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

by Charles Roger

It indeed seems quite evident that the supremacy, which Sir James Yeo, an officer at once brave, prudent, and persevering, had obtained upon the lakes, contributed, in some measure, to the total evacuation of Upper Canada by the Americans. He did not conceive that with a couple or more of armed schooners he could sail hither and thither, and effect daring feats, but carefully husbanded the means at his disposal, took advantage of circumstances, and obtained the construction of vessels so much superior to those of the Americans that it needed not the test of a battle to decide upon superiority. Indeed had he been afforded sufficient time, two or more such vessels, and even larger, would have been placed on Lake Champlain, and Sir George Prevost might have made such progress in subduing New York that peace might have been dictated on more flattering terms to Great Britain than they were.

The fleet and army, which had been baffled at Baltimore, by the sinking of twenty ships in the Patapsco, to obstruct the navigation of the river, sailed for New Orleans. The squadron arrived off the shoals of the Mississippi on the 8th of December. Six gun-boats of the enemy, manned by two hundred and forty men, were prepared to dispute with the boats of the fleet, the landing of the troops. To settle this difficulty, Admiral Cockburn put a detachment of seamen and marines, under the command of Captain Lockyer, who succeeded in destroying the whole six, after a chase of thirty-six hours. The pursuit, however, had taken the boats thirty miles from their ships; their return was impeded by intricate shoals and a tempestuous sea, and it was not until the 12th that they could get back. It was only on the 15th that the landing of the troops commenced under adverse circumstances. The weather, how extraordinary soever it may seem, was excessively cold and damp, and the troops, the blacks more especially, suffered severely. Four thousand five hundred combatants, and a considerable quantity of heavy guns and stores were landed, and on the same evening an attack, by the American militia, was repulsed. Sir Edward Pakenham arrived next day, when the army advanced to within six miles of New Orleans. New Orleans was then, as it now is, the emporium of the cotton trade of the United States. Comparatively with the present day, the population was inconsiderable. There were not more than 17,000 inhabitants. But it was a place sure to become of importance, from its situation, and was even then a place of considerable wealth, and, from the nature of its chief export, was one of the principal sources of revenue to the American government, in the Union. The defence of this town was entrusted to General Jackson, afterwards President of the United States, and whose elevation to the chief magistracy is as much to be attributed to the skill and heroism displayed by him in the defence of the chief cotton mart as to any other cause. Jackson was a shrewd, obstinate, and energetic man. On ascertaining that the British had landed, he threw every possible obstacle in the way of their advance. The weather was cold and damp, and the soil was low, and wet, and muddy. A few days' delay in such a situation would make nearly one half of an invading force ill and dispirit the other half. Jackson sent out a few hundreds of militia, every now and then, to harass his enemies, and in the meanwhile he stirred up the 12,000 troops under him, to work vigorously in the erection of lines of defence for the city. Indeed, in a short time, he awaited an attack, with confidence, in a fortified position, all but impregnable. His front was a straight line of upwards of a thousand yards, defended by upwards of three thousand infantry and artillery, and stretching from the Mississippi on the right, to a dense and impassable wood on the left. Along the whole front of this fortified line there was a ditch which contained five feet of water, and which was defended by flank bastions, on which a heavy array of cannon was placed. There were also eight distinct batteries, judiciously disposed, mounting in all twelve guns of different calibres, while on the opposite side of the river, about eight hundred yards across, there was a battery of twenty guns, which also flanked the whole of the parapet. The great strength of the American position was strikingly apparent to General Pakenham. It seemed so very strong indeed that he contemplated a siege. But then the ground was so cold and damp, and the climate so unhealthy, that he could not sit very long before a town, likely to be reinforced, and capable of being strengthened by the construction of lines of defence, within lines of defence, to almost any extent, if not completely invested. And more, Pakenham had not guns sufficient for regular approaches. Pakenham was, however, a good officer, a man of energy, judgment, and decision. He set all hands instantly to work to deepen a canal, in the rear of the British position, by which boats might be brought up to the Mississippi, and troops ferried across