The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation. Volume 1

by Charles Roger

On the 5th of June, 1798, the third Session of the second Provincial Parliament met, and seven Acts received the gubernatorial assent. Among other things, the boundary lines of the different townships were to be determined, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, Lutherans or Calvinists, were authorized to celebrate marriage; and the method of performing statute labor on the roads was altered.

The fourth and last Session of this second Parliament of Upper Canada met at York, on the 12th June, 1799, and six Acts were assented to, among which was one providing for the education and support of orphan children; and another enabling persons holding the office of Registrar to be elected members of the House of Assembly, a member of which body accepting the office to vacate his seat, with the privilege, however, of being re-elected.

On the 17th August, 1799, General Hunter appeared and assumed the Lieutenant Governorship to which he had been appointed by the King. He was not, however, simply Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada; but also the Lieutenant, General commanding-in-chief, in both of the Canadas. He took possession of the Government of Upper Canada about a fortnight after the general government of British North America had been entrusted to His Excellency Robert Shore Milnes, Esquire. The Lieutenant General was well advanced in years. He had seen fifty-three summers, and it was not to be expected that his previous education and habits would give way to the new ideas of younger men in a new country. General Hunter was, nevertheless, connected with a highly talented family, his brother being the celebrated Dr. Hunter of London, and his talents for government were possibly better than the bills passed during his reign would indicate. There was, indeed, little, if any, advance in legislation. The Acts of former Sessions, relative to duties, the administration of justice, and to the militia, were patched and repatched, made more stringent, less liberal, and more complicated. In the first Session of the third Parliament, which met at York, on the 2nd June, 1800, six Acts of revival, regulation, or amendment were assented to, one of which, making a temporary provision for the regulation of trade between Upper Canada and the United States, established ports of entry. The second Session of the third Parliament was held on the 28th of May, 1801, at the now established capital. The Parliament, as usual, was recommended to look after the King's enemies, the militia, the Quarter Sessions, the Customs Duties, the Roads, and the payment of the Assembly and its officers. There was no change in the matters legislated upon, worthy of note, with the exception that Cornwall, Johnstown, Newcastle, York, Niagara, Queenston, Fort Erie Passage, Turkey Point, Amherstburgh, and Sandwich were declared to be Ports of Entry, collectors being appointed by the Governor to receive a salary of £50 per cent on duties, till the same amounted to £100, above which sum there was to be no advance, and having the privilege of appointing their own deputies; the Governor was authorized to appoint Flour and Ashes Inspectors, who were to receive three pence for every barrel of flour they inspected, and one shilling for every cask of pot and pearl ashes; and an Act was passed preventing the sale of spirituous or intoxicating drinks to the Moravian Indians, on the River Thames. The third Session of the third Parliament met on the 25th of May, 1802, when five Acts only were passed. Titles of lands were to be better ascertained and secured; the administration of justice in the Newcastle District was provided for; the rates which the Receiver General should take and retain for his own use out of the monies passing through his hands, subject to the disposition of the Province, was to be declared and ascertained; one or more ports of entry were established, and one or more collectors of Customs appointed; and an Act for applying £750 to encourage the growth of hemp, and £84 0s. 8d. for stationery for the Clerks of Parliament was adopted. On the 24th of January, 1803, the Parliament being again assembled for the despatch of business, an Act was passed, allowing time for the sale of lands and tenements by the Sheriff; a fund was established for the erection and repair of light-houses; the rights of certain grantees of the waste lands of the Crown were declared; married women were enabled to convey and alienate their real estate; attornies were enabled to take two clerks and "no more," the Attorney and Solicitor General excepted, as they could take three each, and "no more;" the swine and horned cattle restraint Act was extended; members of Parliament, having a warrant from the Speaker of attendance, were, for their own convenience, enabled to demand from justices of the peace, ten shillings a day, to be levied by assessment. After this, Parliament was prorogued, unless it be that a second fourth Session of the Parliament was held, which is not very probable, although Mr. Gourlay, in his account of Canada, gives two fourth Sessions to the third Parliament, and afterwards complains that the business of the first Session of the sixth Provincial Parliament was nowhere to be found.

