Lord Sydenham. From an engraving by G. Browning in M'Gill University Library.Lord Sydenham.From an engraving by G. Browningin M'Gill University Library.
Lord Sydenham. From an engraving by G. Browning in M'Gill University Library.Lord Sydenham.From an engraving by G. Browningin M'Gill University Library.
Business, travel, and politics combined to form the character of Poulett Thomson. His well-merited titles, Baron Sydenham and Toronto, tend to obscure the fact that he was essentially a member of the great middle class, a civilian who had never worn a sword ora military uniform. He represented that element in English life which is always enriching the House of Peers by the addition of sheer intellectual eminence, like that of Tennyson and Kelvin. He had a sense of humour, a quality of which Head and Durham were devoid. He was amused when he was not bored by the pomp attending his position. 'The worst part of the thing to me, individually, is the ceremonial,' he writes. 'Theboreof this is unspeakable. Fancy having to stand for an hour and a half bowing, and then to sit with one's cocked hat on, receiving addresses.' In person Thomson was small, slight, elegant, fragile-looking, with a notably handsome face. He was one of those clever, agreeable, plausible, managing little men who seem always to get their own way. They are very adroit and not too scrupulous about the means they use to attain their ends. They have that absolute belief in themselves which their friends call self-confidence and their enemies conceit.
Thomson came to his arduous task brimming with ambition and belief in his ability to cope with it. He realized to the full the difficulty of the problem set him andthe credit which would accrue if he solved it. 'After fifteen years,' a friend wrote, 'you have now the golden opportunity of settling the affairs of Canada upon a safe and firm footing, ensuring good government to the people, and securing ample power to the Crown.' He was fully aware of this himself. 'It is agreat fieldtoo,' he notes in his private Journal, 'if I can bring about the union of the provinces and stay for a year to meet the united assembly and set them to work'; and he contrasts the opportunity for distinction offered by the Canadian imbroglio with the tame possibilities of a subordinate position in the Cabinet, which would be his fate if he remained in England.
The new governor-general reached Quebec in H.M.S.Piqueon October 17, 1839, after a stormy passage of thirty-three days. His first task in Canada was the same as Durham's—to acquaint himself with the actual conditions—and he flung himself into it with equal energy. Like Durham, too, he was ably assisted by capable men on his staff, notably T. W. C. Murdoch, his civil secretary, and James Stuart, the chief justice of Lower Canada. From the very first he won goldenopinions from all sorts of persons. The tone of his proclamations, the courtesy and tact of his public utterances, his personal charm made him speedily popular. The party of Reform was conciliated because he was known to be in sympathy with the principles of Lord Durham's Report, while the Conservatives were pleased with his avowed purpose of strengthening the bonds between the colony and the mother country. Lower Canada was still a province without a constitution; but it must have some machinery of government. A makeshift for regular government was provided by a Legislative Council of fourteen persons of importance appointed by Sir John Colborne. Their agreement to the principles of union was soon obtained. The province now seemed tranquil and the governor-general hurried on to Upper Canada. His account of his journey from Montreal to Kingston—the changes and stoppages, the varieties of conveyance—illustrates vividly the difficulties of travel in those days.
At Toronto Thomson found a totally different set of conditions. Here was a constitution functioning and a legislature in session; but what a legislature! Split into half a dozen little cliques and factions, it wastrying to work with no cabinet, no opposition, no party system—an ideal state of things to which some critics of present conditions would like to return. The office-holders, that is, the members of the government, took opposite sides in debate. The Assembly was a house divided and sub-divided against itself. There was a wide-spread and persistent clamour for 'responsible government,' but no one knew precisely what was meant by it. Who was to be 'responsible'? for what? and to whom? How was it possible to make the local government 'responsible' to the people of the colony without reducing the governor to a figurehead? If his authority were reduced to a shadow, what became of the 'prerogative' and British connection? Was not 'responsible government' simply the prelude to the absolute separation of the colony from the mother country? Then there was the question of the Clergy Reserves agitating every colonial breast. One-seventh of the public domain had been set aside for the support of a favoured church: a plain case of monopoly and privilege, said some; a wise provision for the maintenance of religion, said others. And the shadow of bankruptcy washanging over the unhappy colony. The situation was one of the utmost difficulty, calling for an almost superhuman combination of ability, tact, and firmness. Here, as in Lower Canada, the governor-general's first effort was to obtain the consent of the people's representatives to the great change in the status of the province which the union would involve. He carried his point by meeting men and discussing the project with them—a process of education. Although there was some opposition on various grounds, reasonable and unreasonable, the Assembly finally consented to the following terms: first, each province was to have an equal number of representatives; secondly, a sufficient civil list was to be granted; thirdly, the debt incurred by Upper Canada for public works of common interest should be charged upon the revenue of the new united province. These terms could not be called ideal, especially in regard to Lower Canada; but union was the only alternative to benevolent despotism or civil war. In bringing the legislature of Upper Canada to consent to these terms Thomson had the valuable aid of the cohort of Moderate Reformers led by Baldwin and Hincks.
