprang luxuriantly around them, the Houserevived the troubles of past years, and vainly impeached certain judges who were supposed to have been the authors of forgotten oppressions. Even the House was at war with the Governor: not infrequently that high-handed official freed himself from the irksome restraint by sending the members to their homes, and conducting the government of the colony without their help.
Upper Canada had its own special troubles. A military spirit had gone abroad among the people. When the lavish expenditure of the war ceased, and the colonists were constrained to return in poverty to their prosaic, everyday occupations, restlessness and discontent spread over the land.1817 A.D.When the legislative bodies met, the Assembly, instead of applying itself to its proper business, proceeded angrily to inquire into the condition of the province. The Governor would permit no such investigation, and abruptly dismissed the House. It was complained that a small group of influential persons—named with abhorrence the Family Compact—monopolized all positions of trust and power, and ruled the province despotically. The Government connived at the shutting up of large masses of land, of which speculators had been allowed improperly to possess themselves. Emigration from the United States into Canada was forbidden, to the injury of the colony, lest the political opinions of the colonists should be tainted by association with republicans. But the ecclesiastical grievance of Upper Canada surpassed all others in its power to implant mutual hatred in the minds of the people. An Act passed many years ago (1791) had set apart one-seventh of all lands granted by Government, “for the support of a Protestant clergy.” The Church of England set up the monstrous claim that there were no Protestant clergymen but hers. The Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Baptists claimed an equal right to the appellation and to a share in the inheritance. The Roman Catholics proposed that the “Clergy Reserves,” now extending to three million acres, shouldbe sold, and the proceeds applied in the interests of religion and education. No question could have been imagined more amply fitted to break up the colony into discordant factions. In actual fact the question of the Clergy Reserves was for upwards of half a century a perennial source of bitter sectarian strife.
1817 A.D.While the Canadians were thus dissatisfied with the political arrangements under which they lived, there arrived among them one Robert Gourlay, an energetic, restless, erratic Scotchman, inspired by an intense hatred to despotism, and a passionate intolerance of abuses. Mr. Gourlay began at once to investigate the causes which retarded the progress of the colony. He found many evils which were distinctly traceable to the corruption of the governing power, and these he mercilessly exposed. The Government replied by a prosecution for libel, and succeeded after a time in shutting up their assailant in prison, and ultimately sending him from the country. These arbitrary proceedings greatly incensed the people, and deepened the prevailing discord.
In addition to these internal variances, the provinces had a standing dispute on a question of revenue. Of the duties levied on goods which passed up the St. Lawrence river, only one-fifth was paid to Upper Canada. As the commerce of the province increased, the unfairness of this distribution was more loudly complained of. The men of the East were slow to perceive the justice of the complaint, and maintained their hold upon the revenue despite the exasperation of their brethren in the West.
But although these now obscure strifes have been regarded as composing the history of Canada, they were happily not its life. The increase of its people and of their intelligence and comfort; the growth of order and of industry; the unrecorded spread of cultivation along the banks of the great river and far up its tributary valleys—these silent operations of natural causes were the life of the provinces. Their shores were sought by crowds of emigrants. New settlements were being continuallyformed.1821 A.D.Steamships began to ply on the river and on the great lakes, and the improved facilities of communication quickened the industrial development of the country. The navigation of the river was grievously impeded by rapids and waterfalls—theportagesof the olden time, at which the red man was accustomed to draw his canoe from the water and carry it toilsomely through the forest till he had rounded the obstacle. Canals were now formed at such points, and ships were enabled to continue their voyages without interruption. The revenue steadily increased, and every class was fairly prosperous. Banks had been established in all leading towns. Agriculture was still exceedingly rude. All agricultural implements were in insufficient supply; the poor farmers could not obtain so much as the ploughs they needed, and they were fain to draw out the wealth of the fertile soil with no better means than manual labour afforded.
