Before closing this sketch it is but right to mention an instance (the only one) in which the British Government seemed disposed to pay a tribute to the ablest author and the most profound thinker that the Colonial Empire has yet produced. As Judge Haliburton’s unrivalled mastery of colonial questions eminently fitted him to be the Governor of an important dependency, the Colonial Office offered to appoint him President of Montserrat, a wretched little West Indian Island, inhabited by a few white families and a thousand or two of blacks. As the manufacture of Montserrat lime-juice had not then been commenced the island must have been even more desolate and woe-begone than it now is.
“Judge Haliburton died at his residence at Isleworth, on the banks of the Thames, where he had greatly endeared himself to the people of the place during the few years which he had spent among them, and was buried in the Isleworth churchyard; and, in accordance with one of his last wishes, his funeral was plain and unostentatious.”
“In the words of a local chronicler:—‘The village of Isleworth will henceforth be associated with the most pleasing reminiscences of Mr. Justice Haliburton; and the names of Cowley, Thompson, Pope, and Walpole will find a kindred spirit in the world-wide reputation of the author of Sam Slick, who, like them, died on the banks of the Thames.’”[[9]]
In the same graveyard rests the immortal Vancouver. Judge Haliburton, several years before his death, was told by the sexton that a famous navigator was buried there, but he did not remember the name, as it had become illegible on the tombstone. It was found, on making enquiries, that the person in question must have been Vancouver. A new tombstone, with a suitable inscription, was placed over Vancouver’s grave; and several years subsequently a tablet to his memory was erected in the church. It is to be hoped that the day will come when a suitable monument will be raised to the great explorer; and that Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s may yet become the Valhalla, not only of the Mother Country, but also of her Colonial Empire.
It matters not that there is no public memorial to an author whose writings created among the masses a public opinion in favor of the colonies that baffled the dismemberment craze of English statesmen and theorists. He will have a monument as long as the British Empire lasts.
| [1] | The anonymous form seemed to me the most convenient to adopt in writing the above sketch, and it was understood that, while I should be generally known as the author, my name should not be published as such. As, however, since the above was written, the circulars announcing the forthcoming volume have mentioned my name in connection with it, I have thought it best to append this note.—R. G. Haliburton. |
| [2] | (Publisher’s Note: Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, by Robert Grant Haliburton, at the Department of Agriculture.) |
| [3] | The only references to him in Scott’s “Memorials of the Haliburtons” (printed privately in 1820 to show that that family had become extinct in the male line) are, “killed on parade at Madras by a fanatical Sepoy,” and “he was the last survivor in the male line of the Haliburtons of Newmains and Mertoun.” Mill speaks of his death, and says that “the name of Haliburton was long remembered by the Madras Sepoys.” There is no tablet to his memory in the burial place of his family. |
| [4] | The sword of Tippoo Sahib, taken from his dead body by Capt. Neville, after the famous charge of his regiment at Seringapatam, which earned for them the name of “the Terror of India,” is now in the possession of Sir Arthur Haliburton, G.C.B. |