No inconsiderable part of the governor-general's task was a campaign of education in theABCof responsible government. Those elementary ideas of party government now regarded as axiomatic had to be taught painfully to our rude forefathers in legislation. That the government should have a definite head or leader in the Assembly, who should speak for the government, introduce and defend its measures; that the officials of the government other than those holding permanent posts should form one body—a ministry—which should automatically relinquish office and power when it could no longer command a majority in the legislature, were practically new and by no means welcome ideas to the old-time law-makers of Canada. The natural corollary that the opposition also should be organized under a definite leader, who, on defeating the government, should assume the responsibility of forming a cabinet, was equally novel. Such a check on reckless criticism was sadly needed. Of the process by which Thomson achieved his ends even his fullest biography gives little information. There must have been endless conferences of homespun, honest farmers like Willson, men of breeding likeRobinson, brilliant lawyers like Sullivan, plain soldiers like MacNab, with the little, sickly, understanding governor of the brilliant eyes, the charming manner, and the persuasive tongue. Of all the varied explaining, discussing, initiating, little record remains. But the work was done and the results are manifest to the world. The persuasive little man succeeded in persuading the law-makers of Upper Canada that the way out of their difficulties lay not through division but through union. He persuaded them to a change of status which was a reversal to the old status prior to the Constitutional Act, and also a prelude to that larger union of the British colonies in North America which was destined to embrace half the continent.
Having succeeded almost beyond belief in the first part of his mission, Thomson turned his attention to the next vexed question. This was the question of the Clergy Reserves. On this subject much ink had been spilt and much hard feeling engendered; and it still provokes not a little ill-directed sarcasm. The whole matter is in danger of being misunderstood, and eighteenth-century lawmakers are blamed for not possessing ideas a hundred years ahead of their times.
By the terms of the Constitutional Act of 1791 one-seventh of the public lands thereafter to be granted were devoted to 'the Support and Maintenance of a Protestant Clergy.' The provision was due, it seems, to the king himself, pious, homely 'Farmer George'; and to men of his mind no provision could have seemed more natural or right. 'Establishment' had been the rule from time immemorial. The Church of England was 'established,' that is, provided by law with an income in England, in Wales, and in Ireland. The 'Kirk' was similarly 'established' in Scotland. In British America itself the Church of Rome was 'established' very firmly in Lower Canada. What could be more natural for a Protestant monarch than to make provision for a 'Protestant Clergy' in a British colony settled by British immigrants, and purchased with such outpouring of British blood and British treasure? And what more ready and easy way could be found of providing for that 'clergy' than by endowing it with waste lands which taxed no one and which would increase in value as the country became settled? In its essence this endowment was a recognition of the value of the Christian religion in preservingthe state. But trouble arose almost at once in the interpretation of the terms 'Protestant' and 'clergy.' Was not the Church of Scotland 'Protestant' as well as the Church of England? Were not the various species of 'Dissenters' also the most vigorous of 'Protestants'? On the other side it was asked, Was not the term 'clergy' applied exclusively to the ministers of the Church of England? It could not apply to any religious teachers outside the pale; those outside the pale never dreamed of applying it to themselves. Naturally other denominations wished to share in this most generous endowment; and quite as naturally the Church of England desired to stand by the letter of the law and hold what it had of legal right. Some extremists opposed any and all establishments, holding that the church should be independent of the state. Let the endowment be used for the sorely pinched cause of education, and let the ministers of all denominations depend solely on the Christian liberality of their people. Perhaps the extremists were in closest touch with the genius of the new land and the new institutions growing up in it. To the plain man in the pioneer settlement there seemed something feudal, somethingunjust, in creating a privileged church at the expense of all other churches. Pioneer life brings men back to primal realities. To the settler in the log-hut the externals of religion are apt to fade until all churches seem to be much the same: to set one above all the others seems in his eyes so unjust as to admit of no argument in its favour. Besides, he had a very real grievance: the reserved unoccupied lands interfered with his well-being; they came between farm and farm, increased his taxation, and prevented the making of the needful roads. How was he to get to market? to fetch supplies? To-day few will be found to argue for a state church; but it was not so in the twenties and thirties of the last century. The battle raged loud and long; and pamphleteer rent pamphleteer in endless, wordy warfare.