to carry the battery on the right bank of the river, a work of extraordinary labour, which was not accomplished until the evening of the 6th of January. The boats were immediately brought up and secreted near the river, and dispositions made for an assault at five o'clock on the morning of the 8th of January. Colonel Thornton was to cross the river, in the night, storm the battery, and advance up the right bank till he came abreast of New Orleans; while the main attack, on the intrenchments in front, was to be made in two columns—the first under General Gibbs, the second led by General Keane. There were, in all, about six thousand combatants, including seamen and marines, to attack double their number, intrenched to the teeth, in works bristling with bayonets, and loaded with heavy artillery.[25] When Thornton would have crossed, the downward current of the Mississippi was very strong, so strong indeed that the fifty boats, in which his division was embarked, were prevented from reaching their destination at the hour appointed for a simultaneous attack upon New Orleans, in front and rear. Pakenham, as the day began to dawn, grew exceedingly impatient, and, at last, having lost all patience, as it was now light, revealing to the enemy, in some degree, his plans, he ordered Gibbs' column to advance. A solemn silence pervaded the American lines. There was indeed nothing to be heard but the measured tread of the column, advancing over the plain, in front of the intrenchments. But when the dark mass was perceived to be within range of the American batteries, a tremendous fire of grape and round shot was opened upon it from the bastions at both ends of the long intrenchment, and from the long intrenchment itself. Gibbs' column, however, moved steadily on. The 4th, 21st, and 44th regiments closed up their ranks as fast as they were opened by the fire of the Americans. On the brow of the glacis, these intrepid men stood as erectly and as firmly as if they had been on parade. But, through the carelessness of the colonel commanding the 44th regiment, the scaling ladders had been forgotten, and it was impossible to mount the parapet. The ladders and fascines were sent for, in all haste, but the men, on the summit of the glacis, were, meanwhile, as targets to the enemy. They stood until riddled through and through, when they fell back in disorder. Pakenham, unconscious that Colonel Mullens, of the 44th, had neglected his orders, and only fancying that the troops being fairly in for it, were staggering only under the heaviness of the enemies' fire, rode to the front, rallied the troops again, led them to the slope of the glacis, and was in the act, with his hat off, of cheering on his followers, when he fell mortally wounded, pierced, at the same moment, by two balls. General Gibbs and General Keane also fell. Keane led on the reserve, at the head of which was the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders, a thousand strong. Undaunted by the carnage, that noble regiment dashed through the disordered throng, in front, and with such fury pressed the leading files on, that without either fascines or ladders, they fairly found their way by mounting on each other's shoulders into the work. But they were then cut down to a man. The fire from the enemy's rifles was terrific. It was almost at the same moment that Colonel Ranney penetrated the intrenchments on the left only to be mowed down by grape shot. An unforeseen circumstance had too long delayed an attack which could only have been successfully made in the dark, and General Lambert, who had succeeded to the command by the death of Pakenham and the wounds of Gibbs and Keane, finding it impossible to carry the works, and that the slaughter was tremendous, drew off his troops. Thornton had been altogether successful on the left bank of the Mississippi. With fourteen hundred men this able and gallant officer repaired to the point assigned to him on the evening of the 7th, but it was nearly midnight before even such a number of the boats as would suffice to transport a third part of his troops across, were brought up. Anxious to co-operate at the time appointed, he, nevertheless, moved over with a third of his men, and, by a sudden charge, at the head of part of the 85th regiment and a body of seamen, on the flank of the works, he succeeded in making himself master of the redoubt with very little loss, though it was defended by twenty-two guns and seventeen hundred men, and amply provided with supplies. And when daylight broke, he was preparing to turn the guns of the captured battery on the enemy's flank, which lay entirely exposed to their fire, when advices were received from General Lambert of the repulse on the left bank of the river. Thornton was unwilling to retire from the battery, but Colonel Dixon, who had been sent by General Lambert to examine it and report whether it was tenable, having reported that it was untenable unless with a larger force than Lambert could spare, he was required to return to the left bank of the river, and the troops at all points withdrew to their camp.

