A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

But then comes the last and the strongest argument of the colonies. The mother country dictated the policy; distant and without direct representation, though their agents were active in England, the colonies could only follow where the mother country led: the mother country, therefore, should pay the cost of defending the outlying provinces; or, if the latter contributed at all to the cost, it was for them and not for the mother country to determine the amount and the method of the contribution. The real answer to this argument was, as Adam Smith Question of colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament. saw,[30] that the colonies should be represented in the Imperial Parliament. He allowed that such a proposal was beset by difficulties, but he did not consider, as Burke considered, that the difficulties were insurmountable. Yet the problem, infinitely easier in the days of steam and telegraphy, has not yet been solved, and the preliminary task of combining a group of self-governing colonies into a single confederation had, in the eighteenth century, only been talked of and never been seriously attempted in North America.

In theory, English citizens, who had never been taxed directly for Imperial purposes, might fairly claim not to be taxed, unless and until they were taken into full partnership and given a voice in determining the policy of the Empire. But the actual facts of the case made the demand of the mother country on the American colonies in itself eminently reasonable. It was true that England had Moderation of the English demand on the colonies. dictated the policy; but it was also true that the policy had been directly in the interests of the colonies, and such as they warmly approved. They were asked for money, but only for their own protection, and to preclude the possibility of a further burden falling on the mother country, already overweighted with debt incurred on behalf of these particular provinces of the Empire. The demand was a small one; the money to be raised would clearly defray but a fraction of the cost of defending the North American colonies. To the amount no reasonable exception could be taken; and as to the method of raising it the colonies were, as a matter of fact, consulted, for Grenville, the author of the Stamp Act, gave a year’s notice, before the Act was finally passed,[31] in order that the colonies might, in the meantime, if they could, agree upon some more palatable method of providing the sum required.

England suffered for her merits as well as for her defects.

The merits of England, no less than her defects, tended to alienate the North American colonies. It is possible that, if she had made a larger and more sweeping demand, she would have been more successful. Her requisition was so moderate, that it seemed to be petty, and might well have aroused suspicion that there was more behind; that what was actually proposed was an insidious preliminary to some far-reaching scheme for oppressing the colonies and bringing them into subjection. It has been held, too, that, if the Stamp Act had been passed without delay, there would have been less opposition to it than when it had been brooded over for many months. In other words, the fairness of dealing, which gave full warning and full time for consideration of a carefully measured demand, was turned to account against the mother country. But after all what was in men’s minds, when the American colonies began their contest for The analogy of family life in the case of a mother country and its colonies. independence was, speaking broadly, the feeling, right or wrong, that a mother country ought to pay and colonies ought not. Men argued then, and they still argue, from the analogy of a family. The head of the family should provide, as long as the children remain part of the household.

The analogy of family life suggests a further view of the relations between a mother country and its colonies, which accounts for the possibilities of friction. A colonial empire consists of an old community linked to young ones. The conditions, the standards, the points of view, in politics, in morals, in social and industrial matters, are not identical in old and young communities. Young peoples, like young men, do not count the cost, and do not feel responsibility to the same extent as their elders. They are more restive, more ready to move forward, more prompt in action. Their horizon is limited, and therefore they see immediate objects clearly, and they do not appreciate compromise. The problems which face them are simple as compared with the complicated questions which face older communities, and they are impatient of the caution and hesitation which come with inherited experience in a much wider field of action. The future is theirs rather than the past, they have not yet accumulated much capital and draw bills on the coming time. Most of all, being on promotion, they are sensitive as to their standing, keenly alive to their interests, and resent any semblance of being slighted. It is impossible to generalize as to the comparative standards of morality in old and young communities, either in public or in private life, but, as a matter of fact, political life, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was much purer in the North American colonies than in England: whereas at the present day, in this respect, England compares favourably with the United States. The North American colonies were a group of young communities, whose citizens were, at any rate in New England and Pennsylvania, of a strong, sober, and very tenacious type: the late war had taught them to fight: its issue had given them a feeling of strength and security: there had been no extraordinary strain upon their resources: they had reached a stage in their history when they were most dangerous to offend and not unlikely to take offence unless very carefully handled, and careful handling on the part of the mother country, as all the world knows, was conspicuous by its absence.

The Native question.

One more point may be noted as having an important bearing upon the general question of the relations between a mother country and its colonies, one which in particular contributed to ill-feeling between England and the North American states. Colonization rarely takes place in an empty land. The colonists on arrival find native inhabitants, strong or weak, few or many, as the case may be. In North America there were strong fighting races of Indians, and the native question played an all-important part in the early history of European settlement in this part of the world. It is almost inevitable that white men on the spot, who are in daily contact with natives, should, unless they hold a brief as missionaries or philanthropists, take a different view of native rights and claims from that which is held at a distance. It is true that in our own time, to take one instance only, the Maori question in New Zealand has been well handled by the colonial authorities, when thrown on their own resources, with the result that there are no more loyal members of the British Empire at the present day than the coloured citizens of New Zealand; but in the earlier days of colonization the general rule has been that native races fare better under Imperial than under colonial control, for the twofold reason that the distant authority is less influenced by colour prejudice, and that white men who go out from Europe to settle among native races are, in the ordinary course, of a rougher type than those who stay at home, and that they tend to become hardened by living among lower grades of humanity. The Quaker followers of Penn, in the state which bears his name, were conspicuous for just and kindly treatment of the Indians, but in the back-lands of Pennsylvania the traders and pioneers of settlement were to the full as grasping as their neighbours. The North American Puritan, like the South African Dutchman, looked on the coloured man much as the Jewish race regarded the native tribes of Canaan. The colonists came in and took the land of the heathen in possession. Indian atrocities, stimulated by French influence and French missionary training, were not calculated to soften the views of the English settlers. They saw their homes burned: their wives and children butchered: to them arguments as to the red men’s rights were idle words.

The only authority which could and would hold the balance even between the races was the Imperial Government; and in the hands of that Government, represented for the purpose in the middle of the eighteenth century by a man of rare ability and unrivalled experience, Sir William Johnson, the superintendence of native affairs was placed. But this duty, and the attempt to carry it out justly and faithfully, involved friction with the more turbulent and the less scrupulous of the colonists. Colonization is a tide which is always coming in; and, unless restrictions are imposed upon the colonists by some superior authority, the native owners are gradually expropriated. ‘Your people,’ said the representatives of the Six Nations to Sir William Johnson in 1755, ‘when they buy a small piece of land of us, by stealing they make it large;’[32] and Johnson amply corroborated this view. In October, 1762, he wrote: ‘The Indians are greatly disgusted at the great thirst which we all seem to show for their lands.’[33]

Sir William Johnson.

A word must be said of Sir William Johnson, for he was one of the men who, in the long course of British colonial history, have rendered memorable service to their country by special aptitude for dealing with native races. In this quality the French in North America, as a rule, far excelled the English, and at the particular place and time, Johnson’s character and influence were an invaluable asset on the British side. An Irishman by birth, and nephew of Sir Peter Warren, he had come out to America in 1738 to manage his uncle’s estates on the confines of the Six Nation Indians, and some eleven years later he was made Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern division. He lived on the Mohawk river, as much Indian as white man, his second wife being Molly Brant, sister of the subsequently celebrated Mohawk leader, and among the Iroquois his influence was unrivalled. In the wars with France he did notable work, especially at the battle of Lake George in 1755, and at the taking of Fort Niagara in 1759; and, when he died in July, 1774, on the eve of the War of Independence, his death left a gap which could not be filled, for no one among his contemporaries could so persuade and so control the fiercest native fighters in North America.