Parliament next assembled on the 1st of February, 1804. Sedition was provided against; persons who should seduce soldiers into desertion were to be exemplarily punished; fees, costs, and charges were to be regulated by the Court of Kings Bench; the swine Act was amended, so that sheep might run at large, and rams only be restrained between the 1st December and 20th December; £300 was appropriated to the printing of all the Acts of the Province, and £80 a year was allowed for the annual printing of the laws, which were to be distributed among members of Parliament, judges, and militia officers; £100 was granted for the building of bridges and repairing old roads and laying out new ones; the Customs Act was explained; £175 was granted for the purchase of the Statute Laws of England; £400 per annum was granted to be applied in the erection of Parliament Buildings; £303 11s. 10½d. was voted for the clerks and officers of the Parliament, including stationary, and to the government commissioners appointed to adopt means to encourage the growth of hemp a sum of £1,000 was granted. The Session of the fourth Parliament, next bent on the despatch of business, came together on the 1st February, 1805. It altered the time of issuing tavern and still licenses; afforded relief to heirs or devizees of the nominees of the Crown, entitled to claim lands in cases where no patent had issued for such lands; regulated the trial of contested elections; continued the Duty-Commissioners Act for four years; altered certain parts of the Newcastle-District administration of justice Bill; made provision for the further appointment of parish and town officers; relieved insolvent debtors, by an Act which enabled a debtor in prison to receive five shillings weekly from his creditor during his detention, if the prisoner were not worth five pounds, worthlessness being, in this instance, to a man's advantage; the curing, packing and inspection of pork was regulated by the appointment of inspectors, whose fees were to be one shilling and six pence per barrel, exclusive of cooperage, with six pence a mile to the Inspector, for every mile he had to travel; £45 9s. 8d., advanced by His Majesty, through the Lieutenant Governor, for the purchase of hemp seed, and £229 8s. 6d., advanced for contingencies, clerks of Parliament and so forth, were to be made good out of a certain sum applied to that purpose; and for the further encouragement of the growth and cultivation of hemp, and for the exportation thereof, it was by law determined that £50 per ton should be paid for hemp.

Lieutenant General Hunter died at Quebec on the 21st August of the same year, (1805) at the age of 59, and was buried in the English Cathedral at Quebec, where a monument in marble has been erected to his memory, by his brother, the physician. It is recorded on his tombstone, that General Hunter's life was spent in the service of his King and country, and that of the various stations, both civil and military, which he filled, he discharged the duties with spotless integrity, unwearied zeal, and successful abilities.

The Honorable Alexander Grant, as President of the Council, succeeded General Hunter in the administration of affairs. Mr. Grant reigned only one year, when he was succeeded by His Excellency Sir Francis Gore. During Mr. Grant's short rule, £50 a year each, was provided for eight years, to six Sheriffs; an Act was passed to regulate the practice of physic and surgery; £490 was appointed for the purchase of instruments to illustrate the principles of natural philosophy, to be deposited in the hands of a person employed in the education of youth; £1,600 was granted for public roads and bridges; the Acts for the appointment of Parish officers, for the collection of assessments, and for the payment of the wages of the House of Assembly were altered and amended; the Custom Duties' Act was continued; and £498 8s. 5d. was made good to the Commissioners treating with Lower Canada, and to the Clerks of Parliament.

