“Entered according to Act of the Provincial
Legislature,
for the Protection of Copy-rights, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and fifty-six, by P.
Sinclair, Quebec, in
the Office of the Registrar of the Province of
Canada.”

THE RISE

OF

CANADA,

FROM

BARBARISM

TO

WEALTH AND CIVILISATION.

BY

CHARLES ROGER,

QUEBEC.

VOLUME I.

QUEBEC: PETER SINCLAIR.

Montreal, H. Ramsay and B. Dawson; Toronto, A. H. Armour
& Co.; London,
C. W., Andrews & Coombe; Port Hope, James Ainsley; New
York,
H. Long & Brothers, D. Appleton & Co., J. C. Francis;
Boston, Little & Brown; Philadelphia, Lindsay &
Blakiston; London, Trubner & Co.

1856.

ST. MICHEL & DARVEAU, JOB PRINTERS,
No. 3, Mountain Street.

INDEX.

PREFACE.

The beauty of a book, as of a picture, consists in the
grouping of images and in the arrangement of details. Not only
has attitude and grouping to be attended to by the painter, and
by the narrator of events, but attention must be paid to light
and shade; and the same subject is susceptible of being treated
in many ways. When the idea occurred to me of offering to the
public of Canada a history of the province, I was not ignorant of
the existence of other histories. Smith, Christie, Garneau,
Gourlay, Martin and Murray, the narratives of the Jesuit Fathers,
Charlevoix, the Journals of Knox, and many other histories and
books, were more or less familiar to me; but there was then no
history, of all Canada from the earliest period to the
present day so concisely written, and the various events and
personages, of which it is composed, so grouped together, as to
present an attractive and striking picture to the mind of every
reader. It was that want which I determined to supply, and with
some degree of earnestness the self-imposed task was undertaken.
My plan was faintly to imitate the simple narrative style,
the conciseness, the picturesqueness, the eloquence, the poetry,
and the philosophic spirit of a history, the most remarkable of
any extant—that of the world. As Moses graphically and
philosophically has sketched the peopling of the earth; painted
the beauties of dawning nature; shown the origin of agriculture
and the arts; described the social advancement of families,
tribes and nations; exhibited the short-comings and the
excellencies of patriarchal and of monarchical forms of
government; exposed the warrings and bickerings among men; told
of the manner in which a people escaped from bondage and raised
themselves on the wreck of thrones, principalities, and powers,
to greatness; published the laws by which that most chosen people
were governed; and dwelt upon the perversity of human nature; and
as other men, divinely inspired, have sublimely represented the
highest stages of Jewish civilisation, so did I propose to myself
to exhibit the rise of Canada from a primitive condition to its
present state of advancement. My first great difficulty was to
obtain a publisher. There could only be a very few persons who
would run the risk of publishing a mere history of Canada, even
with all these fanciful excellencies, produced by one unknown to
fame. But “where there is a will, there is a way,” and about the
middle of the month of June last, I had succeeded in disposing of
a book, then scarcely begun, to Mr. Peter Sinclair, Bookseller,
John Street, in the City of Quebec. That gentleman, with
characteristic spirit and liberality, agreed to become my
publisher, and until the 17th day of September, I read and wrote
diligently, having written, in round numbers, about a thousand
pages of foolscap and brought to a conclusion the first
rebellion. Then the work of printing was begun, and the
correction of all the proofs together with the editorial
management of a newspaper, have since afforded me sufficient
occupation. Mr. McMullen, of Brockville, has, however, produced a
history of this country from its discovery to the present time,
almost as if he had been influenced by motives similar to those
which have influenced me. His pictures, however, are not my
pictures, nor his sentiments my sentiments. The
books—although the facts are the same and necessarily
derived from the same sources—are essentially different. He
is most elaborate in the beginning, I become more and more
particular with regard to details towards the close—I
expand with the expansion of the country. In the first chapter of
this first volume, the history of the province while under French
rule is rapidly traced, and the history of the New England
Colonies dipped into, with the view of showing the progressional
resemblance between that country which is now the United States
and our own; in the second chapter the reader obtains only a
glance, as it were, at the American war of independence, when he
is carried again into Canada and made acquainted with the many
difficulties in spite of which Upper and Lower Canada continued
to advance in wealth and civilisation; in the third chapter a
history of the war between England and the United States is given
with considerable minuteness; and the fourth chapter brings the
reader up to the termination of that extraordinary period of
mis-government, subsequent to the American war, which continued
until the Rebellion, and has not even yet been altogether got rid
of. There are without doubt, errors, exceptions, and omissions
enough to be found—an island may have been inadvertently
placed in a wrong lake, a date or figure may be incorrect, words
may have been misprinted, and, in some parts, the sense a little
interfered with—but I have set down nothing in malice,
having had a strict regard for truth. I have creamed Gourlay,
Christie, Murray, Alison, Wells, and Henry, and taken whatever I
deemed essential from a history of the United States, without a
title page, and from Jared Sparks and other authors; but for the
history of Lower Canada my chief reliance has been upon the
valuable volumes, compiled with so much care, by Mr. Christie,
and I have put the essence of his sixth volume of revelations in
its fitting place.

For valuable assistance in the way of information, I am
indebted to Mr. Christie personally, to the Honble. Henry Black,
to the Librarians of the Legislative Assembly—the Reverend
Dr. Adamson and Dr. Winder—and to Daniel Wilkie, Esquire,
one of the teachers of the High School of Quebec.

C. ROGER.

Quebec, 31st December, 1855.

THE RISE
OF
CANADA
FROM
BARBARISM TO CIVILISATION.

CHAPTER I.

There have been many attempts to discover a northwest passage
to the East Indies or China. Some of these attempts have been
disastrous, but none fruitless. They have all led to other
discoveries of scarcely inferior importance, and so recently as
within the past twelve months the discovery of a passage from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans has been made. It was in the
attempt to find a new passage from Europe to Asia that this
country was discovered. In one of these exploring expeditions,
England, four centuries ago, employed John Cabot. This Italian
navigator, a man of great intrepidity, courage, and nautical
skill, discovered Newfoundland, saw Labrador, (only previously
known to the Danes) and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. To
Labrador he gave, it is alleged, the name of Primavista. But that
he so designated that still rugged and inhospitable, but not
unimprovable, region, is less than probable. The name was more
applicable to the gulf which, doubtless, appeared to Cabot to be
a first glimpse of the grand marine highway of which he was in
quest, and with which he was so content that he returned to
England and was knighted by Henry the Seventh. Sebastian Cabot
made the next attempt to reach China by sailing northwest. He
penetrated to Hudson’s Bay, never even got a glimpse of the St.
Lawrence, and returned to England. Fifty years afterwards,
Cotereal left Portugal, with the view of following the course of
the elder Cabot. He reached Labrador, returned to Portugal, was
lost on a second voyage, and was the first subject of a
“searching expedition,” three vessels having been fitted out with
that view by the King of Portugal. Several other attempts at
discovery were subsequently made. Two merchants of Bristol, in
England, obtained a patent to establish colonies in Newfoundland
and Labrador, and in 1527, Henry the Seventh, for the last time,
despatched a northwest passage discovery fleet. The formation of
English settlements, and the exploration were equally
unsuccessful. These facts I allude to, rather with the object of
accounting for the name of “Canada,” applied to the country
through which the St. Lawrence flows, than for any other purpose.
In the “Relations des Jesuits,” Father Henepin states that
the Spaniards first discovered Canada while in search, not of a
northwest passage, but of gold, which they could not find, and
therefore called the land, so valueless in their eyes, El Capo
di Nada—”The Cape of Nothing.” But, the Spaniards, who
possibly did visit Canada two years before Cabot, whatever the
object of their voyage may have been, could not have done
anything so absurd. Quebec, not Canada, may have been to them
Cape Nothing, and doubtless was. It was the way they
looked for. That was as visible to them as to Cabot, and a
passage, strath, or way is signified in Spanish by the word
Canada. It was not gold but a way to gold that English,
Spaniards, Italians, and French sought. It was the cashmeres, the
pearls, and the gold of India that were wanted. It was a short
way to wealth that all hoped for. And the St. Lawrence has,
indeed, been a short way to wealth, if not to China, as will
afterwards be shown.[1]

Passing over the exploration of what is now the Coast of the
United States, by Verrazzano, I come to the discovery of
Gaspé Basin and the River St. Lawrence, by Jacques
Cartier, of St. Malo, in France. With ships of one hundred and
twenty tons, and forty tons, Cartier arrived in the St.
Lawrence—as some spring traders of the present day
occasionally do—before the ice had broken up, and found it
necessary to go back and seek shelter in some of the lower bays
or harbours. He left St. Malo in April, 1534, and arrived in the
St. Lawrence early in May. Returning to Gaspé, he entered
the Bay Chaleur, remained there until the 25th July, and returned
to France. Next year, Cartier arrived in the St. Lawrence, after
various disasters to his three vessels, and viewed and named
Anticosti, which he called L’Isle de L’Assomption; explored the
River Saguenay; landed on, and named the Isle aux Coudres, or
Island of Filberts; passed the Isle of Bacchus, now Island of
Orleans; and at length came to anchor on the “Little River” St.
Croix, the St. Charles of these times, on which stood the huts of
Stadacona. Cartier chatted with the Indians for a season. He
found them an exceedingly good tempered and very communicative
people. They told him that there was another town higher up the
river, and Cartier determined upon visiting that congregation of
birch bark tents or huts, pitched on a spot of land called
Hochelaga, now the site of Montreal. At Hochelaga the “new
Governor” met with a magnificent reception. A thousand natives
assembled to meet him on the shore, and the compliment was
returned by presents of “tin” beads, and other trifles. Hochelaga
was the chief Indian Emporium of Canada; it was ever a first
class city—in Canada. Charlevoix says, even in those days
this (Hochelaga) was a place of considerable importance, as the
capital of a great extent of country. Eight or ten villages were
subject to its sway. Jacques Cartier returned to Quebec, loaded
his vessels with supposed gold ore, and Cape Diamonds, which he
supposed were brilliants of the first water, and then went home
to France, where he told a truly magnificent tale concerning a
truly magnificent country. Expeditions for Canada were everywhere
set afoot. Even Queen Elizabeth, of England, sent Frobisher on a
voyage of discovery, but he only discovered a foreland and tons
of mica, which he mistook for golden ore. Martin Frobisher was
ruined. His was a ruinous speculation. Talc or mica did not pay
the expense of a nine month’s voyage with fifteen ships. But all
that was then sought for is now found in Canada—and more.
To obtain much gold, however, the settlement of a country is
necessary. It is the wants of the settlers which extract gold
from the ground for the benefit of the trader. The only occupiers
of Canada, no farther back than two hundred years, were Indians.
The Montagnais, the Hurons, the Algonquins, the Iroquois, the
Outagomies, the Mohawks, the Senecas, the Sioux, the Blackfeet,
and the Crowfeet red-faces, were the undisputed possessors of the
soil. They held the mine, the lake, the river, the forest, and
the township in free and common soccage. They were sometimes
merchants and sometimes soldiers. They were all ready to trade
with their white invaders, all prone to quarrel among themselves.
The Iroquois and Hurons were ever at war with each other. When
not smoking they were sure to be fighting.

The first white man who opened up the trade of the St.
Lawrence was M. Pontgrave, of St. Malo. He made several voyages
in search of furs to Tadousac, and the wealthy merchant was
successful. With the aid of a Captain Chauvin, of the French
navy, whom he induced to join him, Pontgrave attempted to
establish a trading post at Tadousac. He was, however,
unsuccessful. Chauvin died in 1603, leaving a stone house for his
monument, then the only one in Canada.

It was now determined by the French government to form
settlements in Canada. And the military mind of France attempted
to carry into effect a plan not dissimilar to that recommended a
few years ago by Major Carmychael Smyth, the making of a road to
the Pacific through the wilderness by means of convicts. The
plan, however, failed, though attempted by the Marquis De la
Roche, who actually left on Sable Island forty convicts drawn
from the French prisons. A company of merchants having been
formed for the purpose of making settlements, Champlain accepted
the command of an expedition, and accompanied by Pontgrave,
sailed for the St. Lawrence in 1603. They arrived safely at
Tadousac, and proceeded in open boats up the St. Lawrence; but
did nothing. The effort at settlement was subsequently renewed.
In 1608, Champlain, a second time, reached Stadacona or Quebec,
on the 3rd July, and struck by the commanding position of Cape
Diamond, selected the base of the promontory as the site of a
town. He erected huts for shelter; established a magazine for
stores and provisions; and formed barracks for the soldiery, not
on the highest point of the headland, but on the site of the
recently destroyed parliament buildings. There were then a few,
and only a few, Indians in Stadacona, that Indian town being
situated rather on the St. Charles than on the St. Lawrence. Few
as they were, famine reduced them to the necessity of
supplicating food from the strangers. The strangers themselves
suffered much from scurvy, and after an exploration of the lake
which yet bears the name of its discoverer, Champlain returned to
France. Two years later the intrepid sailor set out for Tadousac
and Quebec with artisans, laborers, and supplies for Nouvelle
France, the name then given to Canada, or the Great “Pass” to
China. He arrived at the mouth of the Saguenay on the 26th of
April, after a remarkably short passage of eighteen days. He
found his first settlers contented and prosperous. They had
cultivated the ground successfully, and were on good terms with
the natives. Champlain, however, desirous of annexing more of the
territory of the Indians, stirred them up to strife. He himself
joined an hostile expedition of the Algonquins and Montagnais
against the Iroquois. What success he met with is not now to be
ascertained. Deficient in resources, he again returned to France,
and found a partner able and willing to assist the Colony in the
person of the Count de Soisson, who had been appointed Viceroy of
the new country—a sinecure appointment which the Count did
not long enjoy, inasmuch as death took possession of him shortly
afterwards. The honorary office of Viceroy, which more resembled
an English Colonial Secretaryship of the present day, than a
viceroyalty, was, on the death of Soisson, conferred on the
Prince de Condé, who sent Champlain from St. Malo for the
Colonial Seat of Government, on the 6th March, 1613, as Deputy
Governor. Champlain arrived at Quebec on the 7th of May. The
infant colony was quiet and contented. Furs were easily obtained
for clothing in winter, and in summer very little clothing of any
kind was necessary. The chief business of the then colonial
merchants was the collection of furs for exportation. There were,
properly speaking, no merchants in the country, but only factors,
and other servants of the home Fur Company. The country was no
more independently peopled than the Hudson’s Bay Territory now
is. The actual presence of either governor or sub-governor was
unnecessary. Champlain only made an official tour of inspection
to Mount Royal, explored the Ottawa, and returned to France. He
was dissatisfied with the appearance of affairs, and persuaded
the Prince of Condé, his chief, to really settle the
country. The prince consented. A new company was formed through
his influence, and, with some Roman Catholic Missionaries,
Champlain again sailed for Canada, arriving at Quebec early in
April, 1615—a proof that the winters were not more intense
when Canada was first settled than at present. Indeed the intense
cold of Lower Canada, compared with other countries in the same
latitude, is not so much attributable to the want of cultivation
as to the height of the land, and the immense gully formed by the
St. Lawrence, and the great lakes which receive the cold blasts
of the mountainous region which constitutes the Arctic highlands,
and from which the rivers running to the northward into Hudson’s
Bay, and to the southward into the great lakes and the St.
Lawrence, take their rise. The icy breath of the distant north
and northwest sweeps down such rivers as the Ottawa, the St.
Maurice, and the Saguenay, to be gathered into one vast channel,
extending throughout Canada’s whole extent. And, clear the forest
as we may, Canada will always be the same cold, healthy country
that it now is. Lower or rather Highland Canada, will be
especially so, without, however, the general commercial
prosperity of the country suffering much on that account. There
are lowlands enough for a population far exceeding that now
occupying the United States. But this is a digression.
Champlain’s Missionaries set themselves vigorously to the work of
christianizing the heathen, while Champlain himself industriously
began to fight them. He extended the olive branch from his left
hand, and stabbed vigorously with a sword in his right hand. The
Missionaries established churches, or rather the cross, from the
head waters of the Saguenay to Lake Nepissing. Champlain battled
the Iroquois from Mont Royal to Nepissing. Rather he would
have done so. He did not find them until he reached, overland and
in canoes, Lake Huron, the superior character of the land in that
neighbourhood attracting his particular attention. He found his
“enemy” entrenched by “four successive palisades of fallen
trees,” says Smith, “enclosing a piece of ground containing a
pond, with every other requisite for Indian warfare”—a very
Sebastopol, upon which Champlain discharged his fire-arms,
driving the Iroquois back to their camp. The place was, however,
impregnable, and the siege was reluctantly raised. The Algonquins
would only fight as they pleased. They were sadly in want of a
head. They would not use fire-arms, but “preferred firing their
arrows against the strong wooden defences.” Champlain was twice
wounded in the leg, and his allies, making the non-arrival of
reinforcements an excuse, retreated. Champlain insisted upon
going home, but transport was wanting, and he was compelled to
winter, as best he could, in a desolate region, with his
discomfitted allies. In the following year he got away, and made
haste down his Black Sea of Ontario, to his Golden Horn at
Tadousac, from thence, on the 10th of Sept., 1616, returning to
his native country to find his partner, the Prince of
Condé, in disgrace and in confinement, for what the
historian knows not. The Prince had possibly been playing Hudson,
for we find that the Marshal de Themines was prevailed upon to
accept the office, on condition of sharing the emoluments. But he
too became involved in “controversy with the merchants,” and
after only two years presidency of the Company, resigned, when
the Duke de Montmorenci obtained the Viceroyalty from
Condé, for eleven thousand crowns. The Duke was Lord High
Admiral of France, and Champlain was exceedingly glad. Another
new colonizing company was formed. Seventy-seven artisans,
farmers, physicians, or gentlemen, three friars, horses, cows,
sheep, seed-corn, and arms were collected at Rochelle for
exportation in 1619. But the laymen, partly Protestants and
partly Roman Catholics, began to squabble about the immaculate
conception, or something else, equally stupid and unimportant,
until Champlain himself got into trouble and nearly lost his
Deputy Governorship, and the expedition was delayed. In 1620,
Champlain, however, set sail, and on his arrival at his capital,
in July, was agreeably surprised to find that a missionary, named
Duplessis, had got so far into the good graces of the Hurons, at
Trois Rivieres, that he had discovered and frustrated a plan for
the massacre of the French colonists. At Tadousac affairs were
not at all flattering. The colonists had neglected cultivation.
Only sixty white people remained, ten of whom were religiously
engaged in keeping school, or were engaged in keeping a religious
school. At this period of time it is difficult to say which.
Worse than this scurvily decimated condition of the people, was
the intrusion of some unprincipled and unprivileged adventurers
from Rochelle, who had been bartering fire-arms with the Indians
for the Company’s furs. Champlain was very wroth, but moderated
his anger somewhat on ascertaining that an enfant du
sol—a real French-Canadian baby was in the land of the
living. Who was the father of the child or who the mother, is
neither mentioned by Hennepin nor Charlevoix, and the office of
Prothonotary, or Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths had
not been instituted. It is not even in the chronicles that
Champlain was at the christening, nor is the ceremony alluded to
at all. This great, and most interesting event happened on some
hour of some unmentioned day in the year 1621. It is possible the
mother was of a distinguished Huron family. It is certain that
the Hurons were about that time in close alliance with the
French, for the Iroquois began to be jealous of the alliance
between the Hurons, Algonquins, and the French, and declared war
with the view of destroying the settlements. The Iroquois
succeeded in burning some Huron villages, but were repulsed by
the French both at the Sault St. Louis and at Quebec. Quebec was
now a fortified town. There were wooden, but not very extensive,
walls around the barracks and the huts. Champlain had, on the
whole, great reason to be thankful. His power and authority
seemed to be undisputed. He had seen the first of a new world
generation, and the means of wealth were seemingly at his feet.
But he met with disappointment. The association of merchants who
had fitted out his expedition, and from whom he obtained his
supplies, were suddenly deprived of all their privileges of trade
and colonization, by Montmorenci. The Duke, determined on doing
as he pleased with his own, transferred the supremacy of the
colonists to the Sieurs de Caen, uncle and nephew. The one de
Caen was a merchant, the other a sailor. The sailor was soon at
Tadousac. Before Champlain had well known, by a letter of thanks
for past services, that he was re-called, or rather superseded,
his successor had arrived at the head quarters of Nouvelle
France—Tadousac. De Caen solicited an interview with
Champlain, which was conceded. Smarting with indignation,
Champlain was too polite. His courtesy was so excessive, that De
Caen became exacting as if to show who he was. He wanted to seize
all Champlain’s trading vessels. They belonged, he said, to a
company whose privileges had been transferred to him as the
representative of another company. The furs with which they were
laden belonged to Montmorenci and the De Caens, as his Grace’s
agents. Champlain demurred, and Captain De Caen peremptorily
demanded Du Pont’s vessel. Champlain, no longer courteous, flew
into a violent passion. Du Pont was the favourite agent of his
company, and his own particular friend. Champlain’s rage was of
no avail. Nor was the sympathy of the colonists of any value. De
Caen was supreme, and did as he pleased. The colonists, however,
excessively indignant, resolved to leave in a body, unless their
opinions were allowed some weight, and a number did take their
departure. Although De Caen had brought eighteen new settlers,
the colony was reduced to only forty-eight. Champlain, however,
remained in Canada. He felt himself to be the chief colonist, and
only removed to Quebec, where he erected a stone fort. The fort
was partly on that part of the present city on which the old
Church of Notre Dame stands, in the Lower Town, and partly where
the former Palace of the Roman Catholic Archbishop stood.
Champlain pitched his tent outside the walls, which were almost
rectangular, under the shadow of a tree, which, until six years
ago, threw its leafy arms over St. Anne Street, from the Anglican
Cathedral Church yard. While this fort-building, vessel seizing,
and unchristian feeling were rending the infant colony to pieces,
interfering with trade, and proving vexatious to all, a union had
been formed in France between the old and new companies. The
coalition was not productive of good. There was so little
cordiality and so much contention between the parties, that
Montmorenci threw up his viceroyalty in disgust, that is to say,
he sold out to the Duke de Ventadour. Ventadour was in a world of
difficulties. France was then half Protestant and half Catholic.
Ventadour’s chief object in purchasing Canada was to diffuse the
Catholic Religion throughout the new world. With much energy of
character, he was singularly pious. He attended mass regularly at
an early hour every morning. His bedroom was religiously fitted
up; the symbol of redemption hung constantly over the head of his
bed. He was no bigot. He was thoroughly in earnest. He was only
not wise. The man who had caused Champlain so much annoyance was
himself a Huguenot, and not that only,—to the Duke’s
mortification, he had taken to Canada chiefly Protestants, and
had even caused the Roman Catholic emigrants to attend Protestant
worship on shipboard. Two thirds of the crews of his ships were
Protestants. They sang psalms on the St. Lawrence. The new
viceroy was much annoyed on ascertaining that De Caen had
permitted such a state of things. The exercise of the Protestant
religion, he had given orders, should be barely tolerated, and he
had been disobeyed. Champlain did not trouble himself about
religious squabbles. He made himself difficulties with the
Indians, leaving religious dissensions to be made by his would be
superior. Amid all these difficulties the fur trade languished,
and the celebrated Cardinal Richelieu, who knew the advantages to
be derived from Ventadour’s pious missionary effort, revoked the
privileges of De Caen’s new company, and established a newer
company called the Hundred Associates. The associates were not
only to colonize, but they were amply to supply necessaries to
the colonists. They were to send out a large number of clergymen.
Those clergymen were to create churches and erect parsonages.
They were to be supported by the Associates for fifteen years.
They were to have glebes, or reserved lands, assigned to them for
their sufficient support. At a blow the wily cardinal had
extinguished psalm singing on the St. Lawrence for at least a
century. In 1627 the Hundred Associates were formed. But plans
cannot be always carried into effect as soon as determined upon.
War was proclaimed by England against France in the following
year, 1628. The weakest and the meanest of English kings had
caused the Puritans, previously persecuted by Elizabeth, to leave
their country. The Puritans, in November, 1607, had settled in
New England. The year in which the first Franco-Canadian saw the
light of day, Governor Carver, of Plymouth Colony, had entered
into a league of friendship, commerce, and mutual defence with
Massassoit, the great Sachem of the neighbouring Indians. Some
years previously (1619) the Colony of Virginia had received her
first Governor General from England, who had instructions to
convoke a general legislature. With all his impotent stammering,
slobbering, weeping, buffoonery, and pedagoguism, James had an
indistinct idea that it was as necessary to hear the voice of the
people as the voice of the king. He chose rather to direct than
to suppress the expression of opinion. But the Governor General
of Virginia was appointed by the London Company, whose privileges
were taken away by James on the year preceding his death, which
occurred in March, 1625, after the company had expended
£100,000 in the first attempt to colonize America. James
appointed a viceroy or governor and directed him how to govern.
New France, at the breaking out of such a war, had something to
dread from New England, so much further advanced in colonization.
Cardinal Richelieu’s plan of Canadian settlement was roughly
interfered with, by the capture of his first emigrant ships by
Sir David Kerk, who afterwards proceeded to Tadousac, burned the
village, and proceeded to Quebec to summon Champlain to
surrender. The brave Frenchman refused and Kerk retreated. But
Kerk came back again. He again appeared before the walls of Fort
Quebec, and summoned it to surrender. Reduced to great distress
by famine, Champlain surrendered, and the whole settlement was
taken captive to England. With the exception of a few houses, a
barrack, and a fort at Quebec, and a few huts at Tadousac, Trois
Rivieres, and Mont Royal, Canada was again as much a wilderness
as it ever had been since the Asiatics had stepped across
Behring’s Straits to replenish the western hemisphere. The great
curiosity, the first Franco-Canadian baby, now eight years old,
was doubtless carried to the tower, and caged as a curiosity,
near the other lions and tigers of London. It was not until the
restoration of peace in 1633, that Champlain was reappointed
Governor of Canada, which, by the treaty of 1632, was surrendered
back to France, on the supposition that it was almost worthless.
This time colonization was systematically undertaken by the
Jesuits, who only arrived in Canada in time to supply the loss of
Champlain, a man of exemplary perseverance, of ambitious views,
and of wonderful administrative capacity, for a layman of that
day, who died in December, 1635. The foundation of a seminary was
laid at Quebec. Monks, Priests, and Nuns were sent out from
France. The Church was to settle in the wilderness to be
encircled by the godly. If Admiral Kerk had carried off a
settlement, Mother Church was to produce other settlements. A new
governor was named—Montmagny. Business, however, began to
languish. The Indians became exceedingly troublesome. And the
Iroquois had subdued the Algonquins, and had nearly vanquished
the Hurons. To defend the settlement from these fierce warriors,
Montmagny built a fort at Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu,
down which river the savage enemy usually came. The construction
of the fort had the desired effect. Peace with the Indians soon
followed, and the colony became happy and contented. The effect
of Jesuitical tact and judgment soon began to exhibit itself. An
Ursuline Nunnery and a Seminary were established at Quebec,
through the instrumentality of the Duchess d’Aiguillon. The
religious order of St. Sulpice, at the head of which was the
Abbé Olivier, proposed to the King of France to establish
a new colony and a seminary at Mont Royal, bearing the name of
the order and composed of its members. The proposal was
entertained, and the Island of Montreal conceded to the
religionists for their support. The Sieur Maisonneuve—a
name admirably chosen—was placed at the head of the
faithful emigrants, and invested with its government. The third
regular governor of Canada was M. d’Aillebout. He succeeded
Montmagny, whose term of office had expired. On the death of
Champlain, no Governor of Canada was to hold the reins of
government longer than three years. D’Aillebout was an
exceedingly able man. He was firm, and, on the whole, just. He
was left entirely to himself in the management of affairs, and he
left the conversion of the Indians to peace and Christianity, to
the missionaries, who labored well and earnestly, establishing
the Hurons, and even the Iroquois, in villages. The latter, who
were never to be trusted, only feigned semi-civilization, and
unexpectedly renewing the war, they fell upon their old enemies,
the Hurons, with diabolical fury. In the Indian village of
Sillery, while a missionary was celebrating mass in the Catholic
Church, and none but old men, women, and children were present, a
terrible and foul massacre occurred. The Iroquois rushed into the
chapel with tomahawk and scalping knife, murdering all the
congregation, nor stayed their hands until upwards of four
hundred families, being every soul in the village, were slain.
About this time our friends south of the line 45°, first
began to dream of the annexation of Canada. An envoy from New
England visited Quebec, and proposed to the French governor the
establishment of a peace between the two colonies of New France
and New England, which was not to be broken even should the
parent states go to war. Governor Montmagny consented, on
condition that the Iroquois were to be put down. He was so
willing that he sent an envoy to Boston to ratify a treaty. But
the New Englanders would not quarrel with the Iroquois, and no
treaty was effected. A more hopeful international commercial
alliance, of which the Boston Jubilee of 1851 was indicative, has
lately been entertained. Compared to the Iroquois, or even the
Algonquins, the Huron tribe of Indians were mild in disposition
and peaceably disposed. The French missionaries obtained a
powerful hold over them. Great numbers became christianized, and
even, to some extent, civilized. Descendants of Nimrod though
they were, their wandering habits were partially subdued, and
very many began to cultivate the ground. As if there was
something in the climate of Quebec to produce such an effect,
they were naturally inclined to be supremely tranquil. And
notwithstanding the recent horrible massacre they soon sank back
into their ordinary state of lethargy. They were fearfully
aroused from their lethargy, however, by another series of
attacks on the part of the Iroquois. The latter ferocious red men
made a descent upon the village of St. Ignace, killing and
capturing all the Hurons there. They next attacked St. Louis, and
though some women and children managed to escape, both
missionaries and Hurons were carried off for the torture. The
Huron nation, terribly damaged, seemed to be at the mercy of
their more savage enemies. They scattered in every direction.
Their settlements were altogether abandoned. Some sought refuge
with the Ottawas, some with the Eries, and not a few attached
themselves to missionaries, who formed them into settlements on
the Island of St. Joseph, in Lake Ontario. Unable, however, to
find sufficient subsistence on the island, they were compelled to
form villages on the main land, where they were again slaughtered
by the Iroquois. So inferior had they become, physically and
intellectually, if not numerically, to the Iroquois, that they
resolved to put themselves altogether under French protection.
This protection the missionaries procured for them, and a new
settlement was formed at Sillery. The Iroquois now did what they
pleased. They were in full possession of the whole country. The
French were literally confined to Quebec, Three Rivers, and
Montreal. But that which neither French nor Hurons could do by
force, they were made to do themselves. They were destroyed in
hundreds by rum. The French appealed to their appetites. Iroquois
independence was broken in upon by a mere artifice of taste. Furs
were now bought, not with pieces of tin and strings of beads, but
with plugs of tobacco and bottles of spirits. Intoxication had
its ordinary effect. It caused these naturally hot-blooded,
quarrelsome, freemen to butcher each other, and it made them the
slaves of the fur trader, whose exertions increased as the
favorite narcotic lessened the exertions and weakened the
energies of the hunter. So injurious was the effect of the “fire
water,” and so obvious was the injury to the Indians themselves,
that the Chief of the domesticated Indians petitioned the
Governor, their great Father, to imprison all drunkards. Whether
or no D’Aillebout granted the request is not recorded. Probably
it was not then granted. Among the Edits, Ordonnances Royaux,
declarations, et arrêts du Counsel d’etat Roi concernant le
Canada, nothing concerning Indian intoxication is to be
found. D’Aillebout ceased not long afterwards to be governor. In
1650 he was succeeded by Monsieur de Lauzon. So hostile, however,
had the feelings of the Iroquois now become, that M. de Lauzon
returned to France for a detachment of soldiers. He brought out
100 men in 1653. Then the Iroquois were disposed for peace. They
begged for it. Might is right. The power of the new Governor was
acknowledged by the Iroquois. One hundred muskets was a powerful
argument against even 6,000 bows and arrows. Frenchmen were sent
among them. An Iroquois Roman Catholic Church was founded. For
two years all was tolerably quiet, but at the end of that time
the spirit of insubordination was so great that the French,
anticipating massacre, made a moon-light flitting to Quebec.

M. Lauzon was superseded as Governor of Canada, in 1658, by
the Viscompte d’Argenson. On the very morning of his arrival a
large party of Algonquins were menaced under the very guns of
Quebec by the Iroquois, who were driven off, but not captured, by
a posse of French troops. In the following year
Monseigneur l’Eveque de Petree, arrived at Quebec, to preside
over the Catholic Church. François de Petree, a shrewd,
energetic, learned prelate, was not, however, appointed to the
See of Quebec, by “Notre Saint Pére le Pape Clément
X,” as he himself tells us, until the 1st October, 1664. In 1663
he established the Seminary of Quebec, and united it with that of
the du Bac, in Paris, in 1676. The education of young men for the
ministry seemed to be his great object. Trade would develop
itself in time. The country could not fail to become great with
so much deep water flowing through it. But religion must be
provided for, and the Catholic, the most consistent, if not the
most enlightened, of any system of Christianity existing, was his
religion, and he paved the way for its extension. Four hundred
more soldiers had been added to the garrison before
François de Laval was even Bishop of Quebec, and they
accompanied de Monts, as the Guards did Lord Durham, who was also
sent out to enquire into the condition of Canada. In de Mont’s
time, Canada must have been in a very extraordinary state. In
1668, an edict of the king prohibited swearing and blasphemy. The
king ruled that officers of the army had no acknowledged rank in
the Church. And in 1670, an arrêt du Conseil encouraged
“les marriages des garçons et des filles du
Canada.”

One of the most remarkable earthquakes of which we have read
occurred in Canada, soon after the arrival of the Bishop of
Petrea. It happened, too, in winter. On the 5th of February,
1663, at half-past five o’clock in the evening, the earth began
to heave so violently, that people rushed in terror into the
streets, only to be terrified the more. The roofs of the
buildings bent down, first on one side, then on the other. The
walls reeled backward and forward, the stones moving as if they
were detached from each other. The church bells rang. Wild and
domestic animals were flying in every direction. Fountains were
thrown up. Mountains were split in twain. Rivers changed their
beds or were totally lost. Huge capes or promontories tumbled
into the St. Lawrence and became islands. The convulsion lasted
for six months, or from February to August, in paroxysms of half
an hour each, and although it extended over a range of country,
600 miles in length by 300 in breadth, not a single human being
was destroyed. Beyond question this earthquake altered entirely
the features of the country from Montreal to the sea; but, that
it did not produce that rent, as some will have it, through which
the Saguenay flows, is evident from the fact that the Saguenay
existed on Cartier’s first visit. It did not even produce those
numerous islands with which the Lower St. Lawrence is studded,
for some of them are also mentioned by the same daring and
skilful navigator. But for the sake of science it is to be
regretted that the particular rivers, whose beds were changed or
which were entirely obliterated, have not been mentioned. The
greater depth of the Saguenay than the St. Lawrence is easily
accounted for by the greater height of the banks of the one river
than of the other. In the St. Lawrence a large body of water
finds an outlet through a chain of mountains forming the banks of
a river which is the outlet of a series of lakes or inland seas,
in which the rains or snows of a great part of North America are
collected, as the Caspian, the Sea of Azof, and the Euxine are
the rain basins of Europe and of Asia, and which spreads its
waters over breadths of land, great or small, as its shores are
steep or otherwise. If Canada is high above the ocean, and on
that, as well as on other accounts, intensely cold in winter, it
is some consolation to know that that latitude, which is in some
sense to be regretted, has produced a river and lake navigation
for sea-going ships of upwards of a thousand miles, more valuable
than ten thousands of miles of prairie-land. A prairie country
might have produced a Mississippi filled with snags, but only a
mountainous country could produce such rivers for navigation as
the Saguenay and St. Lawrence, and such rivers for manufacturing
purposes as the St. Maurice and the Ottawa. But Canada is not all
mountainous. There are vast steppes, extensive plains, through
which numerous streams roll sluggishly into the great lakes.
There are tracts of country of extraordinary extent capable of
producing the heaviest crops. There are garden lands around most
of the western cities, on which these cities of yesterday subsist
and have arisen. And even in Lower Canada there are straths of
wonderful fertility. Canada, with any government which will
permit trade, cannot fail to become pecuniarily rich, even with
the drawback of the towns of Lower Canada being rendered inland
for half the year by means of ice. Lower Canada has been crippled
by the policy of Cardinal Richelieu, who, by that policy,
paradoxical as it may appear, was her first benefactor. A
theocratic government, no doubt excellent for the taming of
Indians, is not by any means well adapted for an intelligent
people. So long as the trade of Canada was confined to furs the
Jesuitical policy of Richelieu was advantageous, but now that the
Indians are nearly exterminated—two millions of acres under
cultivation—millions of feet of pine, birch, oak and other
timber used or exported annually—and manufactures
abounding—a somewhat more self reliant spirit is requisite
than the establishment of Churches under the extraordinary
control of a single mitred head will permit. Such a spirit is
being gradually aroused, and the more gradual the more permanent
will it be. Violence begets violence. Example is more persuasive
than force.

De Monts, or rather de Lauzon, was succeeded by the Baron
D’Avaugour, the last of the Fur Governors, a weak, stupid man,
who had almost by his imbecility and vacillation suffered the
business of his employers to be extinguished. The Iroquois most
vigorously waged war during his time upon every other tribe of
Indians. They altogether exterminated the Eries, and in their
very wickedness, did good in rendering their country more
susceptible to colonization by Europeans. D’Avaugour was
recalled. The Hundred Associates resigned their charter into the
hands of the French king, who transferred the company’s
privileges to the West India Company. M. de Mesy was appointed
governor by the Crown, and for a council of advice he had a Vicar
Apostolic and five others, one of whom was a kind of Inspector
General, and another a Receiver General. To this Governor and
Council the power of establishing Courts of Justice, at Three
Rivers and Montreal, was confided. Courts of Law were established
soon after De Mesy’s arrival, and four hundred soldiers were
obtained from France to enable His Excellency to cause the law to
be respected. De Mesy, of a proud and unbending temper,
quarrelled with his Council, sneered at the settlers, and
governed with a rod of iron. He cared neither for Vicar
Apostolic, nor for Finance Ministers. Nay, he went so far, after
quarrelling with the Jesuits, as to send two members of the
Company to France, a mistake for which he paid the penalty by
being himself recalled. De Mesy was succeeded by the Marquis de
Tracy and was the second Chief Crown Governor, or Viceroy. He was
not fettered with a Council of Advice, but he was more absurdly
hampered with almost co-equals in the shape of assistants. The
Seigneur de Courcelles was appointed Governor of the Colony, and
Mon. De Talon, Intendant. De Tracy brought with him as settlers
the then newly disbanded regiment of Carignan-Sallières,
which had returned from fighting, not for the Turks in Hungary,
but against them. They had been extraordinarily successful. And
France had acquired great influence by her successful efforts to
stay Mahometan encroachment. The Turks were then the oppressors
not the oppressed. But France then, as now, was playing the
balance of power game. The men of the Carignan-Sallières
Regiment were admirably adapted for settlement in a country in
which constant fighting was being carried on. They were to have a
deep interest in subduing the Iroquois. They were some protection
against the Round-Heads of Massachusetts. Sixteen hundred and
sixty-five other settlers, including many artisans, accompanied
them. Cattle, sheep, and horses were for the first time sent to
Canada. More priests were sent out, for whom the West India
Company were, by their charter, bound to provide churches and
houses. The most Christian king had determined upon at least
christianizing the country, and upon so retaining it. Without
priests and churches the Hungarian Heroes would have been of as
little value to France as the cattle, sheep, and horses which
accompanied them to Canada. It was a condition of the West India
Company’s Charter that priests were to be carried out, and
parsonages and churches erected. Like most companies chartered
for similar purposes, the stock of this company was transferable,
but only the revenue, or profits of the revenue could be attached
for the debts of the stockholders. The company had a monopoly of
the territory, and the trade of the Colony for forty years. Nor
was this all. His most Christian Majesty conferred a bounty of
thirty livres on every ton of goods imported to France, a kind of
protection similar to that still extended by the French
government to the Newfoundland fisheries. The company had the
right to all mines and minerals—had the power of levying
and recruiting soldiers in France—had the power of
manufacturing arms and ammunition—had the power of building
forts in Canada—and had the power of declaring and carrying
on war against the American Indians, or, in case of insult, the
Colonial Englishmen of New England, or the Manhattanese Dutch.
Justice was to be administered according to the Custom of Paris.
All Colonists of, and converts to the Roman Catholic faith, had
the same rights in France as Frenchmen born and resident in
France had. And for four years the king himself agreed to advance
a tenth of the whole stock of the company, without interest, and
to bear a corresponding proportion of any loss which the company,
in the course of four years, might sustain. These were certainly
liberal and prudent privileges, but more ultimate good, or in
other words, good would have been sooner realized had the
conditions been less liberal and less prudent. These conditions
were of too liberal a nature to cause any desire for change to be
entertained for a great length of time, and the consequence is
that even now Lower Canada is governed according to the “Cotume
de Paris,” and cultivated as France was cultivated two hundred
years back. A year after the Marquis’ arrival, the Council of
State granted to the Canadian Company the trade in furs on
payment of a subsidy of one fourth of all beaver skins, and of
one tenth of all Buffalo skins. The trade of Tadousac was
excepted. Fort building and church building went on vigorously.
The fur trade was easily attended to. Three forts were erected at
the mouth of the Richelieu-Sorel. The Indians made sorties
repeatedly down this river, always doing much mischief, and the
forts were intended to prevent the mischief. But the Iroquois
were not to be foiled. They found means to reach the settlements
by other roads. Nor was De Tracy to be annoyed. He sent out war
parties who did not, however, effect much. The Viceroy, an old
man of some seventy summers, took the field himself. With the
view of exterminating the Indians, he set out on the 14th Sept.,
1666, with a considerable force consisting of regular troops,
militia, and friendly Indians. Unfortunately the Commissariat
Department was badly conducted, and the exterminating force were
nearly themselves exterminated by starvation. They had to pass
through a large tract of forest land to meet their foes, and they
frequently lost their way. The haversack was soon emptied, and
the starving army was only too happy to breakfast, dine, and sup
on chestnuts gathered in the bush, until some Indian settlements
were reached. They came upon almost a forest of chestnut-trees,
and fell upon them like locusts. They ate and filled their
haversacks, and it was well that they did so, for the Iroquois
had adopted the Russian expedient of abandoning their villages,
and suffering the enemy to march through a country altogether
wanting in the bare necessaries of life. M. De Tracy marched and
countermarched without effecting anything beyond capturing some
old men, and one or two women with their children. Luckily he
fell in with supplies of corn in one of the abandoned settlements
which he took possession of for the benefit of his army. Still
more luckily he got to Quebec again safely, but so thoroughly
disgusted with the state of affairs, that he resigned his
government into De Courcelle’s hands, and returned to France. De
Courcelle was a man of some address. He cajoled the Iroquois and
prevented war. He was the founder, but not the builder of Fort
Cataraqui or Kingston, on Lake Ontario. He settled Hurons at
Michillimacinac. Both fort and settlement were intended to
benefit the fur trade. The new settlement was in fact a new
hunting ground, and the new fort was for the protection of the
hunters. De Courcelle visited personally Cataraqui. He was
dragged up the Lachine, the Cedars, and other rapids of the St.
Lawrence, in an open boat, but suffered from moisture and
exposure to such an extent that, on returning to Montreal, he
solicited his recall to France, and was recalled accordingly.