By 1817 the grievance had become clamant; and when that inquisitive agitator, Robert Gourlay, asked the farmers of Upper Canada what hindered settlement, he received the answer—Clergy Reserves. Two years later the Assembly asked for a return of the lands leased and the revenue derived from them. Up to this time the annual revenue had not exceeded £700. In the sameyear, 1819, the 'Kirk' parish of Niagara applied for a grant of £100, and the law-officers of the Crown supported the claim. This decision stirred up the Anglicans. They formed themselves into a corporation in each province to oversee the administration of the Clergy Reserves. Ownership in the lands was to be obtained, if obtained at all, through the establishment and endowment of separate rectories, as provided for in the original act. Why the directing minds among the Anglicans did not adopt this ready and easy method of obtaining at least the bulk of the disputed land is something of a mystery. Apparently they adopted a policy of all or none. Only in 1836, just before the outbreak of the rebellions, when political feeling was at fever pitch, did Sir John Colborne, at the bidding of Bishop Strachan, sign patents for forty-four parishes to be erected in Upper Canada. The total amount of land devoted to this purpose was seventeen thousand acres. 'This,' declared Lord Durham, 'is regarded by all other teachers of religion in the country as having at once degraded them to a position of legal inferiority to the clergy of the Church of England; and it has been most warmly resented. In the opinion of many persons,this was the chief predisposing cause of the recent insurrection, and it is an abiding and unabated cause of discontent.'
Thomson's way of dealing with this cause of discontent did not dispose of it for ever, but it at least provided a lenitive. With the business man's respect for property and vested interests, he was opposed to the diversion of the grant from its original purpose to the support of education. He used his powers of persuasion upon 'the leading individuals among the principal religious communities.' After 'many interviews' he secured the support of the religious communities to a measure which he had prepared. By the terms of this bill the remainder of the reserved land was to be sold and the proceeds were to form a fund, the income from which should be distributed annually among the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and other specified religious bodies, 'in proportion to their respective numbers.' This measure was not really acceptable to the Reformers, who wanted to see the land used in the cause of education; it was distasteful to the Kirk men; it was gall and wormwood to extreme Anglicans like Bishop Strachan. None the less, the personalinfluence of the diplomatic, strong-willed little man carried it through; and although the Act itself was disallowed, on excellent grounds, by the Imperial government, as exceeding the powers of the provincial legislature, yet the Imperial parliament passed an Act exactly to the same effect. Thomson had applied a plaster to the sore.
His general view of the political conditions is shown in a private letter to his chief, Lord John Russell. The picture he draws is lively, unflattering, but instructive. 'I am satisfied that the mass of the people are sound—moderate in their demands and attached to British institutions; but they have been oppressed by a miserable little oligarchy on the one hand and excited by a few factious demagogues on the other. I can make a middle reforming party, I am sure, that will put down both.' The record of seventy-five years and of two wars shows the attachment of the Canadians to British institutions, and how justly the governor-general appraised the 'mass of the people.' Not less clearly did he judge the politicians of the day, their pettiness, their naïve selfishness, their disregard of rule and form, shocking all the instincts of the British man of business andthe trained parliamentary hand. 'You can form no idea,' he continues, 'of the way a Colonial Parliament transacts its business. I got them into comparative order and decency by having measures brought forward by the Government and well and steadily worked through. But when they came to their own affairs, and, above all, to money matters, there was a scene of confusion and riot of which no one in England can have any idea. Every man proposes a vote for his own job; and bills are introduced without notice and carried throughalltheir stages in a quarter of an hour! One of the greatest advantages of the Union will be that it will be possible to introduce a new system of legislating, and above all, a restriction upon the initiation of money-votes. Without the last I would not give a farthing for my bill: and the change would be decidedly popular; for the members all complain that under the present system they cannot refuse to move a job for any constituent who desires it.' Canadians of the present day should study those words without flinching.