The Governments, of both Upper and Lower Canada, were administered by residents of the country at the same period of time. While Mr. Grant, the administrator of Upper Canada, had convened the parliament of the province on the 4th of February, 1806, Mr. Dunn had convoked the parliament of Lower Canada for the 22nd of the same month in the same year. On opening the parliament of Lower Canada Mr. Dunn tellingly alluded to the important victory of Lord Nelson at Trafalgar and to the subsequent action off Ferrol, recommending the renewal of the acts deemed expedient during the previous war for the preservation of His Majesty's government and for the internal tranquillity of the province. By the address, in reply, he was assured that these acts would be renewed. Shortly after the assembly had met it occurred to them that their peculiar privileges, as an offshoot of the Commons of England, had been assailed. The proceedings of a dinner party given to the representatives of Montreal in that city had been printed and circulated in the Montreal Gazette of the 1st April, 1805. The dinner was given in Dillon's tavern, and the party were particularly merry with the abundant supply of wines. Mr. Isaac Todd, merchant, presided. After the customary toasts on all such occasions had been given, the president proposed:—"The honorable members of the Legislative Council, who were friendly to constitutional taxation as proposed by our worthy members in the House of Assembly;"—"Our representatives in parliament, who proposed a constitutional and proper mode of taxation, for building gaols, and who opposed a tax on commerce for that purpose, as contrary to the sound practice of the parent state;"—"May our representatives be actuated by a patriotic spirit, for the good of the province, as dependent on the British empire, and be divested of local prejudices;"—"Prosperity to the agriculture and commerce of Canada, and may they aid each other, as their true interest dictates, by sharing a due proportion of advantages and burthens;"—"The city and county of Montreal and the grand juries of the district, who recommended local assessments for local purposes;"—"May the city of Montreal be enabled to support a newspaper, though deprived of its natural and useful advantages, apparently, for the benefit of an individual." It is difficult to perceive where any breach of privilege was involved, but the assembly looked upon these aspirations and upon the compliments to the Montreal representatives as a false and scandalous and malicious libel, highly and unjustly reflecting upon His Majesty's representative and on both Houses of the Provincial Parliament, and tending to lessen the affections of His Majesty's subjects towards the government of the province. A committee of inquiry was appointed, and reported that the libellers were the printer of the Gazette, Edward Edwards, and the president of the dinner party, Isaac Todd. Nay, the libel was reported to be a "high" breach of the privileges of the Assembly and Messrs. Todd and Edwards were ordered to be taken into custody. But the Serjeant-at-Arms, or his deputy, could not lay his hands upon these gentlemen and the matter was no more thought of until the editor of the Quebec Mercury ridiculed the whole proceedings, when it was ordered that Mr. Cary should be arrested. Mr. Cary was afraid that such unpleasant investigations might give rise to other unpleasant investigations with regard to the powers of the House. He intimated that in France it was customary to tie up the tongue and lock up the press, and for so doing he was compelled either to submit to be himself locked up or apologize. On being arrested he apologized at the Bar of the House and was released. The time of the House was frittered away by empty discussions and wordy addresses upon the gaol tax, previously mentioned, which the king did not disallow as required by the mercantile community. Indeed the administrator of the government in his prorogation speech remonstrated with the Assembly for the non-completion of the necessary business. The civil expenditure of the year came to £35,469 sterling, including £2,000 to General Prescott, who was then in England, and £3,406 to Sir Robert Shore Milnes, with the addition of £2,604 currency, for salaries to the officers of the Legislature, the expenditure exceeding the revenue by £869.

