There was a beginning by men whose names are familiar to the Canadians. These were some of the pioneers of improvement, and some of them yet living have to combat the vulgar or interested reproach of being possessed with ideas of utopian schemes. But it is time to turn again to the baser things of Lower Canada. Lord Dalhousie, who had paid a visit to Nova Scotia, immediately after the prorogation of the parliament of Lower Canada, returned to Quebec in August. In October he established a new official Gazette. The commission of King's Printer given to Mr. Samuel Neilson, in 1812, was revoked, and Dr. John Charlton Fisher, who had been the editor of theAlbion, published in New York, was commissioned as the printer in Canada, to the King's Most Excellent Majesty. Dr. Fisher was a man of gentlemanlike exterior, of good address, of superior educational acquirements, of fair mental capacity, and, in a word, a gentleman and a scholar. He was an Englishman, and passionately loyal. But he was no match in shrewdness for Mr. Neilson, who was now more bitterly opposed to the government than ever. Dr. Fisher was, however, beyond any question, better suited for the management of a court journal than Mr. Neilson could have been. Mr. Neilson was a colonist and deeply imbued with that spirit of independence which is natural to the resident of a country far removed from the extremes of majesty and misery. Dr. Fisher had been the resident of a town in England, an officer of the English militia, and having had long to live on smiles, he smiled again to live. He was a courtier.
There was a considerable immigration both in 1822 and 1823. In 1822, 10,465 immigrants had arrived at Quebec. This year 10,188 immigrants had arrived. Nearly 60 families, consisting of 200 persons, the majority of whom were Quakers, had come from Bristol, in England to settle in Upper Canada.
The legislature of Lower Canada was again summoned to meet for the despatch of business, on the 25th of November. It was the last session of the parliament. Lord Dalhousie in opening the session apologised for the statements about financial difficulties, which he was obliged to make so frequently. He entreated the House to proceed with the public business harmoniously. He recommended the further consideration of the judicature bill, and his message of the 4th of February, calling attention to the expediency of enacting a law for the public registry of instruments conveying, changing, or affecting real property, with a view to give greater security to the possession and transfer of such property, and to commercial transactions in general, which had been overlooked in the previous session. And the Assembly proceeded to business. Thereupon Lord Dalhousie officially informed the House that he had suspended the Receiver General from the performance of the duties of his office. The Governor had directed his attention after the close of the previous session, to ascertain the state of the funds upon which large appropriations had been granted, and there appeared to be £96,000 in the hands of the Receiver General. But when His Excellency had called upon that officer to declare whether he was prepared to meet warrants to that amount, various accounts and statements shewing claims on the part of the province, on the imperial treasury, and the military chest, the payment of which into his hands would enable him to meet the demands of the government and, in time, to pay up the actual balance of his accounts with the public men, were submitted to him. He was not then prepared with the balance required to meet the warrants for the public salaries, and he requested that the warrants might not be issued until the 1st of July, when the revenue of the current year would place funds in the chest. Lord Dalhousie agreed to the Receiver General's request, concerning the time of issuing the warrants; but the question as to the repayment of the sums claimed by the Receiver General as due to the province, being one on which His Majesty's government alone could decide, Mr. Davidson was sent to England, on the part both of the government and of the Receiver General, with voluminous papers to be submitted to the Lords of the Treasury. When, however, Lord Dalhousie returned to Quebec from Nova Scotia, he was informed by the Receiver General that he was unable to meet any further warrants to be drawn upon him. Under such circumstances it only remained for the Governor-in-Chief to appoint a commission of two gentlemen to inspect and control the operations of the Receiver General; and he took upon himself the responsibility of granting loans from the military chest, to meet the urgent necessities of the civil government. But two days before the House had been assembled, no intimation having been received from the imperial authorities, that the claims advanced by the Receiver General, on the part of the province, would be admitted, he had been compelled to suspend the Receiver General until the pleasure of the king should be known with regard to him, or, at least, until arrangements should be made for replacing the deficient balance in the public chest. Mr. Caldwell was to be pitied, if not excused. His father, his predecessor in the Receiver Generalship, had left him a defalcation of £40,000 to be made good from a salary of £500 a year. Mr. Caldwell was compelled to engage