When the session was over Thomson posted back to Montreal, assembled his Special Council, and set to work, in the rôle ofbenevolent despot, introducing many much-needed reforms. The wheels of government had been definitely blocked by racial hatred; the constitution was still suspended. 'There is positively no machinery of government,' Thomson wrote in a private letter. 'Everything is to be done by the governor and his secretary.' There were no heads of departments accessible. When a vacancy occurred, the practice was to appoint two men to fill it, one French and the other English. There were joint sheriffs, and joint crown surveyors, who worked against each other. Ably seconded by the chief justice Stuart, the energetic governor succeeded in reforming the procedure of the higher courts of judicature and in establishing district courts after the model of Upper Canada. Altogether, twenty-one ordinances were passed which had the force of law. They were indispensable, in Thomson's opinion, in paving the way for the Union. He was under no illusions as to his methods. 'Nothing but a despotism could have got them through. A House of Assembly, whether single or double, would have spent ten years at them,' he writes, with perfect truth.
The Maritime Provinces next claimed hisattention, as they came within the scope of his commission. In Nova Scotia, likewise, a struggle for responsible government was in progress, but with striking differences. The protagonist of the movement, Howe, was the very reverse of a separatist. He was passionately attached to Britain and British institutions, and he thought not in terms of his little province, but of the Empire. Over-topping all other politicians of his day in native power and breadth of vision, he was successful in working out the problem of responsible government by purely constitutional methods, without a symptom of rebellion, the loss of a single life or anydeus ex machinadictator or pacificator from across the seas. Howe, indeed, was fitted to educate statesmen in the true principles of democratic government, as his famous letters to Lord John Russell testify. Howe's achievement must be compared with the failure of Mackenzie and Papineau, if his true greatness is to appear. When Thomson and he met, they found that they were at one in principle and in respect to the measures necessary to bring about the desired reforms. That month of July 1840 was a very busy one for the governor-general. He reached Halifax on the ninth and left onthe twenty-eighth for Quebec. In the meantime he had met many men, discussed many measures, gauged the situation correctly, drafted a clear memorandum of it, and made a flying visit to St John and Fredericton. He found New Brunswick happy and contented, a very oasis of peace in the howling wilderness of colonial politics. His policy was to get into personal touch with every part of his government and to see it with his own eyes. On his way back to Montreal from Quebec he made a detour through the Eastern Townships. Everywhere he increased his already great popularity.
Apart from his natural and commendable desire to inform himself by the evidence of his own eyes and ears, these tours were dictated by sound policy. The governor-general was his own minister, the approaching election was his election, the Union was his measure; so his public appearances, speeches, replies to addresses, personal interviews were all in the nature of an election tour by a modern political leader to influence public opinion, a legitimate part of his campaign. After touring the Eastern Townships he made a thorough visitation of the western province, going round by water, andbeing nearly wrecked on Lake Erie and again on Lake Huron, where he found that the inland freshwater sea could be as turbulent as the Bay of Biscay. Elsewhere the Canadian autumn weather was delightful. His precarious health improved. His tour was a triumphal progress. 'Allparties,' he writes, 'uniting in addresses in every place, full of confidence in my government, and of a determination to forget their former disputes.' He adds a little pen-picture, which shows that the Canadian pioneer had a knack of impromptu pageantry which his descendants have lost. 'Escorts of two and three hundred farmers on horseback at every place from township to township, with all the etceteras of guns, music, and flags.' The governor rode a good deal himself, taking saddle-horses with him as well as a carriage. Those musical, gun-firing, flag-flying cavalcades from township to township in the pleasant autumn weather of 1840 enliven the background of a political struggle. 'What is of more importance,' continues the astute and businesslike little man, 'my candidates everywhere taken for the ensuing elections.' This western tour had an important reaction upon public opinion in Toronto, bringing thedivers factions into something like harmony for a time. Thomson himself was genuinely pleased with what he had seen of that rich, heart-shaped peninsula lying behind the moat of three inland seas, with the flowing names, Huron, Erie, Ontario. He writes in justifiable superlatives. 'You can conceive nothing finer. The most magnificent soil in the world—four feet of vegetable mould—a climate certainly the best in North America—the greater part of it admirably watered. In a word, there is land enough and capabilities enough for some millions of people and for one of the finest provinces in the world.' Half a century from the time of writing the governor's vision was realized and Ontario was the 'banner province' of the Dominion.