General Prescott, the Governor General, absent in England, was yet in the receipt of £2,000 a year, and the year before he had £4,000; Sir Robert Milnes, the Lieutenant Governor, also absent, had received the salary above mentioned, while Mr. Dunn received £750, as a judge of the King's Bench, £100 for his services as administrator of the government, a pension of £500 sterling a year, on relinquishing the administration, and an additional allowance of £1,500 a year while he had administered the government. Beyond question their "Excellencies" and "His Honor," were amply remunerated. The Governor General and his Lieutenant were absent on business. Indeed, while the Legislative Assembly, in defence of imaginary privileges, were cutting such fantastic capers before high heaven, the confidential secretary of Lord Dorchester and of his successors so far, the Honorable Herman Witsius Ryland,—who, having been Acting Paymaster General to His Majesty's Forces captured by the Americans, went to England, when His Lordship, then General Sir Guy Carleton, evacuated New York, and returned with him to Canada, when that officer was appointed Governor-in-Chief in 1793, full of the sympathies, antipathies, prepossessions, and prejudices of the English conservative of that day,—had devised a scheme, which, had it been carried out, would have rendered their privileges not very valuable. He only designed to "anglify" the French-Canadians by compulsion. Before the separation of the province into Upper Canada and Lower Canada it was a matter of consideration whether all the Roman Catholic churches in the Province could not be converted into Reformed Anglo-Episcopal churches. The contemplated plan of doing so was to take from the "Vicaire du Saint Siége Apostolique" the power of nominating and appointing the parish priests; the appointment of subsequent bishops was to be given to the king; and the Popish Bishop then living, was to be succeeded by a Protestant Bishop, who would find an easy method of turning Cardinal Richelieu's church extension schemes to excellent account in a new mode of ordaining new "catholic" priests, who might be disposed to abandon, at least, some of the doctrines of Rome and embrace, at least, some of those of the Protestant religion. The religious principle involved in this interesting scheme would have done credit to the eighth Henry. It would have had the effect of erecting on a Popish foundation, of building up on the sainted Rock, a church militant as a more powerful safeguard to English influence and power in Canada than the citadel of Quebec has been. Together with the creation of a Provincial Baronetage, in the persons of the members of the Upper House, the honor being descendible to their eldest sons in lineal succession, and the raising of the most considerable of these eldest sons at a future period to a higher degree of honor, as the province increased in wealth, together with the recognition of Mr. DeBoucherville's old noblesse, it would have most certainly much sooner produced that state of things which Sir Francis Bond Head and the "family compact" so ably brought to a crisis. The secretary of all the governors Lower Canada had yet had, corresponded, most confidentially, with his home masters, somewhat, perhaps, to the prejudice of his honor the administrator. As general Simcoe loathed the nasal twang, attenuated appearance, and the vulgar republicanism of a downeast American, so Mr. Witsius Ryland abominated Romanism. Speaking of the Roman Catholic clergy of Canada, he says:—"I call them Popish to distinguish them from the clergy of the Established Church and to express my contempt and detestation of a religion, which sinks and debases the human mind, and which is a curse to every country where it prevails." Nay, he laid it down, as a principle, to undermine the authority and influence of the Roman Catholic Priests. It was or should be the highest object of a governor to crush every papist scoundrel. Following the line of conduct which had so widely established the authority of the Popes of Rome, it was the duty of governors to avail themselves of every possible advantage, and never to give up an inch but with the certainty of gaining an ell. He lamented that the seminary and perhaps some other estates had not been taken possession of by the crown, incorporated, and trustees appointed, out of which incorporated estates a handsome salary might have been paid to the King's Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent of the Romish Church! but the proceeds of which should principally have been applied to the purposes of public education. And he was deeply mortified that "a company of French rascals" had momentarily deprived the country of any hope of such a destiny of these estates. The private and confidential remarks of the secretary were not altogether without effect. His Grace of Portland, then His Majesty's Secretary for the Colonies, peremptorily ordered Governor Milnes to resume and exercise that part of the king's instructions requiring that no person whatever was to have holy orders conferred upon him, or to have cure of souls, without license, first had and obtained from the Governor, and Lord Hobart, the Duke's successor in the Colonial Department, intimated to Sir Robert Milnes that it was highly proper that he should signify to the Catholic Bishop the impropriety of his assuming any new titles or exercising any additional powers to those which he had as the Vicar of the Holy Apostolic See. The French Priests were also to be reminded that their residence in Canada was merely on sufferance, and that it was necessary for them to behave circumspectly, else even that indulgence would be withdrawn. Greatly alarmed at these proceedings the Bishop of Rome respectfully remonstrated. He humbly reminded His Most Excellent Majesty, the King, that nineteen-twentieths of the population were of the Roman Catholic religion; that the humble remonstrant was himself the fourteenth bishop who had managed the church since Canada had happily passed into the hands of the Crown of Great Britain; that the extension of the province was prodigious, requiring more than ever that the superintending bishop should retain all the rights and dignities which His Majesty had found it convenient to suffer the bishops to have at the conquest; and that in the Courts of Justice there should be no room to doubt their powers. It was indeed no wonder that the superintendent of the Church of Rome was alarmed at the aspect of affairs. The Attorney-General Sewell reported with regard to the nomination of Laurent Bertrand to be curé of Saint Léon-le-Grand, by the titular Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, in the case of one Lavergne, who having refused to furnish the pain béni, was prosecuted in the Court of King's Bench, that it was a usurpation in the bishop to erect parishes and appoint curés. He went farther and said that there was no such person as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. The title, rights, and powers of that office had been destroyed by the conquest. Nay, there could not, legally, be any such character, as, if he existed, the King's supremacy would be interfered with, contrary to the Statutes of Henry the Eighth and of Elizabeth. Not only was there a quiet but arbitrary denial of the right of the Roman Catholic Bishop to manage the affairs of his diocese, the possibility of negotiating the Reverend Coadjutor Plessis out of his influence was entertained. Mr. Attorney-General ultimately waited upon that ecclesiastic to explain his own private sentiments to him. The bishop was studiously guarded and significantly polite. The Attorney-General thought that a good understanding ought to exist between the government and the ministers of religion. Mr. Plessis was quite of that opinion. Mr. Attorney-General thought the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion having been permitted the government ought to avow its officers, but not at the expense of the Established Church. Mr. Coadjutor Plessis said that position might be correct. Mr. Attorney-General thought that the government could not allow to Mr. Plessis that which it denied to the Church of England. Mr. Plessis saw that the government thought that the bishop should act under the King's commission, and could see no objection to it. The Attorney-General was strongly of opinion that the right of appointing to curés, which no bishop of the Church of England had, must be abandoned. Mr. Plessis thought that even Buonaparte and the Pope had effected a compromise on that matter. Mr. Attorney-General had no faith in Buonaparte and was but an indifferent Catholic, but the Crown only could select from a Bishop's own Priesthood, and a Bishop, once acknowledged, would be the head of a department. That said Mr. Plessis would be a departure from the Romish doctrine of church discipline. To some extent it would, but your clergy would be officers of the Crown, and you would obtain the means of living in splendour, said the Attorney-General. Splendour, said Mr. Plessis, is not suitable to the condition of a bishop; ecclesiastical rank and a sufficient maintenance is all he needs. The Attorney-General meant that a bishop should have the income of a gentleman. Mr. Plessis meant the same thing, but it was a delicate matter to pension a bishop, for relinquishing his right of nominating to the cures, as the public would not hesitate to say he had sold his church. Never mind, said the Attorney-General, if the matter is viewed aright, you have none to relinquish. I do not know, replied Mr. Plessis. Whatever is to be done must now be done, intimated the Attorney-General. You speak truly, was the modest reply, something must be done, and though we may differ in detail, I hope we shall not in the outline.

