Galt came out, I am glad to say, formally in opposition and relieved me of the difficulty connected with him. His warm alliance with the Lower Canadian French rendered it necessary for me to put up with a good deal, as you know. But he is now finally dead as a Canadian politician. The correspondence between Cartier and himself, in which he comes squarely out for independence, has rung his death-knell, and I shall take precious good care to keep him where he is. He has seduced Cartwright away, and I have found out how it was managed. Cartwright and he formed at the Club last session a sort of mutual admiration society, and they agreed that they were the two men fit to govern Canada. Galt rubbed it in pretty strong, as I have occasion to know that he told him that I ought to have selected him (Cartwright) as your successor.[[7]]
Despite Sir John's jaunty attitude at the time, the appointment of Sir Francis Hincks could not be said to have fulfilled expectations. While it disappointed Tory ambitions, it failed to strengthen the Reform section supporting the Administration. Moreover, I infer from Sir John's confidential letters of the time that Sir Francis was not quite the square peg for the square hole.
Hincks [wrote Sir John to his friend Rose in January 1872] is as suggestive as ever in financial matters, but his rashness (always, as you know, the defect of his character) seems to increase with his years, and, strange to say, he is quite a stranger to the popular opinion of Canada as it is. His Canada is the Canada of 1850. For all that he is a worthy good fellow and has been successful in finance.
Upon the whole, I am inclined to view the taking up of Sir Francis Hincks in 1869 as one of Sir John Macdonald's very few mistakes. I do not go as far as to say he would have done better to have chosen Sir Richard Cartwright, who was only thirty-three years of age at the time, and who, as the president of the Commercial Bank, which had failed only two years before, was just then an impossibility.[[8]] Moreover, to be quite just to Sir Richard Cartwright, I must say that I have never seen evidence to satisfy me that he expected to succeed Sir John Rose. There is nothing in his letters preserved by Sir John Macdonald to establish this. They disclose his opposition to Hincks, but he nowhere says that he wanted the position for himself. It is true that in the heat of debate Sir John more than once implied something of the kind, and I am not aware that Sir Richard ever denied the allegation, though it is quite possible he may have done so. There is little doubt, however, that the selection of Sir Francis Hincks caused Sir Richard Cartwright to abandon Sir John Macdonald. He did not leave all at once. As late as the campaign which preceded the general elections of 1872 he called himself an 'Independent,' and the Globe contemptuously classed him, in respect of certain votes he had given in parliament which happened to be distasteful to Brown, as 'a Tory and a corruptionist.' But from 1870 his name not infrequently appears in the division list of the House of Commons among the Opposition.
The taking over of the North-West from the Hudson's Bay Company—a troubled chapter in the early history of the Dominion—caused Sir John Macdonald a great deal of concern. Looking back after the event, it would seem that the difficulties experienced had their origin in three main causes: first, the neglect of the Hudson's Bay Company to prepare the settlers for the great change involved in the transfer of the government of that vast region to Canada; secondly, the lack of conciliation, tact, and prudence on the part of the Canadian surveyors who were sent into the country in the summer of 1869; and, thirdly, the injudicious course pursued by M'Dougall, who was sent to the North-West as lieutenant-governor in anticipation of the actual transfer to Canada. The Ottawa authorities appear to have omitted no step which their scanty knowledge of that distant region might have suggested. In September 1868 a delegation, consisting of Cartier and M'Dougall, had visited England, and, after a series of untoward events and much negotiation, had arrived at an arrangement under which the Hudson's Bay Company agreed, in consideration of the sum of £300,000, to surrender all their interest in the North-West to the crown, with the reservation to the Company of one-twentieth of the fertile belt and of 45,000 acres adjacent to its trading posts. In the following September (1869) William M'Dougall was appointed lieutenant-governor, but prior to that date Joseph Howe, the secretary of state for the provinces, went to Fort Garry in order to prepare the way for the new governor. Howe found the people largely uninformed as to the true position of affairs, but he added that by 'frank and courteous explanation' he had cleared the air a good deal, and that the future would depend upon M'Dougall's tact, temper, and discretion. What happened is well known—the bad handling of the situation by M'Dougall, the insurrection of the half-breeds under Louis Riel, the murder of Thomas Scott—and I shall not allude to these events further than to say that they gave Sir John Macdonald the occasion of meeting, for the first time, the future Lord Strathcona. It happened in this way. When news of the outbreak on the Red River reached Ottawa, George Stephen—between whom and Sir John Macdonald there existed a warm friendship even then—wrote to Sir John to say that he thought he knew a man well qualified to act as a peacemaker at Fort Garry if he would undertake the mission. This was Donald A. Smith, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company in Montreal. Armed with a letter of introduction to Macdonald from Stephen, Smith went to Ottawa. I give three brief extracts from Sir John's correspondence of the time.
I was very glad to see Mr Smith, who seems a clever man; at the same time I am exceedingly disappointed at the apparent helplessness of the Hudson's Bay authorities. Mr Smith has nothing to suggest, and they seem to have been utterly neglectful at Red River of their duty in preparing the people for the change.[[9]]
Your friend Donald A. Smith is rather lucky. He will go up there on an important mission, will succeed beyond a doubt, and get a good deal of praise therefor.[[10]]
Smith left this morning with full powers and instructions. He seemed to think that he would be able to do good there. It would never have done for Colonel Wolseley to have gone with him. Smith goes to carry the olive branch, and were it known at Red River that he was accompanied by an officer high in rank in the military service, he would be looked upon as having the olive branch in one hand and a revolver in the other.[[11]]
Smith's mission, however, did not prove effective, and it became necessary later to send Colonel (afterwards Lord) Wolseley with a military expedition to the Red River. It may not be generally known that after the troubles were over, Colonel Wolseley intimated his willingness to accept the position of lieutenant-governor of the newly created province of Manitoba. The appointment of a military man to the civil office of lieutenant-governor was not, however, considered expedient just then, and, fortunately for the future viscount, he was passed over in favour of Adams Archibald.