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

by Charles Roger

The writs for the new elections were issued in haste. Indeed so early as the month of March, they were completed, the greater number of the members of the previous Assembly having been re-elected. But before even the elections had been completed, General Drummond was notified of the appointment of Sir John Sherbrooke, the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, to the Governor-Generalship of British North America, and leaving Major-General Wilson in temporary charge of the government, he sailed for England on the 1st of May.

It is impossible to speak of Sir Gordon Drummond's civil government. The measures which he proposed were well calculated to benefit the country. He was thwarted, possibly in good intentions, by the commands of the imperial government, requiring him imperatively to obtain the submission of the colonial legislature to Downing-street dictation, without remonstrance. A colonial legislature, tethered as it is, and ever will be, until the Governor is elected by the people, to English administrative incapacity might, with no lack of prudence, have been permitted rope enough to wander round the tethering post, so that it would only have been at considerable intervals that the effect of the tethers would have been in any degree galling or even felt.

In 1815, the revenue of Lower Canada amounted to £150,273 currency, the expenditure to £125,218 sterling, in which was included £16,555 for the erection of the gaol in Quebec; £26,439 for militia services; and £35,325, the proportion of duties to Upper Canada. Only 194 vessels of 37,382 tons, were cleared at Quebec, not taking into account ten new vessels of only 1,462 tons altogether, hardly equal to the tonnage of a single vessel of the present day.

Sir John Sherbrooke did not arrive at Quebec until the 21st of July. He was then received with all the honors due to his rank and station. Every body was as obsequious as any body could be, and great things were, of course, expected from the new man. Nor was Sir John deficient in ability. He had been most successful in his government of Nova Scotia, and he had been most prudent in his negotiations with the people of Maine. He had too an opportunity for acquiring popularity immediately on his arrival, and he did not suffer the opportunity to escape him. The wheat crop had failed in the lower part of the district of Quebec. The days though warm as usual were succeeded by cold frosty nights, which killed the wheat. There was indeed a prospect of a famine. Representations of anticipated distress, came pouring in upon him from first one parish and then another. A less decided man would have called upon the provincial parliament to have acted as became the emergency. Sir John threw open the King's stores, and on his own responsibility, advanced a large sum of money from the public treasury, for the purchase of such supplies as the imperial store-houses did not afford. The season, in Lower Canada, he knew was a short one, and to have procrastinated would have been fatal to the farmer.

Nor was Sir John less prudent in other matters. He saw the mistake committed by his predecessor with regard to the impeachments and he endeavored to avoid any similar mistake. He wrote to England for instructions, taking care to inform the Minister of State for the Colonies of the true state of public opinion in the province. He represented that the appeal to the people by Sir Gordon Drummond had entirely failed; the people were irritated at the appeal to them under such circumstances; the dissolution of a parliament was not, in his opinion, at any time calculated to do much good, but was often seriously productive of evil; in a small community it was more difficult to correct public opinion than in a larger one; he would carry out whatever instructions should be given to him; but these were his views and he would await an answer. He went still further. He informed the Colonial Secretary that Chief Justice Sewell was unpopular, not with the Assembly alone, but with all classes of the people. No matter whether the feeling proceeded from the acts and calumnies of designing demagogues, it existed. It was indeed believed in the Palace of the Roman Catholic Bishop, and in the cottage of the humblest peasant, that Chief Justice Sewell had outraged their feelings of loyalty and religion. When Attorney-General, Mr. Sewell had maintained doctrines and supported measures that clashed with the religious opinions of the Canadians. A dislike, amounting to infatuation, had been confirmed by the part which he was supposed to have taken in the government after his promotion. It was this gradually increasing dislike which had led to his impeachment. Sir John believed that a hearing to both parties, on the impeachment, even had the decision been the same, would have been conducive to the peace of the province, as it would have deprived the party hostile to the Chief Justice of a pretext of complaint, by which, in a free country, the people will always be interested. The impression was that the government of England had come to a decision on an exparte hearing. Chief Justice Sewell should have been permitted to retire on a pension. That step would have had the effect of getting rid of a grievance. Agreeably to his instructions, he would support the Chief Justice even should the wrath of the Clergy be the result. He would also cultivate a good understanding with the Roman Catholic Bishop, but neither argument nor coercion could destroy public opinion. Prorogation might succeed prorogation, and dissolution, but there would be a revolution in the country sooner than a change in the feelings of its inhabitants with regard to Chief Justice Sewell. He would suggest the appointment of an agent in England, as had long been desired, and as had been effected in almost every other colony. The opposition to this measure was even ascribed to the Chief Justice. He would further suggest that Mr. Stuart should be detached by motives of self-interest, from the party with whom he acted, and which it was supposed, would dwindle into insignificance without him. If the Attorney-Generalship should become vacant, it might be offered to him. The most fruitful source of all the dissensions in Canada was, nevertheless, according to Sir John Sherbrooke, the want of confidence in its executive government,[28] not so much in the personal character of the Governor as in the Executive Council, who have come to be considered the Governor's advisers, and who are watched with a jealousy that hampered every governmental operation. To remove the distrust, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly should, ex officio, be a member of the Executive Council.