Defeated, far advanced into the enemy's country, an army flushed with success, double their strength in front, and with fifteen miles of desert between the British army and their ships, it was not long before General Lambert came to the conclusion that instead of renewing the attack, retreat was now desirable, and that the sooner he retreated the more safely could it be done. For this, under the circumstances, inevitable retreat, Lambert gathered himself up. He sent forward, during the early part of the night of the 18th, the whole of the field artillery, the ammunition, and the stores of every kind, excepting eight heavy guns, which were destroyed. With the exception of eighty of the worst cases, whom he left to the humanity of General Jackson, who discharged that duty with a zeal and attention worthy of the man, he also removed the whole of the wounded; and, indeed, accomplished his retreat under the most trying circumstances, with such consummate ability, that the whole force under his command, were safely re-embarked on the 27th.

The defeat, which was neither attributable to want of foresight, to incapacity, of any sort, or to lack of bravery, however humiliating it was, but entirely to the accident which delayed a night attack until daybreak, was in some degree compensated for by the capture of Fort Boyer, near Mobile, commanding one of the mouths of the Mississippi. Fort Boyer was attacked by the land and sea forces on the 12th of February, and, with its garrison of 360 men and 22 guns, was compelled to yield, when further operations were stayed by the receipt, on the very next day, of intelligence that peace between Great Britain and the United States had been concluded at Ghent.

It is asserted, with regard to the storming of New Orleans, that Pakenham displayed imprudent hardihood, in the attempt to achieve by force, what might have been gained by combination; and that the whole mischief might have been avoided by throwing the whole troops instead of only Thornton's division, on the right bank of the river, and so have rendered unavailing all Jackson's formidable arrangements. Pakenham's disaster was, however, not the result of imprudent hardihood, but purely the result of accident in the time of attack, and in the neglect of Colonel Mullens, to whom the duty of bringing up the fascines and ladders was entrusted. Pakenham well considered the difficulties which he had to encounter. He would have carried the American entrenchments by a coup de main, had he not perceived that the operation would have been extremely hazardous. He would have sat down before the city and have advanced under cover of first one parallel and then another, had he not perceived that as he approached so the enemy could have retired within successive lines of entrenchment. Nay, he saw that the most probable mode of speedy and successful assault was by a simultaneous attack upon the enemy during the night, in the front and in the rear of their intrenched lines. He further knew that the attack in rear would depend for success, in a very great measure, upon the skill and intrepidity of the officer entrusted with its execution, and he accordingly selected an officer possessed of both these essentials in the person of Colonel Thornton. And with respect to the effect of having landed his whole force, on the right bank of the river, where success, though too late, did attend the efforts of Thornton, it is to be remembered that Colonel Dixon reported to General Lambert, when the battery on that side was in Thornton's possession, that it could not be retained even, without more men than Lambert could spare to re-inforce him. The defeat at New Orleans was only humiliating to Great Britain in the result, not in the conception, and it cannot fairly be laid to the charge of Pakenham that he only exhibited heroic valour, coupled with imprudent hardihood, or that he despised his enemy.

