"The boast of heraldy, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour; The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

As the boats came close to a point on the bank a sentinel challenged, "Qui vive?" "La France!" replied an officer of Fraser's Highlanders who spoke French well. "A quel regiment?" again challenged the suspicious soldier. "De la Reine," answered the same officer, who happily remembered that some companies of this regiment were with Bougainville. {256} Fate that eventful night was on the side of the bold Englishman. The French were expecting a convoy of provisions, and the sentinel called out, "Passe!" Another sentry, more suspicious, ran down to the water's edge, and asked, "Pourquoi est-ce que vous ne parlez plus haut?" The captain replied with wonderful coolness, "Tais-toi, nous serons entendus!"—an answer which satisfied the guard. In this way the English boats were able to steal into the cove without being stopped. A few minutes later the heights were gained, the guard was overpowered, and the British regiments were climbing to the level land without hindrance. By six o'clock Wolfe was able to form his army of nearly four thousand men in line of battle on the Plains of Abraham.[1] "This is a serious business," exclaimed Montcalm, as he saw the red line of the English regiments on the table-land behind Quebec. He appears to have almost immediately come to the conclusion that it was necessary to fight the English before they received any accessions of strength, and not to wait for Bougainville, who would probably come up in time with his force of two thousand men. By ten o'clock the two armies—that of Montcalm outnumbering the English probably by fifteen hundred—were advancing on each other. The French as they drew near poured a volley into the ranks of the British regiments, but the latter reserved their fire until they were within forty yards of their enemy, when they discharged their guns with most deadly effect. The {257} French fell in heaps, and as the bullets crashed amongst their faltering ranks, they broke and retreated. The battle was literally won in a few minutes. Wolfe, who had been wounded in the wrist at the beginning of the fight, was leading a charge of the grenadiers, who had shown such fateful precipitancy at Montmorency, when he was fatally wounded. He was removed to a redoubt in the rear and laid on the ground, where he remained for a few minutes in a swoon or stupour. "They run! See how they run!" exclaimed one of the men watching their wounded chief. "Who run?" he called, as he attempted to rise for an instant. "The enemy, sir; 'egad, they give place everywhere!" "Go, one of you, my lads," ordered the dying General, whose brain was still clear and active, "with all speed to Colonel Burton, and tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles River, and cut off the fugitives to the bridge." He turned on his side and said: "God be praised, I now die in peace." Then, in a moment later, he passed into the great silent land. Montcalm also received his death blow while he was endeavouring to give some order to his beaten army. He was borne along by the crowd of retreating soldiers through the St. Louis gate into the town. A few hours later, on the 14th September, he breathed his last. His last words were in commendation of Chevalier de Levis—a soldier in no way inferior to himself in military genius.

Monckton, who was next to Wolfe in rank, had been also severely wounded in the battle, and {258} consequently by a strange irony of fate, Townshend, who had been unfriendly to Wolfe, and had doubted his military capacity, was called upon to take command. Levis was absent at Montreal, unfortunately for French interests at this very critical juncture, and Vaudreuil's opinion prevailed for a retreat to Jacques Cartier. When Levis arrived and Vaudreuil consented to march to the support of Quebec it was too late. Ramesay had decided to capitulate, in view of the ruined condition of the city and walls, the scarcity of rations, and the unwillingness of the Canadian troops and citizens to continue the defence, when they found that the English were about to resume the attack. When the French army was moving towards Quebec, the English were in possession, and the fleur-de-lis had given place to the red cross of England on the old fort of St. Louis. By the terms of capitulation the troops were to be allowed to march out with the honours of war, and to be landed in France; the inhabitants were not to be disturbed; the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was allowed, and safeguards granted to houses of clergy and communities. All conditions were provisional until a treaty was arranged between the Powers.

The body of Montcalm was buried beneath the floor of the Ursuline Convent, in a grave which had been already partly hollowed out by a bursting shell. Many years later an English governor-general, Lord Aylmer, placed in the chapel of the convent a plain marble slab, with the following graceful tribute to the memory of a great soldier of whom English and French Canadians are equally proud.

{259}

HONNEUR A MONTCALM

LE DESTIN EN LUI DEROBANT LA VICTOIRE L'A RECOMPENSE PAR UNE MORT GLORIEUSE!

Wolfe's remains were taken to England, where they were received with every demonstration of respect that a grateful nation could give. In Europe and America the news of this victory had made the people wild with joy. "With a handful of men," said Pitt, in the House of Commons, "he has added an empire to English rule." A monument in that Walhalla of great Englishmen, Westminster Abbey, records that he "was slain in a moment of victory." On the heights of Quebec, in the rear of its noble terrace, still stands the stately obelisk which was erected in 1828 under the inspiration of the Earl of Dalhousie in honour of Montcalm and Wolfe, and above all others attracts the interest of the historical student since it pays a just tribute to the virtue and valour of the two great commanders in the following simple but well conceived language:

MORTEM. VIRTUS. COMMUNEM. FAMAM. HISTORIA. MONUMENTUM. POSTERITAS. DEDIT.

{260}



Wolfe was only in his thirty-third year when he died on the field of Abraham. Montcalm was still in the prime of life, having just passed forty-seven years. Both were equally animated by the purest dictates of honour and truth, by a love for the noble profession of arms, and by an ardent desire to add to the glory of their respective countries. Montcalm was a member of the French nobility, and a man of high culture. His love for his mother, wife, and children is shown in his published letters, written while in Canada, and he was ever looking forward to the time when he could rejoin them in his beloved chateau of Candiac, and resume the studies he liked so well. Some Canadian writers have endeavoured to belittle Montcalm, that they may more easily explain away the failings of Vaudreuil, a native Canadian, who thwarted constantly the plans of a greater man; but an impartial historian can never place these two men on the same high level. Wolfe's family was of respectable origin, and he inherited his military tastes from his father, who became a general in the English army. He had few advantages of education in his youth, though in later life he became studious, and had much love for mathematics. A soldier's life was his ambition, and fame was his dominating impulse. His indomitable spirit governed his physical weakness. The natural kindness of his nature rose superior to the irritability sometimes caused by his ill-health, and made him always sympathise with the joys, sorrows, and feelings of all classes among whom he lived. He had that magnetic power of {262} inspiring his soldiers and companions with his own confidence and courage which must sooner or later give them victory. He was a good son and made a confidant of his mother. He was fond of female companionship, and was looking forward hopefully to a woman's love, and to a home of his own, when Fate ruthlessly struck him down before the walls of Quebec at the moment of victory.

It is impossible within the limited space of this story to dwell at any length on the events that followed from the taking of the Canadian capital until the cession of Canada three years later. General Murray, who was afterwards the first governor-general of Canada, had charge of the fortress during the winter of 1759-60, when the garrison and people suffered much from cold and disease—firewood being scarce, and the greater number of the buildings in ruins.



Levis had decided to attack the town in the spring, as soon as the French ships were able to come down from near Sorel, where they had been laid up all the winter. Towards the last of April, Murray marched out of the fortress and gave battle at St. Foy to the French army, which largely outnumbered his force. His object was to attack the French before they were able to place themselves thoroughly in position before Quebec, but he suffered a considerable loss, and was obliged to retire hurriedly within the walls of the town, which was then regularly invested by Levis and the French ships. The opportune arrival of the English fleet dashed the rising hopes of the French to the ground, {264} and Levis was obliged to retreat to Montreal. In the month of September of the same year General Amherst descended the St. Lawrence, after having captured the fort at Ile Galops—afterwards Fort William Augustus. Brigadier Haviland left Lake Champlain, captured Ile-aux-Noix, and then marched on Montreal; Brigadier Murray came up from Quebec. All these forces concentrated on the same day on the island of Montreal, and Vaudreuil had no alternative except to capitulate. By the terms of capitulation, which were drawn up, like those of Quebec, in French, Great Britain bound herself to allow the French Canadians the free exercise of their religion, and certain specified fraternities, and all communities of religieuses were guaranteed the possession of their goods, constitutions, and privileges, but a similar favour was denied to the Jesuits, the Franciscans, or Recollets, and the Sulpicians, until the King should be consulted on the subject. The same reservation was made with respect to the parochial clergy's tithes. On the 10th of February, 1763, by the Treaty of Paris, France ceded to Great Britain Canada, with all its dependencies, the island of Cape Breton, and the Laurentian Isles. By this treaty the King pledged himself "to give the most effectual orders, that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit." All the pretensions of France to Acadia were at last formally renounced. England also received all the country east of the River Mississippi, except the city of New {266} Orleans and the neighbouring district, as well as Florida from Spain in return for Havana. Subsequently France gave up New Orleans to Spain, as well as the great region of Louisiana westward of the Mississippi. France was allowed to retain the barren islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, and certain fishing rights on the coasts of Newfoundland, which she had previously given by the Treaty of Utrecht. George II. had died during 1760, and George III. was now King of England. Pitt was forced to resign, and the King's favourite, the incapable Bute, who became premier, made peace without delay. Pitt opposed the fishery concessions to France, but Bute attached relatively little importance to them, and they have ever since remained to torment the people of Newfoundland, and create complications in case that island consents to enter the Canadian Dominion. Still, despite these concessions, England gained great advantages from the peace, and became the greatest colonial and maritime power of the world.