In 1669, the Indians encountered, in the shape of smallpox, a
more terrible foe than the musket, the sword, the arrow, or the
“firewater.” Whole tribes were exterminated by this loathsome
disease, which appears not to have been imported, inasmuch as the
most distant and least civilized tribes were first attacked and
most severely suffered. The Atlikamegues were completely
exterminated. Tadousac and Trois Rivieres were abandoned by all
the Indians. Fifteen hundred Hurons died at Sillery, and yet the
Huron suffered less than any other nation. The remnant of the
tribe was collected by Father Chamounat, who established them at
Lorette, where some half-breeds are yet to be found.

The Count de Frontenac was the third Viceroy of Canada. He
succeeded De Courcelle in 1692, and soon after his arrival
erected the fort which his predecessor had decided upon erecting
at Cataraqui, giving it his own name—a name which still
distinguishes the County, the chief town in which Kingston or
Catarqui is. De Frontenac was a man of astonishing energy. His
self will and self esteem were only compensated for by ability
and a spirit of independence and honesty. It was not to be
supposed that such a man could long submit to the whims of his
co-equals, as far as governing was concerned. Nor did he. The
triumvirate—the Viceroy, the Bishop, and the
Intendant—each with an equal vote, were soon at
loggerheads. Chesnau, the Intendant, without Frontenac’s ability,
had all his bad qualities. The Intendant and Viceroy were soon
violently opposed to each other, and to make matters worse, the
Bishop, supported by his clergy, was annoyed with both. The
Bishop considered the sale of spirits to the Indians abominable;
De Frontenac thought it profitable; and Chesnau did not think at
all. An appeal was made by the clergy to the home government, and
both De Frontenac and Chesnau were re-called with censure, and
the profitable sale of spirits to the Indians was prohibited by a
royal edict. De Frontenac ruled Canada for ten years, and during
his administration La Salle discovered the mouths of the
Mississippi. Only the year after De Frontenac’s arrival in
Canada, the Indians reported that there was a large river flowing
out to the Atlantic, to the southwest of the colony, and the
Reverend Messire Marquette[2] and a merchant of Quebec, were
sent on an exploring expedition. Starting in two canoes, with
only a crew of six men for both, they found themselves, after an
exceedingly tedious voyage, on the Mississippi, and, rejoicing at
their success, returned back immediately to report progress. At
Chicago, Marquette separated from his companion. In that Indian
village of Lake Michigan, now a populous commercial town, the
missionary remained with the Miami Indians, while Jollyet went
back to Quebec for further instructions. Of course Jollyet was
highly communicative at Quebec. The multitude could not travel by
steam in those days from Gaspé to Lake Michigan. It was no
easy matter at that period to paddle over those great seas, the
inland lakes, in a birch-bark canoe. Jollyet had much to boast of
and might, without chance of detection, boast of more than either
his experience or a strict adherence to truth could warrant.
Jollyet was a curiosity. Jollyet was the lion of Quebec, and he
was toasted and boasted accordingly. The Sieur La Salle was in
Quebec when Jollyet returned. He heard of the merchant’s
adventures with deep interest. La Salle, a young man of good
family, and of sufficient fortune, had emigrated to Canada in
search of fame, and with the further view of increasing his
pecuniary resources. He expected, like Cabot and some others, to
find a passage through Canada, by water, to China, imagining that
the Missouri emptied itself into the north Pacific. The narrative
of Jollyet made La Salle more sanguinely credulous, that he had
the “way” before him. First he gained the sanction of the
governor to explore the course of that river, and then he
returned to France for support in his enterprise. So plausible a
story did he relate, that means were soon forthcoming. The Prince
of Conti most liberally entered into La Salle’s views, and
assisted him to prepare an expedition. The Chevalier de Tonti, an
army officer, with one arm, joined him, and on the 14th July,
1678, De La Salle, and De Tonti sailed for Quebec from France,
with thirty men. It was two months before they reached Quebec;
but no sooner did they arrive than they hastened to the great
lakes, accompanied by Father Hennepin. Father Hennepin was the
historian of the voyage. He tells a wonderfully interesting
story. La Salle built a vessel of 60 tons, and carrying 7 guns,
above the Falls of Niagara, having laid the keel in July, 1679.
There are always difficulties attending new enterprises, and La
Salle’s shipbuilding operations were frequently and annoyingly
interfered with. The carpenter was an Italian, named Tuti, and he
occupied seven months in building the craft. One day, an Indian,
pretending to be drunk, attempted to stab the blacksmith, but
that worthy son of Vulcan, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie, successfully
defended himself with a red hot bar of iron. Again the savages
tried to burn the ship, but were prevented by a woman. A squaw
gave La Salle’s people warning of the Indian’s intention. Alarms
were frequent, and only for Father Hennepin’s exhortations,
shipbuilding would have been abandoned to a later period, on the
lake. But carpenter Tuti persevered, and amid enthusiastic
cheering, the chanting of a Te Deum, and the firing of
guns, she was safely launched. The “Cataraqui” was square rigged.
She was a kind of brigantine, not unlike a Dutch galliot of the
present day, with a broad elevated bow and a broad elevated
stern. Very flat in the bottom, she looked much larger than she
really was, and when her “great” guns were fired off, the Indians
stared marvellously at the floating fort. With the aid of
tow-lines and sails the Niagara River was with difficulty
ascended, and on the 7th of August, 1679, the first vessel that
ever sat upon the lakes entered Lake Erie. The day was
beautifully calm, and the explorers chanted Te Deums, and
fired off guns, to the no small consternation, perhaps amusement,
of the Senecas. In four days they sailed through the lake, and
entering the River Detroit they sailed up it to Lake St. Clair,
and in twelve days more Lake Huron was entered. In that lake
storms and calms were alternately encountered. On one occasion
the wind blew so strongly, that La Salle’s man of war was driven
across to Saginaw Bay. But worse weather was yet in store for La
Salle. A tempest swept over the lake, and topmasts and yards were
let go by the run. There was neither anchorage nor shelter, and
La Salle and all his crew, now terribly frightened, prayed and
prepared for death. Only the pilot swore. He anathematized the
fresh water. It was bad enough to perish in the open ocean, but
something terrible to be drowned in a nasty fresh water lake, to
be devoured, perhaps, by an ichthyosaurus. Prayers and curses
seemingly had produced the desired effect; indeed, the pilot’s
anathematizing was prayer; but such prayer is not by any means to
be recommended. It would be as well to curse as only to pray when
fear is excited. Prayer, doubtless, often is, but never ought to
be, the effect of fear. Prayer should be the holy offering up of
reasonable desires to the Creator, and in times of danger there
should be confidence in the Creator as all powerful, and in
ourselves as the instruments of the Creator. However, favored
with less adverse winds, the exploring expedition reached
Michillimacinac, and anchored in 60 fathoms, living on delicious
trout, white fish, and sturgeon. From thence entering Lake
Michigan, they proceeded to an Island at the mouth of Green Bay,
where La Salle loaded his ship with furs and sent her back to
Niagara. The cargo was rich. It was valued at 50,000 livres. The
blaspheming pilot and five men were sent off with the vessel, but
whether the craft foundered in Lake Huron or was piratically
visited by the Indians, she was no more heard of. Two years
elapsed before La Salle or Father Hennepin learned the fate of
the “Cataraqui” and her blasphemous pilot. They perseveringly
pushed their way down the Mississippi and reached the Atlantic,
thus discovering the mouths of a stream which has been a great
source of wealth to our enterprising neighbours. In two years he
turned his steps to Quebec, and going home to France was
appointed Governor of the territory he had discovered. He was the
first Governor of Louisiana, a territory ceded by Napoleon I. to
the United States, in 1803. The unlucky Governor was not destined
to reach his government. La Salle, in command of four ships, with
settlers, sailed from Rochelle, on the 24th of July, 1689. He was
ignorant of the exact geographical situation of the mouths of the
Mississippi, but passing through the Antilles, reached Florida,
where he was murdered by his own people—a melancholy and
lamentable fate for one of whom all Frenchmen may justly boast.
Canada now numbered 8,000 souls, including converted Indians; and
French America extended from Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia
through the St. Lawrence and the great lakes to the Pacific, and
from the great lakes again to the ocean through the Mississippi,
all the westward of even that stream being French soil. Yet it
was only nominally so. The Indians were virtually the owners of
the soil, those spots on which forts or trading posts had been
erected or established, only excepted.

M. De La Barre now (1682) succeeded Frontenac as Viceroy. The
new Governor was of a restless and overbearing disposition. He
required, or supposed that he required, a strong government. He
certainly needed an able one. The idea of drawing off the trade
of the St. Lawrence had first occurred to the English colonists
on the Hudson. The Iroquois preferred trading with the “down
south” English to trading with the French. Their furs were
chiefly carried down the Hudson, to the no small annoyance of the
French exporter. De La Barre had no idea of tolerating such a
mode of doing business. The furs of Canada were French furs. The
Indians were merely hunters for the French, and had no right
whatever to dispose of their goods in the dearest market, and buy
their necessaries in the cheapest market. De La Barre, weakened
though he was in the number of his troops, many men having
converted their swords into ploughshares, and their guns into
reaping hooks, resolved upon punishing the free-trading children
of the woods. He obtained two hundred additional soldiers from
France, and proceeded up the St. Lawrence on his labor of love.
The Indians only laughed at him. They thought he was in a dream
when he pompously required them not to war upon each other, or
permit the English to come among them. His troops were sick and
starving, and were at the mercy rather of the Indians than the
Indians at their mercy. M. De La Barre was compelled to withdraw
his troops. The blustering, pompous, mischief-loving De La Barre
was recalled by his government, for incompetency, and in 1685 was
succeeded by Denonville.

The Marquis Denonville was only more cunning than his
predecessor, and perhaps more decided. No sooner had he set foot
in the colony, than, with the assistance of the missionaries, he
persuaded the Iroquois chiefs to meet him on the banks of Lake
Ontario. Denonville and the Indians did meet, and no sooner had
they met, than Denonville treacherously caused a number of them
to be seized and put in irons, to be sent as prisoners to the
King of France, for service in his gallies. Denonville erected a
fort at Niagara, became more violent and overbearing to the
Indians, treated the remonstrances of the English of New York,
concerning the erection of Fort Niagara, with contempt, and at
last brought upon himself, as the arrogant generally do, defeat
and disgrace. This fort, to which the North West Fur Company of
Quebec had offered to contribute 30,000 livres annually, in
consideration of a monopoly of the fur trade, was destroyed by
the Iroquois, who followed the now retreating French to
Cataraqui, made themselves masters of the whole country west of
Montreal, and, to crown all, appeared before that city with
proposals of peace. Denonville was required to restore the chiefs
who had been sent to France, and he was either in a position not
to resist, or wished to gain time. He consented to negotiate. The
Hurons, his allies, were not now so peaceably disposed. For the
first time, they seem to have evinced a warlike spirit. They
attacked the deputies, and insinuated to their prisoners that the
French Governor had instigated them to do so. The prisoners were
allowed to depart; a large party of the Five Nations heard their
tale, descended upon Montreal, carried off two hundred of the
inhabitants, and retired unmolested. The fort at Cataraqui was
blown up, and for a time of course abandoned. Thus, in 1686,
French Canada was again virtually reduced to Montreal, Three
Rivers, Quebec, and Tadousac.

It was in 1689 that the Count de Frontenac returned to Canada
a second time, as Viceroy, to succeed the incompetent Denonville.
He took out the captured chiefs, and attempted to conciliate the
Iroquois. But the Indians had been too frequently deceived by his
immediate predecessors. They would have nothing to do with him,
unless he restored, without stipulation, their captured chiefs.
De Frontenac complied. He complied the more readily because he
feared an alliance between the Ottawas and the Iroquois. The
Ottawas were quite indifferent to French friendship, because the
gain, in their estimation, was altogether in favor of the French,
whose protectors the Ottawas considered themselves to be. So far
from provocation being now given to the Indians, a policy
extremely opposite was pursued. The English and Dutch of the New
England settlements coveted the Indian trade in furs, and the
Indians were more favorably disposed towards the English and
Dutch traders than towards the French, because from the former a
larger consideration was received. It was De Frontenac’s policy
to prevent such a union, which would, as he conceived, have
injured the trade of the St. Lawrence, and have injured the
revenue of the Fur Company. De Frontenac induced the Ottawas to
assist him against the English of New England, whom he had
resolved to attack, France and England being then at war. He
fitted out three expeditions, one against New York, a second
against New Hampshire, and a third against the Province of Maine.
The party against New York fell upon Schenectady, in February,
1690. The weather was exceedingly cold, and the ground deeply
covered with snow. It was never even suspected, that, at such a
season, a campaign would be begun. Yet, at the dead of night,
while the inhabitants of Schenectady were asleep, and not a
sentinel was awake to announce the danger, the war-whoop was
raised, every house in the village was simultaneously attacked,
buildings were broken into and set on fire, men and women were
dragged from their beds, and even mothers, with their sleeping
infants at their breasts, were inhumanly murdered. Sixty persons
were massacred; thirty were made prisoners, and such as escaped,
almost naked, fled through the deep snow, many perishing with the
extreme cold, and the most fortunate being terribly frost bitten.
At Salmon Falls, the party sent by Frontenac against New
Hampshire, killed thirty of the inhabitants, took fifty-four
prisoners, and burned the village. At Casco, in Maine, the third
party killed and captured one hundred persons. Such was the
business of colonists in those days. In Canada the majority had
no voice in popular affairs. Governors, Intendants, Seigniors,
and Priests, controlled the colonists as they willed. However
much the Governor may have despised the Intendant, the Intendant
the Seignior, or the Priest all put together, the merchant,
artisan, and peasant were of no account. Wealth without title was
only a bait for extortion. The peasantry were serfs, and the
nobles uneducated despots. Education was in the hands of the
clergy, while power was solely vested in the Heads of Military
Departments. But if ignorance was particularly characteristic of
the Canadians, the New Englanders could lay little claim to
superior enlightenment. Harvard’s College, in Massachusetts, had
apparently done no more for the New Englanders, in 1692, than the
Seminary of Quebec, in the way of diffusing a knowledge of
letters among the people, from which the desire for freedom
invariably springs, had done for Canada. The people of Salem,
Andover, Ipswich, Gloucester, and even Boston, were accusing each
other of witchcraft. A “contagious” malady, which affected
children of ten, twelve or fifteen years of age, it was, oddly
enough, said by the learned physicians of the period, was the
result of witchcraft. A respectable merchant of Salem, and his
wife, were accused of bewitching children; the sons of Governor
Bradstreet were implicated in the divinations; and the wife of
Sir William Phipps was not above suspicion. One man, for refusing
to put himself on trial by jury, was pressed to death. Nor was
Giles Correy the only sufferer:—nineteen persons, “members
of the Church”, were executed, and one hundred and fifty persons
were put in prison. It was sometime before the conviction began
to spread, that even men of sense, education, and fervent piety
could entertain the madness and infatuation of the weak,
illiterate, and unprincipled. A disbeliever in witchcraft was an
‘obdurate sadducee.’ That conviction did at last possess men. The
disease which affected the supposed bewitched children somewhat
resembled St. Vitus’ Dance. It was an involuntary motion of the
muscles. The affected were sometimes deaf, sometimes dumb,
sometimes blind. Oftentimes, they were at once deaf, dumb, and
blind. Their tongues were drawn down their throats, and then
pulled out upon their chins to a prodigious length. Their mouths
were forced open to such a wideness, that their jaws went out of
joint, only to clap again together, with a force like that of a
spring lock. Shoulder-blades, elbows, wrists, and knees were
similarly affected. Sometimes the sufferer was benumbed, or drawn
violently together, and immediately afterwards stretched out and
drawn back.

De Frontenac set earnestly to work to pacify his old enemies
of the Five Nations. A new and more dreaded enemy had to be
encountered. The Puritans of Massachusetts, provoked by De
Frontenac’s aggressions, resolved to attack Canada, in
self-defence. Sir William Phipps, afterwards the first Captain
General of Massachusetts, born on the River Kennebec, a man of
extraordinary firmness and great energy, who had raised himself
to eminence by honesty of purpose, a strong will, and good
natural ability, was appointed to the command of an expedition,
consisting of seven vessels and eight hundred men. The object of
the expedition was the reduction of Port Royal, or Annapolis, in
Nova Scotia, which Sir William speedily and easily accomplished.
A second expedition, under Sir William, was resolved upon, for
the reduction of Montreal and Quebec. Two thousand men were to
penetrate into Canada by Lake Champlain, to attack Montreal, at
the same time that the naval armament, consisting of between
thirty and forty ships, should invest Quebec. The expedition
failed. The Commissariat and Pontoon Departments of the land
expedition, were sadly deficient, and the naval expedition did
not reach Quebec until late in October. The weather became
tempestuous, and scattered the fleet, while the land force to
Montreal mutinied through hunger. Sir William, on the 22nd of
October, re-embarked the soldiers which he had landed, and
sailed, without carrying with him his field pieces or ammunition
waggons. Humiliating as the repulse was to Massachusetts, it was
highly creditable to De Frontenac, who now easily succeeded in
winning over the Five Nation Indians. Indeed, matters had so very
much changed, that these enemies of his most Christian Majesty
solicited the Governor to rebuild the fort at Cataraqui, which
was accordingly done. The Indians were not, however, unanimous in
their desire for peace. There was a war and a peace party. To
show his power, De Frontenac conceived the idea of a great
expedition against the Indians. He collected regulars, militia,
and all the friendly Indians to be procured, and, marching to
Cataraqui, passed into the country of the Onondagos. On entering
a lake, it was ascertained by the symbol of two bundles of
rushes, that 1,434 fighting men were in readiness to receive
them. De Frontenac threw up an earthwork, or log fort, to fall
back upon, and proceeded. De Callières, Governor of
Montreal, commanded the left wing; De Vaudreuil the right; and De
Frontenac, now 76 years of age, was carried, like Menschikoff at
Alma, in the centre, in an elbow chair. The Indians fell back,
and as they did so, pursued the Russian policy of destroying
their own forts by fire. The French never came up with the
Onondagos or Oneidas, but contented themselves with destroying
grain, and returned to Montreal.

De Frontenac’s next expedition was to join Admiral, the
Marquis Nesmond,—who had been despatched with ten ships of
the line, a galliot, and two frigates,—with a force of
1,500 men at Penobscot, with the view of making a descent on
Boston; to range the coast of Newfoundland; and to take New York,
from whence the troops were to return overland to Canada, by the
side of the River Hudson and Lake Champlain. The junction was not
effected, and the expedition failed. A treaty of peace, on the
10th of December, 1697, concluded between France and England, at
Ryswick, in Germany, put an end to colonial contention for a
short time. By that peace, all the countries, forts, and colonies
taken by each party during the war, were mutually given back. De
Frontenac, an exceedingly courageous and skilful officer, now
became involved with his government at home. The French
government began to perceive that advanced posts for the purpose
of trading with the Indians for furs, were of little, if, indeed,
they were of any advantage, while they were a continued source of
war. It was proposed to abolish these stations, so that the
Indians might, to the great saving of transport, bring in their
furs themselves, to Montreal. De Frontenac demurred. These forts
were the sign of power, as they were a source of patronage. The
fur trade was a monopoly, carried on by licenses granted to old
officers and favorites, which were sold to the inland traders as
timber limits are now disposed of. Profits of 400 per cent were
made on successful fur adventures, under a license to trade to
the extent of 10,000 crowns on the merchandize and 600 crowns to
each of the canoemen. Beaver skins, at Montreal, were then worth
2s. 3d. sterling a pound weight. The first fishery was formed at
Mount Louis, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, about half
way between the mouth of the Gulf and Quebec, in 1697. A company
formed by the Sieur de Reverin, was tolerably successful. Canada
was even now beginning to look up, in a commercial point of view.
De Frontenac died in November following, in the 78th year of his
age, and the Governor of Montreal, De Callières, succeeded
him. De Callières died suddenly, a few years after his
elevation, (1703) when the people of Canada petitioned for the
appointment of the Marquis De Vaudreuil to the Viceroyalty, and
the king granted their prayer. The death of De Callières
occurred one year after a new declaration of war between France
and England. This war was the result of unsettled boundaries, by
the peace of Ryswick. England declared war against both France
and Spain. Again Canadians and New Englanders suffered severely.
The French of Canada, especially, allowed their Indians to
perpetrate the most horrible atrocities. Women prisoners were
inhumanly butchered in cold blood, before the very eyes of their
husbands, only because they were unable to keep pace with other
prisoners, or their captors. Both the French and the English
colonists were permitted by the parent states to fight almost
unaided, to fight on imperial account, at colonial expense of
blood and treasure. To Canada, nearly altogether a military
colony, fighting was particularly agreeable, and yet the
population had not reached 15,000, while Massachusetts contained
70,000 souls; Connecticut, 30,000: Rhode Island, 10,000; New
Hampshire, 10,000; New York, 30,000; New Jersey, 15,000;
Pennsylvania, 20,000; Maryland, 25,000; North Carolina, 5,000;
South Carolina, 7,000, and in all 142,000 souls. The difficulty
of land transport confined hostilities to the border States, and
preserved a balance of power between the contending colonists.
Indeed, the St. Lawrence afforded a comparatively easy means of
communication for the French to that afforded by the mountain
passes of Vermont to the New Englanders. The French could more
easily pounce upon the outposts of Lake Champlain than the New
Englanders could march to defend them. The English colonists
resolved upon making a great effort. Massachusetts petitioned
Queen Anne for assistance, who promised to send five regiments of
regular troops, which, with 1,200 men, raised in Massachusetts
and Rhode Island, were to sail from Boston for Quebec. The fleet,
with the five regiments on board, never came to hand, having been
sent to Portugal; but 1,800 colonists marched against Montreal,
by way of Lake Champlain, and penetrated as far as Wood Creek,
where the news of the altered destination of the fleet reached
them and caused them to return. The French Governor acted on the
defensive. He made extraordinary preparations for defence, which
were needless, as the Iroquois Indians, having quarrelled with
the English, on the ground that Iroquois safety consisted in the
jealousies of the French and English, would not fight, and the
invaders retreated. Another application being made to the Queen
of England for protection, on the part of the New Englanders,
Colonel Nicholson came over with five frigates and a bomb ketch,
and having been joined by five regiments of troops from New
England, he sailed with the frigates and about twenty transports,
from Boston, on the 18th September, for Port Royal, which he
captured and called, in honor of his Queen, Annapolis. Animated
with his success, Nicholson sailed for England, to solicit
another expedition to Canada. His request was granted. Orders
were immediately sent to the colonies to prepare their quotas of
men, and only sixteen days after the orders to that effect were
received, a fleet of men of war and transports, under Sir
Hovenden Walker, with seven regiments of the Duke of
Marlborough’s troops, and a battalion of marines, under Brigadier
General Hill, arrived at Boston. The fleet had neither provisions
nor pilots, but by the prompt exertions of the colonists, 15 men
of war, 40 transports, and 6 storeships, with nearly 7,000 men,
sailed from Boston for Canada, while Colonel, now General
Nicholson, marched at the head of 4,000 provincialists, from
Albany towards Canada. The fleet arrived in the St. Lawrence on
the 14th of August, (1710) but in proceeding up the river the
whole fleet was nearly destroyed. The pilots were ignorant of the
channels, and the winds were contrary and strong. About midnight
of the 22nd, a part of the fleet were driven among islands and
rocks on the north shore, eight or nine transports were cast
away, and nearly 1,000 soldiers were drowned. The attempt to take
Quebec was again abandoned. The ships of war sailed directly for
England, and the transports, having provincial troops on board,
returned to Boston. General Nicholson remained at Fort George
until he heard of the miscarriage of the St. Lawrence expedition,
when he retraced his steps to Albany. The Canadians had made
extensive preparations for defence. The greatest possible
enthusiasm prevailed in Quebec. The merchants of Quebec, in 1712,
raised a subscription and presented the Governor with 50,000
crowns, for the purpose of strengthening the fortifications of
the town. The peace of Utrecht was, however, concluded, in 1713,
and Canada was left to contend only with the Outagamis, a new
Indian enemy, who, in conjunction with the Iroquois, had
determined upon burning Detroit, the limit of civilisation to the
north west. The French soon caused their Indian enemies to bury
their hatchets.

At the peace, Quebec had 7,000 inhabitants, and the population
of all Canada amounted to 25,000, of whom 5,000 were capable of
bearing arms. Already the banks of the St. Lawrence below Quebec
were laid out in seigniories, and the farms were tolerably well
cultivated. Some farmers were in easier circumstances than their
seigneurs. The imported nobility had dwindled down to the
condition of placemen or traders. The Baron Beçancour held
the office of Inspector of Highways, and Count Blumhart made
ginger beer. Three Rivers contained 800 inhabitants. A few
farmers lived in the neighbourhood of the mouth of the St.
Francis. Montreal was rising rapidly into importance, having
obtained the fur trade of Three Rivers, in addition to its own,
and the island having been carefully cultivated, through the well
directed efforts of the Jesuits. Above Montreal there was nothing
but forts—Fort Kingston or Cataraqui, Fort Niagara, Fort
Detroit, and Fort Machillimakinac.

The Marquis de Vaudreuil having ruled Canada for twenty-one
years, died on the 10th of April, 1725. He was succeeded by the
Marquis de Beauharnois, under whose judicious management of
affairs, the province became prosperous. Cultivation was
extended. The Indians were so much conciliated, that
intermarriages between the French and Indians were frequent. And
there was nothing to excite alarm but the growing importance and
grasping disposition of the New Englanders and New
Anglo-Hollanders. The Governor of New York had erected a fort and
trading post at Oswego, on Lake Ontario, with the view of
monopolizing the trade of the Lakes. Beauharnois followed the
English Governor’s example, by building an opposition fort in the
neighbourhood of Niagara. Another fort was erected by the
Marquis, at Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, and yet another at
Ticonderoga. The English very soon had a more reasonable pretext
than a monopoly of the fur traffic, for more active
demonstrations against the French. War was again declared in
1745, between France and England, by George II.; and Governor
Shirley, of Massachusetts, without waiting for instructions from
England, determined upon attacking Louisbourg, then considered to
be the “Gibraltar of America.” Louisbourg, on Cape Breton, was
fortified by the French, after the peace of Utrecht, at an
expense of $5,500,000. The fortifications consisted of a rampart
of stone, nearly 36 feet in height, and a ditch eighty feet wide.
There were six bastions, and three batteries, with embrasures for
148 cannon and 6 mortars. On an island at the entrance of the
harbor was another battery of 30 cannon, carrying 28 pound shot,
and at the bottom of the harbour, opposite the entrance, was
situated the royal battery of twenty-eight forty-two pounders,
and two eighteen pounders. The entrance of the town, on the land
side, was at the west, over a draw-bridge, near which was a
circular battery, mounting 16 guns of 24 pounds shot. And these
works had been 25 years in building. Louisbourg was a place of
much importance to the French. It was a convenient retreat to
such privateers as always annoyed and sometimes captured the New
England fishing vessels. And the manner of this attack upon it is
exceedingly interesting. It was determined on in January, 1745.
Massachusetts furnished 3,250 men; Connecticut, 510; Rhode Island
and New Hampshire, each 300. The naval force consisted of twelve
ships, and in two months the army was enlisted, victualled, and
equipped for service. On the 23rd of March, an express boat,
which had been sent to Commodore Warren, the Naval Commander in
Chief in the West Indies, to invite his co-operation, returned to
Boston with the information, that without orders from England he
could take no share in a purely colonial expedition. Governor
Shirley and General Pepperell nevertheless embarked the army, and
the colonial fleet sailed the next morning. The expedition
arrived at Canso on the 4th of April, where the troops from New
Hampshire and Connecticut joined it. Here, Commodore Warren, with
his fleet, very unexpectedly joined the expedition. Shortly after
his refusal to join, instructions which had been sent off from
the British Government, approving of the attack upon Louisbourg,
as proposed by Governor Shirley, and which Pepperell had gone to
attack, without waiting for Imperial approval, had reached
Commodore Warren, and without loss of time he proceeded direct to
Canso, whither it was reported the Colonial fleet had gone. His
arrival was the cause of great joy among the colonists. After a
short consultation with General Pepperell, the Commodore sailed
to cruise before Louisbourg, and was soon followed by the
colonial fleet and army, which, on the 30th April, arrived in Cap
Rouge Bay. It was not until then that the French were aware that
an attack upon them was meditated. Every attempt was made to
oppose the landing. They sent detachments to the landing places.
But General Pepperell deceived them. He made a feint of landing
at one point, and actually landed at another. The story reminds
us of Sebastopol. Next morning 400 of the English marched round
behind the hills, to the north west of the harbour, setting fire
to all the houses and stores, till they came within a mile of the
Royal Battery. The conflagration of the stores, in which was a
considerable quantity of tar, while it concealed the English
troops, increased the alarm of the French so greatly, that they
precipitately abandoned the Royal battery. Upon their flight, the
English troops took possession of it, and by means of a well
directed fire from it, seriously damaged the town. The main body
of the army now commenced the siege. For fourteen nights they
were occupied in drawing cannon towards the town, over a morass,
in which oxen and horses could not be used. The toil was
incredible, but men accustomed to draw the pines of the forests,
for masts, could accomplish anything. By the 20th of May, several
fascine batteries had been erected, one of which mounted five
forty-pounders. These batteries, on being opened, did immense
execution. While the siege was being proceeded with, Commodore
Warren captured the French ship of war “Vigilant,” of 74 guns,
with her 560 men, and a great quantity of military stores. This
capture was of very great consequence, as it not only increased
the English force and added to their military supplies, but
seriously lessened the strength of the enemy. Shortly after this
important capture, the English fleet was considerably augmented
by the arrival of several men of war. A combined attack by sea
and land was now determined on, and fixed for the 18th of June.
Already the inland battery had been silenced; the western gate of
the town was beaten down, and a breach effected in the wall; the
circular battery of sixteen guns was nearly ruined; and the
western flank of the King’s bastion was nearly demolished. The
besieged were in no condition to resist a joint attack by sea and
land. The preparations for such an attack altogether dispirited
them. A cessation of hostilities was asked for, on the 15th, and
obtained. On the 17th, after a siege of forty-nine days,
Louisbourg and the Island of Cap Breton surrendered. Stores and
prizes to the amount of nearly a million sterling fell into the
hands of the conquerors. Nor was this the only advantage.
Security was given to the colonies in their fisheries; Nova
Scotia was preserved to England; and the trade and fisheries of
France were nearly ruined. The successful General, a New
Englander by birth, was created a baronet of Great Britain, in
recognition of his important services to the State. Sir William
Pepper(w)ell rose on the ruins of Louisbourg. On France the blow
fell with great severity. The court, aroused to vengeance, sent
the Duke D’Anville, a nobleman of great courage, in 1746, at the
head of an armament of forty ships of war, fifty-six transports,
with three thousand five hundred men, and forty thousand stand of
arms for the use of the French and Indians in Canada, to recover
possession of Cape Breton, and to attack the colonies. Four
vessels of the line, forming the West India squadron, were to
join the expedition, and Canada sent off 1,700 men with the same
view. The greatest consternation possessed the English colonists,
as part of this immense fleet neared the American coast. But
there was, in reality, no cause for fear. The tempest had blasted
the hopes of France. Only two or three of the ships, with a few
transports, reached Chebucto Bay, in Nova Scotia. Many of the
ships of this once formidable expedition were seriously damaged
by storms, others were lost, and one was forced to return to
Brest, on account of cholera among her crew. On arrival at
Chebucto, where Halifax is now situated, the Admiral became so
despondent that he poisoned himself, and the Vice Admiral, no
more a Roman than his superior, ran himself through the body with
his sword. So died both these gallant but unfortunate men, whose
moral courage quailed before what they knew must be public
opinion in France. Nor were the disasters of the Duke d’Anville’s
armament yet over. That part of the fleet which had arrived in
America, sailed for the purpose of attacking Annapolis, only to
be dispersed by a storm, in the Bay of Fundy, and to return to
France crest-fallen. Another expedition was however, determined
upon. Six men of war, of the largest class, six frigates, and
four East Indiamen, with a convoy of thirty merchant vessels, set
sail from France, with the Admiral de la Jonquiere appointed to
succeed de Beauharnois as Governor of Canada. But a British
fleet, under Admiral Anson and Rear Admiral Warren, dispatched to
watch, and, if possible, intercept it, fell in with the French
fleet on the 3rd of May, and before night all the battle ships
had surrendered. The new Governor of Canada found himself a
prisoner. The disagreeable intelligence of this second failure
reached France on the somewhat sudden and unexpected return of a
part of the convoy, which had escaped capture, as night fell, on
the day of the surrender of the fleet. Another Governor for
Canada was appointed, the Count de la Gallisonière, who
arrived safely. De la Gallisonière took an intelligent
view of the position of affairs. He saw the folly, in a military
point of view, of keeping the frontier a wilderness, and
recommended that a large number of settlers should be sent from
France, who, by being located on the frontier, would act as a
check upon the British. His advice was, however, unheeded, and de
la Jonquière having been released from captivity and
conveyed to Canada, the Count resigned his trust to the Admiral,
and returned to France. De la Jonquière was exceedingly
active and able. Shortly after, or about the time of his release
from captivity, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, and all
conquests—Louisbourg included—made during the war,
were mutually restored. But de la Jonquière hated the
English cordially, and by his hostile acts against the English
fur traders, of the Ohio Company, he brought on that war between
France and England, known as “The French and Indian War.” Several
English traders were seized and carried to a French port, on the
south of Lake Erie, and fortifications, at convenient distances,
were erected and occupied by French troops, between Fort
Presqu’isle and the Ohio. War was ultimately declared, and
Colonel George Washington, afterwards President of the United
States, was sent, at the head of a regiment of Virginians, by the
British Governor Dinwiddie, to put a stop to the fort building,
which, although joined by nearly 400 men from New York and South
Carolina, he failed to accomplish, having been compelled by De
Villiers, at the head of a force of 1,500 French soldiers, to
capitulate, with the privilege of marching back to Virginia
unmolested. In Canada, De la Jonquière was by no means a
favorite. Terribly avaricious, while the Intendant sold licenses
to trade, the Governor and his Secretary sold brandy to the
Indians. De la Jonquière became enormously wealthy, but
his grasping disposition so annoyed the people of Quebec and
Montreal, that complaints against him were loudly made, and he
was recalled. He died, however, at Quebec, before his successor,
the Marquis du Quesne de Menneville, was appointed. The
Anglo-Indian French War now raged furiously. The English
colonists were recommended by the British Government to unite
together in some scheme for their common defence. A convention of
delegates from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, with the Lieut. Governor
and Council of New York, was accordingly held at Albany, in 1754,
and a plan of a federal union adopted. The plan was simply
this:—a Grand Council, to be formed of members chosen by
the provincial assemblies, and sent from all the colonies; which
Grand Council, with a Governor General appointed by the Crown,
having a negative voice, should be empowered to make general
laws, to raise money in all the colonies, for their defence, to
call forth troops, regulate trade, lay duties, &c. It met,
however, neither with the approbation of the Provincial
Assemblies nor the King’s Council. The Assemblies rejected it
because it gave too much power to the Crown, and the King’s
Council rejected it because it gave too much power to the people.
Nevertheless, the Assemblies unreservedl declared, that, if it
were adopted, they would undertake to defend themselves from the
French, without any assistance from Great Britain. The mother
country refused to sanction it. Another plan was proposed, which
met with universal disapprobation. A convention was to be formed
by the Governors, with one or more of their Council to concert
measures for the general defence, to erect fortifications, to
raise men, &c., with power to draw upon the British Treasury
to defray all charges, which charges were to be reimbursed by
taxes upon the colonies, imposed by Acts of Parliament. The
English colonies, however, vigorously attempted to repel the
encroachments of the French from Canada, and ultimately
succeeded, notwithstanding the blundering incompetency of General
Braddock and Colonel Dunbar, the afterwards celebrated Washington
being Aid-de-Camp to the former on the Ohio. Braddock, in
proceeding against Fort du Quesne,[3] with upwards of
2,200 men, one thousand of which were regulars, suffered himself
to be surprised by only five hundred French and Indians, had five
horses killed under him, was himself mortally wounded, and his
troops were defeated. Nay, out of sixty-five officers, sixty-four
were killed and wounded, and of the troops engaged, one half were
made prisoners, through the ungovernable folly of a man, who
advanced without caution, and attempted to form a line when
surrounded in a thicket. It was at this time, when the English
colonists, not only contemplated a federal union, but had
determined upon expeditions—one against the French in Nova
Scotia, which completely succeeded; a second against the French
on the Ohio; a third against Crown Point; and a fourth against
Niagara. The Marquis du Quesne organized the militia of Quebec
and Montreal; minutely inspected and disciplined the militia of
the seigneuries; and attached considerable bodies of regular
artillery to every garrison. Tired of the continual fighting
between Canada and the English colonies, the Marquis du Quesne
solicited his recall. His request was conceded. His most
Christian Majesty appointed the Marquis de Vaudreuil de Cavagnac,
son of a former Governor to succeed him. De Vaudreuil de Cavagnac
sailed for the seat of his government with Admiral La Mothe, who
was in command of a fleet newly fitted out, at considerable cost,
at Brest. The sailing was not unnoticed by the English Channel
fleet. Admiral Boscawen gave chase. He had eleven ships of the
line, and with these he came up with the French fleet off
Newfoundland. A battle ensued, and two French vessels fell into
the hands of the British, the remainder of the French ships
escaping under cover of a fog. Quebec was reached without further
molestation, and Governor De Vaudreuil de Cavagnac was installed.
All Canada was, on his arrival, in arms. Every parish was a
garrison, commanded by a captain, whose authority was not only
acknowledged, but rigidly sustained. Agriculture was,
consequently, entirely neglected. Provisions were scarce; the
price of food was enormously high; and the fur trade was rapidly
declining. Notwithstanding this, the Intendant, Bigot, shipped
off large quantities of wheat to the West Indies, on his own
account. The Marquis de Vaudreuil de Cavagnac sanctioned the
avaricious exactions and dealings of Bigot. Practices the most
dishonest and demoralizing were winked at or excused. The
Governors positively enriched themselves on the miseries of the
governed. A high standard value was given to grain in store. It
was studiously reported that the farmers were hoarding up their
stocks, and prejudice was so excited against them, that it was no
difficult matter to confiscate their corn, on pretence that it
was absolutely necessary for the city and the troops. De Cavagnac
and Bigot bought cheaply and sold extravagantly dear. As the
Russian officials cheat the Russian government, so did the French
officials cheat both the people and the government of France. But
it was little wonder. The Governor had only a salary of
£272 sterling, out of which he was expected to clothe,
maintain, and pay a guard for himself, consisting of two
sergeants and twenty-five soldiers, furnishing them with firing
in winter, and other necessary articles. A Governor was compelled
to trade to be on a pecuniary level with the merchant.

