Canada Part 12

At Detroit, where Major Gladwin was in command, Pontiac hoped to seize the fort by a stratagem. The Ottawas and other Indians under that chief were to meet the English officers in council within the fort at an appointed time. They had filed off the tops of the barrels of their muskets so as to conceal them easily under their garments. While in council Pontiac was to give a signal which would tell the a.s.sembled warriors that the time had come for falling on the garrison and taking possession of the fort.[1] Some writers give credence to the story that an Indian maiden, the mistress of Gladwin, warned him of the scheme of the Indian chief, who came to the council, in accordance with his intention, and found the garrison in arms and ready for any treacherous movement on his part. He left the fort in anger, and soon afterwards attacked it with all his force, though to no purpose, as Gladwin was able to hold it for many months, until aid reached him from {272} the east. As one Indian woman's devotion saved Detroit, so the treachery of a Delaware girl gave Fort Miami and its little garrison to the Indians encamped on the Maumee. Holmes, the commandant, was her lover, and believed her when she told him that a squaw, who was seriously ill in one of the wigwams, wished to see him. He proceeded on his charitable mission, and was shot dead while about entering the place of his destination. At Michillimackinac Captain Etherington was surprised by a clever piece of strategy on the part of a body of Sacs and Ojibways, who invited him to witness a contest between them at their favourite sport of Lacrosse, which in these modern times has been made the national game of Canadians. While the game was going on, the gate was left open while the officers and soldiers stood in groups outside, close to the palisades, watching the Indians as they tossed the ball to and fro between the goals on the level ground opposite the fort. The squaws, wrapped in their blankets, pa.s.sed in and out the fort, without attracting any attention from the interested spectators.

Suddenly, when the game was most hotly contested, the ball was violently driven in the direction of the pickets of the fort. A crowd of the savage players tumultuously followed the ball, and in a moment were inside the fort where they s.n.a.t.c.hed weapons from the squaws. One officer and several soldiers were instantly killed, but Etherington and the remainder of the garrison were taken prisoners. Etherington and a well-known trader of the West, Alexander Henry, eventually escaped, after having {273} been on several occasions on the point of death. In six weeks' time from the first attack on Detroit, on the 9th of May, 1763, all the forts in the Western and Ohio country had been seized and destroyed by the Indians, except Fort Pitt at the forks of the Ohio, the one at Green Bay which was abandoned, and another at Ligonier. The garrisons were ma.s.sacred or made prisoners, and in many cases tortured and even eaten. The frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania were laid waste by hordes of savages, who burned the homes of the settlers, murdered a large number, and carried off many prisoners, men, women, and children, to their savage fastnesses in the western wilderness.

The war never ended until Virginia and Pennsylvania--where the Quaker element still prevailed--were aroused from their apathy and gave the requisite aid to an expedition under the command of an able officer, Colonel Bouquet, who had been one of Brigadier Forbes's officers during the campaign of 1759 in the Ohio valley. He rescued Fort Pitt, after administering to the Indians a severe defeat at Bushy Run. A year later he succeeded in taking a large force into the very heart of a country where the Indians thought themselves safe from any attack of their white enemy. His unexpected appearance on the banks of the Muskingk.u.m awed the Delawares, Shawanoes, and Mingoes, who gladly agreed to terms of peace, especially as they knew that Colonel Bradstreet was in their rear on the banks of Lake Erie. The prisoners, whom the Indians had taken during their raids on the frontier settlements of Virginia and {274} Pennsylvania, were restored to their friends and relatives who had, in the majority of cases, never hoped to see them again. The annals of those days tell us strange stories of the infatuation which some young women felt for the savage warriors whom they had wedded in Indian fas.h.i.+on. Some children had forgotten their mothers, and Parkman relates in his graphic narrative of those memorable times that one girl only recalled her childhood when she heard her distracted mother sing a song with which she had often lulled her daughter to sleep in happier days.