But these evils were in due course of years surmounted, and in the year 1831, when an estimate of the possessions of the Canadians was made, the result disclosed an amount of successful industry for which the world had not given them credit. During the seventy years which had elapsed since England conquered the valley of the St. Lawrence, the population had increased from sixty thousand to nearly nine hundred thousand. With the addition of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the smaller colonies, the American subjects of England numbered now a million and a quarter. The lands which their toil had redeemed from wilderness were now valued at seventeen million sterling. Their cattle and horses were worth seven million; their dwellings and public buildings had cost them fifteen million; they had two million invested in the machinery by which the timber of their boundless forests was prepared for market; in their great cod and seal fisheries they had a fixed capital of a million and a half. Eight hundred ships annually visited their ports from Great Britain; in all the branches of their maritimeindustry two thousand five hundred arrivals were registered. They received every year foreign or colonial goods to the value of two million; and they exported to a somewhat larger extent. They built ships, and sold them to England; they sent many cargoes of timber, and much valuable fur; already they produced food beyond their own consumption, and they sent to Europe wheat and flour and oats and salted provisions. They shipped fish and fish oils. They burned down masses of their abundant timber, and having obtained the salts which combustion set free, they manufactured them into pot and pearl ashes, and shipped them to Europe for service in bleaching and other operations. They supplied themselves with sugar from the sap of their maple trees. They brewed much excellent cider and beer; they distilled from rye, potatoes, apples, much whisky which was not excellent.
Quebec and Montreal had grown up into considerable towns, each with a population of nearly forty thousand, the vast majority of whom were French. In the bay where Wolfe’s boats stole unobserved and in silence to the shore, there lay now a fleet of merchant-vessels ministering to a large and growing commerce. The lower town which the English guns had destroyed was a bustling, thriving sea-port. Far above, where Montcalm and Wolfe fought, was now a well-built city, bright with towers and spires; with its impregnable Citadel; with its Parliament House, said to be more imposing than that in which the Commons of Great Britain then assembled; with its Palace for the Governor-General, and its aspect and tone of metropolitan dignity; with college and schools; with newspapers and banks, and libraries and charitable societies; with ship-building, manufacturing, and all the busy marketing which beseems one of the great haunts of commerce. Those seventy years of English rule had raised Quebec from the rank of little more than a village to that of an important city; and had seen the valley of the St. Lawrence pass out of the condition of wilderness and become the home of a numerous and prospering population.
The progress of years did not allay, but, on the contrary, steadily enhanced the fever of political discontent which now pervaded the colonies. The measure of representation which they enjoyed had seemed, when the Act of Pitt conferred it upon them, fairly satisfactory; but after the close of the great European war political opinion ripened fast, and the freedom which had seemed ample in 1791 was intolerably insufficient forty years later. The colonists perceived that they were living under a despotism. Their Executive and one of their legislative chambers were appointed by the Crown, without regard to the popular wish. Only the Lower Chamber was chosen by the people, and its action was constantly frustrated by the Governor, the aristocratic advisers by whom his policy was guided, and his ally the Council. On their southern border lay the territories of a great nation, whose people enjoyed complete political freedom and appointed all their rulers. The United States had so prospered that their population was now tenfold that of Canada; and their more rapid growth was traced, in the general belief, to the larger freedom of their institutions. In England the engrossing occupation of the people had been, for many years, the extending of their liberties, the rescue of political power from the hands by which it had been irregularly appropriated. The Englishmen of Canada could not remain unmoved by the thingswhich had come to pass among the Englishmen of America and of England.
1820 A.D.When the Canadians of the Upper Province were awakening to a perception of the evils under which they suffered, there arrived among them an adventurous young Scotchman destined to leave deep traces on their political history. His name was William Lyon Mackenzie. He had already played many parts in various Scotch and English towns, with but indifferent success. In Canada he resumed his quest of a livelihood; but finding nothing at first to meet his requirements, he devoted himself to political reform, and set up a newspaper. His love of reform and his hatred of abuses were genuine and deep; his mind was acute and energetic; but his temperament was too impulsive to permit sufficient consideration of the course which he intended to pursue. The very first number of his paper awakened the sensibilities of all who profited by corruption. He continued his unwelcome diligence in the investigation and exposure of abuses, and in rousing the public mind to demand an enlargement of political privilege.
There were many grounds of difference between the party of Reform and the governing power. Justice, it was said, was impurely administered; the Governor persisted in refusing to yield to the Assembly control over certain important branches of the public revenue, and continued to administer these at his own pleasure. The Governors fell into the hands of the small influential party known as the Family Compact, which filled all public offices with its own adherents. The grievances of which the Assembly complained were debated in a spirit of intense bitterness. On one occasion the Assembly censured the Governor, and was in turn rebuked for its want of courtesy. Mackenzie was five times expelled from the House, and was as often elected. On one occasion the Assembly refused to grant supplies to the Governor, and the Governor avenged himself by rejecting the Bill which members had passed for payment of their own salaries.But gradually, with growing enlightenment, all these trivial discontents consolidated into one loud and urgent demand for responsible government. It was perceived that with a Ministry responsible to the Assembly an adequate measure of constitutional liberty would be secured.
