The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion, Volume 1

by John Charles Dent

The reader hardly needs to be informed that this was a momentous period in the history of England. It was the epoch of Reform, and the nation was in a state of ferment. During the brief space while Mackenzie had been crossing the Atlantic great events had taken place. Earl Grey's ministry had resigned; Sir Robert Peel had refused to join the Duke of Wellington in an attempt to form a Government; and Earl Grey had resumed office, armed with the King's written authority to Lord Brougham and himself to create as many peers as might be necessary to ensure the passing of the Reform Bill. This authority it did not become necessary to exercise. The titled aristocracy bowed to the unconquerable will of a great and thoroughly-aroused people, and Mackenzie reached London in time to hear the third reading of the Great Bill in the House of Lords. He was soon afterwards received at the Colonial Office, not as the representative of any particular class of Canadian politicians, but as a person interested in Canadian affairs, and able to afford much valuable information concerning them.[153] He then found that the efforts of the official party in Upper Canada to render his mission inoperative had not been barren of results. Petitions had been received at the Colonial Office in which entire satisfaction was expressed with the existing laws and institutions of the Province; and the signatures thereto slightly exceeded in number those appended to the petitions of which he himself had been the bearer. He however devoted himself with characteristic energy to the presentation of his case, and prepared a memoir wherein all the most serious grievances of the Upper Canadian people were set forth in detail. In this document the writer adopted a discursive and rhetorical style which, as the Colonial Secretary justly remarked, were "singularly ill adapted to bring questions of so much intricacy and importance to a definite issue." The facts were nevertheless pretty comprehensively embodied, and were generally speaking of such a character as to tell their own story. The perusal of the memoir seems to have produced an impression upon the Colonial Secretary's mind. He wrote a long and elaborate despatch to Sir John Colborne, in which the weak points of Mackenzie's arguments were exposed with cutting severity, and wherein it was evident that very little weight had been attached to most of his representations; but at the same time certain concessions to popular opinion were plainly hinted at. When this despatch was submitted to the Legislative Council and Assembly of Upper Canada at the ensuing session it was treated with scant respect. The Upper House formally declared that it did not regard it as calling for serious attention, and returned it to the Lieutenant-Governor. The Assembly discussed the propriety of sending it back, but finally resolved not to do so. Both the Crown Law Officers made hot-headed speeches on the subject, and referred to the Colonial Secretary in the most contemptuous terms.

Meanwhile, Mackenzie, who still remained in England, was in his absence expelled from the Assembly a third time. On this occasion there was no preliminary attempt to convict him of any fresh libel or breach of privilege. The Law Officers of the Crown simplified the proceedings by declaring that the House had a right to determine as to the eligibility of members, and a resolution to that effect was moved and carried. It was then resolved that the person returned for York was the same William Lyon Mackenzie who had been twice expelled the House and declared unfit to hold a seat therein; and that by reason thereof the said Mackenzie could not sit or vote in the House as a member thereof. He was then expelled for the third time, and a new writ was issued for the County of York. The inhabitants of that constituency felt so much aggrieved, and gave such loud-mouthed expression to their dissatisfaction, that no candidate hostile to Mackenzie dared to present himself at the ensuing election, and the choice of the people was returned by acclamation.

1833.

The part taken by the Law Officers of the Crown in these repeated expulsions was not acceptable to the Colonial Office. Neither was the contemptuous manner in which they had seen fit to refer to the Secretary's despatch written after the perusal of Mackenzie's memoir. A missive on the former subject had been sent to Sir John Colborne some months before the commencement of the session of 1832-3, the contents of which seem to have been promptly communicated to Messieurs Boulton and Hagerman.[154] Notwithstanding that communication, those gentlemen had seen fit, soon after the opening of the session, to take a leading part in another expulsion, and to make contemptuous references to the conduct of the Colonial Secretary himself. The Attorney-General had expressed an opinion that the Secretary might have found something better to do than to sit down and answer "Mackenzie's rigmarole trash." Solicitor-General Hagerman had remarked that the Secretary had stultified himself by noticing statements which rested on no better authority than that of a person who had been twice expelled the Assembly, and who had been declared unfit to sit therein in consequence of his having "fabricated and reiterated libels of the grossest description." Lord Goderich signified his disapprobation of this conduct in the most emphatic manner by dismissing the two virulent critics from office. Their dismissal was effected by a despatch to Sir John Colborne dated March 6th, 1833. "By the accounts I have lately received of the proceedings of the Legislature of Upper Canada," wrote his Lordship, "I have learnt that the Attorney and Solicitor-General of that Province have, in their places in the Assembly, taken a part directly opposed to the avowed policy of His Majesty's Government. As members of the Provincial Parliament, Mr. Boulton and Mr. Hagerman are of course bound to act upon their own view of what is most for the interest of their constituents, and of the colony at large. But if, upon questions of great political importance, they unfortunately differ in opinion from His Majesty's Government, it is obvious that they cannot continue to hold confidential situations in His Majesty's service without either betraying their duty as members of the Legislature, or bringing the sincerity of the Government into question by their opposition to the policy which His Majesty has been advised to pursue." It was intimated that the Law Officers of the Crown could not be permitted to impede the Government policy, and that in order that those gentlemen might be at full liberty to follow their own judgment, they were to be relieved from their offices.[155]

