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Title: Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government
Author: Leacock, Stephen Butler (1869-1944)
Illustrator: Anonymous
Date of first publication: 1907
Edition used as base for this ebook:
  London: T. C. & E. C. Jack;
  Toronto: Morang & Co., Limited, 1907
   [The Makers of Canada]
Date first posted: 18 September 2010
Date last updated: 18 September June 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #617

This ebook was produced by:
Marcia Brooks, Ross Cooling
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




  THE MAKERS OF CANADA

  EDITED BY

  DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT, F.R.S.C.,
  PELHAM EDGAR, Ph.D. and
  WILLIAM DAWSON LE SUEUR, B.A., LL.D., F.R.S.C.




  BALDWIN LAFONTAINE HINCKS




  _This work is limited to One Hundred and Twenty Sets for the United
  Kingdom, Signed and Numbered._

  _Number_ 60




[Illustration: autograph Rob^t Baldwin]




  _THE MAKERS OF CANADA_
  ----------------------

  BALDWIN
  LAFONTAINE
  HINCKS


  RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT



  BY

  STEPHEN LEACOCK



  LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK

  TORONTO: MORANG & CO., LIMITED

  1907




  PREFACE


In the present volume the narrative of personal biography is
subordinated to the record of political achievement. The name of Robert
Baldwin and that of his distinguished colleague Louis LaFontaine will
always be associated with the words responsible government. Baldwin was
frequently derided by his contemporaries as a "man of one idea." Time
has shown that this "one idea" of Robert Baldwin,--the conception of
responsible government,--has proved the corner-stone of the British
imperial system. It is fitting, therefore, that this brief account of
the political career of Robert Baldwin and his associates should centre
round the evolution of responsible government in the province of Canada.
In other works of the present series the periods of Canadian history
preceding and following the LaFontaine-Baldwin administrations have
already been treated. The biography of Papineau, already published, and
the forthcoming biography of William Lyon Mackenzie offer an ample
account of the stirring events of the rebellion. Sir John Bourinot in
his _Lord Elgin_ and Mr. Lewis in his _George Brown_ have told the story
of the administration of Hincks and Morin after the retirement of their
former chiefs. The present narrative is therefore especially concerned
with the two LaFontaine-Baldwin ministries and with the great political
controversy during the administration of Sir Charles Metcalfe.

The author desires to express his sincere thanks for the very valuable
assistance and useful suggestions received from Dr. James Bain,
Librarian of the Toronto Public Library, and from Mr. Charles Gould,
Librarian of McGill University. The author owes much also to the
kindness of Dr. A. G. Doughty, C.M.G., Archivist of the Dominion
Government.

  STEPHEN LEACOCK.
  _McGill University_,
  _July 31st, 1906._




  CONTENTS


  _CHAPTER I_                                        Page

  INTRODUCTORY                                          1

  _CHAPTER II_

  THE MODERATE REFORMERS AND THE CANADIAN REBELLION    23

  _CHAPTER III_

  THE UNION OF THE CANADAS                             51

  _CHAPTER IV_

  LORD SYDENHAM AND RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT             73

  _CHAPTER V_

  THE FIRST LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY               113

  _CHAPTER VI_

  THE COMING OF METCALFE                              155

  _CHAPTER VII_

  THE METCALFE CRISIS                                 199

  _CHAPTER VIII_

  IN OPPOSITION                                       249

  _CHAPTER IX_

  THE SECOND LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY              281

  _CHAPTER X_

  THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL                           305

  _CHAPTER XI_

  THE END OF THE MINISTRY                             335


  INDEX                                               363




  CHAPTER I

  INTRODUCTORY


From the time of the surrender of Canada by the capitulation of
Vaudreuil at Montreal in 1760, the government of the province presented
an unsolved problem, whose difficulties finally culminated in the
outbreak of 1837. In the beginning the country was entirely French, an
appanage of the British Crown by right of conquest. Its population, some
seventy thousand in number, thinly spread along the valley of the St.
Lawrence, was almost entirely an agricultural peasantry. Ignorant and
illiterate as they were, they cherished towards their Church an
unfailing devotion, while a stubborn pride of nationality remained with
them as a heritage from the great country from which they had sprung. Of
initial loyalty to the British Crown there could be no question. Still
less could there be any question of self-government. Military rule was
established as a necessity of the situation. Even when, in 1764, a year
after the final treaty of cession, the purely military rule was
superseded by the institution of an executive council, this body
consisted merely of a group of officials appointed by the governor of
the province. Nor is it to be said that this form of government was of
itself an injustice. The inhabitants of French Canada had known nothing
of political rights[1] or representative institutions. Only in rare
cases had offices, favour, or promotion been bestowed upon native
Canadians. Even the Church itself, in spite of its democratic tradition
in favour of capacity and zeal, had withheld all superior offices from
the children of the humble peasantry of the St. Lawrence. To have
instituted among such a people a system of democratic self-government on
the morrow of the conquest, could only have ended in chaos and disaster.

[Footnote 1: Kingsford, _History of Canada_, Vol. IX., pp. 190 _et
seq._]

The government thus established by royal proclamation was systematized
and consolidated by the British parliament through the Quebec Act of
1774.[2] This statute established in Canada a province of magnificent
extent. Northward it extended to the Hudson Bay Territory; on the south
it bordered New England, New York, Pennsylvania and the Ohio; westward
it reached to where all trace of civilization ended with the Mississippi
River. The Ohio valley was already dotted here and there in its forests
and open meadow lands with the cabins of adventurous settlers. Of the
rest of Canada the valley of the St. Lawrence was the only occupied
part. Thither had come already, since the conquest, a few British
immigrants, for the most part small traders[3] and needy adventurers.
The upper portion of the province was still a wilderness. The Quebec
Act restored to the country the old French civil law, the "_Coutume de
Paris_," under which it had lived before the conquest. It retained the
English criminal law. It repeated the guarantee of freedom of worship
already extended to the adherents of the Roman Catholic Church, and, in
permitting to the clergy of that Church the enjoyment of their
"accustomed dues and rights," it legalized the collection of the
tithe.[4] The government was committed to a governor with a legislative
council to be nominated by the Crown, to which was added by
Major-General Carleton (1776), in accordance with instructions from
England, an executive (or privy) council of five members. The Act
declared it "inexpedient to call an assembly." Fox, indeed, pleaded in
the House of Commons in favour of representative institutions, but was
met with the argument that a Protestant government could not safely
entrust power to a Roman Catholic legislature.[5]

[Footnote 2: 14 Geo. III., c. 83.]

[Footnote 3: See V. Coffin, _The Province of Quebec and the Early
American Revolution_ (1896), Ch. II. pp. 303 _et seq._]

[Footnote 4: The tithe was, however, only to be collected from persons
professing the Roman Catholic religion.]

[Footnote 5: Sir H. Cavendish, _Debates on the Quebec Act_, (1839), pp.
246-8.]

It is a disputed point how far the concessions thus granted to the
French were adopted as a means of preserving the country from the
infection of the revolutionary discontent, widespread in the colonies of
the Atlantic sea-board, and of preventing the French _habitant_ from
making common cause with the malcontents of New England and Virginia.
Such, if not the purpose, was at any rate the effect of the Act. The
pulpits of Massachusetts were loud with denunciation of the toleration
of popery embodied in the statute. The American congress (September 5th,
1774) expressed its alarm in documentary form, and the small British
minority already settled in Lower Canada forwarded to England a petition
of energetic protest. The fact that the British government, in the face
of bigoted opposition, passed and maintained the statute which stands as
the charter of religious liberty for Roman Catholic Canada, may be said
to have laid the foundation of that firm attachment of the Canadian
French to the Crown, which, after the lapse of four generations, has
become one of the fundamental factors of the political life of Canada.
The effect of the Act in preventing the adherence of the _habitants_ to
the cause of the American revolution is undoubted. The clergy of the
province threw the whole weight of their influence in favour of the
British side. The agitators sent into the country found but few
sympathizers of influence, and the attempt at military conquest ended in
failure.

The issue of the Revolutionary War and the separation of the revolted
colonies from Great Britain had a momentous effect upon the destinies of
British North America. That province now became a haven of refuge for
the distressed Loyalists, who abandoned the United States in thousands
rather than sever their allegiance from their mother country. Of these
nearly thirty thousand found their way into the Maritime Provinces.
Others, ascending the St. Lawrence or coming by Lake Champlain, settled
in the Eastern Townships of Quebec or near to Montreal itself. Still
others, pushing their way up the river or passing over the rough
wagon-trails of the forest country of New York, embarked on Lake Ontario
to find new homes upon its northern shores. Liberal grants of land were
made. Settlements sprang up along the Bay of Quint, on the Niagara
frontier, on the Grand River, on the Thames and as far west as the
Detroit River. By the year 1791 there were some thirty thousand settlers
in the districts thus thrown open. The newcomers, impoverished as most
of them were, made excellent pioneers. Their conviction of the
righteousness of their cause lent vigour to their arduous struggle with
the wilderness. The sound of the axe resounded amid the stillness of the
pine forest; farmsteads and hamlets arose on the shores of the lake and
beside its tributary streams. But with the coming of the Loyalists
Canada became a divided country. The population of the upper country was
British, that of the lower, French. French law and custom seemed to the
new settlers anomalous and unjust. British Protestantism was abhorrent
to the devout Catholics of French Canada. The new settlers, too,
accustomed to the political freedom which they had enjoyed in the
colonies of their origin, chafed under autocratic control, and in
repeated petitions demanded of the home government the privilege of a
representative assembly.[6]

[Footnote 6: _Canadian Archives_, Q. 24. 1. pp., 76, 232.]

To meet this situation the British parliament adopted the Constitutional
Act of 1791,[7] by which the province was separated into two distinct
governments under the names of Upper and Lower Canada. It was presumed
that a natural solution of the vexed question of British and French
rivalry had thus been found. "I hope," said Pitt, "that this settlement
will put an end to the competition between the old French inhabitants
and the new settlers from Britain and the British colonies." Burke at
the same time expressed the opinion that "to attempt to amalgamate two
populations composed of races of men diverse in language, laws, and
customs, was a complete absurdity."[8] To each province was given a
legislature consisting of two Houses, the Lower House, or assembly,
being elected by the people, the Upper, called the legislative council,
being nominated for life by the Crown. By the Crown also were to be
appointed all public officers of each district, including the
governor-general of the two provinces, the lieutenant-governor who
conducted the administration of Upper Canada, and the members of the
executive councils which aided in the administration of each province.
The British parliament reserved to itself the right of imposing duties
for the regulation of navigation and commerce. The free exercise of the
Roman Catholic religion was again guaranteed. It was further enacted
that the Crown should set apart one-eighth of all the unallotted Crown
land in the province for the maintenance of the Protestant clergy, a
provision which subsequently entailed the most serious consequences.

[Footnote 7: 31 Geo. III. c. 31.]

[Footnote 8: See _Parliamentary History_. Vol. xxvii, p. 1271, Vol.
xxxix, pp. 359-459.]

The measure was undoubtedly liberal, and at the time of its passage
furnished an instrument of government well suited to the requirements of
the situation. It was intended to extend to Canada something of the
degree of political liberty enjoyed by the people of Great Britain. Its
object was declared by Lord Grenville,[9] to be to "assimilate the
constitution of Canada to that of Great Britain as nearly as the
difference arising from the manners of the people and from the present
situation of the province will admit." Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe,
speaking to his "parliament" of twenty-three members in the rough
frame-house at Niagara where first they met, spoke of the new government
as "an image and transcript of the British constitution."[10] For some
years, indeed, after the adoption of the new constitution, the
government of the provinces was carried on with reasonable success and a
fair amount of harmony. Had the constitution been of a more flexible
character and had the conduct of the administration been adapted to the
progressive settlement of the country, its success might have continued
indefinitely. The incoming century found a contented country;[11] wealth
and population were on the increase. A tide of immigration from Scotland
and Ireland turned steadily towards Upper Canada. Pennsylvania farmers
crossed the lakes to find new homes in the fertile land of the province.
The little hamlet of York, on the site of the old Indian post of
Toronto, became the seat of government. To the north of it a wide,
straight road, called Yonge Street in honour of the secretary of war,
carried the tide of settlement towards Lake Simcoe. At the head of Lake
Ontario, Dundas Street ran from the settlement at Hamilton to the
Thames, and presently was opened eastward as far as York. The
inhabitants of the province in the year 1811 were estimated at
seventy-seven thousand.[12] Into Lower Canada also British immigrants had
come in considerable numbers. Ere long it began to appear that the
racial conflict, which it was the intention of the Act of 1791 to
obviate, had but shifted its ground and was renewed with increasing
bitterness in the province of Lower Canada. The War of 1812, in which
the energies of both French and British settlers were absorbed in
repelling American invasion, stilled for the time the internal conflict
of races. But with the renewal of peace the political difficulties of
both Upper and Lower Canada assumed an increasingly serious aspect.

[Footnote 9: Letter to Lord Dorchester, Oct. 20th, 1789.]

[Footnote 10: Consult D. B. Read, _Life and Times of Governor Simcoe_,
Ch. XI. and D. C. Scott, _John Graves Simcoe_ (Makers of Canada Series)
(1905), Ch. VI.]

[Footnote 11: McMullen, _History of Canada_ (1868), pp. 222 _et seq._]

[Footnote 12: J. Bouchette, _British Dominions in North America_ (1832),
Vol. I. p. 108.]

The political situation in the two provinces in the twenty years
succeeding the peace of 1815 presented analogous, though not identical,
features. In each of them the fact that the executive was not under the
control of the representatives of the people constituted the main cause
of complaint. But in the Lower Province the situation was aggravated by
the fact that the executive heads of the administration were identified
with the interests of the British minority and opposed to the dominance
of the French-Canadians. Even in Upper Canada, however, the position of
affairs was bad enough. The actual administration of the province was in
the hands of the lieutenant-governor and his executive council of five,
later of seven, members, a wholly irresponsible body of placemen
appointed by the Crown from among the judges, public officers and
members of the legislative council. Of the legislature itself the Upper
House, or legislative council, was, as already said, a nominated body.
Under such circumstances the political control of the colony had passed
into the hands of a privileged class who engrossed the patronage of the
Crown, received liberal grants of land and were able to bid defiance to
the efforts of the assembly to free itself from oligarchical control.

Had the constitution been in any real sense a "transcript" of the
constitution of Great Britain, the assembly might have fallen back upon
the power of the purse as an effective method of political control. But
this remedy, under the system in vogue, was inadequate, owing to the
fact that the assembly possessed only a limited power over the finances
of the colony. The Crown was in enjoyment of a permanent civil list.
Exclusive of the revenue from the clergy reserve, it had at its disposal
a patronage of fifty thousand pounds a year. Local expenditure within
the province was under the direction of magistrates appointed by the
Crown meeting in Quarter Session.[13] The legislative council itself
claimed the right to reject, and even to amend, the money bills passed
by the representatives of the people. Under such circumstances the House
of Assembly found itself deprived of any effective means of forcing its
wishes upon the administration.[14] Quite early in the history of the
period, it had vigorously protested against the impotence to which it
was reduced. In an address presented to the acting governor in 1818, the
assembly drew attention to the "evil that must result from the
legislative and executive functions being materially vested in the same
persons, as is unfortunately the case in this province, where His
Majesty's executive council is almost wholly composed of the legislative
body, and consisting only of the deputy superintendent-general of the
Indian department, the receiver-general and the inspector-general, the
chief-justice, the speaker of the legislative council, and the
honourable and reverend chaplain of that House." The essence of the
financial situation appears in the famous Seventh Report of the
Committee on Grievances[15] drawn up in 1835. "Such is the patronage of
the colonial office," it declares, "that the granting or withholding of
supplies is of no political importance, unless as an indication of the
opinion of the country concerning the character of the government."

[Footnote 13: See in this connection C. Lindsey, _Life and Times of
William Lyon Mackenzie_ (1862), Vol. I., pp. 330-2.]

[Footnote 14: Kingsford, Vol. IX., pp. 216 _et seq._]

[Footnote 15: The report was published in detail by M. Reynolds, King's
Printer, Toronto (1835), and contains an index and much valuable
material. It must, of course, be remembered that the report is a
document of a partisan character, but the quotation in the text above
may be accepted as representing the situation.]

It has become customary to apply to the privileged class who thus
engrossed political power and office in the colony of Upper Canada, the
term Family Compact. The designation itself appears to be, in
strictness, a misnomer, for there existed among the ruling class no
further family relationship than what might naturally be expected in a
community whose seat of government contained, even in 1830, only two
thousand eight hundred and sixty persons. But it is undoubted that, from
1815 onwards, the members of the administration with their friends and
adherents formed a distinct political party united by ties of mutual
interest and social cohesion, determined to retain the influence they
had acquired, and regarding the protests of the plainer people of the
province with a certain supercilious contempt. Nor is it to be supposed
that the adherents of the Family Compact embodied in themselves the very
essence of tyranny. They represented merely, within their restricted
sphere, those principles of class government and vested interests which
were still the dominant political factor in every country of Europe. Of
the high moral quality and sterling patriotism of such men as Robinson,
the attorney-general, there can be no doubt. The exaggerated diatribes
of the indignant Radicals in which the ruling class figure as the "tools
of servile power,"[16] are as wide of the mark as the later denunciations
launched against the party of Reform.

[Footnote 16: Mackenzie's _Colonial Advocate_, No. I. Compare the
petition prepared for presentation to the home government by Robert
Fleming Gourlay, whose agitation in the second decade of the century was
one of the first expressions of the gathering discontent: "Corruption,
indeed, has reached such a height in this province that it is thought no
part of the British empire witnesses the like."]

The growing agitation in Upper Canada presently found an energetic
leader in William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scotchman of humble parentage. Born
at Springfield in Forfarshire in 1795, he came in 1820 to try his
fortunes in Canada. He set up in business in a small way at the village
of York, removing presently to Dundas. It is typical of the restricted
commercial life of the time that Mackenzie and his partner dealt in
drugs, hardware, jewelry, toys, confections, dye stuffs and paints, and
maintained in addition a circulating library. From Dundas, Mackenzie
moved to Queenston. Interested from the first in the political affairs
of the colony, he started in 1824 the publication of the _Colonial
Advocate_, the first number of which, distributed gratuitously through
the countryside, commenced an unsparing attack upon the governing class.
Its editor, the "westernmost journalist in the British dominions on the
continent of America," assumed, as he himself subsequently expressed it,
"the office of a public censor." He denounced the Family Compact and all
its works. He denounced the jobbery of the public land. He denounced the
land monopoly of the Church of England, the lack of schools, the
perversion of justice and the greed of the official class. The
appearance of the _Colonial Advocate_ aided in consolidating the party
of Reform. In the elections of 1824 they carried a majority of the seats
in the House of Assembly, a victory which only served to reveal the
impotence of the opposition in the face of the established system. Dr.
Rolph, elected for Middlesex, the stalwart Peter Perry, member for
Lennox and Addington, and other leaders of the Reform party, found they
could do little beyond selecting a farmer speaker of their own liking
and passing resolutions condemning the existing conduct of affairs. None
the less their presence as a majority of the House remained as a
standing protest and threw into a clearer light the irresponsible
position of the executive.[17] The better to aid their opposition
Mackenzie moved his printing presses to York. The virulence of his pen
awoke embittered opposition in return. His printing office was sacked in
broad daylight by a gang of young men whom his biographer has called an
"official mob." A lawsuit ensued with mutual recriminations, followed
presently by prosecutions for libel. Mackenzie, in historic phrase,
denounced the minority party in the assembly as an "ominous nest of
unclean birds," and invited the people of Upper Canada to sweep them
from the "halls that have been so long and shamefully defiled with their
abominations."

[Footnote 17: A list of the members of the assembly is given by Lindsey,
_op. cit._ p. 59.]

The provincial quarrel went from bad to worse. The election of 1828
again returned a majority of Reformers, this time including Mackenzie
himself. Resolutions of grievances were presented to the House. A select
committee on grievances, of which Mackenzie was chairman, was called
upon to report. A new lieutenant-governor in the person of Sir John
Colborne, a tried soldier and a veteran of Waterloo, appeared on the
scene (1828). Him the assembly hastened to warn against the "unhappy
policy they [the executive council] had pursued in the late
administration." The assembly asserted its right to the full control of
the revenue and demanded (1830) the dismissal of the executive
councillors. "Gentlemen," was the curt reply of Sir John, "I thank you
for your address." In the election of 1830, following on the death of
George III, the party of the Compact, aided by an influx of British
immigrants, regained a majority of the assembly. Mackenzie, elected for
the county of York, was expelled from the House for libel and branded as
a "reptile unworthy of the notice of any gentleman."[18] Relected by his
constituents, he was again expelled and declared disqualified to sit in
the existing parliament, a proceeding which occasioned wild tumult in
the village capital, with sympathetic meetings in the other settlements
of the colony. The Tory party retaliated, perpetrated a second attack on
the printing office of the _Advocate_, and burned Mackenzie in effigy in
the streets of York. Mackenzie, seizing the moment of martyrdom, sailed
for England laden with indignant petitions from his constituents and
their sympathizers, (April, 1832). The signatures on the documents
numbered twenty-five thousand, but the counter-petitions forwarded by
the party of the Compact were subscribed with twenty-six thousand names.
Mackenzie received at the colonial office a not unfavourable hearing.
Lord Goderich, the colonial secretary, forwarded to the colony a
censorious despatch, characterized by the indignant Tories as an
"elegant piece of fiddle faddle." Hagerman, the solicitor-general, was
removed from office, only to be restored when Lord Goderich gave place
to Mr. Stanley. Boulton, the attorney-general, was permanently removed.
Beyond this nothing of account was done by the home government to remedy
the situation in the colony. Mackenzie on his return again presented
himself to his constituents for election, (December 16th, 1833), only to
be again expelled from the House. The general election of the ensuing
year, (October, 1834), resulted in the return of a majority of the Reform
party to the House, Mackenzie being among those then elected. Opposition
to the oligarchical system now became more and more pronounced. A
"Canadian Alliance Society" was founded at York, (henceforth
incorporated as a city and known as Toronto), whose political programme
opened with the demand for responsible government and the abolition of
the nominated legislative council. A select committee on grievances,
appointed by the assembly, drew up a voluminous report, in which the
misgovernment of Upper Canada was scathingly reviewed. Such was the
position of affairs in the province at the time when Sir Francis Bond
Head entered upon his momentous administration.

[Footnote 18: A phrase used by Solicitor-General Hagerman. See _Colonial
Advocate_, Dec. 15th, 1831.]

During the same period a still more aggravated situation had been
developed in Lower Canada. Here the conflict represented something more
than a struggle between an office-holding minority and the excluded
masses. It was a conflict intensified by the full bitterness of racial
and religious antagonism. It was not merely as in Upper Canada, (to use
the historic phrases of Lord Durham), "a contest between a government
and a people;" the spectacle presented was that of "two nations warring
in the bosom of a single state," a "struggle, not of principles, but of
races."[19] The British minority in the province, insignificant in the
early years of the new rgime, had grown constantly in numbers and
influence. The incoming of the United Empire Loyalists and of immigrants
from the mother country had swelled the ranks of a party which, though
small in proportion, was determined to assert its claims against the
preponderating race. British merchants controlled the bulk of the
sea-going trade of the colony.[20] An Anglican bishop of Quebec had been
appointed (1793), and an Anglican cathedral erected (1804) on the site
of an ancient convent of the Rcollets. The governors of the province
looked to the British party for support, and selected from its ranks the
majority of their legislative and executive councillors. In the minds of
the latter the French-Canadians still figured as a conquered people
whose claims to political ascendency were equivalent to disloyalty. The
blundering patriotism of such a governor as Craig (1807-11), widened the
cleavage between the rival races and intensified in the minds of the
French inhabitants the sentiment of their national solidarity. Excluded
from the control of the executive government, the French fell back upon
the assembly in which they commanded an easy and permanent majority. Nor
were they, although in opposition, altogether powerless against the
government. The public revenue of Lower Canada during the period under
review was raised, in part by virtue of imperial statutes,[21] in part by
the provincial legislature itself. To these sources of income were added
the "casual and territorial" revenue of the Crown arising from the
Jesuits' Estates, the postal service, the land and timber sales and
other minor items. The duties raised by the imperial government,[22]
together with the casual and territorial revenue, were inadequate to
meet the public expenditure, and it was necessary, therefore, to have
recourse to the votes of supply passed by the House of Assembly. The
House of Assembly, dominated by the French-Canadian party, made full use
of the power thus placed in its hands. It insisted (1818) that the
detailed items of expenditure should be submitted to its consideration.
It asserted its claim to appropriate not merely the revenue raised by
its own act, but the whole expenditure of the province. It insisted on
voting the civil list from year to year, refusing to vote a permanent
provision for the salaried servants of the Crown. On each point it met
with a determined opposition, not only from the governor-general but
from the legislative council, whose existence thus began to appear as
the main obstacle to that full control of the province which had become
the avowed aim of the popular party.

[Footnote 19: _Report of the Earl of Durham_, (Ed. 1902) p. 8.]

[Footnote 20: D. B. Read, _Rebellion of 1837_, p. 49.]

[Footnote 21: 14 Geo. III. c. 88, and later 3 Geo. IV. c. 119.]

[Footnote 22: The appropriation of this revenue was surrendered in 1831.]

With the advent of Lord Dalhousie as governor-general (1820) the quarrel
between the two branches of the legislature and the conflict of races
from which it had sprung, reached an acute stage. Dalhousie, one of
Wellington's veterans, was more fitted for the camp than the council
chamber, a disciplinarian devoid of diplomacy who naturally upheld the
side of the British party and discountenanced the financial claims of
the assembly.[23] Meantime the occasion had found the man, and a leader
had appeared well-fitted to head the agitation in the province.
Louis-Joseph Papineau, born in Montreal in 1789, had been elected to the
assembly in 1812 and early distinguished himself by the brilliance of
his oratory. In 1815 he was elected speaker of the House, a position
which he filled with decorum until the trend of affairs under the
Dalhousie administration aroused him to virulent and sustained
opposition to the governing class. From now on, petitions and addresses
for redress of grievances in Lower Canada poured in upon the imperial
government. The French-Canadian press roused the simple farmers of the
countryside with the cry of national rights; even a certain minority of
the English residents, led by such men as Cuthbert of Berthier and
Neilson of Quebec, in close alliance with Papineau, made common cause
with the French for a reform of the government of the province. On the
other hand, the adherents of the ruling powers openly expressed their
desire to rid the country of every vestige of French control. "This
province" the Quebec _Mercury_ had said as long ago as 1810, "is far too
French for a British colony. After forty-seven years' possession it is
now fitting that the province become truly British." Such indeed had
become the avowed policy of the dominant faction. Papineau, supported
alike by the people, the clergy[24] and the majority of the assembly,
became emphatically the man of the hour and figured as the open
adversary of the governor-general. A petition signed with eighty-seven
thousand names was forwarded (1827) to the home government. Dalhousie,
departing in 1828 to take command of the forces in India, was succeeded
by Sir James Kempt whose efforts at conciliation proved unavailing. In
vain the imperial government surrendered its control over the proceeds
of its customs duties (1831). The assembly refused to grant a permanent
civil list and the leaders of the popular party clamoured for the
abolition of the nominated Upper House. Against such a measure of
reform, which appeared out of harmony with monarchical institutions, the
British ministry resolutely set its face. Stanley, the colonial
secretary, hinted that the government might be forced to curtail even
the existing privileges of its colonial subjects. Aroused to furious
opposition the assembly adopted the famous "Ninety-two resolutions,"
indicating a long catalogue of grievances and denouncing the existence
of the Upper House (February 21st, 1834). The elections of 1834 were
attended with riots and tumultuous gatherings. Revolutionary committees
sprang into being. Votes of supplies since 1832 had come to a full stop
and the governor, Lord Aylmer, (1831-5), had been driven to pay salaries
by loans taken from the war chest. The malcontents of French Canada
corresponded busily with the "patriot" party of the Upper Province. The
current of the two movements ran side by side with increasing swiftness,
approaching rapidly the vortex of insurrection.

[Footnote 23: See A. D. DeCelles, _Papineau_, (Makers of Canada Series)
1904. Ch. VI.]

[Footnote 24: DeCelles, _op. cit._ p. 61.]




  CHAPTER II

  THE MODERATE REFORMERS AND THE CANADIAN REBELLION


Such was the environment in which Robert Baldwin and his future
colleagues in the Reform ministry of Canada, entered upon political
life. The Baldwins were sprung from an Irish family resident on a little
property called Summer Hill, near Carragoline, in the county of Cork.
The father of Robert Baldwin had come out to Canada with his father
(himself a Robert Baldwin) in 1798. The family settled on a tract of
land on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in the present county of
Durham, where Robert Baldwin (senior) set himself manfully to work to
clear and cultivate a farm to which he gave the name of Annarva.[25] His
eldest son, William Warren Baldwin, did not, however, remain upon the
homestead. He had already received at the University of Edinburgh a
degree in medicine and, anxious to turn his professional training to
account, he went to the little village of York. Here he took up his
abode with a Mr. Wilcocks of Duke Street, an Irish friend of his family,
who had indeed been instrumental in inducing the Baldwins to come to
Canada. In a pioneer colony like the Upper Canada of that day, the
health of the community is notoriously sound, and Dr. Baldwin soon saw
that the profession of medicine at York could offer but a precarious
livelihood. He determined, therefore, to supplement it with
school-teaching and inserted in the _Gazette_ an announcement of his
intention to open a classical school:--"Dr. Baldwin, understanding that
some gentlemen of this town have expressed an anxiety for the
establishment of a classical school, begs leave to inform them and the
public that he intends on Monday, the first of January next [1803], to
open a school in which he will instruct twelve boys in writing, reading,
classics and arithmetic. The terms are, for each boy, eight guineas per
annum, to be paid quarterly or half yearly; one guinea entrance and one
cord of wood to be supplied by each of the boys on opening the school."
It is interesting to note that among the earliest of Dr. Baldwin's
pupils was John Robinson, distinguished later as a leading spirit in the
Family Compact and chief-justice of the province.

[Footnote 25: The details which follow are taken from the _Memorial of
the Baldwin Family_, (_Archives of Canada_, M. 393) and from the
_Canadian Portrait Gallery_, published at Toronto, 1881.]

School-teaching with the ambitious Irishman was, however, only a means
to an end. The legal profession, then in its infancy in the colony,
offered a more lucrative and a more honourable field, and for this in
his leisure hours Baldwin hastened to prepare himself. Indeed no very
arduous preparation or profound knowledge was needed in those days for
admission to the legal fraternity of "Muddy York." A summary
examination, conducted in person by the chief-justice of the province,
was all that was required of Baldwin as a candidate for the bar, and on
April 6th, 1803, he was admitted as a duly qualified practitioner. His
entry upon his new profession was signalized by his marriage in the same
year with Miss Phoebe Wilcocks, a daughter of the family friend with
whom he had lived. The newly married couple took up their quarters in a
new house on the corner of Frederick and Palace Streets,[26] the latter a
street running parallel with the shore of the bay and receiving its
grandiloquent name from the expectation that it would presently become
the site of a gubernatorial "palace." In this house Robert Baldwin,
eldest son of William Warren Baldwin was born on May 12th, 1804.

[Footnote 26: Palace Street is the present Front Street.]

Little need be said of Robert Baldwin's youth and school days. By no
means a precocious child, he was distinguished at school rather for a
painstaking diligence than for exceptional natural aptitude. He received
his education at the Home District Grammar School, at the head of which
was Dr. John Strachan, then rector of York and subsequently
distinguished as Bishop of Toronto and champion of the Anglican
interest. Baldwin's conscientious industry presently made him "head boy"
of the Grammar School, from whose walls he passed with credit to enter
upon the study of the law (1819). After spending some years in his
father's office, he was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 1825, and
became a partner in his father's business under the firm name of "W. W.
Baldwin and Son." The fortunes of the elder Baldwin had in the meantime
rapidly improved. Not only had he met with success in his dual
profession, but he had the good fortune to fall heir to the property of
a Miss Elizabeth Russell, a distant connection of the Baldwins, and
sister to a certain Peter Russell, a bygone magnate of the little colony
whose extensive estates she had herself inherited and now bequeathed to
William Baldwin. Desirous to use his new found wealth for the foundation
of a family estate,[27] Dr. Baldwin purchased a considerable tract of
land to the north of the little town on the summit of the hill
overlooking the present city of Toronto. To this property the name
"Spadina" was given, and the wide road opened by Dr. Baldwin southward
through a part of the Russell estate was christened Spadina Avenue.

[Footnote 27: "His purpose was to establish in Canada a family whose head
was to be maintained in opulence by the proceeds of an entailed estate.
There was to be forever a Baldwin of Spadina." H. Scadding, _Toronto of
Old_, p. 66. The same work contains many interesting details in
reference to the Baldwin residences and some account of the "closing
exercises" of Dr. Strachan's school (Aug. 11-12, 1819) at which Robert
Baldwin delivered a "prologue." _Op. cit._ Index. Art. Baldwin.]

Both father and son were keenly interested in the political affairs of
the province. The elder Baldwin was a Liberal and prominent among the
Reformers who, even before the advent of William Lyon Mackenzie,
denounced the oligarchical control of the Family Compact. But he was at
the same time profoundly attached to the British connection and averse
by temperament to measures of violence. While making common cause with
the Mackenzie faction in the furtherance of better government, Dr.
Baldwin and his associates were nevertheless separated from the extreme
wing of the Reformers by all the difference that lies between the Whig
and the Radical. The political aims were limited to converting the
constitution of the colony into a real, and not merely a nominal,
transcript of the British constitution. To effect this, it seemed only
necessary to render the executive officers of the government responsible
to the popular House of the legislature in the same way as the British
cabinet stands responsible to the House of Commons. This one reform
accomplished, the other grievances of the colonists would find a natural
and immediate redress. Robert Baldwin sympathized entirely with the
political views of his father. Moderate by nature, he had no sympathy
with the desire of the Radical section of the party to abolish the
legislative council, or to assimilate the institutions of the country to
those of the United States. The Alpha and Omega of his programme of
political reform lay in the demand for the introduction of responsible
government. His opponents, even some of his fellow Reformers, taunted
him with being a "man of one idea." Viewed in the clearer light of
retrospect it is no reproach to his political insight that his "one
idea" proved to be that which ultimately saved the situation and which
has since become the corner stone of the British colonial system.

The year 1829 may be said to mark the commencement of Robert Baldwin's
public life. He had already taken part in election committees and was
known as one of the rising young men among the moderate Reformers. He
had, moreover, in the election of 1828, unsuccessfully offered himself
as a candidate for the county of York. But in 1829 we find him figuring
as the draftsman of the petition addressed to George IV in connection
with the Willis affair. Willis, an English barrister of some prominence,
had been appointed in 1827 to be one of the judges of the court of
king's bench in Upper Canada. While holding that office he had held
aloof from the faction of the Family Compact and had thereby incurred
the displeasure of the authorities, who had become accustomed to view
the judges as among their necessary adherents. A technical pretext being
found,[28] Sir Peregrine Maitland dismissed Willis from office. The cause
of the latter was at once espoused by the Reform party. A public meeting
of protest was called at York under the chairmanship of Dr. Baldwin, and
a petition drawn up addressed "to the king's most excellent Majesty, and
to the several other branches of the imperial and provincial
legislatures." The petition is said to have been drafted, at least in
part, by Robert Baldwin. The occasion was considered a proper one, not
only for protesting against the injustice done to Judge Willis, but for
drawing the attention of the Crown to the numerous evils from which the
colony was suffering. The list of grievances, arranged under eleven
heads, included the already familiar protests against the obstructive
action of the legislative council, the precarious tenure of the judicial
offices, and the financial extravagance and favouritism of the executive
government. Of especial importance is the eighth item of the list, which
called attention to "the want of carrying into effect that rational and
constitutional control over public functionaries, especially the
advisers of your Majesty's representative, which our fellow-subjects in
England enjoy in that happy country." Following the catalogue of
grievances is a list of "humble suggestions" of adequate measures of
reform. The essential contrast between the moderate Reformers of Upper
Canada on the one hand, and the Radical wing of their party and the
Papineau faction of the Lower Province on the other, is seen in the fact
that no request is made for an elective legislative council. It is
merely asked that only a "small proportion" of the council shall be
allowed to hold other offices under the government, and that neither the
legislative councillors nor the judges shall be permitted to hold places
in the executive council.[29] The sum and substance of the wishes of the
petitioners appears in the sixth of their recommendations, in which
they pray "that a legislative Act be made in the provincial parliament
to facilitate the mode in which the present constitutional
responsibility of the advisers of the local government may be carried
practically into effect; not only by the removal of these advisers from
office when they lose the confidence of the people, but also by
impeachment for the heavier offenses chargeable against them." The
petition was forwarded for presentation to Viscount Goderich and the
Hon. E. G. Stanley, from each of whom Dr. Baldwin duly received replies.
A quotation from the letter sent by Stanley, who became shortly
afterwards colonial secretary, may serve to show to how great an extent
the British statesmen of the period failed to grasp the position of
affairs in Upper Canada. "On the last and one of the most important
topics," wrote Stanley, "namely, the appointment of a local ministry
subject to removal or impeachment when they lose the confidence of the
people, I conceive there would be great difficulty in arranging such a
plan, for in point of fact the remedy is not one of enactment but of
practice--and a constitutional mode is open to the people, of addressing
for a removal of advisers of the Crown and refusing supplies, if
necessary to enforce their wishes." From what has been said above it is
clear that this was the very mode of redress which was not open to the
people of the province.

[Footnote 28: Willis had refused to sit in term at Toronto on the ground
that the court was not properly constituted.]

[Footnote 29: The full text of the petition and of the letters from
Stanley and Goderich to Dr. Baldwin is given in the _Seventh Report of
the Committee on Grievances_ already mentioned.]

In this same year (1829) Robert Baldwin first entered the legislature of
the province. John Beverley Robinson, the member for York and
attorney-general, had been promoted to the office of chief-justice of
the court of king's bench, his seat in the assembly being thereby
vacated. Baldwin contested the seat and was successful in his canvass,
being strongly aided by the influence of William Lyon Mackenzie. A
petition against his election, on the ground of an irregularity in the
writ, caused him to be temporarily unseated, but in the second election
Baldwin was again successful and entered the legislature on January 8th,
1830. In the ensuing session he appears to have played no very
conspicuous part, his membership being brought to a premature
termination by the death of George IV. The demise of the Crown
necessitating a dissolution of the House. Baldwin again presented
himself to the electors of York. In this election the adherents of the
Family Compact contrived to carry the day, and Baldwin was among the
number of Reformers who lost their seats in consequence. During the year
that ensued he had no active share in the government of the country but
continued to be prominent among the ranks of the moderate Reformers of
York with whom his influence was constantly on the increase. To his
professional career also he devoted an assiduous attention. He had, in
1827, married Augusta Elizabeth Sullivan, whose mother was a sister of
Dr. William Baldwin. He now (1829) entered into partnership with his
wife's brother, Robert Baldwin Sullivan, who had been his fellow-student
in his father's law office, a young man whose showy intellectual
brilliance and lack of conviction contrasted with the conscientious
application of his painstaking cousin. Of Baldwin's public life there
is, however, during this period, nothing to record until the advent of
Sir Francis Bond Head brought him for the first time into public office.

Among the intimate associates of the Baldwins in the year preceding the
rebellion, there was no one who sympathized more entirely with their
political views than Francis Hincks. Hincks came to Canada in the year
1830. He was born at Cork on December 14th, 1807, and descended from an
old Cheshire family which for two generations had been resident in
Ireland, in which country he spent his youth. He received at the Royal
Belfast Institution a sound classical training. He had early conceived a
wish to embark in commercial life, which his father, the Rev. T. D.
Hincks, a minister of the Irish Presbyterian Church, did not see fit to
combat. He entered as an articled clerk in the business house of John
Martin & Co., Belfast, where he spent five years.[30] On the termination
of his period of apprenticeship Hincks resolved to see something of the
world and sailed for the West Indies (1830), visiting Barbadoes,
Demerara and Trinidad. At Barbadoes, he accidentally fell in with a Mr.
George Ross of Quebec, by whom he was persuaded to sail for Canada.
After spending some time in Montreal he determined to visit Upper Canada
and set out for the town of York, travelling after the arduous fashion
of those days "by stage and schooner," a journey which occupied ten
days. Hincks spent the winter of 1830-1 at York, conceived a most
favourable idea of the commercial possibilities of the little capital,
and interested himself at once in the threatening political crisis. He
was a frequent visitor at the Parliament House, a brick structure at the
foot of Berkeley Street, intended presently "to be adorned with a
portico and an entablature,"[31] whose gallery was open to the public.
Here, and in the hall of the legislative council, which, in the words of
an enthusiastic writer, "corresponded to the House of Lords" (being
"richly carpeted, while the floor of the House is bare,"[32]) Hincks
listened to the exciting debates of the session in which Mackenzie was
denounced as a "reptile" and a "spaniel dog," and expelled by the
indignant majority of the Tory faction. Early in 1831 he left Canada for
Belfast to "fulfil a matrimonial engagement" which he had already
contracted. The matrimonial engagement being duly fulfilled (July,
1832), Hincks returned to Canada to settle in York. Here he became one
of the promoters and a director of the Farmers' Joint Stock Banking
Company; from this institution Hincks very shortly seceded, on account
of its connection with the Family Compact. In company with two or three
other seceding directors he joined the Bank of the People, which was
established in the interests of the Reform party. Of this bank Hincks
was manager during the troubled period of the rebellion. With Robert
Baldwin and his father the young banker had already formed an intimate
connection. Hincks's house at No. 21 Yonge Street was next door to the
house occupied at this time by the Baldwins, to whom both houses
belonged.[33] The acquaintance thus formed between the families ripened
into a close friendship from the time of his arrival at York. Hincks's
practical good sense had led him to sympathize with the moderate party
of Reform, and he now found in Robert Baldwin an associate whose
political views harmonized entirely with his own. In addition to his
management of the Bank of the People, Hincks was active in other
commercial enterprises. He became the secretary of the Mutual Assurance
Company, founded at Toronto shortly after his coming, and appears also
to have carried on a general warehouse business at his premises on Yonge
Street. That his eminent financial abilities met with ready recognition,
is seen from the fact that he was appointed, in 1833, one of the
examiners to inspect the accounts of the Welland Canal, at that time the
subject of a parliamentary investigation. The practical experience and
insight into the commercial life of the colony which Hincks thus early
acquired, enabled him presently to bring to the financial affairs of
Canada the trained capacity of an expert.

[Footnote 30: See Sir F. Hincks, _Reminiscences of his Public Life_,
(Montreal, 1884) Chap. i.]

[Footnote 31: J. S. Buckingham, _Canada_, (1843) p. 14. See also H.
Scadding, _Toronto of Old_, pp. 27, 28.]

[Footnote 32: Buckingham, _Op. cit._, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 33: According to Walton's _York Directory_ (1833-4), No. 23
Yonge Street was occupied by "Baldwin, Dr. W. Warren; Baldwin, Robert,
Esq., Attorney, etc., Baldwin and Sullivan's office and Dr. Baldwin's
surrogate office round the corner in King Street, 195." Dr. Baldwin
lived at Spadina only a part of each year.]

At the time when Baldwin, Hincks, and their friends among the
constitutional Reformers of Upper Canada were viewing with alarm the
increasing bitterness which separated the rival parties, a new
lieutenant-governor arrived in the province whose coming was destined to
bring matters rapidly to a crisis. Francis Bond Head was one of those
men whose misfortune it was to have greatness thrust upon them unsought.
He was awakened one night at his country home in Kent by a king's
messenger, who brought a letter from the colonial-secretary offering to
him the lieutenant-governorship of Upper Canada. Head was a military
man, a retired half-pay major who received his sudden elevation to the
governorship with what he himself has described as "utter astonishment."
On the field of Waterloo and during his experience as an engineer in the
Argentine Republic,[34] he had given proof that he was not wanting in
personal courage. Of civil government, beyond the fact that he had been
an assistant poor law commissioner, he had no experience. Of politics in
general he knew practically nothing; of Canada even less. Nor had he a
range of intellect such as to enable him to rise to the difficulties of
his position. With a natural incapacity he combined a natural conceit,
to be presently enhanced still further by his elevation to a baronetcy.
Convinced of his own ability from the very oddness of his appointment,
he betook himself to Canada puffed up with the pride of a professional
pacificator. How Lord Glenelg, the colonial secretary, could have been
induced to make such an appointment, remains one of the mysteries of
Canadian history. Rumour indeed has not scrupled to say that the whole
affair was an error, that the name of Francis Head had been confused
with that of Sir Edmund Head, also a poor law commissioner and a young
man of rising promise and attainments. Hincks in his _Reminiscences_[35]
asserts that he was informed of this fact in later years by Mr. Roebuck
and that a "distinguished imperial statesman had also spoken of it."

[Footnote 34: D. B. Read, _Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada and
Ontario_ (Toronto, 1900), pp. 153 _et seq._]

[Footnote 35: _Reminiscences_, pp. 14, 15.]

In so far as he had had any political affiliations in England, Head had
been a Whig. The news of this simple fact had gone before him, and the
Reform party were prepared to find in him a champion of their interests;
Sir Francis in consequence found the role of saviour of the country
already prepared for his acceptance. "It was with no little surprise,"
he writes in his _Narrative_, in speaking of his first entry into
Toronto (January, 1836), "I observed the walls placarded with large
letters which designated me as Sir Francis Head, a tried Reformer."[36]
The administration on which the new governor now entered was from first
to last a series of blunders. It had been impressed upon him by the
British cabinet that he must seek to conciliate the Reform party and to
compose the factious differences by which the province was torn. The
_Seventh Report on Grievances_ had become, since his appointment, the
object of his constant perusal, and the Reformers of the province
crowded about him in the fond hope of political redress. It was
impossible, therefore, that Sir Francis should fail to make some
advances to the Reform party. This indeed he was most anxious to do,
although the tone of his opening address to his parliament, in which he
asked for a loyal support of himself, already began to alienate the
sympathy of those whose support he was most anxious to secure. As a
pledge, however, of his good intentions, he determined to add three
members to his executive council and to fill their places from among the
Reform party. The men upon whom his choice fell were Robert Baldwin, Dr.
John Rolph, a leader of the Mackenzie faction, and John Henry Dunn who
had filled the office of receiver-general but had not been identified
with either of the rival parties. In a despatch addressed to the
colonial secretary,[37] the lieutenant-governor speaks thus of
Baldwin:--"After making every enquiry in my power, I became of opinion
that Mr. Robert Baldwin, advocate, a gentleman already recommended to
your Lordship by Sir John Colborne for a seat in the legislative
council, was the first individual I should select, being highly
respected for his moral character, being moderate in his politics and
possessing the esteem and confidence of all parties."

[Footnote 36: Sir Francis B. Head, Bart., _A Narrative_ (London, 1839),
pp. 32, 33.]

[Footnote 37: Head to Glenelg, February 22nd, 1836.]

Now came a critical moment in the history of the time. With a majority
in the assembly and with a proper control over the executive offices,
the Reform party would find themselves arrived at that goal of
responsible government which had been the object of their every effort.
They conceived, nevertheless, that the acceptance of office was of no
import or significance unless it were conjoined with an actual control
of the policy of the administration. Such, however, was by no means the
idea of Sir Francis Head. The "smooth-faced insidious doctrine"[38] of
responsible government, as he afterwards called it, and the
self-effacement of the governor which it implied, could commend itself
but little to one who had confessedly come to Canada as a "political
physician" proposing to rectify the troubled situation by his own
administrative skill. Interviews followed between Baldwin and Sir
Francis Head, at which the former refused to hold office unless the
remaining Tory members of the executive, who were also legislative
councillors,[39] should be dismissed. Baldwin indeed, suffering from the
domestic affliction he had just sustained in the loss of his wife,
appears to have been reluctant to assume the cares of office. On
reconsideration, however, the Reformers decided to accept the positions
offered and were duly appointed (February 20th, 1836). It was,
nevertheless, made quite clear to the governor that Baldwin and his
friends accepted office only on the understanding that they must have
his entire confidence. A letter, written at this time by Baldwin to
Peter Perry, his father's friend and fellow Reformer, accurately
explains the situation and elucidates also the full force of the "one
idea" by which the writer was animated. "His Excellency having done me
the honour to send for me . . . . expressed himself most desirous that I
should afford him my assistance by joining his executive council,
assuring me that in the event of my acceding to his proposals I should
enjoy his full and entire confidence . . . . I proceeded to state that
 . . . . I would not be performing my duty to my sovereign or the country,
if I did not with His Excellency's permission, explain fully to His
Excellency my views of the constitution of the province and the change
necessary in the practical administration of it, particularly as I
considered the delay in adopting this change as the _great and all
absorbing grievance_ before which all others in my mind sank into
insignificance, and the remedy for which would most effectually lead,
and that in a constitutional way, to the redress of every other
grievance . . . . and that these desirable objects would be accomplished
without the least entrenching upon the just and necessary prerogative of
the Crown, which I consider, when administered by a lieutenant-governor
through the medium of a provincial ministry responsible to the
provincial parliament, to be an essential part of the constitution of
the province." Baldwin adds that the "call for an elective legislative
council which had been formally made from Lower Canada, and which had
been taken up and appeared likely to be responded to in this province,
was as distasteful to me as it could be to any one."

[Footnote 38: Sir Francis Bond Head, _A Narrative_, p. 71.]

[Footnote 39: See Lord Durham's _Report_ (Ed. 1902), p. 111.]

The new ministry were no sooner appointed than they found themselves in
a quite impossible position. Head had no intention of governing
according to their advice. On the contrary he proceeded at once to make
official appointments from among the ranks of their opponents, calling
down thereby the censure of the assembly. The new council now found
themselves called to account by the country for executive acts in which
they had had no share. The formal remonstrances which they addressed to
the lieutenant-governor drew from him a direct denial of their cardinal
principle of government. "The lieutenant-governor maintains," they were
informed, "that responsibility to the people who are already represented
in the House of Assembly, is unconstitutional; that it is the duty of
the council to serve him, not them." To say this was, of course, to
throw down the gauntlet. The new ministers resigned at once (March 4th,
1836), and henceforth there was war to the knife between the governor
and the party of Reform. The majority of the assembly, espousing the
cause of the outgoing ministers, refused to vote the appropriation of
the moneys over which it had control. Sir Francis had recourse to a
dissolution (May 28th, 1836). In the general election which followed, he
exerted himself strenuously on the side of the Tories.[40] To Lord
Glenelg he denounced the "low-bred antagonist democracy" which he felt
it his duty to combat. In an address issued to the electors of the
Newcastle district,[41] the voters were told, "if you choose to dispute
with me and live on bad terms with the mother country, you will, to use
a homely phrase, only quarrel with your bread and butter." The Tories
made desperate efforts. Large sums of money were subscribed. The
Anglican interest was enlisted on behalf of the clergy reserves, the
special landed provision for the Anglican Church (under the
Constitutional Act of 1791) out of which Sir John Colborne, the
preceding governor, had endowed forty-four rectories, a policy to which
the Reformers were bitterly opposed. The Methodists, fearing to be
carried to extremes, veered away from the party of Reform.[42] The
latter, meanwhile, were not idle. Baldwin himself, indeed, had no share
in the campaign, having sailed for England shortly after his
resignation, pursued by a letter from the irate governor to Lord Glenelg
in which he was denounced as an agent of the revolutionary party.

[Footnote 40: Durham's _Report_ (Ed. 1902), pp. 115 _et seq._ C. Lindsey,
_Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie_, pp. 371 _et seq._]

[Footnote 41: See D. B. Read, _Rebellion of 1837_, p. 241.]

[Footnote 42: See Egerton Ryerson, _Story of my Life_, Chapters
xviii-xxx, and see also Hincks, _Reminiscences_, pp. 18, 19.]

Meantime the Reform party had organized a Constitutional Reform Society
of Upper Canada (July 16th, 1836) of which Dr. William Baldwin was
president and Francis Hincks secretary. The programme of the society
called for "responsible advisers to the governor" and the "abolition of
the rectories established by Sir John Colborne." In the tumultuous
election which ensued, the governor and his party, with the aid of
intimidation, violence and fraud, carried the day. Sir Francis found
himself supported by a "bread and butter parliament," as the new
assembly was christened in memory of the Newcastle address. Henceforth
the extreme party of the Reformers lost hope of constitutional redress.

It is no part of the present narrative to relate the story of the armed
rebellion which followed and in which the subjects of the present
biography had no share. Mackenzie and his adherents now gathered the
farmers of the colony into revolutionary clubs. Messengers went back and
forth to the malcontents of Lower Canada. Vigilance committees were
formed, and in secret hollows of the upland and in the openings of the
forest the yeomanry of the countryside gathered at their nightly drill.
Mackenzie passed to and fro among the farmers as a harbinger of the
coming storm. He composed and printed a new and purified constitution
for Upper Canada, blameless save for its unconscionable length.[43] An
attack on Toronto, unprotected by royal troops and offering a fair mark
for capture, was planned for December 7th, 1837. A veteran soldier, one
Van Egmond who had been a colonel under Napoleon, was made generalissimo
of the rebel forces. The whole affair ended in a fiasco. Rolph, joint
organizer of the revolt with Mackenzie, fearing detection, hurriedly
changed the date of the rising to December 4th. The rebels gathering
from the outlying country moved in irregular bands to Montgomery's
tavern, some three miles north of the town, and waited in vain for the
advent of sufficient members to hazard an attack. In Toronto, for some
days intense apprehension reigned. The alarm bells rang, the citizens
were hurriedly enrolled and the onslaught of the rebels was hourly
expected. With the arrival of support from the outside in the shape of a
steamer from the town of Hamilton with sixty men led by Colonel Allan
MacNab, confidence was renewed. More reinforcements arriving, the
volunteer militia on a bright December afternoon (December 7th, 1837)
marched northward with drums beating, colours flying, two small pieces
of artillery following their advance guard, and scattered the rebel
forces in headlong flight. The armed insurrection, save for random
attempts at invasion of the country from the American frontier in the
year following, had collapsed.