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

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

While this Indian war was going on, George III., in the autumn of 1763, issued a proclamation establis.h.i.+ng four new governments in North America; {275} Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada. The governors were empowered to summon general a.s.semblies, and to make laws and ordinances for good government with the consent of the councils.

and the representatives of the people, and to establish courts of justice. Members elected to the proposed a.s.semblies had to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the declaration against transubstantiation. No a.s.sembly, however, ever met, as the French Canadian population were unwilling to take the test oath, and the government of the province was carried on solely by the Governor-General--General Murray--with the a.s.sistance of an executive council, composed of certain officials and leading residents in the colony. From 1763 to 1774 the province remained in a very unsettled state, chiefly on account of the uncertainty that prevailed as to the laws actually in force. The "new subjects," or French Canadians, contended that justice, so far as they were concerned, should be administered in accordance with their ancient customs and usages. On the other hand, "the old," or English subjects, argued from the proclamation of 1763, that it was His Majesty's intention at once to abolish the old jurisprudence of the country, and to establish English law in its place.

Not the least important part of the proclamation of 1763 was that relating to the Indians, who were not to be disturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds. Lands could be alienated by the Indians only at some public meeting or a.s.sembly called for that special purpose by the Governor or {276} commander-in-chief where such lands were situated. This was the commencement of that just and honest policy towards the Indians which has ever since been followed by the government of Canada. One hundred and ten years later, an interesting spectacle was witnessed in the great Northwest Territory of Canada.

The lieutenant-governor of the new province of Manitoba, const.i.tuted in 1870 out of the prairie lands of that rich region, met in council the representatives of the Indian tribes, and solemnly entered into treaties with them for the transfer to Canada of immense tracts of prairie lands where we now see wide stretches of fields of nodding grain.

Governor Murray conducted his government on principles of justice and forbearance towards the French Canadians, and refused to listen to the unwise and arbitrary counsel of the four or five hundred "old subjects," who wished to rule the province. He succeeded in inspiring the old inhabitants of the province, or "new subjects," with confidence in his intentions. The majority of the "old subjects," who were desirous of ruling Canada, are described by the Governor in a letter to Lord Shelburne, as "men of mean education, traders, mechanics, publicans, followers of the army,"--a somewhat prejudiced statement.

As a rule, however, the judges, magistrates, and officials at that time were men of little or no knowledge.

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

The Quebec Act created much debate in the House of Commons. The Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, described it as "a most cruel, and odious measure." The opposition in the province was among the British inhabitants, who sent over a pet.i.tion for its repeal or amendment.

Their princ.i.p.al grievance was that it subst.i.tuted the laws and usages of Canada for English law. The Act of 1774 was exceedingly unpopular in the English-speaking colonies, then at the commencement of the revolution on account of the extension of the limits of the province so as to include the country long known as the old Northwest in American history, and the consequent confinement of the Thirteen Colonies between the Atlantic coast and the Alleghany Mountains, beyond which the hardy and bold frontiersmen of Virginia and Pennsylvania were already pa.s.sing into the great valley of the Ohio. Parliament, however, appears to have been influenced by a desire to adjust the government of the province so as to conciliate the majority of the Canadian people at this critical time.

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

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

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

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

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

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XX.

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

(1774-1783.)

The Canadian people had now entered on one of the most important periods of their history. Their country was invaded, and for a time seemed on the point of pa.s.sing under the control of the congress of the old Thirteen Colonies, now in rebellion against England. The genius of an able English governor-general, however, saved the valley of the St.

Lawrence for the English Crown, and the close of the war for American independence led to radical changes in the governments of British North America. A large population, imbued with the loftiest principles of patriotism and self-sacrifice, came in and founded new provinces, and laid the basis of the present Dominion of Canada.

