British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854

by J. L. Morison

Outside the sphere of party politics moderate opinion took precisely the same stand. Murdoch had been Sydenham's right-hand man, and was still the fairest critic of Canadian politics. That he distrusted Stanley's methods is apparent in his letters to Bagot; and it was his suggestion that the Imperial position should be modified, and that some concession should be made to French national feeling. "No half measures," he told Bagot, "can now be safely resorted to. After the Rebellion, the government had the option, either of crushing the French and anglifying the province, or of pardoning them and making them friends. And as the latter policy was adopted, it must be carried out to its legitimate consequences."[[10]]

The situation in Canada during the spring and summer of 1842 stood thus. A governor-general, entirely new to the work of domestic administration, and to the province which had fallen to his lot, faced a curious dilemma. The British cabinet, the minister responsible for the colonies, and all those in Canada who claimed to be the peculiar friends of the British connection, bade him govern for, but not by the people, and exclude from office almost all the French-Canadians, on the ground that they were devotedly French in sympathies. Another group, at times aggressive, and very little accustomed to the orthodox methods of parliamentary opposition, bade him venture and trust; and warned him that no half measures would satisfy the claims of constitutional liberty and nationality.

The administration of Bagot occupied a single year, and its more important episodes were crowded into a few weeks in the autumn of 1842. Yet there have been few years of equal significance in the history of Canadian political development. There were intervals in which Bagot had time to reveal to Canada his genius for making friends; and the foundation of a provincial university in Toronto deeply interested one who had something of Canning's wit and literary inclinations. But politics usually claimed all his attention. The Union of the Provinces, and the Imperial supremacy, had to be defended against their assailants; the vacant places in the Executive Council had to be filled, as nearly as was possible in harmony with the wishes of the community; and whatever the character of that council might be, it would have to face the test of criticism from an Assembly, which had already striven not unsuccessfully with Sydenham. In his attempt to answer these various problems, Bagot was at his worst in finance. He had not the requisite business training, and entirely lacked Sydenham's knowledge, boldness, and precision. In the correspondence over the mode in which the province should dispose of the British loan of £1,500,000, Stanley's views show a clearness and force, lacking in those of Bagot; and in the one really unfortunate episode of the year, his want of financial skill drew on the governor-general's head the remonstrances of both Stanley and the Treasury authorities. To escape financial difficulties in Canada, Bagot had anticipated the loan, by drawing on British funds for £100,000, and the Treasury did not spare him. "He ought," wrote the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "to have considered those (difficulties) which must arise here from the presentation of large drafts at the Treasury, for which Parliament had made no provision; and for which, as Parliament was not sitting, no regular provision could be made. The situation to which the Treasury is reduced is this: either to protest the bills for want of funds, or to accept the bills, and find within thirty days the means of paying them."[[11]] This incident furnished to Stanley fresh proof, if any were needed, of Bagot's inexperience. An anxious and mistrustful temper appears in all his despatches to Bagot; but, in fact, with little justification. He never learned how completely the governor for whom he trembled was his master in the art of governing a half-autonomous colony.

As early as March, Bagot had begun to feel that the views of the Cabinet in Britain were impracticable: and that even the Civil List might not be so easily defended as Stanley imagined. "I know well by what a slender thread the adhesion of the colony will hang whenever we consent to leave the matter entirely in its own hands.... But the present supply is not sufficient for its purposes. We must always be dependent on the Legislature for provision to meet its excess; and I cannot but think that the sooner the Legislature succeeds, if they are to succeed, in carrying the point, the more generous they may possibly be in the use of their victory."[[12]] Bagot was already defining the policy which was to be peculiarly his own. He had a singularly clear eye for facts, even when they contradicted his preconceived ideas; and, being a man of the world, he saw that compromise with the opposition was as natural in Canada as in Britain. But in answer to his despatches, proposing such a compromise, Stanley, with his dogmatic omniscience, and eloquent certainty, had nothing but regrets to express, and difficulties to suggest. England, he thought, had dealt generously with Canada in the terms of the Act of Union, and sound statesmanship lay in resolute defence of that measure. And, since there always seems to be in such imperialists a sense of political pathos—the lacrymae rerum politicarum—he began to have pessimistic views of the permanence of the connection: "I am very far from underrating the value to Great Britain of her extensive and rapidly improving North American possessions, but I cannot conceal from myself the fact that they are maintained to her at no light cost, and at no trifling risk. To all this she willingly submits, so long as the bonds of union between herself and her colonies are strengthened by mutual harmony, good will, and confidence; and it would be indeed painful to me to contemplate the possibility that embarrassments, arising from uncalled for and unfounded jealousies on the part of Canada, might lead the people of England to entertain a doubt how far the balance of advantages preponderated in favour of the continuance of the present relations."[[13]] The Civil List raised the fundamental question, but it was a simple issue, and it lay still far in the future. The constitution of the ministry, however, and its relation to the coming parliament, could be neither evaded nor delayed.