[Footnote 43: The text is given in D. B. Read's _Rebellion of 1837_, pp.
282 _et seq._]

In the insurrectionary movement, neither Baldwin nor Hincks, as already
said, had any share. The former who had now returned from England, did,
however, play a certain part in the exciting days of December, a part
which in later days his political opponents wilfully misconstrued. Sir
Francis Bond Head in the disorder of the first alarm, whether from a
sudden collapse of nerves or with a shrewd idea of gaining time, was
anxious to hold parley with the rebels. Robert Baldwin was hurriedly
summoned to the governor and despatched, along with Dr. John Rolph,
under a flag of truce, to ask of the rebels the reason of their
appearance in arms. Baldwin and Rolph rode out on horseback to
Montgomery's tavern, where Mackenzie informed them that the rebels
wanted independence and that if Sir Francis Head wished to communicate
with them it must be done in writing. Rolph meanwhile, who was himself
one of the organizers of the revolt, entered into private conversation
with Samuel Lount (hanged later in Toronto for his share in the
rebellion), telling Lount in an undertone to pay no attention to the
message. Baldwin returned to Toronto, but, finding that the governor
would put no message in writing, he again rode out to the rebel camp and
apprised Mackenzie of this fact. The peculiar nature of this embassy and
the known complicity of Rolph in the revolt, gave a false colour in the
minds of the malicious to Baldwin's conduct. By the partisan press he
was denounced as a rebel and a traitor. Even on the floor of the
Canadian parliament (October 13th, 1842) Sir Allan MacNab did not
scruple to taunt him with his share in the events of the revolt. But it
is beyond a doubt that Baldwin had no complicity in the rebellion, nor
was his embassy anything more than a reluctant task undertaken from a
sense of public duty.

While these affairs were happening in Upper Canada, the insurrectionary
movement in the Lower Province had run a like disastrous course. The
home government, alarmed at the continued legislative deadlock, had
ordered an investigation at the hands of a special commission with a new
governor-general, Lord Gosford, (who arrived on August 23rd, 1835) at
its head. Gosford tried in vain the paths of peace, spoke the
malcontents fair and invited the leaders of the party to his table. But
the assembly would hear nothing of Lord Gosford's overtures. Papineau
denied the powers of the imperial commissioners and boasted on the floor
of the assembly that an "epoch is approaching when America will give
republics to Europe." The report of the commissioners (March, 1837)
dissipated the last hopes of constitutional redress. It condemned the
principle of an elective Upper House, declared that ministerial
responsibility was inadmissible, suggested that means should be found to
elect a British majority by altering the franchise, and recommended
coercion in the last resort. Following on the report came a series of
resolutions moved in the House of Commons by Lord John Russell, who
declared in terms that "an elective council for legislation and a
responsible executive council combined with a representative assembly
would be quite incompatible with the rightful inter-relationship of any
colony with the mother country." A bill was brought forward to dispose
of the revenue of Lower Canada without the consent of the assembly.
After this the leader of the movement saw no recourse but open
rebellion. The peasantry of the Montreal district, obedient to the call,
took up arms. There was a short, sharp struggle along the Richelieu, at
the little villages of St. Denis and St. Charles, and southward on the
American frontier. Sir John Colborne, hurriedly recalled to Canada to
take command, crushed out the revolt. Papineau fled to the United
States, leaving to his followers nothing but the memory of a lost cause.

Among those who had warmly espoused the side of Reform in Lower Canada,
but who, like Baldwin and Hincks in the Upper Province, had had no
sympathy with armed insurrection, was Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine.
LaFontaine, the son of a farmer of Boucherville,[44] in the county of
Chambly, was born in October, 1807. His grandfather had been a member of
the assembly of Lower Canada from 1796 until 1804. LaFontaine was
educated at the College of Montreal, where he distinguished himself as
well by the natural alertness of his mind as by a stubborn
self-assertion which rendered somewhat irksome to him the narrow,
clerical discipline of the institution. After studying law in the office
of a Mr. Roy, LaFontaine entered upon legal practice in the town of
Montreal. Here in 1831 he married Mlle. Adle Berthelot, daughter of a
Lower Canadian advocate, who died, however, a few years later leaving no
children. Into the political struggle of the time LaFontaine threw
himself with great activity. He was elected a member of the assembly for
Terrebonne in 1830 and became a supporter, though not entirely a
follower, of the turbulent Papineau. Between the two French-Canadian
leaders, there were from the start marked differences both of opinion
and of purpose. Papineau, aware of the great influence of the clergy,[45]
was anxious to conciliate their interests and enlist their support.
LaFontaine, bold if not heterodox in his views, stood out as the
champion of _Le Jeune Canada_, against the traditional dominance of the
priesthood. Although LaFontaine had no sympathy whatever with violent
measures, he distinguished himself during the constitutional agitation
as one of the boldest of the agitators. His first action in the
legislature was to second a motion for the refusal of supplies, and
throughout the years preceding the rebellion, both from his place in
parliament and in the press, he exerted himself unceasingly in the cause
of the popular party. When the storm broke in 1837, he endeavoured in
vain to dissuade his fellow-countrymen from taking up arms. A few days
after the skirmishes on the Richelieu (December, 1837) he went from
Montreal to Quebec to beg Lord Gosford to call a meeting of the
legislature with a view to prevent further violence. On the refusal of
the governor to do so, LaFontaine took ship for England. Fearing,
however, that his complicity in the agitation preceding the Canadian
revolt might lead to his arrest, he fled from England and spent some
little time in France. Thence he returned to Canada in May, 1838. This
was the moment when Sir John Colborne was busily employed in
extinguishing the still smouldering ashes of revolt. Wholesale arrests
of supposed sympathizers were made. An ordinance passed by Sir John
Colborne and his special council, appointed under the Act suspending the
constitution of Lower Canada,[46] declared the Habeas Corpus Act to be
without force in the province. The prisons were soon filled to
overflowing. Among those arrested was Hippolyte LaFontaine, an arrest
for which legal grounds were altogether lacking. LaFontaine, since his
return to Canada, had written a letter to Girouard, one of his
associates in the constitutional agitation, in regard to the frontier
disturbances of 1838, recommending, in what was clearly and evidently an
ironical vein, a continuance of the insurrection. On the strength of
this and on the ground of his having been notorious as a leader of the
French-Canadian faction, he was arrested on November 7th, 1838, and
imprisoned at Montreal. The evident insufficiency of the charges against
him, led shortly to his release without trial.[47] The collapse of the
rebellion, the flight of Papineau and O'Callaghan, and the arrest of
Wolfred Nelson and many other leaders, naturally induced the despairing
people of Lower Canada to look for guidance to the moderate members of
the party who had realized from the first the folly of armed revolt. In
the period of reconstruction which now followed under the rule of Lord
Durham and Lord Sydenham, LaFontaine was recognized as the leader of
the national Reform party of Lower Canada, energetic in its protest
against the proposed system of union and British preponderance but
determined by constitutional means, when the union was forced upon them,
to turn it to account in the interest of French Canada.

[Footnote 44: L. O. David, _Biographies et Portraits_, (Montreal, 1876),
pp. 96 _et seq._]

[Footnote 45: Kingsford, Vol. IX, p. 453.]

[Footnote 46: 1 and 2 Vict. c. g. For the Habeas Corpus Act question see
R. Christie, _History of the Late Province of Lower Canada_, Vol. VI.,
pp. 263 _et seq._]

[Footnote 47: The following extract from a letter written by Sir Charles
Bagot to Lord Stanley under date of November 25th, 1842, is of interest
in this connection:--"With regard to Mr. LaFontaine, I have always
understood that he was arrested upon mere suspicion. He protested
strongly at the time, and subsequently, against the unjustifiableness of
the proceeding, and demanded, but in vain, to see the warrant or
affidavit on which he was arrested. The public offices furnish no record
of the transaction, but Mr. Daly has supplied me with a copy of a letter
which Mr. LaFontaine addressed to him from New York, and which was shown
by him to Lord Durham. This document bears satisfactory evidence of his
readiness to court inquiry." (_Archives of Canada. MS. Letters of Sir C.
Bagot._)]




  CHAPTER III

  THE UNION OF THE CANADAS


The collapse of the rebellion of 1837 opens a new era, not merely in the
history of Canada itself, but in the history of colonial government. The
revolt, unsuccessful though it was, had brought into clear light the
fact that the previous system of colonial management could not
permanently endure, that its continuance must inevitably mean discontent
and discord which could only terminate in forcible separation. The
lesson that the mother country had failed to learn from the loss of its
Atlantic colonies in 1776 had now been repeated. This time, fortunately
for the mother country and the colonies, there were statesmen ready to
give heed to the lessons of the past. The years of reconstruction that
ensued may be considered to constitute the truly critical period of our
colonial history. The position was indeed a difficult one. England found
itself in possession of a colony still bleeding from the strife of civil
war, and torn with racial and religious antagonism. The majority of its
inhabitants cherished, indeed, a conscientious loyalty to the British
connection, but smarted from a sense of unredressed wrongs and
long-continued misgovernment, while those who had been forced into
submission at the point of the bayonet, harboured an embittered hatred
against their conquerors. That a means was found to establish, in such a
situation, a form of government fitted to restore peace, prosperity and
loyalty, ranks among the finest triumphs of British administrative
skill; and it stands as the great political achievement of the colonial
statesmen whose work forms the subject of the present volume, that they
both planned the adoption and sustained the execution of the sole policy
that could preserve to an illustrious future the colonial system of
Great Britain. Responsible government was the chief, indeed the only,
demand of Robert Baldwin and his associates; it had been a leading
demand of the Radicals in Upper Canada who had been drawn into revolt,
and it had been one of the demands of the French-Canadian party of
discontent. The history of British administration, like the structure of
British government, is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions.
Nor is there any inconsistency more striking than this: that the
imperial government, after strenuously denying the possibility of
colonial self-government and suppressing the rebellion of its subjects
who had taken up arms largely to obtain it, proceeded to grant to the
conquered colony the privilege which peaceful agitation had constantly
failed to obtain.

The British government, stirred from the lethargy and ignorance which
had so long characterized its colonial administration, was now anxious
to redeem the past. "The Downing Street conscience," as a Canadian
historian[48] has called it, was quickened into a belated activity. With
a view to ascertaining the grievances of the Canadians and enabling the
government of Lord Melbourne to adopt remedial measures, a special high
commissioner and governor-general was sent out to British North America
in the person of Lord Durham. John George Lambton, created Baron Durham
in 1828, and Earl of Durham in 1832, is one of the notable characters of
Canadian history, and one whose name will ever be associated with the
grant of responsible government to Canada. The scion of a Whig family
whose members had represented the city of Durham in the House of Commons
continuously from 1727 until 1797,[49] Durham came honestly by Liberal
principles, which his ardent temperament and domineering intellect
carried to the verge of radicalism. He had already enjoyed a career of
distinction, had served in the army, sat in the House of Commons and had
held the post of Lord Privy Seal in the ministry of Earl Grey (1830).
Over Lord Grey, whose eldest daughter he had married, Durham possessed
an unusual ascendency, "_une funeste influence_" the aged Talleyrand had
called it.[50] Prominent as one of the leading supporters of the British
Reform Bill and identified in ideas, if not in practice, with the
Liberal creed of equal rights, Lord Durham appeared preminently suited
to typify to the people of Canada the earnest desire of the mother
country to redress their wrongs. From the moment of his arrival at
Quebec (May 29th, 1838), he threw himself with characteristic energy
into the task before him. The powers conferred upon him as high
commissioner, Lord Durham interpreted with the utmost latitude. He
regarded himself in the light of a benevolent dictator, and supported
the extraordinary powers which he thus assumed with an ostentatious
magnificence. He reconstructed Sir John Colborne's council in Lower
Canada, issued an amnesty to the generality of political prisoners still
in confinement and to the participants in the late rebellion, and, on
his own authority, banished to Bermuda certain leaders in the
insurrection.[51] He set up at the same time special commissions to
enquire into education, immigration, municipal government and Crown
lands; paid a brief visit to Upper Canada, where he was received with
enthusiasm,[52] and in his short stay of five months gathered together
the voluminous materials which formed the basis of the celebrated
report. Meanwhile, however, the governor-general's enemies in England
were working busily against him. The illegal powers which he had seen
fit to assume were made the basis of an unsparing attack. Durham's
actions were denounced in the House of Lords and but feebly defended by
the government. The ordinance by which he had granted political amnesty
was disallowed by the Crown. On the news of this, Durham, conscious of
the real utility of his work in Canada, and stung to the quick at the
pettifogging legality of the government, issued (October 9th, 1838) an
ill-considered proclamation, in which he recited the aims of his mission
and declared that "if the peace of Lower Canada is to be again menaced,
it is necessary that its government should be able to reckon on a more
cordial and vigorous support at home than has been accorded to me." This
was too much. The high commissioner had become, in the words of the
London _Times_, a "High Seditioner," and the government reluctantly
ordered Lord Durham's recall. For this, however, the governor-general
had not waited. He had already rembarked for England, and completed
during the voyage the preparation of his report.

[Footnote 48: Dr. George Bryce, _Short History of the Canadian People_,
Ch. xi. Section iii.]

[Footnote 49: Justin McCarthy, _History of Our Own Times_, Vol. I. Ch.
iii.]

[Footnote 50: _Greville Memoirs_, Ch. xvi.]

[Footnote 51: F. Bradshaw, _Self-government in Canada_ (London, 1902), p.
142.]

[Footnote 52: R. Christie, _History of the Late Province of Lower
Canada_, Vol. V., Ch. xliii.]

Among all the state papers on British colonial administration, the
report of Lord Durham, both in point of form and of substance, stands
easily first. It is needless here to discuss how much of its preparation
was owed to the ability of the governor-general's secretaries; it is
certain that a part of it at any rate was the personal work of Lord
Durham himself. In its bearing upon the topic which is the main subject
of the present volume, it stands as a Magna Charta of colonial liberty.
The report contains a masterly analysis of the origin and progress of
those grievances which had driven the provinces to revolt, together with
a survey of the existing situation with recommendations for its
amelioration. The distracted condition of the Canadian provinces was
attributed by Lord Durham to two causes. The first of these was the
intense racial animosity existing between the English and the French, an
animosity still further inflamed by the arrogant pretensions of the
English minority in Lower Canada, which the report pitilessly exposed.
The second cause of disturbance was found in the absence of that system
of responsible government which could alone confer upon the people of
Canada the political liberty to which they were entitled. As a remedy
Durham proposed the reunion of the two Canadas into a single province,
with a legislature representative of both the races. Such a union he
anticipated would necessarily mean, sooner or later, the dominance of
British interests and British nationality.

"I have little doubt," wrote Lord Durham,[53] "that the French when once
placed, by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural
causes, in a minority, would _abandon their vain hope of nationality_
. . . . I certainly shall not like to subject the French-Canadians to the
rule of the identical English minority with whom they have so long been
contending; but from a majority emanating from so much more extended a
source, I do not think that they would have any oppression or injustice
to fear." Had Lord Durham's report rested for its reputation upon his
view of the probable future of French Canada it would never have
achieved its historic distinction. Indeed Durham's political foresight
failed him in that he did not see, as LaFontaine, Morin and the leaders
of the moderate party presently demonstrated, that the system of
government which he went on to recommend for the united provinces would
prove the very means of sustaining the nationality and influence of the
French-Canadians. It is in its recommendation of a change in the system
of government that the chief merit of the report is to be found.
"Without a change in our system of government the discontent which now
prevails will spread and advance . . . . It is difficult to understand
how any English statesman could have imagined that representative and
irresponsible government could be successfully combined . . . . It needs
no change in the principles of government, no invention of a new
constitutional theory, to supply the remedy which would, in my opinion,
completely remove the existing political disorders. It needs but to
follow out consistently the principles of the British constitution, and
introduce into the government of these great colonies those wise
provisions by which alone the working of the representative system can
in any country be rendered harmonious and efficient . . . . The
responsibility to the united legislature of all officers of the
government, except the governor and his secretary, should be secured by
every means known to the British constitution."

[Footnote 53: _Report of the Earl of Durham_, (Methuen & Co., new
edition, 1902,) pp. 227, 228.]

The administration of Lord Durham and the policy which he was about to
recommend to the imperial government, commanded among the Reformers of
Upper Canada a cordial support. Hincks established at Toronto, July 3rd,
1838, a weekly paper called the _Examiner_, (there was as yet no daily
published in the little town) which bore as its motto the words,
"Responsible Government." On the first page of it Hincks printed each
week for some months "three extracts which were intended to explain the
principles it was intended to advocate."[54] The first of these was the
well-worn saying of Lieutenant-governor Simcoe, that the constitution of
the colony was nothing less than "the very image and transcript of that
of Great Britain." In a leading article of the first number of the
_Examiner_, Hincks wrote in support of Lord Durham: "We trust his advice
will be followed by all parties in this province, and we would urge
those Reformers, who, guiltless of any violation of the laws, have been
wantonly oppressed and insulted for the last six months, to forget their
injuries, and repose confidence in the illustrious individual to whom
the government of these provinces has been entrusted."

[Footnote 54: _Reminiscences_, p. 22.]

Meantime the imperial government had decided to act upon the advice
presented in Lord Durham's report and to effect a union of the Canadas.
A bill to that effect was brought into parliament, but on
reconsideration was withdrawn, in order that still further information
might be obtained about the state of opinion in the colony, and in order
that, as far as might be, the terms of the union should be proposed by
the colonists themselves. To effect this purpose a new governor-general
was dispatched to the Canadian provinces, in the person of Mr. Charles
Poulett Thomson. Thomson came of a mercantile family, had been in the
Russian trade at St. Petersburg, had sat in the Commons, had served as
vice-president of the Board of Trade in the ministry of Lord Grey, and
had no little reputation as a Liberal economist and tariff expert. His
business career enabled him at his coming to make a pleasing show of
democratic equality with the colonial community. "Bred a British
merchant myself," he told the Committee of Trade at Quebec, "the good
opinion of those who follow the same honourable career is to me
naturally and justly dear." The "British merchant" was, however, very
shortly removed to a higher plane by his elevation to the peerage as
Baron Sydenham and Toronto. At Quebec the governor-general took over the
administration of Lower Canada from the hands of Sir John Colborne.
Thence he went to Montreal, where he arrived on October 22nd, 1839, and
proceeded to lay the imperial plan of union before the special council,
a body of nominated members appointed by Colborne, the representative
institutions of the colony being still in suspense. This plan, as
conceived in outline by the imperial government, involved the
establishment of a legislature in which the two provinces should be
equally represented, the creation of a permanent civil list, and the
assumption by the united provinces of the debt already incurred in
public works in Upper Canada.

Sydenham had come to Canada in the now familiar role of pacificator
general, and in especial as the apostle of union. Being endowed,
moreover, in a high degree with that firm belief in his own abilities
and in the efficacy of his own programme, which was the especial
prerogative of so many colonial governors, he was fatuous enough to
suppose that the plan of union was highly acceptable to the people of
Canada. To Lord John Russell, now colonial secretary, he wrote in the
following terms: "The large majority of those whose opinions I have had
the opportunity of learning, both of British and French origin, and of
those, too, whose character and station entitle them to the greatest
authority, advocate warmly the establishment of the union."[55] It was
indeed easy enough for His Excellency to obtain a vote of approval from
the special council convoked at Montreal, (November 13th, 1839). But as
a matter of fact the mass of the people of French Canada were bitterly
opposed both to the union in general and to the special terms on which
it was offered. Nor was there a more outspoken opponent of the union
than LaFontaine, now recognized as the leader of French-Canadian
opinion. Under his auspices a public meeting was held at Montreal, at
which he delivered a powerful address of protest against the proposed
amalgamation of the two Canadas. Lord Sydenham, aware of the influence
of LaFontaine and anxious to conciliate all parties, offered to him the
post of solicitor-general of Lower Canada. This position, in view of the
existing suspension of constitutional government, LaFontaine did not see
fit to accept.

[Footnote 55: _Parliamentary Papers_, Canada, 1840.]

Before, however, these advances were made to LaFontaine, Sydenham had
already visited Upper Canada (November 21st, 1839 and February 18th,
1840), in the interests of the project of Canadian union. Here his task
was decidedly easier. The Reformers who were led, as will presently be
seen, to identify the Union Bill with the adoption of responsible
government, were strongly in its favour. The party of the Family Compact
were indeed opposed to the scheme, fearing that it might put an end to
the system of privileged control which they had so long enjoyed.
Chief-justice Robinson, then, as ever, the protagonist of the party,
hastened to draw up a pamphlet of protest, which voiced the sentiments
of his immediate adherents but had little effect upon the public at
large.[56] The Tories found themselves, moreover, in a perplexing
position. Attachment to the imperial tie, obedience to the imperial
wish,--this, if anything, had been their claim to virtue. To oppose now
the project offered them by the mother country, seemed to do violence to
their loyal past. A formidable secession took place from their ranks,
and very few of their number in the legislature were prepared to offer
to the union an uncompromising opposition. It was owing to this that the
assembly elected in 1836 as the Tory parliament of Sir Francis Head, was
now prepared to vote resolutions in favour of the union. The utmost that
the extreme Tories would do was to endeavour to make the terms of union
as onerous as possible to the French-Canadians. For this purpose they
attempted to pass in the assembly a resolution[57] demanding a
representation for Upper Canada, not merely equal but superior to that
of the Lower Province. In view of the fact that the populations of the
two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada stood at this time respectively
at four hundred and seventy thousand and six hundred and thirty
thousand, the proposal for a representation inversely proportionate to
population only evinced the obstinate determination of the Upper
Canadian Tories to extinguish the influence of French Canada. The result
of their attempts was merely to hasten on that alliance between the
Reformers of the two provinces which offered presently the key to the
situation. Francis Hincks had, during a visit paid to Montreal and
Quebec in 1835, made the acquaintance of LaFontaine, Morin and other
leaders of the moderate party in French Canada. He now, in common with
Robert Baldwin, entered into a correspondence with them in which the
principles of responsible government and the part it might play in the
interests of both races in Canada, were fully discussed.

[Footnote 56: Sir John B. Robinson, _Canada and the Canada Bill_. London,
1840.]

[Footnote 57: _Journals of the Assembly_, 1825-40, p. 338. The resolution
in question appears as an amendment by Mr. Sherwood to the resolution
finally passed.]

It is to be observed that to the Reform party, the essence of the union
question lay in the adoption of responsible government. Without this
their projected alliance with the French-Canadian leaders could have no
significance save to establish a factious opposition of continued
hopelessness. With responsible government a fair prospect was opened for
reconciling the divergent interests of the Canadian races and carrying
on a united government resting upon common consent. It is important to
appreciate this point, since the conduct of Robert Baldwin in what
followed has been freely censured. Baldwin had been appointed by
Sydenham, in pursuance of his policy of conciliation, to be
solicitor-general of Upper Canada (February, 1840) without, however,
being offered a seat in the executive council. Baldwin accepted the
office, and, after the proclamation of the union (February 5th, 1841),
was made in addition an executive councillor. On the day of the opening
of parliament (June 14th, 1841), however, Baldwin resigned his office,
thus laying himself open to the charge at the hands of Lord Sydenham's
biographer[58] of being guilty of conduct "impossible to reconcile with
the principles of political honour by which British statesmen are
governed." To understand the motives by which Robert Baldwin was
animated in his acceptance of the office which he subsequently so
suddenly resigned, it is necessary to review the position in which the
question of responsible government stood while the union was in course
of making (1839-40).

[Footnote 58: G. Poulett Scrope, _Life of Lord Sydenham_, (1844), p. 219.
See also Major Richardson, _Eight Years in Canada_, (1847), pp. 190,
191.]

Lord Sydenham himself in reality had no more idea of applying colonial
self-government in the sense in which it is now known and in which it
was understood by Robert Baldwin, than had Sir Francis Head. Indeed a
system of administration which would have reduced his own part to a
benevolent nullity was foreign to his temperament, and the thought of it
occasioned him serious apprehension for the welfare of the colony. This
has since been fully disclosed by his published correspondence. "I am
not a bit afraid," he wrote (December 12th, 1839), "of the responsible
government cry; I have already done much to put it down _in its
inadmissible sense, namely, the demand that the council shall be
responsible to the assembly, and that the governor shall take their
advice and be bound by it_ . . . . And I have not met with anyone who
has not at once admitted the absurdity of claiming to put the council
over the head of the governor . . . . I have told the people plainly,
that, as I cannot get rid of my responsibility to the home government, I
will place no responsibility on the council; that they are a council for
the governor to consult, but no more." Sydenham might claim to have told
the people plainly this old-time doctrine of gubernatorial autocracy,
but the people had certainly not so understood his views. Indeed they
had good reason for believing the contrary. The governor-general had
received from Lord John Russell, under date of October 16th, 1839, a
despatch in which the position to be held by colonial executive officers
was explained. "You will understand, and will cause it to be generally
made known, that hereafter the tenure of colonial offices held during
Her Majesty's pleasure, will not be regarded as equivalent to a tenure
during good behaviour: but that not only such officers will be called
upon to retire from the public service as often as any sufficient
motives of public policy may suggest the expediency of that measure, but
that a change in the person of the governor will be considered as a
sufficient reason for any alterations which his successor may deem it
expedient to make in the list of public functionaries, subject, of
course, to the future confirmation of the sovereign."[59]

[Footnote 59: For the full despatch see _Journal of the Legislative
Assembly of Upper Canada_, 1839-40, p. 51.]

The publication of this despatch had been put by Lord Sydenham (who laid
it before the legislature of Upper Canada), to a special purpose. It
served as a notice to the office-holding Tories of the legislative
council that they must either conform to the wishes of the imperial
government in proposing the union or forfeit the positions which they
held. But the Reform party, not without justice, read in it a still
further significance. Interpreted in the light of Lord Durham's
recommendations, it distinctly implied that the executive council, of
which in a later paragraph it made particular mention, should be
expected by the governor to resign when no longer commanding the
confidence of the country. This view had been, moreover, distinctly
emphasized by the presentation (December 13th, 1839) of an address to
the governor-general, in which it was requested that he would be pleased
to inform the House whether any communications had been received from
Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the colonies on the
subject of responsible government. To this Lord Sydenham replied that
"it was not in his power to communicate to the House of Assembly any
despatches upon the subject referred to," but added, that "the
governor-general has received Her Majesty's commands to administer the
government of the provinces _in accordance with the well understood
wishes and interests of the people_, and to pay to their feelings, as
expressed through their representatives, the deference that is justly
due to them." The matter had thus been left, purposely perhaps, in a
half light. But in order that there might be no doubt as to the views of
the Reform party whose wishes he represented, Baldwin, on accepting
office, had addressed to Lord Sydenham and had caused to be published
the following statement of his position: "I distinctly avow that in
accepting office I consider myself to have given a public pledge that I
have a reasonably well grounded confidence that the government of my
country is to be carried on in accordance with the principles of
responsible government which I have ever held." In this position, then,
the matter rested until the resignation of Baldwin after the union,
under circumstances described in the following chapter.

Meantime the union project was carried forward. The special council of
Lower Canada, the assembly and the legislative council of Upper Canada,
had all adopted resolutions accepting the basis of union proposed by
Lord Sydenham on the part of the imperial government. The assembly of
Upper Canada accompanied its resolutions with an address requesting that
"the use of the English language in all judicial and legislative records
be forthwith introduced, and that at the end of a space of a given
number of years after the union, all debates in the legislature shall be
in English." It was asked also, that the seat of government should be
in Upper Canada.

The intelligence of the proceedings having been forwarded to England,
the Act of Union was duly enacted by the imperial parliament. Its terms,
in summary, were as follows.[60] In the place of the two former colonies
of Upper and Lower Canada, there was to be a single province of Canada.
A legislature was instituted consisting of two Houses, the Upper House,
or legislative council, consisting of not fewer than twenty persons
appointed for life by the Crown, and the Lower House, or assembly, being
elected by the people. Of the eighty-four members of the Lower House,
forty-two were to be elected from each of the former divisions of the
province. English was made the sole official language of legislative
records. Out of the consolidated revenue of the province the sum of
seventy-five thousand pounds was to be handed over yearly to the Crown
for the payment of the civil list, namely, certain salaries, pensions
and other fixed charges of the government. The executive authority was
vested in a governor-general, to whom was adjoined an executive council
appointed by the Crown.[61] The extent of the responsibility of this
council to the parliament is not defined in the Act. Inasmuch, however,
as the entire system of responsible, or cabinet government, in Great
Britain itself is only a matter of convention and not of positive law, a
definite statement of responsibility was in the present case not to be
expected. The debt previously contracted in the separate provinces now
became a joint burden.

[Footnote 60: 3 and 4 Vict. c. 35. See Houston, _Constitutional Documents
of Canada_, for the text of the Act with comments.]

[Footnote 61: 3 and 4 Vict. c. 35, sec. xlv.]

The union thus prepared went into operation (by virtue of a proclamation
of the governor-general) on February 10th, 1841.[62] On the thirteenth of
the same month the writs were issued for the election of members of the
legislature, returnable on April 8th. Robert Baldwin was elected in two
constituencies, the south riding of York and the county of Hastings.
Francis Hincks offered himself as a candidate to the electors of Oxford,
a county which he had been invited to visit shortly before on the
strength of his writings in the _Examiner_,[63] and in which he secured
his election. To the electors he published an address in which he took
his stand on the principle of responsible government, a system, "which
by giving satisfaction to the colonists, would secure a permanent
connection between the British empire and its numerous dependencies."
The elections in Lower Canada were marked by scenes of unusual fraud and
corruption. No pains were spared by the administration to carry the day
in favour of union candidates. The governor-general, by virtue of a
power conferred under the Act of Union, reconstructed the boundaries of
the constituencies of Quebec and Montreal. Elsewhere intimidation and
actual violence were used to stifle the hostile vote of the anti-union
party.[64] To this was due the defeat of the French-Canadian leader,
LaFontaine, in the county of Terrebonne. The latter, in his electoral
address, had again denounced the union in embittered terms. "It is," he
said, "an act of injustice and of despotism, in that it is forced upon
us without our consent; in that it robs Lower Canada of the legitimate
number of its representatives; in that it deprives us of the use of our
language in the proceedings of the legislature against the faith of
treaties and the word of the governor-general; in that it forces us to
pay, without our consent, a debt which we did not incur." But LaFontaine
realized the futility of blind opposition to an accomplished fact. The
attempt to repeal the union, he argued, would merely lead to a
continuation of despotic government by an appointed council. To him the
key to the situation was to be found in the principle of ministerial
responsibility. "I do not hesitate to say," he said, "that I am in
favour of this English principle of responsible government. I see in it
the only guarantee that we can have for good, constitutional and
effective government. . . . The Reformers in the two provinces form an
immense majority. . . . Our cause is common. It is in the interest of
the Reformers of the two provinces to meet in the legislature in a
spirit of peace, union, friendship and fraternity. Unity of action is
necessary now more than ever."

[Footnote 62: The proclamation itself was issued under date of February
5th.]

[Footnote 63: _Reminiscences_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 64: L. P. Turcotte, _Canada sous l'Union_, (1891), pp. 62, 63.
See also C. H. Dent, _The Last Forty Years_, (1881), Vol. I., pp. 50,
51.]

In despite, however, of the defeat of LaFontaine and several other
Reform candidates in Lower Canada, the result of the election of 1841
was not unfavourable to the cause of Reform. Of the eighty-four members
of the Lower House only twenty-four were pledged supporters of the
governor-general,[65] while the Reform party, together with the French
Nationalists, included well over forty members of the House.

[Footnote 65: Poulett Scrope, _Life of Lord Sydenham_ (1844), p. 217.]




  CHAPTER IV

  LORD SYDENHAM AND RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT


Under the Act of 1840 (sec. xxx), the choice of a seat of government for
the united provinces was left to the governor-general. In the troubled
state of racial feeling, such a selection was naturally a matter of
difficulty. While it was clear that the capital city of the country must
be chosen in Upper Canada, Sydenham was, nevertheless, anxious to
conciliate the French-Canadians as far as might be by appointing a
capital neither too remote from their part of the province, nor too
little associated with their history. Kingston, situated on the north
shore of Lake Ontario, at the point where the lake narrows to the river
St. Lawrence, seemed best to fulfil these requirements. The foundation
of the settlement antedated by nearly a century the English occupation
of Canada, and the fort and trading station then established had been
one of the western outposts of the French rgime, while its erstwhile
name of Frontenac associated the place with the bygone glory of New
France. British loyalty, with a characteristic lack of inventiveness,
had altered the name of the little town to Kingston. A strong fort built
upon the limestone hills that commanded the sheltered harbour, and
garrisoned by imperial troops, testified to the military importance of
the place. Its central position rendered it at once the key to the
navigation of the lake and river, while the construction of the Rideau
Canal had placed it in control of an inland waterway whose possession
minimized the dangers of an American frontier attack. In this favoured
situation there had now sprung up a town, of some seven thousand
inhabitants, built largely of the limestone on which it stands and
patterned upon the now inevitable rectangular plan. At the time of the
union Kingston was a town of about a mile and a half in length, with a
breadth of three-quarters of a mile.[66] It contained six churches, was
able to boast of three newspapers, and was, moreover, the seat of a very
considerable milling industry, large quantities of grain being brought
across the lake to be ground at Kingston and exported thence to Great
Britain, thereby enjoying the special tariff preference accorded to
colonial products. The one hundred and sixty miles which separated it
from Toronto represented in those days a steamboat voyage of about
eighteen hours, or in winter time a sleigh-drive, under favourable
conditions, of about a day and a night's duration. From Montreal to
Kingston, a distance of about one hundred and seventy miles, the journey
was accomplished while navigation was open, partly by steamer, partly by
stage. A letter of Lord Sydenham's under date of December 3rd, 1839,
illustrates the arduousness of travel to and from the new provincial
capital. "The journey," he writes, "was bad enough. A portage (from
Montreal) to Lachine; then the steamboat to the cascades, twenty-four
miles further; then road again (if road it can be called) for sixteen
miles; then steam to Cornwall, forty miles; then road, twelve miles;
then by a change of steamers, into Lake Ontario to Kingston." The
all-water route by the Rideau Canal, passing through Bytown (now Ottawa)
occupied some forty-eight hours. It was in Kingston, then, that Lord
Sydenham had summoned the new Canadian legislature to meet on June 14th,
1841, and in the early summer of that year the little town was already
astir with sanguine hopes of becoming the metropolis of Canada.

[Footnote 66: J. S. Buckingham, _Canada_ (London, 1843), Chap. v., pp. 62
_et seq._]

Before, however, the legislature had as yet come together, the
governmental problem, which was to be the central feature of the
political life of Canada from now until the administration of Lord
Elgin, the problem of ministerial responsibility, had already developed
itself. Under the new rgime it fell to the task of Lord Sydenham to
appoint not only the members of the legislative council, which was to
form the Upper House of the parliament, but also those of the executive
council. These appointments were made a few days after the inauguration
of the union (February 13th, 1841). The list of executive councillors
was as follows: from Upper Canada, W. H. Draper as attorney-general of
Upper Canada; Robert Baldwin Sullivan, president of the council; J. H.
Dunn, receiver-general; S. B. Harrison, provincial secretary for Upper
Canada; and Robert Baldwin, solicitor-general for that province. The
Lower Province was represented in the executive government by C. R.
Ogden, attorney-general for Lower Canada; Dominick Daly, provincial
secretary; and C. D. Day as solicitor-general. Mr. H. H. Killaly was
presently added to the ministry (March 17th, 1841), as commissioner of
public works. We have already seen that in accepting a seat in the
executive council Robert Baldwin had made it abundantly clear that he
did so on the presumption that the operation of the incoming government
would be based upon the principle of executive responsibility. Beyond
this preliminary declaration, however, Baldwin did not think it
desirable to take any further action until the election of the assembly
and the relative representation of political parties should have given
some indication of the standing of the ministry with the country at
large.

The executive council, as thus constituted, was a body of multi-coloured
complexion and varying views. Ability it undoubtedly possessed, but it
represented at the same time so little agreement in political sentiment
or conviction, that it might well be doubted whether joint and
harmonious action would be possible. Baldwin, as we have seen, was an
uncompromising Reformer, devoted to the principles of popular
sovereignty and executive responsibility. Sullivan, his cousin, was a
man of different temper. Keen in intellect, ready in debate, he brought
to the practical business of politics the point of view of the lawyer,
the tactician, the man of the world. For abstract principles of
government he cared not a brass farthing. It was his wont to say to his
colleagues, "Fix on your policy. Take what course you like, and I will
find you good reason for doing so."[67]

[Footnote 67: N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in Canada_ (London, 1887), p.
545.]

William Henry Draper, the attorney-general, differed still more
radically in his political outlook from Robert Baldwin. Draper, after an
adventurous and wandering youth, had come to Canada some twenty years
before, had drifted from school-teaching into law and politics, and at
this time belonged, like Baldwin and Sullivan, to the legal fraternity
of York. He had sat in the Upper Canadian assembly, been one of the
council of Sir Francis Bond Head and had succeeded Christopher Hagerman
in 1840 as attorney-general of Upper Canada. This office he still held
in the ministry of the united provinces. Draper was a man of great
ability, eloquent and persuasive of speech, skilled as a parliamentary
manager and dexterous in the game of politics. He was by principle and
temperament a Conservative, and although of undoubted patriotism and
devoted to the cause of good government, he viewed with alarm the
increasing tendency of his time towards the extension of democratic
rule.

Harrison and Killaly were Liberals of a moderate cast. John Henry Dunn
has already been noticed as one of Baldwin's colleagues of the
short-lived ministry of Sir Francis Head, and may be considered as
sharing the opinions of the moderate Reform party. The councillors for
Lower Canada could lay but little claim to be representative of the
sentiments of that province. Dominick Daly, the provincial secretary,
and presently member for Megantic, an Irishman now nearly twenty years
in Canada, of an easy and affable personality, was not displeasing to
the French-Canadians whose religion he shared. Ogden, a lawyer and a
former office-holder in the government of Lower Canada, was identified
with the British interests and was unpopular with the French. Day
represented the same class. It will be observed that the refusal of
LaFontaine to accept office left the French-Canadians wholly without
representation in the executive government.

Baldwin appears to have been convinced from the outset that such a
ministry would be quite incompatible with any system of government save
one under which the governor-general would be the sole motive force of
the administration. To his published communication, already cited, he
shortly added a letter to Lord Sydenham (February 19th, 1841) in which
he wrote: "With respect to those gentlemen [his fellow-members of the
council], Mr. Baldwin has himself an entire want of political confidence
in all of them except Mr. Dunn, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Daly. He deems it a
duty which he owes to the governor-general, at once to communicate his
opinion that such an arrangement will not command the support of
parliament." This opinion had been confirmed by the result of the
elections and by the correspondence[68] which had ensued between the
leaders of the Reform party in the two provinces. In despite of the
defeat of LaFontaine, it was plain that the Upper Canadian section of
that party would find in Morin, the member for Nicolet, Aylwin of
Portneuf, Viger of Richelieu, and others of LaFontaine's party, a group
of sympathizers with whom they might enter into a natural and profitable
alliance. On the strength of this expectation, Baldwin called together
at Kingston, a few days before the opening of the session, a meeting of
the Reform party. The attending members, while not agreeing on a
decisive line of public policy, expressed themselves as unanimous in
their want of confidence in the administration as existing.[69] Shortly
after this meeting, Baldwin addressed to the governor-general (June
12th, 1841) a letter in which he recommended that a reconstruction of
the ministry should be made in such a way that the Reform party of
French Canada, now prepared to coperate with their Upper Canadian
allies, should be represented in the executive. The Reformers, said
Baldwin, could not extend their support to a ministry which included
Messrs. Draper, Sullivan, Ogden and Day, whose views differed so
entirely from their own. Lord Sydenham, in answer, drew attention to
the fact that such a request, at the very moment of the assembly of
parliament, was inopportune, and that the French-Canadians whom he
proposed to substitute for the ministers to be dismissed, had been
radical opponents of the very union of which the new government was the
embodiment. The governor-general's communication, followed by further
correspondence of the same tenor, left Baldwin no choice but to resign
his office. His resignation, offered on June 12th (1841), was still
awaiting its formal acceptance when the House met on the fourteenth.

[Footnote 68: See in this connection a letter from Morin to Hincks, May
8th, 1841, fully reviewing the situation. Sir F. Hincks,
_Reminiscences_, pp. 50-6.]

[Footnote 69: _Ibid_, p. 58.]

The action of Robert Baldwin in this connection has been, as already
indicated, roundly censured by Lord Sydenham's biographer. "This
transaction," writes the latter, "looking to the character of the
gentleman who was the principal actor in it, and to the manner in which
he conducted his negotiation with the representative of the Crown,
illustrates more clearly than anything else, the ignorance at that time
prevailing, even among the leaders of the political parties in Canada,
as to the principles on which a system of responsible government can
alone be carried on."[70] The true explanation of the matter is to be
found in reality in the uncompromising stand which Robert Baldwin was
prepared to take in defence of his "one idea." To have formed part of a
ministry which would inevitably find itself voted down in the popular
assembly (as Baldwin expected would now be the case), and which would
have to rely on the expedients of political management for the conduct
of public affairs, would have seemed to him nothing short of trafficking
with the fundamental right of the people whom he represented. The error
that Baldwin made, speaking from the standpoint of practical politics,
lay in his overestimating the union and power of the Reform party. He
did not fully realize that the party had as yet but an imperfect basis
of organization, that its programme was not one of positive agreement
but merely of negative opposition, and that this alone was not
calculated to give it the cohesion requisite for its ends. The
expectation that the government could be voted out of office and that
the system of ministerial responsibility could thereby be forced upon
Lord Sydenham, was not borne out by the sequel.

[Footnote 70: Poulett Scrope, _Life of Lord Sydenham_ (1844), p. 223.]

The difficulties, moreover, of establishing at once an operative system
of cabinet government is realized when one views the complex character
of the party divisions among the newly-elected members of the assembly.
One may distinguish among them at least five different groups. There
was, first of all, the party pledged to the support of the
administration, drawn chiefly from Upper Canada and led by
Attorney-General Draper, as member for the county of Russell. To these
were closely affiliated the members elected, largely by coercion, in the
British interest in Lower Canada, among whom was Dr. McCulloch who had
defeated LaFontaine in Terrebonne. These two groups numbered together
about twenty-four. As an extreme Conservative wing, were the Upper
Canadian Tories, the remnant of the days of the Compact, some seven in
number. These were under the redoubtable leadership of Sir Allan MacNab,
the hero of the "men of Gore" of 1837, by whose direction the _Caroline_
had been sent over Niagara Falls, a feat which had earned him the honour
of knighthood, a man of the old school, the sterling qualities of whose
character redeemed the rigidity of his intellect. Of quite opposed
complexion were the Reformers, a large and somewhat uncertain group
including the moderates of both provinces, and shading off into the
ultra-Reformers and into the group of French Nationalists who as yet
stood in no affiliation to the English party of Reform. The
classification thus adopted would indicate in the assembly the following
numerical divisions: 1st, the party supporting Lord Sydenham,
twenty-four; 2nd, the party of Sir Allan MacNab, seven; 3rd, the
moderate Reformers, twenty; 4th, ultra-Reformers, five; 5th, French
Nationalists, twenty. There were, in addition to these, eight doubtful
members that cannot be classified with any of the groups, making up in
all eighty-four members of the assembly. Such classification is,
however, too precise to indicate the true state of affairs. Party lines
were not as yet drawn with precision. The system of the union being
still in its experimental stage, party tradition and parliamentary
precedent were absent, and individual members were naturally led to
follow the dictates of their own judgment, and voted sometimes with and
sometimes against the particular group with which their names were
chiefly associated.

Meantime a legislative council of twenty-four members had been appointed
(June 9th, 1841) by Lord Sydenham. The French-Canadians were represented
by Ren Caron, mayor of Quebec, (a man of liberal views and subsequently
a member of LaFontaine's ministry), Barthlmy, Joliette and six others.
Of the sixteen British members of the council, Robert Baldwin Sullivan,
Peter McGill of Montreal, William Morris, formerly of the legislative
council of Upper Canada and notable as the champion of the Presbyterian
Church in the matter of the Clergy Reserves,[71] were of especial
prominence.

[Footnote 71: H. J. Morgan, _Sketches of Celebrated Canadians_ (1862),
pp. 429 _et seq._]

The constitutional history of the first session of the union parliament
which now ensued, and in which the first test was made of the operation
of the united government, has the appearance of an indecisive battle.
The Reform party, anxious to force the issue, endeavoured to obtain an
expression of want of confidence sufficiently emphatic to compel the
government to resign office. The government, on the other hand, strove
to put the question of parliamentary theory in the background by
bringing forward a programme of great public utility and inviting for
its accomplishment a united support. The members of the Reform party
found themselves thus placed in a dilemma. Should they persist in an
uncompromising attitude of opposition, they might delay the carrying out
of public works of whose urgency they were themselves convinced. Should
they break their ranks and vote with the party of the government in
favour of measures of undoubted utility, they thereby seemed to justify
the existence of an administration of which they had at the outset
expressed their disapproval. It was, in a word, the oft-recurring
dilemma occasioned by the conflicting claims of party policy and public
welfare. In a long-established legislature where rival parties of
balanced powers alternate in office, such a dilemma presents less
difficulty, since, with the defeat of the government, the incoming party
is enabled to carry on such part of the programme of its opponents as
may enlist its support. But in the case of the newly inaugurated
government of Canada, both the urgency of the time and the doubtful
complexion of the parties themselves seemed to favour individual action
as against the claims of party cohesion. It followed as a consequence
that the question of responsible government, albeit the real issue of
the moment, remained for the time in suspense. Lord Sydenham with his
able lieutenant, Attorney-general Draper, was enabled to obtain
sufficient support to carry on his government, while the Reformers
contrived, nevertheless, to force from the administration a somewhat
reluctant assent to the proposition that only this fortuitous support
gave them a valid claim to office. It has been necessary to undertake
this preliminary explanation in order to make it clear how men, so
like-minded in their political views as Hincks and Baldwin, should
presently be found voting on opposite sides of the House. But if the
state of public affairs at the time is properly understood, it appears
but natural that Hincks, as a man of affairs, should have preferred a
policy of immediate effectiveness, while Baldwin, of a more theoretical
temperament, clung fast to his uncompromising principle.

As already mentioned, the first united parliament met at Kingston on
Monday, June 14th, 1841. The place of its meeting was a stone building
about a mile to the west of the town, that had been intended to serve as
a general hospital, but for the time being was given over for the use of
the legislature. The comfort of the members appears to have been well
cared for. The halls, both of the council and the assembly, were
spacious and well furnished, "with handsome, stuffed arm-chairs of black
walnut, covered with green moreen, with a small projection on the side
to write upon." Sydenham himself seems to have been somewhat impressed
with the luxurious surroundings of his colonial legislators. "The
accommodation," he wrote home to England, "would be thought splendid by
our members of the English House of Commons. But these fellows in their
colonies have been spoilt by all sorts of luxuries,--large arm-chairs,
desks with stationery before each man, and Heaven knows what,--so I
suppose they will complain."

The governor-general was not present in person at the first meeting of
the Houses. In his absence the members were sworn in, and the
proclamation convening the parliament read by the clerk of the assembly.
After this the assembly addressed itself to the task of electing one of
their number as Speaker. Here occurred, in accordance with a plan
prearranged[72] by the Reformers, the first passage-at-arms between the
government and its opponents. The Reformers had decided to nominate for
the speakership a Mr. Cuvillier, member for Huntingdon, a man fluent in
both English and French, identified formerly with the popular party in
Lower Canada, but moderate[73] in his views and acceptable on all sides.
It had been hoped by the Reformers that the government might oppose Mr.
Cuvillier's nomination, and thus be led to make a trial of strength by
which means the election of Mr. Cuvillier would appear as an initial
defeat of the administration. It seemed, however, as if the
administration, either because they considered Mr. Cuvillier well suited
to the office or in order to avoid a hostile vote, would allow that
gentleman to be elected without opposition. This the Reformers were
minded to prevent. "I was determined," wrote Hincks in a letter to the
_Examiner_ in which he described this preliminary onslaught on the
government, "that the advisers of His Excellency should swallow the
bitter pill by publicly voting for a gentleman who had declared his
entire want of confidence in them." In order, therefore, to force the
government into a corner, Hincks rose and stated that he considered it
his duty to his constituents of North Oxford to explain publicly why he
supported the nomination of Mr. Cuvillier. His reason was, he said, that
that gentleman had opposed certain provisions of the Union Bill of which
he himself disapproved, notably the provision for a permanent civil
list. He was furthermore led to support Mr. Cuvillier because of "his
[Mr. Cuvillier's] entire want of confidence in the present
administration."

[Footnote 72: Hincks, _Reminiscences_, p. 58.]

[Footnote 73: Cuvillier had been one of those deputed, in 1828, to carry
the petition of the eighty-seven thousand to the imperial government,
but he had voted against Papineau's "Ninety-two Resolutions."]

This, of course, was a direct challenge, and left the government and the
Tories no choice but to come out and fight. Sir Allan MacNab was
proposed as a rival candidate. Aylwin of Portneuf, Morin and others,
followed the lead of Hincks. A heated debate followed, in which Mr.
Cuvillier's "want of confidence" did service as an opportune bone of
contention. Peace-loving members begged Mr. Cuvillier to state, in the
interests of harmony, whether he had, or had not, a "want of
confidence." Mr. Cuvillier did not see fit to do so. The situation
became somewhat confused. Smith of Frontenac, an over-belligerent friend
of the government, attacked the bad taste of the member for North Oxford
in trying to force an adverse vote at such a time, and spoke of a
dissolution of parliament as the possible outcome of the day's
proceedings. The dangerous word "dissolution" brought Attorney-general
Draper to his feet with soothing words in the interests of peace. MacNab
having meanwhile caused is name to be withdrawn, the discussion
subsided, and Mr. Cuvillier was declared unanimously elected. Baldwin,
being still technically a member of the government (his resignation
awaiting its formal acceptance), took no part in this preliminary
discussion.

There was some debate over the question whether, as the governor-general
had not come down to parliament on the day for which it was summoned, it
could be said, legally, to have met at all. A motion for adjournment
was, however, carried, which practically affirmed the proposition that
the House had legally meet.

Next day Lord Sydenham appeared in person, and with no little pomp, in
the chamber of the legislative council, and read to the assembled
members of the two Houses the speech from the throne. The measures
outlined therein showed that the governor and his advisers were prepared
to adopt a vigorous forward policy in the administration of the
country.[74] They declared their intention to adopt legislation for
"developing the resources of the province by well considered and
extensive public works," to obtain a reduction of the rate of postage
and a speedier conveyance of letters, and to effect the improvement of
the navigation from the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Huron to the ocean.
The governor had, moreover, the satisfaction of informing the members of
the two Houses that he had received authority from Her Majesty's
government to state that they were prepared to call upon the imperial
parliament to afford assistance towards these important undertakings. It
was announced that the imperial parliament would be asked to guarantee a
loan of one and a half million pounds sterling, to be raised for the
expenditure on public works in the province. The intention of the
government to complete the establishment of representative institutions
in Canada by a law providing for municipal self-government was also
indicated, and a promise was given of a law for the establishment of a
system of common schools.

[Footnote 74: _Journal of the Legislative Assembly_ (Canada, 1841), Vol.
I., pp. 7, 8.]

No practical programme could have been better devised at this juncture
for enlisting public support, especially among the people of Upper
Canada, in whose division of the country the rapid progress of
immigration and settlement called urgently for generous public
expenditure. It was part of the shrewdness of the concerted policy of
Sydenham and Draper that they sought thus to remove attention from
questions of theory to questions of practical utility, while the promise
of the imperial government to assist the province by a guaranteed loan
and by public aid to immigration into Canada, seemed to hold out a
strong inducement towards reconciliation and harmonious action. The
Reformers, however, were determined that the question of principle, the
question of the constitution itself, should not be forced altogether
into the background. Before coming to a vote upon the resolutions on
which the address in answer to the speech from the throne was to be
framed, they pressed the administration for a definite statement in
regard to the all-important subject of responsible government. The House
being then in committee of the whole upon the speech from the throne,
Malcolm Cameron opened the discussion by declaring that "the dry and
parched soil is not more eager for the coming shower than all the people
of this country for the establishment of the administration of the
government of this province upon such a basis as will ensure its
tranquillity."[75] Mr. Cameron, followed by Buchanan, Hincks and others,
urged upon the government the desirability of a definite explanation of
principle. The attorney-general, fortified with a budget of manuscript
notes whereby he might speak the more accurately, then undertook a
formal statement of the principle of colonial government as he conceived
it. In the first place, he would declare, he said, for the information
both of those who act with him and those who act against him, that so
long only as he could give a conscientious support to those measures
which the head of the government might deem it his duty to submit to
that House, so long only would he continue to hold office under the
government. . . . . He would next, he continued, state the views which
he entertained respecting the duties of His Excellency: he looked upon
the governor as having a mixed character, firstly, as being the
representative of royalty; secondly, as being one of the ministers of
Her Majesty's government, and responsible to the mother country for the
faithful discharge of the duties of his station--a responsibility that
he could not avoid by saying that he took the advice of this man or that
man. He looked upon it as a necessary consequence of this doctrine, that
where there is responsibility there shall be power also. For he could
not admit the idea that one man should possess the power, and another be
liable for the responsibility. . . . The attorney-general went on to
explain that this same doctrine of responsibility corresponding to
power, applied not only to the governor but to the ministers below him.
"Whenever," he said, "I find the head of the government and the minister
of the Crown desirous of propounding measures which I cannot
conscientiously support, honour and duty point out but one path, and
that is resignation. There are few men who have long acted in a public
capacity, who have escaped animadversion and censure, but a man must
indeed be hardened in sentiment and feeling who does not acknowledge _a
degree of responsibility to public opinion_. . . . It is to be desired
above all things that between the government and the people there should
exist the greatest possible harmony and mutual good understanding. . . .
It is the duty of the head of the government to preserve that harmony by
all the means in his power. . . . If he find that he has been led astray
by incapable or dishonest advisers, he may relieve himself of them by
their dismissal."

