[Sidenote: Farewell to Montreal.]
For nearly eight years, at the command of our beloved Queen, I have filled this position among you, discharging its duties, often imperfectly, never carelessly, or with indifference. We are all of us aware that the period is rapidly approaching when I may expect to be required by the same gracious authority to resign into other, and I trust worthier, hands, the office of Governor-General, with the heavy burden of responsibility and care which attaches to it. It is fitting, therefore, that we should now speak to each other frankly and without reserve. Let me assure you, then, that the severance of the formal tie which binds us together will not cause my earnest desire for your welfare and advancement to abate. The extinction of an official relationship cannot quench the conviction that I have so long cherished, and by which I have been supported through many trials, that a brilliant future is in store for British North America; or diminish the interest with which I shall watch every event which tends to the fulfilment of this expectation. And again permit me to assure you, that when I leave you, be it sooner or later, I shall carry away no recollections of my sojourn among you except such as are of a pleasing character. I shall remember—and remember with gratitude—the cordial reception I met with at Montreal when I came a stranger among you, bearing with me for my sole recommendation the commission of our Sovereign. I shall remember those early months of my residence here, when I learnt in this beautiful neighbourhood to appreciate the charms of a bright Canadian winter day, and to take delight in the cheerful music of your sleigh bells. I shall remember one glorious afternoon— an afternoon in April—when, looking down from the hill at Monklands, on my return from transacting business in your city, I beheld that the vast plain stretching out before me, which I had always seen clothed in the white garb of winter, had assumed, on a sudden, and, as if by enchantment, the livery of spring; while your noble St. Lawrence, bursting through his icy fetters, had begun to sparkle in the sunshine, and to murmur his vernal hymn of thanksgiving to the bounteous Giver of light and heat. I shall remember my visits to your Mechanics' Institutes and Mercantile Library Associations, and the kind attention with which the advice which I tendered to your young men and citizens was received by them. I shall remember the undaunted courage with which the merchants of this city, while suffering under the pressure of a commercial crisis of almost unparalleled severity, urged forward that great work which was the first step towards placing Canada in her proper position in this age of railway progress. I shall remember the energy and patriotism which gathered together in this city specimens of Canadian industry, from all parts of the province, for the World's Fair, and which has been the means of rendering this magnificent conception of the illustrious Consort of our beloved Queen more serviceable to Canada than it has, perhaps, proved to any other of the countless communities which have been represented there. And I shall forget—but no—what I might have had to forget is forgotten already; and therefore I cannot tell you what I shall forget.
The remaining extract is from parting words, spoken after a ball which he gave at Quebec on the eve of his final departure in December, 1854.
[Sidenote: Farewell to Quebec.]
I wish I could address you in such strains as I have sometimes employed on similar occasions, strains suited to a festive meeting; but I confess I have a weight on my heart, and that it is not in me to be merry. For the last time I stand before you in the official character which I have borne for nearly eight years. For the last time I am surrounded by a circle of friends with whom I have spent some of the most pleasant days of my life. For the last time I welcome you as my guests to this charming residence which I have been in the habit of calling my home.[13] I did not, I will frankly confess it, know what it would cost me to break this habit, until the period of my departure approached; and I began to feel that the great interests which have so long engrossed my attention and thoughts, were passing out of my hands. I had a hint of what my feelings really were upon this point—a pretty broad hint too—one lovely morning in June last, when I returned to Quebec after my temporary absence in England, and landed in the Coves below Spencerwood (because it was Sunday, and I did not want to make a disturbance in the town), and when with the greetings of the old people in the Coves who put their heads out of the windows as I passed along, and cried 'Welcome home again,' still ringing in my ears, I mounted the hill and drove through the avenue to the house door. I saw the dropping trees on the lawn, with every one of which I was so familiar, clothed in the tenderest green of spring, and the river beyond, calm and transparent as a mirror, and the ships fixed and motionless as statues on its surface, and the whole landscape bathed in a flood of that bright Canadian sun which so seldom pierces our murky atmosphere on the other side of the Atlantic. I began to think that persons were to be envied who were not forced by the necessities of their