Bagot's instructions gave him a certain scope, for he was permitted to avail himself of the advice and services of the ablest men, without reference to the distinction of local party. In making use of this liberty, Bagot had to consider chiefly the need of finding a majority in the Lower House—happily he could postpone their meeting till September. Of the probable tone of that Assembly the estimates varied, but Murdoch, who knew the situation as well as any man, calculated that while the government party would number thirty, the French, with their British Radical friends, would be thirty-six strong, the old Conservatives eight, and some ten or so would "wait on providence or rather on patronage."[[14]] In Sydenham's last days, the government majority, which he had so subtly, and by means so machiavellian, got together, had vanished. Reformers, not all of them so scrupulous as Baldwin, were ready to ruin a government which kept them from a complete triumph. Sir Allan MacNab with his old die-hards, fulminating against all enemies of the British tradition, was still willing to make an unholy alliance with the French, if only he could checkmate a governor-general who did not seem to appreciate his past services to Britain. And the French themselves, alienated and insulted by Sydenham, sat gloomily alone, restless over the Union, seemingly on the threshold of some fresh racial conflict. Everything was uncertain, save the coming government defeat.[[15]]

At the very outset, Bagot had this question of French Canada thrust upon him. From the moment of his arrival his council advised the admission of the French Canadians to a share in power. He refused, for Stanley had very carefully instructed him on that subject. The Colonial Secretary had spoken of the wisdom of forgetting old divisions, but he never permitted himself to forget that the French leaders—La Fontaine, Viger, Girouard—had all been, in some fashion or other, involved in the troubles of 1837. He believed that there still existed in Lower Canada a gloomy, rebellious, French Canadian party, which no responsible British statesman could afford to recognize. Sober-minded Canadian statesmen told him that it was useless to attempt to detach from the party individuals—les Vendus their compatriots called them. He answered that he would like to multiply such Vendus; and he hoped for a day when the anglicising of the Lower Province should have been completed. It was his intention to break down all forces tending in the opposite direction. He was conscious of a repulsion, equally strong, in his feelings towards Baldwin, and the Reform party. Whether it came by French racial hate, or Upper Canadian republicanism, which was the name he gave to all views of a reforming colour, the ruin of the Empire would follow hard on concession to agitation. In his heart, he trusted only the old Tories, and not all his disgust at MacNab's interested advances could alter his conviction that one party alone cared for Britain—the former Family Compact men. When he bade Bagot disregard party divisions in his choice of ministers, he was unconsciously limiting Bagot's choice to a very little circle, all of them most unmistakably displeasing to the populace, whose wishes he professed to be willing to consult. He claimed to be a man of principle—mistaking the clearness of doctrinaire ignorance for the certainty of honest knowledge.

