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

by Charles Roger

The new Parliament met on the 9th of April, 1809. The Assembly were directed to choose a Speaker. Out of doors and indoors, in the Governor's Castle, at the official desk, in the merchant's counting room, in the baker's shop, in the Council, and in the Assembly itself, the choice of a Speaker by the Assembly, was a matter of interest. It was whispered that Mr. Panet had incurred the Governor's displeasure, and that all the toadies would vote against him. It was blandly hinted that Mr. Panet having been dismissed from the Militia, the House, having, regard to its own dignity, could not call him to the Chair. It was said in conversation that Mr. Panet was an excellent and most impartial Speaker, and it was a pity that he had suffered himself to have been connected with the seditious and libellous Canadien. Only for Mr. Panet's unfortunate position, no more suitable person, for the highly honorable office of Speaker, could have been thought of. But he must not be Speaker under present circumstances. The Assembly thought otherwise and, acting independently and fearlessly, elected Mr. Panet as their Speaker. His Excellency the Governor did not much relish the choice. He did not, however, refuse to confirm Mr. Panet as Speaker of the Assembly. It was thought that he would be refused confirmation. But when he appeared at the Bar, with the House at his heels, and supported by the Mace, the Honorable the Speaker of the Legislative Council was only commanded to tell Mr. Panet, that having filled the Chair of Speaker, during four successive Parliaments, it was not on the score of insufficiency that he would admit an excuse on Mr. Panet's part, nor form objections on his own part. He had no reason to doubt the discretion and moderation of the present House of Assembly, and as he was, at all times, desirous of meeting their wishes, so he would be particularly unwilling not to do so, on an occasion, in which they were themselves principally interested. He, therefore, allowed and confirmed Mr. Panet to be Speaker. His Excellency, though somewhat ironical in his mode of confirmation, acted liberally and prudently. In His Excellency's speech from the throne, allusion was made to the unfavourable posture of affairs with America; to the revolution in Spain and to the generous assistance afforded that country by Great Britain; again to the emigration of the Royal Family of Portugal to Brazil; to Wellington's victory at Vimeira, by which Portugal had been rescued from the French; he cautioned the members of the Legislature against jealousies among themselves, or of the government, which could have no other object in view than the general welfare; and alluded to the non-intercourse and embargo policy of the United States, which, so far, had operated favourably for the Canadian trade, particularly in the article of lumber, which, owing to the exclusion of British shipping from the Baltic, had become a staple export. The House was not pleased at the hints about jealousies, nor very much pleased with His Excellency's remarks in confirming their Speaker. The reply was not quite an echo of the speech. It was more. It was a quiet remonstrance against governmental insinuation. On proceeding to business, the propriety of expelling the judges was again discussed. A motion to expel them was even made, but it was negatived. Some even who were averse to the judges having seats in the Assembly were not prepared to go the length of expelling them from the House. All that was wanted was that, in future, judges should be ineligible for seats in the Assembly. To this end, a committee was appointed to inquire into the inconvenience resulting from the elections of judges to the Assembly, with orders to report to the House. The committee inquired and reported, and of course, reported unfavourably to the judges. A bill to disqualify the judges was re-introduced and read a first time. Mr. Hart again appeared at the Bar to take his seat for Three Rivers. He had been re-elected. He was still a Jew, and showed no disposition to recant his error. Nor would the House recant their error. The resolution which had been adopted against Mr. Hart's taking his seat in the previous Parliament was repeated in this. The House of Assembly went still farther. A bill to disqualify all Jews from being eligible to seats in the Assembly, was introduced and read twice. Five weeks had elapsed and the public business had not begun. The Governor was very much annoyed. The refractory spirit of the House, as regarded the judges, was most distasteful to him. Suddenly, on the 15th of May, he went down to the Legislative Council, assented to five bills, and summoned the attendance of the Commons. "When I met you, said the now irate Sir James, at the commencement of the present session, I had no reason to doubt your moderation or your prudence, and I therefore willingly relied upon both. I expected from you a manly sacrifice of all personal animosities. I hoped for a zealous dispatch of your public duty. I looked for earnest endeavours to promote the general harmony. I looked for due and indispensable attention to the other branches of the Legislature. It was your constitutional duty. It was due to the critical juncture of the times. I have been disappointed in every hope on which I relied. You have wasted in frivolous debates, or by frivolous contests on matters of form, that time and those talents to which the public have an exclusive title. You have abused your functions. In five weeks, you have only passed five bills. You have been so intemperate in debate that moderation and forbearance is scarcely to be looked for without a new Assembly. Gentlemen, Parliament is dissolved. A new Parliament will be convened as soon as convenience will permit. My object in thus acting, is to preserve the true principles of the free and happy constitution of the Province." He turned with peculiar satisfaction from lecturing to the Assembly, to offer his acknowledgements to the gentlemen of the Legislative Council, for their unanimity, zeal, and unremitting attention to the public business, manifested in their proceedings. They were not to blame for the waste of time and for the little that had been done for the public good. The Assembly were surprised. It never entered the head of a single member that Sir James Craig, who, on first meeting a Canadian Parliament, had been so courteous, would have been so abruptly censorious. A prorogation was anticipated, when the Usher of the Black Rod commanded, by order of His Excellency, their presence at the Bar of the Upper House, but the possibility of a dissolution of Parliament never occurred to any one. The constitution, boasted so much of, was certainly a happy one. The representatives of the people were suddenly sent back to their constituents as unfitted for their business. And for some time, the country, tickled with the bluntness of the Governor, applauded the act. Had Sir James desired to be absolute, the country, before it had had time to consider, would have assisted His Excellency in a coup d'état. It was not until the Canadien had taken the matter up energetically that any of the discarded legislative materials could obtain a hearing from their constituents. After the Canadien had criticised the speech from the throne, and had commented on the Bill of Rights, in allusion to the Governor's measures, with respect to the Assembly, and as applicable to the existing circumstances of the Province—"Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois,"—public opinion gradually turned round in favor of the Assembly.