Freedom won on the Plains of Abraham, and a great Frenchman and a great Englishman consecrated by their deaths on the same battlefield the future political union of two races on the northern half of the continent, now known as the Dominion of Canada.



[1] Named after Abraham Martin, a royal pilot, who, in early times, owned this now historic tract.



{267}

XIX.

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION—PONTIAC'S WAR—THE QUEBEC ACT.

(1760-1774.)

The Canadian people, long harassed and impoverished by war, had at last a period of rest. They were allowed the ministrations of their religion without hindrance, and all that was required of the parochial clergy was that they should not take part in civil affairs, but should attend exclusively to their clerical duties. The seigniors and priests, no doubt, did not give up for some time the hope that Canada would be restored to France, but they, too, soon bowed to the necessity of things, and saw that their material and spiritual interests were quite secure under the new government. None of the habitants ever left Canada after the war. A few members of the seigniorial nobility, the officials and some merchants—perhaps three hundred in all—may have gone back to France. Men like Bigot and Varin on their return were severely punished, and forced to give up as much as possible of their ill-gotten {268} gains. Governor de Vaudreuil himself was cast into the Bastile, but it was ascertained after investigation that he had no connection with the crimes of the worthless parasites that had so long fattened on the necessities of the unhappy province. He died soon after his imprisonment; the iron of humiliation had probably eaten into the heart of a man who, whatever his faults, had many estimable qualities, and loved his native country.

For several years Canada was under what has been generally called the military regime; that is to say, the province was divided into the three districts of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, of which the government was administered by military chiefs; in the first place by General Murray, Colonel Burton, and General Gage respectively. These military authorities—notably General Murray—endeavoured to win the confidence of the people by an impartial and considerate conduct of affairs. Civil matters in the parishes were left practically under the control of the captains of militia, who had to receive new commissions from the British Crown. Appeal could be always made to the military chief at the headquarters of the district, but, as a matter of fact, the people generally managed their affairs among themselves, in accordance with their old usages and laws. Military councils tried criminal cases according to English law.

While the French Canadians were in the enjoyment of rest on the banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributary rivers, the Western Indians, who had been the allies of France during the war, suddenly arose and seized nearly all the forts and posts which {269} had been formerly built by the French on the Great Lakes, in the valley of the Ohio, and in the Illinois country. After the taking of Montreal, Captain Robert Rogers, the famous commander of the Colonial Rangers, whose name occurs frequently in the records of the war, was sent by General Amherst to take possession of the forts at Presqu'ile, Detroit, Michillimackinac, Green Bay, and other places in the West. In the course of a few months there were in all these western posts small garrisons of English soldiers. In the neighbourhood of Detroit and Michillimackinac there were French Canadian villages, conspicuous for their white cottages with overhanging bark roofs and little gardens, orchards, and meadows. Forts Chartres and Vincennes were still in the possession of the French, and there was a population of nearly two thousand French Canadians or Louisiana French living in the Illinois country, chiefly at Cahokia and Kaskaskia on the Mississippi. The Indian tribes that took part in the rising of 1763 were the Ottawas, Pottawattomies, Ojibways (Chippeways), Wyandots (Hurons), and Kickapoos, who lived in the vicinity of the upper lakes; the Delawares (Loups or Lenapes) and the Shawanoes, who had their villages on the Ohio and its tributary rivers, especially on the Muskingkum and the Scioto; the Sauks or Saks, who encamped on the Wisconsin; the Senecas, who lived not far from the Niagara. All these Indians, except the Wyandots and Senecas, were members of the Algonquin family. The Senecas were the only tribe of the Six Nations that took part in the alliance against {270} England; the other tribes were, happily for English interests, under the influence of Sir William Johnson.

French emissaries from the settlements on the Mississippi made the Indians believe that they would be soon driven by the English from their forest homes and hunting grounds, and that their only hope was in assisting France to restore her power in America. Many of these Indian tribes, as well as French settlers, believed until the proclamation of the treaty of Paris that Canada would be restored to the French. Indian sympathy for France was intensified by the contumely and neglect with which they were treated by the English traders and authorities. The French, who thoroughly understood the Indian character, had never failed to administer to their vanity and pride—to treat them as allies and friends and not as a conquered and subject race. By the judicious distribution of those gifts, on which the tribes had begun to depend and receive as a matter of right, the French cemented the attachment of the Indians. The English, on the other hand, soon ceased to make these presents, and neglected the Indians in other ways, which excited their indignation and wounded their pride.

Among the Western chiefs was Pontiac, whose name is as prominent in the history of the past as the names of the Onondaga Garangula, the Huron Kondiaronk (Rat), the Mohawk Thayendenagea (Brant), and the Shawanoese Tecumseh. He was the son of an Ottawa chief and an Ojibway mother, and had a high reputation and large influence among the {271} tribes of the upper lakes. He showed in his career all the strength and weaknesses of the Indian character—great courage, treachery, vanity, and generosity, according to the impulses of the moment. The war in which he took so prominent a part is generally called by his name; his is the central figure in the striking drama which was enacted in the Western and Ohio country for two years and a half before peace generally reigned and Canada could be considered secure from Indian attacks.

At Detroit, where Major Gladwin was in command, Pontiac hoped to seize the fort by a stratagem. The Ottawas and other Indians under that chief were to meet the English officers in council within the fort at an appointed time. They had filed off the tops of the barrels of their muskets so as to conceal them easily under their garments. While in council Pontiac was to give a signal which would tell the assembled warriors that the time had come for falling on the garrison and taking possession of the fort.[1] Some writers give credence to the story that an Indian maiden, the mistress of Gladwin, warned him of the scheme of the Indian chief, who came to the council, in accordance with his intention, and found the garrison in arms and ready for any treacherous movement on his part. He left the fort in anger, and soon afterwards attacked it with all his force, though to no purpose, as Gladwin was able to hold it for many months, until aid reached him from {272} the east. As one Indian woman's devotion saved Detroit, so the treachery of a Delaware girl gave Fort Miami and its little garrison to the Indians encamped on the Maumee. Holmes, the commandant, was her lover, and believed her when she told him that a squaw, who was seriously ill in one of the wigwams, wished to see him. He proceeded on his charitable mission, and was shot dead while about entering the place of his destination. At Michillimackinac Captain Etherington was surprised by a clever piece of strategy on the part of a body of Sacs and Ojibways, who invited him to witness a contest between them at their favourite sport of Lacrosse, which in these modern times has been made the national game of Canadians. While the game was going on, the gate was left open while the officers and soldiers stood in groups outside, close to the palisades, watching the Indians as they tossed the ball to and fro between the goals on the level ground opposite the fort. The squaws, wrapped in their blankets, passed in and out the fort, without attracting any attention from the interested spectators. Suddenly, when the game was most hotly contested, the ball was violently driven in the direction of the pickets of the fort. A crowd of the savage players tumultuously followed the ball, and in a moment were inside the fort where they snatched weapons from the squaws. One officer and several soldiers were instantly killed, but Etherington and the remainder of the garrison were taken prisoners. Etherington and a well-known trader of the West, Alexander Henry, eventually escaped, after having {273} been on several occasions on the point of death. In six weeks' time from the first attack on Detroit, on the 9th of May, 1763, all the forts in the Western and Ohio country had been seized and destroyed by the Indians, except Fort Pitt at the forks of the Ohio, the one at Green Bay which was abandoned, and another at Ligonier. The garrisons were massacred or made prisoners, and in many cases tortured and even eaten. The frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania were laid waste by hordes of savages, who burned the homes of the settlers, murdered a large number, and carried off many prisoners, men, women, and children, to their savage fastnesses in the western wilderness. The war never ended until Virginia and Pennsylvania—where the Quaker element still prevailed—were aroused from their apathy and gave the requisite aid to an expedition under the command of an able officer, Colonel Bouquet, who had been one of Brigadier Forbes's officers during the campaign of 1759 in the Ohio valley. He rescued Fort Pitt, after administering to the Indians a severe defeat at Bushy Run. A year later he succeeded in taking a large force into the very heart of a country where the Indians thought themselves safe from any attack of their white enemy. His unexpected appearance on the banks of the Muskingkum awed the Delawares, Shawanoes, and Mingoes, who gladly agreed to terms of peace, especially as they knew that Colonel Bradstreet was in their rear on the banks of Lake Erie. The prisoners, whom the Indians had taken during their raids on the frontier settlements of Virginia and {274} Pennsylvania, were restored to their friends and relatives who had, in the majority of cases, never hoped to see them again. The annals of those days tell us strange stories of the infatuation which some young women felt for the savage warriors whom they had wedded in Indian fashion. Some children had forgotten their mothers, and Parkman relates in his graphic narrative of those memorable times that one girl only recalled her childhood when she heard her distracted mother sing a song with which she had often lulled her daughter to sleep in happier days.