The hostilities between the colonists of English and French
extraction for the two preceding years had been carried on,
without any formal declaration of war. It was not until June,
1756, that war was declared by Great Britain against France, and
operations were determined upon on a large scale. Lord Loudon was
appointed Commander in Chief of the English forces in America,
and General the Marquis de Montcalm was appointed Generalissimo
in Canada, in room of Dieskau, who was disabled at Lake George.
The English commander matured a plan of campaign, formed by his
locum tenens, General Abercrombie, which embraced an
attack upon Niagara and Crown Point, still in possession of the
French, the former being the connecting link in the line of
fortifications between Canada and Louisiana, and the latter
commanding Lake Champlain, and guarding the only passage at that
time to Canada. Loudon was as hesitating and shiftless, as
Abercrombie had been an improvident commander. The expedition
against Crown Point was unaccountably delayed. General Winslow,
at the head of 700 men, was not permitted to advance. Montcalm,
as energetic, able, and enterprising as his opponents were
indecisive, with 8,000 regulars, Canadians, and Indians, made a
rapid descent upon Oswego, at the south-east side of Lake
Ontario, and captured it. Sixteen hundred men, one hundred and
twenty pieces of cannon, fourteen mortars, two ships of war, and
two hundred boats and batteaux, fell into the conqueror’s hands.
Lord Loudon, prone to inactivity, instead of vigorously pushing
forward upon Crown Point, to retrieve this great disaster, made
the disaster an excuse for relinquishing the enterprise. The
failure of the campaign of ’56 much annoyed the British
Parliament and people, and great preparations were made in the
following year to prosecute the war to a successful issue. It was
in vain, while Lord Loudon was in command of the colonial army. A
fleet of eleven ships of the line, and fifty transports, with
more than six thousand troops, arrived at Halifax, for the
reduction of Louisbourg, and Lord Loudon ordered a large body of
troops, designed to march upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point, to
co-operate. But so dilatory was his Lordship, that before the
expedition from Halifax was ready to sail, a French fleet of 17
sail had arrived at Louisbourg, with reinforcements, making the
garrison nine thousand strong—and this fine specimen of a
hereditary commander deemed it inexpedient to proceed, and
abandoned the expedition. Montcalm, again profitting by the
weakness and indecision of his adversaries, made a descent on
Fort William Henry, situated on the north shore of Lake George,
with nine thousand men. The fort, garrisoned by three thousand
men, was commanded by Colonel Munroe, who obstinately defended
it. Nay, had it not been for the silly indifference of General
Webb, who was in command of Fort Edward, which was within only
fifteen miles of Fort William Henry, and was garrisoned by 4,000
men, the French General might have been unable to make any
impression upon it. But Webb, although solicited by his second in
command, Sir William Johnston, to suffer his troops to march to
the rescue, first hesitated, next granted permission, and then
drew back. In six days the garrison surrendered, Munroe and his
troops being admitted to an honorable capitulation. Reverses such
as these, involving great misery, inasmuch as the Indians too
frequently butchered their prisoners in cold blood, could not
fail to have an effect upon a ministry which had appointed such
incapables to command. A change of ministry was loudly demanded,
and most fortunately for the honor of the British arms, and for
the salvation of the colonies, there was a change. The great
Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, was the Palmerston of that day.
Placed at the head of the administration, he breathed into the
British Councils a new soul. He revived the energies of the
colonies. He gave new life to dependencies, whose loyalty was
weakened, and whose means were exhausted by a series of as
ill-contrived and unfortunate expeditions as were ever attempted.
He addressed circulars to the colonial Governors, assuring them
of the determination of the ministry to send a large force to
America, and called upon the colonies to raise as many troops as
possible, and to act promptly and liberally in furnishing the
requisite supplies. The colonies nobly responded. Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New England unitedly raised 15,000 men, who were
ready to take the field in May. An expedition to Louisbourg, a
second to Ticonderoga, and a third against Fort du Quesne were
determined upon. The tide of success was on the turn. Admiral
Boscawen, with a fleet of twenty ships of the line, eighteen
frigates, and an army of fourteen thousand men, under the command
of General Amherst, his second in command being General Wolfe,
sailed from Halifax, for Louisbourg, on the 28th of May.
Louisbourg resisted vigorously, but on the 26th of July this
important fortress was a second time in the possession of Great
Britain. 5,735 men, 120 cannon, 5 ships of the line, and 4
frigates were captured. Isle Royal and St. John’s, with Cape
Breton, fell, also, into the hands of the English. Against
Ticonderoga the English were not so successful. This central
expedition was conducted by General Abercrombie, who had
succeeded Lord Loudon as Commander-in-Chief in America, that
nobleman having returned home. He had with him 16,000 men and a
formidable train of artillery. Ticonderoga was only garrisoned by
3,000 French. The passage of Abercrombie across Lake Champlain
was only a little less splendid than that of the British and
French armies over the Black Sea, from Varna to Eupatoria, in
September, 1854. The morning was remarkably bright and beautiful,
and the fleet moved with exact regularity, to the sound of fine
martial music. The ensigns waved and glittered in the sunbeams,
and the anticipation of future triumphs shone in every eye.
Above, beneath, around, the scenery was that of enchantment. It
was a complication of beauty and magnificence, on which the sun
rarely shines. But General Abercrombie was unequal to the command
of such an army. He left to incompetent Aides-de-Camp the task of
reconnoitering the ground and entrenchments, and without a
knowledge of the strength of the place, or of the points proper
for attack, and without bringing up a single piece of artillery,
he issued his orders to attempt the lines. The army advanced with
the greatest intrepidity, and for upwards of four hours (the
duration of the battle of the Alma) maintained the attack with
incredible obstinacy. Nearly two thousand of the English were
killed or wounded, and a retreat was ordered. On reaching Lake
George, his former quarters, the defeated and mortified
Abercrombie yielded to the solicitations of Colonel Bradstreet,
who desired to be sent against Fort Frontenac, (now Kingston) on
Lake Ontario. Three thousand provincials were detached on this
expedition, and in two days the fortress had surrendered, and 9
armed vessels, 60 cannon, and sixteen mortars, and a vast
quantity of ammunition were taken possession of. Fort du Quesne
was evacuated on the approach of General Forbes, with 8,000 men,
and was re-named Pittsburg, in honor of the Prime Minister of
England, Mr. Pitt.

Elated by success, the entire conquest of Canada was now
determined upon by the English. Three powerful armies were
simultaneously to enter the French Province by three different
routes—Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Niagara and Quebec were
to be attacked as nearly as possible at the same time. On the
22nd of July, 1759, the successor of Abercrombie, General
Amherst, attacked, first, Ticonderoga, and then Crown Point, both
places being evacuated on his approach, the French retiring to
Isle Aux Noix, where General Amherst could not follow them, for
want of a naval armament. On the 6th of the same month, Fort
Niagara was invested by Sir William Johnston, who succeeded to
the command of the Niagara division of the army on the death of
General Prideaux, an able and distinguished officer,
unfortunately killed, four days previously, by the bursting of a
cohorn. A general battle took place on the 24th, which decided
the fate of Niagara, by placing it in the hands of the
invaders.

The intended campaign of 1759, was early made known to General
Montcalm: that on Quebec was made known to him on the 14th of
May, by M. de Bougainville, appointed on the Marquis’ staff, as
Aid-de-Camp. In January, a census of those capable of bearing
arms in Canada was taken, when 15,229 were reported as available
for service. Montcalm went energetically to work to preserve the
country to France. A council of war was held at Montreal, and it
was decided that a body of troops, under Montcalm, the Marquis de
Levi, and M. de Jennezergus, should be posted at Quebec; that M.
de Bourlemaque should hasten to Ticonderoga, blow up the works at
the approach of the English, retire by the Lake to Isle-aux-Noix,
and there stubbornly resist. With 800 regulars and militia, the
Chevalier de la Corne was directed to hold the rapids above
Montreal, to entrench himself in a strong position, and hold out
to the last. It is, therefore, obvious, that the evacuation of
Ticonderoga was determined upon; and that the retention of
Niagara was not much desired. The intended march upon Quebec, by
a large force from England, caused the greatest uneasiness.
Montcalm, hastening to Quebec, pushed on the defences of the city
and its outposts vigorously. The buoys, and other marks for the
safe navigation of the St. Lawrence were removed. Proclamations,
calling upon the people to make a determined resistance, were
issued. The people were reminded that they were about to contest
with a powerful and ruthless enemy of their religion and their
homes. The Church urged the faithful to resist the heretical
invaders.

General Wolfe was in the harbour of Quebec before either
Ticonderoga or Niagara had fallen. Eight thousand men had been
embarked at Louisbourg, under convoy of Admirals Saunders and
Holmes. The expedition arrived without accident off the Island of
Orleans, where the troops were disembarked, on the 25th of June.
General Wolfe, three days afterwards, issued an address to the
colonists. He appealed to their fears. General Amherst was
approaching in one direction, Sir W. Johnston in another, and he
(Wolfe) was at their very doors. Succour from France was
unobtainable. To the peasantry he, therefore, offered the sweets
of peace, amid the horrors of war. The French colonists, however,
were ignorant of the English language as of English customs. They
saw no sign of fine feeling towards themselves in so large a
fleet and so considerable an army. Every obstacle that could be
placed in the way of an invading force, the French colonists
patriotically placed in the way of General Wolfe. They readily
formed themselves into battalions for defence. They hung about
the skirts of that part of the army which had been landed,
cutting off foraging parties, and otherwise harassing it. They
prayed in the churches for the preservation of their country. The
most noble spirit animated the Canadians. General Monckton was
sent to drive the French off Point Levi, opposite Quebec, and
take possession of the post. He succeeded. Batteries were thrown
up and unceasingly worked. The firing was, but however, of little
use, only the houses of the town being injured. The
fortifications were not only uninjured, they were being rapidly
strengthened. More energetic measures were determined upon. Wolfe
crossed the river and attacked the enemy in their entrenchments,
at Montmorenci. But, some of the boats in which the soldiers had
crossed, unluckily grounded, and the attacking party did not all
land together. The grenadiers rushed impetuously forward, without
even waiting to form, and were mowed down by the enemy’s close,
steady, and well directed fire. Montcalm’s force now advanced to
the beach, and the contest waxed hotter. A thunder storm was
approaching, and the tide was setting in. Wolfe, fearing the
consequences of delay, ordered a retreat, and returned to his
quarters, on the Island of Orleans. He lost six hundred of the
flower of his army in this unhappy encounter, and left behind him
some of his largest boats. The condition of the invaders was far
from enviable. Sickness prevailed to an alarming extent in the
camp. They had been already five weeks before the city, and many
lives had been lost, not only in skirmishes, but by dysentery.
Wolfe himself fell sick. Depressed in spirits by the disastrous
attempt to land on the Beauport shoals, and worn down with
fatigue and watching, he was compelled to take to his bed. It was
while lying ill that the plan occurred to him of proceeding up
the river, scaling the heights by night, and forcing Montcalm to
a general engagement. On his recovery he proceeded to carry his
plan into execution. A feint of landing again at Beauport was
made. The boats of the fleet, filled with sailors and marines,
apparently made for the shore, covered by a part of the fleet,
the other part having gone higher up the river. At one hour after
midnight, on the 12th September, the fleet being now at anchor at
the narrows of Carouge, the first division of the army,
consisting of 1,600 men, were placed in flat bottomed boats,
which silently dropped down the current. It was intended to land
three miles above Cape Diamond, and then ascend to the high
grounds above. The current, however, carried the boats down to
within a mile and a half of the city. The night was dismally
dark, the bank seemed more than ordinarily steep and lofty, and
the French were on the qui vive. A sentinel bawled out,
“Que vive,” who goes there? “La France,” was the
quick reply. Captain Macdonald, of the 78th Highlanders, had
served in Holland, and knew the proper reply to the challenge of
a French sentry. “A quel regiment?” asked the sentry, “De la
Reine” was the response. “Passe” said the soldier, who made the
darkness vibrate as he brought his musket to the carry. Other
sentinels were similarly deceived. One was more particularly
curious than the others. Something in the voice of the passing
friend did not please his ear. Running down to the water’s edge,
he called “Pour quoi est-ce que vous ne parlez plus haut,” why
don’t you speak louder? “Tais toi, nous serons entendu!” Hush, we
shall be overheard and discovered, said the cunning highlander,
still more softly. It was enough, the boats passed. Within one
hour of daylight a landing was effected, and the British army
began to scale the heights, the base of which was then washed by
the St. Lawrence. By daylight, the army was drawn up in battle
array, on the “Plains of Abraham.” The ground was somewhat
undulating, and well calculated for manœuvring. Every knoll
was taken advantage of. Every little hillock served the purpose
of an earthwork. For the invaders it was victory or death. To
retreat was impossible. The position of the British army was
speedily made known to Montcalm. There was not a moment to be
lost. The French General rapidly crossed the St. Charles, and
advanced with his whole army, to meet that of Wolfe. Fifteen
hundred Indians first ascended the hill, from the valley of the
St. Charles, and stationing themselves in cornfields and bushes,
fired upon the English, who took no notice of their fire. Between
nine and ten o’clock, the two armies met, face to face, and when
the main body of the French, advancing rapidly, were within forty
yards, the English opened their fire, and the carnage was
terrible. The French fought gallantly, but under a galling and
well directed fire, they fell, in spite of the exertions of their
officers, into disorder. The British Grenadiers charged at this
critical moment. The Highlanders rushing forward, with the
claymore, hewed down every opponent, and the fate of the battle
was no longer doubtful—the French retreated. Wolfe had just
been carried to the rear, mortally wounded in the groin. Early in
the battle, a ball struck him in the wrist, but binding his
handkerchief around it, he continued to encourage his men. It was
while in the agonies of death, that he heard the cry of “they
flee,” “they flee,” and on being told that it was the French who
fled, exclaimed, “Then I die happy.” His second in command,
General Monckton, was wounded and conveyed away, shortly after
assuming the direction of affairs, when the command devolved upon
General Townshend who followed up the victory, rendered the more
telling by the death of the brave Montcalm, who fell, mortally
wounded, in front of his battalion, and that of his second in
command, General Jennezergus, who fell near him. Wolfe’s army
consisted of only 4,828 men, Montcalm’s of 7,520 men, exclusive
of Indians. The English loss amounted to 55 killed and 607
wounded, that of the French to nearly a thousand killed and
wounded; and a thousand made prisoners. Montcalm was carried to
the city; his last moments were employed in writing to the
English general, recommending the French prisoners to his care
and humanity; and when informed that his wound was mortal, he
sublimely remarked:—”I shall not then live to see the
surrender of Quebec.” On the 14th he died, and on the evening of
the 18th the keys of Quebec were delivered up to his conquerors,
and the British flag was hoisted on the citadel. French imperial
rule had virtually ended in Canada. Not so, French customs. By
the capitulation, which suffered the garrison to march out with
the honors of war, the inhabitants of the country were permitted
the free exercise of their religion; and, afterwards, in 1774,
the Roman Catholic Church establishment was recognized; and
disputes concerning landed and real property were to be settled
by the Coutume de Paris. In criminal cases only was the
law of England to apply.

Admiral Saunders, with all the fleet, except two ships, sailed
for England, on the 18th of October, Quebec being left to the
care of General Murray and about 3,000 men. After the fleet had
sailed, several attempts were made upon the British outposts at
Point Levi, Cape Rouge, and St. Foy, unsuccessfully. Winter came,
and the sufferings of the conquerors and the conquered were
dreadful. The Frazer Highlanders wore their kilts,
notwithstanding the extreme cold, and provisions were so scarce
and dear, that many of the inhabitants died of starvation. The
Marquis de Vaudreuil, the Governor General of His Most Christian
Majesty, busied himself, at Montreal, with preparations for the
recovery of Quebec, in the spring. In April, he sent the General
De Levi, with an army of 10,000 men, to effect that object. De
Levi arrived within three miles of Quebec, on the 28th, and
defeated General Murray’s force of 2,200 men, imprudently sent to
meet him. The city was again besieged, but this time by the
French. Indeed, it was only on the appearance of the British
ships, about the middle of May, that the siege was raised. De
Levi retreated to Jacques Cartier. The tide of fortune was again
turning. General Amherst was advancing from New York upon
Montreal. By the middle of May, that city, and with it the whole
of Canada, including a population, exclusive of Indians, of
69,275 souls, was surrendered to England.

Montcalm, who was not only a general, but a statesman, is said
to have expressed himself to the effect, that the conquest of
Canada by England would endanger her retention of the New England
colonies, and ultimately prove injurious to her interests on this
continent. Canada, not subject to France, would be no source of
uneasiness or annoyance to the English colonists, who already
were becoming politically important, and somewhat impatient of
restraint. How far such an opinion was justifiable, is to be
gathered from the condition of Canada and the colonies of Great
Britain in America, at this hour.

Canada was, in 1763, ceded by His Most Christian Majesty, the
King of France, to His Britannic Majesty King George the Second.
Emigration from the United Kingdom to Canada was
encouraged—not to Canada only, but to Nova Scotia, which
then included the present Province of New Brunswick. By the
treaty of 1763, signed at Paris, Nova Scotia, Canada, the Isle of
Cape Breton, and all the other Islands in the Gulf and River St.
Lawrence, were ceded to the British Crown. Britain, not only
powerful in arms, but, even at this period, great in commerce,
was about to change, though almost imperceptibly, the feelings of
her new subjects. The old or New England colonies, which had so
largely contributed to the subjugation of Canada, were already
largely engaged in trade. They had not made much progress in
agriculture. They had made no progress in manufactures. It was
six years later before their first collegiate institution, at
Hanover, New Hampshire, was founded. But, while Canada, perhaps,
only loaded a couple of vessels with the skins of the bear, the
beaver, the buffalo, the fox, the lynx, the martin, the minx, and
the wolf, to prevent the total evaporation of heat from the
shoulders of the gentler sex in Paris or London, or to fringe the
velvet robes of the courtiers of St. James and the Tuileries, the
New Englanders employed, annually, about one thousand and
seventy-eight British vessels, manned by twenty-eight thousand
nine hundred seamen, while their whale and other fisheries had
become of great importance.[4] To change the military
character of the sixty-nine thousand inhabitants of Canada ceded
by France to England, could not be done immediately. That was as
impossible as to make them abjure by proclamation, their
religion. All changes, to be lasting, must be gradual, and the
government of Great Britain only contemplated a lasting change,
by the introduction into Canada of her own people, imbued with
somewhat different ideas, religiously, legally, and commercially,
from those which actuated the conquered population.

CHAPTER II.

For some years after the conquest, the form of government was
purely military. It was, indeed, only in 1774, that two Acts were
passed by the British government, one with the view of providing
a revenue for the civil government of the Province of Quebec, as
the whole of Canada was then termed, the other, called “The
Quebec Act,” defining the boundaries of the Province, setting
aside all the provisions of the Royal proclamation, of 1763, and
appointing a governing Council of not more than twenty-three, nor
less than seventeen persons. And whatever may have been the
motive for this almost unlooked for liberality on the part of the
mother country, it is not a little singular that only a year
later, England’s great difficulty with her old colonies occurred.
The Parliament of Great Britain had imposed, without even
consulting the colonists, a tax for the defence and protection of
the colonies, on clayed sugar, indigo, coffee, &c., and the
colonists resisted. The American colonies contended that taxation
and representation were inseparable, and that having no voice in
the administration of affairs, they were free from any taxation,
but that which was self-imposed, for local purposes. So far,
however, from paying any heed to the remonstrances of the
colonists, the Imperial Parliament became more exacting and
tyrannical. Not only were the necessaries of life taxed in
America, for the benefit of the red-tapists and other
place-holders of the Imperial government, but a stamp Act was
passed through the Imperial Parliament, ordaining that
instruments of writing—bonds, deeds, and
notes—executed in the colonies, should be null and void,
unless executed upon paper stamped by the London Stamp Office. It
was then that a coffin, inscribed with the word “Liberty”
was carried to the grave, in Portsmouth, Massachusetts, and
buried with military honours! Had the views of Governor Pownall,
of Massachusetts, with regard to the representation of the
colonies in the British Parliament, been adopted, no umbrage
could have been taken at the imposition of taxes, because the
colonies would have been open to civil and military preferment in
the state equally with the residents of the United Kingdom. It
was, and is, an unfortunate mistake to look upon colonists with
contempt. Colonists, more even than the inhabitants of old
countries, inhale a spirit of independence. Often, lords of all
they survey, they call no man lord. They are the pioneers of
their own fortunes. They make glad the wilderness. They produce
more than they themselves require. But Great Britain was, at the
time of which we speak, perfectly infatuated. On the 4th of Sept.
of the very year in which the Quebec Act was granted, 1774, a
Continental Congress was held, of which Peter Randolph, of
Virginia, was President, to sympathize with the people of Boston,
on account of their disabilities, by reason of the tea
riot.[5] But such Congresses produced no
effect in England. On the contrary, Massachusetts was more
rigorously punished, and was prevented from fishing on the Banks
of Newfoundland. Is it wonderful that the battles of Lexington,
Concord, and Bunker’s Hill followed? Is it wonderful that those
who had assisted Wolfe in taking Canada from the French, should
have afterwards attempted to conquer Canada for themselves? Is it
wonderful that, on the 3rd of November, 1775, one of Washington’s
Brigadier Generals, Montgomery, should have received the
surrender of 500 regular British troops, at St. John’s, Canada
East; the surrender of one hundred Canadians, of thirty-nine
pieces of cannon, of seven mortars, and of five hundred stand of
arms? Is it wonderful that Montreal, then so thinly inhabited and
indifferently garrisoned, should have capitulated, or that Quebec
should have been invested by Arnold, who sailed down the
Chaudiere on rafts, and by Montgomery, to whom Montreal had
capitulated? It is only wonderful that Quebec was successfully
defended, and that General Montgomery perished under her walls.
Canada, notwithstanding the temporary annexation of Montreal, was
true to Great Britain, feeling that whatever might have been the
injustice of Britain to the old Colonies, Canada had nothing then
of which to complain. Indeed, the attack upon the newly ceded
province of Canada, was amongst the earliest demonstrations of a
disposition on the part of the old Colonies to resort to
violence. “The Quebec Act” was in itself a cause of offence to
them. On the 21st of October, 1774, the following language was
made use of by the Congress, in reference to that Act, in an
Address to the people of Great Britain:—”Nor can we
suppress our astonishment, that a British Parliament should ever
consent to establish in that country, a religion that has deluged
your Island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry,
persecution, murder, and rebellion through every part of the
world.” And “That we think the Legislature of Great Britain is
not authorized by the Constitution to establish a religion
fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets.” The attack was of a
two-fold nature. Both the sword and the pen were brought into
requisition. It was supposed by the discontented old colonists,
that the boundary of the lakes and rivers which emptied
themselves into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and had formed the
natural barrier between two nations, until the peace of Paris, in
1763, when Canada passed from the dominion of France to that of
the British Crown, formed no boundary to British rule, as the
sway of the Anglo-Saxon race was now fully established over the
whole of the northern part of the continent; and it was further
supposed, that it was, therefore, proper to detract, if possible,
from the power of Great Britain, to harm the revolutionary
colonists on the great watery highway of the lakes and rivers, or
to prevent such a united force of Colonial and Provincial
inhabitants as might counterbalance, in a great measure, the
pertinacious loyalists who were to discountenance American
appeals for justice,—the warfare, before the declaration of
American Independence, being “neither against the throne nor the
laws of England, but against a reckless and oppressive
ministry.”[6] Efforts were, for such reasons,
made to obtain possession of the keys of the Lakes and of the St.
Lawrence at Quebec and Montreal. The old colonists were to make a
war of political propagandism on Canada and they resolved upon
the employment of both force and persuasion. Generals Montgomery,
Arnold, and Allen invaded Canada, and, to a certain point, with
complete success. After the successes of the two latter officers
at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Arnold pushed on towards Quebec,
through the wilderness, and had ascended the heights of Abraham
before Montgomery, who had proceeded towards Quebec from
Montreal, had arrived. Under these circumstances, Arnold retired
about twenty miles above Quebec, to wait for Montgomery.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, had escaped,
through Montgomery’s army, in the dead of night, in an open boat,
rowed with muffled oars, and guided by Captain Bouchette, of the
Royal Navy, and was now safely lodged in the chief fortress of
America. On the 1st of December, Montgomery effected a junction
with Arnold, and the siege of Quebec was commenced, although the
besiegers were most indifferently provided with camp equipage,
and were poorly clad. Their cannon, too, was of so small a
description, as to be almost useless. The design evidently was to
carry the town, which was not then nearly as strongly fortified
as now, and was only garrisoned by a few troops, militia, and
seamen, by assault, in the full persuasion that the Canadians
would be only most happy to be identified with the American
struggle for liberty, or by being neutral, would show to the
ministry of England the formidable animosity of a united
continent, by which the ends of the old colonists would be
gained, and the war nipped in its ripening bud.[7] This,
Generals Montgomery and Arnold were unable to do. The attempt was
made on the 31st December, but signally failed. Arnold proceeded
with one division towards Sault-au-Matelot Street, by way of St.
Roch’s, and succeeded in establishing himself in some houses at
the eastern extremity of that street, but being attacked in the
rear, by a part of the garrison, directed by General Carleton to
make a sortie from Palace Gate, only a remnant of the assailants,
with considerable difficulty, managed to get back to camp.
Montgomery approached by the road under the Cape, called
Près-de-Ville, with another division, but was stoutly
resisted, and fell mortally wounded. After the attack,
Montgomery’s body was found embedded in the snow, together with
the bodies of his two Aides-de-Camp, Captain McPherson and
Captain Cheeseman. Arnold now retired about three miles from
Quebec, where he encamped during the winter.

On the 15th of February, 1776, the American Congress appointed
Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll, of
Carrollton—the last mentioned gentleman being requested to
prevail upon his brother, the Revd. John Carroll, a Jesuit of
distinguished theological attainments, and celebrated for his
amiable manners and polished address, to accompany them—to
proceed to Canada with the view of representing to the Canadians
that the Americans south of the St. Lawrence, “had no
apprehension that the French would take any part with Great
Britain; but that it was their interest, and, the Americans had
reason to believe, their inclination, to cultivate a friendly
intercourse with the colonies.” They were to have religious
freedom, and have the power of self-government, while a free
press was to be established, to reform all abuses.[8] The
Committee, or, more properly speaking, the Commission, were,
however, far from being successful in their attempt to negotiate
Canada into revolt. The clergy of Canada could not be persuaded
that, as Roman Catholics, they would be better treated by the
Revolutionary colonists than they had been under the British
government, after the expression of such sentiments as those
addressed to the people of Great Britain, on the 21st of October,
1774. The Americans, uncouth in manners, were, in truth, most
intolerant of papacy. In the “Cradle of American Liberty,” a
dancing school was not permitted. While in Boston a fencing
school was allowed, there were no musicians permitted to exist,
and the anti-papal character of the people was even more evident
from the fact, that the first thing printed in New England was
the Freeman’s Oath! the second an almanac; and the third an
edition of the psalms.

On the day after the Reverend Mr. Carroll had failed in his
part of the mission, joined Dr. Franklin, and returned to the
South, Chase and Carroll of Carrollton had been busy with the
military part of their embassy. At a council of war held in
Montreal, it was resolved to fortify Jacques Cartier—the
Richelieu Rapids, between Quebec and Three Rivers—and to
build six gondolas at Chambly, of a proper size to carry heavy
cannon, and to be under the direction of Arnold. But disasters
thickened around the insurgents. The small pox had broken out
among the troops, and was making deep inroads upon their scanty
numbers. To crown the whole, the worst news was received from the
besiegers at Quebec, for out of 1,900 men, there were not more
than 1,000 fit for duty, all the rest being invalids, chiefly
afflicted with the small-pox. On the 5th of May, 1776, a council
of war was held at Quebec, and it was resolved to remove the
invalids, artillery, batteaux, and stores higher up the river;
but, on the evening of that day, intelligence was received in the
American camp, that fifteen ships were within forty leagues of
Quebec, hastening up the river; and early next morning, five of
them hove in sight. General Thomas immediately gave orders to
embark the sick and the artillery in the batteaux, whilst the
enemy began to land their troops. About noon, a body of the
British, a thousand strong, formed into two divisions, in columns
of six deep, and supported with a train of six pieces of cannon,
attacked the American sentinels and main guard. The Americans
stood for a moment on the plains, with about 250 men and
one field piece only, when the order for retreat was
given, and the encampment was precipitately deserted. In the
confusion, all the cannon of the besiegers fell into the hands of
the British, and about 200 invalids were made prisoners.
Following the course of the river, the broken army of the
Americans fled towards Montreal, and halting for a while at
Deschambault, finally retreated along the St. Lawrence, until
they made a stand at Sorel, with the view to an “orderly retreat
out of Canada.”[9] By the 18th of June, the
British General, Burgoyne, was close behind Arnold, who now, with
the whole of the American army, had quitted Canadian soil, and
was proceeding somewhat rapidly up the Richelieu, into Lake
Champlain.

In the very year that Arnold retired from Quebec, on the 4th
of July, 1776, the thirteen now confederated colonies, on the
report of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger
Sherman, and Phillip Livingston, dissolved their allegiance to
the British Crown, declaring themselves to be free and
independent. The lions, sceptres, crowns, and other paraphernalia
of royalty were now rudely trampled on, in both Boston and
Virginia. Massachusetts, and, shortly afterwards, New York, were,
indeed, in the possession of rebels, commanded by Washington. It
was then that, in 1777, the execution of a plan of attacking the
New Englanders, by way of Canada, was entrusted to General
Burgoyne, who, with some thousands of troops, a powerful train of
artillery, and several tribes of Indians, proceeded down Lake
Champlain, to cut off the northern from the southern colonies of
the rebellious confederation. Burgoyne chased the American
General St. Clair out of Ticonderoga; hunted Schuyler to
Saratoga; destroyed the American flotilla on Lake Champlain;
demolished bridges, and reduced forts. He, nevertheless, met with
a severe check at Bennington, Vermont. Being at Fort Edward, he
sent Colonel Baum, with a detachment of the army to seize a
magazine of stores at Bennington. When within a few miles of that
place, however, Baum learned that the Americans were strongly
entrenched. He, therefore, halted, and sent to Burgoyne for a
reinforcement. But the American General Stark, who had a large
body of Vermont Militia under his command, in addition to his
ordinary New Hampshire corps, now determined to be the assailant.
With only 500 regulars and 100 Indians, Colonel Baum did not
consider it prudent to fight a body vastly superior in numbers,
and he retreated. Assistance reached him at this critical moment,
which seemed to make a battle, if not expedient, a point of
honour. Unfortunately the sense of honour prevailed, Baum gave
battle, and was himself slain and his men defeated, the British
loss being 700 in killed and wounded, while that of the Americans
was only about 100. It was a pity that Baum had not the moral
courage to retire, even when reinforced, for his defeat much
embarrassed Burgoyne, and made an attempt at a general retreat
even necessary, as the courage of the enemy had so increased by
the moral effect of a victory, that Burgoyne was in danger of
being surrounded by the hordes of State Militiamen who, on all
sides of him, were taking the field. Burgoyne was, nevertheless,
still on the advance, with the main body of his army, and was
approaching Saratoga, when he heard of the defeat of Baum.
Unwilling to retreat, and yet unable to advance, he hesitated,
but ultimately decided upon returning. That, however, was now
impossible. He had hardly turned his face towards the place from
whence he came, than he fell in with General Gates, losing about
600 men; and he had hardly realized his loss, when he learned
that Fort Edward, which stood between him and Canada, was in the
possession of the enemy. No avenue of escape appeared open, and
this fine army from Canada, consisting of five thousand seven
hundred effective men, with General Burgoyne at their head, laid
down their arms to the American General Gates, at Saratoga. Even
according to the testimony of Lady Harriet Ackland, Burgoyne,
though sufficiently brave for anything, was quite incompetent for
command. He had neither resources nor strategy. He knew neither
what to do nor what he was doing. He neither knew when to advance
nor when to retreat. It was all haphazard with him. Through his
very stupidity an army was positively sacrificed. Lord
Cornwallis, afterwards, easily defeated Gates. And in the
campaign of 1780, Washington was himself in straits. His
commissariat was wretchedly bad. For days the medical department
of his army had neither sugar, coffee, tea, chocolate, wine, nor
spirituous liquors of any kind; and the army had not seen the
shadow of money for five months. A junction cleverly effected
between the two British armies might have changed, or rather
checked the destinies of the Confederated Colonies. But, by the
awkwardness, carelessness, and want of prudence of Burgoyne, in
the first place, Cornwallis got also hemmed in, being intercepted
on one side by the French fleet, and on the other by the army
commanded by Washington, and he capitulated after his defeat at
Yorktown, in September, 1781. Had a line of communication
northward been maintained for the British army, even seven
thousand men might have escaped the blockade of the sixteen
thousand militia, under Washington, to whom the conqueror of
Charleston was compelled, by the fortune of war, to present his
sword. The stupidity of the British Generals, combined with the
previous stupidity of the Imperial administrations, led to the
evacuation of those colonies by Great Britain, to which she was
in a great measure indebted for the acquisition of Port Royal and
Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, and for Niagara, Frontenac, Montreal,
and Quebec in Canada. The prediction of Montcalm had come to
pass. The United States were independent. But, however much the
war in America, between Great Britain and her own old colonies,
had temporarily interfered with, it had paved the way for a more
extended, commerce in Canada. There were men in New England who
would not, on any account, be rebels. Many of these, with their
families, sought an asylum in Canada, and the advancement of the
Far West, on the British side of the lines, is, in no small
degree, to be attributed to the integrity and energy of those
highly honourable men. Canada was then entirely, or almost
entirely, under military rule. It could not well be otherwise.
The necessities of the times required unity of action. There was
no room for party squabbling, nor were there numbers sufficient
to squabble. The province, the population of which did not extend
beyond Detroit, a mere Indian trading post, and beyond which it
was expected civilisation could not be extended for ages, was
divided into two sections, the western and the eastern. Sir Guy
Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, had divided all west of the
monument of St. Regis into four districts, after the manner of
ancient Gaul, which he termed Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nassau, and
Hesse; and the Seminary of Quebec had cut up the eastern section
into parishes, distinguished by cross roads. In the lower section
of the province, the bonnets rouges and bonnets
bleus were on the increase, but the increase was like that of
the frogs: it was multiplying in the same puddle, with the same
unchanging and unchangeable habits. The peaweeting, the
whistling, the purring, and the whizzing, were only the louder,
as the inhabitants became more numerous. There was no idea of
change of any kind. Language, manners, and knowledge were the
same as they ever had been: only the pomp of the church had
succeeded to the pomp and circumstance of war. There was no more
industry, no more energy, no more scientific cravings, and no
earnest pursuit of wealth. All was contentment. Even by the
authorities, no desire to awaken the Franco-Canadian from his
slumber, was entertained. On the contrary, the restless United
Empire loyalists were to be separated from them. The isolation of
Lower Canada from the rest of the world was to be as complete as
possible.

Not very long after the declaration of American Independence,
Canada was divided, by Act of the Imperial Parliament, into two
distinct provinces, called Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Mr.
Adam Lymburner, a merchant of Quebec, not being particularly
anxious for isolation, appeared at the bar of the House of
Commons on behalf of himself and others. He was against the
separation. The united province was not even in a condition to
maintain a good system of government. Oppressed by the tyranny of
officials, industry and improvement had been neglected, and a
state of languor and depression prevailed. The public buildings
were even falling into a state of ruin and decay. There was not a
Court House in the province, nor a sufficient prison nor house of
correction. Nor was there a school house between Tadousac and
Niagara. The country upon the Great Lakes was a wilderness.
Lymburner did not, however, prevail. The British government
desired to put the United Empire loyalists upon the same footing
with regard to constitutional government as they had previously
enjoyed before the independence of the United States in that
country, a condition about which a certain class of merchants in
Quebec have always been indifferent. Lord Dorchester was
appointed Governor-in-Chief in Canada, and administrator in Lower
Canada, while General Simcoe was named Lieutenant Governor of
Upper Canada. General Simcoe selected for his capital
Niagara,[10] and resided there at Navy
Hall. On the site of Toronto, in 1793, there was a solitary
wigwam. That tongue of land called the peninsula, which is the
protection wall of the harbour, was the resort only of wildfowl.
The margin of the lake was lined with nothing else but dense and
trackless forests. Two families of Massassagas had squatted
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the present St. Lawrence Hall
when General Simcoe removed to little York with his canvass
palace, and drew around him the incipient features of a Court.
The progress in material improvement in this country may be
guessed at from the then condition and the present state and
appearance of Toronto. The revenue of the country between 1775,
and 1778, was not over £10,000. The salary of the
Governor-in-Chief was only £2,500.

During the American War, the Canadians, though they exhibited
no signs of disaffection to Great Britain, did not ardently lend
a helping hand against the enemy. Being appealed to by Middleton,
the President of the Provisional Congress of Rebel
States,—who told them that their Judges and Legislative
Council were dependent on the Governor, and their Governor
himself on the servant of the Crown in Great Britain; that the
executive, legislative, and judging powers were all moved by nods
from the Court of St. James; and that the Confederated States
would receive their ancient and brave enemies on terms of
equality—the Canadians stood firm in their new allegiance.
It is more than probable, indeed, that the bombastic state paper
never reached the ears of those for whom it was intended. There
was no press in Canada at that period, and only one newspaper,
the “Quebec Gazette,” established by one Gilmore, in 1764.
Unable, as the majority of the French were, to read their own
language, it was not to be expected that they could read English.
Still less is it to be supposed that His Excellency Lord
Dorchester circulated it in French. Lord Dorchester was
exceedingly prudent in his administration of affairs,
and,—unlike Governor Murray, who, by the way, was succeeded
in the administration of the Government by Paulus Æmilius
Irving, Esquire, with Brigadier General Carleton for Lieutenant
Governor, obtained the affection of one race and the resentment
of the other,—conciliated both races. His lordship, in one
of his speeches “from the throne,” tells us that he “eschewed
political hypocrisy, which renders people the instruments of
their own misery and destruction.” There was, in truth, no
Parliament, in the proper sense of the term, then. Such artifices
as are now necessary for good legislation, had not therefore to
be resorted to.

On the political separation of the two sections of Canada, it
was agreed that Lower Canada should be permitted to levy the
duties on imports. Of all imports, Lower Canada was to receive
seven-eighths, and Upper Canada one eighth, and the revenue for
the year following the separation was £24,000, including
£1,205, the proportion of the duties belonging to Upper
Canada. In those days, a week was consumed in the transport of
the mail from Burlington in Vermont, via Montreal, to Quebec; but
yet there must have been wonderful progress from Governor
Murray’s time,—during which a Mr. Walker, of Montreal,
having caused the military much displeasure, by the imprisonment
of a captain for some offence, was assailed by a number of
assassins of respectability, with blackened faces, who entered
his house at night, cut off his right ear, slashed him across the
forehead with a sword, and attempted and would have succeeded in
cutting his throat, but for his most manly and determined
resistance—for on surrendering the government of Lower
Canada into the hands of General Prescott, previously to going
home to England, in the frigate “Active,” in which he was
afterwards wrecked on Anticosti, he was lauded in a most
obsequious address, by the inhabitants both of Quebec and
Montreal, the latter place then numbering a little more than
7,000 inhabitants, for his “auspicious administration of affairs,
the happiness and prosperity of the province having increased in
a degree almost unequalled.” General Prescott, not long after
Lord Dorchester’s return home, in a frigate from Halifax, after
the wreck of the “Active,” was raised to the Governor
Generalship. During the three years of this Governor’s rule,
nothing, politically or otherwise, important occurred in Canada.
Great Britain was successfully engaged in war with both France
and Spain, and in the former country a revolution had occurred
which preceded one of the most terrible periods on the page of
history. In Quebec, a madman named McLane, a native of Rhode
Island, fancying himself to be a French General, conceived the
project of upsetting British authority in Canada. He intended,
with the co-operation of the French Canadians, to make a rush
upon the garrison of Quebec. His imaginary followers were to be
armed with spears, and he dreamed of distributing laudanum to the
troops. Unfortunately for himself, he made known his plans to all
and sundry, and was rewarded for his indiscretion by being hanged
on Gallows Hill, as an example to other fools.