Sir James Craig's opinion of the Canadians had undergone a very considerable change for the worse. In a despatch to Lord Liverpool, some short time afterwards, on the state of affairs in Canada, which Mr. Ryland was sent to London with, Sir James speaks of Canada as being a conquered country, a fact never to be put out of view. He spoke of a colony usually estimated to contain a population of 300,000 souls. Of these, 20,000, or 25,000 only, might have been English or Americans, and the remainder were French. They were in language, religion, in manners, and in attachment, French. They were bound to the English (officials) by no tie, but that of a common government. They looked upon the government of the province with mistrust, jealousy, envy, and hatred. He was certain his opinion of them was well founded. There were very few French Canadians in the country who were not tainted with the sentiments he had imputed to them generally. Common intercourse hardly existed between the French and English. The lower class, to strengthen a word of contempt, added the word Anglais to it. The upper classes, who formerly associated with the English upper classes, had entirely withdrawn themselves. The Canadians, generally, were ignorant, credulous, and superstitious. He did not perceive that they had any great vice except one. Drunkenness was the prevailing vice. When drunk they were brutal and quarrelsome. Like other people, suddenly freed from a state of extreme subjection, they were apt to be insolent to their superiors. They were totally unwarlike and averse to arms or military habits, though vain to an excess, and possessing a high opinion of their prowess. They had been so flattered and cajoled about their conduct, in the year 1775, that they really believed they stood as heroes, in history, whereas no people, with the exception of a very few individuals, behaved worse than they did on that occasion. Now came the teachings of Mr. Secretary Ryland, which that gentleman did not think it prudent to bore Sir James with until he had ascertained how far the incomparable man's sentiments accorded with his own. The Superintendent of the Church of Rome in Canada, had been designated Roman Catholic Bishop, by other Governors, which was both dangerous and wrong, in view of the Queen's supremacy. The Bishop did as he pleased, in the appointment of curés. His patronage was at least equal to that of the government. The Bishop was cautious not to perform any act that might be construed into an acknowledgement of His Majesty's rights. He would not obey a Proclamation of the King for a fast or thanksgiving, but issued a "mandat," of his own, to the same effect, but without the least allusion to His Majesty's authority. The arms of Great Britain were nowhere put up in the churches. With the curés no direct communication with the government existed. The church selected its ecclesiastics, the Governor knew not why, from the lower orders. The Bishop was the son of a blacksmith. The Coadjutor was brother to a demagogue, the Speaker of the Assembly, an "avocat." The curés saw in Buonaparte the restorer of the Catholic religion. The Legislative Council, an object of jealousy to the Lower House, was composed of everything that was respectable in the Province. There were about 300,000 French inhabitants to 25,000 English and American, yet there never had exceeded fourteen or fifteen English members in the House of Assembly, while then there were only ten, and it was desired to get rid of the judges! The interests of certainly not an unimportant colony, was in the hands of six petty shopkeepers, a blacksmith, a miller, and fifteen ignorant peasants, a doctor or apothecary, twelve Canadian "avocats" and notaries, and four people respectable so far as that they did not keep shops, together with the ten Englishmen, who composed the Legislative Assembly. Some of the habitants could neither read nor write. Two members of a preceding Parliament had actually signed the roll by marks, and there were five more whose signatures were scarcely legible, and were such as to show that to be the extent of their writing. Debate was out of the question. A Canadian Parliament did not understand it. The habitant M.P., openly avowed that the matter, whatever it was, had been explained to him. The "moutons" were crammed at meetings held nightly for the purpose. There was one singular instance, of a habitant, who, in