in trade, and he did engage in trade successfully. He acquired large property. His estate at Lauzon was worth £1,500 a year, but then he bought his estate, to make good his father's deficiencies, by trading on the public monies, and he entailed the estate on his son, to prevent its falling into the hands of the province, with whose means he had improved it, previously to announcing that he was a defaulter towards the province to the extent of £96,117. This was not honorable and deserves neither pity nor excuse. The courts of law would not countenance the entail. The pretended entail was dismissed in the Canadian courts and dismissed in the courts of law in England. It was not to be supposed that Mr. Caldwell could keep an estate improved at the public expense, on the condition only of paying, during his life, £1,500 a year, out of it, to government. But Mr. Caldwell had a claim upon the province. He had paid out large sums of money, for which he was as much entitled to 3 per cent as was the Receiver General of Upper Canada. He and his father had received a million and a half, the per centage on which, at 3 per cent, was £45,471, which ought in equity to be allowed him. He would pay, moreover, £1,000 a year, in the event of his restoration to office, with a provision, by the legislature, suited to its responsibility. Now it does seem that if Mr. Caldwell was prepared to pay so many thousands a year, on certain conditions, there was no necessity for his default. The House would have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Caldwell. He was not their officer, and he was a defaulter. The imperial government were bound to make good the Receiver General's defalcation, and they would address His Majesty on the subject. They did so. It was alleged that Mr. Caldwell was an officer of the imperial government, over whom the provincial government had no control, and that he had lost to the province £96,117 13s. and one farthing, which it was right that the government of England should make good to the government of Canada. The Assembly proceeded to another matter. On the motion of Mr. Bourdages a committee was appointed to consider the propriety of erecting an equestrian statue "in memoriam illustrissimi viri D. Georgii Prevost, Baroneti, Hujusce Provinciæ, Gubernatoris, Atque Copiarum Ducis Canadarum Servatoris." The statue was never erected, the excuse being simply "no funds." The subject of tea smuggling was brought before the House. The revenue had been seriously affected by the illicit importation of Bohay, Souchong, and Oolong, from the United States. Canada was desirous of obtaining "Gunpowder" from other and more profitable sources, and addressed the king to know if tea could not be obtained direct, either by some arrangement with the East India Company, for an annual supply, or by granting to His Majesty's subjects the benefit of direct importation. The king's ministers advised the East India Company to have no more colonial tea difficulties, and tea sufficient for the consumption of the province of Canada was annually sent to Quebec, in the company's ships, until the company ceased to be concerned in the tea trade. Messrs. Neilson and Papineau had returned to Quebec from London, and had reported that the consideration of the union of the provinces would not be resumed without previous notice being given to the inhabitants of the province. The Canada Trade Act was discussed and defended by Mr. Papineau on the plea of necessity. The supplies were then considered, voted as before,itembyitem, and twenty-five per cent discounted on every salary, to make up for the Receiver General's defalcation. The Legislative Council rejected the supply bill as soon as it appeared in their chamber, and implored His Majesty to consider the state of the province, out of tenderness to his loyal subjects in Lower Canada, and to grant a remedy for the withholding of the supplies. But there was a subject of somewhat greater importance brought to the attention of the parliament in a message to Congress by the President of the United States. The American government claimed the right of freely navigating the St. Lawrence from their territories, in the west, to the sea. It certainly was a pity that the right was not conceded. The whole province of Canada would have gained by the increase of shipping to its waters. The Council were, however, much alarmed and addressed the Governor, deprecating such a concession, as contrary to the law of nations, in similar cases; dangerously calculated to affect the dependence of the colony, on the parent state; as having a tendency to systematize smuggling and as pernicious to British interests, in a variety of ways. They had further learned that Barnharts' Island, in the St. Lawrence, situated above Cornwall, in the Upper Province, was to be conceded to the Americans. They were apprehensive that the navigation of the St. Lawrence, between Upper and Lower Canada, was to be impeded or placed at the mercy of the States, and they suggested a reciprocal right of navigation, during peace, of the several channels of the St. Lawrence, south of the forty-fifth degree of north latitude, although they had prayed the king not to grant the reciprocal right of navigation in the St. Lawrence, north of that latitude, in time of peace. The Assembly paid no attention to the matter.
