A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

The most critical time was in the year 1794. In America the forces which make for war were strongly in evidence. On the other side of the Atlantic—to the lasting credit of both the British and the American Governments—representatives of the two countries were working hard for peace. In the spring of 1794 Washington nominated John Jay, Chief Justice of the United States, to be a special envoy to Great Britain with a view to settling, if possible, the outstanding points of dispute between the two nations. The Senate confirmed the nomination, and in June Jay reached England and entered into negotiations with Lord Grenville. The result was that on the 19th of November following Jay and Grenville Jay’s treaty signed. signed the well-known treaty which is associated with the American statesman’s name, and which provided for an immediate or prospective settlement of many if not of most of the questions at issue. The treaty was bitterly attacked in the United States by the Republican party and those who sympathized with France. Jay, Hamilton, even Washington himself were denounced and reviled; but the government had sufficient backing in the country to procure the assent of the Senate to the terms of the treaty, with the exception of one article, in the session of 1795; Washington ratified it in August, 1795; and in the following year the measures for carrying The border forts transferred to the United States in 1796. it into effect were voted by a small majority in the House of Representatives. Under its provisions, in that same year, 1796, the border forts were handed over to the United States.

Wayne defeats the Indians.

Meanwhile the war between the Americans and Indians ran the normal course of such wars. The white men suffered some reverses; but, with a strong body of regular troops supplemented by Kentucky militia, and with the help of fortified posts constructed along the line of advance, Wayne by August, 1794, had worn down the Indians and menaced the British fort on the Maumee river, to whose commandant, Major Campbell, he addressed threatening letters. On either side, however, the orders were to abstain from blows, while Jay and Grenville were negotiating, and the conclusion of the treaty ensured the abandonment by the British troops of this outpost of Detroit as well as of Detroit itself. Next year, on the 3rd of August, 1795, Wayne concluded the Treaty of Greenville with the Western Indians. Under its terms the Americans advanced their boundary beyond the Ohio, but still left to the Indians on the south of Lake Erie and in the peninsula of Michigan lands of which the treaty definitely recognized them to be owners, and where they were to dwell under the protection of the United States.

In September, 1795, the Duke of Portland wrote to Lord Dorchester telling him that General Prescott would Dorchester and Simcoe leave Canada. be appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada and would leave for Canada in the spring, so that Dorchester could suit his own convenience as to returning to England. At the same time the Secretary of State repeated his regret that Dorchester had determined to retire. Prescott arrived on the 18th of June, 1796, and on the 9th of July Dorchester embarked for England. His ship was wrecked on the shore of Anticosti island, but he reached England in safety in September, and died in a good old age in the autumn of 1808. Simcoe, in the meantime, had, in December, 1795, applied for leave of absence on account of ill health, suggesting that Peter Russell, the senior councillor, should in his absence administer the government of Upper Canada, and tendering his resignation if the leave could not be granted. His wish was complied with, and, after being detained for some time at Quebec, he came back with the returning ships of the autumn convoy and was in London in 1796, two months after Dorchester’s arrival. Canada saw him no more, and, as has been told, he died at a comparatively early age, outlived by the old Governor-in-Chief whose control had fretted his impetuous spirit.

Lord Dorchester’s services to Great Britain and Canada.

In the colonial history of Great Britain Lord Dorchester’s place is or ought to be second to none. Men should be measured by the times in which they live, the lands in which they serve, the conditions which they are called upon to face. It did not fall to Carleton’s lot to be borne on the flowing tide of British victories, to be a leader in successful wars, to be remembered as one who struck down England’s foes and added provinces to her empire. Nor was it given to him to bear rule in times of settled peace, when wisdom and statesmanship are called on to gather in and store the harvest, to consolidate, to develop, to reform, to enrich, to give security and beneficent measures to trusting and expectant multitudes of the human race. Providence set the span of his active life while his country’s fortunes were running out on the ebb-tide of adversity; his public services were coincident with Great Britain’s depression; and the part of the Empire in which he served was the scene of her defeats. No men of good English type cheered and supported him at home, the patriotism which inspired his life was unknown alike to the ministers who preceded William Pitt and to an Opposition which, as embodied in Fox, lost all sense of proportion, and almost all sense of duty, or principle. Yet he held Quebec and saved Canada. Men turned to him to gather up the fragments after the War of Independence; and he reconciled French Canada to British rule and held the balance even between conflicting races and creeds. Open warfare, political intrigue, in every form and from every quarter, from without and from within, beset his path. Those he served and those by whom he was served were in turn disloyal to him. Colonial questions, such as in times of profound peace and goodwill, and after generations of experience, are yet almost insoluble, confronted him, without precedent, without guidance, in their most uncompromising form. He faced them, and through all the mire and mud in which England and English civilians and soldiers and sailors wallowed in these miserable years, he carried one name at any rate which stood for dignity, uprightness, and firm prescient statesmanship. It is not to the credit of English memories or English perception that his name has outside Canada passed into comparative oblivion. If ever a man had temptation to despair of or be untrue to his country, and if ever a man’s character and work redeemed his country and his country’s cause in unworthy times, that man was Carleton.

A great figure in the colonial history of Great Britain as a whole, in the history of Canada he is very great indeed. His character is poles apart from that of old Count Frontenac, and yet he filled in some sort a similar place. Both were soldier-governors; both came back to rule a second time; in either case the individual personality of a firm masterful man was the saving feature of a time of life and death for the colony. Carleton had none of Frontenac’s ruthlessness and arrogance, he had not his French quick wit; but either man in his turn, the one at the end of the seventeenth century, the other towards the end of the eighteenth, was in the fullest sense the saviour of Canada.

General Prescott succeeds Dorchester.

Dorchester did not actually cease to be Governor-in-Chief of Canada until the end of April, 1797, some months after his return to England. He was then succeeded in the office by Prescott, who in the meantime had been Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada and Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, having been sworn in at Quebec on the 12th of July, 1796. Robert Prescott, of Lancashire descent, was an old man when he was sent to Canada. Born in 1725, he was seventy-one years of age, only one year younger than Dorchester. He was a Lieutenant-General in the army and had seen much fighting, principally in North America and the West Indies. He had served under Amherst and Wolfe, at Louisbourg and Quebec. He had fought in the War of American Independence and been present at the battle of Brandywine. In 1794 he was in command of the force which took Martinique from the French and, as civil governor of the island, he earned the goodwill of French and natives alike by his tact and humanity.[211] Thus he had a good record when he was chosen to succeed Lord Dorchester, and, though his rule in Canada was short and stormy, when he left, there was abundant evidence of his popularity.

Intrigues of the French minister in the United States against Canada.