Peace again reigned in the West. Detroit, after repulsing Pontiac so successfully, was at last relieved, and the red cross of England floated above the forts of Chartres and Vincennes, which were given up by the French.

By the end of the autumn of 1765 France possessed only a few acres of rock, constantly enveloped in fog, on the southern coast of Newfoundland, of all the great dominion she once claimed in North America. Pontiac now disappears from history, and is believed to have been killed by an Indian warrior of the Illinois nation, after a drunken bout at the village of Cahokia—an ignominious ending to the career of a great chief whose name was for so many months a menace to English authority in that wilderness region, which was declared in later years by an imperial statute, the Quebec Act, to be a part of Canada's illimitable domain.

While this Indian war was going on, George III., in the autumn of 1763, issued a proclamation establishing four new governments in North America; {275} Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada. The governors were empowered to summon general assemblies, and to make laws and ordinances for good government with the consent of the councils. and the representatives of the people, and to establish courts of justice. Members elected to the proposed assemblies had to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the declaration against transubstantiation. No assembly, however, ever met, as the French Canadian population were unwilling to take the test oath, and the government of the province was carried on solely by the Governor-General—General Murray—with the assistance of an executive council, composed of certain officials and leading residents in the colony. From 1763 to 1774 the province remained in a very unsettled state, chiefly on account of the uncertainty that prevailed as to the laws actually in force. The "new subjects," or French Canadians, contended that justice, so far as they were concerned, should be administered in accordance with their ancient customs and usages. On the other hand, "the old," or English subjects, argued from the proclamation of 1763, that it was His Majesty's intention at once to abolish the old jurisprudence of the country, and to establish English law in its place.

Not the least important part of the proclamation of 1763 was that relating to the Indians, who were not to be disturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds. Lands could be alienated by the Indians only at some public meeting or assembly called for that special purpose by the Governor or {276} commander-in-chief where such lands were situated. This was the commencement of that just and honest policy towards the Indians which has ever since been followed by the government of Canada. One hundred and ten years later, an interesting spectacle was witnessed in the great Northwest Territory of Canada. The lieutenant-governor of the new province of Manitoba, constituted in 1870 out of the prairie lands of that rich region, met in council the representatives of the Indian tribes, and solemnly entered into treaties with them for the transfer to Canada of immense tracts of prairie lands where we now see wide stretches of fields of nodding grain.

Governor Murray conducted his government on principles of justice and forbearance towards the French Canadians, and refused to listen to the unwise and arbitrary counsel of the four or five hundred "old subjects," who wished to rule the province. He succeeded in inspiring the old inhabitants of the province, or "new subjects," with confidence in his intentions. The majority of the "old subjects," who were desirous of ruling Canada, are described by the Governor in a letter to Lord Shelburne, as "men of mean education, traders, mechanics, publicans, followers of the army,"—a somewhat prejudiced statement. As a rule, however, the judges, magistrates, and officials at that time were men of little or no knowledge.

In 1774, Parliament intervened for the first time in Canadian affairs, and passed the Quebec Act, which greatly extended the boundaries of the province of Quebec, as defined by the proclamation of {277} 1763. On one side, the province now extended to the frontiers of New England, Pennsylvania, New York province, the Ohio, and the left bank of the Mississippi; on the other, to the Hudson's Bay Territory. Labrador, Anticosti, and the Magdalen islands, annexed to Newfoundland by the proclamation of 1763, were made part of the province of Quebec.

The Quebec Act created much debate in the House of Commons. The Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, described it as "a most cruel, and odious measure." The opposition in the province was among the British inhabitants, who sent over a petition for its repeal or amendment. Their principal grievance was that it substituted the laws and usages of Canada for English law. The Act of 1774 was exceedingly unpopular in the English-speaking colonies, then at the commencement of the revolution on account of the extension of the limits of the province so as to include the country long known as the old Northwest in American history, and the consequent confinement of the Thirteen Colonies between the Atlantic coast and the Alleghany Mountains, beyond which the hardy and bold frontiersmen of Virginia and Pennsylvania were already passing into the great valley of the Ohio. Parliament, however, appears to have been influenced by a desire to adjust the government of the province so as to conciliate the majority of the Canadian people at this critical time.

The advice of Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, who succeeded General Murray as {278} Governor-General, had much to do with the liberality of the Quebec Act towards the French Canadians. After a careful study of the country he came to the conclusion that the French civil law ought to be retained, although he was met by the earnest advice to the contrary of two able lawyers, Chief-Justice Hay and Attorney-General Maseres, who believed a code adopted from English and French principles was preferable. Maseres, who was of Huguenot descent and much prejudiced against Roman Catholics, was also an advocate of a legislative assembly to be exclusively Protestant—in other words, of giving all power practically into the hands of a small British minority. When the subject of a new Canadian Constitution came to be discussed in England, Carleton crossed the Atlantic in 1769 and remained absent from Canada for four years. He returned to carry out the Quebec Act, which was the foundation of the large political and religious liberties which French Canada has ever since enjoyed.

The new constitution came into force in October, 1774. It provided that Roman Catholics should be no longer obliged to take the test oath, but only the oath of allegiance. The government of the province was entrusted to a governor and a legislative council, appointed by the Crown, inasmuch as it was "inexpedient to call an assembly." This council had the power, with the consent of the Governor, to make ordinances for the good government of the province. In all matters of controversy, relative to property and civil rights, recourse should be had to the French civil procedure, whilst the law of {279} England should obtain in criminal cases. Roman Catholics were permitted to observe their religion with perfect freedom, and their clergy were to enjoy their "accustomed dues and rights," with respect to such persons as professed that creed.

Sir Guy Carleton nominated a legislative council of twenty-three members, of whom eight were Roman Catholics. This body sat, as a rule, with closed doors; both languages were employed in the debates, and the ordinances agreed to were drawn up in English and French. In 1776 the Governor-General called to his assistance an advisory privy council of five members.

When Canada came under the operation of the Quebec Act, the Thirteen Colonies were on the eve of that revolution which ended in the establishment of a federal republic, and had also most important influence on the fortunes of the country through which the St. Lawrence flows.



[1] The siege of Detroit by Pontiac inspired one of the best historic novels ever written by a Canadian—Wacousta, or the Prophecy, by Major Richardson, who was the author of several other books.



