It is a study to observe how frequently, at an early stage of Upper Canadian society, a mutual antipathy manifested itself between visitors from the transatlantic world, tourists and settlers (intending and actual), and the first occupants of such places of trust and emolument as then existed. It was a feeling that grew partly out of personal considerations, and partly out of difference of opinion in regard to public policy. A gulf thus began at an early period to open between two sections of the community, which widened painfully for a time in after years;—a fissure, which, at its first appearance, a little philosophy on both sides would have closed up. Men of intelligence, who had risen to position and acquired all their experience in a remote, diminutive settlement, might have been quite sure that their grasp of great imperial and human questions, when they arose, would be very imperfect; they might, therefore, rationally have rejoiced at the accession of new minds and additional light to help them in the day of necessity. And on the other hand, the fresh immigrant or casual visitor, trained to maturity amidst the combinations of an old society, and possessing a knowledge of its past, might have comprehended thoroughly the exact condition of thought and feeling in a community such as that which he was approaching, and so might have regarded its ideas with charity, and spoken of them in a tone conciliatory and delicate. On both sides, the maxim Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner would have had a salutary and composing effect, "for," as the author of Realmah well says, "in truth, one would never be angry with anybody, if one understood him or her thoroughly."
We regret that we cannot recover two small "paper pellets of the brain," of this period, arising out of the discussions connected with the appointment of an outsider (Mr. Justice Willis) to the Bench of Upper Canada. They would have been illustrative of the times. They were in the shape of two advertisements, one in reply to the other, in a local Paper: one was the elaborate title-page of a pamphlet "shortly to appear," on the existing system of Jurisprudence in Upper Canada; with the motto "Meliora sperans;" the other was an exact counterpart of the first, only in reversed terms, and bearing the motto "Deteriora timens."
In the early stages of all the colonies it is obviously inevitable that appointments ab extra to public office must occasionally, and even frequently, be made. Local aspirants are thus subject to disappointments; and men of considerable ability may now and then feel themselves overshadowed, and imagine themselves depressed, through the introduction of talent transcending their own. Some manifestations of discontent and impatience may thus always be expected to appear. But in a few years this state of things comes naturally to an end. In no public exigency is there any longer a necessity to look to external sources for help. A home supply of persons "duly qualified to serve God in Church and State" is legitimately developed, as we see in the United States, among ourselves, and in all the other larger settlements from the British Islands.
The dénouement of the Willis-trouble may be gathered from the following notice in the Gazette of Thursday, July 17th, 1828, now lying before us: "His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor has been pleased to appoint, by Commission under the Great Seal, Christopher Alexander Hagerman, Esq., to be a Judge in the Court of King's Bench for this Province, in the room of the Hon. John Walpole Willis, amoved, until the King's pleasure shall be signified."
Lady Mary Willis, associated with Mr. Galt in the Fancy Ball just spoken of, was a daughter of the Earl of Strathmore. A trial of a painful nature known as Willis v. Bernard in the annals of the Common Pleas, arising out of circumstances connected with Judge Willis's brief residence in Canada, took place in 1832 before the Chief Justice of England and a special jury, at Westminster, Mr. Sergeant Wilde acting for the plaintiff; Mr. Sergeant Spankie, Mr. Sergeant Storks and Mr. Thesiger, for the defendant: when a thousand pounds were awarded as damages to the plaintiff. On this occasion Mr. Galt was examined as a witness. Judge Willis was afterwards appointed Chief Justice of Demerara.
In the Canadian Literary Magazine for April, 1833, there is a notice of Mr. Galt, with a full-length pen-and-ink portrait, similar to those which used formerly to appear in Fraser. In front of the figure is a bust of Lord Byron; behind, on a wall, is a Map shewing the Canadian Lakes, with York marked conspicuously. From the accompanying memoir we learn that "Mr. Galt always conducted himself as a man of the strictest probity and honour. He was warm in his friendships, and extremely hospitable in his Log Priory at Guelph, and thoroughly esteemed by those who had an opportunity of mingling with him in close and daily intimacy. He was the first to adopt the plan of opening roads before making a settlement, instead of leaving them to be cut, as heretofore, by the settlers themselves—a plan which, under the irregular and patchwork system of settling the country then prevailing, has retarded the improvement of the Province more, perhaps, than any other cause."
In his Autobiography Mr. Galt refers to this notice of himself in the Canadian Literary Magazine, especially in respect to an intimation given therein that contemporaries at York accused him of playing "Captain Grand" occasionally, and "looking down on the inhabitants of Upper Canada." He does not affect to say that it was not so; he even rather unamiably adds: "The fact is, I never thought about them [i. e., these inhabitants], unless to notice some ludicrous peculiarity of individuals."
The same tone is assumed when recording the locally famous entertainment, given by himself and Lady Willis, as above described. Having received a hint that the colonelcy of a militia regiment might possibly be offered him, he says: "This information was unequivocally acceptable; and accordingly," he continues, "I resolved to change my recluseness into something more cordial towards the general inhabitants of York. I therefore directed one of the clerks [the gentleman who figured as Rizzio,] to whom I thought the task might be agreeable, to make arrangements for giving a general Fancy Ball to all my acquaintance, and the principal inhabitants. I could not be troubled," he observes, "with the details myself, but exhorted him to make the invitations as numerous as possible."
In extenuation of his evident moodiness of mind, it is to be observed that his quarters at York were very uncomfortable. "The reader is probably acquainted," he says in his Autobiography, "with the manner of living in the American hotels, but without experience he can have no right notion of what in those days (1827,) was the condition of the best tavern in York. It was a mean two-storey house; the landlord, however, [this was Mr. Frank,] did," he says, "all in his power to mitigate the afflictions with which such a domicile was quaking, to one accustomed to quiet."
Such an impression had his unfortunate accommodation at York made on him, that, in another place, when endeavouring to describe Dover, in Kent, as a dull place, we have him venturing to employ such extravagant language as this: "Everybody who has been at Dover knows that it is one of the vilest [hypochondriacal] haunts on the face of the earth, except Little York in Upper Canada." We notice in Leigh Hunt's London Journal for June, 1834, some verses entitled "Friends and Boyhood," written by Mr. Galt, in sickness. They will not sound out of place in a paper of early reminiscences: