Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin Part 8

Ultimately, on November 18, Lord Elgin reported to the Home Government, that after full and anxious deliberation he had resolved, on the advice of his Council, to act on the recommendation of the a.s.sembly that the Legislature should sit alternately at Toronto and Quebec, and with that view to summon the Provincial Parliament for the next session at Toronto.

This step, 'decided upon in this deliberate and unimpa.s.sioned manner,' gave a useful lesson, which was not lost either upon Montreal or the rest of the Province. Nor was this its only good effect. 'The arrangement,' wrote Lord Grey in 1852, 'by which the seat of Government and the sittings of the Legislature were fixed alternately at Toronto and Quebec, has contributed not a little towards removing the feelings of alienation from each other of the inhabitants of French and of British descent. The French Canadians have thus been brought into closer communication than formerly with the inhabitants of the Western division of the province, and an increase of mutual esteem and respect, with the removal of many prejudices by which they were formerly divided, have been the result of the two cla.s.ses becoming better acquainted with each other.'[11]

[Sidenote: Visit to Upper Canada.]

While these arrangements were under discussion, in the autumn following the stormy events above described, in spite of the threats thrown out by the extreme party, Lord Elgin, after a progress in Upper Canada in which he was accompanied by his family, made a short tour in the Western districts, the stronghold of British feeling, attended only by one aide-de-camp and a servant, 'so as to contradict the allegation that he required protection.'

Everywhere he was received with the utmost cordiality; the few indications of a different feeling, on the part of Orangemen and others, having only the effect of heightening the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by the majority of the population.

[Sidenote: Continued animosities.]

From this time we hear no more of such disgraceful scenes as it has been necessary to record; but it was long before the old 'Family-Compact' party forgave the Governor who had dared to be impartial. By many kinds of detraction they sought to weaken his influence and damage his popularity; detractions probably repeated in all sincerity by many who were honestly incapable of understanding his real motives for forbearance. And as the members of this party, though they had lost their monopoly of political power, still remained the dominant cla.s.s in society, the disparaging tone which they set was taken up not only in the colony itself, but also by travellers who visited it, and by them carried back to infect opinion in England. The result was that persons at home, who had the highest appreciation of Lord Elgin's capacity as a statesman, sincerely believed him to be deficient in nerve and vigour; and as the misapprehension was one which he could not have corrected, even if he had been aware how widely it was spread, it continued to exist in many quarters until dispelled by the singular energy and boldness, amounting almost to rashness, which he displayed in China.

[Sidenote: Forbearance of Lord Elgin.]

The more we remember the vehemence with which these injurious reports were circulated, the more remarkable appears the resolution not to yield to the provocation they involved, and the determination to accept the whole responsibility of the situation at whatever personal cost.

The following letters are among those which disclose the motives of his resolute forbearance. The last of them, written to an intimate friend nearly two years later, and summing up the feelings with which he looked back on the struggles of 1849, may close the personal records of this troubled year.

[Sidenote: Its motives.]

I do not at all wonder that you should be disposed to question the wisdom of my course in respect to Montreal; I think it was the best I could have taken under the circ.u.mstances; but I do not presume to say that it may not be criticised--justly criticised. My choice was not between a clearly right and a clearly wrong course: how easy is it to deal with such cases, and how rare are they in life! But between several difficulties, I think I chose the least. I think, too, that I am beginning to reap the reward of my policy. I do not believe that such enthusiasm was ever manifested towards anyone in my situation in Canada, as has been exhibited during my recent tour. But more than this. I do not believe that the function of the Governor-General under const.i.tutional government as the moderator between parties, the representative of interests which are common to all the inhabitants of the country, as distinct from those which divide them into parties, was ever so fully and so frankly recognised. Now, I do not believe that I could have achieved this if I had had blood upon my hands. I might have been quite as popular, perhaps more so; for there are many, especially in Lower Canada, who would gladly have seen the severities of the law practised upon those from whom they believe that they have often suffered much, unjustly. But my business is to humanize--not to harden. At that task I must labour, through obloquy and misrepresentation if needs be. At the same time I admit that I must, not for the miserable purpose of self-glorification, but with a view to the maintenance and establishment of my moral influence, recover the prestige of personal courage of which some here sought to deprive me. Before I have travelled unattended through the towns and villages of Upper Canada, and met 'the bhoys' as they are called, in all of them on their own ground, I think I shall have effected this object, in so far as the province is concerned. To right myself in England will be more difficult; but doubtless, if I live, the opportunity of so doing, even there, will sooner or later present itself. Hitherto any impertinences which have reached me from the other side have been anonymous.