During the revolution emphatic appeals were made to the Canadian French to join the English colonies in their rebellion against England. With a curious ignorance of the conditions of a people, {281} who could not read and rarely saw a printed book, and never owned a printing-press[1]

during the French regime, references were made by the congress that a.s.sembled at Philadelphia in September in 1774, to the writings of Beccaria and the spirit of the "immortal Montesquieu." The delegates attacked the Quebec Act as an exhibition of Roman Catholic tyranny at the very time they were asking the aid and sympathy of French Canadians in the struggle for independence. A few weeks later the same congress ignored the ill-advised address and appealed to the Canadians to join them on the broad grounds of continental freedom. The time, however, was too short to convince the clergy and leading men of the province that there was a change in the feeling of the majority in the congress with respect to the Roman Catholic religion. The ma.s.s of the French Canadians, especially in the rural districts, no doubt looked with great indifference on the progress of the conflict between the King of England and his former subjects, but in Quebec and Montreal, princ.i.p.ally in the latter town, there were found English, as well as French-speaking persons quite ready to welcome and a.s.sist the forces of congress when they invaded Canada. On the other hand, the influences of the Quebec Act and of the judicious administrations of Murray and Carleton were obvious from the outset, and the bishop, Monseigneur Briand--who had been chosen with the silent acquiescence of the English Government--the {282} clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, and the leading seigniors combined to maintain Canada under the dominion of a generous Power which had already given such undoubted guaranties for the preservation of the civil and religious rights of the "new subjects." In fact, the enemies of England were to be found chiefly among the "old subjects," who had attempted to obtain an a.s.sembly in which the French Canadians would be ignored, and had been, and were still bitterly antagonistic to the Quebec Act, with its concessions to the French Canadian majority. Many of these disaffected persons were mere adventurers who were carrying on a secret correspondence with the leaders of the American Revolution, and even went so far as to attempt to create discontent among the French Canadians by making them believe that their liberties were in jeopardy, and that they would have to submit to forced military service, and all those exactions which had so grievously burdened them in the days of the French dominion. The _habitants_, ignorant and credulous, however, remained generally inert during the events which threatened the security of Canada. It was left to a few enlightened men, chiefly priests and officers of the old French service, to understand the exact nature of the emergency, and to show their appreciation of what England had done for them since the cession.

When the first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774, the colonies were on the eve of independence as a result of the coercive measures forced on Parliament by the King's pliable ministers, led by Lord North. The "declaration," {283} however, was not finally proclaimed until nearly two years later--on July 4, 1776,--when the Thirteen Colonies declared themselves "free and independent States," absolved of their allegiance to the British Crown.

But many months before this great epoch-making event, war had actually commenced on Lake Champlain. On an April day, in the now memorable year, 1775, the "embattled farmers" had fired at Concord and Lexington, the shots "heard round the world," and a few weeks later the forts of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, then defended by very feeble garrisons, were in the possession of Colonial troops led by Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, two of the "Green Mountain Boys," who organised this expedition. Canada was at this time in a very defenceless condition.

Only eight hundred regular troops altogether were in the colony, very many of the English residents of Montreal and Quebec were of doubtful loyalty, the majority of the French Canadians were indifferent, and could not be induced to rally in any numbers to the defence of the province. Happily for the best interests of Canada at this crisis there was at the head of the administration one of the ablest men who have ever been sent to Canada--a governor-general who may well be compared with Frontenac as a soldier and Lord Elgin as a statesman--and that was Sir Guy Carleton, the friend of Wolfe, with whom he had served at Quebec. His conciliatory att.i.tude towards the French Canadian population, and his influence in moulding the Quebec Act, gave him great weight with the bishop and clergy of the Roman Catholic {284} faith and leading men of the majority. The British Government, with culpable neglect of his warnings and appeals, left him unsupported until the very last moment, when the fate of Canada was literally trembling in the balance. In the autumn of 1775 General Montgomery, at the head of a considerable force of congress troops, captured the forts of Chambly and St. Johns on the Richelieu, and a few days later occupied Montreal, which had been hastily evacuated by Carleton, who at once recognised the impracticability of defending it with any chance of success, since he had an insufficient force, and could not even depend on the fealty of the inhabitants. Quebec, at this juncture, was the key to Canada, and there he determined to make his fight. He pa.s.sed in the night-time the batteries which the congress troops had built at Sorel and the adjacent islands. The oars of his boat were m.u.f.fled, and when in close proximity to the enemy the men used the palms of their hands. He reached Quebec safely, and at once inspired the garrison and loyal residents with his courageous spirit. He arrived not a moment too soon. General Benedict Arnold--a name discredited in history--had succeeded in reaching Quebec by the route of the Kennebec and Chaudiere rivers--a route which in early times had been followed by the Abenakis, those firm allies of the Canadians. Arnold was not able to commence any active operations against Quebec until the arrival of Montgomery from Montreal, with a force of fifteen hundred men, of whom a very small number were French Canadians. At this time there were in {285} Quebec only some eighteen hundred regular and militia troops, of whom over five hundred were French Canadians, under Colonel Voyer. No doubt the American commanders confidently expected to find in Quebec many active sympathisers who would sooner or later contrive to give the town into their hands, when these learned that all Canada except the capital was in the possession of the invading forces.