[Footnote 75: The debates of the parliament were not officially reported.
What follows is based on the report published in _The Church_ (Toronto),
June 26th, 1841.]

The attorney-general, with his usual persuasiveness of speech, had
succeeded in talking all round the question of responsible government
without really touching upon it. The blunt question, do the ministers
resign when they have no majority behind them, was still left
unanswered. Not without cause, indeed, had Draper's oratorical powers
earned him the nickname of "Sweet William." In this instance, the
Reformers were quick to see the weak side of the attorney-general's
presentation. Baldwin, rising to reply, brushed aside the subtleties of
the leader of the government and forced the question to a direct issue.
He agreed, he said, that the head of the government is of a mixed
character, and that he is responsible to the home government for the
proper administration of the government of the colony. He would admit
that, in the administration of the government, questions may arise in
which he may not be prepared to adopt the advice which may be tendered
to him. But if he (Mr. Baldwin) understood the honourable and learned
gentleman aright, that the council of His Excellency are to offer their
advice only when it is demanded of them, and on all occasions remain
mere passive observers of the measures adopted by the government, he
would beg leave from such a system as this entirely to dissent. . . .
Such a council would be no council at all. The honourable and learned
gentleman, Mr. Baldwin continued, admits that in the event of the
administration not retaining the confidence of parliament, they should
resign; if he had understood the honourable gentleman aright as
intending to go to this extent, then it would seem that the difference
between the views of that honourable gentleman and his own amounted only
to a difference in terms and not a difference in fact. But should those
gentlemen be prepared, notwithstanding a vote of want of confidence
should be passed by that House, to retain their seats in the council,
then he must say that he entirely dissented from them. . . . If the
honourable gentleman had intended to be understood as going to this
length, then he would perfectly concur with him.

Baldwin expressed his regret that this important matter had not been
made the subject of a distinct communication in the speech from the
throne. "It was," he said "a great and important principle, on the
faithful carrying out of which _the continuation of the connection with
the mother country in great measure depends_." The comprehensive
refutation of Mr. Draper's position thus made by Mr. Baldwin was
followed up by a series of "teasing questions"[76] from other Reformers
determined to force the attorney-general to a direct answer to the
question whether or not he would resign. Brought to bay finally by these
attacks and having in the series of seven speeches which he made during
the debate involved the issue in as much intricacy as possible, Mr.
Draper admitted that he would resign.

[Footnote 76: New York _Albion_, July 3rd, 1841.]

So prolonged, however, had been the debate, and so confused had become
the theoretical arguments pro and con, that at the end of it the members
seem to have been but little the wiser. Some supposed that responsible
government was now a fact, others that it had been merely the subject of
a meaningless wrangle. The Montreal _Herald_[77] announced that Mr.
Draper's final and reluctant "Yes," had been "_succeeded by a burst of
applause from the House_. _The cry is, responsible government is come at
last._" The Kingston _Chronicle_[78] informed its readers that "the great
monster, responsible government, was actually ground into nothing," but
added in a tone of complacent patronage that this "seeming waste of
powder ought not to be considered as altogether unprofitable." The same
journal, in its discussion of the great debate, informed its readers
that "the perpetual foaming and puffing of the honourable gentlemen
reminded us of a set of small steam engines whose safety valves kept
them from actually bursting their boilers on the floor of the House."
Then, as if apprehensive of the consequences of its own wit, the journal
hastened to add: "By this passing remark we do not mean any disrespect
to the honourable House, far from it, for we think it altogether the
most talented and respectable House of Assembly that ever met in this
section of the province."

[Footnote 77: Cited by the _Albion_, July 3rd, 1841.]

[Footnote 78: Wednesday, June 22nd, 1841.]

In despite of the seeming harmony of opinion thus established, the fact
remained that the attorney-general had to a large extent come off
victorious. His opponents had wished to make the question one of men;
Draper had succeeded in making it one of measures. His declaration was
in reality an invitation to the members to judge the programme of the
government upon its merits, and to accord it their support irrespective
of any previous confidence, or want of it, in the originators of the
programme. Mr. Draper's difficulties were not, however, at an end. The
Upper Canada Reform party being for the moment placated, he had yet to
deal with the French-Canadian section, whose opposition to the terms of
the union itself now sought expression. Neilson of Quebec moved an
amendment to the address, to the effect that "there are features in the
Act now constituting the government of Canada which are inconsistent
with justice and the common rights of British subjects."[79] Although the
combined Upper Canadian vote easily defeated this amendment, Baldwin,
Hincks and four other Upper Canadians voted in favour of it. Hincks
spoke at some length in its support. He attacked the provision of the
Union Act whereby the imperial parliament fixed a civil list for Canada.
He declared that the basis of representation now established was unjust:
in Upper Canada there were forty-two members, twenty-six of whom were
returned by constituencies consisting of three hundred and fifty
thousand souls, while the remaining sixteen only represented sixty-three
thousand. The representation of Lower Canada was equally out of
proportion. "It is," he said, "idle to concede responsible government
unless there is a fair representation of the people." The suppression of
the French language as an official medium, he denounced as an "unjust
and cruel provision." Hincks's speech was, however, but a further "waste
of powder." The amendment was voted down by fifty to twenty-five.

[Footnote 79: _Journal of the Legislative Assembly_, Vol. I., p. 64.]

With the termination of this preliminary debate upon responsible
government and the rejection of Neilson's amendment, the government had
safely passed its initial difficulties, and was free to turn to the work
of positive legislation. That the issue involved in the debate was not,
however, one of merely abstract interest, amply appears from the
correspondence of Lord Sydenham and the view which he took of his
constitutional position in the government of Canada. In describing the
attempt of the Reform party to "ensure a stormy opening" of the
parliament, he wrote (June 27th, 1841): "My officers, (ministers!)
though the best men, I believe, for their departments that can be found,
were, unfortunately, many of them, unpopular from their previous
conduct, and none of them sufficiently acquainted with the manner in
which a government _through_ parliament should be conducted to render us
any assistance in this matter. _I had therefore to fight the whole
battle myself._ . . . The result, however, has been complete success. _I
have got the large majority of the House ready to support me upon any
question that can arise._ . . . Except the rump of the old House of
Assembly of Lower Canada and two or three ultra-Radicals who have gone
over with _my solicitor-general, whom I have got rid of_, every member
is cordially with me and with my government."

Thus established on a fair working basis, with the question of
responsible government for the moment set aside, the administration was
able to proceed with its programme. In the ensuing session, which lasted
until September 17th, 1841, it managed to make good a large part of its
promises. A vigorous programme of public works was instituted. Backed by
the imperial guarantee of the interest on a 1,500,000 sterling loan,
the province undertook an expenditure of 1,659,682 on works of public
utility. The Welland Canal, hitherto in the hands of a private company,
was bought up by the government, which spent 450,000 on its
improvement. The navigation of the St. Lawrence, which, as has been
seen, was still obstructed by intervening rapids, was aided by a vote of
696,182 for the construction of canals at Cornwall and Lachine; 58,500
was laid out upon deepening the channel in Lake St. Peter; and 25,000
on the construction of roads in the Eastern Townships and in the Baie
des Chaleurs district. A sum of 45,000 was devoted to the Burlington
Canal. The remainder of the money was appropriated largely to the
construction of new roads in Upper Canada. This question of public works
introduced serious divisions among the members of the Reform party.
Hincks who was, to use his own phrase, a "warm supporter" of public
works,[80] voted with the government. The French-Canadians, on the other
hand, opposed the policy of public expenditure wherever it seemed, in
their opinion, to favour Upper Canada unduly. Baldwin, for the sake of
party cohesion, was inclined to side with the French-Canadians, and so
preserve a united opposition. Aylwin endeavoured to secure a vote of the
House to the effect that no debt should be incurred on public works save
with the consent of a majority from Lower Canada. Baldwin voted in
favour of it, but found only one of his Upper Canadian followers
prepared to go to this length. On the matter of road building in western
Canada, Baldwin and Hincks again found themselves voting on opposite
sides. Thanks to the divisions in the ranks of their opponents, the
ministry were enabled to carry on the government with a fair show of
support.

[Footnote 80: _Reminiscences_, p. 69.]

Certain other measures of the session were also of considerable
importance. The criminal law was modified by measures reducing its
severity. The pillory was abolished and the number of capital offences
considerably reduced. The provincial tariff was revised, the duties on
imported merchandise being advanced from two and one-half to five per
cent. A resolution of the House of Assembly affirmed the necessity of
abolishing seigniorial tenure in Lower Canada and a commission was
appointed for its consideration. A bill in reference to the corrupt
practices which had been prevalent in the recent election, excited great
public attention and caused more difficulty to the government than any
other measure of the session. Petitions had come up to the House from
Terrebonne (where LaFontaine had been defeated) and elsewhere praying
the assembly to cancel the elections. Technical flaws in the petitions
prevented their reception. A bill brought into the House to overcome the
difficulty and permit the reception of the petitions was passed by a
large majority, receiving the support, not only of the entire Reform
party, but of Sir Allan MacNab and the Upper Canadian Tories. The
influence of the government caused the bill to be rejected in the
legislative council. This was only one of eighteen measures rejected
during the session by the Upper House, a circumstance which served to
show that on its present nominated basis it might prove an obstructive
influence.

But the measure of the greatest importance adopted during the session
was the law in reference to municipal government. As this was a subject
with which, in the sequel, the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration was
intimately associated, a brief account of the legislation under Lord
Sydenham is here necessary. The institution of democratic
self-government is nowhere complete until it is accompanied by the
establishment of self-governing bodies for local affairs. Parliamentary
reform, therefore, naturally goes hand in hand with municipal reform.
This had already been seen in England, where the great reform of
parliament in 1832 had been followed in 1835 by the introduction of
municipal self-government. It was now proposed to take an initial step
in this same direction in regard to the local government of Upper
Canada. Until this time there existed in the districts into which Upper
Canada was divided, no elective municipal bodies. The justices of the
peace, nominated by the Crown, had exercised in their quarter sessions a
supervision over local affairs and had levied local taxation. In the
Lower Province local taxation had not been raised previous to Lord
Sydenham's administration. The latter had sought to insert into the Act
of Union provisions for district government but, finding the imperial
parliament averse to such detailed legislation, he had, by means of the
special council, created in Lower Canada municipal bodies consisting of
nominees of the Crown. It was not proposed to alter the system thus
established in Lower Canada, where the government still felt
apprehensive of giving full play to the principle of election. The bill
presented to the united parliament referred, therefore, only to Upper
Canada. This occasioned a peculiar difficulty. If the local bodies
established were to be entirely elective, the French might with justice
complain of the special privileges thus accorded to the British part of
the province. If, on the other hand, the municipal institutions of Upper
Canada were framed after the model of those already created by the
special council in Lower Canada, the British section of the province
would cry out against the denial of representative government.

In this delicate situation the government attempted a middle course. The
provisions of the bill permitted the inhabitants of the districts of
Upper Canada to form themselves into municipal bodies. Councillors were
to be elected in each district, but the warden, the treasurer and the
clerk, were to be nominated by the Crown. The bill as thus drawn had the
disadvantage which attends all measures of compromise; it met with
opponents on both sides. Mr. Viger, on behalf of the French-Canadians,
entered an energetic protest[81] on the ground that Upper Canada was
unduly favoured. "I will express myself," he said, "as sufficiently
selfish to oppose such great advantages being accorded to the Upper
Canadians alone." Robert Baldwin and the generality of his following
objected, on the ground that the advantages conferred were not
sufficiently great and that all the municipal offices ought to be made
elective.

[Footnote 81: Turcotte, _Le Canada sous l'Union_, pp. 98, 99.]

Here again Hincks found himself compelled to differ from his leader and,
in a speech of considerable power, undertook to defend this course in
regard to the bill, and to free himself from the charges of desertion
now brought against him by his fellow Reformers. To him it seemed that
half a loaf was better than no bread. He would have preferred that local
elective government might also have been conceded to Lower Canada, but
if this could not be obtained he saw no reason to deny it to Upper
Canada on that account. He would have preferred that all the offices
should have been elective, but he was willing, in default of this, to
accept the modified self-government granted by the bill. "I acknowledge
myself," he said, "to be a party man, and that I have ever been most
anxious to act in concert with that political party to which I have been
long and zealously attached.... I have been held up in public prints as
having sold myself to the government. From political opponents I can
expect nothing else but such attacks, but, sir, I confess I have been
pained at the insinuations which have proceeded from other quarters....
I can assert that my vote in favour of this bill is as conscientious and
independent as that of any honourable member on the floor of this
House."

Baldwin, in rising to reply, denied that he had had any share in
originating, repeating, or sanctioning any insinuations against Mr.
Hincks's behaviour towards the party. The means of demonstrating the
groundlessness of such insinuations rested with Mr. Hincks himself. He
assured the honourable member for Oxford that if a time should come when
the political tie which bound them to each other was to be severed
forever, it would be to him by far the most painful event which had
occurred in the course of his political life. Nevertheless, in spite of
these words of conciliation, the temporary breach occasioned by the
divergent policy of the leaders of the Upper Canadian Reformers tended
to widen. Hincks, with the best of motives, was drawn towards the
practical programme of the government. He not only voted with them on
the question of public works and municipal institutions, but took issue
with his leader also in the votes on the usury laws, the Upper Canadian
roads and other matters. His services on the special committee in regard
to currency and banking still further commended him to the government as
a political expert, of whose services the country ought not to be
deprived.

To meet the charges now freely brought against him in the liberal press,
Hincks published in his _Examiner_ a letter (September 15th, 1841) in
which he fully explains the motives of his conduct. "The formation of a
new ministry on the declared principle of acting in concert having
failed, all parties were compelled to look to the measures of the
administration, and we can now declare that, previous to the session of
parliament, our opinion was given repeatedly and decidedly, that in the
event of failure to obtain such an administration as would be entirely
satisfactory, the policy of the Reform party was to give to the
administration such a support as would enable it to carry out liberal
measures which we had no doubt would be brought forward." In the face of
so consistent an explanation the charges brought against Hincks of
having "sold himself to the government" and of "having _ratted from his
party_"[82] fell entirely to the ground. The support of Hincks, and of
four French-Canadian members of like mind, enabled the government to
carry the municipal bill by a narrow majority. The question of a more
extended form of local self-government remained, however, in the
foreground of the Reform programme, and received no final settlement
until the passage of the statute known as the Baldwin Act in 1849.

[Footnote 82: The expression is quoted by Major Richardson, _Eight Years
in Canada_ (1847), from a virulent Montreal article in which Hincks is
called an "adder," and his career a "libel on colonial politics."]

The Act for the establishment of a system of common schools passed both
Houses of parliament with but little opposition. The people of Upper
Canada were firm believers in the advantages of public education.
Especially was this the case with those who came of Loyalist stock, and
among whom the traditions of New England still survived. Until this
period, however, no successful attempt had been made to establish a
general system of elementary schools. The government of the province had
committed the mistake of beginning at the wrong end of the scale, and
ambitious attempts to institute grammar schools and secondary colleges
had preceded any efforts towards the education of the mass of the
people.[83] Governor Simcoe, eager to extend to his Loyalist settlers the
advantages that their forefathers had enjoyed in Massachusetts or
Connecticut, planned the institution of a university at York, with
grammar schools at Cornwall, Kingston, Newark and Sandwich, a proposal
which failed of adoption. A little later, however, (1807) grammar
schools were instituted in each of the eight districts of the province.
These were supplemented by private schools, such as those of Dr.
Strachan and Dr. Baldwin mentioned above. But to the generality of the
people these advanced schools were of no utility, and the settlers were
forced to rely on their own efforts and on spontaneous coperation for
the teaching of their children.

[Footnote 83: N. Burwash, _Egerton Ryerson_ (Makers of Canada Series),
pp. 53 _et seq._]

Not until 1816 was the attempt made to organize by an Act of the
legislature a system of elementary schools. Under this Act the people of
any locality might organize themselves for the building and maintenance
of a school, for whose management they elected three of their number as
trustees. A general grant of funds was made by the legislature in aid of
schools thus organized, while in every district a board of education
appointed by the lieutenant-governor exercised a general supervision
over the trustees of each school. This statute had been supplemented by
further legislation in the same direction,[84] providing for the
institution of a provincial board and for district examination of
teachers. The intention of these statutes had been better than their
operation. Neither attendance at schools nor local taxation in support
of them had been made compulsory, and a large majority of the children
of the province were still without adequate education. Day, the
solicitor-general of Lower Canada, in introducing the measure, stated
that not more than one child out of eighteen was in attendance at the
existing elementary schools to whose support the government contributed.
In Lower Canada the condition of things was still less advanced. There
existed as yet "no legal establishment, no provision of the law by which
the people could obtain access to education." Such schools as existed
were private establishments founded and supported in great measure by
the Church. The secondary colleges of this kind were sufficiently
numerous and efficient, but of elementary schools, especially in the
rural parts of the country, there was a sad lack.

[Footnote 84: Acts of 1820, 1823, 1824.]

The present law[85] provided an annual grant of two hundred thousand
dollars for primary schools,--eighty thousand for Upper Canada, one
hundred and twenty thousand for the Lower Province. It enacted that the
district council in each district should act as a board of education,
distributing the annual government grant, assessing on the inhabitants
of the different school districts the sums necessary for the erection of
new schools. Within each of these school areas a board of commissioners
was to be elected who should act as the trustees of the school,
appointing the teacher and regulating the course of study. A fee of one
shilling and three pence per month was to be exacted for each child in
attendance, save in cases of extreme poverty. The principal objections
raised to the bill as first drafted turned on the question of religious
instruction. A great number of petitions were presented to the assembly
praying that the Bible should be adopted as a book of instruction in the
elementary school curriculum. To meet the views of the petitioners a
separate school clause[86] was added to the Act, whereby inhabitants
possessing a religious faith different from that of the majority, might
establish and maintain a school of their own and receive a proportion of
the government grant.

[Footnote 85: 4 and 5 Vict., c. 18.]

[Footnote 86: 4 and 5 Vict., c. 18, sec. XI.]

In spite of the success of their practical policy, the session was not
destined to end in unqualified victory for the administration. On
September 3rd, (1841) Baldwin presented to the assembly a series of
resolutions affirming the principle of responsible government. The
government succeeded in voting down the resolutions in the form in which
they were presented, but only at the price of substituting for them a
set of resolutions almost equivalent. These resolutions, hereafter
associated with the name of Robert Baldwin, stand as the definite
achievement of the United Reformers in their first constitutional
struggle under the union. They read as follows:[87]

[Footnote 87: _Journal of the Legislative Assembly_, Vol. I., September
3rd, 1841, pp. 480, 481.]

1. "That the most important, as well as most undoubted, of the political
rights of the people of this province is that of having a provincial
parliament for the protection of their liberties, for the exercise of a
constitutional influence over the executive departments of their
government, and for legislation upon all matters of internal
government."[88]

[Footnote 88: Baldwin's resolution had ended.... "legislation upon all
matters which do not, on the grounds of absolute necessity,
constitutionally belong to the jurisdiction of the imperial parliament
as the paramount authority of the legislature."]

2. "That the head of the executive government of the province being,
within the limits of his government, the representative of the
sovereign, is responsible to the imperial authority alone; but that,
nevertheless, the management of our local affairs can only be conducted
by him, by and with the assistance, counsel and information of
subordinate officers in the province."[89]

[Footnote 89: Baldwin's resolution had read.... "is not constitutionally
responsible to any other than the authorities of the empire." The
meaning is that the governor is properly to be considered dissociated
from the party government of the province.]

3. "That in order to preserve between the different branches of the
provincial parliament that harmony which is essential to the peace,
welfare and good government of the province, the chief advisers of the
representative of the sovereign, constituting a provincial
administration under him, ought to be men possessed of the confidence
of the representatives of the people, thus affording a guarantee that
the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our
gracious sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the provincial
government, will, on all occasions, be faithfully represented and
advocated."[90]

[Footnote 90: Baldwin's resolution read: "That in order to preserve that
harmony between the different branches of the provincial parliament
which is essential to the happy conduct of public affairs, the principal
of such subordinate officers, advisers of the representative of the
sovereign, and constituting as such the provincial administration under
him, as the head of the provincial government, ought always to be men
possessed of the public confidence, whose opinions and policy
harmonizing with those of the representatives of the people, would
afford a guarantee that the well-understood wishes and interests of the
people, which our gracious sovereign has declared shall be the rule of
the provincial government, will at all times be faithfully represented
to the head of that government and through him to the sovereign and
imperial parliament."]

4. "That the people of this province, have, moreover, a right to expect
from such provincial administration the exertion of their best
endeavours that the imperial authority, within its constitutional
limits, shall be exercised in the manner most consistent with their
wishes and interests."[91]

[Footnote 91: Baldwin's resolution was a much more direct affirmation of
principle. It read: "That as it is practically always optional with such
advisers to continue in or retire from office, at pleasure, this House
has the constitutional right of holding such advisers politically
responsible for every act of the provincial government of a local
character, sanctioned by such government while such advisers continue in
office."]

It is said that the resolutions in their final form were drafted by Lord
Sydenham himself. It would be difficult to say just what would have
been the scope of their operation had that energetic and purposeful
nobleman remained at the head of Canadian affairs. But his melancholy
and untimely death, just as the session came to a close, gave a new turn
to the current of history and rendered it possible for those who had
opposed his administration to put into operation the principles of
government whose validity he had conceded. A fall from his horse
(September 4th, 1841) resulted in injuries which proved too much for his
constitution, already enfeebled by the severity of his labours, to
withstand. He lingered for a fortnight, his mind still busied with
public cares, worn out with insomnia and racked with unceasing
suffering. On the seventeenth of the month, while the governor-general
was hovering between life and death, the parliament was prorogued in his
name by the officer commanding the forces at Kingston. On Sunday,
September 19th, Lord Sydenham breathed his last. His memory has been
variously judged. A well-known French-Canadian historian[92] has
denounced the "political tyranny which he exercised against the Liberals
of the population," and has spoken of his "hand of iron" pressed heavily
upon French Canada. A British-Canadian historian of prominence[93] has
called him the "merchant pacificator of Canada," and ranked his
achievements with those of Wolfe and Brock. But all are united in
testifying to his untiring zeal, his wide range of knowledge and the
integrity of his personal character.

[Footnote 92: Turcotte, _Le Canada sous l'Union_, p. 106.]

[Footnote 93: John McMullen, _History of Canada_, (1868), p. 496.]




  CHAPTER V

  THE FIRST LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY


The sudden death of Lord Sydenham occasioned an interregnum in the
government of the province, during which time the administration was
carried on under Sir Richard Jackson, commander of Her Majesty's forces
in Canada. On October 7th, 1841, a new governor-general was appointed in
the person of Sir Charles Bagot, who arrived at Kingston on Monday,
January 10th, 1842. The news of his appointment had been the subject of
a premature jubilation on the part of the thorough-going Tories of the
MacNab faction. The nominee of the Tory government of Sir Robert Peel,
and himself known for a Tory of the old school, Sir Charles was expected
to restore to Canada an atmosphere of official conservatism which should
recall the serener days of the Family Compact. The sequel showed that
Sir Charles was prepared to do nothing of the kind. He was, indeed, a
Tory, but his long parliamentary and diplomatic training had stood him
in good stead. As an under-secretary of state for foreign affairs and on
diplomatic missions at Paris, Washington and St. Petersburg, he had
learned the value of the ways of peace. At the Hague, whither he had
been sent in connection with the recent disruption of the kingdom of the
Netherlands, he had already had to face the problem of rival religions
and hostile races. The natural affability and kindness of his
temperament, combined with the enlightened wisdom of advancing years,
led him to seek rather to conciliate existing differences than to
inflame anew the smouldering embers of partisan animosity. Devoid of the
personal egotism which had so often converted colonial governors into
"domineering proconsuls," Sir Charles was willing to entrust the task of
practical government to the hands most able to undertake it. For the
role of pacificator, the new governor-general was well suited. His
distinguished bearing and upright carriage, and the ease with which he
mingled with all classes of colonial society rapidly assured him in the
province a personal esteem destined greatly to facilitate that
conciliation of rival parties which it was his hope to accomplish.

It only remained for Bagot to find, among the political groups which
divided his parliament, a party, or a union of parties, strong enough to
enable him to carry on the government on these lines. As the parliament
was not summoned for eight months after his arrival, Sir Charles had
ample time to look about him and to consider the political situation
which he was called upon to face. Visits to Toronto, Montreal and Quebec
brought him into contact with the political leaders of the hour, and
enabled him to realize that, with the ministry as it at the moment
existed, it would not be possible long to carry on the government.
Indeed the Draper ministry had owed its continued existence solely to
the recognized value of certain of the measures which it had initiated.
It had enjoyed a sort of political armistice, at the close of which a
renewed and triumphant onslaught of its opponents might naturally be
expected. In particular the new governor realized that it would be
impossible to carry on the government of the country without an adequate
support from the French-Canadians. He made it, therefore, his aim from
the outset to adopt towards them an attitude of friendliness and
confidence. Several important appointments to office were made from
among their ranks. Judge Vallires, one of Sir John Colborne's former
antagonists, was made chief-justice of Montreal; Dr. Meilleur, a
French-Canadian scholar of distinction, became superintendent of public
instruction. As a result of this policy Bagot was greeted in Lower
Canada with signal enthusiasm and his memory has still an honoured place
in the annals of the province.

Meantime it had become evident even to Mr. Draper that some
reconstruction of the ministry and some decided modification of its
policy were urgently demanded. French Canada was still loud in its
complaints against its lack of proper representation in the cabinet,
against the injustice of the present electoral divisions, and against
local government by appointed officers. "The government," said _Le
Canadien_, a leading journal in the Reform interest, "may keep us in a
state of political inferiority, it may rob us, it may oppress us. It has
the support of an army and of the whole power of the empire to enable
it to do so. But never will we ourselves give it our support in its
attempt to enslave and degrade us." The tone of the province was clearly
seen in the bye-elections which took place during the recess of
parliament. D. B. Papineau, a brother of the exiled leader, was elected
for Ottawa, James Leslie, who had been one of the victims of the
election frauds of 1841, was elected for Verchres. Most significant of
all was the return to parliament of Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine. Baldwin,
it will be remembered, had been elected in 1841 for two constituencies,
Hastings and the fourth riding of York. He had accepted the seat for
Hastings, and the constituency of York was thereby without a
representative. He proposed to his constituents that they should bear
witness to the reality of the Anglo-French Reform alliance by electing
LaFontaine as their representative. LaFontaine accepted with cordiality
the proposal of his ally. "I cannot but regard such a generous and
liberal offer," he wrote in answer to the formal invitation from the
Reform committee of the riding, "as a positive and express condemnation,
on the part of the freeholders, of the gross injustice done to several
Lower Canadian constituencies, which, in reality, have been deprived of
their elective franchise, and which, in consequence of violence, riots
and bloodshed, are now represented in the united parliament by men in
whom they place no confidence."

To his new constituency LaFontaine issued an address in which he urged
the need of coperation between the French and English parties. "Apart
from the considerations of social order, from the love of peace and
political freedom, our common interests would alone establish sympathies
which, sooner or later, must have rendered the mutual coperation of the
mass of the two populations necessary to the march of government. . . .
The political contest commenced at the last session has resulted in a
thorough union in parliament between the members who represent the
majority of both peoples. That union secures to the provincial
government solid support in carrying out those measures which are
required to establish peace and contentment." LaFontaine's candidacy was
successful and he was elected in September, 1841, by a majority of two
hundred and ten votes.

It was the design of Bagot to meet the impending difficulties of the
situation, before the meeting of parliament, by such a reconstruction of
his ministry as should convert it into a coalition in which all parties
might be represented. To men of moderate views, of the type of Sir
Charles Bagot, there is an especial fascination in the idea of a
political coalition. To subordinate the petty differences of party
animosity to the broader considerations of national welfare, is a task
so congenial to their own temperament that they do not realize how
difficult it is for others. To gather into a single happy family the
radical and the reactionary, the clerical and the secularist, is a hope
as tempting as it is fatuous. The initial success which had attended
Bagot's efforts, the enthusiasm of his reception in French Canada,
concealed for the moment the difficulties of the peaceful reunion which
he proposed. At Montreal the governor had been received by a "procession
upwards of a mile in length, while the hundred banners and flags which
fluttered in the gentle breeze, together with the animating strains of
martial music, formed a _tout ensemble_ which had never before been
witnessed in Canada."[94]

[Footnote 94: New York _Albion_, Saturday, June 4th, 1842.]

"The millenium," wrote a British correspondent, a month or two later,
"has certainly arrived. Lord Ashburton has settled all difficulties
between John Bull and Brother Jonathan, and the lion and the lamb are
seen lying down together in Sir Charles Bagot's cabinet." This last
allusion referred to the elevation of Francis Hincks and Henry Sherwood
to executive office. On June 9th, 1842, Hincks was given the post of
inspector-general. Previous to the union this position (in each
province) had been of a somewhat routine character, the chief duties of
its incumbent being to vouch for the correctness of the warrants issued
on the receiver-general.[95] But even in Sydenham's time it was intended
that the office should be converted into what might be called a ministry
of finance, and that the inspector-general should hold a seat in the
legislature as the official exponent of the financial policy of the
government. The voluntary retirement of the Hon. John Macauley of
Kingston, inspector-general for Upper Canada, had made an opening, and
Hincks was accordingly given the position of inspector-general of
Canada, while the former incumbent of the office in Lower Canada was
made deputy-inspector for the united provinces.

[Footnote 95: Hincks, _Reminiscences_, p. 81.]

It had been charged against Hincks that, even during the preceding
session of the parliament, the prospect of this office had been held out
as a bait to allure him from his allegiance to the Reformers. But
according to his own statement[96] no approaches of this kind were made
to him at all during the year 1841. Nor did he intend, in accepting a
seat in the executive council, which was to accompany the inspectorship,
to forego any of his previous principles. In his address to his Oxford
constituents on the occasion of his relection on appointment to office,
he said: "I have accepted office without the slightest compromise of my
well-known political principles, and I shall not continue to hold it
unless the administration with which I am connected shall be supported
by the public opinion of the country." Nevertheless the bitter comments
of the rival factions on Hincks's appointment showed already the
impossibilities of a general reconciliation. "The appointment of Mr.
Hincks to the lucrative and important office of inspector-general," said
a contemporary journalist,[97] "has been received with strong expressions
of disapproval by the great bulk of the _loyal party_ of the province
. . . . Mr. Hincks has long conducted a journal which has been accused of
ministering sedition to its readers, and at the breaking out of
Mackenzie's rebellion he stood with his arms folded, rendering no
assistance towards quelling the atrocious attempt of that mountebank
. . . . It is for these reasons that the honours now bestowed on him are so
objectionable to a great part of the people." It will be noted that both
now and later it was an article of faith with the Tories that they were
the only _loyal_ part of the population, a fiction which rendered any
political compromise with them all the more difficult to effect.

[Footnote 96: _Reminiscences_, p. 80.]

[Footnote 97: Correspondent of the New York _Albion_, July 2nd, 1841.]

In order to offset the appointment of Hincks, Bagot at the same time
offered the post of solicitor-general for Upper Canada to Cartwright, a
leading member of the MacNab party. Cartwright declined the office, and
forwarded to Sir Charles Bagot a letter in explanation of his refusal.
The recent appointment, he said, had been viewed with disapproval by the
Conservative party to which he belonged. He construed it as an evidence
that the government was indifferent to the political principles of its
supporters, even when their principles were unfriendly to British
supremacy. The cry for responsible government was a danger to the
country, and was a request incompatible with the position of Canada as a
British colony. Of this dangerous movement, Mr. Hincks had been the
"apologist." He had been the defender of Papineau and Mackenzie up to
the very moment of the rebellion. To go into a government with "this
individual" would ruin Mr. Cartwright's character as a public man.[98] As
Mr. Cartwright's objections appeared invincible, the post was offered to
one of his fellow Conservatives, Henry Sherwood, a lawyer of Toronto.
Mr. Sherwood, contrary to the expectation of his party, accepted the
office, entering upon his duties in July, 1842. The ministry was
therefore (in the month of August, 1842) of a decidedly multi-coloured
complexion, containing as it did, representatives of the Tories, the
Reformers, and of the old council. But it was the intention of Bagot to
carry his principle of combination still further, and to enlist, if
possible, the services of the two men most influential in the country,
Baldwin and LaFontaine. Of LaFontaine's support the governor felt a
particular need. The ministry contained no French-Canadians, and of the
special offices which were concerned exclusively with the affairs of
Lower Canada, one (the office of solicitor-general) had been rendered
vacant by the elevation of Mr. Day to the bench, while the incumbent of
another (Ogden, the attorney-general) was absent in England. It was
becoming clear that, unless a reconstruction could be effected, the
present ministry would be left almost unsupported in the House. Mr.
Draper seems to have accepted the situation with philosophic
resignation. He was quite ready, if need be, to resign his own place,
and he harboured no delusions about his ability to carry on the
government with inadequate support. The meeting of parliament at
Kingston (September 8th, 1842) was made the occasion of an attempt on
the part of the governor to complete his system of coalition. His speech
from the throne, while referring to the prosperous financial position of
the government and the rapid progress of the public works undertaken,
expressed an ardent wish that "a spirit of moderation and harmony might
animate the counsels of the parliament." The debate on the address in
answer to the speech was fixed for Friday, September 13th. On that
afternoon the governor, who had already been in personal consultation
with LaFontaine, wrote to him in the following terms:--

[Footnote 98: See N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in Canada_, p. 478.]

  "Government House,
  "Kingston, September 13th, 1842.

  "Sir:

"Having taken into my most earnest and anxious consideration the
conversation which passed between us, I find my desire to invite to the
aid of, and cordial coperation with my government the population of
French origin in this province, unabated. . . . I have, therefore, come,
not without difficulty, to the conclusion that, for such an object, I
will consent to the retirement of the attorney-general, Mr. Ogden, from
the office which he now holds, upon its being distinctly understood that
a provision will be made for him commensurate with his long and faithful
services. Upon his retirement I am prepared to offer to you the
situation of attorney-general for Lower Canada with a seat in my
executive council. . . .

"Mr. Baldwin's differences with the government have arisen chiefly from
his desire to act in concert with the representatives of the French
portion of the population, and, as I hope these differences are now
happily removed, I shall be willing to avail myself of this service. Mr.
Draper has tendered me the resignation of his office. I shall always
regret the loss of such assistance as he has uniformly afforded me, and
I shall feel the imperative obligation of considering his claims upon
the government, whenever an opportunity may offer of adequately
acknowledging them. . . .

"From my knowledge of the sentiments entertained by all the gentlemen
who now compose my constitutional advisers, I see no reason to doubt
that a strong and united council might be formed on the basis of this
proposition. In this persuasion I have gone to the utmost length to meet
and even to surpass your demands, and if, after such an overture, I
shall find that my efforts to secure the political tranquillity of the
country are unsuccessful, I shall at least have the satisfaction of
feeling that I have exhausted all the means which the most anxious
desire to accomplish the great object has enabled me to devise.

  "I have the honour, etc,
  "C. Bagot."

The promise was given in the same letter that the position of
solicitor-general for Lower Canada should be filled according to
LaFontaine's nomination, provided only that the person nominated was
British. The commissionership of Crown lands was likewise to be offered
to M. Girouard, a former associate and friend of LaFontaine during the
constitutional struggle preceding the rebellion. At the same time a
pension was to be granted to Mr. Davidson, the previous commissioner, an
old servant of the government. That the proposal thus made went a long
way towards meeting the demands of the Reform party can be seen by
reading the comments on it in the Tory press, when the letter was
subsequently read out in the assembly by Mr. Draper as a proof of the
intractable attitude of the Reformers. "Incredible and humiliating as it
may appear," said the Toronto _Church_, "it was really written by Sir
Charles Bagot to Mr. LaFontaine. . . . A Radical ministry cannot last
long. Loyal men need not despair; _they have God on their side_. We must
begin to agitate for a dissolution of the union between Upper and Lower
Canada, or a federal union of all the British North American provinces."
It will be seen from this that the exasperated Tories claimed a
monopoly, not only of loyalty to the Crown, but even of the sheltering
protection of Providence.

Flattering as was Sir Charles Bagot's proposal, LaFontaine, after
hurried consultation with his future colleague, did not see fit to
accept it. It had been the aim of the Reform leaders not merely to
obtain office for themselves personally but to force a resignation of
the whole ministry, to be followed by a cabinet reconstruction in due
form. Even with Draper absent, there were several members of the
existing administration, notably Sherwood, the Tory solicitor-general
just appointed, with whom they would find it difficult to coperate. To
accept the responsibility of providing pensions for Ogden and Davidson
seemed to LaFontaine, wrongly perhaps, a bad constitutional precedent.
The suggestion of giving pensions was not indeed without defence, under
the circumstances. Davidson was an old public servant who had taken no
active part in politics, and who had no wish to continue to hold an
office which was now to be made a subject of party appointment and
dismissal.[99] The office held by Ogden had also been non-political at
the time of his assuming it. But a further objection to the proposal lay
in the fact that the united Reformers were in complete command of the
situation, and could afford to insist on better terms of entry upon
office than those offered by Sir Charles Bagot.

[Footnote 99: Hincks, _Political History of Canada_, (a lecture) 1877, p.
26.]

Foiled in the plan of friendly reconstruction, there was nothing for it
for the government but to fight its way with the address as best it
might. The resolutions for the adoption of a cordial response to the
speech from the throne were the signal for a debate of unusual interest
and excitement, during which the galleries of the legislative chambers
were packed with eager listeners who felt that the fate not only of the
government, but of the system of government, hung on the issue. The
newspapers of the day testify to the intense interest occasioned by the
prospect of the approaching trial of strength. "This afternoon," writes
the Toronto _Herald_ of September 13th, "the great battle commenced. The
war is even now being carried into the enemy's camp--excitement
increases--members rave--the people wax furious--and where it will end
no one can guess." "The House was so crowded," complained a local
journalist, "that we were unable to obtain any space for writing in, and
had to rely on our recollection for an abstract of the day's
proceedings."[100]

[Footnote 100: Correspondence of Toronto _Herald_.]

Mr. Draper was too keen a fighter to surrender tamely and without a
struggle. He addressed the House in what was called by the Kingston
_Chronicle_, "one of the most splendid and eloquent speeches we have
ever heard." He submitted to the consideration of the assembly an
account of the unsuccessful attempt to obtain the services of LaFontaine
in the government. It had been recognized, he said, that it was
absolutely right that the gentlemen representing the population of
French Canada should have a share in the administration of affairs. It
had not escaped attention that an alliance had been formed between the
representatives of French Canada and the honourable member for Hastings.
When the government had opened negotiations with the honourable member
for the fourth riding of York (Mr. LaFontaine), it had appeared that the
inclusion of Mr. Baldwin in the government was made a _sine qua non_. He
(Mr. Draper) had felt that he could not remain in the council if Mr.
Baldwin were brought into it. It was for this reason that he had
tendered his resignation. Mr. Draper then read aloud the governor's
letter to LaFontaine. On what grounds His Excellency's proposal had been
declined he would leave to the honourable members opposite to explain.

LaFontaine and Baldwin both spoke in answer. LaFontaine spoke in
French. At the opening of his speech he was interrupted by a member
asking him to speak in English. LaFontaine refused. "Even were I as
familiar with the English as with the French language," he said, "I
should none the less make my first speech in the language of my
French-Canadian compatriots, were it only to enter my solemn protest
against the cruel injustice of that part of the Act of Union which seeks
to proscribe the mother tongue of half the population of Canada." In the
course of his speech LaFontaine dwelt upon the unfair position in which
French Canada was placed and its lack of representation in the cabinet.
He had no wish for office unless his acceptance of it should mean the
introduction of a new rgime. In default of that, "in the state of
enslavement in which the iron hand of Lord Sydenham sought to hold the
people of French Canada, in the presence of actual facts which still
bespeak that purpose, he had (in refusing), but one duty to
fulfil,--that of maintaining that personal honour which has
distinguished his compatriots and to which their most embittered enemies
are compelled to do homage."

Baldwin, following LaFontaine with an amendment to the address embodying
a declaration of want of confidence, was able to feel that his hour of
triumph had come. The government at the close of the last session had
acquiesced in the resolutions affirming the principle of responsible
government; these they must now repudiate or inevitably find themselves
out of office. Baldwin could scarcely be called an eloquent speaker.
His language was often cumbrous and was devoid of imagery. But in
moments such as the present he was able to present a clear case with
overwhelming force.[101] He challenged the government to abide by the
principle which they had avowed. In that principle lay the future safety
of the imperial connection and the union of the Canadas. "I will never
yield my desire," he said, "to preserve the connection between this and
the mother country: and although it is said a period must arrive
demanding a separation, I, for my part, with the principle that has now
been avowed being acted on, cannot subscribe to that opinion. If a
conciliatory policy is adopted towards all the people of this country,
such an opinion could have no existence. I was, and still am, an
advocate of the union of the provinces, but an advocate not of a union
of parchment, but a union of hearts and of free born men."

[Footnote 101: Kingston _Chronicle and Gazette_, September 17th, 1842.]

If, the speaker continued, the ministry believed it but an act of
justice to the Lower Canadians to call some of their representatives to
the councils of their sovereign's representative, why had they kept this
conviction pent up in their own minds without the manliness to give it
effect? They admitted the justice of the principle but had not the
manliness to give it effect. Out of their own mouths they stood
convicted. Other members joined in the debate. Aylwin denounced the
government in unstinted terms. The letter to LaFontaine, he said, was a
trick. It was intended to increase discord. Mr. Draper had said that he
was unwilling to remain in office as a colleague of Mr. Baldwin. He
could not act with the master, but he had no objection to acting with
the disciple. This sneering allusion to Hincks provoked from that member
an embittered denial of the aptness of the phrase. He had never been, he
said, a _disciple_ of Robert Baldwin; the great question on which they
had agreed, and for which they had acted together, had been responsible
government; that was now settled and conceded. The policy of the
administration had been worthy of support, and he had supported it.

The attack thus opened on the government waged hotly through the sitting
of the afternoon and evening. Barthe of Yamaska, Viger and others joined
in the onslaught. When the debate was at last adjourned, a little before
midnight, it was plain to all that if a vote should be taken on
Baldwin's amendment the government must inevitably succumb. It was in
vain that Sullivan in the Upper House had undertaken the defence of the
government with his usual brilliance and power; in vain that he had
tried to show that the Reformers were merely a party of obstruction,
bent on impeding the legitimate operation of government for their own
selfish ends. "Are we," he cried, "to carry on the government fairly and
upon liberal principles, or _by dint of miserable majorities_? by the
latter or by the united acclamations of the people? We wish to know, in
fact, whether there is sufficient patriotism to allow us to work for the
good of the people."

The argument against miserable majorities, whatever it might mean to a
philosopher, was powerless to meet the situation or to save the
government from its imminent defeat. Great, therefore, was the
expectation of the public for a renewal of the struggle on the following
day. The halls and galleries of the legislature were packed with an
expectant audience. All the greater was the surprise of the spectators
to find that the storm which had raged so fiercely in the House had now
suddenly and entirely subsided. Very obviously something had happened.
The members of the assembly, who yesterday had appeared instinct with an
eager intentness, now sat with quiet composure in their luxurious chairs
of "green moreen," meditating in silence or even chatting and joking
with their fellows. There was for a moment a thrill of expectation in
the audience when Hincks arose; he, if any one, might be expected, with
his incisive speech and telling directness, to precipitate an
encounter.[102] But, to the disappointment of the listening crowd in the
galleries, the inspector-general merely moved that the debate on Mr.
Baldwin's amendment should be postponed till Friday. The quiet
acceptance of this proposal by the House showed that the majority of
the members were aware of its meaning. The government, unable to face
the rising storm of opposition, had capitulated. Mr. Draper's
resignation was again to be handed in, and a general reconstruction of
the ministry was to be effected. Some few of the members ventured an
immediate protest. Dr. Dunlop, an "independent" member for Huron, known
as "Tiger Dunlop,"[103] denounced the contemplated adjustment. The
political transformation that seemed about to be accomplished would
introduce, he said, within a space of twenty-four hours, changes as
extraordinary as those witnessed by Rip Van Winkle after a lapse of
twenty years. The new ministry that was in the making would be as
composite as Nebuchadnezzar's dream; he would not be invidious enough to
say who would be the head of gold or who the feet of brass, but the
greater part of it he feared would be of dirt.

[Footnote 102: See N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in Canada_, p. 481.]

[Footnote 103: The epithet did not refer to the Doctor's pugnacity, but to
his record as a tiger slayer in India. See W. J. Rattray, _The Scot in
British North America_, Vol. II., pp. 445 et seq.]

In despite, however, of Dr. Dunlop's sallies and the loud outcry of the
Tory press, the proposed arrangement was carried to its completion.
Baldwin withdrew his amendment; Mr. Draper resigned, and LaFontaine and
his colleague entered upon office. The change effected was not a
complete change of cabinet, inasmuch as Hincks, Killaly, Sullivan and
three others still remained in office. As Hincks has pointed out, the
name, "LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry" commonly applied to the new
executive group is therefore inaccurate.[104] Sullivan was in reality the
senior member of the council. But in the wider sense of the term the
designation, "LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry," indicates the essential
principle of its reconstruction, and, as a matter of historical
nomenclature, has long met with a general acceptance. The formation of
the ministry involved a certain element of compromise. The disputed
question of the pensions was left as a matter of individual voting, and
in the sequel was satisfactorily arranged, Ogden being given an imperial
appointment and Davidson a collectorship of customs. It was not,
according to Hincks,[105] definitely and formally stipulated that the
ministers left over from the old ministry should retain their seats on
condition of conforming to the policy of their new chiefs. But, with the
exception of Sullivan, their known opinions were such as to render this
conformity more or less a matter of course. The ministry as finally
constituted--the change occupied two or three weeks--was as follows:--

[Footnote 104: _Political History of Canada_, p. 27.]

[Footnote 105: _Op. cit_, p. 25.]

L. H. LaFontaine, attorney-general for Lower Canada; Robert Baldwin,
attorney-general for Upper Canada; R. B. Sullivan, president of the
council; J. H. Dunn, receiver-general; Dominick Daly, provincial
secretary for Lower Canada; S. B. Harrison, provincial secretary for
Upper Canada; H. H. Killaly, president of the department of public
works; F. Hincks, inspector-general of public accounts; T. C. Aylwin,
solicitor-general for Lower Canada; J. E. Small, solicitor-general for
Upper Canada; A. N. Morin, commissioner of Crown lands. The last named
office had been declined by Mr. Girouard, whose name had been mentioned
in Sir Charles Bagot's letter, and was, at LaFontaine's suggestion,
conferred upon Morin, his most intimate friend and political associate.

The incoming ministers, in accordance with parliamentary practice, now
resigned their seats and submitted themselves to their constituents for
re-election. The election of LaFontaine in what the Tories called his
"rotten borough" of the fourth riding of York, was an easy matter.
Baldwin, on the other hand, encountered a stubborn opposition. The
following newspaper extracts (both taken, it need hardly be said, from
journals opposed to the new ministry) may give some idea of the
elections of the period and the virulence of the party politics of the
day.

"The Hastings election commenced on Monday. At half past ten the
speeches began and lasted till three. Although Mr. Baldwin came in with
a large procession and Mr. Murney had none, yet the latter was listened
to with extreme attention, and spoke admirably. Mr. Baldwin could not be
heard half the time, there was incessant talking while he spoke. At
five o'clock on Tuesday evening the poll stood thus:--Murney, 130;
Baldwin, 124. The poll does not close till Saturday night. Let every
loyal man consider that on his single vote the election may depend, and
let him immediately hasten and record it for Murney.

"The fourth riding election commenced on Monday. William Roe, Esq., a
popular and loyal man, resident at Newmarket, opposes Mr. LaFontaine.
The poll is held at David-town (fit place!). By the last accounts the
votes stood thus:--LaFontaine, 191; Roe, 71. Mr. Roe was recovering his
lost ground and will fight manfully to the last. Every out-voter should
repair to his aid. Saturday will not be too late."

       *     *     *     *     *

"The Hastings election has terminated in favour of Mr. Murney. The
numbers at the last were:--Murney, 482; Baldwin, 433. A number of
shanty-men having no votes were hired by Mr. Baldwin's party to create a
disturbance. They did so, and ill-treated Mr. Murney's supporters. The
latter, however, _rallied and drove their dastardly assailants from the
field_. Two companies of the 23rd Regiment were sent from Kingston to
keep the peace, and polling was most unjustly discontinued for one day.
The returning officer, Mr. Sheriff Moodie, is described to us, on good
authority, as having entirely identified himself with the Baldwin
party. He has made such a return as will prevent Mr. Murney from taking
his seat, and no doubt the tyrannical and anti-British majority in the
House will sustain him in any injustice, especially if it be exceedingly
glaring."

A less prejudiced journal[106] gives the following more impartial account
of the same proceedings:--"On Wednesday, (October 5th), it appears that
bodies of voters, armed with bludgeons, swords, and firearms, generally
consisting of men who had no votes but attached to opposite parties,
alternately succeeded in driving the voters of Mr. Baldwin and Mr.
Murney from the polls. . . . One man had his arm nearly cut off by a
stroke of a sword, and two others are not expected to live from the
blows they have received. All the persons injured whom we have mentioned
were supporters of Mr. Baldwin, but we understand that the riotous
proceedings were about as great on the one side as the other."

[Footnote 106: The Prince Edward _Gazette_, quoted by J. C. Dent, _Canada
Since the Union_, Vol. I., p. 248.]

Baldwin was of course compelled to seek another constituency. The
election in the second riding of York had been declared void and Baldwin
was put up as a candidate by well-intentioned friends, in despite of the
fact that he had already arranged to offer himself to a Lower Canadian
constituency. The upshot was that Baldwin, who made no canvass of the
York electors, was again beaten. But his allies in French Canada were
now only too anxious to make a fitting return for his action in this
respect towards LaFontaine. For the debt of gratitude incurred, an
obvious means of repayment suggested itself. Several French-Canadian
members offered to make way for the associate of their leader. Baldwin
accepted the offer of Mr. Borne, the member for Rimouski, for which
constituency he was finally elected (January 30th, 1843), but not until
after the session had closed.

The incoming of the first LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry as thus
constituted, offers an epoch-making date in the constitutional history
of Canada. It may with reason be considered the first Canadian
cabinet,[107] in which the principle of colonial self-government was
embodied. This is not to say that it marks the establishment of
responsible government in Canada, for to assign a date to that might be
a matter of some controversy. Durham had recommended responsible
government; Russell in his celebrated despatch had indicated, somewhat
vaguely, perhaps, the sanction of the home government to its adoption;
Sydenham had evaded, if not denied, it. Even after this date, as will
appear in the sequel, Metcalfe refused to accept it as the fundamental
principle of Canadian government. Not until the coming of Lord Elgin can
it be said that responsible government was recognized on both sides of
the Atlantic as a permanent and essential part of the administration of
the province. But it remains true that in this LaFontaine-Baldwin
ministry we find for the first time a cabinet deliberately constituted
as the delegates of the representatives of the people, and taking office
under a governor willing to accept their advice as his constitutional
guide in the government of the country.

[Footnote 107: "Canadian" in this sense refers to the two provinces then
known as Canada. A responsible ministry had already been seen in Nova
Scotia. See in this connection, Hon. J. W. Longley, _Joseph Howe_
(Makers of Canada Series), Chapters iii, iv.]

The distinct advance that was thus made in the political evolution of
the British colonial system becomes more apparent upon a nearer view of
the attendant circumstances of the hour. At the present day the people
of Britain and the British colonies have become so accustomed to the
peaceful operation of cabinet government that they are inclined to take
it for granted as an altogether normal phenomenon, the possibility and
the utility of which are self-evident. It is no longer realized that
responsible government, like the wider principle of government by
majority rule, rests after all upon convention. Unless and until the
minority of a country are willing to acquiesce in the control of the
majority, the whole system of vote counting and legislation based on it
is impossible. In a community where the voters defeated at the polls
resort to violence and rebellion, majority rule loses its political
significance, for this significance lies in the fact that it has become
a general political habit of the community to accept the decision of
the majority of themselves. On this presumed consensus, this general
agreement to submit if voted down, rests the fabric of modern democratic
government. The same is true, also, of the particular form of democratic
rule known as cabinet or responsible government: it presupposes that the
beaten party recognize the political right of their conquerors to take
office; that they will not consider that the whole system of government
has broken down merely because they have been voted out of power; nor
meditate a resort to violent measures, as if the political victory of
their opponents had dissolved the general bonds of allegiance. So much
has this party acquiescence become in our day the traditional political
habit, that in British, self-governing countries His Majesty's ministers
and His Majesty's Opposition circulate in and out of office with
decorous alternation, each side recognizing in the other an institution
necessary to its own existence. But at the period of which we speak the
case was different. To the thorough-going Tories the admission to office
of LaFontaine, Baldwin and their adherents seemed a political crime.
Loyalty raised its hands in pious horror at the sight of a ministry whom
it persisted in associating with the lost cause of rebellion and
sedition, and one of whose two leaders was under the permanent stigma
attaching to an alien name and descent. Even the traditional lip service
due to colonial governors was forgotten, and the Tory press openly
denounced Bagot as a feeble-minded man led astray by a clique of
seditious and irresponsible advisers.