[Sidenote: Afterthoughts.]

I believe that the sentiments expressed in the newspaper extract of which you acknowledge the receipt in your last, with respect to the merits of the policy of forbearance adopted by me at the great crisis, are beginning to obtain very generally among the few who trace results to their causes. But none can know what that crisis was, and what that decision cost. At the time I took it, I stood literally _alone_.

I alienated from me the adherents of the Government, who felt, or imagined (having been generally, in times past, on the anti-Government side), that if the tables had been turned--if _they_ and not _their adversaries_ had been resisting the law of the land, and threatening the life of the Queen's representative--a very different course of repressive policy would have been adopted. At the same time I gained nothing on the other side, who only advanced in audacity; and added the charge of personal cowardice to their other outrages. At home, too, I forfeited much moral support; for although the Government sustained me with that honourable confidence which ent.i.tles a Government to be well served, they were puzzled. The logic of the case was against me. Lord Grey and Lord J. Russell both felt that either I was right or I was wrong. If the latter, I ought to be recalled; if the former, I ought to make the law respected. And, lastly, I lost any chance of moral support from the opinion of our neighbours in the States; for, like all primitive const.i.tutionalists, the ideas of government they hold in that quarter are very simple. I have been told by Americans, 'We thought you were quite right; but we could not understand why you did not _shoot them down!_'

I do not, as you may suppose, often speak of these matters; but the subject was alluded to the other day by a person (now out of politics, but who knew what was going on at the time, one of our ablest men), and he said to me, 'Yes; I see it all now. You were right--a thousand times right--though I thought otherwise then. I own that I would have reduced Montreal to ashes before I would have endured half what you did; and,' he added, 'I should have been justified, too.' 'Yes,' I answered, 'you would have been justified, because your course would have been perfectly defensible; but it would not have been the _best course_. Mine was a _better one_.' And shall I tell you what was the deep conviction on my mind, which, apart from the reluctance which I naturally felt to shed blood (particularly in a cause in which many who opposed the Government were actuated by motives which, though much alloyed with baser metal, had claims on my sympathy), confirmed me in that course? I perceived that the mind of the British population of the province, in Upper Canada especially, was at that time the prey of opposing impulses. On the one hand, as a question of blood and sensibility, they were inclined to go with the anti-French party of Lower Canada; on the other, as a question of const.i.tutional principle, they felt that I was right, and that I deserved support. Depend upon it, if we had looked to bayonets instead of to reason for a triumph, the _sensibilities_ of the great body of which I speak would soon have carried the day against their _judgment_.

And what is the result? 700,000 French reconciled to England--not because they are getting _rebel money_--I believe, indeed, that no _rebels_ will get a farthing; but because they believe that the British Governor is just. 'Yes;' but you may say 'this is purchased by the alienation of the British.' Far from it; I took the whole blame upon myself; and I will venture to affirm that the Canadian British never were so loyal as they are at this hour; and, what is more remarkable still, and more directly traceable to this policy of forbearance, never, since Canada existed, has party-spirit been more moderate, and the British and French races on better terms than they are now; and this, in spite of the withdrawal of protection, and of the proposal to throw on the colony many charges which the Imperial Government has. .h.i.therto borne.

Pardon me for saying so much on this point; but _'magna est veritas.'_

[1] _I.e._ one of the rebels of 1837, who had been banished to Bermuda by Lord Durham.

[2] One of the Conservative papers of the day wrote:--'Bad as the payment of the rebellion losses is, we do not know that it would not be better to submit to pay twenty rebellion losses than have what is nominally a free Const.i.tution fettered and restrained each time a measure distasteful to the minority is pa.s.sed.'