every instance, voted against the prevailing party. But that was the solitary exception to a general rule. The Canadians voted en masse, as directed—not by the government. The government was entirely without influence. The Assembly was the most independent in the world, for the government could not obtain even that influence which might arise from personal intercourse. He could not be expected to associate with blacksmiths, millers, and shopkeepers. Even the avocats and notaries he could nowhere meet, except during the actual sitting of Parliament, when he had a day in the week expressly appropriated to receiving a large portion of them at dinner. The leaders in the House were mostly a set of unprincipled avocats and notaries, totally uninformed as to the principles of the British constitution, or parliamentary proceedings, which they, nevertheless, professed to take for their model. Without property to lose, these men had gradually advanced in audacity, in proportion as they had considered the power of France as more firmly established by the successes of Buonaparte in Europe. They were obviously paving the way for a change of dominion. Without one act by which to point out either injury or oppression, the people of the Province had been taught to look upon His Majesty's government with distrust, and they publicly declared, while avowing such distrust, that no officer of the Crown was to be elected into the House. The English in general and their own seigneurs were entirely proscribed. Except in the boroughs or cities these classes had no chance of election. A paper called the Canadien, had been published, and industriously circulated in the country, for three or four years, to degrade and vilify the officers of government, under the title of gens en place; and to bring the government itself into contempt, by alluding to the Governor as a ministère, open to their animadversions. Nothing calculated to mislead the people had been omitted in this vile print. The various circumstances that brought about the abdication of James the Second, had been pointed out, with allusions, as applicable to the government here. "La nation Canadienne," was their constant theme. Religious prejudices, jealousy, and extreme ignorance, forbade the expectation of any improvement in the Assembly. Questions before the Houses were always viewed as affecting or otherwise some temporal right of their clergy, or having some remote tendency to promote the establishment of the Protestant interest. How the Act for the establishment of Public Schools had passed had always been matter of surprise to him. There was much jealousy at the progress of the Eastern Townships, which were settled by American loyalists. The country was beginning to look up to the members of the Assembly as the governors of the country. Formerly the cry was—"La Chambre to the devil!" He thought that the only remedy for the state of things which he had described was to deprive the province of its constitution, as the provincialists termed their charter. The people were unfitted for liberty. And here are the Governor's reasons for saying that a people were incapable of free institutions. "That spirit of independence, that total insubordination among them, that freedom of conversation, by which they communicate their ideas of government, as they imbibe them from their leaders, all which have increased wonderfully within these five or six years, owe their origin entirely to the House of Assembly and to the intrigues incident to elections. They were never thought of before." One really wonders that even a general officer could have ventured upon sending to England such trash, a country which had produced a Charles Fox, who took at the passing of the Separation Act so opposite a view of human nature. Doubtless, the habitants are precisely, even at this day, as Sir James represented them to be. But it was superlative impudence in a man of plebeian extraction to say that he could not associate with members of Parliament, who followed the occupation of shopkeeping for a living. It surely was enough for Buonaparte to have stigmatized England as a nation of shopkeepers. Sir James might have left it alone, after having experienced the independent energies of a nation of wooden clock and wooden nutmeg makers. The "gens en place" had badly advised him, and he was too blind to see it. Sir James was an Indian Governor with a vengeance.

