“The Revolution, so deplorable in itself,” wrote Bishop Hubert of Quebec, “ensures at this moment three great advantages to Canada: that of sheltering illustrious exiles; that of procuring for it new colonists; and that of an increase of its orthodox clergy.” “The French emigrants have experienced most consolingly the nature of British generosity. Those of them who shall come to Canada are not likely to expect that great pecuniary aid will be extended; but the two provinces offer them resources on all sides.”
Many of the French officers whom the fear of the guillotine sent over in numbers to England found their way to that country which the Catholic Canadian priesthood so appreciated. Uncleared land and these fragments of French noblesse came together in this unforeseen way. But there was another view of their position when Burke referred to them as having “taken refuge in the frozen regions and under the despotism of Britain.” Truly has Britain shouldered many sins, made while you wait in the factory of rhetoric; nor is it less true that glorious sunny Canada has suffered equally unjustly as a lesser Siberia from a long line of writers, beginning with Voltaire, ending—let us hope—with Kipling.
The French Revolution over, and a mimic one threatening in the colony, the clergy did not hesitate to remind one another of the fate of their orders in France, to congratulate themselves they were under a different régime, nor fail to remember that the War Fund to sustain British action against the Republicans of France in 1799 had been subscribed to heavily by many of their brethren and themselves. Le Seminaire stands in that list, in the midst of many historic names, against the sum of fifty pounds “per annum during the war.” One point of great difference between new and old was that the habitants, who were more enlightened and more religious than their brother peasants left behind in France, had, with the noblesse, a common calamity in any prospect which threatened subjugation. The variance ’twixt priest and people could only end in one way where the people were devout; and the Lower Canadian has ever been devout and true to Mother Church. But the “patriot,” who was more apt in diatribe against Tories than in prayers, spared not the priests in their historical leanings. “Who was the first Tory?” cries a patriot from his palpitating pages. “The first Tory was Cain, and the last will be the State-paid priest.”
But if the British Government had in some things acted so kindly and justly to those of French extraction as to merit such words, in other matters there had been much of harshness increased by ignorance and indifference, and the time had come when all had to suffer for such inconsistencies, and, unfortunately, those most severely who already were the victims of them.
“C’est la force et le droit qui reglent toutes choses dans le monde.” Said one of their own writers, “la force en attendant le droit.” In both Canadas “la force” was local supremacy. The painful development as to when it should be superseded proved “le droit” and British supremacy identical.
It was a political struggle prolonged beyond endurance, more than a real wish to shake free from Britain; a political struggle, where the combatants were often greedy and abusive partisans who appealed to the vilest passions of the populace and who were unscrupulous in choosing their instruments of attack. Capital was made out of sentiment most likely to appeal to the suffering: “Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ——”
and Papineau, by speech, manifesto and admission, looked toward the seat of vice-royalty and made plain the homely sentiment, “Ote toi de là que moi je m’y mette.” He did not agree with the humble habitant saying, “C’est le bon Dieu qui nous envoya ça, il faut l’endurer.” His opinion leaned more to that of O’Connell, who said the French were the only rightful inhabitants of the country. How much baneful domination had it taken to so change the Papineau of 1820, when on the occasion of the death of George III. he says, “... a great national calamity—the decease of that beloved sovereign who had reigned over the inhabitants of this country since the day they became British subjects; it is impossible not to express the feeling of gratitude for the many benefits received from him, and those of sorrow for his loss so deeply felt in this, as in every other portion of his extensive dominions. And how could it be otherwise, when each year of his long reign has been marked by new favours bestowed upon the country?... Suffice it then at a glance to compare our present happy situation with that of our fathers on the eve of the day when George III. became their legitimate monarch ... from that day the reign of the law succeeded to that of violence.... All these advantages have become our birthright, and shall, I hope, be the lasting inheritance of our posterity. To secure them let us only act as British subjects and freemen.”
About ’31 the Lower Canadian Assembly received a lot of new blood; and very hot, adventurous and zealous blood it was. Young men like Bleury, Lafontaine, and their confreres, were not backward in naming what they considered their rights; and they had somewhat unlimited ideas. The most ardent of the group centred round Papineau and excited him still further. They scouted Lord Goderich (Robinson) and his concessions so long as his countrymen formed a majority in their government. This was a “demarcation insultante” between victor and vanquished. Lord Dalhousie, “glowing with scarlet and gold,” and followed by a numerous staff, had brought a session to a close in a peremptory manner, with words which might have furnished a cue to himself and others. “Many years of continued discussion ... have proved unavailing to clear up and set at rest a dispute which moderation and reason might have speedily terminated.”
To the Loyalist Papineau was the root of all evil. A French loyal ditty attributed every calamity of the era to him, cholera morbus, earthquakes and potato-rot included, each stanza finishing with the refrain, “C’est la faute de Papineau.” “It is certain,” said the latter, “that before long the whole of America will be republicanized.... In the days of the Stuarts those who maintained that the monarchic principle was paramount in Britain lost their heads on the scaffold.” This, surely, was the proverbial word to the wise.
Naturally, such sentiments made him receive cool treatment in Downing Street, even when his Ninety-Two Resolutions embodied much truth and called for affirmative answers. Nothing but the most absolute democratic rule would satisfy the irreconcilables. Their act in the House had led to Lord Aylmer being forced to advance the supplies from the Military Chest, and to embody his disapproval in a resolution of censure. They in turn voted his censures should be expunged from the journals of the House. Then Papineau, from the Speaker’s chair, inveighed against the Mother Country. After the presentation of the Resolutions, Lord Aylmer, alluding to them, imprudently said that dissatisfaction was mostly confined to within the walls of the Assembly rooms, that outside of them the country was at peace and contented. The men who framed them lost no time in giving him a practical denial. Resolutions from many parishes approved of the acts of the Assembly, and the newspaper columns teemed with accounts of popular demonstrations. Lord Aylmer, however, supposed himself within his rights. After his recall, at his interview with the King, and supported by Palmerston and Minto on either side, the monarch declared he entirely approved of Aylmer’s official conduct, that he had acted like a true and loyal subject towards a set of traitors and conspirators, and as became a British officer under the circumstances.
Lord Glenelg sent to the rescue that commission of enquiry, the prelude to the later Durham one, whereof Lord Gosford was chief. This nobleman, who became governor of the province, was Irish, and a Protestant, an opponent of Orangeism, a man of liberal opinions and decisive in speech and action. He tried every means to make friends in the French quarter; visited schools and colleges, enchanted all by his charming politeness of manner, gave a grand ball on the festival day of a favourite saint, and by his marked attentions at it to Madame Bedard showed at once his taste and his ability to play a part. He made a long address to the Chambers, breathing naught but patriotism and justice; so some still had hope. “To the Canadians, both of French and British origin, I would say, consider the blessings you might enjoy but for your dissensions. Offsprings as you are of the two foremost nations of the earth, you hold a vast and beautiful country, having a fertile soil with a healthful climate, whilst the noblest river in the world makes sea-ports of your most remote towns.” He replied to the Assembly first in French, then in English. There is a possibility of doing too much, and the Montreal Gazette censured this little bit of courteous precedence so far as to deny the right of a governor to speak publicly in any language but his own, and construed this innovation by the amiable Earl into one that would lead to the Mother-Country’s degradation. Then what of the Channel Islands, where loyalty was and is above suspicion; where the Legislature declared that members had not the right to use English in debate, and “that only in the event of Jersey having to choose between giving up the French language, or the protection of England, would they consent to accept the first alternative.”