Part 20 (1/2)
The Duke, however, almost atoned for the political narrowness of his administration by the stimulus he brought to the social life of the capital and the sincerity of his belief that by personal influence he could harmonise contending factions. Under his magnificent patronage Chateau St. Louis became once more the scene of lavish hospitality.
Dinners, dances, and theatricals were the order of the day; and fas.h.i.+onable officers, issuing from their quarters in the citadel, found distractions in St. Louis Street and the Grande Allee, due compensation for all they had left at home. For the exiled sportsman, too, there was the racecourse on the Plains of Abraham, riding to the hounds on the uplands of Lorette, snipe at Sillery Cove, and ducks on the St. Charles Flats.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LIEUT.-COLONEL JOHN BY, R. E.
(Founder of Bytown, now Ottawa)]
With pomp and circ.u.mstance the Duke of Richmond made progress through his dominions, everywhere speaking, entertaining, endeavouring to conciliate. He travelled up the St. Lawrence by steamer and thence by canoes along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario to Toronto and Niagara. Next, he undertook the more arduous journey in the course of which he was to meet a tragic end.
The little settlement of Richmond, named after the Governor himself, lay thirty miles from Perth, at some distance west from the Ottawa river. Here, following the trail through the woods, the Duke had penetrated in search of adventure. That night he and his small staff stayed at the village inn, and the next day they started in canoes on their way down to the junction with the Rideau river. Hardly had they commenced their journey, however, when the Duke's actions began to excite alarm. The attendants sought in vain to restrain his violence, and the boats drawing in to sh.o.r.e the party landed. Breaking loose from all control, the Duke plunged into the woods, and was found soon afterwards lying exhausted in a fit of hydrophobia, the result of a bite by a tame fox two months before at Sorel. He died the same night; and the body was presently carried back to Quebec, where for two days it lay in state at the Chateau. An impressive service was held in the English cathedral, and the body of one who had been Canada's most splendid governor since the days of De Tracy and Frontenac, was deposited in the cathedral vault. Minute guns boomed forth from the citadel, and Quebec was plunged from gaiety into mourning.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR PEREGRINE MAITLAND (Lieut.-Governor, Upper Canada, Aug. 1818 to Nov. 1828; also Administrator as Governor for Canada in 1820)]
The social brilliance of the Duke of Richmond's rule, however, could not blind the popular party to the inadequacy of the policy for which he stood; and discontent soon began to take a bitter and dangerous form. The concessions grudgingly doled out by Dalhousie and Kempt, succeeding governors, did not touch the main issue of the question, and even when Lord Aylmer removed the last serious grievance, only withholding from the a.s.sembly the right to vote upon the salaries of civil officers, it might have seemed that there was no further ground for agitation. But the essential grievance lay not so much in material disabilities as in the limitation of the abstract right to self-government; and Joseph Papineau, the eloquent and ardent leader of the movement, summed up his party's political creed in the new watchword--_La nation Canadienne._ Parry and thrust, the fight grew faster, and the temper of the combatants became heated. Papineau was elected to the speakers.h.i.+p of the a.s.sembly, a challenge the Governor answered by prorogation. Next, the Progressives demanded an elective council, and the Government replied that such a step would mean abandoning the province wholly to the French, who were yet unprepared to wield complete popular power, and would moreover endanger the interests of the English minority. The demand was formally rejected by Lord John Russell on the return of Lord Gosford's commission in 1835.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAPPISTS AT MISTa.s.sINI]
The fiery eloquence of Papineau now led the more ardent of his followers to the point of rebellion; and for a time it seemed as if Lower Canada would throw away the name for steadfast loyalty she had earned through so many years. The rebellion of 1837, however, met with no serious support throughout the Province of Canada; and, except as an original centre of agitation, Quebec did not figure in it at all.
At the same time defensive measures were not omitted, the leading citizens, both French and English, forming themselves into a regiment at the disposal of the Governor-General. Parliament House was set apart for a drill-hall and guard-house, and garrison duty was performed here during the whole of an anxious winter. Montreal, however, suffered violence at the hands of a misguided mob; and in the country parishes the _habitants_ were harangued after Ma.s.s on Sunday by deputies of the _Fils de Liberte_. Yet, while they punctuated these fervent addresses with shouts of ”_Vive Papineau_” and ”_Point de despotisme!_” they neither knew nor cared what the struggle for responsible government really meant. In the parishes along the Richelieu, indeed, Papineau and his followers made a greater commotion; but, except in Bellecha.s.se and L'Islet, the contented _habitants_ of the St. Lawrence forgot the seditious procession almost as soon as it pa.s.sed. These ingenuous _enfants du sol_ had no political aspirations beyond the preservation of their religion, their language, and their ancient customs; and, in spite of the bitter prophecies of peripatetic agitators, they refused to believe that their peace and comfort and quiet life were in any real danger from English oppression. The Government easily coped with this fact.i.tious rising, which nowhere reached the importance of an organised revolt.