During that busy month of July which the governor had spent in the Maritime Provinces the Act of Union passed by the Imperial parliament had taken effect. The two provinces were proclaimed to be one province with one legislature. It was necessary to issue a new commission for the governor of the new province, and, to mark the importance of his achievement, Charles Poulett Thomson was created a peer, Baron Sydenham of Sydenham in Kent and Toronto in Canada.One advantage of a monarchy is its ability to reward service to the state in a splendid way. Sydenham's honour was well deserved, but he was not destined to enjoy it long. His activity in no way relaxed. An essential part of the scheme of union, as he saw it, was local home rule. The country was to be divided into small self-governing units—municipalities—taxing themselves for their own necessary expenditures and controlling the revenues so raised. This is now such a familiar idea, an institution which works so well, that it is hard to conceive of Canada ever lacking it. Even more difficult to conceive is why the idea should have been opposed by the Imperial parliament so strongly that an advanced Liberal like Lord John Russell was forced to exclude it from the Act of Union. But Sydenham was not easily balked. Being on the ground and seeing the urgent need of such an institution, he called together his wonderful Special Council for one last session. Between them they organized the municipal system which, in modified form, still functions in Quebec. After the Union the system was extended to Ontario, to the great advantage of that province. So thoroughly are Canadiansaccustomed to managing their own affairs, that they do not realize what a privilege they possess in their municipal system, and how far Great Britain then lagged behind.
Another important measure passed by the expiring Special Council was the Registry Act. To the habitant the selling, mortgaging, and transfer of property was a private affair; he did not see the need for publicity. So the habit of clandestine transfer of land was almost a French habit. The same habit prevailed among the Acadians and had to be dealt with by the English governors. The attempt to put the transfer of land upon a business basis was regarded as an insidious attack upon a national custom. Once more the benevolent despot succeeded in bringing about a much-needed reform. The 'ass's bridge,' as he calls it, had been impassable for twenty years. Now that it was crossed, the exploit met 'the nearly universal assent of French and English.' Some thirty other ukases, all tending to order and the common weal, were issued in the last session of this extraordinary legislative body. One fixed the place of the capital. After much debate on the rival claims of Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Bytown, andKingston, it was decided that the town with the martello towers guarding the gateway to the Thousand Islands, with its memories of Frontenac and the War of 1812, should be the capital of the new united province. And it was so. About the quiet university town, where Queen's is Grant's monument—si monumentum requiris, circumspice—there lingers still the distinction of the old vice-regal days.
Then came the first election for the new Assembly of the united province, perhaps the most momentous in the history of Canada. Lower Canada was vehemently opposed to the whole scheme. To elect a Union member was, in the words of the Quebec Committee, 'stretching forth the neck to the yoke which is attempted to be placed upon us.' The French were organized into a solid phalanx of opposition. In the western province the Tory and Orange opposition was equally violent towards a measure which was deemed to favour the French. The elections of 1841 were held with the bad old-fashioned accompaniments of riot and bloodshed, especially in the centres, Montreal and Toronto. Neither side was free from the blame of irregular methods. Certainly the government was notscrupulous in the means it employed to secure the return of Union candidates. The results were known early in April. They were as follows: for the government, twenty-four members; French, twenty; Moderate Reformers, twenty; ultra-Reformers, five; Compact party, five; doubtful, seven. The curse of petty faction was not lifted, nor the machinery of two-party government really installed, for it was quite possible for several of these groups to combine in voting down government measures without having sufficient cohesion among themselves to form a ministry and assume control.
The session opened at Kingston on June 14, 1841. A hospital was turned into a parliament house, a row of warehouses was appropriated for government offices, and the fine old stone mansion by the waterside known as 'Alwington' became the residence of the governor-general. That last summer of his life was crowded with toil and anxiety, but crowned with triumph. Acting as his own minister, he had to press through a chaotic and factious legislature, far-seeing measures of vital importance to the country; he had to reconcile differences, to smooth opposition, to continue his campaign of education inparliamentary procedure. In addition to the immediate problem of remaking the Canadas into one province, Sydenham was deep in diplomatic difficulties arising over disputes as to the Maine boundary. This difficulty was settled in 1842 by the Ashburton Treaty, which finally delimited the frontier lines. The strain on the governor-general was severe, and his health, never robust, gave way under it; but the frail form was upborne by the indomitable spirit of the man, and by the consciousness that he was winning the long-desired and doubtful victory. His success was plain to other eyes across the sea. His chief, Lord John Russell, sent gratifying commendations and obtained for him the coveted honour of the Grand Cross of the Bath. Feeling that his mission was accomplished, he sent in his resignation and made his preparations to return to England. The sound he longed to hear was the pealing of the guns from the citadel of Quebec in a final salute to the departing proconsul. He was to obtain release in another way.
