A history of Canada, 1763-1812

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

Napoleon’s views as to St. Domingo and Louisiana.

Napoleon, as writers have shown, in negotiating for and concluding the Peace of Amiens which gave him respite from the sea power of Great Britain, had in view the reconquest of St. Domingo where Toussaint L’Ouverture had secured practical independence, and the recovery of Louisiana. By secret bargain with Spain in 1800, he had secured the retrocession of Louisiana; and, had the arrangement been carried out and the French power been firmly planted again at New Orleans and on the Mississippi, a new impetus and a new motive would have been given for French designs on Canada. But the losses in the St. Domingo campaigns were heavy, and in regard to Louisiana Napoleon had to reckon with the American people. Realizing that his policy, if persisted in, would draw the United States away from France and towards Great Britain, he came, with some suddenness, to the conclusion that the game was not worth the candle, Abandonment of his American schemes. and selling in 1803 to the United States the great territory on the line of the Mississippi which after all was not his to sell, he put an end for ever to French aspirations for recovering their North American dominions.

Napoleon’s decision set Canada free from any possible danger of French conquest; but, at the same time, it Danger to Canada from the United States. set him free also to renew war with Great Britain, and cut short any tendency to more cordial relations between Great Britain and the United States. The danger for Canada now was that, either as the direct result of friendship between France and the United States, or indirectly through the incidents to which the maritime war between France and Great Britain gave rise, war would take place between Great Britain and the United States, involving American invasion and not improbably American conquest of Canada. Eventually, in 1812, war came to pass. Once more England was called upon to fight France and the United States at the same time; but in this second war the Canadians, heart-whole in defending their province against their rivals of old time, themselves largely contributed to the saving of Canada.

The causes which led to the war of 1812 have been noted in another book.[219] One of the incidents which The incident of the Leopard and the Chesapeake. preluded it was the action of a British ship of war, the Leopard, in firing on the American frigate Chesapeake and carrying off four men, who were claimed as deserters from the British navy. This high-handed proceeding naturally caused the strongest resentment in the United States, and raised the whole question of the right of search. There was talk of invading Canada, which was answered by calling out the Canadian militia; the Canadians answered readily to the call; and shortly afterwards a new Governor-General arrived in Canada, a man well tried in war, Sir James Craig. On the 10th of August, Sir James Craig appointed Governor-General of Canada. 1807, General Prescott, still Governor-General of Canada, though he had left in July, 1799, was delicately informed by Lord Castlereagh, then Secretary of State, that it was necessary to appoint a new Governor-General. The terms of the letter were that Lord Castlereagh lamented that circumstances required an arrangement to be made which might interfere with Prescott’s emoluments. Sir James Craig accordingly received his commission on the last day of August, 1807, and landed at Quebec on the 18th of October, too ill to take the oaths of office until the 24th of that month, when he took them in his bedroom. Craig, though in failing health, governed Canada for four years. Like his predecessors he was a distinguished soldier. He was a Scotchman but was born at Gibraltar, His previous career. where his father held the post of civil and military judge in the fortress. He was born in 1748 and was only fifteen years old when he joined the army in 1763, the year of the great Peace. He was wounded at Bunker’s Hill; in 1776 he went to Canada and commanded the advanced guard of the forces which under Carleton’s command drove the Americans out of Canada. He took part in Burgoyne’s expedition, was twice wounded, was present at Saratoga, and was chosen to carry home dispatches.[220] Later in the war he served with distinction under Lord Cornwallis in North Carolina. In 1794 he became a major-general, and in 1795 he was sent to the Cape to take it over from the Dutch. The Netherlands, recently over-run by a French army under Pichegru, had been transformed into the Batavian republic, and the Prince of Orange, then a refugee in England, sent orders by the British fleet under Admiral Elphinstone, which carried Craig and his troops, that the British force should be admitted as having come to protect the colony from the French. The Dutch governor, however, was not prepared to hand over his charge to British keeping. Craig accordingly landed his troops at Simonstown, and successfully attacked the Dutch at Muizenberg, but was not able to occupy Capetown until the arrival of a force from India, which had been ordered to co-operate, and which was under the command of a senior officer, Sir Alured Clarke, the late Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada. On Clarke’s arrival the Dutch capitulated, and Craig became the first British Governor of the Cape, being succeeded in 1797 by a civilian, Lord Macartney. He served about five years in India, being promoted to be Lieutenant-General in 1801; and, after returning to England in 1802, was sent in 1805 to the Mediterranean in charge of an abortive expedition to Naples, in which British and Russian troops were to combine against the French. It ended in his transferring his force to Sicily, where the Neapolitan court had taken refuge. He then went home in ill health, and in 1807 went out to Canada. His appointment was no doubt mainly due to his military reputation, for war with the United States seemed close at hand; but he was well qualified for it also by his wide experience of the colonies, and by the fact that, like Prescott, he had already had a short term of colonial administration. He left behind him at the Cape a good record as governor, and but for the state of his health seemed clearly the man for Canada.