When this despatch reached York, towards the end of April, its contents were communicated to Attorney-General Boulton. Mr. Hagerman had started for England a short time before on a mission connected with the Clergy Reserves, and, as was said,[156] in order to obtain a permanent appointment to a judgeship. He learned of his dismissal immediately upon his arrival in London, and lost no time in putting himself in communication with the Colonial Minister. An important change had recently taken place at the Colonial Office. Lord Goderich had vacated the Secretaryship, and had become Lord Privy Seal, being at the same time created Earl of Ripon. He was succeeded as Colonial Secretary by Mr. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby, who had been Secretary for Ireland, but had aroused such hostility against himself among O'Connell's followers by his stand on the Irish question[157] that it had been deemed prudent to find another portfolio for him. He now admitted Mr. Hagerman to an audience, and was so won upon by that gentleman's specious representations that he restored him to his stewardship. Accordingly, although he had been only moderately successful in carrying out the specific objects of his mission, Mr. Hagerman returned to Upper Canada in triumph; and he was greeted, upon his arrival, with a tempest of acclamation from the Tory press.

Mr. Boulton, upon receiving from the Lieutenant-Governor's secretary an intimation of his dismissal, raised a howl of indignation against Lord Goderich and the Imperial Government generally. It was notorious that he controlled the columns of The Upper Canada Courier, a newspaper published at York in the interests of the official party, and edited by Mr. George Gurnett. That paper, in its next issue, contained an article more scurrilous and abusive than had been either of those articles in the Advocate on the pretext whereof Mackenzie had been expelled from the Assembly. It reeked with scurrility and disloyalty from beginning to end. It alleged that the well-affected people in the country were more than half alienated from the Home Government, and that they began to cast about in their mind's eye for some new state of political existence. There was more to the same purport. Some new state of political existence! This was a pretty strong suggestion of rebellion! And it emanated from the organ of a faction in whose mouths the word "loyalty" was ever present; whose "loyalty" had for years been vaunted from every hustings, and who, so long as the tide ran in their favour, had preached doctrines worthy of the middle ages about submission to the higher powers. How changed was the tone now that there seemed to be some prospect of their being placed upon the same footing, and judged by the same standard as their neighbours. If they did these things in the green tree, what would they do in the dry? What might have been expected from them if they had been subjected to such injustice and ignominy as the party to which they were opposed? Here was a faction professedly ready to throw off their allegiance because two of their number had been deprived of offices which they had notoriously prostituted and disgraced.[158] Here was a "well-affected" people "casting about" in their "mind's eye" for a new state of political existence, because two of the most corrupt, brazen and audacious officials in the colony were no longer to be allowed to pervert legislation under the mantle of Imperial countenance. And they were as little disposed to brook interference with their pecuniary interests by the Colonial Office. Early in the following year they gave utterance to rank treason in consequence of the threatened disallowance by the Imperial Government of certain Bank Charter Acts passed by the Provincial Parliament.[159] A pearl is proverbially uncomely in the snout of a swine; and truly the word "loyalty" was never more absurdly out of place than when pronounced by such lips.

The ex-Attorney-General followed the ex-Solicitor-General to England, where he represented his case to the new Colonial Minister. After giving much attention to the matter, Mr. Stanley expressed himself as satisfied with the explanations which had been offered. The explanations seem to have chiefly consisted of solemn declarations on the part of Mr. Boulton that he had been insufficiently informed of the views of the Home Government, and that he had had no desire whatever to set up his own will in opposition to those views.[160] He doubtless professed his readiness to go any length in the way of sycophancy which might be required of him for the future. It was however impossible to restore him to the Attorney-Generalship, as a successor to that office had been appointed in the person of Mr. Robert Sympson Jameson,[161] an English barrister, who had actually sailed from Liverpool for Canada, and was already well on his way thither. Mr. Boulton was informed that he should have the first good appointment at the Secretary's disposal. His success was even greater than that of his recent colleague, for on the 17th of June he was notified that the King had been graciously pleased to accept of his further services, and that the Colonial Secretary had His Majesty's commands to offer him the appointment of Chief Justice of Newfoundland, which situation had recently become vacant.[162] This appointment was fully approved by the Earl of Ripon, under whose advice he had been dismissed from the Attorney-Generalship of Upper Canada,[163] but who had been induced to change his views after hearing Mr. Boulton's explanations.

Mr. Boulton's triumph, however, was to be followed by a downfall more humiliating than that which he had so narrowly escaped. He repaired to Newfoundland in the autumn, and entered upon the performance of his duties. He had not been long in his new position before he had aroused a feeling of disgust and alarm on the part of a large proportion of the public and the profession. He began by being arbitrary, tyrannical and unjust. He proceeded from bad to worse, until it was found impossible to permit him to retain his position.[164] There is no need to follow the proceedings adopted against him. He was not finally got rid of until 1838, when he returned to Upper Canada, and once more entered political life as member for Niagara. The Home Government turned a deaf ear to his perpetual applications for employment, and would have nothing more to do with him. Some years after the Union of the Provinces, finding that he had nothing to hope for from the Conservative party, who refused to elevate him to a judgeship, he abandoned them, and for some time acted with Mr. Baldwin. It seems almost cruel to record the fact that he supported Responsible Government and the Rebellion Losses Bill.

FOOTNOTES:

[148] Ante, p. 229.