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XX.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION—INVASION OF CANADA—DEATH OF MONTGOMERY—PEACE.

(1774-1783.)

The Canadian people had now entered on one of the most important periods of their history. Their country was invaded, and for a time seemed on the point of passing under the control of the congress of the old Thirteen Colonies, now in rebellion against England. The genius of an able English governor-general, however, saved the valley of the St. Lawrence for the English Crown, and the close of the war for American independence led to radical changes in the governments of British North America. A large population, imbued with the loftiest principles of patriotism and self-sacrifice, came in and founded new provinces, and laid the basis of the present Dominion of Canada.

During the revolution emphatic appeals were made to the Canadian French to join the English colonies in their rebellion against England. With a curious ignorance of the conditions of a people, {281} who could not read and rarely saw a printed book, and never owned a printing-press[1] during the French regime, references were made by the congress that assembled at Philadelphia in September in 1774, to the writings of Beccaria and the spirit of the "immortal Montesquieu." The delegates attacked the Quebec Act as an exhibition of Roman Catholic tyranny at the very time they were asking the aid and sympathy of French Canadians in the struggle for independence. A few weeks later the same congress ignored the ill-advised address and appealed to the Canadians to join them on the broad grounds of continental freedom. The time, however, was too short to convince the clergy and leading men of the province that there was a change in the feeling of the majority in the congress with respect to the Roman Catholic religion. The mass of the French Canadians, especially in the rural districts, no doubt looked with great indifference on the progress of the conflict between the King of England and his former subjects, but in Quebec and Montreal, principally in the latter town, there were found English, as well as French-speaking persons quite ready to welcome and assist the forces of congress when they invaded Canada. On the other hand, the influences of the Quebec Act and of the judicious administrations of Murray and Carleton were obvious from the outset, and the bishop, Monseigneur Briand—who had been chosen with the silent acquiescence of the English Government—the {282} clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, and the leading seigniors combined to maintain Canada under the dominion of a generous Power which had already given such undoubted guaranties for the preservation of the civil and religious rights of the "new subjects." In fact, the enemies of England were to be found chiefly among the "old subjects," who had attempted to obtain an assembly in which the French Canadians would be ignored, and had been, and were still bitterly antagonistic to the Quebec Act, with its concessions to the French Canadian majority. Many of these disaffected persons were mere adventurers who were carrying on a secret correspondence with the leaders of the American Revolution, and even went so far as to attempt to create discontent among the French Canadians by making them believe that their liberties were in jeopardy, and that they would have to submit to forced military service, and all those exactions which had so grievously burdened them in the days of the French dominion. The habitants, ignorant and credulous, however, remained generally inert during the events which threatened the security of Canada. It was left to a few enlightened men, chiefly priests and officers of the old French service, to understand the exact nature of the emergency, and to show their appreciation of what England had done for them since the cession.

When the first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774, the colonies were on the eve of independence as a result of the coercive measures forced on Parliament by the King's pliable ministers, led by Lord North. The "declaration," {283} however, was not finally proclaimed until nearly two years later—on July 4, 1776,—when the Thirteen Colonies declared themselves "free and independent States," absolved of their allegiance to the British Crown. But many months before this great epoch-making event, war had actually commenced on Lake Champlain. On an April day, in the now memorable year, 1775, the "embattled farmers" had fired at Concord and Lexington, the shots "heard round the world," and a few weeks later the forts of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, then defended by very feeble garrisons, were in the possession of Colonial troops led by Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, two of the "Green Mountain Boys," who organised this expedition. Canada was at this time in a very defenceless condition. Only eight hundred regular troops altogether were in the colony, very many of the English residents of Montreal and Quebec were of doubtful loyalty, the majority of the French Canadians were indifferent, and could not be induced to rally in any numbers to the defence of the province. Happily for the best interests of Canada at this crisis there was at the head of the administration one of the ablest men who have ever been sent to Canada—a governor-general who may well be compared with Frontenac as a soldier and Lord Elgin as a statesman—and that was Sir Guy Carleton, the friend of Wolfe, with whom he had served at Quebec. His conciliatory attitude towards the French Canadian population, and his influence in moulding the Quebec Act, gave him great weight with the bishop and clergy of the Roman Catholic {284} faith and leading men of the majority. The British Government, with culpable neglect of his warnings and appeals, left him unsupported until the very last moment, when the fate of Canada was literally trembling in the balance. In the autumn of 1775 General Montgomery, at the head of a considerable force of congress troops, captured the forts of Chambly and St. Johns on the Richelieu, and a few days later occupied Montreal, which had been hastily evacuated by Carleton, who at once recognised the impracticability of defending it with any chance of success, since he had an insufficient force, and could not even depend on the fealty of the inhabitants. Quebec, at this juncture, was the key to Canada, and there he determined to make his fight. He passed in the night-time the batteries which the congress troops had built at Sorel and the adjacent islands. The oars of his boat were muffled, and when in close proximity to the enemy the men used the palms of their hands. He reached Quebec safely, and at once inspired the garrison and loyal residents with his courageous spirit. He arrived not a moment too soon. General Benedict Arnold—a name discredited in history—had succeeded in reaching Quebec by the route of the Kennebec and Chaudiere rivers—a route which in early times had been followed by the Abenakis, those firm allies of the Canadians. Arnold was not able to commence any active operations against Quebec until the arrival of Montgomery from Montreal, with a force of fifteen hundred men, of whom a very small number were French Canadians. At this time there were in {285} Quebec only some eighteen hundred regular and militia troops, of whom over five hundred were French Canadians, under Colonel Voyer. No doubt the American commanders confidently expected to find in Quebec many active sympathisers who would sooner or later contrive to give the town into their hands, when these learned that all Canada except the capital was in the possession of the invading forces.

Many of their men were sick, and the artillery was insufficient for the siege of the fortress. It was decided then to attempt to seize the town by a piece of strategy, which was very simple though it had some chance of success. Arnold was well acquainted with the locality and entered heartily into the plan which was devised by Montgomery for a combined attack on Lower Town. Late at night on the 31st December, during a heavy snowstorm, Montgomery marched from Anse-au-Foulon along a rough and narrow road between the foot of Cape Diamond and the St. Lawrence, as far as Pres-de-ville, or what is now Little Champlain Street. Arnold at the same time advanced from the direction of the St. Charles. It was arranged that the two parties should meet at the lower end of Mountain Street and force Prescott Gate, then only a rough structure of pickets. While the two bodies were carrying out this plan, attacks were made on the western side of the fortress to distract the attention of the defenders. Carleton, however, was not taken by surprise as he had had an intimation of what was likely to happen. Consequently the garrison was on the alert and {286} Montgomery's force was swept by a sudden discharge of cannon and musketry as they came to Pres-de-ville—a defile with a precipice towards the river on one side, and the scarped rock above him on the other—where all further approach to the lower town was intercepted by a battery. Montgomery, his two aides, and a considerable number of his soldiers were instantly killed. In the meantime Arnold had led his party from the St. Charles to the Sault-au-Matelot, where he captured the first barrier defended by two guns. Arnold was wounded in the knee, and his force was obliged to proceed without him under the command of Captain Morgan, to the attack of the second battery near the eastern end of the narrow street, known as Sault-au-Matelot from the most early times. They succeeded in obtaining possession of some houses in the street, but it was not long before they were surrounded by Carleton's men and forced to surrender to the number of several hundreds. Arnold remained, during the winter, in command of the congress troops, who suffered severely from small-pox, the cold, and even want of sufficient provisions. In the spring he was superseded by General Wooster who brought with him a reinforcement, but the arrival of English frigates with troops and supplies, forced him to raise the siege and retire hastily to Montreal. A few weeks later General Burgoyne, with seven regiments, including a large German contingent under General Frederick Riedesel, arrived at Quebec, and arrangements were made for an active campaign against the rebellious colonists. Arnold found it {287} prudent immediately to leave Montreal which was again occupied by English troops. The forts on the Richelieu were regained by the English, Carleton destroyed the congress fleet under the command of Arnold on Lake Champlain, and Crown Point was partly destroyed and abandoned by the retreating Americans. Soon after these occurrences in 1775, Carleton found to his chagrin that the command of the forces was given to Burgoyne, a much inferior man, who had influence with Lord Germain, better known in English history as that Lord George Sackville who had disgraced himself on the battlefield of Minden, but had subsequently found favour with the King, who made him one of his ministers, and gave him virtually the direction of the campaign in America. Carleton, however, remained Governor-General until 1778, when he was replaced at his own request by General Haldimand, a very energetic and capable man, to whom Canadian historians have, as a rule, never rendered adequate justice. During these years Carleton had his difficulties arising out of the unsettled condition of things in the province, the prospects of invasion, and the antagonism of Chief-Justice Livius, who replaced a far better man, Hey, and was himself superseded by the Governor-General on account of his efforts to weaken the authority of the government at a time when faction and rivalry should have ceased among those who wished to strengthen British interests in America. Livius appealed to the home authorities, and through the influence of Lord George Germain was reinstated, though he did not find even in this {288} quarter an approval in words of his own conduct, and never returned to fill his former position in Canada.

