British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854

by J. L. Morison

CHAPTER IV.

THE GOVERNORS-GENERAL: SIR CHARLES BAGOT.

Sir Charles Bagot, the second governor-general of United Canada, contrasted strangely with his predecessor in character and political methods. He was a man of the Regency, and of Canning's set. Since 1814 he had occupied positions of considerable importance in the diplomatic world, not because of transcendent parts, but because of his connections. He had been ambassador at Washington, St. Petersburg, and the Hague; and in the United States, where, to the end, his friends remembered him with real affection, he had rendered service permanently beneficial both to Britain and to America by negotiating the Rush-Bagot treaty, which established the neutralization of the great lakes. In Europe, he had been known to fame mainly as the recipient of George Canning's rhyming despatch; and for the rest, he allowed the great minister to make him, as he had made all his other agents, a pawn in the game where he alone was player. In his correspondence he stands out as an old-fashioned, worldly, cultured, and unbusiness-like diplomatist, worthy perhaps of a satiric but kindly portraiture by Thackeray—a genuine citizen of Vanity Fair. Apart from his correspondence, his friendships, and his American achievements, he might have passed through life, deserving nothing more than some few references in memoirs of the earlier nineteenth century. But by one freak of fortune he found himself transported to Canada in 1842, and, by another, he became one of the foremost figures in the history of Canadian constitutional development. There have been few better examples of the curious good-fortune which has attended on the growth of British greatness than the story of Bagot's short career in Canada. When a very eminent personage demanded from the existing government some explanation of their selection of Bagot, Stanley, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, pointed, not to administrative qualifications, but to his diplomatic services in the United States. Relations with the American Republic do not here concern us, but it may be remembered that the situation in 1841 and 1842, just before the Ashburton Treaty, was full of peril; and Bagot was sent to Canada as a person not displeasing to the Americans, and a diplomatist of conciliatory temper. But his work was to be concerned with domestic, not international, diplomacy.

Three factors must be carefully studied in the year of political turmoil which followed: the Imperial government, the Canadian political community, and the new governor-general.

During this and the following governor-generalship, the predominant influence at the Colonial Office was Lord Stanley, almost the most distinguished of the younger statesmen of the day. Peel's judicial and scientific mind usually controlled those of his subordinates; but even Peel found it hard to check the brilliant individualism of his colonial secretary; and this most interesting of all the great failures in English politics exercised an influence in Canadian affairs, such as not even Lord John Russell attempted. Judged from his colonial despatches, Stanley seems to have found it very hard to understand that there could be another side to any question on which he had made up his mind. His party had consented to a modification of the old oligarchic rule in Canada; but they were intent upon limiting the scope of the change, and upon conducting all their operations in a very conservative spirit. Stanley's instructions to Bagot had been drawn up in no ungenerous fashion. Bagot was to know no distinctions of national origin or religious creed, and in so far as it might be consistent with his duty to his Sovereign, he was to consult the wishes of the mass of the community.[[1]] Their happiness it was his main duty to secure. In ecclesiastical matters, Stanley, who had changed his party rather than consent to weaken the Anglican Church in Ireland, was willing to acknowledge "that the habits and opinions of the people of Canada were, in the main, averse from the absolute predominance of any single church."[[2]] But the theory inspiring the instructions was one which denied to the colonists any but the most partial responsibility and independence, and which regarded their party divisions as factious and at times treasonable. This disbelief in the reality of Canadian parties was, however, discounted, and yet at the same time rendered more insulting to the reformers, because the colonial secretary regarded the fragments of old Family Compact Toryism as still the best guarantee in Canada for the British connection. "Although I am far from wishing to re-establish the old Family Compact of Upper Canada," he wrote, at a later date, "if you come into difficulties, that is the class of men to fall back upon, rather than the ultra-liberal party."[[3]] Confidence in political adventurers and the disaffected French seemed to him a kind of madness. In addition to this attitude towards existing parties, Stanley held stiffly to every constitutional expedient which asserted the supremacy of the Imperial government. The Union had, by fixing a Civil List, taken the power of the purse within certain limits from Canadian hands, and this Civil List Stanley regarded as quite essential to the maintenance of British authority.[[4]] In fact, any discussion of the subject seemed to him the "reopening of a chapter which has already led to such serious consequences, and in the prosecution of which I contemplate seriously the prospect of the dismemberment of the Empire."[[5]] Holding views so resolute, he could not, like Russell, trust his representative on the spot; and, from the first, the troubles of the new governor-general were multiplied by Stanley's determination to make the views of the Colonial Office prevail in Canada. "I very much doubt," wrote Murdoch, Sydenham's former secretary, "how far Lord Stanley is really alive to the true state of Canada, and to the necessity of governing through the assembly."[[6]]

