While this was happening in Lower Canada to cause the young Queen and her ministers anxiety, in Upper Canada William Mackenzie and his followers revelled in riot. Mackenzie fancied he was another Washington; he wrote bombastic letters to his fellow-traitor, Papineau, and busied himself with designing a flag for his new Republic, on which were two stars, one for each province. At last Mackenzie considered the time had come for war, and he and his friends decided to capture Toronto.
One bright, cold December day 1000 rebels were entrenched at their rendezvous, Montgomery's tavern, a few miles outside Toronto. An old soldier, who had fought under Napoleon, Van Egmond, undertook to drill them; Sam Lount, a beetle-browed blacksmith, was their commander-in-chief. To nip their schemes in the bud, against them marched the royal Governor, Sir Francis Head, with 500 militia. The Governor called upon them to surrender and lay down their arms; they refused, and an exchange of fire took place. Then the courage of the insurgents oozed out, and they fled, the ringleader, Mackenzie, being among the first who took to his heels. He retired to a little spot in the middle of the Niagara River called Navy Island, and proceeded to establish what he called a Provisional Government. Overhead, greatly to his own satisfaction, floated the two-starred flag of the Canadian Republic. Here Mackenzie impudently issued grants of land to all who would take up arms in his cause, and despatched them in a steamboat called the Caroline. One dark night a dashing young British lieutenant seized the rebel Caroline, which his American sympathisers had lent to "President" Mackenzie, set her on fire, and dropped her, a burning mass, over the Niagara Falls.
A time soon came when the American sympathisers felt that they had gone too far, and their President issued a proclamation warning his people against attacking a friendly power. In spite of this, however, several American filibustering expeditions took place before they realised the hopelessness of endeavouring to seize Canada, as they had seized Texas from a friendly nation like Mexico and make it a part of their Republic.
Mackenzie was arrested by the Americans themselves and sentenced to eighteen months in gaol. Had he been caught in Canada, he would have suffered the fate of his companions and been hanged, as he richly deserved, for treason.
The disaffection all came to an end when Queen Victoria's Government, acting on the advice of Lord Durham, who had been sent to Canada to inquire into the disturbances, united Upper Canada and Lower Canada into one province, and granted the people the power to manage their own affairs in a Parliament of their own. After a time, when the Canadian people could not agree upon a spot to be chosen for a capital town for their now united Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, they called upon Queen Victoria to select one for them. It so happened that there was on the banks of the Ottawa a little village named Bytown, not far from two beautiful falls, the Rideau and Chaudière. It was the scene of a prosperous lumbering camp, and several sawmills throve there; it was far removed from the stress and the struggle of the French and English parties, and from bitter political feeling. So the young Queen, who had seen some sketches of the village, chose it for the meeting-place of Parliament and the residence of her Governor-General. All parties were pleased, and so it came about that Bytown was rechristened Ottawa, and it in course of a few years became filled with magnificent buildings and beautiful homes.
Ottawa was destined to be still more important and famous as the capital of the entire DOMINION OF CANADA. For as time went on all the British provinces, both of the east and the west, that begun by Poutraincourt 250 years before in Acadia, and that founded by Selkirk on the Red River, all the colonies between the Atlantic and the Pacific north of the American border, had grown and flourished and sought to be welded into a single nation under the British flag. Thirty years after Papineau's rebellion, therefore, the desired union took place, and in 1867 the Canadian Dominion, under Sir John Macdonald's leadership, began its career.
The new order of things involved many changes. Amongst others it was time in the Far West that the power of the Hudson's Bay Company over the vast region of Rupert's Land should come to a close. No longer was it meet and proper that a body of fur-traders should be lords paramount over all this territory. Yet neither the Company nor its dependents, the voyageurs, trappers, and hunters, were eager for any change. The Métis or Bois-Brulés, of whom we spoke in the last chapter, had grown accustomed to the Company's rule. "If," said they, "the Company is no longer to govern us, then we should govern ourselves." When they saw the first advance guard of Canadians from the east coming in to take their land for farms, to lay out roads and townships, the Bois-Bruits met in angry protest; they defied the Canadians to take their country without their consent. They were joined by a number of American immigrants, who regarded any political trouble with pleasure as hastening the annexation which was the object of their desire.
Again did a leader step quickly forth from their ranks. His name was Louis Riel. Half-educated, fanatical, this young man dreamed dreams of future power and glory. In person he was short and stout, with a large head, a high forehead, and an intelligent eye; above his brow a mass of long and thick black hair clustered. No sooner was it clear that the authority of the Hudson's Bay Company had been sold for Canadian gold, than Riel proclaimed himself Dictator of the new province of Rupert's Land; he issued a bombastic proclamation to his people refusing to recognise the authority of Canada "coming to rule us with a rod of despotism," and declaring a Provisional Government, as so many agitators had done before him. A new flag, comprised of the fleur-de-lys and a shamrock, out of compliment to the Irish Fenians, was hoisted over Fort Garry, a strong stone fortress which the Company had built on the Red River, not far from where the city of Winnipeg now stands.
When the Canadian Government heard of the trouble that was brewing in its newly-acquired territory of Rupert's Land, the greatest alarm was felt, for at that very moment Governor MacDougall was on his way to Fort Garry to take charge of the new territory. The Governor had just set foot across the border when he was met by Riel and three or four thousand followers at a barrier built across the roadway. Two courses were open to him: to fight or retreat. As he had no desire to shed blood, he returned quietly across the border.
Riel could not now keep his hot-headed followers in hand. Sixty prisoners, all who dared to oppose his schemes, were seized and locked up in the fort. A commissioner was sent from Canada, Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, to allay the excitement, but his mission had no immediate effect, for Louis Riel was resolved to play a heroic part in the eyes of Indians and Métis. Several of the leading men of the Company were put in irons. So overwhelmed was the Company's governor, that he took to his bed and never recovered. While he lay in the shadow of death, the pitiless Riel stood over him heaping him with abuse. As for Donald Smith, Riel gave orders to his guard, "Shoot that man," said he, "if he makes an attempt at escape or disobeys my orders." But Donald Smith survived the ordeal, living to be governor of the territory, and afterwards to be known all over the Empire as one of the chief builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway.