Sir George Arthur and His Administration of Upper Canada

by W. N. Sage

By training Sir George Arthur was a soldier. Before he ever embarked on his administrative career as governor of one colonial dependency after another he had served many years in the army. Born in 1784, the youngest son of John Arthur of Norley House, Plymouth, George Arthur entered the army at the age of twenty. He saw service in Italy, Egypt—where he was wounded at Rosetta in 1807—and also in Sicily in 1808. He took part in the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition of 1809 and seems to have distinguished himself in it, since we read that he was thanked in general orders and also that he received the freedom of the city of London. After being military secretary to Sir George Don, the governor of the island of Jersey; Arthur, in 1812, became a major in the Seventh West India Regiment. We next find him in Jamaica as assistant quartermaster-general of the forces on that island.

In 1814 George Arthur became Lieutenant-Governor of British Honduras "with the rank of colonel on the staff."[[4]] This office, which was both civil and military, Arthur held until 1822, during which time he suppressed a serious revolt of the slave population. His despatches on the subject of slavery we are told attracted the attention of the great abolitionist, William Wilberforce. In 1822 Colonel Arthur returned to England on leave of absence in order to furnish the British Government with additional information on the subject of the emancipation of slaves. It was during this stay in England that he was in 1824 appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land and at the same time commander of the military forces in that penal colony.

For twelve years George Arthur grappled with the terrible conditions existing in that most unfortunate island. The transportation system, one of the worst blots in British colonial history, was then at its height and its evils were only too apparent. The Select Committee on Transportation appointed by the British Parliament in its Report submitted in 1838, having outlined the unspeakable conditions existing at Norfolk Island, goes on to make the following statement regarding Van Diemen's Land:

"Your Committee will not lengthen this report by describing the penal settlements of Van Diemen's Land, where the severity of the system is as great as, if not greater than, that at Norfolk Island, where culprits are as reckless, if not more reckless, commissing murder" (to use the words of Sir George Arthur) "in order to enjoy the excitement of being sent up to Hobart Town for trial, though aware that in the ordinary course they must be executed within a fortnight after arrival."[[5]]

As Lieutenant-Governor of such a colony Colonel Arthur was called upon to act with firmness and often with severity. His biographer in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Alexander John Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I., claims that the object of Arthur's appointment was "the introduction of an improved system" of treatment for the convicts. Arthur sought to adopt "a middle course between the extreme severity of the system which would make transportation simply deterrent and the over-indulgence of the system which aimed at reforming the convict by gentler treatment. He held that it was possible to make transportation a punishment much dreaded by criminals whilst offering every facility for reform to those who were not hardened in crime; but he entertained no quixotic expectations of frequent reformation."[[6]] It will be seen from this quotation that Arthur believed in the transportation system in a modified and "improved" form. In this he ran counter to the wishes of the colonists who desired that an end be put to the abomination. Arthur's biographer regrets that "the colonists and their friends in England were bent on putting an end to the transportation system and their views ultimately prevailed."

This difference of opinion between Arthur and the colonists furnished W. L. MacKenzie with some of his choicest bits of invective against the new Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. In his Gazette, MacKenzie prefaced a long series of excerpts from the newspapers of Van Diemen's Land on the occasion of Arthur's recall with the sarcasm: "Such credentials cannot fail to increase the loyalty of the happy Canadians. O, the blessings of Colonial Dependence!!!"[[7]]

These excerpts clearly show that there was a considerable body of colonial opinion in Van Diemen's Land opposed to the policies of Governor Arthur. The following from the Hobart Town News may be taken as fairly typical. As a matter of fact it is quite moderate in tone in comparison with some of the other invectives against Arthur.

"It was with feelings of the most sincere satisfaction, we announced in our last number the arrival of the 'good ship' "Elphinstone", from England, bringing the very gratifying intelligence of the recall of Colonel George Arthur after an administration of twelve years; during the whole of which long period the people have been rendered wretched, unhappy, discontented and miserable by the misrule of his government...."[[8]]

Of course, no one would look into the pages of MacKenzie's Gazette to get a favourable impression of Sir George Arthur, but a perusal of these excerpts shows that the dissatisfaction against Arthur was widespread. The Launcetown Advertiser states that, "Throughout the whole period of his government the military have been placed in too prominent a position. Lieutenants and Ensigns, fresh from the frolics of Chatham, have been turned into justices of the peace and the whole administration of the colony has been pipe-clayed into a service of an amphibious, half-military, half-civil complexion."[[9]] The Colonial Times quite frankly lays it down that "A worse British Governor never ruled during the present century."[[10]] This is strong language, written in the heat of the moment, but when sufficient discount is made for hot temper the fact remains that Sir George Arthur made a number of enemies in Van Diemen's Land.

To a certain extent Arthur was not to blame since he was the victim of circumstances. He was forced by the nature of his office to uphold the abominable system of transportation and his position as commander-in-chief of the military forces on the island made him a military as well as a civil governor of a penal colony. But on the other hand, he was by nature an aristocrat with but little democratic feeling. He mistrusted popular government and he had to keep down a discontented population of whom over one-third were convicts. Sir William Molesworth in his speech on transportation delivered in the British House of Commons on May 5th, 1840,[[11]] gives the following statistics culled from Sir George Arthur's despatches from Van Diemen's Land in 1834. "Its population in 1834 did not exceed 40,000, of whom 16,000 were convicts, 1,000 soldiers, and 23,000 free inhabitants; what proportion of the latter had been convicts it is impossible to say. In this small community the summary convictions amounted to about 15,000 in the year in question, amongst which there were about 2,000 for felony, 1,200 for misdemeanour, 700 for assaults, and 3,000 for drunkenness. Eleven thousand of these convictions were of convicts who are summarily punished for all offences to which the penalty of death is not attached." With such a turbulent population to control it is no wonder that Sir George Arthur had but little belief in popular government.