Not very long after this conversation Bishop Denaud died. Now was the time for Mr. Witsius Ryland to act or never. He did act most energetically. He ear-wigged Mr. President Dunn, concerning his proper line of conduct on the occasion. He attempted to dissuade Mr. Dunn from a formal acknowledgement of Mr. Plessis, as Superintendent of the Romish Church, till His Majesty's pleasure should be declared. He thought an order should be immediately issued from home, prohibiting the assumption, by a Roman Catholic prelate, of the title of Bishop of Quebec. It occurred to him that a French emigrant bishop, if one could be found, would be more easily managed than Mr. Plessis. But Mr. Plessis was too much for Mr. Ryland, and found favor in the President's sight. Mr. Dunn would not listen to the representations of his secretary, and the wrath of his secretary was kindled. He wrote to Sir Robert Milnes on the subject, and to "My dear Lord," the Right Reverend Jacob Mountain, D.D. Not only was Mr. Dunn determined upon formally recognizing the new Roman Catholic Bishop but he was determined to suffer the Reverend Mr. Panet to take the oath as Coadjutor, without either waiting for His Majesty's pleasure, or for any other sanction whatever. It was most distressing, but "where was the layman, free from vanity, who, at seventy-three years of age, would let slip an opportunity of making a bishop?" It was dreadful. His contempt and indignation rose to a height that nearly choked him. As an apology for the recognition of Mr. Panet, it was all very well to say that his brother was a mighty good sort of a man. A mighty good sort of a man! How devoted were such mighty good sort of men, those very loyal subjects, to His Majesty! From the Speaker himself, down to the "fellow" who held a lucrative office in the Court of King's Bench, and who had sent his son to join the banditties of Mr. Buonaparte, who was not, to suit his purpose, brimfull of loyalty! Things were wretchedly managed, but the wisest thing to be done under present circumstances was nothing.