The journals of the autumn of 1842 are filled with denunciations of the
new government. "If the events of the past few weeks," wrote the
Montreal _Gazette_, "are to be taken as a presage of the future--and who
doubts it?--Lower Canada is no longer a place of sojourn for British
colonists. A change has come over the spirit of our dream in the last
few weeks, so sudden, so passing strange, that we have been scarcely
able to comprehend its nature and extent. By degrees, however, the
appalling truth develops itself. _Every post from Kingston confirms the
fact that the British party has been deliberately handed over to the
vindictive disposition of a French mob_, whose first efforts are
directed towards the abrogation of those laws which protect property and
promote improvement. Every step in the way of legislation since the 8th
ultimate, has been a step backward, and the heel falls each time, with
insulting ingenuity, on the necks of the British. 'Coming events cast
their shadows before.' They are cast broadly and ominously, almost
assuming in our sad and most reluctant eyes, the mysterious characters
of sacred writ--Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin."

The Montreal _Transcript_ was even more outspoken in its denunciation.
"To a governor without any opinion of his own and ready to veer about at
every breath of opposition, no worse field could have been presented
than Canada. Were His Excellency only resolute, the presence of three or
four men in his cabinet could not avail to render him powerless and
passive. But from the moment that the patronage of the Crown was
surrendered, in such an unexampled manner, to such men--_from the moment
a seat in the cabinet was offered and pressed upon a man[108] who had
fought in open rebellion and faced the fire of British musketry in a mad
attempt to carry out his hostility to the government that then
was_--from that moment the governor placed himself with his hands tied
in the power of his new advisers." Another leading Conservative paper
did not scruple to say that the "composition of the present cabinet is
the germ of colonial separation from the mother country."

[Footnote 108: The reference is to Mr. Girouard who is said to have fought
at St. Eustache.]

One can understand how great must have been the difficulties of Bagot's
situation. It was not possible for him merely to fold his hands and to
announce himself, with general approval, as the long-desired
constitutional governor. If he attempted to actually govern, the
Reformers would be up in arms; if he left the government to his
ministers, he must face the outcry of the Tory faction. The ideal of one
party was the abomination of the other. The French press was of course
loud in its praise of the new policy. "To-day," said _La Minerve_, in
speaking of the formation of the ministry, "commences a new era, and one
which will be signalized by the administration of equal justice towards
all our fellow-citizens and the return of popular confidence in the
government." "The great principle of responsibility," said the same
journal, "is thus formally and solemnly recognized by the representative
of the Crown, and sealed with the approbation of the assembly. From this
epoch dates a revolution, effected without blood or slaughter, but none
the less glorious." But the more the French press praised Bagot's
action, the more did the "loyal" newspapers denounce it, subjecting the
governor to personal criticism and abuse entirely out of keeping with
the system he laboured to introduce. "To hear the stupid _Aurore_ and
the venomous _Minerve_ lauding a British governor," declared the Toronto
_Patriot_, "is surely proof plain that he is not what he might be; that
he is a changed man and not worthy of the cordial sympathy of the
Conservative and loyal press of Canada." It is small wonder that Bagot's
health began to suffer severely from the anxiety and distress of mind
occasioned by these malignant attacks upon his character.

A proper appreciation of the state of public feeling evidenced by such
extracts renders clear the great significance of the LaFontaine-Baldwin
alliance in the history of Canada. Its importance is of a double
character. It afforded, in the first place, an object lesson in the
principle of responsible government; for it showed in actual operation
a group of ministers united in policy, backed by an overwhelming
majority in the popular branch of the legislature, and receiving the
constitutional approval of the governor, of whom they were the advisers.
Henceforth responsible government, the "one idea" of Robert Baldwin, was
no longer merely an "idea"; it was a known and tried system whose actual
operation had proved its possibility. Its trial, indeed, in the present
case was but brief, yet brief as it was, it remained as an ensample for
future effort. But the new government had a further significance. It
indicated the only possible policy by which the racial problem in the
political life of Canada could find an adequate solution. To the
old-time Tory the absorption, suppression, or at any rate the
subordination of French Canada seemed the natural, one might say the
truly British and loyal, method of governing the united country. From
now on a new path of national development is indicated in the alliance
and coperation of the two races, each contributing its distinctive
share to the political life of the country, and each finding in the
other a healthful stimulus and support. This is the principle, entirely
contrary to the doctrines of the older school, first introduced by the
alliance of Baldwin and LaFontaine, which has since governed the
destinies of Canada. On the validity of this principle the future of the
country has been staked.

If we pass from the general consideration of the ministry before us to
the legislative history of its first session, there is but little to
record. The session was but of a month's duration (September 8th to
October 12th, 1842), the new ministers during the first part of it were
still seeking relection, and time was lacking for a wide programme of
reform. Such measures as were carried, however, indicated clearly the
policy which it proposed to follow: to conciliate the people of French
Canada by removing some of the more burdensome restrictions imposed by
the special council and to make at least a beginning of a programme of
reform, was the cardinal aim of the government. The first law placed
upon the statute-book for the session--the law in regard to
elections--evinced this latter purpose. The elections of the day were
notoriously corrupt. Fraud and violence had been the rule rather than
the exception. Under the existing system there was but a single polling
place for each constituency, an arrangement which favoured riotous
proceedings and the assemblage of tumultuous crowds. The new election
law[109] provided that there should be a separate polling place in each
township or ward of every constituency, and that each elector should
vote at the polling place of the district where his property was
situated. Electors might be put on oath as to whether they had already
voted. The polls were to stay open only two days. An oath in denial of
bribery could be imposed on any voter, if it were demanded by two
electors. Firearms and other weapons might be confiscated by the
returning officer, under penalty, in case of resistance, of fine and
imprisonment. Under similar penalties it was forbidden to make use of
ensigns, standards or flags, "as party flags," to distinguish the
supporters of a particular candidate, either on election day or for a
fortnight before or after; a similar prohibition was laid down against
"ribbons," "labels" and "favours" used as party badges. These last
clauses offered an easy mark for the raillery of the Conservative press,
and offered a favourable opportunity for wilful misinterpretation by
pressing into service the never-failing Union Jack and British loyalty.
The _Patriot_ of Toronto speaks as follows of the tyranny of the
election law:--

[Footnote 109: _Statutes of Canada_, 6 Vict., c. 1.]

"This law also prohibits, under penalties of fines of fifty pounds, and
imprisonment for six months, or both, the exhibiting of any ensign,
standard, colour, flag, ribbon, label or favour, whatever, or for any
reason whatsoever, at any election or on any election day, or within a
fortnight before or after such a day!!! So that any body of honest
electors who for a fortnight before or after an election (being a period
of one month), _shall dare to hoist the Union Jack of Old England_, or
wear a green or blue ribbon in the button-hole, shall be fined fifty
pounds or imprisoned six months, or both, under Mr. Baldwin's election
bill. We defy the whole world to match this bill for grinding and
insupportable tyranny. Verily, Messrs. LaFontaine and Baldwin, ye use
your victory over the poor, loyal serfs of Canada with most honourable
moderation! How long this Algerine Act will be allowed to pollute our
statute-book remains yet to be seen."[110]

[Footnote 110: Toronto _Patriot_, October, 1842.]

Another statute[111] of the session undertook to remedy the injustice done
by Lord Sydenham towards the city constituencies of Montreal and Quebec.
He had used the power conferred upon him under the Act of Union[112] to
reconstruct these constituencies by separating the cities from the
suburbs[113]; under the present statute the "ancient boundaries and
limits" of the cities were restored. A further reversal of Lord
Sydenham's policy was seen in the repeal[114] of a series of ordinances by
which the special council had undertaken to alter the system of law
courts in Lower Canada. Sydenham's Act in reference to winter roads in
Lower Canada, a needlessly officious piece of legislation, was also
partially repealed.[115] A special duty of three shillings a quarter was
imposed upon wheat from the United States; a loan of one million, five
hundred thousand pounds sterling was authorized, and the sum of
eighty-three thousand, three hundred and six pounds was voted for the
civil list. A resolution was, moreover, passed by a large majority of
the assembly (forty against twenty) declaring that Kingston was not
suitable to be the seat of government. The session came to an end on
October 12th, 1842. A useful beginning had been made but no legislation
of a sweeping character had been passed. The adversaries of the
government did not hesitate to taunt the ministry with having promised
much and done little. "After all the _rumpus_ about responsible
government," said the Woodstock _Herald_, "the session is over, and we
are all just as we were--waiting for something, we scarcely know what.
But we all know that the parliament has shown itself nothing but a
debating club."

[Footnote 111: 6 Vict. c. 16.]

[Footnote 112: Section 21.]

[Footnote 113: Letters patent March 4th, 1841.]

[Footnote 114: By a statute 6 Vict., c. 13, the ordinances were 3 and 4
Vict., c. 45: 4 Vict. c. 15 and 4 Vict. 19.]

[Footnote 115: The clause repealed had enacted that horses when driven
double must be driven abreast. This was intended to improve the
sleighing.]

At the time of their first ministry both LaFontaine and Baldwin may be
said to have been entering upon the prime of life. Baldwin was
thirty-eight years old, LaFontaine only thirty-four. In personal
appearance they presented in many ways a contrast. LaFontaine was a man
of striking presence, of more than ordinary stature, and robust and
powerful frame. His massive brow and regular features, the thoughtful
cast of his countenance and the firm lines of the mouth, offered an
almost exact resemblance to the face of the Emperor Napoleon. On his
visiting the Invalides in Paris, LaFontaine was surrounded by the
veterans of Napoleon's guard, who are said to have thrilled with emotion
at seeing among them the walking image of their dead emperor. When Lady
Mary Bagot, who remembered the emperor, saw LaFontaine for the first
time she could not repress an exclamation of astonishment. "If I was not
certain that he is dead," she cried, "I should say it was Napoleon." The
habitual gravity of LaFontaine's manner and the dignity of his address
enhanced still further the impression of power conveyed by his firm
features and steady eye. His colleague was a man of different type and
less striking in general appearance. In stature Baldwin stood rather
above the average, being about five feet ten inches in height, though
his heavy frame and the slight stoop of his broad shoulders prevented
him from appearing a tall man. His eyes were grey and his hair of a dark
brown, as yet untinged with grey. The features were lacking in mobility
and the habitual expression of his face was that of serious thought, but
the extreme kindliness of his heart and the truthfulness of his whole
being, coupled with a manner that was unassuming and free from conceit,
lent to his address a suggestion of rugged honesty and force and extreme
gentleness, that won him the unfailing affection of those about him.

As the autumn progressed, disquieting rumours began to prevail in regard
to the state of the governor-general's health. It is a strange thing
that thrice running the destinies of Canada should have been profoundly
affected by the premature death of those sent out to administer its
government. "Canada has been too much for him," John Stuart Mill had
said of Lord Durham. With equal truth might it be said that Canada had
proved too much for Sir Charles Bagot. The governor had come to the
country in excellent health. The firm and vigorous tone in which he had
read his first and only speech from the throne had been the subject of
general remark, and had seemed to indicate that Bagot was destined for a
vigorous old age. But the cares of office weighed heavily upon him. He
had not anticipated that his policy of good-will and conciliation would
have exposed him to the bitter attacks of the discomfited Tories; still
less had he expected that his conduct, as appears to have been the case,
would have been an object of censure at the hands of the home
government. It is undoubted that the symptoms of heart trouble and
general decline which now began to appear were aggravated by the
governor's sense of the failure of his mission as peacemaker, and by the
distress caused by the crude brutality of his critics.

The autumn months of 1842 must indeed have been full of bitterness to
Bagot. The opposition to his administration had assumed a personal note,
for which the rectitude of his intentions gave no warrant. Organizations
called Constitutional Societies, in remembrance of Tory loyalty before
the rebellion, had sprung into new life. The parent society at
Toronto[116] was reproduced in organizations in the country districts. The
"anti-British policy of Sir Charles Bagot" was denounced in the plainest
terms. His ministry was openly branded as a ministry of traitors and
rebels. The influence of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and other private
advisers was made a salient point of attack, and the governor was
represented as surrounded by a group of counsellors--"the Hinckses, the
Wakefields and the Girouards, remarkable for nothing but bitter hatred
to monarchical and loyal institutions." The press of the mother country
joined in the outcry. The _Times_ undertook to demonstrate the folly of
admitting to the ministry a man like LaFontaine, "who," it asserted,
"had had a price set upon his head." The _Morning Herald_[117] went still
further; it declared the whole system of representative institutions in
Lower Canada a mistake. That province, it said, needed "despotic
government,--strong, just and good--administered by a governor-general
responsible to parliament." "If Sir Charles Bagot be right," it argued,
"then Lord Gosford and Sir Francis Head must have been wrong," which
evidently was absurd.

[Footnote 116: Organized October 28th, 1842, or, as it was called,
"reorganized," (from the Society of 1832).]

[Footnote 117: October 23rd, 1842.]

In how far the British government itself joined in these censorious
attacks cannot accurately be told, but Bagot had certainly received from
Lord Stanley, the colonial secretary, letters condemning the policy he
had seen fit to adopt. The Duke of Wellington had denounced the
acceptance of the new Canadian ministry by the governor as surrendering
to a party still affected with treason. "The Duke of Wellington," wrote
Sir Robert Peel, "has been thunderstruck by the news from Canada. He
considers what has happened as likely to be fatal to the connection with
England. . . Yesterday he read to me all the despatches, and commented
on them most unreservedly. He perpetually said, 'What a fool the man
[Bagot] must have been, to act as he has done! and what stuff and
nonsense he has written! and what a bother he makes about his policy and
his measures, when there are no measures but rolling himself and his
country in the mire!'" Even Peel himself felt by no means easy about the
situation, nor did he accept the absolute validity of the constitutional
principle as applied to Canadian government. "I would not," he wrote to
Stanley, "voluntarily throw myself into the hands of the French party
through fear of being in a minority. . . . I would not allow the French
party to dictate the appointment of men tainted by charges, or vehement
suspicion, of sedition or disaffection to British authority, to be
ministers."[118]

[Footnote 118: C. S. Parker, _Sir Robert Peel from his Private Papers_
(London, 1899), Vol. I., pp. 379 _et seq._]

As the winter drew on it was evident that Sir Charles could no longer
adequately fulfil his duties. He was obliged to postpone the meeting of
the parliament which was to have taken place in November. His physicians
urgently recommended that he should relinquish his office, and the
oncoming of a winter of unwonted severity still further taxed his
failing strength. He forwarded to the home government a request for his
recall. In view of his enfeebled condition, the government was able to
grant his prayer without seeming to reflect upon the character of his
administration. But Bagot was not destined to see England again. Though
released from office on March 30th, 1843, the day on which he yielded
place to Sir Charles Metcalfe, he was no longer in a condition to
undertake the homeward voyage, and was compelled to remain at Alwington
House, in Kingston. Six weeks later, (May 19th, 1843), his illness
terminated in death. Before going out of office he had uttered a wish to
his assembled ministers that they would be mindful to defend his memory.
The prayer was not unnecessary, for the bitter invective of his foes was
not hushed even in the presence of death.

"Even when Sir Charles Bagot breathed his last," says a chronicler of
the time, himself a Tory and a disappointed place-hunter, "such was the
exasperation of the public mind, that they (_sic_) scarcely accorded to
him the common sentiments of regret which the departure of a human being
from among his fellow-men occasions. . . . The Toronto _Patriot_ in
particular, the deadly and uncompromising enemy of the administration of
the day, hesitated not to proclaim that the head of the government was
an imbecile and a slave, while other journals, even less guarded in
their language, boldly pronounced a wish that his death might free the
country from the state of thraldom into which it was reduced."[119] Every
good cause has its martyrs. The governor-general had played his part
honestly and without self-interest, and when the list of those is
written who have up-built the fabric of British colonial government, the
name of Bagot should find an honoured place among their number.

[Footnote 119: Major Richardson, _Eight Years in Canada_, p. 213. Chapters
xiv. and xv. of Richardson's work may be consulted for characteristic
abuse of Sir Charles Bagot.]




  CHAPTER VI

  THE COMING OF METCALFE


On March 29th, 1843, the little town of Kingston was once more astir
with expectancy and interest over the arrival of a new governor-general.
Sir Charles Metcalfe had sailed from Liverpool to Boston, and thence had
journeyed overland to Kingston, the country being in that inclement
season "one mass of snow."[120] His journey terminated in a drive across
the frozen lake and river, and a state entry, with no little pageantry,
into his colonial capital. "He came," said a Kingston correspondent of
the time, "from the American side, in a close-bodied sleigh drawn by
four greys. He was received on arriving at the foot of Arthur Street by
an immense concourse of people. The male population of the place turned
out _en masse_ to greet Sir Charles, which they did with great
enthusiasm. The various branches of the fire department, the Mechanics'
Institution and the national societies, turned out with their banners,
which, with many sleighs decorated with flags, made quite a show. Sir
Charles Metcalfe is a thorough-looking Englishman, with a jolly visage."

[Footnote 120: The winter was exceptionally severe. "Governor Metcalfe,"
said a New York official at Albany, "you'll admit, I think, that this is
a clever body of snow for a young country."]

In the drama of responsible government in Canada, it was the unfortunate
lot of this "thorough-looking Englishman with a jolly visage," to be
cast for the part of villain. His attempt to strangle the infant
Hercules in its cradle, to reassert the claim of the governor to the
actual control of the administration, forms the most important and
critical episode of the story before us and merits a treatment in some
detail. Such a treatment may, perhaps, be best introduced by a
discussion of the personality and personal opinions of the new governor,
and in particular of his opinions on the vexed question of colonial
administration. The word "villain" that has just been used, must be
understood in a highly figurative sense. Metcalfe was a man of many
admirers. Gibbon Wakefield has pronounced him a statesman "whom God made
greater than the colonial office."[121] Macaulay indicates for him a
perhaps even higher range of distinction in calling him, "the ablest
civil servant I ever knew in India." His enthusiastic biographer[122]
tells us that on his retiring from his administration of Jamaica, the
"coloured population kneeled to bless him," while "all classes of
society and all sects of Christians sorrowed for his departure, and the
Jews set an example of Christian love by praying for him in their
synagogues." In face of such a record it seems almost a pity that Sir
Charles should have abandoned the coloured populations of Jamaica and
Hyderabad to assume the care of the uncoloured people of Canada. That
Metcalfe was an upright, honourable man, disinterested in his motives
and conscientious in the performance of what he took to be his duty, is
hardly open to doubt. But it may well be doubted whether the antecedent
training that he had received had not unfitted, rather than fitted, him
for the position he was now called upon to assume.

[Footnote 121: Fisher's _Colonial Magazine_, July, 1844.]

[Footnote 122: J. W. Kaye, _Life of Lord Metcalfe_, 1859.]

In the British system a great gulf is fixed between the administration
of a dependency and the governorship of a self-governing colony. Of the
greatness of this gulf Metcalfe appears to have had no proper
appreciation, and he was, in consequence, unable to rid his mind of the
supposed parallel between the different parts of the empire in which he
had been called upon to act as governor. In a letter which he addressed
to Colonel Stokes, one of his Indian correspondents, during his troubles
in Canada, he undertakes to make his difficulties with the Canadian
legislature apparent by the following interesting analogy: "Fancy such a
state of things in India, with a Mohammedan council and a Mohammedan
assembly, and you will have some notion of my position." In view of the
very limited number of Mohammedans in the Canadian assembly, it is to be
presumed that the notion thus communicated would be a somewhat
artificial one.

Sir Charles Metcalfe, at the time of his coming to Canada, was
fifty-eight years old.[123] For some time previous he had been suffering
from a dangerous and painful malady--a cancerous growth in the left
cheek--which had occasioned his retirement from his previous position.
An operation performed in England had seemed to remove all danger of a
fatal termination of the disorder, and Sir Charles, in coming to Canada,
hoped that he had at last recovered from his long affliction.

[Footnote 123: He was born on January 30th, 1785.]

What may seem strange in connection with Metcalfe's rgime in Canada,
and his attitude towards Canadian political parties, was that he was
not, as far as British politics were concerned, a Tory or a friend of
the royal prerogative. He was, on the contrary, to use the words of his
biographer, "a Whig and something more than a Whig." The same
authority[124] has further described him as "a statesman known to be
saturated through and through with Liberal opinions." Metcalfe himself,
in a letter written shortly before his appointment, spoke of his own
opinions and his political position in the following terms: "In the
present predominance of Toryism among the constituencies, there is no
chance for a man who is for the abolition of the Corn Laws, vote by
ballot, extension of the suffrage, amelioration of the Poor Laws for the
benefit of the poor, equal rights to all sects of Christians in matters
of religion, and equal rights to all men in civil matters."[125]

[Footnote 124: J. W. Kaye, _Life of Lord Metcalfe_, Vol. II., p. 452.]

[Footnote 125: Letter to Mr. Mangles, January 13th, 1843.]

On the strength of such a declaration it might have been supposed that
Metcalfe would have gravitated naturally towards the Reform party of
Canada, at the basis of whose programme civil and religious equality and
the doctrine of equal rights lay as a corner-stone. But the lamp of
Metcalfe's Liberalism burned dim in the colonial atmosphere. His
inclinations were all on the side of the Tory party, whose fervid and
ostentatious loyalty offered a cheering contrast to the stiff-necked
independence of the Reformers. "It is," he said, "the only party with
which I can sympathize. I have no sympathy with the anti-British rancour
of the French party or the selfish indifference towards our country of
the Republican party. Yet these are the parties with which I have to
coperate." The expression, "Republican party," shows that the incessant
accusation of disloyalty brought by the Conservative journalists against
their opponents, was not without its effect upon the governor's mind. By
sheer force of iteration the Conservatives had convinced themselves that
they were the one and only section of the people truly loyal to the
Crown; and since the governor was the immediate and visible
representative of the Crown in Canada, there was a natural temptation to
construe this attitude into a declaration of personal allegiance.

But although Metcalfe might plead guilty to a spontaneous sympathy with
the Tory party, he had no intention of identifying or allying himself
with any of the rival factions. On the contrary, he cherished, as had
his predecessors, the belief that his proper attitude and vocation
should be that of the peacemaker, the wise administrator enabled by the
altitude of his office to compose the differences that severed his
fractious subordinates. "I dislike extremely," he said, "the notion of
governing as a supporter of any particular party. I wish to make the
patronage of the government conducive to the conciliation of all parties
by bringing into the public service the men of greatest merit and
efficiency, without any party distinction."[126]

[Footnote 126: Metcalfe to Stanley, April 24th, 1843.]

The governor seems, however, to have recognized that he could not
disregard the fact that the party at present in power had the support of
the assembly behind them. "Fettered as I am," he wrote, "by the
necessity of acting with a council brought into place by a coalition of
parties, and at present in possession of a decided majority in the
representative assembly, I must in some degree forego my own
inclinations in those respects." It was his intention, he told the
colonial secretary, to treat the executive council with the confidence
and cordiality due to the station which they occupied, but he was
prepared to _be on his guard against any encroachments_. This last
phrase touches the root of the matter. Of what nature were the
"encroachments" which Metcalfe was determined not to permit? How did he
interpret his own position in reference to the executive officers that
were his constitutional advisers? What, in other words, was his opinion
on the application of responsible government? The answer to this
question can best be found by an examination of Metcalfe's own
statements as they appear in his confidential correspondence with the
colonial office.

"Lord Durham's meaning," he wrote,[127] "seems to have been that the
governor should conduct his administration in accordance with public
feeling, represented by the popular branch of the legislature, and it is
obvious that without such concordance the government could not be
successfully administered. There is no evidence in what manner Lord
Durham would have carried out the system which he advocated, as it was
not brought into effect during his administration. Lord Sydenham
arranged the details by which the principle was carried into execution.
In forming the executive council he made it a rule that the individuals
composing it should be members of the popular branch of the legislature,
to which, I believe, there was only one exception: the gentleman
appointed to be president being a member of the legislative council.
Lord Sydenham had apparently no intention of surrendering the government
into the hands of the executive council. On the contrary, he ruled the
council, and exercised great personal influence in the election of
members to the representative assembly. . . . I am not aware that any
great change took place during that period of the administration of Sir
Charles Bagot which preceded the meeting of the legislature, but this
event was instantly followed by a full development of the consequences
of making the officers of the government virtually dependent for the
possession of their places on the pleasure of the representative body.
The two extreme parties in Upper Canada most violently opposed to one
another, coalesced solely for the purpose of turning out the
office-holders, or, as it is now termed, the ministry of that day, with
no other bond of union, and with a mutual understanding that having
accomplished that purpose, they would take the chance of the
consequences, and should be at liberty to follow their respective
courses. The French party also took part in this coalition, and from its
compactness and internal union, formed its greatest strength. These
parties together accomplished their joint purpose. They had expected to
do so by a vote of the assembly, but in that were anticipated by the
governor-general, who in apprehension of the threatened vote of want of
confidence in members of his council, opened negotiations with the
leaders of the French party, and that negotiation terminated in the
resignation or removal from the council of those members who belonged to
what is called by themselves the Conservative party, and in the
introduction of five members of the united French and Reform parties
. . . . _These events were regarded by all parties in the country as
establishing in full force the system of responsible government_ of
which the practical execution had before been incomplete. From that time
the tone of the members of the council and the tone of the public voice
regarding responsible government has been greatly exalted. The council
are now spoken of by themselves and others generally as the 'ministers,'
the 'administration,' the 'cabinet,' the 'government,' and so forth.
_Their pretensions are according to this new nomenclature._ They regard
themselves as a responsible ministry, _and expect that the policy and
conduct of the governor shall be subservient to their views and party
policy_."

[Footnote 127: Metcalfe to Stanley, April 24th, 1843. Metcalfe's colonial
despatches can be found in the _Selections from the Papers of Lord
Metcalfe_, (London, 1885, Ed., J. W. Kaye).]

Very similar in tone is a despatch of May 12th, 1843, in which the
governor declared that none of his predecessors had really been face to
face with the problem of granting or withholding self-government. "Lord
Durham," he said, "had no difficulty in writing at leisure in praise of
responsible government. . . Lord Sydenham put the _idea_ in force
without suffering himself to be much restrained by it. . . Sir Charles
Bagot yielded to the coercive effect of Lord Sydenham's arrangements.
_Now comes the tug of war_, and supposing absolute submission to be out
of the question, I cannot say that I see the end of the struggle if the
parties alluded to really mean to maintain it." The part that the new
governor intended to play in this impending tug of war is clearly
indicated in this communication to Lord Stanley. He had no intention of
adapting himself to the position of a merely nominal head of the
government, controlled by the advice of his ministers.

"I am required," he wrote, "to give myself up entirely to the council;
to submit absolutely to their dictation; to have no judgment of my own;
to bestow the patronage of the government exclusively on their
partisans; to proscribe their opponents; and to make some public and
unequivocal declaration of my adhesion to these conditions--including
the complete nullification of Her Majesty's government--a course which
he [Mr. LaFontaine], under self-deception, denominates Sir Charles
Bagot's policy, although it is very certain that Sir Charles Bagot meant
no such thing. Failing of submission to these stipulations, I am
threatened with the resignation of Mr. LaFontaine for one, and both he
and I are fully aware of the serious consequences likely to follow the
execution of that menace, from the blindness with which the
French-Canadian party follow their leader. . . . The sole question is,
to describe it without disguise, whether the governor shall be wholly
and completely a tool in the hands of the council, or whether he shall
have any exercise of his own judgment in the administration of the
government. Such a question has not come forward as a matter of
discussion, but there is no doubt the leader of the French party speaks
the sentiments of others of his council beside himself. . . . _As I
cannot possibly adopt them, I must be prepared for the consequences of a
rupture with the council_, or at least the most influential portion of
it. It would be very imprudent on my part to hasten such an event, or to
allow it to take place under present circumstances, if it can be
avoided--_but I must expect it, for I cannot consent to be the tool of a
party_. . . . Government by a majority is the explanation of responsible
government given by the leader in this movement, and government without
a majority must be admitted to be ultimately impracticable. But the
present question, the one which is coming on for trial in my
administration, is not whether the governor shall so conduct his
government as to meet the wants and wishes of the people, and obtain
their suffrages by promoting their welfare and happiness--nor whether he
shall be responsible for his measures to the people, through their
representatives--but whether he shall, or shall not, have a voice in his
own council. . . . The tendency and object of this movement is to throw
off the government of the mother country in internal affairs
entirely--but to be maintained and supported at her expense, and to have
all the advantages of connection, as long as it may suit the majority of
the people of Canada to endure it. This is a very intelligible and very
convenient policy for a Canadian aiming at independence, but the part
that the representative of the mother country is required to perform in
it is by no means fascinating."

The tenor of Sir Charles Metcalfe's correspondence cited above, which
belongs to the period between his assumption of the government and the
meeting of the parliament, shows that the difficulties which were
presently to culminate in the "Metcalfe Crisis" were already appearing
on the horizon. Meantime the new governor was made the recipient of
flattering addresses from all parts of the country and from citizens of
all shades of opinion. The difficulties of Metcalfe's position can be
better understood when one considers the varied nature of these
addresses and the conflicting sentiments expressed. Some were sent up
from Reform constituencies whose citizens expressed the wish that he
might continue to tread in the path marked out by his predecessor.
Others were from "loyal and constitutional societies" whose prayer it
was that he might resist the designing encroachments of his anti-British
advisers. The people of the township of Pelham, for example, declared
that they "had learned with unfeigned sorrow that unusual efforts had
been made to weaken His Excellency's opinion of Messrs. Baldwin and
LaFontaine and the other members of his cabinet." The Constitutional
Society of Orillia begged to "state their decided disapproval of the
policy pursued by our late governor-general." "We have not the
slightest wish," they said, "to dictate to your Excellency, but,
conscientiously believing that it would tend to the real good,
happiness, and prosperity of the country, we in all humility venture to
recommend the dismissal of the following members from your councils: The
Hon. Messrs. Harrison, LaFontaine, Baldwin, Hincks and Small." In some
cases[128] rival addresses, breathing entirely opposed sentiments were
sent up from the same place. It is small wonder that Metcalfe became
deeply impressed by the bitterness of party faction existing in Canada.

[Footnote 128: For example the addresses from the Talbot district.]

"The violence of party spirit," he wrote to Lord Stanley,[129] "forces
itself on one's notice immediately on arrival in the colony; and
threatens to be the source of all the difficulties which are likely to
impede the successful administration of the government for the welfare
and happiness of the country." In this statement may be found the basis
for such defense as can be made for Metcalfe's conduct in Canada. He was
honestly convinced that the antipathy between the rival factions was
assuming dangerous proportions, and that it threatened to culminate in a
renewal of civil strife. In this position of affairs it seemed to him
his evident duty to alleviate the situation by using such influence and
power as he considered to be lawfully entrusted to him, to counteract
the intensity of the party struggle. In particular it seemed to him
that his right of making appointments to government offices ought to be
exercised with a view to general harmony, and not at the dictates and in
the interests of any special political group. "I wish," he wrote, "to
make the patronage of the government conducive to the conciliation of
all parties, by bringing into the public service the men of greatest
merit and efficiency, without any party distinction."

[Footnote 129: April 25th, 1843.]

This sentiment is no doubt, as a sentiment, very admirable. But what
Metcalfe did not realize was that it was equivalent to saying that he
intended to distribute the patronage of the government as _he_ thought
advisable, and not as the ministry, representing the voice of a majority
of the people, might think advisable. Metcalfe seems to have been aware
from the outset that his views on this matter would not be readily
endorsed by his ministers. He spoke of the question of the patronage as
"the point on which he most proximately expected to incur a difference
with them." Indeed it may be asserted that Metcalfe was convinced that
he must, sooner or later, come to open antagonism with his cabinet. As
early as June, 1843, he wrote to Stanley: "Although I see no reason now
to apprehend an immediate rupture, I am sensible that it may happen at
any time. If all [of the ministers] were of the same mind with three or
four it would be more certain. But there are moderate men among them,
and they are not all united in the same unwarrantable expectations."

It is not difficult to infer from what has gone before that Metcalfe had
but little personal sympathy with the two leaders of his cabinet. In his
published correspondence we have no direct personal estimate of
LaFontaine and Baldwin. But the account given by his "official"
biographer of the two Canadian statesmen undoubtedly reflects opinion
gathered from the governor-general's correspondence, and is of interest
in the present connection. "The two foremost men in the council," writes
Kaye,[130] "[were] Mr. LaFontaine and Mr. Baldwin, the attorneys-general
for Lower and Upper Canada. The former was a French-Canadian and the
leader of his party in the colonial legislature. . . . All his better
qualities were natural to him; his worse were the growth of
circumstances. Cradled, as he and his people had been, in wrong,
smarting for long years under the oppressive exclusiveness of the
dominant race, he had become mistrustful and suspicious; and the doubts
which were continually floating in his mind had naturally engendered
there indecision and infirmity of purpose." How little real
justification there was for this last expression of opinion may be
gathered from the comments thereupon published by Francis Hincks in
later years. "I can hardly believe that there is a single individual in
the ranks of either party," he says "who would admit that Kaye was
correct in attributing to [Sir] Louis LaFontaine 'indecision and
infirmity of purpose.' I can declare for my own part that I never met a
man less open to such an imputation."[131] Metcalfe's biographer saw fit,
however, to qualify his strictures of LaFontaine by stating that he was
a "just and honourable man" and that "his motives were above suspicion."

[Footnote 130: Kaye's _Life of Lord Metcalfe_ was written at the request
of Metcalfe's trustee. Many thousand letters, written to and by
Metcalfe, were put in the hands of his biographer.]

[Footnote 131: _Political History of Canada_, p. 16.]

A still less flattering portrait is drawn by the same author when he
goes on to speak of Robert Baldwin. "Baldwin's father," says Kaye,[132]
"had quarrelled with his party,[133] and, with the characteristic
bitterness of a renegade, had brought up his son in extremest hatred of
his old associates, and had instilled into him the most liberal (_sic_)
opinions. Robert Baldwin was an apt pupil; and there was much in the
circumstances by which he was surrounded,--in the atrocious
misgovernment of his country . . .--to rivet him in the extreme
opinions he had imbibed in his youth. So he grew up to be an enthusiast,
almost a fanatic. He was thoroughly in earnest; thoroughly
conscientious; but he was to the last degree uncompromising and
intolerant. He seemed to delight in strife. The might of mildness he
laughed to scorn. It was said of him that he was not satisfied with a
victory unless it was gained by violence--that concessions were
valueless to him unless he wrenched them with a strong hand from his
opponent. Of an unbounded arrogance and self-conceit, he made no
allowances for others, and sought none for himself. There was a sort of
sublime egotism about him--a magnificent self-esteem, which caused him
to look upon himself as a patriot, whilst he was serving his own ends by
the promotion of his ambition, the gratification of his vanity or spite.
His strong passions and his uncompromising spirit made him a mischievous
party leader and a dangerous opponent. His influence was very great. He
was not a mean man: he was above corruption: and there were many who
accepted his estimate of himself and believed him to be the only pure
patriot in the country. During the illness of Sir Charles Bagot he had
usurped the government. The activity of Sir Charles Metcalfe, _who did
everything for himself, and exerted himself to keep every one in his
proper place_, was extremely distasteful to him." It is an old saying
that there is no witness whose testimony is so valid as that of an
unwilling witness: and it is possible to read between the lines of this
biased estimate a truer picture of the man. "In this dark photograph,"
says the author of _The Irishman in Canada_,[134] "the impartial eye
recognizes the statesman, the patriot, the great party leader, who was
not to be turned away by fear or favour from the work before him."

[Footnote 132: J. W. Kaye, _Life of Lord Metcalfe_. Vol. II., pp. 490,
491. The errors of fact made by Mr. Kaye in reference to Baldwin's
parentage, etc., need no correction.]

[Footnote 133: By this is meant the Family Compact of which Kaye supposes
Dr. Baldwin to have been a member.]

[Footnote 134: N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in Canada_, p. 490.]

As early as May, 1843, an important episode took place in reference to
the question of appointments, a question destined later to be the cause
of the resignation of the ministry. The matter is of special historical
significance in that LaFontaine saw fit to draw up a memorandum
explaining what had occurred and putting definitely on record the
attitude assumed by himself and his colleagues in their interpretation
of their relation to the governor-general. The facts in question were as
follows.[135] The office of provincial aide-de-camp for Lower Canada had
fallen vacant. The post was a sinecure, the salary for which was voted
yearly by the assembly. A certain Colonel De Salaberry, a son of the De
Salaberry of Chateauguay, came to Kingston to solicit the office. He had
an interview with Sir Charles Metcalfe, as a result of which it was
reported that he had received the promise of the appointment. The
private secretary of the governor-general, a certain Captain Higginson,
met LaFontaine at a dinner given by His Excellency in Kingston.
Higginson discussed the vacant office with LaFontaine and was informed
that, if the post were given to Colonel De Salaberry, the appointment
would be viewed with disfavour by the people of Lower Canada. On this
Higginson asked the attorney-general if he might, at his convenience,
have an opportunity of discussing with him the present political
situation. LaFontaine granted this request and Higginson called upon him
at his office next day. A conversation of some three hours duration
ensued in which the question of the nature and meaning of responsible
government was discussed at full length. Captain Higginson declared that
he was acting in the matter in a purely personal character and not as
the accredited agent of the governor-general. This was probably true in
the technical and formal sense, but it cannot be doubted that Higginson
was expressing the known sentiments of Sir Charles Metcalfe, and that he
duly reported the conversation to the governor, whose subsequent actions
were evidently influenced thereby. The substance of the argument may
best be given in the words of LaFontaine's published memorandum.[136]

[Footnote 135: See _The Pilot_, September 18th, 1844; also Hincks's
_Reminiscences_, pp. 93 _et seq._]

[Footnote 136: Space will not permit the presentation of the entire
document, which may be found (in translation) in Hincks's
_Reminiscences_, pp. 98 _et seq._]

"Being requested by Captain Higginson to explain to him what was
understood by responsible government, the councillor[137] informed him of
the opinions which had been so often expressed on this subject as well
in the House as elsewhere. He explained to him that the councillors were
responsible for all the acts of the government with regard to local
matters, that they were so held by members of the legislature, that they
could only retain office so long as they possessed the confidence of the
representatives of the people, and that whenever this confidence should
be withdrawn from them they would retire from the administration; that
these were the principles recognized by the resolutions of September
3rd, 1841, and that it was on the faith of these principles being
carried out that he had accepted office. The question of consultation
and non-consultation was brought on the tapis with reference to the
exercise of patronage, that is to say, the distribution of places at the
disposal of the government. The councillor informed Captain Higginson
that the responsibility of the members of the administration, extending
to all the acts of the government in local matters, comprehending
therein the appointment to offices, consultation in all those cases
became necessary, it being afterwards left to the governor to adopt or
reject the advice of his councillors; His Excellency not being bound,
and it not being possible to bind him, to follow that advice, but, on
the contrary, having a right to reject it: but in this latter case, if
the members of council did not choose to assume the responsibility of
the act that the governor wished to perform, contrary to their advice,
they had the means of relieving themselves from it by exercising their
power of resigning." As Captain Higginson appears to have demurred to
this interpretation of the meaning of the September resolutions,
LaFontaine asked him to state the construction which he himself put upon
them. Higginson replied,--and in replying may properly be considered to
have expressed the sentiments of Sir Charles Metcalfe,--that although
the governor ought to choose his councillors "from among those supposed
to have the confidence of the people," nevertheless "each member of the
administration ought to be responsible only for the acts of his own
department, and consequently that he ought to have the liberty of voting
with or against his colleagues whenever he judged fit; that by this
means an administration composed of the principal members of each party
might exist advantageously for all parties, and would furnish the
governor the means of better understanding the views and opinions of
each party, and would not fail, under the auspices of the governor, to
lead to the reconciliation of all." From these views LaFontaine
expressed an emphatic and unqualified dissent. "If," he said, "the
opinions [thus] expressed upon the sense of the resolutions of 1841 were
those of the governor-general, and if His Excellency was determined to
make them the rule for conducting his government, the sooner he made it
known to the members of the council the better, in order to avoid all
misunderstanding between them." LaFontaine added that in such a case he
himself would feel it his duty to tender his resignation. Since there
is undeniable evidence that Higginson related this conversation in full
to Sir Charles Metcalfe, it is plain that henceforth the latter was
quite aware of the point of view taken by his cabinet, and must have
felt that a persistence in the course he contemplated could not but lead
to an open rupture. Indeed it appears to have been very shortly after
this incident that he wrote to Lord Stanley that his "attempts to
conciliate all parties are criminal in the eyes of the council, or at
least of the most formidable member of it."

[Footnote 137: LaFontaine writes in the third person, speaking of himself
as a "member of the executive council," a "councillor," etc.]

As yet, however, the difficulties that were impending between the
governor and his ministers were unknown to the country at large. The
"want of cordiality and confidence" between Metcalfe and his advisers
had indeed become "a matter of public rumour,"[138] but His Excellency had
been careful in his answers to the addresses praying for the removal of
the ministry to rebuke the spirit of partisan bitterness in which they
were couched.[139] The governor was consequently able to summon parliament
in the autumn of 1843 with a fair outward show of harmony, and it was
not until near the close of the year that the smouldering quarrel broke
into a flame. Meantime the parliament had passed through a session of
great activity and interest, and had undertaken a range of legislation
which rapidly developed the extent and meaning of the Reform programme.
In this, the third session of the first parliament, which lasted from
September 28th until December 9th (1843), the ministry enjoyed in the
assembly an overwhelming support. Of the eighty-four members of the
House, some sixty figured as the supporters of the government; and even
in the legislative council, the appointment of Dr. Baldwin, the father
of the attorney-general, milius Irving and others, lent support to the
government. Mr. Draper, on the other hand, now elevated to a seat in the
legislative council, embarked on a determined and persistent opposition
to the measures of the administration. Six new members had been elected
during the recess to fill vacancies in the assembly. Prominent among
these was Edward Gibbon Wakefield, elected for Beauharnois, notable
presently as one of the defenders of Sir Charles Metcalfe. Wakefield had
already attained a certain notoriety in England for his views on the
"art of colonization," and for the theories of land settlement which he
had endeavoured to put into practice in Australia and New Zealand.[140] He
had already spent some time in Canada with Lord Durham in an unofficial
capacity, and had had some share in the preparation of the report. He
had returned to Canada in 1841, and as has been already noted, had been
on intimate terms with Bagot and his ministry. He was anxious, according
to Hincks, to press a certain land scheme of his invention on the
government, and it was their refusal to meet his views which led him
presently to oppose their policy and to become the confidential adviser
and the apologist of Sir Charles Metcalfe.

[Footnote 138: The phrases are taken from LaFontaine's letter of November
27th, 1843, cited in the following chapter.]

[Footnote 139: Kaye, Vol. II., p. 510.]

[Footnote 140: See _Dictionary of National Biography_, Art. Wakefield, E.
G. See also W. P. Reeves, _State Experiments in Australia and New
Zealand_, (1902), Vol. I., Ch. vi.]

Hopelessly outvoted as they were in the Lower House, the Tories and
other opponents of the government nevertheless maintained a spirited
opposition. Sir Allan MacNab and his adherents persisted at every
available opportunity in raising the racial question, in reviving
uncomfortable recollections of 1837, and in assuming a tone of direct
personal attack, the impotence of which against the solid majority of
the government lent it an added venom.[141] The government in its turn was
well represented in debate. Baldwin, LaFontaine and Hincks were all
members of the assembly; being now united in policy, the combined power
of their leadership and the ardour which they put into their legislative
duties, easily held their followers together and enabled them to enjoy a
continued and unwavering support. A sort of natural division of labour
had been instituted among them. The larger measures of the Reform
programme were introduced by Baldwin: LaFontaine was especially
concerned with the alterations to be effected in the judicial system of
Lower Canada and cognate matters, while Hincks assumed the care of
fiscal and commercial legislation.

[Footnote 141: The following extract is illustrative of the amenities of
the day:--"Then Mr. Johnston came into full play--right and left he
dashed into the supporters of the bill with his peculiar sarcasm--he
told one honourable gentleman from Montreal that he never yet had had
the manliness to express an independent opinion--told others that they
would make good feather breeches to hatch eggs, etc., etc."--Kingston
_Whig_, October 1843.]

A contemporary account[142] of Francis Hincks during the session of 1843,
gives a vivid idea of the legislature of the day and the prominent part
played in its deliberations by the inspector-general. "He [Mr. Hincks]
had a portable desk beside him and a heap of papers. He was as busy as a
nailer, writing, reading, marking down pages, whispering to the men on
the front seat, sending a slip of paper to this one and that one, a hint
to the member speaking; there was no mistaking that man. Presently he
stood up and started off full drive,--half a dozen voices cry out,
'Hear, hear!' 'No! No!' He picks up a slip of paper and the whole House
is silent. The figures come tumbling out like potatoes from a basket. He
snatches up a journal or some other document, and having established his
position he goes ahead again. The inspector-general, Mr. Hincks, is
decidedly the man of that House. When one has observed with what
attention he is listened to by every member, when we look up to the
reporters, who are, during half the time when the other speakers are up,
looking on wearily, now all hard at their tasks, catching every word
they can lay hold of, it is not difficult to guess how it has happened
that Francis Hincks has been one of the best abused men that ever lived
in Canada. No wonder the old Compact hated him: they foresaw in him a
sad enemy to vermin. He is a real terrier. He speaks much too rapidly;
and in consequence runs into a very disagreeable sort of stammering. His
manner of reading off statistical quotations is peculiarly censurable.
It is impossible for reporters to take down the figures correctly, and
the honourable gentleman should reflect of what great importance it is
to himself and the ministry that all such matter be correctly reported."

[Footnote 142: _The Examiner_, October 25th, 1843. Hincks had severed his
connection with this paper on assuming office.]

The measures of the session included altogether sixty-four statutes
assented to by the governor, with nine other bills reserved for the
royal assent, of which four subsequently became law. Of these, many were
of an entirely subordinate character and need no mention, but the more
important measures require some notice. Among the matters to which the
attention of the House was early directed was the question of the seat
of government. Lord Sydenham's selection of Kingston had given
dissatisfaction in both sections of the province, and many
representations had been forwarded to the home government requesting
that some other capital might be selected. Montreal, Quebec and Toronto
all aspired to the coveted honour. Even Bytown, as the present city of
Ottawa was then called, was favoured by some persons, owing to its
inland situation and its immunity from frontier attack. But in point of
wealth, importance and natural situation, Montreal seemed obviously
destined to be the capital of Canada. It was at this time a city of over
forty thousand inhabitants. Its position at the head of ocean navigation
rendered it, as now, the commercial emporium of the country, and the
narrow streets near the water front,--St. Paul and Notre Dame, then the
principal mercantile streets of the town,--were crowded during the
season of navigation with the rush of its sea-going commerce. The extreme
beauty of the situation of the city, its historical associations and its
manifest commercial greatness of the future, ought to have placed the
superiority of its claims beyond a question. But the racial antagonism,
which was the dominant feature of the politics of the hour, rendered the
question one of British interest as opposed to French. Montreal was
indeed by no means an entirely French city. It numbered several thousand
British inhabitants, had two daily newspapers published in English and
had in it (to quote the words of Dr. Tach in the assembly) more "real
English, more out and out John Bulls, than either Kingston or Toronto."

But the Conservatives of Upper Canada persisted in identifying Montreal
with the Lower Canadian province. "It is not," said the New York
_Albion_ in an editorial article,[143] "a mere matter of holding
parliamentary sessions in this place or in that, that is involved; it is
a matter that carries with it the great question of English or French
supremacy for the future." Legally speaking the matter lay with the
imperial government[144] (acting through the governor-general) but a
representation[145] was made to Sir Charles Metcalfe and communicated by
him to the Canadian parliament to the effect that "Her Majesty's
government decline to come to a determination in favour of any place as
the future seat of government, without the advice of the provincial
legislature." It was, however, made a proviso that the choice must be
between Kingston and Montreal; Quebec and Toronto "being alike too
remote from the centre of the province." In accordance with this message
a resolution was introduced by Robert Baldwin, and seconded by
LaFontaine (November 2nd, 1843), advising the Crown to remove the seat
of government to Montreal. The members of the administration (with the
exception of Mr. Harrison, the member for Kingston, who now resigned his
post as provincial secretary) were entirely in favour of the measure.
Sir Charles Metcalfe himself supported it. But the Tories persisted in
regarding it as a betrayal of Upper Canada. In the legislative council
Mr. Draper had already succeeded in passing resolutions condemning the
proposed change, on the ground that the retention of the capital in
Upper Canada was a virtual condition of the union of the two provinces.
Sir Allan MacNab took even higher ground: he regarded the journey to and
from Kingston and the sojourn in the British atmosphere of Upper Canada
as a necessary training for the French-Canadian deputies, whereby they
might acquire, by infection as it were, something of the spirit of the
British constitution.[146]

[Footnote 143: November 11th, 1843.]

[Footnote 144: 3 and 4 Vict. c. 35, Sec. xxx.]

[Footnote 145: See _Journal of the Legislative Assembly_, October 6th,
1842.]

[Footnote 146: See speech of Robert Baldwin (_La Minerve_, November 16th,
1843) in which he describes the French-Canadian members "sitting at the
feet of the honourable knight as a political Gamaliel."]

In despite of the Conservative opposition, the resolution favouring the
transfer of the government was carried in the assembly by a vote of
fifty-one to twenty-seven (November 3rd, 1843). In the legislative
council the presence of the newly-appointed members enabled the same
resolution to be adopted. An attempt was made by the Tories to refuse to
consider the question, on the ground that Mr. Draper's recent resolution
had already dealt with it. This contention was rejected by the Speaker,
who insisted that the resolution must be duly voted on; whereupon an
indignant councillor, Mr. Morris, said he "must protest in the most
solemn manner against this proceeding, took his hat, made his bow to the
Speaker and left the chamber followed by twelve other members of the
council for Upper Canada."

A measure of the session, the work of LaFontaine, for which the Reform
party are entitled to great credit, was the Act for securing the
independence of the legislative assembly.[147] The aim of this statute was
to consolidate the system of cabinet government by removing placemen
from the assembly. It enacted that after the end of the present
parliament a large number of office-holders should be disqualified for
election. The list included judges, officers of the courts, registrars,
customs officers, public accountants and many other minor officials. The
holders of the ministerial offices were of course outside of the scope
of the statute, which thus aimed to place the relation of the
legislature to the holding of office on the same footing as in the
mother country. The reasonableness of this measure was admitted even by
opponents of the government, but the question of its constitutionality
having been raised in the legislative council, it was reserved by the
governor for the assent of the Crown. This assent was duly granted.

[Footnote 147: 7 Vict. c. 65.]

The reorganization of the judicial system of Lower Canada with a view to
render the administration of justice more easy and less expensive was
carried forward by LaFontaine in a series of five statutes.[148] The
district and division courts that had been established under Mr.
Draper's government (September 18th, 1841)[149] were abolished in favour
of a simpler system of circuit courts: a new court of appeal was
organized and provision made for the summary trial of small causes.

[Footnote 148: 7 Vict. cc. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. The statutes are very
elaborate: it is quite impossible in the present limited space to give
any proper idea of their purport.]

[Footnote 149: 4 and 5 Vict. c. 20.]

Among the bills laid before parliament, in whose preparation Baldwin was
chiefly concerned, a prominent place should be given to the bill for the
discouragement of secret societies. During the summer and autumn of 1843
the province of Upper Canada had been the scene of deplorable and
riotous strife between the rival factions into which the Irish settlers
of the colony were divided. With the large immigration from the British
Isles during the preceding years, a great number of Irish had come into
the country. Unfortunately these had seen fit to carry with them into
Canada the unhappy quarrels of their native country, and nowhere was the
strife of Orangemen and Repealers, Protestants and Catholics, more
ardent than in the little Canadian capital. The events of the year 1843,
during which all Ireland was in a frenzy of excitement over O'Connell's
agitation for repeal, naturally precipitated a similar agitation in
Canada. Here the situation was further aggravated by the fact that the
two parties of Irishmen were in a sort of natural alliance with the
rival political factions of Canada. The Orangemen, with their
ostentatious attachment to the British Crown, found allies in the
Tories, while their Catholic opponents had much in common with their
co-religionists of French Canada. Orange lodges had sprung into being
throughout Upper Canada: "Hibernian societies" of Irish Catholics
flaunted in defiance the colours and insignia of their associations.[150]

[Footnote 150: See Kaye, Vol. II., pp. 502 _et seq._]

In such a state of affairs, collisions between the rival parties were
inevitable. At Kingston, on the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne,
serious troubles occurred; several persons were wounded, and one killed;
the troops had to be called out to maintain order. On a later occasion
the streets were placarded with bills announcing rival assemblages, one
in aid of the cause of repeal, the other for preventing the repeal
meeting, "peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must." The unofficial
action of the governor and the cabinet prevented the holding of the
meetings.

Sir Charles Metcalfe was obviously alarmed at the prospect of a general
conflagration. Rumours had reached him that the Irish of New York were
busily engaged at drill under French officers, and that an invasion of
Canada was to be attempted. "It is supposed," he wrote to Stanley,[151]
"that if any collision were to occur in Ireland between the government
and the disaffected, it would be followed by the pouring of myriads of
Roman Catholic Irish into Canada from the United States." It is just
possible that this apprehension caused the governor to look more than
ever towards the Tories as an ultimate support. In the course of the
month of July he had an interview with a Mr. Gowan (then grand-master of
the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada and a man of the greatest influence),
after which the grand-master wrote a mysterious confidential letter to a
friend, in which he told his correspondent "not to be surprised if
Baldwin, Hincks and Harrison should _walk_." Mr. Gowan said,
furthermore, that he had given his views to the governor _maturely and
in writing_.[152] It is quite possible that the grand-master had
recommended a reconstruction of the government as the price of obtaining
the support of the Orange order. Meantime, however, the tumults of the
rival Irish factions continued unabated. At Toronto, for example, during
the time when legislation in regard to secret societies was being
discussed, an Orange mob gathered in the streets one November night,
having amongst them a cart with a gibbet and effigies of Baldwin and
Hincks placarded with the word "Traitors," which effigies were burnt
during a scene of great confusion before the residence of Dr.
Baldwin.[153]

[Footnote 151: July 8th, 1843.]