Some idea of Sydenham's difficulties may be formed by a consideration of the Baldwin incident, as it has been called. Just before the session opened an effort was made tocombine the Moderate Reformers of Upper Canada and the 'solid' French-Canadian party of Lower Canada into a compact parliamentary phalanx of forty which would, of course, take charge of the House. Baldwin was skilfully approached and played upon until he supported this intrigue. The sequel is best told in Sydenham's own words.
Acting upon some principle of conduct, which I can reconcile neither with honour nor common sense, he strove to bring about this Union, and at last having as he thought effected it, coolly proposed to me, on the day before Parliament was to meet, to break up the Government altogether, dismiss several of his Colleagues and replace them by men whom I believe he had not known for twenty-four hours, but who are most of them thoroughly well known in Lower Canada (without going back to darker times) as the principal opponents to every measure for the improvement of that Province which has been passed by me, and as the most uncompromising enemies to the whole of my administration of affairs there.
I had been made aware of this Gentleman'sproceedings for two or three days, and certainly could hardly bring myself to tolerate them, but in my great anxiety to avoid if possible any disturbance, I had delayed taking any step. Upon receiving, however, from himself this extraordinary demand, I at once treated it, joined to his previous conduct, as a resignation of his office, and informed him that I accepted it without the least regret.
Of Baldwin's personal integrity there was no doubt; but the honest man had been used as a tool. If the intrigue had succeeded, all Sydenham's labour must have been lost, the Union would have been wrecked in the launching, and the country thrown back into chaos. Fortunately the intrigue failed. Baldwin passed over to the opposition, but he was unable to lead the Reformers of Upper Canada into killing government measures such as extension of the main highways, reform of the usury laws, establishment of a comprehensive municipal system. They followed the sounder leadership of Hincks and supported Sydenham in his wise efforts to promote the country's good.
The whole session was a series of crises. Sydenham stood pledged to the cardinal principle of democratic government, that the majority must rule. Parliamentary procedure, as they have it in England, was a new thing in Canada. In Great Britain the government does not always resign when defeated on a vote, nor does the opposition defeat the government when it has no power to form an alternative government. The only consistent opposition was Neilson's band of French Canadians, and their policy was pure obstruction and their object to separate the two provinces once more. By combining the factions it was possible sometimes to defeat a government, but for the government to throw down the reins of power, with no one on the other side capable of taking them up, would have been madness. The situation craved wary walking and most delicate balancing; but Sydenham was equal to it. Later in the session, when the members had learned their lesson, the governor-general affirmed his position in a series of resolutions moved by Harrison, the leader of the government. In these he asserted: first, his position as representative of the monarch, and, as such, responsible to Imperialauthority alone; secondly, the administration must possess the confidence of the representatives of the people; and thirdly, that the administration shall act in accordance with the well-understood wishes and interests of the people. In other words, he declared himself for British connection plus majority rule.
Critics found the first session of the new parliament of Canada a 'do-nothing-but-talk' session. There was indeed a flow of eloquence in various kinds during the first few weeks until the different parties found the proper relations and the serious work of legislation began. Constructive measures of the first importance became law in due course. Sydenham's own words sum up his achievement. 'With a most difficult opening, almost a minority, with passions at boiling heat, and prejudices such as I never saw, to contend with, I have brought the Assembly by degrees into perfect order ready to follow wherever I may lead; have carried all my measures, avoided or beaten off all disputed topics, and have got a ministry with an avowed and recognized majority, capable of doing what they think right, and not to be upset by my successor. I have now accomplished all that I set muchvalue on; for whether the rest be done now, or some sessions hence, matters little. The five great works I aimed at have been got through: the establishment of a board of works with ample powers; the admission of aliens; the regulation of the public lands ceded by the Crown under the Union Act; and lastly this District Council Bill.' The financial difficulties of the province had been met by guaranteed Imperial loan, and progress had been made in remedying the evils of pauper immigration. Not often does a constructive statesman live to see his labours so richly rewarded by success.
