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Title: The Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada
   and Ontario 1792-1899
Author: Read, David Breakenridge (1823-1904)
Illustrator: Laughlin, James Everett (1870-1944)
Date of first publication: 1900
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Toronto: William Briggs, 1900
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 1 October 2010
Date last updated: 1 October 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #629

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/Allen County Public Library




  THE

  LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS

  OF

  UPPER CANADA AND ONTARIO

  1792-1899

  [Illustration]

  D. B. READ, Q.C.




[Illustration: J Graves Simcoe]




  THE

  LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS

  OF

  UPPER CANADA AND ONTARIO

  1792-1899.


  BY

  D. B. READ, Q. C.,

  Author of "The Life of Governor Simcoe," "The Lives of the Judges," "The
  Life and Times of Sir Isaac Brock," "The Rebellion of 1837," etc.

  _With 22 full-page Portraits by J. E. Laughlin._

  TORONTO:

  WILLIAM BRIGGS,

  Wesley Buildings.

  1900.




  Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
  thousand nine hundred, by William Briggs, at the Department of
  Agriculture.




  I dedicate these sketches

  of the

  Lieutenant-Governors of this Province,

  to

  Sir Oliver Mowat, K.C.M.G.,

  himself a worthy successor

  of a

  long line of brave and distinguished

  Sons of the Empire;

  feeling that his eminent worth, and

  our life-long friendship,

  justify me in regarding him as a canadian

  to whom is due my highest respect.

  D. B. READ.


  Toronto, Dec. 27th, 1899.




  INTRODUCTION.


It was not my intention when I had completed "The Life and Times of
Major-General John Graves Simcoe," and the past governors of the old
Province of Upper Canada, to further pursue the investigation of the
history of Canadian governors; but the favorable reception that volume
received at the hands of the public has encouraged me to continue my
writing of the series of lieutenant-governors from Simcoe's time to the
incumbency of the present occupant of the office, Sir Oliver Mowat.

I am certain that all Canadians will take an interest in a connected
historical account of the rulers that have been set over them for the
last hundred years. A mere biographical sketch would hardly answer the
purpose, so I have combined something of the political history of the
governors with biography in order to convey a better idea of the men who
have held so prominent a position as that of lieutenant-governor of this
Province of the Dominion of Canada.

Before the union of the Provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada, in
1841, the lieutenant-governors and the administrators of the Government
who were appointed as official heads of the State during the periods
intervening between the retirement of one governor and the appointment
of his successor, had much more power than the governors of the present
time. I have therefore included sketches of those administrators in the
series of executive officers in this volume, as in more cases than one
the administrators and provisionally appointed governors, in the
performance of their duties, rendered very essential service to the
Province whose affairs for the time being were committed to their hands.

In entitling the chapters I have followed the plan of giving to each of
the Governors or Administrators his official designation in use during
his term of office. Many of the governors and administrators received
subsequent honors and rank, and many had military rank while holding
office, but in filling the civil post of chief magistrate of the
Province, the military rank was not regarded. Up to 1878 the
lieutenant-governors were designated as His Excellency; after that date,
as His Honor.

Special acknowledgment is made to Mr. Alfred Sandham, Toronto, for
permission to make duplicates from his admirable collection of portraits
of the lieutenant-governors, as well as of their autographs, which form
a feature of this volume.




  PREFACE.


The translator of Suetonius's "Lives of the Twelve Csars" says in the
preface to his work: "Of the several sorts of history, biography is
perhaps most adapted to perform the double service of administering at
once delight and profit. For, though the general history of a nation,
being more extended, and necessarily comprehending in it a far greater
number and variety of events, may promise a higher pleasure and more
diversified entertainment to the reader, yet biography, being restrained
within a narrower limit, has this particular advantage, that the series
of the action is embraced by the understanding with greater ease, and
the instructions which arise from the most remarkable occurrences in the
life of a single person are more directly and naturally applied than
when the attention is dispersed through the affairs of a whole people."

These words, written in 1727, have more force now than when first
published, since the vastly increased number of events happening every
day makes it necessary to have recourse to biography to engage the
attention of readers, which in a general history would be distracted by
the very number of historical occurrences.

In the "Lives of the Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada and Ontario" I
have endeavored to steer a middle course, giving to each governor so
much of his political history as it is necessary to know without
trespassing on the domain of biography in its essential feature of
individual character. Without presuming to say I have hit the happy
mean, I launch my bark upon the waters trusting to an indulgent public
to give it protection in its hazardous voyage.

The more one makes himself familiar with the history of the governors of
a state or country, the more he will become acquainted with the country
itself.

Ontario, which, under the name of Upper Canada, is the author's native
province, has reason to take a pride in having had as
lieutenant-governors men of sterling integrity and worth, fit
representatives of the constitutional government under which they lived.
That it may be always so must be the ardent wish of every lover of his
country.

  D. B. Read.




  CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.

  JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

                                                                       PAGE

  Establishment of Upper Canada, 1791--Simcoe first Governor--Birth and
  early education--Eton--Oxford--Enters Army--Revolutionary War--Queen's
  Rangers--Campaigning in the Jerseys-Capitulation of
  Yorktown--Marriage--Member of Parliament for St. Maws, 1790--Canada in
  1791--Government organized 1792--The Miami Forts affair--Visit to
  Brant--Government of St. Domingo, 1796--Portuguese Commission,
  1806--Monument in Exeter Cathedral                                     19


  CHAPTER II.

  PETER RUSSELL, PRESIDENT.



  Family connection--Secretary to Sir Henry Clinton--Residence on Palace
  Street--Russell Abbey--Land grants by the Administrator--Miss
  Russell--First Parliament Buildings--Slave holding in Canada--Russell
  Square                                                                 33


  CHAPTER III.

  PETER HUNTER, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Scottish descent--Military life--Service in Revolutionary
  War--Disciplines the officials--York Market established 1803--Provincial
  Bar established--Visit of Duke of Kent--Enlarging Parliament
  Buildings--Death and burial at Quebec                                  41


  CHAPTER IV.

  ALEXANDER GRANT, PRESIDENT.

  Born 1734--Enters Navy--Service in Canada, 1759--Enters the naval
  service of the lakes--First Commodore of western waters--Appointed
  Administrator--Judge Thorpe--Quarrels with the Assembly--Reports to Lord
  Castlereagh--Married, 1774--Descendants--Dies in 1813                  52


  CHAPTER V.

  FRANCIS GORE, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Formerly Lieutenant-Governor of Bermuda--Born 1769--Related to Earl of
  Arran--Army life--Marries in 1803--Bermuda, 1804--Arrives at York,
  August 27th, 1806--Judge Thorpe's agitation--He enters
  Parliament--Government complains to Home Office--Judge Thorpe removed
  and sent to Sierra Leone--Surveyor-General Wyatt suspended--Recovers
  damages against Gore--Gore takes leave of absence 1811                 67


  CHAPTER VI.

  SIR ISAAC BROCK, PRESIDENT.

  SIR ROGER HALE SHEAFFE, PRESIDENT.

  SIR FRANCIS DE ROTTENBURG, PRESIDENT.

  SIR GORDON DRUMMOND, PROVISIONAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  SIR GEORGE MURRAY, PROVISIONAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  SIR FREDERICK PHIPPS ROBINSON, PROVISIONAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Brock meets Legislature, February 3rd, 1812--War with United
  States--Falls at Queenston Heights October 13th, 1812--Sir Roger
  Sheaffe's military career--Takes command at Battle of Queenston
  Heights--Created Baronet in reward--Evacuation of York, April,
  1813-Succeeded by Sir Gordon Drummond--Born, 1771, at Quebec--Serves in
  the Low Countries--Canada, 1813--Storming of Fort Niagara--Battle of
  Lundy's Lane--Attacks Fort Erie--Resigns, 1816--Death in 1854. Sir
  George Murray--Birth and education--Distinguished army life--Peninsular
  war--Canada in 1815--Arrives at York and takes oath of office--Leaves
  Canada--Governor of Edinburgh Castle, 1818--Sandhurst--Colonial
  Secretary under Duke of Wellington--Death, 28th July, 1846. Sir
  Frederick Phipps Robinson, Governor, July 1st, 1815--Related to Chief
  Justice Robinson--Serves till Governor Gore's return in 1816           81


  CHAPTER VII.

  LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR GORE.

  (_Second Administration._)

  Governor Gore returns to Canada--Arrival at York--Address of
  welcome--Meets Parliament February 6th, 1816--Quarrels with
  Legislature--Retires April 18th, 1817--Deputy Teller of Exchequer,
  1818--Club life--Friendship with Marquis of Camden--Dies November 3rd,
  1852                                                                  101


  CHAPTER VIII.

  SAMUEL SMITH, ADMINISTRATOR

  Born on Long Island, 1756--Serves in Revolutionary War--Joins Queen's
  Rangers--U. E. Loyalist--New Brunswick, 1792--Colonel of Rangers--Takes
  up land in Etobicoke--Executive Councillor, 1815--Administrator,
  1818--Meets Parliament February 5th, 1818--Death, 1826                111


  CHAPTER IX.

  SIR PEREGRINE MAITLAND, K.C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born, 1777, in Hampshire--Enters army at fifteen--Serves in the Low
  Countries and Spain--Command of Brigade at Waterloo--Elopes with Lady
  Sarah Lennox--Forgiven by the Duke of Richmond--Lieutenant-Governor of
  Upper Canada, January 3rd, 1818--Duke of Richmond
  Governor-General--Death of Duke of Richmond--Robert Fleming Gourlay
  prosecuted for libel and acquitted--Contest with Governor
  Maitland--Governor's residence at Stamford--William Lyon Mackenzie
  assails Government in _Colonial Advocate_--First copy inserted in
  Brock's Monument--Governor orders removal--Destruction of second
  Parliament Buildings--The destruction of the Mackenzie printing
  office--Action against rioters--Dispute with Assembly--Governor
  censured--Recall in 1828--Subsequent life                             116


  CHAPTER X.

  SIR JOHN COLBORNE, K.C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Educated at the Blue Coat School--Service in Holland, Egypt and
  Italy--Under Wellington, 1809--In Peninsular War--Marriage in 1814--In
  command of regiment at Waterloo--Lieutenant-Governor of Guernsey--Canada
  in 1828--Addresses of dissatisfaction--Case of Francis Collins--Judge
  Willis--Removal by Governor Maitland--Mackenzie's Grievance
  Resolutions--Establishment of Upper Canada College--New Parliament
  Buildings, 1826--Assembly declares want of confidence, 1830--Governor
  approves of Ministers--Bitter party warfare--Dissolution of
  Parliament--Reformers defeated in elections--Mackenzie expelled from the
  House--Departs for England in 1832--Asiatic Cholera--Incorporation of
  Toronto--Mackenzie first Mayor--The Seventh Report on Grievances--Lord
  Goderich's answer--Governor retires--Leaves for England--Stopped at New
  York--Commander-in-Chief of Canada during Rebellion--England in
  1839--Elevation to Peerage with life pension--The Ionian
  Islands--Commander-in-Chief of Ireland--Field-Marshall--Monument at
  Plymouth                                                              130


  CHAPTER XI.

  SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD, BARONET, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born 1793--Serves on the Continent--Exploration in South
  America--Retired on half-pay--Poor Laws
  Commissioner--Marriage--Appointed Lieutenant-Governor--Arrival at
  Toronto--Meets Legislature--Communicates his
  instructions--Dissatisfaction of Assembly--Trouble as to the Legislative
  Councillors--Baldwin, Rolph and Dunn--Resignation of Executive
  Council--New Council appointed--Assembly protests--House
  dissolved--Elections of 1836--A victory for Government--Satisfaction of
  Home Government--Head rewarded with Baronetcy--Financial
  stringency--Head refuses to elevate Bidwell to Bench--Sends in
  resignation--Rebellion breaks out--Attack on Toronto--Defeat of
  rebels--Navy Island--Mackenzie's Provisional Government--Sir Francis
  leaves for England--Subsequent life in England                        153


  CHAPTER XII.

  SIR GEORGE ARTHUR, K.C.H., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Birth--Service in Italy and Egypt--Lieutenant-Governor of Honduras,
  1814--Van Diemen's Land, 1823--Succeeds to Government of
  Canada--Lount-Mathews execution--Suppression of the Rebellion--Windmill
  and Windsor affairs--Retires 1841--Governor of Bombay--Subsequent Life
  in England                                                            192


  CHAPTER XIII.

  RIGHT. HON. CHARLES EDWARD POULETT THOMSON, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Son of a London merchant--Born 1799--Mercantile career--Enters
  Parliament 1826--Vice-President Board of Trade 1830--Cabinet Minister
  1835--Governor-General of Canada 1839--Lieutenant-Governor of Upper
  Canada--Session of 1839-40--Returns to Montreal--Created Baron
  Sydenham--Opens first parliament of United Canadas--Fatal
  accident--Death--Personal Characteristics                             201


  CHAPTER XIV.

  MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY WILLIAM STISTED, C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  First Governor after Confederation--Succeeds General Napier in military
  command--Service in Afghanistan and in Mutiny--Appointed July, 1867
  Township of Stisted named after--Colonel of 93rd Highlanders--Dies,
  December, 1875                                                        204


  CHAPTER XV.

  HON. WILLIAM PEARCE HOWLAND, C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Of Quaker descent--Born in New York--Emigrates to Canada--Merchant in
  Toronto Township--Member for West York, 1857--Minister of Finance,
  1862--Receiver-General in Macdonald-Dorion
  Government--Postmaster-General and Finance Minister till
  Confederation--Succeeds General Stisted--Bay Verte Canal
  Commissioner--Business career                                         207


  CHAPTER XVI.

  HON. JOHN WILLOUGHBY CRAWFORD, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born in Ireland--Education for the law--Partnership with the Hon. Henry
  Sherwood and Mr. Hagarty--Lieutenant-Colonel in Militia--Member for East
  Toronto, 1861--Member for South Leeds, 1867--Appointed
  Lieutenant-Governor, 1873--Marriage and family--Death, 1875           214


  CHAPTER XVII.

  HON. DONALD ALEXANDER MACDONALD, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born at St. Raphael's--Contractor on Grand Trunk--Member for Glengarry,
  1857--Postmaster-General in 1872--Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario,
  1878--Personal characteristics--Subsequent life--Dies 1896            218


  CHAPTER XVIII.

  HON. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Of U. E. Loyalist descent--Educated at Upper Canada
  College--Aide-de-camp to Sir Francis Head during Rebellion--Mission to
  Washington--Called to the Bar--Marriage--Municipal politics--Member for
  Toronto, 1858--President of Council, 1862--Member for Algoma, 1872, and
  Toronto, 1878--City Solicitor--Lieutenant-Governor, 1880--Personal
  characteristics--Sudden death--Hon. John H. Hagarty and Hon. John G.
  Spragge, Administrators                                               221


  CHAPTER XIX.

  HON. SIR ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, K.C.M.G., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born in England--Enters Law Society--Partnership with Mr. John A.
  Macdonald--Alderman in Kingston--Bencher of Law Society,
  1857--Legislative Councillor, 1858--Speaker of Council,
  1863--Commissioner of Crown Lands--Senator,
  1867--Postmaster-General--Treaty of Washington--Minister of
  Interior--Leader of Opposition in Senate, 1873--Receiver-General,
  1878--Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, 1887--Dies 1892--Hon. Thomas Galt,
  Administrator                                                         229


  CHAPTER XX.

  HON. GEORGE AIREY KIRKPATRICK, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born at Kingston--Called to the Bar--Service in militia--Member for
  Frontenac, 1870--Parliamentary service--Speaker of Fifth
  Parliament--Director of Canadian Pacific Railway
  Company--Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, 1892--Social duties--Knighted
  1897--Dies 1899--Col. Gzowski, Administrator                          235


  CHAPTER XXI.

  HON. SIR OLIVER MOWAT, G.C.M.G., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

  Born in Kingston--Admitted to Law Society--Articled to Mr. John A.
  Macdonald--Law partnership with Messrs. Burns & VanKoughnet--Alderman in
  1857--Statute Commissioner, 1856--Member of Parliament for South
  Ontario, 1857--Secretary of State, 1858--Postmaster-General,
  1863--Confederation Conference--Vice-Chancellor, 1864--Resigns
  1872--Premier of Local House twenty-three years--Acquisition of New
  Ontario--Legal Reformer--Resigns from Provincial House, 1896--Minister
  of Justice--Lieutenant-Governor, 1897                                 240


  APPENDIX.

  Autographs of Lieutenant-Governors and Administrators whose portraits
  do not appear in the volume                                           255




  PORTRAITS.


                                               PAGE

  John Graves Simcoe            _Frontispiece_

  Hon. Peter Russell                             33

  Francis Gore                                   67

  Sir Isaac Brock                                81

  Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe                         86

  Sir Gordon Drummond                            90

  Sir George Murray, G.C.B.                      95

  Sir Frederick Phipps Robinson                  99

  Samuel Smith                                  111

  Sir Peregrine Maitland, K.C.B.                116

  Sir John Colborne, K.C.B.                     130

  Sir Francis Bond Head, Baronet                153

  Sir George Arthur, K.C.H.                     192

  Lord Sydenham (Poulett Thomson)               201

  Major-General Henry William Stisted, C.B.     204

  Hon. Sir William Pearce Howland, C.B.         207

  Hon. John Willoughby Crawford                 214

  Hon. Donald Alexander Macdonald               218

  Hon. John Beverley Robinson                   221

  Hon. Sir Alexander Campbell, K.C.M.G.         229

  Hon. Sir George Airey Kirkpatrick             235

  Hon. Sir Oliver Mowat, G.C.M.G.               240




  THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS OF UPPER CANADA AND ONTARIO.

  CHAPTER I.

  _JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Canada fell into the hands of Britain after the fall of Quebec, where
Wolfe so gallantly led the attack in a contest that resulted in half a
continent being added to the Empire of Great Britain. This was in 1759,
and from the time of the peace of 1763 until 1791 the whole country was
governed as the Province of Quebec. After the American Revolution there
was a large exodus of what has been called the United Empire Loyalists
into Canada, and these hardy and intrepid settlers began to form
settlements and take up land in the western part of the Province. They
were devoted to English laws and institutions, and it was soon seen that
they would not easily submit to the French laws and customs which then
obtained in Canada. The British Ministry saw that the time had come to
divide the country, keeping what was to be called Lower Canada for the
French and giving Upper Canada to the British. The Canada Act of 1791
was accordingly introduced and passed in the House of Commons,
establishing the new province west of the Ottawa.

For the Province of Upper Canada a governor had now to be appointed, and
for this office no better man was available than the distinguished
officer, Colonel John Graves Simcoe. Simcoe had served with distinction
in the Revolutionary War, and when the new Republic of the United States
was established had assisted many loyal emigrants who, persecuted on
account of their adherence to Britain's cause, and with estates
forfeited for having carried arms on her behalf, sought in the Canadian
wilderness a refuge from the republican tempest blowing so fiercely to
the south.

Simcoe was a member of the Parliament which passed the Imperial Act, and
had acquired his knowledge of parliamentary procedure and of statecraft
under the tutelage of those two great statesmen, William Pitt and
Charles James Fox. He had indeed taken some part in the debate in the
House of Commons which resulted in the enactment of the Canada Bill. He
had further qualifications for the post to which he was appointed. As
commander of the Queen's Rangers throughout the Revolutionary War he had
shown his aptitude for command, a penetration which had been most
serviceable to the British cause in many emergencies, a loving care for
those who served under him, and administrative capacity that could not
but command the respect of his superiors. Beyond and above all this he
had endeared himself to all those who took part with him in the conflict
which resulted in the independence of the United States. Some idea of
his popularity and acceptability to Canadians in his new office of
governor may be gathered from the manner in which he was received at
Johnstown on his first setting foot in the Province, in 1792, to take
upon himself the responsibility of governing Upper Canada. There he was
received by the inhabitants with a salvo of artillery, the ordnance for
the occasion being an ancient cannon obtained from the old French fort
on the island below Johnstown. Soon after the Governor left on his
journey up the river, the gentry of the surrounding country, in their
queer old broad-skirted military coats, their low tasselled boots, their
looped chapeaux, with faded feathers fluttering in the wind, collected
together, retired to St. John's Hall, and there did honor to the
occasion in speech making and health drinking, as was the custom of the
time. In the speech making, Colonel Tom Fraser said, "Now I am
content--content, I say--and can go home to reflect on this proud day.
Our Governor, the man of all others, has come at last. Mine eyes have
seen it--a health to him, gentlemen--he will do the best for us."

Simcoe, whose father was commander of His Majesty's ship _Pembroke_, and
who lost his life in the Royal service in the important expedition
against Quebec in the year 1759, was born in 1752. His father had while
on service been taken prisoner by the French and carried up the St.
Lawrence, and thus had obtained a knowledge which enabled him to make a
chart of that river and conduct General Wolfe in his famous attack on
the citadel of Quebec. Naturally, therefore, we find him inheriting a
spirit which only needed the events of the American Revolution to
produce mature development.

After the death of Commander Simcoe his widow resided at Exeter, in
England, and young Simcoe was sent to the Free Grammar School of that
town, and from there, at the age of fourteen, to Eton. Thence he removed
to Merton College, Oxford, where his classical education was completed,
and where he acquired a love of Tacitus and Xenophon which made them his
constant companions in after life. By the age of nineteen he had entered
on his career, obtaining then a commission as ensign in the 35th
Regiment of the line. He had been but three years in the army when his
regiment was despatched to America to assist in quelling the rebellion
of the colonists, and he landed at Boston on the day of the battle of
Bunker Hill, June 17th, 1775. Soon after this he was promoted to command
a company in the 40th Regiment, and was with it at the battle of
Brandywine, when General Howe defeated General Washington and became
master of Philadelphia. Captain Simcoe in this battle so distinguished
himself that he was marked out for promotion, and in the following
October, having attained his majority in the meantime, he was made
second in command of the Queen's Rangers. This regiment, originally
raised in Connecticut and around New York by Colonel Rogers, and
sometimes called Rogers' Rangers, was a provincial corps of light
cavalry of Loyalist Americans, with attached companies of light
infantry, and was originally about four hundred strong. It had done
valiant service, and was severely cut up at Brandywine, and was now
recruited with gentlemen of Virginia and young men of the regular army.
On receiving his commission, on October 17th, 1777, Major Simcoe joined
his regiment, then stationed at Germantown, now a suburb of
Philadelphia. Soon after the regiment was moved to New York, when
recruiting was vigorously prosecuted in order to bring the regiment up
to the required strength. During the war a company of Highlanders and a
company of Irish were added to the infantry wing of the regiment, and at
full strength it numbered five hundred and fifty infantry, and was one
of the most efficient and active corps in the service, the companies
being swift of action and adepts at ambuscade and stratagem. Until the
early summer of 1778 the regiment was under command of Colonel Mawhood,
and in March of that year took part in a successful expedition into the
Jerseys, where they defeated a strong body of rebels under command of a
French officer, who was taken prisoner. On the recall of General Howe,
and upon Sir Henry Clinton taking command of the army, Major Simcoe was
promoted to the command of the regiment, and at the same time was given
the colonial rank of lieutenant-colonel. Marching through New Jersey in
June, 1778, the Rangers encountered a force of seven or eight hundred
Americans under Baron Steuben, of the American army, and General
Dickenson, in command of the Jersey militia. In the engagement Colonel
Simcoe was wounded. After the close of the summer campaign the Rangers
wintered at Oyster Bay, Long Island.

During the campaign of 1779 the Rangers were principally occupied in
endeavoring to keep down the rebels in the Jerseys, but in October, in
an expedition near Brunswick, Simcoe was ambuscaded, had his horse shot
under him and himself taken prisoner, and was kept prisoner, undergoing
considerable hardship, until the end of the year, when he was exchanged
and rejoined his regiment at Richmond. He served with his regiment until
after the capitulation of Yorktown, in October, 1781, and his health
being bad, was invalided home on parole, and on his arrival home his
rank of colonel in the provincial was confirmed in the regular army. He
was released from parole in January, 1783, and from that time until 1791
lived in retirement in England.

Soon after his return to England he married Miss Guillem, a relative of
Admiral Graves, who had been in command of the naval force at Boston
during the Revolutionary War. She was an accomplished lady, and a
talented artist and draughtswoman. Some of her sketches, made during her
residence in Upper Canada, are still preserved as the only memorial of
certain of the old notable buildings of the day.

In 1790 Colonel Simcoe was elected member of Parliament for the borough
of St. Maws, Cornwall, and one of the first debates after he had taken
his seat was that of April, 1791, when the Quebec Government bill was
introduced by Mr. Pitt, and was vigorously opposed by Mr. Fox. It was
over the constitution formulated by this Act that many and bitter
contests were waged by Papineau, Mackenzie and other leaders of the
rebellion of 1837. From the time of the introduction of the bill
constant objection was made to the Legislative Council--the second
chamber, appointed by the Crown--that, too frequently to please the
aggressive Assembly or Commons, ignored the clamor of that body, and
carried on the Government regardless of its wishes. In this debate
Simcoe acquired some knowledge of his future sphere of action and of the
rival elements, then indeed rather confined to the Lower Canadian
Province--elements which he saw would not fuse, and whose fusion was
rather prevented than aided by the Loyalists and Rangers, exiles from
the United States, whose rooted conservatism was no friend of the
Republicans of either of the Canadas.

Early in 1792 Simcoe organized his Government at Kingston. The
organization and ceremonies attending, conformably with the wishes of
the Governor, partook of a religious character, and took place in the
wooden church opposite the market-place. After the Proclamation
appointing Lord Dorchester Governor-General and John Graves Simcoe
Governor of Upper Canada was solemnly read and published, the oaths of
office were administered to His Excellency the first Governor of the
Province. According to the Royal instructions he was to have five
individuals to form his Executive Council. The five named were William
Osgoode, William Robertson, James Baby, Alexander Grant, and Peter
Russell, Esquires. These appointments were made on the 8th of July. On
the following Monday Messrs. Osgoode, Russell, and Baby were sworn into
office. Robertson was not then in the Province. Grant was sworn in a few
days afterwards.

The Legislative Councillors were not elected till the 17th July, 1792,
when a meeting of the Executive Council was held at Kingston, and the
following gentlemen appointed: Robert Hamilton, Richard Cartwright, and
John Munro. On the 21st July the Governor left Kingston for his new
capital of Newark, now called Niagara. The first Parliament of Upper
Canada was held at Newark on the 21st September, 1792, in answer to a
call by His Excellency Governor Simcoe. In his address to the House the
Governor remarked upon the "wisdom and beneficence of our most gracious
Sovereign and the British Parliament, not only in imparting to us the
same form of government, but in securing the benefit by the many
possessions which guard this memorable Act (the Constitution of the
Province), so that the blessings of our invulnerable constitution, thus
protected and amplified, we hope will be extended to the remotest
posterity."

There were only eight Acts passed this session, but they were Acts of a
practical character, and such as were required for the early development
of a new province. The Legislature was prorogued on the 17th October,
1792.

The second session of Parliament was held at Niagara on the 31st May,
1793. The most important paragraph in His Excellency's speech on opening
the House was that which referred to the declaration of war by France
against Great Britain, and the necessity which existed for the new
modelling of a Militia bill for the Province, and to call to the
recollection of the House "how often it had been necessary for Great
Britain to stand forth as the protector of the liberties of mankind."

Before the next session of Parliament officialdom had taken its flight
from Newark, and had become domiciled in York, which before this
migration had been called Toronto. There can be no doubt that Governor
Simcoe conferred this name of York upon the place, or that it came to be
so called from the fact that he so named the harbor in honor of the Duke
of York, the King's son.

The Governor, in selecting York for his new capital, was no doubt
influenced by the fact that it had a magnificent harbor, and was distant
from the United States frontier.

On the 26th August, 1793, the following order was issued from the
Governor's headquarters:

    "York, Upper Canada, "26th August, 1793.

     "His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor having received
    information of the success of His Majesty's arms under His
    Royal Highness, the Duke of York, by which Holland has been
    saved from the invasion of the French armies, and it
    appearing that the combined forces have been successful in
    dislodging their enemies from an entrenched camp supposed to
    be impregnable, from which the most important consequences
    may be expected, and in which arduous attempt the Duke of
    York and His Majesty's troops supported the national glory,
    it is His Excellency's orders that on raising the Union Flag
    at twelve o'clock to-morrow, a Royal salute of twenty-one
    guns be fired, to be answered by the shipping in the harbor
    in respect of his Royal Highness, and in commemoration of the
    naming of this harbor from his English title, York.

    "E. B. Littlehales, "_Major of Brigade._"

The first meeting of the Executive Council after the removal of the
capital from Niagara to York was held at the Garrison in August, 1793.

Governor Simcoe, always watchful of the people's interests, and to
encourage the fur traders of the North and West to bring their pelts to
York, in October, 1793, accompanied by a party of officers, explored
the country between York and Lakes Simcoe and Huron. Having made his
exploration, in January, 1794, the Government surveyor, Augustus Jones,
was ordered by the Governor from Niagara to York to direct operations in
opening a road through the territory explored between York and Lake
Simcoe. The work was soon accomplished by the Queen's Rangers, Simcoe's
regiment, and the street or road was named Yonge Street after Sir George
Yonge, Secretary of War in 1791.

In 1794 Governor Simcoe got into an entanglement with the high officials
of the United States, arising out of a matter of great importance both
to the United States and Great Britain. This matter was the erection of
a fort by Governor Simcoe at the foot of Miami Rapids, about fifty miles
from Detroit, and within what was claimed as American territory.
Governor Simcoe was quite within his duty in erecting this fort, under
the instructions of Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General and
Commander-in-Chief. The Americans thought or affected to think that the
British were erecting this fort in order to give aid and countenance to
the western Indians, who were at war, or on the brink of war, with the
United States, in a matter of difference as to the boundary between the
United States and the Indian territory to the west. The western boundary
of the United States was then undefined. The great West had not then
been opened up or even explored, and was known as Indian territory, and
further as the "Great American Desert." These plains were peopled by
roving bands of Indians, many of whom claimed the protection of and
professed allegiance to Britain, and this fort was now erected in what
was considered by the British Government to be Indian and not United
States territory, with a view to protect British fur traders and to
maintain watch over the excitable and often treacherous Indians.

Governor Simcoe in a spirited manner vindicated his conduct, and showed
that instead of erecting the fort to assist the Indians it was done upon
the principle or self-defence. In a paragraph in his reply to Secretary
Randolph's complaint, he wrote: "My having executed the order of His
Majesty's Commander-in-Chief in North America, Lord Dorchester, in
reoccupying a fort on the Miami River, within the limits of those
maintained by the British forces at the peace in 1783, upon the
principle of self-defence, against the approaches of an army which
menaced the King's possessions, is what I presume Mr. Secretary Randolph
terms Governor Simcoe's invasion."

In 1794 General Simcoe was promoted to the rank of major-general.

During the winter of 1794-95, Governor Simcoe was engaged in projecting
plans for the future of York, and arranging for its civil and military
administration. A soldier himself, he could bivouac in his tent, but
arrangements had to be made for public buildings for the accommodation
of officials and for the meeting of the Legislature. We have the
authority of Mr. Bouchette, who surveyed Toronto harbor, for saying that
His Excellency, in the winter of 1793-94, made his headquarters in the
neighborhood of the Old Fort, at the entrance of the harbor, in a tent
or canvas house which had served Captain Cook in his voyage round the
world and was now the property of Governor Simcoe. After the Governor
had got fully established at York, he spent part of his time at Castle
Frank, on the bank of the Don, built by the Governor and named in honor
of his oldest son and heir, Frank Simcoe. It thus seems that some idea
of perpetuating his son's name still remained with the Governor, though
far removed from his native land of hereditary honor and degree.

Although the Governor had removed his headquarters to York, the
Parliament in 1795 assembled at Niagara as before, in consequence of the
non-completion of the public buildings at York. In June, 1795, the
Governor entertained the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, who in a
book of travel gave a very graphic description of his reception, and the
ceremonies attending the opening of Parliament, which took place during
his visit. In his reference to the Governor, Liancourt wrote: "He is
just, active, enlightened, brave, frank, and possesses the confidence of
the country, of the troops, and of all those who join him in the
administration of public affairs."

This and much more he says of him. Surely this is a worthy monument to
his memory.

The session of Parliament of 1795 was a short but important one. It
lasted only fourteen days, but during that period the legislators were
enabled to pass laws to regulate juries and to "establish a superior
court of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and to regulate the Court of
Appeal," and some other equally useful measures.

In this same year Governor Simcoe visited the celebrated Indian Chief,
Joseph Brant, at the Grand River, and had a conference with him in
regard to Indian lands. The Governor was always foremost in his advocacy
of Indian claims, and was the steadfast friend of the Indians during the
whole of his administration of the Government of Upper Canada.

On the 1st December, 1796, Governor Simcoe was appointed Civil Governor
of St. Domingo, and Commander-in-Chief in the room of Sir Adam
Williamson.

St. Domingo was then divided into two parts, one of each being held by
the British and French. On Simcoe's arrival there he found the island in
a state of turmoil, and he was kept in a state of continual warfare with
the celebrated Toussaint L'ouverture, the negro general, at one time
leader of the black insurgents, but now appointed by the French
Government General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo.

In August, 1797, wearied of a conflict in which he had no support, he
went to England to procure a sufficient force. But England had too much
use for her soldiers on the continent, and none could be spared.
Remaining in England, Simcoe was made a lieutenant-general in 1798, and
had no service until August, 1806, when he was appointed a commissioner
to the court at Lisbon, to command an army of protection against France,
then threatening to invade Portugal. On the voyage out he was taken ill
and compelled to return to England, where he died soon after his
arrival.

A monument to his memory may yet be seen in the walls of Exeter
Cathedral, suitably inscribed, and is as follows:

  Sacred To the Memory

  of

  JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE,

  Lieutenant-General in the Army, and Colonel of
  the 22nd Regiment, of York,
  who died on the 25th day of October, 1806,
  Aged 54 years.


In whose life and character the virtues of the hero, the patriot, and
the Christian were so eminently conspicuous that it may be justly said,
he served his king and his country with a zeal exceeded only by his
piety toward God.




[Illustration: Peter Russell]

  CHAPTER II.

  _THE HONORABLE PETER RUSSELL, PRESIDENT._


Mr. Russell, who succeeded Governor Simcoe as Administrator, was of the
Irish branch of the family of Russell, of which the Duke of Bedford was
the head, and therefore connected with one of the most aristocratic
families of England. Lord John Russell, Premier of Britain in after
years, was of that family.

Peter Russell, son of Captain Richard Russell, formerly of the 14th
Regiment of Foot, according to his own statement, had the misfortune to
be descended from ancestors who, studying only to enjoy the present,
never thought of making provision for the future. He was educated for
the Church, but, as he says, imprudently chose to follow the profession
of his father, and entered the army under the patronage of General Henry
Braddock and Lord Albemarle. After two years' service as ensign--without
pay--he purchased a lieutenancy of a man three months after he was dead,
according to the peculiar system of purchase then existing, and
ultimately, after twenty-six years of service in all parts of the world,
attained a captaincy. He was soon after received into the family of Sir
Henry Clinton as one of his secretaries, acting in that capacity to the
end of Sir Henry's command during the Revolutionary War. Previously to
coming to America with Sir Henry, in 1772, he sold his company in the
64th Regiment. He made this sacrifice for the best of motives--to raise
money to relieve his then aged father of a load of debt and to make some
provision, in case of his fall, for his sister, Elizabeth, to whom he
was devotedly attached. The close of the Revolutionary War found him
back in England without employment, and we find him in 1789 applying to
Clinton for influence to obtain the command of Landguard Fort. In this
project he failed, but soon after he succeeded in obtaining a position
under Major-General Simcoe, then appointed to the Government of Upper
Canada, and came with him to this country as his Inspector-General in
1792.

There was no other person in the Province at the time of Governor
Simcoe's surrender of the government on whom his mantle could so
suitably have fallen as on the Honorable Peter Russell. He came over
from England with Governor Simcoe as Inspector-General of the Province,
and had an intimate acquaintance with the plans and designs of the first
Governor. Hence he knew of Major-General Simcoe's determination to fix
the permanent capital of the Province at York, although Simcoe's Chief
Justice, Elmsley, strongly protested against the seat of government
being established there; alleging as his reason, not only that he would
be unable to get a jury in York to fill up the complement of his court,
but because there was no accommodation in the embryo capital for the
members of parliament. Both these reasons failed to satisfy Governor
Simcoe, and evidently had no weight with Mr. Russell who succeeded him
in the administration of affairs.

Mr. Russell, immediately on Governor Simcoe selecting York (the present
city of Toronto) for his future capital, left Niagara, visited Toronto,
and built for himself a house near the bay shore on Palace Street, at
the foot of Prince's, now called Princess Street. Early in 1797 this
house was destroyed by fire, when Mr. Russell built a house on the same
site, generally known as "Russell Abbey." This was a frame structure,
not extraordinarily large--in fact, a rather small house of one storey,
with a main body and two wings. It would not pass at the present day as
a house of any great pretensions, but in the days of President Russell
it was, no doubt, one of the mansions of the western colony, and worthy
of its somewhat imposing name. This house, the residence of the
President, was afterwards sometimes called the "Palace." This may have
been because of its being situated on Palace Street, or because of its
being opposite the new Parliament Buildings; or it may have been so
called by reason of its being the residence of the Governor; or, more
probably because it was for some time the residence of Bishop
Macdonnell. Be that as it may, the mansion served for many years to
house the chief executive officer of the Province, who never took unto
himself a wife, and was content to pass his days in this small but
convenient building.

President Russell was not a man of a grasping nature, although
circumstances which occurred during his administration, and the gossip
of the time which has been carried down to us as history, would almost
make one believe that he was a land speculator or land jobber in a high
place. The wags of the day and those who were jealous of his acquisition
of large tracts of land used to make fun of the conveyance of those
lands or land grants as made by Peter Russell to Peter Russell--"I,
Peter Russell, grant to you, Peter Russell," etc.

It was looked on as a good joke on the President, and afforded no end of
amusement to certain individuals in York who were very glad to have a
thrust at any one in authority. The trouble was that these grants were
necessarily made in this form owing to the position Mr. Russell held,
that of Governor or acting Governor and grantee at the same time. The
British Government authorized the President to grant six thousand acres
of Crown lands to each of the members of the Executive Council, and its
president had no alternative but to put his name to the grant to himself
as well as to those to the other members of the Executive Council of the
Government.