It is not necessary to dwell here on the events of a war whose history is so familiar to every one. Burgoyne was defeated at Saratoga, and his army, from which so much was expected, made prisoners of war. This great misfortune of the British cause was followed by the alliance of France with the States. French money, men, and ships eventually assured the independence of the republic whose fortunes were very low at times, despite the victory at Saratoga. England was not well served in this American war. She had no Washington to direct her campaign. Gage, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis were not equal to the responsibilities thrown upon them. Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown on the 19th October, 1781, was the death-blow to the hopes of England in North America. This disaster led to the resignation of Lord North, whose heart was never in the war, and to the acknowledgment by England, a few months later, of the independence of her old colonies. Before this decisive victory in the south, the Ohio valley and the Illinois country were in the possession of the troops of congress. George Rogers Clark, the bold backwoodsman of Kentucky, captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, and gave the new States that valid claim to the west which was fully recognised in the treaty of peace.

The definitive treaty of peace, which was signed in 1783, acknowledged the independence of the old English colonies, and fixed the boundaries of the {289} new republic and of Canada, and laid the foundation of fruitful controversies in later times.

The United States now controlled the territory extending in the east from Nova Scotia (which then included New Brunswick) to the head of the Lake of the Woods and to the Mississippi River in the west, and in the north from Canada to the Floridas in the south, the latter having again become Spanish possessions. The boundary between Nova Scotia and the Republic was so ill-defined that it took half a century to fix the St. Croix and the Highlands which were by the treaty to divide the two countries. In the far west the line of division was to be drawn through the Lake of the Woods "to the most northwestern point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the River Mississippi"—a physical impossibility, since the head of the Mississippi, as was afterwards found, was a hundred miles or so to the south. In later times this geographical error was corrected, and the curious distortion of the boundary line that now appears on the maps was necessary at the Lake of the Woods in order to strike the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, which was subsequently arranged as the boundary line as far as the Rocky Mountains. Of the difficulties that arose from the eastern boundary line I shall speak later.

From 1778 until 1783 the government of Canada was under the direction of General Haldimand, who possessed that decision of character absolutely essential at so critical a period of Canadian history. The Congress of the States had never despaired of obtaining the assistance of the French Canadians, and of {290} bringing the country into the new republic. Haldimand had to arrest Du Calvet, Mesplet, and Jotard, as leaders in a seditious movement against England. Fleury Mesplet put up in Montreal the first printing-press, which gave him and his friends superior facilities for circulating dangerous appeals to the restless element of the population. Du Calvet was a French Protestant, in active sympathy with Congress, and had a violent controversy with Haldimand, who was, at last, forced to take severe measures against him. While on his way to England he was drowned, and the country spared more of his dangerous influence. Jotard, a French attorney, was a contributor to a paper owned by Mesplet, and a warm sympathiser with the efforts of Admiral D'Estaing and General Lafayette to win back the allegiance of the French Canadians. The appeals of these two distinguished men to the memories of the old subjects of France had no immediate effect except upon a very small class, although it might have been different had French troops made their appearance on the St. Lawrence. One Canadian priest, La Valiniere, who was connected with the seminary of St. Sulpice in Montreal, was sent to England with the approval of the bishop, for his openly expressed sympathy with France. Happily Monseigneur Briand and the great majority of the clergy stood always firm on the side of England.



[1] The first paper printed in French Canada was the Quebec Gazette, which appeared in 1764.



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XXI.

COMING OF THE LOYALISTS.

(1783-1791.)

It was during Governor Haldimand's administration that one of the most important events in the history of Canada occurred as a result of the American war for independence. This event was the coming to the provinces of many thousand people, known as United Empire Loyalists, who, during the progress of the war, but chiefly at its close, left their old homes in the thirteen colonies. When the Treaty of 1783 was under consideration, the British representatives made an effort to obtain some practical consideration from the new nation for the claims of this unfortunate people who had been subject to so much loss and obloquy during the war. All that the English envoys could obtain was the insertion of a clause in the treaty to the effect that Congress would recommend to the legislatures of the several States measures of restitution—a provision which turned out, as Franklin intimated at the time, a perfect nullity. The English Government subsequently {292} indemnified these people in a measure for their self-sacrifice, and among other things gave a large number of them valuable tracts of land in the provinces of British North America. Many of them settled in Nova Scotia, others founded New Brunswick and Upper Canada, now Ontario. Their influence on the political fortunes of Canada has been necessarily very considerable. For years they and their children were animated by a feeling of bitter animosity against the United States, the effects of which could be traced in later times when questions of difference arose between England and her former colonies. They have proved with the French Canadians a barrier to the growth of any annexation party, and as powerful an influence in national and social life as the Puritan element itself in the Eastern and Western States.

Among the sad stories of the past the one which tells of the exile of the Loyalists from their homes, of their trials and struggles in the valley of the St. Lawrence, then a wilderness, demands our deepest sympathy. In the history of this continent it can be only compared with the melancholy chapter which relates the removal of the French population from their beloved Acadia. During the Revolution they comprised a very large, intelligent, and important body of people, in all the old colonies, especially in New York and at the South, where they were in the majority until the peace. They were generally known as Tories, whilst their opponents, who supported independence, were called Whigs. Neighbour was arrayed against {293} neighbour, families were divided, the greatest cruelties were inflicted as the war went on upon men and women who believed it was their duty to be faithful to king and country. As soon as the contest was ended, their property was confiscated in several States. Many persons were banished and prohibited from returning to their homes. An American writer, Sabine, tells us that previous to the evacuation of New York, in the month of September, 1783, "upwards of twelve thousand men, women, and children embarked at the city, at Long and Staten Islands, for Nova Scotia and the Bahamas." Very wrong impressions were held in those days of the climate and resources of the provinces to which these people fled. Time was to prove that the lot of many of the loyalists had actually fallen in pleasant places, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Upper Canada; that the country, where most of them settled, was superior in many respects to the New England States, and equal to the State of New York from which so many of them came.

It is estimated that between forty and fifty thousand people reached British North America by 1786. They commenced to leave their old homes soon after the breaking out of the war, but the great migration took place in 1783-84. Many sought the shores of Nova Scotia, and founded the town of Shelburne, which at one time held a population of ten or twelve thousand souls, the majority of whom were entirely unsuited to the conditions of the rough country around them, and soon sought homes elsewhere. Not a few settled in more favourable parts {294} of Nova Scotia, and even in Cape Breton. Considerable numbers found rest in the beautiful valley of the St. John River, and founded the province of New Brunswick. As many more laid the beginnings of Upper Canada, in the present county of Glengarry, in the neighbourhood of Kingston and the Bay of Quinte, on the Niagara River, and near the French settlements on the Detroit. A few also settled in the country now known as the Eastern Townships of French Canada. A great proportion of the men were officers and soldiers of the regiments which were formed in several colonies out of the large loyal population. Among them were also men who had occupied positions of influence and responsibility in their respective communities, divines, judges, officials, and landed proprietors, whose names were among the best in the old colonies, as they are certainly in Canada. Many among them gave up valuable estates which had been acquired by the energy of their ancestors. Unlike the Puritans who founded New England, they did not take away with them their valuable property in the shape of money and securities, or household goods. A rude log hut by the side of a river or lake, where poverty and wretchedness were their lot for months, and even years in some cases, was the refuge of thousands, all of whom had enjoyed every comfort in well-built houses, and not a few even luxury in stately mansions, some of which have withstood the ravages of time and can still be pointed out in New England. Many of the loyalists were quite unfitted for the rude experiences of a pioneer life, and years passed {295} before they and their children conquered the wilderness and made a livelihood. The British Government was extremely liberal in its grants of lands to this class of persons in all the provinces.

