Happily for Toronto on that occasion it had that British characteristic which, however Tory might abuse Whig, or Reformer predict the ruin of everything Tory, made all men unite—for the day at least—in fealty to the young Queen, and, more wonderful still, in good-will towards one another. Elsewhere there were forecasts of petticoat government, when “the speech from the throne would dwell chiefly on embroideries, nurseries and soap.” How were they to know that the slim and beautiful young fingers which held the sceptre were strong, tenacious, and of an even touch, or that the girlish form held a mother heart large enough and to spare for her own and every bairn within her realm.
So did the shuttles angrily fly to and fro in the warp and woof of coming catastrophe in the year when Her Majesty came into her inheritance of discontent.
The Canadas at Westminster.
“I put not my faith in Princes, for that would be forgetting the rules of Holy Writ; but, begging your pardon, I still put my faith in Peers.”
“‘I am glad I am not the eldest son,’ said the younger Pitt when he heard of his father’s elevation to an earldom; ‘I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa.’”
“A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers.”
The man who wrote the letter calculated to create trouble and promote that already begun was quite a personage in the Radical wing of the House of Commons. A Scotchman from Montrose, born in 1777, he was son of a captain of a trading vessel; the father’s early death left this Joseph and numerous brothers and sisters to the care of a mother who was a woman of extraordinary perseverance and energy. She kept a small stand on market-day in Montrose, and Fox Maule, afterwards Lord Panmure, seeing young Joseph there, was seized with the whim to apprentice him to a druggist. A subsequent apprenticeship to surgery and a voyage to India led to his study there of the native dialects, a knowledge of which he made such good use that in the war with the Mahrattas he became interpreter, an office of emolument and honour. He returned to Britain at the peace of 1807, and began a tour there so minute and exhaustive that he visited every manufacturing town. He then went as thoroughly through Southern Europe, and with his head thus equipped entered the House as Tory member for the borough of Weymouth in 1812, calculated to make a figure there and carry much weight through native ability and wide experience. Once more he tried his rôle of interpreter between those who could not or would not understand each other. His opponents found it impossible to tire or baffle him; repulses were thrown away on him, and he returned to the charge, unconscious, ready to repeat a hundredth time that which they had declared unreasonable.
“What manner of man is Joseph Hume?” asks The Noctes. “Did you never see him?” says North. “He is a shrewd-looking fellow enough, but most decidedly vulgar. Nobody that sees him could ever for a moment suspect him of being a gentleman born. He has the air of a Montrose dandy at this moment, and there is an intolerable affectation about the creature. I suppose he must have sunk quite into the dirt since Croker curried him.” “I don’t believe anything can make an impression on him. A gentleman’s whip would not be felt through the beaver of a coal-heaver.” He was, in fact, short, broad, stiff, square and copperfaced. He exhibited the uncouthness of the Scot in relief, and his speech, in all the worst of the Scotch brogue, “barbarous exceedingly,” baffled description. “Depend upon it, Joseph will go on just as he has been doing.” And he had been going on from his place as Radical member for Montrose. Added to all, he was a master of detail. In spite of his earnestness, he often convulsed the House with his Scotch bulls when he intended most to impress. Expatiating on the virtues of the French-Canadians, he exclaimed, “I say, sir, they are the best and gentlest race in Europe (laughter), aye”—waxing hotter—“or in Africa” (roars of laughter). Sir Francis Bond Head did not scruple to say that Hume was the greatest rebel of the lot, and, in his turn, Hume made a furious attack on Sir Francis. However, he was just as vigorously answered by Lord Grey, and then the morning papers said “that Hume had not been able to make Head.” Politics were so bitter then that all Reformers were rebels. Hume’s letter of March 29th, 1834, in which he says, “Your cause is their cause, your defeat would be their subjection. Go on, therefore, I beseech you, and success, glorious success, must inevitably crown your joint efforts,” sounds as if Sir Francis might have had reason for his opinion. By 1839 a public dinner had been given this erstwhile Tory, in testimony of his eminent public services and constant advocacy in the cause of reform. Says North, “Why, a small matter will make a man who has once ratted rat again. We all remember what Joe Hume was a few years ago!”
“A Tory?”