Mr. Russell was what might be called an Irish gentleman of the old
school, and to maintain his dignity sought to make himself proprietor of
a considerable estate. No doubt in his view no Irish gentleman should be
without large landed estates. His opportunities were great, and he in
fact did become a large landowner. But there was nothing in his acts in
acquiring these acres which in any way reflected upon his character as a
public man. The Crown lands were at that time wild forest lands of
little value. His ambition was to be considered a large landed
proprietor, but far from the land being of any profit to himself, those
at least outside of the limits of York, were rather an encumbrance. On
his death his real estate in the Province passed to his sister, Miss
Elizabeth Russell, as his heiress-at-law, who had lived with him in his
house at the foot of Prince's Street. Miss Russell was a very charitable
lady, with a large Irish heart, and was greatly esteemed by all who knew
her. She survived her brother many years, and died in Russell Abbey.

As soon as installed in the office of administrator of the Province, the
President set about making preparations for calling together the second
Parliament of the Province at York, in accordance with instructions
which Major-General Simcoe had given to that end. In accordance with
these instructions the Parliament met at York, the new capital, on the
first day of June, 1797. This was the first session of Parliament of the
Province convened in York, the sessions of the previous parliaments and
the first session of the second having been held at Niagara.

The buildings in which Parliament met were two modest one-storey 40 x 25
frame buildings, at the foot of Berkeley Street, one for the Assembly
and the other for the Legislative Council. These buildings were one
hundred feet apart; they were projected in 1794, and proceeded with and
finished in the period intervening between Governor Simcoe's departure
from the Province in 1796 and the assembling of Parliament in 1797. Many
Acts of Parliament were passed during the three years of the
administration of the Honorable Peter Russell, well calculated to
solidify the structure of government commenced under the paternal care
of Governor Simcoe. It was President Russell's plan to follow in the
footsteps of Simcoe in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the
Province. Hence we have Acts of Parliament passed during his
administration to "secure the Province against the King's enemies;" "for
securing titles to land in the Province;" "for regulating the militia of
the Province;" Acts relating to the division of the Province into
counties; the education and support of orphan children; and the further
introduction of the Criminal Law of England.

There were other Acts not less important, though of a local character,
all tending to develop the resources of a new country and to heighten
the energies of its people.

President Russell, familiar with the policy of the British Government in
its treatment of the Indians, was ever watchful of their interests. On
one occasion, when the Indians complained to him that depredations had
been committed by some lawless persons on their fishing places and
burial grounds, he speedily issued a proclamation announcing that such
practices must cease, or the parties offending should be prosecuted with
the utmost severity and a proper example made of them.

Some writer has imputed it as a fault in the Honorable President that he
owned and sold slaves. This arises from an advertisement which appeared
in the _Gazette and Oracle_ newspaper in February, 1806, in which His
Honor offered for sale "a black woman named Peggy, aged 40, and a black
boy, her son, aged 15." What had been imputed as a fault was no fault at
all, as those slaves were brought with him when coming to the Province,
and were as much his property as any other property owned by him.

The Act of the Parliament of the Province passed on the 9th of July,
1793, did not absolutely abolish slavery in the Province; it only made
illegal the future importation of slaves and declared the emancipation
of those then held at a certain period. The second section of the Act of
1793 provided that "nothing in the Act contained should extend or be
construed to extend to liberate any negro or other person subject to
slave service, or to discharge them or any of them from the possession
of the owner thereof who shall have come or been brought into this
Province in conformity to the conditions prescribed by any authority for
that purpose exercised, or by any ordinance or law of the Province of
Quebec, or by proclamation of any of His Majesty's governors of the said
province for the time being, or of any Act of Parliament of Great
Britain, or shall have otherwise come into the possession of any person
by gift, bequest or _bona fide_ purchase before the passing of this Act,
whose property therein is hereby confirmed."

Not only was the President not violating any law existing at that time
in the transaction of the sale of his negro slaves, but if his
advertisement received a response and an actual sale made, it can in no
way be made to sully his fame as administrator, as the sale, if made,
was not till several years after he had ceased to be administrator of
the Province.

Mr. Russell remained in office as administrator till the arrival of
Governor Hunter, in 1799, when he handed over the government to that
gentleman. The Honorable President's name is perpetuated in Toronto by
more than one landmark. Russell Square, on which old Upper Canada
College was built, owes its name to President Russell. Russell Hill, in
North Toronto, was named after him and given that name in memory of the
Russell Hill estate in Ireland, which was the name of the estate of the
Irish branch of the family. Peter Street, Toronto, is named after
President Peter Russell. Russell Abbey is no more; like most of the
first buildings in York and Toronto, its perishable frame walls were
doomed to submit to the inevitable hand of time. It was a notable
building in its day, and the residence of the President of the Council
was a centre of attraction to visitors to York. Mr. Russell occupied the
Abbey till the time of his death on the 30th September, 1808.

There was great intimacy in the days of President Russell between
himself and his sister and Dr. William Warren Baldwin and his family,
who were connected with the Russell family by marriage.

After Mr. Russell's death Mr. Baldwin occupied Russell Abbey for a time,
and on the death of Miss Russell, in 1821, he and his family, under the
will of that lady, became beneficiaries of what had been the Canadian
estate of Administrator Russell, or so much of it as remained undisposed
of at her death. This bequest of Miss Russell's has always been supposed
to have laid the foundation of the fortune of the Baldwin family.

Mr. President Russell was buried with military honors, and was followed
to the grave by many sincere mourners, the principal of whom was Francis
Gore, at that time Governor of the Province.




  CHAPTER III.

  _PETER HUNTER, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


It was the policy of the British Government in Governor Simcoe's time,
and thenceforward for nearly half a century, to have at the head of the
Government in Upper Canada a military man, who from his strength and
position would command the confidence of the people of the Province.

If an officer of the army could be found competent to fill the office of
Governor, and who at the same time had been in the service during the
Revolutionary War, so much the better. Such a man may reasonably be
supposed to have had some knowledge of the United Empire Loyalists, who
had been engaged in the same service, and who now had become the forest
rangers and the cutters and tillers of the virgin soil of a new,
unreclaimed domain.

The Honorable Peter Hunter, the first regularly appointed
Lieutenant-Governor to succeed Governor Simcoe, was fifty-three years of
age when he assumed the governorship of Upper Canada, and, like Simcoe,
before coming to the Province had undergone much hardship in the
military service of the Crown, in the endeavor to put down the rebellion
of the King's subjects in America. Of his antecedents before coming to
America not much is known. He was born in the year 1746, and was of a
Scottish family, seated at Auchterard, in Perthshire. He took to
military life at an early age, worked his way up from small beginnings,
became colonel of the 60th Rifle Regiment, and finally attained the rank
of lieutenant-general.

General Hunter had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty the
King's military forces in British North America before coming to Upper
Canada, and when he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada he
retained the post of Commander-in-Chief of the forces.

On his arrival at York in August, 1799, he was met at the landing by the
Queen's Rangers, whom he had known so well during the Revolutionary War
as Simcoe's regiment, and later in the day received an address from the
inhabitants of York, congratulating him on his safe arrival and
appointment as Lieutenant-Governor. His reply to this address was
characteristic of the man. It was not his custom to waste many words.
Duty had his first call, and that he performed with marked ability. His
answer to the address by the inhabitants of York was a model of military
precision and brevity: "Gentlemen,--Nothing that is within my power
shall be wanting to contribute to the welfare of this colony."

The new Governor was of the opinion that his military duties should
always have precedence over his civil duties. He considered that, for a
time at least, the civil affairs of Upper Canada could be safely
administered by a commission, composed of prominent men in whom he had
confidence. He would not relegate his duties of Commander-in-Chief to
another.

The principal forces of His Majesty in America at the time were in the
Province of Lower Canada. Quebec, that fortress commanding the gateway
from the sea, always demanded the closest attention of the King's
officers in British America. The Governor did not remain long in York on
the occasion of his first visit. On the 5th of September he crossed the
lake to Niagara to inspect the troops in that garrison. On the 13th
September he left Niagara for Kingston on a Government vessel, receiving
a salute of the American garrison at Fort Niagara by the hoisting of the
American flag in his honor. On arriving at Kingston and inspecting the
troops there, he proceeded to Lower Canada to finish his duties in that
Province. On leaving Upper Canada he entrusted the Government to a
commission composed of the Honorable Peter Russell, previous president
and administrator, the Honorable J. Elmsley, neas Shaw, Esquire, and
the Honorable Peter McGill--all or any one of whom were well qualified
for the posts they were appointed to fill. Governor Hunter's military
duties detained him in the Province of Lower Canada till the following
spring, when he returned to the Upper Province and entered upon the
active performance of his civil duties as Governor.

As soon as convenient after his return to Upper Canada he proceeded to
call a meeting of the Provincial Parliament at York, which in obedience
to his summons convened on the 2nd day of June, 1800.

There were only six Acts of Parliament passed during this session, which
was the fourth and last session of the second Parliament of the
Province. Two of these Acts were of great general importance. One of
them was "An Act for the more equal representation of the commons of
Upper Canada in Parliament, and for better defining the qualification of
electors;" the other, "An Act for making a temporary provision for the
regulation of trade between this Province and the United States of
America, by land or by inland navigation."

This Act was supplemented by another Act in the first session of the
next Parliament, of a still more important and permanent character than
the Act in relation to trade between the United States and Upper Canada
of the first Parliament. The facts seem to have been that at this period
it was much cheaper for the merchants of Upper Canada to get in goods
from Albany and New York than from England. These goods were let in at a
lesser duty than English goods, and the cost of carriage was so
disproportionate that British interests demanded that a remedy of the
evil, from an English point of view, should be applied. The remedy
consisted in the passing of an Act by the Legislature for levying the
like duties on goods brought into the Province from the United States as
was paid on goods imported from Great Britain and other countries.

Both the Inland Revenue and the Customs duties on foreign goods received
a good deal of attention during the administration of Governor Hunter.
The increase of trade at York necessitated the appointment of a Customs
collector at that port. The first to fill that office was Mr. William
Allan, appointed by Governor Hunter in 1801. Mr. Allan's name frequently
appears about this time in connection with public affairs. In June,
1801, his name appears in the _Oracle_ at the foot of an advertisement
as Returning Officer for the Counties of the East Riding of York, Durham
and Simcoe, calling on those counties conjointly to elect a knight to
represent them in Parliament in pursuance of a writ issued by His
Excellency Peter Hunter, Esquire, directing him, William Allan,
returning officer, "to cause one knight, girt with a sword, the most fit
and discreet, to be freely and indifferently chosen to represent the
aforesaid counties in Assembly by those who shall be present on the day
of election." From the language of this writ it would appear that the
official designation of members of the Assembly at that time was
"Knight." As a matter of fact they had not received the Sovereign's
patent conferring such title, and the writ was a survival of the old
English form imported to Canada, which could not much longer survive in
a democratic age.

The Governor, a man of noble character and great integrity in the
performance of his civil, administrative and executive acts, and without
undue severity, was yet resolute in his purpose that every official
connected with the Government should be assiduous in the duties
devolving on him.

In illustration of this trait in the Governor's character this incident
is related. Certain Quakers of the country north of the Ridge to the
north of York, complained to His Excellency of great delay in receiving
their patents for lands which they had taken up in that region. The
Governor at once sent for the Surveyor-General, D. W. Smith; Mr. Small,
Clerk of the Executive Council; Mr. Burns, Clerk of the Crown; and Mr.
Jarvis, Secretary and Registrar of the Province, to wait on him the next
day at noon, appointing the same hour for the Quakers to attend.

All being present at the appointed time, the Governor, addressing the
officials, said to them: "These gentlemen complain that they cannot get
their patents." Each of the officials began to offer excuses for the
delay. Mr. Jarvis, the secretary and registrar, when it came to his
turn, endeavored to explain by asserting that the pressure was so great
that he had been absolutely unable, up to that time, to get ready the
particular patents referred to. "Sir," was the Governor's immediate
rejoinder, "if they are not forthcoming, every one of them, and placed
in the hands of these gentlemen here in my presence at noon on Thursday
next (it was now Tuesday), by George, I'll un-Jarvis you." It is
needless to say the Quakers got their patents and the storm blew over.
This incident has much of the military court-martial aspect about it,
but then the Governor was more of a military man than a civilian, and
the threat to unhorse one of the officials had its effect.

The Governor not only kept the heads of departments strictly to the
performance of their duties, but required their subordinates to give
full time to their offices. He had published in the _Gazette_ a notice
requiring regular attendances for the transaction of public business in
the Government offices every day in the year (Sundays, Good Friday and
Christmas Day only excepted) from ten o'clock in the morning till three
in the afternoon, and from five o'clock in the afternoon till seven in
the evening.

In the year 1798 the Legislature had enacted that as soon as the
counties of Northumberland and Durham made it appear to the
Lieutenant-Governor that there were a thousand souls within said
counties, he was authorized to issue a proclamation declaring them a
separate district, to be called the District of Newcastle. This the
Governor was enabled to do in 1802. In closing the Legislature he, in
his address to Parliament, said: "The erection of a new district gives
me particular satisfaction, being an indication of the increasing
population of the Province and of the happy effects of that plenty and
security which, by the blessing of Providence, we at present possess."

In 1803 the population of York had so increased that there was an
imperative demand for a public market. Accordingly we find that on the
3rd of November in that year the Governor issued a proclamation that he,
the Governor, with the advice of the Executive Council, to promote the
interests, advantages and accommodation of the town and township of York
and other of His Majesty's subjects in the Province, ordained,
established and appointed a public open market to be held on Saturday in
each and every week during the year in said County of York, the first
market to be held on a certain piece or plot of land in said town.

The plot of land, which is fully described and delimited in the
proclamation, was five and one-half acres, bounded by Market, New and
Church Streets.

This is the origin of the first market in York, now Toronto. In the same
year, 1803, in which it had become necessary to establish a public
market in York, the Legislature was impressed with the belief that there
were not enough lawyers in the Province to attend to the wants of the
people. Consequently an Act was passed "to authorize the Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor, or persons administering the government of the
Province, to license practitioners in the law." It was not necessary
that such persons should have qualified themselves by a course of
study, but sufficient for them to have talent that commended them to the
consideration of the Court of King's Bench. Acting under this authority,
and certificates of fitness obtained from the King's Bench, Governor
Hunter, by proclamation, designated Dr. W. W. Baldwin, of York; William
Dickson, of Niagara; D'Arcy Boulton, of Augusta; and John Powell, of
York, as fit and proper persons to practise the profession of the law
and act as advocates in the courts after having been duly examined by
the Chief Justice. The gentlemen thus appointed were afterwards
sometimes alluded to, by persons jealous of their preferment, as the
"heaven-descended barristers."

During Governor Hunter's administration the Duke of Kent, father of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria, paid a visit to Canada. His Grace was at that
time Commander-in-Chief of the forces at Halifax, and made it a point to
visit Niagara Falls. In the course of his journey he visited York, when
he was a guest of General neas Shaw at Oakhill, and at Niagara was
entertained at Navy Hall, the official residence, when the little town
was beautifully illuminated in his honor.

Governor Hunter was at all times watchful of the interests of the
Province and active in promoting the proper development of the country
which he had been appointed to govern. In 1804 the Provincial Government
passed "an Act appropriating a certain sum of money annually to defray
the expenses of erecting certain public buildings to and for the use of
the Province."

The buildings referred to were the buildings for Parliament, the courts
of justice, public offices and for general necessities of government.
The sum granted was four hundred pounds annually. This sum was, in the
judgment of the Governor, so much below what was really required for
buildings for the public service, that His Excellency, as an Imperial
officer, in sending an address of the Legislature to the Government of
England on the matter, informed that Government "that there was not a
single public building. The several offices had been established in
private houses built for that occasion. The Executive met in a room in
the clerk's house. The Houses of the Legislature assembled in two rooms,
erected nine years before as a part of the buildings designed for
Government House. The Court of Appeal, King's Bench, District Court and
Masters' Sessions all held their sittings in the same place."

The two rooms referred to were doubtless the two modest frame buildings
which had been used for the Legislative Chambers in the administration
of the Honorable Peter Russell. These buildings Governor Hunter
scornfully designates as only rooms. They had been, however, connected
with a colonnade, giving the appearance of being larger than they really
were.

The colonnade must have been of good height, for it was under that
colonnade that was erected the hustings for the election of a knight to
represent the counties of Durham, East Riding of York, and Simcoe, of
which election William Allan was returning officer, as already referred
to.

Of Lieutenant-Governor Hunter personally may be said, that he was an
honorable, conscientious man, very much devoted to the military
profession and to his duties of Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's
forces in the Province of Canada. In his capacity of Civil Governor he
trusted so much to his Executive Council that he was reproached in some
quarters for not exercising more arbitrarily his civil power; though in
the case of Secretary Jarvis and the Quakers we are able to see that he
could when necessary in the exercise of that power be strict, even to
the verge of arbitrariness.

It has been said that the members of his Council in some cases took
advantage of his over-confidence in them unduly to promote the interests
of their families and friends, in securing for them grants of land and
other benefits, to the detriment of the actual settlers.

That the actual settlers, U. E. Loyalists and their families, were
sometimes inconvenienced, and, it may be, deprived of land and other
possessions which they considered had been guaranteed to them by the
British Government, to the advantage of the new immigration taking place
in the Province, there seems to be little doubt. But it must be
remembered that during Governor Hunter's time many loyal subjects of the
Crown, whom the Irish rebellion of 1798 had compelled to leave Ireland,
had come to Canada to make that colony their home. Thence both the
Governor and Council had two sets of loyalists to serve, the Irish and
the American loyalists, and it was inevitable that in serving both it
was hard to avoid offending one or other of the rival claimants to lands
and offices. It is not surprising, therefore, that the U. E. Loyalists
of America should have been chagrined at the fresh importation of
land-seekers, and vented their spleen on the Council, who were, as the
U. E. Loyalists thought, too ready to make provision for the newcomers,
in some cases to the injury of the original locatee of land and
claimant of the right to implements with which to work that land.

If the Governor showed any weakness in the matter all was done in the
interests of as faithful subjects of the King as those who may have been
unfairly treated.

Governor Hunter, like his predecessor, the Honorable Peter Russell, died
as he lived, a bachelor. He expired at Quebec on August 21st, 1805, in
the sixtieth year of his age, and was buried in the cemetery attached to
the English cathedral in that city. A loving brother caused a tablet to
be placed on the walls of that cathedral on which is inscribed his
epitaph, which, though modest, truthfully records the prominent features
of his life. The memorial states that "his life was spent in the service
of his King and country; of the various stations, both civil and
military, which he filled, he discharged the duties with spotless
integrity, unvaried zeal, and successful abilities."




  CHAPTER IV.

  _ALEXANDER GRANT, PRESIDENT._[1]

[Footnote 1: I wish to express my obligation to Judge Woods, grandson of
Commodore Grant, for information as to the Commodore, which I have
incorporated in this sketch.]


The death of Governor Hunter, creating a vacancy in that office,
necessitated the appointment of an administrator to represent the Crown
till the coming of the next lieutenant-governor.

At this juncture the senior member of the Executive Council was the
Honorable Alexander Grant, who was also Lieutenant of the County of
Essex. It may seem strange at this day to speak of one as lieutenant of
a county, but at the time of which we are writing lieutenants were
appointed by the Crown for each county of the Province. These
lieutenants of counties had been established by Lieutenant-Governor
Simcoe, to fill positions similar to those of the lord lieutenants of
counties in England. To this end the Parliament of the Province, during
his administration, had passed an Act appointing certain individuals
lieutenants of counties.

The Upper Canada Almanac, published at York in 1804, gave a list of
lieutenants of counties as then existing, and in the lists is the name
of the Honorable Alexander Grant. The title is now, and has been for
nearly a century, extinguished, but it will not be out of place to give
the full list as published in the Almanac. The names were: "John
Macdonell, Esq., Glengarry; William Fortune, Esq., Prescott; Archibald
Macdonell, Esq., Stormont; Honorable Richard Duncan, Esq., Dundas; Peter
Drummond, Esq., Grenville; James Breakenridge, Esq., Leeds; Honorable
Richard Cartwright, Esq., Frontenac; Hazelton Spencer, Esq., Lennox;
William Johnson, Esq., Addington; John Ferguson, Esq., Hastings;
Archibald Macdonell, Esq., of Marysburgh, Prince Edward; Alexander
Chisholm, Esq., Northumberland; Robert Baldwin, Esq., Durham; Honorable
David William Smith, Esq., York; Honorable Robert Hamilton, Esq.,
Lincoln; Samuel Ryerse, Esq., Norfolk; William Claus, Esq., Oxford;
(Middlesex vacant); Honorable Alexander Grant, Esq., Essex; Honorable
James Baby, Esq., Kent."

The Honorable Alexander Grant was one of the five members of the
Executive Council appointed in 1792, and as senior member of that branch
of the Government, on the death of Governor Hunter, became temporary
Governor of the Province under the name of President. In the Revised
Statutes of Upper Canada, published by authority, the name of Alexander
Grant, Esq., as President, is recorded as having opened the second
session of the fourth Provincial Parliament in 1806. Just as the bent of
Governor Hunter, the last governor, was military, the bent of the new
administrator was mostly naval.

Mr. Grant, who was of the ancient and respectable family of Grant, of
Glenmorristown, and who was born in the year 1734, had in his youth been
first in the merchant service, and then in a man-of-war as midshipman.
In 1757, during the Seven Years' War, a Highland regiment was being
raised for service in America, and young Grant received a commission in
it. He served under General Lord Amherst in the war with the French in
Canada, resulting in the capture of Quebec in 1759, and the surrender of
the whole of Canada to the British in 1760.

Grant's early training as midshipman in the naval service opened a door
for him to promotion that he little expected when he came to America as
an officer in the land forces. In the prosecution of the war against the
French in Canada, it became necessary to have ships for transporting
troops and supplies on the lakes dividing the French possession (Canada)
from the British territory on the south of Lakes Ontario and Erie. For
these ships there was urgent need for competent commanders. In this
emergency the experience that Grant had in the naval service stood him
in good stead. He was at once detached from the land force and put in
command of a sloop of sixteen guns.

From that time forward till the time of his death he continued to be
connected with the naval service, and became known to the people as
Commodore Grant. Later on, he was in command from Niagara to Mackinaw,
and was the first commodore of the western waters, with headquarters at
Detroit, which was then one of the most important military positions on
the continent of America. In 1780 the captains and crews of nine vessels
were under pay at Detroit, and a large dockyard was maintained there.
The Commodore was in command of all these vessels, which ranged from two
hundred tons down, and carried from one to fourteen guns.

In the War of 1812, Grant did important service for the Crown, and was a
conspicuous figure in all matters connected with the naval service of
the lakes during the war. Altogether he was in the King's service
fifty-seven years. His administration of the government of the Province
was for but a brief period, and for only one session of the Provincial
Parliament.

The second session of the fourth Parliament was opened by him on the 4th
of February, 1806, and closed on the 3rd of March following. Only seven
Acts were passed during the session, one of the most important of which
was "an Act to procure certain apparatus for the promotion of
science"--an Act which was specially promoted by him and which was
undoubtedly laying the foundation for higher public education, partially
fulfilled in the establishment of King's College, and followed by the
University of Toronto, which now so fully supplies the means of
scientific research to the earnest student.

At the request of Commodore Grant, the Legislature by this Act
appropriated four hundred pounds for the purchase of instruments for
illustrating the principles of natural philosophy.

The second section of this Act enacted "that the Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor or person administering the Government of this
Province, is hereby authorized and empowered to deposit the said
instruments (under such conditions as he shall deem proper and
expedient) in the hands of some person employed in the education of
youth in this province, in order that they may be as useful as the state
of the Province will permit."

On the arrival of these instruments in Canada, Administrator Grant
committed them to the care of Dr. Strachan, afterwards Bishop Strachan,
then a celebrated instructor of youth at Cornwall, and they were brought
by him to Toronto on his appointment to the headmastership of the
District School at York. From the District School (the old Blue School)
the instruments were passed on to Upper Canada College. There are
doubtless old college boys now living, of the class of 1836-37, who will
remember seeing this philosophical apparatus in the Principal's room at
the College, not in use, but treasured for a future day when a
provincial university should be established for the teaching of higher
studies than were yet reached by the College. It is possible that the
instruments or some remains of them may still be lingering within the
walls of "old Upper Canada," as the old boys designate their _Alma
Mater_.

The second session of the fourth Provincial Parliament, in which this so
beneficial grant of money for educational purposes was made, was, as we
have seen, a short session. It was, however, as remarkable for its
tempestuousness as for its brevity.

When President Grant entered on the administration of the Government,
there was seated on the judicial bench a gentleman well skilled in
English law, but more skilled in English politics, one Mr. Justice
Thorpe, an Irishman by birth, and of the English bar. Judge Thorpe, from
the time he came to the Province to the time he left it, was at
perpetual war with the colonial authorities, and made himself most
obnoxious to them. An examination of the correspondence, letters, papers
and documents, official and non-official, which are on file in the
Archives at Ottawa, and copies of which are to be found in the library
of the County of York Law Association at Toronto, will enable a
tolerably fair estimate to be made of the character of this gentleman,
both as a judge and a citizen. In truth, he was much more of a
politician than a judge, and had a natural bent for intrigue.

On the 24th of January, 1806, Mr. Thorpe wrote a letter to Edward Cooke,
Under-Secretary of State, with a postscript dated 5th of February, 1806,
the day after the opening of the session, the contents of which betray
the meddlesome temper of the writer of the letter, and his disposition
towards the reigning powers in the colony.

This is the letter:

    "24th January, 1806.

    "Dear Sir,--For the last time I must trespass on your time
    for five minutes, as I think it my duty to inform you of the
    situation of this colony before the new Governor leaves you.
    From a minute inquiry for five months I find that Governor
    Hunter has nearly ruined this province. His whole system was
    rapaciousness; to accumulate money by grants of land was all
    he thought of. The Loyalist that was entitled to land without
    fees could not get any, but the alien that could pay was sure
    of succeeding; unjust and arbitrary, he dissatisfied the
    people and oppressed the officers of Government. He had a
    few Scotch instruments about him (Mr. McGill and Mr. Scott)
    that he made subservient to his purpose, and by every other
    individual he and his tools were execrated. Nothing has been
    done for the colony--no roads, bad water communication, no
    post, no religion, no morals, no education, no trade, no
    agriculture, no industry attended to. Mr. McGill and Mr.
    Scott have made a person of their own President: the same
    measures are followed up, and the effects will soon appear,
    for everything you wish will be defended and the House of
    Assembly will feel their power, which is always (in the
    colonies) a bad thing. All this and much more you will soon
    know; therefore, in this state of things, I think it
    absolutely necessary to set about conciliating the people in
    every way. I have had some public opportunities which did not
    escape me, and in private I will cultivate all that are
    deserving or that can be made useful, by which means I now
    pledge myself to you, that whoever comes out shall find
    everything smooth, and that in twelve months or less I will
    be ready to carry any measure you may desire through the
    Legislature. All this I state on the supposition that Lord
    Castlereagh will not be induced to place anyone over me on
    the bench, but if parliamentary interest should prevail on
    him to neglect my exertions, I must entreat of my friends to
    beg of His Lordship to remove me to any other place where I
    can do my duty and render some service.

    "P.S.--I hope, for the sake of England and the advancement of
    this colony, that the new Governor will be a civilian and a
    politician. It is worth four thousand a year; the Lower
    Province six thousand. There might be two military
    appointments--a lieutenant-general below, a brigadier here.

    "From the gentleman having delayed who was to take this to
    New York, I have an opportunity of stating that the Clerk of
    the Crown is dead.

    "5th February, 1806.

    "The Houses of Assembly are sitting, and from want of a
    person to direct, the lower one is quite wild. In a quiet way
    I have the reins, so as to prevent mischief; though, like
    Phaeton, I seized them precipitately. I shall not burn
    myself, and hope to save others."

The extravagant statements made in this letter ensure its condemnation.
It was, indeed, a libel on the country, as well as on the officials.

The reference in the letter to President Grant is somewhat enigmatical.
It is probable, however, that the writer meant to convey the impression
that the officials, Scott and McGill, the one being Receiver-General and
the other Attorney-General, ruled the President, and that the President
was walking in the footsteps of Governor Hunter.

By the time the 5th of February came, from the expression in the P.S.,
"I have the reins," the worthy Judge seems to have thought that he had
overcome every obstacle, and possessed more power than the President,
Scott, and McGill all put together.

If we are to judge of what took place in the Legislature afterwards, and
during the short time it lasted, the Judge had really wormed himself
into the confidence of the Assembly in a very positive manner.

Mr. Justice Thorpe's active mind induced him to critically examine the
acts of the Government. In his performance of this assumed duty his
attention fell on the expenditure of a sum of money amounting to six
hundred and seventeen pounds thirteen shillings and sevenpence, which
had been ordered, partly by warrant of the Administrator Grant and
partly by his predecessor, Governor Hunter, to be paid to certain civil
servants for services performed by them in the carrying on of the
Government. Formulated in items, the schedules of these payments
contained twenty separate and distinct amounts, and were for the most
payments made for services in the administration of justice or in
connection with departments of the Government. In 1803, by the
directions of Lieutenant-Governor Hunter, accounts of a similar nature
were charged and paid out of the residue of unappropriated moneys in the
hands of the Receiver-General, over and above sums specifically voted by
the Legislature. For two years such payments had been laid before the
Legislature and had been approved by the House of Assembly.

President Grant, recognizing the fact that he was only temporarily at
the head of the Government, thought it a part of his duty in this regard
to follow the practice pursued by Governor Hunter, and so ordered the
payments referred to to be made.

It was, of course, not strictly correct that such payments should have
been ordered to be made without a vote of the Assembly. The astute mind
of Justice Thorpe quickly grasped the situation, and it gave him the
opportunity of exhibiting to the unlearned Canadian Legislature his
knowledge of constitutional law and parliamentary rights and privileges.

With this explanation and the address of the Assembly it will be readily
conjectured what was meant by the allusion in his letter to "reins of
power," and "that in twelve months or less I will be ready to carry any
measure you may desire through the Legislature."

The address of the Assembly passed the House on the 1st of March, 1806,
two days before the close of the session, and bears the impress of the
brain, if not the hand, of Judge Thorpe. Here is the address:

    "_To His Honor, Alexander Grant, Esquire, President,
    administering the Government of the Province of Upper Canada,
    etc., etc.:_

    "May it please your Honor,--We, His Majesty's most dutiful
    and loyal subjects of the Commons of Upper Canada, in
    Parliament assembled, have, conformably to our early
    assurance to your Honor, taken into consideration the public
    accounts of the Province, and have, on a due investigation of
    the same, to represent to you that the first and most
    constitutional privilege of the Commons has been violated in
    the application of moneys out of the Provincial Treasury to
    various purposes without the assent of Parliament or of a
    vote of the Commons House of Assembly.

    "To comment on this departure from constitutional authority
    and fiscal establishment must be more than painful to all who
    appreciate the advantages of our happy constitution, and wish
    their continuance to the latest posterity; but, however
    studious we may be to refrain from stricture, we cannot
    suppress the mixed emotion of our relative condition. We feel
    it as the representatives of a free people; we lament it as
    the subjects of a beneficent Sovereign; and we hope that you
    in your relations to both will more than sympathize in so
    extraordinary an occurrence.

    "We beg leave to annex hereto a schedule of the moneys so
    misapplied, amounting to six hundred and seventeen pounds
    thirteen shillings and sevenpence, and we trust that you will
    not only order the same to be replaced in the Provincial
    Treasury, but will also direct that no moneys be issued
    thereout in future without the assent of Parliament or a vote
    of the Commons House of Assembly."

That President Grant was willing to listen to any complaint of the
Assembly on any public matter may be gathered from his reply to the
address of that body, which was as follows:

    "_Gentlemen of the House of Assembly:_

    "I learn with regret from your address of the 1st of March
    that a degree of dissatisfaction prevails in the Commons
    House of Assembly with respect to the application of a sum of
    money stated to amount to six hundred and seventeen pounds
    thirteen shillings and sevenpence. At the time of my
    accession to the administration of the Government, I found
    that various items similar to those in the schedule
    accompanying your address had been charged against the
    provincial revenue, and acquiesced in for two years
    preceding, and I directed the usual mode to be followed in
    making up the accounts, which I ordered to be laid before you
    during the present session. The money in question has been
    undoubtedly applied to purposes useful and necessary for the
    general concerns of the Province. As I am, however, desirous
    to give every possible satisfaction to the House of Assembly,
    I shall direct the matter to be immediately investigated, and
    if there has been any error in stating the accounts, take
    measures to have it corrected and obviated for the time to
    come."

President Grant lost no time in making the investigation promised in his
answer to the address of the Assembly. On the 14th of March he wrote to
Lord Castlereagh, Secretary of State, giving him a statement concerning
the circumstances which gave rise to the address of the Commons and his
reply. After some preliminary remarks, excusing if not justifying the
issuing of his warrant to cover expenses connected with the Government,
he said:

"The language of that address is intemperate, especially when the bounty
of Great Britain to the Province is taken into consideration. But I
should be sorry if your Lordship supposed that the members of the House
of Assembly for the greater part are inimical to the measures of the
Government. They wish to do what is right; but sequestered from the
world, and some of them not having had the benefit of a liberal
education, they are ready to be influenced by the persuasion of others
who, by their means, endeavor to perplex if not to distress the
administration of the Government of this Province."

The concluding paragraph of the letter to Lord Castlereagh was a
palpable hit at Judge Thorpe and his interference in the work of
legislation, notwithstanding the fact that he was not a member of the
Assembly. It gives a clue also to what Judge Thorpe had in his mind when
in his letter to Under-Secretary Cooke he wrote: "I have had some public
opportunities which did not escape me, and in private I will cultivate
all that are deserving or _that can be made useful_."

President Grant's investigation of the appropriation of moneys referred
to compelled him to say to Lord Castlereagh:

"I must, however, respecting the subject of the address, candidly
confess, and since the prorogation of the Legislature I have taken every
means to be informed, that I cannot discover anything by which the
Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administering the Government,
possess the power of appropriating to specific purposes any part of the
revenue raised for this Province by the Acts of its Legislature, without
the assent of that Legislature to such appropriation. I therefore cannot
help offering it to your Lordship, after the best consideration that I
am able to give this subject, as my opinion, that matters should be put
on the same footing as they were from the establishment of the Province
to the year 1803, and that the items of expenditure charged in the year
1805, mentioned in the address of the House of Assembly, and stated in
the schedule, should be withdrawn as against the duties imposed by the
provincial authority. This would give complete satisfaction, and I have
little doubt but that in such case, as in Lower Canada, the Legislature
would appropriate a sum according to its abilities for the support of
the civil government of this Province out of the revenue which is raised
by authority."

It is necessary only to add that the advice of President Grant in regard
to the expenditure was followed. The Legislature, after his
administration ceased, voted the necessary expenses which had been
incurred. The right of the Assembly in the matter of expenditure of
moneys was maintained, and the constitution saved from a serious wrench.
In view of what had gone before, it is interesting to note that by the
time it fell to the lot of the succeeding Assembly to follow the
counsel or suggestion of President Grant, Judge Thorpe had succeeded in
obtaining a seat in the Legislature, and was the only member of the
House who opposed the resolution of the House withdrawing its claim to
the appropriation, or, as Judge Thorpe would say, the misappropriation
of the moneys referred to. In all this matter President Grant had but
followed a precedent which had been set by a previous Government, and
condoned by the passive assent of Parliament. Judge Thorpe was strictly
correct in his constitutional law, and had he been a member of the
Legislature no fault could have been found with his actively interfering
to thwart the Government in an expenditure, however necessary, made
without the assent of the House of Assembly previously obtained.

It reflects credit on the administrator of the Government, that finding
the precedent which he had followed was not justified by the
constitution, he quickly set about having the precedent repudiated.
Happily the rights and privileges of Parliament are better understood
to-day than they were in the days of Mr. Justice Thorpe, perhaps in some
measure due to the acuteness of that political judge.

Commodore Grant married Miss Theresa Barthe, a French lady, on the 30th
September, 1774. By her he had one son and eleven daughters. The writer
was well acquainted with the son, Colonel Grant, who was living in
Brockville in 1838. Those of the daughters who attained maturity were
married to persons of note in their day. Their names will be recognized
in those of their descendants, the Nichols, Gilkinsons, Dicksons, Duffs,
Millers, Woods, and Richardsons. All the children of Commodore Grant
were of large frame and comely appearance. Colonel Grant, his son, was a
tall man, upwards of six feet in height, and of powerful build, a good
representation of a Highland chief.

Colonel Gilkinson, of Brantford, and Judge Woods, of Chatham, are
grandsons of Commodore Grant; also Alexander Miller, of Detroit.

Commodore Grant died at his residence at Grosse Point, on Lake St.
Clair, ten miles above the city of Detroit, sometime in the month of
May, 1813. Here had he lived the most of his life, making periodical
visits to York (Toronto) in the performance of his public duties.




[Illustration: Francis Gore]

  CHAPTER V.

  _FRANCIS GORE, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Francis Gore, Lieutenant-Governor of Bermuda, was appointed to succeed
General Hunter as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, and arrived at
Quebec in the month of July of the year 1806, and at York, the capital
of the Province, on the 23rd day of August.

In personal appearance Governor Gore was of the type of an English
squire. He was, indeed, very English both in manner and appearance. In
disposition he was kindly and benevolent; rather given to rely on others
than to be self-assertive. He could be imperious when the occasion
called for it, but this was not his usual habit of demeanor. Dr.
Scadding, referring to the new Governor, says: "The striking portrait
which may be seen in Government House enables us to understand Governor
Gore. We have before us evidently a typical gentleman of the later
Georgian era; a 'counterfeit presentment,' as it might easily be
imagined, of the Prince Regent himself; one likely to be beloved by
friends and boon companions for his good-natured geniality."

Governor Gore was a comparatively young man when he first set foot in
Upper Canada. He was born at Blackheath, in Kent, in the year 1769, and
so was only thirty-seven years of age on his first coming to the colony.
He was of good family, and had been highly favored before he became a
Colonial Governor. The Gores were a branch of the family of the Earl of
Arran, and Francis had acted as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Mecklenberg
Sterlitz, a brother of Queen Charlotte, in the campaign in Portugal.
This satisfactory service in the Portuguese campaign earned for him the
Lieutenant-Governorship of Bermuda.

He was in the military service of the Crown from the time he left school
till his retirement from the army in 1802, on a pension. He held a
commission in the 47th Regiment in 1787. In 1793 he obtained a
lieutenancy in a local independent company, and in a few months was
transferred to the 54th Regiment. He saw service on the Continent in
1794. In 1795 he was captain in a cavalry regiment, now the 17th
Lancers, and accompanied Lord Camden, who had been appointed Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1799 he obtained the rank of major; and in
1803 he married Arabella, sister of Sir Charles Wentworth.

