BUSINESS EXPERIENCES IN QUEBEC.
When I began to feel the effects of official hostility in Quebec, as above stated, I was also suffering from another and more vital evil. I had taken the contract for parliamentary printing at prices slightly lower than had before prevailed. My knowledge of printing in my own person gave me an advantage over most other competitors. The consequence of this has been, that large sums of money were saved to the country yearly for the last twenty-four years. But the former race of contractors owed me a violent grudge, for, as they alleged, taking the contract below paying prices. I went to work, however, confident of my resources and success. But no sooner had I got well under weigh, than my arrangements were frustrated, my expenditure nullified, my just hopes dashed to the ground, by the action of the Legislature itself. A joint committee on printing had been appointed, of which the Hon. Mr. Simpson, of Bowmanville, was chairman, which proceeded deliberately to cut down the amount of printing to be executed, and particularly the quantity of French documents to be printed, to such an extent as to reduce the work for which I had contracted by at least one-third. And this without the smallest regard to the terms of my contract. Thus were one-half of all my expenditures—one-half of my thirty thousand dollars worth of type—one-half of my fifteen thousand dollars worth of presses and machinery—literally rendered useless, and reduced to the condition of second-hand material. I applied to my solicitor for advice. He told me that, unless I threw up the contract, I could make no claim for breach of conditions. Unfortunately for me, the many precedents since established, of actions on "petition of right" for breach of contract by the Government and the Legislature, had not then been recorded, and I had to submit to what I was told was the inevitable.
I struggled on through the session amid a hurricane of calumny and malicious opposition. The Queen's Printers, the former French contractor, and, above all, the principal defeated competitor in Toronto, joined their forces to destroy my credit, to entice away my workmen, to disseminate but too successfully the falsehood, that my contract was taken at unprofitable rates, until I was fairly driven to my wits' end, and ultimately forced into actual insolvency. The cashier of the Upper Canada Bank told me very kindly, that everybody in the Houses and the Bank knew my honesty and energy, but the combination against me was too strong, and it was useless for me to resist it, unless my Toronto friends would come to my assistance.
I was not easily dismayed by opposition, and determined at least to send a Parthian shaft into my enemies' camp. The session being over, I hastened to Toronto, called my creditors together at the office of Messrs Cameron & Harman, and laid my position before them. All I could command in the way of valuable assets was invested in the business of the contract. I had besides, in the shape of nominal assets, over a hundred thousand dollars in newspaper debts scattered over Upper Canada, which I was obliged to report as utterly uncollectable, being mainly due by farmers who—as was generally done throughout Ontario in 1857—had made over their farms to their sons or other parties, to evade payment of their own debts. All my creditors were old personal friends, and so thoroughly satisfied were they of the good faith of the statements submitted by me, that they unanimously decided to appoint no assignee, and to accept the offer I made them to conduct the contract for their benefit, on their providing the necessary sinews of war, which they undertook to do in three days.
What was my disappointment and chagrin to find, at the end of that term, that the impression which had been so industriously disseminated in Quebec, that my contract prices were impracticably low, had reached and influenced my Toronto friends, and that it was thought wisest to abandon the undertaking. I refused to do so.
Among my employees in the office were four young men, of excellent abilities, who had grown into experience under my charge, and had, by marriage and economy, acquired means of their own, and could besides command the support of monied relatives. These young men I took into my counsels. At the bailiff's sale of my office which followed, they bought in such materials as they thought sufficient for the contract work, and in less than a month we had the whole office complete again, and with the sanction of the Hon. the Speaker, got the contract work once more into shape. The members of the new firm were Samuel Thompson, Robert Hunter, George M. Rose, John Moore, and François Lemieux.
CHAPTER L.
QUEBEC IN 1859-60.
I resided for eighteen months in the old, picturesque and many-memoried city. My house was a three-story cedar log building known as the White House, near the corner of Salaberry Street and Mount Pleasant Road. It was weather-boarded outside, comfortably plastered and finished within, and was the most easily warmed house I ever occupied. The windows were French, double in winter, opening both inwards and outwards, with sliding panes for ventilation. It had a good garden, sloping northerly at an angle of about fifteen degrees, which I found a desolate place enough, and left a little oasis of beauty and productiveness. One of my amusements there was to stroll along the garden paths, watching for the sparkle of Quebec diamonds, which after every rainfall glittered in the paths and flower-beds. They are very pretty, well shaped octagonal crystals of rock quartz, and are often worn in necklaces by the Quebec demoiselles. On the plains of Abraham I found similar specimens brilliantly black.
Quebec is famous for good roads and pleasant shady promenades. By the St. Foy Road to Spencer Wood, thence onward to Cap Rouge, back by the St. Louis Road or Grande Allée, past the citadel and through the old-fashioned St. Louis Gate, is a charming stroll; or along the by-path from St. Louis Road to the pretty Gothic chapel overhanging the Cove, and so down steep rocky steps descending four hundred feet to the mighty river St. Lawrence; or along the St. Charles river and the country road to Lorette; or by the Beauport road to the old chateau or manor house of Colonel Gugy, known by the name of "Darnoc." The toll-gate on the St. Foy Road was quite an important institution to the simple habitans, who paid their shilling toll for the privilege of bringing to market a bunch or two of carrots and as many turnips, with a basket of eggs, or some cabbages and onions, in a little cart drawn by a little pony, with which surprising equipage they would stand patiently all morning in St. Anne's market, under the shadow of the old ruined Jesuits' barracks, and return home contented with the three or four shillings realized from their day's traffic.