THE event known as the “Trent affair,” November 8th, 1861, when the American man-of-war San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes, stopped the British mail steamship Trent in the open sea, boarded her, and arrested the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, then on their way to England to plead the cause of the South and seek its recognition as a belligerent power, caused considerable excitement in Canada. The Northern States were much elated over this grave breach of the law of nations, but Great Britain was indignant, and demanded the instant release of the captives, a declaration of war as the alternative. Troops were sent to Halifax and Quebec, one regiment riding from Halifax to Quebec in the midst of winter, there being no Intercolonial Railway at that date. All Canadians of military age were enrolled, and the excitement caused thereby seemed almost to deprive many of their reasoning powers.
There was much bombastic talk, and it certainly appeared as if a lot of our fire-eaters wanted war and a chance to distinguish themselves, and in no instance did this class of the community suppose that the United States could or would strike back. No, they evidently believed we were simply to band together and “eat up” the people of the Northern States. A well-known practising physician of Oshawa boasted that he with ten thousand men could march right through to Washington.
However, Lincoln’s firm wisdom prevailed, the American Government, quietly acquiescing in Great Britain’s demand, gave up the captives, and the war-cloud passed.
Among the many who had enlisted in the Northern army were several from Oshawa. Robert Warren, son of John B. Warren, died from exposure, and his body was found after an engagement, begrimed with dust and smoke, by his schoolmate, Dr. John Wall, who was serving as surgeon in the army in Virginia. John cared for the body of his friend, and brought it home to Oshawa for burial. Ah, how many of our poor fellows were buried where they fell!
“On fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
Which glory with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.”
The Grand Trunk Railway carried military equipments from Quebec and Montreal to Toronto that winter and did a thriving business. Officers guarded these stores on the cars. One cold day one of these officers fell out of the Grand Trunk car, going up Scarboro’ Heights, and landed in the snow. Making his way, bareheaded, to Jerry Annis’s house, it being the nearest, he got him to drive him to Toronto, eleven miles away.
At this period in Canada very many of the industries were carried on by bank capital. That is to say, endorsed notes were made for three months, discounted, and renewed from quarter to quarter. By the capital thus raised manufacturing, lumbering, tanning, and like industries, were carried on.
At this time of writing, when loans are current at five per cent., it seems almost incredible that only thirty years ago business men and manufacturers depended upon chartered banks for their capital—renewing their notes quarterly—and by so doing paid the interest quarterly in advance, making interest at ten and one-half to eleven per cent. per annum. Such, however, was the case, and the banks throve by that manner of doing business.
Banks usually succeed in Canada. Those old institutions that helped very materially to develop the country, but which failed, failed because of making too great loans upon real estate, and having a lot of it thrown on their hands. Banks, however, though in deep water, may keep on for years, until someone expresses fears of their solvency. Said an old manager of the Bank of Upper Canada to me, “A bank is like a woman, all right until someone says something against her character.”
From my earliest recollection, the general saying to express soundness emphatically was “As good as the Bank of Upper Canada.” The old Bank, however, kept on taking over real estate, distilleries, sawmills, foundries and such, until they had to liquidate at, I think, about thirty cents on the dollar. During the excitement caused by the Trent affair, A. S. Whiting and E. C. Tuttle, who just previously had started a large and important manufactory of hand harvest tools, such as scythes, forks, hoes and rakes, were succeeding nicely. William L. Gilbert, of Winsted, Conn., was endorsing their notes. They applied to the Ontario Bank for twenty thousand dollars as a part of their capital. Gilbert’s credit was above suspicion—he was a millionaire—but the prospect of war from the Trent affair frightened the Ontario Bank people, and Whiting and Tuttle had to arrange with my father to make the endorsation until people got rid of their temporary madness. This is an instance of the peculiar state of affairs in Upper Canada, financially, during 1862. Some of our branch lines of railways, too, were in part built by using bank capital and discounted notes.