The beginning of his administration.

In his first speech to the Legislature of Lower Canada in January, 1808, Craig expressed his gratification at meeting the members of the two Houses ‘in the exercise of the noblest office to which the human mind can be directed, that of legislating for a free people’, and he added that he looked forward to the most perfect harmony and co-operation between them and himself. His anticipations were not fulfilled, and during the years of his administration the inevitable struggle for further power on the part of the elected representatives of the community became accentuated. The session of 1808 lasted from January to April. It was the last session of an existing Parliament. No point of difference arose in this short time between the Assembly and the Executive; but, the Assembly having passed a Bill, undoubtedly right in principle though directed against a particular individual, that judges should be incapable of being elected to or sitting in the House, the Bill was thrown out by the Legislative Council. This caused ill feeling between the two branches of the Legislature, and at the same time the Assembly came into collision with one of the constituencies, that of Three Rivers, by passing a resolution which excluded from the House a Jew who had been duly elected as member for Three Rivers and was promptly re-elected. At the conclusion of the session a General Election took place in May, but the Legislature was not called together till April, 1809, and in the meantime friction began between the governor and the popular representatives.

Friction between the governor and the Assembly.

In June, 1808, Craig dismissed certain gentlemen from their appointments as officers in the town militia on account of their connexion with the French opposition paper Le Canadien. One of them, M. Panet, had been Speaker of the House of Assembly in the late Parliament, and when the new House met he was again chosen to be Speaker, the choice being confirmed by the governor. The House sat for five weeks in 1809, wrangling over the same questions that had been prominent in the preceding year, viz. the exclusion from the House of judges and of members of the Jewish religion: it was then peremptorily dissolved by the governor, who rated the members as so many children for wasting time and abusing their functions at a critical season of national affairs. The election took place in the following October; and, when the Legislature met in January, 1810, the Assembly was composed of much the same representatives as before, any change being rather against than in favour of the governor. In his opening speech the governor intimated that the Royal approval would be given to any proper Bill passed by both Houses, rendering the judges ineligible for seats in the Assembly. The House of Assembly on their side, having passed a resolution to the effect that any attempt on the part of the Executive or the other branch of the Legislature to dictate to them or censure their proceedings was a breach of their privileges, went on to pass loyal addresses appropriate to the fiftieth year of the King’s reign, their loyalty being, perhaps, quickened by the strong reference which had been made in the governor’s speech ‘to the high-sounded resentment of America’, coupled with an assurance that in the event of war Canada would receive ‘the necessary support of regular troops in the confident expectation of a cheerful exertion of the interior force of the country’. There followed an Address to the King and the Imperial Parliament, to which reference has already been made, and in which the Assembly, with many expressions of gratitude, intimated that the prosperity of Lower Canada was now so great that they could in that session pay all the expenses of the civil government. This Address the governor promised to lay before the King, though he pointed out that it was unconstitutional in, among other points, ignoring the Legislative Council. A Bill excluding the judges was then passed and sent up to the Legislative Council, who amended it by adding a clause which postponed its effect until the next Parliament, whereupon the Assembly passed a resolution excluding by name a certain judge who had a seat in the House, and the governor, rightly deeming their action in the matter to be unconstitutional, on the 26th of February again dissolved Parliament.

