History of Prince Edward Island

by Duncan Campbell

The temperance organizations in the island were particularly active at the period at which we have arrived. A meeting was held in Charlottetown, for the purpose of discussing the propriety and practicability of abolishing by law the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. There would be consistency in prohibiting the manufacture and importation of intoxicating liquors, as well as the sale of them. But the Maine law, which permits the importation of liquor into the state, whilst it prohibits its sale, is a useless anomaly. Let anyone visit Portland—where he might expect to see the law decently enforced—and he will find in one, at least, of the principal hotels in the city, a public bar-room in which alcoholic liquors of all kinds are openly sold; and, if he chooses to begin business in the liquor line, he can, for thirty dollars, procure a license from one of the officials of the United States government, for that purpose. The United States law sanctions the importation and sale of intoxicating drinks; the Maine state law forbids the sale ostensibly, whilst it is really permitted. The temperance movement has effected a vast amount of good, but coercion is not the means by which it has been accomplished.

During the session of 1853, an act to extend the elective franchise was passed, which made that privilege almost universal. The house was dissolved during the summer, and at the general election which ensued the government was defeated. A requisition was in consequence addressed to the governor by members of the assembly, praying for the early assembling of the house, in order that, by legal enactment, departmental officers might be excluded from occupying seats in the legislature, to which request the governor did not accede.

On the seventh of October, 1853, a sad catastrophe took place in the loss of the steamer Fairy Queen. The boat left Charlottetown on a Friday forenoon. Shortly after getting clear of Point Prim, the vessel shipped a sea which broke open the gangways. When near Pictou Island the tiller-rope broke, and another heavy sea was shipped. The rope was, with the assistance of some of the passengers, spliced; but the vessel moved very slowly. The captain and some of the crew got into a boat and drifted away, regardless of the fate of the female passengers. Among the passengers were Mr. Martin I. Wilkins, of Pictou, Mr. Lydiard, Mr. Pineo, Dr. McKenzie, and others. After having been subjected to a series of heavy seas, the upper deck, abaft the funnel, separated from the main body of the vessel, and providentially constituted an admirable raft, by which a number of the passengers were saved, among whom were Messrs. Wilkins, Lydiard, and Pineo, who landed on the north side of Merigomish Island, after eight hours of exposure to the storm and cold. Dr. McKenzie,—an excellent young man,—other two males, and four females perished.

In opening the assembly of 1854, the governor referred in terms of congratulation to the prosperous state of the revenue. On the thirty-first of January, 1850, the balance of debt against the colony was twenty-eight thousand pounds. In four years it was reduced to three thousand pounds. The revenue had increased from twenty-two thousand pounds, in 1850, to thirty-five thousand in 1853, notwithstanding a reduction in the duty on tea, and two thousand eight hundred pounds assessment imposed for educational purposes.

The new house having declared its want of confidence in the government, a new one was formed, of which the leaders were the Honorables J. M. Holl and Edward Palmer; but there was a majority opposed to it in the upper branch, which, to some extent, frustrated the satisfactory working of the machine. The house was prorogued in May; and, in opposition to the unanimous opinion of his council, the governor dissolved the assembly,—the reason assigned for this course of procedure being, that the act passed for the extension of the franchise had received the royal assent, and that for the interest of the country it was necessary to have a house based on the new law. An appeal to the country was certain to ensure the defeat of the government; and the governor was accused of desiring to effect that object before his departure from the island,—for he had been appointed to the government of the Bahamas. It is only due to Governor Bannerman to state that he had anticipated difficulties, which constrained him to consult the colonial secretary as to the most proper course of action, and that he received a despatch, in which the duke said: “I leave it with yourself, with full confidence in your judgment, to take such steps in relation to the executive council and the assembly as you may think proper before leaving the government.” We may be permitted to say that it is only in very rare and exceptional cases that either a British sovereign or a royal representative can be justified in disregarding the advice of constitutional advisers; and the case under notice does not seem, in any of its bearings, to have been one in relation to which the prerogative should have been exercised.