Sir John had stated a series of truths, since made apparent, by the disclosures of Mr. Ryland.

The new parliament was convened for the dispatch of business, on the 15th of January, 1817, when Mr. Papineau was re-elected Speaker. The Governor then formally opened the business of the session, by stating that having ascertained that the crops had failed in several parts of the province, he had taken steps to prevent the mischief that threatened the country, the particulars of which should be laid before the parliament; that he relied upon the liberality of the Assembly to make the necessary provision for defraying the expenses already incurred; that he felt assured such further aid would be granted as necessity might require; that he would lay before the House a statement of the revenue and expenditure of the province: that he felt it to be his duty to call early attention to the renewal of the militia and several other Acts, which either had expired or were about to expire; and he intimated that the advantages to result from every improvement calculated to open up the commerce of the country and encourage agriculture were of themselves sufficient to recommend that matter to their attention. The Assembly replied in the usual way and immediately afterwards appointed the committees. There was a grand committee of grievances, a committee on courts of justice, a committee on agriculture and commerce, and a special committee of five members to keep up a good understanding between the two Houses, hitherto antagonistic. Immediately after these committees had been named, a message was received from the Governor, intimating that the Regent of the United Kingdom and of the Empire had been pleased to assent to the bill granting a salary of £1,000 a year to the Speaker of the Assembly. The House then voted £14,216 to relieve the distressed parishes, with the view of making good the advances made by the Governor, and also voted the additional sum of £15,500, with the same view, and £20,600 more, for the purchase of seed grain, for distribution among such as could not otherwise procure it, to be repaid at the convenience of the recipients. This business being settled, Mr. Cuvillier presented to the House articles of impeachment against Mr. Foucher, a Judge of the King's Bench, at Montreal, for malversation, corrupt practices, and injustice. A committee was appointed to examine into these charges, and having reported adversely to the judge, the House prepared and adopted an address to the Regent, asking for Mr. Foucher's removal from office, and that justice should otherwise be done. The House further requested the Governor-in-Chief to suspend Mr. Foucher, while the charges made against him were pending. The Governor complied with the request of the House, by desiring Mr. Foucher to abstain from taking his seat upon the Bench, until the will of the Regent should have been ascertained. The Legislative Council were most indignant. They remonstrated against the suspension of Mr. Foucher. Every public officer was by the assent given to the act of the Assembly, liable to be put to the expense of going to England before he could even get a hearing, if at the mere dictation of the Assembly, a public officer was to be suspended. The Assembly replied that, if suspension could not take place, offenders, out of the reach of ordinary courts of justice, could not be brought to trial, and that an illegal, arbitrary, tyrannical, and oppressive power, over the people of the province, would be perpetuated. And so the suspension did take place. The judges were in very bad odour in those days. They were between two fires. If they thwarted the government, they were dismissed, and if they annoyed the people they were impeached. Another complaint was made against Mr. Chief Justice Monk. He, it was alleged by the family of the late François Corbeil, had exceeded his authority, by issuing a warrant for the arrest and imprisonment of Corbeil, on a charge of treasonable practices, well knowing that such changes were notoriously false, and, by so doing, had accelerated or caused the death of Corbeil, the disease of which he died having been contracted while in prison. Mr. Samuel Sherwood also complained, on his own behalf, against the Chief Justice of Montreal. It appeared that he had been prosecuted and imprisoned for libel, in having burlesqued the pamphlet published and circulated by the Chief Justices in Montreal and Quebec, to show to the public and their friends that the impeachments against them had fallen through. At the trial for the libel, Mr. Chief Justice Monk presided. He seemed to be both prosecutor and judge. The jury box was packed. The court was specially held. The indictment against Sherwood had been framed on suspicion. In the pretended libel the name of James Monk was thirty times mentioned, and yet James Monk, in the character of Chief Justice, sat upon the Bench. He took a lively interest in the prosecution. He had fiercely assailed a member of the Bar, who had smiled during the reading of the indictment, and threatened to remember the smile in his address to the jury. Such an example of a judge, sitting in his own cause, was not even afforded by Scraggs or Jefferies. Mr. Sherwood had been falsely imprisoned, arbitrarily held to excessive bail, his liberties, as a British subject, violated, and his privileges as a member of the Assembly had been set at nought. The petition was referred to a select committee, and no more heard of. Yet it had an effect. Chief Justice Monk was compelled to explain and to defend himself.