The politics of the Lower Province were more complex. There was a British Reform party, having aims identical with those of their brethren in the west: the overthrow of the despotic Family Compact, full control of revenue by the Assembly, better administration of justice, improved management of Crown lands—all summed up in the demand for responsible government. There was also a French party, greatly more numerous than the other, and seeming to concur with it in many of its opinions. But the real aims of the Frenchmen were wholly at variance with those of the British. They desired to increase the power of the Assembly, because they themselves composed seven-eighths of that body. It was still their hope to establish a French nation on the banks of the St. Lawrence; to preserve old French law and custom; to shut out British immigrants, and possess the soil for their own people.
The British Government was bewildered by the complicated strife in which it was constantly importuned to interfere. There were petitions full of grievances; on one occasion there were ninety-two resolutions, which were laid before King and Parliament by the French party, and copiously answered by the British; there were constant and querulous statements of wrongs presented to the Governor. Out of doors a bitter and uncompromising strife raged. The British were denounced as tyrants, usurpers, foreigners. The French were scorned as a subjugated race, and reprobated as ungrateful rebels who had been treated too leniently. The British Government manifested an anxious desire to understand and to heal those pernicious strifes. It decreed Committees of Inquiry; it sent Commissions to investigate onthe spot; it appointed conciliatory Governors; it made numerous small concessions, in the vain hope of appeasing the entangled and inexplicable discontents of its distant subjects.
The disaffected Frenchmen were ruled, during their unhappy progress towards rebellion, by Louis Joseph Papineau, a man whose years should have brought him wisdom, for he was now in middle-life; ambitious, restless, eloquent, with power to lead his ignorant countrymen at his pleasure, and without prudence to direct his authority to good ends.
1837 A.D.This mischievous person occupied himself in persuading the peasants of the Montreal district to throw off the British yoke and establish themselves as an independent nation. His efforts were not wholly without success. The peasantry began to arm and to drill. The symbols of French dominion, the tri-coloured flag and the eagle, were constantly displayed; the revolutionary songs of France were sung by turbulent mobs in the streets of Montreal. These evidences of inflamed feeling pointed decisively to violence. The Roman Catholic clergy took part with the Government, and sought to hold the excited people to their duty by threatening disturbers of the peace with the extreme penalties of ecclesiastical law. Many persons were restrained by the terrors thus announced, and the dimensions of the rebellious movement were lessened. But no considerations, sacred or secular, sufficed to restrain Papineau and his deluded followers from a series of violent proceedings, which have been dignified by the name of rebellion, but which were really nothing more than serious riots. Bands of armed peasantry ranged the country around Montreal; the well-affected inhabitants sought shelter in the city, and their homesteads were ravaged by the invaders. At several points a few hundred men drew together to withstand the Government forces and were defeated. One such body, unable to abide the conflict which they had provoked, threw down their arms andimplored pardon. During a period of five or six weeks these disorders continued, but the firm action of the Governor restored tranquillity. Papineau, the unworthy instigator of the disturbances, fled so soon as fighting began, and sought inglorious security beyond the frontier. A little later, some bodies of American marauders appeared in the Montreal district, hoping to renew the disturbance; but they too were quickly dispersed. The Governor acted with much leniency towards those rebels who became his prisoners. With few exceptions they were set at liberty; and even those who were detained for a time were discharged on giving security for future good behaviour. Of the foreigners who were captured in arms, several were put to death, and many suffered lengthened captivity.
The disorders of the Lower Province had scarcely been quelled, when Mackenzie, followed by the more extreme and injudicious advocates of reform, precipitated in Upper Canada a movement equally insignificant and unsuccessful. These persons went to war avowedly to secure complete responsibility of government to the people. This was undeniably the prevailing desire of the province; but it was found that while many desired this excellent reform, few were prepared to incur for its sake the evils which rebellion must necessarily bring. Fifteen hundred men enrolled themselves under the banner of Mackenzie. An attack upon Toronto was devised, and was defeated with ease.Dec. 1837 A.D.Mackenzie fled to the United States, where he was able to organize some bands of lawless men for a marauding expedition into Canada. They, too, were routed, and order was easily restored.