The next Governor of Lower Canada was Robert S. Milnes,
Esquire. Under his sway, something akin to public opinion sprang
up. So soon as the last of the Jesuits had been gathered to his
fathers, it was the purpose of the Imperial government to seize
upon the estates of “The Order.” Mr. Young, one of the Executive
Council, had, however, no sooner informed the House of Assembly
that His Excellency had given orders to take possession of these
estates as the property of George the Third, than the House went
into Committee and expressed a desire to investigate the
pretensions or claims which the province might have on the
college of Quebec. The Governor was quite willing to suffer the
Assembly to have copies of all documents, deeds, and titles
having reference to the estates, if insisted upon, but considered
it scarcely consistent with the respect which the Commons of
Canada had ever manifested towards their sovereign, to press the
matter, as the Privy Council had issued an order to take the
whole property into the hands of the Crown. The House considered
His Excellency’s reply, and postponed the inquiry into the rights
and pretensions alluded to. The next thing which this slightly
independently disposed Assembly undertook, was the expulsion of
one of its members, a Mr. Bouc, who had been convicted of a
conspiracy to defraud a person named Drouin, with whom he had had
some commercial transactions, of a considerable sum of money. He
was heard by Counsel at the Bar of the House, but was believed to
have been justly convicted, and was expelled. Again and again he
was re-elected, and as often was he expelled, and at last he was,
by special Act of Parliament, disqualified. Whether or not he was
the object of unjust persecution by the government, the moral
effect upon the country of the expulsion and disqualification of
a person in the position of Mr. Bouc, cannot be doubted. The
number of bills passed during a parliamentary session in those
days, was not considerable. Five, six, or eight appear to have
been the average. The income of the province was about
£20,000, and the expenditure about £39,000. Under
such circumstances, corruption was nearly impossible.

In the next session of parliament an attempt was made to
establish free schools, and the Royal Institution, for the
advancement of learning was founded. Nor was this all, an Act was
passed for the demolition of the walls that encircled Montreal,
on the plea that such demolition was necessary to the salubrity,
convenience and embellishment of the city. They were thrown down,
and in seventeen years after it was impossible to have shown
where they stood. The parliament did more. At the dictation of
the Governor, it assigned three townships for the benefit of the
officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, who had served
during the blockade of Quebec, in 1775-6. Field officers were to
be entitled to 1,000 acres; captains to 700 acres, lieutenants
and ensigns to 500 acres, and non-commissioned officers and
privates to 400 acres each. Still another bill, of no mean
importance, was carried through the three branches of the
Legislature, the second branch being positively a House of Lords,
composed, as it was, of Lord Chief Justices and Lord
Bishops,—the mind, capacity, and education of the country.
No picture of the legislature of this time can be made. There
were no reporters nor any publication of debates. Newspapers were
in their infancy. Radicalism had not got hold of its fulcrum, and
the lever of public opinion was, consequently useless. Nay, in
anticipation, as it were, of the unruliness that afterwards
exhibited itself, the Governor, now Sir Robert Milnes,
recommended the culture of hemp in the province, and the Assembly
voted £1,200 for the experiment. An Agricultural Bureau, of
which the Governor was himself the President, was established,
but the cultivation of hemp was not more agreeable to the farmer
of Lower Canada then than it is now. The experiment did not
succeed. Jean Baptiste would raise wheat, which he knew would
pay, and would not raise hemp, which might or might not pay. He
was a practical, not a theoretical farmer. Like the “regular”
physicians of every period, and in every country, he practised
secundum artem, and eschewed dangerous theories and
unprofitable innovations.

About this period, 1802, land jobbing began. Vast grants of
territory were made to favourites and speculators, only to lie
waste, unless improved by the squatter. To obtain a princely
inheritance, it was only necessary to have a princely
acquaintance with the government, and, in some cases, the
Governor’s servants. Land was not put up to public competition,
but handsomely bestowed upon the needy and penniless Court
attendant. A Governor’s Secretary, a Judge’s nephew, or some
Clerk of Records was entitled to at least a thousand acres; the
Governor’s cook to 700 arpents. There was no stint, and no income
or land tax.

In 1803, Parliament “better regulated” the militia; the
revenue had increased to £31,000; the expenditure had
increased to £37,000, and the two Governors’ salaries to
£6,000; war re-broke out with France; the feeling of
loyalty throughout the province was enthusiastic; and offers to
raise volunteer corps were freely made.

During the next Session of Parliament, measures of some
importance occupied the attention of the Legislature. A bill was
passed, making provision for the relief of the insane and for the
support of foundlings. In all thirteen bills were passed, and the
revenue had increased one thousand pounds. It was the last
session of the third Parliament. In July the election of members
for the fourth Parliament took place. They were conducted, on the
whole, quietly, but were, nevertheless, vigorously contested.
Strong party feeling did not then run high, and there were no
prejudices against persons of respectable standing in society,
whatever might be their origin. Quebec had four representatives,
two of whom were of French extraction and two, apparently of
Scottish descent. Montreal was similarly represented. If there
were as representatives of Quebec a Grant and a Panet, a Young
and a De Salaberry, Montreal was represented by a Richardson and
a Mondelet, a McGill and a Chaboillez. The Parliament was
convened for the despatch of business on the 9th, and having
disposed of some contested elections proceeded energetically to
work. The idea of a Canal to overcome the difficulties of the
Lachine Rapids or Sault St. Louis suggested itself; and the
consideration of the expediency of its construction engaged the
attention of the House. The construction of a canal was not
considered within the means of the province, and a sum of only
£1,000 pounds was voted for the removal of impediments in
the rapids. A Seigniorial Tenure Bill, not dissimilar in
character to that which so very recently has become law, was
introduced, but fell through. The Gaols Act, imposing a duty of
two and a half per cent on imports, for the erection of common
gaols at Quebec and Montreal, was adopted. The trade was
dissatisfied, and, as has been too frequently the case, when the
merchants of this province have been dissatisfied with the Acts
of a Legislature, of whose acts, unless in so far as their own
business interests have been concerned, they have been altogether
indifferent, the trade petitioned the Imperial authorities
against the Act, representing with all the force of which they
were capable, the serious injury inflicted by it upon bohea,
souchong, hyson, spirits, wane, and molasses. The gaols were,
however, built, without direct taxation having been resorted to.
Another act of very considerable importance became law: that for
the better regulation of pilots and shipping, and for the
improvement of the navigation of the River St. Lawrence between
Montreal and the sea. By this Act the Trinity Houses were
established, the abolition of which has lately engaged the
serious attention of the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt. The
fourth Parliament, like its predecessors, possessed within
itself, some men of enterprize, energy, and independence. However
willing it might have been to treat the Governor with respectful
consideration, there was no disposition in it to become a mere
tool in the hands of those who took upon themselves to guide His
Excellency. They conceived that they had the power of
appropriating the revenue, of voting the supplies, and of paying
their own officers such salaries as they pleased. The French
Translator to the Assembly having applied for an increase of
salary, it occurred to the Assembly that the translator, Mr. P.
E. Desbarats, was a very efficient officer and worthy man, and
that it was within their province to pay him such a sum as they
estimated his services to be worth. But they did not arbitrarily
do that which it seemed to them they might have done. With
extreme courtesy, they addressed the Governor, begging that His
Excellency would make such addition to the salary of this officer
as to His Excellency might seem fit. So far, however, from
complying with a very reasonable request, Sir Robert regretted
the absence of some observances, the nature of which was never
ascertained, and felt compelled to resist a precedent which might
lead to injurious consequences. The Assembly were staggered. With
very considerable reason they were offended at the Executive, who
pretended to the right of money grants in the Assembly. The House
went into committee, by a majority of one, and were about to
consider His Excellency’s considerate message, when the Gentleman
Usher of the Black Rod appearing at the Bar, commanded the
attendance of the Commons at the Bar of the Upper House, where
His Excellency, somewhat bombastically prorogued the Parliament.
About to return to England, he was perfectly indifferent to the
censure of the Commons of Canada. He cared nothing for the effect
of a coup d’etat. He never dreamed of the possibility of a
misunderstanding between a Governor and his Legislature. It was
the first of the kind that he had known, and it was a duty which
he owed to his sovereign to nip it in the bud. Sir Robert, Mr.
Christie says, was not a popular Governor. Had that been his only
misfortune, it would have been well. He was, evidently, something
worse, in being only that which might emphatically be expressed
in a single word. A few grains of common sense in one or two
Governors of colonies would have saved England some millions of
pounds. Sir Robert Shore Milnes having ruled, or having been
ruled, for a period of six years, set sail for England, on the
5th of August, in H.M.S. Uranie, leaving Mr. Dunn, the Senior
Executive Councillor of Canada, to administer the government.

Lower Canada, however politically insignificant, with only
some £47,000 of revenue, was yet gradually rising into
something like commercial importance. In the course of 1805, one
hundred and forty-six merchant vessels had been loaded at Quebec,
and another newspaper, the Quebec Mercury, still existing,
and published in the English language, was established by Mr.
Thomas Cary. Montreal, only second in commercial importance to
Quebec, had also its newspapers, and already began to exhibit
that energy for which it is now preeminently conspicuous.
Toronto, the present “Queen City of the West,” was yet only
surrounded by the primeval forest, and thirty years later could
boast of but four thousand inhabitants, although, in 1822, “Muddy
Little York” was not a little proud of its “Upper Canada
Gazette,” and Niagara of its “Spectator.” Kingston had only
twenty wooden houses, while Detroit was the residence of but a
dozen French families. Upper Canada, indeed, contained scarcely a
cultivated farm, or even a white inhabitant, sixty or seventy
years ago.

Allusion has already been made to the division of Canada into
two provinces. A more particular allusion to that circumstance
will not be out of place. Already, General Simcoe, the Hon. Peter
Russell, and Lieut. General Hunter have ruled over the Upper, and
not the least interesting of the two provinces. The object of the
separation may have been to keep the Lower Province French as
long as possible, to prevent the consummation devoutly
anticipated by Montcalm, and the Duc de Choiseul, and to raise up
a conservative English colony in the Far West, to counteract the
growing power of the now United States. By the Union,
constitutions very distantly related to the British constitution
were conferred upon the two provinces. The 31st Act of George the
Third constituted a Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly
for each province. The Council was to be composed of at least
seven members, appointed by writ of summons, issued pursuant to a
mandamus under the sign manual of the Sovereign. The tenure of
appointment was for life, to be forfeited for treason or vacated
by swearing allegiance to a foreign power, or by two years
continual absence from the province without the Governor’s
permission, or four years of such absence without permission of
the Sovereign. The King could grant hereditary titles of honor,
rank or dignity. The Speaker of the Council was to be appointed
by the Sovereign or his representative. The Assembly was to be
elected by persons over twenty one years of age, subjects of the
British Crown, by birth or naturalization, possessing property of
the yearly value of forty shillings sterling, over and above all
rents and charges, or paying rent at the rate of ten pounds
sterling per annum. Here were, undoubtedly, three legislative
branches; but as the Legislative Assembly could, at the most,
only be composed of thirty members, many of whom would be half
pay officers, the Crown, through its representative, had a direct
and overwhelming preponderance. Yet, however unsuited such a
Parliament would be for the present time, however uncongenial it
might have been to the feelings of a Cobbett or Hunt-man, escaped
from Spa Felds ten or twenty years afterwards, it undoubtedly
well represented the conservative, semi-despotic feelings of the
military settler, or United Empire loyalist, a kind of privileged
being, whose very descendants were entitled to a free grant of
two hundred acres of land. When the Separation Act was before the
British Parliament, the public mind in England was to some not
altogether inconsiderable extent contaminated by the spurious
liberty-feeling of the French Revolution, and by the consequences
of the American strike for independence. “The Rights of Man,” as
enunciated by Paine, had infected many among the lower orders in
society, and not a few among the higher orders. Edmund Burke, Mr.
Chancellor Pitt, and Charles Fox, were members of the British
Parliament. By the Act, a provision for a Protestant Clergy, in
both divisions of the province, was made, in addition to an
allotment of lands already granted. The tenures in Lower Canada,
which had been the subject of dispute, were to be settled by the
local legislature. In Upper Canada the tenures were to be in free
and common soccage. No taxes were to be imposed by the Imperial
Parliament, unless such as were necessary for the regulation of
trade and commerce, to be levied and to be disposed of by the
legislature of each division of the former Province of Quebec. On
the 9th of April, 1791, the Separation Bill was somewhat
unexpectedly offered for the acceptance of the House of Commons.
Mr. Fox declared that he had not had time to read it, and felt
unwilling to express an opinion upon its merits. On a motion by
Mr. Hussey, “that the Bill be recommitted,” Mr. Fox, however,
remarked, that many clauses were unexceptionable. The number of
representatives, in his opinion, were not sufficient. An assembly
to consist of 16 or 30 members seemed to him to give a free
constitution in appearance, while, in fact, such a constitution
was withheld. The goodness of a bill, making the duration of
Parliaments seven years, unless dissolved previously by the
Governor, might be considered doubtful. In Great Britain, general
elections were attended with inconveniences, but in Canada,
where, for many years, elections were not likely to be attended
with the consequences which ministers dreaded, he could not
conceive why they should make such assemblies, not annual or
triennial, but septennial. In a new country the representatives
of the people would, for the most part, be persons engaged in
trade, who might be unable to attend Parliament for seven
consecutive years. The qualifications necessary for electors in
towns and counties were much too high. It seemed to him that
ministers intended to prevent the introduction of popular
government into Canada. While the number of the members of the
Assembly were limited, the numbers of the Council, although they
could not be less than seven members, were unlimited. He saw
nothing so good in hereditary powers or honours as to justify
their introduction into a country where they were unknown. They
tended rather to make a good constitution worse, than better. If
a Council were wholly hereditary, it could only be the tool of
the King and the Governor, as the Governor himself would only be
the tool of the King. The accumulation of power, confirmed by
wealth, would be a perpetual source of oppression and neglect to
the mass of mankind. He did not understand the provision made by
the Bill for the Protestant clergy. By Protestant clergy, he
understood not only the clergy of the Church of England, but all
descriptions of Protestants. He totally disapproved of the clause
which enacted that, “whenever the King shall make grants of
lands, one seventh part of those lands shall be appropriated to
the Protestant Clergy.” In all grants of lands made to Catholics,
and a majority of the inhabitants of Canada were of that
persuasion, one seventh part of those grants was to be
appropriated to the Protestant clergy, although they might not
have any congregation to instruct, nor any cure of souls. If the
Protestant clergy of Canada were all of the Church of England, he
would not be reconciled to the measure, but the greatest part of
the Protestant clergy in Canada were Protestant dissenters, and
to them one seventh part of all the lands in the province was to
be granted. A provision of that kind, in his opinion, would
rather tend to corrupt than to benefit the Protestant clergy of
Canada. The Bill, while it stated that one seventh of the land of
Canada should be reserved for the maintenance of a Protestant
clergy, did not state how the land so set aside should be
applied. With regard to the Bill, as it related to the regulation
of Appeals, he was not satisfied. Suitors were, in the first
instance, to carry their complaints before the Courts of Common
Law in Canada, to appeal, if dissatisfied, to the Governor and
Council, to appeal from their decision to the King in Council,
and to appeal from His Majesty’s decision to the House of Lords.
If the Lords were a better Court of Appeal than the King, the
Lords ought to be at once appealed to. By such a plan of
appealing, lawsuits would be rendered exceedingly expensive, and
exceedingly vexatious. He did not like the division of the
Province. It seemed to him inexpedient to distinguish between the
English and French inhabitants of the province. It was desirable
that they should unite and coalesce, and that such distinctions
of the people should be extinguished for ever, so that the
English laws might soon universally prevail throughout Canada,
not from force but from choice, and a conviction of their
superiority. The inhabitants of Lower Canada had not the laws of
France. The commercial code of laws of the French nation had
never been given to them. They stood upon the exceedingly
inconvenient “Coutume de Paris.” Canada, unlike the West
Indies, was a growing country. It did not consist of only a few
white inhabitants and a large number of slaves. It was a country
increasing in population, likely still more to increase, and
capable of enjoying as much political freedom, in its utmost
extent, as any other country on the face of the globe. It was
situated near a country ready to receive, with open arms, into a
participation of her democratic privileges, every person
belonging to Great Britain. It was material that a colony,
capable of freedom, and capable of a great increase of people,
should have nothing to look to among their neighbours to excite
their envy. Canada should be preserved to Great Britain by the
choice of her inhabitants, and there was nothing else to look to.
The Legislative Councils ought to be totally free, and repeatedly
chosen, in a manner as much independent of the Governor as the
nature of a colony would admit. He was perfectly desirous of
establishing a permanent provision for the clergy, but could not
think of making for them a provision so considerable as was
unknown in any country of Europe, where the species of religion
to be provided for prevailed.

It is impossible to do other than admire the farsightedness of
that great statesman, Charles Fox, with his blue coat and yellow
waistcoat, in this manly, sensible, and telling address. Time has
nearly brought round the state of things that he desired to see,
and if disembodied spirits can take an interest in things
earthly, it will be no small addition to his present state of
bliss to discover almost the realization of suggestions made
sixty years ago, before the Browns of this period were conceived,
and while the Rolphs were puling infants.

Mr. Chancellor Pitt did not join issue with Mr. Fox, but did
not consider it expedient to flash legislative freedom upon a
people. He thought that if the Assembly were not rightly
consolidated by the Bill, little harm was done, because there was
nothing to hinder the Parliament of Great Britain from correcting
any point which might hereafter appear to want correction. He did
not like the elective principle of democratic governments, and
with respect to the land appropriated to the clergy, like every
thing else provided by the bill, it was subject to revision.
Where land had been given in commutation of tithes, the
proportion of one seventh had grown into an established custom.
The Bill was re-committed. Next day the clauses of the Bill being
put, paragraph by paragraph, Mr. Burke eloquently defended its
provisions, ridiculed the “Rights of Man,” and almost
extinguished the light of the new lantern, which exhibited in the
academies of Paris and the club-rooms of London, the
constitutions of America and France as so much superior to that
of Great Britain. The distinguished orator was certainly more
declamatory than argumentative, and he was repeatedly called to
order. It was alleged that Mr. Burke had no right to abuse the
governments of France and America, as the “Quebec Bill” only was
before the House. Nay, there was something like a scene. Mr.
Burke complained of having been deserted by those, with whom he
formerly acted, in his old age, and Mr. Fox, with tears in his
eyes and strong emotion, declared that he would esteem and
venerate Burke to the end of time. The same cries of “order,”
“order,” “chair,” “chair,” “go on,” “go on,” that are heard in
our most tumultuous debates, in the Assembly, were frequent in
the course of the debate, and Mr. Burke was unable, on account of
the tumult, to proceed with his account of “the horrible and
nefarious consequences flowing from the French idea of the rights
of man.” The debating continued for a number of days, and the
Bill was read a third time on the 18th of May. When the report of
the Bill in Committee was brought up, on the 16th of May, the
House divided upon an amendment by Mr. Fox, to leave out the
clause of hereditary nobility, which amendment was lost by an
adverse majority of forty-nine. It was then moved, in amendment
to the Bill, by Mr. Chancellor Pitt, that the number of
representatives in the Assemblies should be fifty instead of
thirty, but that motion was also lost by an adverse majority of
fifty-one.

The government of Upper Canada was assumed by General Simcoe,
on the 8th of July, 1792. He carried out with him to Upper Canada
the Act constituting it into a province, and on the 18th of
September he was enabled to meet his Parliament. The capital of
the Province was at Newark, now Niagara. The seat of Government,
according to the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, who visited
it in 1795, consisted of about a hundred houses, “mostly very
fine structures.” Governor Simcoe apparently did not occupy one
of them, but a “miserable wooden house,”—formerly occupied
by the Commissaries, who resided there on account of the
navigation of the lake,—his guard consisting of four
soldiers, who every morning came from the fort, to which they
returned in the evening. It is difficult even to guess at the
appearance of the Parliament building. Assuredly it did not
require to be of great size. When the time arrived for opening
the Session, only two, instead of seven members of the
Legislative Council were present. No Chief Justice appeared to
fill the office of Speaker of the Council. Instead of sixteen
members of the Legislative Assembly, five only attended. What was
still more embarrassing, no more could be collected. The House
was, nevertheless, opened. A guard of honour, consisting of fifty
soldiers from the fort, were in attendance. Dressed in silk,
Governor Simcoe entered the hall, with his hat on his head,
attended by his Adjutant and two Secretaries. The two members of
the Council gave notice of his presence in the Upper House to the
Legislative Assembly, and the five members of the latter having
appeared at the Bar of the two Lords, His Excellency read his
speech from the throne. He informed the honorable gentlemen of
the Legislative Council and the gentlemen of the House of
Assembly, that he had summoned them together under the authority
of an Act of Parliament of Great Britain, which had established
the British constitution, and all that secured and maintained it
to Upper Canada; that the wisdom and beneficence of the sovereign
had been eminently proved by many provisions in the memorable Act
of Separation, which would extend to the remotest posterity the
invaluable blessings of that constitution; that great and
momentous trusts and duties had been committed to the
representatives of the province, infinitely beyond whatever had
distinguished any other British Colony; that they were called
upon to exercise, with due deliberation and foresight, various
offices of civil administration, with a view of laying the
foundation of that union of industry and wealth, of commerce and
power, which may last through all succeeding ages; that the
natural advantages of the new province were inferior to none on
this side of the Atlantic; that the British government had paved
the way for its speedy colonization; and that a numerous and
agricultural people would speedily take possession of the soil
and climate. To this speech the replies of the Council and
Assembly were but an echo. The seven gentlemen legislators
proceeded actively to business. An Act was passed to repeal the
Quebec Act, and to introduce the English law as the rule of
decision in all matters of controversy relative to property and
civil right; an Act to establish trials by jury; an Act to
abolish the summary proceedings of the Court of Common Pleas in
actions under ten pounds sterling; an Act to prevent accidents by
fire; an Act for the more easy recovery of small debts; an Act to
regulate the tolls to be taken in mills (not more than a twelfth
for grinding and bolting); and an Act for building a Gaol and
Court House in every district within the province, and for
altering the names of the said districts, the district of
Lunenburg to be called the Eastern District; that of Mecklenburg,
the Midland District; that of Nassau, the Home District; and that
of Hesse, the Western District.

Parliament was about a month in session, when it was prorogued
by His Excellency. On the 15th of October he gave the assent of
the Crown to the Bills passed, and in the prorogation speech,
made on the same day, he intimated his intention of taking such
measures as he deemed prudent to reserve to the Crown, for the
public benefit, a seventh of all lands granted or to be granted;
and he begged the popular representatives to explain to their
constituents, that the province was singularly blest with a
constitution the very image and transcript of the British
Constitution! There being only thirty thousand inhabitants in the
whole province, small as the Parliament was, the people, if not
fairly, were at least sufficiently represented. It is somewhat
doubtful, nevertheless, that a constitution which gave only a
quasi-sovereign to Upper Canada, neither directly, nor, as the
Governors of Canada now are, indirectly responsible to the
people, could have been the very image and transcript of the
British Constitution. There was a misty resemblance to that
celebrated and unwritten form of government, in the erection of
three estates—King, Lords, and Commons—and no more.
But, as it is sometimes expedient to be thankful for small
favors, it may have appeared to Governor Simcoe that the new
constitution of the colony was superior to that of England before
magna charta. Undoubtedly the Governor was an honest man,
a good soldier, a prudent ruler, liberally educated, and of
considerable mental capacity. He appears to have been a member of
the Imperial Parliament at the time of the passage of the
Separation Act, for when the report of the Bill was brought up in
the Commons, on the 16th of May, 1791, it appears by the debate,
that a Colonel Simcoe spoke in favor of the adoption of the
report, pronounced a panegyric on the British Constitution, and
wished it to be adopted in the present instance, as far as
circumstances would admit. Aware of the advantages which such a
colony as Upper Canada, if it attained perfection, might bring to
the mother country, he accepted the government of a mere
wilderness, to adopt means adequate for that purpose. Independent
in means, high in rank, possessed of large and beautiful estates
in England, Governor Simcoe, in the opinion of the Duke de la
Rochefoucault Liancourt, could have had no motive of personal
aggrandizement in view when he accepted the government of Upper
Canada. The General, however, loathed the Americans of the United
States. He had been with Burgoyne. He had tasted of that
officer’s humiliation. It was impossible for General Simcoe to
speak of the “rebels” calmly. A zealous promoter of the American
war, as well as participator in it, the calamitous issue of that
unfortunate and most deplorable struggle increased the intensity
of his bitterness. Although he did not hope for a renewal of the
strife, he trusted that if it were renewed, he might have the
opportunity of laying the country in waste, and of exterminating
the canting, hypocritical, puritanical, independents. He soon
perceived the folly of the Seat of Government being situated on
the very frontier, the more especially as Detroit was to be
surrendered to the very people whom he most detested. York, from
its security, situation and extent, seemed, at first glance, to
be the most desirable place. Determined, however, to do nothing
rashly, General Simcoe weighed the matter well in his mind. It
seemed to him that a town might be founded on the Thames, a river
previously called De La Trenche, which rises in the high lands,
between Lakes Ontario, Huron, and Erie, and flows into Lake St.
Clair, which would be most suitable, and in process of time, most
central. He even selected the site of a town upon the river,
which he had named the Thames, and called the site London. Indeed
it is somewhat astonishing that this excellent Anglo-tory, as the
Americans, south of 45°, doubtless, esteemed him, did not
call Sandwich, Dover; Detroit, Calais; and the then Western and
Home Districts of the western section of the Province, which is
almost an Island, England. The garden of Upper Canada, almost
surrounded by water, Governor Simcoe did intend, that as England
is mistress of the seas, so her offshoot, Canada, should be Queen
of the Lakes. Whatever might have been, or may yet be the natural
advantages of London, Canada West, for a seat of government, the
Governor General of British North America, Lord Dorchester, not
then on the best possible terms with General Simcoe, would not
hear of it, and he, notwithstanding the boast of the Lieutenant
Governor that Upper Canada had obtained the exact image and
transcript of the British Constitution, exercised a powerful
influence in the state. Lord Dorchester insisted that Kingston
should be the capital of the Upper Province. He was determined,
moreover, that if he could not prevail on the Imperial Government
to convert Kingston into the provincial capital, that the seat of
government should not be at the London of General Simcoe. He was
not favorable to York. A muddy, marshy, unhealthy spot, it was
unfitted for a city. Lord Dorchester, peevish from age, was, to
some extent, under the influence of the Kingston merchants, and
was inclined, by a feeling of gratitude, to grant the wishes of
Commodore Bouchette, who resided at Kingston, with his family,
and to whom Lord Dorchester was indebted for safe conduct through
the American camp, after Montreal had fallen into the hands of
Montgomery. Kingston, as a town, was then inferior even to
Newark, but the back country was in a more advanced state, as far
as cultivation was concerned. The number of houses in the two
towns was nearly equal, but the houses in Kingston were neither
as large nor so good as those of Newark. Many of the houses in
Kingston were merely log-houses, and those which consisted of
joiners work were badly constructed and painted. There was no
Town Hall, no Court House, and no Prison. The trade consisted
chiefly in furs, brought down the Lake, and in provisions brought
from Europe. There were only three merchant ships, that made
eleven voyages in the year. In the district, three or four
thousand bushels of corn were raised, and the surplus of that
required for the feeding of the troops and inhabitants was
exported to England, the price of flour being six dollars per
barrel. In 1791, a thousand barrels of salt pork were sent from
Kingston to Quebec, at a price of eighteen dollars a barrel. In
selecting a site for the seat of government, then, as now, local
interests were brought into play, but General Simcoe ultimately
succeeded in obtaining the permission of the Imperial authorities
to fix it at York.

The revenue of Upper Canada, in 1793, was only £900, and
the pay of the members of Assembly was $2 a day. There was a
Chief Justice and two Puisne Judges, the members of the Executive
Council, five in number, being a Court of Appeal; and the
Governor, with an assistant, formed a Court of Chancery. Murders
were of more frequent occurrence than other crimes, and were
rarely punished. There were Quakers, Baptists, Tunkers,
Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics without places of worship. The
ministers of the Episcopal Church in connection with the Church
of England, were the only clergymen paid by government.

Governor Simcoe’s schemes for the improvement of the country
and the development of its resources, are worthy of notice, as
being “extremely wise and well arranged.” The central point of
the settlements he designed to be between the Detroit River and
the plantations previously established in Lower Canada, within a
square formed by Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Detroit River, and Lake
Huron. He conceived that Upper Canada was not only capable of
satisfying all the wants of its inhabitants, but also of becoming
a granary for England. He did not doubt but that the activity of
Upper Canada, in agricultural pursuits, would operate as a
powerful example in regard to Lower Canada, and arouse it from
its then supineness and indolence. He conceived that the vast
quantities of sturgeons in Lake Ontario would afford a successful
competition with Russia in the manufacture of isinglass or
fish-glue. The corn trade was, in his opinion, preferable to the
fur trade, which threw the whole trade of a large tract of
territory into the hands of a few. He detested military
government without the walls of the forts. To the Lieutenants of
each county he deputed the right of nominating the magistracy and
officers of militia. A justice of the peace could assign, in the
King’s name, two hundred acres of land to every settler, with
whose principles and conduct he was acquainted. The Surveyor of
the District was to point out to the settler the land allotted to
him by the magistrate. He did not care to enlarge his territory
at the expense of the Indians. It appeared to him that a
communication between Lakes Huron and Ontario might be opened, by
means of the St. Joseph’s river, which would relieve the fur
traders of the Far West from the navigation of the Detroit River,
of Lake Erie, of the Niagara River, and of a great part of Lake
Ontario, and would disappoint the United States in their hope of
receiving, in future, any articles across the Lakes, situated
above Lake Huron. He was further of opinion, that a direct
communication, the idea now entertained by the Honble. John
Young, of Montreal, might be established between Lake Huron and
the River St. Lawrence. Unfortunately for the Province, Governor
Simcoe did not remain long enough in it to put his admirably
conceived projects into execution. These schemes when conceived,
could not be very easily brought under public notice. There was
in all Upper Canada only one newspaper, and that very far from
being an organ of public opinion. The Newark Spectator, or
Mercury, or Chronicle, or whatever else it may have been, was but
a loose observer of men and manners, printed weekly. Had it not
been supported by the government, not a fourth part of the
expenses of the proprietor would have been refunded to him by the
sale of his newspaper. It was a short abstract of the newspapers
of New York and Albany, “accommodated” to the anti-American
principles of the Governor, with an epitome of the Quebec
Gazette. It was the medium through which the Acts of the
Legislature, and the Governor’s notices and orders were
communicated to the people. It was par excellence the
government organ.

The Second Session of the First Provincial Parliament of Upper
Canada was held at Niagara, on the 31st of May, 1793. There is no
copy of the speech from the throne to be found, unless it may
have been in the Newark Spectator, which is not within
reach. Its contents may be gleaned from the nature of the Bills
passed during the Session, and assented to by the Lieutenant
Governor. An Act was passed for the better regulation of the
militia; the nomination and appointment of parish and town
officers were provided for; the payment of wages to the members
of the House of Assembly, at a rate not exceeding ten shillings
per diem, was authorized and provided for; the laying out,
amending, and keeping in repair the public high roads was
regulated, the roads not to be less than thirty nor more than
sixty feet wide; marriages solemnized by justices of the peace,
before the separation, were to be valid, and in future justices
of the peace were empowered to marry persons not living within
eighteen miles of a parson of the Church of England, the form of
the Church of England to be followed; the times and places of
holding Courts of Quarter Sessions were fixed; the further
introduction of slaves was prevented, and the term of contracts
for servitude limited; a Court of Probate was established in the
Province, and a Surrogate Court in every district; Commissioners
were appointed to meet Commissioners from the Lower Province, to
regulate the duties on commodities, passing from one Province to
the other; a fund for paying the salaries of the officers of the
Legislative Council, and for defraying the contingent expenses
thereof, by a duty of four pence a gallon on Madeira, and two
pence on all other wines imported into the Province was
established; the destruction of wolves and bears was encouraged
by a reward of twenty shillings for a wolf’s head, and of ten
shillings for a bear’s head; returning officers were appointed
for the several counties; and a further fund for the payment of
the House of Assembly and its officers was created, by an
“additional” duty of twenty shillings to be levied on all
licenses for the retail of wines or spirituous liquors. In the
third Session of the Parliament, convened on the 2nd June, 1794,
an Act was passed for the regulation of juries; a Superior Court
of Civil and Criminal Jurisdiction was established, and a Court
of Appeal regulated; a Court was established for the cognizance
of small causes in every district; the Lieutenant Governor was
empowered to license practitioners in the law; fines and
forfeitures reserved to His Majesty for the use of the Province
were to be accounted for; the Assessment Act for the payment of
wages to the Assembly was amended; the militia was further
regulated; horned cattle, horses, sheep, and swine were not to
run at large; the Gaols and Court Houses Act was amended; a duty
of one shilling and three pence per gallon was laid upon stills,
and the manner of licensing public houses was regulated.

The Fourth Session of the First Parliament of Upper Canada
having met for the despatch of business, on the 6th July, 1795,
the practice of physic and surgery was regulated; an Act was
passed to ascertain the eligibility of persons to be returned to
the House of Assembly; the agreement between Upper Canada and
Lower Canada, by which the latter were to collect all the duties
on goods, wares and merchandize arriving at Quebec, giving the
former one eighth of their nett produce, was ratified, approved,
and confirmed; the Superior Court Act of the previous Session was
amended and explained; and Registry Offices were established for
the enregistering of deeds, lands and tenements. There were no
private Bills. The measures for Parliamentary consideration were
all of a public nature, and the legislation was eminently
judicious and peremptory. Mr. Attorney General White was the
great man in the Commons, and Mr. Speaker Chief Justice Powell in
the Lords. The first Parliament died a natural death, and the
members of it went quietly to their respective places of
abode.

The second Parliament met at Newark, after a general election
not productive of any very great degree of excitement, on the
16th of May, 1796, opened by the Governor in person, with the
usual formalities. Certain coins were better regulated; the
juries Act was amended; the Quarter Sessions Act was amended; the
public houses Act was amended; the wolves and bears destruction
Act was partially repealed, by the rewards for killing bears
being withdrawn; the Lieutenant Governor was authorized to
appoint Commissioners to meet others from the Lower Province,
about duties and drawbacks on goods passing from one Province to
the other; and the assessment Act was amended.

This Session of the second Parliament was hardly concluded,
when Governor Simcoe was required to relinquish his Government
and proceed to St. Domingo, in a similar capacity, the government
of Upper Canada, until the arrival of a regularly appointed
successor, devolving upon the Hon. P. Russell, President of the
Council. Mr. Russell convened the second Session of the
Provincial Parliament, at the new capital of York, selected by
his predecessor, and in which a gubernatorial residence of
canvass had been erected. The first Act passed during his very
quiet reign of only three years, was one for the better security
of the Province against the King’s enemies. It provided that no
person professing to owe allegiance to any country at war against
the King, should be permitted to enter, remain, reside, or dwell
in the province. The second Act was one to enable the inhabitants
of the township of York to assemble for the purpose of choosing
and nominating parish and township officers; an Act for securing
the titles to lands; an Act for the regulation of ferries; an Act
to incorporate the legal profession; the word “clergyman” in land
grants to signify clergy; felons from other Provinces to be
apprehended, and the trade between the United States and the
Province to be temporarily provided for, by the suspension of an
Act repugnant to the free intercourse with the United States,
established by treaty of 1794. Several amendments to Acts and
other Acts were passed, when the Session was prorogued in due
form.

On the 5th of June, 1798, the third Session of the second
Provincial Parliament met, and seven Acts received the
gubernatorial assent. Among other things, the boundary lines of
the different townships were to be determined, the ministers of
the Church of Scotland, Lutherans or Calvinists, were authorized
to celebrate marriage; and the method of performing statute labor
on the roads was altered.

The fourth and last Session of this second Parliament of Upper
Canada met at York, on the 12th June, 1799, and six Acts were
assented to, among which was one providing for the education and
support of orphan children; and another enabling persons holding
the office of Registrar to be elected members of the House of
Assembly, a member of which body accepting the office to vacate
his seat, with the privilege, however, of being re-elected.

On the 17th August, 1799, General Hunter appeared and assumed
the Lieutenant Governorship to which he had been appointed by the
King. He was not, however, simply Lieutenant Governor of Upper
Canada; but also the Lieutenant, General commanding-in-chief, in
both of the Canadas. He took possession of the Government of
Upper Canada about a fortnight after the general government of
British North America had been entrusted to His Excellency Robert
Shore Milnes, Esquire. The Lieutenant General was well advanced
in years. He had seen fifty-three summers, and it was not to be
expected that his previous education and habits would give way to
the new ideas of younger men in a new country. General Hunter
was, nevertheless, connected with a highly talented family, his
brother being the celebrated Dr. Hunter of London, and his
talents for government were possibly better than the bills passed
during his reign would indicate. There was, indeed, little, if
any, advance in legislation. The Acts of former Sessions,
relative to duties, the administration of justice, and to the
militia, were patched and repatched, made more stringent, less
liberal, and more complicated. In the first Session of the third
Parliament, which met at York, on the 2nd June, 1800, six Acts of
revival, regulation, or amendment were assented to, one of which,
making a temporary provision for the regulation of trade between
Upper Canada and the United States, established ports of entry.
The second Session of the third Parliament was held on the 28th
of May, 1801, at the now established capital. The Parliament, as
usual, was recommended to look after the King’s enemies, the
militia, the Quarter Sessions, the Customs Duties, the Roads, and
the payment of the Assembly and its officers. There was no change
in the matters legislated upon, worthy of note, with the
exception that Cornwall, Johnstown, Newcastle, York, Niagara,
Queenston, Fort Erie Passage, Turkey Point, Amherstburgh, and
Sandwich were declared to be Ports of Entry, collectors being
appointed by the Governor to receive a salary of £50 per
cent on duties, till the same amounted to £100, above which
sum there was to be no advance, and having the privilege of
appointing their own deputies; the Governor was authorized to
appoint Flour and Ashes Inspectors, who were to receive three
pence for every barrel of flour they inspected, and one shilling
for every cask of pot and pearl ashes; and an Act was passed
preventing the sale of spirituous or intoxicating drinks to the
Moravian Indians, on the River Thames. The third Session of the
third Parliament met on the 25th of May, 1802, when five Acts
only were passed. Titles of lands were to be better ascertained
and secured; the administration of justice in the Newcastle
District was provided for; the rates which the Receiver General
should take and retain for his own use out of the monies passing
through his hands, subject to the disposition of the Province,
was to be declared and ascertained; one or more ports of entry
were established, and one or more collectors of Customs
appointed; and an Act for applying £750 to encourage the
growth of hemp, and £84 0s. 8d. for stationery for the
Clerks of Parliament was adopted. On the 24th of January, 1803,
the Parliament being again assembled for the despatch of
business, an Act was passed, allowing time for the sale of lands
and tenements by the Sheriff; a fund was established for the
erection and repair of light-houses; the rights of certain
grantees of the waste lands of the Crown were declared; married
women were enabled to convey and alienate their real estate;
attornies were enabled to take two clerks and “no more,” the
Attorney and Solicitor General excepted, as they could take three
each, and “no more;” the swine and horned cattle restraint Act
was extended; members of Parliament, having a warrant from the
Speaker of attendance, were, for their own convenience, enabled
to demand from justices of the peace, ten shillings a day, to be
levied by assessment. After this, Parliament was prorogued,
unless it be that a second fourth Session of the Parliament was
held, which is not very probable, although Mr. Gourlay, in his
account of Canada, gives two fourth Sessions to the third
Parliament, and afterwards complains that the business of the
first Session of the sixth Provincial Parliament was nowhere to
be found.