In the same year, on the breaking out of war with France, he rejoined
the army, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was appointed
Inspecting Field Officer of Volunteers on the coast of Kent, at that
time threatened with an invasion by Napoleon's army. In 1804, on the
recommendation of His Majesty King George III, he was appointed Governor
of Bermuda, and retained that appointment until he was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. It is related as an instance of his
bluntness of manner that on the course of his voyage to Bermuda in the
_Aurora_ frigate a strange sail hove in sight whose appearance and
manoeuvres were suspicious, and the _Aurora_ was promptly prepared for
action. One of the officers on the quarter deck, observing Governor
Gore taking great interest in the proceedings, made the remark, "Well,
Governor, this is not your kind of work; it may be as well, perhaps,
when we near her to go below." "I'll be d----d if I do," was the ready
reply; "my aim has been to meet the enemy, not to turn my back on him."
This courageous answer obtained for him so much favor from the crew of
the frigate that, on his disembarking at Bermuda, the gun-room officers,
lieutenants, surgeon, officers of marine, master, etc., volunteered to
man the boat to row him to shore. He was only in Bermuda about a year,
as in 1806 he was sent to Canada.

It had been made evident to Governor Gore that in accepting the
administration of the Government of Upper Canada he could not hope to
lie on a bed of roses. He was well aware that that vigorous agitator,
Mr. Justice Thorpe, had so far ingratiated himself with the people as to
lay the foundation of a party hostile to the governing body of the time.

The first address presented to the Governor on his arrival in the
Province was from the inhabitants of the home district, and was read by
William Weeks, Solicitor-General and member of Parliament for the
counties of York, Durham and Simcoe, on the 27th of August, at York, the
capital. After congratulating the Governor on his arrival, and
expressing gratification at the appointment of a gentleman unconnected
with the military establishment, the address proceeded as follows:

"In approaching your Excellency with a zealous attachment to a
constitution which neither innovation can impair nor anarchy deform, we
lament our being under the necessity of stating to you, that since the
establishment of it in this country, its system has been mistaken and
its energy misused. In situations in which it were matter of dignity as
well as of duty to promote the public good, private interest only has
been regarded and prerogative and privileges have been indiscriminately
sacrificed at the shrine of arbitrary imposition."

This somewhat extraordinary address, which certainly contained matter
most unusual in an address of welcome, and sounded more of the heat of a
debate, clearly embodied the views of Mr. Justice Thorpe, whether he had
any part in its composition or not. The answer by the Governor was very
curt, simply thanking the 301 inhabitants of the Home District for their
congratulations on his arrival, but taking no notice of the complaint
made as to the administration of the Government. This was a decided snub
to the signers of the address, and, of course, roused the disfavor of
the Judge, who now began to think that the only remedy for the evils in
Government was that he himself should have a seat in the Legislature.

That Judge Thorpe was determined to make public his views upon the
governing powers of the day, is shown in his answer to the address of
the grand jury of the London district, delivered a few days later, on
the 13th of September, when he said: "To be the humble instrument of
restoring harmony and happiness to your district is an excess of
gratification. The act of governing is a difficult science; knowledge is
not intuitive and the days of inspiration have passed away. Therefore,
when there was neither talent, education, information, nor even manner
in the administration, little could be expected and nothing was
produced. But there is an ultimate point of depression as well as
exaltation from whence all human affairs advance or recede; therefore,
proportionate to your depression, we may expect your progress in
prosperity will advance with accelerated velocity."

This attack on the Government bore fruit, as no doubt the Judge
intended, as we find that on the 20th October following a meeting was
held by the freeholders of the County of York, at Moore's hotel, at
which the Judge's friend, William Willcocks, was chairman, for the
purpose of considering a proper person to represent them in Parliament,
and it was resolved unanimously "that Mr. Justice Thorpe be requested to
represent the counties of York, Durham and Simcoe in the place of the
late lamented William Weeks, Esquire, deceased." The vacancy thus
opportunely afforded to Judge Thorpe was caused by the death of Mr.
Weeks, the presenter of the first address to the Governor, who was
wounded in a duel with Mr. Dickson, of Niagara, and died of the wound in
that same October.

At the present day it would not be possible for a judge to be a
candidate for member of Parliament, but this was not so in Governor
Gore's day. There was no law against it; it remained altogether with the
individual judge whether his regard for his judicial position would
permit him to engage in political strife. Judge Thorpe did not deem it
incompatible with his judicial position to enter into the parliamentary
arena, and promptly accepting the nomination for the counties of York,
Durham and Simcoe, was triumphantly elected in place of Mr. Weeks. This
was a great victory for the new party, the principal members of which
were Mr. Justice Thorpe, Mr. Wyatt, Surveyor-General, and Mr. Willcocks,
Sheriff of the Home District. The principles of this party, as estimated
by Governor Gore, are expressed in a letter to Colonial Secretary
Windham. On the 27th February, 1807, he wrote Mr. Windham: "Very soon
after my arrival in this province I received information of a party of
which Mr. Justice Thorpe, Mr. Wyatt, and a Mr. Willcocks, the sheriff,
were the leaders, that were endeavoring by every means in their power to
perplex and embarrass the King's Government in this colony."

On the 5th January, 1807, William Allan, the returning officer, advised
the Governor of the election of Justice Thorpe to the Assembly, saying
at the same time: "Mr. Justice Thorpe, after the closing of the poll,
made a long harangue to the people then present (mostly his voters), as
I conceived tending to disseminate principles by no means favorable to
the Government of this country."

The session of Parliament in which Judge Thorpe was a member opened on
the 2nd day of February, 1807, and closed on the 10th of March
following. There were only nine Acts passed during this session, the
most important of which was "an Act to establish Public Schools in each
and every district of this province."

Mr. Justice Thorpe lost no time or opportunity in the House of attacking
the Government, and as might have been foreseen, speedily brought on
himself the anger of the Governor. He was in every sense an emphatic
Democrat, and in the estimation of Governor Gore he was a demagogue.
Three days after the session closed, in a lengthy letter written by the
Governor to Mr. Windham, the Colonial Secretary, the Governor thus
complains of the delinquencies of the Judge member of Parliament:

"Mr. Thorpe's conduct since he has been elected a member of the House of
Assembly has been most inflammatory; and however it is to be lamented
that the Government have not greater influence on the House of Assembly,
during the session which has just closed he had been unable to carry any
one point to embarrass the Government. He moved an address, which was
most insidious and inflammatory, on the subject of those persons who had
adhered to the unity of the empire, which was rejected. In his proposal
for vesting the power of appointing trustees to the Public Schools in
the House of Assembly, instead of the Lieutenant-Governor, after a
violent declamation and abuse of the Executive Government, he asserted
that it was the privilege of the House of Assembly to nominate to
office. In his attempt he was supported by two only; and on a question
relating to the duties imposed by the 14th of the King (which Mr. Thorpe
contended was at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature) he stood
alone; and I am happy to observe that in this instance of a Judge of the
Court of King's Bench making an attempt to derogate from the authority
of the British Parliament, he could not in a popular assembly prevail on
a single person to join him, notwithstanding his pathetic allusion to
the revolt of the American colonies."

In another part of his communication he said:

"I have no hesitation in giving my opinion that if His Majesty is
pleased to permit Mr. Thorpe to retain his situation in this Province,
that the most serious evils may be apprehended. And I might not conceal
from you that I have been urged by the most respectable gentlemen in
this colony, for the sake of public tranquillity, to suspend Mr. Thorpe
from his situation as judge. This advice I have resisted, having time to
receive your directions before the commencement of the circuit, and
confidently relying on your support to maintain order and authority in
this province."

As was to be expected, this communication of His Excellency the
Lieutenant-Governor led Lord Castlereagh to give the Governor authority
for the suspension of Justice Thorpe, and in a despatch dated June 17th,
1807, he addresses the Governor as follows:

"Sir,--The various particulars which you have stated of Mr. Justice
Thorpe having exceeded his duties as a judge by mixing in the political
parties of the Province and encouraging an opposition to the
administration, afforded such well-grounded reasons for believing that
his continuance in office would lead to the discredit and dis-service of
His Majesty's Government, that I am commanded to signify to you His
Majesty's pleasure that you suspend Mr. Thorpe from the office of judge
in Upper Canada, and measures will be taken for appointing a successor."

Governor Gore obeyed the instructions of the British Government and
suspended Mr. Thorpe from his office as judge, and so informed the
Secretary of State by despatch dated 21st August, 1807.

Lord Castlereagh was really well disposed towards Judge Thorpe. It was
only because of his disapproval of a judge mixing himself in politics
that he was led to direct his suspension, hoping to be able, as he said
in his despatch, "to recommend him to some other professional situation,
under an assurance that he would confine himself to the duties of his
profession thereafter, and abstain from engaging in Provincial-party
politics."

Judge Thorpe was transferred from Canada to Sierra Leone, being
appointed Chief Justice in that British possession. He held the chief
justiceship for twenty years, and then, on account of failing health,
returned to England to end his judicial as well as his earthly career an
impoverished man, tired of life and the troubles with which his
existence had been surrounded. Mr. Thorpe's career contains a lesson. He
was a good lawyer and would have been a success as a judge if he had
abstained from politics when holding that position. His impetuous nature
and over-ambitious mind led him to quarrel with the Upper Canada
Colonial authorities, in the hope, doubtless, of causing their downfall,
and with the expectation that he and his followers would, on the
destruction of the existing officials, secure their places and power in
the colony. The result proved that the Governor was too strong for him.
He fell, a victim to his own ambition, lamented by many political
friends, but not by the much traduced officials, beginning with Governor
Hunter and ending with Governor Gore and his Executive Council.

Surveyor-General Wyatt, one of the officials who had sided with Judge
Thorpe, falling under the displeasure of the Governor, was by him
suspended from his office, and afterwards, following the suspension, was
deprived of the office of Surveyor-General by the British Government.
His suspension and loss of office gave rise to an action of libel
brought by him against Governor Gore.

The action arose out of the publication of the alleged libel in a
pamphlet, which did not appear to have been printed by the Governor, nor
was he the author of it, but was so far countenanced by him that he
circulated it by handing a copy to his Attorney-General, Boulton, for
perusal.

There were several counts in the declaration, alleging that the Governor
had sent false representations to the British Government in regard to
the plaintiff (Wyatt); and Sergeant Best, who acted for the plaintiff,
admitted that it was incumbent on him to show that there were no just
grounds for Mr. Wyatt's suspension, and that the Governor acted
maliciously and without probable cause in suspending Mr. Wyatt.

These counts were, however, abandoned at the trial, which did not come
off until 1816, the plaintiff relying in proving the libel solely on the
circulation of the pamphlet. Chief Justice Gibbs, before whom the action
was tried, in summing up, said: "I think the delivery of the pamphlet,
which was not published till two years after the suspension, was a
libel." The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff on the count for
libel.

Leaving now the subject of Messrs. Thorpe and Wyatt, and their acts, it
will be more profitable to refer to the Parliament of the Province under
Governor Gore's administration. The first session of the fourth
Parliament met at York on the 20th day of January, 1808, and was
prorogued on the 16th day of February following. During this session an
Act was passed of grave importance at the time, and which was
necessitated by the difficulties that had been presented in there being
numerous claimants for identical parcels of land.

These claimants had been a great source of trouble to the Governor and
his officials. To put an end to this state of things, the Legislature
passed an "Act to afford relief to those persons who may be entitled to
claim lands in this province as heirs or devisees of the nominees of the
Crown in cases where no patent had been issued for such lands."

Under this Act, commissioners were appointed to hear and determine
claims, thus removing from the Government the reproach of partiality, to
which they had been exposed, from persons in the Province who were not
satisfied with some acts of the officials, and who were ever ready to
make a grievance out of the smallest lapse of those charged with the
duty of carrying on the government. Delays in getting patents was one of
these grievances. Perhaps the most important after the Heir and Devisee
Act, passed during Governor Gore's first administration, was an Act to
promote the building of highways in the province in 1810. In a country
sparsely settled, where the locatees of lots were often far distant from
each other, this Act was a great boon to emigrants coming to the
province. That it was a necessity appears from a letter from the
Governor to Mr. Cooke, the Under-Colonial Secretary, two years before it
was passed, in which he said: "A great cause of dissatisfaction is the
want of roads."

In 1808 there were rumors amongst the people of the Province that the
relations between Great Britain and the United States were strained, and
that it might result in war. Governor Gore, on the 21st March, 1808,
wrote Lord Castlereagh, Secretary of State, that in the existing state
of affairs he had thought it prudent to employ a confidential agent to
obtain information as to the design of the American Government. To be
forewarned is to be forearmed, and the Governor was vigilant in
protecting the interests of his Government and of the Province over
which he presided.

At the opening of the next session of Parliament the Governor, in
addressing the House, said:

"Hitherto we have enjoyed tranquillity, plenty and peace. How long it
may please the Supreme Ruler of Nations thus to favor us is wisely
concealed from our view. But under such circumstances it becomes us to
prepare ourselves to meet every event, and to evince by our zeal and
loyalty that we know the value of our constitution and are worthy the
name of British subjects."

One of the first Acts of the session was "an Act for quartering and
billeting on certain occasions His Majesty's troops and the militia of
this Province." The Governor and Legislature were thus preparing the way
for a sturdy defence of the Province in case of invasion. Under this Act
due provision was made for the service of the troops, whether regular or
militia, when on the march. This Act was passed on the 9th of March,
1809. In 1810 the cabal against Governor Gore in the Province had
attained such proportions and importance that they had prevailed on a
Mr. Moore, a member of the English House of Commons, to give notice that
he intended to move in the House relative to the conduct of Governor
Gore, and stating in his notice that discontent prevailed in the
Province owing to his misconduct and oppression. We have already seen
who were the leaders of the party antagonistic to Governor Gore, and
that Surveyor-General Wyatt was one of the chiefs. In the month of
March, 1810, Mr. William Dickson was advised by a letter from a friend
in England that Mr. Moore and his friends had concluded to bring on his
motion, but could not state when the debate on it would take place. It
was now evident that an organized attempt would be made to procure a
censure of the Governor by Parliament, and to compel his recall. In the
result the motion failed to carry; but, nevertheless, the attack made on
him in the House of Commons was so severe that the Governor felt
constrained to give up the administration of the Province for a time,
and to proceed to England to meet his accusers face to face. On the 1st
of August, 1810, he asked for and obtained leave of absence to visit
England, ostensibly on private affairs, but undoubtedly also to answer
in person the attack made on him upon the discussion of Mr. Moore's
motion. It was, therefore, to defend both his public and private conduct
against the calumny of his enemies, that he applied for leave of
absence. The Governor remained, however, to perform his duties in the
Province till the end of the session of the fifth Parliament, which
commenced on the 1st day of February, 1811, and ended on the 13th day of
March following, and in which no Act of particular significance was
passed, unless it may be the Act passed "to make good certain moneys
issued and advanced to His Majesty, through the Lieutenant-Governor, in
pursuance of an address of the House." These were the moneys which, it
had been claimed, Governor Hunter and Administrator Grant had
irregularly paid without a vote of the Provincial Assembly.

Just before the Governor's departure for England, which did not take
place till late in the autumn, Sir Isaac Brock, Commander of the King's
forces in Upper Canada, paid a visit to the Governor at Government House
in York, and it will not be out of place to give Sir Isaac's impression
at the time. In writing to his brother in Guernsey from Fort George,
Niagara, he said: "I returned recently from York, the capital of the
Province, where I passed ten days with the Governor, as generous and
honest a being as ever existed." This tribute from so noble a man as Sir
Isaac Brock speaks volumes in favor of Governor Gore.




[Illustration: Isaac Brock]

  CHAPTER VI.

  _SIR ISAAC BROCK, PRESIDENT--SIR ROGER H. SHEAFFE, PRESIDENT--SIR
  FRANCIS DE ROTTENBURG, PRESIDENT--SIR GORDON DRUMMOND, PROVISIONAL
  LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR--SIR GEORGE MURRAY, PROVISIONAL
  LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR--SIR FREDERICK ROBINSON, PROVISIONAL
  LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


On October the 9th, 1811, Brock wrote to Lord Liverpool that the
administration of the Government devolving on him as Commander of the
Forces, he had been sworn in as a member of the Council. A few months
after Brock was sworn in he called the Legislature together, and meeting
it on the 3rd of February, 1812, he addressed the House in the following
spirited way:

    _"Honorable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council and
    Gentlemen of the House of Assembly:_

    "I should derive the utmost satisfaction the first time of my
    addressing you were it permitted me to direct your attention
    solely to such objects as tended to promote the peace and
    prosperity of this Province.

    "The glorious contest in which the British Empire is engaged
    and the vast sacrifice which Great Britain nobly offers to
    secure the independence of other nations might be expected to
    stifle every feeling of envy and jealousy, and at the same
    time to excite the interest and command the admiration of a
    free people. But, regardless of such generous impressions,
    the American Government evinces a disposition calculated to
    divide and impede her efforts.

    "England is not only interdicted in the harbors of the United
    States, while they afford a shelter to the cruisers of her
    inveterate enemy, but she is likewise required to resign
    those maritime rights which she has so long exercised and
    enjoyed. Insulting threats are not only offered,  but
    hostile preparations actually commenced, and though not
    without hope that cool reflection and the dictates of justice
    may yet avert the calamity of war, I cannot, under every view
    of the relative situation of the Province, be too urgent in
    recommending to your early attention the adoption of such
    measures as will best secure the internal peace of the
    country, and defeat every hostile aggressor.

    "Principally composed of the sons of a loyal and brave band
    of veterans, the militia, I am convinced, stand in need of
    nothing but the necessary legislative provisions to direct
    their ardor in the acquirement of military instruction, to
    form a most efficient force. The growing prosperity of these
    provinces, it is manifest, begins to awaken a spirit of envy
    and ambition. The acknowledged importance of this colony to
    the parent state will secure the continuance of her powerful
    protection. Her fostering care has been the first cause under
    Providence of the uninterrupted happiness you have so long
    enjoyed. Your industry has been liberally rewarded, and you
    have in consequence risen to opulence.

    "These interesting truths are not uttered to animate your
    patriotism, but to dispel any apprehension you may have
    imbibed of the possibility of England forsaking you; for, you
    must be sensible, if once bereft of her support, if once
    deprived of the advantages which her commerce and the support
    of her most essential wants gives you, this colony, from its
    geographical position, must inevitably sink into poverty and
    insignificance.

    "But Heaven will look favorably on the manly exertions which
    the loyal and virtuous inhabitants of this happy land are
    prepared to make to avert such a dire calamity.

    "_Gentlemen of the House of Assembly:_

    "I have no doubt but that with me you are convinced of the
    necessity of a regular system of military instruction to the
    militia of this Province. On this salutary precaution, in the
    event of a war, our future safety will greatly depend, and I
    doubt not but that you will cheerfully lend your aid to
    enable me to defray the expenses of carrying into effect a
    measure so conducive to our security and defence."

With Sir Isaac Brock's splendid military career the writer of this
volume does not intend to deal, having already given some account of his
life and his glorious death in another place,[2] but will confine
himself to his life as Administrator of the Province, and of this not
much is to be said, lasting as it did but during two sessions of the
Provincial Parliament.

[Footnote 2: "The Life and Times of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock."
Toronto, 1894.]

We have seen that the first session over which he presided commenced on
the 3rd day of February; it ended on the 6th day of March following. War
was declared by the United States against Great Britain on the 18th day
of June, 1812, followed by the invasion of the Province, on the 12th of
July, by Hull's army from Detroit. Brock immediately called the
Legislature together, and it met on the 27th day of July, and was
prorogued on the 5th day of August following, being the shortest session
of the Upper Canada Parliament on record. Though short it was glorious
in its action, and Brock was the moving spirit.

In opening this session, in his speech to the House, he said: "When
invaded by an enemy whose avowed object is the entire conquest of the
Province, the voice of loyalty as well as of interest calls aloud to
every person, in the sphere in which he is placed, to defend his
country. Our militia have heard that voice and obeyed; they have evinced
in the promptitude and loyalty of their conduct that they are worthy of
the King whom they serve, and of the institutions which they enjoy; and
it affords me particular satisfaction in that, while I address you as
legislators, I speak to men who, in the day of danger, will be ready to
assist not only with their counsel, but with their arms.

"We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity and
despatch in our councils and by vigor in our operations we may teach the
enemy the lesson that a country defended by free men, enthusiastically
devoted to the cause of their King and constitution, can never be
conquered."

What other effect could such a speech produce than of inspiring
unbounded confidence in General Sir Isaac Brock, now both Commander of
the Forces and His Majesty's representative administering the civil
affairs of the Province. The members of the House immediately set to
work to legislate in the direction of Sir Isaac's desires. The session
only lasted nine days, but during that space the Parliament passed an
Act relating to "the raising and training of the militia of the
Province, and to make further provision for the raising and training of
said militia," as well as an Act "to provide for the defence of the
Province."

It is needless here to recount the military deeds of the militia of the
Province, called out under these Acts, or of Brock, who lost his life
while leading on the same militia at Queenston Heights. The military
achievements are engraved in the memories of all Canadians, whose proud
boast it is that they are still British subjects; while Sir Isaac Brock
is commemorated in the monument erected by a grateful Province on
Queenston Heights, where the bones of all that is mortal of the brave
General repose.

Sir Isaac Brock fell on the 13th day of October, 1812, while gallantly
leading a charge up Queenston Heights at the head of 150 men, chiefly
volunteers of the County of York, but death, although untimely, was not
too soon to snatch from him the wreath of victory, for in a few short
hours after he passed away the enemy's position had been taken, the tide
of invasion turned, and the American army and its commander forced to
surrender on the field.

Earl Bathurst, in writing to Sir George Prevost, the
Commander-in-Chief, of the impression made in England by the death of
General Brock, penned the following eulogium. "This would have been a
sufficient loss to cloud a victory of much greater importance. His
Majesty has lost in him not only an able and meritorious officer, but
one also who, in the exercise of his functions of Provisional
Lieutenant-Governor, displayed qualities admirably adapted to awe the
disloyal, to reconcile the wavering, and to animate the great mass of
the inhabitants against successive attempts of the enemy to invade the
Province, in the last of which he unhappily fell, too prodigal of that
life of which his eminent services taught us to understand the value."


[Illustration: R H Sheaffe]

  ROGER H. SHEAFFE, PRESIDENT.

The immediate successor of Sir Isaac Brock in the administration of the
Government was Sir Roger H. Sheaffe, or, as described in the Statutes of
the Province, Roger Hale Sheaffe, Esquire, President, the civil title
given to those who become acting governors by virtue of succession as
President of the Executive Council or senior officer of the military
forces. This was the case of Sir Roger Sheaffe, whose civil
administration extended only over one session, commencing on the 25th of
February, 1813, in which only eleven Acts of Parliament were passed, the
most important of which was "an Act to provide for the maintenance of
persons disabled and the widows and children of such persons as may be
killed in His Majesty's service." Sir Roger was essentially a military
man. It was the accident of war, the death of Sir Isaac Brock, that was
the immediate cause of his becoming connected with the civil affairs of
the Province. He was known only, or principally known, to the people of
Upper Canada in his military capacity. General Sir Roger H. Sheaffe was
born in Boston, in the British colony of Massachusetts, on the 15th of
July, 1763, and was the third son of William Sheaffe, Esquire, Deputy
Collector of His Majesty's customs at that port, by Susannah, eldest
daughter of Thomas Child, Esquire, of Boston.

Sir Roger commenced his military career as an ensign in the 5th
Fusiliers--his commission being dated 1st May, 1778--in which regiment
he rose to the rank of lieutenant, receiving the promotion on the 27th
December, 1780. Lieutenant Sheaffe served in Ireland from January, 1781,
to May, 1787, and in Canada from June following to September, 1797. In
1794 he was employed under the orders of Lord Dorchester, and with
instructions from Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, on a public mission to
protest against certain settlements made by the Americans on the south
shore of Lake Ontario. On the 5th of May, 1795, he was promoted to the
rank of captain in the 5th Fusiliers, and on the 13th December, 1797,
was gazetted major in the 81st Regiment, and was advanced to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel of the 49th Regiment on the 22nd March, 1798. Sheaffe
served in Holland from August to November, 1799; in the Baltic from
March to July, 1801, and in Canada from September, 1802, to October,
1811. On 25th of April, 1808, he received the brevet rank of colonel,
and on the 4th of June, 1811, was advanced to the rank of major-general.
He again served in Canada from the 29th July, 1812, to November, 1813.
The Americans having invaded Canada on the 13th October, 1812, and
General Brock, commanding in the Province, having fallen while leading
the militia in an attack on the Americans, Major-General Sheaffe, on
whom the command devolved, continued the attack, with the addition of
some regular troops and a few Indians, and later on upon the same day
attacked the enemy in a wooded height which they occupied above the town
of Queenston. He completely defeated them, though far exceeding his own
followers in number, their commander delivering his sword and
surrendering his surviving troops on the field of battle.

In acknowledgment of this important service Major-General Sheaffe was
created a baronet by patent dated 16th January, 1813.

When the Americans attacked York, in April, 1813, he concocted such
measures for the defence of the town as he thought expedient; but not
considering the place defensible, he did not stay to assist the local
militia, he and his staff evacuating York a short time prior to the
attack of the Americans. For this he was much condemned, but probably
his military tactics were right, as it was of more importance to save
his small force than to risk them and his own life in a hopeless attempt
to repulse a superior force. His own life was now of more importance, as
he was administrator of the Government, having been so appointed on
Brock's death.

York not being defended by any military force, was now occupied by the
Americans, and the Government House and other buildings burnt, a
destruction which, it may be added, was amply attoned by the subsequent
occupation of Washington by British troops and destruction of the
capitol.

Sheaffe continued to command in Upper Canada and to administer its
Government until June, 1813, when he was succeeded in the military
command by General De Rottenburg. On quitting the Government he received
from the Executive Council an address expressing their sense of that
display of candor, justice and impartiality which had marked his
administration, and the urbanity and confidence of his official
intercourse. They further acknowledged their conviction that they owed
the salvation of the whole Province to his military talents on the
memorable day when he succeeded to the command. He was appointed to the
staff of Great Britain on the 25th March, 1814; but the appointment was
recalled and deferred in consequence of the change of affairs in Europe.
Sir Roger was appointed to the rank of lieutenant-general on the 19th
July, 1821, and on the 21st December, 1829, was appointed colonel of the
36th Regiment. He was advanced to the rank of general on the 28th June,
1828. His death occurred at Edinburgh on the 17th July, 1851. His wife
Margaret, daughter of John Coffin, Esquire, of Quebec, whom he married
in 1810, survived the gallant general but a few years.


  BARON FRANCIS DE ROTTENBURG.

On the retirement of Major-General Sheaffe, Major-General De Rottenburg
succeeded to the administratorship, which position he occupied from June
19th to December 12th, 1813. General De Rottenburg was Major of Hussars
in 1795, and in 1797 was Colonel of the 60th Foot, and was promoted to
the rank of brigadier-general in 1808. In 1810 he was appointed on the
staff in Canada and took command of the garrison at Quebec, and on the
breaking out of the war was in command of the Montreal district. After
filling the office of Administrator of Upper Canada he commanded the
left division of the army in Canada until 1815, when he returned to
England. He was promoted lieutenant-general in 1819, and died at
Portsmouth, England, April 24th, 1832. His son, Colonel Baron De
Rottenburg, was Adjutant-General of the Militia of Upper Canada from
1855 to 1858, when he received the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel of
the 100th or Prince of Wales' Royal Canada Regiment.


[Illustration: Gordon Drummond]

  SIR GORDON DRUMMOND, PROVISIONAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

Sir Gordon Drummond, who now succeeded to the administration of Upper
Canada, was of the ancient family of Drummonds of Concraig, and was the
youngest child of Colin Drummond, Esquire, of Megginch. He was born in
1771, at Quebec, where his father, Sir Colin, held the appointment of
Paymaster-General of the Forces in the Province. Sir Gordon entered the
army as an ensign in the 1st Regiment of foot on the 21st September,
1789; and after serving some time on the staff of the Earl of
Westmoreland, at that period Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he rose rapidly
to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1794, and the same year was
appointed to the command of the 8th (King's) Regiment, in which he
served in Holland under His Royal Highness the Duke of York. At the
siege of Mineguen, 1795, his conduct as a soldier was most conspicuous.

In the year 1800, after returning to England along with the troops from
the Netherlands, Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond proceeded in the command
of his regiment to Minorca, where he was stationed until the autumn of
1800, when he accompanied the expedition to Egypt under
Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercrombie. He was present at the landing
of the army on the 8th of March, 1801, as well as at the subsequent
engagement at the battle of Rhamania (when Sir Ralph fell mortally
wounded), and finally at the surrender of the Grand Cairo and Alexandria
to the British army. On the surrender of Cairo he went with his regiment
to Gibraltar, and here commenced a friendship between himself and His
Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, father of Her Majesty Queen Victoria,
which continued to the latest period of the Duke's life. In 1805 he was
second in command to Sir Eyre Coote, Commander of the Forces and
Governor of Jamaica, and was a general officer on Sir Eyre's staff. In
1808 he married Margaret, second daughter of William Russell, Esquire,
of Bancpeth Castle, in the County of Durham, and not long afterwards was
appointed to the staff in Canada, where he served until 1811, when he
once more revisited England. Early in 1812, he was selected to command
the south-east district of Ireland, where he performed important service
in that much disturbed land. In 1813 Sir Gordon, still retaining his
post on the staff in Ireland (having attained the rank of
lieutenant-general in 1811), was sent by the British Government to
Canada, as second in command to Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost.
He arrived in Canada on the 3rd of November, 1813, and without delay
proceeded to take command of the troops in Upper Canada. On the 19th
December, 1813, under his orders, a British and Canadian force stormed
the American Fort Niagara, which was captured, the conquering force
securing an immense accumulation of stores, both naval and military.

In the early part of the month of May, 1814, a combined operation was
executed under the immediate command of Lieutenant-General Drummond and
the squadron commanded by Commodore Sir James Yeo, the object of which
was to destroy the works and barracks at Oswego, as well as to cripple
the naval operations of the Americans by capturing or destroying a large
magazine of ship stores belonging to the American flotilla on the lake.
The success of the expedition was complete.

On the 25th of July, 1814, was fought the ever glorious battle of
Lundy's Lane, under the immediate command of Lieutenant-General
Drummond. In this engagement General Drummond received a severe wound
from a bullet which passed through his neck and lodged at the other
side. Notwithstanding this wound he did not dismount from his horse,
which a few minutes afterwards was killed under him.

Lundy's Lane was the most hotly contested of all the engagements which
took place in the war of 1812. The invaders of Canada, forming the
centre division of the American army, under the command of General
Brown, fought with a courage which was truly heroic. This battle was not
a long range engagement, but a hand to hand, bayonet to bayonet, muzzle
to muzzle conflict.

The battle between the contending parties raged most fiercely in the
contest for the commanding position of the brow of the hill at the east
of Lundy's Lane. When the shades of night had covered the contending
forces, the battle was continued till midnight with increased fury.

Thompson, who wrote a history of the war of 1812, said: "Charges were
made in such rapid succession and with such determined vigor that often
were the British artillerymen assailed in the very act of sponging and
charging the guns, and often were the muzzles of the guns of the
contending armies hauled up and levelled within a few yards of each
other."

Another writer, in describing the battle a few years after it was
fought, said: "Of all the battles fought in America the action at
Lundy's Lane was unquestionably the best sustained and by far the most
sanguinary. The rapid charges and real contests with the bayonet were of
themselves sufficient to render this engagement conspicuous. Traits of
real bravery and heroic devotion were that night displayed by those
engaged which would not suffer in comparison with those exhibited at the
storming at St. Sebastian, or the conflict at Quatre Bras."

General Drummond's report of this action stated the number of killed,
wounded and missing on the side of the British to have been 836. The
American General, Brown, in his report of the killed, wounded and
missing on the side of the Americans, stated the number to have been
858.

On the 13th August following the battle of Lundy's Lane Drummond, with a
considerable force, attacked Fort Erie, then in the possession of the
Americans. The works were carried and the guns of the fort turned upon
the enemy, when a magazine of powder caught fire and an awful explosion
took place, which destroyed nearly 400 men of the attacking force. The
Americans, taking advantage of a panic caused by this disaster, re-took
the fort, and General Drummond was robbed of his well-earned victory.
Toward the end of the year Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost,
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Canada, received orders to return to
England. Lieutenant-General Drummond was ordered to Quebec to succeed
him, not only as Commander-in-Chief of the military forces, but also as
Administrator-in-Chief of the Government of the two Canadas, Upper and
Lower.

In 1816, after having performed most important services to the British
Crown, he was at his own request relieved of his onerous duties in
Canada, and much to the regret of the inhabitants of Canada, returned to
England, where he resided in the enjoyment of domestic happiness among
his family and friends during the remainder of his life. He died in
London on the 10th of October, 1854, in the eighty-fourth year of his
age.

Sir Gordon Drummond's civil government as Administrator of this Province
was of but short duration, extending over only two years, and two
sessions of the Provincial Parliament. It was, however, his unspeakable
pleasure at the close of the last session under his administration, and
which may be said to have been the last administrative act of his
Canadian life, to give his assent to an Act of the Parliament entitled,
"An Act to provide for the erection of a monument to the memory of the
late President, Major-General Sir Isaac Brock."

The monument erected to the memory of Sir Isaac Brock still towers above
the Queenston Heights, as a beacon pointing the way in the future to
acts of heroism, such as distinguished the two Generals, Brock and
Drummond.


[Illustration: George Murray]

  SIR GEORGE MURRAY, G.C.B., PROVISIONAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

Sir George Murray was the second son of Sir William Murray, Bart., and
Lady Augusta Mackenzie, seventh and youngest daughter of George, third
Earl of Cromarty, and was born at the family seat, Ochtertyre,
Perthshire, on the 6th February, 1772. He was educated at the High
School and at the University of Edinburgh, and received an ensign's
commission in the 71st Regiment on the 12th March, 1789. He was
transferred to the 34th Regiment, and soon afterwards, in June, 1790, to
the 3rd Foot Guards. He served in the campaign of 1793 in Flanders, was
present at the affair of St. Amand, battle of Famars, siege of
Valenciennes, attack of Lincelles, investment of Dunkirk, and attack of
Lamoy. After service in Flanders, Holland and Germany, in the West
Indies, and as aide-de-camp to Major-General Campbell on the staff in
England and Ireland, on 5th August, 1799, he obtained a company in the
3rd Guards, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

In 1801 he was employed in the expedition to Egypt, was present at the
landing, was engaged in the battles of 13th and 21st March at Marmorici
and Aboukir, at Rosetta and Rhamanie, and at the investment of Cairo and
Alexandria. After occupying many important positions, in the autumn of
1808 he went as quartermaster-general with Sir John Moore to Portugal,
and was present at the battle of Vimiera, the affairs at Lago and Villa
Franca, and at the battle of Corunna. On March, 1809, he received the
brevet of colonel and was appointed quartermaster-general to the forces
in Spain and Portugal under Lord Wellington. He was promoted
major-general on 1st January, 1812, and on 9th August, 1813, he was made
colonel of the 7th Battalion of the 60th Regiment. He was made a K.C.B.
on 11th April, 1813, before the enlargement of the Order. On his return
home in 1814, he was appointed adjutant-general to the forces in
Ireland, and at the end of the year was sent to govern the Canadas with
the local rank of lieutenant-general.

At this time Europe was at peace, Napoleon being banished to Elba, and
it seemed as if a period of rest was in store for the hero of many wars.

General Murray received his appointment in Quebec by a general order
dated April 4th, 1815, in which he was appointed to command the troops
in Upper Canada and to administer the Civil Government. He arrived in
York soon after and reported to Lord Bathurst, the Colonial Minister,
that he "had taken the oath of his office to administer the Government
of Upper Canada as senior officer of the forces, with the title of
Provisional Lieutenant-Governor instead of President, the latter title
being applied to a civilian who had already a seat in Council." Whether
General Murray was entitled to the rank of lieutenant-governor or not
does not appear to be clear. It is undoubtedly the case that Governor
Gore was still acting as Governor, as we find him in May of this year
addressing official communications to Lord Bathurst dated at London,
asking leave to erect a temporary Government House at York in lieu of
the Government House destroyed by the Americans; and again in the same
month, at the request of Lord Bathurst, giving his views on the question
of changing the seat of Government from York to Kingston, a project
which was then contemplated, but which, owing no doubt to the active
opposition of Bishop Strachan, Chief Justice Scott, and Mr. John
Beverley Robinson, backed by Governor Murray, who received their
petition, was subsequently abandoned.

But General Murray was not fated to remain long in any one place. Soon
after his arrival in York, he was followed by the alarming news of
Napoleon's escape from Elba, which took place on February 26th, and his
arrival in Paris on March 5th. The affairs of Upper Canada ceased to
interest General Murray, and war being declared between France and
England he felt bound to join the Duke, his old commander, and
immediately applying for active service, left Canada without ever having
met the Legislature of the Province of which he was Governor, the
session having been prorogued by President Drummond before he came to
Upper Canada. Having obtained leave to join the army of Flanders,
various delays prevented him reaching it until the battle of Waterloo
had been fought and Paris occupied. He remained with the army of
occupation for three years as Chief of the Staff, with the local rank of
lieutenant-general.

On his return home in 1818 he was appointed Governor of Edinburgh
Castle. In August, 1819, he was made Governor of the Royal Military
College at Sandhurst, a post he held until 1824. On 14th June, 1820, the
University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. In
September, 1823, he was transferred to the colonelcy of the 42nd Royal
Highlanders, and in the same year was returned to Parliament in the Tory
interest as member for Perth County. In January, 1824, he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and the following March was appointed
Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. In March, 1825, he went to Ireland
as commander-in-chief of the forces, and was appointed
lieutenant-general on 27th May. He held the Irish command until May,
1828, when he was made a Privy Councillor on taking office as Secretary
of State for the Colonies in the Duke of Wellington's administration. He
held the post until November, 1830.

At the general election, 1832, he was defeated at Perth, but regained
the seat at a by-election in 1834. On his appointment as Master-General
of the Ordnance, he again lost the election, and did not again sit in
Parliament, although he contested Westminster in 1837, and Manchester in
1838 and 1841. He, however, continued to hold office as Master-General
of the Ordnance till 1846. He was promoted general on 23rd November,
1841, and was transferred to the colonelcy of the 1st Royals in
December, 1843. He died at his residence, Belgrave Square, London, on
28th July, 1846, and was buried beside his wife in Kensal Green cemetery
on 5th August. He married in 1826 Lady Louisa Erskine, sister of the
Marquis of Anglesea, and widow of Sir James Erskine, by whom he had one
daughter, who married his aide-de-camp, Captain Boyce, of the 2nd Life
Guards. His wife died 23rd January, 1842.

Murray was a successful soldier, an able Minister, and a skilful and
fluent debater. For his distinguished military services he received the
gold cross with five clasps for the Peninsula, the Orders of Knight
Grand Cross of the Bath, besides Austrian, Russian, Portuguese and
Turkish Orders.