However the heroic defence of New Orleans and the disastrous retreat from Plattsburgh may have elated the Americans and may yet gratify their natural vanity, there are men in the United States, fully alive to the consequences which could not have failed to have resulted from the defeat of Pakenham, had the war continued. The British government had able generals without number, well-trained and experienced soldiers, and ships also without number, to bring to bear upon a country almost pecuniarily exhausted, and suffering from internal dissensions, on the conclusion of a war which had, as it were, brought out the immense resources for war, which were almost latent in England during the American war of independence. That the United States was on the very verge of destruction is evident from the fact that during the continuance of the war, the general government of the United States and the States governments were at variance. There was an apprehension that the affairs of the general government were mismanaged, and, to many, it appeared that a crisis was forming, which, unless seasonably provided against, would involve the country in ruin. That apprehension particularly prevailed throughout New England. Indeed, Massachusetts proposed that measures should be taken for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United States to revise the constitution, and more effectually to secure the support and attachment of all the people, by placing all upon the basis of fair representation. Such a convention actually did meet at Hartford. After a session of three weeks, a report in which several alterations of the federal constitution were suggested, was adopted. Representatives and direct taxes were to be apportioned to the number of free persons; no new State was to be admitted into the Union without the concurrence of two-thirds of both houses; Congress was not to have the power of laying an embargo for more than sixty days; Congress was not to interdict commercial intercourse, without the concurrence of two-thirds of both houses; war was not to be declared without the concurrence of a similar majority; no person to be thereafter naturalised was to be eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives, or hold any civil office under the authority of the United States; and no person was to be twice elected to the presidency, nor was the President to be elected from the same State two terms in succession. The report was a direct censure of the government, who with the alliance of France only contemplated to annex Canada to the United States. It was so understood. The Hartford convention was looked upon by the democrats of the Union as a treasonable combination of ambitious individuals, who sought to sever the Union, and were only prevented from doing so by the somewhat unexpected conclusion of peace, which disembarrassed the administration, and swept away all grounds upon which to prosecute their designs. But the positive truth was that the public mind was excited to a pitch bordering on insurrection by the situation of the country. The war had been singularly disastrous; the recruiting service languished; the national treasury was almost penniless; the national credit was shaken, and loans were effected at a ruinous discount; the New England seaboard was left exposed to the enemy; and the officers under the general government, both civil and military, were filled by men contemned by a vast majority of the people in the north eastern States. Before the war, the foreign trade of the United States was flourishing. The exports amounted to £22,000,000, and the imports to £28,000,000, carried on in 1,300,000 tons of shipping. After the war, the exports had sunk to £1,000,000, and the imports to less than £3,000,000, to say nothing of the losses by capture. This too was the case in America, while the sinews of war were increasing instead of drying up in Great Britain. Yet England was not wholly unaffected by the war. There were great distresses in England, consequent upon the American Embargo Act, in 1811, and it was not until commerce had discovered some new channels in the markets of Russia, Germany, and Italy, that these great distresses were fully abated, while the war had the further and lasting effect of producing manufactures in the United States, to permanently compete with those of Birmingham and Manchester. The treaty of peace which was signed at Ghent, on the 24th of December, 1814, was ratified by the President and Senate of the United States, on the 17th of February, 1815. It was silent upon the subject for which the war had "professedly" been declared. It provided only for the suspension of hostilities; for the exchange of prisoners; for the restoration of territories and possessions obtained by the contending powers, during the war; for the adjustment of unsettled boundaries and for a combined effort to effect the entire abolition of the traffic in slaves.

All parties in the United States, welcomed the return of peace. It was somewhat otherwise in Canada. The army bills had enriched the latter country; and the expenditure of the military departments had benefitted both town and country, without cost. When peace came, this extra expenditure rapidly declined. But the war had further and permanently proved of advantage to Canada, inasmuch as it drew public attention in Europe, to the country, and showed to the residents of the United Kingdom that there was still in America a considerable spot of earth, possessed of at least semi-monarchical institutions, with a good soil and great growing capacity, which could be defended and preserved, as British property, for a time, notwithstanding the assertions made, previous to the war, that the country was in a state of dormant insurrection. The war restored confidence and promoted emigration to Canada.

The Canadian Militia, Voltigeurs, Chasseurs, Drivers, Voyageurs, Dorchester Dragoons, and the Battalion Militia, in both provinces, were, by a General Order, issued on the 1st of March, to be disbanded on the 24th of that month, not a little proud of Detroit and the River Raisin exploits, of the battles of Queenston, Stoney Creek, Chateauguay, Chrystler's Farm, Lacolle, and Lundy's Lane, and of the capture of Michillimackinac, Ogdensburgh, Oswego, and Niagara, by assault.