The fortifications of the City of Quebec had been much improved during the summer of 1808, and the foundations of the four martello towers, which now stand outside of the fortifications, on the land side, at the distance of nearly a mile, were laid.

After the dissolution of the Parliament, about the middle of June, the Governor set out on a tour through the Province. He was attended by a numerous suite, travelled in great state, and was well received wherever he halted. At Three Rivers, Montreal, St. Johns, and William Henry, addresses were presented to him. He was applauded and even thanked for having stretched the royal prerogative so far as to dissolve the House without any sufficient reason. What was gained by the fulsome adulation is not particularly apparent, unless it be that the Canadien had an opportunity afforded it for not very flattering criticisms. The opportunity was not by any means lost. The Canadien grinned at the gens en place, and even ventured to laugh at the royal prerogative himself. But the gens en place were not to be laughed out of countenance by a vile print, which only could appeal to French passions and Romish prejudices. They only waited until His Excellency returned to Quebec, to renew their congratulations. The citizens of Quebec, on Sir James' return to the Chateau, waited upon him with an address. They approved of his judicious and firm administration. Sir James, perfectly elated, expressed, in a particular manner, his satisfaction. It was most gratifying to have received such an address from those whose "situations" afforded them the more immediate opportunity of judging of the motives by which he might be actuated on particular occasions.

In November of this year, the first steamer was seen on the St. Lawrence. At 8 o'clock on the 6th of that month, the steamboat Accommodation arrived at Quebec, with ten passengers from Montreal. She made the passage (180 miles) in sixty-six hours, having been thirty hours at anchor. In twenty hours, after leaving Montreal, she arrived at Three Rivers. The passage money was only eight dollars for the downward trip and nine dollars for the trip upward. Neither wind nor tide could stop the Accommodation, and the Accommodation was eighty-two feet long on deck. The accommodation afforded to passengers was not, however, very great. Twenty berths were all that cabin passengers could be accommodated with. Great crowds visited her saloons. The Mercury told its readers that the steamboat received her impulse from an open, double-spoked perpendicular wheel, on either side, without any circular band or rim. To the end of each double-spoke, a square board was fixed, which entered the water, and by the rotatory motion, acted like a paddle. The wheels were put and kept in motion by steam, which operated in the vessel. And a mast was to be fixed in her for the purpose of using a sail, when the wind was favourable, which would occasionally accelerate her headway. After the Accommodation had made several trips, Upper Canada began to "guess" about the expediency of having "Walks-in-the-Water." The Accommodation was built by Mr. John Molson, of Montreal, an exceedingly enterprising man of business, and for a number of years, his enterprise secured to him a monopoly of the steam navigation of the lower St. Lawrence. He died an "honorable," only a few years ago.

During 1808, 334 vessels, or according to the Harbour Master's statement, 440 vessels, arrived at Quebec from sea, making up 66,373 tons of shipping, in addition to which, 2,902 tons of shipping were built at the port. The revenue was £40,608, and the civil expenditure £1,251 sterling. The salaries and contingencies of the Legislature amounted to £3,077. The salary of the Governor-in-Chief was £4,500 sterling, and that of the Lieutenant-Governor, who had been three years absent in England, £1,500. On the 28th of November, in this year, Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton, whose brother was Marquis of Cunningham, succeeded Sir Robert Shore Milnes, in the now sinecure office of Lieutenant-Governor, where he remained to enjoy the otium sine dignitate.