[3] 'I confess,' he wrote in a private letter of the same date, 'I did not before know how thin is the crust of order which covers the anarchical elements that boil and toss beneath our feet.'

[4] 'When he entered the Government House he took a two-pound stone with him which he had picked up in his carriage, as evidence of the most unusual and sorrowful treatment Her Majesty's representative had received.'--Mac Mullen, p. 511.

[5] 'Cabs, caleches, and everything that would run were at once launched in pursuit, and crossing his route, the Governor-General's carriage was bitterly a.s.sailed in the main street of the St. Lawrence suburbs. The good and rapid driving of his postilions enabled him to clear the desperate mob, but not till the head of his brother, Colonel Bruce, had been cut, injuries inflicted on the chief of police. Colonel Ermatanger, and on Captain Jones, commanding the escort, and every panel of the carriage driven in.'--Mac Mullen, p. 511.

[6] In the midst of this time of anxiety and even of danger to himself and his family, his eldest son was born at Monklands, on May 16. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to become G.o.dmother to the child, who was christened Victor Alexander.

[7] The motives, he afterwards said, which induced him to abstain from forcing his way into Montreal, might be correctly stated in the words of the Duke of Wellington, who, when asked why he did not go to the city in 1830, is reported to have answered, 'I would have gone if the law had been equal to protect me, but that was not the case. Fifty dragoons would have done it, but that was a military force. If firing had begun, who could tell when it would end? one guilty person would fall and ten innocent be destroyed. Would this have been wise or humane for a little bravado, or that the country might not be alarmed for a day or two?'

[8] His valued Secretary, to whose personal recollections most of these details are due.

[9] Some years afterwards, in the 'Address' already quoted, Mr. Gladstone made something of an _amende_ for this attack; but he does not appear to have been fully informed, even then, either as to the intention with which the Act was framed, or as to the manner in which it had been carried out.

[10] 'This,' observes Lord Grey, 'owing to the extreme forbearance of Lord Elgin and his advisers, was the only life lost throughout these unhappy disturbances.'

[11] Lord Grey's Colonial Policy, &c. i. 234. In 1858, however, this 'perambulating system' having proved expensive and inconvenient, the Queen was asked to designate a permanent abode for the Legislature.

Her Majesty was graciously pleased to name Ottawa, the present capital of the Dominion; and the selection of this central spot, with, its singular facilities of communication, has greatly aided in the consolidation of the province.

CHAPTER V.

ANNEXATION MOVEMENT--REMEDIAL MEASURES--REPEAL OF THE NAVIGATION LAWS-- RECIPROCITY WITH THE UNITED STATES--HISTORY OF THE TWO MEASURES--DUTY OF SUPPORTING AUTHORITY--VIEWS ON COLONIAL GOVERNMENT--COLONIAL INTERESTS THE SPORT OF HOME PARTIES--NO SEPARATION!--SELF-GOVERNMENT NOT NECESSARILY REPUBLICAN--VALUE OF THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE--DEFENCES OF THE COLONY.

[Sidenote: Annexation movement]

The disturbances which followed the pa.s.sing of the 'Rebellion Losses Bill'

have been described in the preceding chapter chiefly as they affected the person of the Governor. But it may be truly said that this was the aspect of them that gave him least concern. He felt, indeed, deeply the indignities offered to the Crown of England through its representative. But there was some satisfaction in the reflection that, by taking on himself the whole responsibility of sanctioning the obnoxious Bill, he had drawn down upon his own head the chief violence of a storm which might otherwise have exploded in a manner very dangerous to the Empire. 'I think I might say,' he writes, 'with less poetry but with more truth, what Lamartine said when they accused him of coquetting with the _Rouges_ under the Provisional Government: "_Oui, j'ai conspire! J'ai conspire comme le paratonnerre conspire avec le nuage pour desarmer la foudre._"' But the thunder-cloud was not entirely disarmed; and it burst in a direction which popular pa.s.sion in Canada has always been too apt to take, threats of throwing off England and joining the American States. As far back as March 14, 1849, we find Lord Elgin drawing Lord Grey's attention to this subject.

