Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France

by Gilbert Parker; Claude Glennon Bryan

As for the grievances he came to remedy, Lord Durham dwells upon the circumstances which practically excluded French Canadians from political power, leaving all positions of trust and profit in the hands of the English minority; for although they numbered only one in four of the inhabitants, this privileged class claimed both political and social supremacy as though by inherent right. Owing no responsibility whatever to the legislature, they could afford to smile at the protestations of that superfluous body, and pursue their own wilful course.

Coming to practical counsel, the High Commissioner pointed out that there was no need for any change in the principles of government, or for any new constitutional theory to remedy the disordered state. The remedy already lay in the British constitution, whose principles, if consistently followed, would give a sound and efficient system of representative government. His first suggestion was the frank concession of a responsible executive. All the officers of state, with the single exception of the Governor and his secretary, should be made directly answerable to the representatives of the people; these officers, moreover, should be such as the people approved, and should therefore be appointed by the Assembly. He further advised that the Governor should be forbidden to employ the resources of the British Constitution in any quarrel between himself and the Legislature, resorting to imperial intervention only when imperial interests were at stake.

His second recommendation was to bring the Upper and Lower Provinces together by a legislative union. He met the threatened danger of a disaffected people endowed with political power by an appeal to arithmetic: "If the population of Upper Canada is rightly estimated at 400,000, the English inhabitants of Lower Canada at 150,000, and the French at 450,000, the union of the two provinces would not only give a clear English majority, but one which would be increased every year by the influence of English emigration....I certainly shall not like," he continues, "to subject the French Canadians to the rule of the identical English minority with which they have so long been contending; but from a majority emanating from so much more extended a source, I do not think that they would have any oppression or injustice to fear."

This plea for unity among all the elements of political life in Canada, premature as it was, marked, perhaps, the limitation of Lord Durham's scheme. But although he was mistaken in the degree of allowance to be made for the distinct individuality of the French province—a defect afterwards made good on Dominion Day—the work he did, the counsel he gave, made an epoch in the progress of Canadian nationality, and prepared the ground for the completer measures of the future.

THE MARQUIS OF LORNE (DUKE OF ARGYLL)

The treatment of rebels was the most critical question with which Lord Durham had to deal, and it was ultimately the cause of his withdrawal, so timid and unchivalrous was the Government of the day in the face of political and journalistic criticism. While granting a general amnesty to the rank and file of the offenders, the High Commissioner offended constitutional pedants by deporting eight of the leading revolutionists without trial to Bermuda; and although this measure was taken advisedly, with the purpose, as it turned out, of saving the prisoners from the heavier penalty they would certainly have received from a regular court, the Viceroy's numerous enemies did not scruple to use this technical omission as a basis for attacks upon his policy. Moreover, when he was bitterly denounced in the House of Lords by Brougham and Lyndhurst, the ministry of Melbourne offered but a feeble defence of their representative; with the result that Durham, on hearing of this desertion by the Cabinet which had appointed him, sent in his resignation.

The departure of the High Commissioner was deeply regretted by those who were able to appreciate the wisdom and sincerity of his administration, though indeed it was otherwise regarded by the leaders of that social clique in Quebec whose family compact he had resolutely condemned. Yet he had builded better than England or Canada or himself then knew, and his tireless energy and imagination left behind him the material for a sound structure. Besides the masterly report of his commission, a visible, if less important, monument to his beneficent work for Canada still stands in the magnificent terrace at Quebec, known to-day under an improved form and by another name, yet in a larger measure his conception and his achievement. He sailed from Quebec on the 1st of November, 1838, the ceremony of his departure being hardly less imposing than that marking his arrival five months before. Troops lined the streets from the Governor's residence to the Queen's wharf, the bands playing "Auld Lang Syne" to express the regret felt at parting from a sincere and strong administrator, thus sacrificed to his enemies by a vacillating Ministry. At this last evidence of sympathy and appreciation the hauteur of the Viceroy relaxed, and, as he passed on board the frigate Inconstant homeward bound—as he himself records—his heart went out towards the people of Canada, by whom, at least, his motives were understood and honoured; and this feeling of gratitude to perhaps the most simple and sincere of all British peoples remained with him to the end.

By an act brought forward by Lord John Russell, the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada were formally united, and the first Parliament of the two Canadas was opened in the city of Kingston in June, 1841. This experiment partly meeting the needs of the country, and satisfying that high civic and national sense which make Britishers confident that they can govern themselves, opened up the way for that freer union which has since 1867 made a nation of a series of scattered territories.

The legislative union of the Upper and Lower Provinces had not been concluded without sharp opposition; for the citizens of Quebec foresaw that her influence must inevitably wane under the new conditions, and they set themselves strongly to defeat the measure. However, the ancient city lay too far east to remain the capital of the expanding territories, and with an almost exclusively French population it could not remain the political pivot of a British dependency. Opposition was overborne in due time, and the Act of Union shifted the national centre of gravity farther west.