[Footnote 152: Gowan's letter is quoted by N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in
Canada_, p. 492.]

[Footnote 153: _The Examiner_, November 8th, 1843.]

It was in order to discourage, as far as possible, the manifestations of
the Irish societies that Baldwin introduced (October 9th, 1843) his
bill in regard to secret societies. The provisions of the bill declared
all societies (with the exception of the Freemasons) to be illegal if
their members were bound together by secret oaths and signs: members of
such societies were to be incapable of holding office or of serving on
juries: all persons holding public office were to be called upon to
declare that they belonged to no such societies: innkeepers who
permitted society meetings on their premises were to lose their
licenses. Drastic as this measure appears, it must be borne in mind that
the secret societies bill was introduced as a government measure with
the knowledge and consent of Sir Charles Metcalfe. It passed the House
by a large majority, fifty-five votes being cast in favour of it and
only thirteen against it.[154] Nevertheless, Sir Charles saw fit to
reserve it for the royal sanction, which in the sequel was refused. It
is true that the legislature had already adopted a law of a more general
nature in regard to demonstrations tending to disturb the public peace,
and that this additional legislation was viewed by many as special
legislation against a particular class. But the ministry, as will be
seen later, considered that, under the circumstances, Metcalfe had gone
beyond his constitutional functions in withholding his assent.

[Footnote 154: _Journal of the Legislative Assembly_, November 4th, 1843.]

Two Acts of the session[155] which elicited a general approval were
Hincks's measures for the protection of agriculture against the
competition of the United States. The latter country had recently
adopted a high tariff system whereby the Canadians found themselves
excluded from the American market. The present statute did not profess
to institute a definite and permanent policy of protection, but claimed
to remedy the unequal conditions imposed on the farming population under
the existing customs system, which put duties on merchandise but allowed
foreign agricultural produce and live stock to come in free. Under these
Acts a duty of 1 10s. was to be paid on imported horses, 1 on cattle;
and on all grains other than wheat, duties of from two to three
shillings per quarter.

[Footnote 155: 7 Vict. cc. 1 and 2.]

In order to remedy the defective operation of the existing school law
two new statutes were adopted.[156] Fifty thousand pounds a year were now
to be given by the government to elementary schools. The difficulties
which had arisen under Mr. Draper's Act in regard to the apportionment
of the government grant were to be obviated by a division of the money
between Upper and Lower Canada in the ratio of twenty to thirty thousand
pounds until a census should be taken, after which the division was to
be according to population. In the second of the school Acts (which
dealt only with Upper Canada) it was provided that the government grant
should be distributed among the localities according to population;
that the townships (or towns or cities as the case might be) should levy
on their inhabitants a sum at least equal to, but not more than double,
the government grant. Fees were still to be charged for instruction in
the common schools, but a clause of the Act (section 49) enabled the
council of any town or city to establish free schools by by-law. The Act
continued to recognize the system of separate schools, which might be
established either by Protestants or Roman Catholics on the application
of ten or more freeholders or householders.

[Footnote 156: 7 Vict. c. 9 and 7 Vict. c. 29.]

The school law was mainly in amplification and in extension of the
existing system. A measure in regard to education of a much more
distinctive character, and which evoked a furious opposition both within
and without the House, was Robert Baldwin's University of Toronto bill.
Although this measure was not finally adopted, the university question
remained for years in the forefront of the political issues of the day,
until the matter was finally set at rest by the statute enacted under
the second LaFontaine-Baldwin administration.[157]

[Footnote 157: The administration of 1848 should more properly be called
the Baldwin-LaFontaine administration, since Robert Baldwin was its
senior member. But it has been customary to use the designation in the
text.]

As the name Robert Baldwin will always be associated with the
successful removal of all denominational character from the University
of Toronto, some explanation of the question at issue is here in place.
The present University of Toronto originated in an antecedent
institution called King's College.[158] The first impetus towards the
creation of this college had been given by Governor Simcoe, who called
the attention of the imperial government to the wisdom of making
provision for a provincial university and to the possibility of
effecting this by an appropriation of Crown lands. In 1797 the two
Houses of the legislature of Upper Canada petitioned the Crown to make
an appropriation of a certain portion of the waste lands of the colony
as a fund for the establishment and support of a respectable grammar
school in each district of the province, and also of a college or
university. In 1799 the land grant was made. It consisted of five
hundred and fifty thousand, two hundred and seventy-four acres of land.
Beyond this nothing was done for many years. Meantime a certain part of
the land was set aside for special educational objects; one hundred and
ninety thousand, five hundred and seventy-three acres were appropriated
in 1823 for district grammar schools, and in 1831, sixty-two thousand,
nine hundred and ninety-six acres were given to Upper Canada College.[159]
At length in 1827 a royal charter was issued for a university to be
known as the University of King's College. Under this document the
conduct of the university and of its teaching was vested in a
corporation consisting of the chancellor, the president and the
professors. Certain clauses of the charter gave to King's College a
denominational character: the bishop of the diocese was to be, _ex
officio_, its visitor, and the archdeacon of York (at that time Dr. John
Strachan) its _ex officio_ president: the university was to have a
faculty of divinity, all students in which must subscribe to the
Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England: the same test was
prescribed for all members of the university council.

[Footnote 158: See J. Loudon, _History of the University of Toronto_,
printed in _Canada, an Encyclopdia_, 1898.]

[Footnote 159: In 1828 part of the original grant of land was exchanged
for an equal portion of land belonging to the Clergy Reserves.]

The issue of this charter had occasioned a violent agitation. Vigorous
protest was raised against the peculiar privileges thus extended to the
Church of England. The opposition to the charter prevented any further
action being taken towards the actual establishment of the college.
Finally, in 1837, a statute[160] was passed by the legislature of Upper
Canada which revised the terms of the royal charter. It provided that
the judges of the court of king's bench should be the visitors of the
college, that the president need not be the incumbent of any particular
ecclesiastical office, that no religious tests should be required of
students, and that no professor, nor member of the council, need be a
member of the Church of England. The statute still left the faculty of
divinity as a part of the university, and left it necessary for every
professor and member of the council to subscribe to a belief in the
Trinity and in the divine inspiration of the Scripture. Even after the
charter had been thus modified, a further delay was occasioned by the
rebellion of 1837, and it was not until 1842 that the building of King's
College actually commenced, the corner-stone being laid by Sir Charles
Bagot in his capacity of chancellor of the university. In April of 1843
actual teaching had begun, the old parliament buildings on Front Street,
Toronto, being used as temporary premises. Meantime the long delay which
had been encountered in the creation of the provincial university, and
the somewhat arrogant claims that had been put forward by Dr. Strachan
and the extreme Anglicans, had led the members of the other sects to
make efforts towards the establishment of denominational colleges of
their own. The Methodists incorporated in 1836 an institution which
opened its doors at Cobourg in the following year under the name of the
Upper Canada Academy.[161] In 1841 an Act of the parliament of Canada[162]
conferred on the academy the power to grant degrees, and gave it the
name of Victoria College. The Presbyterians, acting under a royal
charter, established Queen's College at Kingston, which entered on the
work of teaching in 1842. The Roman Catholics had founded in the same
town a seminary known as the College of Regiopolis.

[Footnote 160: _Statutes of Upper Canada_, 7 Will. IV. c. 16.]

[Footnote 161: See Egerton Ryerson, _Story of My Life_, Chap. xiv.]

[Footnote 162: 4 and 5 Vict. c. 37.]

To Robert Baldwin and those who were able to take a broad-minded view of
the question of higher education in Canada and to consider the future as
well as the present, the separate foundation of these denominational
universities appeared a decided error. It meant that, in the future,
Canadian education would run upon sectarian lines and that a narrow
scholasticism would usurp the place of a wider culture. The theologian
would be substituted for the man of learning. More than this, the
present system was in violation of that doctrine of equal rights which
was the foundation of Robert Baldwin's political creed; for the opulent
land grant enjoyed by King's College gave to it a form of state support
which was denied to its sister institutions. The measure which Baldwin
presented to the parliament in remedy of the situation was sweeping in
character. It proposed to create an institution to be known as the
University of Toronto, of which the existing sectarian establishments
should be the colleges. The executive academic body of the university
was to consist of the governor-general as chancellor, together with a
vice-chancellor and council chosen from the different colleges. With
this was to be a board of control made up of dignitaries of the
respective churches together with various public officials. The
essential principle of Baldwin's bill lay in the fact that all the
denominational colleges involved were put on an equal footing. Each
retained its own faculty of divinity, the university granting a doctor's
degree in divinity to graduates of all the divinity faculties alike. The
property that had been granted by the state to King's College was to
become the property of the University of Toronto. It proposed, in a
word, a general federation of the existing sectarian institutions into a
single provincial establishment looking to the state for its support,
including denominational colleges as its affiliated members but itself
of an entirely unsectarian character. To those acquainted with the
recent history of educational development in Ontario, the wisdom of the
idea of federation needs no commentary.

At the present day the general principle of the bill--the secularization
of state education--meets with a ready support; but the proposal of the
measure aroused in Upper Canada a storm of opposition. First and
foremost the opposition came from the Anglicans, to whom the measure
seemed a piece of godless iconoclasm directed at their dearest
privileges. Dr. John Strachan, whose intense convictions and untiring
energy made him the most formidable champion of the Church of England,
led the attack on the bill. Strachan was by instinct a fighting man who
did not spare the weight of his blows in a good cause. He forwarded to
the parliament a thunderous petition, presented by "John, by Divine
Permission First Bishop of Toronto," the intemperate language of which
bespeaks the character of the man. "The leading object of the bill," so
began the prayer, "is to place all forms of error on an equality with
truth, by patronizing equally within the same institution an unlimited
number of sects, whose doctrines are absolutely irreconcilable: a
principle in its nature atheistical, and so monstrous in its
consequences that, if successfully carried out, it would utterly destroy
all that is pure and holy in morals and religion, and lead to greater
corruption than anything adopted during the madness of the French
Revolution.... Such a fatal departure from all that is good is without a
parallel in the history of the world."[163]

[Footnote 163: _Journal of the Legislative Assembly_, November 6th, 1843.]

A whirlwind of discussion followed the legislative progress of the bill.
It was argued that parliament had no legal right to abrogate the royal
charter of King's College; that the proposed measure was equivalent to a
confiscation of the property of the college; more than that it was
argued that the provincial parliament was not empowered to create a
university at all. These were the arguments of the lawyer, to which the
churchmen added their cry of horror at the desecration of the privileges
of the Church. The violence of "John, by Divine Permission," etc., was
imitated by lesser luminaries. "Here we have," screamed "Testis," in a
hysterical contribution to a leading Anglican paper,[164] "the true
atheistical character of the popular dogma of responsible government.
This is its fruit, its bitter, poisonous fruit; this is the broad road
to destruction into which its many votaries are rushing headlong."
Draper in the legislative council (November 24th, 1843) opposed the bill
in a speech excellent in its masterly analysis, in which the really weak
points of the bill--its interference with charter rights and its
peculiar degrees in assorted divinity--were exposed with an unsparing
hand. But in spite of opposition from outside, the bill was making its
way through the legislature and had reached its second reading when its
further progress was stopped by an event which threw the whole country
into a turmoil of excitement.

[Footnote 164: _The Church_, November 17th, 1843.]




  CHAPTER VII

  THE METCALFE CRISIS


The newspapers of the early forties, adhering to the decorous traditions
of the older school, knew nothing of the modern system of sensational
headings and exaggerated type. But the news which, at the close of
November, 1843, spread rapidly through the country, startled many of
them into large capitals and abundant notes of exclamation. The
LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry, with an unbroken majority behind it, had
gone suddenly out of office! "Dismissed!" triumphantly shouted the
Tories, and forthwith, without waiting for further details of what had
happened, an exultant song of praise flowed from the pens of
Conservative editors in laudation of the stout-hearted governor who had
vindicated British loyalty against the treacheries of aliens and
Radicals. "The news from Canada," sang back in echo the New York
_Albion_, "is of a right cheering character: the Franco-Radical cabinet
has gone to the tomb of the Capulets amid the shouts of every loyal man
in the province. The governor-general, Sir Charles Metcalfe, (and thrice
honoured be his name!) has thrown off the incubus of a disloyal faction
and the queen's representative stands redeemed and disenthralled."

But the ministry had not, as presently appeared, been dismissed; they
had, with one exception only, handed in a collective resignation in
protest against what they regarded as the unconstitutional conduct of
the governor-general. This was at last the rupture which Metcalfe five
months before had told Lord Stanley might "happen any day." The vexed
question of the patronage and the governor's reservation of the Secret
Societies Bill had led the cabinet to force the matter to an issue. It
has been seen above that Metcalfe had resolved that the exercise of the
right of appointment to office should not be removed from his hands. To
this policy he had adhered. Several cases had already occurred in which
the governor-general had offered, and even conferred, official positions
without any consultation with his ministry. Among these was the
important post of speaker of the legislative council,[165] which was
offered successively, though without finding acceptance, to two members
of the Conservative party. Finally toward the end of November, 1843, it
reached the ears of the cabinet that a certain Mr. Powell, the son of
Colonel Powell (also of the Conservative party) had been appointed by
Sir Charles Metcalfe to be clerk of the peace for the Dalhousie
district. The position, in and of itself, was no great affair. But the
ministry, considering a principle of prime importance to be involved,
decided to bring the matter to a final test.

[Footnote 165: The holder of this office under the Act of Union was
nominated and removed by the governor-general (3 and 4 Vict. c. Section
xxxv).]

On November 24th Baldwin and LaFontaine called upon the governor-general
and held with him a long colloquy which was renewed at a meeting of the
executive council the next day. The two ministers, to use the words of
Metcalfe's biographer, "pressed their demands with energy and
resolution: but Metcalfe, in his own placid way, was equally energetic
and resolute." On the day following (November 26th, 1843) the ministry
resigned. As the course of action thus adopted and the crisis which
followed constitute a turning point in the political history of Canada,
and form the most important episode in the public career of the united
leaders, it is well to follow in some detail the threads of the vexed
controversy to which their resignation gave rise. At the instance of Sir
Charles Metcalfe, LaFontaine drew up an official statement of the
reasons of the resignation, which, together with a rejoinder by the
governor-general, was duly laid before the Houses of parliament.[166] The
ministerial statement runs as follows:--

[Footnote 166: These are to be found in the _Journals of the Assembly_ and
in all the newspapers of the day: they also appear in the pamphlet
printed by H. W. Rowsell (Toronto, 1844) under the title _Addresses
presented to His Excellency the Rt. Hon. Sir Chas. T. Metcalfe, Bart.
G.C.B._ This document and other publications on the controversy appear
in the Baldwin Pamphlets, 1844, now in the Toronto Public Library.]

"Mr. LaFontaine, in compliance with the request of the governor-general,
and in behalf of himself and his late colleagues, who have felt it to be
their duty to tender a resignation of office, states, for His
Excellency's information, the substance of the explanation which they
purpose to offer in their places in parliament. They avowedly took
office upon the principle of responsibility to the representatives of
the people in parliament, and with a full recognition on their parts of
the following resolutions introduced into the legislative assembly with
the knowledge and sanction of Her Majesty's representative in this
province, on September 3rd, 1841." (Here follows a citation of the
resolutions given in Chapter IV. above.)

"They have lately understood that His Excellency took a widely different
view of the position, duties, and responsibilities of the executive
council, from that under which they accepted office, and through which
they have been enabled to conduct the parliamentary business of the
government, sustained by a large majority of the popular branch of the
legislature.

"Had the difference of opinion between His Excellency and themselves,
and, as they have reason to believe, between His Excellency and the
parliament and people of Canada generally, been merely theoretical, the
members of the late executive council might, and would, have felt it to
be their duty to avoid any possibility of collision which might have a
tendency to disturb the tranquil and amicable relations which apparently
subsisted between the executive government and the provincial
parliament. But the difference of opinion has led not merely to
appointments to office against their advice, but to appointments, and
proposals to make appointments, of which they were not informed in any
manner, until all opportunity of offering advice respecting them had
passed by, and to a determination on the part of His Excellency to
reserve for the expression of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon a bill
introduced into the provincial parliament with His Excellency's
knowledge and consent as a government measure, without an opportunity
being given to the members of the executive council to state the
probability of such a reservation. They, therefore, felt themselves in
the anomalous position of being, according to their own avowals and
solemn public pledges, responsible for all the acts of the executive
government and parliament, and at the same time not only without the
opportunity of offering advice respecting these acts, but without the
knowledge of their existence, until informed of them from private and
unofficial sources.

"When the members of the late executive council offered their humble
remonstrances to His Excellency on this condition of public affairs, His
Excellency not only frankly explained the difference of opinion existing
between him and the council, but stated that, from the time of his
arrival in the country, he had observed an antagonism between him and
them on the subject, and notwithstanding that the members of the council
repeatedly and distinctly explained to His Excellency that they
considered him free to act contrary to their advice, and only claimed an
opportunity of giving such advice and of knowing, before others, His
Excellency's intentions, His Excellency did not in any manner remove the
impression left upon their minds, by his avowal, that there was an
antagonism between him and them, and a want of that cordiality and
confidence which would enable them, in their respective stations, to
carry on public business to the satisfaction of His Excellency or of the
country.

"The want of this cordiality and confidence had already become a matter
of public rumour: and public opinion not only extended it to acts, upon
which there were apparent grounds for difference of opinion, but to all
measures of government involving political principles. His Excellency,
on the one hand, was supposed to be coerced by his council into a course
of policy which he did not approve of, and the council were made liable
to the accusation of assuming the tone and position of responsible
advisers of the government, without, in fact, asserting the right of
being consulted thereupon.

"While His Excellency disavowed any intention of altering the course of
administration of public affairs which he found on his arrival in
Canada, he did not disguise the opinion that these affairs would be more
satisfactorily managed by and through the governor himself, without any
necessity of concord amongst the members of the executive council or
obligation on their part to defend or support in parliament the acts of
the governor. To this opinion of His Excellency, as one of theory, the
members of the executive council might not have objected; but when, on
Saturday last, they discovered that it was the real ground of all their
differences with His Excellency, and of the want of confidence and
cordiality between His Excellency and the council since his arrival,
they felt it impossible to continue to serve Her Majesty, as executive
councillors for the affairs of this province, consistently with their
duty to Her Majesty, or to His Excellency, or with their public and
often repeated pledges in the provincial parliaments, if His Excellency
would see fit to act upon his opinion of their functions and
responsibilities."

The document written by Sir Charles Metcalfe in answer to this on the
following day (November 28th, 1843) runs as follows:--

"The governor-general observes with regret in the explanation which the
gentlemen who have resigned their seats in the executive council propose
to offer in their places in parliament, a total omission of the
circumstances which he regards as forming the real grounds of their
resignation; and as this omission may have proceeded from their not
considering themselves at liberty to disclose the circumstances, it
becomes necessary that he should state them.

"On Friday, Mr. LaFontaine and Mr. Baldwin came to the government
house, and after some other matters of business, and some preliminary
remarks as to the cause of their proceeding, demanded of the
governor-general that he should agree to make no appointment, and no
offer of an appointment, without previously taking the advice of the
council; that the lists of candidates should, in every instance, be laid
before the council; that they should recommend any others at discretion,
and that the governor-general, in deciding after taking their advice,
should not make any appointment prejudicial to their influence. In other
words, that the patronage of the Crown should be surrendered to the
council for the purchase of parliamentary support; for, if the demand
did not mean that, it meant nothing, as it cannot be imagined that the
mere form of taking advice without regarding it, was the process
contemplated.

"The governor-general replied that he would not make any such
stipulation, and could not degrade the character of his office, nor
violate his duty, by such a surrender of the prerogative of the Crown.

"He appealed to the number of appointments made by him on the
recommendation of the council, or the members of it in their
departmental capacity, and to instances in which he had abstained from
conferring appointments on their opponents, as furnishing proofs of the
great consideration which he had evinced towards the council in the
distribution of the patronage of the Crown.

"He at the same time objected, as he had always done, to the exclusive
distribution of patronage with party views, and maintained the principle
that office ought in every instance to be given to the man best
qualified to render efficient service to the state; and where there was
no such preminence, he asserted the right to exercise his discretion.

"He understood from Messrs. LaFontaine and Baldwin, that their
continuance in office depended upon his final decision with regard to
their demand; and it was agreed that at the council to be assembled the
next day, that subject should be fully discussed.

"He accordingly met the council on Saturday, convinced that they would
resign, as he would not recede from the resolution which he had formed,
and the same subject became the principal topic of discussion. Three or
more distinct propositions were made to him, over and over again,
sometimes in different terms, but always aiming at the same purpose,
which, in his opinion, if accomplished, would have been a virtual
surrender into the hands of the council of the prerogative of the Crown:
and on his uniformly replying to these propositions in the negative, his
refusal was each time followed by 'Then we must resign,' or words to
that purport, from one or more of his council. In the course of the
conversations which, both on Friday and Saturday, followed the explicit
demand made by the council regarding the patronage of the Crown, that
demand being based on the construction put by some of the gentlemen on
the meaning of 'Responsible Government,' different opinions were
elicited on the abstract theory of that still undefined question as
applicable to a colony--a subject on which considerable difference of
opinion is known everywhere to prevail; but the governor-general, during
those conversations, protested against its being supposed that he is
practically adverse to the system of responsible government, which has
been here established: which he has hitherto pursued without deviation,
and to which it is fully his intention to adhere. . . . If, indeed, by
responsible government the gentlemen of the late council mean that the
council is to be supreme, and the authority of the governor-general a
nullity, then he cannot agree with them, and must declare his dissent
from that perversion of the acknowledged principle. . . . Allusion is
made in the proposed explanation of the gentlemen of the late council,
to the governor-general's having determined to reserve for the
consideration of Her Majesty's government, one of the bills passed by
the two legislative Houses. That is the Secret Societies Bill. If there
is any part of the functions of the governor in which he is more than
any other bound to exercise an independent judgment, it must be in
giving the royal assent to Acts of parliament. With regard to this duty
he has special instructions from Her Majesty to reserve every Act of an
unusual or extraordinary character. Undoubtedly the Secret Societies
Bill answers that description, being unexampled in British legislation.
The gentlemen of the late council heard his sentiments on it expressed
to them. He told them that it was an arbitrary and unwise measure, and
not even calculated to effect the end it had in view. He had given his
consent to its being introduced into parliament, because he had
promised, soon after his assumption of the government, that he would
sanction legislation on the subject as a substitute for executive
measures which he refused to adopt on account of their proscriptive
character: although he deprecates the existence of societies which tend
to foment religious and civil discord. The gentlemen of the late council
cannot fail to remember with what pertinacity those measures were
pressed on him, and can hardly be unaware of what would have followed at
that time, if, in addition to rejecting the proscriptive measures urged,
he had refused to permit any legislation on the subject."[167]

[Footnote 167: About a fortnight afterwards (December 11th, 1843) Metcalfe
wrote to Lord Stanley as follows: "Late on the following day, Mr.
LaFontaine sent me a written statement of the explanation, which he and
his colleagues proposed to give in their places in parliament, of the
grounds of their resignation. A copy is enclosed. It is a most
disingenuous production, suppressing entirely the immediate matter upon
which their resignation took place, and trumping up a vague assertion of
differences on the theory of responsible government as applicable to a
colony, which had been expressed in the freedom of conversation as
matters of opinion but not as grounds of procedure, and were, therefore,
very unfairly used for the purpose to which this misrepresentation was
applied. Had the gentlemen openly avowed that their object was to make
the council supreme and to prostrate the British government and to
reduce the authority of the governor to a nullity, there would have been
truth in their statements of a difference between us, as I never can
admit that construction of responsible government in a colony."
"Correspondence of Lord Metcalfe," _Canadian Archives_. A little later
(December 26th, 1843) Metcalfe wrote to Lord Stanley: "It is said that
they [the late council] were beginning to totter in parliament. Some
clauses in the judicature bills for Lower Canada, brought in by Mr.
LaFontaine, had been thrown out owing to Mr. Viger's opposition on
principle to the arrangement therein proposed of judges sitting as a
part of the Court of Appeal on the hearing of appeals from their own
judgments. Mr. Baldwin's King's College University Bill was threatened
with certain failure and would probably have been lost on the day after
their resignation, if the latter had not furnished a pretext for
withdrawing it without assigning the prospect of defeat as the cause.
Their Assessment Bill likewise gave general dissatisfaction in Upper
Canada, and they had been compelled to modify it considerably. These and
some other occasional symptoms of defection, although not affecting
their general majority in the House, were regarded as omens of
approaching weakness, and it is supposed that, in order to recover
waning popularity and power, they sought a rupture with the governor,
determined to make use of it for the purpose of raising a popular cry in
their favour. . . . This explanation has obtained some currency; but I
cannot say that I give full credence to it. . . . A more obvious motive
may be found in other circumstances. There were several bills before the
Parliament which, if passed into laws, would have created several new
appointments with considerable salaries. . . . To secure the
distribution of this patronage was, I conceive, the immediate object of
their demand, or one for the surrender of the patronage into their
hands." _Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe, London_, 1855.
[Ed., J. W. Kaye.]]

The two above documents, which were soon scattered broadcast throughout
Canada, represent the official version of the opposing sides of the
political controversy which raged throughout the next twelve months. The
resignation of the LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry was no ordinary event.
The whole principle of British colonial government was staked upon the
issue; and upon both sides of the Atlantic events in Canada were
followed with an exceptional interest. Only during periods of actual
rebellion or war, has there ever been in this country an era of more
intense political excitement. The question of responsible government and
of its proper meaning and application in Canada, became the supreme
issue of the day, and both in and out of parliament, in the press, on
the hustings, and from the housetops, it was made the subject of violent
and virulent argumentation. The Reformers had had no intention, in
offering their resignation to the governor, of surrendering their claim
to the political control of the country: the resignation was not an act
of submissive meekness but an act of defiance. It was intended as the
prelude of an organized campaign of resistance to Sir Charles Metcalfe,
which should either drive him from his office or compel him to admit the
ministerial principle in its entirety. Metcalfe, on his part, bent not
before the storm, but with British resolution braced himself squarely on
his feet to face the rising gale of opposition. Not an inch would he
retreat: not a syllable would he retract. Till the British government
might summon him home, he was there to govern Canada, with a ministry if
he could, but without a ministry if he must.

Mistaken as the views of the governor-general undoubtedly were, there is
much to admire in the spirit of indomitable firmness with which he was
prepared to confront single-handed, if need be, the whole population of
the colony. As the controversy waxed hot, the amenities of political
discussion were thrown aside and the divinity that hedges a
governor-general was dissipated in a storm of personal attack: the cry
of despot, tyrant and autocrat, was heard on all sides, while the
satirists of the time dubbed His Excellency "Charles the Simple," and
added the still more crushing epithet of "Old Square Toes." But Metcalfe
was not left to fight single-handed: Mr. Draper's adherents were with
him from the start. To the Tories the aspect of a governor proposing to
actually govern was as welcome as sunshine after storm, while needy
politicians, office-seekers and personal opponents of the late ministry
rallied eagerly to the cause. The people of Canada were soon divided
into two great factions, the supporters and the enemies of Metcalfe.
Meetings, banquets, speeches, addresses, pamphlets and fierce editorial
articles became the order of the day, and the strife of the political
combatants waxed more and more furious with the realization that it must
culminate in a general election which might mean to either party a
general and irretrievable disaster.

The first trial of strength in the momentous conflict was on the floor
of the parliament itself. Great was the excitement in and around the
legislature, when the news of the ministerial resignation became public.
"The library of the assembly," wrote a private correspondent from
Kingston, "was crowded with letter writers eager to circulate the news
from Sandwich to Gasp, and no sound met the ear but the harsh
scratching of the pens as they rushed over the paper. In the lobbies and
on the landing-places small groups were congregated discussing the news.
The politician as he walked the street was button-held (_sic_) by many a
curious and excited enquirer. The stagnation which usually characterizes
the metropolis has been converted into a bustling and earnest
animation."

On November 27th, LaFontaine briefly announced to the House the fact
that the ministry, with the exception of Mr. Daly, had resigned office.
Two days later Baldwin presented to the assembly the reasons for the
resignation, and an exciting debate followed, culminating in a
triumphant vote of confidence in the ministry. It is unnecessary to
repeat at length the arguments presented for and against the ministry,
which were practically identical with those contained in the official
letters just quoted. Baldwin in his opening speech declared that the
ministry had accepted office on principles they had publicly and
privately avowed. These principles, he said, had received the sanction
of a large majority of the representatives of the people. The ministry
stood pledged to maintain them. The head of the government entertained
views widely differing from his ministers on the duties and
responsibilities of their office: this had left nothing for them but to
resign. Baldwin read to the House the resolutions of 1841, in which he
and his colleagues found the justification of their present conduct.
Hincks, Price, Christie and others supported Baldwin in the assembly,
while Sullivan defended the conduct of the late ministry before the
legislative council in a speech of exceptional brilliancy and power.
Beside the overwhelming arguments thus presented, the defence of the
governor-general, in the hands of Mr. Daly, seemed tame and
insignificant, and the attempt of the latter to show that Metcalfe was
prepared to live up to the September resolutions carried no conviction.

Nor was the fierce onslaught of Sir Allan MacNab on the outgoing cabinet
of any greater efficacy. He made no attempt to reconcile the conduct of
the governor with the principles of responsible government. He attacked
the principles themselves. To him the September resolutions were as
chaff to be driven before the wind. Responsible government, he said,
should never have been conceded: if persisted in, it could lead to
nothing but the ultimate separation of the colony from the mother
country. MacNab's defence of Metcalfe was of a character little likely
to defend, and the governor, despite his instinctive sympathy with the
Tories, might have wished to be saved from his friends; for Metcalfe
found himself in the painful position of being defended by one set of
adherents on the ground that he had maintained responsible government,
and by the other on the ground that responsible government was not worth
maintaining.

Of far more consequence to the cause of the outgoing cabinet was the
defection of Mr. Viger. Denis Benjamin Viger had long been one of the
prominent leaders of the popular party in Lower Canada and had suffered
imprisonment for the cause. The principle of responsible government and
the claims of the French-Canadians had had no more ardent supporter than
Mr. Viger, and at this time, with the dignity of seventy winters upon
him, he was still viewed as one of the leaders of his people. It was not
without deep emotion[168] that Viger now announced to the House that he
could not endorse the conduct of the leaders of his party. The principle
of responsible government he was willing to admit, but the present
occasion, he said, offered no adequate grounds for a step so momentous
as that which they had seen fit to take.[169] The debate was finally
closed by the passage of a resolution, presented by Mr. Price, to the
effect that "an humble address be presented to His Excellency, humbly
representing to His Excellency the deep regret felt by this House at the
retirement of certain members of the provincial administration on the
question of their right to be consulted on what this House
unhesitatingly avows to be the prerogative of the Crown,--appointments
to office: and further, to assure His Excellency that the advocacy of
this principle entitles them to the confidence of the House, being in
strict accordance with the principles embraced in the resolutions
adopted in the House on September 3rd, 1841." The motion was carried by
forty-six votes against twenty-three. On December 9th, 1843, the
parliament was prorogued.

[Footnote 168: _La Minerve_, December 11th, 1843.]

[Footnote 169: Mr. Viger afterwards published his views on the situation
in full in a pamphlet entitled, _La Crise Ministerielle_, (1844).]

Meantime the governor-general was without a ministry. At the moment of
prorogation, Mr. Dominick Daly enjoyed the unique honour of being sole
adviser to the Crown. On the twelfth of the month (Dec. 1843) Mr. Draper
was sworn in as executive councillor, and Mr. Viger, with whom
negotiations had at once been opened by Sir Charles Metcalfe, entered
also into the service of the government. It was announced in the
administration newspapers that these gentlemen constituted a provisional
government, and that the governor-general would organize a regular
cabinet at the earliest possible moment. Meantime the Reform journals
loudly denounced this new form of personal rule.

The prorogation of parliament was the signal for the organization of a
vigorous campaign of opposition on the part of the Reform party, whose
leaders threw themselves with great ardour into the work of rousing the
country in anticipation of a coming election. Baldwin and LaFontaine,
returning to the practice of the law in their respective cities, headed
the agitation. Hincks, who had severed his connection with the
_Examiner_ on assuming office in 1842, now determined to return to
newspaper work. As Montreal was to be the future capital of the
province, he came to that city shortly after the rising of the House and
looked about him for the purchase of a suitable journal. A paper called
the _Times_,--moderately liberal in its complexion,--being at that time
without an editor, Hincks acted gratuitously in that capacity for some
little while, hoping ultimately to purchase the paper; but finding
difficulty in arranging matters with the proprietors, he established
(March 5th, 1844) a journal of his own under the name of the _Pilot._
Adopting the same device as he had already used with success in the case
of the _Examiner_, Hincks printed at the head of his first issue a
quotation from Lord Durham's report in favour of responsible government
and backed it up with an opening editorial in which he plunged at once
into the present controversy. "If the representative of the sovereign,"
said the _Pilot_, "is in practice to make appointments according to his
own personal opinion, and to reject the bills relating to our local
affairs because he thinks them unnecessary or inexpedient, it would be
infinitely better that the mockery of representative institutions was
abolished." The journalistic career in those days was not without its
dangers and difficulties. Hincks and his newspaper were denounced on
all sides by the Tory press: he was likened to Marat, to Robespierre and
to the iconoclasts of the French revolution. An embittered Orangeman,[170]
incensed at certain expressions used by a correspondent of the _Pilot_,
endeavoured to force a duel upon the editor. But in spite of all
difficulties Hincks persevered, and remained at his editorial work in
Montreal throughout the next four years.

[Footnote 170: The gentleman in question was Colonel Ogle R. Gowan. A
correspondent of the _Pilot_, in discussing the well-known episode of
the queen's refusal to dismiss the ladies of the bedchamber and its
relation to the royal prerogative, had said: "His [Sir Robert Peel's]
demand was complied with, though Colonel Gowan _falsely_ asserted the
contrary at Kingston." Gowan wrote to Hincks (March 12th, 1844) asking
the name and address of the correspondent. "Should you decline to accede
to my demand," he said, "I beg you will refer me to a friend on your
behalf to meet Captain Weatherly of this city, who will arrange a
meeting between us." Hincks managed to appease the irate colonel by
explaining that the _falseness_ of the argument and not the _veracity_
of the speaker was the matter in question.]

In addition to his editorial work on the _Pilot_, Hincks endeavoured to
influence opinion in the mother country by contributing a series of
letters to the London _Morning Chronicle_. These were intended to offset
the arguments that were being laid before the British public by Gibbon
Wakefield. The latter, whom the Reformers now regarded as a snake that
they had unwittingly warmed in the bosom of the party, had become the
bitter enemy of the late ministry. He had endeavoured to persuade the
assembly to adopt an amendment nullifying the vote of confidence.
Failing in this, he had published a pamphlet[171] in defence of the
conduct of Metcalfe, and was at this time busily contributing articles
to the London press on the Canadian question. Wakefield in these
writings undertook to make a double misrepresentation; to misrepresent
Canadian affairs to the people of Great Britain, and to misrepresent
British opinion thereupon to the people of Canada. "The quantity of
sympathy with Messrs. Baldwin and LaFontaine existing in the United
Kingdom," he wrote, "is very minute." The resignation of the ministry he
interpreted, not as arising out of the question of responsible
government, but simply as a political trick: the difficulty encountered
with the university bill and other Upper Canadian legislation had made
the Reform party anxious to divert public attention from its ill success
by the familiar device of dragging a herring across the scent.
Responsible government was merely the herring in question. Hincks easily
exposes the fallacies of Wakefield's argument; for Wakefield's letters
to the press before and after the ministerial rupture were essentially
inconsistent. On October 27th, 1843, Wakefield had written that he
would have no objection to a quarrel between Metcalfe and the ministers
if he "could be sure that the governor would pick well his ground of
quarrel." Again on November 25th he wrote to a correspondent: "The
governor-general has had, I think, the opportunity of breaking with his
ministers on tenable ground and has let it slip. . . . I am unwilling to
do him the bad turn of shooting the bird which I suppose him to be
aiming at behind the hedge of reserve which conceals him from vulgar
eyes." In his letter to the _Colonial Gazette_, after the rupture, and
in his pamphlet, Wakefield tries to put the quarrel in the quite
different light described above. In his letters to the _Chronicle_
Hincks not only shows the inconsistency of his adversary's position, but
makes a pitiless exposure of the reasons underlying Wakefield's
self-interested desertion of the Reform party.[172]

[Footnote 171: _A View of Sir Charles Metcalfe's Government in Canada_
(London, 1844). See also an article, _Sir Charles Metcalfe in Canada_
(_Fisher's Colonial Magazine_, 1844) and letters in the _Colonial
Gazette_; see also _Edward Gibbon Wakefield_ by R. Garnett, London,
1898. Dr. Garnett speaks of Wakefield as "exercising _irresponsible_
government in Canada as the secret counsellor of Sir Charles Metcalfe."]

[Footnote 172: See Hincks's letters to the _Morning Chronicle_, July 24th,
1844, etc.]

While Hincks was thus busily occupied at Montreal, Baldwin, who had
returned to Toronto after the prorogation of the House, was heading the
agitation against Metcalfe in Upper Canada. A public banquet was held in
honour of the ex-ministers (December 28th, 1843) at the North American
Hotel, Robert Baldwin being the guest of the evening. Mr. Ridout, of the
Upper Canada Bank, proposed the health of Messrs. LaFontaine, Baldwin
and the other members of the cabinet, the "steadfast champions of
responsible government," to which Baldwin replied in a long speech,
subsequently printed in full in the Reform journals of both Upper and
Lower Canada. A Reform Association was founded in Toronto whose branches
rapidly spread over the whole of the province. Under the auspices of the
new association there was held in Toronto towards the end of March of
the new year,[173] the first of a series of great meetings organized
throughout the country. So great was the enthusiasm attendant upon this
gathering that the hall of the association, situated in a building on
the corner of Front and Scott Streets, was quite inadequate to
accommodate the crowd that clamoured for admission, and hundreds were
turned from the doors. Robert Baldwin, who occupied the chair, was the
central figure of the occasion, and the address with which he opened the
proceedings of this first general meeting of the Reform Association,
ranks among his most striking speeches.[174] Loud and continued cheering
greeted him as he rose to speak, and was renewed at intervals in the
pauses of his discourse.

[Footnote 173: March 25th, 1844.]

[Footnote 174: _Baldwin Pamphlets_ (1844), Toronto Public Library.]

"Our objects," said the speaker, in announcing the formation of the
association, "are open and avowed. We seek no concealment for we have
nothing to conceal. We demand the practical application of the
principles of the constitution of our beloved mother country to the
administration of all our local affairs. Not one hair's breadth farther
do we go, or desire to go: but not with one hair's breadth short of that
will we ever be satisfied. . . . Earnestly I recommend to all who value
the principles of the British constitution, and to whom the preservation
of the connection with the mother country is dear, to lend their aid by
joining this organization. Depend upon it, the day will come when one of
the proudest boasts of our posterity will be, that they can trace their
descent to one who has his name inscribed on this great roll of the
contenders for colonial rights."

After fully developing the nature of colonial self-government and
quoting from Lord Durham's report and the September resolutions in
support of his contention, Baldwin went on to show the utter
insufficiency of responsible government as conceived by Sir Charles
Metcalfe. His Excellency's system meant nothing more or less than the
old disastrous methods of personal government brought back again. "If we
are to have the old system," said Baldwin, "then let us have it under
its own name, the 'Irresponsible System,' the 'Compact System,' or any
other name adapted to its hideous deformities; but let us not be imposed
upon by a mere name. We have been adjured," he continued, alluding to an
answer recently given by Metcalfe to a group of petitioners, "with
reference to this new-fangled responsible government, in a style and
manner borrowed with no small degree of care from that of the eccentric
baronet[175] who once represented the sovereign in this part of Her
Majesty's dominions, to 'keep it,' to 'cling to it,' not to 'throw it
away'!! You all, no doubt, remember the story of little Red Ridinghood,
and the poor child's astonishment and alarm, as she began to trace the
features of the wolf instead of those of her venerable grandmother: and
let the people of Canada beware lest, when they begin to trace the real
outlines of this new-fangled responsible government, and are calling out
in the simplicity of their hearts, 'Oh, grandmother, what great big eyes
you have!' it may not, as in the case of little Red Ridinghood, be too
late, and the reply to the exclamation, 'Oh, grandmother, what a great
big mouth you have!' be 'That's to gobble you up the better, my child.'"

[Footnote 175: Sir F. B. Head.]

Baldwin was ably followed by his cousin, Robert Sullivan, by William
Hume Blake, and a long list of other speakers. Notable among these was
one whose name was subsequently to become famous in the annals of
Canadian Liberalism. George Brown, a young Scottish emigrant, had just
established at Toronto (March 5th, 1844) a weekly newspaper called the
_Globe_, founded in the interest of the Reform party. The _Globe_ was a
fighting paper from the start, and the power of its opening editorials
with their unsparing onslaughts on the governor-general was already
spreading its name from one end of the province to the other. In reality
there were strong points of disagreement between the editor of the
_Globe_ and the leading Reformers, who at this time aided and encouraged
his enterprise, and Brown was destined ultimately to substitute for the
moderate doctrines of the Reformers of the union, the programme of the
thorough-going Radical. But agreement in opposition is relatively easy.
The day of the Radicals and the Clear Grits[176] was not yet, and for the
time Brown was heart and soul with the cause of the ex-ministers. In his
speech on this occasion he drew a satirical picture of the operation of
responsible government _ la_ Metcalfe. "Imagine yourself, sir," he said
to the chairman, "seated at the top of the council table, and Mr. Draper
at the bottom,--on your right hand we will place the Episcopal Bishop of
Toronto (Dr. John Strachan) and on your left the Reverend Egerton
Ryerson,--on the right of Mr. Draper sits Sir Allan MacNab, and on his
left Mr. Hincks. We will fill up the other chairs with gentlemen
admirably adapted for their situations by the most extreme imaginable
differences of opinion--we will seat His Excellency at the middle of the
table, on a chair raised above the warring elements below, _prepared to
receive the advice of his constitutional conscience-keepers_. We will
suppose you, sir, to rise and propose the opening of King's College to
all Her Majesty's subjects,--and then, sir, we will have the happiness
of seeing the discordant-producing-harmony-principle in the full vigour
of peaceful operation."

[Footnote 176: The relation of George Brown to the Clear Grits to whom he
was at first opposed is traced by J. Lewis in his _George Brown_ (Makers
of Canada Series).]

Resolutions were adopted at the meeting endorsing the principles and
conduct of the late administration and condemning in strong terms the
interim government of Sir Charles Metcalfe. "We have commenced the
campaign," said the _Globe_, in commenting on the proceedings, "the ball
has received its first impulse in this city,--let it be taken up in
every village, and in every hamlet of the country." At these meetings
Baldwin was a frequent speaker and addresses from all parts of the
country were forwarded to him. Not the least interesting among them was
an address from his constituents of Rimouski setting forth that "a
public meeting of the citizens of the different parishes of the county
had been held immediately after mass on Sunday, February 4th," and that
resolutions had been adopted fully approving the "conduct in parliament
of the Hon. Robert Baldwin." In the course of the summer Baldwin not
only spoke in various towns of Upper Canada but found time also, in
July, to visit the Lower Provinces. In his own constituency, the county
of Rimouski, Baldwin's tour became a triumphal procession. The
inhabitants flocked to meet him and his visit was made the occasion of
universal gaiety and merry-making. The village street of Kamouraska was
decorated with flags and a long _cortge_ of vehicles accompanied the
Reform leader on his entry: the river at Rimouski was crossed in a boat
gaily adorned with bunting for the occasion, while repeated salvos of
musketry attended the transit of Baldwin and his party. At Rimouski
village itself, an assembly of some four hundred parishioners with their
_cur_ at their head was marshalled before the village church to present
an address of welcome. Everywhere the cordial hospitality of the people
was conjoined with the warmest expressions of political approval.

A shower of addresses fell also upon Sir Charles Metcalfe, addresses of
advice, of hearty approval, and of angry expostulation. The "inhabitants
of the town of London" begged to "approach His Excellency with feelings
of gratitude and admiration which they could not sufficiently express."
The townspeople of Orillia had been "particularly disgusted with the
studied insult so continually offered to all the faithful and loyal of
the land, and by the advancement to situations of honour and employment
of suspected and disloyal persons." The Tories of Toronto, Belleville,
and a host of other places, sent up similar addresses. On the other
hand, "the magistracy, freeholders, and inhabitants generally of the
district of Talbot, observed with painful regret the unhappy rupture
between His Excellency and a council which possessed so largely the
confidence of the people. The principle of responsible government, which
has occasioned this rupture, they had fondly hoped had been so clearly
defined and so fully recognized and established as to obviate all
difficulty and altercation for the future."[177] The district council of
Gore took upon itself to go even further. They assured His Excellency
that "public opinion in this district and, we believe, throughout the
length and breadth of Canada, will fully sustain the late executive
council in the stand they have taken, and in the views they have
expressed." Altogether some hundred addresses were forwarded to the
governor-general. The greater part of them, as might be expected,
emanated from Conservative sources and chorused a jubilant approbation
of Metcalfe's conduct. British loyalty, the old flag and the imperial
connection were put to their customary illogical use, and did duty for
better arguments against responsible government. Even the "Mohawk
Indians of the Bay of Quint" were pressed into political service. On
the subject of responsible government the ideas of the chiefs were
doubtless a little hazy and they discreetly avoided it, but their prayer
that the "Great Spirit would long spare their gracious Mother to govern
them" may be taken as a rude paraphrase of the Tory argument against the
ministry. They regretted "the removal of the great council fire from
Cataraqui to some hundred miles nearer the sun's rising," but lapsed
into language much less convincingly Indian by saying that "the question
is simply this, whether this country is to remain under the protection
and government of the queen, or to become one of the United States."

[Footnote 177: As against this address a rival faction of the people of
Talbot sent up expressions of hearty approval of Metcalfe's conduct.]

The Mohawk Indians were not the only ones who insisted on saying that
this latter was the main question at issue. There was at Kingston a
rising young barrister and politician of the Tory party, John A.
Macdonald by name, who at this juncture coperated in founding a United
Empire Association.

Meantime the condition of affairs in Canada, and the fact that Metcalfe
was conducting the government of the country with an executive council
which consisted of only three persons, were exciting attention in the
mother country and had become the subject of debate in the imperial
parliament. Ever since the agitation and rebellion of 1837, there had
been in the House of Commons a group of Radical members who were ready
at any time to espouse the cause of the colonists against the governors.
This was done, it must in fairness be admitted, largely in ignorance of
actual Canadian affairs. The sympathy of the British Radicals proceeded
partly from the general philanthropy that marked their thought, partly
from their abstract and doctrinaire conception of individual rights, and
partly also from their desire to use the colonial agitation as a weapon
of attack against the Tory government. Hume and Roebuck, it will be
remembered, had been in correspondence with Mackenzie and Papineau. They
had been the London agents of the Canadian Alliance Association founded
by Mackenzie in 1834. Since that period the cause of self-government in
Canada had found consistent supporters among the British Radicals. But
the bearing of this sympathetic connection must not be misinterpreted.
Trained in the narrow school of "little Englandism" the Radicals
regarded every colony as necessarily moving towards the manifest destiny
of ultimate independence, and the historic value of their sympathetic
connection with the Baldwin-LaFontaine party in the present crisis
cannot be very highly estimated. Indeed a little examination shows that
between the ideas of the British Radicals and those of Robert Baldwin
and his party, a great gulf was fixed. To the former, colonial
self-government was justified as a necessary prelude to colonial
independence: to the latter, it appeared as a bond--as the only stable
and permanent bond--which would maintain intact the connection with the
mother country. This latter point cannot be too strongly emphasized.
There is hardly a speech made by Robert Baldwin at this period in which
he does not assert his devotion to the unity of the empire and his firm
belief that responsible government in the colonies was the true means of
its maintenance. With the lapse of sixty years the narrow view of the
British Radicals has been discredited and lost from sight in the larger
prospect of an imperial future. But no portion of that discredit should
fall upon the Reformers of Canada, to whom at this moment they offered
their support.

In answer to a question in the House of Commons, Lord Stanley, the
colonial secretary, had (February 2nd, 1844) declared that the imperial
government fully approved of the conduct of Sir Charles Metcalfe.[178]
Although Sir Charles Metcalfe, he said, went out to carry out the views
of the government at home, yet he was equally determined to _resist any
demands inconsistent with the dignity of the Crown; in pursuing this
course he would have the entire support of the home government_. A still
more emphatic approval of Metcalfe's conduct, together with a
declaration of the principles of colonial government, was given by Lord
Stanley some four months later (May 30th, 1844) in a debate which was
presently known in Canada as the "great debate." The statements made by
Lord Stanley on that occasion, and the concurrence expressed by Lord
John Russell, leave no doubt that neither the British statesmen of the
Conservative party nor their Liberal opponents had as yet accepted the
principle of colonial autonomy as we now know it. They were still
haunted by the lingering idea that a colony must of necessity be
subservient to its governor, and that complete self-government meant
independence of Great Britain.

[Footnote 178: There appears to be little doubt that Stanley's
confidential letters to Metcalfe supported the latter in his quarrel
with the Reformers. Hincks in his _Reminiscences_ gives it as his
opinion that Metcalfe, at the time of his leaving England, had received
instructions from the colonial secretary to the effect that he was to
make it his business to prevent the establishment of responsible
government in Canada. "Sir Charles Metcalfe," he writes (p. 89), "was
selected with the object of overthrowing the new system of government."
The formal instructions to Metcalfe under date of February 24th, 1843,
were identical with those sent to Lord Sydenham under date of August
30th, 1840. (See _Canadian Archives Report, 1905_, pp. 115-21.) But it
is known that Metcalfe had a confidential interview with Lord Stanley
before leaving England and that he received private communications from
him in regard to the ministerial crisis. The following passage occurs in
a MS. letter of LaFontaine to Baldwin under date of January 28th, 1844:
"Holmes received this morning a letter from Dunn who states that a
person, upon whose word he can rely, had just informed him that the
governor had received despatches from Lord Stanley approving his
conduct. _That is a matter of course._" (_Baldwin Correspondence_,
Toronto Public Library.)]

Mr. Roebuck had called the attention of the House of Commons to the
condition of affairs in Canada, and the colonial secretary made a
lengthy speech in reply. "The honourable member," he said, "drew _an
analogy between the position of the ministers in the colony and the
position of the ministers of the Crown in the mother country. He_ [Lord
Stanley] _denied the analogy_. The constitution of Canada was so framed
as to render it impossible that it could possess all the ingredients of
the British constitution." In Great Britain, he said, the Crown
"exercised great influence because of the love, veneration, and
attachment of the people. The governor was entirely destitute of the
influence thus attached to royalty. . . . The House of Lords exercised
the power derived from rank, station, wealth, territorial possession and
hereditary title. The council [legislative] in Canada had none of these
adventitious advantages." The reasoning thus presented by the colonial
secretary seems to bear in the wrong direction.[179] But his remarks which
follow essentially reveal the attitude of his mind on the question.
"Place the governor of Canada," he said, "in a state of absolute
dependence on his council and they at once would make Canada an
independent and republican colony. . . . _It was inconsistent with a
monarchical government that the governor should be nominally
responsible, and yet was to be stripped of all power and authority, and
to be reduced to that degree of power which was vested in the sovereign
of this country: it was inconsistent with colonial dependence altogether
and was overlooking altogether the distinction which must subsist
between an independent country and a colony subject to the domination of
the mother country_. . . . The power for which a minister is responsible
in England is not his own power but the power of the Crown, of which he
is for the time the organ. _It is obvious that the executive councillor
of a colony is in a situation totally different._ The governor, under
whom he serves, receives his orders from the Crown of England. But can
the colonial council be the advisers of the Crown of England? Evidently
not, for the Crown has other advisers for the same functions and with
superior authority."

[Footnote 179: _La Minerve_ (July 1st, 1844) contains an interesting
discussion of this debate.]

In the latter part of his speech Lord Stanley dealt more directly with
the question of colonial appointments: his remarks show all too plainly
that he too persisted in dividing the Canadians into two groups of
"rebels" and "honest men," and in viewing the present controversy as a
strife between the two. "Did not the honourable and learned gentleman,"
he asked, referring to Mr. Roebuck, "think that the minority in a
colonial society, be it Tory, Radical, Whig, French, or English, had
more chance of fair play if the honours and rewards in the gift of the
government were distributed by the Crown than if they were dispensed
exclusively by political partisans." The magnificent stupidity of this
remark can be realized if one imagines Lord Stanley being asked whether
it might not be advisable to allow the queen to make personal
appointments to all offices in order to shelter the British minority
from the rapacity of the Conservative party. But what Stanley had in his
mind becomes clear when he goes on to say:--"Would it be consistent
with the dignity, the honour, the metropolitan interests of the Crown
that its patronage should be used by the administration [of Canada] to
reward the very men who had held back in the hour of danger? and would
it be just or becoming to proscribe and drive from the service of the
country those who, in the hour of peril, had come forward to manifest
their loyalty and to maintain the union of Canada with the Crown of
England?" The union of Canada and England had as little to do with the
present argument as the union of Sweden and Norway, but the reference to
it passed current in both countries for nobility of sentiment. Lord
Stanley concluded his remarks by referring to the LaFontaine-Baldwin
ministry as "unprincipled demagogues" and "mischievous advisers."