Parliament next assembled on the 1st of February, 1804.
Sedition was provided against; persons who should seduce soldiers
into desertion were to be exemplarily punished; fees, costs, and
charges were to be regulated by the Court of Kings Bench; the
swine Act was amended, so that sheep might run at large, and rams
only be restrained between the 1st December and 20th December;
£300 was appropriated to the printing of all the Acts of
the Province, and £80 a year was allowed for the annual
printing of the laws, which were to be distributed among members
of Parliament, judges, and militia officers; £100 was
granted for the building of bridges and repairing old roads and
laying out new ones; the Customs Act was explained; £175
was granted for the purchase of the Statute Laws of England;
£400 per annum was granted to be applied in the erection of
Parliament Buildings; £303 11s. 10½d. was voted for
the clerks and officers of the Parliament, including stationary,
and to the government commissioners appointed to adopt means to
encourage the growth of hemp a sum of £1,000 was granted.
The Session of the fourth Parliament, next bent on the despatch
of business, came together on the 1st February, 1805. It altered
the time of issuing tavern and still licenses; afforded relief to
heirs or devizees of the nominees of the Crown, entitled to claim
lands in cases where no patent had issued for such lands;
regulated the trial of contested elections; continued the
Duty-Commissioners Act for four years; altered certain parts of
the Newcastle-District administration of justice Bill; made
provision for the further appointment of parish and town
officers; relieved insolvent debtors, by an Act which enabled a
debtor in prison to receive five shillings weekly from his
creditor during his detention, if the prisoner were not worth
five pounds, worthlessness being, in this instance, to a man’s
advantage; the curing, packing and inspection of pork was
regulated by the appointment of inspectors, whose fees were to be
one shilling and six pence per barrel, exclusive of cooperage,
with six pence a mile to the Inspector, for every mile he had to
travel; £45 9s. 8d., advanced by His Majesty, through the
Lieutenant Governor, for the purchase of hemp seed, and
£229 8s. 6d., advanced for contingencies, clerks of
Parliament and so forth, were to be made good out of a certain
sum applied to that purpose; and for the further encouragement of
the growth and cultivation of hemp, and for the exportation
thereof, it was by law determined that £50 per ton should
be paid for hemp.

Lieutenant General Hunter died at Quebec on the 21st August of
the same year, (1805) at the age of 59, and was buried in the
English Cathedral at Quebec, where a monument in marble has been
erected to his memory, by his brother, the physician. It is
recorded on his tombstone, that General Hunter’s life was spent
in the service of his King and country, and that of the various
stations, both civil and military, which he filled, he discharged
the duties with spotless integrity, unwearied zeal, and
successful abilities.

The Honorable Alexander Grant, as President of the Council,
succeeded General Hunter in the administration of affairs. Mr.
Grant reigned only one year, when he was succeeded by His
Excellency Sir Francis Gore. During Mr. Grant’s short rule,
£50 a year each, was provided for eight years, to six
Sheriffs; an Act was passed to regulate the practice of physic
and surgery; £490 was appointed for the purchase of
instruments to illustrate the principles of natural philosophy,
to be deposited in the hands of a person employed in the
education of youth; £1,600 was granted for public roads and
bridges; the Acts for the appointment of Parish officers, for the
collection of assessments, and for the payment of the wages of
the House of Assembly were altered and amended; the Custom
Duties’ Act was continued; and £498 8s. 5d. was made good
to the Commissioners treating with Lower Canada, and to the
Clerks of Parliament.

The Governments, of both Upper and Lower Canada, were
administered by residents of the country at the same period of
time. While Mr. Grant, the administrator of Upper Canada, had
convened the parliament of the province on the 4th of February,
1806, Mr. Dunn had convoked the parliament of Lower Canada for
the 22nd of the same month in the same year. On opening the
parliament of Lower Canada Mr. Dunn tellingly alluded to the
important victory of Lord Nelson at Trafalgar and to the
subsequent action off Ferrol, recommending the renewal of the
acts deemed expedient during the previous war for the
preservation of His Majesty’s government and for the internal
tranquillity of the province. By the address, in reply, he was
assured that these acts would be renewed. Shortly after the
assembly had met it occurred to them that their peculiar
privileges, as an offshoot of the Commons of England, had been
assailed. The proceedings of a dinner party given to the
representatives of Montreal in that city had been printed and
circulated in the Montreal Gazette of the 1st April, 1805.
The dinner was given in Dillon’s tavern, and the party were
particularly merry with the abundant supply of wines. Mr. Isaac
Todd, merchant, presided. After the customary toasts on all such
occasions had been given, the president proposed:—”The
honorable members of the Legislative Council, who were friendly
to constitutional taxation as proposed by our worthy members in
the House of Assembly;”—”Our representatives in parliament,
who proposed a constitutional and proper mode of taxation, for
building gaols, and who opposed a tax on commerce for that
purpose, as contrary to the sound practice of the parent
state;”—”May our representatives be actuated by a patriotic
spirit, for the good of the province, as dependent on the British
empire, and be divested of local prejudices;”—”Prosperity
to the agriculture and commerce of Canada, and may they aid each
other, as their true interest dictates, by sharing a due
proportion of advantages and burthens;”—”The city and
county of Montreal and the grand juries of the district, who
recommended local assessments for local purposes;”—”May the
city of Montreal be enabled to support a newspaper, though
deprived of its natural and useful advantages, apparently, for
the benefit of an individual.” It is difficult to perceive where
any breach of privilege was involved, but the assembly looked
upon these aspirations and upon the compliments to the Montreal
representatives as a false and scandalous and malicious libel,
highly and unjustly reflecting upon His Majesty’s representative
and on both Houses of the Provincial Parliament, and tending to
lessen the affections of His Majesty’s subjects towards the
government of the province. A committee of inquiry was appointed,
and reported that the libellers were the printer of the
Gazette, Edward Edwards, and the president of the dinner
party, Isaac Todd. Nay, the libel was reported to be a “high”
breach of the privileges of the Assembly and Messrs. Todd and
Edwards were ordered to be taken into custody. But the
Serjeant-at-Arms, or his deputy, could not lay his hands upon
these gentlemen and the matter was no more thought of until the
editor of the Quebec Mercury ridiculed the whole
proceedings, when it was ordered that Mr. Cary should be
arrested. Mr. Cary was afraid that such unpleasant investigations
might give rise to other unpleasant investigations with regard to
the powers of the House. He intimated that in France it was
customary to tie up the tongue and lock up the press, and for so
doing he was compelled either to submit to be himself locked up
or apologize. On being arrested he apologized at the Bar of the
House and was released. The time of the House was frittered away
by empty discussions and wordy addresses upon the gaol tax,
previously mentioned, which the king did not disallow as required
by the mercantile community. Indeed the administrator of the
government in his prorogation speech remonstrated with the
Assembly for the non-completion of the necessary business. The
civil expenditure of the year came to £35,469 sterling,
including £2,000 to General Prescott, who was then in
England, and £3,406 to Sir Robert Shore Milnes, with the
addition of £2,604 currency, for salaries to the officers
of the Legislature, the expenditure exceeding the revenue by
£869.

General Prescott, the Governor General, absent in England, was
yet in the receipt of £2,000 a year, and the year before he
had £4,000; Sir Robert Milnes, the Lieutenant Governor,
also absent, had received the salary above mentioned, while Mr.
Dunn received £750, as a judge of the King’s Bench,
£100 for his services as administrator of the government, a
pension of £500 sterling a year, on relinquishing the
administration, and an additional allowance of £1,500 a
year while he had administered the government. Beyond question
their “Excellencies” and “His Honor,” were amply remunerated. The
Governor General and his Lieutenant were absent on business.
Indeed, while the Legislative Assembly, in defence of imaginary
privileges, were cutting such fantastic capers before high
heaven, the confidential secretary of Lord Dorchester and of his
successors so far, the Honorable Herman Witsius
Ryland,—who, having been Acting Paymaster General to His
Majesty’s Forces captured by the Americans, went to England, when
His Lordship, then General Sir Guy Carleton, evacuated New York,
and returned with him to Canada, when that officer was appointed
Governor-in-Chief in 1793, full of the sympathies, antipathies,
prepossessions, and prejudices of the English conservative of
that day,—had devised a scheme, which, had it been carried
out, would have rendered their privileges not very valuable. He
only designed to “anglify” the French-Canadians by compulsion.
Before the separation of the province into Upper Canada and Lower
Canada it was a matter of consideration whether all the Roman
Catholic churches in the Province could not be converted into
Reformed Anglo-Episcopal churches. The contemplated plan of doing
so was to take from the “Vicaire du Saint Siége
Apostolique” the power of nominating and appointing the parish
priests; the appointment of subsequent bishops was to be given to
the king; and the Popish Bishop then living, was to be succeeded
by a Protestant Bishop, who would find an easy method of turning
Cardinal Richelieu’s church extension schemes to excellent
account in a new mode of ordaining new “catholic” priests, who
might be disposed to abandon, at least, some of the doctrines of
Rome and embrace, at least, some of those of the Protestant
religion. The religious principle involved in this interesting
scheme would have done credit to the eighth Henry. It would have
had the effect of erecting on a Popish foundation, of building up
on the sainted Rock, a church militant as a more powerful
safeguard to English influence and power in Canada than the
citadel of Quebec has been. Together with the creation of a
Provincial Baronetage, in the persons of the members of the Upper
House, the honor being descendible to their eldest sons in lineal
succession, and the raising of the most considerable of these
eldest sons at a future period to a higher degree of honor, as
the province increased in wealth, together with the recognition
of Mr. DeBoucherville’s old noblesse, it would have most
certainly much sooner produced that state of things which Sir
Francis Bond Head and the “family compact” so ably brought to a
crisis. The secretary of all the governors Lower Canada had yet
had, corresponded, most confidentially, with his home masters,
somewhat, perhaps, to the prejudice of his honor the
administrator. As general Simcoe loathed the nasal twang,
attenuated appearance, and the vulgar republicanism of a downeast
American, so Mr. Witsius Ryland abominated Romanism. Speaking of
the Roman Catholic clergy of Canada, he says:—”I call them
Popish to distinguish them from the clergy of the Established
Church and to express my contempt and detestation of a religion,
which sinks and debases the human mind, and which is a curse to
every country where it prevails.” Nay, he laid it down, as a
principle, to undermine the authority and influence of the Roman
Catholic Priests. It was or should be the highest object of a
governor to crush every papist scoundrel. Following the line of
conduct which had so widely established the authority of the
Popes of Rome, it was the duty of governors to avail themselves
of every possible advantage, and never to give up an inch but
with the certainty of gaining an ell. He lamented that the
seminary and perhaps some other estates had not been taken
possession of by the crown, incorporated, and trustees appointed,
out of which incorporated estates a handsome salary might have
been paid to the King’s Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent
of the Romish Church! but the proceeds of which should
principally have been applied to the purposes of public
education. And he was deeply mortified that “a company of French
rascals” had momentarily deprived the country of any hope of such
a destiny of these estates. The private and confidential remarks
of the secretary were not altogether without effect. His Grace of
Portland, then His Majesty’s Secretary for the Colonies,
peremptorily ordered Governor Milnes to resume and exercise that
part of the king’s instructions requiring that no person whatever
was to have holy orders conferred upon him, or to have cure of
souls, without license, first had and obtained from the Governor,
and Lord Hobart, the Duke’s successor in the Colonial Department,
intimated to Sir Robert Milnes that it was highly proper that he
should signify to the Catholic Bishop the impropriety of his
assuming any new titles or exercising any additional powers to
those which he had as the Vicar of the Holy Apostolic See. The
French Priests were also to be reminded that their residence in
Canada was merely on sufferance, and that it was necessary for
them to behave circumspectly, else even that indulgence would be
withdrawn. Greatly alarmed at these proceedings the Bishop of
Rome respectfully remonstrated. He humbly reminded His Most
Excellent Majesty, the King, that nineteen-twentieths of the
population were of the Roman Catholic religion; that the humble
remonstrant was himself the fourteenth bishop who had managed the
church since Canada had happily passed into the hands of the
Crown of Great Britain; that the extension of the province was
prodigious, requiring more than ever that the superintending
bishop should retain all the rights and dignities which His
Majesty had found it convenient to suffer the bishops to have at
the conquest; and that in the Courts of Justice there should be
no room to doubt their powers. It was indeed no wonder that the
superintendent of the Church of Rome was alarmed at the aspect of
affairs. The Attorney-General Sewell reported with regard to the
nomination of Laurent Bertrand to be curé of Saint
Léon-le-Grand, by the titular Roman Catholic Bishop of
Quebec, in the case of one Lavergne, who having refused to
furnish the pain béni, was prosecuted in the Court
of King’s Bench, that it was a usurpation in the bishop to erect
parishes and appoint curés. He went farther and said that
there was no such person as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec.
The title, rights, and powers of that office had been destroyed
by the conquest. Nay, there could not, legally, be any such
character, as, if he existed, the King’s supremacy would be
interfered with, contrary to the Statutes of Henry the Eighth and
of Elizabeth. Not only was there a quiet but arbitrary denial of
the right of the Roman Catholic Bishop to manage the affairs of
his diocese, the possibility of negotiating the Reverend
Coadjutor Plessis out of his influence was entertained. Mr.
Attorney-General ultimately waited upon that ecclesiastic to
explain his own private sentiments to him. The bishop was
studiously guarded and significantly polite. The Attorney-General
thought that a good understanding ought to exist between the
government and the ministers of religion. Mr. Plessis was quite
of that opinion. Mr. Attorney-General thought the free exercise
of the Roman Catholic religion having been permitted the
government ought to avow its officers, but not at the expense of
the Established Church. Mr. Coadjutor Plessis said that position
might be correct. Mr. Attorney-General thought that the
government could not allow to Mr. Plessis that which it denied to
the Church of England. Mr. Plessis saw that the government
thought that the bishop should act under the King’s commission,
and could see no objection to it. The Attorney-General was
strongly of opinion that the right of appointing to curés,
which no bishop of the Church of England had, must be abandoned.
Mr. Plessis thought that even Buonaparte and the Pope had
effected a compromise on that matter. Mr. Attorney-General had no
faith in Buonaparte and was but an indifferent Catholic, but the
Crown only could select from a Bishop’s own Priesthood, and a
Bishop, once acknowledged, would be the head of a department.
That said Mr. Plessis would be a departure from the Romish
doctrine of church discipline. To some extent it would, but your
clergy would be officers of the Crown, and you would obtain the
means of living in splendour, said the Attorney-General.
Splendour, said Mr. Plessis, is not suitable to the condition of
a bishop; ecclesiastical rank and a sufficient maintenance is all
he needs. The Attorney-General meant that a bishop should have
the income of a gentleman. Mr. Plessis meant the same thing, but
it was a delicate matter to pension a bishop, for relinquishing
his right of nominating to the cures, as the public would not
hesitate to say he had sold his church. Never mind, said the
Attorney-General, if the matter is viewed aright, you have none
to relinquish. I do not know, replied Mr. Plessis. Whatever is to
be done must now be done, intimated the Attorney-General. You
speak truly, was the modest reply, something must be done, and
though we may differ in detail, I hope we shall not in the
outline.

Not very long after this conversation Bishop Denaud died. Now
was the time for Mr. Witsius Ryland to act or never. He did act
most energetically. He ear-wigged Mr. President Dunn, concerning
his proper line of conduct on the occasion. He attempted to
dissuade Mr. Dunn from a formal acknowledgement of Mr. Plessis,
as Superintendent of the Romish Church, till His Majesty’s
pleasure should be declared. He thought an order should be
immediately issued from home, prohibiting the assumption, by a
Roman Catholic prelate, of the title of Bishop of Quebec. It
occurred to him that a French emigrant bishop, if one could be
found, would be more easily managed than Mr. Plessis. But Mr.
Plessis was too much for Mr. Ryland, and found favor in the
President’s sight. Mr. Dunn would not listen to the
representations of his secretary, and the wrath of his secretary
was kindled. He wrote to Sir Robert Milnes on the subject, and to
“My dear Lord,” the Right Reverend Jacob Mountain, D.D. Not only
was Mr. Dunn determined upon formally recognizing the new Roman
Catholic Bishop but he was determined to suffer the Reverend Mr.
Panet to take the oath as Coadjutor, without either waiting for
His Majesty’s pleasure, or for any other sanction whatever. It
was most distressing, but “where was the layman, free from
vanity, who, at seventy-three years of age, would let slip an
opportunity of making a bishop?” It was dreadful. His contempt
and indignation rose to a height that nearly choked him. As an
apology for the recognition of Mr. Panet, it was all very well to
say that his brother was a mighty good sort of a man. A mighty
good sort of a man! How devoted were such mighty good sort of
men, those very loyal subjects, to His Majesty! From the Speaker
himself, down to the “fellow” who held a lucrative office in the
Court of King’s Bench, and who had sent his son to join the
banditties of Mr. Buonaparte, who was not, to suit his purpose,
brimfull of loyalty! Things were wretchedly managed, but the
wisest thing to be done under present circumstances was
nothing.

The Home Government anxious to build up in some manner a
Protestant Church establishment had appointed the Right Reverend
Jacob Mountain, Doctor in Divinity, to the Diocese of Quebec. At
the expense of the Imperial Government, a Cathedral was built in
Quebec, which was consecrated in 1804, on the ruins of the
Recollet Church of the Jesuits. To this day it is possibly the
most symmetrical in appearance of any church of the Church of
England in Canada. Exteriorly, it is 135 feet in length and 73 in
breadth, while the height of the spire above the ground is 152
feet, the height from the floor to the centre arch, within, being
41 feet. The communion plate, together with the altar cloth,
hangings of the desk and pulpit of crimson velvet and cloth of
gold, and the books for divine service, was a private present
from George the Third. There was then also a Rector of Quebec,
having a salary, from the British Government, of £200 a
year, such a sum as, Bishop Mountain reported to His Excellency
the Governor, no gentleman could possibly live upon! a Rector of
Montreal with the same salary, and £80 additional per annum
made up by subscription from the parish; a Rector of Three Rivers
with a like salary of £200 from home; a Rector of William
Henry receiving £100 from home and £50 from the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; an evening lecturer at
Quebec, receiving £100 from the Imperial Treasury; the
incumbent of Missisquoi Bay, obtaining £100 from
government, £50 from the Propagation Society, and £30
from the inhabitants; and two vacancies in the “new settlements,”
requiring £150 to be paid to each. The building of a stone
church in Montreal was commenced, but the structure which
promised to be “one of the handsomest specimens of modern
architecture in the province,” was not finished, for want of
funds, ten years afterwards. In Upper Canada, so late as 1795, no
church had been built. Even in Newark, it is quaintly added by
the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, in the same halls where
the Legislative and Executive Councils held their sittings,
jugglers would have been permitted to display their tricks, if
any should have ever strayed to a country so remote. His Grace,
quite correct with regard to Newark, was at fault in speaking of
the whole province. At Stamford there was a Presbyterian Church,
built in 1791, and another church built for the use of all
persuasions, a kind of free and common soccage church, in 1795,
which was destroyed in the subsequent war. It was in this year
that one of the most remarkable men, and one of the most able and
indefatigable of the colonial clergy, was strolling about
Marischal College, in Aberdeen, studying philosophy. He was a
very plain-looking Scotch lad and very cannie. Altogether wanting
in that oratorical brilliancy so necessary for an efficient
preacher of the great truths of Christianity, Mr. John Strachan
had diligently acquired a dry knowledge of the humanities, to fit
himself for a teacher of youth. He was, in a limited sense, a
classical scholar. Greek and Latin, Hebrew and the Mathematics,
were at his fingers’ ends. Not long after leaving college, he
obtained the place of a preceptor to the children of a farmer in
Angus-shire. The situation of schoolmaster of Dunino, a parish
situated foury miles south of St. Andrews, in Fifeshire, and six
miles north of Anstruther, the school taught by Tennant, the
orientalist, professor of Hebrew and other oriental languages in
St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews, and the author of the Poem of
Anster Fair, became vacant, when Mr. John Strachan made
application for the fat berth, the salary being nearly £30
a year, and obtained it. Mr. Strachan taught quietly at Dunino,
attending St. Andrews College, in the winter, until he received
the offer of £50 a year, as tutor to the family of a
gentleman living in Upper Canada. He accepted it, left Dunino,
and went to the wilderness. Mr. Strachan taught as a private
tutor for some time and subsequently established a school for
himself, when he married a widow possessed of cash and
respectably connected. The Church of Scotland, in Canada, was
then at a very low ebb. Even in Quebec, although there had been a
regularly ordained clergyman of the church officiating since
1759, there was only, from 1767 to 1807, an apartment assigned to
the Scotch Church for the purpose of divine worship, by the
King’s representative, in the Jesuits’ College. Nay, in 1807, the
Scotch Church was entirely sent adrift by Colonel Brock, to be
afterwards permitted to meet in a room in the Court House. Until
1810 there was no Scotch Church in Quebec. What inducement was
there for a progressive Scotchman to remain in connection with
such a church? Mr. Strachan clearly perceived that the road to
worldly preferment ran through the Church of England, and, having
a wife, and the expectation of a family, he recognised the
expediency of obtaining orders as a descendant of the apostles.
It was not long before he obtained permission to officiate as a
minister of the Church of England, and he abandoned the birch for
the surplice. Mr. Strachan justified every expectation that may
have been formed of him. He became a most zealous churchman, and
a very short time elapsed until the Scotch schoolmaster was the
Hon. and Revd. Dr. Strachan, Rector of York, now Bishop of
Toronto, and he may go to the grave satisfied that he has done
more to build up the Church of England in Canada, by his zeal,
devotion, diplomatic talent, and business energy, than all the
other bishops and priests of that church put together.

Some idea will now have been formed of the state of the Church
of England “establishment,” in Canada, about a time, when it was
intended to amalgamate with it the fabrics of Rome. Bishop
Mountain had a seat it in the Legislative Councils of both
provinces. He only was the embodiment of Church and State.

Mr. Secretary Ryland, anxiously active against the Church of
Rome, was very favorably disposed towards the Church of England.
His creed with regard to the “Protestant Church Establishment,”
in the provinces, was for it to have as much splendour and as
little power as possible. His chief desire was to make
episcopalianism fashionable. He would have given to the Bishopric
of Quebec a Dean, a Chapter, and all the other ecclesiastical
dignitaries necessary for show, and he would have endowed the See
with sufficient lands to support the establishment in the most
liberal manner. But not a grain of civil power beyond their
churches and churchyards was he inclined to give to the clergy.
He even thought that in regard to the particular case at
Montreal, and in any other case where a church should be, or was
about to be built by private contribution, the bishop would
exhibit infinite discretion, if he did not do more than wish to
advise and to consecrate. The same rights, privileges,
prerogatives and authority as bishops enjoy under the common Law
of England could not safely be given to colonial bishops, nor
could it be possible to obtain them. A more worldly view of
church extension could not well be conceived, but the suggestion
was not by any means an imprudent one. Bishops, being but men,
are too apt to abuse power, and it is surely well that too much
of it should not be granted to experiment upon.

While all this was quietly going on, sub rosa, in Lower
Canada, the Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, were quietly
taking hold of the public mind in Upper Canada. Although the
meeting houses were only few and far between, and churches and
chapels were extremely rare, the most illiterate of the sects
were itinerating, hither and thither, with wonderful success.

About this time there was also a disposition to diffuse
education. His Majesty, the King, gave directions to establish a
competent number of free schools in the different parishes, to be
under the control of the Executive, but the project was
strenuously opposed by the Roman Catholic clergy, and only
grammar schools in Montreal and Quebec were provided for, which
have languished and died. It was feared by Bishop Mountain that
the want of colleges and good public schools would render it
necessary for parents to send their children to the United
States, to imbibe, with their letters and philosophy, republican
principles. It was at his suggestion also that the idea of free
schools was entertained. The Canadians were deplorably ignorant,
and their children, it was designed, should be free from that
reproach. It is only now, however, that they are emerging from
the most debasing state of mental darkness, into something like
enlightenment. Example has done that which force would have
failed to accomplish.

As illustrative of the saying “there is nothing new under the
sun,” it is worthy of remark here that upon the arrival of the
intelligence in Canada, respecting the breaking out of the war
with France, in 1798, some of the leading members of the House of
Assembly, which was then sitting, proposed to levy the sum of
£20,000 sterling, by a tax on goods, wares, and
merchandize, to be applied, as a voluntary gift to His Majesty,
from the province, to enable the King the more effectually to
prosecute the war. This was proposed by Mr. Attorney-General, Mr.
Young, and Mr. Grant, and as far as the House was concerned, the
measure was found practicable. But General Prescott, the
Governor, having been informed of the matter, did not think it
expedient to encourage a scheme which Lord Elgin would have
jumped at.

In 1805, the whole revenue of the province was only
£37,000, yet, it appears that Sir Robert Milnes, the
Governor, did not think that he could sufficiently entertain to
gain a due consideration from the principal persons in the
province, on £4,000 a year. He sent a whining letter to
Lord Hobart on the subject, begging for an increase of salary.
£5,000 was not a sufficient sum to keep up the hospitality
of Government House. It would hardly support the summer residence
at Spencer Wood. He had said nothing about so delicate a matter,
while the war lasted, though he had expended £1,000 a year
out of his own private income. And he would rather resign than
sacrifice the comforts and waste the means of his family.

Canada, now, continued steadily to advance, both politically
and commercially. Neither her political advancement nor the
extent of her commerce was great, but both were yearly becoming
greater. During the summer of 1806, one hundred and ninety-one
vessels, 33,474 tons of shipping, entered at Quebec. Coasters
were in full and active employment, and shipbuilding was to some
considerable extent carried on. The military of the garrison were
still antiquated. The army made no perceptible progress, soldiers
still plastered their hair, or if they had none, their heads,
with a thick white mortar, which they laid on with a brush,
afterwards raked, like a garden bed, with an iron comb; and then
fastening on their heads a piece of wood, as large as the palm of
the hand, and shaped like the bottom of an artichoke, they made a
cadogan, which they filled with the same white mortar, and
raked in the same manner, as the rest of the head dress.[11]
The army wore cocked hats, knee breeches and gaiters. The
habitants, or peasantry, had retrograded, and Volney found
that, in general, they had no clear and precise ideas: that they
received sensations without reflecting on them; and that they
could not make any calculation that was ever so little
complicated. If asked how far the distance from this place to
that was; a French-Canadian peasant would reply:—”it is one
or two pipes of tobacco off,” or “you cannot reach it between
sunrise and sunset.” But the better classes, in close contact
with the upper classes among the English, were rapidly improving,
and began to entertain the idea that they had political rights.
They even started a newspaper called “Le Canadien” and
began most vigorously to abuse “les Anglais” and the government.
The “Canadien” published entirely in French, first
appeared in November 1806. Had it been less anti-British,
possibly, it would have been less disagreeable; but the idea had
strongly taken possession of its supporters that French-Canadians
were looked upon, by the government and its satellites, as mere
serfs, and they agitated accordingly. Not only that. They began
to exhibit some sparks of independence. Their watchword
became:—”Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos
lois.” They branded the British immigrants and the British
population as “étrangers et intrus.” Mr. Crapaud’s
temper was fairly up. There was cause. The worm will bite when
trodden upon. Unless there had been substantial grievances, the
Canadien could not by any possibility have become so
popular as to have given not only umbrage, but uneasiness to the
government. Yet it did cause such uneasiness and was peremptorily
checked. It was impossible then for a native-born Canadian,
whether of English or French extraction, to look a home-appointed
government official in the face. “Tempora mutantur et nos
mutamur in illis.“

On the 21st January, 1807, Mr. President Dunn again met the
Legislature of Lower Canada. That invaluable constitution
enjoining on the ruler to meet his parliament once a year,
rendered it imperative upon him to summon the Council and
Assembly for the despatch of business. He recommended to the
assembled wisdom before him the propriety of continuing several
temporary acts then in force; congratulated them on the brilliant
success of His Majesty’s arms; alluded with pride to the conquest
of the Cape of Good Hope; and touched upon the repeated victories
obtained by Sir John Stuart in Calabria. The Assembly replied in
terms most flattering to the President personally, promising to
do as he required. On proceeding to business, the first subject
which engaged the attention of the House was the propriety of
defraying the expenses of members of the House residing at a
distance from Quebec. The House was disposed to defray such
expenses, but nevertheless, the further consideration of the
matter was postponed by a majority of two. The expediency of
having a Provincial Agent or Ambassador, resident in London, to
look after the interests of the province at the metropolis of the
empire was discussed, and it was resolved in the affirmative. The
Alien Act was passed, and that for the better preservation of His
Majesty’s government continued for another year, together with
several other acts, and on the 16th of April, the parliament was
prorogued.

Serious apprehensions of a war between England and the United
States now began to be entertained. American commercial interests
were grievously affected by the war in Europe, and a kind of
spurious activity, in the hostile preparations which would surely
follow a declaration of war against England, on which country in
peace the merchants of New York, Boston, and the other seaports
of the United States principally depend, seemed to be the only
incentive for such a war. But while the filibusters of “the
greatest nation in creation,” were looking for any cause of war,
a good cause, in American eyes, arose. The American ships of war
were mostly manned by British seamen. Men were greatly in demand
for British war vessels, and it was conceived that the right to
impress a British sailor anywhere on land or water belonged to
His Majesty’s naval officers. It having reached the ears of
Admiral Berkeley, the Naval Commander in Chief, on the Halifax
Station, that the American frigate “Chesapeake,” was partly
manned by British seamen, the Admiral, unthinkingly ordered
Captain Humphreys, of the “Leopard,” to recover them. The men on
board of the “Chesapeake” were indeed known to be deserters from
H.M.S. “Melampus.” William Ware, Daniel Martin, John Strachan and
John Little, British seamen, within a month after their
desertion, had offered themselves as able seamen at Norfolk, in
Virginia. Their services were accepted, and the “Chesapeake,” on
board of which they were sent, prepared for sea. Being made aware
of the enlistment of these men, the British Consul at Norfolk,
formally demanded their surrender by the Captain of the
“Chesapeake.” Their surrender was refused. Application for them
was then made to the American Secretary of the navy. But he did
not consider it expedient to give them up. Three of the men were
natives of America, two had protection, and the other had merely
lost his protection. The “Chesapeake” sailed on the 22nd of June,
and on the same day was intercepted by the British frigate
“Leopard,” of 50 guns, off Cape Henry. Captain Humphreys, of the
“Leopard,” stepping on board of the “Chesapeake,” demanded the
muster of the crew of the American frigate. Captain Barron, in
command of the American frigate, refused compliance. The British
Commander returned and both vessels got ready for action, the
American frigate only, it is said, anticipating hostilities. Then
the Leopard fired upon the Chesapeake and, in thirty minutes, so
disabled her that she struck, when Captain Humphreys boarded her
and took, from among her crew, Ware, Martin, and Strachan,
together with one John Wilson, a deserter from a British merchant
ship. The United States now burned with indignation. Their
outraged nationality could never brook such an insult. Every
British armed vessel was ordered to leave the waters of the
United States by the President. A special meeting of Congress was
held. And the American Minister at the Court of St. James was
ordered to demand satisfaction. He did do so. Mr. Canning, the
British Minister, at once offered reparation, but he objected to
any reference to the general question of impressments from
neutral vessels being mixed up with an affair so unfortunate. Mr.
Munroe was not authorized to treat these subjects separately, and
further negotiation between the two ministers was suspended.
Great Britain then sent a special minister to the United States,
empowered to treat concerning the special injury complained of.
Before he arrived most ample preparations were being made in the
United States for war. Millions of dollars were appropriated
towards the construction of 188 gun-boats, and the raising of
horse, foot, and artillery. It was not until 1811 that this huge
mistake was settled, when the British Minister communicated to
the American Secretary of State that the attack on the Chesapeake
was unauthorized by His Majesty’s government; that Admiral
Berkeley was recalled; that the men, taken from the Chesapeake,
should be restored; and that suitable provision for the families
of the six American seamen killed in the fight should be made.
But, settled as this gross and deplorable mistake was to the
perfect satisfaction of the President, the trading community of
the United States were every day becoming more dissatisfied with
the state of affairs in Europe and the consequent state of
affairs at home. The situation of affairs, on this side of the
Atlantic, was indeed gloomy and critical. France and England were
fiercely at war, and were arraying against each other the most
violent commercial edicts to the destruction of the commerce of
neutral nations. There was the British blockade from the Elbe to
Brest; Napoleon’s Berlin decree; the British Order in Council
prohibiting the coasting trade; the celebrated Milan decree; and
the no less celebrated British Orders in Council, of November the
11th, 1807, together with the American Government’s edicts
respecting non-intercourse with Great Britain and France to set
on edge the teeth of a people now little scrupulous as to what
they did, provided money could be made, or power be obtained.
Strife had introduced a disposition to intrigue; political
cunning had become fashionable; and political duplicity had lost
much of its deformity in the United States. The finger of
derision was no longer pointed at meannesses; the love of honor,
and manliness of conduct, was blunted; cunning began to take the
place of wisdom; professions took the place of deeds, and
duplicity stalked forth with the boldness of integrity. The
American people wanted a quarrel that the whole boundless
continent might be theirs. They had badgered France out of
Louisiana, and they would badger England out of Canada and the
West Indies. In New York and Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore,
it was customary to talk of walking into Canada and squat a
conquest, as was afterwards carried into effect with regard to
Texas. Mr. Dunn, the President of the Canadian government, looked
upon the state of feeling in the adjoining republic with
suspicion. He conceived it expedient to feel the public pulse in
Canada. Like a skilful physician he approached the patient
cautiously and good humouredly, to prevent flurry or agitation,
and in putting his hand on the pulse of public opinion, he found
it to be healthily strong and regular. He prescribed only a draft
of one-fifth part of the whole militia of the province. The draft
was taken immediately. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, or
rather the yet only Superintendent of the Romish Church in
Quebec, Mr. Plessis, now rapidly rising into favor with the
Colonial Court, promptly issued a mandement to the
faithful, concerning the war, and a “Te Deum” was sung in
all of the churches under his control in Lower Canada. The
Canadians turned out with great alacrity. His Honor the President
and Commander-in-Chief expressed his satisfaction in general
orders. Burn’s artillery company volunteered. In ballotting,
young bachelors procured the prize tickets of the married men.
Some that were not drawn purchased tickets from some that were
drawn, and there were not a few married people who refused to
sell out, if all that is stated in a Quebec paper of that period
can be credited. No doubt the glories of war were uppermost in
men’s minds. It is possible to make war popular and the braggart
tone of the Americans had doubtless contributed considerably to
its popularity with the Canadians.

Colonel Brock was then Commandant at Quebec. He was a man of
much decision of character and of strong natural sense. With the
President he made the most vigorous exertions to discipline the
militia and to put the fortifications of Quebec into a good state
of defence. Night and day men labored at the fortifications.
Every addition that “science, judgment and prudence could
suggest,” was made.

The income this year was £36,417, and the civil
expenditure £36,213.

In Upper Canada, Francis Gore, Esquire, it has been previously
intimated, was Lieutenant-Governor. He first met Parliament on
the 2nd of February, 1807. Twelve Acts were passed, the most
remarkable of which were the Act to establish Public Schools in
every district of the Province, £800 having been
appropriated for that purpose, with the view of giving to each of
the eight districts of the Province, a schoolmaster having a
salary of £100 a year; the Act imposing licenses on
Hawkers, Pedlars, and Petty Chapmen,—to the amount of three
pounds for every pedlar, with twenty shillings additional for a
hawker with a horse; eight pounds for every chapman sailing with
a decked vessel and selling goods on board;—five pounds for
the same description of traders sailing in an open boat; and
eight pounds on transient merchants; and the Act for the
Preservation of Salmon, which permitted that fish to be taken
with a spear or hook, but prohibited the use of a net in the
Newcastle and Home Districts.

When next the Parliament met, on the 20th January, 1808, the
same fears that were felt in Lower Canada, being felt in Upper
Canada, an Act was passed to raise and train the Militia;
£1,600 was granted towards the construction of roads and
bridges; £200 of yearly salary was granted to an
Adjutant-General of Militia; £75 additional was given to
the Clerks of the Assembly; £62 10s. per ton was to be the
price of hemp purchased under an Act of Parliament for the
encouragement of its growth in the Province; an Act for the more
equal representation of the Commons was passed; and Collectors of
Rates were to enter into bonds of £200 security.

On the 2nd February, 1809, the Parliament of Upper Canada was
again convened. An Act was adopted for quartering and billeting
the Militia and His Majesty’s troops on certain occasions.
Householders were to furnish them with house-room, fire, and
utensils for cooking. Officers, in case of an invasion, having a
warrant from a Justice of the Peace, could impress horses,
carriages, and oxen, on regulated hire. Upper Canada was
evidently preparing for an expected struggle, as well as Lower
Canada. £1,045 was this session granted for the Clerks of
Parliament and contingencies, including the erection of a Light
House on Gibraltar Point; Menonists and Tunkers were permitted to
affirm in Courts of Justice; £250 was appropriated for a
bridge across the Grand River; and £1,600 was granted for
bridges and highways. In the next session of the Fifth
Parliament, which Governor Gore assembled at York, on the 1st of
February, 1810, £2,000 were granted for the roads and
bridges; the Common Gaols were declared to be Houses of
Correction for some purposes; a duty of £40 a year was set
upon a Billiard Table set up for hire or gain; £606 were
applied to printing Journals, Clerks of Parliament, and building
Light Houses. The Act establishing a Superior Court of Criminal
and Civil jurisdiction, and regulating a Court of Appeals, was
repealed; and £250 additional was granted for the erection
of a bridge across the Grand River.

To return to Lower Canada, Lieutenant-General Sir James Henry
Craig arrived at Quebec in the capacity of Governor General, on
the 18th October, 1807, in the frigate Horatio, and relieved Mr.
President Dunn of the government, on the 24th of October. Mr.
Secretary Ryland was very busy at the time. He was flattering
himself, he told the Bishop of Quebec, that the Secretary of
State would have received from him a series of despatches which
would “give that functionary a general and useful knowledge of
the state of things in Lower Canada.” There were some who had
exerted themselves to defame and injure the President, with a
view to their own private interests. He particularly alluded to
that contemptible animal, Chief Justice Alcock; to his worthy
friend and coadjutor, of whose treacherous, plausible, and
selfish character, he had never entertained a doubt; and to that
smoothfaced swindler, whom the Lieutenant-Governor had taken so
affectionately by the hand, as the man, who, of all others, came
nearest in point of knowledge, virtue, and ability, to the great
Tom of Boston. He would add to these worthies a pudding-headed
commanding officer (General Brock!) who, if the President had
given in to all his idle “Camelian” projects, would have
introduced utter confusion into the whole system, civil and
military. He anxiously expected Sir James Craig, whose
established fame assured him that a better choice could not have
been made. And he thought it probable that if his dear, dear
Lordship, should not have had an opportunity of honoring him with
a recommendation to His Excellency of established fame, his
services would be dispensed with, and then he could join his
family in England. But should he remain as Secretary to General
Craig, he had it in contemplation to lay before him a copy of his
letter to Lord S., concerning ecclesiastical affairs, though it
would not be prudent to do so until he had ascertained how far
the General’s sentiments accorded with his own. In a postscript
to his letter to the dear Lord Bishop, Mr. Ryland goes into
raptures. He had just received a message from Mr. Dunn, telling
him that the Governor General had arrived. He dressed himself
immediately and got on board the frigate with Mr. Dunn’s answer
to the General’s despatch, before the ship cast anchor, and
before any of the other functionaries knew even that the Governor
General was at hand. He found the General ill in bed, but was so
politely received, that the General begged that he would do him
the favor to continue his secretary. He never was so pleased with
any person at first sight. Although he saw him to every
disadvantage, the General appeared to be a most amiable, a most
intelligent, and a most decided character. He, (the General,)
landed about one o’clock, but was so unwell that he begged to be
left alone, and Mr. Ryland only saw him for an instant. But that
curious beast, the Chief Justice, after intruding himself with
unparalleled assurance, upon the General, before he landed,
forced himself again upon him, at the Chateau, when every body
but the President had withdrawn, and most impudently sat out the
latter. He did so for the purpose of recommending as secretaries,
his father-in-law, and a young man named Brazenson, or
some such name, whom he had brought out with him from England,
but his scheme entirely failed, and his folly would fall upon his
own pate! Mr. Ryland had transacted business with the Governor
every day since he had landed, and had even drawn up a codicil to
his will, the poor, decided Governor, who had adopted Mr. Ryland,
was so ill. Nay, Mr. Ryland, for the love of this one honorable
and just man, could have almost forgotten that he was surrounded
by scoundrels, and would bury in oblivion the mean jealousies of
a contemptible self-sufficiency, and the false professions of
smiling deceit. But should it please Almighty God to remove the
incomparable man, and should there be a chance that the civil
government of the province should be again disunited from the
military command, he did hope that the dear, dear Lord, would
favor him with his utmost interest towards enabling him to make
the exchange which Mrs. Ryland would tell his dear Lordship, the
Bishop, her husband had in contemplation.