There has been (he writes) a vast deal of talk about 'annexation,' as is unfortunately always the case here when there is anything to agitate the public mind. If half the talk on this subject were sincere, I should consider an attempt to keep up the connection with Great Britain as Utopian in the extreme. For, no matter what the subject of complaint, or what the party complaining; whether it be alleged that the French are oppressing the British, or the British the French--that Upper Canada debt presses on Lower Canada, or Lower Canada claims on Upper; whether merchants be bankrupt, stocks depreciated, roads bad, or seasons unfavourable, annexation is invoked as the remedy for all ills, imaginary or real. A great deal of this talk is, however, bravado, and a great deal the mere product of thoughtlessness. Undoubtedly it is in some quarters the utterance of very sincere convictions; and if England will not make the sacrifices which are absolutely necessary to put the colonists here in as good a position commercially as the citizens of the States--in order to which _free navigation and reciprocal trade with the States are indispensable_--if not only the organs of the league but those of the Government and of the Peel party are always writing as if it were an admitted fact that colonies, and more especially Canada, are a burden, to be endured only because they cannot be got rid of, the end may be nearer at hand than we wot of.

In these sentences we have the germs of views and feelings which time only made clearer and stronger;--indignation at that tendency, so common in all minorities, to look abroad for aid against the power of the majority; faith in the idea of Colonial Government, if based on principles of justice and freedom; and, as regards the particular case of Canada, the conviction that nothing was wanted to secure her loyalty but a removal of the commercial restrictions which placed her at a disadvantage in competing with her neighbours of the Union. To understand the scope of his policy during the next few years, it will be necessary to dwell at some length on each of these points; but for the present we must return to the circ.u.mstances which gave occasion to the letter which we have quoted.

[Sidenote: Manifesto.]

While ready, as that letter shows, to make every allowance for the utterances of thoughtless folly, or of well-founded discontent on the part of the people, Lord Elgin felt the necessity of checking at once such demonstrations on the part of paid servants of the Crown. Accordingly, when an elaborate manifesto appeared in favour of 'annexation,' bearing the signatures of several persons--magistrates, Queen's counsel, militia officers, and others--holding commissions at the pleasure of the Crown, he caused a circular to be addressed to all such persons with the view of ascertaining whether their names had been attached with their own consent.

Some of these letters were answered in the negative, some in the affirmative, and others by denying the right of the Government to put the question, and declining to reply to it. Lord Elgin resolved, with the advice of his executive council, to remove from such offices as are held during the pleasure of the Crown, the gentlemen who admitted the genuineness of their signatures, and those who refused to disavow them.

[Sidenote: Remedial measures.]

'In this course, says Lord Grey,[1] 'we thought it right to support him; and a despatch was addressed to him signifying the Queen's approval of his having dismissed from Her service those who had signed the address, and Her Majesty's commands to resist to the utmost any attempt that might be made to bring about a separation of Canada from the British dominions,' But the necessity for such acts of severity only increased Lord Elgin's desire to remove every reasonable ground of complaint and discontent; to shut out, as he said, the advocates of annexation from every plea which could grace or dignify rebellion. He felt, indeed, an a.s.sured confidence that, by carrying out fearlessly the principle of self-government, he had 'cast an acorn into time,' which could not fail to bring forth the fruit of political contentment. But, in the meantime, for the immediate security of the connection between the colony and the mother-country he thought, as we have already seen, that two measures were indispensable, viz. the removal of the existing restrictions on navigation, and the establishment of reciprocal free trade with the United States.

Judging after the event we may, perhaps, be inclined to think that the importance which he attached to the latter of these measures was exaggerated; especially as the annexation movement had died away, and content, commercial as well as political, had returned to the Province long before it was carried. But we cannot form a correct view of his policy without giving some prominence to a subject which occupied, for many years, so large a share of his thoughts and of his energies.

Writing to Lord Grey on November 8, 1849, he says:--

[Sidenote: 'Reciprocity.']