Stanley's defense of Metcalfe and his views on colonial self-government
read somewhat strangely at the present day. What is still more strange
is that the Liberal leader, Lord John Russell, who spoke on the same
occasion, was prepared to put the same interpretation on the Canadian
situation. He would, he said, have condemned Sir Charles Metcalfe if he
had said that he would _in no case_ take the opinion of his executive
council respecting appointments; but it would be impossible for the
governor to say that he would in all cases follow the will of the
executive council. Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Charles Buller, one of the
principal collaborators of Lord Durham in the composition of his
report, spoke also to the same effect.

During all this time Sir Charles Metcalfe remained without a ministry.
Even the two new councillors in office, Draper and Viger, had merely
been sworn in as executive councillors without being assigned to offices
of emolument. As the spring passed and the summer wore on, the chances
of being able to obtain a ministry on anything like a representative
basis still appeared remote. The Tories of the assembly had given to Sir
Charles Metcalfe from the outset a cordial support, but in view of the
overwhelming numbers of the Reformers and French-Canadians, the attempt
to construct a ministry from the ranks of the Tories would have been
foredoomed to failure. On the other hand, the governor-general was well
aware that continued government without a ministry meant ruin to his
cause and tended of itself to prove the contention of his opponents. No
effort was spared, therefore, to obtain support from the Reform party
itself and to encourage secession from the ranks of the French-Canadians
by tempting offers of office. It was hoped that the example of Mr. Viger
might induce others of his nationality to desert the cause of the late
administration. Barthe, a fellow-prisoner of Viger in the days of the
rebellion, and since then editor of _L'Avenir du Canada_ and member for
Yamaska, had been offered a seat in the cabinet shortly after the
ministerial resignation and had refused. Four French-Canadians in turn
had rejected the offer of the position of attorney-general for Lower
Canada, and the same position had been offered in vain to two British
residents. Viger found himself with but small support among his
fellow-countrymen. It was in vain that he appealed to them in a
pamphlet[180] in which he sought to prove that LaFontaine and Baldwin had
acted without constitutional warrant. The subtleties of Mr. Viger's
arguments availed nothing against the instinctive sympathy of the
French-Canadians with their chosen leader. At the end of the month of
June, Mr. Draper, anxious to realize the situation at first hand,
visited the Lower Province and spent some weeks in a vain attempt at
obtaining organized support for the government. As a result of his
investigations he wrote to Sir Charles Metcalfe that "after diligently
prosecuting his inquiries and extending his observations in all possible
quarters, he could come to no other conclusion than that the aid of the
French-Canadian party was not to be obtained on any other than the
impossible terms of the restoration of Baldwin and LaFontaine."[181]

[Footnote 180: See _La Crise Ministerielle et M. Denis Benjamin Viger_,
(Kingston, 1844,) published also in English (_Baldwin Pamphlets_, 1844,
Toronto Public Library).]

[Footnote 181: Kaye, _Life of Metcalfe_, 1854, Vol. II, pp. 552, 553.]

"The difficulty, indeed," says Metcalfe's biographer, "seemed to
thicken. According to Mr. Draper, it was one from which there was no
escape. After the lapse of seven months, during which the country had
been without an executive government, Metcalfe was told by one of the
ablest, the most clear-headed and one of the most experienced men in the
country, that it was impossible to form a ministry, according to the
recognized principle of responsible government, without the aid of the
French-Canadian party, and that aid it was impossible to obtain. What
was to be done?" Well might the governor-general and his private
advisers ask themselves this question. As Mr. Draper himself informed
His Excellency, the want of an executive government was beginning to
have a disastrous effect upon the commerce and credit of the country.
The revenue must inevitably be soon affected, the administration of
justice was already hampered for want of a proper officer to represent
the Crown in the courts of law, while the public mind was filled with
disquieting apprehensions for the future which were beginning to
paralyze the industrial life of the province.[182]

[Footnote 182: See Kaye, _op. cit._ Vol. II, p. 553.]

The whole summer of 1844 was one of intense political excitement.
Agitation meetings, and political speeches became the order of the day,
and political demonstrations on a large scale were organized by the
rival parties. On May 12th a general meeting of the Reform Association
had been held at Toronto. At this Robert Baldwin played a principal
part, and in his speech on the occasion reiterated his attachment to
the British connection and his belief that the policy of his party was
the only one that could lead to permanent imperial stability. He
presented to the meeting an address which he had drafted for
presentation to the people of Canada, and which was adopted with
enthusiasm. Its concluding sentences sounded a note of warning and
appeal:--"This is not a mere party struggle. It is Canada against her
oppressors. The people of Canada claiming the British constitution
against those who withhold it: the might of public opinion against
faction and corruption."

The newspapers during these months contained little else than fiery
disputation on the all-absorbing topic of the hour. Pamphlets poured
from the colonial press in an abundant shower, and editors, lawyers,
assemblymen and divines hastened to add each his contribution to the
political controversy engendered by the situation. The Reform Alliance
started a series of "tracts for the people" designed to elucidate the
leading principles and disputed points of the whole controversy. Hincks,
Buchanan, Ryerson, Sullivan and a swarm of others hastened into the
fray, iterating and reiterating the well-worn arguments for and against
the late ministry and soundly belabouring one another with political
invective and personal abuse. The great bulk of the literature of the
Metcalfe controversy is of but little interest or novelty. It is
somewhat difficult to read through the forty pages of print in which
"Zeno" (of Quebec) undertakes to show that the resistance of Metcalfe
and his satellites to responsible government was but the "expiring howl
of that mercenary class who, by servility, venality and corruption, have
marred the prosperity of the colony." Equally difficult is it to follow
the tortuous argumentation of Isaac Buchanan in his _Five Letters
Against the Baldwin Faction_. Buchanan, who was a moderate Reformer now
turned against his late leaders, writes with the bitterness of a
renegade, and his letters are of some interest as illustrating the
wilful distortion of Robert Baldwin's opinions and objects at the hands
of his opponents. "How many are there," he asks, "who are out and out
supporters of Mr. Baldwin who do not conscientiously wish that Canada
was a state of the union to-morrow?" "Mr. Baldwin," he says, "was
weakening the very foundations of colonial society," and supports the
statement by an afflicting anecdote of a recent experience in England.

"On the subject of Baldwin's past character," says Buchanan, "the
question was again and again put to me in England. Did he not prefer his
party to his country, at the late rebellion, declining to fight against
the former or to turn out in defence of the latter? I remember well the
feeling remark of one gentleman of the most liberal British politics,
and whose bosom beats as high as any man's for the cause of
freedom,--'_Well, poor Mr. Baldwin may be a patriot, but he is not a
Briton._'"

There is, however, one episode of the Metcalfe controversy--namely, the
literary duel between the Rev. Egerton Ryerson and the Hon. R. B.
Sullivan, late president of the council--which deserves more than a
passing notice. In both Upper and Lower Canada, Metcalfe had spared no
pains to win men of prominence of all parties to his cause by flattering
offers of public office. Egerton Ryerson, already famous in the colony
as a leader of the Methodist Church, as president of Victoria College
and as an opponent of the exclusive claim of the Church of England to
the Clergy Reserves, was one of those who were said by the Reformers to
have felt the "draw of vice-regal blandishments."[183] The announcement
early in 1844 that Ryerson had been interviewed by the governor-general,
and that his appointment as superintendent of education with a seat in
the cabinet was under consideration, was declared by the _Globe_ (March
8th, 1844) to be an "alarming feeler." Subsequently, when Ryerson, in
the ensuing May, published his famous defence of Sir Charles Metcalfe[184]
and was later in the year duly appointed to be superintendent of
education, his enemies did not scruple to say that Mr. Ryerson had sold
himself to the Metcalfe government for a price, and had become a
traitor to the cause of public liberty. But whatever may be thought of
the correctness or incorrectness of Ryerson's views on the ministerial
controversy, the contention that his literary services had been bought,
cannot stand. His appointment to office rests on a solid basis of merit
and had long been under consideration. No one in the province had given
more earnest thought to the problem of public education than had Egerton
Ryerson, and the question of his appointment as superintendent of common
schools had already been discussed by Lord Sydenham. It appears also, on
good authority, that Sir Charles Metcalfe had determined to appoint
Ryerson to some such position before the rupture with the
LaFontaine-Baldwin cabinet occurred.[185] It must, therefore, in fairness
be admitted that the defence of Sir Charles Metcalfe was inspired by no
self-seeking motives, but proceeded from a genuine conviction that the
course adopted by the late cabinet was unconstitutional and dangerous to
the public welfare.

[Footnote 183: N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in Canada_, p. 504.]

[Footnote 184: _Sir Charles Metcalfe Defended Against the Attacks of his
late Councillors_, Toronto, 1844.]

[Footnote 185: See Egerton Ryerson, _Story of My Life_ (Edited by J. G.
Hodgins) Chap. xliii: see also N. Burwash, _Egerton Ryerson_ (Makers of
Canada Series) Chap. v.]

From the literary point of view, Ryerson's defence is an extremely able
document and is written, not with the ponderous periods of the
theologian, but with a vigour of style and a freedom of phrase which
drew down upon the head of its author the taunt of being a "political
swashbuckler." The central point of the argument of the pamphlet is the
attempt to prove that the conduct of the late ministry was contrary to
British precedent. "If the ministry," argued Ryerson, "objected to the
governor's appointments, the proper course for them consisted in
immediate resignation, not in attempting to bind the governor with a
pledge in regard to appointments of the future. It was," he said,
"contrary to British usage for them to remain in office twenty-four
hours, much less weeks or months, after the head of the executive had
performed acts or made appointments which they did not choose to justify
before parliament and before the country. It was contrary to British
usage for them to complain of and condemn a policy or acts to which they
had become voluntary parties by their continuing in office. It was
contrary to British usage for them to go to the sovereign to discuss
principles and debate policy, instead of tendering their resignations
for his past acts." This line of reasoning, though rendered plausible by
an imposing show of precedent and argument, need not be taken very
seriously. The ministry had, in fact, resigned on account of the past
acts of the governor, not on the strength of any single one, but rather
by reason of the accumulation of many. For the entire ministry to have
resigned the first time the governor undertook to make a minor
appointment on his own account would have been plainly impossible:
equally impossible was it to allow the governor to continue indefinitely
making such appointments. The essence of the situation lay, therefore,
in the future rather than the past.

Ryerson's pamphlet called forth an answer from an opponent of as good
fighting mettle as himself. The _Thirteen Letters on Responsible
Government_, published by Robert Sullivan, are certainly equal to
Ryerson's defence in point of logic and in the presentation of the law,
and easily surpass it in facility of style, while the caustic wit, for
which the writer was distinguished, adds to the brilliance of his work.
Sullivan signed himself "Legion" to indicate that his name was not one
but many. He prefaces his work with a mock-heroic "Argument," or table
of contents, in which he endeavours at the outset to put his theological
opponent in a ludicrous light. Thus he announces as the subject of
Letter IV, the "doctor's [Ryerson's] discovery that Cincinnatus was one
of the Knights of the Round Table, from which he infers that Mr. Baldwin
stole his ideas on responsible government from the days of chivalry."
Later we read that "'Legion' repudiates his relatives and absolves his
godfathers on the ground of the doctor's monopoly of the calendar of
saints," while the letters conclude with a "panoramic view of the
doctor's iniquitous career--his death struggle with 'Legion' and his
hideous writhings graphically described," after which "'Legion' carries
off the doctor amidst yells and imprecations." Apart from witticisms,
personalities, and stinging satire, Sullivan's letters are of great
importance in the Metcalfe controversy from the fact that the writer
takes issue with Lord Stanley, whose views on colonial government he
considers entirely erroneous. As a rule the writers on behalf of the
Reform party endeavoured to so interpret Stanley's expressions as to
make them appear favourable to the attitude taken by the
LaFontaine-Baldwin cabinet. In the light of what has been quoted above,
this will be seen to be a hopeless task. Sullivan takes a bolder, and at
the same time a surer, stand. "Lord Stanley's argument," he says, "if it
proves anything, proves that we should not have representative
institutions at all: that public opinion should not prevail in anything,
because it wants the ingredient of aristocratic influence. . . . There
is not the slightest doubt, in the mind of any one, but that the
governor of this province is bound to obey the orders of Her Majesty's
secretary of state for the colonies, however opposed these orders may be
to the advice of the council, for the time being. But there is as little
doubt but that when a secretary of state gives such orders with respect
to the administration of our local affairs, he violates the principle of
responsible government as explained in the resolutions of 1841, to
which Sir Charles Metcalfe subscribed."

That a good many of "Legion's" shafts had struck home is seen in the
furious rejoinder published by Egerton Ryerson. In this the
distinguished divine almost forgets the dignity of his divinity. He
compares his opponent to Barre and likens the Reform Association to the
Committee of Public Safety of the French Revolution:--"Whether 'Legion'
drank, fiddled and danced," he writes, "when Sir F. Head was firing the
country, or when Lount and Mathews were hanging on the gallows, I have
not the means of knowing: but a man who can charge the humane and
benevolent Sir Charles Metcalfe with being an inhuman and bloodthirsty
Nero, can easily be conceived to sing and shout at scenes over which
patriotism and humanity weep." To Baldwin himself, the writer is almost
as unsparing. Baldwin had just delivered an address to the electors of
Middlesex in which he exhorted the Tories "to forget all minor
differences and to act as if they remembered only that they were
Canadians, since as Canadians we have a country and are a people." This
patriotic utterance Ryerson sees fit to misinterpret. "In reading this
passage of Mr. Baldwin's address," he says, "I could not keep from my
thoughts two passages in very different books, the one a parable in the
Book of Judges, in which 'the bramble said unto the trees, if in truth
ye annoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow:
and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of
Lebanon.' The other passage which Mr. Baldwin's address brought to my
recollection, is one of sop's Fables, where the fox that had lost its
tail exhorted his brethren of all shades and sizes to imitate his
example as the best fashion of promoting their comfort and elevation."

The party war of pamphlets, speeches and addresses continued unabated
throughout the summer. As the autumn drew on the efforts of Metcalfe and
Draper to obtain at least the semblance of a representative cabinet met
with better success. Towards the end of August a Mr. James Smith, a
Montreal lawyer of no particular prominence, and never as yet a member
of any legislative body,[186] accepted the position of attorney-general
for Lower Canada. A recruit of more imposing name was found in Denis B.
Papineau, brother of the French-Canadian leader of 1837, to whom was
given the office of commissioner of Crown lands.

[Footnote 186: H. J. Morgan, _Sketches of Celebrated Canadians_, 1862.]

Papineau, who had hitherto been an adherent of the Lower Canadian Reform
party, shared with Viger the odium of being a renegade from his party,
and was subsequently accused by Robert Baldwin on the floor of the House
with having approved the resignation of the previous ministry and then
usurped the position they had seen fit to abandon.[187] Papineau, whose
character had stood high with his compatriots, claimed in reply that
his acceptance of office did not rest on personal grounds, but that he
had seen fit, on mature reflection, to modify his opinion of the present
controversy. William Morris of Brockville[188] accepted at the same time
the post of receiver-general. Mr. Draper being now definitely appointed
to be attorney-general for Upper Canada, Mr. Viger, president of the
council, and Mr. Daly being still provincial secretary, Metcalfe found
himself, at the opening of September (1844), with something approaching
a complete ministry. It was thought wiser for the present to place no
Tories in the cabinet. Mr. Henry Sherwood was, however, given the post
of solicitor-general for Upper Canada without a seat in the executive
council, and towards the close of the year W. B. Robinson, a brother of
Chief-justice Robinson and a Tory of the old school, became
inspector-general. Metcalfe was now ready to try conclusions with his
adversaries. He dissolved the parliament on September 23rd, and writs,
returnable on November 12th, were issued for a new election.

[Footnote 187: Speech in answer to Address from the Throne, 1844.]

[Footnote 188: See above, p. 83.]




  CHAPTER VIII

  IN OPPOSITION


The elections of the autumn of 1844 were carried on amid an unsurpassed
political excitement, and both sides threw themselves into the struggle
with an animosity that seriously endangered the peace of the country.
Whatever may be thought of the constitutionality of Metcalfe's conduct
during the recent session of parliament, there can be no doubt that he
went outside of his proper sphere in the part he took in the
parliamentary election. His personal influence and his personal efforts
were used to the full in the interests of the Draper government. Indeed,
there now existed, between the governor-general and the leaders of the
Reform party, a feeling of personal antagonism that gave an added
bitterness to the contest. The governor-general had not scrupled to
denounce the Reformers publicly as enemies of British sovereignty: in
answer to an address sent up to him from the county of Drummond in which
reference was made to the "measures and proceedings of a party tending
directly in our opinion to the terrible result of separation from
British connection and rule," Metcalfe stated that he had "abundant
reason to know that you have accurately described the designs of the
late executive council."

This intemperate language brought about the resignation of LaFontaine
from his position as queen's counsel, a step immediately followed by a
similar resignation on the part of Baldwin. The resignations were
accompanied by letters to the provincial secretary in which the
accusation of hostility to British sovereignty was indignantly denied.
The same denial was repeated by the Reform leaders in the public
addresses to their constituents, inserted in full length, according to
the custom of the day, in the party newspapers, in spite of which
Metcalfe and the Tories persisted in viewing the contest as one between
loyalty and treason. "He felt," said Metcalfe's biographer, "that he was
fighting for his sovereign against a rebellious people." For the rank
and file of the Tory following, excuse may be found in the exigencies of
party warfare; but for Metcalfe, as governor of the country, no apology
can be offered, save perhaps the honesty of his conviction. "I regard
the approaching election," he wrote (September 26th, 1844), "as a very
important crisis, the result of which will demonstrate whether the
majority of Her Majesty's Canadian subjects are disposed to have
responsible government in union with British connection and supremacy,
or will struggle for a sort of government that is impracticable
consistently with either."

The result of the election gave a narrow majority to Mr. Draper's
administration, but the contest was accompanied by such violence and
disorder at the polls that the issue cannot be regarded as indicating
the real tenor of public opinion. In this violence, it must be
confessed, both parties participated. The Irish, mindful of their late
contest with the Orangemen and the fate of the Secret Societies Bill,
were solid for the Reform party, and their solidity assumed at many
polling places its customary national form. It was charged by the
enemies of Baldwin that gangs of Irishmen were hired in Upper Canada to
control the voters by the power of the club.[189] Nor were the Tories
behind hand in the use of physical force, and on both sides inflammatory
handbills and placards incited the voters to actual violence. "The
British party," said Metcalfe himself, "were resolved to oppose force by
force and organized themselves for resistance."

[Footnote 189: N. F. Davin, _The Irishman in Canada_, p. 513.]

As the issue of the elections became known, it appeared that the
Reformers had carried Lower Canada by a sweeping majority, but that the
adherents of the government had scored a still more complete victory in
the Upper Province. LaFontaine, who had decided to present himself again
to the electors of Terrebonne rather than to continue to represent an
Upper Canadian constituency, was elected almost unanimously. Out of
fifteen hundred voters who assembled in despite of bad roads and bad
weather, only about a score were prepared to support a local attorney--a
Mr. Papineau--who had been nominated to oppose LaFontaine. A mere show
of hands was sufficient to settle the election without further
formalities. Morin was elected for two constituencies. Aylwin was
returned for Quebec, and of the forty-two members for Lower Canada, only
sixteen could be counted as supporters of the government. D. B. Papineau
was elected for Ottawa county, but his colleague, Viger, whose prestige
among the French-Canadians was permanently impaired,[190] was defeated by
Wolfred Nelson, the former leader of the rebellion. The city of
Montreal, henceforth to be the capital of Canada, signalized itself by
returning two supporters of the administration. But their success was
due solely to the arrangement of voting districts made by the
government; for the city contained an overwhelming majority of
French-Canadian and Irish adherents of the Reform party.[191] In Upper
Canada, of the forty-two members elected, the government could count
thirty as its adherents. MacNab, Sherwood, W. B. Robinson, John A.
Macdonald of Kingston, and many other Tories were elected. Baldwin, who
had bidden farewell to the constituency of Rimouski, was elected for the
fourth riding of York, but Hincks was beaten in Oxford[192] and remained
out of parliament until 1848. John Henry Dunn, also a member of the late
cabinet, was beaten in Toronto. The Tories stuck at nothing to carry
the elections in Upper Canada. To their affrighted loyalty the end
justified the means. Returns were in some cases wilfully falsified.
Elsewhere the voters were driven from the polls and violence carried to
such an extent that the troops were called out to quell the disorder,
while throughout the province the militia were warned to be in readiness
for possible emergencies. Only seven decided Reformers, among them
Baldwin, Small and Price, were returned to parliament from Upper Canada.
Taking the two sections of the province together and making due
allowance for doubtful members, it appeared that the government might
claim at the very outside, forty-six supporters in a House of
eighty-four members. Even this narrow margin of support could not be
relied upon. On the vote for the speakership, for example, Sir Allan
MacNab was elected by only a majority of three.

[Footnote 190: See Turcotte, _Le Canada sous l'Union_, pp. 157 _et seq._]

[Footnote 191: These facts are admitted by Metcalfe. See Kaye, Vol. II.
See also Hincks's _Political History of Canada_, pp. 35, 36.]

[Footnote 192: Hincks presented a petition to the assembly protesting
against the election of his opponent, Mr. Robert Riddell. He claimed
that the deputy returning officers had refused to admit the votes of
persons who had come to the province previous to 1820, although, under
an Act of the parliament of Upper Canada, such persons, if willing to
take the oath of allegiance, were entitled to vote. The petition was not
granted.]

On these terms, for want of any better, Mr. Draper had now to undertake
the government of the country. It was a difficult task, and for one less
skilled in the arts of political management it would have been
impossible. The administration could hardly rest upon a satisfactory
footing unless an adequate support could be obtained from the French of
Lower Canada: on the other hand, any attempt to gain this support was
apt to alienate the Upper Canadian Tories, now definitely in alliance
with Mr. Draper and represented in his cabinet by Robinson, the new
inspector-general. The leader of the government was therefore compelled
to preserve, as best he might, a balance of power in a chronic condition
of unstable equilibrium. That Mr. Draper did continue to carry on his
government for nearly three years speaks volumes for his political
dexterity.

It is no part of the present narrative to follow in detail the
legislative history of Mr. Draper's administration. The seat of
government had now been transferred to Montreal, where the parliament
was given as its quarters a building that had formerly been St. Anne's
market. It was a capacious edifice some three hundred and fifty feet in
length by fifty in breadth, with two large halls on the ground floor
which served for the House of Assembly and the legislative council, the
hall of the assembly containing ample galleries with seats for five
hundred spectators.[193] The parliament came together on November 28th,
1844, and remained in session until the end of March of the ensuing
year. During Mr. Draper's administration under Lord Sydenham, he had
maintained himself in office, as has been seen, by adopting the measures
desired by the Opposition as his own policy. This method of stealing his
opponent's thunder was a favourite artifice of the leader of the
government, and during the present session he made a liberal use of it.
Acts in reference to the schools and municipalities of Lower Canada were
passed, which carried forward the educational reforms already commenced.
In order to conciliate, if possible, the Reformers of Lower Canada,
steps were taken towards restoring the French language to its official
position. It was known to the government that LaFontaine had it under
consideration to put before the assembly a resolution urging upon the
imperial government the claims of the people of Lower Canada to have
their language placed upon an equal footing with English in the
proceedings of the legislature. LaFontaine's intention was accordingly
forestalled, and Denis Papineau, the commissioner of Crown lands,
proposed to the assembly to vote an address to the imperial government
asking for a repeal of the clause of the Act of Union[194] which made
English the sole official language. The motion was voted by acclamation
amid general enthusiasm and the home government, after some delay, saw
fit to act upon it.[195] The administration was less happy in its attempt
to deal with the still outstanding university question. Mr. Draper
presented a University Bill, closely analogous to that of Robert
Baldwin; but finding the opposition of the Tories was at once aroused
against such a proposed spoliation of the Church, the bill was dropped
without coming to a vote. With these and other minor measures, and with
much wrangling over the crop of contested elections that remained as a
legacy from the late conflict, the time of the assembly was occupied
until the end of the month of March.

[Footnote 193: A. Leblond de Brumath, _Histoire Populaire de Montral_
(1890) pp. 379, 380.]

[Footnote 194: Act of Union, Section xli. "All journals, entries, and all
written or printed proceedings of what nature soever of the said
legislative council and legislative assembly . . . shall be in the English
language only." Speaking in French was not, of course, contrary to the
law.]

[Footnote 195: See below, page 287.]

Before the session had yet come to an end, the news was received that
the home government intended raising Sir Charles Metcalfe to the
peerage. In view of Metcalfe's long and useful career in other parts of
the empire, such a step was not necessarily to be regarded as a special
official approval of his conduct in Canada; but among the Reformers the
announcement occasioned great indignation. The violence of party
antagonism had by no means subsided: at the very opening of the session
Baldwin had endeavoured to carry through the assembly a vote of censure
against the governor-general for having violated the principles of the
constitution by governing without a ministry. The news that Metcalfe,
instead of censure, was now to obtain an elevation to the peerage, drew
forth from the members of the Opposition expressions of protest in
language which the passions of the hour rendered unduly intemperate.
Aylwin declared to the assembly that it would be more fitting that
Metcalfe should be recalled and put on trial, rather than that he should
receive the dignity of a peer. Even Robert Baldwin made use of somewhat
immoderate expressions of disapproval. Utterances of this kind might
perhaps have been spared, for the untoward fate that had fallen upon the
two preceding governors of Canada now cast its shadow plainly on the
governor-general, and it was becoming evident that Baron Metcalfe of
Fern Hill was not long destined to enjoy earthly honours. Before coming
to Canada he had suffered severely, as has been said above, from a
cancerous growth upon the cheek: an operation had for the time arrested
the progress of the disease, but all efforts towards a radical cure had
proved unavailing. The sufferings of the distinguished patient had now
become constant and his sight seriously affected. The rapid decline of
his health made it apparent that he was no longer fit for the arduous
duties of his position, and his friends began to urge him to ask for his
recall. But Lord Metcalfe, with the indomitable courage that was his
leading virtue, still held heroically to what he considered to be the
post of duty.

Meantime, having got through one parliamentary session, Mr. Draper was
anxious to avoid, if possible, encountering another upon the same terms.
Draper appears to have realized that the great error of his past policy
had been his failure to reckon with the strength of the united
French-Canadian vote. This had upset his former ministry under Lord
Sydenham, and the experience of the Metcalfe crisis had shown him that,
even with the full support of a governor-general, the government could
not be satisfactorily carried on without French-Canadian support. Mr.
Draper now determined to obtain this support, and to retrieve his past
errors by the formation of a new variety of political coalition. Of the
Reform party of Upper Canada he had but little fear. Their
representation in parliament was now seriously depleted, and even among
their remaining members of the assembly, divisions had existed during
the past session; on the other hand, the star of the Tories was in the
ascendant and that party might always be counted upon to offset in Upper
Canada the political influence of the Reformers. If then, Mr. Draper
argued, the French-Canadian party under LaFontaine could be induced to
break loose from Baldwin and his adherents and to join forces with the
Ministerialists of Upper Canada, a combination could be formed that
would hold a strong majority in both of the ancient provinces. We have
here the beginnings of that system of a "double majority,"--a majority,
that is, in both Upper and Lower Canada,--which became the will o' the
wisp of the rival politicians, and which many persons were presently
inclined to invest with a constitutional sanctity, as forming part of
the necessary machinery of Canadian government.[196] It was characteristic
of the ways and means of Mr. Draper, to whom the term "artful dodger"
has often been applied, that he was prepared to throw overboard his
French-Canadian men of straw (Viger and Papineau) to make way for
LaFontaine, Morin, and their friends.

[Footnote 196: On the principle of the "double majority" see Dent, _The
Past Forty Years_, Vol. II. pp. 20 _et seq._ Hincks's _Political
History_ (p. 28) contains interesting matter in this connection. "Up to
the time of my leaving Canada in 1855," writes Hincks, "no political
alliance was formed on the principle of securing majorities from the two
provinces." The Draper-Caron-LaFontaine correspondence here referred to
is given in Hincks's _Reminiscences_.]

In order to attain his purpose, Mr. Draper in the autumn of 1845 entered
into indirect negotiations with LaFontaine, Mr. Caron, the speaker of
the legislative council, acting as a go-between. In the three-cornered
correspondence that ensued the question of a ministerial reconstruction
along the lines of the new alliance was fully discussed. Draper at first
had interviews with Caron in which he suggested that the ministry might
be strengthened by the addition of leading French-Canadian Reformers.
Caron conveyed this suggestion to LaFontaine in a letter of September
7th, 1845. Mr. Draper's ideas, gathered thus at one remove and
intentionally expressed with vagueness, may be seen in the following
passage from Mr. Caron's letter. "He [Mr. Draper] told me that Mr.
Viger could be easily _prevailed upon to retire_, and that Mr. Papineau
desired nothing better: that both these situations should be filled up
by French-Canadians: he seemed desirous that Morin should be president
of the council . . . he spoke of the office of solicitor-general, which,
he said, ought to be filled by one of our origin . . . he also spoke of
an assistant secretaryship, the incumbent of which ought to receive
handsome emoluments . . . This was about all he could for the present
offer to our friends, who, when in power, might themselves strive
afterwards to make their share more considerable. As regarded _you_
[LaFontaine], he said that nothing would afford him greater pleasure
than to have you as his colleague, but that, as the governor and
yourself could not meet, the idea of having you form part of the
administration must be given up so long as Lord Metcalfe remained in
power: that it would be unjust to sacrifice a man of your influence and
merit . . . but that this difficulty could easily be made to disappear
by giving you an appointment with which you would be satisfied. . . .
_As to Mr. Baldwin, he said little about_; but I understood, as I did in
my first conversation, that _he thought he would retire of himself_."

Such was Mr. Draper's plan. LaFontaine's attitude in the dealings which
followed is entirely above reproach. Mr. Draper's method of approach he
considered to be irregular and unconstitutional; nor did the glittering
bribe of "handsome emoluments" and "an appointment with which he would
be satisfied," conceal from him the real meagreness of Mr. Draper's
offer. The artful attorney-general was indeed merely offering to buy off
a number of leading French-Canadians with offers of office and salary.
It appears, however, that if Mr. Draper had been willing to go further
and entirely reconstruct the Lower Canadian part of his cabinet so as to
place it in the hands of the Reformers, LaFontaine would have been
willing to make terms with him. This statement must not, however, be
misunderstood. The arrangement contemplated was viewed by LaFontaine,
not as the purchase of the Lower Canadian party by Mr. Draper, but as
the purchase of Mr. Draper by the Lower Canadian party. The plan was
fully discussed between LaFontaine and Hincks in Montreal. Nor did
LaFontaine conceal anything of the negotiations in question from Robert
Baldwin. The plan contemplated by LaFontaine and Hincks would merely
have amounted to a further consolidation of the united French and
English Reform party by adding to its ranks Mr. Draper and his immediate
adherents. The danger of further secession, in pursuance of the example
of Denis, Papineau and Viger, would thus be minimized. The undoubted
parliamentary talents of Mr. Draper would lend a valuable support to the
cause, and the Tories of Upper Canada would remain in hopeless
isolation. In a letter of September 23rd, 1845,[197] LaFontaine wrote very
freely to Baldwin of the whole matter, and enclosed a translation of his
letter to Caron. "Mr. Hincks," he said, "whom I saw this morning, seemed
to be favourable to the plan, if it was effected, admitting that it
would immediately crush the reaction in Quebec, and would strengthen you
in Upper Canada. For my part I think Mr. Draper would be very glad to
have an opportunity to act with the Liberal party: he knows he is not
liked by the Tory party and that they wish to get rid of him. However,
that is his own business."

[Footnote 197: _MS. Letters of LaFontaine to Baldwin._ Baldwin
Correspondence, (Toronto Public Library.)]

If so powerful a combination of parties, and one so obviously
advantageous to the interests of his race could have been formed,
LaFontaine was perfectly willing, if need be, to retire from his
leadership of the party in order to facilitate the new arrangement.
"What French-Canadians should do above everything," he wrote, "is to
remain united and to make themselves respected. I will not serve as a
means of dividing my compatriots. If an administration is formed which
merits my confidence, I will support it with all my heart. If it has not
my confidence but possesses that of the majority of my compatriots, not
being able to support it, I will willingly resign my seat, rather than
cast division in our ranks." But to meet LaFontaine's views, Mr. Draper
would have been called upon to go further than he had intended. To break
entirely with the Canadian Tories and to throw overboard Mr. Dominick
Daly,--the "permanent secretary," as he was now facetiously
entitled,--was more than Mr. Draper had bargained for. These
difficulties caused the negotiations to hang fire until the recall of
Lord Metcalfe changed the position of affairs. "The whole affair," says
a Canadian historian, "suddenly collapsed, and the only result was to
intensify the political atmosphere, and aggravate the quarrel between a
weak government and a powerful opposition."[198]

[Footnote 198: Fennings Taylor, _Portraits of British Americans_, Vol. I.
p. 322.]

Among the correspondence of Robert Baldwin in reference to the proposed
reconstruction of parties, appears a letter of considerable interest
addressed to LaFontaine which bears no date, but which was probably
written in the autumn of 1845, after the failure of Mr. Caron's
negotiations. Baldwin expresses an emphatic disapproval of any attempt
to set up the principle of a "double majority." Such a system of
government would be calculated, in his opinion, rather to intensify than
to obliterate the racial animosity and end in precipitating a desperate
struggle for supremacy. "You already know," he wrote, "my opinion of the
'double majority' as respects the interests of the province at large.
When I gave you that opinion I hesitated to dwell on what appears to me
to be its extreme danger to our Lower Canadian friends of French origin
themselves. . . . I speak not of the present public men of the province,
or of the course which they or any of them may take. Some may be swept
away from the arena altogether; others may retire; but in the event of
such an arrangement being carried out, all who remain upon the political
sea will, I am satisfied, have to go with the stream. The arrangement
will be viewed as one based essentially upon a natural, original
distinction and equally uninfluenced by the political principles.
_British and French will then become in reality, what our opponents have
so long wished to make them, the essential distinctions of party, and
the final result will scarcely admit of doubt._ The schemes of those who
looked forward to the union as a means of crushing the French-Canadians,
and who advocated it with no other views, will then be crowned with
success, and the latter will themselves have become the instruments to
accomplish it. That this will be the final result of any successful
attempt to reorganize the ministry upon such a foundation, I have no
doubt whatever. It will not, however, be injurious to the
French-Canadian portion of our population alone. It appears to me
equally clear that it will be most calamitous to the country in general.
It will perpetuate distinctions, initiate animosities, sever the bonds
of political sympathy and sap the foundation of political morality."[199]

[Footnote 199: _Baldwin Correspondence_, (Toronto Public Library.)]

In the autumn of 1845 the progress of Lord Metcalfe's malady was such as
rapidly to render him unfit for further exertions. His disease had
almost destroyed his sight and his constant sufferings rendered the
transaction of official business a matter of extreme difficulty. At the
end of October he asked for his recall. But the imperial government,
aware of his distressing condition, had anticipated his request, and
Stanley had already forwarded to him the official acceptance of a
resignation which he might use at any time that seemed proper to him.
"You will retire, whenever you retire," wrote the colonial secretary,
"with the entire approval and admiration of Her Majesty's government."
Lord Metcalfe left Montreal at the end of November, 1845, and returned
to England. All attempts to stay the ravages of his dreadful malady
proved unavailing and after months of suffering, borne with admirable
constancy, he died on September 5th, 1846. Not even the melancholy
circumstances of Lord Metcalfe's departure from Canada could still the
animosity of his opponents, and a section of the Reform press greeted
the news of his retirement with untimely exultation.

On Metcalfe's departure the government was entrusted to Lord Cathcart,
commander of the forces, at first as administrator and afterwards as
governor-general. Cathcart was a soldier, a veteran of the Peninsula and
Waterloo, whose main interest in the Canadian situation lay in the
question whether the dispute then pending in regard to the Oregon
territory would end in war with the United States. Indeed it was on
account of the threatening aspect of the boundary question that the
imperial government had elevated Cathcart to the governorship. The
matter of responsible government concerned him not, and during his
administration he left the civil government of the country to his
ministers to conduct as best they might. Their best was indeed but poor.
In the session of parliament that ran from March 20th until June 9th,
1846, the government was quite unable to maintain itself. Mr. Draper
tried in vain to repeat his thunder-stealing policy and although he
carried through parliament an Act to provide for a civil list, which was
intended (with imperial consent) to take the place of the existing
imperial arrangement,[200] his government on other measures was repeatedly
defeated. In the summer and autumn of the year, difficulties crowded
upon Mr. Draper. The Draper-Caron correspondence was made public,[201]
whereat many Tories took offence and Sherwood, the solicitor-general,
dropped out of Mr. Draper's cabinet.

[Footnote 200: See above, p. 68.]

[Footnote 201: See _La Minerve_, April 9th, 1846, and following issues.]

The leader of the government had failed in his attempted alliance with
the Liberals of Lower Canada, and had excited resentment and distrust
in the minds of his Tory following. It was indeed becoming very evident
that the only method of salvation for the Draper government was to make
it a government without Mr. Draper.

Meantime events had happened in England calculated to exercise an
immediate effect upon the course of Canadian policy. With the disruption
of the Tories over the passage of the Corn Law Repeal (in the summer of
1846), Sir Robert Peel's government had come to an end, and the Liberals
under Lord John Russell had come into power. With Lord John was
associated as colonial secretary, Earl Grey, the son of the great Whig
prime minister of the Reform Bill. The name of the second Earl Grey will
always be associated with the establishment of actual democratic
government in the mother country by means of parliamentary reform: that
of the third will be forever connected with the final and definite
adoption of the principle of colonial self-government. The moment was a
critical one. The abandonment of the older system of commercial
restrictions had destroyed the doctrine that the value of the colonies
lay in the monopoly of their trade by the mother country.[202] To the
Radical wing of the British party this seemed to mean that the time had
come to permit the colonies to depart in peace. But to Lord Grey,
himself a former under secretary of state for the colonies, and
enlightened by the study of recent events in Canada, and by the similar
struggle that had been in progress in Nova Scotia,[203] it appeared that
the time was opportune for establishing the colonial system upon another
and more durable basis, and for the creation of such a system of
government as might combine colonial liberty with imperial stability. He
repudiated the idea of abandoning the dependencies of the empire to a
separate destiny. "The nation," he said, "has incurred a responsibility
of the highest kind which it is not at liberty to throw off."

[Footnote 202: See in this connection Earl Grey's _Colonial Policy_ (1853)
Vol. I, p. 13.]

[Footnote 203: See Longley's _Joseph Howe_ (Makers of Canada Series),
Chap. iii.]

The advent to power of the British Liberal ministry was viewed by the
Reform party in Canada as most auspicious for their cause. "I cannot
help regarding it as a circumstance full of promise," said Robert
Baldwin at a public dinner (November 11th, 1846) given to him by the
Reform electors of the east riding of Halton, "that the imperial
councils should at the present time be presided over by the statesman
who, as colonial secretary, has given the imperial imprimatur to the
doctrines of Lord Durham's Report, and the colonial department directed
by one so nearly connected with the great statesman to whom England and
the colonies were both so much indebted for that invaluable state
document."[204] The new British cabinet could not, of course, put forth an
official repudiation of the conduct of its predecessors towards the
colonies. This would have been contrary to the most obvious
considerations of imperial policy, and would also have been unadvisable
owing to the attitude taken in earlier years by Lord John Russell
himself. But the cabinet were fully aware, none the less, that the
situation in British North America could only be met by a frank
recognition of the right of the colonists of Nova Scotia and Canada to
manage their own affairs. The sphere of action which Lord Grey
considered proper for a governor to assume may be best understood by a
despatch addressed by him to Sir John Harvey, lieutenant-governor of
Nova Scotia, (November 3rd, 1846). "This," says Lord Grey himself,
"contains the best explanation I can give of the . . . means to be
adopted for the purpose of bringing into full and successful operation
_the system of constitutional government which it seemed to be the
desire of the inhabitants of British North America to have established
among them_." Harvey, whose executive council was incomplete and unable
to carry on the government, had found himself in a situation analogous
to that in Canada. "I am of opinion," runs Lord Grey's despatch,[205]
"that, under all the circumstances of the case, the best course for you
to adopt is to call upon the members of your present executive council
to propose to you the names of the gentlemen whom they would recommend
to supply the vacancies which I understand to exist in the present
board. If they should be successful in submitting to you an arrangement
to which no valid objection arises, you will of course continue to carry
on the government through them, so long as it may be possible to do so
satisfactorily, and as they possess the necessary support from the
legislature. Should the present council fail in proposing to you an
arrangement which it would be proper for you to accept, it would then be
your natural course, in conformity with the practice in analogous cases
in this country, to apply to the opposite party: and should you be able
through their assistance to form a satisfactory council, there will be
no impropriety in dissolving the assembly upon their advice: such a
measure, under those circumstances, being the only mode of escaping from
the difficulty which would otherwise exist of carrying on the government
of the province upon the principles of the constitution. The object with
which I recommend to you this course, is that of making it apparent that
any transfer which may take place of political power from the hands of
one party in the province to those of another, is the result, not of an
act of yours, but of the wishes of the people themselves. . . . In
giving, therefore, all fair and proper support to your council for the
time being, you will carefully avoid any acts which can possibly be
supposed to imply the slightest personal objection to their opponents,
and also refuse to assent to any measures which may be proposed to you
by your council which may appear to you to involve an improper exercise
of the authority of the Crown for party rather than for public objects.
In exercising, however, this power of refusing to sanction measures
which may be submitted to you by your council, you must recollect that
this power of opposing a check upon extreme measures proposed by the
party for the time in the government, depends entirely for its efficacy
upon its being used sparingly and with the greatest possible discretion.
_A refusal to accept advice tendered to you by your council is a
legitimate ground for its members to tender to you their
resignation_,--a course which they would doubtless adopt, should they
feel that the subject on which a difference had arisen between you and
themselves was one upon which public opinion would be in their favour.
_Should it prove to be so, concession to their views must sooner or
later become inevitable_, since it cannot be too distinctly acknowledged
that it is neither possible nor desirable to carry on the government of
any of the British provinces in North America in opposition to the
opinion of the inhabitants."

[Footnote 204: The speech to the electors of Halton was one of a series of
addresses delivered by Baldwin on a tour of Western Canada in the autumn
of 1846. The Tory journals affected to sneer at the "quacksalving tour
of agitation" (Toronto _Patriot_, November, 1846) undertaken by the
Reform leader; but the enthusiasm excited by Baldwin's speeches made it
manifest that the Tories could not again look for a repetition of their
victory of two years past.]

[Footnote 205: See _House of Commons Sessional Papers_, No. 621 of 1848,
p. 8.]

In order to carry into effect in the province of Canada the views thus
indicated, the new British government determined to send out to the
colony a governor-general whose especial task it should be to set right
the unfortunate situation created by the mistaken policy of Lord
Metcalfe. The conclusion of the Oregon treaty had by this time removed
any immediate prospect of rupture with the United States, and it was no
longer necessary to retain a military man at the head of Canadian
affairs. The choice of the Liberal government fell upon Lord Elgin.
Elgin presented, in many respects, a marked contrast to the governors
who had preceded him. He was still a young man, and his vigorous health
and ardent spirits gave reason to hope that he was destined to break the
spell that seemed to hang over the Canadian governors, and that there
was little likelihood of his dying in office. His proficiency in the
French language, his geniality and the charm of his address, prepared
for him, from the moment of his landing, a social and personal success.
But these advantages were the least of Lord Elgin's qualifications for
his new position. His chief claim to distinction, and the fact which
gives his name a high and enduring place in the record of Canadian
history, was his masterly grasp of the colonial situation, and the
course he was prepared to take in instituting a real system of colonial
self-government.

Lord Durham recommended responsible government: Baldwin and LaFontaine
contended for it: Lord Grey sanctioned it, and Lord Elgin, as
governor-general, first successfully applied it. For this full credit
should be given to him. There seems to have been in the minds of Lord
Grey and Lord John Russell some lingering of the old leaven,--a certain
reservation in the grant of colonial autonomy they were prepared to
make. The fact appears in certain passages of the despatch quoted above,
and it is not difficult to find in Lord Grey's other writings
expressions of opinion which imply a hesitancy to accept the doctrine of
colonial self-government in its entire sense.[206] Lord John Russell in
earlier years (1836) had told the House of Commons that the demands of
the Canadian Reformers were incompatible with British sovereignty.[207]
Prior to his departure for the colony Lord Elgin had, indeed, been given
by the colonial secretary the most liberal instructions in regard to the
conduct of the Canadian government. Had he been of the temper of Lord
Metcalfe or Lord Sydenham, he could easily have assumed a certain
latitude in his application of the constitutional system. But Lord Elgin
was not so minded. He was inclined, if anything, to improve on his
instructions, and having grasped the fundamental idea of colonial
self-government, was determined to bring it fully into play.

[Footnote 206: See in this connection B. Holland, _Imperium et Libertas_
(1901), Part II., Chap. iv. and Lord Grey's _Colonial Policy_, Vol. II.,
Letter v.]

[Footnote 207: "The House of Assembly of Lower Canada have asked for an
elective legislative council and an executive council, which shall be
responsible to them and not to the government and Crown of Great
Britain. We consider that these demands are inconsistent with the
relations between a colony and the mother country, and that it would be
better to say at once, 'Let the two countries separate,' than for us to
pretend to govern the colony afterwards."--Speech of May 16th, 1836.]

Lord Elgin was a thorough believer in the doctrines enunciated in Lord
Durham's Report. Moreover, his marriage with Durham's daughter gave him
an especial and sympathetic interest in proving the truth of Lord
Durham's views. "I still adhere," he wrote to his wife, "to my opinion
that the real and effectual vindication of Lord Durham's memory and
proceedings will be the success of a governor-general of Canada who
works out his views of government fairly." Where Lord Elgin showed a
political sagacity far in advance of the governors who had preceded him
was in his perception of the fact that a governor, in frankly accepting
his purely constitutional position, did not thereby abandon his prestige
and influence in the province, nor cease to be truly representative of
the British Crown. Sydenham's pride had revolted at the prospect of
nonentity: Metcalfe's loyalty had taken fright at the spectre of
colonial independence; but Elgin had the insight to perceive and to
demonstrate the real nature of the governor's position. He was once
asked, later on, "whether the theory of the responsibility of
provincial ministers to the provincial parliament, and of the consequent
duty of the governor to remain absolutely neutral in the strife of
political parties, had not a necessary tendency to degrade his office
into that of a mere _roi fainant_." This Elgin emphatically denied. "I
have tried," he said, "both systems. In Jamaica, there was no
responsible government; but I had not half the power I have here, with
my constitutional and changing cabinet."[208]

[Footnote 208: Elgin had been governor of Jamaica. See Walrond's _Letters
of Lord Elgin_, and citations by A. Todd, _Parliamentary Government in
the British Colonies_ (1880), p. 59.]

Lord Elgin left England at the beginning of January, 1847, and entered
Montreal on the twenty-ninth of the month. The people of the city,
irrespective of political leanings, united in an address of welcome,
and, in the perplexed state of Canadian politics, all parties were
inclined to look to the new governor to give a definite lead to the
current of affairs. It was strongly in Elgin's favour that neither party
associated his past career with the cause of their opponents. In British
politics a Tory, he came to Canada as the appointee of a British Liberal
government. "Lord Elgin," said Hincks in the _Pilot_, "is said to be a
Tory and there is no doubt that he is of a Tory family. We look upon his
bias as an English politician with the most perfect indifference. We do
not think it matters one straw to us Canadians whether our governor is
a Tory or a Whig, more especially a Tory of the Peel school. We have to
rely on ourselves not the governor; and if we are true to ourselves, the
private opinions of the governor will be of very little importance."

At the time of Lord Elgin's arrival, the Draper government was reaching
its last stage of decrepitude. "The ministry," in the words of a
Canadian writer, "were as weak as a lot of shelled pease." In the spring
of the year (April and May, 1847) a partial reconstruction of the
ministry was made with a view of rallying the support of the malcontent
Tories. Mr. Draper himself abandoned his place, his fall being broken by
his appointment as puisne judge of the court of queen's bench. John A.
Macdonald, destined from now on to figure in the forefront of Canadian
politics, entered the ministry as receiver-general; Sherwood became
attorney-general of Upper Canada, and other changes were made. But
inasmuch as the reconstructed cabinet--the Sherwood-Daly ministry, as it
is called--contained no other French-Canadian than Mr. Papineau, it was
plainly but a makeshift and could not hope to conduct with success the
administration of the country. As soon as parliament was summoned (June
2nd, 1847) the Reformers commenced a vigorous and united onslaught.
Baldwin, seconded by LaFontaine, moved an amendment to the address in
which, while congratulating Lord Elgin upon his recent marriage with
Lord Durham's daughter, he declared that it was to Lord Durham that the
country owed the recognition of the principle of responsible government,
and to Lord Elgin that the parliament looked for the application of it.
LaFontaine followed with an eloquent denunciation of those of his
compatriots who had lent their support in parliament to a ministry whose
cardinal principle was hostility to their race. "You have," he said,
"sacrificed honour to love of office: you have let yourselves become
passive instruments in the hands of your colleagues: you have sacrificed
your country and ere long you will reap your reward."

After a heated debate of three days the government was able to carry the
address by a majority of only two votes. Nor had it any better fortune
during the session of two months which ensued. The ministry was not in a
position to introduce any measures of prime importance, and even upon
minor matters sustained repeated defeats. The only legislation possible
under the circumstances were measures of evident and urgent public
utility into which party considerations did not enter. The incorporation
of companies to operate the new "magnetic telegraph," as the newspapers
of the day called it, are noticeable among these. Still more necessary
was the legislation for the relief of the vast crowds of indigent Irish
immigrants, driven from their own country by the terrible famine of
1846-7, and to whose other sufferings were added the ravages of
ship-fever and other contagious diseases. In the public consideration of
this question Robert Baldwin took a prominent place and aided in the
foundation of the Emigration Association of Toronto.

The ill-success of the reconstructed government, and the universal
desire for a strong and stable administration which could adequately
cope with the many difficulties of the hour, clearly necessitated a
dissolution of parliament. Lord Elgin, though without personal bias
against the existing cabinet, felt that it was no longer representative
of the feelings of the people, among whom the current of public opinion
had now set strongly in favour of the Reform party. Elgin dissolved the
parliament on December 6th, 1847, the writs for the new election being
returnable on the twenty-fourth of the following January. The general
election which ensued was an unbroken triumph for the Reformers. In
Upper Canada twenty-six of the forty-two members returned belonged to
the Liberal party, while in the lower part of the province only half a
dozen of those elected were partisans of the expiring government.
Baldwin was again elected in the fourth riding of York, the same county
returning also, in Blake and Price, two of his strongest supporters.
Francis Hincks, who was absent from Canada, being at this time on a
five months' tour to his native land, was elected for Oxford in his
absence. Sir Allan MacNab and John A. Macdonald were among the
Conservatives relected; Sherwood narrowly escaped defeat, while John
Cameron, the solicitor-general, Ogle R. Gowan, the Orange leader, and
many others of the party lost their seats. In Lower Canada the Reformers
were irresistible: even the city of Montreal repented of its sins by
returning LaFontaine and a fellow-Reformer as its members. LaFontaine
was also returned for Terrebonne, but elected to sit for Montreal. The
result of the election left nothing for the Conservatives but to retire
as gracefully as might be to the shades of Opposition and wait for
happier times.




  CHAPTER IX

  THE SECOND LAFONTAINE-BALDWIN MINISTRY


The second LaFontaine-Baldwin administration,[209] which extended from the
beginning of 1848 until the retirement of the two Reform leaders in the
summer of 1851, has earned in Canadian history the honourable
appellation of the "great ministry." Its history marks the culmination
of the lifework of Robert Baldwin and Louis LaFontaine and the
justification of their political system. It is a commonplace of history
that every great advance in the structure of political institutions
brings with it an acceleration of national progress. This is undoubtedly
true of the LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry, whose inception signalizes the
final acceptance of the principle of responsible government. This fact
lent to it a vigour and activity which enabled it to achieve a
legislative record with which the work of no other ministry during the
period of the union can compare. The settlement of the school system,
the definite foundation of the University of Toronto on the basis to
which it owes its present eminence, the organization of municipal
government, the opening of the railroad system of Canada,--these are
among the political achievements of the "great ministry." More than all
this is the fact that the LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry indicates the
first real pacification of French Canada, the passing of the "strife of
two nations warring within the bosom of a single state" and the
beginning of that joint and harmonious citizenship of the two races
which has become the corner-stone of the structure of Canadian
government. The ministry stands thus at the turning-point of an era. The
forces of racial antipathy, separation and rebellion, scarce checked by
the union of 1840, here pass into that broader movement which slowly
makes towards Canadian confederation and the creation of a continental
Dominion.

[Footnote 209: See note on page 190.]

Towards the change of national life thus indicated other and more
material forces were also tending. The era of the "great ministry"
belongs to the time when the advent of the railroad and the telegraph
was unifying and consolidating the industrial and social life of the
country. Sandwich and Gasp no longer appeared the opposite ends of the
earth. The toilsome journey that separated the chief cities of Upper
from those of Lower Canada was soon to become a thing of the past, and a
more active intercourse and more real sympathy between the eastern and
western sections of the country to take the place of their former
political and social isolation. Lord Elgin once said that the true
solution of the Canadian question would be found when both the French
and the English inhabitants should be divided into Conservative and
Liberal parties whose formation should rest upon grounds of kindred
sentiments and kindred interests. For this the changes now operative in
the country were preparing the way: the old era was passing away and a
new phase of national life was destined to take its place. Looking back
upon the period we can see that the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration
marks the time of transition, the essential point of change from the
Canada of the rebellion epoch to the Canada of the confederation.