Sir James Craig was an officer of good family. He was one of
the Craigs of Dalnair and Costarton, in Scotland, but was born in
Gibraltar, where his father had the appointment of Civil and
Military Judge. He had seen much service in the camp and in the
field. In 1770 he was appointed Aid-de-Camp to General Sir Robert
Boyd, then Governor of Gibraltar, and obtained a Company in the
47th Regiment of the line. Having gone to America, with his
regiment, in 1774, he was present at the battle of Bunker’s Hill,
where he was severely wounded. In 1776, he accompanied his
regiment to Canada, commanding his company at the action at Trois
Rivières, and he afterwards commanded the advanced guard
in the expulsion of Arnold and his “rebels.” He was wounded at
Hubertown, in 1777, and was present at Ticonderoga in the same
year. He was wounded again at Freeman’s Farm, and was at Saratoga
with Burgoyne, and after that disastrous affair was selected to
carry home the despatches. On his arrival in England, he was
promoted to a majority in the 82nd Regiment, which he accompanied
to Nova Scotia, in 1778, to Penobscot, in 1779, and to North
Carolina, in 1781, where he was engaged in a continued scene of
active service. He was promoted to the rank of Major General, in
1794, and the following year was sent on the expedition to the
Cape of Good Hope, where, in the reduction and conquest of that
most important settlement, with the co-operation of Admiral Sir
G. K. Elphinstone and Major General Clarke, he attained to the
highest pitch of military reputation. Nor were his merits less
conspicuous, it is said, in the admirable plans of civil
regulation, introduced by him in that hostile quarter, when
invested with the chief authority, civil and military, till
succeeded in that position by the Earl of Macartney, who was
deputed by the King to invest General Craig with the Red Ribbon,
as a mark of his sovereign’s sense of his distinguished services.
Sir James served, subsequently, in India and in the
Mediterranean, where he contracted a dropsy, the result of an
affection of the liver. This was the officer, of an agreeable but
impressive presence, stout, and rather below the middle stature,
manly and dignified in deportment, positive in his opinions, and
decisive in his measures, though social, polite, and affable, who
was sent out to govern Canada because a rupture with the United
States was considered probable. Sir James on arrival at Quebec
did not, however, consider hostilities imminent. Nor did he
immediately organize the militia. But he lauded the Canadians for
the heroic spirit which they had manifested. One of his first
acts was to release from prison a number of persons convicted of
insubordination, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment in
the gaol of Montreal. The militia of the parish of L’Assomption,
in the district of Montreal, had formed a painful exception in
the spirit which they exhibited on being called upon to enrol for
service, to that which had been exhibited everywhere else. But
the rioting had been immediately suppressed, and the rioters
punished by the ordinary Courts at Montreal. In gaol the rioters
manifested contrition, promised good behaviour for the future,
and Sir James, overlooking the faults of the few in consideration
of the general merit, set the prisoners free. On the 29th of
January, 1808, he convened the Legislature. He regretted, in his
opening speech, that there was little probability of a speedy
cessation of hostilities, in Europe. He congratulated the
“honorable gentlemen,” and “gentlemen,” on the capture of
Copenhagen and the Danish fleet, defending the morality of the
offensive measures against Denmark. He lamented the discussions
that had taken place between His Majesty’s government and that of
America. He hoped that the differences would be so accommodated
as to avert the calamities of war between two nations of the same
blood. He intended that no means should be neglected to prepare
for the worst. Though the militia had been selected, he did not
think it necessary to call them together, no immediate
circumstance seeming to require it. He had appointed
commissioners for the erection of new gaols in Quebec and
Montreal. And he expected perfect harmony and co-operation
between the legislative bodies and himself, as the representative
of the sovereign. All that Sir James wished to be done the
Assembly promised to do.

In those days not only was the Chief Justice a member of the
Upper House, but the Judges of the King’s Bench were not
ineligible for election to the Lower House, and some, or all of
them, contrived to get seats there. It does not appear that the
Chief Justice was in the Upper House a mere government tool, for
Sir Robert Milnes most bitterly complained to the Duke of
Portland, of the opposition to certain measures, which he had met
with, from Chief Justice Osgoode, who, even in public, treated
him contemptuously. But it is yet probable that some of the
judges in the Assembly, were less the representatives of the
people who had elected them, than the mouth-pieces of the
government, to whom they were indebted for their appointments to
the Bench, and on whose good pleasure, their continuance on the
judgment seat, depended. Be that as it may, the Assembly were
jealous of their presence in the House, and accordingly, this
session of Parliament, a motion was introduced into the Assembly,
declaring it to be expedient that the Judges of the Court of
King’s Bench, the Provincial Judges of the Districts of Three
Rivers and Gaspé, and all Commissioned Judges of any
Courts that might afterwards be established, should be incapable
of being elected, or of sitting, or of voting in the House of
Assembly. The motion was adopted, and a bill framed upon the
resolution, passed the Assembly. Unfortunately, heedless of the
pressure of public opinion, the Legislative Council threw out the
bill! The Assembly were greatly incensed, and the idea of
expelling the judges was entertained; but for a while
relinquished.

Mr. Ezekiel Hart appeared at the Bar of the House to take his
seat for Three Rivers, Mr. Lee, the previous representative of
that town, had died in the course of the previous session, and
Mr. Hart had been elected to succeed him. Mr. Hart was a merchant
of good standing. Of the most spotless private character, he
stood in high esteem with his neighbours and fellow townsmen. But
Mr. Hart was not faultless. He was, by birth, education, and
religion, a Jew. When he prayed, he placed the ten commandments
next his heart. In him, those devoted members of the Society of
Jesus, found neither a sympathizer nor a persecutor. A Christian
Legislative Assembly, like that of Canada, of which Sir James
Craig afterwards privately expressed an opinion so ludicrously
high, could not be contaminated with the presence of a Jew. By a
vote of twenty-one to five, it was resolved:—”That Ezekiel
Hart, Esquire, professing the Jewish religion, cannot take a
seat, nor sit, nor vote in this House.” Ezekiel departed. The
word “baruch,” was on his tongue, the signification of
which, like that of the French word “sacré,” may
signify, according to the humour of the utterer, either an
anathema or a blessing. The Assembly being, however, ignorant of
the Hebrew tongue, Mr. Hart was not sent to gaol for breach of
privilege, nor was he even required to apologize. These were the
chief topics of debate, and much time was occupied with them. A
sum was voted to repair the Castle of St. Louis then tottering to
decay. The Militia and the Alien Acts were continued for another
year. A bill for the trial of controverted elections was passed,
and in all thirty-five bills were carried through, all of which
His Excellency, the Governor, sanctioned, except that relative to
gaols in Gaspé, which, though afterwards sanctioned, was
reserved for the pleasure of the King to be expressed on it. On
the 14th of April the Parliament was prorogued. The speech was
somewhat lengthy, and on the whole, it was a good one. Sir James
was induced to put a period to the session that he might be
enabled to issue writs for a new House. The critical situation of
affairs made him anxious for legislative assistance, under
circumstances, that would not be liable to interruption from the
expiration of the period, for which one of the branches was
chosen. He was glad that so much attention had been paid to
business. He was very much pleased to find that a sum of money
had been granted for the repair of the Chateau. Events of great
magnitude had taken place in Europe. Napoleon had succeeded in
exciting Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to hostilities, against
England, and the Ministers of those Courts had demanded their
passports to retire from the Court of St. James. Napoleon had
done more than that. The disturber of mankind had subverted the
government of Portugal, but that magnanimous Prince, Don Pedro,
had emigrated with his Court to the Brazils, rather than submit
to the degrading chains of such a master. His Majesty, the King
of Great Britain, had offered the Americans reparation,
immediately and spontaneously, for the unauthorised attack upon
the Chesapeake, but the American government taking
advantage of the state of affairs in Europe, were endeavoring to
complicate the difficulty, to the injury of that power which
alone stood between it and an inevitable doom to the worst of
tyranny. And in conclusion, he begged the representatives of the
people to instruct their constituents, by the influence of their
education and knowledge; to point out to them a sense of their
duties in due subordination to the laws; to advise them to be
faithfully attached to the Crown; to let them into the knowledge
of their true situation; to conceal not the difficulties by which
the empire was surrounded, but, at the same time, to point out
the miseries Britain was combatting to avoid; and to assure them
that while Britons were united among themselves, there was no
dread of the result of the present struggle between liberty and
despotism.

The war had had its effect upon the trade of the country. The
revenue had fallen off nearly £1,000, being only
£35,943, while the civil expenditure had increased to
£47,231.

In May the general election took place. The contests were not
marked by much bitterness. As before, in the larger towns, the
two origins were equally represented. Even in the counties,
several gentlemen of English extraction, were returned to the
Assembly. Mr. James Stuart, the Solicitor General, now no friend
to the Governor nor to his sub rosa adviser, Mr. Ryland,
was returned for the East Ward of Montreal. Mr. Stuart, a lawyer
of excellent acquirements, of great independence of spirit, and
of extraordinary mental capacity, instead of being raised to the
Attorney-Generalship, on the elevation of Mr. Sewell to the Chief
Justiceship, in the room of Mr. Chief Justice Alcock, who had
died in August, had been superseded by Mr. Edward Bowen, a
barrister of very limited acquirements, and, being then only a
young man, professionally, very inexperienced. Nay, he was soon
afterwards dismissed from the Solicitor-Generalship, by the
Governor, to whom he had, in some mysterious way, given offence.
The Honorable Mr. Panet, Speaker of the Assembly for the four
previous parliaments, was nominated for the Upper Town of Quebec,
and went to the hustings. He presided at an election meeting, at
which there was something like plain-speaking, a particular kind
of speaking most distasteful to the Acting Paymaster General of
Burgoyne’s army, an army with which even Sir James Craig had
himself served. All the official class of the city, “including
the resident military officers, and dependents upon the
Commissariat, Ordnance, and other departments in the garrison,”
entitled to vote, voted in favor of another French gentleman,
more acceptable to the government. The Quebec Mercury was
strongly opposed to the Speaker, who, by his plainspeaking, had
become offensive to Mr. Ryland, the confidant of Sir James
Craig. Mr. Panet lost his election for Quebec, but was returned
to the Assembly for Huntingdon. The Governor and his Secretary
were very much displeased, and the Mercury was inspired to
speak against the bilious spleen of the triumphant Panet, who was
connected with that vile print, the Canadien. During the
election for Quebec, a handbill had appeared, calling the
government feeble. Those who issued that handbill, the
Mercury exultingly remarked, would have felt that they
were not quite under the government of King Log. The
Canadien was, in abuse, the freest of any paper in the
province. It was licentious. It no more consulted that which it
was expedient for a free press to do, than did the House of
Assembly consider that which was suitable to it, a few years
past, on the article of privilege. Mr. Ex-Speaker Panet was
connected with the Canadien. He was also a Colonel of
Militia. It occurred to Mr. Ryland that the position of a militia
officer was incompatible with the proprietorship of a newspaper.
Accordingly, a few days after the return of Mr. Panet for
Huntingdon, Mr. “H. W. R.” the Private Secretary of the Governor
General, was directed to inform Messrs. J. H. Panet,
Lieutenant-Colonel, P. Bedard, Captain, J. T. Taschereau, Captain
and Aid-Major, J. L. Borgia, Lieutenant, and F. Blanchet,
Surgeon, proprietors of the Canadien, that the
Governor-in-Chief considered it necessary for His Majesty’s
service to dismiss them from their situations as Colonel,
Captain, Aid-Major, Lieutenant, and Surgeon, of the Militia. With
regard to the Honorable Mr. Panet, in particular, His Excellency
could place no confidence in the services of a person whom he had
good reason for considering as one of the proprietors of a
seditious and libellous publication, disseminated through the
province, with great industry, to vilify His Majesty’s
government, to create a spirit of dissatisfaction and discontent
among his subjects, and to breed disunion and animosity between
two races. Had it been the purpose of the Canadien and of
its proprietors to breed discord between the two races of settled
inhabitants, the censure of Sir James Craig would have been
deserved. But that was not its purpose. It aimed only at equality
of privileges, and complained of the sway of officials having no
abiding interest in the country. It was a war between the
imported official class and the native-born or naturalized
classes which the Canadien waged. Doubtless, it went,
occasionally, too far. Doubtless, it forgot to make such
distinctions between the officials and the traders or
agriculturists of British origin. Doubtless, it did remember that
the French Canadians had been captives at the conquest, and their
souls revolted at the idea of being lorded over still, though no
longer captives, but British subjects, anxious for the honour of
their King, and ready to defend him from his enemies.

The new Parliament met on the 9th of April, 1809. The Assembly
were directed to choose a Speaker. Out of doors and indoors, in
the Governor’s Castle, at the official desk, in the merchant’s
counting room, in the baker’s shop, in the Council, and in the
Assembly itself, the choice of a Speaker by the Assembly, was a
matter of interest. It was whispered that Mr. Panet had incurred
the Governor’s displeasure, and that all the toadies would vote
against him. It was blandly hinted that Mr. Panet having been
dismissed from the Militia, the House, having, regard to its own
dignity, could not call him to the Chair. It was said in
conversation that Mr. Panet was an excellent and most impartial
Speaker, and it was a pity that he had suffered himself to have
been connected with the seditious and libellous Canadien.
Only for Mr. Panet’s unfortunate position, no more suitable
person, for the highly honorable office of Speaker, could have
been thought of. But he must not be Speaker under present
circumstances. The Assembly thought otherwise and, acting
independently and fearlessly, elected Mr. Panet as their Speaker.
His Excellency the Governor did not much relish the choice. He
did not, however, refuse to confirm Mr. Panet as Speaker of the
Assembly. It was thought that he would be refused confirmation.
But when he appeared at the Bar, with the House at his heels, and
supported by the Mace, the Honorable the Speaker of the
Legislative Council was only commanded to tell Mr. Panet, that
having filled the Chair of Speaker, during four successive
Parliaments, it was not on the score of insufficiency that he
would admit an excuse on Mr. Panet’s part, nor form objections on
his own part. He had no reason to doubt the discretion and
moderation of the present House of Assembly, and as he was, at
all times, desirous of meeting their wishes, so he would be
particularly unwilling not to do so, on an occasion, in which
they were themselves principally interested. He, therefore,
allowed and confirmed Mr. Panet to be Speaker. His Excellency,
though somewhat ironical in his mode of confirmation, acted
liberally and prudently. In His Excellency’s speech from the
throne, allusion was made to the unfavourable posture of affairs
with America; to the revolution in Spain and to the generous
assistance afforded that country by Great Britain; again to the
emigration of the Royal Family of Portugal to Brazil; to
Wellington’s victory at Vimeira, by which Portugal had been
rescued from the French; he cautioned the members of the
Legislature against jealousies among themselves, or of the
government, which could have no other object in view than the
general welfare; and alluded to the non-intercourse and embargo
policy of the United States, which, so far, had operated
favourably for the Canadian trade, particularly in the article of
lumber, which, owing to the exclusion of British shipping from
the Baltic, had become a staple export. The House was not pleased
at the hints about jealousies, nor very much pleased with His
Excellency’s remarks in confirming their Speaker. The reply was
not quite an echo of the speech. It was more. It was a quiet
remonstrance against governmental insinuation. On proceeding to
business, the propriety of expelling the judges was again
discussed. A motion to expel them was even made, but it was
negatived. Some even who were averse to the judges having seats
in the Assembly were not prepared to go the length of expelling
them from the House. All that was wanted was that, in future,
judges should be ineligible for seats in the Assembly. To this
end, a committee was appointed to inquire into the inconvenience
resulting from the elections of judges to the Assembly, with
orders to report to the House. The committee inquired and
reported, and of course, reported unfavourably to the judges. A
bill to disqualify the judges was re-introduced and read a first
time. Mr. Hart again appeared at the Bar to take his seat for
Three Rivers. He had been re-elected. He was still a Jew, and
showed no disposition to recant his error. Nor would the House
recant their error. The resolution which had been adopted against
Mr. Hart’s taking his seat in the previous Parliament was
repeated in this. The House of Assembly went still farther. A
bill to disqualify all Jews from being eligible to seats in the
Assembly, was introduced and read twice. Five weeks had elapsed
and the public business had not begun. The Governor was very much
annoyed. The refractory spirit of the House, as regarded the
judges, was most distasteful to him. Suddenly, on the 15th of
May, he went down to the Legislative Council, assented to five
bills, and summoned the attendance of the Commons. “When I met
you, said the now irate Sir James, at the commencement of the
present session, I had no reason to doubt your moderation or your
prudence, and I therefore willingly relied upon both. I expected
from you a manly sacrifice of all personal animosities. I hoped
for a zealous dispatch of your public duty. I looked for earnest
endeavours to promote the general harmony. I looked for due and
indispensable attention to the other branches of the Legislature.
It was your constitutional duty. It was due to the critical
juncture of the times. I have been disappointed in every hope on
which I relied. You have wasted in frivolous debates, or by
frivolous contests on matters of form, that time and those
talents to which the public have an exclusive title. You have
abused your functions. In five weeks, you have only passed five
bills. You have been so intemperate in debate that moderation and
forbearance is scarcely to be looked for without a new Assembly.
Gentlemen, Parliament is dissolved. A new Parliament will be
convened as soon as convenience will permit. My object in thus
acting, is to preserve the true principles of the free and
happy constitution of the Province.” He turned with peculiar
satisfaction from lecturing to the Assembly, to offer his
acknowledgements to the gentlemen of the Legislative Council, for
their unanimity, zeal, and unremitting attention to the public
business, manifested in their proceedings. They were not to blame
for the waste of time and for the little that had been done for
the public good. The Assembly were surprised. It never entered
the head of a single member that Sir James Craig, who, on first
meeting a Canadian Parliament, had been so courteous, would have
been so abruptly censorious. A prorogation was anticipated, when
the Usher of the Black Rod commanded, by order of His Excellency,
their presence at the Bar of the Upper House, but the possibility
of a dissolution of Parliament never occurred to any one. The
constitution, boasted so much of, was certainly a happy one. The
representatives of the people were suddenly sent back to their
constituents as unfitted for their business. And for some time,
the country, tickled with the bluntness of the Governor,
applauded the act. Had Sir James desired to be absolute, the
country, before it had had time to consider, would have assisted
His Excellency in a coup d’état. It was not until
the Canadien had taken the matter up energetically that
any of the discarded legislative materials could obtain a hearing
from their constituents. After the Canadien had criticised
the speech from the throne, and had commented on the Bill of
Rights, in allusion to the Governor’s measures, with respect to
the Assembly, and as applicable to the existing circumstances of
the Province—”Nos institutions, notre langue, et
nos lois,”—public opinion gradually turned round in
favor of the Assembly.

Sir James Craig’s opinion of the Canadians had undergone a
very considerable change for the worse. In a despatch to Lord
Liverpool, some short time afterwards, on the state of affairs in
Canada, which Mr. Ryland was sent to London with, Sir James
speaks of Canada as being a conquered country, a fact
never to be put out of view. He spoke of a colony usually
estimated to contain a population of 300,000 souls. Of these,
20,000, or 25,000 only, might have been English or Americans, and
the remainder were French. They were in language, religion, in
manners, and in attachment, French. They were bound to the
English (officials) by no tie, but that of a common government.
They looked upon the government of the province with mistrust,
jealousy, envy, and hatred. He was certain his opinion of them
was well founded. There were very few French Canadians in the
country who were not tainted with the sentiments he had imputed
to them generally. Common intercourse hardly existed between the
French and English. The lower class, to strengthen a word of
contempt, added the word Anglais to it. The upper classes,
who formerly associated with the English upper classes, had
entirely withdrawn themselves. The Canadians, generally, were
ignorant, credulous, and superstitious. He did not perceive that
they had any great vice except one. Drunkenness was the
prevailing vice. When drunk they were brutal and quarrelsome.
Like other people, suddenly freed from a state of extreme
subjection, they were apt to be insolent to their superiors. They
were totally unwarlike and averse to arms or military habits,
though vain to an excess, and possessing a high opinion of their
prowess. They had been so flattered and cajoled about their
conduct, in the year 1775, that they really believed they stood
as heroes, in history, whereas no people, with the exception of a
very few individuals, behaved worse than they did on that
occasion. Now came the teachings of Mr. Secretary Ryland, which
that gentleman did not think it prudent to bore Sir James with
until he had ascertained how far the incomparable man’s
sentiments accorded with his own. The Superintendent of the
Church of Rome in Canada, had been designated Roman Catholic
Bishop, by other Governors, which was both dangerous and wrong,
in view of the Queen’s supremacy. The Bishop did as he pleased,
in the appointment of curés. His patronage was at least
equal to that of the government. The Bishop was cautious not to
perform any act that might be construed into an acknowledgement
of His Majesty’s rights. He would not obey a Proclamation of the
King for a fast or thanksgiving, but issued a “mandat,” of
his own, to the same effect, but without the least allusion to
His Majesty’s authority. The arms of Great Britain were nowhere
put up in the churches. With the curés no direct
communication with the government existed. The church selected
its ecclesiastics, the Governor knew not why, from the lower
orders. The Bishop was the son of a blacksmith. The Coadjutor was
brother to a demagogue, the Speaker of the Assembly, an “avocat.”
The curés saw in Buonaparte the restorer of the Catholic
religion. The Legislative Council, an object of jealousy to the
Lower House, was composed of everything that was respectable in
the Province. There were about 300,000 French inhabitants to
25,000 English and American, yet there never had exceeded
fourteen or fifteen English members in the House of Assembly,
while then there were only ten, and it was desired to get rid of
the judges! The interests of certainly not an unimportant colony,
was in the hands of six petty shopkeepers, a blacksmith, a
miller, and fifteen ignorant peasants, a doctor or apothecary,
twelve Canadian “avocats” and notaries, and four people
respectable so far as that they did not keep shops, together with
the ten Englishmen, who composed the Legislative Assembly. Some
of the habitants could neither read nor write. Two members
of a preceding Parliament had actually signed the roll by marks,
and there were five more whose signatures were scarcely legible,
and were such as to show that to be the extent of their writing.
Debate was out of the question. A Canadian Parliament did not
understand it. The habitant M.P., openly avowed that the
matter, whatever it was, had been explained to him. The “moutons”
were crammed at meetings held nightly for the purpose. There was
one singular instance, of a habitant, who, in every
instance, voted against the prevailing party. But that was the
solitary exception to a general rule. The Canadians voted en
masse, as directed—not by the government. The
government was entirely without influence. The Assembly was the
most independent in the world, for the government could not
obtain even that influence which might arise from personal
intercourse. He could not be expected to associate with
blacksmiths, millers, and shopkeepers. Even the avocats
and notaries he could nowhere meet, except during the actual
sitting of Parliament, when he had a day in the week expressly
appropriated to receiving a large portion of them at dinner. The
leaders in the House were mostly a set of unprincipled
avocats and notaries, totally uninformed as to the
principles of the British constitution, or parliamentary
proceedings, which they, nevertheless, professed to take for
their model. Without property to lose, these men had gradually
advanced in audacity, in proportion as they had considered the
power of France as more firmly established by the successes of
Buonaparte in Europe. They were obviously paving the way for a
change of dominion. Without one act by which to point out either
injury or oppression, the people of the Province had been taught
to look upon His Majesty’s government with distrust, and they
publicly declared, while avowing such distrust, that no officer
of the Crown was to be elected into the House. The English in
general and their own seigneurs were entirely proscribed. Except
in the boroughs or cities these classes had no chance of
election. A paper called the Canadien, had been published,
and industriously circulated in the country, for three or four
years, to degrade and vilify the officers of government, under
the title of gens en place; and to bring the government
itself into contempt, by alluding to the Governor as a
ministère, open to their animadversions. Nothing
calculated to mislead the people had been omitted in this vile
print. The various circumstances that brought about the
abdication of James the Second, had been pointed out, with
allusions, as applicable to the government here. “La nation
Canadienne,” was their constant theme. Religious prejudices,
jealousy, and extreme ignorance, forbade the expectation of any
improvement in the Assembly. Questions before the Houses were
always viewed as affecting or otherwise some temporal right of
their clergy, or having some remote tendency to promote the
establishment of the Protestant interest. How the Act for the
establishment of Public Schools had passed had always been matter
of surprise to him. There was much jealousy at the progress of
the Eastern Townships, which were settled by American loyalists.
The country was beginning to look up to the members of the
Assembly as the governors of the country. Formerly the cry
was—”La Chambre to the devil!” He thought that the
only remedy for the state of things which he had described was to
deprive the province of its constitution, as the provincialists
termed their charter. The people were unfitted for liberty. And
here are the Governor’s reasons for saying that a people were
incapable of free institutions. “That spirit of independence,
that total insubordination among them, that freedom of
conversation, by which they communicate their ideas of
government, as they imbibe them from their leaders, all which
have increased wonderfully within these five or six years, owe
their origin entirely to the House of Assembly and to the
intrigues incident to elections. They were never thought of
before.” One really wonders that even a general officer could
have ventured upon sending to England such trash, a country which
had produced a Charles Fox, who took at the passing of the
Separation Act so opposite a view of human nature. Doubtless, the
habitants are precisely, even at this day, as Sir James
represented them to be. But it was superlative impudence in a man
of plebeian extraction to say that he could not associate with
members of Parliament, who followed the occupation of shopkeeping
for a living. It surely was enough for Buonaparte to have
stigmatized England as a nation of shopkeepers. Sir James might
have left it alone, after having experienced the independent
energies of a nation of wooden clock and wooden nutmeg makers.
The “gens en place” had badly advised him, and he was too
blind to see it. Sir James was an Indian Governor with a
vengeance.

The fortifications of the City of Quebec had been much
improved during the summer of 1808, and the foundations of the
four martello towers, which now stand outside of the
fortifications, on the land side, at the distance of nearly a
mile, were laid.

After the dissolution of the Parliament, about the middle of
June, the Governor set out on a tour through the Province. He was
attended by a numerous suite, travelled in great state, and was
well received wherever he halted. At Three Rivers, Montreal, St.
Johns, and William Henry, addresses were presented to him. He was
applauded and even thanked for having stretched the royal
prerogative so far as to dissolve the House without any
sufficient reason. What was gained by the fulsome adulation is
not particularly apparent, unless it be that the Canadien
had an opportunity afforded it for not very flattering
criticisms. The opportunity was not by any means lost. The
Canadien grinned at the gens en place, and even
ventured to laugh at the royal prerogative himself. But the
gens en place were not to be laughed out of countenance by
a vile print, which only could appeal to French passions and
Romish prejudices. They only waited until His Excellency returned
to Quebec, to renew their congratulations. The citizens of
Quebec, on Sir James’ return to the Chateau, waited upon him with
an address. They approved of his judicious and firm
administration. Sir James, perfectly elated, expressed, in a
particular manner, his satisfaction. It was most gratifying to
have received such an address from those whose “situations”
afforded them the more immediate opportunity of judging of the
motives by which he might be actuated on particular
occasions.

In November of this year, the first steamer was seen on the
St. Lawrence. At 8 o’clock on the 6th of that month, the
steamboat Accommodation arrived at Quebec, with ten
passengers from Montreal. She made the passage (180 miles) in
sixty-six hours, having been thirty hours at anchor. In twenty
hours, after leaving Montreal, she arrived at Three Rivers. The
passage money was only eight dollars for the downward trip and
nine dollars for the trip upward. Neither wind nor tide could
stop the Accommodation, and the Accommodation was
eighty-two feet long on deck. The accommodation afforded to
passengers was not, however, very great. Twenty berths were all
that cabin passengers could be accommodated with. Great crowds
visited her saloons. The Mercury told its readers that the
steamboat received her impulse from an open, double-spoked
perpendicular wheel, on either side, without any circular band or
rim. To the end of each double-spoke, a square board was fixed,
which entered the water, and by the rotatory motion, acted like a
paddle. The wheels were put and kept in motion by steam, which
operated in the vessel. And a mast was to be fixed in her for the
purpose of using a sail, when the wind was favourable, which
would occasionally accelerate her headway. After the
Accommodation had made several trips, Upper Canada began
to “guess” about the expediency of having “Walks-in-the-Water.”
The Accommodation was built by Mr. John Molson, of
Montreal, an exceedingly enterprising man of business, and for a
number of years, his enterprise secured to him a monopoly of the
steam navigation of the lower St. Lawrence. He died an
“honorable,” only a few years ago.

During 1808, 334 vessels, or according to the Harbour Master’s
statement, 440 vessels, arrived at Quebec from sea, making up
66,373 tons of shipping, in addition to which, 2,902 tons of
shipping were built at the port. The revenue was £40,608,
and the civil expenditure £1,251 sterling. The salaries and
contingencies of the Legislature amounted to £3,077. The
salary of the Governor-in-Chief was £4,500 sterling, and
that of the Lieutenant-Governor, who had been three years absent
in England, £1,500. On the 28th of November, in this year,
Sir Francis Nathaniel Burton, whose brother was Marquis of
Cunningham, succeeded Sir Robert Shore Milnes, in the now
sinecure office of Lieutenant-Governor, where he remained to
enjoy the otium sine dignitate.

A continuance of the peace between His Majesty’s government
and that of the United States was, in the beginning of 1810,
considered less probable than ever. After the death of
Washington, which occurred on the 4th December, 1799, during the
Presidency of Mr. Adams, political excitement ran high in the
United States. At the expiration of Mr. Adams’ term of office,
there were, as candidates for the Chief Magistracy of the Union,
and for the Vice-Presidency:—Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, on
the one side, and Mr. Adams and Mr. C. D. Pinckney, on the other.
Mr. Adams, elected by the Federalist or Tory party, had given
much offence to the Democratic party, by his law against
sedition, designed to punish the abuse of speech and of the
press. By this law a heavy fine was to be imposed, together with
an imprisonment for a term of years, upon such as should combine
or conspire together, to “oppose any measure of the
government.” No one, on any pretence, under pain of similar
punishment, was to write or print, utter or publish, any
malicious writing against the government of the United States, or
against either House of the Congress, or against the President.
In a word, the liberty of discussion was annihilated. A more
extraordinary law could not possibly have been put upon the
Statute Books of a country, where every official, being elective
by the people, his conduct, while in office was, in a common
sense point of view, open to popular animadversion. As far as
producing the effect contemplated was concerned, the law was
altogether inefficacious. The people met and talked together
against their President, the Senate, and the House of
Representatives. Nay, Mr. Adams lost what he designed to secure,
his re-election, by it. The Democrats were furiously opposed to
him. While Messrs. Jefferson and Burr got each seventy-three
votes, the opposition candidates for President and
Vice-President, Messrs. Adams and Pinckney only got, for the
former, sixty-five votes, and for the latter, sixty-four. Messrs.
Burr and Jefferson having each an equal number of votes, it
became the duty of the House of Representatives, voting by
States, to decide between these pretenders to the chief power in
the State. The constitution provided that the person having the
greatest number of votes should be President, and that the person
having the next highest number of votes should be Vice-President.
For several days the ballot was taken. The Federalists or Tories
supported Mr. Burr, and the Democrats Mr. Jefferson. At last the
choice fell upon the latter, and Mr. Burr was elected to the
Vice-Presidency. It is well to know these circumstances in
connection with subsequent events. Mr. Jefferson annihilated the
minority of the republic. He had as much contempt for them as Sir
James Craig or Mr. Ryland could have had for the conquered
Canadians. He swept them from every office of profit or emolument
under the State. When remonstrated with, by the merchants of New
Haven, respecting the removal of the Collector of Customs at that
port, merely because he was a Federalist or tory, the President
quietly replied, that time and accident would give the Tories
their just share. Had he found a moderate participation of office
in the hands of the Democratic party with whom he acted, his
removals and substitutions would have been less sweeping. But
their total exclusion called for a more prompt corrective. And he
would correct the error. When the error was fully corrected then
he would only ask himself concerning an applicant for office,
these questions:—”Is he honest?” “Is he capable?” and “Is
he faithful to the Constitution?” The Tories were almost inclined
to burn the White House.

Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1802; in 1804, Colonel
Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, killed General
Hamilton in a duel; Mr. Jefferson was re-elected President in
1804, and Mr. George Clinton, of New York, instead of Burr, now
deservedly unpopular with all but the filibustering classes,
Vice-President; in 1805, Michigan became a territorial government
of the United States; and in the autumn of 1805 the outcast
President Burr was detected at the head of a project for
revolutionizing the territory west of the Alleghanies, and of
establishing an independent empire there, of which New Orleans
was to be the capital, and himself the chief. To the
accomplishment of this scheme, Burr brought into play all the
skill and cunning of which he was possessed. And it was not a
little. He had his design long in contemplation. He pretended to
have purchased a large tract of territory, of which he conceded
to his adherents considerable slices. He collected together, from
all quarters where either he himself, or his agents, possessed
influence, the ardent, the restless, and the desperate, persons
ready for any enterprise analogous to their characters. He also
seduced good and well-meaning citizens, by assurances that he
possessed the confidence of the government, and was acting under
its secret patronage. He had another project, in case of the
failure of the first. He designed to make an attack upon Mexico
and to establish an empire there. He failed. Before his standard
was raised, the government was made aware of his designs, and he
was brought to trial, at Richmond, on a charge of treason,
committed within the district of Virginia. It was not proved,
however, that he had been guilty of any overt act, within the
State, and he was released. It was probably to find employment
for that restless and desperate class of persons, with which the
United States even then abounded, that the government of America
sought cause of quarrel with Great Britain, as well as to produce
that spurious activity among the industrial classes, which is
ever the result of warlike preparations.

In 1809, Mr. James Madison was elected President of the United
States. During Mr. Jefferson’s administration, commercial
intercourse with France and Great Britain had been interdicted.
When, however, Mr. Madison was fairly established in the
Presidency, he showed a disposition to renew intercourse, and was
seconded in his endeavours by Mr. Erskine, then British Minister
at Washington. Mr. Erskine non-officially intimated to the
American Secretary of State, that if the President would issue a
Proclamation for the renewal of intercourse with Great Britain,
that it was probable the proposal would be readily accepted. It
was done. But the British government refused to rescind the
Orders in Council of January and November 1807, so far as the
United States were concerned, which would have given the benefit
of the coasting trade of France to the Americans, recalled Mr.
Erskine for having exceeded his instructions, and sent Mr.
Jackson to Washington in his stead. A correspondence was
immediately after Mr. Jackson’s arrival at the American seat of
government, opened with Mr. Madison’s Secretary of State, and was
as suddenly closed. Mr. Jackson was, as a diplomatist, rather
blunt. Repeatedly, he asserted that the American Executive could
not but have known from the powers exhibited by Mr. Erskine, that
in stipulating, as he had done, he had transcended those powers,
and was, therefore, acting without the authority of his
government. The American Executive deemed such an assertion
equivalent to a declaration that the American government did know
that Mr. Erskine had exceeded his instructions. Mr. Jackson
denied that his language could be so interpreted. The American
Executive at once replied that Mr. Jackson’s tone and language
could not but be looked upon as reflecting upon the honor and
integrity of the American government, and the correspondence was
closed. The British government, not considering Mr. Jackson’s
diplomatic efforts as particularly happy, recalled him. He
escaped, however, more direct censure.

These events had just occurred, across the line ’45, when Sir
James Craig, now more anxious than ever, to obtain legislative
assistance, under circumstances that would not be liable to
interruption from the expiration of the period for which one of
the branches was chosen, ordered the writs to be issued for a new
general election. The elections took place in October, 1809,
when, contrary to the expectation of His Excellency, most of the
gentlemen who held seats in the parliament which, in the previous
May, had been so unexpectedly dissolved, were again returned.
There were some substitutions. But those only who halted between
two opinions, in fearing the government, while representing the
people, were supplanted by men who would echo the vox (populi)
et preterea nihil, in the Chamber of Deputies. They were
called together on the 29th of January, 1810. They were told to
elect a Speaker, which they did, by selecting the former Speaker,
Mr. Panet. They were told to appear at the Bar of the Upper
House. And they did appear in the confusion usual on all similar
occasions. The Governor, graciously confirmed their choice of a
Speaker, and Mr. Panet having bowed his acknowledgments, His
Excellency expressed his concern that, far from an amicable
settlement of the existing differences, between the British and
American governments, as was anticipated from the arrangement
agreed upon by His Majesty’s Minister at Washington,
circumstances had occurred that seemed to have widened the
breach, and to have removed that desirable event to a period
scarcely to be foreseen by human sagacity; the extraordinary
cavils made with a succeeding minister; the eager research to
discover an insult which defied the detection of “all other
penetration;” the consequent rejection of further communication
with that minister, and indeed every step of intercourse, the
particulars of which were known by authentic documents, evinced
so little of a conciliatory disposition, and so much of a
disinclination to meet the honorable advances made by His
Majesty’s government, while these had been further manifested in
such terms, and by such conduct, that the continuance of peace
seemed to depend less on the high sounded resentment of America,
than on the moderation with which His Majesty might be disposed
to view the treatment he had met with; he felt it to be
unnecessary to urge preparation for any event that might arise
from such a condition of things; he persuaded himself that in the
great points of security and defence one mind would actuate all;
he assured the country of the necessary support of regular troops
should hostilities ensue, which with the “interior” force of the
country would be found equal to any attack that could be made
upon the province; the militia would not be unmindful of the
courage which they had displayed in former days, (when, of
course, they behaved worse, with the exception of a few
individuals, than any people ever did![12] ) the bravery
of His Majesty’s arms had never been called in question; he
congratulated the legislature on the capture of Martinique, and
triumphantly alluded to the battle of Talavera, which had torn
from the French that character of invincibility which they had
imagined themselves to have possessed in the eyes of the world.
He recommended the renewal of those Acts which were designed to
enable the Executive to discharge its duty against dangers, which
could not be remedied by the course of common law; he drew
attention to the numerous forgeries of foreign bank notes, and
recommended a penal statute for their suppression; and he
remarked that the question of the expediency of excluding the
Judges of the King’s Bench from the House of Representatives had
been, during the two last sessions, much agitated, and that,
although he would not have himself interdicted the judges from
being selected by the people to represent them in the Assembly,
had the question ever come before him, he had been ordered by His
Majesty to give his assent to any proper bill, concurred in by
the two Houses, for rendering the judges ineligible to a seat in
the Assembly.