The government supplied these pioneers in the majority of cases with food, clothing, and necessary farming implements. For some years they suffered many privations; one was called "the year of famine," when hundreds in Upper Canada had to live on roots, and even the buds of trees, or anything that might sustain life. Fortunately some lived in favoured localities, where pigeons and other birds, and fish of all kinds, were plentiful. In the summer and fall there were quantities of wild fruit and nuts. Maple sugar was a great luxury, when the people once learned to make it from the noble tree, whose symmetrical leaf may well be made the Canadian national emblem. It took the people a long while to accustom themselves to the conditions of their primitive pioneer life, but now the results of the labours of these early settlers and their descendants can be seen far and wide in smiling fields, richly laden orchards, and gardens of old-fashioned flowers throughout the country which they first made to blossom like the rose. The rivers and lakes were the only means of communication in those early times, roads were unknown, and the wayfarer could find his way through the illimitable forests only by the help of the "blazed" trees and the course of streams. Social intercourse was infrequent except in autumn and winter, when the young managed to assemble as they always will. Love and courtship went on {296} even in this wilderness, though marriage was uncertain, as the visits of clergymen were very rare in many places, and magistrates could alone tie the nuptial knot—a very unsatisfactory performance to the cooler lovers who loved their church, its ceremonies and traditions, as dearly as they loved their sovereign. The story of those days of trial has not yet been adequately written; perhaps it never will be, for few of those pioneers have left records behind them. As we wander among the old burying grounds of those founders of Western Canada and New Brunswick, and stand by the gray, moss-covered tablets, with names effaced by the ravages of years, the thought will come to us, what interesting stories could be told by those who are laid beneath the sod, of sorrows and struggles, of hearts sick with hope deferred, of expectations never realised, of memories of misfortune and disaster in another land where they bore so much for a stubborn and unwise king. Yet these grass-covered mounds are not simply memorials of suffering and privation; each could tell a story of fidelity to principle, of forgetfulness of self-interest, of devotion and self-sacrifice—the grandest story that human annals can tell—a story that should be ever held up to the admiration and emulation of the young men and women of the present times, who enjoy the fruits of the labours of those loyal pioneers.

Although no noble monument has yet been raised to the memory of these founders of new provinces—of English-speaking Canada; although the majority lie forgotten in old graveyards where the grass has {297} grown rank, and common flowers alone nod over their resting-places, yet the names of all are written in imperishable letters in provincial annals. Those loyalists, including the children of both sexes, who joined the cause of Great Britain before the Treaty of Peace in 1783, were allowed the distinction of having after their name the letters U. E. to preserve the memory of their fidelity to a United Empire. A Canadian of these modern days, who traces his descent from such a source, is as proud of his lineage as if he were a Derby or a Talbot of Malahide, or inheritor of other noble names famous in the annals of the English peerage.

The records of all the provinces show the great influence exercised on their material, political, and intellectual development by this devoted body of immigrants. For more than a century they and their descendants have been distinguished for the useful and important part they have taken in every matter deeply associated with the best interests of the country. In New Brunswick we find among those who did good service in their day and generation the names of Wilmot, Allen, Robinson, Jarvis, Hazen, Burpee, Chandler, Tilley, Fisher, Bliss, Odell, Botsford; in Nova Scotia, Inglis (the first Anglican bishop in the colonies), Wentworth, Brenton, Blowers (Chief Justice), Cunard, Cutler, Howe, Creighton, Chipman, Marshall, Halliburton, Wilkins, Huntingdon, Jones; in Ontario, Cartwright, Robinson, Hagerman, Stuart (the first Anglican clergyman), Gamble, Van Alstine, Fisher, Grass, Butler, Macaulay, Wallbridge, Chrysler, Bethune, {298} Merritt, McNab, Crawford, Kirby, Tisdale, and Ryerson. Among these names stand out prominently those of Wilmot, Howe, and Huntingdon, who were among the fathers of responsible government; those of Tilley, Tupper, Chandler, and Fisher, who were among the fathers of confederation; of Ryerson, who exercised a most important influence on the system of free education which Ontario now enjoys. Among the eminent living descendants of U. E. Loyalists are Sir Charles Tupper, long a prominent figure in politics; Christopher Robinson, a distinguished lawyer, who was counsel for Canada at the Bering Sea arbitration; Sir Richard Cartwright, a liberal leader remarkable for his keen, incisive style of debate, and his knowledge of financial questions; Honourable George E. Foster, a former finance minister of Canada. We might extend the list indefinitely did space permit. In all walks of life we see the descendants of the loyalists, exercising a decided influence over the fortunes of the Dominion.



Conspicuous among the people who remained faithful to England during the American revolution, we see the famous Iroquois chief, Joseph Brant, best known by his Mohawk name of Thayendanegea, who took part in the war, and was for many years wrongly accused of having participated in the massacre and destruction of Wyoming, that beauteous vale of the Susquehanna. It was he whom the poet Campbell would have consigned to eternal infamy in the verse:

{300}

"The mammoth comes—the foe, the monster, Brandt— With all his howling, desolating band; These eyes have seen their blade and burning pine Awake at once, and silence half your land. Red is the cup they drink, but not with wine— Awake and watch to-night, or see no morning shine."

Posterity has, however, recognised the fact that Joseph Brant was not present at this sad episode of the American war, and the poet in a note to a later edition admitted that the Indian chief in his poem was "a pure and declared character of fiction." He was a sincere friend of English interests, a man of large and statesmanlike views, who might have taken an important part in colonial affairs had he been educated in these later times. When the war was ended, he and his tribe moved into the valley of the St. Lawrence, and received from the government fine reserves of land on the Bay of Quinte, and on the Grand River in the western part of the province of Upper Canada, where the prosperous city and county of Brantford, and the township of Tyendinaga—a corruption of Thayendanegea—illustrate the fame he has won in Canadian annals. The descendants of his nation live in comfortable homes, till fine farms in a beautiful section of Western Canada, and enjoy all the franchises of white men. It is an interesting fact that the first church built in Ontario was that of the Mohawks, who still preserve the communion service presented to the tribe in 1710 by Queen Anne of England.

General Haldimand's administration will always be noted in Canadian history for the coming of the {301} loyalists, and for the sympathetic interest he took in settling these people on the lands of Canada, and in alleviating their difficulties by all the means in the power of his government. In these and other matters of Canadian interest he proved conclusively that he was not the mere military martinet that some Canadian writers with inadequate information would make him. When he left Canada he was succeeded by Sir Guy Carleton, then elevated to the peerage as Lord Dorchester, who was called upon to take part in great changes in the constitution of Canada which must be left for review in the following chapter.



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XXII.

FOUNDATION OF NEW PROVINCES—ESTABLISHMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS.

(1792-1812.)

The history of the Dominion of Canada as a self-governing community commences with the concession of representative institutions to the old provinces now comprised within its limits. By 1792 there were provincial governments established in Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. From 1713 to 1758 the government of Nova Scotia consisted of a governor, or lieutenant-governor, a council possessing legislative, executive, and even judicial powers. In October, 1758, an assembly met for the first time in the town of Halifax, which had been the capital since 1749. New Brunswick had been separated from Nova Scotia in 1784, but a representative assembly did not assemble until 1786, when its form of government was identical with that of the older province. Prince Edward Island was a part of Nova Scotia until 1769 when it was created a distinct province, {303} with a lieutenant-governor, a combined executive and legislative council, and also an assembly in 1773. The island of Cape Breton had a lieutenant-governor and executive council, and remained apart from Nova Scotia until 1820 when it was included in its government. In 1791 the province of Upper Canada was formally separated from the province of Quebec by an act of the imperial parliament, and was called Upper Canada, while the French section received the name of Lower Canada. At that time the total population of British North America did not exceed a quarter of a million of souls, of whom at least a hundred and forty thousand lived on the banks of the St. Lawrence and its tributary streams, and almost entirely represented the language, institutions, and history of the French regime. In the French province there was also a small British population, consisting of officials, commercial men, and loyalists who settled for the most part in the Eastern Townships. The population of Upper Canada, about twenty-five thousand, was almost exclusively of loyalist stock—a considerable number having migrated thither from the maritime provinces. Beyond the Detroit River, the limit of English settlement, extended a vast region of wilderness which was trodden only by trappers and Indians.