The fact is, that although both the States and Canada export to the same neutral market, prices on the Canada side of the line are lower than on the American, by the amount of the duty which the Americans levy. So long as this state of things continues there will be discontent in this country; deep, growing discontent You will not, I trust, accuse me of having deceived you on this point. I have always said that I am prepared to a.s.sume the responsibility of keeping Canada quiet, with a much smaller garrison than we have now, and without any tax on the British consumer in the shape of protection to Canadian products, if you put our trade on as good a footing as that of our American neighbours; but if things remain on their present footing in this respect, there is nothing before us but violent agitation, ending in convulsion or annexation. It is better that I should worry you with my importunity, than that I should be chargeable with having neglected to give you due warning. You have a great opportunity before you-- obtain reciprocity for us, and I venture to predict that you will be able shortly to point to this. .h.i.therto turbulent colony with satisfaction, in ill.u.s.tration of the tendency of self-government and freedom of trade, to beget contentment and material progress. Canada will remain attached to England, though tied to her neither by the golden links of protection, nor by the meshes of old-fas.h.i.+oned colonial office jobbing and chicane. But if you allow the Americans to withhold the boon which you have the means of extorting if you will, I much fear that the closing period of the connection between Great Britain and Canada will be marked by incidents which will damp the ardour of those who desire to promote human happiness by striking shackles either off commerce or off men.

Even when tendering to the Premier, Lord John Russell, his formal thanks on being raised to the British peerage--an honour which, coming at that moment, he prized most highly as a proof to the world that the Queen's Government approved his policy--he could not forego the opportunity of insisting on a topic which seemed to him so momentous.

It is (he writes) of such vital importance that your Lords.h.i.+p should rightly apprehend the nature of these difficulties, and the state of public opinion in Canada at this conjuncture, that I venture, at the hazard of committing an indiscretion, to add a single observation on this head. Let me then a.s.sure your Lords.h.i.+p, and I speak advisedly in offering this a.s.surance, that the disaffection now existing in Canada, whatever be the forms with which it may clothe itself, is due mainly to commercial causes. I do not say that there is no discontent on political grounds. Powerful individuals and even cla.s.ses of men are, I am well aware, dissatisfied with the conduct of affairs. But I make bold to affirm that so general is the belief that, under the present circ.u.mstances of our commercial condition, the colonists pay a heavy pecuniary fine for their fidelity to Great Britain, that nothing but the existence to an unwonted degree of political contentment among the ma.s.ses has prevented the cry for annexation from spreading, like wildfire, through the Province. This, as your Lords.h.i.+p will perceive, is a new feature in Canadian politics. The plea of self-interest, the most powerful weapon, perhaps, which the friends of British connection have wielded in times past, has not only been wrested from my hands, but transferred since 1846 to those of the adversary. I take the liberty of mentioning a fact, which seems better to ill.u.s.trate the actual condition of affairs in these respects than many arguments. I have lately spent several weeks in the district of Niagara. Canadian Niagara is separated from the state of New York by a narrow stream, spanned by a bridge, which it takes a foot pa.s.senger about three minutes to cross. The inhabitants are for the most part U.E.

loyalists,[2] and differ little in habits or modes of thought and expression from their neighbours. Wheat is their staple product--the article which they exchange for foreign comforts and luxuries. Now it is the fact that a bushel of wheat, grown on the Canadian side of the line, has fetched this year in the market, on an average, from 9_d_. to 1_s_. less than the same quant.i.ty and quality of the same article grown on the other. Through their district council, a body elected under a system of very extended suffrage, these same inhabitants of Niagara have protested against the Montreal annexation movement. They have done so (and many other district councils in Upper Canada have done the same) under the impression that it would be base to declare against England at a moment when England has given a signal proof of her determination to concede const.i.tutional Government in all its plenitude to Canada. I am confident, however, that the large majority of the persons who have thus protested, firmly believe that their annexation to the United States would add one-fourth to the value of the produce of their farms.

I need say no more than this to convince your Lords.h.i.+p, that while this state of things subsists (and I much fear that no measure but the establishment of reciprocal trade between Canada and the States, or the imposition of a duty on the produce of the States when imported into England, will remove it), arguments will not be wanting to those who seek to seduce Canadians from their allegiance.