THE BRITISH MERCHANTS OF MONTREAL
“VERY RESPECTABLE MERCHANTS”—A LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ON BRITISH LINES PROMOTED BY THEM—INOPPORTUNE—VARIOUS MEMORIALS TO GOVERNMENT—THE MEETINGS AT MILES PRENTIES’ HOUSE—CRAMAHE—MASERES—COUNTER PETITIONS.
Trade passed over almost bodily to the English. The records of the Chambre de Milice de Montreal at present at Quebec reveal even in the civil disputes during the Interregnum of 1760-63 a boom in trade in Montreal such as those of the past never portrayed.
The early traders have been whipped unmercifully by Murray and Carleton but there were certainly some who were recognized as “very respectable merchants.” The British merchants were first at Quebec at its fall, and soon they also followed to Montreal at the Capitulation. Many were weeded out by failure and the climate, but the residue that remained of the class of the canny mercantile adventurers who always adorn the hour of advancing civilization, with the addition of more solid representatives of the large English houses, was the foundation of the enterprising merchant class of Quebec and Montreal, but especially of the latter centre, which quickly seized the control of the wholesale business, particularly the fur trade, the traffic with the Indians and the foreign commerce. Despite the narrowness of their vision and the jealous grasping after power due to them, they considered, as the conquering body, this small group of men by their superior activity, wealth and political skill came to wield great influence in the city and on the country on the whole well and wisely.
Hitherto, we have had to point out some of the weaknesses of those of the less honourable and unsuccessful merchant class, even of those who became magistrates. It remains now to chronicle the action of a well meaning body of the substantial business men at Montreal toward consolidating the constitutional system of the country and developing it along British colonial lines. Their political foresight was ahead of their time. Yet from the earliest days of British rule the English merchants of Montreal, together with those of Quebec, certainly kept before themselves and the Home Government the need of a representative assembly as promised to them, such as they had been familiar with in other British colonies in America. Unfortunately the desire to have this manned by Protestants only was made too evident from the outset and alienated the sympathy of those of the French Canadians otherwise becoming well disposed. Their narrow inherited spirit of intolerance, their conception of British rights, for they came “bearing all the laws of England on their backs,” their belief in their own capabilities, their evident business success and the large capital they invested in Canada,[1] the strong conviction of the ultimate needs of such an institution, if ever the country was to be reduced to the same uniformity as the other colonies where British institutions flourished, blinded them to the inopportuneness of the hour for the establishment of such an assembly. They forgot, imbued as so many of them were with democratic and republican tendencies, that the New British Province was not an infant colony, but one which had been long in existence and impregnated with French feudalism.
Again the upper classes were against the assembly, and the lower not prepared by education[2] or desire, to take their share in popular government; much less were they inclined to be permitted to vote for a class who desired openly and not very discreetly to ignore the political existence of their race.
Still the merchants persisted. An opportunity was given by the departure of Carleton, who had asked leave of absence for a few months to place his views directly before the government, but it was not till 1774 that he returned. During that time his delayed presence in London was valuable for consultation in the preparation of the “Quebec Act.” Carleton left behind his first counsellor, a Swiss Protestant, Hector Theophile Cramahé, to act for him. Carleton departed early in August and on the 9th Cramahé issued a proclamation declaring that the command had temporarily devolved upon him. In 1771, on July 21st, Cramahé was appointed Lieutenant Governor. Shortly after Carleton’s departure Cramahé sent two petitions to him to be presented to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.
The first was that of the Quebec and Montreal British free-holders, merchants and traders on behalf of themselves and others. His Majesty is reminded of his direction to governors in his Royal proclamation of the 7th of October in the third year of his reign, that general assemblies should be called as soon as the state and circumstances thereof would admit, in such manner as is used in the provinces of America under His Majesty’s immediate government. The arguments adduced are, that such an assembly would strengthen the hands of government, give encouragement and protection to agriculture and commerce, increase the public revenue and in time would be a happy means of uniting the new subjects in a due conformity to the British laws and customs.
The memorialists represented: “That Your Majesty’s British subjects residing in this province have set examples and given every encouragement in their power to promote industry, are the principal importers of British manufactures, carry on three-fourths of the trade of this country, annually return a considerable revenue into Your Majesty’s exchequer in Great Britain; and though the great advantages this country is naturally capable of, are many and obvious, for promoting the trade and manufactures of the mother country, yet for some time past both the landed and commercial interests have been declining and if a General Assembly is not soon ordered by Your Majesty to make and enforce due obedience to laws for encouraging agriculture, regulating the trade, discouraging such importations from the other colonies as impoverish the Province, your petitioners have the greatest reason to apprehend their own ruin as well as that of the province in general.
“That there is now a sufficient number of Your Majesty’s subjects residing in and possessed of real property in this province and who are otherwise qualified to be members of a General Assembly.”