The Lower House, however, was beginning to be, on the whole, somewhat factiously disposed. For the most part, the positions assumed by the Commons of Canada, were correct positions, but they were not incapable of doing mischievously silly things. Indeed, while jealous to an extreme, of power in others, they claimed extraordinary powers, rights, and privileges for themselves. They would not have their proceedings commented upon either by the Governor, the Legislative Council, or the press. The slightest attempt to curb them was a breach of privilege, a simple remonstrance was something malicious, false, or libellous. They were occasionally pettish. A war losses Act had been passed in Upper Canada. The brunt of the war of 1812, had fallen upon the inhabitants of the Upper Province. There, whole villages, had been burned, by the enemy, and grain fields laid waste. It was only right to indemnify the sufferers. Upper Canada was, however, totally destitute of means. The cost of her civil government had been altogether defrayed out of the imperial treasury, until very recently. She only received, for all purposes, a fifth of the duties on imports collected at Quebec. To enable the government of Upper Canada to carry out the objects sought to be attained by the passage of the War Losses Act, the British government had consented to a loan of £100,000, the interest on one half of which the British government guaranteed. The other half, £2,500, was to be provided for by Upper Canada. How to manage it was the difficulty. Already the government had been compelled to resort to the miserable stratagem of heavily taxing traders, so that any dumb inhabitant of the province, and every implement of trade appeared to be the absolute property of the government, distributed among the people for a consideration. Neither a man's ox nor ass was his own. He paid to government a consideration, not for the land on which the cattle grazed, nor on the profits which they yielded, but for using them. It was a similar kind of stupidity to that which in Scotland and England refused to permit a man to make a pair of trowsers, sole a boot, or set up types, however capable he might have been, unless he had served an apprenticeship to the craft of seven years. It was not considered that while the horses of a pleasure carriage would be a proper source of revenue to a government, a carter's horse is not a proper subject for taxation. It was not considered that the laborer should give of the fruits of his labor an offering to the State which countenances and protects him, while labor is not to be prevented by taxation. It was not considered that while manufactured goods are properly dutiable, it is unwise to tax the raw material. An occupation ought not to be taxed. It is a wrong policy to tax an auctioneer, a pedlar, a carter, a merchant, a tavern keeper, or an editor, because of his occupation; but the stuffs which are traded in may very properly be taxed. Yet occupations were taxed in Upper Canada, and, of course, rather to the disadvantage than advantage of the province. It would not do to increase the taxation on inn keepers, pedlars, hawkers, boatmen, and on public carriages on land or water. The only way in which money could be raised was by the imposition of higher duties on imported goods, and the Upper Canada Assembly therefore requested the Assembly of Lower Canada to impose new duties on imports sufficient to make up the annual interest on the war losses loan, required from Upper Canada. But the Lower Canadian Assembly would not impose new taxes upon imports for any such purpose. They sympathised with the sufferers, but as all the disposable resources of both provinces had been employed in resisting the unjust charges of the war, it was not now expedient to increase the taxation on imported goods, such as wines, refined sugar, muscovado sugar, or by so much per cent, according to value, on merchandise. The Assembly of Lower Canada would not do anything in furtherance of the views of those who had made such representations to England as had led to the "Canada Trade Act." They did not of course say so. They, however, immediately afterwards, passed a vote of thanks to Sir James Mackintosh and some other members of the House of Commons, who had succeeded in persuading His Majesty's ministers to relinquish their support of a bill introduced into the imperial parliament in 1822, with the view of altering the established constitution of Canada, and the remains of which bill was the "Canada Trade Act." Upper Canada had another way to obtain money from Lower Canada. The Upper had a claim upon the Lower province. There were arrears of drawbacks due by Lower Canada upon importations into Upper Canada during the war, of which no exact entries had been made at the Custom House. The "Canada Trade Act" had provided that the amount due was to be decided by arbitration, and arbitrators appointed, in 1823, had awarded to Upper Canada £12,220. Upper Canada applied to Lord Dalhousie for the money, but his lordship was so embarrassed with financial difficulties that he was compelled to refer the matter to the Assembly. The Assembly would not pay the same sum twice. The Governor had used the money in paying the public officers of Lower Canada, inasmuch as the award had been made in 1823, and from the time of the award the amount due to Upper Canada was not at the disposal either of the government or of the Assembly, but should have been paid to Upper Canada. The Governor had virtually suspended the execution of the Canada Trade Act and had, in consequence, exposed