Happily the governor-general of Canada was not in this sense a man of principle. He observed, took counsel, and began to shape his own policy. It is not easy to describe that policy in a sentence, or even to make it absolutely clear. He had come out to Canada, forewarned against Baldwin and the school of constitutionalists associated with him; and the warning made him reluctant to consent to their ideas. He had been advised to draw his councillors from all directions, and his naturally moderate spirit approved a policy of judicious selection. But the noteworthy feature in the line of action which he ultimately followed was that he allowed his diplomatic instincts to overbalance the advice imposed on him by the British ministry. In selecting individuals for his councils, he almost unconsciously followed the wishes of Baldwin and his party, until, at the end, he found himself in the hands of resolute advocates of responsible government, and did nothing to withstand their doctrine. But this is to anticipate events, and to simplify what was actually a process involved in some confusion. He filled two vacant places—one with the most brilliant of reforming financiers, Francis Hincks, whose merits he saw at once; the other, after a gentlemanly refusal from Cartwright, with Sherwood, a sound but comparatively moderate Conservative from Upper Canada. In an admirable letter to Stanley at the beginning of the summer, he outlined his policy. Stanley, ever fearful of rash experiments, warned him that a combination of black and white does not necessarily produce grey. To this he answered: "My hope is that, circumstanced as I am, I possibly may be able to do this, that is, to take from all sides the best and fittest men for the public service.... The attempt to produce such a grey, whether it succeed or not, must, I think, after all that has passed, and at this particular crisis in which I find myself here, be the safest line."[[16]] Stanley, then, limited his choice of men, and in the event of a crisis, was prepared that he should risk a defeat and the violent imposition of an alien ministry, on the chance that such a reverse might provoke a loyalist uprising to defend the British connection. Baldwin dreamed of a consistently Radical cabinet. MacNab, with his eyes shut to the consequences, seems to have considered a leap in the dark—a coalition between his men and the French Canadians. Bagot, as opportunist as the Tories, but opportunist for the sake of peace, and some kind of constitutional progress, laid aside lofty ideals, and said, as his most faithful advisers also said, that the future lay with judicious selection, no party being barred except where their conduct should have made recognition of them impossible to a self-respecting governor.

It is difficult to name all the influences which operated on Bagot's mind. He corresponded largely and usefully with Draper, the soundest of his conservative advisers. His own innate courtesy led him to end the social ostracism of the French, and taught him their good qualities. Being quick-witted and observant, his political instincts began almost unconsciously to force a new programme upon him. Before August, he had conciliated moderate reforming opinion through Hincks; he had proved to the French, by legal appointments, which met with a stiff and forced acquiescence in Stanley, that at least he was not their enemy. He had begun to question the certainty of Stanley's wisdom on the Civil List, and various other subjects. Then, between July 28th and September 26th, the date of two sets of despatches, which, if despatches ever deserve the term, must be called works of genius, he completed his plan, brought it to the test of practice, and challenged the home government to acquiesce, or recall him. With his ministry constituted as it was in July, he had to face the certainty of a vote of no confidence as soon as parliament met. Were he to do nothing, some unholy alliance of groups would defeat the government. In that case, his ministers, pledged as they were to constitutionalism by the resolutions of September, 1841, had warned him beforehand, that they would resign in a body. All hold over the French would be lost, and responsible government, whether he and Stanley willed it or not, would be established in its most obnoxious form. To fill the vacant places, or to reconstruct the ministry, the field of choice was very small, even if men of every connection were included. "Out of the 84 members of the House of Assembly," he told Stanley, "not above 30, as far as I can judge, are at all qualified for office, by the common advantages of intelligence and education, and of these, ten at least are not in a position to accept it."[[17]] In the case of the French he seemed to have reached an absolute deadlock. He found offers to individual Frenchmen useless, for he did not gain the party, and he ruined the men whom he honoured. The Assembly was to meet on the 8th of September, and as that date drew near, the excitement rose. It was a crisis with many possibilities both for England and for Canada.

As certainly as Stanley, with all the wisdom of Peel's cabinet behind him, was wrong, and fatally so, Bagot's conduct between September 10th and September 14th was precisely right. In a correspondence with Peel, just before the crisis, Stanley sought to get his great leader to take his view. Even Peel's genius proved incompetent to settle a problem of local politics, three thousand miles away from the scene of action. The wisdom of his answer lay, not in its suggestions, which were useless to Bagot, but in its hint "that much must be left to the judgment and discretion of those who have to act at a great distance from the supreme authority."[[18]] Stanley himself, from first to last, was for allowing Bagot to face defeat, although he always thought it possible that stubborn resistance to what he counted treason would rally a secure majority to Bagot and the Crown. Time and again after assuring Bagot that he and the ministry acquiesced, which, to do them justice, they did like men, he harked back to the idea of allowing events to prove that the government was indeed powerless, before it made a definitive surrender. Long before Parliament met, the situation had been discussed in all its bearings; and the only doubt that remained was concerning which out of three or four foreshadowed catastrophes would end the existence of the government. The ministers themselves had their negative programme ready; for, having consented to the constitutional resolutions of September, 1841, they forewarned Bagot that if they were left in a minority, or in a very small majority, they should feel themselves compelled to resign, and they added that, if Bagot did not accept their recommendation to admit the French Canadians, they would insist upon his accepting their resignation.[[19]]