Proceedings taken by the governor against Le Canadien.

The French newspaper, Le Canadien, abounded weekly in scurrilous abuse of the authorities. On the 17th of March Craig took the strong step of seizing the printing press and all the papers, and committing to prison various persons connected with the paper, three of whom had been members of the late House of Assembly. He justified his action in a proclamation to the country at large. The prisoners were released in the course of the summer on the score of ill health or submission, with the exception of one French Canadian named Bedard, who refused to come to terms with the Executive and was still in prison when the new Assembly, to which he had been elected, met on the 12th of December, 1810. The governor, in his masterful proceedings, had acted under the authority of a temporary law entitled ‘an Act for the better preservation of His Majesty’s Government, as by law happily established in this province’. This Act was now expiring, and in his opening address he called attention to the necessity for renewing it. He carried his point, the Act was renewed, and, in addition to resolutions on the subject of Mr. Bedard’s imprisonment, the Assembly did some useful legislative work before the Legislature was prorogued on the 21st of March, 1811. Shortly after the prorogation Mr. Bedard was Craig retires on ill health. released, and on the 19th of June, 1811, Sir James Craig left Canada. He had long been in failing health, and in the proclamation, in which he defended his seizure of Le Canadien and those responsible for it, he had referred pathetically to his life as ‘ebbing not slowly to its period under the pressure of disease acquired in the service of my country’. His resignation had been for some months in the hands of the Government, and it was only in order to suit their convenience that he put off his departure to the date when it actually took place. He reached England alive, but died in the following January in his His death and character. sixty-second year. He was a man of conspicuous honesty and of undoubted courage and firmness. He had a soldier’s view as to discipline and subordination, which made him peremptory as a governor, and his addresses tended to be long-winded and dictatorial. But his personal popularity was great, he was dignified, hospitable, and open-handed, and he commanded respect even from his political opponents and from those whom he put into prison. He may well have been forgiven much not only for his personal qualities, but also because his military reputation was no small asset to Canada. His dealings with the United States were fair and courteous, but behind them was the known fact of his capacity and experience as a soldier. He might dispute with those whom he governed in the sphere of civil action, but in the event of war they had in him a leader upon whom they could rely. The Canadians too had reason to be Prosperity of Canada under Sir James Craig. in the main satisfied with his rule, in that the years during which Craig was governor were years of much prosperity. It was at this time that, stimulated by Napoleon’s attempts to cut off Great Britain from the Baltic trade and by the Non Intercourse Acts of the United States, Growth of the lumber trade. lumber became an important industry of Canada. It was at this time too, at the beginning of November, 1809, that a citizen of Montreal, John Molson, put the first steamer on the St. Lawrence, her passage from Montreal The first steamer on the St. Lawrence. to Quebec taking sixty-six hours, during thirty of which she was at anchor. Craig himself contributed to improvement of communication in Lower Canada by constructing Road to the Eastern Townships. sixty miles of road which bore his name, and which linked the Eastern Townships, then being settled largely by immigrants from the United States, to the southern bank of the St. Lawrence over against Quebec. This road, which was carried out by the troops under the Quartermaster-General, afterwards Sir James Kempt, Administrator of Canada, was, as Craig wrote to his friend and secretary Ryland, much wanted ‘not merely for the purpose of procuring us the necessary supplies but for the purpose also of bringing the people to our doors’:[221] and it resulted in the price of beef falling in the Quebec market from 7½d. to 4½d. a lb.[222] It gave an outlet to Quebec to a fine agricultural district, and it opened a direct route to Boston from the capital of Canada.