Local influences provide the second factor in the situation. As has been seen, the Canadian political community was demanding both responsible government, and the admission of the French to a share in office. Sydenham had exhibited the most wonderful skill in working an anomalous system of government, and he had found himself on the brink of failure. His Council, which Bagot had inherited, "might be said to represent the Reform or popular party of Upper Canada, and the moderate Conservatives of both provinces, to the exclusion of the French and the ultra-conservatives of both provinces,"[[7]] but the compromise represented less a popular demand for moderation, than Sydenham's own individual idea of what a Canadian Council should be. There had been uneasiness in adjusting the opinions of individual members; there was a steady decline in the willingness of the Assembly and the country to support them; and a determined constitutional opposition found additional strength through the support of the French party, whom the governor had alienated not simply as a political division but as a race. In a sense, there was no imminent danger, as there had been in 1837, for Sydenham's sound administration had given the country peace and prosperity. English money and immigrants were flowing in; the woods were ringing with the axes of settlers too busy in clearing the ground to trouble much with politics; the lines of communication were being improved and transportation simplified; and, thanks to Ashburton, the war-cloud to the south had vanished over the horizon. Yet the politicians held the central position—everything depended on them; and the crisis for Bagot would arise, first, when he should be called on to fill certain places in the Executive Council, and then, when Parliament met. It is often assumed that public opinion was seriously divided on the question of the responsibility of the ministry to the Assembly, and of the extent of the concessions to be made to the French; and that the opposition to reform was almost equal in the numbers of its supporters to the progressive party. But this is to over-estimate the forces of reaction. The Family Compact men had fallen on evil days. Strachan with his church party, and MacNab with his tail of Tory irreconcilables, had really very little substantial backing; and honest Tory gentlemen, like J. S. Cartwright, who openly advocated an aristocratic administration, were unlikely to attract the crowd. The work of Sydenham had contributed much to the political education of Canada; popular opinion was now firmer and more self-consistent, and that opinion went directly contrary to the views of Stanley and his supporters. One may find evidence of this in the views of moderates on either side.

Harrison, who represented the moderate reforming party in Sydenham's ministry, held that responsible government, in some form or other, was essential, and that French nationalism must also receive concessions. "Looking at the present position of parties," he wrote to Bagot in July, "it may, I think, be safely laid down that, to obtain a working majority in the House of Assembly, it is absolutely necessary that the government should be able to carry with it the bulk of the French-Canadian members.... There is no disguising the fact that the French members possess the power of the country; and he who directs that power, backed by the most efficient means of controlling it, is in a situation to govern the province best."[[8]] It was his opinion that Bagot should anticipate the coming crisis by calling in Baldwin and the French, before events forced that step on him.

On the Conservative side, a moderate man like W. H. Draper, the attorney-general for Upper Canada in Sydenham's ministry, argued in favour of a policy almost identical. While his views tended to oscillate, now to this side, now to that, their general direction was clear. He felt that the ideal condition was one of union between the parties of Western Canada, which would "render the position of the government safer in its dealings with the French-Canadians." But no such union was possible, and Draper, with that honest opportunism which best expressed his mind and capacity, assured Bagot that action in the very teeth of his instructions was the only possible course. "One thing I do not doubt at all," he wrote in July 1842, "and that is that, with the present House of Assembly, you cannot get on without the French, while it is necessary for me at the same time to declare frankly that I cannot sit at the council-board with Mr. Baldwin."[[9]] In other words, since Draper admitted that the opposition leaders must receive office, and at the same time declared the impossibility of his holding office with them, he was consenting to Cabinet government, not in the restricted form permitted in Lord John Russell's despatches, but after the regular British fashion.