He was the author of (1) "Speech on the Roman Catholic Disabilities
Relief Bill;" (2) "Special Instructions for the Offices of the
Quartermaster-General's Department;" (3) "The Letters and Despatches of
John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, from 1702 to 1712."


[Illustration: F. P. Robinson]

  MAJOR-GENERAL FREDERICK ROBINSON, G.C.B.,
  PROVISIONAL LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR.

On the retirement from the Province of Governor Murray the executive
branch of the Government devolved on Sir Frederick Phipps Robinson,
G.C.B., Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces on the Canada
station. Sir Frederick Robinson succeeded to the Governorship of the
Province on the 1st July, 1815, and continued to hold the office till
the return of Mr. Francis Gore from England in 1815. The short period of
Sir Frederick's governorship did not afford him an opportunity of
performing any administrative actions worthy of recording; he was a
soldier, and in that capacity had even at that time won his spurs. Sir
Frederick was the son of Colonel Beverley Robinson, of New York, whose
name is familiar to readers of the histories of the American Revolution
period as a devoted subject of Britain's King. A most hospitable
gentleman, whose house was the rendezvous of the military magnates of
that day. He was, of course, a United Empire Loyalist, and was a
relative of Sir John Beverley Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada
at a later period.

Sir Frederick entered the army in 1777 as ensign in the Loyal American
Regiment. In 1799 he was an officer in the 60th Regiment, and during his
campaign with that regiment was a prisoner of war several months.
Without going into particulars, in general it may be said that he served
in several regiments with distinction in the West Indies, in the Leeward
Islands, and in the Peninsula. He commanded a brigade at the battle of
Vittoria, received a medal and two clasps in recognition of his military
service at the siege of Sebastian and the passage of the Nive. As he was
not quite forty years of age when on June 10th, 1815, he succeeded to
the Governorship of Upper Canada in his capacity of commander-in-chief
of the forces, proof is afforded of the estimation in which he was held
by the military authorities and his rapid rise in the military service.
After leaving Canada he continued as before in the military service of
the Crown, and in 1838 was nominated Knight Grand Cross of the Bath. In
1846 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. He died at
Brighton, England, in 1852, thus ending a distinguished military career.




  CHAPTER VII.

  _GOVERNOR GORE--SECOND ADMINISTRATION._


After a succession of administrators, Governor Gore returned from
England, arriving at New York in July, with the first news of Waterloo
and the final surrender of Napoleon. From thence he journeyed to his own
capital, York, reaching there on the 25th day of September, 1815, and
received a right royal welcome from the inhabitants of the town, who
presented him with the following address:

    "_To His Excellency Francis Gore, Esquire,
    Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Upper Canada, etc.,
    etc_:

    "We, the judges, magistrates and principal inhabitants of the
    town of York, in approaching your Excellency to express our
    great satisfaction at beholding you once more among us, feel
    that we have still greater reason to congratulate ourselves
    on the happy event. The experience of your past firm and
    liberal administration, by which the prosperity of the
    Province has been so essentially promoted, teaches us to
    anticipate the greater benefit from its resumption, and this
    pleasing anticipation is confirmed by our knowledge of the
    fraternal solicitude which induced you while in England to
    bring, upon all proper occasions, the interests of the colony
    under the favorable attention of His Majesty's Government--a
    solicitude which calls forth in our hearts the most grateful
    emotions. We rejoice that the blessings of peace are to be
    dispensed by one who is so well acquainted with the wants and
    feelings of the colony, and we flatter ourselves that York,
    recovering from a state of war (during which she has been
    twice in the power of the enemy), will not only forget her
    disasters, but rise to greater prosperity under your
    Excellency's auspicious administration."

This address to His Excellency was well timed and well merited, for the
Governor, while in England, had interested himself in the affairs of
Upper Canada in a way that could not help but meet with approval. He
had, when in London, got a considerable sum of money subscribed for the
relief of those who had been wounded in the war and the wives and
children of the slain. He had induced the most influential persons to
head the list. The Dukes of Kent and Northumberland were at the head of
the committee formed to promote the object--they each subscribed one
hundred guineas, and the Governor himself followed with a like
subscription. He also superintended the execution of a medal in gold and
silver in London, intended to be conferred by the Loyal and Patriotic
Society for distinguished service rendered to the country during the
war. These medals were never distributed owing to a difficulty which
arose in determining who should be recipients. By resolution of the
society they were ordered to be broken up and converted into bullion.
The net value when thus converted was nearly four hundred pounds which,
with a further balance at the credit of the society, went towards the
erection of the General Hospital at York, formerly situated on John
Street. At this time York was a place of about five hundred
inhabitants, and the whole Province had a population of some 50,000.

Governor Gore, on resuming his office, called the Legislature together,
to meet him at York on the 6th day of February, 1816, and opened the
Provincial Parliament, which assembled on that day, with the following
address:

    "_Honorable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council and
    Gentlemen of the House of Assembly_:

    "After so long an absence, during which the prosperity of the
    Province was uppermost in my thoughts, I now embrace the
    wished-for opportunity of uniting with you in my endeavors to
    promote that salutary object. It would have been a great
    satisfaction to me to have been able to communicate any more
    favorable account of the state of our revered Sovereign than
    that his bodily health continues unimpaired.

    "I congratulate you and every loyal subject on the ultimate
    and complete success of the great struggle in Europe, in
    which every member of the British Empire is peculiarly
    interested, as being chiefly attributed to the auspices of
    His Royal Highness the Prince Regent and the national arms
    under the first warrior of modern times. The gallant defence
    of this colony by its own militia, supported during the early
    period of the war by a very small portion of His Majesty's
    regular force, has acquired for it a high distinction for
    loyalty and bravery. The obstinate contention with succeeding
    armies of invaders, and their ultimate discomfiture, has not
    failed to attract the attention or notice of the world, and
    gives to this Province an importance in public opinion which
    it becomes us to maintain."

It must have been most gratifying to the members of Parliament of that
day to have heard the King's representative, in glowing language, pay so
high a compliment to the loyal people of the Province as was contained
in the Governor's address.

In the session of Parliament of 1816, to which reference has just been
made, were passed several Acts of great importance and beneficial
tendency. The most important of all, looking to the future welfare of
the province, was the "Act granting to His Majesty a sum of money to be
applied to the use of the Common Schools throughout the Province, and to
provide for the regulation of said Common Schools." By this Act, an
annual grant of six thousand pounds, to be fairly distributed in the
different districts into which the Province was divided, was made; mode
of appointing trustees pointed out, and a board of education
established, or to be established, in each district; and, to crown all,
the teachers were to be British subjects, thus ensuring the continuance
of that loyalty in the youth of the Province which had but recently, in
the war just closed, been so conspicuous in the fathers of the country.

This was the first Act relating to Common Schools passed by the
Legislature of the Province, and was a fitting tribute made at the
shrine of white-winged peace, a worthy celebration of the termination of
a fratricidal war.

In the same session both Houses of Parliament, the Legislative Council
and Assembly, passed a joint address to the Prince Regent, couched in
the following language:

    "_To His Royal Highness_:

    "We, His Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the
    Legislative Council and House of Assembly in Provincial
    Parliament assembled, impressed with a lively sense of the
    firm, upright, and liberal administration of Francis Gore,
    Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor of this Province, as well as of
    his unceasing attention to the individual and general
    interest of the colony during his absence, have unanimously
    passed a bill to appropriate the sum of three thousand
    pounds, to enable him to purchase a service of plate
    commemorative of our gratitude. Apprised that this
    spontaneous gift cannot receive the sanction of our beloved
    Sovereign in the ordinary mode, by the acceptance of the
    Lieutenant-Governor in his name and behalf, we, the
    Legislative Council and Assembly of the Province of Upper
    Canada, humbly beg leave to approach your Royal Highness with
    an earnest prayer that you will approve this demonstration of
    our gratitude, and graciously be pleased to sanction His
    Majesty's name to the grant of the Legislature on behalf of
    the inhabitants of Upper Canada.

    "25th March, 1816."

It is a curious fact that notwithstanding the gratitude expressed in the
address of the Assembly, in the next session the members of the House
and the Governor were very much at variance on many questions. The
session of 1817, in which this disposition of members to measure swords
with the Governor was shown, was the first session of a new Parliament,
which accounts for the change in the sentiments of members. New blood
was a feature of the new Parliament, made up of members of very
independent thought, men who were quite prepared to urge reforms, even
though thereby they should place themselves in opposition to the Viceroy
of the Province. The names of these men, as they have come down to us in
history, indicate that they were not of the Thorpe-Willcocks coterie,
but an entirely different class.

After several Acts had been passed during the session, none of which was
of general importance (in fact, they were mostly Acts to repeal, amend
or continue old laws), the House resolved itself into a Committee of the
Whole to take into consideration "the present state of the Province."
For the House to do such a thing as to inquire into the state of the
Province, according to the ideas of the Colonial Government as it
prevailed at that time, was in the opinion of some, especially in the
opinion of officialdom at York, a direct reflection on the Governor and
his Executive Council. Office-holders stood aghast at the proposal, and
so disgusted was the Governor that he cried out when he first heard of
it, "I will send the rascals about their business;" and indeed he would
have done so before the setting in of another day had not the good sense
of Chief Justice Powell prevailed with him to postpone taking such
over-active steps to rid himself of an obnoxious House. He was not,
however, long restrained, for the very next day, on the assembling of
the members, and before the minutes were read, a message was received
from His Excellency requiring the attendance of the House at the bar of
the Legislative Council. In obedience to this summons the members of the
Assembly proceeded to the Upper House, where they were confronted by the
Governor, who in a curt speech informed them that they had been engaged
in their labors sufficiently long for the present session and that they
were now at liberty to return to their homes.

It is only necessary to mention the names of the members who formed the
majority in support of the resolution to inquire into the state of the
province as proof that there was something wrong somewhere. Their names
were Macdonell, McMartin, Cameron, Jones, Howard, Casey, Robinson,
Nelles, Secord, Nichol, Burwell, McCormick, Cornwall. These men, though
called Tories, were really moderate Reformers as we view things at the
present day. The minority who were for pursuing the old policy of
letting well-enough alone, were VanKoughnet, Chrysler, Fraser, Colter,
McNab, Swayzie, Church. They were Tory of the Tories.

It is not surprising that Governor Gore, after (it must have been in a
fit of spleen) calling members of the house "rascals," and bringing the
session abruptly to a close, should not care to have further
communication with a Canadian Parliament. A month after the close of the
session he returned to England to make his own representation of the
state of the Province and to justify himself with his masters, the
British Government. This he did to his own satisfaction, and presumably
to the satisfaction of the Colonial Minister in London, behind whose
chair he was a power.

Governor Gore's name was perpetuated in Canada in the name of the old
Gore District. His wife's name is also perpetuated. Her name was
"Arabella"--_i.e._, her Christian name. The Governor's familiar
abbreviation of the name was "Belle." The Governor jocosely suggested
that this name with a _ville_ (town) added would make a good name for a
place, hence Belleville. The county town of Hastings has the honor of
getting its name from the compound Belle-ville.

The Governor had many staunch friends in York, both official and others,
who had joined with him in his policy, especially in regard to the
exclusion of Americans from becoming owners of land in the Province.
These friends, in bidding farewell to the Governor just before his
setting out for England, presented him with an address, commending his
administration of the affairs of the Province and the solicitude with
which he had watched over the welfare of His Majesty's subjects and
cherished the "sentiments of loyalty to the best of Kings, by which
alone this colony can be a valuable appendage to the Crown or an
agreeable place of residence for British subjects."

In this address his admirers even went so far as to express the hope
that the Governor would return again to the Province to reign over His
Majesty's Canadian subjects.

He never did return to Canada. It could hardly be expected that he would
after the very abrupt and cavalier manner in which he dealt with the
people's representatives in the session of Parliament just preceding his
departure from the Province.

Soon after leaving Upper Canada for England, Mr. Gore was, in 1818,
appointed Deputy-Teller of the Exchequer. He continued to enjoy the
patronage and confidence of the Marquis of Camden in this office till a
new arrangement of that important department, under Lord Grey's
administration, placed him in retirement. His home in England was in
London. He was a prominent member of the Athenum Club, where he spent
many agreeable hours, and his knowledge of life and business habits and
his strong, straightforward sense placed him frequently on the Committee
of Management. To be a manager of such a club was no slight honor in
those days, as its portals received the most eminent members of society
in England, both civil and military. There were congregated of an
afternoon Cabinet Ministers, parliamentary orators, peers, judges,
physicians, recent rulers from India, Africa, and America, officers of
both services, the poet, the novelist, editors, men of science and of
law, artists, barristers--with and without briefs--who might be seen
daily mingled in groups according to their taste or range of
acquaintance. Theodore Hooke, prince of wits and humorists, was a member
of this club, and had many a friendly banter with Gore, who passed by
his Canadian title of Governor within the precincts of the club. The
Governor and Hooke were soon sworn allies, and never met or parted
without a trial of wit. It is safe to say that Hooke in a contest of
this kind would come off the victor. Theodore Hooke organized in this
club a body called the "Knights of the Napkin," who dined together at
the club. Seated around the table might be seen not only Hooke and the
Governor, but a goodly company of distinguished men, who, if not
absolutely choice spirits, enjoyed the flow of soul and could freely
contribute to the fund of hilarity.

The Governor frequently paid a visit out of London to Wilderness Park,
the seat of the Marquis of Camden, where he spent, as he said, many of
his most agreeable hours. In August, 1838, he lost his wife, and for a
time gave up housekeeping, but soon returned to it in his former
neighborhood, Grosvenor Square. During the last three or four years of
his life he lost the free use of the lower limbs, so that he could no
longer walk to his club. Members of the club who were partial to him
frequently visited him at his residence, and he was thus enabled to keep
up a friendly connection with what had been to him a great source of
happiness. Latterly infirmities crept on, but his constitution enabled
him to withstand the ravages of age and infirmities for a considerable
period, till at length, in his eighty-fourth year, dropsy was added to
his other complaints, and although still fresh and vigorous in mind, he
expired at Brighton on November 3rd, 1852.




[Illustration: Sam Smith]

  CHAPTER VIII.

  _SAMUEL SMITH, ADMINISTRATOR._


The honorable Samuel Smith was of English descent. He was born at
Hempstead, Long Island, on the 27th December, 1756. His grandfather,
Benjamin Smith, emigrated from the north of England about 1740, and
settled at North Hempstead, where he purchased a considerable estate.
Benjamin Smith had three sons, of whom James was the youngest. James
married Amy Serring, who was of English birth. The fruit of this
marriage was one son, Samuel, and a daughter, Elizabeth. James Smith's
wife died not many years after these children were born, and within a
few years he married his second wife, Anne Valentine, the daughter of a
near neighbor of Long Island. By Anne Valentine he had three children,
one of whom, Anne, became the wife of the Honorable Alexander Macdonell
of Toronto, a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. On the
breaking out of the American Revolutionary War of 1776, Samuel Smith,
the future Administrator of the Province of Upper Canada, then a boy of
sixteen years of age, entered the army. In a family reminiscence which I
have before me, written by Anne Macdonell, wife of the Honorable
Alexander Macdonell, for her niece, Mrs. Nellis, of Grimsby, she says of
this period and her brother James' relation to it: "It was a critical
period, the commencement of the American Revolutionary War, when a
decided part must be taken. My father (James Smith) did not hesitate. He
was a King's man to all intents and purposes, even to the day of his
death. And with the advice of a friend, Captain Sanford, of the Queen's
Rangers, he got a commission in that regiment of an ensigncy for his
son. They were sent to Yorke Island, and sometimes stationed on Long
Island, so that my brother occasionally visited home."

The young ensign entered with great ardor upon the performance of his
military duties. He accompanied the Rangers in their expedition to the
more southern of the colonies, was engaged in several battles, and was
severely wounded at the battle of Brandywine, the effects of which he
felt more or less during the remainder of his life. Before he was twenty
years of age he was promoted to a captaincy in the Rangers. At the close
of the Revolutionary War, the captain was put on half-pay, and, with
many other United Empire Loyalists, retired into New Brunswick, where he
remained several months. From here he proceeded to England, and occupied
several years in travelling on the continent, visiting France, Italy,
and other continental countries. On his return to England, learning that
a new regiment of Queen's Rangers was being formed for service in
Canada, to follow General Simcoe, on his assuming the first governorship
of the Province of Upper Canada, in 1792, he joined the new regiment
with the old name, as captain. In 1792 he, with a division of the
regiment, was ploughing his way through the snow of New Brunswick to
join General Simcoe, who had arrived in Canada. Captain Smith followed
the fortunes of Governor Simcoe, and in time became colonel of his
regiment. He was with Simcoe at Niagara and York, and in 1793 the Crown
granted him 1,000 acres of land for his services. This land was in the
territory adjoining Burlington Bay to the west. In the record of this
grant he is called captain, from which it appears that it was after this
that he was made colonel of the Rangers. Colonel Smith's original
homestead in the county of York was in Etobicoke township, in the
neighborhood of the river Etobicoke. He had also a town residence on
Richmond Street, a little west of York Street, in the town of York. He
was appointed member of the Executive Council on the 7th October, 1815,
and on the retirement of Governor Gore, became Administrator of the
Province, filling the interregnum between the departure of Gore and the
arrival of Sir Peregrine Maitland, his successor.

The second session of Parliament was opened at York on the 5th day of
February, 1818, by Colonel Samuel Smith, and closed on the 5th day of
April following. The members of Parliament during this session seem to
have devoted their attention to the improvement of the internal affairs
of the Province, which had been put so much out of joint during the war.
It became necessary to raise money to carry on the Government, and what
source of revenue was to be found more advantageous than an inland
revenue tax on spirituous liquors, then largely consumed in the
Province? The first Act of the session held under the administration of
the Honorable Samuel Smith was "an Act to impose a duty upon persons
selling wine, brandy, and other spirituous liquors."

Only thirteen Acts were passed during the session, and the most
important of them were of a similar inland revenue character. Colonel
Smith's administration lasted from June 11th, 1817, to August 12th,
1818, when the new Governor, Maitland, took the oaths of office. After
his retirement he lived privately, except for a short time in 1820, when
he was administrator for about four months during Governor Maitland's
absence, until 1826, dying on October 20th of that year. The Reverend
Doctor Phillips, Anglican clergyman, in a sermon delivered by him in
York, pronounced an eulogy on the Administrator, then lately deceased,
which summarized contemporary opinion. Referring to the Administrator's
death, he said, "It affords us much pleasure to recapitulate his virtues
as a soldier, a senator, a father, and a friend. His youthful blood was
shed in our country's cause, and he nobly withstood the mad career of
the rebellion, to maintain the standard of British glory. His conduct in
the high and distinguished office of Administrator of the Government of
the Province was marked with undeviating rectitude, evincing on all
occasions a firm attachment to the best interests of this happy and
flourishing colony. He was a zealous supporter of the laws and
constitutions of the British Empire, and a bright ornament of our
Protestant Church. Paternal affection and solicitude were conspicuous in
his domestic relations, and as a friend, the individual feelings of
those who knew him from his youth, many of whom are here present, who
were his fellow associates in the arduous cause in which he was engaged,
will bear testimony to his extreme kindness and amiable disposition. As
a Christian, the sincerity of his faith and pious resolutions were
manifest in his walking humbly with God."

Samuel Smith Macdonell, of Toronto, and Mrs. McWilliams, wife of former
City Solicitor McWilliams, are grandchildren of the Honorable Samuel
Smith, the Administrator.




[Illustration: P Maitland]

  CHAPTER IX.

  _SIR PEREGRINE MAITLAND, K.C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Sir Peregrine Maitland, who was the Governor appointed to succeed
Governor Gore, was born at Long Parish, in Hampshire, England, in 1777,
and was the son of Thomas Maitland, Esquire, of Shrubs Hill, in the New
Forest. He entered the army on the 25th June, 1792, then only fifteen
years of age, as ensign in the 1st Guards, and was promoted to
lieutenant and captain April 30th, 1794. He served throughout the
campaign in Flanders, and was present in several actions; also at Ostend
in 1798. In those stirring days rapid promotion was the order, and he
succeeded to a company June 25th, 1803, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. In 1808-9, he served in Spain, and was engaged in
the actions of Lugo and Corunna, for which he received the silver war
medal, and was in the expedition of the latter year to the Scheldt. He
obtained the brevet rank of colonel January 1st, 1812. At the battle of
the Nive he commanded the first brigade of Guards, for which he received
the gold medal. He became a major-general June 4th, 1814; and at
Waterloo commanded the first British brigade of the first division,
consisting of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 1st Foot Guards. On the
22nd June, 1815, he was nominated a Knight Commander of the Bath, and
for his services at Waterloo he received the fourth class of the Order
of Wilhelm and the third class of Wilhelm of the Netherlands.

With such a brilliant military record, in days when it was the custom to
appoint military men to colonial government, it is not surprising that
Sir Peregrine Maitland was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada
at the close of the Continental war and the peace ensuing on the fall of
Napoleon in 1815.

Sir Peregrine Maitland is described by Dr. Scadding, in his "Toronto of
Old," as a tall, grave officer. The Doctor's description refers to his
Sunday attendance at the Church of St. James. "To limit ourselves to our
own recollections, here, at St. James' Church, with great regularity
every Sunday was to be seen, passing to and from the place of honor
assigned to him, a tall, grave officer, always in military undress, his
countenance ever wearing a mingled expression of sadness and
benevolence, like that which one may observe on the face of the
predecessor of Louis Phillippe, Charles X, whose current portrait
recalls, not badly, the whole head and figure of this early Governor of
Upper Canada."

Sir Peregrine was a man of fine military carriage, and though somewhat
reserved in his manner, was always frank and open with those with whom
he came in contact. He married Lady Sarah Lennox, the graceful and
elegant daughter of the Duke of Richmond. There was something of romance
about this marriage which attracted considerable attention at the time
it took place. On the eve of Waterloo, as is well known to readers of
history of the time, the Duchess of Richmond gave a ball at Brussels,
commemorated by Lord Byron in "Childe Harold," in the lines so
well-known in which he tells of the battle of Waterloo. Major Maitland
and the Lady Sarah were at that ball. Whether he there met his fate is
not recorded. It is certain, however, that proposals of marriage were
about this time made by Major Maitland to the Lady Sarah, and were by
her favorably received. But the Duke objected, and flatly refused his
consent to his daughter's marriage to one who, however gallant an
officer, was not deemed a suitable match for the daughter of a great
nobleman. Lady Sarah was in no way disconcerted, and while her father
was resident in Paris, during the occupation of the allied armies after
Waterloo, she one day deserted the parental home, repaired to the brave
officer's quarters, captured her soldier, and married him without her
father's consent. The young lady being married, the Duke had nothing to
do but forgive, which he seems to have done readily, and as became his
station he at once sought for means to make their position secure. His
appointment as Governor-General of the Canadas, in 1818, gave him the
opportunity to provide for his daughter and her husband, and Sir
Peregrine was, through the Duke's influence, at once offered the office
of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, which he accepted on January
3rd, 1818, and accompanied the Duke to the Province on his crossing the
Atlantic to assume the office of Governor-General.

The Duke had been Viceroy of Ireland before receiving his Canadian
appointment. His official career in Ireland, involving, as it did, heavy
expenditure, had not proved very profitable, and to repair his fortune,
which had been seriously impaired by his extravagance while holding the
Viceregal post, he was glad to accept a colonial appointment. But he did
not live long to enjoy his new office. He paid a visit to Sir Peregrine
and his daughter, Lady Sarah, at York, in 1819. Returning to Quebec by
way of Kingston, he reached a hamlet now grown to the village of
Richmond. Here he was taken with a sudden illness, hydrophobia, caused
by the bite of a pet fox, and after a few hours of intense suffering, he
died on August 29th, 1819.

Sir Peregrine had not been at York, the capital, for a very long period
when he deemed it advisable to convene Parliament to take into
consideration matters of import. One reason, if not the principal one,
for his summoning the members of the Legislature to meet him at the
capital, was the agitation of the people, promoted by Robert Fleming
Gourlay. Gourlay was a Scotchman, of Fifeshire, descended from an old
and respected Scottish family. He was the son of a lawyer in Edinburgh,
who at one time had been regarded as a person of wealth, but whose
inheritance of land had become so reduced in value at the close of the
Napoleonic wars that he became bankrupt. Gourlay was in his youth
flighty and erratic, ambitious to a degree, yearning for fame of some
kind, even though it should be that of a general agitator. This he
became while yet in Scotland, went from Scotland to England, preached
agitation there, and finally, at the age of thirty-five, emigrated to
Canada, where he took up the same pursuit. Sir Peregrine Maitland had
taken up his residence in York, in the month of August, 1818. In a very
short time after his arrival, Gourlay, whose proceedings were perfectly
frank and open, wrote to the Governor "that he was under a charge of
libelling the Government, and that he would have no objection to wait
upon him at any time and give him the benefit of his experience." This
letter caused the Governor to make inquiry as to Mr. Gourlay's
antecedents, when he found what manner of man he had to deal with. He
found further that Gourlay had, in continuance of the proceedings of a
convention of the people held under his auspices to deliberate upon the
propriety of sending commissioners to England to call attention to the
affairs of the Province, drafted a petition to the Crown of a very
startling character. In this draft petition it was alleged that
"corruption, indeed, had reached such a height in the Province that it
was thought that no other part of the British Empire witnessed the like.
It mattered not what characters filled situations of public trust at
present: all sunk beneath the dignity of men, and have become vitiated
and weak."

The language of this petition, to the minds of the Executive Government,
afforded an opportunity for indicting Mr. Gourlay for seditious libel.
Four days after his letter to Sir Peregrine he was in the Kingston gaol,
for the matter contained in the petition. He was brought to trial on
August 20th and acquitted, and was tried again at Brockville ten days
afterwards for another libel contained in the same petition, and again
acquitted. Gourlay had many sympathizers among the people, as with all
his eccentricity, which led some to suppose he had a bee in his Scotch
bonnet, he had the true interest of the people at heart, and his
agitation was for reforms which, in his opinion, could only be wrung
from the Executive by heroic measures. Agitate! agitate!! was his motto,
and well he performed his task.

Sir Peregrine Maitland, no doubt considering it would be more proper for
the Provincial House of Parliament, under his guidance, to deliberate on
the affairs of the Province, than for Mr. Gourlay and his convention to
take the matter in hand, called a meeting of the House for the 12th of
October, 1818, and opened the Legislature with a short speech, one
paragraph of which was: "In the course of your investigation, you will,
I doubt not, feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been
made to excite discontent and to organize sedition. Should it appear to
you that a convention of delegates cannot exist without danger to the
constitution, in framing a law or prevention your dispassionate wisdom
will be careful that it shall not unwarily trespass on the sacred right
of the subject to seek a redress of the grievance."

This paragraph of Sir Peregrine's speech was, no doubt, aimed at
Gourlay, who had now gained great prominence, and, as can be seen from
the foregoing, the agitator was agitating with success, even the
Governor being attracted by his propaganda.

The mind of the Governor reflected itself in the House of Parliament
passing "an Act for preventing certain meetings in the Province," which,
however, was found to be so distasteful to the people that it was
repealed by their representatives within two years.

Having in my narrative of "The Rebellion of 1837" discoursed somewhat at
large of Mr. Gourlay and his eccentricities, troubles and trials, I will
not pursue the subject further here, but merely add that it cannot be
doubted that he was the originator and promoter of considerable reforms
in the Province. While we must deplore the sad results which in some
measure were hastened by his energetic agitation for popular rights, we
must truly accord the tribute of honor to a true patriot who "courted no
man's favor and feared no man's frown."

It was unfortunate for Sir Peregrine Maitland that he had to deal with a
man of Gourlay's metal in his early administration, but when Scot meets
Scot then comes the tug of war. Sir Peregrine was of a Scotch family,
and so was Gourlay; but the Governor had the power of force, Gourlay
only the power of speech. Speech had to give way to force in the end.
Notwithstanding all his misfortune, Gourlay lived to the ripe old age of
eighty, and died in his native Scotland in 1863.

Sir Peregrine's permanent residence in Canada was not at York, but at
Stamford, three miles west of Niagara Falls. Here he built a house, to
which was given the name of Stamford Cottage. Here at least he could be
free of the jarring elements which existed at the capital; here he could
live in comparative ease and comfort, away from agitators and all their
kindred; here he could in quiet retirement, having all the enjoyment
desirable from living almost within a stone's throw from that wonder of
the world, the great cataract of Niagara. Noblemen and others who
crossed the Atlantic to visit the United States and Canada were sure to
pay Sir Peregrine a flying visit. Stamford Cottage, built in a large
park of many acres, surrounded by fine trees of the Canadian forest, was
frequently visited by tourists from the old land; so the Governor's
life was varied somewhat by the distant echoes of the confusion created
by the political agitator from afar and the entertainment of those who
visited him in his home. In 1824 the Governor had quite a distinguished
number of visitors. They were Mr. Stanley, afterwards known as Lord
Derby; Mr. Denison, M.P. for Newcastle, afterwards Speaker of the
British House of Commons; Mr. Stuart-Wortley, M.P. for Bossiney, in
Cornwall, afterwards Lord Wharncliffe.

Notwithstanding the Governor's desire to live a life of comparative
quiet, the serenity of his mind was too frequently agitated by perusal
of newspapers containing offensive personal or political allusions to
himself, matter in his opinion detrimental to the interests of the
Province he was sent to govern. Having got well rid of Gourlay by
banishment, his peace of mind was soon disturbed by the sudden rising
into popularity of another Scot, if possible more aggressive than
Gourlay. This was William Lyon Mackenzie, a man somewhat of the same
type as Gourlay, but more of the Radical demagogue and more
unscrupulous.

Mackenzie had come to the Province in 1820, about the same time as
Gourlay, and between that time and 1824 was occupied in trade, for which
he was well fitted, and if he had adhered to it instead of dabbling in
the slime of politics he would have saved himself an infinity of
trouble. In this year of 1824 he abandoned the business in which he had
been engaged, and established and published a newspaper, the plain
object of which was, if possible, to overthrow Sir Peregrine Maitland
and his Government. The _Colonial Advocate_--for that was the name of
the paper established by Mr. Mackenzie--bent on a mission to reform the
Canadian colony, had its birth-place in Queenston, only a few miles from
the Governor's Stamford house. In the first number of this paper, Mr.
Mackenzie, the publisher, assailed Sir Peregrine, the Executive Council,
and the Legislative Council--the latter being represented as "selected
from the tools of servile power." Mr. Mackenzie was not himself a tool
of any power, and was, without exception, the most politically
independent man of his day, frequently at variance, not only with the
Governor and the Executive and Legislative Councils, but with his own
friends, equally with himself imbued with the necessity of reform in the
Government. The difference between himself and his fellow reformers was
that he was always in advance, always in the lead, his purpose being to
overthrow; while that of other reformers was by judicious management to
ameliorate the condition of affairs. The difference was one of degree,
not one of principle.

The first step was to reform the Legislative Assembly, and this they
succeeded in doing, for, at the general election in 1824, the Government
party was defeated and a majority of Reform representatives sent to the
House of Assembly, the most prominent of whom were Marshall S. Bidwell
and Peter Perry, returned for the counties of Lennox and Addington. In
capturing the Assembly these reformers thought they had gained the
Government. Mr. Mackenzie and his followers, with a due appreciation of
responsible government as it existed in England, believed that now that
they had control of the Assembly they could control all the public
affairs of the Province. Fatal error; they were soon given to understand
by the Governor that he owed no responsibility to them, but only to the
British Government; that they were to him but an advising body, whom he
might or might not consult as he thought proper. The Governor's position
was the right one to take as the Colonial Government existed at that
day. It is not too much to say, that to Bidwell, Rolph, and Mackenzie,
and those who co-operated with them at that period, much, if not all,
the credit is due for bringing about a different state of things and the
establishment of responsible Government as it exists at the present day.
The regrettable thing is that the over-energetic Mackenzie resorted to
means to obtain this result which could have been obtained by other
methods than rebellion, with its attendant miseries, the loss of many
lives and manifold calamities.

Sir Peregrine Maitland, equally with the officials who were endeavoring
to carry on the Colonial Government as it was, and not as it ought to
have been, came under the lash of Mr. Mackenzie, the apostle of reform.
The residence of the Governor being at Stamford, necessitating the
frequent crossing of the lake to meet the Executive Council at York,
presented a fine opportunity to the agitator, Mr. Mackenzie, to hurl a
shot at His Excellency. In the very first number of the _Colonial
Advocate_ he wrote of the Governor, "that he knew Upper Canada's wants,
as he gained a knowledge of the day by report, in the one case by the
Niagara gun and in the other by the _Gazette_ essay upon stupor and
inactivity." The _Gazette_ was the Government organ, hence Mr.
Mackenzie's satirical allusion to the information derived from its
columns. The fact is that Mackenzie had promoted himself to the position
of censor of the Governor, of the Government, and of everybody and
everything that had any part or hand with either or both.

Sir Peregrine was not a man disposed to submit to insult from any man.
Mackenzie, not only in the first number of his paper, but in succeeding
numbers throughout the summer of 1824, continued to assail the Governor
and the Government in his most offensive style of writing, full of
sarcasm and allusions as discreditable as they were untrue.
Notwithstanding this, Mr. Mackenzie, aided by certain political friends,
managed to have deposited in the cavity of the cornerstone of the first
monument erected to the memory of Sir Isaac Brock on Queenston Heights,
which was laid on October 13th, 1824, a copy of the first issue of the
_Colonial Advocate_. This occurred during Sir Peregrine's absence on an
official tour through the eastern part of the Province. One can imagine
the feelings of the Governor on learning of the occurrence. That a copy
of a paper which had been so accustomed to vilify him and his Government
had been given a place in the cornerstone of a monument being erected
to Brock, the warrior chief of 1812, so justly called "The Hero of Upper
Canada," and that too during the administration of a soldier Governor,
was not to be tolerated. The Governor, on his return to the seat of
government, gave instant orders that the foundation of the monument,
which had then reached a height of fourteen feet, should be dug out and
the offensive document removed, and this was done by one of the
commissioners who had charge of the erection of the monument and the
architect. It may easily be surmised what pleasure Sir Peregrine must
have taken in rooting out, as it were, the dross from the pure stone of
the monument erected to the memory of a soldier whose grave he deemed
would be defiled by Mackenzie's sheet.

The year 1824 was an eventful one in many ways as affecting the future
growth and welfare, not only of the Province at large, but of York, its
capital. It was on the Christmas eve of this year that the cubical brick
block, erected for legislative purposes at the foot of Berkeley or
Parliament Street in 1818, to supply the place of the Parliament House
built on the same site, and burnt by the Americans on their capture of
York in 1813, was accidentally destroyed by fire. The consequence of
this was that Sir Peregrine Maitland was forced to open the first
session of the ninth Parliament, on January 13th, 1825, in the General
Hospital building, which had been recently erected west of John Street.

It is suggestive that His Excellency was doomed, not only to meet the
political fire of many adversaries during his time, but was, by the
destructive element, driven from the old house of meeting at the foot of
Parliament Street to a building originally intended for the sick, but
now converted into a debating-house for the healthy but inflammable
members recently elected to represent the people of Upper Canada in
Parliament assembled.

The session of the Legislature held in 1825-26 passed over without
anything of a startling nature happening under the reformed Parliament.
Some good laws were passed, principally of practical utility. Mr.
Mackenzie still plied his trade of _censor morum_, very much to the
discomfort of the Government and the civil servants of the Government,
many of whom came under his lash. Some time after the close of the
session, some young men of the town, by family ties or in some other way
connected with the civil servants, on a fine summer evening, the 8th of
June, 1826, boldly entered the office of Mr. Mackenzie, at the corner of
Caroline and Palace Streets, scattered the type of the _Colonial
Advocate_, which had been set up, and threw a part of it into the bay--a
foolish thing to do, as it only gave Mr. Mackenzie more notoriety and
excited a degree of sympathy for him in the minds of many. Mr. Mackenzie
subsequently brought an action against the rioters, and recovered a
verdict of 625. The rioters had sympathizers as well as Mr. Mackenzie,
and the greater part of the verdict was paid by subscription, and, as
usual, the public paid for the politicians' sport.

Sir Peregrine Maitland had not much respect for a House of Assembly of
which the majority of the members were bent on reducing his authority
and that of his Government, made up of individuals who, because of their
tendency to stand by the Governor and by one another, were given the
name of the "Family Compact." An incident occurred in 1828 which shows
the value placed by Sir Peregrine on his own authority. It happened that
during the session of Parliament of that year a committee of the House
of Assembly desired to have the evidence of the Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, and of the Adjutant-General, in relation to a trespass by one
Forsyth on government property at the Falls of Niagara, and commanded
their attendance before the committee at a certain day and hour. The
Superintendent and Adjutant-General applied to Sir Peregrine, who
besides being Lieutenant-Governor was Commander-in-Chief of the forces
at the time, for permission to obey the mandate of the House. Sir
Peregrine refused to give them permission, and they were both arrested
by the Sergeant-at-Arms for disobedience of the order of the House,
taken to the common gaol, and kept there in confinement to the end of
the session. Sir George Murray, himself at one time Lieutenant-Governor
of Upper Canada, who had lately succeeded Mr. Huskisson as Colonial
Secretary, severely censured Sir Peregrine for his conduct in refusing
permission to the officers summoned to attend a committee of the House
of Assembly. Sir Peregrine was removed from the Government the same
year. On the announcement of his recall, addresses poured in upon him
from different parts of the Province, all expressing sentiments of
personal regard and respect for his administration of the Government.
After his removal from the governorship of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine
had many opportunities or appointments, both civil and military--in the
former capacity as Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from November,
1828, to October, 1832; in the latter as Commander-in-Chief of the
Madras army in 1836, and Governor and Commander-in-Chief at the Cape of
Good Hope, 1843-46. He attained the rank of general in 1843, and in 1853
was nominated a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath. In 1820 he was
Administrator-in-Chief of Canada for three months.

As Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada he was in every way acceptable to
the oligarchy of his day, but distrusted by those imbued with the rising
spirit of reform and revolution, which gained head and ended in
rebellion at a subsequent period. He died in London, England, on the
30th day of May, 1854.




[Illustration: J Colborne]

  CHAPTER X.

  _SIR JOHN COLBORNE, K.C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Sir John Colborne was born in England in the year 1778, received his
education at Christ's Hospital (the Blue Coat School), and afterwards at
Winchester College, and entered the service in the British army as
ensign in the year 1794.