Lower Canada to the misfortune of a renewal of the difficulties with Upper Canada. Lord Dalhousie was pestered with considerable ingenuity. The Assembly of Lower Canada were rapidly becoming conservative or non-progressive. They reported against any attempt being made to abolish the seigniorial tenure, or change any of the institutions of the country, the continuance of which was granted by the capitulations of the colony. They were liberal enough in matters which did not peculiarly interest the French-Canadian population. The Church of Scotland, in Canada, having applied for a proportion of the lands reserved for the clergy of the protestant churches, which had hitherto been exclusively claimed by the clergy of the Church of England, in Canada, the Assembly at once consented and addressed the king on the subject. They were strongly of opinion that even protestant dissenters, from the Churches of England and Scotland had an equitable claim, if not an equal right to enjoy the advantages and revenues to arise from the reserves in proportion to their numbers and their usefulness. The Church of England, in Canada was wroth. It was a pretty thing, indeed, for a Roman Catholic House of Assembly, to presume to represent to the King of Great Britain, and the head of their church, that the word "Protestant" was not exclusively the property of the Church of England. It was high time to close the session, and accordingly, the Governor-in-Chief went down to the Council Chamber, on the 9th of March. He was not pleased. He said, in his prorogation speech, that he did not think the session would prove of much advantage to the public. He would most respectfully tell both Houses his sentiments upon the general result of their proceedings. A claim had been made to an unlimited right, in one branch of the legislature, to appropriate the whole revenue of the province according to its pleasure. Even that portion of the revenue raised by the authority of the imperial parliament and directed by an Act of that parliament to be applied to the payment of the expenses of the administration of justice, and of the civil government of the province, the Assembly claimed the control of. By the other two branches of the legislature that claim had been denied, but it had, nevertheless, been persisted in by the Assembly, and recourse had been had to the unusual course of withholding the supplies, except on conditions, which would amount to an acknowledgment of its constitutional validity. The stoppage of the supplies had caused incalculable mischief to the province; but the country was, nevertheless, powerfully advancing in improvement. The people, generally, were contented. He had hitherto averted the unhappy consequences of the stoppage of the supplies, by taking upon himself certain responsibilities, but as his advice with regard to the payment of the civil list, had been, even yet, unavailing, he would in future guide the measures of the government by the strict letter of the law. He thanked the Council for the calm, firm, and dignified character of their deliberations. And he fervently prayed that the wisdom of the proceedings of the Legislative Council would make a just impression upon the loyal inhabitants of the province and lead them to that temperate and conciliating disposition which is always best calculated to give energy to public spirit, to promote public harmony, and ensure public happiness, the great advantages which resulted from a wise exercise of the powers and privileges of parliament. The Governor-in-Chief of Lower Canada was on his knees fervently praying for that which was not very likely to happen. Energy or public spirit does not ordinarily spring from the temperate and conciliatory tone of such inhabitants of a province as Lord Dalhousie would have considered loyal.
It is desirable to know what Sir Peregrine Maitland was about in Upper Canada. He had made a speech to parliament which he considered to be his last. It was little wonder—Sir Peregrine Maitland was intolerably tyrannical. He had gagged Mr. Gourlay. He had destroyed conventions. He had suppressed public meetings. And he had been censured for it by Sir George Murray. In 1822 the Honorable Barnabas Bidwell was returned to the Upper Canada Assembly as a reformer. Mr. Bidwell was a man of very considerable ability. He was eloquent, and his ideas of civil and religious liberty were liberal. Born a British subject, during the period of the revolution, but too young to take a part in it, he remained in the United States, after the declaration of independence. It was not long before he attained an elevated station in Congress. His talents, however, coupled with his independence of spirit and love of truth made him enemies. A hostility so vindictive was raised against him by his political enemies, that he removed to Upper Canada, in disgust, there only to meet with similar treatment, the result of similar causes. No sooner did the people of Upper Canada begin to show an appreciation of his talents, than the Upper Canadian oligarchy saw in him a formidable rival to be got rid of by any means. A special Act was passed to incapacitate Mr. Bidwell from holding a seat in the Assembly. He was to be considered an alien and to be treated as an alien as the Act directed. Mr. Barnabas Bidwell was expelled. The spirit of opposition to a bad government was not, however, lessened by such a course of action. New champions of the people's privileges arose. Colonial red-tapism and colonial empiric aristocracy could with difficulty sustain itself. Mr. Bidwell's son was brought to the hustings by the supporters of his father. He was not, without difficulty to obtain a seat. At the first election, the returning officer, one of the original Timothy Brodeurs, contrived to give his adversary a majority. A protest was entered, however, and after distinguishing himself in an able defence of his rights at the Bar of the House, the return was set aside.