There was yet another similar matter to be proceeded with. There was the revival of the impeachments to be taken in hand. The House had been clumsily baulked in their attempt to remonstrate with the Regent concerning his will and pleasure, as far as his royal will and pleasure related to the impeachments of Chief Justices Sewell and Monk, and there seemed to be a sub rosa disposition to get rid of the disagreeable affair by management. Mr. Stuart, keen-sighted as he was, both saw and felt that the tools, with which he worked, required sharpening up. They had been handled. They had been in other hands than his. They had apparently been rendered almost unfit for use. He would, however, move for a call of the House, on the 21st of February. The cards had been admirably shuffled. The Panets, Vanfelsons, Gugys, Ogdens, Vezinas, Taschereaus, Malhiots, Cherriers, were all wonderfully intermingled in an adverse vote. The motion was rejected by a vote of 23 nays to 10 yeas. Mr. Stuart tried the 20th of February. Still it would not do. The Assembly had become suddenly tired of impeachments. Again, the matter was tried on the following day, when the House consented not to revive the impeachments but to reconsider the message addressed to the Assembly on the 2nd of February last, by the late Administrator-in-Chief. Mr. Stuart had some business to transact in Montreal, and he left Quebec to attend to it. During his absence the impeachments were forgotten; his measures were paralysed by sub rosa negociation; Mr. Sewell was recompensed for the ill-treatment he had experienced, and the government was relieved of anxiety. The Speaker of the Assembly was informed that for this parliament as well as for the last parliament he would be permitted to receive £1,000 a year, and that Mr. Sewell, who, as Chief Justice, was Speaker of the Upper House, might be recompensed for his ill-treatment, by the attachment of a salary of £1,000 to an office which it was designed he should hold for life. The Assembly, accordingly, applied to His Excellency to allow their Speaker £1,000 a year, and to confer some signal mark of the Royal favor on Dame Louise Philippe Badelard, widow of Mr. Speaker Panet. His Excellency, the Governor, unhesitatingly complied with the request of the Assembly, the more especially as on the request of the Council he had consented to a similar salary being paid to their Speaker, and he had further pleasure in authorising the payment of a pension of £300 a year, to Dame Louise Philippe Badelard. The whole was most cheerfully agreed to by all the parties interested, and thus was the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada betrayed and dealt with for the consideration of a few thousand pieces of silver. On the 17th of March, Sir John Sherbrooke intimated by message that he had conferred upon the two honorable Speakers the salaries of £1,000 each per annum. Two days afterwards, Mr. Sherwood moved that the message of the late Administrator-in-Chief should not be considered until the 27th of March, and that a call of the House should be made for that day. Mr. Ogden, however, bluntly moved for the discharge of the order of the day, and that the subject should not be taken into consideration at all during the session. The debate was loud and long continued. James Stuart and Andrew Stuart were brilliant; the Gugys, the McCords, and the Ogdens, were dumb. The Vezinas, the Vigers, the Panets, the Languedocs, and the Badeaux, had changed sides. Night came and still the debate continued, the midnight hour was passed and yet the war of words was fiercely going on, and morning came only to find the impeachments, which the Assembly had so long cherished, finally buried in oblivion, by 22 votes in favor of the abrupt motion of Mr. Ogden, while there were only 10 votes against it. Mr. Stuart was abandoned. There was now a greater than he to lead the Assembly. Sir John Coape Sherbrooke thoroughly understood the materials with which he had to deal, and he dealt with them accordingly. The Assembly had no longer independence: spirit, self-respect, power was sacrificed for that which gives wisdom to the foolish and judgment to the weak. The sum of £55,000 was appropriated for the improvement of roads, canals, and bridges; £2,000 was voted for the encouragement of inoculation with vaccine virus as a preventative of small pox; the revenue for 1816 was £144,625; the expenditure £75,638, less £24,495, the proportion of duties payable to Upper Canada for 1815; the expenses of the legislature for the same period were £3,203 currency; the salaries of the judges were now £1,000 currency per annum each, and yet at the disposal of the legislature there was the sum of £140,153.[29] The session was closed on the 22nd of March, by receiving the thanks of the Governor General for the extraordinary application to business which had distinguished this session from any preceding session of the parliament of Lower Canada.

