RALPH BURTON, GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL, BECOMES MILITARY COMMANDANT—FRICTION AMONG MILITARY COMMANDERS—JUSTICES OF PEACE CREATED—FIRST QUARTER SESSIONS—MILITARY VERSUS CITIZENS—THE WALKER OUTRAGE—THE TRIAL—WALKER BOASTS OF SECURING MURRAY’S RECALL—MURRAY’S DEFENSE AFTER HIS RECALL—THE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE ABUSE THEIR POWER—CENSURED BY THE COUNCIL AT QUEBEC—COURT OF COMMON PLEAS ESTABLISHED—PIERRE DU CALVET—CARLETON’S DESCRIPTION OF THE “DISTRESSES OF THE CANADIANS.”
The governor of Three Rivers, Ralph Burton, proclaimed to the Montrealers on October 29, 1763, his nomination by General Amherst as governor of Montreal in succession to General Gage. He announced that the civil justice would be administered by the same courts as hitherto. His ordinances have nothing striking beyond one ordering all who had gunpowder in their homes, and there were many, to take it to the powder magazine, and another announcing that on April 24, 1764, all who in accordance with the definitive treaty of peace wished to leave for France must within three weeks send in their declarations with their exact descriptions and the number of their household they propose to take with them. In August, Murray reported that only 270 men, women and children, mostly officers and their families, left the colony.
On August 10th military rule ended in Montreal but Burton continued on as military commandant.
Burton resigned his governorship in July, 1764. As the position of governor was not to be continued at Montreal or Quebec, no one succeeded him. He was confirmed, however, as Brigadier. Yet, although in command of a few troops, he refused to recognize Murray as his military superior, hence complications and conflicts arose. Murray wrote in indignation that if Burton were removed it would be better for himself and everybody. Murray is accused by his enemies of quarreling with everybody, but it is evidently hard on a governor general to have his wings clipped by having under him in a civil capacity a commander who took his orders from General Gage of New York. Where the military rights and civil duties of Burton at Montreal or of Haldimand at Three Rivers and Murray at Quebec, began and ended, was a harassing doubt to all three.
On January 11, 1764, letters patent were sent to the first justices of the peace at Montreal, including Moses Hazen, J. Grant, John Rowe, Francis McKay, Thomas Lambe, F. Knife, John Burke, Thomas Walker and others. Among these were two Swiss Protestants, Catholics being excluded from the office as yet, owing to the difficulty of their subscribing to the religious test not being yet solved.
The first general quarter sessions of the peace was held on December 27, 1764, and there were present Moses Hazen, J. Dumas, F. McKay, Thomas Lambe and Francis Knife. The court adjourned. The first case was one of battery and assault.
On August 10, 1764, military rule ceased. The new civil government brought to a head much of the ill feeling existing in the city. The tables were now turned, the merchant class, already become the magistrates, were now in the ascendant and rancours prevailed. The old-time antipathies between the soldiers and citizens at New York and Boston were being reproduced in Montreal. There were no barracks, although the troops had been there four years. Consequently the system of billeting became necessary and caused continual annoyance.
The famous Walker outrage grew out of one of these troubles. Captain Fraser had billeted a Captain Payne on a French-Canadian. In the house lodged one of the new justices of the peace who claimed exemption for the house. In reply he was told that the justices’ rooms were exempt but not the other rooms, and on Payne’s persistence in claiming the billet, the magistrate refused to yield his possession. The case was brought before Justice Walker, who, as a magistrate, ordered Payne to vacate the rooms and on his refusing to comply committed him to jail for contempt. He was released on bail. Two days afterwards, on the 6th of December, 1764, occurred the “Walker outrage,” which has been described more or less fully in various histories of Canada, sometimes incorrectly.
Walker was an Englishman who had lived for many years in Boston, coming to Montreal some time after the close of the war in 1760, where he engaged in trade with the upper country. He was a bold, aggressive man, full of democratic notions, who set himself up as the agent of the people, opposed the actions of Governor Murray in every way, and afterwards had endeavoured to use his influence to have Murray recalled. In many ways he showed that he was no great friend of the Military then established in Montreal.
The outrage on him, dated on the night of the 6th, he attributed to the Military, and was the occasion of the seizure of “John Fraser, Esq.,” Deputy Grand Paymaster; “John Campbell, Esq.,” now Captain of His Majesty’s Twenty-seventh Regiment; “Daniel Disney, Esq.,” now Captain of the Twenty-fourth Regiment; “St. Luke La Corne, Esq.,” (Knight St. Louis), “Samuel Evans,” Lieutenants in His Majesty’s Twenty-eighth Regiment, and “Joseph Howard,” Merchant, all of the City of Montreal, being to their great surprise seized and taken out of their beds in the middle of the night of the 18th inst., November, 1766, by “Edward William Gray, Esq.,” Deputy Provost Martial in and for the district of Montreal, assisted by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and by them hurried down to Quebec, where they were in close custody on the charge of having on or about “the sixth day of December, 1764, feloniously and with malice forethought, and by lying in wait assaulted, wounded and cut off part of the ear of ‘Thomas Walker, Esq.,’ of Montreal in this Province, with intention in so doing to disfigure the said ‘Thomas Walker.’” The informant was “George Magovock” late soldier in the Twenty-eighth Regiment of foot, making oath before “William Hey,” Chief Justice in and for the Province of Quebec.