He served in Holland in the campaign of 1790, in Egypt in 1801, and with
the British and Russian troops employed on the Neapolitan frontier in
1805; also in Sicily and Calabria in the campaign of 1808, and was
present at the battle of Maida. In the same year, 1806, he was military
secretary to General Fox, Commander of the Forces in Sicily and the
Mediterranean, and to the celebrated Sir John Moore in Sicily, Sweden,
and Portugal, and was present at the battle of Corunna. In 1809 he
joined the army of Lord Wellington (then Marquis of Wellesley) and was
present at the battle of Ocana. He had now received command of a
regiment, being appointed to a lieutenant-colonelcy. He commanded a
brigade in Sir Richard Hill's division in the campaigns of 1811-1818,
and was detached in command of the brigade to Castle Branco to observe
the movements of General Renfrew's corps d'armee on the frontier of
Portugal. At the battle of Busaco he commanded a brigade, and also on
the retreat to the lines of Torres Vedras. With the brigade he occupied
outside of the lines the town of Alhandra and the advanced position near
Villa-France, during the time the army was in this position and
afterwards when Massena retired from the front of the lines. He crossed
the Tagus and had charge of the posts on that river opposite the French
corps at the confluence of the Zezere till the evacuating of Portugal by
Massena. He commanded the advanced guard of infantry and cavalry at the
combat of Campo Mayor, in Portugal, and was detached in command of a
brigade and force of artillery and cavalry, with orders to drive back
the French outposts during the siege of Badajos in 1811. He also
commanded a brigade at the battle of Albuera. In 1812, on the investment
of Ciudad Rodrigo, he commanded the force of the Light Division which
stormed the redoubt of San Francisco, on the greater Teson, and the 52nd
Light Infantry in the assault on the fortress and town, in which action
he was seriously wounded. In 1813 he commanded the Second Brigade of the
Light Division at the attack on the French position and entrenched camp
on the heights of Vera, at the battle of the Nivelle and the Nive, and
during the operations in the Basque Pyrenees. He led the attack of the
52nd Light Infantry on Marshal Soult's position at the battle of Orthes,
in 1814. Also, in the same year, he commanded the Second Brigade of the
Light Division at the combats of Vic, Bigorre, and Tarbes, and the 52nd
Regiment at the battle of Toulouse. He also, in 1814, found time to
marry, and took to wife Miss Yonge, daughter of James Yonge, Esquire, of
Puslinch, and by her had a large family. After the military exploits
above narrated, he was appointed colonel and Prince Regent's
aide-de-camp, and military secretary to the Prince of Orange,
Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the Netherlands. In 1815 he
was present at the battle of Waterloo, in command of his old regiment,
the 52nd, and commanded a brigade on the march to Paris. His career had
been a brilliant one, and he was decorated with the honors of a Knight
of the Tower and Sword of Portugal, of Marie Theresa of Austria, and of
St. George of Russia. He subsequently became Lieutenant-Governor of
Guernsey, and in 1825 he was made a major-general. In 1828 he was
appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.

His coming to Upper Canada was like entering a hostile camp, so far as
the Legislature of the country, or rather that branch of the Legislature
called the Assembly, was concerned. The majority of the members were in
a sullen mood, occasioned by the small encouragement given them by Sir
Peregrine Maitland in their efforts for reform.

Sir John Colborne's arrival in York to assume the Government took place
in November, 1828. Certain of the inhabitants of York, not in sympathy
with the existing state of affairs, but siding with Mr. Mackenzie and
his party, presented him with an address, couched in the following
language:

"We cannot conceal from your Excellency without a sacrifice of candor
that there are many important subjects which have deeply affected the
feelings of the people. But we are solicitous to regard the accession of
your Excellency to the Government of this Province as the commencement
of a new era, in which your Excellency, above the prevailing influence
of political dissensions and unhappy advice, will prove our
constitutional benefactor, and realize the paternal wishes of our Most
Gracious Sovereign to bless his people with mild, just and conciliatory
principles of Government."

This address was but the forerunner of other addresses presented to His
Excellency. In one of these other addresses the petitioners go into
particulars setting forth the grievances, or some of the grievances, of
which they complained. The petitioners in the address say:

"Whilst we, the undersigned inhabitants of York and its vicinity, regret
extremely that our first welcome should be embittered by complaint and
prayer, and while it is far from our disposition or intention to call on
your Excellency, at the moment of your arrival, to interfere in any
manner with the proceedings of the Courts of Justice, even with the most
splendid prerogative of your office, the administration of justice in
mercy, yet feeling ourselves disregarded and our rights endangered by
many late proceedings of the provincial administration, and amongst
those proceedings as especially worthy of notice on this occasion by the
late arbitrary and unconstitutional removal of a judge highly and justly
esteemed by us; by the destruction of one independent press, by a
violence, almost burglarious, by clerks, relations and dependents of men
in office and power; by the silencing another press by means of
unconstitutional security exacted of its editor, before any conviction
of its fault; and now by the virtual suppression of a third independent
press by a most severe and disproportionate sentence passed on its
editor, Francis Collins, on a libel--a sentence fraught with a measure
of punishment against the temperance and moderation expressed by the
jury who convicted him, and against the spirit of the expressive charter
of British rights, that great pledge of safety to the subject, 'that no
man shall be fined to his ruin'--we, the undersigned, pressed by such
grievances, entreat that your Excellency will please, as speedily as
possible, to convene the Provincial Parliament, to whom we may make our
complaints, and by which course your Excellency may, through that
legitimate and constitutional channel, arrive at the knowledge of the
true state of the country, a thing not attainable by your Excellency
through the advisers of your Excellency's misguided predecessor."

Francis Collins, whose name is mentioned in this address, was editor and
proprietor of the _Canadian Freeman_, a newspaper established by him, in
1825, in the interests of the new Reform party. The paper was, of
course, scathing in its criticisms on the Government and the officials
in any way connected with it. Mr. Collins was a man of talent, and could
infuse as much gall of bitterness into his editorials as William Lyon
Mackenzie, of the _Colonial Advocate_; the difference between them was
that Collins' gall was Irish, while Mackenzie's was Scotch. In April,
1828, Mr. Robinson, then Attorney-General, afterwards Chief Justice Sir
John Beverley Robinson, considered it his duty to prosecute Collins
criminally for four libels published in the _Canadian Freeman_. The jury
convicted Mr. Collins, and the judge sentenced him to undergo a fine of
fifty pounds, and imprisonment proportionate to the sum total of the
libels. A strong effort was made by friends of Collins, and by the House
of Assembly at its next session, to induce the Governor to relieve
Collins of his fine and imprisonment, but their petition to His
Excellency in his behalf did not prevail. On the 12th March following,
the Assembly agreed to an address to the King praying that the Royal
clemency might be extended to him, which His Majesty was graciously
pleased to grant, and Collins was pardoned. The allusion in the petition
of the inhabitants of York to "the late arbitrary and unconstitutional
removal of a judge highly and justly esteemed by us," has reference to
the removal of Judge Willis by Sir Peregrine Maitland on 26th June,
1828. This judge, forgetting the fate of Judge Thorpe, had entered the
political arena in the Province, and had made himself obnoxious to the
Government, and especially to the Attorney-General; he quarrelled with
him with regard to the legal constitution of the Court of King's Bench
and its right to sit in the absence of the Chief Justice. He conceived
that he knew more than the Attorney-General and all the other lawyers of
the Province bunched together. In this he was probably mistaken.
Immediately after his removal the Judge proceeded to England and laid
his case before the Home Government, and indeed the whole matter of the
administration of justice in Canada. Charges made by the Government and
counter charges made by the Judge were investigated by the British
Government and by the Privy Council. The result of the inquiry was, it
was held that the Judge had erred in his construction of the statute
regarding the constitution of the Court of King's Bench, and that he
should have continued to hold the court with Mr. Justice Sherwood,
notwithstanding the absence of the Chief Justice.

It was, however, some consolation for Judge Willis to know that if he
had erred, the Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, had done the same, as
the Privy Council held that the removal of Judge Willis from office was
too summary, that he should have had charges regularly laid against him,
and been given an opportunity of discussing them before removal, though
the tenure of office was during pleasure only.

It was before Judge Willis that Collins was brought, under the
indictment against him for libel. It was the first time that the Judge
had presided at a Court of Assize, and, singular to say, he availed
himself of it to make a violent attack on Attorney-General Robinson for
his manner of conducting Crown business, a matter that the Judge was not
at all familiar with, having been educated for the Equity bar.

Sir John Colborne was not moved by the address presented to him urging
him to call Parliament together at once to investigate grievances.
Parliament was called for about the customary time, the 8th of January,
1829.

Twenty-five Acts were passed during this session, for the most part of a
practical character. One important Act of a political character was
passed, the purport of which was to restore to the ordinary courts of
law the duty of dealing with sedition and seditious practices, and to
repeal an Act of a stringent character, passed during the governorship
of Governor Hunter, entitled "an Act for better securing this Province
against all seditious attempts or designs to disturb the tranquillity
thereof."

The House was prorogued by the Governor on the 22nd of March, after
delivering a speech in which he thought necessary to bring to their
notice that the civil list was still under the control of the Crown, and
that he could not accept the offer of Parliament to make provision for
the support of the Civil Government. The Governor said: "I thank you for
your offer of making a provision for the support of the Civil
Government, which I should gladly have accepted in His Majesty's name,
had not the revenue arising from the Statute 14 George III, Cap. 8, the
appropriation of which for the public service is under the control of
the Crown, appeared quite sufficient to defray the expenses of the
current year."

This is a remarkable instance of one branch of the Government offering
money to another and it being refused. The policy of the British
Government was to retain the control of public expenditure, which they
could do only by refusing to Colonial Legislatures the power to manage
their own affairs--a principle of Colonial Government long since
exploded.

The session of Parliament of 1829, the first session held under the
administration of Sir John Colborne, was principally remarkable for the
introduction to the House of Assembly of the famous thirty-one
grievances and resolutions by Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie. The principle
grievances of which he complained were:

1. The absence of local self-government (substantially responsible
government).

2. The institution of criminal prosecutions for political libels at the
instance of the Crown.

3. The want of independence of the judges, holding office during
pleasure only.

4. The power of the sheriffs, holding office during pleasure, in the
selection of juries.

5. The patronage exercised by the Crown and the Lieutenant-Governor of
the Province uncontrolled by the Legislature.

6. The unpaid war losses (war of 1812), or their being charged to the
Provincial instead of the Imperial Government.

7. The absence of a protective system in the trade of the Province.

These were only one-fourth of the grievances complained of; the other
three-fourths were of minor importance. All the grievances of which Mr.
Mackenzie took account have been remedied, even the seventh, which
complained of the absence of a protective system in the trade of the
Province. At the present day there are many men, not Reformers either,
as was Mr. Mackenzie, who think that the protective system, the absence
of which Mr. Mackenzie complained of, has been the cause of the building
up of the Dominion. Was Mr. Mackenzie the first Canadian apostle of the
trade doctrine of protection?

Sir John Colborne was not so much impressed by the grievances of which
Mr. Mackenzie complained as he was by the want of a better system of
education in the Province. He also thought that the time of the
Legislature might be better employed in legislating on practical
subjects than engaged in political controversy. Accordingly, in
proroguing the session he took occasion to say to the House: "I cannot
close the session without expressing my regret that the people will
derive no immediate advantage from your deliberations on two subjects of
primary importance--improvements of Public Schools, and the measures
that should be adopted to ensure good roads and safe bridges throughout
the Province. In allowing your roads to remain in the present state the
great stimulus to agricultural industry is lost."

The reflex of Sir John Colborne's enunciated ideas in regard to
education and other measures of a practical and beneficial character is
apparent from the fact that, shortly after the close of the session,
viz., on the 2nd of May, 1829, tenders were solicited for the erection
of a college in order to afford to the youth of the Province a higher
education than could be obtained in any other of the schools of that day
in the Province. In the _Loyalist_ newspaper of the 2nd of May there
appeared this advertisement: "Minor College. Sealed tenders will be
received on the first Monday of June next for erecting a schoolhouse and
four dwelling houses. Plans, elevations and specifications may be seen
on the 12th inst., on application to the Honorable George Markland, from
whom further information may be received. York, 1st May, 1829."

This was entirely the work of Sir John Colborne, for, in opening the
session of 1829, he had said in his speech, "Measures will be adopted, I
hope, to reform the Royal Grammar School and to incorporate it with the
University recently endowed by His Majesty, and to introduce a system in
that seminary that will open to the youth of the Province the means of
receiving a liberal and extensive course of instruction. Unceasing
exertions should be made to attract able masters to this country, when
the population bears no proportion to the number of offices and
employments that must necessarily be held by men of education and
acquirements, disposed to support the laws and your free institutions."

Sir John Colborne evidently had in view the establishment of a
university at some not distant period, and that in the meantime a minor
college should be formed, to be in the future in some way allied to the
university.

Sir John, before his term of service expired, saw the erection of the
four houses and school-room, tenders for which were called for in Mr.
Markland's advertisement in the _Loyalist_, and a high-class school
established in Russell Square, under the name of Upper Canada College,
fronting on King, above Simcoe Street, in York (Toronto), fully provided
with first-class masters, as he had wished it to be; and had the
satisfaction of having his sons, or some of them, received as students
in that institution. The writer, an old college boy of 1836, recollects
Frank Colborne, a student of that year, a son of Sir John Colborne, who
is now a retired general of the army, still living in England, and who,
it may be said, has a kind remembrance of that old college, a warm
feeling which he expressed to the late Hon. John Beverley Robinson,
Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, who visited the General at his home a
few years ago. The old college building has gone to decay, but the
memory of its halls lives in the minds of many old boys, and the college
itself flourishes with all the vigor of youth.

Another building, or set of buildings, much needed in Sir John
Colborne's time, was a place for the meeting of the Legislature and for
public offices. Sir John Colborne, taking advantage of a vote of the
Parliament of 1826, which set apart seven thousand pounds for new
Parliament buildings, caused tenders to be called for, for the erection
of new Parliament buildings. The old Parliament buildings on Front
Street, west of Simcoe, were the outcome of this advertisement. They,
too, have gone to decay or are fast approaching decay, and have been
superseded by the buildings in the Queen's Park.

Sir John Colborne was ever desirous to promote the advancement of the
Province, not only in education, but in everything else calculated to be
of real benefit to the Province. Even in the matter of political reform,
he was disposed to improve on Sir Peregrine Maitland's methods, if it
had not seemed to him that the purpose of a certain faction had the
appearance of compulsion; this a soldier of Waterloo would not and could
not tolerate.

The ever-formidable Mackenzie was a member of the House of Assembly
during Sir John's first session, and also in the second session of the
tenth Provincial Parliament, having succeeded in securing his election
for one of the ridings of York, defeating Mr. James Small, who, although
a Reformer, was not of the advanced type of Mr. Mackenzie.

The second session of this tenth Parliament was opened by Sir John
Colborne on the 8th of January, 1830. The Assembly, which then had in it
a Reform majority, in their reply to the Governor's speech, on opening
the session, seized upon the occasion to inform His Excellency "that his
advisers, the Executive Council, from the unhappy policy they had
pursued in the late administration, had long deservedly lost the
confidence of the country."

Such a reply to the speech from the throne in England would inevitably
have led to a change of the monarch's advisers, but this did not follow
in Canada, the difference being that under the then system of Colonial
Government the advisers of His Excellency were not responsible to the
people's representatives, but to the Governor himself. It may have been,
and probably was, a pernicious system, but such had been imposed on
Canada by the supreme authority of the British Parliament. The British
Minister of the day had begun to realize that the system might in the
future require amelioration. Sir George Murray, the Colonial Secretary,
had, in September, 1829, sent to Sir James Kempt, Administrator in
Chief, a despatch, subsequently transmitted to Sir John Colborne, in
which he said: "The constitution of the Legislative and Executive
Councils is a subject which has undergone considerable discussion, but
upon which His Majesty's Government must suspend their opinion until I
shall have received some authentic information from your Excellency. You
will, therefore, have the goodness to report to me whether it would be
expedient to make any alteration in the general constitution of the
bodies, and especially how far it would be desirable to introduce a
larger proportion of members not holding offices at the pleasure of the
Crown, and if it should be considered desirable, how far it may be
practicable to find a sufficient number of persons of respectability of
this description."

Mr. Mackenzie and the Reform majority in the House would have forced
the hand of the Governor if they could, but Sir John was not to be
moved. Notwithstanding the vote of the Assembly asking him to dismiss
the Ministers, who enjoyed his confidence, even though they did not
enjoy the confidence of the Assembly, he still clung to the Ministers,
much to the chagrin and discomfiture of the majority of the House. How
could he have done otherwise under the circumstances in which he was
placed? He in his position was responsible to the British Government;
that Government had not yet changed the constitution under which he
governed. With a full sense of his responsibility, he was not prepared
to throw the Government into the hands of a party of the professed
principles of Mr. Mackenzie. It was an unfortunate position in which to
be placed, but the Governor was not to be influenced or intimidated. He
turned neither to the right nor to the left, but, as a soldier on guard,
awaited the command of his superior officers, prefering to submit to
calumny and abuse rather than yield to what he deemed a tyrannous
majority. Of abuse he had plenty from the organs of the Reform party. So
much was heaped on the Governor and his advisers that it incensed the
Tory party to such a degree that no name was too contemptuous for them
to bestow on the Reform leaders and Reform party, one and all.
Criminations and recriminations were the staple in the newspapers.
Tories were called time-servers; the Reformers, disloyal. Odious
epithets were bandied about with charming indifference. So serious had
become the charges of disloyalty against Mr. Mackenzie and the whole
Reform party, that Mr. Mackenzie decided to publish a series of
letters, addressed to Sir John Colborne, in an endeavor to remove the
stigma of disloyalty which the Tory party sought to fix on the party of
which he was a burning and a shining light. In one of his letters he
wrote:

"The people of this Province neither desire to break up their ancient
connection with Great Britain, nor are they anxious to become members of
the North America Confederation; all they want is a cheap, frugal and
domestic Government to be exercised for their benefit, and controlled by
their own fixed landmarks; they seek a system by which to improve
justice, protect property, establish domestic tranquillity, and afford a
reasonable prospect that civil and religious liberty will be perpetuated
and the happiness and safety of society effected."

Mr. Mackenzie was right in his statement of the desires and ambitions of
the people of the Province, that is, the majority of the people; but was
he right with regard to himself and that portion of the people who chose
to follow his footsteps? The sequel showed. It is certain that Sir John
Colborne had lost confidence in Mr. Mackenzie. However loyal he
professed to be at heart, his actions belied his words, at least so
thought Sir John Colborne.

Withal, Mr. Mackenzie's agitation for reform was productive of a great
deal of good, even at that time. It was mostly through his exertions
that, after long delay, those who had suffered losses in the war of 1812
received compensation. Mr. Mackenzie, his followers and other Reformers,
members of the House in the second session of the tenth Parliament,
could point with pride to the work accomplished in that session; that
certainly they had done the people some service. Sir John Colborne must
himself have been so impressed, for in closing the session he said to
the House: "Among the bills passed there are none which afford more
general satisfaction than those which secure the long expected
remuneration for war losses; the repair of roads; a convenient entrance
to Burlington Bay; and the completion of the Welland Canal, a work as
advantageous to the joint interests of the Province as it is
particularly favorable to the agricultural and commercial prosperity of
some of your finest districts."

The death of King George IV, in 1830, brought about a dissolution of
Parliament. The Governor was thus rid, not only of Mr. Mackenzie, but of
all the other members of the tenth Parliament, the majority of whom, if
not direct followers of Mr. Mackenzie, were at least allied with him in
political principles. A new election being held, the Reform majority
suffered a defeat. Mr. Mackenzie secured his own election, but he was a
head without a tail, his immediate followers, and other Reformers of not
so advanced ideas, having met with a reverse at the polls.

The presence of Mr. Mackenzie in the House was obnoxious to the newly
constituted majority, who seized upon a pretext for expelling him, and
sent him back to the people. Mr. Mackenzie was, however, bent on
securing a re-election, and was again triumphantly returned by his
constituents of the county of York, and presented to the House for their
unwilling reception amidst great demonstration of popular rejoicing. A
second expulsion took place, and Mr. Mackenzie was again returned. This
course of expulsion and re-election was repeated in all no less than
five times. The bitterness of feeling that existed between opposing
parties, and the way of showing it, can hardly be appreciated at the
present day, since balloting has taken the place of open voting. At
public meetings it was not an unusual thing for free and independent
electors to engage in hot encounters, resulting in broken heads and
noses. At a meeting held in the town of York on March 23rd, 1832,
turbulence rose to the dimensions of a riot. Mr. Mackenzie's printing
office was for the second time robbed, a portion of the building
destroyed, and some of his newspaper type scattered. The opponents of
Mr. Mackenzie burned him in effigy. The disturbance became so serious as
to induce the Governor to order a company of soldiers to be in readiness
to act in case the civil authorities should prove that they were unable
to put down rioting or prevent its renewal. This was the state of
affairs in 1832, in the spring, when, in April of that year, Mr.
Mackenzie, despairing of making any headway against the ruling powers in
Upper Canada, proceeded to England with a largely signed petition
complaining of grievances, to be laid at the foot of the Throne and
before the Imperial Parliament.

The Asiatic cholera first visited York about the same time that Mr.
Mackenzie left for England. Sir John Colborne (who was ever charitably
disposed, as was Lady Colborne, his esteemed helpmate), Mr. Mackenzie
being absent, free of the worry to which he had been subject owing to
his ceaseless agitations, was now able to give assistance to a project
formed for the relief of distress occasioned by the epidemic of
cholera. Lady Colborne conceived the idea of a bazaar being held in the
town of York, under her immediate patronage, for the purpose in view.
She was seconded by the civil and military society of York, and the
bazaar proved a great success, no less a sum than twelve hundred dollars
being realized from the sale of articles contributed by Government House
and the townspeople of York. In this way the Governor and those
surrounding him showed their concern for the material welfare of the
people. The strife of politics was, for a time at least, stayed for more
noble deeds of charity and good work.

Mr. Mackenzie's absence in England did not prevent the House of Assembly
treating him with but slight courtesy. Notwithstanding his reception in
England by the prominent members of the Liberal party, and by Lord
Goderich, the Colonial Secretary, with all the consideration he desired,
and more than he expected, those whom he was pursuing, the Tory majority
of the House, to throw discredit on him and his delegation to England,
resorted to the old plan of expulsion, and again banished him from
Parliament.

The Tory party, in adopting this course toward the champion of Liberal
principles, took the very best means that could have been resorted to to
give Mr. Mackenzie additional popularity and prominence. Obnoxious as he
was to the official class, the people generally could not but admit his
energy, his perseverance, and his courage in facing and overcoming
difficulties. Even Tories did not approve of the violence that had been
resorted to in invading his printing office, distributing his type, and
throwing a part into the waters of the bay. Mr. Mackenzie returned from
his English mission in August, 1832, to find himself no longer one of
the people's representatives; this, however, was not long to be, though
he first succeeded to more humble capacity and more limited sphere. In
the session of the House following his return, Mr. Jarvis, the Tory
member for the Tory town of York, introduced to the House of Assembly a
bill, which, on the close of the session on the 6th of March, became an
Act, entitled, "An Act to extend the limits of the town of York, to
erect the said town into a city, and to incorporate it under the name of
the city of Toronto."

Mr. Jarvis little thought when obtaining a charter for the city, nor did
the Governor, Sir John Colborne, when, nine days after the passing of
the Act incorporating the city of Toronto, he issued a proclamation
calling for the election of alderman and councilmen for the city, that
Mr. Mackenzie would be elected for alderman, and, following that,
elected Mayor of the new-born city. But such was the issue of events;
the man who was a thorn in the Governor's side, and who was the
political enemy of all those by whom the Governor was surrounded, was
elected first Mayor of the capital of the Province.

As if to give force to the growing influence of Mr. Mackenzie, and the
consequent unpopularity of the Government and official class, Mr.
Mackenzie was, in October following his election to the chief magistracy
of York, again elected a representative of the Second Riding of York in
the House of Assembly. Not only had Mr. Mackenzie been elected to the
House at the general elections held in October, but a majority of
Reformers had succeeded in securing seats, thus bringing about that
revolution in the composition of the House so eagerly sought for by Mr.
Mackenzie, but so unacceptable to Sir John Colborne. The Governor well
knew that with Mr. Mackenzie in the House there must come either a
revolution of Government or a revolution of the people.

Events were fast approaching the latter alternative. In the first
session succeeding his election, the session of 1835, Mr. Mackenzie made
to the House a report of the special committee, of which he was
chairman, which went by the name of "Mackenzie's Seventh Report on
Grievances." This report was practically an arraignment of the whole
system of Colonial Government. Thus was Sir John Colborne at the head of
a Government discredited by the Assembly, or at least by a committee of
the Assembly of the Province over which he presided as chief executive
officer.

Mr. Mackenzie's report, on being submitted to Lord Goderich, the
Colonial Secretary, was exhaustively examined by him and replied to in a
despatch. To that part of it having reference to the Executive
Government he said: "A very considerable part of the report is devoted
to the statement and illustration of the fact that the Executive
Government of Upper Canada is virtually irresponsible. Experience would
seem to prove that the administration of public affairs in Upper Canada
is by no means exempt from the control of a practical responsibility. To
His Majesty and to Parliament the Government of Upper Canada is at all
times most fully responsible for its official Acts. This responsibility
is not merely nominal. It is the duty of the Lieutenant-Governor to
vindicate to the King and Parliament every Act of his administration."

By "Parliament" in the despatch must be understood the Imperial
Parliament.

Sir John Colborne, in his administration of the affairs of the Province,
never over-stepped the bounds of the constitution under which the
Province was governed.

In the year 1835, the last year of his administration, he had a hostile
Assembly to contend with; he had also to meet on the battle-field, as it
were, the intractable Mackenzie, the greatest grievance-monger of his
day, yet he always maintained a calm and dignified demeanor, which did
not fail to command the respect of those who felt themselves bound to
oppose his Government.

Sir John's term of office expired in the month of October, but he
continued in office till the appointment of his successor. Before
surrendering the Government, he was induced by the Executive Council to
endow the forty-four rectories from the Clergy Reserve lands of the
Province, an Act much condemned by the adversaries of the Government,
but which was not only constitutional but was a duty imposed by an Act
of the Imperial Parliament.

Sir John Colborne, on the expiry of his term in the autumn of 1835,
remained in Toronto until after the House met in January, 1836, and
until the arrival of his successor in that month. Leaving Toronto, he
reached Montreal on March 1st, 1836, being warmly received at the
various points he visited on his way down the country. He remained in
Montreal until May 19th, when he proceeded to New York on the way to
England. While in New York he received a despatch from Downing Street
appointing him Commander-in-Chief of the two Provinces, with the local
rank of Lieutenant-General. After visiting Washington and other cities
of the United States, he returned to Montreal, arriving there on June
30th, and immediately assumed command of the forces. He found the
Republican party there very active, and the result was the breaking out
of armed rebellion there in a little more than a year after his taking
command. To suppress this rebellion was his immediate duty. The military
operations in the Province of Lower Canada were under his immediate
direction. The rebellion in Lower Canada was of formidable dimensions,
and the extermination of it occupied some time. Organized attacks had to
be made by the troops on positions fortified by the rebels at St.
Charles and St. Denis, where serious engagements took place. The
campaign conducted under the direction of Sir John Colborne was entirely
successful, resulting in the speedy fall and flight of Papineau, the
leader of the misguided French-Canadian Republicans. The details of the
suppression of the rebellion are more strictly matter of history than of
personal biography, and I therefore forbear wearying the reader with an
account of these military movements conducted by Sir John.

After suppressing the rebellion in Lower Canada, and after the
retirement of Lord Durham, Sir John Colborne remained as Administrator
of Lower Canada, and acted as Governor from January to 23rd October,
1839, when he returned to England and was created Lord Seaton, receiving
the Grand Cross of the Bath, of Hanover, and of St. Michael and St.
George; he was also created a Privy Councillor, and granted a pension of
2,000 per year. In 1858 he was appointed a Lieutenant-General, as also
Colonel of the Queen's Life Guards. After his connection with Canada,
Lord Seaton held the high office of Governor of the Ionian Islands, and
subsequently Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, from which position he
retired in 1860, when he was honored with promotion to the highest
military rank in the gift of his Sovereign, that of Field-Marshal.

Lord Seaton was said to very much resemble the Duke of Wellington in
appearance as well as in mind and disposition. The writer's recollection
of the Governor was that he was tall and of commanding presence, a very
typical soldier. He bore the marks of war in the form of an arm
partially disabled from the wound that he received at Ciudad Rodrigo.

Sir John Colborne was a man of most estimable personal character. He
lived as he died, a true Christian in the highest sense of the word. He
lived to the good old age of eighty-five years, and died in the land of
his birth in the year 1863. A monument has been erected to his memory on
Mount Wise, at Plymouth, on which is the following inscription:

  "JOHN COLBORNE, BARON SEATON,

  Born 1778, Died 1863.

  Canada, Ionian Islands.

  Peninsula--Waterloo.

  In Memory of the Distinguished Career

  and Stainless Character of

  Field-marshal Lord Seaton, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., G.C.H.,

  This Monument is Erected by his Friends

  and Comrades."




[Illustration: F Bond Head]

  CHAPTER XI.

  _SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD, BARONET, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Sir Francis Bond Head, the successor to Sir John Colborne as
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, a son of James Roper Head of the
Hermitage, Higham, Kent, was born in the year 1793. Sir Francis at an
early age entered the military service in the Royal Engineers, in which
he served with some distinction. He was present at Waterloo, and in the
campaign under the Duke of Wellington on the Continent he bore a high
character as a military engineer. While yet in the Royal Engineers, he
received from a Mining Company a commission to explore the gold and
silver mines of South America between Buenos Ayres and the Andes. He
arrived in Buenos Ayres in 1825, and in a short time had completed the
work to the great satisfaction of the company. In the performance of
this service he rode on horseback six hundred miles, most of the time
unaccompanied. Having gained a majority in the military service he, in
the year 1828, retired on half-pay. He was subsequently appointed one
of the Board of Poor Laws Commissioners, upon which service he was
actively employed until November, 1835, when he was unexpectedly and
suddenly appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, receiving at the
same time knighthood in the Hanoverian order.

In the year 1816, in the period between Waterloo and his exploring tour
in South America, Sir Francis married a daughter of the Honorable Hugh
Somerville, sister of the Sixteenth Lord Somerville.

Much speculation has been indulged in as to Sir Francis's appointment to
the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. It has even been
said by some that his appointment was a mistake, and that the Head
really intended for the appointment was Edmund Walker Head, who was also
a member of the Board of Poor Laws Commissioners, and who some years
afterwards was Governor-General of the Canadas. It can hardly be
supposed, however, that the Melbourne Ministry, in power at the time the
appointment was made, would be so careless as to appoint one man when
another was intended. The Melbourne was a weak and falling Ministry at
the time, subject at any moment to be overturned by the Radical
contingent in the Commons, and if such an error had been made as
appointing the wrong man to a colonial governorship, the opportunity
would have been seized upon for an attack on the Ministry by their
Radical supporters, which the Ministry could ill afford; and if such a
mistake had been made one would think it would have leaked out. Those
who have suggested that the appointment was in mistake rest their case
entirely on hearsay evidence, at all times unreliable, such as would be
at once ruled out in a judicial investigation, and which, in this
instance, only gains importance from the fact that Sir Francis Head had
no previous political experience, was not connected with any party or
member of the Government, and, as said in his own narrative, had never
even had the honor of seeing Lord Glenelg, the Colonial Minister, before
the appointment was offered him. That Sir Francis's appointment was
entirely unsolicited, and came upon him as a surprise, we have his own
authority for saying. He says, "I had retired to rest in my lodgings at
Cranbrook, and for several hours had been fast asleep, when, about
midnight, I was suddenly awakened by the servant of the lodging, who,
with a letter in one hand and in the other a tallow candle, illuminating
an honest countenance, not altogether free of alarm, hurriedly informed
me 'that a King's officer had come after me.' Sitting up in bed, I
opened the letter, which, to my utter astonishment, was from the
Secretary of State for the Colonies, expressing a wish that I should
accept the Government of Upper Canada, and that, if possible, I would
call upon him with my answer at half-past eight the following morning,
as at nine he was to set out for Brighton to see the King. I waited on
Lord Glenelg at his residence at the hour appointed (half-past eight),
when I most respectfully and very gratefully declined the appointment.
To this determination Lord Glenelg very obligingly replied by repeating
to me his wish to be enabled to submit my name to the King for so
important and difficult a trust; he begged me to reconsider the
subject."

Sir Francis continues his narrative by saying that nothing could be
more uncongenial to his habits, dispositions and opinions than the
station that was offered him, but that finally, after conferring with
Mr. Stephen, Lord Glenelg's under-secretary, as had been requested by
Lord Glenelg, he did not like to persist in refusing his humble services
to the King's Government, after they had been twice required of him.
Before the morning was over he consented to accept the office. Lord
Glenelg was immediately advised of his acceptance, and his name was
submitted to the King and approved by His Majesty.

The circumstances were singular, but not so singular as to establish
even a presumption that the appointment was made in a mistake. How is it
possible to believe that Sir Francis, before accepting the appointment,
could have seen Lord Glenelg, conversed with and talked over the
appointment with him, actually refusing it at first, and then, when
urged to accept it after conferring with the under-secretary, accepting
the office; and yet, during all this conference, it should not be
discovered by the officials that not this man, Francis Bond Head, but
quite another individual, his kinsman, Edmund Walker Head, who, it may
be added, was well known to the officials and had written for the
newspapers articles laudatory of the Whig Government of the day, was
intended for this office. The late Mr. Kingsford, in his account of the
matter, does not credit the story that Sir Francis Bond Head's
appointment was a mistake, not, however, basing his conclusion on the
fact of the interview with Lord Glenelg, but for other reasons.
Discarding hearsay evidence, and relying on the known facts of the case,
it is hardly possible to do the Melbourne Administration the injustice
of believing that they were guilty of the absurdly theatrical blunder
of filling so important an office as that of Governor of Upper Canada
under a mistaken identity.

Whatever may have been the circumstances attending his appointment,
however romantic, and whether he was the right man or not, the
newly-appointed Governor accepted his office, sailed for Canada, and on
the 23rd of January, 1836, arrived in Toronto the duly accredited
Governor of the Province.

On his arrival he found that the session of Parliament had already been
opened by Sir John Colborne, on the 14th of January, and that he had in
the usual manner addressed the House on its opening.

Sir Francis Bond Head's name will long be remembered in Canada, the more
especially as it fell to his unhappy lot to be Governor of the Upper
Province at a time of great political excitement, fomented and
encouraged by men, many of whom afterwards had cause to regret their
connection with an agitation which ultimately terminated in rebellion.

When His Excellency entered his capital he found the walls of the houses
decorated with posters, in large letters describing him as a "Tried
Reformer." This seemed very odd to him, for, so far as he knew, he never
had been a tried Reformer, Radical or Tory. In his Narrative he says:
"As, however, I was no more connected with human politics than the
horses that were drawing me, as I had never joined any political party,
had never attended a political discussion, and had never even voted at
an election or taken any part in one, it was with no little surprise
that, as I drove into Toronto, I observed the walls placarded in large
letters which designated me as

  'SIR FRANCIS HEAD, a Tried Reformer.'"

His first public act was to be sworn in as the Lieutenant-Governor,
which ceremony took place on Monday, the 25th day of January, in the old
Legislative Council Chamber, on Front Street. On January 27th he came
down and addressed the Legislature. Promising them a message from
himself which would inform them of the difficult and most important
duties about to devolve upon him, as well as upon themselves, he said,
"Moreover, as regards myself, I have nothing either to promise or
profess, but I trust I shall not call in vain upon you to give me that
loyal, constitutional, unbiased, and fearless assistance which your King
expects and which the rising interests of your country require."

The words, "loyal" and "constitutional," coupled with the statement that
he had "nothing either to promise or profess," seemed to the House, the
majority of whose members were Reformers, to be ominous. What could the
Governor mean? Had not Mr. Hume, the Radical leader in the English House
of Commons, on December 5th, 1835, in a letter to William Lyon
Mackenzie, congratulated him on the recall of Sir John Colborne, and on
the appointment of Sir Francis Head to succeed him, and, as they
thought, presaging an earnest listener to their complaints, that he had
supplied him in advance with the first and seventh report of Mr.
Mackenzie's Committee on Grievances? The seventh report of the Committee
on Grievances had been liberally distributed throughout the country, and
was practically an arraignment of the whole system of colonial
government. It was, in fact, the Radicals' charter of rights. It
demanded that the Legislative Council should be elective, and that the
Executive Government should be responsible to the House of Assembly, and
not to the British Crown or Parliament. This advocacy of an elective
council, proposed in the report on grievances, was a most radical change
from the constitution as it then existed; and the executive
responsibility demanded by Mr. Mackenzie and his followers was equally
opposed to the existing colonial constitution. Under that constitution
the responsibility of the Governor and his Council was to the British
Ministry and Imperial Parliament, and not to the Canadian Parliament.
Mr. Mackenzie knew that Sir Francis had the grievance reports given to
him by Mr. Hume, and he also knew that Mr. Hume had written Sir Francis
on the subject of the alleged grievances of the Upper Canadians. He also
knew, for so Mr. Hume had informed him in his letter, that the Colonial
Office had not acceded to the demands made in the grievance reports. One
paragraph of his letter was: "My anxiety is that you and all reformers
should receive Sir Francis in the best possible manner, and do
everything consistent with principle to meet his views and wishes. We
think that Sir Francis will do what is possible to conciliate and settle
matters, and you must make allowance for the instructions he may have
from Downing Street, where I do not think they have come to the
resolution of doing to the colonists what they are doing or striving to
do for the people of the United Kingdom."

The passage in the letter, "My anxiety is that you and all reformers
should receive Sir Francis in the best possible manner," will account
for the placard on the walls of the houses of Toronto, which no doubt
emanated from Mr. Mackenzie's brain, and probably from his printing
office.

The instructions that had been given by the Colonial Office, though
promised in the Governor's address to the Upper Canada Parliament to be
communicated to that body, were yet in the keeping of Sir Francis,
though an inkling of what they might be was foreshadowed in Mr. Hume's
letter to Mr. Mackenzie. Sir Francis well knew what those instructions
were, and he also knew that in a despatch to him from Lord Glenelg,
which accompanied the instructions, the Minister had distinctly
disavowed the principle of the parliamentary responsibility of the
Executive Council claimed in the report on grievances, and had also
refused to yield to the demand made that the Legislative Council should
be elective.

In respect to these two subjects the despatch said: "On these subjects I
am to a considerable extent relieved from the necessity of any
particular investigation, because claims precisely identical have been
preferred by the Assembly of Lower Canada, and because in the
instructions to the Commissioners of Inquiry, who have visited that
Province, I have already had occasion to state the views which have
received His Majesty's deliberate sanction. The principles of government
in the two sister provinces must, I am well aware, be in every material
respect the same. I shall therefore annex for your information, as an
appendix to this despatch, so much of the instructions to the Earl of
Gosford and his colleagues as applies to these topics."