The Constitutional Act of 1791, which created the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, caused much discussion in the British Parliament and in Canada, where the principal opposition came from the English inhabitants of the French province. These opponents of the act even sent Mr. Adam {304} Lymburner, a Quebec merchant of high standing, to express their opinions at the bar of the English House of Commons. The advocates of the new scheme of government, however, believed that the division of Canada into two provinces would have the effect of creating harmony, since the French would be left in the majority in one section, and the British in the other. The Quebec Act, it was generally admitted, had not promoted the prosperity or happiness of the people at large. Great uncertainty still existed as to the laws actually in force under the act. In not a few cases the judges were confessedly ignorant—Chief Justice Livius, for instance—of French Canadian jurisprudence. The increase of the English population was a strong argument for a grant of representative institutions. Accordingly the constitutional act provided for an assembly, elected by the people on a limited franchise, in each province, and for a legislative council, appointed by the Crown. The sovereign might annex hereditary letters of honour to the right of summons to the legislative council, but no attempt was ever made to create a Canadian aristocracy, or distinct class, under the authority of this section of the act. The British Government reserved the right of imposing, levying, and collecting duties of customs, and of appointing or directing their payment, though it left the exclusive apportionment of all moneys levied in this way to legislature. The free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion was permanently guaranteed. A seventh part of all uncleared Crown lands was reserved for the use of the Protestant clergy—a {305} provision that caused much trouble in the future. The civil law of French Canada was to regulate property and civil rights in that province. English criminal law was to prevail in both the Canadas. The Governor-General of Quebec and Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada were each assisted by an executive council chosen by those functionaries, and having a right to sit also in the legislative council. Lord Dorchester was the first governor-general, not only of Canada, but likewise of the other provinces by virtue of separate commissions to that effect. The heads of the executive in all the provinces except Quebec were called lieutenant-governors, but they became only directly subordinate to the governor-general when he was present in a province in his official capacity.

The city where the first assembly of Lower Canada met in 1792 was one of great historic interest. The very buildings in which the government transacted its business had echoed to the tread of statesmen, warriors, and priests of the old regime. The civil and military branches of the government then occupied apartments in the old Chateau St. Louis, elevated on the brink of an inaccessible precipice. On a rocky eminence, in the vicinity of a battery close to Prescott Gate, erected in 1797, was an old stone building, generally known as the Bishop's Palace. Like all the ancient structures of Quebec, this building had no claims to elegance of form, although much labour and expense had been bestowed on its construction. The chapel of this building, situated near the communication with the lower {306} town, was converted into a chamber, in which were held the first meetings of the representatives of Lower Canada.

On the 17th of December, the two houses assembled in their respective chambers in the old palace, in obedience to the proclamation of Major-General Alured Clarke, who acted as lieutenant-governor in the absence of the governor-general, Lord Dorchester. Among the officers who surrounded the throne on that occasion, was probably his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, who was in command of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, then stationed in the old capital. On so momentous an occasion, the assemblage was large, and comprised all the notabilities of English and French society. In the legislature were not a few men whose families had long been associated with the fortunes of the colony. Chaussegros de Lery, St. Ours, Longueuil, Lanaudiere, Rouville, Boucherville, Salaberry, and Lotbiniere, were among the names that told of the old regime, and gave a guaranty to the French Canadians that their race and institutions were at last protected in the legislative halls of their country. M. Panet, a distinguished French Canadian, was unanimously elected the speaker of the first assembly of French Canada.



Now let us leave the Bishop's Palace, among the rocks of old Quebec, and visit the humble village of Newark, where Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe opened his first legislature under the new constitution in the autumn of 1792. Across the rapid river was the territory of the Republic, which was engaged in a grand experiment of government. The roar of the {308} mighty cataract of Niagara could be heard in calm summer days. On the banks of this picturesque river was the residence of the lieutenant-governor, known as Navy Hall, where the legislators of Upper Canada probably met. This was but a mean parliament house, compared with the massive pile which was chosen for a similar purpose in Quebec; and yet each was appropriate in its way. The Bishop's Palace illustrated an old community, which had aimed at the conquest of the larger part of America, and had actually laid the foundations of an empire; the legislative cabin of Newark was a fit type of the ruggedness and newness of western colonial life. The axe was whirring amid the forests, and only here and there, through a vast wilderness, could be seen the humble clearings of the pioneers.

The session was opened with the usual speech, which was duly reported to the house of assembly by the speaker, Mr. McDonnell of Glengarry, and immediately taken into consideration by the representatives of the yeomanry of the western province. It is said that on more than one occasion, the representatives were forced to leave their confined chamber and finish their work under the trees before the door. If the attendance was small on this occasion, it must be remembered that there were many difficulties to overcome before the two Houses could assemble in obedience to the governor's proclamation. The seven legislative councillors and sixteen members who represented a population of only 25,000 souls, were scattered at very remote points, {309} and could only find their way at times in canoes and slow sailing craft. Nor must it be forgotten that in those early days of colonisation men had the stern necessities of existence to consider before all things else. However urgent the call to public duty, the harvest must be gathered in before laws could be made.

Such were the circumstances under which the legislatures were opened in the two provinces, representing the two distinct races of the population. Humble as were the beginnings in the little parliament house of Newark, yet we can see from their proceedings that the men, then called to do the public business, were of practical habits and fully alive to the value of time in a new country, as they sat for only five weeks and passed the same number of bills that it took seven months at Quebec to pass.

The history of Canada, during the twenty years that elapsed between the inauguration of the constitution of 1792 and the war of 1812, does not require any extended space in this work. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, who had distinguished himself during the war for independence as a commander of the Queen's Rangers, was a skilful and able administrator, who did his best to develop the country. It was during his regime that Toronto, under the name of York, was chosen, by the influence of Lord Dorchester, as the capital in place of Newark, which was too close to the American frontier, although the Lieutenant-Governor would have preferred the site of the present city of London, on the River {310} Thames, then known as La Tranche. Mainly through his efforts a considerable immigration was attracted from the United States. Many of the new settlers were loyal and favourable to British institutions, but in the course of time there came into the country not a few discontented, restless persons, having radical and republican tendencies. Among the important measures of his administration was an act preventing the future introduction of slaves, and providing for the freedom of children of slaves then in the province. Governor Simcoe devoted his energy not only to the peopling of the province, but to the opening up of arteries of communication, of which Yonge and Dundas Streets—still well-known names—were the most noted. The founder of an important settlement in the west, an eccentric Irishman of noble ancestry, Colonel Thomas Talbot, was a member of the Lieutenant-Governor's staff, and eventually made his home in the western part of the province, where he became a useful and influential pioneer. Among the most desirable immigrants were the Scotch Highlanders, who settled and named the county of Glengarry, and came to the country by the advice of the energetic and able priest, Macdonell, afterwards the first Roman Catholic bishop of Upper Canada. In Nova Scotia a number of Scotch settled in Pictou county as early as 1773, and were followed in later years by many others who found homes in the same district, in Antigonishe and Cape Breton, where their descendants are still greatly in the majority. In Prince Edward Island, Lord Selkirk, the founder of the {311} Red River settlement, to whose history I shall refer in a later chapter, established a colony of thrifty Scotch in one of the deserted settlements of the French. Charlottetown was founded in those days on the bay first known as Port La Joye, and is now a pleasing example of the placid dignity and rural tranquillity that a capital may attain even in these restless modern times. In this island, the seeds of {312} discontent were planted at a very early time by the transfer of nearly all its lands in one day by ballot to a few English landlords, whose absenteeism long retarded its advancement, and whose claims of proprietorship were not settled until after the confederation of the provinces.