[35]Another election ensued, and the returning officer refused to receive any votes for Mr. Bidwell, on the ground of his being an alien. The return was again protested against, and the election again set aside. At last a fair election was allowed, when Mr. Bidwell, junior, was triumphantly returned to parliament. In 1824, many other reform members were elected to parliament, and on several questions, there was a decided majority against the faction. A new expedient was hit upon to get rid of these intruders. An "Alien Bill," to make aliens of those who had taken advantage of the various proclamations to United Empire loyalists to enter and settle in the province was attempted to be carried. Sir Peregrine Maitland and his advisers were not content with interdicting liberty of speech and liberty of action. They attempted to seize the property and very means of those to whom the faith of the government was pledged for protection. They attempted to sweep out of the country those who had received their titles to lands, thirty years back, and had, for that length of time occupied their farms. And they, consequently, attempted to alienate, and so get rid of men who had enjoyed, for a great length of time, the full privileges of British subjects, and who were British subjects in sympathy and in reality as in law. Indeed it was only by the united exertions of the people that the calamity was turned aside. The concoctors of the scheme took nothing by their motion. Had they succeeded, the advantage would only have been temporary, and the reaction more terrible than it was. Having failed in a design, which the word iniquitous is scarcely sufficient to characterise, the House of Assembly decidedly assumed a progressive or reform character. It was while this silly, as well as unjust measure was being attempted to be carried that an attack of a novel kind was made upon Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie. Mr. Mackenzie had some years previously emigrated to Toronto, from Dundee, in Scotland, where he had been engaged in business, as a merchant's clerk. An excellent accountant, he was probably instrumental in causing it to be pointed out to Sir Peregrine Maitland that the public accounts of Upper Canada were not properly kept. He would have had at any rate no hesitation in doing so. Very small in stature, he had a large head, ornamented with a moderately sized and sparkling light blue eye, and with a nose peculiarly short, and in comparison with his other features, altogether ridiculously small. His nose was in wonderful contrast with a massive fore-head and well-shaped mouth, which even when his tongue stood still, rare as that occurrence was, ever moved. He was peculiarly thin-skinned. The blue veins of his fair face made him seem to have been tatooed. Mr. Mackenzie was then astonishingly active, persevering, and intelligent, as he still is. A more able or a more indefatigable exposer of colonial abuses could not have appeared at a more fitting time. He was undoubtedly the right man in the right place. He had engaged in business, and prospered, in York. He was, at this period, the proprietor of a periodical called theColonial Advocate, wherein the corruptionists of the period were unmasked with very little ceremony or consideration. The "corruptionists," very naturally, desired to put him down. It was a matter, however, daily becoming more difficult to put a man in prison and toss him out of the country on the plea that he entertained opinions which he might give expression to, and revolutionize the country. It was suspected, indeed, by the magnates, that the state of feeling in the country was such that prosecutions could not be maintained against Mr. Mackenzie. It was even believed that they would increase his popularity. Mr. Mackenzie travelled often to pick up information. He went about not so much to create a public opinion as to ascertain it. He was at Niagara with this view when a mob of "gentlemen" stormed his printing office in York. Like all other assaults of the kind, it was, of course, a night attack, and being well managed was quite successful! It was not. In the broad light of day, the press was captured and destroyed, and the type of theColonial Advocateseized and thrown into Lake Ontario. Nor was this all. Mr. Mackenzie's family and his infirm old mother received the most brutal treatment.[36]The authorities took very little notice of the occurrence. But Mr. Mackenzie appealed to a jury, who, "to the no small discomfiture of the tories, from Sir Peregrine Maitland, down to the lowest menial employed in the political shambles," gave exemplary damages. This had some effect, but not the weight which punishment for the crime would have produced. The risk of having to pay for damages would certainly not have prevented similar violence. The employees or relatives of the Executive Councillors, the Judges, the Attornies, and Solicitors General, and of such distinguished families at home would have continued to destroy presses to this day, gaining more by the suppression of truth and the prevention of free discussion, than they lost in damages, had not an obstacle stood in their way, which it was dangerous to encounter. The liberal press took up a bold