A continuance of the peace between His Majesty's government and that of the United States was, in the beginning of 1810, considered less probable than ever. After the death of Washington, which occurred on the 4th December, 1799, during the Presidency of Mr. Adams, political excitement ran high in the United States. At the expiration of Mr. Adams' term of office, there were, as candidates for the Chief Magistracy of the Union, and for the Vice-Presidency:—Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, on the one side, and Mr. Adams and Mr. C. D. Pinckney, on the other. Mr. Adams, elected by the Federalist or Tory party, had given much offence to the Democratic party, by his law against sedition, designed to punish the abuse of speech and of the press. By this law a heavy fine was to be imposed, together with an imprisonment for a term of years, upon such as should combine or conspire together, to "oppose any measure of the government." No one, on any pretence, under pain of similar punishment, was to write or print, utter or publish, any malicious writing against the government of the United States, or against either House of the Congress, or against the President. In a word, the liberty of discussion was annihilated. A more extraordinary law could not possibly have been put upon the Statute Books of a country, where every official, being elective by the people, his conduct, while in office was, in a common sense point of view, open to popular animadversion. As far as producing the effect contemplated was concerned, the law was altogether inefficacious. The people met and talked together against their President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Nay, Mr. Adams lost what he designed to secure, his re-election, by it. The Democrats were furiously opposed to him. While Messrs. Jefferson and Burr got each seventy-three votes, the opposition candidates for President and Vice-President, Messrs. Adams and Pinckney only got, for the former, sixty-five votes, and for the latter, sixty-four. Messrs. Burr and Jefferson having each an equal number of votes, it became the duty of the House of Representatives, voting by States, to decide between these pretenders to the chief power in the State. The constitution provided that the person having the greatest number of votes should be President, and that the person having the next highest number of votes should be Vice-President. For several days the ballot was taken. The Federalists or Tories supported Mr. Burr, and the Democrats Mr. Jefferson. At last the choice fell upon the latter, and Mr. Burr was elected to the Vice-Presidency. It is well to know these circumstances in connection with subsequent events. Mr. Jefferson annihilated the minority of the republic. He had as much contempt for them as Sir James Craig or Mr. Ryland could have had for the conquered Canadians. He swept them from every office of profit or emolument under the State. When remonstrated with, by the merchants of New Haven, respecting the removal of the Collector of Customs at that port, merely because he was a Federalist or tory, the President quietly replied, that time and accident would give the Tories their just share. Had he found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the Democratic party with whom he acted, his removals and substitutions would have been less sweeping. But their total exclusion called for a more prompt corrective. And he would correct the error. When the error was fully corrected then he would only ask himself concerning an applicant for office, these questions:—"Is he honest?" "Is he capable?" and "Is he faithful to the Constitution?" The Tories were almost inclined to burn the White House.

Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1802; in 1804, Colonel Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, killed General Hamilton in a duel; Mr. Jefferson was re-elected President in 1804, and Mr. George Clinton, of New York, instead of Burr, now deservedly unpopular with all but the filibustering classes, Vice-President; in 1805, Michigan became a territorial government of the United States; and in the autumn of 1805 the outcast President Burr was detected at the head of a project for revolutionizing the territory west of the Alleghanies, and of establishing an independent empire there, of which New Orleans was to be the capital, and himself the chief. To the accomplishment of this scheme, Burr brought into play all the skill and cunning of which he was possessed. And it was not a little. He had his design long in contemplation. He pretended to have purchased a large tract of territory, of which he conceded to his adherents considerable slices. He collected together, from all quarters where either he himself, or his agents, possessed influence, the ardent, the restless, and the desperate, persons ready for any enterprise analogous to their characters. He also seduced good and well-meaning citizens, by assurances that he possessed the confidence of the government, and was acting under its secret patronage. He had another project, in case of the failure of the first. He designed to make an attack upon Mexico and to establish an empire there. He failed. Before his standard was raised, the government was made aware of his designs, and he was brought to trial, at Richmond, on a charge of treason, committed within the district of Virginia. It was not proved, however, that he had been guilty of any overt act, within the State, and he was released. It was probably to find employment for that restless and desperate class of persons, with which the United States even then abounded, that the government of America sought cause of quarrel with Great Britain, as well as to produce that spurious activity among the industrial classes, which is ever the result of warlike preparations.