The eighth parliament of Lower Canada was summoned for the despatch of business, on the 21st of January. In this new parliament, there were James and Andrew Stuart, and for the county of Gaspé, a George Brown,[26] and in all there were fifteen members of British extraction—not much less than one half of the entire House, which, in all, numbered fifty members. After the opening speech from the throne, the House proceeded to the election of a Speaker. The Honorable Jean Antoine Panet, was no longer eligible for election, having been removed to the Legislative Council, and the chair of the Assembly fell upon Louis Joseph Papineau, a man of superior manners, of considerable independence of character, of fluent tongue and impassioned utterance, of extraordinary persuasive powers, and of commanding aspect. He was accepted by Sir Gorge Prevost, and business began. A vote of thanks was unanimously accorded to Mr. Panet for his steady, impartial, and faithful discharge of the speakership for twenty-two years, during the whole of which time he had upheld the honor and dignity of the House, and the rights and privileges of the people. One of the first measures which occupied attention was the militia law. An Act was introduced by which it was so far amended and revised that substitutes were permitted to persons drafted for service. A grant of new duties upon tea, spirits, and on goods, sold at auction, was made; one thousand pounds granted for the promotion of vaccination as a preventative of small pox; £25,000 was granted for the construction of a canal between Montreal and Lachine; a bill was introduced granting the Speaker of the House an annual salary of £1,000; and another was passed granting a similar salary to the Speaker of the Upper House. Of these bills all were finally adopted or sanctioned with the exception of those granting salaries to the two Speakers. That conferring a salary upon the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, was reserved for the royal sanction, but was afterwards confirmed, while that conferring a salary upon the Speaker of the Upper House, was lost in the Legislative Council, because the members of that body considered it infra dignitate, to receive any direct remuneration for their legislative services, the more especially as, with few exceptions, the Speaker and members were already salaried, either as Judges, Bishops, or Clerks of the Executive Council. In the course of the session the expediency of sending to London a kind of agent or ambassador for the country, was again discussed, and its expediency determined upon by the Assembly, but the Legislative Council impressed with the idea that the Governor General should be the only channel of communication with the imperial authorities, refused to concur in any bill framed with the view of securing the services of any such agent, who could not be more than a delegate from the Assembly, and whose acts could not be considered binding on the government of the province. The matter was then referred to a select committee of the Assembly, who reported that the necessity for an agent appeared evident, each branch of the legislature having a right to petition the King, the Lords, and the Commons of England; that although the Governor could transmit such petitions to the foot of the throne, he could neither transmit nor support such petitions when transmitted before the House of Lords or before the House of Commons, solicit the passing of laws, nor conduct many affairs which might be conducted by a person resident in Great Britain. Without an agent the Assembly would be deprived of the right of petition. An agent was especially necessary to the people of the province, because endeavours were even then being made to prejudice the imperial government, and the British nation against Canada, and endeavours were being made to effect a change in the free constitution which had been conferred upon Lower Canada, by means of a union of the two Canadas, the language, laws, and usages of the two provinces being entirely distinct. It was further urged that uneasiness would cease whenever a resident agent was appointed, and as an additional reason for the appointment of such an agent, accredited to the Court of St. James by the province. Such an agent would have all the weight of a foreign ambassador, and his representations could not fail to meet with attention. But the agent to have such weight could not merely have been the representative of one branch of the legislature, but of the three branches. He must have been the authorised governmental agent of the province, the government of the province being in the confidence of the country. Unfortunately such a state of things did not prevail. The colonists had neither voice nor shared in the government of the country. The Legislative Assembly nearly compensated for the lack of newspapers. It poured into the ear of the governing party the complaints of the people, suggested reforms, and insisted upon the obtainment of them. And the Assembly might have better obtained a hearing for themselves in England, by the establishment and maintenance of a single newspaper in London, than by the nomination either of a Hume or a Roebuck, to represent Canadian grievances to the representatives of a people who were ignorant of the exact nature of such grievances, and could not, therefore, press them upon parliamentary attention. The pertinacity with which the House of Assembly of Lower Canada adhered to the idea of an agent for the people of Lower Canada, is not matter of surprise, for, it is beyond all dispute that the government of the province stood between the people of Canada and the people and government of England, to the great prejudice and injury of the country. In this case, an address, founded on the Assembly's report, was drawn up to be transmitted by the Governor-in-Chief to the Prince Regent, praying that His Royal Highness might give instructions to his Governor of Canada to recommend the appointment of a provincial agent to the imperial legislature. The Assembly persisted in the heads of impeachment exhibited by the Commons of