The House of Assembly replied to His Excellency's speech on the 28th
January, 1836, in an address in which the House avowed that it would
"most respectfully and carefully consider any message from your
Excellency, with whose administration we sincerely desire cordially to
co-operate."

On the 30th January, His Excellency sent a message to the House, as he
had promised, and informed it that he was commanded by His Majesty to
communicate the substance of his instructions to both Houses of the
Provincial Parliament, but considering that it would be more
satisfactory to them to receive the whole, he accordingly transmitted a
complete copy of the document.

Strictly speaking, Sir Francis erred in making public the whole of the
instructions instead of informing the House of the substance, and it was
in some sense unfortunate, as the appendix annexed to and accompanying
the instructions, which may have been intended only as a guide to Sir
Francis himself, contained an elaborate argument showing the reasons why
the British Government itself, without the aid of the Imperial
Parliament, could not alter the Canadian constitution to suit the
aspirations of Mr. Mackenzie and his followers in respect of reforming
the Legislative and Executive Councils.

Sir Francis's excuse for departing from the letter of his instructions
was, as explained by him in his Narrative, that he "found the subjects
so important, the remedies to be applied requiring so unavoidably the
explanatory arguments upon which they had been prescribed, that I felt
it was almost impossible for me to undertake correctly to translate them
into words. I also considered that as unexpected difficulties had arisen
lately in Lower Canada, and as the press was at that moment decrying the
trembling Government of Great Britain, any concession proceeding from
me might appear as if extorted by the threats of the moment; whereas, I
felt that if my instructions were given to both Houses exactly as I
received them, their date would clearly show that they had no reference
to the tumultuous proceedings of the day."

In another place he said: "I also remembered that in the draft of the
instructions and appendix I was to give the copy of them to the
Provincial Legislature, and that when the word 'substance' was
substituted for the word 'copy,' your Lordship (Lord Glenelg) will
remember it was explained to me in England that the alteration was
merely made because it had been considered undignified that it should
appear I was ordered to do so, your Lordship observing to me, 'But
remember, the more you give them of it the better.'"

It may be remembered that Sir Francis had been authorized to make some
minor concessions, but not in regard to the appointment and
responsibilities of the Legislative and Executive Councils.

The House of Assembly was at once alarmed at the Governor's message
containing these instructions, framed, as it was, in a peremptory spirit
of non-surrender to what was deemed by the Reformers a most reasonable
demand, and it resented the same accordingly.

The first step of the House was to challenge the right of the Governor
to address them after the House had been formally opened and addressed
by Sir John Colborne. They went so far as to institute an inquiry as to
whether the Governor, by this unusual proceeding, had not committed a
breach of privilege of the House. This first attempt, however, to attack
the Governor failed, founded as it was on a most absurd contention, as
a precedent was found for his proceedings.

The next attempt was in the ever-present trouble about the appointment
of legislative councillors. Sir Francis had appointed to the Council
William Morris, the member for the county of Lanark. Mr. Morris was a
pronounced Tory, and the Reform House, whose Speaker was Mr. Bidwell,
and whose leader was Mr. Mackenzie, denounced the appointment as a
violation of the principle for which they contended, namely, that the
Governor should make appointments to the Council acceptable to the
Assembly, as the majority of the House should recommend, and insisted
that he should have appointed one of the political party now in the
majority in the House.

Early in February an active member of the Executive Council brought to
the Governor's notice the fact that the Executive Council, as then
composed, had but three members, and that in case of illness of one a
quorum could not be obtained, and that it was advisable to fill the
vacancies in that body. Sir Francis concurred with this suggestion, but
this at once again raised the question, should he select the new
councillors from the Tory or Reform party? These latter, in his
correspondence with the Colonial Secretary, he called the Republican
party, considering that they were more worthy of that name than that of
reformers, to which they claimed title. That there were persons in that
party, and several members of the House of Assembly strongly imbued with
American Republicanism there is no doubt, but that the whole Reform
party should have been charged by the Governor with being Republicans
was a mistake. The advanced Liberals, such as Mr. Bidwell, the Speaker,
Mr. Mackenzie, the agitator, Dr. Rolph, the silver-tongued orator, and
some others, might be classed as Republicans, it is true, but it may be
said of the Reform party as a whole that they were both somewhat
anti-Republican and intensely anti-Tory. Mr. Baldwin was as much opposed
to Republicanism as was the full-bred Tory. Sir Francis's story in
regard to these new appointments of three members to the Executive
Council, as told by himself, is as follows:

"I did not choose to join the Republicans; the Tories, who, fearing that
I was their enemy, had thought proper to join in petitioning the King
against the very first Act of my administration, were still almost in a
body standing aloof from me. I did not, therefore, feel it right to
advance towards them; and being thus obliged to be independent, I
determined that the addition to my Council should be made from the
middle party, instead of from either of the two extremes."

Sir Francis was really desirous of conforming to the wish of the people
as then represented in the House of Assembly, as well as the wishes of
the Whig Ministry of Britain, who had appointed him, and to pursue a
Liberal policy; but he could not forget his instructions to stand by the
Constitution as it then existed, and properly enough could not be coaxed
or driven to pursue what would really have been a revolutionary policy.

The three members ultimately selected by Sir Francis were Robert
Baldwin, Dr. Rolph, and Mr. Dunn. Robert Baldwin was the first to be
selected, on account of the high estimation in which he was held, not
only by the Liberal party, but by his political opponents, and to him
was given _carte blanche_ to name the other two.

He does not seem to have trusted Mr. Mackenzie, but in selecting Dr.
Rolph he had perhaps unwittingly chosen as associate a man who was more
disposed to follow Mr. Mackenzie than his nominator. Mr. Dunn was a
pronounced neutral, who occupied a position between Mr. Baldwin and Mr.
Mackenzie, but was trusted by the Reform party.

Mr. Baldwin and the others were at first unwilling to accept the
appointment to the Council unless the Governor dismissed the other three
members of the Council. This His Excellency refused to do, and so
informed Mr. Baldwin; on reconsideration, he and Dr. Rolph and Mr. Dunn
accepted the office, and became Executive Councillors. Before these
gentlemen took their seats in the Council, the Governor wrote Mr.
Baldwin the following letter:

    "Government House, Feb. 19th, 1836.

    "Dear Sir,--I have great pleasure in learning that you, Dr.
    Rolph, and Mr. Dunn accept the invitation I made to you by
    joining the Executive Council. The confidence I shall repose
    in you shall be implicit; and as I have no preliminary
    conditions to accede to or require from you, I shall rely on
    your giving me your unbiased opinion on all subjects
    respecting which I may feel it advisable to require it."

The appointment of Mr. Rolph, Mr. Dunn, and Mr. Baldwin to the Council
gave great satisfaction to Mr. Bidwell and to the Reform majority in the
House. At the same time these gentlemen, with the exception perhaps of
Dr. Rolph, who was altogether too democratic, were not obnoxious to the
Tory party in the House, and the Governor believed that in making these
appointments he had, for a time at least, cleared the atmosphere of
political hostility, and would have some rest. But the position was, in
fact, in no sense improved, as he soon learned when his
newly-constituted Executive Council, a few days after their appointment,
demanded that he should consider the Council as responsible to the
people and not solely to himself. To this demand, which reopened the
whole question, and was what was demanded by the Reformers, the Governor
could not accede, and the Executive Council in a body resigned. The
House of Assembly espoused the cause of the Council, and in an address
which they made to His Excellency on March 14th, 1836, said:

"Considering the appointment of a responsible Executive Council, to
advise your Excellency on the affairs of the Province, to be one of the
most happy and wise features in the constitution, and essential to the
form of our Government, and one of the strongest securities for a just
and equitable administration, and eminently calculated to secure the
full enjoyment of our civil and religious rights, we have lately
learned, with no small degree of anxiety, that the Executive Council, so
lately formed for the purpose above stated (as we presume), consisting
of six members, did on Saturday, the 12th instant, unanimously tender to
you their resignations, and that your Excellency was pleased to accept
the same, and humbly request your Excellency to inform this House,
without delay, whether such are the facts, and also to communicate to
this House full information relative to the cause of disagreement
between your Excellency and your late Council, so far as lies in your
Excellency's power to make known, as also to furnish this House with
copies of all communications between your Excellency and your said late
Council, or any of them, on the subject of said disagreement and
subsequent tender of resignation."

To this address the Governor made reply, and said:

"Had they (the Council) chosen to have verbally submitted to me in
Council that the responsibility, and consequently the power and
patronage of the Lieutenant-Governor, ought henceforth to be transferred
from him to them; had they even, in the usual form of a written
petition, recommended to my attention as a new theory that the Council,
instead of the Governor, was to be responsible to the people, I should
have raised no objection whatever to the proceeding, however in opinion
I might have opposed it; but when they simultaneously declared, not that
such ought not to be, but that such actually was the law of the land,
and concluded their statement by praying that a Council sworn in secrecy
to assist me might be permitted, in case I disapproved of their opinion,
to communicate with the public, I felt it my duty, calmly and with due
courtesy, to inform them that they could not retain such principles
together with my confidence, and to this opinion I continue steadfastly
to adhere.

"With these sentiments I transmit to the House of Assembly the documents
they have requested, feeling confident that I can give them no surer
proof of my desire to preserve their privilege inviolate than by proving
to them that I am equally determined to maintain the rights and
prerogatives of the Crown, one of the most prominent of which is that
which I have just assumed, of naming those councillors, and in whom I
believe I can conscientiously confide."

The Governor, on the resignation of his Council, immediately appointed
in their places Robert Baldwin Sullivan, John Elmsley, Augustus Baldwin,
and William Allan, Esquires, which called forth an address from the
House of Assembly on the 25th of March, in which the House declared that
it "felt it to be a duty that it owed alike to His Most Gracious Majesty
and the people of this colony, whose representatives they are, to avail
themselves of the first opportunity to declare at once to your
Excellency the entire want of confidence in this House in the
last-mentioned appointments, and deeply regret that your Excellency
consented to accept the tender of resignation of the late Council, and
humbly request your Excellency to take immediate steps to remove the
present Council from their situations."

This dictatorial address from a Reform Parliament to that Governor who,
on his entry into the capital of the Province, had been saluted as a
"Tried Reformer," was no surprise to the Governor, who had been
preparing for a fall with a House which, in the Governor's view, was
endeavoring to usurp the prerogative of the Crown.

Here, then, was a direct issue raised as to whom the Executive Council
was responsible, to the Governor or to the House of Assembly. There is
no doubt that it would have been well had the Executive Council been
responsible to the House, but this was not so under the then subsisting
Constitutional Act, and Sir Francis Head was right in asserting his
prerogative according to law. The Reformers, by claiming more than they
were entitled to, enabled the Governor to invoke the law and
constitution as the justification for his resisting the pretensions of
the House, and to throw himself on the people.

The time, however, had not actually arrived for the Governor to clear
the House and appeal to their masters, the electors of the Province, and
he decided to wait and see what would be their next step. He had but a
short time to wait, as the House shortly undertook to stay the wheels of
Government by stopping the supplies. On the 15th of April the Assembly
passed an address to the British House of Commons recounting the events
which had recently occurred, accused the Governor of arbitrary and
vindictive conduct, spoke of his view of his own sole responsibility to
Downing Street, and concluded:

"Being denied the beneficial and constitutional operation of our local
institutions for the management of our local affairs; being threatened
with the exercise of the unadvised, arbitrary government of His
Excellency, virtually irresponsible; and being satisfied that nothing
but an open, entire and honorable abandonment of this policy, equally
unconstitutional and pernicious, will ever restore our peace, welfare
and good government; we have in justice to the people, whose civil and
religious interests we are solemnly bound fearlessly to vindicate, been
obliged as a last resort to stop (most reluctantly) the supplies, and
for the attainment of redress in these and other matters contained in
the annexed report, we pray the aid of your Honorable House."

The differences between the Provincial House and the Governor had now
become so acute that His Excellency determined to prorogue the House and
take the opinion of the electors of the Province. In addressing the two
Houses at the close of the session, Sir Francis recapitulated the events
of the session, referred to the Mackenzie "Report on Grievances;" to his
desire to remedy grievances that lay in his power to reform, complained
of the little assistance he had had from the House in that direction,
and entered into an explanation of the differences with his Council.
Specially directing his remarks to the members of the Assembly and to
their stoppage of supplies, he said: "In the history of Upper Canada
this measure has, I believe, never been resorted to; and as I was the
bearer of His Majesty's special instructions to examine and, wherever
necessary, to correct the 'grievances' declared in your report of last
session, I own I did not expect to receive this embarrassment from your
House." In conclusion, addressing the members of both Houses, he said:

"Having now concluded an outline of the principal events which have
occurred during the present session, I confess that I feel disappointed
in having totally failed in the beneficial object of my mission. I had
made up my mind to stand against the enemies of reform, but I have
unexpectedly been disconcerted by its professed friends.

"No liberal mind can deny that I have been unnecessarily embarrassed, no
one can deny that I have been unjustly accused, no one can deny that I
have evinced an anxiety to remedy all grievances, that I have protected
the constitution of the Province, and that by refusing to surrender at
discretion the patronage of the Crown to irresponsible individuals, I
have conferred a service on the backwoodsman, and on every noble-minded
Englishman, Irishman, Scotchman, and U. E. Loyalist, who I well know
prefer British freedom and the British Sovereign to the family
domination of an irresponsible Cabinet."

There was much more in the address designed to arouse the loyalty of the
Province and the ire of the inhabitants against those who, like Mr.
Mackenzie and his followers, were trying to over-ride the constitution,
and then, as a climax, the Governor said:

"Whenever they (the people) shall be disposed to join heart and hand
with me in loyally promoting the peace and prosperity of the Province,
they shall find me faithfully devoted to their service; in the meanwhile
I will carefully guard the constitution of the country, and they may
firmly rely that I will put down promptly, as I have already done, the
slightest attempt to invade it."

This address of the Governor in proroguing the House was designated by
the Reformers an electioneering address. There was this in it
certainly--it showed that the Governor had made up his mind to take a
decided stand against the Reformers on the questions which had been
raised between himself and the House as to the responsibility of the
Governor and of the Executive Council, of the mode of appointment to the
Legislative Council, and the patronage of the Crown.

On the 28th of May Sir Francis dissolved the House, and immediately
announced a general election to be held on the 20th of June.

There is no doubt Sir Francis considered that the existence of Upper
Canada as a part of the British Empire was at stake.

In a despatch to Lord Glenelg, sent from Toronto, written on the day of
the dissolution of the Provincial Parliament, and advising the Colonial
Secretary of the fact of dissolution, he said: "Of course, a most
violent contest will take place, and I need hardly observe that it is
one upon which our possession of the Canadas may almost be said to
depend."

The Governor took such means as he thought necessary to inspire the
people to uphold the constitution, such as it existed at the time. In
answering addresses from the country districts he did not hesitate to
impress upon the people the advantages to be gained by not severing from
allegiance to the British Government. Dr. Duncombe, who had been a
prominent member of the last House, complained that the Governor had
exercised undue influence in behalf of the Tories in the election. The
complaint was not well founded. It was investigated both by a committee
of the Canadian House and by the British House of Commons, on the
petition of Dr. Duncombe. On the 17th of April, 1837, Lord Glenelg wrote
a despatch to Sir Francis, apprising him of his acquittal of the charge
in the following words:

"The refutation of Dr. Duncombe's charges is entirely satisfactory. It
has been in the highest degree gratifying to me to be able to report to
His Majesty that after a minute and vigorous inquiry, during which every
facility was given to the petitioner to substantiate his accusation,
your conduct in reference to the elections has been proved to have been
governed by a strict adherence to the principles of the Constitution."

The general election of 1836 proceeded amidst great excitement and
turbulence, resulting in the downfall of the Reformers, to the great
satisfaction of the Governor and those who had rallied to his support.
In a despatch to Lord Glenelg, under date of 8th July, Sir Francis said:

"The elections commenced on the 20th of June, and the struggle, as might
be expected, was a desperate one. I am happy to inform your Lordship
that the result has been successful, and that truth and justice have as
usual prevailed. In the late House of Assembly the Reformers had a
majority of eleven. In the present House of Assembly the
Constitutionalists have a majority of twenty-five (there being now
forty-five Constitutional members and seventeen Republicans). In the
late House there were thirteen American members; in the present House
there are only seven, one of whom is a Constitutionalist.

"Among the Republicans who have lost their elections are the following
names:

"1. The Speaker, Bidwell, the twin or Siamese companion of Mr. Speaker
Papineau.

"2. Mr. Peter Perry, the most powerful as well as the leading speaker of
the Republicans; the chairman to whom was referred my correspondence
with my Executive Council.

"3. Mr. W. L. Mackenzie, the chairman of the grievance report and
arch-agitator of this Province."

Further on in this despatch the Governor, referring to a letter of Mr.
Papineau to Mr. Speaker Bidwell, in which it was said "that the people
of the Canadas, laboring under the accumulative wrongs proceeding from
an Act of Parliament, unite as one man in reference to interference in
Provincial affairs by foreigners (Americans)," said: "The people of
Upper Canada detest democracy; they revere their constitutional
charter, and are consequently staunch in their allegiance to their King.
They are perfectly aware that there exists in the Lower Province one or
two individuals who inculcate the idea that this Province is about to be
disturbed by the interference of foreigners, whose power and whose
numbers will prove invincible. In the name of every regiment of militia
in Upper Canada, I publicly promulgate, 'Let them come if they dare.'"

The outcome of the elections, and of the defeat of the Reform majority
in the last Parliament, was the dismissal of several prominent officials
who had not only opposed the policy of the Governor, but had used
language towards him which his self-respect required him to notice in
the most open manner. This, of course, raised a storm of indignation on
the part of friends of the dismissed officials, and appeals were made to
the British Ministry. Dr. Duncombe, a prominent member of the last
Parliament, was sent to England in the interests of the Reform party, or
what remained of it after the shattering it got at the general election,
to prosecute the charges against the Governor for his alleged undue
influence exercised during the elections. In a despatch to the Colonial
Secretary, under date 16th July, Sir Francis protested against the
practice of agents being sent from Canada "to make secret complaints
against the Governor which, of course, it is impossible for him to
repel." He said further: "I will, therefore, merely assure your Lordship
that in the elections, as well as in the prompt dismissal of a few of
the ringleaders of the Republicans, I have acted cautiously and
conscientiously."

It was the practice of His Excellency to communicate to the British
ministry his every official act, so as to give an opportunity for
approval or disapproval of his policy. Had it not been that the
Melbourne Ministry was weak, and entirely at the mercy of their Radical
supporters, the friends and allies of the Reform party of Upper Canada,
they might have honored the Lieutenant-Governor with some kind of
acknowledgment for the course he had pursued in administering the
affairs of the Province during his early period of storm. This, however,
they did not do till, emboldened by the Governor's success in the
elections, they were afforded an opportunity to congratulate him on the
result, and the loyal support given him by the constituencies. His
Excellency was more than gratified, in the month of November, 1886, to
receive from the Colonial Secretary despatches acknowledging fully his
services, and notifying him of his elevation to a baronetcy from 19th
July, 1836. On the 7th of November the Governor replied, saying, "The
flattering manner in which your Lordship has been pleased to convey to
me the King's gracious approbation of my conduct, has afforded me the
first happy moment I have enjoyed since my arrival in this Province."

Notwithstanding the King's approbation of the Governor's conduct, the
Colonial Secretary was constantly plied by irresponsible agents from
Canada, and was periodically forwarding intimation to the Governor that
these parties were making complaints to the authorities of his conduct
in his administration of the affairs of Upper Canada. These agents would
pour into the weak and willing ears of the British Ministry stories of
the Governor's indifference to the sentiments of the people of Upper
Canada; the truth being that the Governor gave every encouragement to
the loyal people of the Province, but could not be led by agitators to
depart one iota from the plain requirements of the constitution.

Sir Francis, in his communication of the 5th November to the Colonial
Secretary, gave him to understand that he had suffered both politically
and mentally by the neglect of the Colonial Secretary's Office, and that
owing to this neglect, wrong impressions of his conduct were conveyed to
the Canadian people. He said: "Up to the receipt of your Lordship's
despatch (No. 95) I have suffered from the treatment I have received
from His Majesty's Government more pain than it would be possible to
describe." He then complains that he had communicated to the British
Government, on the 29th of February, that almost every member in the
House of Assembly, with a majority of the Legislative Council,
recommended to the Colonial Secretary that a certain individual should
be appointed to the important station of Surveyor-General of the
Province, over-ruling the appointment made by the Governor, and says
that his communication must have been received by the end of April,
"and, though my arguments and reasonings appeared to you satisfactory,
and though eventually you approved of my conduct, yet it was not until
the 27th of September that I was relieved from the painful belief which
generally existed here, that the measures I had taken were
discountenanced by His Majesty's Government."

What more decisive proof can be given than this case to show that the
British Ministry did not regard the Governor as amenable in any way to
either the Legislative Council or Legislative Assembly, but that he was
responsible solely for his actions to the British Government; and yet,
because Sir Francis upheld this policy, he was denounced by the Radical
element of England and Canada.

Sir Francis, in the communication of November 5th, referred to his
having sent to the Colonial Office addresses of support he had received
from 28,000 yeomen, farmers, etc., of the Province, which, as he said,
had never received the slightest acknowledgment of His Majesty's
Government addressed to those who thus generously came forward to
support him.

"Whenever a mail arrived, I was asked with the greatest anxiety what
remarks the British Government had made to these noble addresses. The
mortifying answers I had to give were, 'None.'"

The same neglect attended his speech, delivered at the close of the
session, which really was a most important state document. This had also
been sent to the Colonial Office, and had received no acknowledgment.
This neglect of the Colonial Office gave color to the statement that Sir
Francis was not acting in accordance with the policy of His Majesty's
Government, and that he would be recalled, a removal most devoutly
prayed for by all the malcontents in the Province.

Other instances were cited by Sir Francis where he had been
misunderstood or misrepresented, which, he said, produced in the Canadas
and in England "the mischievous political effect of causing everybody to
believe that I was discountenanced by His Majesty's Government, to whose
interests, honor, and policy I have never been faithless for a moment."

The excitement caused by the elections having somewhat subsided, Sir
Francis called the legislators to meet on November 8th, and they
assembled in obedience to his summons.

In opening the House, he first congratulated Parliament on the loyal
feeling which pervaded the Province, and on the stillness and serenity
of the public mind, so that the tranquillity of the country gave him the
opportunity to recommend to the Legislature measures for the advancement
of the Province, and enumerating as much as a dozen subjects of a
practical character for their consideration, and concluded as follows:

"The Legislature of Upper Canada is not imbued with power to alter the
constitution imparted to it by an Act of the Imperial Parliament. I
therefore, shortly after my arrival here, publicly declared that if the
inhabitants of the whole Province were simultaneously to petition me to
alter a single letter of that solemn Act, I had neither power nor
inclination to do so.

"Grateful for the manly support which the expression of these sentiments
procured for me, I feel it my duty again to unequivocally assure you of
my determination to carry into effect His Majesty's instructions, and
thus to maintain the happy constitution of this Province inviolate."

The whole tone of the address showed the Governor's extreme pleasure at
being able to publish to the world, and more especially to the English
people, that on a direct appeal to the people of Upper Canada on the
differences between him and the Reform party, his position on the
constitutional questions had been sustained. The people's verdict was a
rebuke to those members of the British Parliament who had been carried
away by the accusations of the dissatisfied faction of the Province, and
who had dinned into the ears of the British Ministry the charge that
their Governor was arbitrary and his policy unpopular with the people
whom he had been sent to govern.

The loyalty of the members of the House to the Governor was shown by
their going vigorously to work and, in a session lasting nearly four
months, passing no less than one hundred and eighteen Acts of
Parliament, all directed to the well-being and good government of the
country. The session was not prorogued till the 4th of March, 1837.

The year 1837 was a year of great financial disturbance throughout the
whole of North America. The beginning of the year in the United States
was one of its periodic times of inflation. The banks discounted
liberally, and the merchants, the farmers, and even the citizens, were,
as they believed, reaching the time when they would all roll in wealth.
The very appearance of their commercial prosperity and of their easy
financial credit operated on the Canadians as would strong liquor on a
weak head--it made them wild--and there arose the clamor of the
demagogue that the condition of Canada would be much improved if it were
a part of the United States.

The condition of things in Upper Canada in the spring of the year was
just the reverse of what it was in the United States. Sir Francis, in a
despatch to Lord Glenelg, under date of the 12th of July, contrasted the
two countries. He said: "In short, the country (United States) was
triumphantly declared to be going ahead, and as the young Province of
Upper Canada was observed to be unable to keep up, the difference in its
progress was contemptuously ascribed to the difference in the form of
Government.

"Monarchical institutions were therefore ridiculed, Republican
principles were self-praised, and democratic opinions were not only
disseminated over this Province, but crossing the Atlantic they made
their appearance in our own happy country, where it has lately been
deemed by many people fine and fashionable to point to the United States
of America as a proof that riveting religion to the state and that
nobility of mind are to commerce what friction is in mechanics."

Suddenly there came a collapse in the United States, and that country's
commercial system fell to pieces. Specie payment by the banks was
stopped, and there was general consternation and wide-spread ruin.

A general disturbance of trade and commerce in the United States always
affects Canada more or less. In this case it did so to an alarming
extent, and something had to be done by the Government to mitigate the
evil. Sir Francis called Parliament together for the 19th day of June
for a summer session, an unusual proceeding, but in this case necessary.
The session was a short one, only lasting to the 11th day of July, but
in that period the legislators took the necessary steps to prevent a
collapse in Upper Canada, by passing "an Act to authorize the chartered
banks in the Province to suspend the redemption of their notes in
specie, under certain regulations, for a limited time."

Thus was a commercial crisis staved off, only to be followed by a
political crisis of a more serious nature, which was even then in the
chrysalis state.

With his active mind always watching the political barometer, Sir
Francis found time, not only to apprise the British Ministry of the acts
of his administration and of the Legislature, but to forcibly express
his opinion that the Home Government had made too many concessions to
the Lower Canadians, which had resulted in anarchy, while by the
exercise of a firm and "no surrender" policy in Upper Canada he had
produced a different result. In a despatch to the Colonial Secretary,
under date of the 29th of August, he said:

"The conciliations which Lord Gosford has been commanded to make in
Lower Canada, as well as those almost promised by inference in his last
speech, have ended in anarchy.

"In Upper Canada, the opposite or negative process, I mean the
unconciliatory course of policy, has, it cannot be denied, practically
tranquilized the Province. It has not only completely overthrown the
enemies of the British constitution, but in a very great degree has
effected their conversion." He then drew Lord Glenelg's attention to his
despatch of February 5th, 1836, in which he had written: "As far as I
have been able to judge, I should say that the Republican party are
implacable, that no concession whatever will satisfy them, their sole
interested object being to possess themselves of the Government."

On the 10th of September, 1837, the Governor wrote a despatch to the
Colonial Secretary in which he reiterated his objections to a
conciliatory policy. One of the acts of the Colonial Office in that
direction was a command to the Governor to appoint to the Judicial
Bench Mr. Bidwell, who had been Speaker of the House of Assembly in the
last Parliament, but with Mr. Mackenzie and other Reformers had been
defeated in the general election. Sir Francis, in the despatch of the
10th September, apprised the Colonial Secretary that, after very
deliberate consideration, he had determined to take upon himself the
very serious responsibility of positively refusing to appoint Mr.
Bidwell to a judicial office, and gave as reasons for his refusal that
Mr. Bidwell was a Republican at heart and in principle, that his talents
have been unceasingly exerted in endeavoring, by subverting the
constitution, to dethrone our Sovereign from this portion of his
dominions; he had been the untired advocate of Republican government,
and by his ability and by his eloquence he rose to become the leader of
the Republican party, and eventually became Speaker of the House of
Assembly. "In his capacity as Speaker, he delivered to me to be
transmitted to the King one of the most insulting addresses that ever
has been offered to a British Sovereign. It declared that I was
despotic, tyrannical, unjust, deceitful, that my conduct had been
derogatory to the honor of the King, demoralizing to the community, and
that I had treated the people of this Province as being little better
than a country of rogues and fools. Not satisfied with this, Mr.
Bidwell, on the last night of the session, presented to the House of
Assembly a traitorous communication addressed to him from his
fellow-laborer and colleague, Mr. Speaker Papineau. This letter
impeached the King's Ministers, accused your Lordship (Lord Glenelg) of
arrogance, termed the Royal Commissioners of the King 'deceitful
agents,' and was altogether of a purely rebellious character."

Sir Francis, in adopting the course he did, in opposition to the
Colonial Office, had become convinced that the prompters of the Colonial
Minister were Mr. Roebuck and Mr. Hume, the leaders of the Radical wing
of the House of Commons, and that the Colonial Minister was hardly a
free agent. The Governor always entertained great respect for Lord
Glenelg, but none whatever for his instigators in the policy they drove
him to pursue in respect to the colonies. In declining to appoint Mr.
Bidwell to the Bench, and to make other appointments which his judgment
told him would be distasteful to the loyal people of the Province who
had sustained him, he said:

"With the deepest regret I have at last been driven deliberately to
refuse to carry into effect your Lordship's instructions, and having
done so, and having avowed opinions hostile to the colonial policy, but
which I can assure your Lordship are accompanied with no angry feelings
to any man, I feel it a duty which I owe to your Lordship, as well as to
myself, respectfully to request that your Lordship will be pleased
immediately to tender to His Majesty my resignation of the station which
I have the honor to hold."

It was no unusual thing for Sir Francis to tender his resignation; twice
during the first six months of his administration he had done so, and
would willingly at any time have resigned his position if the British
Ministry would have accepted it.

Even now the Colonial Minister did not at once accept the Governor's
resignation, and abstained from laying it before the Queen. After
consulting his colleagues, however, he, on the 24th of November, wrote a
despatch to the Governor accepting his resignation.

In this despatch he did not make it a ground of acceptance of
resignation that Sir Francis had disobeyed instructions as to the
appointment to the Bench, nor indeed on any other ground of difference
with the Colonial Office, unless it was his refusal to restore Mr.
George Ridout to the offices of Colonel of Militia, Judge of the
District Court of Niagara, and Justice of the Peace, from which offices
he had been dismissed for political reasons satisfactory to the Governor
and his Council. Even as to this dismissal Lord Glenelg's complaint was,
not that there may not have been sufficient reasons for the dismissal,
but that Mr. Ridout had been too summarily dismissed, and not furnished
with the charges made against him.

Lord Glenelg, in his despatch, accepted the resignation of Sir Francis,
and left him to administer the Government till his successor was
appointed, and expressly stated that Sir Francis had administered
affairs with advantage to the public service. The concluding paragraph
of the despatch was:

"In conformity with your request your successor will proceed to Upper
Canada with the least possible delay. In the meantime I rely on your
devoting the short period of your future administration of the affairs
of Upper Canada to the protection and advancement of those important
interests which, during the last two years, have been intrusted to your
guidance with so much advantage to the public service."

This despatch is important as indicating that up to the very eve of the
rebellion, which broke out in less than three weeks from the time it was
written, the British Government was satisfied with the Governor's
general administration of the affairs of the Province, however much he
and the Colonial Secretary may have differed on some matters of no
special importance.

The seeds of rebellion planted by Mr. Mackenzie had by this time all but
matured. Meetings of a revolutionary character were being held, old guns
were being repaired, old sword blades reburnished, and with pikes, with
which to strike terror into the hearts of the Tories, and if need be,
wipe them out of existence, were being got ready for action. Sir
Francis, in obedience to the call of Sir John Colborne, the
Commander-in-Chief, had sent every regular soldier of the garrison of
Toronto to the Province of Lower Canada, where they were needed to
suppress the rebellion already beginning in that Province.

Many Tories blamed Sir Francis for letting the troops go, but for this
he had two excuses--one of which was a complete justification, the order
of the Commander-in-Chief, which could not be disobeyed; and the other
that he had confidence in the loyalty of the better-disposed class of
the people and their ability to stamp out the rebellion, the moment any
overt action was taken, without the aid of regular troops. Nor was that
confidence misplaced. The rebellion took form when Mr. Mackenzie's
followers, on Monday afternoon, the 4th December, assembled at
Montgomery's tavern, on Yonge Street, about four miles from Toronto,
preparatory to an advance upon the city.

At midnight the Upper Canada College bell was rung to warn the people
of Toronto of their danger. The Governor was aroused, and proceeded to
the City Hall, where arms had been stored for an emergency. These he had
unpacked, and, surrounded by a few faithful followers, prepared to
receive the rebels. If they had advanced at once they could have taken
the city. By Tuesday morning there were mustered at the City Hall about
three hundred men, ready to meet the superior force of rebels if they
had advanced. Two hundred more were added during the day, so that by
nightfall the force in the city was able to muster as large a body of
armed men as the rebels.

On the night of Tuesday an advanced picket on the outskirts of the town,
commanded by Sheriff Jarvis, was attacked by the rebels, who were driven
back, one of their party being killed and several wounded. On Wednesday
morning efforts were made to negotiate a peace between the rebels and
the citizen soldiers who were prepared to meet them in the event of
their making an attack. By Thursday the militia and volunteers of the
city, with the "men of Gore," who had by that time come from Hamilton to
the rescue, were strong enough to make an attack, and at noon a force,
under the command of the Adjutant-General, Colonel FitzGibbon, as
related in Sir Francis Head's despatch to Lord Glenelg of the 19th
December, "marched out of the town, with an enthusiasm which it would be
impossible to describe, and in about an hour we (Sir Francis was at the
head) came in sight of the rebels, who occupied an elevated position
near Gallow's Hill, in front of Montgomery's tavern, which had long been
the rendezvous of Mackenzie's men. They were principally armed with
rifles, and for a short time, favored by buildings, they endeavored to
maintain their ground. However, the brave and loyal militia of Upper
Canada steadily advancing with a determination which was irresistible,
drove them from their position, completely routed Mr. Mackenzie, who, in
a state of the greatest agitation, ran away, and in a few minutes
Montgomery's tavern, which was first entered by Mr. Justice Jones, was
burnt to the ground."

The defeat of the rebels at Montgomery's put an end to the rebellion, so
far as the district about Toronto was concerned. Mackenzie sought an
asylum in the United States. On the 11th December a public meeting was
held in Buffalo, inviting assistance for the promotion of the rebellion
in Canada. The meeting adjourned with cheers for Messrs. Mackenzie,
Papineau and Rolph. On the following day another meeting, at which
Mackenzie was present, was held. At this meeting American sympathizers
offered their services to aid and assist the disaffected in Canada to
conquer the country. Mackenzie, encouraged by these demonstrations, and
by another meeting which had been held in Rochester, resolved to make a
descent on Canadian territory, and took possession of Navy Island, a
large island about two miles above Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side
of the boundary, just above Chippawa. Here Mackenzie made his
headquarters, established a Provisional Government, and appointed Van
Rensselaer, an American general, his commander-in-chief of an army
composed of Canadian refugees and American recruits; bent on pillage and
the conquest of Canada.

On the 13th December, Mackenzie issued a revolutionary proclamation,
which stated that he had procured the important aid of General Van
Rensselaer, of Albany, of Col. Sutherland, Col. Van Egmond, and other
military men of experience, and that the citizens of Buffalo "to their
eternal honor, have proved to us the enduring principles of the
Revolution of 1776, by supplying us with provisions, money, arms,
ammunition, artillery, and volunteers, and vast numbers are flocking to
the standard, under which, Heaven willing, emancipation will be speedily
won for a new and gallant nation, hitherto held in Egyptian thraldom by
the aristocracy of England."

Mr. Mackenzie was an able composer of proclamations, and, if papers were
the only weapons at call, he would have been a redoubtable enemy. The
proclamation, as a whole, was rhodomontade, only equalled by General
Hull's proclamation when he undertook to take Canada during the war of
1812.

Mr. Mackenzie might have spared the unhappy Canadians and Sir Francis
Head, even if he had become the head of a new republic, set up on
Canadian soil by grace and favor of citizens of a foreign land. Here is
the concluding paragraph of his proclamation:

"Compare the great and flourishing United States with our divided and
distracted land, and think what we also might have been, as brave,
independent lords of the soil. Leave, then, Sir Francis Bond Head's
defence to the miserable serfs dependent on his bounty, and to the last
hour of your lives the proud remembrance will be yours--'We also were
among the deliverers of our country.'"

Mr. Mackenzie was, at the time he wrote this proclamation, burning under
a sense of humiliation at his defeat at "Gallow's Hill," and could not
forgive Sir Francis Head for the part he had taken in bringing it
about. Afterwards he had reason to alter his opinions on the subject of
government, and was bold enough to avow his change of heart in the most
public manner.

On December 28th, Sir Francis, in a despatch to the Colonial Secretary,
wrote "that an unprovoked attack had been made on Canadian territory by
American citizens, who have succeeded in taking possession of Navy
Island," etc., etc., and in another despatch, of the 16th January, 1838,
he was enabled to say "that the pirates have been driven from Navy
Island, which is now in possession of Her Majesty's forces on this
frontier (Niagara)."

The events connected with the Navy Island affair, the capture and
burning of the steamer _Caroline_, and all subsequent events connected
with the invasion of the Province by American citizens, by Sir Francis
called "pirates," and the results that followed, are matters of history.
Sir Francis protested most vigorously to the United States authorities
against the breach of neutrality in American citizens, with arms in
their hands, invading a province of the British Empire with which the
United States was at peace.

Notwithstanding the acceptance of Sir Francis's resignation of his
office of Lieutenant-Governor, in November, 1837, he continued to
administer the affairs of the Province till the 23rd March, 1838, when
he left Toronto for England. On leaving Toronto, a concourse of citizens
met to bid him farewell--a farewell which he never forgot. The
leave-taking is best described in his own words in "The Emigrant," a
book written by him and published in New York in 1847:

"Leaving Government House, I rode towards the vessel, around which I
found assembled a very large and, by me, unexpected concourse of the
militia and others of various classes to whom I had been equally
indebted.

"Without detaining them a moment, I dismounted and stepped on board, and
as the vessel, uncasting the hawser which had detained it, instantly
left the ice, it received from them the ordinary salutations, when, all
of a sudden, there burst from everybody present a shriek of exclamation,
rather than a cheer, which, I am sure, neither they nor I shall forget,
caused by the only mode I had of acknowledging the compliment they had
bestowed on us, namely, by taking off my hat and then, for a few
minutes, silently pointing to the British flag which was waving over my
head. They well knew what I meant, and the sudden response to my parting
admonition was, I can truly say, the most gratifying 'farewell' I could
possibly have received from them."