In 1809, Mr. James Madison was elected President of the United States. During Mr. Jefferson's administration, commercial intercourse with France and Great Britain had been interdicted. When, however, Mr. Madison was fairly established in the Presidency, he showed a disposition to renew intercourse, and was seconded in his endeavours by Mr. Erskine, then British Minister at Washington. Mr. Erskine non-officially intimated to the American Secretary of State, that if the President would issue a Proclamation for the renewal of intercourse with Great Britain, that it was probable the proposal would be readily accepted. It was done. But the British government refused to rescind the Orders in Council of January and November 1807, so far as the United States were concerned, which would have given the benefit of the coasting trade of France to the Americans, recalled Mr. Erskine for having exceeded his instructions, and sent Mr. Jackson to Washington in his stead. A correspondence was immediately after Mr. Jackson's arrival at the American seat of government, opened with Mr. Madison's Secretary of State, and was as suddenly closed. Mr. Jackson was, as a diplomatist, rather blunt. Repeatedly, he asserted that the American Executive could not but have known from the powers exhibited by Mr. Erskine, that in stipulating, as he had done, he had transcended those powers, and was, therefore, acting without the authority of his government. The American Executive deemed such an assertion equivalent to a declaration that the American government did know that Mr. Erskine had exceeded his instructions. Mr. Jackson denied that his language could be so interpreted. The American Executive at once replied that Mr. Jackson's tone and language could not but be looked upon as reflecting upon the honor and integrity of the American government, and the correspondence was closed. The British government, not considering Mr. Jackson's diplomatic efforts as particularly happy, recalled him. He escaped, however, more direct censure.

These events had just occurred, across the line '45, when Sir James Craig, now more anxious than ever, to obtain legislative assistance, under circumstances that would not be liable to interruption from the expiration of the period for which one of the branches was chosen, ordered the writs to be issued for a new general election. The elections took place in October, 1809, when, contrary to the expectation of His Excellency, most of the gentlemen who held seats in the parliament which, in the previous May, had been so unexpectedly dissolved, were again returned. There were some substitutions. But those only who halted between two opinions, in fearing the government, while representing the people, were supplanted by men who would echo the vox (populi) et preterea nihil, in the Chamber of Deputies. They were called together on the 29th of January, 1810. They were told to elect a Speaker, which they did, by selecting the former Speaker, Mr. Panet. They were told to appear at the Bar of the Upper House. And they did appear in the confusion usual on all similar occasions. The Governor, graciously confirmed their choice of a Speaker, and Mr. Panet having bowed his acknowledgments, His Excellency expressed his concern that, far from an amicable settlement of the existing differences, between the British and American governments, as was anticipated from the arrangement agreed upon by His Majesty's Minister at Washington, circumstances had occurred that seemed to have widened the breach, and to have removed that desirable event to a period scarcely to be foreseen by human sagacity; the extraordinary cavils made with a succeeding minister; the eager research to discover an insult which defied the detection of "all other penetration;" the consequent rejection of further communication with that minister, and indeed every step of intercourse, the particulars of which were known by authentic documents, evinced so little of a conciliatory disposition, and so much of a disinclination to meet the honorable advances made by His Majesty's government, while these had been further manifested in such terms, and by such conduct, that the continuance of peace seemed to depend less on the high sounded resentment of America, than on the moderation with which His Majesty might be disposed to view the treatment he had met with; he felt it to be unnecessary to urge preparation for any event that might arise from such a condition of things; he persuaded himself that in the great points of security and defence one mind would actuate all; he assured the country of the necessary support of regular troops should hostilities ensue, which with the "interior" force of the country would be found equal to any attack that could be made upon the province; the militia would not be unmindful of the courage which they had displayed in former days, (when, of course, they behaved worse, with the exception of a few individuals, than any people ever did![12] ) the bravery of His Majesty's arms had never been called in question; he congratulated the legislature on the capture of Martinique, and triumphantly alluded to the battle of Talavera, which had torn from the French that character of invincibility which they had imagined themselves to have possessed in the eyes of the world. He recommended the renewal of those Acts which were designed to enable the Executive to discharge its duty against dangers, which could not be remedied by the course of common law; he drew attention to the numerous forgeries of foreign bank notes, and recommended a penal statute for their suppression; and he remarked that the question of the expediency of excluding the Judges of the King's Bench from the House of Representatives had been, during the two last sessions, much agitated, and that, although he would not have himself interdicted the judges from being selected by the people to represent them in the Assembly, had the question ever come before him, he had been ordered by His Majesty to give his assent to any proper bill, concurred in by the two Houses, for rendering the judges ineligible to a seat in the Assembly.