These wretched disturbances served a purpose which peaceful agitation had thus far failed to accomplish—they compelled the earnest attention of the British Parliament to the wishes of the colonists. On the eve of the rebellion, Government had explicitly refused to grant the boon of ministerial responsibility, and carried an Act by which powers were given to the Governorto make certain payments which the Assembly had for some years refused to make. The British Government of the day was a Liberal Government. Lord John Russell was one of its members, a man who for many years had devoted himself to the cause of reform at home. It was Lord John Russell who now led the House of Commons in its denial to the colonies of that popular control over government which was deemed essential for England. No perception of the glaring inconsistency disturbed the minds of the most genuine reformers, for an erring theory of the true position and rights of colonists still prevailed. Even the Liberal party had not yet learned to recognize an Englishman who had taken up his abode in the valley of the St. Lawrence as the equal in political right of the Englishman who remained at home. A colony was still an association of persons who had established themselves on some distant portion of national territory, and whose affairs were to be administered with reference chiefly to the interests of the mother country. Colonists were not allowed to trade freely where they chose. They must purchase from England all the goods which they might require; all their surplus productions must be sent home for sale. Their attempts to manufacture were sternly repressed. It was expected of them that they should cultivate that portion of the national soil which had been assigned to them, reserving for the mother country the profitable supply of all their wants, the profitable disposal of all their productions. The ships of strangers were rigorously excluded; no foreign keel had ploughed the waters of the St. Lawrence since French ships bore home to Europe the men whom Wolfe defeated.
No less clear was the political inferiority of the colonist. A colony was still regarded as a subordinate and dependent portion of the empire, whose position rendered impossible its admission to equality of privilege. It could not be intrusted with the unqualified control of its own destinies; it must needs accept also the guidance of the Colonial Office. This was thetie which bound the colony to the mother country; but for this Canada would certainly yield to the influences of prosperous republicanism in its neighbourhood, and cast off the authority of the Crown. So reasoned the Whig statesmen of forty years ago; and their reasoning was replied to by widespread discontent, the depth of which was revealed by lurid and ominous flashes of rebellion. It became necessary to revise the traditional estimate of colonial right.
October, 1839 A.D.The progress of ministerial opinion made itself apparent in the despatches of Lord John Russell. His Lordship would not yet explicitly acknowledge the responsibility of the Executive to the representatives of the people. But he assured the colonists that Her Majesty would in future look to their “affectionate attachment” as the best security for permanent dominion, and that she would not maintain among them any policy which opinion condemned. The friends of responsible government perceived that their hour of triumph was near.
Many evils had flowed from the separation of the provinces effected by Pitt fifty years before. It still suited the interests of the unreforming party in the Upper Province and the French Canadians in the Lower to maintain the separation. But it was clear to all men who sought merely the public good that existing arrangements had become unendurable. The position of both colonies called urgently for measures of reconstruction. The constitution of Lower Canada had been suspended during the rebellion, and had not yet been restored. The finances of the Upper Province were in disorder; public works were discontinued; business was paralyzed; immigration had ceased. It was widely felt that industrial progress was fatally impeded by separation; that the only remedy for the evils under which Canada suffered was the legislative union of the two provinces.
The British Government was known to favour this measure; the Liberals in both provinces were eager in its support; theConservatives of the Upper Province ceased from resistance under loyal impulses; the French Canadians had by their attitude during the late disturbances forfeited their claim to consideration.July, 1840 A.D.The Union Bill was passed by the Legislatures of both provinces and by the Imperial Parliament, and the enfeebling separation which the jealousies of an earlier time had imposed was finally cancelled.
Canada was henceforth to be ruled by a Governor, a Legislative Council, and a Legislative Assembly. The Governor and Council were appointed by the Crown; the Assembly was chosen by the people. The representation was shared equally by the provinces—ten members of Council, and forty-two members of Assembly being assigned to each. The Assembly had control of all branches of the public revenue. The Governor was advised by an Executive Council of eight members, who, if they were members of Assembly, required re-election when they accepted a place in the Council. When the Council no longer commanded a majority in the Assembly it ceased to hold office. The long-desired boon of responsible government was thus at length secured; the traditional inferiority of the colonist was cancelled; it was recognized that an Englishman who bore his part in building up new empires in distant places did not therefore forfeit the rights of a free-born English subject. To insure and hasten the use of this new method of colonial government, a command came to the Governor-General, in the Queen’s name, to the effect that he should rule in accordance with the feelings and opinions of the people, as these were expressed by the popular representatives. For a few years there was an imperfect application of a principle hitherto unknown in Canadian history; but gradually the people learned to enforce and the Government to recognize the newly conferred privilege. The great revolution which raised the Canadians to the rank of a fully self-governing people was complete.