The result of the election of 1847-8 had made it a foregone conclusion
that the Conservative government must retire from office. Lord Elgin
called the parliament together at Montreal on February 25th, 1848, and
the vote on the election of the speaker showed at once the relative
strength of the parties in the assembly. It having been proposed that
Sir Allan MacNab, the late speaker of the House, be again elected,
Baldwin proposed the name of Morin in his stead: while paying tribute to
the qualifications of Sir Allan in other respects, he held it fitting
that the speaker should be able to command both the French and English
languages. A vote of fifty-four to nineteen proved the overwhelming
strength of the Reformers. The answer to the speech from the throne, as
was of course to be expected, was met by an amendment, proposed by
Robert Baldwin, to the effect that the present ministry did not enjoy
the confidence of the country. The amendment being carried by a vote of
fifty-four to twenty (March 3rd, 1848), the Conservative ministers
tendered their resignation. Lord Elgin at once sent for LaFontaine and
the latter, in consultation with Baldwin, proceeded to form the ministry
which bears their names. The ministry as thus constituted (March 11th,
1848) was as follows:--

For Lower Canada: L. H. LaFontaine, attorney-general; James Leslie,
president of the executive council; R. E. Caron, president of the
legislative council; E. P. Tach, chief commissioner of public works; T.
C. Aylwin, solicitor-general; L. M. Viger, receiver-general.

For Upper Canada: Robert Baldwin, attorney-general; R. B. Sullivan,
provincial secretary; F. Hincks, inspector-general; J. H. Price,
commissioner of Crown lands; Malcolm Cameron, assistant commissioner of
public works; W. H. Blake,[210] solicitor-general.

[Footnote 210: Mr. Blake, who was absent in Europe, did not enter on
office until April, 1849.]

Frequent mention has already been made of most of the above. Leslie, who
had for many years represented the county of Verchres, and Malcolm
Cameron, who had been a bitter opponent of Sir F. B. Head and had held a
minor office under Bagot, represented the more Radical wing of the
Reform party. The name of (Sir) Etienne Tach, twice subsequently prime
minister, is of course well known. Tach had formerly been in the
assembly for six years (1841-6), had since held the office of deputy
adjutant-general, and was now, along with James Leslie, given a seat in
the legislative council. Various other additions were presently made to
the Upper House in order to redress the balance of parties therein and
more adequately to represent the French-Canadian population.

Lord Elgin, although determined not to identify himself in sympathy with
either of the Canadian parties, seems, none the less, to have
entertained a high idea of the ability and integrity of his new
ministers. "My present council," he wrote to Lord Grey, "unquestionably
contains more talent, and has a firmer holder on the confidence of
parliament and of the people than the last. There is, I think, moreover,
on their part, a desire to prove, by proper deference for the authority
of the governor-general (which they all admit has in my case never been
abused), that they were libelled when they were accused of
impracticability and anti-monarchical tendencies." The governor was
determined to let the leaders of the ministry feel that they need fear
no repetition of their difficulties with Sir Charles Metcalfe. In an
initial interview with Baldwin and LaFontaine he took pains to assure
them of the course he intended to pursue. "I spoke to them," he wrote
afterwards,[211] "in a candid and friendly tone; told them I thought there
was a fair prospect, if they were moderate and firm, of forming an
administration deserving and enjoying the confidence of parliament:
that they might count on all proper support and assistance from me."

[Footnote 211: Walrond, _Letters of Lord Elgin_, p. 52.]

It was not possible for the ministry to undertake a serious programme of
legislation during the session of 1848. Those of the ministers who
belonged to the assembly--including LaFontaine and Baldwin--had of
course to present themselves to their constituents for relection. This
proved an easy matter, the elections being either carried by acclamation
or by large majorities. But Lord Elgin and his ministers both preferred
to bring the session to a close, in order to leave time for the mature
consideration of the measures to be adopted on the re-assembling of
parliament. The legislature was accordingly postponed from March 23rd,
1848, until the opening of the following year. The parliamentary session
which then ensued (dating from January 18th until May 30th, 1849) was
unprecedented in the importance of its legislation and the excitement
occasioned by its measures. The speech from the throne announced a
vigorous programme of reform. Electoral reform, the revision of the
judicature system of both provinces, the constitution of the university
of King's College, the completion of the St. Lawrence canals, and the
regulation of the municipal system were among the subjects on which the
parliament would be asked to legislate. The question of an
interprovincial railroad from Quebec to Halifax and the transfer of the
postal department from the imperial to the Canadian authorities, were
also to be brought under consideration.

Two important announcements were also made by Lord Elgin on behalf of
the imperial government. The legislature was informed that the imperial
parliament had passed an Act in repeal of the clause of the Act of Union
which had declared English to be the sole official language of the
legislature. With instinctive tact and courtesy the governor-general
demonstrated the reality of the change thus effected, by himself reading
his speech in French as well as English, a proceeding which drew forth
enthusiastic praise from the press of Lower Canada. The other
announcement was no less calculated to enlist the sympathies of French
Canada. "I am authorized to inform you," said Lord Elgin, "that it is
Her Majesty's purpose to exercise the prerogative of mercy in favour of
all persons who are still liable to penal consequences for political
offences arising out of the unfortunate occurrences of 1837 and 1838,
and I have the queen's commands to invite you to confer with me in
passing an Act to give full effect to Her Majesty's most gracious
intentions."[212]

[Footnote 212: _Journals of the Legislative Assembly_, January 18th,
1849.]

The debate which followed on the address is notable for the trial of
strength that occurred between LaFontaine and Louis-Joseph Papineau,
the former leader of the popular party in the days of the rebellion.
When the agitation in Lower Canada had broken into actual insurrection,
Papineau had fled the country with a price upon his head. For two years
he had lived in the United States; thence he passed to France where he
spent some eight years, his time being chiefly passed in the cultured
society of the capital. As yet no general law of amnesty had been passed
to permit the return of the "rebels" of 1837. But in many individual
instances the government had seen fit to grant a pardon. LaFontaine,
during his first ministry, had urged upon Sir Charles Metcalfe the
wisdom of a general amnesty. Unable to obtain this he had secured from
the governor-general the authorization of a _nolle prosequi_ in the case
of Papineau. This was in 1843. The ex-leader did not, however, see fit
to avail himself of his liberty to return to Canada until the year 1847.
On his return in that year he had presented himself in the ensuing
general election to the constituency of St. Maurice, and the prestige of
his bygone career sufficed for his election. He once again found himself
a member of a Canadian assembly.

For Papineau's historic reputation among his compatriots, it would have
been better had he never returned to Canada. True, he had been absent
from the country but ten years, yet he came back to a Canada that knew
him not. The charm of his personal address, the magniloquence of his
oratory were still there, but the leadership of Louis-Joseph Papineau
was gone forever. There were some in the province who could not forget
that Papineau had fled from his misguided followers at the darkest hour
of their fortunes. There were others--and these the bulk of his
compatriots--who felt that the lapse of time and the march of events had
rendered Papineau and his bygone agitation an issue of the past, an
issue that could not serve as a rallying-point for French Canada in the
altered circumstances of the hour. Of this great change Papineau himself
realized nothing. He was still preaching the old doctrine of 1837, the
uncompromising hostility to British rule and the veiled republicanism of
his former days. In the brief session of 1848 he had angrily inveighed
against the prorogation of parliament and had urged, to prevent it, a
stoppage of supplies! Now, at the opening of the session of 1849, he
rose to utter an impassioned but meaningless attack against the policy
of LaFontaine. The great upheaval of European democracy of 1848, of
which he had witnessed the approaching signals, had appealed to
Papineau's imagination. It ill sufficed him to live in a country in
which there was no ruthless despotism to denounce, no grinding tyranny
to oppose, no political martyrdom to attain. In default of a real
tyranny he must invent one. He denounced the union of the Canadas, he
denounced the legislative council, he denounced responsible government.
"The constitution of the country," he cried, "is false, tyrannical and
calculated to demoralize its people. Conceived by statesmen of a narrow
and malevolent genius, it has had up till the present, and can only have
in the future, effects that are dangerous, results that are ruinous and
disastrous." Most bitterly of all did he denounce those of his race who
had accepted and aided to establish the present system and who, for the
sake of office and power, had bartered the proud independence of an
unconquered race.

The reply of LaFontaine to Papineau ranks among his finest speeches.
Inferior perhaps to his former leader in the arts of eloquence, he far
excelled him in the balance and vigour of his intellect. The utter
futility of Papineau's adherence to the old uncompromising doctrines of
the past, he easily exposed. "What," he asked, "would have been the
consequences of the adoption of this conflict to the bitter end, that we
are reproached with not having adopted? If, instead of accepting the
offers made to them . . . the representatives of Lower Canada had
persistently held aloof, the French-Canadians would have never shared in
the government of the country. They would have been crushed. Would you
with your system of unending conflict have ever obtained the repeal of
the clause of the Act of Union that proscribes our language? . . . If,
in 1842, we had adopted that system should we now be in a position to
solicit, to urge, as we have been doing, the return of our exiled
compatriots?"

It might, perhaps, have been more magnanimous on the part of LaFontaine
had he omitted to give his arguments a personal allusion. But the
ingratitude of Papineau, who owed it to LaFontaine's efforts and to the
system of conciliation which he denounced, that he was able again to
tread the soil of his native country, stung LaFontaine to the quick. He
continued: "If we had not accepted office in the ministry of 1842,
should we have been in a position to obtain for the honourable member
himself, permission to return to his country, to obtain which I did not
hesitate, in order to overcome the repeated refusals of Sir Charles
Metcalfe, to offer my resignation of lucrative offices I then enjoyed?
Yet, behold now this man obeying his old-time instinct of pouring forth
insult and outrage, and daring in the presence of these facts to accuse
me, and with me my colleagues, of venality, of a sordid love of office
and of servility to those in power! To hear him, he alone is virtuous,
he alone loves our country, he alone is devoted to the fatherland. . . .
But since he bespeaks such virtue, I ask him at least to be just. Where
would the honourable member be to-day, if I had adopted this system of a
conflict to the bitter end? He would be at Paris, fraternizing, I
suppose, with the red republicans, the white republicans, or the black
republicans, and approving, one after the other, the fluctuating
constitutions of France!"[213]

[Footnote 213: Speech of January 23rd, 1849. (Translated from _La
Minerve_.)]

But though routed in debate by LaFontaine and unable any longer to lead
the assembly, Papineau was not without a certain following. Some of the
more ardent of the younger spirits among the French-Canadians were still
attracted by the prestige of his name and by the violence of his
democratic principles, and espoused his cause. There began to appear a
Radical wing of the French-Canadian Reformers, pressing upon the
government a still greater acceleration of democratic progress and a
still more complete recognition of the claims of their nationality. The
Radical movement was as yet, however, but a more rapid eddy in the broad
stream of reform that in the meantime was moving fast enough.

One hundred and ninety acts of parliament were passed during the
session of 1849 and received the governor's assent. Many of these--the
Tariff Act,[214] the Amnesty Act,[215] the Railroad Acts,[216] the
Judicature Acts,[217] the Rebellion Losses Act,[218] the Municipal
Corporations Act,[219] and the Act to amend the charter of the
university established at Toronto[220]--are measures of first-rate
importance. With the two last mentioned the name of Robert Baldwin
will always be associated. It will be remembered that during his
previous ministry Baldwin had brought in a bill for the revision of
the charter of King's College and for the consolidation of the
denominational colleges of the country into a single provincial
institution. Against this measure a loud outcry had been raised by the
Tories, on the ground that it effected a spoliation of the Anglican
Church which had hitherto exercised a dominant influence over King's
College, and whose doctrines were taught in the faculty of divinity of
that institution. The rupture with Sir Charles Metcalfe had prevented
the passage of the bill. Mr. Draper had introduced a measure of
similar character, but had seen fit to abandon it on account of the
opposition excited among his own adherents. The measure, which
Baldwin carried through parliament in 1849, creating the University of
Toronto in place of King's College, has been said by Sir John Bourinot
to have "placed the university upon that broad basis on which it still
rests." A former president of the University of Toronto, in a recent
history of the institution,[221] has seen fit to disparage Robert
Baldwin's Act, drawing attention to the needless complexity of its
clauses, the failure of its attempt to affiliate the sectarian
colleges, and to the fact that a revision of its provisions became
necessary a few years later (1853). But the great merit of Baldwin's
University Act lay, not in its treatment of the details of
organization but in the cardinal point of establishing a system of
higher education, non-sectarian in its character, in whose benefits
the adherents of all creeds might equally participate.

[Footnote 214: 12 Vict. c. 1.]

[Footnote 215: 12 Vict. c. 13.]

[Footnote 216: 12 Vict. cc. 28, 29.]

[Footnote 217: 12 Vict. cc. 38, 41, 63, 64.]

[Footnote 218: 12 Vict. c. 58.]

[Footnote 219: 12 Vict. c. 81.]

[Footnote 220: 12 Vict. c. 82.]

[Footnote 221: See J. Loudon, _History of the University of Toronto.
Canada: an Encyclopdia_, Vol. IV.]

The faculty of divinity and the degree in divinity were now abolished,
and the control of the university entirely withdrawn from the Church,
except for the fact that the different denominational colleges were each
entitled to a representative on the senate of the university. The system
of government instituted was, indeed, cumbrous. Academic powers and the
nominations to the professoriate were placed in the hands of a senate,
consisting of a chancellor, vice-chancellor, the professors and twelve
nominated members,--six chosen by the government, six by the
denominational colleges. A further body called the caput, or council,
made up of the president and deans of faculties, and certain others,
exercised disciplinary powers. An endowment board, appointed jointly by
the government, the senate, the caput, etc., managed the property of the
university. Various other powers were vested in the faculties, the deans
of faculties and in subordinate authorities. The elaborate regulation of
the whole structure and the lack of elasticity in its organization were
in marked contrast to the more simple provisions of the charter of
King's College. No religious tests for professoriate and students were
to be imposed. It was further enacted that neither the chancellor nor
any government representative on the senate should be a "minister,
ecclesiastic or teacher, under or according to any form or profession of
religious faith or worship."

Provision was made under the Act for the incorporation in the University
of Toronto of the denominational colleges. To obtain incorporation they
were to forego their existing power of conferring degrees. As the
colleges were unwilling to do this unless they were granted a share of
the provincial endowment for their own teaching purposes, the scheme of
consolidation failed. Victoria and Queen's Universities remained upon
their separate and sectarian bases, and thus one of the purposes of
Baldwin's Act was defeated. Moreover, a section of the adherents of the
Anglican Church refused to countenance the new establishment. Bishop
Strachan, who had denounced the godless iconoclasm of Baldwin's previous
University Bill, again headed the agitation against a secular
university. Furious at the passage of the measure, he called upon the
members of his Church to raise funds for a university of their own,
headed the subscription himself with a contribution of five thousand
dollars, and, undeterred by his advancing years, betook himself to
England to obtain sympathy and help towards the foundation of an
Anglican College. The result of his endeavours was the foundation of
Trinity College in 1851.

The Municipal Corporations Act of 1849, commonly known as the Baldwin
Act, constitutes another of the permanent political achievements of
Robert Baldwin. Many years ago the Upper Canada _Law Journal_ remarked
of this Act and of the revision of the judicial system, "Had Mr. Baldwin
never done more than enact our municipal and jury laws, he would have
done enough to entitle his memory to the lasting respect of the
inhabitants of this province. Neighbouring provinces are adopting the
one and the other almost intact, as an embodiment of wisdom united with
practical usefulness, equally noted for simplicity and for completeness
of detail not to be found elsewhere." Quite recently Professor Shortt
has said,[222] "Looking at the Baldwin Act in its historic significance,
we must admit it to have been a most comprehensive and important
measure, whose beneficial influence has been felt, not merely in
Ontario, but more or less throughout the Dominion. . . . In all
essential principles its spirit and purpose are embodied in our present
municipal system."

[Footnote 222: _University of Toronto Studies: History and Economics_,
Vol. II. No. 2. _Municipal Government in Ontario._ The following account
of the steps leading to the Baldwin Act is largely based on Professor
Shortt's admirable monograph.]

The Baldwin Act represents the culmination and final triumph of the
agitation for local self-government that had, for over fifty years, run
a parallel course with the movement for responsible government. In the
earlier years of Upper Canadian settlement, the government had been very
chary of investing the settlers with rights of local management.
Townships indeed existed, but these were merely areas plotted out by the
surveyor for convenience in the allotment of land, and were not
incorporated units of government. Nor was incorporation given to the
districts or larger areas into which the province was subdivided. Even
the villages and towns had at first no rights of self-government. The
management of local affairs and the assessment of local taxes were left
to the justices of the peace, sitting in quarter sessions, these being
officers appointed by the governor and representing, of course, the
solid cohesion of the governing class. The settlers, many of whom had
been used to better things in their New England homes, constantly
protested. At times they organized themselves in their townships on a
voluntary basis. Various bills for giving power to the people of the
townships, as such, were brought before the legislature, but met with a
distrustful rejection at the hands of the governing oligarchy. Only a
few unimportant matters--the election of petty officers, such as
fence-viewers and pound-keepers--were handed over to the people.

The system thus established proved increasingly unjust and inconvenient:
unjust, since it contributed to the privileges of the colonial
aristocracy: inconvenient, especially in the growing towns where matters
such as markets, fire protection, street-paving, etc., urgently demanded
an organized municipal control. The pressure of the situation presently
forced the government to grant some rights of self-government to the
towns. A severe fire at Kingston in 1812 proved an object-lesson to a
population that dwelt in wooden houses. An Act of parliament[223] gave
special powers to the magistrates in regard to Kingston, and an Act of a
year later put York, Sandwich and Amherstburg upon the same footing.
Belleville was presently granted the right to _elect_ a police board,
the first actual use of the democratic principle in town government.
Brockville, after a long fight against the government, obtained an Act
of parliament which set up the Brockville town board as a body
corporate.[224] The powers granted were limited, but the Act was a step in
advance. A similar limited incorporation was extended to Hamilton, York
and other towns (1832-4). Meantime the Reform party had vigorously taken
up the cry for local self-government. Durham recommended in his Report
"the establishment of a good system of municipal institutions throughout
this province." The Draper government, under Lord Sydenham, as has been
seen, had endeavoured to enlist popular support by passing a Local
Government Act (1841). But the fear of Tory opposition prevented Mr.
Draper from doing more than incorporating the districts of Upper Canada
with a partially elective government.[225] It remained for Baldwin, in one
comprehensive statute, to establish the entire system of local
government in Upper Canada upon the democratic basis of popular
election.

[Footnote 223: 56 Geo. III. c. 33.]

[Footnote 224: 2 Will. IV. c. 17.]

[Footnote 225: See pp. 100, 101, above.]

The text of the Baldwin Act fills some fifty pages of the statute-book;
but its ground plan is excellent in its logic and simplicity, and can be
explained in a few words. The districts are abolished as areas of
government in favour of counties with townships as their subdivisions.
The township now became an incorporated body with power to construct
highways, school buildings, etc. Its inhabitants elected five
councillors, who appointed one of their number to be "reeve" of the
township, and, in townships having a population of more than five
hundred, another to be deputy-reeve. The reeves and deputy-reeves of the
townships constituted the county council and elected from among
themselves the "warden" of the county. The county council thus
incorporated had authority over county roads, bridges and grammar
schools, with other usual municipal powers. Within the area of the
county the Act recognized also police villages, incorporated villages,
towns and cities, representing an ascending series of corporate powers
and a correspondingly increasing independence from the control of the
county council. The police village was merely a hamlet to whose
inhabitants the county committed the election of police trustees who
should take steps to prevent fires, etc. An incorporate village was a
body corporate with an elected council and a reeve, and practically on
the same footing as a township. Still further powers were given to the
town, with an elected council and a mayor and reeve chosen thereby. At
the apex of urban government were placed the cities, Toronto, Hamilton
and Kingston, and any others whose population should reach fifteen
thousand. The city, with a mayor, aldermen and common councillors,
constituted a county in itself, special powers being also delegated to
it. Taken as a whole the Act is uniform in plan, excellent both in its
fundamental principle and in the consistency of its detail; though
frequently amended, it remains as the basis of local self-government in
Ontario at the present day.

In addition to the University and Municipal Acts, Baldwin was also
largely responsible for the Acts revising the judicial system of Upper
Canada, creating a court of common pleas and a court of error and
appeal, and freeing the court of chancery from the delays which had
hitherto impaired its utility, by altering its procedure and increasing
the number of its judges from one to three.

The allotment of legislative business among the leaders of the Reform
party proceeded on the same lines as during the former ministry. While
the political legislation was entrusted to Baldwin and LaFontaine,
Hincks undertook the preparation of commercial and economic measures.
These at the moment were of especial importance. The adoption of free
trade by England had involved the loss of the preference enjoyed under
earlier statutes by Canadian agricultural exports to the mother country.
This had precipitated in Canada a severe commercial depression: the
winter of 1848-9 had been a winter of discontent, and Lord Elgin had
written home of the "downward progress of events." A vigorous policy was
needed in order to revive the industries of the country, and to this
Hincks addressed himself with characteristic energy. Already various
charters had been granted for the construction of railways in Canada:
the road from LaPrairie to St. Johns[226] (Quebec) had been built as early
as 1837, and by the year 1848 a part of what afterwards became the Grand
Trunk line from Montreal to Portland was already constructed, while work
had been begun upon the Great Western and Northern Railways. Hincks,
realizing the importance of the development of the Canadian
transportation system, now inaugurated a policy of active governmental
aid to railway construction. An Act of parliament guaranteed, for any
railway of more than seventy-five miles in length, the payment of six
per cent. interest on half the cost of its construction. Anxious at the
same time to stimulate trade with the United States in order to
compensate the country for the loss of its commercial privileges with
Great Britain, Hincks endeavoured to bring about a system of reciprocal
free trade in natural products between Canada and the republic. An Act
of the legislature accordingly declared all duties on this class of
imports to be removed as soon as the congress of the United States
should take similar action. Unfortunately the opposition of the American
senate interposed a long delay, and it was not until five years later
that an international treaty at last brought the system of reciprocity
into effect. Meantime the Customs Act of 1849 revised existing duties,
altering many of them to an _ad valorem_ basis and placing the average
duty at about thirteen and one-quarter per cent.

[Footnote 226: The importance of this line lay in the fact that it
connected the St. Lawrence navigation (through the Richelieu River) with
that of Lake Champlain and the Hudson.]

The legislative measures that fell to the share of LaFontaine were the
political bills relating to Lower Canada. Here also the judicial system
was amended, a court of queen's bench being established with four judges
of its own, and the superior court also undergoing a revision. A general
law of amnesty gave effect to the intention of the Crown. An attempt to
carry a bill for redistributing the seats in the legislature failed of
its purpose. It was LaFontaine's object to give to each province
seventy-five instead of forty-two members, in order to permit a
subdivision of the larger constituencies: the equality of representation
between the two provinces was to be retained, although it was now
evident that Upper Canada would soon surpass in population the lower
section of the province. For a measure of this kind a majority of
two-thirds was necessitated by the Act of Union. The opposition to the
bill came from the Upper Canadian Tories and from Papineau and certain
other French-Canadian Radicals, who insisted on carrying the democratic
principle of equal representation to its full extent, even against the
interests of their own nationality. LaFontaine's measure fell short of
the required two-thirds by one vote. Of far more importance was a
measure now before parliament for whose introduction LaFontaine was
responsible, and whose passage almost threatened to bring the country to
a civil war. The Rebellion Losses Bill is, however, of such importance
as to require a chapter to itself.




  CHAPTER X

  THE REBELLION LOSSES BILL


The Act of Indemnification of 1849, or--to give it the name by which it
was known during its passage through parliament and by which it is still
remembered--the Rebellion Losses Bill, is of unparalleled importance in
the history of Canada. The bill was a measure for the compensation of
persons in Lower Canada whose property had suffered in the suppression
of the rebellion of 1837 and 1838. It excited throughout Canada a
furious opposition. It was denounced both in Canada and in England as a
scheme for rewarding rebels. Its passage led to open riots in Montreal,
to the invasion of the legislature by a crowd of malcontents, to the
burning of the houses of parliament and to the mobbing of Lord Elgin in
the streets of the city. These facts alone would have made it an episode
of great prominence in the narrative of our history; but the bill is of
still greater importance in the development of the constitution of
Canada. The fact that in despite of the opposition of the Loyalists, in
despite of the flood of counter-petitions and addresses, in despite of
the imminent prospect of civil strife, Lord Elgin fulfilled his
constitutional duty, refused to dissolve the parliament or to reserve
the bill for the royal sanction, and that the home government accepted
the situation and refused to interfere, shows that we have here arrived
at the complete realization of colonial self-government. The passage of
the Rebellion Losses Bill gives to the doctrine of the right of the
people of the colony to manage their own affairs, the final seal of a
general acceptance.

The circumstances leading to the introduction of the measure were as
follows. The outbreak of 1837-8 had occasioned throughout the two
provinces a very considerable destruction of private property. Some of
this had been caused by the overt acts of the rebels; but there had also
been a good deal of property destroyed, injured or confiscated by the
troops and the Loyalists in the suppression of the rebellion.

It was, from the beginning, the intention of the government to make
reparation to persons who had suffered damage from the acts of rebels.
The parliament of Upper Canada had passed an Act (1 Vict. c. 13)
appointing commissioners to estimate the damages, and had presently
voted (2 Vict. c. 48) the issue of some four thousand pounds in
debentures in payment of the claims. The special council of Lower Canada
had taken similar action. But the question of damage done in suppressing
the outbreak was of a somewhat different complexion. A part of the
property destroyed was the property of persons actually in arms against
the government. To these, plainly enough, no compensation was owing. In
other cases the owners of injured property were adherents of the
government, whose losses were occasioned either fortuitously or by the
necessities of war. To these, equally clearly, a compensation ought to
be paid. But between these two classes was a large number of persons
whose property had suffered, who were not openly and provably rebels but
who had belonged to the disaffected class, or who at any rate were
identified in race and sympathy with the disaffected part of the
population. This element gave to the equities of the question a very
perplexed appearance.

In the last session of its existence the parliament of Upper Canada had
adopted an Act (October 22nd, 1840)[227] voting compensation on a large
scale for damage done by the troops _and otherwise_. The sum of forty
thousand pounds was to be applied to claims preferred under the Act. As
no means were laid down for raising the necessary funds, this Act
remained inoperative. Then followed the union of the Canadas and the
election of a joint parliament. In despite of repeated petitions and
individual representations to the government nothing more was done in
regard to Rebellion Losses Claims until the year 1845 when the Draper
government passed an Act to render operative the Upper Canadian statute
of 1840.

[Footnote 227: 3 Vict. c. 76.]

The funds for the measure were to be supplied out of the receipts from
tavern licenses for Upper Canada, which were set aside for that
purpose. The sums collected under this Act of parliament between April
5th, 1845 and January 24th, 1849, amounted to 38,658.

At the time when Mr. Draper's Act of 1845 was before parliament, the
Reformers of Lower Canada protested against the inequity of extending to
one section of the country a privilege not enjoyed by the other, and
demanded similar legislation for Lower Canada. The government,
presumably in order to obtain their support for its own measure,
indicated its readiness to act upon this demand, and a unanimous address
was presented to Lord Metcalfe (February 28th, 1845) asking him to
institute an enquiry into the losses sustained in Lower Canada during
the period of the insurrection. A commission consisting of five persons
was accordingly appointed (November 24th, 1845). The commissioners were
asked to distinguish between participants in the rebellion and persons
innocent of complicity, but they were also informed that "the object of
the executive government was merely to obtain a general estimate of the
rebellion losses, the particulars of which should form the subject of
more minute investigation thereafter under legislative authority." The
result was that the commission found themselves compelled to report that
"the want of power to proceed to a strict and regular investigation of
the losses in question left the commissioners no other resource than to
trust to the allegation of the claimants as to the amount and nature of
their losses." Needless to say that, under the circumstances, many of
the allegations in question were very wide of the truth: the total sum
claimed amounted to over two hundred and forty thousand pounds, and of
this it is said that about twenty-five thousand pounds represented
claims of persons who had been convicted by court-martial of complicity
in the rebellion. It will easily be understood that under these
circumstances the cry arose from the Canadian Tories and their British
sympathizers that the whole scheme amounted to nothing more than
plundering the public treasury in favour of the disloyal. It was
impossible for the government to take action upon a report of so
unreliable a character. Indeed it is likely that the government was
anxious merely to tide the matter over as best it might. It voted some
ten thousand pounds in payment of claims that had been certified in
Lower Canada before the union, and with that it let the matter rest.

As the question stood at the opening of the LaFontaine-Baldwin
administration, it is plain that a grave injustice rested upon many
injured persons in Lower Canada as compared with their fellow-citizens
of Upper Canada who had received compensation for their losses: granted
that there were black sheep among the claimants, this did not affect the
validity of the other claims. It was this injustice that LaFontaine,
whose constant policy it was to safeguard the rights of his
nationality, now determined to rectify. Early in the session he moved,
seconded by Robert Baldwin, a series of seven resolutions, reciting the
failure of the previous commission and demanding the appointment of a
new body with proper powers, and the payment of claims. The resolutions,
carried by large majorities (the vote on the first one, for example, was
fifty-two to twenty) were followed (February 27th) by the introduction
of a bill to bring them into effect. The measure was entitled, "An Act
to provide for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose
property was destroyed during the rebellion of the years 1837 and
1838."[228] There was no difficulty, as far as voting power went in
carrying the bill through parliament. It was passed by the House of
Assembly (March 9th, 1849) by a vote of forty-seven to eighteen, and
accepted without amendment by the legislative council by twenty against
fourteen votes. The fact that the measure received overwhelming support
in a legislature only recently elected, must be carefully noted in
considering the constitutional aspect of the question involved.

[Footnote 228: The Act is 12 Vict. c. 58.]

Under the provisions of the Act the governor-general was empowered to
appoint five commissioners whose duty it should be "faithfully and
without partiality to enquire into and to ascertain the amount of the
losses sustained during the rebellion." The commissioners were given
authority to summon witnesses and examine them under oath. For the
payment of the claims the governor was empowered to issue debentures,
payable out of the consolidated revenue of the province at or within
twenty years after the date of issue and bearing interest at six per
cent. The maximum amount to be expended on the claims (including the
expenses incurred under the Act and the sum of 9,986 issued in
debentures under the Act of June 9th, 1846[229]) was not to exceed
100,000; if the claims allowed amounted to a higher total, a
proportionate distribution was to be effected. The Act also provided
that no claim should be recognized on the part of any persons "who had
been convicted of treason during the rebellion, or who, having been
taken into custody, had submitted to Her Majesty's will and been
transported to Bermuda."

[Footnote 229: 9 Vict. c. 65.]

The introduction and explanation of the bill before parliament naturally
fell to the task of LaFontaine, who made a number of speeches in its
support, traversing the whole question of indemnity from 1837 onwards
and affording an admirable history of the measure. Baldwin took but
little part in the debates on the Rebellion Losses Bill. It has often
been said that this was from lack of sympathy with the measure, and
insinuations of this kind were made in the House of Assembly. But a
speech made by Baldwin during the debate on the introduction of the
preliminary resolutions (February 27th, 1849) emphatically affirms his
concurrence in LaFontaine's proposed measure. He had been accused, he
said, of wilfully abstaining from speaking on the measure, but this was
an error, for he had merely refrained from speaking because there was no
necessity to do so. The whole matter had been set in such a clear light
by his friends that it would be impossible to elucidate it still
further. In the brief speech which followed, Baldwin went on to show
that the measure contemplated by the resolutions would merely do for
Lower Canada what had already been done for the upper part of the
province. If the resolutions failed to indicate how to avoid
indemnifying any who had taken up arms, so too had the Act of 1841.[230]

[Footnote 230: 3 Vict. c. 76.]

The passage of the bill was, of course, an easy matter as far as
obtaining a majority went. But nothing could exceed the furious
opposition excited both within and without the parliament by the
introduction of the bill. The old battle of the rebellion was fought
over again. With Papineau back in the assembly, Mackenzie now revisiting
the country under the Amnesty Act, the legislature in session at
Montreal and a French-Canadian at the head of the administration, it
seemed to the excited Tories as if the days of 1837 had come back, and
that they must rally again to fight the cause of British loyalty against
the encroachments of an alien race. The bill for payment of the losses
seemed like the crowning triumph of their foes, and the cry, "No pay for
rebels," resounded throughout the province. Many Canadian writers, as
for example, the late Sir John Bourinot in his _Lord Elgin_, have seen
in the opposition of the Tories nothing more than a party contest, the
familiar game in which a likely issue is seized upon in the hope of a
sudden overthrow of the government. "The issue," he says, "was not one
of public principle or of devotion to the Crown, it was simply a
question of obtaining a party victory _per fas aut nefas_."[231]

[Footnote 231: _Lord Elgin_ (Makers of Canada Series), p. 68.]

The issue was not, indeed, in the real truth of the matter, a question
of devotion to the Crown and the retention of the British connection.
But the Tories, many of them, in all honesty saw it so. One has but to
read the newspapers of the day to realize that something more than a
mere party question was at issue. It was a contest in which right and
justice were fighting hand to hand against a blind but honest fanaticism
to whose distorted vision the Rebellion Losses Bill undid the work of
the Loyalists of 1837. The rabble of the Montreal streets that burned
the houses of parliament were doubtless inspired by no higher motive
than the fierce lust of destruction that animates an inflamed and
unprincipled mob. But the opposition of Sir Allan MacNab and the
reputable leaders of Conservatism was based on a genuine conviction that
the safety of the country was at stake. In the blindness of their rage
the Tories lost from sight entirely that they themselves had sanctioned
the payment of compensation for losses in Upper Canada, that the Draper
government had itself originated the present movement, and that the bill
expressly stipulated that nothing should be paid to "rebels" in the true
sense of the term. The reasoned logic of LaFontaine's presentation of
the bill fell upon ears which the passion of the hour made deaf to
argument: the fiery invective of Solicitor-general Blake, who answered
the Tory accusation of disloyalty with a counter-accusation of the same
character, only maddened them to fury. In the debate on the second
reading of the bill the parliament became a scene of wild confusion.
MacNab had called the French-Canadians "aliens and rebels." Blake in
return taunted him with the disloyalty that prompts a meaningless and
destructive opposition.

"I am not come here," said Blake,[232] "to learn lessons of loyalty from
honourable gentlemen opposite.... I have no sympathy with the would-be
loyalty of honourable gentlemen opposite, which, while it at all times
affects peculiar zeal for the prerogative of the Crown, is ever ready
to sacrifice the liberty of the subject. This is not British loyalty: it
is the spurious loyalty which at all periods of the world's history has
lashed humanity into rebellion.... The expression 'rebel' has been
applied by the gallant knight opposite to some gentlemen on this side of
the House, but I tell gentlemen on the other side that their public
conduct has proved that _they_ are the rebels to their constitution and
country." For a man of MacNab's fighting temper, this was too much. "If
the honourable member means to apply the word 'rebel' to me," he
shouted, "I must tell him that it is nothing else than a lie." In a
moment the House was in an uproar: Blake and MacNab were only prevented
from coming to blows by the intervention of the sergeant-at-arms, while
a storm of shouts and hisses from the crowded galleries added to the
confusion of the House. Blake and MacNab were taken into custody by the
sergeant-at-arms, several of the wilder spirits of the galleries were
arrested, and the debate ended for the day.

[Footnote 232: An excellent account of the debate is given by Dent,
_Canada Since the Union_, Vol. II. pp. 151 et seq.]

Of the various arguments advanced against the bill in the Canadian
parliament and elsewhere, two only are worth considering. It was said in
the first place that under the terms of the bill a certain number of
persons who, in heart if not in act, had been rebels would receive
compensation. This was undoubtedly true, but was also unavoidable.
Unless one were to have given to the commissioners inquisitorial and
discretionary powers, unless, that is to say, they had been allowed to
declare any one in retrospect a rebel simply on their general opinion of
his conduct,--a remedy that would have been worse than the evil it
strove to cure,--it is undoubtedly true that many of the disaffected
inhabitants of the Lower Canada of 1837 could claim compensation. But it
must be borne in mind that they could not claim compensation _for being
disaffected_, but simply for having lost their property. The Act did the
best that could be done. It accepted the only legal definition of
"rebel" that was possible; namely, persons previously convicted as such.
These it excluded. To all others who could prove damages compensation
was to be given.

The other objection was perhaps more serious. It was urged against the
bill that the Upper Canadian losses had been paid out of a special fund
raised in Upper Canada; namely, the proceeds of the tavern licenses paid
in that part of the province. The bill of 1849 proposed to pay the Lower
Canadian losses out of the general fund of (united) Canada. By this
method, it was argued, the people of Upper Canada were called upon to
pay all of their own damages and a share of those of their neighbours.
The answer made by the administration to this argument may be found in
the speeches delivered by LaFontaine in March, 1849, and in a circular
drawn up in Montreal, presumably by Hincks, in defence of the
government, and subsequently printed in the London _Times_.[233] It ran
as follows:--

[Footnote 233: March 23rd, 1849.]

The proceeds of tavern licenses, in both provinces, had previously
formed part of the general fund. When Mr. Draper's Act of 1845 was
passed, these proceeds were removed from the general fund and alienated
to special uses in each section of the province. In Lower Canada they
were given to the municipalities: in Upper Canada they were applied to
the payment of the rebellion losses. Now in Upper Canada the sums in
question were considerably greater than in Lower Canada: the license
taxes in the one case amounted (taking an average of the last four
years) to 9,664; in the other case to only 5,557. Hence, argued
LaFontaine, the effect of the proceeding was to give to Upper Canada an
overplus of 4,107 a year, which was equivalent to a capital sum of
68,454. The same kind of segregation had also (in 1846) been made of
the marriage license proceeds, in which case the surplus accruing
amounted to 1,785 and represented a capital of 29,764. Putting the two
together it appears, according to LaFontaine's view of it, that Upper
Canada thus received the equivalent of a capital sum of 98,000. Since
the present bill only asked for 90,000 (the other 10,000 of the
100,000 representing claims already certified), Lower Canada was only
asking what was well within its rights. This argument of LaFontaine
may, or may not, appear convincing. Since the Upper Canadian license tax
was paid by the people of Upper Canada, it is hard to see that the
surplus of its proceeds over the tax in Lower Canada had anything to do
with the case. It must be remembered also that the Lower Canadian tax
was used in Lower Canada. But the argument is part of the history of the
time and is here given for what it is worth.

Intense excitement prevailed throughout Canada during the parliamentary
discussion of the bill. Public meetings of protest were held by the
Tories throughout the country. Petitions poured in against the measure,
many of them directed to Lord Elgin himself, in order, if possible, to
force him from his ground of constitutional neutrality. Resolutions were
drawn up at a meeting in Toronto praying the queen to disallow the bill
if it should pass. In many places the excitement thus occasioned led to
violent demonstrations, in some cases, as at Belleville, to open riots.
The inflamed state of public feeling at this period and the exasperation
of the Tories are evidenced by the disturbances which occurred at
Toronto on the reappearance of William Lyon Mackenzie. On this occasion
Baldwin, Blake and the ex-leader of the rebels were burned in effigy in
the streets of the town. The following is the exultant account given of
the burning by the Toronto _Patriot_, the most thorough-going organ of
Toryism.

"On Thursday evening [March 22nd, 1849], the inhabitants of Toronto
witnessed a very uncommon spectacle--more uncommon than surprising at
this time. The attorney-general, the proud solicitor-general and the
hero of Gallows Hill were associated in one common fate, amid the cheers
and exultations of the largest concourse of people beheld in Toronto
since the election of Dunn and Buchanan. The three dolls,--would that
their originals had been as harmless!--were elevated on long poles and
paraded round the town, visiting the residences of the three noble
individuals, and subsequently two of them were burned near Mr. Baldwin's
residence and the third opposite Mr. McIntosh's, in Yonge Street, the
house in which the humane and gallant Mackenzie had taken up his abode.
It would be impossible to describe the expressions of indignation and
disgust on the part of the people towards the triumvirate."

The scene was concluded by smashing in the front windows of the McIntosh
house with a volley of stones. The partisan press spared no efforts to
arouse a desperate opposition to the bill. "Men of Canada of British
origin," pleaded the _Church_,[234] a forceful publication devoted to
Anglican Toryism and the doctrines of Dr. Strachan, "no sleep to the
eyes, no slumber to the eyelids, until you have avenged this most
atrocious, this most unparalleled insult!" In the same month the New
York _Herald_ declared that the "fate of Canada was near at hand." "This
may be the commencement," it said, "of a struggle which will end in the
consummation so devoutly wished by the majority of the people,--a
complete and perfect separation of those provinces from the rule of
England."

[Footnote 234: March 29th, 1849.]

In the mother country, both in and out of parliament, loud protests were
raised against the measure. The London _Times_ interpreted it as the
selfish machination of a rebel faction. "As things have been turned
upside down since 1838," said a _Times_ editorial on the Canadian
situation, "and what was then the rebel camp is now the government of
Canada, it is obvious that no measure of compensation is likely to pass
which does not include some of the offending gentlemen themselves in the
bill of damages made out. The alternative is either no compensation to
anybody, or to all alike. This must be very annoying to the Royalists
(_sic_), who marched to and fro, and who incurred expense, wounds, and
loss of health by their prompt succour of the state. . . . If we would
judge of the feelings excited in the breast of such ardent Royalists as
Sir Allan MacNab, we must suppose a parliament of Chartists and
Repealers, not only dividing among themselves all the offices of the
State, but also compensating one another for their past sufferings with
magnificent grants from the treasury." It is to be noted that the usual
Tory designation of their party as Loyalists is not strong enough for
the _Times_ in this issue, which implies a still more chivalrous degree
of devotion to the throne by using the term Royalists. The same article
speaks of the "_loyal_ population of Canada being considerably excited,"
talks of their settled "impression that rebellion has been rewarded and
loyalty insulted by the British Crown," and describes Canada as a
"colony that hangs by a thread."[235]

[Footnote 235: London _Times_, March 21st, 1849.]

The crowning event in the agitation against the Act of Indemnification
was the riot at Montreal, which broke out on the news that Lord Elgin
had given his assent to the bill. This was on April 25th, 1849. Lord
Elgin's consent to the measure was, of course, the result of due
deliberation, but the immediate circumstances of giving assent were of a
somewhat hurried character. Among other bills awaiting his sanction was
the new tariff bill. Navigation was just opening at Montreal and the
sudden news that an incoming vessel was sighted in the river induced
Lord Elgin, at the request of the ministry,[236] to proceed in haste to
the houses of parliament. It seemed to Lord Elgin that he might as well
take advantage of the occasion to assent to the other bills that were
also waiting his approval. The news that the bill had become law spread
rapidly through the town, and the haste of Lord Elgin's proceedings gave
an entirely false colour to what had happened. As the governor-general
left the houses of parliament "after the consummation of his nefarious
act," (to use the words of a Tory journalist),[237] he was greeted with
the "groans and curses" of a crowd that had assembled about the
building. As he drove through the city on his way to his official
residence of "Monklands," the groans and curses were accompanied with a
shower of random missiles. Stones crashed against the sides of the
governor's carriage and rotten eggs bespattered it with filth, but no
serious harm was done to its occupants. As the evening drew on the
excitement throughout the city increased apace. The fire bells of the
town were rung to call the people into the streets, and a printed
announcement was passed through the crowd that a mass meeting would be
held at eight o'clock in the Champ de Mars.

[Footnote 236: Hincks went out to "Monklands" to request the
governor-general to assent at once to the tariff bill. _Reminiscences_,
p. 194.]

[Footnote 237: Montreal _Courier_.]

All this time the House was in session. MacNab warned the ministry that
a riot was brewing, but the government were reluctant to make a
precipitate call for military help. At eight o'clock the wide expanse of
the Champ de Mars was filled with a surging and excited mob, howling
with applause as it listened to speeches in denunciation of the tyranny
that had been perpetrated. Presently from among the crowd the cry
arose, "To the parliament house," and the rioters, ready for any
violence, hurried through the narrow streets of the lower town to the
legislative building. On their way they wrecked the offices of the
_Pilot_ with a shower of stones. A few minutes later a similar volley
burst in the windows of the house of parliament. The members fled from
the hall in confusion, while the rioters invaded the building and filled
the hall of the assembly itself. The furniture, chandeliers and fittings
of the hall were smashed to pieces in the wild rage of destruction. A
member of the crowd took his seat in the speaker's chair and shouted, "I
dissolve this House."

While the tumult and destruction were still in progress, the cry was
raised, "The parliament house is on fire." The west end of the building,
doubtless deliberately fired by the rioters, was soon a sheet of flames.
The fire spread fiercely from room to room and from wing to wing of the
building. "The fury and rapidity with which the flames spread," said an
eye-witness, "can hardly be imagined: in less than fifteen minutes the
whole of the wing occupied by the House of Assembly was in flames, and,
owing to the close connection between the two halls of the legislature,
the chamber of the legislative council was involved in the same
destruction." The fierce light of the flames illuminated the city from
the mountain to the river, and spread fear in the hearts of its
inhabitants. The firemen who arrived on the scene were forcibly held
back from staying the progress of the fire, and the houses of the
parliament of Canada burned fiercely to ruin. The assembly library of
twenty thousand volumes perished in the flames. MacNab, with
characteristic loyalty, rescued from the burning building the portrait
of his beloved queen. The military, at length arrived on the ground,
stayed the progress of further violence, but the wild excitement that
pervaded the populace of the city boded further trouble. Next evening
the riots broke out again. Attacks were made on the houses of Hincks and
Wolfred Nelson. The boarding house on St. Antoine Street, occupied by
Baldwin and Price, was assaulted with a shower of stones: LaFontaine's
residence--a new house which he had just purchased, but where he was
fortunately not at that moment in residence--was attacked, the furniture
demolished, and the stables given to the flames. Not until the evening
of the twenty-seventh did the troops, aided by a thousand special
constables armed with cutlasses and pistols, succeed in restoring order
to the streets.

Three days later the governor-general, attempting to drive into the city
from his residence, where he had remained since the twenty-fifth, was
again attacked. As he passed through the streets on his way to the
government offices in the Chteau de Ramezay on Notre Dame Street,
volleys of stones and other missiles greeted the progress of his
carriage. Before reaching his destination Lord Elgin found his way
blocked with a howling, furious crowd, while shouts of "Down with the
governor-general" urged the mob to violence. The governor's escort of
troops succeeded in forcing back the crowd and effecting his entrance
into the building, but his return journey was converted into a
precipitate flight, the crowd pursuing the vice-regal carriage in "cabs,
_calches_ and everything that would run." Fortunately Lord Elgin
escaped unhurt, but his brother was severely injured by a stone hurled
after the carriage and several of his escort were hurt. Such were the
disgraceful scenes which lost for Montreal the dignity of being the seat
of government.

It was but natural that the progress of events in Canada should excite
great attention in the mother country. In the British parliament, the
government of Lord John Russell was prepared to defend the right of the
Canadians to legislate as they pleased in regard to the matter at issue.
Mr. Roebuck and the Radicals went even further and defended the equity
of the bill itself. The Peelites, or at any rate the greater part of
them, voted with the government against interference. But the
thorough-going Tories insisted on viewing the issue as one between
loyalty and treason, and demanded that the imperial government should
either disallow the Act or contravene its operation by an Act of the
British parliament. In the middle of the month of June the Canadian
question was debated both in the House of Commons and in the House of
Lords. Not the least important of those who appeared as the champions of
the Canadian Tories was Mr. Gladstone. His rising reputation, the
especial attention he had devoted to colonial questions, and the fact
that he had been Lord Stanley's successor as colonial secretary in the
cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, combined to render him a formidable
adversary to the Canadian ministry. His speech on the Rebellion Losses
Act shows his usual marvellous command of detail and powers of
presentation. Mr. Gladstone's great objection to the Canadian statute
was that, in his opinion, a large number of virtual rebels would receive
compensation under its operation: he begged that Lord John Russell's
government would either disallow the Act or obtain from the Canadian
parliament an amendment of its provisions which should place the
compensation on a basis more strictly defined. But what is still more
noticeable in Mr. Gladstone's speech is his opinion that the government
had allowed Lord Elgin too great latitude in the matter, and that the
scope of the Act exceeded the proper limits of colonial power. "It might
not be politic for the colonial secretary," he said, "to interpose his
advice in respect to merely local matters, but it was his first duty to
tender his advice regarding measures which involved not only imperial
rights but the honour of the Crown. That advice ought not to be delayed
until a measure assumed the form of a statute, but should be given at
the first possible moment, and before public opinion was appealed to in
the country."

Roebuck, Disraeli and others participated in the debate and a certain
Mr. Cochrane, representing the outraged patriotism of the extreme
Tories, referred in scathing terms to Baldwin and LaFontaine, speaking
of them as fugitives from justice in the days of the rebellion.

The speech of Mr. Gladstone on the Canadian question is of especial
importance in the present narrative in that it called forth an answer
from the pen of Francis Hincks, in the form of a letter to the London
_Times_.[238] Shortly after the passage of the indemnification bill Hincks
had left Montreal (May 14th, 1849) for England. The object of his visit
was, in the first place, of a financial character, the Canadian
government being anxious to negotiate its securities in the London
market. But the inspector-general acted also as a special envoy to the
imperial cabinet in regard to the great question of the day and
discussed the Rebellion Losses question with Lord John Russell and Earl
Grey. Hincks also conversed on the subject in detail with Mr. Gladstone
who found himself unable to adopt the views of the Canadian minister.

[Footnote 238: London _Times_, June 20th, 1849.]

In his letter to the _Times_, Hincks deals at some length with Mr.
Gladstone's arguments in regard to the "payment of rebels." In the
debates in the recent session of the Canadian parliament, Hincks had
said that certain persons convicted of high treason in Upper Canada had
received compensation under the Upper Canada Rebellion Losses Act, which
was carried into effect by Tory commissioners under instructions from a
Tory government. Both Disraeli and Gladstone had dissented from this.
Disraeli had broadly asserted that there had been no rebels in Upper
Canada, and that consequently no restrictive clauses were necessary in
the Act for that section of the province. Gladstone had said that "there
was no ground to suppose that any rebel had received any sum by way of
compensation." Hincks, by a very accurate citation of individual cases,
shows that there _were_ rebels in Upper Canada and that _some_ of them,
at any rate, had received compensation under the Act. Hincks does not
mean to imply that, as a consequence of this, the government should
expressly seek to reward the rebels of the Lower Province. "I do not of
course mean to contend that, if it be wrong rebels should be compensated
for their losses, the fact that they were so compensated in Upper Canada
is any excuse for the Lower Canada Act. But I do contend that it is
highly discreditable to a party which, when in power, admitted claims of
this description without the slightest complaint, to agitate the entire
province, to get up an excitement which they themselves are unable to
control, because their opponents have introduced a measure much more
stringent in its details, but under which it is possible that some
parties suspected or accused of treason, but never convicted, may be
paid."

The letter concludes with some interesting paragraphs in which the
writer discusses the strictures that had been passed in the course of
the debate in the House of Commons[239] upon the leaders of the Canadian
ministry. "Nothing can be more untrue," writes Hincks, "than the
allegation that any member of the present administration was implicated
in the rebellion. No reward was ever offered for the apprehension of
anyone of them. Mr. Baldwin never was a fugitive from justice. Such
absurd statements as I have heard regarding occurrences in Canada, only
prove that it is very unsafe for parties at a distance of three thousand
miles to interfere in our affairs. I confess, however, that I was not
very sorry that the members of the House of Commons had an opportunity
afforded them of hearing at least one speech in the true Canadian Tory
spirit, as they are enabled to judge of the manner in which the passions
of the mob of Montreal were inflamed."

[Footnote 239: See especially the speech of Mr. B. Cochrane (London
_Times_, June 15th, 1849) and his reference to Baldwin, LaFontaine,
Papineau, and the "arch-traitor Mackenzie."]

"Let me, in conclusion," wrote Hincks, "say a word or two regarding
'French domination.' I should imagine that the author of _Coningsby_
[Mr. Disraeli] understands the meaning of getting up a 'good cry' to
serve party purposes. The cry of the Canadian Tory party is 'French
domination,' and it is especially intended to excite the sympathy of
people in England who understand little about our politics, but who are
naturally inclined to sympathize with a British party governed by French
influence. A little reflection would convince them that 'French
domination' cannot exist in the united province. I need scarcely say
that it is wholly untrue that it does exist. The administration consists
of five members from Upper Canada and five from Lower Canada. The former
represent some of the most important constituencies in Upper Canada. If
the administration of the government or of the legislature were made
subservient to French influence, is it probable, I would ask, that the
government would be supported by the British people of Upper Canada? All
I shall say in conclusion is, that I claim for myself and my colleagues
from Upper Canada--and in truth and justice I should say for my Lower
Canadian colleagues also--that we have as much true British feeling as
any member of that party which seems to wish to monopolize it."