position. The speeches in the Assembly, by the leading independents, told upon the country. A spirit of retributive justice had been stirred up, which awed and intimidated the ruling compact. Open violence could not again be resorted to. The subtleties of the law were, however, brought into requisition. Under a show of justice and a pretended bridling of licentiousness, the press might be muzzled or compelled to play one monotonous hymn of praise to the powers above. The libel laws were sufficiently odious to accomplish anything. Mr. Mackenzie was prosecuted for libel. Prosecution followed prosecution, and where truth constitutes a libel, it is surprising how he escaped. The juries would not convict. The eyes of the whole country had been opened, and the conspiracies against the public liberties were observable. Besides, Mr. Mackenzie defended himself, and gave his persecutors nothing to boast of in the rencontres. He never failed to improve these occasions. He entered into every swindling transaction with greater severity than he could have done in his newspaper. Mackenzie always succeeded in an appeal to the people. There were others of his class not so fortunate. A gentleman named Francis Collins, lately arrived in the country, from Ireland, with a small competency, established a newspaper which he calledThe Canadian Freeman. Mr. Collins commented on the ruinous policy of the administration. But he did it too fervently for the tories. Sir Peregrine Maitland, the Governor, ordered him to be prosecuted, and upon what grounds may be gained from the fact of the trial being put off, and the proceedings afterwards discontinued. The end was answered. Smarting under a sense of ill-usage, he became more severe upon the government, and perhaps did ascribe to them more than was true. He was prosecuted by Mr. Attorney General Robinson, a wonderfully able man then, and now Sir John Beverly Robinson, and Chief Justice in Canada West, and with the aid of Messrs. Justices Hagerman and Sherwood, a verdict of guilty was brought in against him. According to a "resolution" of the House of Assembly an "oppressive and unwarrantable sentence" was passed upon him. Whether or no, he was thrust into prison. The House of Assembly applied to the Governor for his release in vain. It was not until the king came to hear of his situation that he was released, with a broken constitution, which brought him to the grave in the flower of his manhood. It was so that Sir Peregrine Maitland and the clique who surrounded him persecuted the press, with the view of concealing from England the true state of public opinion, in the colony. Men submit to terrible injustice before they rebel. An able despot might so manage as to inflict almost unheard of cruelties upon individuals without driving a population to arms. Men with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the tap of the drum, until wrought up to it by desperation. There is a feeling of respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion of their rights. In a colony there are thousands who bring with them recollections of home and of home institutions, and who cannot be brought to believe that an English gentleman will pursue a course of policy, as the governor of a colony, which the Queen of England has too much good sense to assume, even if she could do it, in the United Kingdom. Indeed, if a glance is taken behind the curtain, English statesmen will be noticed to have been liberal and well inclined towards the colonists, and have only erred when purposely misled by those whom they had appointed to places of which it was and is a serious mistake for any ministry to have the patronage. Sir Peregrine Maitland did not confine his persecuting operations to gentlemen who gathered statistics, or printed newspapers, and wrote political articles, commenting on an administration for which he only was responsible to the Secretary of State for the colonies. He was not satisfied with having seen a printing press destroyed and the types of a newspaper office sunk in Ontario, but must needs throw a building belonging to a private gentleman over the Falls of Niagara. He was recalled because, in the supposition that the law was too slow for redress, and impatient of contradiction, as some military men are, he caused an armed force to trespass on the property of a gentleman named Forsyth, on the plea that his land belonged to the Crown. The property was situated at the Falls of Niagara. A building stood upon a part of the land claimed for the Crown by Sir Peregrine. The soldiery tumbled the building over the precipice, and the land was free of all incumbrances. The House of Assembly interfered in this matter too. They attempted to obtain the evidence of the officers engaged in the business, but the government would not permit them to testify, the consequence of which was that the Assembly imprisoned them for contempt. So far was their reluctance to give evidence carried, that the Serjeant-at-Arms was compelled to enter by force the house in which they had barricaded themselves. The king was made aware of the whole proceedings, Mr. Forsyth's claim for redress acknowledged, and Sir Peregrine Maitland recalled. It was not too soon. Before this, His Excellency managed to juggle Mr. Robert Randall, the agent of the people to England, against the alien bill, and who was, therefore, one of the proscribed, out of his ample estates on the Niagara frontier, and out of his valuable mill privileges on the Ottawa, by the formality of law, so that he was left bankrupt and penniless, and died in sorrow. Indeed