The foundations were now laid upon which the colonists could peacefully build themselves up into a great industrial nation. But the antipathies of race which had hitherto vexed and frustrated them were not immediately allayed. The united British population of the two provinces now outnumbered the French, and was able to give law to the colony. The French element was surrounded by a British element of superior strength, of superior intelligence and energy, attracting continually reinforcements from the mother country. The hope of erecting a French power in the valley of the St. Lawrence was now extinct, and the Frenchmen had no longer any higher prospect than that of peaceful citizenship under the rule of men whom they regarded as foreigners. They remained apart, following their own customs, cherishing their own prejudices, refusing to intermingle with the British population among whom they lived.
Political animosity was for some years exceptionally bitter. Soon after the union it was roused to unwonted fury by a proposal to compensate those persons in Lower Canada who had suffered destruction of their property during the rebellion. The British Conservative party offered a discreditable resistance to this proposal. It was not intended that any persons engaged in the rebellion should participate in the benefits of the measure. But the unreasonable British asserted that they, the loyal men, were being taxed for the advantage of rebels.1849 A.D.When the Bill was passed, the rabble of Montreal pelted with stones Lord Elgin, who was then Governor-General; they threatened, in their unbridled rage, to annex themselves with the United States; they invaded and dispersed the Assembly; they burned to the ground the building in which their Parliament held its sittings. From that day Montreal ceased to be the seat of Government. For a few years Parliament alternated between Quebec and Toronto. That system having been found inconvenient, the Queen was requestedto select a permanent home for the Government of the colony.1858 A.D.Her Majesty’s choice fell upon Bytown, a thriving little city, occupying a situation of romantic beauty, on the river which divided the provinces. The capital of the Dominion received a name more fully in keeping with its metropolitan dignity, and was henceforth styled Ottawa.
The course of prosperous years soothed the bitterness of party hatred, and the Canadian Legislature applied itself to measures of internal amelioration and development. Thus far the inestimable advantage of municipal institutions had not been enjoyed in Canada. The Legislature regulated all local concerns;—took upon itself the charge of roads, bridges, and schools; of the poor; of such sanitary arrangements as existed; and the people contracted the enfeebling habit of leaving their local affairs to be administered by the Government.1849 A.D.This grave evil was now corrected; the Legislature was relieved of unnecessary burdens; and the people learned to exercise an intelligent interest in the conduct of their own local business.
Canada had now to accept the perfect freedom of trade which the mother country had at length adopted for herself.1846-50 A.D.All restraints were now withdrawn; all duties which bestowed upon the colonist advantages over his foreign rival ceased. The Canadians might now buy and sell where they chose. Foreign ships were now free to sail the long-forbidden waters of the St. Lawrence. The change was not, in the outset, a welcome one. The Canadians were not fully prepared for an open competition with their neighbours of the United States. For a time trade languished, and there was a loud and bitter cry that the mother country disregarded the interests of her dependency. But the wholesome discipline of necessity taught the Canadians self-reliance. The adoption of a policy of unaided and unrestricted commerceinaugurated for the Canadians a period of enterprise and development such as they had not previously known.
After some years of steadily growing commerce, the Canadians bethought them of the mutual benefits which would result from freedom of trade between themselves and their neighbours of the United States.1854 A.D.Lord Elgin, who was then Governor-General, was able to arrange a treaty by which this end was gained. The products of each country were admitted, without duty, to the other. The Americans gained free access to the great fisheries of Canada, to the rivers St. Lawrence and St. John, and all the canals by which navigation was facilitated. For eleven years this treaty remained in force, to the advantage of both the contracting powers. But the idea of protection had gained during those years increased hold upon the minds of the American people.1866 A.D.The American Government now resolved to terminate the treaty. Grave inconveniences resulted to many classes of Americans. The New England States missed the supplies of cheap food which their manufacturing population received from Canada. The brewers of New York and Philadelphia had to find elsewhere, and at higher prices, the barley which Canada was accustomed to send. Woollen manufacturers could not obtain the serviceable varieties of raw material which the flocks of their northern neighbours supplied. Railway companies experienced the sudden loss of a large and lucrative traffic. Canada did not suffer materially by the termination of the Reciprocity Treaty. She found new outlets for her products, and the growth of her commerce was not appreciably interrupted.
