CHAPTER III — GOVERNOR CARLETON
1766-1774
The twelve years of Carleton's first administration naturally fall into three distinct periods of equal length. During the first he was busily employed settling as many difficulties as he could, examining the general state of the country, and gradually growing into the change that was developing in the minds of the home government, the change, that is, from the Americanizing sixties to the French-Canadian seventies. During the second period he was in England, helping to shape the famous Quebec Act. During the third he was defending Canada from American attack and aiding the British counterstroke by every means in his power.
On the 22nd of September 1766 Carleton arrived at Quebec and began his thirty years' experience as a Canadian administrator by taking over the government from Colonel Irving, who had held it since Murray's departure in the spring. Irving had succeeded Murray simply because he happened to be the senior officer present at the time. Carleton himself was technically Murray's lieutenant till 1768. But neither of these facts really affected the course of Canadian history.
The Council, the magistrates, and the traders each presented. the new governor with an address containing the usual professions of loyal devotion. Carleton remarked in his dispatch that these separate addresses, and the marked absence of any united address, showed how much the population was divided. He also noted that a good many of the English-speaking minority had objected to the addresses on account of their own opposition to the Stamp Act, and that there had been some broken heads in consequence. Troubles enough soon engaged his anxious attention—troubles over the Indian trade, the rights and wrongs of the Canadian Jesuits, the wounded dignity of some members of the Council, and the still smouldering and ever mysterious Walker affair.
The strife between Canada and the Thirteen Colonies over the Indian trade of the West remained the same in principle as under the old regime. The Conquest had merely changed the old rivalry between two foreign powers into one between two widely differing British possessions; and this, because of the general unrest among the Americans, made the competition more bitter, if possible, than ever.
The Jesuits pressed their claims for recognition, for their original estates, and for compensation. But their order had fallen on evil days all over the world. It was not popular even in Canada. And the arrangement was that while the existing members were to be treated with every consideration the Society itself was to be allowed to die out.
The offended councillors went so far as to present Carleton with a remonstrance which Irving himself had the misfortune to sign. Carleton had consulted some members on points with which they were specially acquainted. The members who had not been consulted thereupon protested to Irving, who assured them that Carleton must have done so by accident, not design. But when Carleton received a joint letter in which they said, 'As you are pleased to signifye to Us by Coll. Irving that it was accident, & not Intention,' he at once replied: 'As Lieutenant Colonel Irving has signified to you that the Part of my Conduct you think worthy of your Reprehension happened by Accident let him explain his reasons for so doing. He had no authority from me.' Carleton then went on to say that he would consult any 'Men of Good Sense, Truth, Candour, and Impartial Justice' whenever he chose, no matter whether they were councillors or not.
The Walker affair, which now broke out again, was much more serious than the storm in the Council's teacup. It agitated the whole of Canada and threatened to range the population of Montreal and Quebec into two irreconcilable factions, the civil and the military. For the whole of the two years since Murray had been called upon to deal with it cleverly presented versions of Walker's views had been spread all over the colonies and worked into influential Opposition circles in England. The invectives against the redcoats and their friends the seigneurs were of the usual abusive type. But they had an unusually powerful effect at that particular time in the Thirteen Colonies as well as in what their authors hoped to make a Fourteenth Colony after a fashion of their own; and they looked plausible enough to mislead a good many moderate men in the mother country too. Walker's case was that he had an actual witness, as to the identity of his assailants, in the person of McGovoch, a discharged soldier, who laid information against one civilian, three British officers, and the celebrated French-Canadian leader, La Corne de St Luc. All the accused were arrested in their beds in Montreal and thrown into the common gaol. Walker objected to bail on the plea that his life would be in danger if they were allowed at large. He also sought to postpone the trial in order to punish the accused as much as possible, guilty or innocent. But William Hey, the chief justice, an able and upright man, would consent to postponement only on condition that bail should be allowed; so the trial proceeded. When the grand jury threw out the case against one of the prisoners Walker let loose such a flood of virulent abuse that moderate men were turned against him. In the end all the accused were honourably acquitted, while McGovoch, who was proved to have been a false witness from the first, was convicted of perjury. Carleton remained absolutely impartial all through, and even dismissed Colonel Irving and another member of the Council for heading a petition on behalf of the military prisoners.