The political condition of the provinces from the beginning of the nineteenth century began to assume considerable importance according as the assemblies became discontented with their relatively small share in the government of the country. In all the provinces there was a persistent contest between the popular assemblies and prerogative, as represented by the governors, and upper houses appointed by the same authority. Charles the First, with all his arrogance, never treated his parliament with greater superciliousness than did Sir James Craig, when governor-general, on more than one occasion when the assembly had crossed his wishes. In the absence of a ministry responsible to the assembly, a conflict was always going on between that body and the representative of the Crown. The assembly began now to claim full control over the taxes and revenues which belonged to the people of the provinces. The presence of judges in the legislature was a just cause for public discontent for years, and although these high functionaries were eventually removed from the assembly they continued to sit in the upper house until 1840. The constant interference of the Imperial Government in matters of purely local concern also led to many unfortunate misunderstandings.

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In Lower Canada, where the population was the largest, and the racial distinctions strongly accentuated, the political conflict was, from the outset, more bitter than in other sections. The official class, a little oligarchy composed exclusively of persons brought from the British Isles, treated the French Canadians with a studied superciliousness, and arrogated to themselves all the important functions of government. This element dominated the executive and legislative councils, and practically the governors, who, generally speaking, had extreme views of their prerogative, and were cognisant of the fact that the colonial office in England had no desire to entrust the Canadian Government with much larger powers than those possessed by a municipal organisation. In the assembly the French Canadians were largely in the majority—the English element had frequently not more than one-fifth of the total representation of fifty members. The assembly too often exhibited a very domineering spirit, and attempted to punish all those who ventured to criticise, however moderately, their proceedings. The editor of the Quebec Mercury, an organ of the British minority, was arrested on this ground. Le Canadien was established as an organ of the French Canadian majority with the motto, Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois. By its constant attacks on the government and the English governing class it did much harm by creating and perpetuating racial antagonisms and by eventually precipitating civil strife. As a result of its attacks on the government, the paper was seized, and the printer, as well as {314} M. Bedard and several other members of the assembly who were understood to be contributors to its pages, or to control its opinions, were summarily arrested by the orders of Sir James Craig. Though some of these persons obtained their release by an expression of regret for their conduct, M. Bedard would not yield, and was not released until the Governor-General himself gave up the fight and retired to England where he died soon afterwards, with the consciousness that his conduct with respect to Bedard, and other members of the assembly, had not met with the approval of the Imperial authorities, although he had placed the whole case before them by the able agency of Mr. Ryland, who had been secretary for years to successive governors-general, and represented the opinions of the ruling official class.

In Upper Canada there were no national or racial antipathies and rivalries to stimulate political differences. In the course of time, however, antagonisms grew up between the Tories, chiefly old U. E. Loyalists, the official class, and the restless, radical element, which had more recently come into the country, and now desired to exercise political influence. Lieutenant-governors, like Sir Francis Gore, sympathised with the official class, and often with reason, as the so-called radical leaders were not always deserving of the sympathy of reasonable men. One of these leaders was Joseph Willcocks, for some time sheriff of the Home district—one of the four judicial divisions of the province—and also the proprietor and editor of the Upper Canada Guardian, {315} the second paper printed in Upper Canada—the first having been the Upper Canada Gazette, or the American Oracle, which appeared at Newark on the 18th April, 1793. He was a dangerous agitator, not worthy of public confidence, but he was able to evoke some sympathy, and pose as a political martyr, on account of the ill-advised conduct of the majority of the assembly ordering his arrest for expressing some unfavourable opinion of their proceedings in his paper.

In the maritime provinces the conflict between the executive and the assemblies was less aggravated than in the St. Lawrence country, although Sir John Wentworth, the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, who had been a governor of New Hampshire before the revolution, had a very exalted idea of the prerogative, and succeeded in having an acrimonious controversy with Mr. Cottnam Tonge, the leader of the popular party, and the predecessor of a far greater man, Joseph Howe, the father of responsible government.

Such, briefly, was the political condition of the several provinces of British North America when events occurred to stifle discontent and develop a broader patriotism on all sides. The War of 1812 was to prove the fidelity of the Canadian people to the British Crown and stimulate a new spirit of self-reliance among French as well as English Canadians, who were to win victories which are among the most brilliant episodes of Canadian history.



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XXIII.

THE WAR OF 1812-1815—PATRIOTISM OF THE CANADIANS.

At the outbreak of the unfortunate War of 1812 the United States embraced an immense territory extending from the St. Lawrence valley to Mexico, excepting Florida—which remained in the possession of Spain until 1819—and from the Atlantic indefinitely westward to the Spanish possessions on the Pacific coast, afterwards acquired by the United States. The total population of the Union was upwards of eight million souls, of whom a million and a half were negro slaves in the south. Large wastes of wild land lay between the Canadian settlements and the thickly populated sections of New England, New York, and Ohio. It was only with great difficulty and expense that men, munitions of war, and provisions could be brought to the frontier during the contest.

The principal causes of the war are quite intelligible to the historical student. Great Britain was engaged in a great conflict not only for her own national security but also for the integrity of {317} Europe, then dominated by the insatiable ambition of Bonaparte. It was on the sea that her strength mainly lay. To ensure her maritime supremacy, she found it necessary, in the course of events, to seize and condemn neutral American vessels whenever there was conclusive evidence that their cargoes were not the produce of the United States, but had been actually bought in an enemy's colony and were on their way to the mother country. But such an interruption of a commerce, which had been carried on for years at a great profit by American merchants, was by no means so serious an affair as the stoppage of American vessels on the high seas, and the forcible abduction and impressment, by British naval officers, of sailors who were claimed as British subjects, even when they had been naturalised in the United States. To such an extent did Great Britain assert her pretensions, that one of her frigates, the Leopard, actually fired into the American cruiser Chesapeake, off the coast of the bay of the same name, and made prisoners of several men who were claimed as deserters from an English man-of-war—a national outrage for which Great Britain subsequently made an apology and gave a measure of reparation. Then came the British orders in council which forbade American trade with any country from which the British flag was excluded, allowed direct trade from the United States to Sweden only in American products, and permitted American trade with other parts of Europe only on condition of touching at English ports and paying duties. Napoleon retaliated with decrees which {318} were practically futile while England was victorious on the ocean, but which nevertheless threw additional difficulties in the way of the commerce of a country like the United States, which possessed such exceptional facilities for its development from its position as a neutral nation, and its great maritime and mercantile enterprise. The British measures meant the ruin of an American commerce which had become very profitable, and the Washington government attempted to retaliate by declaring an embargo in their own ports, which had only the result of still further embarrassing American trade. In place of this injudicious measure a system of non-intercourse with both England and France was substituted as long as either should continue its restrictive measures against the United States. The Democratic governing party practically fell under the influence of France, and believed, or at least professed to believe, that Napoleon had abandoned his repressive system, when, as a matter of fact, as the English ministry declared, it still existed to all intents and purposes. The Democratic leaders, anxious to keep in power, fanned the flame against England, whose naval superiority enabled her to inflict an injury on American commercial interests, which France was entirely powerless to do. The Democrats looked to the South and West for their principal support in holding power. In these sections the interests were exclusively agricultural, while in New England, where the Federalists—the peace party—were in the majority—and the war was very unpopular—the commercial and maritime {319} element largely prevailed. In the West there had been for years an intense feeling against England on account of the fact that after the definitive treaty of peace in 1783, the English Government continued to occupy the Western posts and dependent territory for thirteen years, nominally on the ground of the harsh treatment meted out to the loyalists in violation of its terms, and of the non-payment of debts due to English creditors, but probably also with the view of keeping control of the fur trade. The feeling prevailed among the western frontiersmen that the English secretly instigated Indian attacks on the new settlements, a belief proved by recent investigations to be groundless. Even after the victories of Mayne in 1794, and of Harrison in 1811, when the Indian power was effectively broken, this bitter sentiment still existed in the West against English and Canadians, and had much influence with the politicians who favoured the war.