The compliment paid to Sir Francis by a popular meeting was but the echo
of the House of Assembly when that body, through their Speaker, on the
6th March, presented to His Excellency an address, in which was
contained this paragraph:

"In the name of the people of this Province, I offer to your Excellency
the expression of their deep regret that your Excellency should have
felt, constrained to tender to Her Majesty your resignation of the
Government of this Province, which your Excellency has administered with
so much credit to yourself and credit to the country. The people of
Upper Canada will ever retain a grateful recollection of the services of
your Excellency, and they feel assured your Excellency will meet with a
due reward at the hands of our youthful and beloved Queen."

The question may well be asked, "Did he ever meet with that reward?"
Alas! the answer must be that he did not. He ever opposed the policy of
concession and conciliation, followed for many years by the British
Ministry in minor points, while refusing constitutional reform, a
disastrous policy which the Ministry of his day would have had him also
follow. They could express gratification at his success in the election
of 1836, in which he received a verdict for upholding the constitution
at the peril of his own official existence; they could applaud his firm
suppression of the rebellion, but rewards were reserved for others less
pliant than he, an uncompromising opponent of all that savoured of
democracy in the Colonial Government as it existed at the time he
represented loyalty in the Province.

Sir Francis was an author of no mean reputation, having written several
books. They were: "The Bubbles from the Brummen of Nassau," "The
Emigrant," "Life of Bruce, the African Traveller," "Faggot of French
Sticks," and "A Fortnight in Ireland." The last named is said to have
been his best work. For his contributions to literature he enjoyed a
pension of 100 from the Pensioners' Fund. After his retirement from the
Governorship of Upper Canada he resided in England, leading the quiet
and uneventual life of a country gentleman at his residence, Duppay
Hall, Croydon.

He was an active, well-preserved man, who rode straight to hounds up to
seventy-five. In 1867, when the Confederation of Canada was taken up, he
was created a member of the Privy Council, to lend his valuable
knowledge of Canada to aid the deliberation of the Council in framing
the British North America Act. He lived to the good old age of
eighty-two, dying on 20th July, 1875, just thirty-nine years after his
most notable political success was rewarded with a baronetcy. His wife
survived him some years.




[Illustration: Geo Arthur]

  CHAPTER XII.

  _SIR GEORGE ARTHUR, K.C.H., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Sir George Arthur, the successor to Sir Francis Bond Head as Governor of
Upper Canada, was born June 21st, 1784. He was the youngest son of John
Arthur, of Norley House, Plymouth, and entered the army in the 91st
Highlanders on 25th August, 1804. Having been promoted to a lieutenancy
in the 35th Foot, he served with that regiment in Sir James Craig's
expedition to Italy in 1806, and in the following year, proceeding to
Egypt with the force under the command of General Fraser, he was engaged
in the attack upon Rosetta, and was severely wounded. In 1808 he served
as a captain in Sicily under Sir James Kempt, and in 1809, in the
expedition to Walcheren, where, in command of the Light Company of his
regiment, he was employed in the attack upon Flushing, and was again
wounded, he with his single company taken prisoners--five officers and
three hundred men. For his services on this occasion Captain Arthur was
thanked in general orders, and was appointed on the field deputy
assistant adjutant-general. On his return to England he received the
freedom of the city of London and a sword. A similar distinction was
conferred upon him by his native town of Plymouth.

He subsequently served as a military secretary to Sir George Don, the
Governor of Jersey, and having attained his majority in the 7th West
India Regiment, in 1812, joined that regiment in Jamaica and was shortly
afterwards appointed Assistant Quartermaster-General of the forces in
that Island. Major Arthur was subsequently appointed, in 1814,
Lieutenant-Governor of Honduras (British Honduras), which office he held
with the rank of colonel on the staff, combining the military command as
well as the civil government until 1822. During this period Colonel
Arthur suppressed a serious revolt of the slave population of Honduras.
His despatch on the subject of slavery in the West Indies attracted the
attention of Mr. Wilberforce and of Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Stephen.
Returning to England on leave of absence in 1822, for the purpose of
furnishing the Government with further information on the subject of
emancipation, Colonel Arthur was appointed in 1823 to the
Lieutenant-Governorship of Van Diemen's Land, together with command of
the military forces in that colony, then Britain's principal penal
settlement. The ill-regulated system of transportation which was in
force had led to terrible abuses, and the object of Colonel Arthur's
appointment was the introduction of an improved system. His strong good
sense and humanity indicated the possibility of a middle course between
the extreme severity of the course which would make transportation
simply deterrent and the over-indulgence of the system which aimed at
reforming the convict by gentle treatment. He held that it was possible
to make transportation a punishment much dreaded by criminals, whilst
offering every facility for reform to those who were not hardened in
crime; but he entertained no quixotic expectations of frequent
reformation. His plans were never allowed a fair trial. The colonists
and their friends in England were bent on putting an end to the
transportation-banishment system altogether, and their views ultimately
prevailed. Colonel Arthur's administration of Van Diemen's Land lasted
for twelve years, and was marked throughout by a rare combination of
humanity with firmness and courage, and above all by a shrewd common
sense and practical judgment which secured for him alike the respect of
the colonists abroad and the confidence of statesmen at home. While
holding the Government, Colonel Arthur discerned the advantage which
would accrue to the Australian colonies from adopting a system of
confederation. It is believed that he was the first to suggest this
important colonial reform.

The services Colonel Arthur had rendered Government gave him a claim to
promotion, and it was thought that in view of the condition of Upper
Canada following on the rebellion which had been suppressed by Sir
Francis Head, no better man than he could be appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of the Province. Humanity coupled with firmness, was
a feature of his administration in Van Diemen's Land, and this was a
quality which Upper Canada had much need of in its Governor, to take
upon himself the government of the Province in succession to Sir Francis
Head. But a short time previous to this date, Samuel Lount and Peter
Mathews had been convicted of treason at the Toronto Court of Oyer and
Terminer, and sentenced to be executed on the 14th April. They were men
of note--one of them, Samuel Lount, had been a member of the Provincial
Parliament--and had many friends in both political parties who would
gladly have welcomed a pardon in their case, or at least a commutation
of the sentence passed upon them by the Chief Justice, the only sentence
he could pass, that of death. It rested with the newly-arrived Governor,
Sir George Arthur, to extend the clemency of the Crown to the condemned
if he thought fit to do so. Sir George was very much importuned--as many
as thirty thousand people petitioning him to extend the mercy of the
Crown to the prisoners--but all attempts to procure a commutation of the
sentence proved of no avail. The Executive Council, the
Attorney-General, and the Chief Justice, before whom the prisoners were
tried, could see no ground for interference of the Crown, and Sir George
would not take upon himself the responsibility of annulling or even
staying the sentence of the law. The _Christian Guardian_ newspaper, the
influential organ of a large body of Methodists of the Province, in an
editorial under date of April 18th, 1838, gave some of the reasons why
Sir George Arthur could not see his way clear to exercise the clemency
of the Crown. The editorial was as follows:

"We understand that several petitions, praying for the exercise of the
Royal prerogative in their behalf, were sent to the Governor, who
expressed his deep regret that the circumstances were such as to render
his interference improper, and that a sense of public duty constrained
him to allow the law to take its course in relation to them. The
decision was probably mainly founded upon the consideration that Lount
was the leader of the band of rebels at Montgomery's on the fatal night
on which the gallant Colonel Moody was murdered, and that no facts have
transpired to elicit the actual perpetrators of that horrid deed, and
that Mathews was the leader of the party who burned the property of Mr.
Washburn, attempted to burn the Don bridge, killed a man, and fired upon
a woman who expostulated with them.

"With these particulars before them, and many others which have not been
made public in consequence of the prisoners having avoided a trial by
pleading guilty, it appears that the Executive deemed it imperative that
such an example should be made as would be likely to deter persons in
time to come upon entering upon a project so fraught with evils of the
highest magnitude and so utterly subversive of everything that is
essential to the good order of society."

Mr. McMullen, in his "History of Canada," in making reference to the
execution of Lount and Mathews, has this to say: "Up to the month of
May, Samuel Lount and Peter Mathews, the leaders of Mackenzie's attack
upon Toronto, had alone been executed for treason. Their fate was a sad
one, but their punishment was just. Both belonged to the Methodist
Episcopal body, and were attended by its ministers to the scaffold.
Several others had been sentenced to death at Hamilton and Toronto, but
Sir George Arthur, blending mercy with justice, transferred the greater
part of them to the penitentiary at Kingston."

The Government seem to have made a difference between the leaders and
their followers. Doubtless the same fate would have fallen on Mr.
Mackenzie as befell Lount and Mathews if he had been caught at the time;
but although one thousand pounds was offered for his capture, he managed
to escape to the United States, from whence, after being driven from
Navy Island, he, with his American sympathizers, made war on the
Province which had been his home, and upon the people, many of whom had
given him political support.

The Canadian refugees in the United States and their American allies now
took the name of "Patriots," and on the 29th of May a notorious
character, named Bill Johnston, at the head of a gang of fifty men, set
fire to and burned the _Sir Robert Peel_, one of the finest Canadian
steamboats plying on the St. Lawrence, while she was taking in wood at
Well's Island, on the American side of the river, seven miles from
French Creek. The crew of the _Sir Robert Peel_ lost all their clothing
and other property, and the passengers were able to save very little of
their effects. This outrage had the result of bestirring the Governor of
the State of New York to take active means to discover the perpetrators
of this piratical act, and to bring them to punishment. The American
Government also sent troops to the frontier to preserve the peace and to
prevent further armed expeditions against the Canadas.

Notwithstanding the efforts made by the United States Government to
observe neutrality, citizens of the Republic, under the name of
"Patriots," and members of Hunters' lodges, another organization got up
in the United States for the avowed purpose of annexing Canada, were
planning an invasion of Canada. On the 23rd October, 1838, Sir George
Arthur by proclamation called out a portion of the militia, and at the
same time the Canadian armed vessels were put into the most efficient
condition for active service. Mr. Mackenzie and his followers were
endeavoring to embroil England and the United States in a war, which was
likely to occur unless the most prudent management should avoid it. In
November the attack on Prescott and the battle of the "Windmill"
occurred, ending in a repulse of the Patriots-Hunters'-Lodge gang of
desperadoes; and again at Windsor, opposite Detroit, in December, the
invaders suffered a defeat which terminated the Patriots' invasion of
Canada. Too much credit cannot be given to the gallant militia of the
Province, and the firm attitude assumed by the civil Government and
military authorities for their part in repressing the rebellion and
successfully resisting invasion. The known historical facts, showing the
determined way in which these various invasions were met, enable us to
see that Canada at this period of her history had men at the head of her
affairs well qualified to cope with the difficulties that surrounded
her.

The humanity and firmness which had served Sir George Arthur well in
other colonies of the Empire, stood him in good stead in the unsettled
and tempestuous time of his government in Upper Canada.

In opening the House of Provincial Parliament, on the 27th February,
1839, he entered into a review of the painful occurrences of the last
year, and pointed out the measures he deemed necessary for the welfare
of the country; he recommended the settlement of the Clergy Reserves
question, and the promotion of education by an improvement in the Common
School system, and asked to be indemnified for the large disbursements
he was called on to make in defending the country.

In 1841 the two Provinces were united under a Governor-General, in the
person of Lord Sydenham, at whose special request Sir George continued
for a time to conduct the administration of Upper Canada as Deputy
Governor, but upon his own express stipulation that he should receive no
emolument or remuneration for that duty. Sir George Arthur's services in
Canada were rewarded with a baronetcy, which was conferred upon him
shortly after his return to England in the summer of 1841.

After his return to England, Sir George was offered and accepted the
Governorship of Bombay. At this period Lord Ellenborough was
Governor-General of India, and there was friction between the Local
Government of Bombay and the Government of India, though not of such a
nature as to give concern. Sir George succeeded in retaining the esteem
of the Court of Indian Directors and of his own colleagues in the
Government of Bombay, as well as that of Lord Ellenborough, who recorded
the name of Sir George Arthur upon a monument which he erected in
England to those who had best seconded his efforts for the maintenance
and extension of the British Empire in India. Before the close of Lord
Ellenborough's administration there was an insurrection in the
Presidency of Bombay, which was speedily and judiciously suppressed by
Sir George Arthur. Sir George retired from the Government of Bombay in
1846, and on his return to England was made a Privy Councillor, and was
honored by the University of Oxford with the honorary degree of D.C.L.
He received the colonelcy of the 50th Queen's Own Regiment in 1853, and
died in the following year. Sir George Arthur married, in 1814, Eliza
Orde Usher, second daughter of Lieutenant-General Sir John Frederick
Sigismund Smith, K.C.B., and had five daughters and seven sons, of whom
five survived him. Sir George Arthur's career was a successful one in
every way. He was an eminently unselfish man, imbued with a deep sense
of religion, and as much respected for his unswerving integrity in
private as in public life.




[Illustration: Sydenham]

  CHAPTER XIII.

  _RIGHT HON. CHARLES EDWARD POULETT THOMSON, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


During a short portion of Sir Henry Arthur's government of Upper Canada,
Mr. Poulett Thomson, at the time Governor-General of Canada, was sworn
in and acted as Lieutenant-Governor from November 22nd, 1839, to
February 18th, 1840, when Sir George Arthur again assumed the chief
magistracy. Mr. Thomson, the son of a wealthy London merchant, was born
at the family seat, in Surrey, on September 13th, 1799. After he
attained his sixteenth year he was despatched to St. Petersburg, in
1816, to enter on a mercantile career in a branch of his father's house
there. After successfully rising to a partnership in 1821 he returned to
London in 1824, and in 1826 entered political life, being elected member
for Dover in the Liberal interest in that year. In the House he rose
rapidly, and in 1830 entered Lord Grey's Ministry as Vice-President of
the Board of Trade, which post he held to 1834, when he became
President of the Board of Trade and took a seat in the Cabinet in April,
1835, holding it till 1839, when, his health failing, he accepted the
Governorship of the British American Provinces, being sworn in on the
29th of August, 1839, and proceeding at once to Quebec. Shortly after
his arrival he set out for Upper Canada to complete Lord Durham's
mission in obtaining the consent of the Province, as well as the
information necessary to frame a Bill to unite Upper and Lower Canada,
and to arrange the financial affairs of the Province, then in a state of
practical bankruptcy. Arriving at Toronto on November 21st, he was
received with addresses of welcome from the Corporation and Board of
Trade. He opened the Legislation on December 3rd, and shortly after his
Government introduced the Union resolutions, which were carried, after a
fortnight's debate, on December 19th. His next step was to settle the
most important and much vexed question of the Clergy Reserves, and he,
by the exercise of the greatest tact and diplomacy, succeeded in
obtaining the support of the leading individuals of the principal
religious communities to a measure for the distribution of the Reserves
among the religious communities in proportion to their respective
numbers. This measure was subsequently disallowed as in excess of
Legislative authority, but was afterwards in effect adopted by the
Imperial Parliament.

Mr. Thomson, in dealing with the politicians of Upper Canada, endeavored
to steer a middle course and keep clear of all parties. He formed a most
decided opinion on the evils of an oligarchy, and thought the rebellious
party not much to blame for revolt against the kind of government they
got. He, by the exercise of the utmost fairness, gained the confidence
of the Reform party and, with the moderate Conservatives, succeeded in
carrying both these great measures in an incredibly short time. He also
saw the extreme importance of establishing local or municipal
government, and the subsequent passing of such a measure, with the
settlement of the Clergy Reserves, did more than anything to secure
peace in Canada.

Having closed the session, Mr. Poulett Thomson left Toronto for Lower
Canada on February 18th, 1840, reaching Montreal on the evening of the
19th, covering the whole distance of 360 miles in less than thirty-six
hours, probably one of the fastest journeys ever made in Canada over
ordinary winter roads. In 1840 Mr. Thomson was elevated to the peerage
in reward for his services with the title of Baron Sydenham, of
Sydenham, in Kent, and Toronto, in Canada. Having made the proclamation
of the Union of 1841, on the anniversary of the Queen's marriage, and
seen the successful carrying out of the ensuing elections,
notwithstanding the violent opposition of a large portion of the
French-Canadians, during which serious riots took place, Lord Sydenham
met and opened the first Parliament of the united Canadas at Kingston.
As the close of the session approached, feeling his work accomplished
and his health being bad, he sent in his resignation in July, 1841. On
the 4th of September, however, he was thrown from his horse and dragged,
his leg being broken and severely wounded. At first he was thought to
progress favorably, but on the ninth day it was seen that the fracture
was not mending, and he rapidly sank, expiring after receiving the Holy
Sacrament on September 19th, at the age of forty-two.

In person he was of most pleasing appearance and of a charming and
refined manner and address, and being of an amiable disposition was
universally loved and esteemed. That he had never married was attributed
partly to an early disappointment and partly to his incessant labors and
failing health.




[Illustration: H Stisted]

  CHAPTER XIV.

  _MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY WILLIAM STISTED, C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


From the expiry of Sir George Arthur's term and the union of Upper and
Lower Canada in 1841 to Confederation, Upper Canada was without a
Lieutenant-Governor, the two Provinces being governed by the one
Governor-General, and the seat of Government not being fixed, but
changing from Montreal to Toronto or Kingston or Quebec, according to
the fancy of the Government of the day. This arrangement was exceedingly
inconvenient to both the public and the officials, and a reorganization
was fitfully discussed.

After many years of agitation, the rival politicians of the Canadas were
able for a time to sink their differences and unite in a conference,
which lead to the confederation of the various provinces under the name
of the Dominion of Canada--Upper Canada being from the first day of
Confederation rechristened Ontario. This was in 1867, and from that time
the Federal Government had the power of appointing lieutenant-governors
of the Provinces. Before the organization of the new Government and the
selection of suitable lieutenant-governors, it was decided that for the
present the chief Imperial military officer in each Province should act
as provisional governor. In Ontario the lot fell on Major-General Henry
William Stisted, who had lately succeeded General Napier in command of
the Imperial forces in Upper Canada. General Stisted was a son of
Colonel Henry Stisted, of the Third Dragoons. He was a Sandhurst man,
and entered the army in 1835 as ensign in the 2nd Queen's Royal, with
which he served during the campaign in Afghanistan and Beluchistan. He
served with the 78th Highlanders in the Persian war, 1857, commanding a
brigade in the night attack and battle of Kooshab, for which he was
rewarded with a C.B. He served with Havelock in the mutiny and was at
the relief of Lucknow. He there succeeded to the command of the 1st
Brigade, and held that command during the whole of the defence of the
Residency, and also with Outram's force in the final capture of Lucknow.
In 1864, after further service in India, he was made a major-general,
and in the latter part of 1866 was given the divisional command of Upper
Canada, and as holder of that command was made first Lieutenant-Governor
of the new Province of Ontario.

General Stisted's appointment, was first announced in July, 1867, and
was hailed with approval, especially in Toronto, the headquarters of the
troops, where he had already made himself very popular by his attractive
social qualities. His term of office was for a year, during which he
presided over the first Parliament of Ontario, begun on December 27th,
1867, and lasting to February 28th, 1868, of which one of the principal
Acts was the Act respecting free grants and homesteads, under which the
northern part of the Province has since been opened up, and in honor of
the first Governor of Ontario the township of Stisted, in the Free Grant
District, was named after him.

General Stisted left Canada shortly after his relinquishment of office
on July 14th, 1868. After his return to England he was knighted in 1871.
He married in 1845, Maria, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Burton, who
survived him. Up to the time of his death he was Colonel of the 93rd
Sutherland Highlanders, and had seats at Dulwich (Bentley Lodge) and at
Upper Norwood (Wood Park). He died on December 10th, 1875, at the age of
fifty-eight.




[Illustration: W. P. Howland]

  CHAPTER XV.

  _THE HONORABLE WILLIAM PEARCE HOWLAND, C.B., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


William Pearce Howland, who succeeded Major-General Stisted, was of
English descent, but of American birth. His ancestor, John Howland, was
an English Quaker, who came to America on the _Mayflower_, landing at
Plymouth on the 22nd of December, 1620. The father of Sir William was
Mr. Jonathan Howland, a resident of Dutchess County, in the State of New
York, whilst his mother was Lydia Pearce, whose family resided in
Dutchess County, and were well known and influential citizens. Sir
William was born in Pawling, in the State of New York, on May 29th,
1811, and was the second son. To have had as Lieutenant-Governor of
Upper Canada a descendant of one of the Plymouth fathers is somewhat of
a singular circumstance. But the student of history knows that the old
Pilgrims extended their branches in every direction. Sir William's
progenitor, John Howland, settled in the old English colony of
Massachusetts Bay, and his descendants may now be traced in nearly every
State of the Union. It is not surprising, therefore, that he had in Sir
William a descendant who crossed the boundary and became a citizen of
Upper Canada.

Sir William in his early boyhood was brought up to farm work, but this
not being altogether congenial to his taste, he chose in preference a
commercial calling. He prepared himself for a business career by
attending a public school, and afterwards an academy at Kinderhook. When
he was nearly nineteen years of age (1830) he came to Canada, and
settled in the village of Cooksville, on Dundas Street, in the township
of Toronto. His first experience in the commercial line was as assistant
in a country store. In this store was kept the post-office of the
village. What that means all old pioneers can tell. It meant in this
case assiduous attendance and carefulness by those who had to attend to
the mail. Young Howland had not only to receive and deliver letters, but
to be up at late hours at night and early in the morning to catch the
bags hurled from the mail coach, open them, sort the letters, take out
those for the village and district around, return the others to the bag,
and the same to the driver of the post-coach to deliver at some other
office in the route. In the performance of these duties, and in tending
store, as it was called, he thus commenced and received an education
which led on to his future fortune.

His next venture was to start in business for himself. He formed a
partnership with a brother, Mr. Peleg Howland, in a general commercial
business. This business was so successful that they soon had several
establishments in the townships of Toronto and Chinguacousy. In addition
to a general mercantile business, the firm engaged in lumbering,
rafting, and the manufacture of potash and other business dealings in
which they could see some profit for their enterprise and industry.

By the time of the outbreak of the rebellion of 1837, William Howland
had become a noted man in Toronto and Chinguacousy townships. His
enterprise in business had not only made him many firm commercial
friends, but many farmer friends also. Mr. Mackenzie, the agitator and
self-constituted leader of the more advanced of the Reform or Liberal
party, now endeavored to entrap him and engage him in some of his
schemes for the overthrow of the Government of the Province. Mr. Howland
was, however, too wary to be persuaded to engage actively in any such
enterprise. His sympathies were with reform, but his common sense told
him that men in active business are better out of politics; besides he
was an alien, had not been naturalized, and therefore did not think it
right to engage in political contests.

Soon after the union of the Provinces, in 1841, he became naturalized,
and then felt at liberty to take part in party politics. He did not,
however, interest himself actively till the general election of the year
1848, when he identified himself with the Reform party, supporting Mr.
James Hervey Price against the Conservative candidate in the West
Riding, in the County of York, just prior to the formation of the
Baldwin-Lafontaine administration.

Mr. Howland at this time was engaged in a large wholesale business in
Toronto, to which place he had removed, with large interests in the
produce, milling, and other branches of trade. The increase of his
business brought him increased wealth, so much so that he could now
afford to pay more attention to political matters. His adherence to
reform and the propagation of liberal principles had obtained for him
the confidence of the electors of West York, who, at the general
election of 1857, returned him to the Assembly to advocate on the floor
of the House the principles which he had espoused.

When the Reform party came into power, in April, 1862, under the
leadership of the Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis Victor
Sicotte, Mr. Howland was offered the post of Minister of Finance, which
he accepted and held for a year. Mr. Sicotte and Mr. Howland, during the
year 1862, were appointed delegates to proceed to England to discuss
with the Imperial Government the arrangement in connection with the
militia of Canada, and to meet delegates from Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick to discuss the question of construction of the Intercolonial
Railway. While in England he and Mr. Sicotte succeeded in forming a
committee there for the purpose of seeing what could be accomplished in
the matter of acquiring the whole North-West territory for Canada. Sir
Edward Watkin became a member of the committee, bought stock in the
Hudson's Bay Company, and afterwards sold the stock for a large sum.
Negotiations for the purchase of the territory proceeded so far as to
enable the Macdonald-Cartier Government afterwards to complete it.

The Honorable Luther H. Holton succeeded him in the Macdonald-Dorion
Cabinet which was then formed. Mr. Howland subsequently became
Receiver-General in the same Ministry, and held this position till the
defeat of the Government in 1864. He was not a member of the coalition
Government of the Honorable John A. Macdonald and Honorable George
Brown, but he was an active and influential supporter of the Reform wing
of the coalition, and on the elevation of the Honorable Oliver Mowat to
the Bench, in 1864, he succeeded that gentleman as Postmaster-General,
and became a member of the Executive Council. He continued to be
Postmaster-General until the retirement of Honorable Alexander Galt, in
August, 1866, when he succeeded the latter as Finance Minister. This
office he held until Confederation, when, on the formation of the first
Dominion Government, on the 1st July, 1867, he was appointed a member of
the Privy Council and Minister of Inland Revenue.

Mr. Howland was a firm believer in the confederation of the Provinces,
and a firm supporter of the scheme to attain that object, and was one of
the three delegates representing Upper Canada at the London Conference
at which the terms of Confederation were agreed upon.

Of such transcendent importance did he view that question, that on the
occasion of the Honorable George Brown leaving the Ministry in 1865,
ostensibly on a difference of opinion on the Reciprocity question, Mr.
Howland took his place at the Council Board to maintain the balance of
power as established in 1864.

Mr. Howland's adherence to the cause of Confederation, and his active
services rendered in the promotion of that object, procured for him the
Order of Companion of the Bath, conferred on him in 1867.

In July, 1868, he retired from the Government, and was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of the newly-named Province of Ontario, which
position had, from the confederation of all the Provinces in 1867, been
held by Major-General Stisted, the senior officer in the station. Mr.
Howland continued to be Lieutenant-Governor of the Province until the
month of November, 1873, fulfilling all the duties incident to the
position in a manner acceptable to the people and to the Dominion
Government, from whom he received the appointment. Under the new system
of government created by the Confederation Act, the Lieutenant-Governors
owed their responsibility to the Dominion Government, and not to the
Imperial Government, as was the case with the Lieutenant-Governors under
the system that previously prevailed.

After Mr. Howland's term of office as Lieutenant-Governor expired, his
services were again recognized by the Government when he was called upon
to examine into and report upon the route of the Bay Verte Canal. On the
24th May, 1879, he was created a Knight of the Order of St. Michael and
St. George.

Sir William has never ceased being actively engaged in some kind of
business.

After vacating the office of Lieutenant-Governor he continued for some
time to superintend his commercial business in Toronto. He has been
President of the Ontario Bank, President of the Toronto Board of Trade,
and of various mercantile companies, and from its foundation President
of the Confederation Life Insurance Company. Sir William Howland was a
pioneer in opening up the North-West territory. In 1857-1858 he was a
director of the Rescue Company, formed for that purpose.

He has been three times married. First, to Mrs. Webb, of Toronto, a
widow, whose maiden name was Blyth. Second, to Mrs. Hunt, the widow of
Captain Hunt, of Toronto and Kingston. This lady will be best remembered
as the kindly hostess of Government House, when she so ably assisted
her husband in the performance of social duties at the Governor's
residence. Her name will long be remembered as the promoter of many
public charities. The present wife of Governor Howland was the widow of
the late James Bethune, Q.C., a Bencher of the Law Society, in his
lifetime a most able and successful lawyer.




[Illustration: Crawford]

  CHAPTER XVI.

  _HONORABLE JOHN WILLOUGHBY CRAWFORD, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR_.


His Honor Lieutenant-Governor Crawford was the second son of the
Honorable George Crawford, Senator of the Dominion, by his first wife,
Miss Brown. Governor Crawford was born at Manor Hamilton, in the county
of Cavan, Ireland, in 1817, and with his parents came to Canada when
about seven years of age. He was educated in Toronto for a professional
career. The profession he chose was that of the law, and after the usual
five years' training in the office of a barrister, he was called to the
bar in Trinity term, 1839. He never exerted himself to be an advocate,
although in the early stages of his professional career he frequently
argued cases in Osgoode Hall. He had very quick perception, and was able
to seize the crucial points of a case with great readiness. These
qualities well fitted him for a chamber counsel, a branch of the
profession which he preferred rather than the stormy discussions of nisi
prius and addressing juries, which was not congenial to him. The writer
was a student of his in 1844, when he had an office at the corner of
King and Jordan Streets, in Toronto, and at the same time lived with him
when he kept bachelor's hall on Yonge Street, east side, near McGill
Street, in the cottage afterwards owned and occupied by Chief Justice
Richards. Mr. Crawford, the Honorable John Ross, and Chief Justice
Richards were very intimate friends in their younger days in Brockville,
in the county of Grenville, their friendship continuing through life.

The special branches of the profession to which Mr. Crawford applied
himself when practising law were banking and commercial law. In these
departments he had no superior in his day in Toronto. After practising
by himself for a time, he entered into partnership with the Honorable
Henry Sherwood, having chambers at the corner of King and Court Streets,
in Toronto. This firm did a large business until it was broken up by the
entrance of Mr. Sherwood into Parliament. Mr. Crawford's next partner
was Mr. Hagarty, afterwards Chief Justice of Ontario, and now Sir John
Hawkins Hagarty. In Mr. Sherwood and Mr. Hagarty Mr. Crawford had as
partners the foremost men of the day in the profession. Both were very
able advocates, and the fortunate possessors of the eloquence that
commands the attention of judges and juries, and brings home dollars in
the shape of good fees. The firm of Hagarty & Crawford was a very
successful one. Mr. Hagarty was not only a first counsel, but had a
large conveyancing clientele. The Registry Office will show many deeds
and mortgages in his handwriting, especially many connected with the
estate of the late William Cawthra, the millionaire, for whom Hagarty &
Crawford were solicitors and counsel. In the conduct of the business of
this firm Mr. Crawford confined himself mostly to office work,
consultation, and that part of the business connected with banking and
commercial matters. The writer had good opportunity for knowing the
extent of the business, as he had an office in the same building, and
when there was too great a press of business, was entrusted with some of
the special pleading, more thought of in those days than at the present
time.

Mr. Crawford was Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th Battalion of the Canadian
militia, and took pride in being in some way connected with the defence
force of the Province. He was also president of the Toronto and
Nipissing Railway, and president of the Royal Canadian Bank. He was
essentially a business man, and highly esteemed in business circles. In
his professional days he took little thought of politics. Still, he was
of the Conservative party, and when, in 1861, a candidate of that party
was sought for East Toronto, the choice fell on him, and he was elected
for the constituency. He represented this constituency until the general
election in 1863, when he was defeated. After the confederation of the
Provinces, in 1867, Mr. Crawford represented South Leeds in the House
of Commons till November 5th, 1873, when he was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario.

There are not many living to-day who can speak of Governor Crawford as
can the writer of these pages. I well remember his visits to Brockville
in 1841-42. I was then a student of the Honorable George Sherwood, with
whom he generally stayed when visiting the old town, and thus had many
opportunities of seeing him. Then I lived with him for a year before his
marriage, at the cottage on Yonge Street, and in his political contests
in Toronto I was always his supporter, canvassing, speaking, and voting.
I was impelled to this, not merely from the fact that I had been an old
student of his, but because I was acquainted with his whole character.
He was a man of strict integrity, great independence, who thoroughly
despised a mean action. He married Helen, daughter of Judge Sherwood, by
whom he had several children, one son and five daughters. The son is now
agent of the branch Bank of Montreal, Yonge Street, Toronto; one
daughter is the wife of Captain Law, R.N., many times secretary to
governors, and another is married to John A. Macdonell, Q.C., of
Alexandria, county of Glengarry. Mrs. Crawford, now deceased, while at
Government House dispensed her hospitality with tact and with dignity,
which was one of the characteristics of her life.

Governor Crawford died at Government House on the 13th day of May, 1875.

    The Honorable David Christie, Secretary of State for the
    Dominion in 1873, and Speaker of the Senate of Canada, 1874,
    was appointed administrator of the Government of Ontario in
    May, 1875 (during the last illness of Lieutenant-Governor
    Crawford), but was not sworn in, owing to the death of the
    Lieutenant-Governor.




[Illustration: D. A. Macdonald]

  CHAPTER XVII.

  _THE HONORABLE DONALD ALEXANDER MACDONALD, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR_.


The Honorable John Crawford was succeeded in the governorship of Ontario
by Lieutenant-Colonel the Honorable Donald Alexander Macdonald, a
Canadian born, but of Scotch descent. Mr. Macdonald's military rank of
Colonel was not of the regular service, but of the Glengarry militia--a
loyal citizen-soldiery of a loyal race which has rendered good service
to the Crown in many lands. The Glengarry militia were conspicuous in
the war of 1812 and during the rebellion of 1837, always in the
forefront when called upon. Donald Macdonald was born at St. Raphael's,
in the Province of Lower Canada, in the year 1816, and had the honor of
receiving his education under that staunch loyalist, the Roman Catholic
Bishop Macdonell, whose name is familiar in the annals of the Province
of Upper Canada, both secular and religious, and who was at one time a
member of the Legislative Council of the Province.

Young Macdonald, when he arrived at the age of manhood, engaged in
mercantile pursuits, in which he was successful. During the progress of
construction of the Grand Trunk Railway, he found the business of
contractor to be profitable, and amassed a considerable fortune from
contracts he held in building that great work. Like many other men, he
prepared himself for the higher rank of legislating in the halls of
Parliament by municipal public service, for a time serving the counties
of Glengarry and Dundas as their warden.

He first entered Parliament in 1857, when he was returned for the county
of Glengarry as member sent to the Upper Canada House of Assembly, and
retained his seat until the union of the Provinces in 1841. After the
confederation of the Provinces he was, in 1867 and again in 1872,
elected to represent Glengarry in the Commons. His business capacity and
statesmanlike ability obtained for him the offer of the treasurership of
Ontario in 1877, but he declined the honor.

When the Mackenzie Government of the Dominion was formed, in 1872, the
member for Glengarry was selected as Postmaster-General, and again
succeeded in securing an unanimous election for his county, and
subsequently, in 1874, received the same honor. Mr. Macdonald remained
in the Ministry, holding the office of Postmaster-General, till May,
1878, when he was offered the Lieutenant-Governorship of Ontario, which
he accepted. His appointment was a popular one with all classes--his
manliness of character having secured for him the respect of the leaders
of both political parties. When he first entered Toronto as
Lieutenant-Governor, he felt some apprehension that he would not be well
received by the Conservatives, whom he had opposed in Parliament. He was
much gratified, therefore, at receiving a Highland welcome, not only
from his political friends but from those who had been his political
opponents. During his term of office, Government House was well kept up
in all its functions. The Lieutenant-Governor, being a widower, confided
the management of the social functions of Government House to his
daughter, who, with much grace and tact, fulfilled all the obligations
incident to their position. The Lieutenant-Governor himself was very
much of the Highlander, both in build and in the exercise of that
hospitality which is proverbial with the clans. He continued Governor
during the whole term, and left Government House with the respect of the
community. He did not re-enter public life after his term of office
ceased, but lived a retired life at Montreal, where he died on the 10th
June, 1896.




[Illustration: John Beverley Robinson]

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  _THE HONORABLE JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR_.


In distributing favors like that of the appointment of
Lieutenant-Governors, the Dominion Government no doubt look to fitness
as the best recommendation to the office. A Lieutenant-Governorship is
worthy the ambition of any man. It is generally regarded as a reward for
distinguished political services rendered the Government of the day,
care being taken to confer the honor upon some Parliamentary
representative who has faithfully served his country in Parliament. The
Honorable John Beverley Robinson was such a representative, and had the
additional recommendation of being a native of the Province and of U. E.
Loyalist descent.

John Beverley Robinson was the second son of Sir John Beverley Robinson,
Chief Justice of Ontario, and was born at Beverley House, Toronto, on
the 20th day of February, 1820. His grandfather was Christopher
Robinson, fourth in descent from Christopher Robinson, Esquire, of
Cleaseby, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, who came to America
in the reign of Charles II., as private secretary to Sir William
Berkeley, Governor of Virginia. The private secretary, Christopher
Robinson, subsequently became also in his turn Governor of Virginia. The
second son of Christopher Robinson, the Governor of Virginia, was John
Robinson, president of the Council of Virginia, who was born in that
colony, and married Catharine, daughter of Robert Beverley, Esquire,
formerly of Beverley, in Yorkshire, but then a resident of Virginia.

John Robinson, President of the Council, had several sons, one of whom
was Colonel Beverley Robinson of the British army, who raised and
commanded a regiment during the American Revolutionary war. Colonel
Beverley Robinson's name is familiar as a prominent man in revolutionary
days; he lived on the Hudson near West Point. His house was the
rendezvous of the Tories of that period residing in the country about
New York. West Point attained celebrity as the scene of the treachery of
Benedict Arnold and the lamentable death of Major Andr.

Governor Robinson's grandfather, Christopher Robinson, at the age of
seventeen, left the William and Mary College of Virginia, where he was
being educated, and obtained a commission as ensign in Colonel Simcoe's
Regiment of Queen's Rangers, which formed a part of Sir Henry Clinton's
army. He served in this corps until the peace of 1783, when, on the
regiment being reduced, he emigrated with many other Loyalists to New
Brunswick. From New Brunswick he went to Lower Canada in 1788, and when
Colonel Simcoe, who had become Major-General Simcoe, assumed the
Government of Upper Canada, in 1792, he induced Christopher Robinson to
remove to Kingston, Upper Canada, and he resided in Kingston several
years. Taking up the study of the law, he was called to the bar in 1797,
and was elected member of Parliament for the counties of Lennox and
Addington in 1798. Immediately after his election he removed with his
family to York, but did not live to complete his new career, as he died
in November, 1798, after a short illness.

Governor Robinson's father was distinguished in his early days as a
lawyer. He was a politician of note, and was a leader of the Tories.
Eventually he became one of the ablest jurists that Canada has produced.
His son, the future Lieutenant-Governor, was educated at Upper Canada
College, under its first Principal, the Rev. Dr. Harris. The writer
remembers him as a college boy when he (the writer) entered the college
in 1836. During his college course he was noted as much for his
proficiency in the cricket field as in the classes. He was a robust
youth, the envy of many a student who could not compare with him in
muscular strength and activity. He was successful in carrying off
college prizes, and was a general favorite of the masters and boys for
his manliness of character. There are not many of his contemporaries now
living, but those who are can testify to his good qualities, both of
body and mind. He left college in 1837, and attracted the notice of Sir
Francis Bond Head, the Governor, who appointed him one of his
aides-de-camp. No doubt the Governor was influenced in his favor by his
college reputation and by his fitness for this active position. Sir
Francis was a good horseman, and a youth so excellent in outdoor sports
as young Robinson would naturally attract his attention. He rode by the
side of Sir Francis, when, on December 7th, 1837, the militia, headed by
the Governor, marched up Yonge Street, met the rebels at Montgomery's,
and routed them. As the future Lieutenant-Governor was only seventeen
years of age at that time, his active service for his country had thus
an early beginning. After the defeat of the rebels at Montgomery's, Mr.
Robinson was sent to Washington by the Governor with important
despatches to the British Minister, and remained in the United States
capital several weeks. The rebellion being suppressed, Mr. Robinson was
admitted a student of the law, and entered the office of Christopher
Hagerman, Esquire, Attorney-General of the Province, afterwards a Judge
of the Queen's Bench. After studying in the office of Mr. Hagerman for
two years, he was transferred to the office of Strachan & Cameron, a
firm composed of Captain James McGill Strachan and John Hillyard
Cameron, and remained with them till the expiry of his articles in 1844.