The Assembly, very naturally, entertained the opinion that the
Imperial government had not approved of the conduct of Sir James
Craig in dissolving the previous Parliament. Indeed, even before
taking the speech from the throne into consideration, the
Assembly resolved that every attempt of the executive government
and of the other branches of the legislature against the House of
Assembly, whether in dictating or censuring its proceedings, or
in approving the conduct of one part of its members, and
disapproving that of others, was a violation of the statute by
which the House was constituted; was a breach of the privileges
of the House, which it could not forbear objecting to; and was a
dangerous attack upon the rights and liberties of His Majesty’s
subjects in Canada. There were, not ten only, but thirteen
members of British origin now in the House of Assembly, and the
vote, for the adoption of the resolution, exhibited a wonderful
degree of unanimity of opinion with regard to the right of
freedom of opinion and the freedom of debate. There were
twenty-four affirmative to eleven adverse votes, and, among those
who voted with the minority, were some officials of French
origin. In reply to the address from the throne, the House
expressed its unalterable attachment to Great Britain, they were
grateful and would be faithful to that sovereign and nation which
respected their rights and liberties; it was unnecessary to urge
them to prepare for any event that might arise, they would be
prepared; and the militia, not unmindful of the courage which
they had, in former days, displayed, would endeavour to emulate
that bravery, natural to His Majesty’s arms, which had never been
called in question. Nay, the House was exuberant with loyalty. No
sooner was the address in reply presented to the Governor than an
address, congratulating the King on the happy event of having
entered upon the fiftieth year of his reign, was unanimously
adopted, and transmitted to the Governor for transmission to
England. The expediency of relieving the Imperial government of
the burthen of providing for the civil list of Canada was next
discussed. It was considered that the sooner the payment of its
own government officers devolved upon the province, the better it
would be for all classes inhabiting it. Ultimately, the province
would be required to defray the expenses of its own government,
and the sooner it did so the less weighty would the civil list
be. The minority were very much opposed to the proposed change.
Some, who, twenty-seven years before, were most anxious to
present £20,000 to the King, by a tax on goods, wares, and
merchandise, to assist in enabling His Majesty to prosecute the
war against France vigorously, now that the province was more
than paying her expenses, could not see the necessity of saddling
the country with a burthen which would make it, as they alleged,
necessary to impose duties to the amount of fifty thousand pounds
a year. At first, the very ignorant[13] country
people, not knowing that which was going on, became alarmed at
the startling information conveyed to them by the majority. They
expressed their fears that their friends were betraying them.
They were soon pacified. Their members informed them, or they
were informed by the Canadien, that when the House of
Assembly had the entire management of the civil list, they would
not fail to reduce the sum necessary to keep up the hospitality
of Government House, and only, consequently, consideration
for the Governor-in-Chief; nor would they fail to retrench the
several pensions, reduce the heavier salaries of the employees,
cut off the sinecurists, and, in a variety of ways, lessen the
public burthens. The habitants were no longer alarmed at the
additional taxation of £50,000 a year, with which they were
threatened. A series of resolutions passed the Assembly,
intimating that the province was able to supply funds for the
payment of the civil list. The province was able to pay all the
civil expenses of its government. The House of Assembly ought
“this session” to vote the sums necessary for defraying the
expenses of the civil list. The House will vote such
necessary sums. And the King, Lords, and Commons of England, were
to be informed that the Commons of Canada had taken upon itself
the payment of the government of the province and that they were
exceedingly grateful to England for the assistance hitherto
afforded, and for the happy constitution, which had raised the
province to a pitch of prosperity so high that it was now able
and willing to support itself. Ten gentlemen of British
extraction voted against these resolutions and only one Canadian.
The address to the King, pursuant to the resolutions, was carried
by a vote of thirteen to three. Many members appear to have been
afraid of themselves or rather of the consequences to be
apprehended from the offence which the adoption of such
resolutions was calculated to give the Imperial advisers of the
representative of the King in a colony. Nay, the
Governor-in-Chief did not much relish the resolutions. He turned
them over in his mind, again and again. There was something more
than appeared upon the surface. He disrelished the idea of
getting his meat poisoned by its passage through Canadian
fingers. He was sure the King, his master, would pay him well,
but, as for the Canadians, they might stop the supplies. The
Assembly waited upon His Excellency with their addresses. They
requested that His Excellency would be pleased to lay them before
His Majesty’s ministers for presentation. Sir James hesitated.
The addresses were so peculiarly novel as to require a
considerable degree of reflection. The constitutional usage of
Parliament, recognised by the wisdom of the House of Commons of
the United Kingdom, forbade all steps on the part of the people
towards grants of money which were not recommended by the Crown,
and although by the same parliamentary usage all grants
originated in the Lower House, they were ineffectual without the
concurrence of the Upper House. There was no precedent of
addresses to the House of Lords, or Commons, separately, by a
single branch of the Colonial Legislature. He conceived the
addresses to be unprecedented, imperfect in form, and founded
upon a resolution of the House of Assembly, which, until
sanctioned by the Legislative Council, must be ineffectual,
except as a spontaneous offer on the part of the Commons of
Canada. The resolutions were premature. He regretted that he
could not take it upon himself to transmit these addresses to His
Majesty’s ministers. In his refusal he was impressed by a sense
of duty. But, besides the sense of duty, His Majesty’s ministers,
unless commanded by His Majesty, were not the regular organs of
communication with the House of Commons. Even were he to transmit
those addresses, he could not pledge himself for their delivery,
through that channel. He would have felt himself bound upon
ordinary occasions to have declined any addresses similar to
those then before him, under similar circumstances. He would on
the present occasion transmit to the King his own testimony of
the good disposition, gratitude, and generous intentions of his
subjects. He thought it right that His Majesty, “by their own
act,” should be formally apprised of the ability and of the
voluntary pledge and promise of the province to pay the civil
expenditure of the province when required. He then engaged
to transmit the King’s address to His Majesty, with the
understanding that no act of his should be considered as
compromising the rights of His Majesty, of his Colonial
Representative, or of the Legislative Council. He significantly
hoped that the House of Assembly might not suppose that he had
expressed himself in a way that might carry with it an appearance
of checking the manifestation of sentiments under which the House
had acted. A committee of seven members were, on the receipt of
His Excellency’s answer, appointed to search for the precedents
and parliamentary usages alluded to by the Governor-in-Chief,
with instructions to report speedily. And, that there might be no
excuse, with regard to the improper introduction of a money
matter, for a refusal to sanction any bill that the Assembly
might think proper to pass, a resolution was adopted by the
Assembly to the effect that the House had resolved to vote, in
the then session, the sums necessary for paying all the civil
expenses of the government of the province, and to beseech that
His Excellency would be pleased to order the proper officer to
lay before the House an estimate of the said civil expenses. The
practice of these avocats, shopkeepers, apothecaries,
doctors, and notaries, was tolerably sharp. The House went again
to work upon the expediency of appointing a Colonial Agent in
England, and introduced a bill with that object, which was read.
A bill to render the judges ineligible to sit in the Assembly
passed the Assembly; but the Council amended the bill, by
postponing the period at which the ineligibility was to have
effect, to the expiration of the parliament then in being, and
sent it back to the Assembly for concurrence. Indignant at this
amendment, the Assembly adopted a resolution to the effect that
P. A. DeBonne, being one of the Judges of the King’s Bench, could
neither sit nor vote in the House, and his seat for Quebec was
declared to be vacant. The vote was decisive. There were eighteen
votes in favor of the resolution and only six against it, the six
being all English names. McCord, Ross, Cuthbert, Gugy, and such
like. If the practice of the avocats was sharp, the
practice of the Governor was yet sharper. Down came the
Governor-in-Chief in two days after the search for precedents had
begun in the Assembly, in not the best of humour, to the
Legislative Council Chamber. On the 26th of February, the
uncontrollable Assembly were summoned before the representative
of royalty. He informed the two Houses that he had come to
prorogue the legislature, having again determined to appeal to
the people by an immediate dissolution. It had been rendered
impossible for him to act otherwise. Without the participation of
the other branches of the Legislature the Assembly had taken upon
themselves to vote that a judge could not sit nor vote in their
House. It was impossible for him to consider what had been done
in any other light than as a direct violation of an Act of the
Imperial Parliament. He considered that the House of Assembly had
unconstitutionally disfranchised a large portion of His Majesty’s
subjects, and rendered ineligible, by an authority they did not
possess, another, and not inconsiderable class of the community.
By every tie of duty, he was bound to oppose such an assumption.
In consequence of the expulsion of the member for Quebec, a
vacancy in the representation of that county had been declared.
It would be necessary to issue a writ for a new election, and
that writ was to be signed by him. He would not render himself a
partaker in the violation of an Act of the Imperial Parliament,
and to avoid becoming so he had no other recourse but that which
he was pursuing. He felt much satisfaction when the Parliament
met, in having taken such steps as he thought most likely to
facilitate a measure that seemed to be wished for, and that, in
itself, met his concurrence; but as, in his opinion, the only
ineligibility of a judge to sit in Parliament arose from the
circumstance of his having to ask the electors for their votes,
he could not conceive that there could be any well founded
objection to his possession of a seat in the Assembly, when he
was elected. He believed that the talents and superior knowledge
of the judges, to say nothing of other considerations, made them
highly useful. He lamented that a measure, which he considered
would have been beneficial to the country, should not have taken
effect. But he trusted that the people, in the disappointment of
their expectations, would do him justice, and acquit him of being
the cause that so little business had been done.

Such is human nature, that, on leaving the Council Room, Sir
James Craig was loudly cheered. His manliness, combined with
stupidity, and his real honesty of purpose, had its temporary
effect upon those who admire pluck as much in a Governor as in a
game cock. Not only was His Excellency cheered on leaving the
Parliament buildings, addresses poured in upon him from all
quarters. Quebec, Montreal, Terrebonne, Three Rivers, Sorel,
Warwick, and Orleans, complimented Sir James. A more cunning man
would have flattered himself that he had acted rightly. But there
was to be a day of retribution. The late members of the late
House of Assembly were not idle. Nor was the Canadien
silent. Every means that prudence could dictate, and malevolence
suggest, were resorted to, with a view to the re-election of the
dismissed representatives. The “friends” of the government
suggested that there were plans of insurrection and rebellion. It
was insinuated that the French Minister at Washington, had
supplied the seditious in Canada with money. It was even broadly
stated that the plenipotentiary’s correspondence had been
intercepted by the agents of the government. And that which was
not said is more difficult of conjecture than that which was
said.

The revenue was this year £70,356, and the expenditure
£49,347 sterling; 635 vessels, consisting of 138,057 tons,
had arrived from sea; and 26 vessels had been built and cleared
at the port.

At this time there were five papers in Lower Canada. The
Quebec Gazette, the Quebec Mercury, Le Canadien,
the Montreal Gazette, and the Courant. The three
former were published in Quebec, the other two in Montreal. The
Gazettes were organs of the government, the Mercury
and Courant were “namby-pamby,” and the Canadien
was as the voice of le peuple.

The elections were, in the month of March, again about to take
place, and the government conceived the magnificent idea of
carrying a printing office by assault. When everything was
prepared, then was the time to act. Headed by a magistrate, a
party of soldiers rushed up the stairs leading to the
Canadien printing office. The proprietor received them
with a low bow, and much annoyance was felt that no opposition
was offered. The premises were searched. Some manuscripts were
found, and, “under the sanction of the Executive,” the whole
press, and the whole papers of every description, were forcibly
seized, and conveyed as booty to the vaults of the Court House.
In this action one prisoner was made. The printer was seized, and
“after examination,” was committed to prison. And, as if an
insurrection were expected, the guards at the gates were
strengthened, and patrols sent in every direction. The public
looked amazed, as well it might. The Mercury did not know
whether most to admire the tyrannical spirit or the consummate
vanity of the Canadians, and of No. 15, of the Canadien,
which contended that the Canadians had rights. As a striking
proof of Canadian tyranny, the Canadien would not allow
any but the members of the Assembly to be a judge of the
expediency of expelling Judge DeBonne! and it was even said that
of all those who signed the address to His Excellency, presented
in the name of Quebec, not one was capable of understanding the
nature of the question. In a dependence, such as Canada,
was the government to be daily flouted, bearded, and treated with
the utmost disrespect and contumely? “He” expected nothing less
than that its patience would be exhausted, and energetic
measures resorted to, as the only efficient ones. From any
part of a people conquered from wretchedness into every
indulgence, and the height of prosperity, such
treatment, as the government daily received was far different
from that which ought to have been expected. But there were
characters in the world on whom benefits have no other effect
than to produce insolence and insult. The stroke
was struck, the Mercury would say no more. The greatest
misfortune that can ever happen to the press is for it to be in
the possession of invisible and licentious hands. It said no
more, because “the war was with the dead!”

Sir James was not very sure that he had acted either wisely or
well. He thought it necessary to explain. Divers wicked and
seditious writings had been printed. Divers wicked and seditious
writings had been dispersed throughout the province. Divers
writings were calculated to mislead divers of His Majesty’s
subjects. Divers wicked and traitorous persons had endeavoured to
bring into contempt and had vilified the administration, and
divers persons had invented wicked falsehoods, with the view of
alienating the affections of His Majesty’s subjects from the
respect which was due to His Majesty’s person. It was impossible
for His Majesty’s representative longer to disregard or suffer
practices so directly tending to subvert His Majesty’s
government, and to destroy the happiness of His Majesty’s
subjects. He, therefore, announced, that with the advice and
concurrence of the Executive Council, and due information having
been given to three of His Majesty’s Executive Councillors,
warrants, as by law authorised, had been issued, under which,
some of the authors, printers, and publishers of the aforesaid
traitorous and seditious writings had been apprehended and
secured. Deeply impressed with a desire to promote, in all
respects, the welfare and happiness of the most benevolent of
sovereigns, whose servant he had been for as long a period as the
oldest inhabitant had been his subject, and whose highest
displeasure he should incur if the acts of these designing men
had produced any effect, he trusted that neither doubts nor
jealousies had crept into the public mind. He would recall to the
deluded, if there were any, the history of the whole period
during which they had been under His Majesty’s government. It was
for them to recollect the progressive advances they had made in
the wealth, happiness, and unbounded liberty which they then
enjoyed. Where was the act of oppression—where was the
instance of arbitrary imprisonment—or where was the
violation of property of which they had to complain? Had there
been an instance in which the uncontrolled enjoyment of their
religion had been disturbed? While other countries and other
colonies had been deluged in blood, during the prevalent war, had
they not enjoyed the most perfect security and tranquillity?
What, then, could be the means by which the traitorous would
effect their wicked purposes? What arguments dare they use? For
what reason was happiness to be laid aside and treason embraced?
What persuasion could induce the loyal to abandon loyalty and
become monsters of ingratitude? The traitorous had said that he
desired to embody and make soldiers of twelve thousand of the
people, and because the Assembly would not consent, that he had
dissolved the Parliament? It was monstrously untrue, and it was
particularly atrocious in being advanced by persons who might
have been supposed to have spoken with certainty on the subject.
It had been said that he wanted to tax the lands of the country
people, that the House would only consent to tax wine, and that
for such perverseness he had dissolved the Assembly. Inhabitants
of St. Denis! the Governor General never had the most distant
idea of taxing the people at all. The assertion was directly
false. When the House offered to pay the civil list, he could not
move without the King’s instructions. But in despair of producing
instances from what he had done, the traitorous had spoken of
that which he intended to do. It was boldly said that Sir James
Craig intended to oppress the Canadians. Base and daring
fabricators of falsehood! on what part of his life did they found
such assertions? What did the inhabitants of St. Denis know of
him or of his intentions? Let Canadians inquire concerning him of
the heads of their church. The heads of the church were men of
knowledge, honor, and learning, who had had opportunities of
knowing him, and they ought to be looked to for advice and
information. The leaders of faction and the demagogues of a party
associated not with him, and could not know him. Why should he be
an oppressor? Was it to serve the King, the whole tenor of whose
life had been honorable and virtuous? Was it for himself that he
should practice oppression? For what should he be an oppressor?
Ambition could not prompt him, with a life ebbing slowly to a
close, under the pressure of a disease acquired in the service of
his country. He only looked forward to pass the remaining period
of his life in the comfort of retirement, among his friends. He
remained in Canada simply in obedience to the commands of his
King. What power could he desire? For what wealth would he be an
oppressor? Those who knew him, knew that he had never regarded
wealth, and then, he could not enjoy it. He cared not for the
value of the country laid at his feet. He would prefer to power
and wealth a single instance of having contributed to the
happiness and prosperity of the people whom he had been sent to
govern. He warned all to be on their guard against the artful
suggestions of wicked and designing men. He begged that all would
use their best endeavours to prevent the evil effects of
incendiary and traitorous doings. And he strictly charged and
commanded all magistrates, captains of militia, peace officers,
and others, of His Majesty’s good subjects to bring to punishment
such as circulated false news, tending, in any manner, to inflame
the public mind and to disturb the public peace and
tranquillity.

Could anything have been more pitiable than such a
proclamation? The existence of a conspiracy on the part of some
disaffected persons to overthrow the King’s government was made
to appear with the view of covering a mistake. The proclamation
was the apology for the illegal seizure of a press and types used
in the publication of a newspaper, in which nothing seditious or
treasonable had in reality been published. It was true that the
Canadien upheld the Assembly and criticised the conduct of
the Executive, with great severity. It was true that the
Canadien complained of the tyranny of “les
Anglais.” It was true that the Canadien strenuously
supported the idea of the expenses of the civil list being
defrayed by the province and not by the Imperial government. And
it was true that it contended for “nos institutions, notre
langue, et nos lois.” It did nothing more. No hint was thrown
out that Canada would be more prosperous under the American, than
under the English dominion. It was not even insinuated that
Canada should be wholly governed by Canadians. All that was
claimed for French Canadians was a fair share in the official
spoils of the land they lived in, freedom of speech, and liberty
of conscience. Governor Craig asked the inhabitants of St. Denis
or any of the other inhabitants of the province to remind him of
any one act of oppression or of arbitrary imprisonment. And at
that very moment the printer of the Canadien was in
prison. Nor was he there alone, there were Messrs. Bedard,
Blanchet, and Taschereau, members of the recently dissolved House
of Assembly, together with Messrs. Pierre Laforce, Pierre
Papineau, of Chambly, and François Corbeille, of Isle
Jésus, to keep him company, on charges of treasonable
practices, concerning which there was not, and never had been,
even the shadow of proof, on charges which the government did not
attempt even to prove, and on charges which were withdrawn
without the accused having ever been confronted with their
accusers. Base and daring fabricators of falsehood!
François Corbeille, an innocent man, the victim only of
unjust suspicions, on the one hand, and of diabolical
selfishness, on the other, died in consequence of the injury his
health received in that prison where tyranny had placed him. But
he could issue no proclamation. His voice was not loud enough in
the tomb to reach the Court of St. James, surrounded as that
Court was, by an impenetrable phalanx of Downing Street
Red-tapists. Canada was only mis-governed because England was
deceived, through the instrumentality of Governors, honorable
enough as men, but so wanting in administrative capacity, as to
be open to the vile flattery and base insinuations of those who
were, or rather should have been at once the faithful servants of
the Crown and of that people who upheld it, who were virtually
taken possession of, on arrival, by the “gens en place,”
and held safely in custody, until their nominal power had ceased.
And when power had passed away, then only did many of them
perceive, as Sir James Craig is reported to have done, the
deception, the ingratitude, and the almost inhumanity of man.
There is some excuse to be offered for the extraordinary course
of policy pursued by Sir James Craig; and an apology even can be
made for the crooked policy of those voluntary advisers who had
hedged him in. Great Britain was at war with France. The name of
a Frenchman was unmusical in the ears of any Englishman of that
period, and it sounded harshly in the ears of the British
soldier. It was France that had prostituted liberty to lust. It
was France that had dragged public opinion to the scaffold and
the guillotine. It was France that held the axe uplifted over all
that was good and holy. It was France that was making all Europe
a charnel-house. It was General Buonaparte of France, who only
sought to subdue England, the more easily to conquer the world.
Many an English hearth had cursed his name. Many a widow had he
made desolate, and many an orphan fatherless. The “conquered
subjects” of King George spoke and thought in French. They held
French traditions in veneration. There could only be a jealousy,
a hatred, a contempt entertained of everything seeming to be
French, in the heart of an Englishman. And these sentiments were
doubtless reciprocated. But, still the French of Canada, were
only, now, French by extraction. They had long lost that love of
the land of their origin, which belongs to nativity. Few men in
the province had been born in France. Few Canadians knew anything
about the new regime, or took any interest in the “Code
Napoléon.” And few even cherished flattering
recollections of Bourbon rule. The Canadians wanted English
liberty, not French republicanism. The Canadians wanted to have
for themselves so much liberty as a Scotchman might enjoy at John
O’Groats, or an Englishman obtain at Land’s-End. And for so
desiring liberty they were misrepresented, because of English
colonial prejudices, and because of official dislikes and
selfishness. When the first Attorney-General of Canada, Mr.
Mazzeres, afterwards Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer, in England,
of whom Mr. Ryland was but a pious follower, proposed to convert
the Canadians to Anglicism in religion, in manners, and in law,
assuredly little opposition could have been made to the scheme.
Then, the pursuance of Cardinal Richelieu’s policy would, in
after ages, have exemplified that the pen had been mightier than
the sword. Then the whole population of the province could have
been housed in one of the larger cities of the present time. But
when the province had increased in numbers to 300,000, partially
schooled in English legislation, the exercise of despotism was
only as impolitic as it was obviously unjust. It was feared by
the officers of the civil government of Canada, when this
despotism was practised, that the legislature might have the
power, which has since been conceded, of dispensing with the
services of merely imperial officers, and of filling, with
natives to the manor born, every office of profit or emolument in
the province. It was feared if the exclusive power were granted
to the Colonial Legislature of appropriating all the sums
necessary for the civil expenditure of the province, that it
would give the Legislature absolute control over the officers of
the empire and of the colony, and annihilate, if not actually,
potentially, the imperium of Great Britain over her
colony. A distinction was drawn between the privileges of a
colonist and of the resident of the United Kingdom. While every
municipality in the latter was permitted to pay and control its
own officers, the voice of a colonist was to be unheard in the
councils of the nation to which he was attached, and he was to
have no control over the actions of those who were to make or
administer the laws, under which he lived. He was patiently to
submit to the overbearing assumptions of some plebeian Viceroy,
accidentally raised to a quasi-level with the great potentates of
the earth, and inclined to ride with his temporary and borrowed
power, after that great impersonage of evil, which, it is
alleged, the beggar always attempts to overtake when, having
thrown off his rags and poverty, he has been mounted on
horseback. It is admitted that at this time the province was
controlled by a few rapacious, overbearing, and irresponsible
officials, without stake or other connection with the country,
than their offices,[14] having no sympathy with the
mass of the inhabitants. It is admitted that these officials
lorded it over the people, upon whose substance they existed, and
that they were not confided in, but hated. It is admitted that
their influence with the English inhabitants arose from the
command of the treasury. And it is admitted that, though only the
servants of the government, they acted as if they had been
princes among the natives and inhabitants of the province, upon
whom they affected to look down, estranging them from all direct
intercourse, or intimacy, with the Governor, whose confidence, no
less than the control of the treasury, it was their policy to
monopolise. To the candidates for vice-regal favors, their smiles
were fortune, and their frowns were fate. The Governor was a
hostage in the keeping of the bureaucracy, and the people were
but serfs.

Nothing has been left on record to show that when Sir James
Craig issued his absurd proclamation, treason was to have been
feared, unless it be that the clergy were required to read the
proclamation from the pulpits of the parish churches, that Chief
Justice Sewell read it from the Bench, that the Grand Jury drew
up an address to the Court and strongly animadverted upon the
dangerous productions of the Canadien, and that the
Quebec Mercury expressed its abhorrence of sedition, and
chronicled the fact that 671 habitants had expressed their
gratitude to the Governor, for his “truly paternal
proclamation.”

In the April term of the Court of King’s Bench, the release of
Mr. Bedard from gaol, was attempted, by an attempt to obtain a
writ of Habeas Corpus. But the Bench was not sufficiently
independent of the Crown. The writ was refused. The State
prisoners were compelled to remain in prison, indulging the hope
that whatever charges could be preferred against them would be
reduced to writing, and a trial be obtained. It was hoping
against hope. Some of the imprisoned fell sick, among whom was
the printer of the Canadien, and all in the gaol of
Quebec, with the exception of Mr. Bedard, were turned out of
prison. Mr. Bedard refused to be set at liberty without having
had the opportunity of vindicating his reputation by the verdict
of a jury. Conscious of the integrity of his conduct, and of the
legality of his expressed political opinions, he solicited trial,
but the September session of the Criminal Term of the King’s
Bench was suffered to elapse without any attention having been
paid to him. Three of the prisoners were imprisoned in the gaol
of Montreal, and were not only subjected to the inconveniences
and discomforts of a damp and unhealthy prison, but to the petty
persecutions of a relentless gaoler. They were one after the
other enlarged without trial, Mr. Corbeil only to die.

In the course of the summer the government had been occupied
with the regulation and establishment of a system of police, in
Montreal and Quebec, and, with that view, salaried chairmen were
appointed to preside over the Courts of Quarter Sessions. The
government also determined upon opening up a road to the Eastern
Townships, which would afford a direct land communication between
Quebec and Boston. Commencing at St. Giles, on the south shore of
the St. Lawrence, that road to the township of Shipton, which
still bears the name of Governor Craig, was completed by a
detachment of troops.

On the 10th of December, Parliament again met. The House of
Assembly re-elected Mr. Panet to the Speakership, and the
Governor approved of his election. In his speech from the throne,
Governor Craig had never doubted the loyalty and zeal of the
parliaments which had met since he had assumed the administration
of affairs. He was confident that they were animated by the best
intentions to promote the interests of the King’s government and
the welfare of the people. He looked for such a disposition in
the tenor of their deliberations. He called their attention to
the temporary Act for the better preservation of His Majesty’s
government, and for establishing regulations respecting aliens or
certain subjects of His Majesty, who had resided in France. No
change had taken place in the state of public affairs, that would
warrant a departure from those precautions which made the Act
necessary. He did not mean that it should be supposed that he
meant to divide the interests of His Majesty’s government from
the interests of the public, for they were inseparable. But the
preservation of His Majesty’s government was the safety of the
province, and its security was the only safeguard to the public
tranquillity. He therefore recommended those considerations
together with the Act making temporary provision for the
regulation of trade between Canada and the United States to their
first and immediate consideration. He entreated them to believe
that he should have great satisfaction in cultivating that
harmony and good understanding which must be so conducive to the
prosperity and happiness of the colony, and that he should most
readily and cheerfully concur, in every measure, which they might
propose, tending to promote those important objects. And he
further intimated that the rule of his conduct was to discharge
his duty to his sovereign, by a constant attention to the welfare
of his subjects, who were committed to his charge, and these
objects he felt to be promoted by a strict adherence to the laws
and principles of the constitution, and by maintaining in their
just balance the rights and privileges of every branch of the
legislature. Sir James Craig’s attempts at maintaining a balance
of power were the chief causes of all his blundering. He did not
himself know the proper balance of power between himself and the
governed. He could not possibly perceive when his balance-beam
was out of its centre, and if he had seen a slight leaning to one
side, and that side not his own, he could not have conceived that
the scales of justice would have been very much affected. It
never occurred to him that the displacement of it, only to the
extent of one-sixteenth half of an inch, on the side of
Government and Council, would weigh a quarter of a century
against the Assembly, the people and progress. But so it was. The
beam with which Sir James Craig would have and did weigh out
justice, was one-sided, and, to make matters still worse, the
Governor threw into the adverse scale a host of his own
prejudices, and of the prejudices of his secret councillors. He
would have been glad, had the House expelled Mr. Bedard, one of
its members, on the plea that it was prejudicial to its dignity
that a representative of the people should be kept in durance,
while the House was in session, and still more discreditable that
that member should be charged with treason. Hardly had he
delivered his speech, and the Assembly returned to their chamber,
when the Governor sent a message to the House intimating that Mr.
Bedard, who had been returned to Parliament, as the
representative of Surrey, was detained in the common gaol of
Quebec, under the “Preservation Act,” charged with treasonable
practices. The House most politely thanked the Governor-in-Chief
for the information. The House resolved that Mr. Bedard was in
the common gaol of Quebec. The House resolved that Pierre Bedard
was, on the 27th day of March, returned to Parliament, as one of
the Knights Representative of Surrey. The House resolved that
Pierre Bedard, was then one of the members of the Assembly, for
the existing Parliament. The House resolved that the simple
arrest of any one of His Majesty’s subjects did not render him
incapable of election to the Assembly. The House resolved that
the Government Preserves Act, guaranteed to the said Pierre
Bedard, Esquire, the right of sitting in the Assembly. And the
House resolved to present a humble address to His Excellency,
informing him that his message had been seriously considered,
that several resolutions had been passed, which they conceived it
to be their duty to submit to His Excellency, and that it was the
wish of the House that Pierre Bedard, Esquire, Knight
Representative for the County of Surrey, might take his seat in
the House. The vote in favor of the resolutions was expressively
large. There were twenty-five members present, and twenty voted
for the resolutions. Messrs. Bourdages, Papineau, senior, Bellet,
Papineau, junior, Debartch, Viger, Lee, and Bruneau, were named a
committee to present an address to the Governor, founded on the
resolutions, but they managed to escape that honor. When it was
moved to resolve that an enquiry be made as to the causes which
had prevented the messengers from presenting the address, as
ordered by the House, Mr. Papineau, senior, moved that nothing
more should be said about the address, and the motion was
carried. Nor was anything more said about the unfortunate
gentleman who was imprisoned, as the Governor himself afterwards
stated, only as a measure of precaution, not of punishment, until
the close of the session, when he was released. He was kept in
Ham because he might have done mischief, on the principle that
prevention is better than cure, and, when Mr. Bedard desired to
know what was expected of him, the Governor sent for his brother,
the curé, and authorized him to tell Mr. Bedard that he
had been confined by government, “only looking to its security
and the public tranquillity,” and that when Mr. Bedard expressed
a sense of that error, of which he was ignorant, he would be
immediately enlarged. Mr. Bedard replied courteously, but
declined admitting any error, which he had not made, or of
confessing to any crime of which he was not guilty. The Governor
had heard of the resolutions of the House, and expected the
presentation of the address embodying them, when he received an
application from the elder Papineau, one of the committee,
requesting a private conference on the subject of the
resolutions. That conference only drew from His Excellency the
remark that:—”No consideration, Sir, shall induce me to
consent to the liberation of Mr. Bedard, at the instance of the
House of Assembly, either as a matter of right, or as a favor,
nor will I now consent to his being enlarged on any terms during
the sitting of the present session, and I will not hesitate to
inform you of the motives by which I have been induced to come to
this resolution. I know that the general language of the members,
has encouraged the idea which universally prevails, that the
House of Assembly will release Mr. Bedard; an idea so firmly
established that there is not a doubt entertained upon it in the
province. The time is therefore come, when I feel that the
security as well as the dignity of the King’s government,
imperiously require that the people should be made to understand
the true limits of the rights of the respective parts of the
government, and that it is not that of the House of Assembly to
rule the country.” And Mr. Bedard, sensible of having done no
wrong, remained in gaol until the Parliament was prorogued, as an
example to the people that there was no public opinion worth
heeding, in the province, and that the power of the Governor was
something superior to that of the Assembly. The Assembly went to
work after having made the fruitless attempt to liberate Mr.
Bedard, and passed as many bills as were required. The “gaols”
bill was temporarily continued: the repairs of the Castle of St.
Lewis having cost £14,980, instead of £7,000, as
contemplated, the additional outlay was voted; £50,000 were
voted towards the erection of suitable parliament buildings. The
Alien Act and that for the Preservation of the Government were
continued, together with the Militia Act, to March 1813; the bill
to disqualify judges from being elected to the Assembly passed
both Houses, and to these the Governor assented, proroguing the
Parliament afterwards with great pleasure. Communication with
Europe had been difficult during the winter, on account of the
impediments thrown in the way of American commerce. The Princess
Charlotte had died, and the sovereign himself had become
alarmingly indisposed. A new Act of non-intercourse had been
passed in the American Congress. He had seen among the Acts
passed, and to which he had just declared His Majesty’s assent,
with peculiar satisfaction, the Act disqualifying the judges from
holding a seat in the House of Assembly. It was not only that he
thought the measure right in itself, but that he considered the
passing of an Act for the purpose, as a complete renunciation of
the erroneous principle, the acting upon which put him
under the necessity of dissolving the last parliament. The
country was becoming luxuriantly rich, and he hoped that all
would be harmony and tolerance. He would be a proud man who could
say to his sovereign that he found the Canadians divided and left
them united.

On the 19th of June, 1811, Lieut.-General Sir James Craig
embarked for England, in H.M.S. Amelia. Previous to his
departure he received addresses from Quebec, Montreal, Three
Rivers, Warwick, and Terrebonne, and when he was about to leave
the Chateau St. Louis, the British population, who admired the
old General more perhaps than they did the constitutional ruler,
exhibited considerable feeling. The multitude took the place of
His Excellency’s carriage horses and popularly carried away, to
the Queen’s wharf, His Majesty’s representative. Nay, the old
soldier, who really had a heart, almost wept as he bade farewell
to men, some of whom he had first met with in the battle field,
and had since known for nearly half a century. Sir James too was
ill. It was not indeed expected that he would have lived long
enough to reach England. His dropsy was becoming not only
troublesome but dangerous.[15]

Sir James was succeeded in the administration of the
government of Canada by Mr. Dunn.

The Canadians had, during the administration of Governor
Craig, earnestly pursued Junius’ advice to the English nation.
They had never, under the most trying circumstances, suffered any
invasion of their political constitution to pass by, without a
determined and persevering resistance. They practically exhibited
their belief in the doctrine that, one precedent creates another;
that precedents soon accumulate and constitute law; that what was
yesterday fact becomes to-day doctrine; that examples are
supposed to justify the most dangerous measures, and that where
they do not suit exactly, the defect is supplied by analogy. They
felt confident that the laws which were to protect their civil
rights were to grow out of their constitution, and that with it
the country was to fall or flourish. They believed in the right
of the people to choose their own representatives. They were
sensibly impressed with the idea that the liberty of the press is
the palladium of the civil, political, and religious rights of a
British subject, and that the right of juries to return a general
verdict, in all cases whatsoever, is an essential part of the
British constitution, not to be controlled, or limited, by the
judges, nor in any shape to be questionable by the legislature.
And they believed that the power of the King, Lords, and Commons,
was not an arbitrary power, but one which they themselves could
regulate. In a word, they believed that, whatever form of
government might be necessary for the maintenance of order, and
for putting all men on an equality in the eye of the law, the
people themselves were the source of all power, and they acted
accordingly.

Mr. Peel, (afterwards Sir Robert Peel,) Under Secretary of
State, condemned the conduct of Sir James Craig, as Governor of
Canada. Mr. Ryland, himself, informed Sir James, by letter, from
London, whither he had been sent with despatches, that when he
observed to Mr. Peel that Sir James Craig had all the English
inhabitants with him, and, consequently, all the commercial
interest of the country, Mr. Peel remarked that the Canadians
were much more numerous, and he repeated the same remark
more than once, in a way that indicated a fear of doing anything
that might clash with the prejudices of the more numerous
part of the community. And when Mr. Ryland ventured to suggest
that the decided approbation of the Governor’s conduct could not
fail to have a desirable effect on the minds of the
Canadians, and that the best way of expressing such approbation,
was by suspending the constitution, as Sir James Craig had
recommended, Mr. Peel thought that a reunion of the provinces
would be better than a suspension of the constitution of Lower
Canada. Lord Liverpool thought that it was not very necessary to
imprison the editors of the Canadien. He quietly asked if
they could not have been brought over to the government? Mr.
Ryland said that it was not possible, that Mr. Bedard’s motive
for opposing the government, was possibly to obtain office, but
he had acted in such a way as to make that impossible. At dinner
with the Earl of Liverpool, at Coombe Wood, Mr. Ryland seems to
have had a combing from Mr. Peel. He writes to Sir James Craig
that, in a conversation with Mr. Peel, before dinner, concerning
the state of things in Canada, he was mortified to find that he
had but an imperfect idea of the subject. He expressed himself as
though he had thought that Sir James Craig had dissolved the
House of Assembly on account of their having passed a bill for
excluding the judges. He endeavored to give Mr. Peel a clear and
correct conception of these matters, but God knew with what
success! He recollected Governor Craig’s advice, and kept his
temper, but it was really very provoking to see men of fine
endowments and excellent natural understanding, too inattentive
to make themselves masters of a very important subject, which had
been placed before them, in an intelligible manner. When Mr. Peel
asked him if the English members of the House were always with
the government, Mr. Ryland said that in every case of importance,
with the exception of Mr. James Stuart, formerly
Solicitor-General, the English members always supported the views
of the government. And, indeed, the Attorney-General of England,
Sir Vicary Gibbs, reported against the despotic intentions of Sir
James Craig, and, at the suggestion of his secretary, further
expressed his official opinion that the paper published in the
Canadien, and upon which the proceedings of the Executive
Council of Canada had been founded, was not such as to fix upon
the publishers, the charge of treasonable practices, and that it
was only the apprehensions that had been in Canada entertained,
of the effects of the publication of the paper in the
Canadien, that might have made it excusable to resort to
means, not strictly justifiable in law, for suppressing
anticipated mischief. The truth was simply that a stupid old man,
filled with the most violent prejudices, against change of any
sort, had been sent to govern a new and rapidly rising country,
and knew not how success was to be obtained. His mind was full of
conspiracies, rebellions, and revolutions, and nothing else. When
he retired to rest, and had drawn the curtains of his bed, there
sat upon him, night after night, three horrible
spectres:—the Rebellion in Ireland, the Reign of Terror in
France, and the American revolution. He slept only to dream of
foul conspiracies, and he was dreaming how they best could be
avoided, when in broad daylight he was most awake.

Upper Canada had not yet become sufficiently populous to
require much legislation. Indeed, the legislature of that
province hardly transacted any business more important than now
devolves upon some insignificant county municipality. There was
as yet no party. There were as yet no grievances. Parliament was
annually assembled by Governor Gore, rather because it was a rule
to which he was bound to attend, than because it was required. He
met his parliament again, on the 1st of February, 1811, and
business having been rapidly transacted, the royal assent was
given to nine Acts, relative to the erection and repair of roads
and bridges, to the licensing of petty chapmen, to the payment of
parliamentary contingencies, to the regulation of duties, to the
further regulation of the proceedings of sheriffs, in the sale of
goods and chattels, taken by them in execution, to assessments,
to bills of exchange, and to the raising and training of the
militia.

On the 30th of September, in the same year,
Lieutenant-Governor Francis Gore resigned the government into the
hands of Major-General, Sir Isaac Brocke, and returned to
England, Mr. Dunn, having, on the 14th of the same month, been
relieved of the government of Lower Canada, by Lieutenant-General
Sir George Prevost, Baronet, the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova
Scotia, and now appointed Governor General of British North
America, in consideration as well of his administrative ability,
as of his distinguished reputation as an officer in the army. No
sooner had Sir George arrived at Quebec, than he set out on a
tour of military observation. War was now more than ever
imminent. Another difficulty had occurred at sea. A British sloop
of war, the Little Belt, had been fired into by the
American frigate, President, and, in the rencontre which
followed, had suffered greatly in her men and rigging. The
British Orders in Council had not been rescinded, American
commerce was crippled, the revenue was falling off, and there was
that general quarrelsomeness of spirit which, sooner or later,
must be satisfied, pervading the middle States of the American
Union. Congress was assembled by proclamation, on the 5th of
November, and the President of the United States indicated future
events by a shadow in his opening “Message.” Mr. Madison found
that he must “add” that the period had arrived which claimed from
the legislative guardians of the national rights, a system of
more ample provision for maintaining them. There was full
evidence of the hostile inflexibility of Great Britain. She had
trampled on rights, which no independent nation could relinquish,
and Congress would feel the duty of putting the United States
into an armour and an attitude, demanded by the crisis, and
corresponding with the national spirit and expectation. Congress
did as they were recommended to do. Bills were passed having
reference to probable hostilities, one of which authorized the
President to raise, with as little delay as possible, twenty-five
thousand men.

In Canada every man held his breath for a time.

CHAPTER III.