The Home Government anxious to build up in some manner a Protestant Church establishment had appointed the Right Reverend Jacob Mountain, Doctor in Divinity, to the Diocese of Quebec. At the expense of the Imperial Government, a Cathedral was built in Quebec, which was consecrated in 1804, on the ruins of the Recollet Church of the Jesuits. To this day it is possibly the most symmetrical in appearance of any church of the Church of England in Canada. Exteriorly, it is 135 feet in length and 73 in breadth, while the height of the spire above the ground is 152 feet, the height from the floor to the centre arch, within, being 41 feet. The communion plate, together with the altar cloth, hangings of the desk and pulpit of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, and the books for divine service, was a private present from George the Third. There was then also a Rector of Quebec, having a salary, from the British Government, of £200 a year, such a sum as, Bishop Mountain reported to His Excellency the Governor, no gentleman could possibly live upon! a Rector of Montreal with the same salary, and £80 additional per annum made up by subscription from the parish; a Rector of Three Rivers with a like salary of £200 from home; a Rector of William Henry receiving £100 from home and £50 from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; an evening lecturer at Quebec, receiving £100 from the Imperial Treasury; the incumbent of Missisquoi Bay, obtaining £100 from government, £50 from the Propagation Society, and £30 from the inhabitants; and two vacancies in the "new settlements," requiring £150 to be paid to each. The building of a stone church in Montreal was commenced, but the structure which promised to be "one of the handsomest specimens of modern architecture in the province," was not finished, for want of funds, ten years afterwards. In Upper Canada, so late as 1795, no church had been built. Even in Newark, it is quaintly added by the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, in the same halls where the Legislative and Executive Councils held their sittings, jugglers would have been permitted to display their tricks, if any should have ever strayed to a country so remote. His Grace, quite correct with regard to Newark, was at fault in speaking of the whole province. At Stamford there was a Presbyterian Church, built in 1791, and another church built for the use of all persuasions, a kind of free and common soccage church, in 1795, which was destroyed in the subsequent war. It was in this year that one of the most remarkable men, and one of the most able and indefatigable of the colonial clergy, was strolling about Marischal College, in Aberdeen, studying philosophy. He was a very plain-looking Scotch lad and very cannie. Altogether wanting in that oratorical brilliancy so necessary for an efficient preacher of the great truths of Christianity, Mr. John Strachan had diligently acquired a dry knowledge of the humanities, to fit himself for a teacher of youth. He was, in a limited sense, a classical scholar. Greek and Latin, Hebrew and the Mathematics, were at his fingers' ends. Not long after leaving college, he obtained the place of a preceptor to the children of a farmer in Angus-shire. The situation of schoolmaster of Dunino, a parish situated foury miles south of St. Andrews, in Fifeshire, and six miles north of Anstruther, the school taught by Tennant, the orientalist, professor of Hebrew and other oriental languages in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, and the author of the Poem of Anster Fair, became vacant, when Mr. John Strachan made application for the fat berth, the salary being nearly £30 a year, and obtained it. Mr. Strachan taught quietly at Dunino, attending St. Andrews College, in the winter, until he received the offer of £50 a year, as tutor to the family of a gentleman living in Upper Canada. He accepted it, left Dunino, and went to the wilderness. Mr. Strachan taught as a private tutor for some time and subsequently established a school for himself, when he married a widow possessed of cash and respectably connected. The Church of Scotland, in Canada, was then at a very low ebb. Even in Quebec, although there had been a regularly ordained clergyman of the church officiating since 1759, there was only, from 1767 to 1807, an apartment assigned to the Scotch Church for the purpose of divine worship, by the King's representative, in the Jesuits' College. Nay, in 1807, the Scotch Church was entirely sent adrift by Colonel Brock, to be afterwards permitted to meet in a room in the Court House. Until 1810 there was no Scotch Church in Quebec. What inducement was there for a progressive Scotchman to remain in connection with such a church? Mr. Strachan clearly perceived that the road to worldly preferment ran through the Church of England, and, having a wife, and the expectation of a family, he recognised the expediency of obtaining orders as a descendant of the apostles. It was not long before he obtained permission to officiate as a minister of the Church of England, and he abandoned the birch for the surplice. Mr. Strachan justified every expectation that may have been formed of him. He became a most zealous churchman, and a very short time elapsed until the Scotch schoolmaster was the Hon. and Revd. Dr. Strachan, Rector of York, now Bishop of Toronto, and he may go to the grave satisfied that he has done more to build up the Church of England in Canada, by his zeal, devotion, diplomatic talent, and business energy, than all the other bishops and priests of that church put together.