anything in the semblance of a liberal was in those days proscribed in a country possessed of the image and transcript of the British constitution. A peninsular officer, Captain Matthew, a member of the Assembly, who would not receive "new light" at command was set upon by spies. The object was the contemptible one of robbing him of his half-pay. A spy declared that he had once heard him call for "Yankee Doodle," at a play in the metropolis. It was a grievous offence, certainly, even had it been true. But it was enough to deprive a man who had served his country in battle of his half-pay. Indeed, he only could get it back again on condition of repairing to England. He went there to seek redress and died. There were yet other sufferers. Mr. Justice Willis had been elevated from the English bar to the Bench of Upper Canada. There were but three Judges of the King's Bench, in the country, the Chief Justice Campbell and two Puisne Judges. The Chief Justice went to England in search of a knighthood. Mr. Willis was not in favor at Court. He had studiously abstained from mixing himself up with politics. He had indeed refused to be an obsequious Jefferies, and was looked upon, therefore, as opposed to the administration. When term time came, the Chief Justice being in England, Mr. Willis refused to go on with the business of the Court, because there was no one to decide in case of a difference of opinion between him and his brother Justice. It was enough. Sir Peregrine Maitland dismissed him, and appointed Mr. Hagerman,pro tempore, in his stead. The newly appointed Judge must have been surprised at his elevation. He was at the very moment of his appointment discharging the onerous and important duties of an officer of the Customs at Kingston. Mr. Willis appealed to the English government and was sustained in the position which he had assumed, but instead of being reinstated in Canada, another office was provided for him in Demerara. The Chief Justice shortly afterwards returned from England as Sir William Campbell, and resigned to make way for the election of Mr. Attorney General Robinson. Hagerman was succeeded by Mr. M'Aulay, a barrister of six years standing, and very cheerfully accepted the humbler office of Solicitor General. Again the House of Assembly interfered with Sir Peregrine Maitland. They represented that Willis had been grossly ill-used, and explained the cause. It was without effect. The beauties of colonial irresponsible government were as discernible in Upper Canada, where there were no seditious, English-hating, Frenchmen, as in Lower Canada. A private gentleman, two editors of newspapers, a member of parliament, a captain in the army, and a judge had experienced some of the benefits derivable from a constitution, the very transcript and image of that of Great Britain, managed by a General of Division and a clique of placemen. The clique were, on the whole, men of genteel education and refined tastes. They formed an exclusive circle of associates. Officers of the army, on full pay, were admitted to the society of their wives and daughters, and no one else but one of themselves, and indeed the gentry of the country consisted of the Governor, the Bishop, a Chief Justice, the Clerk of the Executive Council, a few of the leading merchants, who were members of the Legislative Council, or who were the descendants of an Executive Councillor, or of an Aid-de-Camp, the Colonels of Engineers and Artillery, with such of the other officers of these corps who cared for the society of an honorable possessor of waste lands or Timber Broker, and the officers of the regiments of the line. In the principal towns the clergy of the Church of Scotland were sometimes looked upon as gentlemen. Elsewhere, in common with the clergy of dissenting congregations, they were only on a footing with those many respectable people who cultivated farms, kept shops, or owned steamboats. The banker had not even yet reached that scale of importance which would have entitled him to be considered one of the gentry. Among Governors, Bishops, Chief Justices, Clerks of Council, and officers of the army, it would have been wonderful had there not been men of literary tastes. These tastes did prevail and required gratification. In Lower Canada, it was suggested to Lord Dalhousie that it would do him honor were he to be the founder of a Literary and Historical Society. Lord Dalhousie—who was a really excellent man—although a blundering governor in Lower Canada, where he had such men as Neilson, Stuart, Papineau and even the supple Vallières to thwart him—and anxious to benefit the colony as much as he could at once took the hint. He founded it in Quebec, and became its patron. It was founded for the purpose of investigating points of history, immediately connected with the Canadas; to discover and rescue from the unsparing hand of time the records which remained of the earliest history of New France; to preserve such documents as might be found amid the dust of unexplored depositories, and which might prove important to general history and to the particular history of the province. The Society has not been unproductive of good. Indeed it acquired at one time even a distant reputation. There have been both able and educated men connected with it. The Reverend Daniel Wilkie, LL.D., one of the most eminent teachers of youth, which the country has yet known, a man of great learning, and capable of profound thought, contributed many valuable papers to it. The Honorable Andrew William Cochran, an accomplished scholar, was its President. The Skeys, the