Canada against the Chief Justices Sewell and Monk, and persisted in nominating James Stuart, Esquire, one of the members of the House, to be the agent of the House, in conducting and managing the prosecutions to be instituted against them, if His Royal Highness the Prince Regent permitted these impeachments to be submitted to a tribunal, competent to adjudge upon them, after hearing the matter on the part of the impeachments, and on the part of the accused. It was while these things were being done in the Assembly that the treaty of peace was officially announced to the House. The Assembly granted eight days' pay to the officers of the militia, after the time already noticed as determined upon for the disbandment of the provincial corps; an annuity of six pounds was provided for such rank and file as had been rendered incapable of earning a living; a gratuity was made to the widow and the orphan; and it was recommended that grants of land should be made by His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, to such militiamen as had served in defence of the province during the war. And more, the House, entertaining the highest veneration and respect for the character of His Excellency, Sir George Prevost, whose administration, under circumstances of peculiar novelty and difficulty, stood highly distinguished for energy, wisdom and ability, and who had rescued the province from the danger of subjugation to her implacable foe, unanimously granted and gave a service of plate not exceeding £5,000 sterling value, to His Excellency, in testimony of the country's sense of distinguished talents, wisdom, and ability. Sir George Prevost felt strongly the high compliment which had been paid to him as a civil ruler. And he deserved it. Surrounded as he was by the selfishness of officials, the sycophants of the colonial office, and the scandalizers of himself and the country, and tormented by the suspicions of the Assembly, which were the result of such sycophancy and scandal, Sir George pursued a most straightforward and honorable course as a Governor-in-Chief, expressed his gratitude, and would transmit the address to the Prince Regent, to be governed by His commands. The Regent approved of the donation and was rejoiced that Sir George had deserved it; but the Legislative Council would not assent to the bill![27] The House afterwards resolved that on the opening of the next session of parliament it would take into consideration the expediency of granting a pecuniary compensation to the Honorable Jean Antoine Panet, for his long and meritorious services as Speaker; and an Act was passed granting £500 to the Surveyor General, Joseph Bouchette, Esquire, to assist him in publishing his geographical and topographical maps of Upper and Lower Canada. At the prorogation, Mr. Speaker Papineau intimated to the Governor that the House had bestowed their most serious attention on the recommendations submitted to them. A great part of the expenses occasioned by a state of war had been continued by the Revenue Act which they had adopted. They had indemnified such of the citizens whom the love of their king and country had induced to accept commissions in the provincial corps, until they should be advantageously enabled to resume their civil professions, which they had abandoned on the declaration of war. They had afforded relief to the families of such of their countrymen as had fallen, and to those whose sufferings for life, from honorable wounds, furnished living evidence of the zeal which had animated His Majesty's Canadian subjects, in the defence of the rights of that empire to which it was their glory to belong. The events of the war had drawn closer the bonds which connected Great Britain with the Canadas. Although at the epoch of the declaration of war the country was destitute both of troops and money, yet from the devotion of a brave and loyal, yet unjustly calumniated people, resources sufficient for disconcerting the plans of conquest devised by a foe, at once numerous and elate with confidence, had been derived. The blood of the sons of Canada had flowed mingled with that of the brave soldiers sent for its defence, when re-inforcements were afterwards received. The multiplied proofs of the efficacious and powerful protection of the mother country and of the inviolable loyalty of the people of Canada strengthened their claim to the free exercise and preservation of all the benefits secured to them by their existing constitution and laws. The pursuits of war were about to be succeeded by those of peace, and it was by the increase of population, agriculture and commerce, that the possession of the colony might become of importance to Great Britain. It was with lively satisfaction, therefore, that the House heard His Excellency recommend to their consideration the improvement of internal communications, and they were only too proud to second His Excellency's enlightened views by large appropriations to facilitate the opening of a canal from Montreal to Lachine, to assist in the opening up of new roads, and to acquire such information as might enable them afterwards to follow up and extend that plan of improvement.

Sir George Prevost then closed the session. He praised the liberality with which the public service had been provided for; alluded to the benefits promised by peace; informed parliament that he had been summoned to return to England for the purpose of repelling accusations affecting his military character, which had been preferred by the late naval commander-in-chief, on the lakes, in Canada, and while he would leave the province with regret, he eagerly embraced the opportunity afforded him of justifying his reputation; and yet, however intent he might be on the subject which so unexpectedly summoned his attention, he would bear with him a lively recollection of the firm support he had derived from the Legislature of Canada, and should be gratified to represent personally to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, the zeal and loyalty evinced by every class of His Majesty's subjects in British America, during his administration.