The progress of education had in the Upper Province kept pace with the increase of population. But the common school was yet very insufficiently established in Lower Canada. The polite, genial, industrious Frenchhabitantwas almost wholly uninstructed, and suffered his children to grow up in theblind ignorance of which he himself had not even discovered the evils.1850 A.D.There was now set up an educational system adapted to his special requirements, but of which he was not swift to avail himself.
The question of the Clergy Reserves had been for generations a perennial source of vexation. The Episcopalians persisted in asserting themselves as the only Protestant Church; the Presbyterians and Methodists rejected with indignation and scorn the audacious pretension. In all countries where religious divisions prevail, the exaltation of any one sect above the others is obviously unjust, and must in its results disturb the harmony of the nation. Especially is this true of a colony where the notion of equality is indigenous, and men do not so easily, as in an old country, reconcile themselves to the assumption of superiority by a favoured class. The existence of a State Church became intolerable to the Canadian people.1854 A.D.An Act was passed which severed the connection of Church and State. All life-interests—Episcopalian and Presbyterian—having been provided for, the lands and funds which remained were divided among the several municipalities on the basis of the population which they possessed. No important question of an ecclesiastical nature has since that time disturbed the tranquillity of the colony, if we except the demand of the Roman Catholics for a system of education apart from that of the common school.
The feudal tenure of lands still prevailed among the Frenchmen of the Lower Province. The seigneurs to whose ancestors Louis XIV. had granted large tracts of land, in the hope of building up a Canadian aristocracy, still levied their dues; still enforced their right to grind, at oppressive rates of charge, all the corn grown upon their land; still imposed upon the Canadians those cruel exactions which Frenchmen of seventy years ago had been unable to endure. The system was long complained against as a grievance which held the French populationin a position of inferiority to the British.1859 A.D.The rights of the seigneurs were now purchased by the province for a payment of one million dollars, and this antiquated and barbarous method of holding ceased to press upon the interests of the colony.
For some years after the union of the provinces there had been a sudden influx of settlers attracted from the old country by the improving prospects of the colony. In the quarter century which followed the battle of Waterloo, half a million of emigrants left Britain for Canada. But in the two years of 1846-47, the number was a quarter of a million, and the average for ten years had been nearly sixty thousand. Means were now used to stimulate these enriching currents. Hitherto the emigrant had been unregarded. He was suffered to take his passage in ships which were not seaworthy, and which were fatally overcrowded. When he arrived, often poor and ignorant, sometimes plague-stricken, he was uncared for. Now he was welcomed as a stranger who came to contribute to the wealth and greatness of the Dominion. Officers were appointed to protect him from the plunderers who lay in wait for him. His urgent wants were supplied; information was given him by which his future course might safely be guided.
The passion for constructing railways, which raged in England in the year 1845, sent its influences into Canada. The colonists began to discuss arrangements for connecting the great cities of their extended Dominion. But the need in Canada was less urgent than elsewhere, and the difficulties were greater. The inhabited region lay for the most part on the shores of the Great Lakes, or of the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, where easy communication by steam-boat was enjoyed. On the other hand, distances were great, population was scanty; capital for the construction of railways and traffic for their support were alike awanting. For years Canada was unable to pass beyond the initial stage of surveys and reports and meetings todiscuss, and vain attempts to obtain help from the imperial exchequer.1852 A.D.After seven years thus passed, a railway mania burst out in Canada. In one session of Parliament fifteen railway Bills were passed, and the number rose to twenty-eight in the following session. The most notable of the projects thus authorized was the Grand Trunk Railway—a gigantic enterprise, which proposed to connect Montreal with Toronto, and Quebec with Rivière du Loup. So urgent was now the desire for railways, that the Legislature incurred liabilities on account of this undertaking to the enormous amount of nearly five million sterling; to which extent the colonial exchequer is and will probably always remain a loser.
The financial position of Canada had been hitherto satisfactory. Her entire debt was four million and a half; an expenditure of £600,000 met all her requirements, and her revenue largely exceeded this sum; her securities bore a premium on the Stock Exchanges of England.1852 A.D.But now Canada, in her eagerness for more rapid development, began with liberal hand to offer aid to industrial undertakings. She contributed freely to the making of railways. She encouraged the municipalities to borrow upon her security for the construction of roads and bridges, and for other necessary public works. The municipalities, with responsive alacrity, borrowed and expended; a genial activity pervaded all industries; and the development of Canada advanced with more rapid step than at any previous period. But the country was providing for wants which had not yet arisen, and the premature expenditure brought upon her unwelcome and oppressive burdens of debt and of taxation.[19]