Badgleys, the Fishers, the Sewells, the Vallières, the Stuarts, the Blacks, the Sheppards, the Morrins, the Doluglasses, the Reverend Dr. Cook, the Bishops Mountain, the Greens, the Faribaults, and indeed all the men of learning and note in the country were associated with it. But it is decaying. The men, a greater part of whom were, in a political sense, injurious to the country, who were capable of holding up such a society, are being supplanted by more practicable men of inferior literary acquirements, such as the Camerons, the Richards, the Smiths, or the Browns. The literature of the country is increasing in quantity and diminishing in quality, and so it will continue to do until the wealth of the country becomes more considerable. The means for the obtainment of a simply classical education are now at the very door. There are universities in Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto, but there are yet only a very few men with time sufficient at their disposal, even in winter, to become Icelandically learned. The society should, however, be maintained, and it would reflect credit on any government to vote it a yearly grant of at least £300. Lord Dalhousie was a benevolent and personally upright man. Among other good things which he did, unconnected with politics, was the gift from the Jesuits' Estates Fund of £300, and a large donation out of his privy purse to assist in the enlargement of St. Andrew's Church; which at an expense of £2,300 was completed in 1824. As a gentleman, no man could have been more respected than the Earl of Dalhousie was. There was nothing despicably mean about him. He was liable to be deceived by others. He never intentionally deceived himself or others. He did not like the French. He did not like diplomacy. The trickeries of the hustings were distasteful to him. He rejoiced in being a good soldier and an honest man, and he would have been glad had all the world been as he was. He should not, however, have been the Governor of Canada, or the Governor of any colony with a constitution, which could only be successfully worked by the most skilful manœuvring and adroit trickery. His Lordship sailed for England on the 6th of June, 1824, and the government of Lower Canada devolved on the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
Footnotes
1The title of Henepin's book is "Nouveau Voyage d'un païs plus grand que l'Europe, avec les réflections des enterprises du Sieur de la Salle, sur les Mines de Ste. Barbe, &c., * * * et des avantages qu'on peut retirer du chemin racourci de la Chine et du Japon, par le moyen de tant de vastes contrées et de nouvelles colonies," (published at Utrecht in 1698.)
In the commissions granted to Champlain, on the 15th October, 1612, and 15th February, 1625, the same objects are adverted to:--pour essayer de trouver le chemin faite pour aller par de dans le dit pays au pays de la Chine et Indes Orientales."
2The able American Historian, Jared Sparks, in a letter to a friend at Quebec, speaking of the early missions in Canada, says;--"For heroic struggles and great sacrifices, the world affords few examples to be compared with those of the early Missionaries in Canada."
3Now called Pittsburg, and the chief manufacturing town in the United States.
4In 1771, however, 471,000 bushels of wheat were exported from Canada, of which two-thirds, it was computed, were made in the Sorel District.See the Journal of Charles Carroll, of Carollton, page 77.
5People are sometimes in the habit of making light of a tempest in a tea pot. This tea tempest was no laughing matter.
6See the Journal of Charles Carroll, of Carollton, published by the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore--page 6.
7U.S. Catholic Magazine, vol. 4, p. 251, and Brent's Biography of Archbishop Carroll, p. 69.
8It is not a little odd, that Franklin should have been a member of this Committee, seeing that he was the very man who urged upon the British Minister, in 1759, the expediency of reducing Canada, as the most serious blow which could be inflicted on French power in America.
9Carroll's visit to Canada, p. 27.
10Then called Newark.
11See Duke de la Rochefoucault's Liancourt's travels through North America.
12Sir James' letter to Lord Liverpool.
13Sir James' letter to Lord Liverpool, accompanied by the explanatory Mr. Ryland.
14Christie's History of Lower Canada, vol. 1, page 347.
15Sir James did reach England, but died shortly afterwards. He expired in January 1812, aged 62.
16Allison, page 656.
17Alison's History of Europe, page 662, vol. 10.
18Alison says under the command of General Wadsworth, but Christie speaks of Brigadier-General Van Rensellaer, while the American accounts speak of Colonel Solomon Van Rensellaer. In this case Mr. Christie and the Americans are to be preferred to Alison.
19Captain Carden's despatch to Mr. Croker.
20Alison mixes up Colonel McDonell's capture of Ogdensburgh, which is below Kingston, and opposite Prescott, the scene of the Wind Mill fight in '37.
21The fleet consisted of theWolfe23; theRoyal George22; theMelville14; theEarl Moira14; theSir Sydney Smith12; and theBeresford12.
22A rather interesting anecdote is told of Captain Fawcett. About the end of the war he had been wounded in the heel, and was staying, in 1815, at Mrs. Matthew's boarding house, in Montreal. At the table d'hôte there was a raw-boned young English merchant, who remarked that Fawcett, to have been wounded in the heel, must have been running away. Fawcett's Irish blood rose to his forehead, and on the spur of the moment he felled the thoughtless Englishman with his crutch.