Many of their men were sick, and the artillery was insufficient for the siege of the fortress. It was decided then to attempt to seize the town by a piece of strategy, which was very simple though it had some chance of success. Arnold was well acquainted with the locality and entered heartily into the plan which was devised by Montgomery for a combined attack on Lower Town. Late at night on the 31st December, during a heavy snowstorm, Montgomery marched from Anse-au-Foulon along a rough and narrow road between the foot of Cape Diamond and the St.

Lawrence, as far as Pres-de-ville, or what is now Little Champlain Street. Arnold at the same time advanced from the direction of the St.

Charles. It was arranged that the two parties should meet at the lower end of Mountain Street and force Prescott Gate, then only a rough structure of pickets. While the two bodies were carrying out this plan, attacks were made on the western side of the fortress to distract the attention of the defenders. Carleton, however, was not taken by surprise as he had had an intimation of what was likely to happen.

Consequently the garrison was on the alert and {286} Montgomery's force was swept by a sudden discharge of cannon and musketry as they came to Pres-de-ville--a defile with a precipice towards the river on one side, and the scarped rock above him on the other--where all further approach to the lower town was intercepted by a battery. Montgomery, his two aides, and a considerable number of his soldiers were instantly killed.

In the meantime Arnold had led his party from the St. Charles to the Sault-au-Matelot, where he captured the first barrier defended by two guns. Arnold was wounded in the knee, and his force was obliged to proceed without him under the command of Captain Morgan, to the attack of the second battery near the eastern end of the narrow street, known as Sault-au-Matelot from the most early times. They succeeded in obtaining possession of some houses in the street, but it was not long before they were surrounded by Carleton's men and forced to surrender to the number of several hundreds. Arnold remained, during the winter, in command of the congress troops, who suffered severely from small-pox, the cold, and even want of sufficient provisions. In the spring he was superseded by General Wooster who brought with him a reinforcement, but the arrival of English frigates with troops and supplies, forced him to raise the siege and retire hastily to Montreal.

A few weeks later General Burgoyne, with seven regiments, including a large German contingent under General Frederick Riedesel, arrived at Quebec, and arrangements were made for an active campaign against the rebellious colonists. Arnold found it {287} prudent immediately to leave Montreal which was again occupied by English troops. The forts on the Richelieu were regained by the English, Carleton destroyed the congress fleet under the command of Arnold on Lake Champlain, and Crown Point was partly destroyed and abandoned by the retreating Americans.

Soon after these occurrences in 1775, Carleton found to his chagrin that the command of the forces was given to Burgoyne, a much inferior man, who had influence with Lord Germain, better known in English history as that Lord George Sackville who had disgraced himself on the battlefield of Minden, but had subsequently found favour with the King, who made him one of his ministers, and gave him virtually the direction of the campaign in America. Carleton, however, remained Governor-General until 1778, when he was replaced at his own request by General Haldimand, a very energetic and capable man, to whom Canadian historians have, as a rule, never rendered adequate justice. During these years Carleton had his difficulties arising out of the unsettled condition of things in the province, the prospects of invasion, and the antagonism of Chief-Justice Livius, who replaced a far better man, Hey, and was himself superseded by the Governor-General on account of his efforts to weaken the authority of the government at a time when faction and rivalry should have ceased among those who wished to strengthen British interests in America. Livius appealed to the home authorities, and through the influence of Lord George Germain was reinstated, though he did not find even in this {288} quarter an approval in words of his own conduct, and never returned to fill his former position in Canada.