position to quit these engrossing interests and lovely scenes, for the purpose of proceeding to distant lands, but who are able to remain among them until they pass to that quiet corner of the Garden of Mount Hermon, which juts into the river and commands a view of the city, the shipping, Point Levi, the Island of Orleans, and the range of Lawrentine; so that through the dim watches of that tranquil night, which precedes the dawning of the eternal day, the majestic citadel of Quebec, with its noble train of satellite hills, may seem to rest for ever on the sight, and the low murmur of the waters of St. Lawrence, with the hum of busy life on their surface, to fall ceaselessly on the ear. I cannot bring myself to believe that the future has in store for me any interests which will fill the place of those I am now abandoning. But although I must henceforward be to you as a stranger, although my official connection with you and your interests will have become in a few days matter of history, yet I trust that through some one channel or another, the tidings of your prosperity and progress may occasionally reach me; that I may hear from time to time of the steady growth and development of those principles of liberty and order, of manly independence in combination with respect for authority and law, of national life in harmony with British connection, which it has been my earnest endeavour, to the extent of my humble means of influence, to implant and to establish. I trust, too, that I shall hear that this house continues to be what I have ever sought to render it, a neutral territory, on which persons of opposite opinions, political and religious, may meet together in harmony and forget their differences for a season. And I have good hope that this will be the case for several reasons, and, among others, for one which I can barely allude to, for it might be an impertinence in me to dwell upon it. But I think that without any breach of delicacy or decorum I may venture to say that many years ago, when I was much younger than I am now, and when we stood towards each other in a relation somewhat different from that which has recently subsisted between us, I learned to look up to Sir Edmund Head with respect, as a gentleman of the highest character, the greatest ability, and the most varied accomplishments and attainments.[14] And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have only to add the sad word Farewell. I drink this bumper to the health of you all, collectively and individually. I trust that I may hope to leave behind me some who will look back with feelings of kindly recollection to the period of our intercourse; some with whom I have been on terms of immediate official connection, whose worth and talents I have had the best means of appreciating, and who could bear witness, at least, if they please to do so, to the spirit, intentions, and motives with which I have administered your affairs; some with whom I have been bound by the ties of personal regard. And if reciprocity be essential to enmity, then most assuredly I can leave behind me no enemies. I am aware that there must be persons in so large a society as this, who think that they have grievances to complain of, that due consideration has not in all cases been shown to them. Let them believe me, and they ought to believe me, for the testimony of a dying man is evidence, even in a court of justice, let them believe me, then, even I assure them, in this the last hour of my agony, that no such errors of omission or commission have been intentional on my part. Farewell, and God bless you.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: At home.]
The two years which followed Lord Elgin's return from Canada were a time of complete rest from official labour. For though, on the breaking up of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry in the spring of 1855, he was offered by Lord Palmerston the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the Cabinet, he declined the offer, not on any ground of difference from the new Ministry, which he intended to support; but because, having only recently taken his seat in the House of Lords, after a long term of foreign service, during which he had necessarily held aloof from home politics, he thought it advisable, for the present at least, to remain independent. He found, however, ample and congenial occupation for his time in the peaceful but industrious discharge of home duties at Broomhall. Still his thoughts were constantly with the distant Provinces in which he had laboured so long.
Whenever he appeared in public, whether at a dinner given in his honour at Dunfermline, or on occasion of receiving the freedom of the city of Glasgow, or in delivering a lecture at the annual opening of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institute—it was with the same desire of turning to account the knowledge gained abroad, for the advantage of the Colonies, or of the mother-country, or for the mutual benefit of both; with the same hope of drawing closer the bonds of union between them, and dispelling something of that cloud of ignorance and indifference which has often made the public opinion of Great Britain a hindrance rather than a support to the best interests of her dependencies.
[Sidenote: In the House of Lords.]