In the course of the summer (1817) three hundred and three vessels with five thousand three hundred and seventy-five new settlers had arrived at Quebec, and banks were established both in Montreal and Quebec, named after the cities in which they were set afloat. About the 15th of November it was remarked that the Montreal Bank had commenced with quite an unexpected confidence from every part of the community, so much so that the merchants were realising more convenience from it than they ever anticipated; and that since it had commenced business, the profits were reported to have been immense.

In 1816, a settlement of emigrants was begun, under the direction of the military, in Bathurst, Drummond, Beckwith and Golbourne. The first settlers of Canada had a free passage afforded them from the United Kingdom, and were provided with rations and tools on their arrival in the colony. In 1816, rations and tools were furnished to 2,000 emigrants, who came out at their own expense, and in 1817 multitudes came out in the expectation of being favored in the same way, but were disappointed, nothing having been given to them but 100 acres of land each, which many of them were too poor to occupy.[30] There were not yet seven persons to the square mile, in the Upper Province. There were only twenty places of worship and thirty-five resident preachers:—fifteen methodists, five baptists, four quakers, three presbyterians, three Roman Catholics, three episcopalians, one tunker and one menonist—in the Western, London, Gore, and Niagara districts, with a population of 26,977 souls; and there were for the same population, 20 medical practitioners, 132 schools, 114 taverns, 130 stores, 79 grist-mills, and 116 saw-mills. The Home district contained 7,700 people; the Newcastle, 5,000; the Midland, 14,853; the Johnstown, 9,200; the Eastern, 12,700; and the Ottawa, 1,500; the total population of Upper Canada being then estimated at 83,250 souls. York, the capital of the Upper Province, situated on a beautiful plain, in a rich soil, and temperate climate, was, at this period, more than a mile and a half in length. It was laid out in regular streets, lots, and squares, having the garrison, and the site of the parliament house on its two wings, and a market near the centre. There was a public square open to the water. Many neat and some elegant houses had been erected. The town had a mixed appearance of city and country. Kingston was yet the town of most note and indeed, in every respect, the most entitled to civic consideration of any town then in the province. Parallel with its spacious and convenient harbour were the streets, at convenient distances from each other, and intersected, at right angles, by cross streets, dividing the town into squares. One square was an open public area in front of the Court House, and gaol, and episcopal church. The market was held in that area. But there were other public buildings in Kingston, besides the Court House, gaol, and episcopal church. There was a new catholic church, a barracks for the troops in garrison, an hospital, and a residence for the commandant. The town consisted of 300 private dwelling houses, a number of warehouses and stores, about 50 shops, in which goods were sold, several public offices, a respectable district school, a valuable library, mechanics' shops &c. The Court House, gaol, Catholic Church, and the principal dwelling houses were built of the bluish limestone obtained in large quantities in the middle of the town; but were more substantial than elegant in design. Kingston wanted a populous back country then, and still wants it because the soil is stoney and not therefore so well adapted for agricultural operations as the soils of other parts of the province. The Upper, as well as the Lower province had profitted by the circulation of army bills and by the requirements of the troops. Government transactions had given a spirit to trade and industry, and only for a system of government, which, as far as any government can do, crushed enterprise and fettered trade, both provinces would have so flourished immediately after the war that the reaction which the withdrawal of a few troops produced would scarcely have been felt. As matters stood the provinces were already flourishing, and schemes of improvement were everywhere in contemplation. Steam navigation, which had proved so useful on the St. Lawrence, and had, as it were, drawn, the two chief cities of the Lower Province more closely together, was about to be attempted on Lake Ontario. Already the keel of a steamboat, to be 170 feet on deck, was in process of construction at the village of Ernest-town, for certain gentlemen resident in Kingston. If possible, the new boat was to transport both goods and passengers for the whole extent between Queenston and Prescott. It was, however, feared that the rough water of the lake would be too much for any steamer to contend against. The Americans were also building a smaller steamboat at Sackett's Harbour. A year later and the steamboat Walk-in-the-Water, plied between Black Rock, near Buffalo and Detroit, on Lake Erie, occasionally to Michillimackinac.