CHAPTER VI
Governors-General I Have Met—Dufferins and the
Icelanders—The Marquis of Lorne and Wee Jock
McGregor—Unpleasantness at Rat Portage—Kindness
of Princess Louise—Lord Lansdowne
at the Opening of the Galt Railway—“My”
Excellent Newspaper Report—Talking to
Aberdeen—Minto, the Great Horseman—Earl
Grey a Great Social Entertainer—The
Grand Old Duke and
Princess Pat—The Duke of
Devonshire.
There was great enthusiasm displayed upon the arrival of Lord and Lady Dufferin in Winnipeg in the summer of 1877. Theirs was a triumphal tour. The Governor General, while ostensibly travelling through Canada to learn of its possible development, came principally to visit the Icelanders, for whose migration to Canada he was largely if not solely responsible. After having seen Winnipeg and driven the first spike in the Pembina Branch railway of the C.P.R. at St. Boniface, he with his retinue started out on a pilgrimage to the Icelandic settlement. No newspaper correspondents were allowed to accompany the party on account of lack of accommodation. And so the poor Toronto Globe correspondent sat twiddling his thumbs in Winnipeg while the expedition went north. Lord Dufferin’s private secretary was Billy Campbell, who also filled the same position with the Marquis of Lorne and the Marquis of Lansdowne, but was now correspondent for the Winnipeg Free Press on the Icelandic tour. Billy and I were old chums. Lord Dufferin’s visit to Gimli, the Icelandic settlement, was duly reported in the Free Press. Billy would send in the copy, and we would send out the proofs to a designated spot, where the Governor General would revise and return to the F.P. office. They looked like the map of Asia after he had corrected them. His Excellency had given the Icelanders perfect fits, and he was a master mechanic in the uttering of the English or any other language, but it makes an awful lot of difference between telling people disagreeable things and reading those same disagreeable things in cold print. So the Icelanders and the English readers of the Free Press had different views of His Excellency’s opinion of his proteges.
On His Excellency’s departure for the east he was tendered an afternoon banquet in Winnipeg, at which he made that famous speech where the Canadian West was spoken of as the land of illimitable possibilities. Lieut.-Governor Morris also made a speech and the other speaker was to have been Chief-Justice Wood, but the time of the boat’s departure—they were going up Red River to Moorhead—came too early for the latter’s oration, much to his chagrin, as he and the Lieut-Governor hated each other like Christians. This did not altogether spoil the Chief’s oration, for he utilized the greater part of it, with the necessary alterations, in his charge to the grand jury at the next assize. And it made good reading.
Lord Dufferin was an orator. He memorized his speeches, and always supplied the copy to the press. You know His Excellency could imprecate in seventeen different languages, and he usually did so when occasion required. One day in reporting one of Lord Dufferin’s speeches in which he made a happy allusion to Canada and her American cousins, Billy forgot to insert the words, “loud laughter”—and the omission gave a seriousness to the speech that His Excellency did not intend. There was blood on the moon next day.
The Duke and Duchess of Connaught with Princess Patricia (top), the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and Daughters the Ladies Cavendish (centre).
Lord Minto at his Lodge, Kootenay (bottom).