The financial purpose of Hincks's visit to England--the strengthening of
the credit of the colony in the London market--was accomplished with
marked success. The inspector-general realized that the agitation
occasioned by recent events, and the pervading ignorance in reference to
the economic position and prospects of Canada, seriously prejudiced the
securities of the province in the eyes of the British investors. To meet
this situation, Hincks prepared and published in London a pamphlet
entitled, _Canada and its Financial Resources_. In this publication he
shows that the money hitherto borrowed by the Canadian government had
been employed in public works of a sound and reproductive character. The
imperial guarantee loan of 1,500,000 and the issue of provincial
debentures of a somewhat larger sum make a gross total of 3,223,839,
and represent the larger part of the cost of the public works of the
province, the total cost being estimated by Hincks at 3,703,781
sterling. In order to show the utility and profitableness of the
expenditure thus made, Hincks composed a series of tables showing the
growth and progress of the colony for the last twenty-five years. The
population of Upper Canada had risen, between 1824 and 1848, from
151,097 to 723,000 inhabitants: Lower Canada, whose population in 1825
had stood at 423,630, now contained 766,000 souls. The land under
cultivation in Upper Canada had increased during the same period from
535,212 to 2,673,820 acres: the yield of local taxation in Upper Canada
had increased from 10,235 to 86,058; while the estimated revenue for
the united province in the current year stood at 574,640, a sum whose
proportion to the public debt showed the stable condition of the
provincial finances. Although financial and fiscal discussion forms the
major part of Hincks's pamphlet, he deals also with the political
situation, reasserts the essential loyalty of the Reform party, urges
the necessity for the further development of the province and calls for
imperial aid in the building of an intercolonial railway. The effect of
this pamphlet and of the series of letters of a similar character which
Hincks contributed to the _Daily Mail_ in the following August, was most
happy. An increasing confidence on the part of the British public in the
financial soundness of the Canadian government, tended to offset the
unfortunate effect produced by the agitation over the Act of
Indemnification.

The attitude of Lord Elgin in regard to the Rebellion Losses Bill has
been much discussed. At the time of the adoption of the measure his
conduct was made the subject of mistaken censure from various quarters.
He was blamed for not having refused his assent to the bill: he was
blamed for not having dissolved the parliament: he was blamed for having
afterwards remained for weeks at "Monklands" without having insisted on
forcing his way into the city under military protection. But time has
justified his conduct in every respect. One must read the journals of
the time to appreciate how much the governor-general was called upon to
bear, and with what grave responsibility the office of constitutional
head of the country becomes invested in moments of danger. The Tory
press was filled with bitter personal attacks. "This man's father," said
the Montreal _Courier_, "was denounced by the noblest bard, but one,
that England ever produced, as the Robber of the Greek Temples;[240] his
son will be heard of in future times as the man who lost for England the
noble colony won by the blood of Wolfe." Compare with this the utterance
of Lord Elgin made at the same time. "I am prepared to bear any amount
of obloquy that may be cast upon me, but, if I can possibly prevent it,
no stain of blood shall rest upon my name."

[Footnote 240: The reference is, of course, to the collection of the Elgin
marbles.]

In his treatment of the Rebellion Losses Bill and his firm conviction
that it was his duty to give his assent, Lord Elgin achieved for Canada
one of the greatest victories of its constitutional progress. "By
reserving the bill," wrote Lord Elgin afterwards, "I should only throw
on Her Majesty's government a responsibility which rests, and I think,
ought to rest, on me. . . . If I had dissolved parliament, I might have
produced a rebellion, but assuredly I should not have procured a change
of ministry." As the sight of flame and the sound of riot drifts into
the past, a momentous achievement appears written large on the surface
of our history by Lord Elgin's acceptance of the Act of Indemnification.
It signified that, from now on, the government of Canada, whether
conducted ill or well, was at least to be conducted by the people--the
majority of the people--of Canada itself. The history of responsible
government in our country reaches here its culmination.




  CHAPTER XI

  THE END OF THE MINISTRY


The story of responsible government, with which the present volume is
mainly concerned, practically ends, as has just been said, with the
passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill. The history of the concluding
sessions of the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration, of the disintegration
of the ministry and of the reconstruction of the Reform government under
Hincks and Morin, belongs elsewhere. It has, moreover, already received
ample treatment in other volumes of the present series.[241] We are here
approaching the days of the Clear Grits, of Radicals breaking from
Reformers, of a _Parti Rouge_, of recrudescent Toryism and the political
match-making of the coalition era. But some brief account of the decline
and end of the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration may here be appended.

[Footnote 241: See Sir J. Bourinot, _Lord Elgin_, and John Lewis, _George
Brown_.]

Union in opposition is notoriously easier than union in office.
Opposition is a negative function, the work of government is positive.
It was but natural, therefore, that with the accession of the Reform
party to power and the definite acceptance of the great principle which
had held them together, differences of opinion which had been held in
abeyance during the struggle for power, now began to make themselves
felt. The Reformers were by profession a party of progress, and it was
natural that some among them should aim at a more rapid rate of advance
than others. "It cannot be expected," wrote Hincks, reviewing in later
days the period before us, "that there will be the same unanimity among
the members of a party of progress as in one formed to resist organic
changes: in the former there will always be a section dissatisfied with
what they think the inertness of their leaders."[242]

[Footnote 242: _Political History_, p. 39.]

Moreover, the great upheaval of the Rebellion Losses agitation tended to
throw into a strong light all existing differences of opinion and to
intensify political feeling. The movement towards annexation with the
United States in the summer of 1849, which led a number of the British
residents of Montreal to sign a manifesto in its favour, was doubtless
dictated as much by political spite as by serious conviction.[243] But it
is characteristic, none the less, of the precipitating influence
exercised upon the formation of parties by the great agitation. In
addition to this, the recent events in Europe--chartism and the repeal
movement in the British Isles, and the democratic revolutions on the
continent--gave a strong impulse to the doctrines of Radicalism, and at
the same time repelled many people from the party of progress and
directed them towards the party of order and stability. The years of the
mid-century were consequently an era in which the formation and
movements of parties were modified under new and powerful impulses.

[Footnote 243: Sir John Abbott speaking in the senate in 1889 said that
the "annexation manifesto was the outburst of a movement of petulance."
See also J. Pope, _Life of Sir John A. Macdonald_, Vol. I., p. 70.]

In despite of this, the LaFontaine-Baldwin administration throughout the
years 1849 and 1850 remained in a position of exceptional power. It
suffered indeed to some extent from the desertion of Malcolm Cameron who
resigned his place in a ministry that moved too slowly for his liking
(December, 1849), and from the elevation of so strong a combatant as Mr.
Blake to the calmer atmosphere of the bench. But it gained something
also from the propitious circumstances of the time. The cloud of
commercial depression that had hung over Canada was passing away. The
removal of the last of the British Navigation Acts in 1849--for which
Baldwin, a convinced free trader, and his fellow-Reformers had long
since petitioned the imperial government--brought to the ports of the
St. Lawrence in the ensuing year an entry of nearly one hundred foreign
vessels: the completion of the works on the Welland Canal, on which in
all some $6,269,000 had been expended, seemed to inaugurate a new era
for the shipping trade of the Great Lakes, while the prospect of an
early reciprocity with the United States and the Maritime Provinces, and
the extension of the railroad system, were rapidly reviving the
agriculture and commerce of the united provinces. The bountiful harvest
of 1850 came presently to add the climax to the national prosperity.

The ministry, therefore, in despite of the prowess of Radicalism, which
was soon to threaten its existence, was able in the session of 1850 to
carry out several reform measures of great importance. The seat of
government had meantime, in accordance with an address from the
legislature, been transferred to the city of Toronto, which was
henceforth to alternate with Quebec, in four year periods, in the honour
of being the provincial capital. The appearance of Lord Elgin at the old
parliament buildings on Front Street was greeted with loud acclamations
from a loyal population, and the Tory party, after one or two
unsuccessful attempts to undo the Act of Indemnification by further
legislation, found themselves compelled to accept the inevitable. The
reorganization of the postal system, now transferred to the control of
Canada, with the lowering of postal rates, was one of the leading
reforms effected in the session. A new school law for Upper Canada
carried out more completely the system inaugurated under Mr. Draper's
Act,[244] and confirmed the principle of granting separate schools to
Roman Catholics. An improved jury system, a reorganization of the
division courts and certain amendments in the election law, were also
among the results of the session's work. It was noted with
congratulation by the friends of the ministry that not a single bill
adopted by the legislature was reserved by the governor-general. The
_Globe_ in calling attention to the fact, "unprecedented in Canadian
history," declared that it proved "the practical existence of
responsible government."

[Footnote 244: See above p. 255.]

The legislative success of the session of 1850 was perhaps more apparent
than real. Some great questions of practical reform--notably those of
the Clergy Reserves and of Seigniorial Tenure--were still pressing for
solution. In these two vexed problems, which had stood before the
politicians of the two Canadas for a generation past like twin riddles
of the sphinx, were contained the eternal problem of the Church and the
State, and the like problem of landed aristocracy against unlanded
democracy. On these the party of the Reformers could find no common
ground of agreement. These two issues and the natural drift of political
thought of the time were bringing out more clearly each day the
difference between Radicals and Reformers. Neither Baldwin nor
LaFontaine had anything of the complexion of a Radical. The former,
indeed, showed in his private walk of life much of that reverence for
the things and ideas of the past, which is often a part of the
inconsistent equipment of the Liberal politician. In his Municipal Act
his resuscitation of the Saxon term "reeve" had excited the kindly
ridicule of his contemporaries. LaFontaine too had much that was
conservative in his temperament, and though in his younger years no over
zealous practitioner of religion, he set his face strongly against
anything that savoured of spoliation of the rightful claims of the
Church. As against the moderation and tempered zeal of the chiefs, the
intemperate haste and unqualified doctrines of some of their followers
now began to stand in rude contrast. The latter urged the full measure
of the Democratic programme. "Take from the churches," they said, "their
reserved lands that are merely a relic of old time ecclesiastical
privilege, change this medival seignior of Lower Canada and his tenants
into ordinary property-holders, and give us in our constitutions a full
and untrammelled application of the principles of popular election,--an
elected assembly, an elected Upper House and an elected governor at the
head."

Many of the leaders of the new Radicalism were men not without influence
in the community. There was, in Upper Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie,
now returned from his ungrateful exile to fish in the troubled waters as
an Independent, and aspiring again to popular leadership; Dr. John
Rolph, the agitator of the pre-rebellion days, who had ridden out with
Baldwin to interview the rebels at Montgomery's tavern, and who, like
Mackenzie, had known the bitterness of exile; Macdougall, a lawyer by
title but by predilection a politician and journalist, once a
contributor to the _Examiner_ but now the editor of a Radical
publication called the _North American_. With these was Malcolm Cameron,
the recently resigned commissioner of public works. Out of this material
was being formed the new party of the Radicals, a party that boasted
that it wanted only men of "clear grit," and whose members presently
became known as the Clear Grits.[245] Their platform, which shows the
infection of European democratic movements, consisted of the following
demands: The application of the elective principle to all the officials
and institutions of the country, from the head of the government
downwards; universal suffrage; vote by ballot; biennial parliaments;
abolition of the property qualification for members of parliament; a
fixed term for the holding of general elections and for the meeting of
the legislature; retrenchment; abolition of pensions to judges;
abolition of the courts of common pleas and chancery and the enlargement
of the jurisdiction of the court of queen's bench; reduction of lawyers'
fees; free trade; direct taxation; an amended jury law; abolition or
modification of the usury laws; abolition of primogeniture;
secularization of the Clergy Reserves and the abolition of the rectories
that had been created out of that endowment.[246]

[Footnote 245: Mackenzie called himself Independent, but naturally fell
into alliance with the Grits.]

[Footnote 246: Platform adopted at a meeting of the party at Markham,
March 23rd, 1850.]

Such was the original group of the Clear Grits. In later times their
designation--or at least the term "Grit"--was applied to the Reformers
generally and especially to the adherents of George Brown.[247] But in the
beginning Brown had little sympathy with the new party and remained, in
spite of certain Radical leanings, an adherent of LaFontaine and Baldwin
till the last. His paper, the _Globe_, at first denounced the Grits as
"a miserable clique of office-seeking, bunkum-talking cormorants, that
met in a certain lawyer's office on King Street [Macdougall's] and
announced their intention to form a new party on Clear Grit principles."

[Footnote 247: John Lewis, _George Brown_ (Makers of Canada Series), pp.
40, 41.]

At the same time in Lower Canada a Radical party, following the lead of
Papineau, was being formed in opposition to the policy of LaFontaine.
The career of Papineau has been the subject of so many conflicting
opinions, has met with such extremes of approbation and censure, that it
is difficult to hazard an opinion on the merit of his political conduct
at this time. With LaFontaine and the ministry he was entirely out of
sympathy. Lord Elgin, who spoke of him as "Guy Fawkes," viewed him with
dislike. But among his compatriots a group of the younger men, now
called the _Parti Rouge_ and including A. A. Dorion, Doutre, Dessaules
and others, followed the lead of Papineau and advocated a programme of
an equally Radical character to that of the Clear Grits. In their party
organ, _L'Avenir_, they demanded universal suffrage, the repeal of the
union with Upper Canada, the abolition of the church tithes and election
of the Upper House, while many of them openly advocated republicanism
and annexation to the United States. In the legislature of 1850 Papineau
maintained against the measures of LaFontaine an unremitting opposition,
and made common cause with MacNab and his party in voting against the
government. To add to the difficulties that were gathering about the
administration, Brown, of the _Globe_ (hitherto their firm supporter),
incited by the agitation in England over the Ecclesiastical Titles
controversy, commenced an outcry against Roman Catholicism and all its
works.

By far the worst difficulties of the ministry lay, however, in the
Clergy Reserves question.[248] The history of this long-standing
controversy may be epitomized thus: the Constitutional Act of 1791[249]
empowered the Crown to set apart in each province for the maintenance
and support of a Protestant clergy one-eighth of the public lands as yet
unallotted: the Crown also had power to erect and endow rectories out
of the reserve, whose incumbents should be "presented" by the governor,
after the practice of presentation in England. In other words, the aim
of the Act was to create in the two provinces an endowed State Church.
The same statute gave to the parliament of each province power to alter
or repeal these arrangements as it might see fit, provided always that
such action was sanctioned by the imperial parliament. The Reserves had
been at first exclusively claimed and enjoyed by the Church of England.
Grave dissatisfaction arose. The other Protestant Churches claimed that
the terms of the Act permitted of their participation in the reserve.
The settlers also complained that the arrangement impeded settlement,
hindered the making of roads and tended to interpose waste spaces among
the farms of the colonies.

[Footnote 248: See Charles Lindsey, _The Clergy Reserves_.]

[Footnote 249: 31 Geo. III. c. 31. See W. Houston, _Documents Illustrative
of the Canadian Constitution_, for text of the Act with comments.]

In 1819 an opinion, delivered by the law officers of the Crown, declared
that the ministers of the Church of Scotland were entitled to a share in
the Reserves. The old Reform party in Upper Canada of the days before
the rebellion, protested against this form of State aid to the two
Churches. Some Reformers wanted all sects to participate, others wished
the whole system abolished. In 1831 the imperial government had invited
the legislature of Upper Canada to adopt a measure for the settlement of
the question. Nothing, however, was agreed upon. No special endowments
of rectories were made until 1836, when Sir John Colborne signed
patents creating forty-four of them. This occasioned still louder
protest. In Lower Canada, already settled and less subject to the
allotment of new lands, the matter of the Clergy Reserves never became
an acute question. It was the policy of the Roman Catholic Church not to
oppose ecclesiastical endowment by the State.[250]

[Footnote 250: In Upper Canada 2,395,687 acres were reserved; in Lower
Canada 934,050 acres.]

In 1840 the parliament of Upper Canada passed an Act distributing the
lands among the various Protestant sects. This Act was disallowed, but
an imperial Act[251] of 1840 made a new disposition of the Reserves.
Certain parts of the Church land had already[252] been sold. The funds
arising from these sales were to be distributed, in the proportion of
two to one, between the Churches of England and Scotland. The rest of
the Reserves were now to be sold. Of the proceeds arising, one-third was
to go to the Church of England, one-sixth to the Church of Scotland, and
the remainder, at the discretion of the governor in council, was to be
applied to "purposes of public worship and religious instruction in
Canada." In accordance with this, distribution was made of these funds
among the Dissenting denominations.

[Footnote 251: 3 and 4 Vict. c. 78.]

[Footnote 252: In virtue of 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 62.]

Such was the position of the Reserves question in the year 1850: the
Church lands, while no longer blocking settlement,[253] since they were
offered for sale when allotted, constituted a fund of which the Anglican
Church received the lion's share, but in which all Protestant
denominations participated. Many of the Reform party were anxious to
leave the matter where it was, but the Radicals were determined to have
done with all connection between Church and State and to force the
question to an issue. Price, the commissioner of Crown lands, in the
session of 1850, brought in a series of resolutions declaring the
reservation of the public domain for religious purposes to have long
been a source of intense discontent, and asking the imperial parliament
to grant to the Canadian legislature plenary powers to deal with the
lands as it should see fit. One of these resolutions (June 21st, 1850)
read: "No religious denomination can be held to have such vested
interest in the revenue derived from the proceeds of the said Clergy
Reserves as should prevent further legislation with respect to the
disposal of them." On Price's resolutions, which were finally carried,
the ministry was divided. Hincks, who had seconded the resolutions, was
in favour of the secularization of the Reserves. Of this policy he had
been a consistent advocate for many years past.[254]

[Footnote 253: Previous to 1827 the lands reserved could not be sold for
the benefit of the Church. They could only be leased. In 1827 power was
given to sell one-quarter of the land. The amount which could be sold in
any one year was limited to one hundred thousand acres.]

[Footnote 254: _Reminiscences_, pp. 278 _et seq._ Hincks published a
series of letters on the Clergy Reserves question in the Montreal
_Herald_, December, 1882.]

Secularization, however, could only be accomplished by first inducing
the imperial parliament to repeal the Act of 1840 and to refer the whole
question to the Canadian legislature. Hincks's practical political
experience told him that this end could be best accomplished by avoiding
any action which might antagonize the British parliament, and in
especial the House of Lords, by seeming to make Canadian jurisdiction a
menace to the privileges of the Church. "It was clearly our policy," he
wrote subsequently, "to ask for a repeal of the imperial Act on the
ground of our constitutional right to settle the question according to
Canadian opinion, and not to declare to a body sufficiently prejudiced
and containing a bench of bishops, that our object was secularization."
Hincks was, therefore, of opinion that the existing ministry should
content itself with asking for the repeal. The policy to be afterwards
adopted could be agreed upon in its own time. Though aware of the
difference of opinion between himself and certain of his colleagues, he
saw nothing in that difference to demand a reconstruction of the
administration. Whatever the individual opinions of the ministers might
be on the subject, there were no immediate measures, he argued, which
the Canadian government could take towards secularization. "To have
broken up the LaFontaine government," he wrote, "because its leader
would not pledge himself to support secularization, when it was
uncertain whether we could obtain the repeal of the imperial Act of
1840, would have been an act of consummate folly, indeed hardly short of
madness."

Nevertheless, the divergence of opinion in the cabinet was a palpable
fact. LaFontaine believed in Canadian control: he desired the repeal of
the Act of 1840: but he did not believe in the policy of secularization.
Rightly conceiving that the alienation of the Reserves to other than
religious purposes was the intent of Price's resolution quoted above, he
gave his vote against it. Baldwin, to his deep regret, found himself
compelled to vote against LaFontaine on this resolution. His attitude,
as expressed in his speech on this occasion, honest though it was, was
hardly calculated to hold political support. He admitted that previous
to the imperial Act of 1840, he had, along with his fellow-Reformers,
believed in the secularization of the Reserves and their application to
provincial education: the passage of the Act had altered his opinion and
he believed they ought to adhere as far as possible to the purpose it
indicated. He did not regard the reserved lands as being entirely the
property of the people, but recognized the vested interest created by
imperial legislation. At the same time he expressed himself as opposed
to any union between Church and State, and declared that he did not
regard the Act of 1840 as necessarily a final settlement. With this
rather vague statement of his position, Baldwin voted in favour of the
resolution condemned by LaFontaine. The opportunity offered by the
evident lack of union on the part of the ministry was not lost on the
Opposition. Even before the vote referred to, Boulton of the
Conservative party tried to amend one of the resolutions by substituting
a motion, "that, in the language of the Hon. Robert Baldwin in his
address to the electors of the fourth riding of the county of York on
December 8th, 1847, preparatory to the last election, when an adviser of
the Crown on a great public question avows a scheme which his colleagues
dare not approve, public safety and public morals require that they
should separate."

The difference of opinion thus evinced among the members of the ministry
was not calculated to strengthen their hold on their majority. At the
same time the parallel question of seigniorial tenure[255] was weakening
their support in Lower Canada. This was a legacy of the old French
rgime under which about eight million _arpents_ of land had been
granted to the seigniors on a feudal basis. The holders of land
(_censitaires_) under the seigniors had a permanent right of occupancy
but were compelled to pay fixed yearly dues in money and in kind, and
in the event of their selling out their tenancy must pay one-twelfth of
the purchase price to their lord. The latter had also various vexatious
privileges, such as the _droit de banalit_, or sole right of grinding
corn. Whatever may have been the merits of the system in aiding the
first establishment of the colony, it had long since become an
anachronism. Agitation against the tenure had gone on for years, but
with the exception of a law of 1825 which permitted the seignior and
_censitaire_ by joint consent to terminate the tenure, nothing had been
done. Granted that the system was to be abolished, the difficult
question remained, how to abolish it. Was the land to be handed over to
the _censitaire_ as his property in fee simple, or was it to be given to
the seignior as his absolute property, or was some adjustment, involving
proper compensation, possible? The Reformers of Lower Canada were much
divided; some of them wished to see the seigniors expropriated without
compensation; others to expropriate them with compensation; others to
leave the matter to voluntary arrangement aided by legislation, but not
compulsory; and others, finally, such as Papineau (himself a seignior)
wished to leave the matter where it was. LaFontaine, while believing in
the historic value of the system, considered it injurious at the present
time to the interests of agriculture; he wished to see it abolished, but
wished to find means to respect the interests of the seigniors by a
proper compensation. The reference of the matter to a committee, and
the presentation of various tentative bills, afforded no solution, and
the matter dragged forward from the session of 1850 to that of 1851,
while the prolonged delay led several of the Reformers to accuse
LaFontaine of deliberately temporizing for fear of losing parliamentary
support.

[Footnote 255: An admirable account of the system is to be found in the
recent work of Professor W. H. Munro of Harvard University, _The
Seigniorial System in Canada_. (Longmans, Green, & Co., N. Y., 1907.)]

The end of the great ministry came in the succeeding session, that of
1851. The opposition of the Clear Grits to the government was growing
more and more pronounced and the two unsolved questions proved a
standing hindrance to the reunion of the Reform party. A Canadian
writer[256] has said that the Reform party had become too ponderous to be
held together and that it broke of its own weight. Indeed the united
strength of the Reformers, Radicals, Clear Grits, Independents and the
_Parti Rouge_, so completely outnumbered the Conservatives, that it was
vain to expect to find all sections of the party disregarding their own
special views for the sake of continuing to outvote so small a minority.
The temptation was rather for the leaders of the separate groups to
court new alliances, which might convert their subordinate position in
the Reform party into a dominant position in a new combination. In this
way we can understand the vote which, midway in the session of 1851, led
to the resignation of Robert Baldwin.

[Footnote 256: F. Taylor, _Portraits of British Americans_, Vol. III, p.
84.]

Mackenzie, who was aiding the Clear Grits in their persistent opposition
to the cabinet, brought in a motion (June 26th, 1851) in favour of
abolishing the court of chancery--one of the reforms recommended in the
platforms of the Clear Grits. This court, formerly a valid subject of
grievance, had been reorganized by Baldwin in his Act of 1849, and he
had seen no reason to regard its present operation as unsatisfactory.
Mackenzie's motion was rejected, but its rejection was only effected by
the votes of LaFontaine and his French-Canadian supporters: twenty-seven
of the Upper Canadian votes were given against Baldwin, many of them
representing the opinion of Upper Canadian lawyers. Under happier
auspices Baldwin might not have regarded this vote as a matter of vital
importance, for he had never professed himself a believer in the
doctrine of the "double majority,"[257] the need, that is to say, of a
majority support in each section of the province at the same time. But
the mortification arising in this instance was coupled with a
realization of the difficulties that were thickening about the
government, and with a knowledge that the Reform party was passing under
other guidance than that of its early leaders. The vote on the chancery
question was merely made the occasion for a resignation which could
henceforth only be a question of time.

[Footnote 257: Turcotte (_Canada sous l'Union_, p. 173) says that Baldwin
by his resignation sanctioned the principle of the "double majority."
But compare Hincks, _Political History_, p. 28. See also letter of
Baldwin to LaFontaine, cited above, pp. 263-5.]

Baldwin's resignation was tendered on June 30th, 1851. All parties
united in courteous expressions of appreciation of his great services to
the country, and the chivalrous MacNab expressed his regret at the
determination of his old-time adversary. Almost immediately after the
resignation of Baldwin, LaFontaine expressed his intention of retiring
from public life after the close of the session. He, too, had wearied of
the struggle to maintain union where none was. The committee on
seigniorial tenure, moreover, reported a proposal for a bill which
LaFontaine found himself compelled to consider a measure of
confiscation. The consciousness that his views on this all-important
subject could no longer command a united support confirmed him in his
intention to abandon political life. Indeed, for some years, LaFontaine
had suffered keenly from the disillusionment that attends political
life. As far back as September 23rd, 1845, he had expressed his
weariness of office in a confidential letter to Baldwin. "As to myself,"
he wrote, "I sincerely hope I will never be placed in a situation to be
obliged to take office again. The more I see, the more I feel disgusted.
It seems as if duplicity, deceit, want of sincerity, selfishness, were
virtues. It gives me a poor idea of human nature."[258]

[Footnote 258: _MS. Letters of LaFontaine and Baldwin._ Toronto Public
Library.]

The parliamentary session terminated on August 30th, 1851. It was
generally known throughout the country that LaFontaine would carry into
effect, in the ensuing autumn, the intention of resignation which he had
expressed. His approaching retirement from public life was made the
occasion of a great banquet in his honour held at the St. Lawrence
Hotel, Montreal, (October 1st, 1851.) Morin, the life-long associate in
the political career of the leader of French Canada, occupied the chair,
while Leslie, Holmes, Nelson and other prominent Reformers were among
those present. The speech of LaFontaine on this occasion, on which he
bid farewell to public life, is of great interest. In it he passes in
review the political evolution of French Canada during his public
career.

"Twenty-one years ago," said LaFontaine,[259] "when first I entered upon
political life, we were under a very different government. I refer to
the method of its administration. We had a government in which the
parliament had no influence,--the government of all British colonies.
Under this government the people had no power, save only the power of
refusing subsidies. This was the sole resource of the House of Assembly,
and we can readily conceive with what danger such a resource was
fraught. It was but natural that this system should give occasion to
many abuses."

[Footnote 259: The speech is translated from _La Minerve_, October 4th,
1851.]

"We commenced, therefore, our struggle to extirpate these abuses, to
establish that form of government that it was our right to have and
which we have to-day,--true representative English government. Let it be
borne in mind that under our former system of government all our
struggles were vain and produced only that racial hate and animosity
which is happily passing from us to-day, and which, I venture to hope,
this banquet may tend still further to dissipate.

"I hope that I give offence to none if, in speaking of the union of the
provinces, I say that history will record the fact that the union was a
project, which, in the mind of its author, aimed at the annihilation
(_anantissement_) of the French-Canadians. It was in this light that I
regarded it. But after having subsequently examined with care this rod
of chastisement that had been prepared against my compatriots, I
besought some of the most influential among them to let me make use of
this very instrument to save those whom it was designed to ruin, to
place my fellow-countrymen in a better position than any they had ever
occupied. I saw that this measure contained in itself the means of
giving to the people the control which they ought to have over the
government, of establishing a real government in Canada. It was under
these circumstances that I entered parliament. The rest you know. From
this moment we began to understand _responsible government_, the
favourite watchword of to-day; it was then that it was understood that
the governor must have as his executive advisers men who possessed the
confidence of the public, and it was thus that I came to take part in
the administration.

"For fifteen months things went fairly well. Then came the struggle
between the ministry, of which I formed part, and Governor Metcalfe. The
result of this struggle has been that you have in force in this country,
the true principles of the English constitution. Power to-day is in the
hands of the people. . . .

"I have said that the union was intended to annihilate the
French-Canadians. But the matter has resulted very differently. The
author of the union was mistaken. He wished to degrade one race among
our citizens, but the facts have shown that both races among us stand
upon the same footing. The very race that had been trodden under foot
(_dans l'abaissement_) now finds itself, in some sort by this union, in
a position of command to-day. Such is the position in which I leave the
people of my race. I can only deprecate the efforts now made to divide
the population of French Canada, but I have had a long enough experience
to assure you that such efforts cannot succeed: my compatriots have too
much common sense to forget that, if divided, they would be powerless
and we be, to use the expression of a Tory of some years ago, 'destined
to be dominated and led by the people of another race.' For myself, I
spurn the efforts that are made to sunder the people of French Canada.
Never will they succeed."

LaFontaine resigned in October, 1851. The break-up of the ministry was,
of course, followed by a general election in which he played no part.
Baldwin presented himself to the electors of the fourth riding of York
and was defeated by Hartman, a Clear Grit. In his speech to the
electors, after the announcement of his defeat, he declared that he had
felt it his duty once more to place himself before them and "not to take
upon himself the responsibility of originating the disruption of a bond
which had been formed and repeatedly renewed between him and the
electors of the north riding." With the election of 1851, Robert
Baldwin's public career entirely terminates. From that time until his
death, seven years later, he lived in complete retirement at "Spadina."
Though but forty-seven years of age at the time of his resignation, his
health had suffered much from the assiduity of his parliamentary
labours. In 1854 he was created a Companion of the Bath, and in the
following year the government of John A. Macdonald offered him the
position of chief-justice of the common pleas. This offer, and the later
invitation (1858) to accept a nomination for the legislative council
(then become elective), Baldwin's failing health compelled him to
decline. He died on December 9th, 1858, and was buried in the family
sepulchre, called St. Martin's Rood, on the Spadina estate, whence his
remains were subsequently removed to St. James Cemetery, Toronto.

LaFontaine, in retiring from political life at the age of forty-four,
had yet a distinguished career before him on the bench. Returning, after
his resignation, to legal occupations, he was appointed in 1853
chief-justice of Lower Canada, and in the year following was credited a
baronet in recognition of his distinguished career. As chief-justice,
Sir Louis LaFontaine presided over the sittings of the seigniorial
tenure court established for the adjustment of claims under the Act of
1854, and attained a distinction as a jurist which rivalled his eminence
as a political leader. In 1860 LaFontaine, whose first wife, as has been
seen,[260] had died many years before, married a Madame Kinton, widow of
an English officer.[261] Of this marriage were born two sons, both of whom
died young. Sir Louis LaFontaine died at Montreal, February 26th, 1864.

[Footnote 260: See page 47.]

[Footnote 261: See L. O. David, _Biographies Canadiennes_ (Montreal,
1870): Sir Louis H. LaFontaine.]

It is beyond the scope of the present volume to follow the subsequent
political career of Francis Hincks. His reconstruction of the Reform
party, his joint premiership with Morin, and the "sleepless vigilance"
of his policy of railroad development and public improvement, form an
important chapter in the history of Canada to which Sir John Bourinot
and other authors of the present series have done ample justice.
Hincks's career as a colonial governor in Barbadoes and Guiana, his
subsequent return to Canada as Sir Francis Hincks, and the story of his
services as minister of finance (1869-73) under Sir John A. Macdonald,
lie altogether apart from the subject-matter of this book. Sir Francis
Hincks died August 18th, 1885, after a long, active and useful life. His
_Reminiscences of his Public Life_, published in 1884, is precisely one
of those books which it is greatly to be desired that men who have taken
a large part in public affairs would more frequently give to the world.
For Canadian political history from 1840 to 1854, it will always remain
an authority of the first importance.

It may, at first sight, appear strange that the two great Reformers,
whose joint career has been chronicled in the foregoing pages, should
have abandoned political life at an age when most statesmen are but on
the threshold of their achievements. But the resignation of Baldwin and
LaFontaine meant that their work was done. To find a real basis of
political union between French and British Canada, to substitute for the
strife of unreconciled races the fellow-citizenship of two great
peoples, and set up in the foremost of British colonies an ensample of
self-government that should prove the lasting basis of empire,--this
was the completed work by which they had amply earned the rest of
eventide after the day of toil.




  INDEX


  A

  Act of Union, see _Union, Act of_

  Aylwin, Mr., 79, 87, 130, 134, 252, 284

  Amnesty Act, 292

  Ashburton, Lord, 118

  _Aurore_ (newspaper), 142

  Aylmer, Lord, 21


  B

  Bagot, Lady Mary, 148

  Bagot, Sir Charles, 49 (note); 113, 114, 120, 140-2, 151, 152, 153,
    171, 193

  Baldwin Act, 105

  Baldwin, Dr. William, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 42, 170, 177, 187

  Baldwin, Robert, birth and parentage, 25;
    school days, 25;
    studies law, 25;
    political views, 27;
    enters public life, 28;
    drafts petition in Willis affair, 29;
    enters assembly, 31;
    marriage, 32;
    views on situation in 1836, 35;
    appointed to office by Sir F. Head, 38;
    letter to Peter Perry on his resignation in 1836, 39;
    visit to England, 42;
    his relations to the rebellion, 44;
    interview with rebels, 45;
    demands responsible government, 52;
    in executive council, 63;
    resigns, 64;
    solicitor-general, 76;
    letter to Sydenham, 78;
    recommends reconstruction of ministry, 79;
    resigns office, 80;
    the vote on public works, 98, 99;
    opposes local government bill, 102;
    speech in assembly against Hincks, 103;
    elected in Hastings, 116;
    proposes LaFontaine as candidate for fourth riding of York, 116;
    overtures from Bagot, 121-6;
    speech in assembly on imperial connection, 128;
    enters cabinet with LaFontaine, 133;
    stands for Hastings, 135;
    election declared void, 136;
    denounced by the _Patriot_, 146;
    personal description, 147;
    relations to Metcalfe, 166;
    dismissal recommended, 167;
    opinions of Kaye, 169;
    speech in assembly, 178;
    moves resolution concerning seat of government, 182;
    prepares Secret Societies Bill, 185;
    burnt in effigy, 187;
    introduces University Bill, 190, 191;
    resigns office (1843), 199 _et seq._;
    his interview with Metcalfe, 201;
    speaks in assembly on resignation, 213;
    guest at banquet at North American Hotel, 220;
    campaign against Metcalfe, 225, 226;
    tour in Lower Canada, 226;
    contrasted with British Radicals, 229;
    views on British connection, 230;
    denounced by Lord Stanley, 234;
    opposed by Viger, 236;
    speech before Reform Association, 238;
    attacked by Buchanan, 239;
    attacked by Ryerson, 245, 246;
    resigns office of queen's counsel, 250;
    elected in York (1844), 252;
    attacks Metcalfe's elevation to the peerage, 257;
    correspondence with LaFontaine, 262, 263;
    views on "double majority," 263;
    speech of November 11th, 1846, 268;
    elected in York (1847), 278;
    second administration, 281;
    moves an amendment, 283;
    attorney-general, 284;
    interview with Lord Elgin, 285;
    prepares Municipal Corporations Act, 296;
    Baldwin Act, 297;
    seconds resolutions on Rebellion Losses, 310;
    speech on Rebellion Losses (February 27th, 1849), 312;
    burned in effigy, 318, 319;
    votes in favour of the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, 348, 349;
    decides to resign, owing to the vote on the chancery question and
      difficulties surrounding the government, 352, 353;
    defeated in the election for the fourth riding of York, 357;
    closing years, 357;
    made a Companion of the Bath, 357;
    his death and burial, 358

  Barthe, Mr., of Yamaska, 130

  Barthlmy, Mr., 83

  Berthelot, Adle, 47

  Blake, W. H., 223, 279, 284, 314, 315, 318, 337

  Borne, Mr., member for Rimouski, 137

  Boulton, J., 15

  Bourinot, Sir J., 293, 313

  Brown, George, 223, 224; an adherent of LaFontaine and Baldwin, 342;
    commences an outcry against Roman Catholicism, 343

  Buchanan, Isaac, 90, 239

  Buller, Charles, 235


  C

  Cameron, Malcolm, 90, 286, 337, 341

  Canadian Alliance Association, 16, 292

  Canal system of Canada, 98

  Capital city of Canada, see _Seat of government_

  Carleton, Major-General, 3

  _Caroline_ episode, 82

  Caron correspondence, 266; see also _Caron, Ren_

  Caron, Ren, 83, 259, 284

  Cathcart, Lord, 265

  Cartwright, Mr., declines the post of solicitor-general, 120, 121

  Christie, D., 214

  Clear Grits, their platform, 341, 342

  Clergy Reserves, 7, 10, 41, 42, 83;
    a summary of the question to the year 1850, 343-6;
    Price's resolution in respect to, 346;
    secularization of, 347-9

  Colborne, Sir John, lieutenant-governor, 14, 38, 42, 48, 59, 115

  _Colonial Advocate_, 13

  Commissioners, for Rebellion Losses, 308

  Constitutional Act, 6

  Constitutional Reform Society, 42

  Constitutional Societies, 150

  Craig, Sir James, 17

  Customs, see _Tariff_

  Cuvillier, Mr., his stormy election to the speakership, 86-8


  D

  Dalhousie, Lord, 19

  Daly, D., 76, 134, 214, 247, 263, 276

  Davidson, commissioner of Crown lands, 124, 133

  Day, C. D., 76, 80, 107

  Districts, see _Local government_

  "Double Majority," discussion of the principle of, 263

  Draper, W. H., 76, 77, 80, 81, 91, 92, 122, 126, 127, 132, 177, 183, 197,
    216, 224, 235, 236, 237, 250, 254, 255, 258, 262, 299, 307, 317, 338

  Drummond county, address from, 249

  Dunlop, Dr., 132

  Dunn, J. H., 78, 134, 253

  Durham, Lord, high commissioner and governor-general of Canada, 17,
    53 _et seq._, 149, 161, 163, 274


  E

  Election Laws, 144

  Elgin, Lord, as governor-general of Canada, 272 _et seq._;
    his idea of the true solution of the Canadian question, 282, 283;
    pleased with his new ministry, 285;
    announces the repeal of the clause of the Act of Union which had
      declared English as the sole official language of the legislature,
      287;
    and the queen's intention to pardon all political offences occasioned
      by the rebellion of 1837, 287;
    gives his assent to the passage of the Act of Indemnification, 321;
    mobbed in Montreal, 322, 324;
    his attitude in regard to the Rebellion Losses Bill, 332-4

  _Examiner, the_, 58, 104, 217

  Executive Council (Lower Canada), 9

  Executive Council (Upper Canada), 9


  F

  Family Compact, 11, 12, 15, 24, 27, 28, 61, 170, 180

  Famine of 1846-7, 278

  French language, use of, 255, 287


  G

  Gladstone, Hon. W. E., his speech on the Rebellion Losses Act, 326, 327

  Glenelg, Lord, 36, 42

  Girouard, M., 124, 134

  Goderich, Lord, 15, 30

  Gore, district council of, 227

  Gosford, Lord, governor-general, 45

  Gowan, Ogle R., 187, 218, 279

  Grand Trunk Railroad, 301

  "Great debate," the, 231

  "Great ministry," the, (second LaFontaine-Baldwin administration) 281
    _et seq._

  Great Western Railroad, 301

  Grenville, Lord, 7

  Grey, Earl (first), ministry of, 53, 59, 267

  Grey, Earl (second), colonial secretary, 267, 273, 285


  H

  Habeas Corpus Act, 48

  Hagerman, solicitor-general, 15, 77

  Harrison, S. B., 76, 78, 134

  Head, Sir Edmund, 36

  Head, Sir Francis Bond, 16, 32, 35-9, 41, 42, 44, 62, 77, 245, 284

  Higginson, Captain, 172 _et seq._

  Hincks, Francis (later Sir Francis), birth and parentage, 32;
    early life, 32;
    visits West Indies, 33;
    comes to Canada, 33;
    settles at York, 33;
    marriage, 34;
    business enterprises, 34;
    friendship with Baldwin, 34;
    views on situation in 1836, 35;
    opinions on Sir F. Head, 36;
    his relation to the rebellion, 44;
    founds the _Examiner_, 58;
    meets LaFontaine and Morin, 63;
    elected for Oxford, 69;
    his opinions, 85;
    letter to the _Examiner_, 87;
    speaks in assembly, 91;
    speech on the union, 96;
    policy of public works, 98;
    local government bill, 102, 103;
    defends himself in the _Examiner_, 104;
    in executive council, 118;
    address to Oxford constituents, 119;
    acceptance of office criticized, 120;
    accused of sympathy with rebellion, 121;
    defends himself in assembly, 130;
    speech in assembly, 131;
    opinion of LaFontaine, 170;
    personal description of, 179;
    speech in assembly, 179;
    burnt in effigy, 187;
    amends the tariff, 189;
    speaks in debate on resignation, 214;
    returns to journalism, 217;
    attacks on, 218;
    controversy with Wakefield, 219;
    in Metcalfe controversy, 238;
    petitions parliament regarding election of 1844, 253 (note);
    defeated in Oxford, 252;
    views on party reconstruction, 261;
    views on Lord Elgin, 275;
    elected for Oxford, 279;
    inspector-general, 284;
    prepares tariff and railroad legislation of 1849, 301;
    goes to London as a special envoy to the imperial cabinet in regard to
      the Rebellion Losses question (1849), 327;
    his letter to the _Times_ in response to Gladstone's speech on the
      Rebellion Losses Act, 327-31;
    the financial purpose of his visit to England, 331, 332;
    favours the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, 346, 347;
    his last years and death, 359

  Hincks, Rev. T. D., 32

  Hume, Joseph, 229


  I

  Indemnification Act, see _Rebellion Losses_

  Irving, milius, 177


  J

  Jackson, Sir Richard, 113

  Joliette, 83

  Judicature Acts, 292

  Judicial system, 300, 302


  K

  Kaye, W., author of _Life of Lord Metcalfe_, 169

  Kempt, Sir J., 20

  Killaly, H. H., 76, 133, 134

  King's College, 191, 286, 293

  Kingston, description of, 73, 74

  Kinton, Madame, LaFontaine's second wife, 358


  L

  Lambton, John, see _Durham, Lord_

  LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry (first), 113 _et seq._;
    the first Canadian cabinet in which the principle of colonial
      self-government was embodied, 137, 138;
    goes out of office, 199 _et seq._;
    second administration, 281 _et seq._, 309;
    holds a position of exceptional power throughout 1849-50, 337;
    carries out reform measures of importance, 338, 339;
    its difficulty with the Clergy Reserve question, 343-9;
    in relation to seigniorial tenure, 349-51;
    end of the great ministry, 351, 354

  LaFontaine, Louis H., early life, 47;
    sails to England, 48;
    arrested in 1838, 49;
    views on relation of responsible government to the union, 57;
    receives advances from Sydenham, 61;
    meets Hincks, 63;
    defeated at Terrebonne, 70, 79, 82;
    LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry (first), 113 _et seq._, 137, 138,
      199, 210, 234;
    elected for fourth riding of York, 116, 117;
    overtures from Bagot, 121-6;
    addresses the assembly in French, 128;
    enters cabinet, 133;
    relected in fourth riding of York, 134;
    contests fourth riding, 135;
    denounced by the _Patriot_, 146;
    criticized by Metcalfe, 164;
    his relation to Metcalfe, 166;
    dismissal recommended, 167;
    opinions of Kaye, 169;
    conversation with Captain Higginson, 173;
    speech in assembly, 178;
    seconds resolution for moving the seat of government, 182;
    prepares bill to remove office-holders from parliament, 184;
    reorganizes judicial system of Lower Canada, 184;
    LaFontaine-Baldwin administration, propriety of the name, 190 (note);
    resigns office (1843), 199 _et seq._;
    interview with Metcalfe, 201;
    official statement on resignation, 201;
    announces resignation, 213;
    denounced by Lord Stanley, 234;
    opposed by Viger, 236;
    resigns position of queen's counsel, 250;
    elected in Terrebonne (1844), 251;
    correspondence with Caron, 259 _et seq._;
    writes to Baldwin regarding Caron affair, 262;
    attacks adherents of Denis Papineau, 277;
    elected in Montreal, 279;
    LaFontaine-Baldwin administration (second), 281 _et seq._, 309;
    attorney-general, 284;
    interview with Lord Elgin, 285;
    urges an Amnesty, 288;
    attacked by Louis-Joseph Papineau, 289;
    speech against Louis-Joseph Papineau, 290-2;
    reorganizes judicial system of Lower Canada, 303;
    moves resolution on Rebellion Losses, 310;
    speeches on Rebellion Losses, 311, 312;
    argument on Rebellion Losses question, 317;
    his residence mobbed, 324;
    not in favour of the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, 348;
    determines to retire from political life, 358;
    tendered a banquet on his approaching retirement, 354;
    his farewell speech, 354-7;
    resigns (October, 1851), 357;
    his distinguished career on the bench, 358;
    created a baronet, 358;
    his second marriage, 358;
    his death, 358

  _La Minerve_, newspaper, 142

  "Legion" (Sullivan, R. B.), 240

  _Le Jeune Canada_, 47

  Leslie, James, 116, 284, 354

  Letters on responsible government, see _Sullivan, Robert Baldwin_

  Local government of Upper Canada, 10, 101, 296 _et seq._

  Lount, Samuel, 44, 45, 245

  Lower Canada, population of, 62;
    schools in, 107

  Loyalists, 4, 5, 17


  M

  Macauley, Hon. John, 119

  McCulloch, Dr., 82

  Macdonald, John A., 228, 252, 276, 279

  McGill, Peter, 83

  Mackenzie, William Lyon, 12-16, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43, 45, 292, 312, 318,
    340, 352

  MacNab, Sir Allan, 44, 45, 82, 87, 88, 100, 178, 183, 214, 224, 252,
    253, 279, 283, 314, 315, 322, 324

  "Magnetic telegraph," 277

  Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 28

  Mathews, hanged as a rebel, 245

  Meilleur, Dr., 115

  _Mercury_ (Quebec), newspaper, 20

  Metcalfe, Sir Charles, replaces Sir Charles Bagot as governor-general,
      152, 155 _et seq._;
    his view of responsible government, 161-6;
    his attitude in relation to the question of colonial appointments, 172-6;
    reserves the Secret Societies Bill for the royal sanction, 188;
    the resignation of his ministry, 199-216;
    overwhelmed with addresses of advice, approval, etc., 226-8;
    conducts the government with an executive council of three members, 228;
    the home government approves his conduct, 230-5;
    attempts to form a ministry, 235-7;
    the literary duel in relation to the Metcalfe controversy, 240
      _et seq._;
    more successful efforts to obtain a cabinet, 246, 247;
    favours the Draper government, 249;
    the election, 250-3;
    the news of his having been raised to the peerage is ungraciously
      received by members of the Opposition, 256, 257;
    failing health, 257;
    retirement, 265

  Moderate Reformers, as a party, 82

  Mohawk Indians, 227

  Montreal, description of, 181;
    riot at, 321-5;
    burning of the houses of parliament, 323, 324

  Moodie, Sheriff, 136

  Morin, A. N., 63, 87, 134, 252, 259, 283, 354

  Morris, W., 83, 183, 247

  Municipal Corporations Act, 292

  Municipal government, see _Local government_

  Murney, Mr., 135


  N

  _Narrative, A_, by Sir Francis B. Head, 37

  Nationalists, as a party, 82

  Neilson, of Quebec, 96

  Nelson, Wolfred, 49, 252, 354

  Northern Railroad, 301


  O

  O'Callaghan, Dr., 49

  Ogden, C. R., 76, 80, 125

  Orange party, 185, 186


  P

  Papineau, D. B., 116, 246, 252, 255, 259, 260, 276

  Papineau, Louis-Joseph, 19, 20, 46-9, 229, 288, 292, 312, 318

  Parliament, first meeting of united, 85

  _Patriot_ (newspaper), 145;
    its account of the burning of the three effigies, 319

  _Parti Rouge_, the, its platform, 343

  Peel, Sir Robert, 113, 151, 235, 267

  Perry, Peter, 13, 39

  _Pilot_, founded by Hincks, 217;
    its offices wrecked by the mob, 323

  Pitt, William, 6

  Population of the Canadas, 62

  Powell, clerk of the peace, 200

  Powell, Colonel, 200

  Price, commissioner of Crown lands, supports Baldwin on the question of
      the resignation of the ministry, 214;
    his resolution in relation to, 215, 216;
    elected for the county of York, 279;
    his resolution _re_ the Clergy Reserves, 346


  Q

  Quebec Act, 2-4

  Queen's College, 194, 295


  R

  Railroad Acts, 292

  Railroad policy, 301

  Rebellion Losses, 303 _et seq._

  Rebellion Losses Act, provisions of, 310, 311;
    opposition to the passage of the bill, 312-18;
    riot at Montreal caused by passage of, 321-5;
    discussed in the British parliament, 325

  Reciprocity, 302

  _Report of Lord Durham_, 55 _et seq._, 274

  Reserves, see _Clergy Reserves_

  Resolutions, see _September Resolutions_

  Responsible government, the alpha and omega of reform, 27;
    denounced by Sir F. Head, 38;
    Baldwin's views on, 39, 40;
    leading demand of Reformers, 52;
    debated in the assembly, 91-5;
    September resolutions on, 108-11;
    under first LaFontaine-Baldwin ministry, 141-3;
    divergent views of Metcalfe and his cabinet, 200 _et seq._;
    agitation of 1844, 222 _et seq._;
    relation to imperial connection, 230;
    pamphlet war regarding, 240-6;
    letters on, by Sullivan, 243;
    views of Lord John Russell, 269-73;
    views of Earl Grey, 269 _et seq._;
    views of Lord Elgin, 273;
    final achievement of, 281;
    in relation to Rebellion Losses Bill, 305, 306, 334, 335

  Rideau Canal, 74

  Robinson, J. B., (later chief-justice) 12, 24, 31, 61

  Robinson, W. B., 247, 252, 254

  Roe, W., 135

  Roebuck, Mr., 36, 229, 230, 231

  Reform Association, 221, 238

  Regiopolis, College of, 194

  Rolph, Dr. John, 13, 38, 43, 44

  Ross, George, 33

  Royal Belfast Institution, 32

  Russell, Elizabeth, 26

  Russell, Lord John, 46, 60, 65, 231, 234, 267, 269, 273

  Ryerson, Rev. Egerton, 224, 238;
    his literary duel with R. B. Sullivan on responsible government, 240-5


  S

  Salaberry, Colonel de, 172

  School system of Canada, 105-8, 189, 190

  Seat of government, 181-4, 254, 338

  Secret Societies Bill, 185 _et seq._, 209

  Seigniorial Tenure, 349-51

  September resolutions on responsible government, 108, 174, 202, 216, 222

  Sherwood-Daly administration, 276

  Sherwood, H., 118, 121, 166, 176

  Seventh report on grievances, 11, 37

  Shortt, Professor, 296

  Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor, 7, 58, 105

  Small, J. E., 134, 253

  Smith, of Frontenac, 88, 246

  "Spadina," Baldwin's country place, 26, 357

  Special Council (Lower Canada), 306

  Stanley, Lord, 16, 20, 30, 164, 168, 176, 186, 200, 209, 230, 231, 234, 244

  Strachan, Dr. John (later Bishop), 25, 106, 192, 195, 196, 224, 295

  Sullivan, Augusta Elizabeth, 32

  Sullivan, Hon. Robert Baldwin, 32, 76, 77, 80, 130, 133, 134, 223, 238;
    his literary duel with Ryerson on responsible government, 240-5

  Sydenham, Lord, 59, 60, 64-6, 75, 86, 88, 90, 97, 100, 111, 128, 141,
    146, 155, 158, 189


  T

  Tach, E. P., 284

  Talbot, district of, 227

  Talleyrand, 53

  Tariff system, 99, 189, 292, 301, 302

  _Thirteen Letters on Responsible Government_, 243

  Thomson, Charles Poulett, see _Sydenham, Lord_

  Toronto, University of, see _University of Toronto_


  U

  Ultra-Reformers, as a party, 82

  Union, Act of, 68, 73, 128, 146, 255, 287

  Union Bill, 61

  Union of the Canadas, 51-5, 67-9

  United Empire Association, 228

  United Empire Loyalists, see _Loyalists_

  University Bill (Mr. Draper's), 255

  University Bill of 1849, 293

  University of Toronto, 190-7, 281, 292 _et seq._

  Upper Canada Academy, 193

  Upper Canada, population, 62


  V

  Vallires, Judge, 115

  Van Egmond, Colonel, 43

  Vaudreuil, Marquis de, 1

  Victoria University, 295

  Viger, D., 79, 102, 130, 215, 216, 236, 247, 259

  Viger, L. M., 284


  W

  Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, a notable defender of Metcalfe, 150, 156,
    177, 219

  Welland Canal, 98

  Wellington, Duke of, 151

  Wilcocks, Mr., 23

  Willis, Judge, 28, 29


  Y

  York, incorporated as Toronto, 16


  Z

  "Zeno," author of pamphlet on Metcalfe controversy, 239


  =Transcriber's Notes:=
  Page 7, "instrument of goverment" changed to "instrument of government"
  Page 45, "assembly would nothing" changed to "assembly would hear nothing"
  Page 46, "The peasanty" changed to "The peasantry"
  Page 47, "time Lafontaine threw" changed to "time LaFontaine threw"
  Page 49, "Lord Durhan" changed to "Lord Durham"
  Page 95, 'the province.' changed to 'the province."'
  Page 109, "abolute necessity" changed to "absolute necessity"
  Page 110, 'wishes and interests.' changed to 'wishes and interests."'
  Page 117, "need of cooperation" changed to "need of coperation"
  Page 239, "afflicting ancedote" changed to "afflicting anecdote"
  Page 256, "The adminstration" changed to "The administration"
  Page 298, "Sandwich and Amhertsburg" changed to "Sandwich and Amherstburg"
  Page 330, 'Montreal were inflamed.' changed to 'Montreal were inflamed."'
  Page 342, "Guy Fawkes,' changed to "Guy Fawkes,"
  Page 363, "Alywin, Mr." changed to "Aylwin, Mr."
  Page 368, "et seq" changed to "et seq."




[End of _Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government_
by Stephen Leacock]