Then the end came. A stumble of Sydenham's horse as he mounted a rise near 'Alwington' threw him to the ground and broke his right leg. His constitution, never strong, had been weakened by disease, unsparing work, and ceaseless anxieties. The bones would not set, the laceration would not heal, and at last lockjaw set in. It was impossible for him to recover. One does not expect the heroic from a fragile man of the world, but Sydenham's last thoughts were for the state he had served so well. In the agonies of tetanus he composed the speech with which he had hoped to bring the sessionto a close. The last words were the dying governor's prayer for Canada. 'May Almighty God bless your labours, and pour down upon this province all those blessings which in my heart I am desirous it should enjoy.'
His accident occurred on the fourth of September: he was not released from his sufferings until the nineteenth. A stately funeral testified to the universal regret. St George's Cathedral at Kingston, where his bones lie, should be among the high places of the land, a shrine doubly sacred, as the tomb of one who had no small part in making Canada.
On Parliament Hill at Ottawa is a monument of bronze and marble. It represents two men standing in close converse; and, in spite of the dull and untempering effect of modern coats and trousers, the monument is an artistic success worthy of the noble eminence on which it stands above the broad-bosomed river and looking towards the distant hills. It is designed to keep in memory LaFontaine, the man of French blood, and Baldwin, the man of English blood, who worked together as leaders in the first parliament of reunited Canada. That they so worked together for the good of their common country deserves commemoration in enduring brass; for, happily, ever since their time English and French have been found working side by side and vying in fraternal efforts towards the same glorious end.
LaFontaine and Baldwin are typical Canadianpoliticians of the new order. They carried on a government under modern conditions. Sydenham's work had been done once for all. In spite of ignorance, and errors, and worse, the parliamentarians had really learned the lessons of procedure which he had so deftly taught, and they now settled down to the regular game of Ins and Outs, according to established and accepted rules. The irreconcilables were gradually tamed as wild animals are—by hunger first, and then by being fed with sufficient quantities of the loaves and fishes. Power, office, good permanent positions, fat salaries, proved strong sedatives of yeasty aspirations towards vague political ideals. There were still to be grave difficulties, crises, reactions towards the old order of things; but the cardinal principle of popular government was finally accepted, and, ever since 1841, has been in continuous operation, as part and parcel of the constitution.
If Canadian politicians had, in the words of the Shorter Catechism, been left to the freedom of their own will, it is difficult to see how they could ever have brought about either the union of the jarring provinces, or established the principles of popular government. It is not apparent how half a dozenirreconcilable little factions could have combined to thwart the sullen determination of John Neilson's French-Canadian party to wreck the Union. There was a crying need for intervention by a true statesman from without, who, with his eyes unblinded by local prejudices and passions, could take his stand above all parties, and, in benevolent despotism, lead them into concerted action for their own good and the good of the country. Equally clamant was the need of information and instruction. Sometimes Canadians are inclined to write the tale of the building of the nation as if that splendid fabric were all the work of their own hands, as if 'our own arm had brought salvation unto us.' This is manifest fallacy. Without a Durham to diagnose the malady and a Sydenham to apply the remedy, the condition of the body politic must have been past cure. At least, no other physicians could avail. Now, it was a matter of treatment and careful nursing, and being instructed, we were capable of following the doctor's orders.
The Reform leaders were very unlike each other in character and antecedents. Robert Baldwin was the son of William Warren Baldwin, whose father (also a Robert Baldwin)belonged to the humbler class of landed gentry in Ireland. Tempted, like so many others of his class, by the bait of cheap land, he came to Canada to 'farm.' His son William studied medicine at Edinburgh, became a doctor, and, with Irish powers of adaptation, soon exchanged physic for the more profitable pursuit of law. Robert the grandson was born in York (now Toronto) in 1804. He became one of 'Johnny' Strachan's pupils at the Grammar School, achieving in time the distinction of being 'head boy'; after which he studied law in the old, leisurely, articled-clerk system, and finally became his father's partner. An opportune legacy enabled his father to buy a large property outside 'muddy York,' on which, in accordance with hereditary landholding instinct, he endeavoured to establish his family, after the old-world fashion. A broad thoroughfare in Toronto preserves the name of Baldwin's ambition, 'Spadina.'