Dominick Daly, Esq., succeeded Governor Bannerman, and arrived on the island on the twelfth of June, 1854, and was received by all classes with much cordiality: addresses poured in upon his excellency from all parts of the island. A few days after the arrival of the new governor the election took place, and was, as anticipated, unfavorable to the government, which, to its credit, resigned on the twentieth of July,—intimation to that effect having been communicated to the governor by the president of the executive council, John M. Holl. A new government was formed, and the house assembled in September, in consequence of the ratification of a commercial treaty between the British and United States governments, and the withdrawal of the troops from the island,—circumstances which required the immediate consideration of the assembly. The session was a short one, the attention of the house being directed exclusively to the business for the transaction of which it had met. An act was immediately passed to authorise free trade with the United States, under the treaty which had been concluded. The measure opened the way for the introduction into the island, free of duty, of grain and breadstuffs of all kinds; butter, cheese, tallow, lard, etc., in accordance with a policy which has been found to operate most beneficially in the countries where it has been adopted. Great Britain declared war in this year against Russia; but, beyond the withdrawal of the troops and the advance of the prices of breadstuffs and provisions, the island was not affected by its prosecution.

The Worrell Estate, consisting of eighty-one thousand three hundred and three acres, was purchased by the government at the close of the year 1854,—the price paid for the property being twenty-four thousand one hundred pounds, of which eighteen thousand pounds were paid down, and the balance retained till the accuracy of its declared extent was ascertained.

In the session of 1855 a considerable amount of legislative business was transacted, including the passing of an act for the incorporation of Charlottetown, an act for the incorporation of the Bank of Prince Edward Island, and an act to provide a normal school for the training of teachers. In proroguing the assembly, the governor referred in terms of condemnation to any further agitation of the question of escheat, as successive governments were opposed to every measure which had hitherto passed relating to the subject, in the wisdom of which opposition the governor expressed himself as fully concurring. He approved of the active measures which had been taken under the Land Purchase Bill, and expressed his conviction that similar measures only required the cordial co-operation of the tenantry to secure an amount of advantage to themselves which no degree of agitation could obtain. The island had contributed two thousand pounds to the Patriotic Fund, which had been instituted to relieve the widows and children of soldiers who fell in the Crimean war; and the governor expressed Her Majesty’s satisfaction with the generous sympathy thus evinced by the people and their representatives.

In the month of March, 1855, a distressing occurrence took place. The ice-boat from Cape Tormentine to the island, with Mr. James Henry Haszard, Mr. Johnson, son of Dr. Johnson, medical students, and an old gentleman—Mr. Joseph Weir, of Bangor—as passengers, had proceeded safely to within half a mile of the island shore, when a severe snow-storm was encountered. The boat, utterly unable to make headway, was put about, drawn on the ice, and turned up to protect the men from the cold and fury of the storm. Thus they were drifted helplessly in the strait during Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night. On Sunday morning they began to drag the boat towards the mainland, and, exhausted,—not having tasted food for three days,—they were about ceasing all further efforts, when they resolved to kill a spaniel which Mr. Weir had with him, and the poor fellows drank the blood and eat the raw flesh of the animal. They now felt a little revived, and lightened the boat by throwing out trunks and baggage. Mr. Haszard was put into the boat, being unable to walk; and thus they moved towards the shore, from which they were four or five miles distant. On Monday evening Mr. Haszard died from exhaustion. They toiled on, however, and on Tuesday morning reached the shore, near Wallace, Nova Scotia, but, unfortunately, at a point two miles from the nearest dwelling. Two of the boatmen succeeded in reaching a house, and all the survivors, though much frost-bitten, recovered under the kind and judicious treatment which they received.

The census taken in 1855 declared the population of the island to be seventy-one thousand. There were two hundred and sixty-eight schools, attended by eleven thousand pupils. The Normal School was opened in 1856 by the governor, and constituted an important addition to the educational machinery of the island.