It is not necessary to dwell here on the events of a war whose history is so familiar to every one. Burgoyne was defeated at Saratoga, and his army, from which so much was expected, made prisoners of war. This great misfortune of the British cause was followed by the alliance of France with the States. French money, men, and s.h.i.+ps eventually a.s.sured the independence of the republic whose fortunes were very low at times, despite the victory at Saratoga. England was not well served in this American war. She had no Was.h.i.+ngton to direct her campaign.

Gage, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis were not equal to the responsibilities thrown upon them. Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown on the 19th October, 1781, was the death-blow to the hopes of England in North America.

This disaster led to the resignation of Lord North, whose heart was never in the war, and to the acknowledgment by England, a few months later, of the independence of her old colonies. Before this decisive victory in the south, the Ohio valley and the Illinois country were in the possession of the troops of congress. George Rogers Clark, the bold backwoodsman of Kentucky, captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, and gave the new States that valid claim to the west which was fully recognised in the treaty of peace.

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

The United States now controlled the territory extending in the east from Nova Scotia (which then included New Brunswick) to the head of the Lake of the Woods and to the Mississippi River in the west, and in the north from Canada to the Floridas in the south, the latter having again become Spanish possessions. The boundary between Nova Scotia and the Republic was so ill-defined that it took half a century to fix the St.

Croix and the Highlands which were by the treaty to divide the two countries. In the far west the line of division was to be drawn through the Lake of the Woods "to the most northwestern point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the River Mississippi"--a physical impossibility, since the head of the Mississippi, as was afterwards found, was a hundred miles or so to the south. In later times this geographical error was corrected, and the curious distortion of the boundary line that now appears on the maps was necessary at the Lake of the Woods in order to strike the forty-ninth parallel of north lat.i.tude, which was subsequently arranged as the boundary line as far as the Rocky Mountains. Of the difficulties that arose from the eastern boundary line I shall speak later.

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

Lawrence. One Canadian priest, La Valiniere, who was connected with the seminary of St. Sulpice in Montreal, was sent to England with the approval of the bishop, for his openly expressed sympathy with France.

Happily Monseigneur Briand and the great majority of the clergy stood always firm on the side of England.

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

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XXI.

COMING OF THE LOYALISTS.

(1783-1791.)

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

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

Time was to prove that the lot of many of the loyalists had actually fallen in pleasant places, in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Upper Canada; that the country, where most of them settled, was superior in many respects to the New England States, and equal to the State of New York from which so many of them came.

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

The government supplied these pioneers in the majority of cases with food, clothing, and necessary farming implements. For some years they suffered many privations; one was called "the year of famine," when hundreds in Upper Canada had to live on roots, and even the buds of trees, or anything that might sustain life. Fortunately some lived in favoured localities, where pigeons and other birds, and fish of all kinds, were plentiful. In the summer and fall there were quant.i.ties of wild fruit and nuts. Maple sugar was a great luxury, when the people once learned to make it from the n.o.ble tree, whose symmetrical leaf may well be made the Canadian national emblem. It took the people a long while to accustom themselves to the conditions of their primitive pioneer life, but now the results of the labours of these early settlers and their descendants can be seen far and wide in smiling fields, richly laden orchards, and gardens of old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers throughout the country which they first made to blossom like the rose.

The rivers and lakes were the only means of communication in those early times, roads were unknown, and the wayfarer could find his way through the illimitable forests only by the help of the "blazed" trees and the course of streams. Social intercourse was infrequent except in autumn and winter, when the young managed to a.s.semble as they always will. Love and courts.h.i.+p went on {296} even in this wilderness, though marriage was uncertain, as the visits of clergymen were very rare in many places, and magistrates could alone tie the nuptial knot--a very unsatisfactory performance to the cooler lovers who loved their church, its ceremonies and traditions, as dearly as they loved their sovereign.