General Prevost was the very opposite of Sir James Craig.
While the latter considered force the only practical persuasive,
the former looked upon persuasion as more practicable than force.
He was determined to be conciliatory, to throw aside unjust
suspicions, to listen to no tales from interested parties, to
redress such grievances as existed, and to create no new causes
of discontent if he could avoid it. He was made acquainted with
all the steps that had been taken by his predecessor, and he
entered on the administration of the government of Lower Canada,
with a determination to pursue a very opposite policy. A few
weeks after his assumption of office he remodelled, or rather
recommended to the Imperial ministry, the expediency of
remodelling the Executive Council. He caused seven new members to
be added to it, and he further offended the officers of the
principalities or departments, by preferring to places of trust
and emolument, some of the demagogues persecuted by Sir James
Craig. Sir George Prevost met the parliament on the 21st of
February, 1812. He congratulated the country on the brilliant
achievements of Wellington, in the deliverance of Portugal and
the rescue of Spain from France. Notwithstanding the changes, so
astonishing, which marked the age, the inhabitants of Canada had
witnessed but as remote spectators the awful scenes which had
desolated Europe. While Britain, built by nature against the
contagious breath of war, had had her political existence
involved in the fate of neighboring nations, Canada had hitherto
viewed without alarm a distant storm. The storm was now
approaching her. The mutterings of the thunder were already
within hearing. All was gloomy, still, and lurid. It was
necessary to be vigilant. To preserve the province from the
dangers of invasion it would be necessary to renew those Acts
which experience had proved essential for the preservation of His
Majesty’s government, and to hold the militia in readiness to
repel aggression. The renewal of the “Preservation Acts,” was not
that which the Assembly very much desired. They had had enough of
such “Preservation” of government Acts already. They would much
rather have been preserved from them than be preserved with them.
On the principle of self preservation, the Assembly would rather
be excused from continuing any such Act as that which had been so
abused as to have afforded a licence for the imprisonment of
three members of the Assembly, on vague charges, which the
ingenuity of the public prosecutor could not reduce to
particulars. Had it not been from a conviction of the goodness of
the new Governor, the Assembly would not have renewed any such
Act. Sir George regretted that the Parliament had thought it
necessary to revert to any of the proceedings of his predecessor,
under one of the “Preservation Acts,” and he earnestly advised
the gentlemen of the House of Assembly to evince their zeal for
the public good, by confining their attention solely to the
present situation of affairs. But the House thought it due to the
good character of His Majesty’s subjects that some measure should
be adopted by the House, with the view of acquainting His Majesty
of the events which had taken place under the administration of
Sir James Craig, its late Governor, together with the causes
which such events had originated, so that His Majesty might take
such steps as would prevent the recurrence of a similar
administration, an administration which tended to misrepresent
the good and faithful people of the province, and to deprive them
of the confidence and affection of His Majesty, and from feeling
the good effects of his government, in the ample manner provided
for by law. Nay, this was not all. It was moved that an enquiry
be made into the state of the province, under the administration
of Sir James Craig, and into the causes that gave rise to it, and
the resolution was carried, two members only voting against it. A
committee was appointed, but no report was made. The bill for the
better preservation of His Majesty’s government, and the Alien
bill were both lost, not by ill intention, but by awkward
management. But the loss of these bills was amply compensated by
the militia bill, authorizing the Governor to embody two thousand
young, unmarried men, for three months in the year, who, in case
of invasion, were to be retained in service for a whole year,
when one-half of the embodied would be relieved by fresh drafts.
In the event of imminent danger, he was empowered to embody the
whole militia force of the country, but no militiaman was to be
enlisted into the regular forces. For drilling, training, and
other purposes of the militia service, £12,000 were voted,
and a further sum of £30,000 was placed at the disposal of
the Governor-in-Chief, to be used in the event of a war arising
between Great Britain and the United States.

Sir George Prevost prorogued Parliament on the 19th of May,
well satisfied with the proofs which had been exhibited to him,
of the loyalty of the parliament and people of a country so very
shortly before represented to be treasonable, seditious,
disaffected, and thoroughly imbued with hatred towards Great
Britain. He shortly afterwards re-instated, in their respective
ranks in the militia, such officers as had been set aside by Sir
James Craig, without just cause, and indeed spared no exertion to
make the people his friends, well judging that the office, or
place men would, of necessity be so. On the 28th of May, he
levied and organised four battalions of embodied militia; and a
regiment of voltigeurs was raised, the latter being placed under
the command of Major De Salaberry, a French-Canadian, who had
served in the 60th regiment of foot.

There was need for this embodiment of troops. Already, dating
from the 3rd of April, the American Congress had passed an Act
laying an embargo for ninety days on all vessels within the
jurisdiction of the United States. The President, Mr. Jefferson,
had recommended the embargo. He had long intended to gratify the
lower appetites of the worst class of the American people, who
were now more numerous than that respectable class of republicans
of which that great man, Washington, was himself the type. The
measure was preparatory to a war with Great Britain. And war was
very soon afterwards declared. On the 4th of June, a bill
declaring that war existed between Great Britain and the United
States passed the House of Representatives by a majority of
seventy-nine to forty-nine. The bill was taken to the Senate, and
there it passed only by the narrow majority of six. The vote was
nineteen voices in the affirmative and thirteen in the negative.
Mr. Jefferson assented to the bill on the 18th of June. The
grounds of war were set forth in a message of the President to
Congress, on the 1st of June. The impressment of American seamen
by British naval officers; the blockade of the ports of the
enemies of Great Britain, supported by no adequate force, in
consequence of which American commerce had been plundered in
every sea, and the great staples of the country cut off from
their legitimate markets; and on account of the British Orders in
Council. The Committee on Foreign relations believed that the
freeborn sons of America were worthy to enjoy the liberty which
their fathers had purchased at the price of much blood and
treasure. They saw by the measures adopted by Great Britain, a
course commenced and persisted in, which might lead to a loss of
national character and independence, and they felt no hesitation
in advising resistance by force, in which the Americans of that
day would prove to the enemy and the world, that they had not
only inherited that liberty which their fathers had given them,
but had also the will and the power to maintain it. They relied
on the patriotism of the nation, and confidently trusted that the
Lord of Hosts would go down with the United States to battle, in
a righteous cause, and crown American efforts with success. The
committee recommended an immediate appeal to arms. The
confidential secretary of Sir James Craig was not a little to
blame for the terrible state of fermentation into which the
representatives of the sovereign people of America had wrought
themselves. Without the knowledge of the Imperial government, Mr.
Secretary Ryland had received the concurrence of Sir James Craig
to a scheme for the annexation of the New England States to
Canada. A young man named Henry, of Irish parentage, and a
captain in the militia of the American States had come to
Montreal with the view of remaining in Canada. He studied law and
made considerable proficiency. Indeed, he was a young man
possessed of some talent and of great assurance. And as there was
another suspicion haunting the minds of Sir James Craig and of
Mr. Secretary Ryland, Mr. John Henry, late captain in the
American service, and now Barrister-at-law, was introduced to
Governor Craig, as a gentleman likely to inform the government of
Canada, whether or not, the suspicions of the Governor and of the
Governor’s Secretary, were correct, these suspicions being that
the North Eastern States of the American Republic desired to form
a political connection with Great Britain. Mr. Henry appeared to
be the very man for such a mission. He was immediately employed
as a spy, and went to Boston, where he did endeavour to ascertain
the public mind, in those places in which it is most frequently
spoken. He lingered about hotels and news rooms. He visited the
parks and the saloons. He went to church, or wherever else
information was to be obtained, and he sent his experiences
regularly to Mr. Ryland, who furnished him with instructions. But
Captain Henry required to be paid for all this trouble. He
applied to Governor Craig to find that excellent gentleman had no
idea of their value. He then memorialized Lord Liverpool, asking
for his services only the appointment of Judge Advocate of Lower
Canada, to which the salary of £500 a year was attached.
The noble Lord, at the head of the government, knew nothing about
Captain Henry, and recommended him, if he had any claim upon
Canada, to apply to Sir George Prevost, the Governor General.
Captain Henry would do no such thing. He went to the United
States, and, for the sum of fifty thousand dollars, gave up to
the American government a very interesting correspondence between
the Secretary of the Governor General of Canada, Mr. Ryland, and
himself. Congress was so transported with rage, at the attempted
annexation, that a bill was brought into the House of
Representatives, and seriously entertained, the object of which
was to declare every person a pirate, and punishable with death,
who, under a pretence of a commission from any foreign power,
should impress upon the high seas any native of the United
States; and gave every such impressed seaman a right to attach,
in the hands of any British subject, or of any debtor to any
British subject, a sum equal to thirty dollars a month, during
the whole period of his detention.[16] The federalist
Americans were somewhat favourably disposed towards England. The
minority in the House of Representatives, among which were found
the principal part of the delegation from New England, in an
address to their constituents, solemnly protested, on the ground
that the wrongs of which the United States complained, although
in some respects, grievous, were not of a nature, in the then
state of the world, to justify war, nor were they such as war
would be likely to remedy. On the subject of impressment they
urged that the question between the two countries had once been
honorably and satisfactorily settled, in the treaty negotiated
with the British Court by Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, and that
although that treaty had not been ratified by Mr. Jefferson,
arrangements might probably again be made. In relation to the
second cause of war—the blockade of her enemies’ ports,
without an adequate force, the minority replied that it was not
designed to injure the commerce of the United States, but was
retaliatory upon France, which had taken the lead in aggressions
upon neutral rights. In addition it was said, that as the repeal
of the French decrees had been officially announced, it was to be
expected that a revocation of the Orders in Council would follow.
They could not refrain from asking what the United States were to
gain from war? Would the gratification of some privateers-men
compensate the nation for that sweep of American legitimate
commerce, by the extended marine of Great Britain, which the
desperate act of declaring war invited? Would Canada compensate
the middle States for New York, or the Western States for New
Orleans? They would not be deceived! A war of invasion might
invite a retort of invasion. When Americans visited the
peaceable, and, to Americans, the innocent colonies of Great
Britain, with the horrors of war, could Americans be assured that
their own coast would not be visited with like horrors. At such a
crisis of the world, and under impressions such as these, the
minority could not consider the war into which the United States
had, in secret, been precipitated, as necessary, or required by
any moral duty, or any political expediency. The country was
divided in opinion, respecting either the propriety or the
expediency of the war. The friends of the administration were
universally in favor of it.

That there was no just cause for a declaration of war on the
part of the United States, it may be sufficient to state that the
news of the repeal of the obnoxious Order in Council, reached the
United States before England was aware of the declaration of war.
But the American government wanted a war as an excuse for a
filibustering expedition to Canada, which was to be peaceably
separated from Great Britain, and quietly annexed to the United
States. Then existing differences would have been speedily
patched up to the satisfaction of all parties, the Lower
Canadians being, in the language of Sir James Craig, treasonable,
seditious, and attached to the country with which the United
States was in alliance, France. The United States were not
prepared for war. While Great Britain had a hundred sail of the
line in commission, and a thousand ships of war bore the royal
flag, the Americans had only four frigates and eight sloops in
commission, and their whole naval force afloat in ordinary, and
building for the Ocean and the Canadian Lakes, was eight frigates
and twelve sloops. Their military force only amounted to
twenty-five thousand men, to be enlisted for the most part, but
the President was authorised to call out one hundred thousand
militia, for the purpose of defending the sea coast and the
Canadian frontiers. The greatest want of all was proper officers.
The ablest of the revolutionary heroes had paid the debt of
nature, and there was no military officer to whom fame could
point as the man fitted for command. With means so lamentably
inconsiderable had America declared war against a country whose
arms were sweeping from the Spanish Peninsula the disciplined and
veteran troops of France. It was marvellous audacity. And it was
a marvellous mistake. Canada, it is true, had only 5,454 men of
all arms, who could be accounted soldiers, 445 artillery, 3,783
infantry of the line, and 1,226 fencibles. She had only one or
two armed brigs and a few gun-boats on the lakes, but the Upper
Canadians were not prepared to exchange their dependency on Great
Britain for the paltry consideration of being erected into a
territory of the United States, and the Superintendent of the
Church of Rome, in Lower Canada, hardly thought it possible that
a new conquest of Canada would make her peculiar institutions
more secure than they were. The militia of both sections of
Canada were loyal. They felt that they could, as their enemies
had done before, at least defend their own firesides. There was
no sympathy with the American character, nor any regard for
American institutions then. Those feelings were to be brought
about by that commercial selfishness which time was to
develop.

The declaration of war by the United States was only known in
Quebec on the 24th of June. A notification was immediately given
by the police authorities to all American citizens then in
Canada, requiring them to leave the province on or before the
third of July. But Sir George Prevost afterwards extended the
time to fourteen days longer, to suffer American merchants to
conclude their business arrangements. Proclamations were issued,
imposing an embargo on the shipping in the port of Quebec, and
calling the legislature together, for the despatch of business.
Parliament met on the 16th of July. The Governor-in-Chief
announced the declaration of war, expressed his reliance upon the
spirit, the determination, the loyalty and the zeal of the
country. With the aid of the militia, His Majesty’s regular
troops, few in number, as they were, would yet gallantly repel
any hostile attempt that might be made upon the colony. It was
with concern that he saw the expense to which the organization
and drilling of the militia would put the province. But battles
must be fought, campaigning had to be endured, and true and
lasting liberty was cheap at any cost of life or treasure. The
reply was all that could be desired. While the House deplored the
hostile declaration that had been made against Great Britain, and
seemed to shrink from the miseries which war entails, they
assured the Governor that threats would not intimidate, nor
persuasions allure them from their duty to their God, to their
country, and to their king. They were convinced that the Canadian
militia would fight with spirit and determination, against the
enemy, and would, with the aid of the tried soldiers of the king,
sternly defend the province against any hostile attack. As far as
spirit went there was no deficiency, but Canada was worse off for
money than the United States was for soldiery. There were forty
thousand militia about to rise in arms, but where was the money
to come from necessary to keep them moving? Congress intended to
raise an immediate loan of ten millions of dollars. It was
essential Canada should immediately replenish her exchequer, as
those not being the days of steamships, funds from England could
not be soon obtained. Sir George Prevost resolved to issue army
bills, payable either in cash, or in government bills of
exchange, on London. The House of Assembly assented to the
circulation of any bills, and granted fifteen thousand pounds
annually for five years, to pay the interest that would accrue
upon them. Bills to the value of two hundred and fifty thousand
were authorised to be put in circulation; they were to be
received in the payment of duties; they were to be a legal tender
in the market; and they were to be redeemed at the army bill
office, in any way, whether in cash or bills, the
Governor-in-Chief might signify. Nothing could have been more
satisfactory to Sir George Prevost. He prorogued the Parliament
on the 1st of August, with every expression of satisfaction. And
well he might be satisfied. The men who were, according to the
representations of his predecessor, not at all to be depended
upon, in a case of emergency, had most readily, liberally, and
loyally, met the demands of the public service. The men who
feared martial law, and could not tolerate the withholding of the
Habeas Corpus, came forward nobly to defend from outward attack
the dominions of their king. The whole province was bursting with
warlike zeal. A military epidemic seized old and young, carrying
off the latter in extraordinary numbers. Montreal, Quebec, and
even Kingston and Toronto teemed with men in uniform and in arms.
The regular troops were moved to Montreal, and Quebec was
garrisoned by the militia. At Montreal, even the militia turned
out for garrison duty. And on the 6th of August, the whole
militia were commanded to hold themselves in readiness for
embodiment. A little of the zeal now began to ooze out. There
never yet was a rule without an exception. In the Parish of Ste.
Claire, some young men, who had been drafted into the embodied
militia, refused to join their battalion. Of these, four were
apprehended, but one was rescued, and it was determined by the
able-bodied men of Pointe Claire to liberate such others of their
friends as had already joined the depot of the embodied militia
at Laprairie. Accordingly, on the following day, some three or
four hundred persons assembled at Lachine. They had not assembled
to pass a series of resolutions censuring the government for
illegally and wantonly carrying off some of the best men of the
Parish of Pointe Claire, nor did they express any opinion
favorable to Mr. Madison and the Americans, but they had
assembled to obtain, by force, the liberty of their friends about
to be subjected to military discipline. It seemed to have been a
misunderstanding, however. The infuriated parishioners of Pointe
Claire, who would not be comforted, on being appealed to, to go
to their homes, frequently raised the cry of “Vive le Roi.” It
might be supposed that the Ste. Claire people meant to wish a
long and happy reign to His Imperial Majesty Napoleon, as Mr.
Ryland shrewdly suspected. But that supposition was not
entertainable for any considerable length of time, inasmuch as
the people without any prompting intimated that they had been
informed that the militia law had not been put into force, but
that if the Governor should call for their services they were
ready to obey him. The magistrates assured the people that the
militia law was really to be enforced, and advised them to
disperse. They refused to budge. Two pieces of artillery and a
company of the 49th regiment, which had been sent for, to
Montreal, now appeared at Lachine. Still the mob would not
disperse. Accordingly, the Riot Act was read, and the artillery
fired a ball high over the heads of the stubborn crowd, which, of
course, whizzing harmlessly along, produced no effect upon the
crowd, except that the eighty, who were armed with fusils and
fowling pieces, somewhat smartly returned the compliment, proving
to the satisfaction of the soldiers the possession of highly
military qualities, in a quarter where it was least expected. In
reply, the troops fired grape and small arms, but without any
intention of doing mischief. The rioters again fired at the
troops, but not the slightest harm resulted to the troops. It was
a kind of sham battle. The military authorities began, however,
to tire of it, and the mob was fired into, when one man having
been killed, and another having been dangerously wounded, the
mutineers dispersed, leaving some of the most daring among them,
to keep up a straggling fire from the bushes! The military made
thirteen prisoners and, as night was setting in, left for
Montreal. Next day, four hundred and fifty of the Montreal
militia marched to Pointe Claire, and from thence to St. Laurent,
which is situated in the rear of the Island of Montreal. There,
they captured twenty-four of the culprits, and brought them to
head quarters. Thus, there were thirty-seven rebels, prisoners in
Montreal, when the United States had declared war against
Britain, and the first blood shed, in consequence of the
declaration of war in Canada, by the troops, was, unfortunately,
that of Canadians. But the Pointe Claire habitants
bitterly repented the resistance which they had made to the
militia law, and many of them came to Montreal, craving the
forgiveness of the Governor, which they readily obtained. The
ringleaders alone were punished.

Hostilities were commenced in Upper Canada. No sooner had
General Brocke learned that war was proclaimed, than he conceived
a project of attack. He did not mean to penetrate into the
enemy’s country, but for the better protection of his own, to
secure the enemy’s outposts. On the 26th of June, he sent orders
to Captain Roberts, who was at St. Joseph’s, a small post, or
block house, situated on an island in Lake Huron, maintained by
thirty soldiers of the line and two artillerymen, in charge of a
serjeant of that corps, under the command of the gallant captain,
to attack Michillimackinac, an American fort defended by
seventy-five men, also under the command of a captain. He was
further instructed to retreat upon St. Mary’s, one of the trading
posts belonging to the North West Fur Company, in the event of
St. Joseph’s being attacked by the Americans. General Brocke’s
instructions reached Captain Roberts on the eighth of July, and
he lost no time in carrying the first part of them into
execution. Communicating the design, the execution of which he
had been entrusted with, to Mr. Pothier, in charge of the
Company’s Post, at St. Joseph’s, that gentleman patriotically
tendered his services. Mr. Pothier, attended by about a hundred
and sixty voyageurs, the greater part of whom were armed with
muskets and fowling pieces, joined Captain Roberts with his
detachment of three artillerymen and thirty soldiers of the line,
and in a flotilla of boats and canoes, accompanied by the North
West Company’s brig Caledonia, laden with stores and
provisions, a descent was made upon Michillimackinac. They
arrived at the enemy’s fort, without having met with the
slightest opposition, and summoned it to surrender. The officer
in command of the American fort at once complied. He had indeed
received no certain information that war had been declared. Very
shortly afterwards two vessels, laden with furs, came into the
harbour, ignorant of the capture of the fort, and were taken
possession of, though subsequently restored to their proprietors,
by Major-General DeRottenburgh, the President of the Board of
Claims. Unimportant as this achievement was, it yet had the
effect of establishing confidence in Upper Canada. It had an
excellent effect upon the Indian tribes, with whose aid the
struggle with the Americans, was afterwards efficiently
maintained.

Upon the declaration of war, the government of the United
States despatched as skilful an officer, as they had, to arm the
American vessels on Lake Erie, and on Lake Ontario, with the view
of gaining, if possible, the ascendancy on those great inland
waters, which separate a great portion of Canada from the United
States. The American army was distributed in three
divisions:—one under General Harrison called “The North
Western Army,” a second under General Stephen Van Rensellaer, at
Lewiston, called “The Army of the Centre,” and a third under the
Commander-in-Chief, General Dearborn, in the neighbourhood of
Plattsburgh and Greenbush. As yet the armies had not been put in
motion, but on the 12th of July, General Hull, the Governor of
Michigan, who had been sent, at the head of two thousand five
hundred men, to Detroit, with the view of putting an end to the
hostilities of the Indians in that section of the country,
crossed to Sandwich, established his head-quarters there, and
issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada. He expressed
the most entire confidence of success. The standard of union, he
alleged, waved over the territory of Canada. He tendered the
invaluable blessings of liberty, civil, political, and religious,
to an oppressed people, separated from, and having no share in
the Councils of Britain, or interests in her conduct. And he
threatened a war of extermination if the Indians were employed in
resisting the invasion.

General Brocke met the Parliament of Upper Canada, at York, on
the 28th of the same month, and issued a proclamation to the
people, in which he ridiculed General Hull’s fears of the
Indians. He then despatched Colonel Proctor to assume the command
at Amherstburgh, from Fort St. George.

So confident was the American General of success that, as yet,
he had not a single cannon or mortar mounted, and he did not
consider it expedient to attempt to carry Amherstburgh, which was
only situated eighteen miles below, by assault. But, as his
situation, at Sandwich, became more and more precarious, he, at
length, did resolve upon attacking Amherstburgh, if he could get
there. He sent detachment after detachment, to cross the Canard,
the river on which Amherstburgh stands. The Americans attempted
thrice to cross the bridge, situated three miles above
Amherstburgh, in vain. Some of the 41st regiment and a few
Indians drove them back as often as they tried it. Another rush
was made a little higher up. But the attempt to ford the stream
was as unsuccessful as the attempts to cross the bridge. Near the
ford, some of those Indians, so much dreaded by General Hull, lay
concealed in the grass. Not a blade stirred until the whole of
the Americans were well in the stream, and some had gained the
bank, on the Canadian side, when eighteen or twenty of the red
children of the forest, sprang to their feet, and gave a yell, so
hideous, that the Americans, stricken with panic, fled with
almost ludicrous precipitancy. So terror-stricken, indeed, were
the valiant host, that they left arms, accoutrements, and
haversacks, behind them. No further attempt was made by General
Hull, on Amherstburgh. It would have been captured with great
difficulty, if it could have been captured at all. At the mouth
of the river Canard, a small tributary of the Detroit, the
Queen Charlotte, a sloop of war, armed with eighteen
twenty-four pounders, lay at anchor, watching every
manœuvre.

On the 3rd of July, Lieutenant Rolette, commanding the armed
brig Hunter, at ten o’clock in the forenoon, succeeded in
capturing the Cayuga packet, bound from the Miami river to
Detroit, with troops, and laden with the baggage and hospital
stores of the American army. He made a dash at the Cayuga
in his barge, and, with only six men, secured her.

Colonel Proctor now assumed the offensive. He sent Captain
Tallon, on the 5th of August, with an inconsiderable detachment
of the 41st regiment, and a few of the many Indians, who were
flocking to his standard, to Brownstown, a village opposite
Amherstburgh. Captain Tallon energetically carried out his
instructions, by surprising and routing more than two hundred of
the Americans, who were under the command of Major Vanhorne. The
captured detachment were on their way from Detroit to the river
Raisin, in the expectation of meeting there a detachment of
volunteers, from Ohio, under Captain Burr, with a convoy of
provisions for the army. General Hull’s despatches fell into the
hands of the captors. The deplorable state of the American army
was disclosed, and, without loss of time, Colonel Proctor sent
over a reinforcement, consisting of one hundred men, of the 41st
regiment, with some militia and four hundred Indians, under the
command of Major Muir, their landing being protected by the brig
Hunter. Nor were the American General’s misfortunes yet to
be ameliorated. While these things were taking place, a despatch
reached him from the officer commanding the Niagara frontier,
intimating that his expected co-operation was impossible. On
every side, General Hull was being hemmed in. His supplies had
been cut off. Defeat had befallen him so far and death, sickness,
fatigue and discomfiture had its depressing effect upon his
soldiery. There was no insurrection in Canada. The people of the
backwoods had not the slightest desire to be territorially
annexed to that country over which the standard of union had
waved for thirty years. On the contrary, they were bent upon
doing it as much mischief as possible. They had no idea of
transferring their allegiance to a power who had visited them
with the miseries of war, for no fault of theirs. Hull was
dismayed. When it was announced that General Brocke was advancing
against him, he sounded a retreat. Unwilling that his fears
should be communicated to the troops under him, General Hull
retreated ostensibly with the view of concentrating the army.
After he had re-opened his communications with the rivers Raisin
and Miami, through which the whole of his supplies came, he was
to resume offensive operations. That time never came. On the 8th
of August, Sandwich was evacuated. Two hundred and fifty men only
were left behind, in charge of a small fortress, a little below
Detroit. When again in Detroit, General Hull sent six hundred men
under Colonel Miller, to dislodge the British from Brownston.
Major Muir, who commanded at Brownston, instead of waiting for
the attack, quixotically went out to meet his adversaries. The
two opposing detachments met at Maguago, a kind of half way
place, where a fight began. It was of short duration, but,
considering the numbers engaged, was sanguinary. Seventy-five of
the Americans fell, and the British were compelled, though with
inconsiderable loss, to retreat. On the water as on the land, the
chief mischief fell upon the Americans. Lieutenant Rolette, with
the boats of the Queen Charlotte and Hunter,
intercepted, attacked, and captured eleven American batteaux and
boats, which were en route for Detroit, under the escort
of two hundred and fifty American soldiers, marching along the
shore, the boats and batteaux having on board fifty-six wounded
Americans and two English prisoners.

General Brocke, who had prorogued his Parliament, now appeared
at the seat of war. He had collected together a force of seven
hundred of British regulars and militia and six hundred auxiliary
Indians. And he very coolly determined upon obtaining the
surrender of His Excellency, General Hull, and his whole force.
Knowing from his absurd proclamation, how much in dread he stood
of the Indians, General Brocke intimated that if an attack were
made, the Indians would be beyond his control; that if Detroit
were instantly surrendered, he would enter into conditions such
as would satisfy the most scrupulous sense of honor; and that he
had sent Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell and Major Glegg with full
authority to conclude any arrangement that might prevent the
unnecessary effusion of blood. General Hull replied very
courteously in the negative. Captain Dixon, of the Royal
Engineers, had thrown up a battery in Sandwich, on the very
ground so recently occupied by the Americans, to act upon
Detroit. In this battery there were two five and a half inch
mortars, and one eighteen and two twelve pounder guns, and it was
manned by sailors under the command of Captain Hull. For upwards
of an hour the cannonade was terrific, the fire of the enemy
being very feebly maintained, from two twenty-four pounders. On
the morning of the eighteenth, the cannonade recommenced, and
General Brocke crossed the river with his little army, unopposed,
at the Spring Wells, three miles below Detroit, the landing being
effected under cover of the guns of the Queen Charlotte
and Hunter. General Brocke formed his troops upon the
beach, into four deep, and flanked by the Indians, advanced for
about a mile, when he formed this miniature army into line, with
its right resting on the river Detroit, and the left supported by
the Indians. He then made preparations for assault, and was about
to attack, when to the surprise as much, it is said, of the
American as of the British regiments, a flag of truce was
displayed upon the walls of the fort, and a messenger was seen
approaching. It was an intimation that General Hull would
capitulate. Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell and Major Glegg were
accordingly sent over to the American General’s tent where, in a
few minutes, the terms of capitulation were signed, sealed, and
delivered in duplicate, one copy for the information of His
Britannic Majesty, and the other for that of Mr. President
Madison, the chief of the authors of the war. To Mr. Madison, the
information that General Hull had capitulated to the Governor of
Upper Canada, with two thousand five hundred men, and
thirty-three pieces of cannon, and that, in consequence, the
whole territory of Michigan had been ceded to Great Britain,
could only have been as disagreeable as it was animating to the
people of Canada. So entirely indeed were the Americans
unprepared for a blow of such extraordinary severity, that no one
could be brought to believe in it. It seemed an impossible
circumstance. It was felt to be a delusion. It seemed as if some
one had practised a terrible hoax upon the nation. Until
officially made known to the sovereign people, the disaster was
looked upon as a lying rumour of the enemy. Another Henry had
been at work, tampering with the New England States, or the
federalist minority had set it afloat. True it could not be. It
was indeed something to excite surprise. The trophy of a British
force, consisting of no more than seven hundred men, including
militia, and six hundred Indians was the cession of a territory
and the surrender of a General-in-Chief, a strong fort, the armed
brig John Adams, and the two thousand five hundred men,
who were designed not to defend their country only, but to wrest
Upper Canada from the Crown of Great Britain. To General Hull’s
fears of the savage ferocity of the Indians, this bloodless
victory must, to some extent, however trifling, be attributed.
General Hull was evidently superstitiously afraid of an Indian.
While asking the inhabitants of Upper Canada to come to him for
protection, he could not help entreating, as it were, protection
for himself against the Indians. If you will not accept my offer,
the General seemed to say, either remain at home or cross
bayonets with American soldiers, but turn into the field one of
the scalping savages of your forests, and we shall kill, burn and
destroy, everything that comes before us. With his regular
troops, the unfortunate man was sent a prisoner to Montreal. He
was led into that city, at the head of his officers and men, and
was at once an object of pity and derision. But the
Commander-in-Chief received his prisoner with the courtesy of a
gentleman, and with every honor due to his rank. Nay, he even
suffered him to return to the United States on parole, without
solicitation.

In his official despatch, to the American government, Hull
took pains to free his conduct from censure. His reasons for
surrender, were the want of provisions to maintain the siege, the
expected reinforcements of the enemy, and “the savage ferocity of
the Indians,” should he ultimately be compelled to capitulate.
But the federal government so far from being satisfied with these
excuses, ordered a Court Martial to assemble, before which
General Hull was tried, on the charges of treason, cowardice, and
unofficerlike conduct. On the last charge only was he found
guilty and sentenced to death. The Court, nevertheless, strongly
recommended him to mercy. He was an old man, and one who, in
other times, had done the State some service. He had served
honorably during the revolutionary war. The sentence of death was
accordingly remitted by the President, but his name was struck
off the army list, and this republican hero, who had forgotten
the art of war, went in his old age, broken-hearted and
disgraced, to a living grave, with a worm in his vitals, gnawing
and torturing him, more terribly than thousands of Indians,
practising the most unheard of cruelties could have done, until
death, so long denied, came to him, naturally, as a relief.

The circumstance is not a little curious that only three days
after General Hull had surrendered to Governor Brocke, Captain
Dacres, commanding H.M.S. Guerrière, had
surrendered to Captain Isaac Hull, after a most severe action
with the American frigate Constitution. The
Constitution was most heavily armed for a vessel of that
period. On her main deck she carried no less than 30 twenty-four
pounders, while on her upper deck she had 24 thirty-two pounders,
and two eighteens. In addition to this, for a frigate, unusually
heavy armament, there was a piece mounted, under her capstan,
resembling seven musket barrels, fixed together with iron bands,
the odd concern being discharged by a lock—each barrel
threw twenty-five balls, within a few seconds of each other,
making 145 from the piece within two minutes. And she was well
manned. Her crew consisted of 476 men. The
Guerrière mounted only 49 carriage guns, and was
manned by only 244 men, and 19 boys. On the 19th of August, the
look-out of the Guerrière noticed a sail on the
weather beam. The ship was in latitude 40°., 20 N., and in
longitude 55°. W., and was steering under a moderate breeze
on the starboard tack. The strange sail seemed to be bearing down
upon the Guerrière, and it was not long before the
discovery was made that the stranger was a man-of-war, of great
size and largely masted. Her sailing qualities, under the
circumstances, were considerably superior to those of the
Guerrière, and it became consequently necessary to
prepare for an action, which it was impossible to avoid. At three
o’clock, in the afternoon, Captain Dacres, the commander of the
British frigate, beat to quarters. An hour later and the enemy
was close at hand. She seemed to stand across the
Guerrière’s bows and Captain Dacres wore ship to
avoid a raking fire. No sooner had this manœuvre been
executed than the Guerrière ran up her colours and
fired several shots at her opponent, but they fell short. The
stranger soon followed the example set to him, and, hoisting
American colours, fired in return. Captain Dacres now fully aware
of the size, armament and sailing powers of his opponent, wore
repeatedly, broadsides being as repeatedly exchanged. While both
ships were keeping up a heavy fire, and steering free, the
Constitution, at five o’clock, closed on the
Guerrière’s starboard beam, when the battle raged
furiously. Twenty minutes had hardly elapsed when the mizen mast
of the Guerrière was shot away, bringing the ship
up into the wind, and the carnage on board became terrific. The
Constitution, during the confusion, caused by the loss of
the Guerrière’s mast, was laid across the British
frigate’s bow, and while one or two of the bow guns of the
Guerrière could only be brought to bear upon the
Constitution, that vessel scoured the decks of the British
ship, with a stream of metal. “At five minutes before six
o’clock, says Captain Hull, when within half pistol shot, we
commenced a heavy fire from all our guns, double shotted with
round and grape.” On board the Guerrière, Mr.
Grant, who commanded the forecastle, was carried below, the
master was shot through the knee; and I, says Captain Dacres, was
shot in the back. At twenty minutes past six the fore and
mainmasts of the Guerrière went over the side,
leaving her an unmanageable wreck. The Constitution ceased
firing and shot a-head, her cabin having taken fire from the
Guerrière’s guns. The Guerrière would
have renewed the action, but the wreck of the masts had no sooner
been cleared than the spritsail yard went, and the
Constitution having no new braces, wore round within
pistol shot again to rake her opponent. The crippled ship lay in
the trough of the sea, rolling her main deck guns under water.
Thirty shots had taken effect in her hull, about five sheets of
copper down; the mizen mast, after it fell, had knocked a large
hole under her starboard quarter, and she was so completely
shattered as to be in a sinking state. The decks were swimming
with blood. Fifteen men had been killed and sixty-three had been
severely wounded, when Captain Dacres called his officers
together and consulted them. Farther waste of life was useless,
and the British colours were dropped in submission to those of
America. But the result of the contest, though it could not fail
to cause great exultation in the United States, reflected no
dishonor upon the flag of Britain. A more unequal contest had
never before been maintained with such spirit, zeal, skill, or
bravery. The battle had lasted for nearly three hours and a half,
and the result was the sure effect of size, as all things being
otherwise equal, the heavier must overcome the lighter body. When
the Guerrière surrendered, it was only to permit
her gallant commander, her other officers, and the men, the
wounded and the untouched, to be transferred for safety from a
watery grave to the Constitution. Captain Hull, the
conqueror, told his government that the Guerrière
had been totally dismasted and otherwise cut to pieces, so as to
make her not worth towing into port. With four feet of water in
her hold, she was abandoned and blown up. The Constitution
had only the Lieutenant of Marines and six seamen killed, and two
officers, four seamen, and one marine wounded.

On each side there was now something to be proud of and
something to regret. If the British exulted over the fall of
Detroit and the surrender of General Hull, and the United States
viewed these occurrences with indescribable pain and a sense of
humiliation, the Americans could now boast of the success of
their arms at sea, while Britain regretted a disaster upon that
element, on which she had long held and yet holds the undisputed
mastery. There was now no room for the American government, on
the ground of having been too much humiliated, to refuse peace if
it were offered to her. Yet peace was refused. Soon after these
occurrences the news of the repeal of the Orders in Council
reached this continent, and the ground of quarrel being removed,
peace was expected, and an armistice was agreed to between the
British Governor of Canada, Sir George Prevost and General
Dearborn, the American commander-in-chief, on the northern
frontier. But the American government, bent upon the conquest of
this province, disavowed the armistice and determined upon the
vigorous prosecution of the contest. It was then that the
Northern States of the American Union, who were the most likely
to suffer by the war became clamorous for peace. The whole brunt
of the battle, by land, was necessarily to be borne by the State
of New York, and the interruption of the transatlantic traffic
was to fall with overwhelmingly disastrous pressure upon
Massachusetts and Connecticut. Addresses to the President were
sent in, one after another, from the Northeastern States,
expressing dissatisfaction with the war and the utmost abhorrence
of the alliance between imperial France and republican America.
They would have none of it, and if French troops were introduced
into their States, as auxiliaries, New England would look upon
them and would treat them as enemies. Nay, the Northern States
went still further. Two of the States, Connecticut and
Massachusetts, openly refused to send their contingents or to
impose the taxes which had been voted by Congress, and “symptoms
of a decided intention to break off from the confederacy were
already evinced in the four Northern States, comprising New York,
and the most opulent and powerful portions of the Union.”[17]

General Brocke, ignorant of the armistice, and indeed it did
not affect him, for General Hull had acted under the immediate
orders of the American Secretary at War, and was consequently
irresponsible to General Dearborn, with the aid of the
Lilliputian navy of the Lakes, was maintaining the ascendancy of
Great Britain in Upper Canada and Michigan. He was about indeed
to make an attempt upon Niagara, to be followed by another upon
Sackett’s Harbour, with that daring, promptitude and judgment,
which was characteristic of the man, when he received
instructions from the Governor General to rest a little.
Following the advice of the Duke of Wellington, Sir George
Prevost had wisely determined not to make a war of aggression
with the only handful of troops that could be spared to him from
the scene of prouder triumphs and of harder and more important
struggles. But the American government, indifferent to the
menaces of the Northern Provinces of the Union, and mistaking for
weakness the conciliatory advances of Sir George Prevost, soon
disturbed the rest of the gallant Brocke. Early on the morning of
the 13th of October, a detachment of between a thousand and
thirteen hundred men, from the American army of the centre, under
the immediate command of Colonel Solomon Van Rensellaer,[18]
crossed the river Niagara, and attacked the British position of
Queenstown. It was when Van Rensellaer having himself crossed,
and the British had been driven from their position, that General
Brocke, and about six hundred of the 49th regiment, in the grey
of the morning, arrived at the scene of conflict. The Americans
being about the same time reinforced by the addition of regulars
and militia. General Brocke put himself at the head of the 49th’s
Grenadiers, and while gallantly cheering them on, he fell
mortally wounded, and soon after died. His trusty aid-de-camp,
the brave Colonel McDonell, fell beside him, almost at the same
moment, never again to rise in life. The 49th fought stoutly for
a time, but, discouraged by the loss of the General, they fell
back and the position was lost. But the fortune of the day was
not yet decided, although Van Rensellaer, with the aid of Mr.
Totter, his Lieutenant of Engineers, had somewhat strengthened
the recently captured position on the heights. Reinforcements,
consisting partly of regular troops, partly of militia, and
partly of Chippewa Indians, in all about eight or nine hundred
men, came up about three in the afternoon, to strengthen and
encourage the discomfitted 49th, under General Roger Sheaffe, who
now assumed the command. A combined attack was made on the
Americans by the English troops and artillery, in front and
flank, while Norton, with a considerable body of Indians, menaced
their other extremity. It was entirely successful. The Americans
were totally defeated, and one General Officer, (Wadsworth,
commanding in the room of General Van Rensellaer, who had
re-crossed the river to accelerate the embarkation of the
militia, which, though urged, entreated, and commanded to embark,
remained idle spectators, while their countrymen were, as the
American accounts say, struggling for victory,) two
Lieutenant-Colonels, five Majors, and a corresponding number of
Captains and subalterns, with nine hundred men, were made
prisoners; one gun and two colours were taken; and there were
four hundred killed and wounded, while the loss on the side of
the British did not exceed seventy men. Thus was the battle won.
It had cost England an excellent soldier, a man who thoroughly
understood his duty, and felt his position in whatever capacity
he was placed. He died at the age of 42, and the remains of this
gallant defender of Upper Canada were buried at Fort George,
together with those of his aid-de-camp, Colonel McDonell. One
grave contained both. General Brocke was buried amidst the tears
of those whom he had often led to victory, and amidst the
sympathetic sorrowing of even those who had caused his death.
Minute guns were fired during the funeral, alike from the
American as from the British batteries. Thus it was with the
Americans on land. It was, as has been seen, very different on
the sea. And the first rencontre took place on the latter
element. When war was declared it was with the intention of
intercepting the homeward bound West India fleet of British
merchantmen. Three frigates, one sloop, and one brig of war,
under the command of Captain Rogers, of the American frigate
President, were despatched on that errand. It was about
three on the morning of the 23rd of June, that Captain Rogers was
informed, by an American brig, bound from Madeira to New York,
that four days before a fleet of British merchantmen, were seen
under convoy of a frigate and a brig, steering to the eastward.
Captain Rogers accordingly shaped his course in pursuit of them.
At six o’clock in the morning, a sail was descried, which was
soon discovered to be a frigate. The signal was made for a chase,
and the squadron made all sail on the starboard tack. This being
perceived by Captain Byrn, who commanded the British frigate
Belvidera, protecting the convoy, he tacked and made all
sail, steering northeast by east. It was now eight o’clock in the
morning, and the President seemed to be gaining on the
Belvidera, leaving her consorts, however, far behind her.
About half past three in the afternoon, the President
fired three guns, the shot from one of which was terribly
destructive. Two men were killed, and Lieutenant Bruce and four
men were more or less severely wounded. Broadside after broadside
was fired by both vessels soon afterwards, and the
President at last bore off. Each party lost about
twenty-two men, but the British frigate had the advantage. Her
guns were pointed with great skill, and produced a surprising
effect, as the American squadron failed in taking the single
English frigate, and the whole merchantmen escaped untouched.
Indeed after a cruise of twenty days and before the declaration
of hostilities was known at sea, the American squadron returned
to port, having only captured seven merchantmen.