Like his father, Robert Baldwin was a Moderate Reformer. He entered public life (1829) in his native town as draftsman of a petition to George IV in what was known as the Willis affair. In the same year he was elected to the Assembly as member for York.Unseated on a technicality, he was at once re-elected, and took his seat in the House the following year. In the new elections, however, following the demise of George IV in 1830, when the House was dissolved, Baldwin was defeated. He had recently entered into partnership with his wife's brother, who was also his own cousin, Robert Baldwin Sullivan, a handsome Irishman with more than a touch of Irish brilliancy. Sullivan played no small part in the politics of the time. He is the author of the wittiest pamphlet ever evoked by Canadian party struggles.
Another young Irishman with whom Baldwin became closely associated was Francis Hincks, who also left his mark on the history of Canada. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he had received a good general education, and a sound and extensive business training in Belfast. Coming to Toronto by way of the West Indies, he became interested in various local business concerns and speedily proved his outstanding capacity for all matters of commerce and finance. Besides being the manager of a bank and the secretary of an insurance company, Hincks carried on at his house in Yonge Street, next door to Robert Baldwin's (number 21), ageneral warehousing business; and, as if these enterprises did not afford sufficient scope for his energy, he launched a weekly newspaper, theExaminer, in the interests of Reform. The successful man of business soon became the expert in finance, to whom all eyes turned in difficulty. In 1833 he was appointed one of the inspectors of the Welland Canal accounts in a parliamentary investigation, so swiftly had he come to the front. Though much unlike in temperament, he and Baldwin were agreed in their views of political reform, siding with the Moderates as against the Mackenzie faction of extremists. When in 1836 the Constitutional Reform Society of Upper Canada was organized, with William Warren Baldwin as president, Hincks became the secretary. The main objects of this society were to secure 'responsible advisers to the governor,' and the abolition of the forty-four rectories established by Sir John Colborne in accordance with the well-known provisions of the Constitutional Act. The success of any organization often depends on one man, the secretary, and in this capacity Hincks evinced his wonted ability and extraordinary energy.
These two men, Robert Baldwin, with hishigh principle and solid character, and Francis Hincks, with his talent for affairs, are figures of prime importance in this critical stage of the experiment called responsible government.
But the new province of Canada, as a union of French and English populations, demanded, as a natural consequence, a union in leadership. The French-Canadian politician, who in his own province represented Moderate Reform, was Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine. His grandfather had been a member of the old Assembly of Lower Canada; his father was a farmer at Boucherville in Chambly, where Louis Hippolyte was born in 1804. Educated at the college of Montreal, he afterwards studied law and began to practise in that city. In 1830 he was elected member for Terrebonne, and soon showed himself in the House to be a thoroughgoing follower of Papineau and an agitator for radical change. But when reform passed over into rebellion and an appeal to armed force, he tried to dissuade his compatriots from their mad enterprise, and also approached the governor, Lord Gosford, with a proposal to assemble parliament, in order to prevent further violence. He then went to England, frommotives which do not seem clear. Fearing arrest in that country for his share in the agitation before the rebellion, he fled to France. He did not, in fact, return to Canada until May 1838, when he was caught in the widespread net of arrests and spent several painful and indignant months in the Montreal jail, demanding release, but in vain. Incarceration for a political offence is a rare event in the career of a chief justice and an English baronet, as this prisoner was to be later. Arrested on suspicion, he was released without trial. On the tragic collapse of the extremists LaFontaine became the hope of the moderate men among the French-Canadian politicians. Like the most of his compatriots, he was strongly opposed to the union of the Canadas, as threatening the extinction of his nationality; but seeing no possible alternative to union, he made it his fixed policy to win, by constitutional methods, whatever could be won for his people. In appearance he was strikingly like the first Napoleon, the resemblance being noticed by the old soldiers when he visited the Hôtel des Invalides at Paris. A contemporary cartoon, representing him flinging money to the habitants, shows the likeness, even to thelock of hair on the forehead, more plainly than his portrait. His few years of leadership in parliament, though of great importance to the country, formed only an episode in a larger legal career.
In the elections of 1841 LaFontaine was defeated; it is said, by illegal methods. Baldwin was returned for two constituencies, York and Hastings, and Hincks for Oxford, on the strength of his articles in theExaminer. Bitterly disappointed as LaFontaine was at his defeat and the means by which it was accomplished, he could see no hope of redress except by constitutional means. For the present he could do no more than protest angrily at the injustice. He was, however, not long excluded from the House. Through the good offices of Baldwin he was elected for the fourth riding of York, an act of courtesy and common sense which was not to lose its reward.
Such was the posture of affairs when Sydenham died.