But while the military problem was soon solved, important political results followed hard upon such palpable tokens of discontent. English ministers now turned most serious attention to the const.i.tutional defects of the colony, and decided to make a full and authoritative inquiry. Gosford's successor, Sir John Colborne, was now recalled; and on April 24th, 1838, the Earl of Durham sailed for Canada as High Commissioner, and he proved to be the keenest statesman, save Frontenac, who had figured in the history of the country.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HON. LOUIS JOSEPH PAPINEAU]
Lord Durham was at this time forty-six years of age, and into that comparatively short life he had already crowded a remarkable political record. At twenty-one he entered the House of Commons as member for the county of Durham, at once identifying himself with the party of parliamentary reform--indeed, he is even credited with the drafting of the first Reform Bill. An experience of five years in the cabinet with Grey and Palmerston, and of two years as amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg, marked him out as a politician and diplomatist of the first rank. A certain stateliness and formality of character appears, however, to have made him many enemies in England, and they did not scruple to gratify their dislike or jealousy during his mission to Canada. Their enmity is echoed in a trivial paragraph in _The Times_, describing an incident which happened on the outward journey:--
”A letter from Portsmouth states that on the evening of Lord Durham's arrival in Portsmouth, his lords.h.i.+p and family dined at one table and his staff at another, in the same room and at the same hour. We suppose we shall soon hear of Lord Durham's reviving the old custom of arranging his guests above and below the salt-cellar.”[46]
On the 27th of May, 1838, H. M. S. _Hastings_ and a squadron of gunboats and frigates dropped anchor in the harbour of Quebec. Flags were flying gaily from tower and bastion to welcome the High Commissioner, who was attended ash.o.r.e by a retinue eclipsing in brilliance even that of the Duke of Richmond, and further guarded by two cavalry regiments, on their way to reinforce the regular forces in the country. As such a suite could not be accommodated in the old Chateau, Parliament House was fitted up as a residence; and here Lord Durham established himself with a magnificence suitable to a monarch, but unusual in a viceroy of Quebec. On his daily drives he was accompanied by three or four equerries in scarlet and gold, who galloped before his carriage to clear the road; and at his frequent entertainments guests received only the most stately hospitality. It is not unnatural that this large ceremony in a new and poor country impaired his influence, and at first increased the difficulties of his mission.
[Footnote 46: _The Times_, 3rd May, 1838.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of Canada 1847-1854.]
The situation was indeed one requiring the wisdom of a ripe diplomatist. Previous to the rebellion of 1837, government had become impossible owing to the antagonism of the racial elements existing together in the province; and on Lord Durham's arrival he found the const.i.tution of the Colony suspended, supreme power being lodged in his own person as High Commissioner, whose slightest indiscretion might lose the vast territory to the Crown. That he was keenly alive to the delicacy of his task is shown by the chivalrous, almost romantic generosity with which he met the natural prejudices of the French, and tolerated their utmost bitterness against his own compatriots; and although this imaginative and liberal spirit met with disapproval from the ruling powers in England, and was finally the cause of his withdrawal, his conciliatory policy was amply justified by the event. Indeed, it is certain that the insular a.s.surance--by no means absent from subsequent public life in England--which prompted Lord Gosford, the previous Governor, to declare that the ulterior object of the French Canadian politicians was ”the separation of this country from England, and the establishment of a republican form of government,” and who met the imaginary demand with a sharp and scornful negative, would soon have brought Canada to the verge of a revolutionary war.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGLISH CATHEDRAL]
The proclamation published immediately on Lord Durham's arrival in Canada gave promise of fair dealing to all parties. ”I invite from you,” he a.s.sures them, ”the most free, unreserved communications. I beg you to consider me as a friend and arbitrator, ready at all times to listen to your wishes, complaints, and grievances. If you, on your side, will abjure all party and sectarian animosities, and unite with me in the blessed work of peace and harmony, I feel a.s.sured that I can lay the foundations of such a system of government as will protect the rights and interests of all cla.s.ses....
”In one province the most deplorable events have rendered the suspension of its representative const.i.tution, unhappily, a matter of necessity; and the supreme power has devolved upon me. The great responsibility which is thereby imposed on me, and the arduous nature of the functions which I have to discharge, naturally make me most anxious to hasten the arrival of that period when the executive power shall again be surrounded by all the const.i.tutional checks of free, liberal, and British inst.i.tutions.”[47]
The problem to be solved is stated and partly solved in the famous report on the affairs of Canada subsequently published by the High Commissioner--perhaps the most remarkable doc.u.ment in British colonial history. It showed the keenest insight into knotted complications, and at the same time it made practical and far-seeing suggestions, which reduced the problem to its simplest terms, and prepared the way for a legislative union upon a sovereign scale, and with a provincial autonomy having the happiest results.
”I expected,” he declared, ”to find a contest between a government and a people; I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state.”
[Footnote 47: _Quebec Gazette_, 29th May, 1838.]
Nor could any lasting reform be accomplished unless the hostile divisions of Lower Canada were first reconciled. As far as the French population were concerned, he found an explanation of their antagonism, not so much in their unjust exclusion from political power, as in the grudging and churlish patronage with which privileges were one by one conceded; while, on the other hand, the Loyalists were intolerant to a degree, regarding every favour shown to their rivals as a slight put upon themselves, and professing principles which were thus summed up by one of their leaders: ”Lower Canada must be _English_ at the expense, if necessary, of not being _British_.”
Elsewhere Lord Durham confesses the overbearing character of Anglo-Saxon manners, especially offensive to a proud and sensitive people, who showed their resentment, not by active reprisal, but by a strange and silent reserve. The same confession might still be made concerning a section of English-speaking Canadians, who seem to consider it a personal grievance that French Canadians should speak the French language. Lord Durham would probably have reminded them that conquest does not mean that birthright, language, and custom, spirit and racial pride, are spoils and confiscations of the conqueror.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord Lisgar.
Governor General of Canada 1868-1872.]