Some Reminiscences of old Victoria

by Edgar Fawcett

At this time there were no local newspapers. Mails were received from England once a fortnight, fetched by canoe from the American side; ships from England once a year. The opening of the annual box from friends there was an exciting event to my wife. The Otter (Capt. Mouat) was occasionally sent to San Francisco for requisites. In the same vessel I remember our going with Governor Douglas to San Juan Island, then in possession of the British, and Mr. Griffin, the Company’s officer in charge there, presenting my wife with a beautiful fawn, which we brought back with us.

I know not what the population of Victoria might be at that time, though I think two hundred would be the outside; the population on the whole island being about six hundred. You could, I think, count the houses on each of the four principal streets—Government, Fort, Yates, Johnson—on the fingers on one hand. I only remember three on James Bay side, to reach which, there being no bridge to connect with Government Street, you had to go round by where the Church of Our Lord now stands.

For reasons which will presently appear, I regard the Christmas season of 1855 as the ending of a first chapter of the very remarkable history of this province of British Columbia, to be followed by another in the ensuing year destined to include events which the most far-seeing at the time could not possibly have imagined. I write simply as an observer, included, indeed, in the great movement, but not, strictly speaking, a working part of it. A time was coming, as we now know, when a flood of people was suddenly to overflow our city, sweeping onward to and over the mainland like a tidal wave from the great ocean of life; but whether it was by some fortunate chance decree of an overruling Providence, it did not come till the city was better than of old and prepared to deal with it.

The time had now come when the dual government—the imperium in imperio—was to cease, and the people to stand in direct relation to the sovereign. Influenced, as we have reason to believe, by complaints of the settlers, it was decided by the Home authorities to grant them a free constitution after the English model, so far as popular representation was concerned. And so it came to pass that within eight months after Christmas, 1855, the newly-elected representatives of the people were, in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, called together by the Governor in a room within the Fort, and by him, with counsel and prayer, commended to the long-coveted duties of legislation. Thus was a small shoot of an Empire unsurpassed for the freedom of its subjects well and truly planted in the western shore of the vast possessions of Great Britain, this side of the provinces in the East, and now did the people, rejoicing in their freedom, begin to look for expansion and progress. But with what hope? What was the prospect of their reaching the conditions which we see to-day?

Looking at the more than twenty years it had taken to reach their present population of six hundred souls; looking at the inaccessibility of the Island to all but a few adventurous or wealthy immigrants; allowing also full force to the new attraction of a land whose people enjoyed the privilege of self-government; I think the most sanguine in that day could not have expected such a result as we see to-day in a less period than centuries to come. To us who know what brought it to pass; to us who know that the real efficient cause of the marvelous effect was the strongest passion and incentive to adventure that ever actuated the mind of man, it all seems natural and easy; but to the six hundred in 1856 it would have seemed a dream. At the same time it must, I think, be admitted that such a sudden inrush must have endangered, if not the independence, at least the peace and order of the community on which it fell. For what, we may ask, might have been the consequence if the cry of gold for the picking up had been raised earlier, in the time, say, of the dual government, when, as is well known, the people were discontented with a government which, excellent as it confessedly was for the times, had its own profit first of all to be considered, instead of coming, as it did, to a people which, rejoicing in its newly-found freedom, was not to be reckoned on for favoring any schemes of wildness or riot? I do not suggest any danger of invasion or overthrow of the government when hundreds of thousands of gold-seekers from the neighboring country filled the streets of our little city; England’s far-reaching arm sufficed to cope with that; but I do suggest danger to law and order afterwards. For this the presence of warships in Esquimalt harbor could afford but slight remedy. The remedy must be in the people themselves and in the administration of law. A little leaven leavens a great lump, but in this case the leaven of discontent being removed, the lump remained uncontaminated. That this was how order was restored will appear from what followed after the suppression of the disorder which broke out among the miners at the beginning.

Mr. Augustus F. Pemberton, commissioner of police, was staying at my house when, after he had gone to bed, a message came from the Chief of Police that the town was in an uproar, and that the miners were threatening to take the city. Mr. Pemberton immediately repaired to the Governor’s and reported. His Excellency’s first impulse was to fix on his sword; but he changed his mind and sent a messenger express to order a gunboat from Esquimalt. Meanwhile Mr. Pemberton went into the city and conferred with the miners till the gunboat arrived, and thus ended the matter.

As I went with Mr. Pemberton to the Governor’s house and to the city on this occasion, I write as an eye-witness. I may say that my impression is that there was no serious intention on the part of the miners as a body to take the city by force. I knew too many of them afterwards, of good and [peaceable] conduct, to think it. But it was well that the disorderly among them should begin their education in English law by this prompt display of force.

I now note a singular condition of things, as conducive to the continuance and perpetuation of the order thus restored. The miners at this time to the number, it was computed, of some ten thousand, were encamped in the open spaces of the city, waiting for the most suitable time for proceeding to the mainland in their search for gold. I do not remember how long the time was that they waited, but it was certainly some weeks. And what I wish emphatically to say is, that this interval afforded them a unique opportunity of learning what British law and order meant. Mr. Pemberton was their teacher. Fearless, untiring and vigilant, he suppressed every disorder as it arose. There was need.

A man was killed in a duel on Church Hill. Thenceforth it was at a man’s peril to be found with a revolver on his person, and so the odious practice fell into disuse.