After his call to the bar he commenced the practise of his profession in
Toronto. He had not been long in practise, only three years or
thereabouts, when on the 30th June, 1847, he married Mary Jane, the
second daughter of his former master, Judge Hagerman. Mrs. Robinson will
long be remembered in Toronto as an accomplished vocalist; her sweet
musical voice was very frequently in requisition for concerts given for
the benefit of charity and the poor. She was ever ready to respond to
calls made on her, giving of her best talent to promote the cultivation
of music in Toronto, and helping those who were under her in station.
She had a heart full of kindness, and nothing gratified her more than
ministering to the wants of the needy.

Mr. Robinson was more cut out for public life than the drudgery of a
professional career. He had great objections to pursuing the calling of
an advocate. To have done so would have entailed on him the necessity of
his pleading before his father, Chief Justice Sir John Robinson, of
which he did not approve. The red hangings at the entrance to the
Queen's Bench, in which court his father presided, seemed to act upon
him as a deterrent which he avoided. If he had got beyond he might have
succeeded, but its repellent force was irresistible. His first essay in
public life was his election as alderman for the ward of St. Patrick, in
the city of Toronto, in 1851. He was alderman of the ward for six years,
and in 1857 was elected Mayor of the city. He performed the duties of
Mayor so entirely to the satisfaction of the citizens, that on the first
opportunity offering, in 1858, he was, on the coming of the next general
election, offered a candidature for one of the divisions of Toronto as
a representative in Parliament, and was elected a member for the city.
He was a strong and consistent Conservative in politics, and was elected
to support the Macdonald-Cartier administration. He was a useful member
of Parliament for the city, and was instrumental in obtaining
legislation for city improvements and other advantages, all tending to
the development of his native town. In 1862 he was offered and accepted
the presidency of the Council in the Macdonald-Cartier administration,
and retained that office till the resignation of the Government, which
took place during the same year. Altogether he represented Toronto in
Parliament seven times--a record highly honorable to himself and the
citizens of the capital of the Province.

After Confederation of the Provinces, Mr. Robinson was, in 1872, elected
member of the House of Commons for the constituency of Algoma, which he
continued to represent until the dissolution of the House; when, at the
general election of 1878, he was again returned for the western division
of Toronto by the large majority of 637 votes. The popularity of John
Beverley Robinson was evinced not only by the citizens of Toronto so
often electing him to Parliament, but the Council of the city appointed
him to the responsible position of City Solicitor, which office he held
from 1864 till 1880. He continued to represent West Toronto until the
30th June, 1880, when he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario in
succession to the Honorable Donald Macdonald. He filled the position of
Lieutenant-Governor for the full term very acceptably to the whole
Province. While he occupied Government House the doors were always open
to rich and poor alike. The sympathetic nature of Mrs. Robinson, and his
personality, attracted to Government House the classes and masses alike.
Mrs. Robinson did not confine her entertainments to those who were rich
in this world's goods, or to a favored few, but was always the genial
hostess to guests of whatever class whose respectability gave them a
claim upon the attention of the chief lady of the Province. The
Lieutenant-Governor was a man of splendid physique, a presence that
could not but attract to him many admirers. In his administration he
never allowed politics to sway his actions. He was a constitutional
Governor, and none were more ready to admit it than his advisers, who
had been brought up in a different political school. After his
administration as Governor had come to an end, he held several offices
in connection with financial public institutions. He was at one time,
before his appointment as Lieutenant-Governor, president of the St.
George's Society. He was one of the promoters of the Northern Railway,
the Toronto and Guelph Railway Company, in the establishment of the
Western Canada Loan & Savings Company, and in the building of the Rossin
House. His love of athletic sport induced him to inaugurate the Toronto
Athletic Club, of which he was the president. In 1896 he was attending a
public meeting at Massey Hall, and was waiting in an ante-room before
speaking in the interests of the Conservative candidate, when he was
suddenly stricken by the hand of death, and died before leaving the
hall, leaving several surviving children to mourn his sudden demise.


  HON. JOHN HAWKINS HAGARTY.

During a temporary absence from the Province the Honorable John Hawkins
Hagarty, Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench, acted as
administrator from June 23rd to July 7th, 1882. Mr. Hagarty, whose
tenure of office was short, has for many years been a prominent figure
in Ontario. He was born in Dublin in 1816, was educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, and in 1835 emigrated to Canada, where he immediately
entered upon the study of the law and was called to the Bar in 1840. He
was made a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1856, and Chief Justice
of that Court in 1868, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in November,
1878, and President of the Court of Appeal and Chief Justice of Ontario
May 6th, 1884. He was knighted in 1897 and retired from the Bench in
April of that year. He is still residing in Toronto, the scene of his
long service on the Bench of Ontario.


  HON. JOHN GODFREY SPRAGGE.

Mr. Spragge succeeded Mr. Hagarty as administrator until September 6th,
1882. He was born at New Cross, a suburb of London, in 1806, and came to
Canada in 1820, studying law and being called to the Bar in 1828. He
was long distinguished as an Equity draughtsman, and quickly rose to
eminence at the Bar. He was elected a Bencher in 1835 and was made
Master in Chancery in 1837, and Registrar of the Court of Chancery in
1844, being finally appointed the Vice-Chancellor in 1859. He succeeded
to the Chancellorship upon the death of Mr VanKoughnet in 1869, and
filled that position until May 2nd, 1881, when he became Chief Justice
of the Court of Appeal, filling that position until his death on April
20th, 1884. Mr. Spragge was a man of invariable equibility and
discretion. He was devoted to the manly sport of cricket and was a
sincere Churchman, being constant in his attendance at the old Church of
St. John the Evangelist, on Stewart Street, near which he for many years
resided.




[Illustration: A Campbell]

  CHAPTER XIX.

  _THE HONORABLE SIR ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, K.C.M.G., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR_.


Sir Alexander Campbell, as his name would imply, was of Scotch descent,
but was of English birth. He was the son of Dr. Campbell, and was born
at the village of Heydon, near Kingston-on-Hull, in the East Riding of
Yorkshire, England, in 1821. When Sir Alexander was only about two years
old, his parents emigrated to Canada, and settled in the neighborhood of
Lachine, near Montreal, where his childhood was passed. He received his
early education at the hands of a minister of the Presbyterian Church,
and afterwards spent some time at the Roman Catholic Seminary of St.
Hyacinthe, his education being completed under the tuition of the
well-known Mr. George Baxter, of the Royal Grammar School at Kingston,
in Upper Canada. It will thus be seen that by early education and
surroundings he was well fitted to fight the battle of life in a mixed
community of French and English, Protestant and Catholic. After leaving
school he chose the law as his profession, and in 1838 passed his
preliminary examinations as a student before the Law Society of Upper
Canada. He then entered the office of Mr. Henry Cassidy, remaining there
until the death of his principal, in 1839, when he became a pupil of the
late Honorable Sir John A. Macdonald, who was then practising law in
Kingston, with whom he remained as a student until his admission as an
attorney, in Hilary term, 1842. He then formed a partnership with Mr.
Macdonald, under the style of Macdonald & Campbell, and was called to
the Bar in Michaelmas Term, 1843. The firm of Macdonald & Campbell had a
very large business, the largest of its day in Kingston, was very
successful, and afforded both the members of it an opportunity for
building up a large fortune. Mr. Macdonald was an able advocate who
attracted clients, but Mr. Campbell kept them. Mr. Campbell was quite
able to take his senior partner's place in the courts when necessity
called for it, and this was frequently the case, as Mr. Macdonald was
always more or less given to political wanderings. From whatever cause,
and the political wanderings was one, Mr. Campbell's attention to his
practice was attended with greater financial success than came to his
partner, and his labors while at the Bar secured for him a competent
fortune, while Mr. Macdonald's fortune acquired in his practice was of a
meagre kind; but his ambition was for fame, not for fortune, and he
succeeded in gaining his desire. In the years 1851 and 1852 Mr. Campbell
was alderman for one of the city wards of Kingston. This circumstance
attests to the popularity he had attained in the place of his residence,
and that, too, in the short space of eight years after having been
called to the bar. In 1856 he was created a Queen's Counsel, in 1857 he
became a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and in 1858, with
an ever-increasing popularity, he was elected to the Legislative Council
of the Cataraqui Division, embracing the city of Kingston and the county
of Frontenac, in the Conservative interest. He had very good oratorical
power. He was not brilliant, but convincing in debate in the Legislative
Council. He was a good reasoner, courteous in manner, urbane, not
acrimonious, but considerate to his opponents, and these qualities gave
him great strength in a body governed more by patriotism than by party
politics. His success in the Legislative Council was as great as it had
been in his other ventures, whether at the Bar or at the aldermanic
board. In 1863 he was elected Speaker of the Council, which position he
held until the dissolution of Parliament in the summer of that year.

There was a political crisis in March, 1864, and Mr. Campbell was
invited by the Governor-General to form a cabinet, but he declined. Mr.
Macdonald would have been glad if Mr. Campbell had responded to the
Governor's call, but he was unwilling to take upon himself the
responsibility of a Prime Minister, and was better content to accept the
subordinate office of Commissioner of Crown Lands under the new Ministry
then formed--the Tach-Macdonald Ministry--of which Mr. E. P. Tach was
the head, but Mr. Macdonald the controlling mind. Mr. Campbell, on the
downfall of the Tach Ministry and a coalition Ministry being formed in
its place, continued to hold the office of Commissioner of Crown Lands,
and did so until the Confederation of the Provinces was brought about.
He was a strong advocate of Confederation, and took an active part in
every movement towards its realization, and was a member of the Union
Conference which met at Quebec in 1864. Inside and outside the House,
Mr. Campbell was a sturdy champion of that great measure. In his speech
in the Legislative Council, in answer to the opponents of Confederation,
on the 17th of February, 1865, he was said to have made the most
statesmanlike effort of his life.

The great service rendered the state in his successful advocacy of
Confederation procured for him, after the adoption of that measure, a
place in the Senate, to which he was called by the Queen's proclamation
in May, 1867. On his elevation to the Senate he became leader of the
Conservative party in that Chamber, and on 1st July (Dominion Day),
1867, was sworn in the Privy Council, and took office as
Postmaster-General under his old leader, Sir John A. Macdonald. He
retained that position about six years, when the Department of the
Interior was created, of which he became the first Minister. In 1870 he
proceeded to England on an important diplomatic mission, resulting in
the signing of the Treaty of Washington. He continued to hold the
portfolio of Minister of the Interior until November, 1873, when the
Macdonald Ministry resigned, and was succeeded by the Ministry of Mr.
Alexander Mackenzie. During the existence of the Mackenzie Government he
led the Conservative opposition in the Senate, and upon the Conservative
party again coming into power, in 1878, he accepted the portfolio of
Receiver-General. He retained this office from 8th October, 1878, to
20th May, 1879, when he became Postmaster-General. Four days afterwards
he was created a Knight of St. Michael and St. George. On the 15th
January, 1880, he resigned the Postmaster-Generalship, and accepted the
office of Minister of Militia. In the re-adjustment of offices which
took place prior to the assembling of Parliament, toward the close of
1880, he resumed the office of Postmaster-General.

Sir Alexander was for some time Dean of the Faculty of Law in the
University of Queen's College, Kingston, and was always a strong
supporter of that institution. In the business world he held a prominent
position, and was connected with several important financial
enterprises.

In February, 1887, Sir Alexander was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of
the Province of Ontario. During his term of office Mr. Oliver Mowat was
Prime Minister, and thus two Kingstonians held the most important
offices in the Province at the same time. Sir Alexander was always
courteous and dignified in manner, and was a general favorite both as a
man and statesman. In 1855 he married Miss Georgina Fredericka Locke,
daughter of Mr. Thomas Sandwith, of Beverley, Yorkshire, England.
During his occupancy of Government House, his daughter, Miss Marjorie
Campbell, performed the social duties incident to her position with
grace and tact. Sir Alexander died at Government House, Toronto, on the
24th day of May, 1892.


  HON. THOMAS GALT, ADMINISTRATOR.

From June 29th, 1888, for a period of two months, the administratorship
of the Government fell upon Chief Justice Galt.

Thomas Galt, son of the distinguished novelist, John Galt, was born in
London, England, on August 17th, 1815. He was educated in England and
came to Canada with his father in his eighteenth year, and adopting the
profession of law was called to the Bar in the year 1845. He was elected
Bencher in 1855, and was created a Queen's Counsel in 1858. After a
distinguished career at the Bar he was elevated to the Bench in the year
1869 as a Judge of the old Court and Common Pleas, becoming Chief
Justice of that Court on November 5th, 1887. He was created a
Knight-Bachelor in June, 1888, and continued to preside as Chief Justice
of the Common Pleas Division until he retired in August, 1894. Sir
Thomas, in his old age, has still a buoyant step and lives in the
respect of his contemporaries, gained by his judicial worth and kindly
nature.




[Illustration: George A. Kirkpatrick]

  CHAPTER XX.

  _THE HONORABLE GEORGE AIREY KIRKPATRICK, LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR_.


Sir George Airey Kirkpatrick, fourth son of the late Thomas Kirkpatrick,
Q.C., M.P., of Kingston, by his wife Helen, daughter of Alexander
Fisher, Judge of the old Midland District, was born at Kingston,
September 1st, 1841.

Sir George is of Irish descent, from the Irish branch of the barons of
Closeburn, of Scotland. He had the advantage of being educated in three
Provinces, all under the one flag. His first scholastic studies were at
the Grammar School, Kingston, from whence he proceeded to the High
School, St. John's, Province of Quebec, completing his studies at
Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with B.A. and LL.B. in 1861, being
also Moderator and silver medalist in law, literature and political
economy.

Thomas Kirkpatrick, Q.C., was the most prominent lawyer of his day in
Kingston, a man of sterling worth and superior professional ability. Sir
George, having taken his degree at a university, was only compelled to
study three years before he could be called to the Bar. These years he
spent in his father's office in Kingston, and was called to the Bar in
1865, and practised his profession with much success in his native city.
He was created a Queen's Counsel during the administration of the
Marquis of Lorne, in 1880. Sir George, during his residence in Kingston,
found time to give some attention to military matters. He has always
been an ardent supporter of the volunteer militia, which he entered as a
private during the Trent affair, in the year when many of the Canadians
assumed the military role in anticipation of a war between Great Britain
and the United States, which good counsel happily averted. Sir George
also served during the Fenian raid as Adjutant of the Prince of Wales'
Own Battalion, became Lieutenant-Colonel of the 47th Battalion in 1872,
and retired, retaining rank, April 18th, 1890. He commanded the Canadian
Wimbledon Rifle team in 1876, and became President of the Dominion Rifle
Association in 1884.

Sir George has always been a Conservative in politics, and on the death
of his father, in 1870, succeeded him in the representation of the
county of Frontenac in the House of Commons, and continued to hold the
seat in the Conservative interest up to his appointment as
Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, June 1st, 1892.

He was an active member of Parliament, and was for some years Chairman
of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. His connection with a lake
city caused him to take special interest in sailors, and their interests
were well watched by him while in the House. He was the means of having
incorporated in the Maritime Court Act, introduced by Mr. Blake, that
portion which aims at securing a lien for seamen's wages on vessels
plying on inland waters. Sir George was Speaker of the House of Commons
during the fifth Parliament, 1883-1887, and was called to the Queen's
Privy Council of Canada in 1891. In educational matters Sir George takes
a prominent place: he is an honorary LL.D. of Dublin University (1884),
of Queen's University (1893), and of the University of Toronto (1894).

As a private citizen of Kingston, during his parliamentary career and
before his appointment to the Lieutenant-Governorship, he took a
prominent part in establishing some of the more important industrial and
commercial institutions of the Limestone City.

Sir George Kirkpatrick, both before and since his appointment to be
chief executive officer of the Province, was constantly connected with
some institutions of an educational or charitable character. In 1886 he
was elected a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and
more recently of the Canada Life Assurance Company, and of the B. C.
Southern Railway. He is also vice-president of the Imperial Loan and
Investment Company. He was vice-president of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, which met at Toronto in 1897, and has been
elected president of the Ontario Branch of the St. John Ambulance
Association.

Sir George's appointment as Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario was hailed
with great delight by his political friends, while his opponents could
not but admit that he was eminently fitted for the position. Sir Oliver
Mowat, Premier of Ontario, being in Kingston when the appointment was
announced, said he considered the appointment a good one, the very best
choice the Government could have made. He was sure Mr. Kirkpatrick would
be acceptable to all parties. Mr. Kirkpatrick was a man of experience in
public affairs, well versed in constitutional government, and he was
sure he would discharge the duties of his high office efficiently and
judicially. How well Sir Oliver Mowat's opinion was verified is well
known. Sir George as Governor was very popular with all classes. His
frequent calls to the rural districts to take part in some function that
interested the community testified to the esteem in which he was held by
the farmers, while in the city no function was complete without his
genial presence.

Nor was Lady Kirkpatrick less popular than the Lieutenant-Governor. In
every relation she performed her part with consummate grace and with
general consensus of praise. At Government House she was the amiable
hostess, and out of it she was active in good works. She has been and
is prominently connected with many of the charitable institutions of
Toronto. She has at times officiated for the Lieutenant-Governor in
functions of a public character, as in 1897, when she officiated for Sir
George in opening the Victorian Era Exposition and Industrial Fair,
Toronto. Lady Kirkpatrick is a daughter of the late Honorable Sir D. L.
MacPherson, K.C.M.G., and is Sir George's second wife. They were united
in marriage in 1883. The Lieutenant-Governor's first wife was a daughter
of the late Honorable John Macaulay, whom he married in 1865, and who
died in 1877.

Sir George belongs to the Masonic Order, and in 1896 was appointed an
Esquire of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, in
England. His rank of Knight Commander of the most distinguished Order of
St. Michael and St. George was conferred upon him in 1897, on the
completion of the sixtieth year of Her Majesty's reign. Sir George,
since his term of office expired, has continued to reside in Toronto.[3]

[Footnote 3: Sir George Kirkpatrick died at Toronto, after a long and
painful illness, borne with heroic fortitude, on December 13th, 1899,
and was buried at Kingston.]


  CASIMIR STANISLAUS GZOWSKI.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gzowski acted as a administrator for a short period
from November, 1896, following the government of Sir George A.
Kirkpatrick, until the appointment of his successor. Colonel Gzowski was
descended from an ancient Polish family, his father being an officer of
the Imperial Guard. He, himself, took a part in the insurrection of
1830, and on the downfall of the Poles was prisoner for many months,
being subsequently exiled to the United States. Here he studied
engineering, and afterwards was called to the Bar, but seeing more
opportunity for his talents in Canada, he came to Canada in 1841 and
entered the public service. Many public works were constructed under his
supervision, and finally, with the late Sir A. F. Galt, Sir David
MacPherson and Mr. L. H. Holton, he built the Grand Trunk Railway
between Toronto and Sarnia. In 1879 he was made A.D.C. to the Queen, and
in 1890 was created a K.C.M.G. He died at Toronto, August 24th, 1898.




[Illustration: O. Mowat]

  CHAPTER XXI.

  _THE HONORABLE SIR OLIVER MOWAT, G.C.M.G., LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR._


Sir Oliver Mowat, the present Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, has been
so many years in public life and so prominently that it would properly
take a whole volume to do full justice to the subject, and then,
perhaps, something essential would be left unsaid. The history of his
life to this time must, therefore, be approached in an apologetic way by
saying that the scheme of this work has been to compress within a single
volume some account of the lives of all the lieutenant-governors who
have in the past ruled the Province, and as he forms one of the class
still living, his term of office not having expired, his sketch must be
confined to some account of what may be assumed to be the greater part
of his career, leaving a more full account of his distinguished public
life to be described by some abler pen.

Sir Oliver is the son of a soldier. His father, John Mowat, who was a
native of Canisbay, Caithness, in the far north of the Land of Cakes,
like many another loyal Scotchman, joined the army, and took his share
in the glories of the Peninsular War. Having done his duty as a soldier,
the love of adventure being on him, and the war being over, he, in 1816,
emigrated to Canada and settled in Kingston, where he resided till his
death, carrying on a general mercantile business. Sir Oliver Mowat's
mother was Mary Levack, also from Caithness. She was married to his
father in Kingston, on July 22nd, 1820. His Scotch parentage, combined
with his Canadian birth, may account for his strong British feeling, the
mainspring of his life. He was educated in Kingston at such schools as
were accessible in his early years, and finished under the Rev. John
Cruikshank, under whom Sir John Macdonald also received a part of his
education. With so good a teacher as the Rev. Mr. Cruikshank, and pupils
of the natural ability of the young students, Mowat and Macdonald, it is
not surprising that both these scholars in their future lives have
occupied prominent places in the history of their country. Both have
been attorney-generals, both premiers, and both admitted to the order of
knighthood on account of their distinguished services to the empire.

It has been said that in his adolescent stage Sir Oliver Mowat was as
much of a Tory as Sir John Macdonald. This imputation Sir Oliver would
probably resent. It has risen from the fact that in his boyhood days his
associates were mostly Tories. When the rebellion of 1837 broke out,
although but seventeen years of age, young Mowat shouldered his musket
in defence of his country. His companions were mostly of the Tory order.
His father was a Tory, and so he has been put down as belonging to that
class at that time. No doubt he would say that as he grew older he grew
wiser. At all events, early in life he allied himself with the Reform
party. His early education well fitted him for a profession, and the law
became his choice.

On the 12th of November, 1836, Oliver Mowat, jun., as he then described
himself, petitioned the Law Society to be admitted a student at law,
stating that he was sixteen years of age, had been educated at Kingston
Grammar School, and had, among other studies, attended lectures by Mr.
Jennings on astronomy and moral philosophy. Thus early had his attention
been drawn to the philosophy of religion. He was presented by
Solicitor-General Hagerman, his presentation being endorsed by Mr. John
A. Macdonald, who, in course of time, was his life-long political
opponent, and being admitted as a student at law, entered the office of
Mr. John A. Macdonald, who had then been a few years at the Bar, and
continued to serve him under articles for four years, when he was
transferred to Robert Easton Burns, afterwards Judge Burns of the Court
of Queen's Bench. Having completed his studies, he was called to the Bar
in 1842, and after practising for a short time in Kingston, he left for
Toronto, where he entered into partnership with his former master, Mr.
Burns. The firm of Burns & Mowat, which by the addition of Mr. Philip
VanKoughnet (afterwards Chancellor VanKoughnet) became the firm of
Burns, Mowat & VanKoughnet, had a very large Equity practice, the second
member, Mr. Mowat, being considered one of the best Equity lawyers of
his day. This firm had their office just west of Macdonald's hotel, then
occupying the site of the present Romaine building, on the south side of
King Street. It was at this time that I first made the acquaintance of
Mr. Mowat, when I used to meet him at the dining-hall of Macdonald's
hotel, where I boarded and lodged, and he boarded. Mr. Mowat was most
industrious, and was seldom seen out of his office or out of court. Mr.
Burns retired from the firm in 1848, accepting a judgeship in the Court
of Queen's Bench. Mr. Mowat was created a Queen's Counsel in 1855, and
was afterwards elected a Bencher of the Law Society. In 1857 he was
induced to offer himself a candidate for alderman for St. Lawrence ward
in the city of Toronto, and was elected. This election was thought to be
extraordinary. That a quiet Equity lawyer should step out of his office
to run for alderman was past understanding. The fact was, no doubt, that
Mr. Mowat felt that he was suited for public life, and that this was the
shortest route to gain the public attention to his ability as a public
debater. The result showed that Mr. Mowat could be very combative on
occasion. He proved to be a most excellent alderman, and introduced many
reforms in the City Council which remain to this day as evidence of his
skill as a municipal officer.

I sat with him, as alderman of St. Patrick's ward, in 1858, and can
testify to the respect in which he was held by the Council. He was
Chairman of the Walks and Gardens Committee, and brought to the notice
of the Council, in an able report, the necessity of laying out parks
throughout the city. There had been properties dedicated for parks by
the Government which had been totally neglected and never brought into
use. This was all altered after Mr. Mowat's report, several parks being
now established and Queen's Park obtained from the University.

On Mr. Mowat's resignation of his seat as alderman in the latter part of
the year, it fell to my lot, as Chairman of Walks and Gardens, to which
I succeeded on his retirement, to continue the negotiations for the
lease of the park property; and finally, as Mayor, to which office I had
been elected on the resignation of Mr. William H. Boulton, to accept the
lease and finally complete the contract with the University. As I am in
a reminiscent mood, I may state here that although Mr. Mowat and myself
were directly opposed in politics, he warmly supported me for Mayor when
I was opposed by another Conservative. We have had public relations
together, not only as members of the City Council, but as Commissioners
for the revision of the Statutes of Canada and Upper Canada,
1856-1857-1858, when he was one of the most active members on the
commission, his services being specially valuable in the consolidation
of the Municipal Laws.

His success as alderman induced his party to bring him forward as
candidate to represent the county of South Ontario in Parliament in
1857. His opponent in the election was the Honorable Joseph C. Morrison,
whom he defeated by a large majority. This election is chiefly memorable
by the fact that it was during that contest that Mr. Mowat was given the
name of "the Christian politician." Mr. John A. Macdonald and his party
were at that time kept in power by virtue of their Lower Canadian
majority, which was Roman Catholic and French.

The Reform party, in order to gain a victory over their opponents,
hoisted the Protestant flag and raised the Protestant cry. No words were
strong enough for a Reformer to use in condemnation of Romish and French
ascendency. The school-houses rang with the cry, political agitators
excelled themselves in denunciation of the Macdonald-Cartier coalition,
the press teemed with inflammatory articles, placards were posted all
over the county, printed in large letters and with the utmost fervency
insisting upon the necessity for protecting the Protestant faith and
English language in the interest of religion and good government.

From the character of the alliances that have been made since that time,
if judged by the record, Sir Oliver at this day would hardly recognize
himself. Truly "we know what we are, but know not what we may
be"--especially in politics.

When Parliament met in February, 1858, Mr. Mowat was found in his place
in the House as the representative of South Ontario, and a supporter of
Mr. George Brown, Leader of the Opposition.

The experience Mr. Mowat had had in the City Council of Toronto,
especially in the matter and manner of discussing public questions,
stood him in good stead in Parliament, and he speedily rose to the front
rank in parliamentary debate. Sir Oliver has always exhibited great
earnestness in the discussion of public questions, which, perhaps, has
been one of the causes of his success as a politician. At all events he
proved himself Mr. Brown's ablest associate. When the ill-starred
Brown-Dorion Government of August, 1858, was formed, Mr. Mowat was
appointed Secretary of State. This Government had lasted but two days
when the House declared lack of confidence in it. The old
Macdonald-Cartier Government was recalled, and the office of Secretary
of State passed to other hands.

With the loss of office Mr. Mowat did not lose his enthusiasm for
political life, of which so far he had had but a taste. He continued to
be a supporter of Mr. Brown, and in 1861, in the interests of his party,
was a candidate in opposition to Hon. John A. Macdonald for the
representation of Kingston in Parliament. Both were Kingston boys, and
both thought they had a claim upon the constituency. The old town,
however, did not choose to change its old member for a new one, and Mr.
Mowat was defeated.

The consequence of this defeat was that Mr. Mowat was compelled to fall
back on his old constituency of South Ontario for a seat in the House.
In 1862 the Sandfield Macdonald-Sicotte Government was formed, and it
was thought at the outset that Mr. Mowat would have been a member of it,
but the radical difference of opinion that existed between the Premier,
Mr. Sandfield Macdonald, and Mr. Mowat, on the subject of representation
by population, prevented Mr. Mowat's entering the Cabinet. Mr. Mowat had
pinned his faith on the principle that as the population of Upper Canada
exceeded that of Lower Canada the Upper Province should have a
proportionate increase of representation, and not an equal
representation only, as had been the case since the union of 1841. This
great and most important political principle had to be conceded at last
when the confederation of the Provinces took place in 1867, though up to
that time it had been vigorously opposed by Sir John A. Macdonald and
the majority of his party. There was, of course, a strong minority of
Conservatives, or Tories, as they were then called, who believed in
"Rep. by Pop.," as it was then called, and to them it was a
gratification when that same leader adopted the principle at the time
and as a main principle of Confederation. Sir Oliver Mowat may fairly be
said to have been the father of the principle, now firmly engrafted on
the constitution. Although, as has been said, Mr. Mowat was not a member
of the Macdonald-Sicotte Government when first formed, when the Cabinet
was reconstructed, in 1863, he became a member of it, accepting the
portfolio of Postmaster-General. But his term of office under this
Government only lasted for about ten months, when the Government went
down and he with it. This Government was popularly known as the
Macdonald-Dorion Government.

In 1864 the friction between the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
became so great that it was felt by the leading politicians that the
only way to save the ship of state was to scuttle it and rebuild it by a
confederation of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada and the
Maritime Provinces, leaving the door open for the entry of other
provinces into Confederation when circumstances should arise to make it
desirable.

In 1864 the Macdonald-Tach-Brown coalition Government was formed for
the purpose of reconciling differences and to make possible the
agreement for a confederation of the provinces. In this government Mr.
Mowat was Postmaster-General.

A convention of the provincial delegates was held in Quebec in 1864, to
discuss the matter and endeavor to agree upon terms. Mr. Mowat was a
member of that convention, the upshot of which was that the
confederation of the provinces was formed under the sanction of the
British Government and an Imperial Act of Parliament. Mr. Mowat took an
active part in preparing the Constitutional Act of Confederation. He
was, indeed, one of the "Fathers of Confederation." The meeting of the
delegates of Confederation took place in Quebec on October 10th, 1864.
In November following Mr. Mowat was raised to the bench as one of the
Vice-Chancellors of Ontario. Here again I am personally reminiscent. I
practised before Sir Oliver during the whole time he occupied a seat on
the bench, and can say that on the bench he forgot politics and was
uniformly courteous to the Bar. His decisions had a sound grounding in
them that commended them to the profession and public alike. It was
thought to be a great loss to the bench when he left it in 1872 to enter
again the political arena. His old party being then in a straitened
condition, they demanded his services and he complied, greatly to the
chagrin of his political opponents and the delight of his political
friends. The step which Mr. Mowat took was an unusual one. Never before
in Canada had a judge resigned his official position and descended from
the bench to engage in politics. But the situation was such that if the
Reform party was to continue to exist, Mr. Mowat's assistance was
absolutely essential.

The two leaders, Messrs. Blake and Mackenzie, had left the Ontario
Government to enter the House of Commons at Ottawa, and the local Reform
party was helpless without the aid of another leader. Yielding to the
pressure of his friends, Mr. Mowat resigned the Vice-Chancellorship and
became Premier and Attorney-General of Ontario. That the
Attorney-General of the Province should have been taken from an Equity
court was thought by some to be an extraordinary appointment, as they
considered that the Attorney-General should be a man skilled in criminal
laws. This Mr. Mowat was not, his professional practice at the bar
having been in the Court of Chancery, and his position as judge, that of
Vice-Chancellor of the only court of Equity in the Province. How then
could he be Attorney-General and conduct business in the criminal
courts? The question was solved by the Attorney-General not conducting
business in the criminal courts, but leaving it to county attorneys and
Crown counsel, while the Attorney-General remained at the helm in the
Government buildings, the head of the Law Department and at the same
time Premier.

Sir Oliver's long term in office as Premier and Attorney-General of the
Province of Ontario, extending over a term of upwards of twenty-three
years, gave him opportunity to shape her laws such as had not fallen to
any other Minister. That he did well no one disputed, though there may
be a great difference of opinion as to the centralizing tendency
inaugurated while he was leader of the House. In school legislation,
municipal legislation, and in legislation of a social character, as in
the matter of licenses, more extensive powers were gradually given to
the Government of the day. Whether this change is in the nature of
reform or not may be questioned. It undoubtedly was a marked tendency of
the legislation during his administration. The highest praise, however,
is due to him for his determined and brilliant defence of the rights of
Ontario. His successful litigation with the Dominion Government,
resulting in his obtaining a large increase of territory for his native
province, will ever remain an enduring monument to his memory as a
Minister. The Dominion Government, notwithstanding their confident boast
of certain success, were signally defeated on the question of the
north-west boundary of the Province by an unanimous award made by Sir
Edward Thornton, the British Minister at Washington, Sir Francis Hincks
and Chief Justice Harrison--the three arbitrators selected to ascertain
the line between Ontario and Manitoba. None of these gentlemen could be
claimed to be predisposed in favor of the Provinces of Ontario or
Manitoba, or against the Dominion, yet they were compelled to come to
the conclusion, on the evidence furnished by old maps and records, that
the Province of Ontario was entitled to one-half more territory than the
Dominion Government were willing to allow. The final decision of the
matter was submitted to the Privy Council after the arbitrators had
decided in favor of Attorney-General Mowat's contention. Mr. Thomas
Hodgins, Q.C., the present Master in Chancery, counsel for Ontario in
this case, devoted much time in exploring all accessible archives for
material to strengthen the case of Ontario, and had the satisfaction of
seeing his clients succeed in a contest, the result which was due not a
little to his research, and was of great political value and importance.
On all constitutional questions Sir Oliver has proved himself an adept,
and he has not shirked the question whenever a constitutional issue has
arisen, as between the Province of which he was Premier and the
Dominion, or between his Province and other provinces of the
Confederation.

He raised the question of the Dominion Government having the sole right
to appoint Queen's Counsel, contending that the Ontario Government
possessed the power as well as the Dominion. In this contention he
succeeded in establishing the rights of the Province after the matter
had been submitted to the Privy Council for adjudication. Politically
this was of great advantage to him, affording him abundant opportunity
to reward political legal friends.

The statutes of a general and beneficial character passed by the
Provincial Assembly during Sir Oliver Mowat's administration as Premier,
and of which he was the originator, are legion, too numerous even to
mention. Some, however, are especially entitled to mention:

1st. The Administration of Justice Act of 1873 and the beginning of the
fusion of law and equity. This was such a radical change in the
administration of the law that it was not without some misgiving that it
was entered upon. However, after feeling the pulse of professional men
of the law and the judges, the conception that Sir Oliver had of the
matter took shape and was embodied in his legislation. It certainly was
a great advance to have legal and equitable rights determined in the
same action, and the Administration of Justice Act was the first step
which led to the ultimate fusion of law and equity, completed by the
Judicature Act of 1881.

2nd. The Devolution of Estates Act. A very important measure, the
principle of which was to simplify the administration of the estates of
deceased persons, and to do away with the distinctions between the
descent of real and personal estate, which was one of the last survivals
of the old law of primogeniture of the Middle Ages.

3rd. The Law of Liens was extended to give to mechanics a lien for their
wages on the property on which they have expended labor. A most
beneficial law.

4th. The right of landlords in the matter of distress for rent,
curtailing the ancient rights of landlords and ameliorating the lot of
tenants.

These are some only of his many important public reforms.

Sir Oliver during the whole course of his administration had on the
opposite side of the House able critics, who aided him not a little in
so shaping his legislation as to be productive of the most good to the
majority of people. He never refused to accept such aid and was generous
enough to admit its importance.

In 1896 Sir Oliver resigned his seat in the Provincial House, was again
elected by the constituency of North Oxford to the Dominion Parliament,
and entered the administration of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as Minister of
Justice. The prestige he had obtained while Premier of Ontario in
fighting constitutional battles induced the Dominion Government to
entrust him with the conduct of the negotiations for settlement of the
difficult School question with the delegates from the Province of
Manitoba.

The measure of success he had in that matter can better be determined by
future events. Sufficient to say that an arrangement was entered into
satisfactory to the Government of Manitoba, and it is to be hoped to the
pacification of the Separate School question which agitated the
Manitobans for many years.

Sir Oliver during his busy life has been able to devote some of his time
to literary work. His works, "Evidences of Christianity" and
"Christianity and Some of Its Fruits," show the sincerely religious bent
of his mind. In 1897 he was elected Honorary President of the Canadian
Bar Association, and was at one time its president. He was formerly
president of the Canadian Institute, has filled the presidency of the
Evangelical Alliance, and is a vice-president of the Upper Canada Bible
Society. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Queen's
University in 1872, and from Toronto University in 1889. In 1887 he
presided over the Quebec Interprovincial Conference. In 1892, in
recognition of his services, the Queen created him a Knight Commander of
the most distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, and in 1897,
on the completion of the sixtieth year of Her Majesty's reign, he was
promoted to be a Knight Grand Cross of the same Order. In religious
belief Sir Oliver is a Presbyterian.

He married Jane, the second daughter of the late John Ewart, of Toronto.
She died March 14th, 1893.

Sir Oliver was appointed to his present position of Lieutenant-Governor
on November 18th, 1897, to the satisfaction of his friends and political
opponents alike, who have always recognized in him a firm friend of the
British Empire.

That Sir Oliver Mowat may live many years to enjoy his honors is the
hope of his many friends.




  APPENDIX.


We here present autographs of the Lieutenant-Governors and
Administrators whose portraits do not appear in this volume. Of the
first two, Hunter and Grant, no portraits are known to be in existence.

[Illustration: 7 signatures]


  =Transcriber's Notes:=
  Page 26, "Our Governer" changed to "Our Governor"
  Page 49, "to another" changed to "to another."
  Page 82, "Lieutenant-Govenor" changed to "Lieutenant-Governor"
  Page 102, "Rottenberg" changed to "Rottenburg"
  Page 118, "fluent debator" changed to "fluent debater"
  Page 140, "current protrait" changed to "current portrait"
  Page 146, "Bossinley" changed to "Bossiney"
  Page 147, "amelioriate" changed to "ameliorate"
  Page 156, "Cuidad Rodrigo" changed to "Ciudad Rodrigo"
  Page 157, "solicitious" changed to "solicitous"
  Page 174, "Mr Mackenzie's report" changed to "Mr. Mackenzie's report"
  Page 177, "Cuidad Rodrigo" changed to "Ciudad Rodrigo"
  Page 222, "surpressed" changed to "suppressed"
  Page 226, "litttle" changed to "little"
  Page 242, "Duchess County" changed to "Dutchess County" [2 places]
  Page 242, "born in Paulings" changed to "born in Pawling"
  Page 265, "surpressed" changed to "suppressed"
  Page 299, "constitutency" changed to "constituency"




[The end of _The Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada
and Ontario 1792-1899_ by D. B. Read]
