BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF HISTORY AND
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN QUEEN'S
UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA.
NO. 28, JULY, 1918
SIR GEORGE ARTHUR AND HIS
ADMINISTRATION OF UPPER CANADA.
BY
WALTER SAGE
The Jackson Press, Kingston
SIR GEORGE ARTHUR AND HIS ADMINISTRATION OF UPPER CANADA.
The last Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada before the Union of 1841 was Sir George Arthur. To most Canadians of to-day he is little more than a name, but still he played an important part in the stirring events of our political life fourscore years ago. He lacked the picturesqueness of that extraordinary personage, his predecessor in office, Sir Francis Bond Head, and he was overshadowed completely by both Lord Durham to Poulett Thomson, better known as Lord Sydenham, who were in succession as Governors-General placed in authority over him. None the less he lives in Canadian history as the man who refused to reprieve Lount and Matthews, and who made common cause with the Family Compact against the Reformers. Although nominally he was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from his appointment in 1837 until the Act of Union went into force, his real term of office lasted only a little more than a year and a half, from March 23rd, 1838, until November 22nd, 1839. After that time he was directly subordinate to Sydenham. During that brief period Sir George Arthur proved himself an energetic if not always merciful governor.
It was unfortunate that Arthur come to Upper Canada at a time when Mackenzie's rebellion had just been crushed and when party feeling was still running very high. Sir Francis Bond Head left Toronto on the very day that Sir George Arthur arrived and so the new Lieutenant-Governor was unable to obtain much information from his predecessor. There is reason to believe, none the less, that Sir Francis put in a good word for his old friends the Family Compact and that Arthur from the beginning of his term of office favoured that party. In his first official despatch to Lord Glenelg dated March 29th, 1838, Sir George makes mention of the "large preponderating party looking to the Executive Government to put down treason by energetic measures," as opposed to "the party styling themselves Reformers" who were "hoping for the most lenient course."[[1]] These phrases, written when Arthur had been only about a week in Upper Canada, stamp the new governor at once as an opponent of reform. If further proof is needed it can readily be found in Arthur's reply to a congratulatory address from seven hundred and fifty citizens of Toronto upon the occasion of his arrival in that city. In that address reference was made to the fact that "in the promotion of public order, and the adoption of measures for the pacification of the country" Arthur would have "the prompt and energetic support of the loyal, patriotic and constitutional reformers of the Province." In his reply Sir George Arthur regretted that "any portion of the inhabitants of this city should have felt it necessary at the moment to present themselves under the character of reformers, as a distinct class of the people of this Province." Such a statement was not likely to secure for Sir George Arthur the whole-hearted support of all the well-disposed citizens of Toronto. The execution of Lount and Matthews further alienated the more moderate men in the Province.
When Sir Francis Head arrived in Toronto he was greeted by placards which designated him as "a Tried Reformer."[[2]] When Sir George Arthur was appointed to succeed him the London Atlas, on March 3rd, 1838, enquired, "What will the inhabitants of Upper Canada think of the appointment of the Governor of a penal Colony to rule over a province of freemen?"[[3]] As a matter of fact, Arthur was an improvement on Head but he was never able to shake off his past traditions or to obtain as Lord Durham and Lord Sydenham did, a real insight into Upper Canadian conditions. Durham, it is true, in his Report is not nearly so successful when he deals with the upper province as when he portrays the miseries of Lower Canada, but he understood the situation there better than Head or Arthur ever did. Sydenham's ideas as to the workings of Responsible Government did not harmonize with those of Lord Elgin, but he never would have argued against it, as Arthur did, on the grounds that it was demanded by the Reformers. From start to finish of his term of office in Upper Canada Sir George Arthur was unable to forget his experience in British Honduras where he quelled a negro insurrection and in Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, where he was called upon to rule a convict settlement. Above all he was a military officer, and as such was none too ready to season justice with mercy. He was the last of that series of Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada who were also military officers and he possessed the defects of his qualities. Stern, unbending, narrow-minded, but entirely honest he was totally unable to see his opponent's point of view.