Canada under British Rule by Sir John George Bourinot (story reading txt) 📖

Thurlow and Solicitor-General Wedderburne dwelt on the necessity of dealing on principles of justice with the province of Quebec. The French Canadians, said the former, "seem to have been strictly entitled by the _jus gentium_ to their property, as they possessed it upon the capitulation and treaty of peace, together with all its qualities and incidents by tenure or otherwise." It seemed a necessary consequence that all those laws by which that property was created, defined, and secured, must be continued to them. The Advocate-General Marriott, in 1773, also made a number of valuable suggestions in the same spirit, and at the same time expressed the opinion that under the existent conditions of the country it was not possible or expedient to call an assembly. Before the imperial government came to a positive conclusion on the vexed questions before it, they had the advantage of the wise experience of Sir Guy Carleton, who visited England and remained there for some time. The result of the deliberation of years was the passage through the British parliament of the measure known as "The Quebec Act," which has always been considered the charter of the special privileges which the French Canadians have enjoyed ever since, and which, in the course of a century, made their province one of the most influential sections of British North America.

The preamble of the Quebec Act fixed new territorial limits for the province. It comprised not only the country affected by the proclamation of 1763, but also all the eastern territory which had been previously annexed to Newfoundland. In the west and south-west the province was extended to the Ohio and the Mississippi, and in fact embraced all the lands beyond the Alleghanies coveted and claimed by the old English colonies, now hemmed in between the Atlantic and the Appalachian range. It was now expressly enacted that the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Canada should thenceforth "enjoy the free exercise" of their religion, "subject to the king's supremacy declared and established" by law, and on condition of taking an oath of allegiance, set forth in the act. The Roman Catholic clergy were allowed "to hold, receive, and enjoy their accustomed dues and rights, with respect to such persons only as shall confess the said religion"--that is, one twenty-sixth part of the produce of the land, Protestants being specially exempted. The French Canadians were allowed to enjoy all their property, together with all customs and usages incident thereto, "in as large, ample and beneficial manner," as if the proclamation or other acts of the crown "had not been made", but the religious orders and communities were excepted in accordance with the terms of the capitulation of Montreal--the effect of which exception I have already briefly stated. In "all matters of controversy relative to property and civil rights," resort was to be had to the old civil law of French Canada "as the rule for the decision of the same", but the criminal law of England was extended to the province on the indisputable ground that its "certainty and lenity" were already "sensibly felt by the inhabitants from an experience of more than nine years." The government of the province was entrusted to a governor and a legislative council appointed by the crown, "inasmuch as it was inexpedient to call an assembly." The council was to be composed of not more than twenty-three residents of the province. At the same time the British parliament made special enactments for the imposition of certain customs duties "towards defraying the charges of the administration of justice and the support of the civil government of the province." All deficiencies in the revenues derived from these and other sources had to be supplied by the imperial treasury. During the passage of the act through parliament, it evoked the bitter hostility of Lord Chatham, who was then the self-constituted champion of the old colonies, who found the act most objectionable, not only because it established the Roman Catholic religion, but placed under the government of Quebec the rich territory west of the Alleghanies. Similar views were expressed by the Mayor and Council of London, but they had no effect. The king, in giving his assent, declared that the measure "was founded on the clearest principles of justice and humanity, and would have the best effect in quieting the minds and promoting the happiness of our Canadian subjects." In French Canada the act was received without any popular demonstration by the French Canadians, but the men to whom the great body of that people always looked for advice and guidance--the priests, curés, and seigniors--naturally regarded these concessions to their nationality as giving most unquestionable evidence of the considerate and liberal spirit in which the British government was determined to rule the province. They had had ever since the conquest satisfactory proof that their religion was secure from all interference, and now the British parliament itself came forward with legal guarantees, not only for the free exercise of that religion, with all its incidents and tithes, but also for the permanent establishment of the civil law to which they attached so much importance. The fact that no provision was made for a popular assembly could not possibly offend a people to whom local self-government in any form was entirely unknown. It was impossible to constitute an assembly from the few hundred Protestants who were living in Montreal and Quebec, and it was equally impossible, in view of the religious prejudices dominant in England and the English colonies, to give eighty thousand French Canadian Roman Catholics privileges which their co-religionists did not enjoy in Great Britain and to allow them to sit in an elected assembly. Lord North seemed to voice the general opinion of the British parliament on this difficult subject, when he closed the debate with an expression of "the earnest hope that the Canadians will, in the course of time, enjoy as much of our laws and as much of our constitution as may be beneficial to that country and safe for this", but "that time," he concluded, "had not yet come." It does not appear from the evidence before us that the British had any other motive in passing the Quebec Act than to do justice to the French Canadian people, now subjects of the crown of England. It was not a measure primarily intended to check the growth of popular institutions, but solely framed to meet the actual conditions of a people entirely unaccustomed to the working of representative or popular institutions. It was a preliminary step in the development of self-government.

On the other hand the act was received with loud expressions of dissatisfaction by the small English minority who had hoped to see themselves paramount in the government of the province. In Montreal, the headquarters of the disaffected, an attempt was made to set fire to the town, and the king's bust was set up in one of the public squares, daubed with black, and decorated with a necklace made of potatoes, and bearing the inscription _Voilà le pape du Canada & le sot Anglais_. The author of this outrage was never discovered, and all the influential French Canadian inhabitants of the community were deeply incensed that their language should have been used to insult a king whose only offence was his assent to a measure of justice to themselves.

Sir Guy Carleton, who had been absent in England for four years, returned to Canada on the 18th September, 1774, and was well received in Quebec. The first legislative council under the Quebec Act was not appointed until the beginning of August, 1775. Of the twenty-two members who composed it, eight were influential French Canadians bearing historic names. The council met on the 17th August, but was forced to adjourn on the 7th September, on account of the invasion of Canada by the troops of the Continental Congress, composed of representatives of the rebellious element of the Thirteen Colonies. In a later chapter I shall very shortly review the effects of the American revolution upon the people of Canada; but before I proceed to do so it is necessary to take my readers first to Nova Scotia on the eastern seaboard of British North America and give a brief summary of its political development from the beginning of British rule.


SECTION 2.--The foundation of Nova Scotia (1749--1783).


The foundation of Halifax practically put an end to the Acadian period of Nova Scotian settlement. Until that time the English occupation of the country was merely nominal. Owing largely to the representations of Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts--a statesman of considerable ability, who distinguished himself in American affairs during a most critical period of colonial history--the British government decided at last on a vigorous policy in the province, which seemed more than once on the point of passing out of their hands. Halifax was founded by the Honourable Edward Cornwallis on the slope of a hill, whose woods then dipped their branches into the very waters of the noble harbour long known as Chebuctou, and renamed in honour of a distinguished member of the Montague family, who had in those days full control of the administration of colonial affairs.

Colonel Cornwallis, a son of the Baron of that name--a man of firmness and discretion--entered the harbour, on the 21st of June, old style, or 2nd July present style, and soon afterwards assumed his, duties as governor of the province. The members of his first council were sworn in on board one of the transports in the harbour. Between 2000 and 3000 persons were brought at this time to settle the town and country. These people were chiefly made up of retired military and naval officers, soldiers and sailors, gentlemen, mechanics, farmers--far too few--and some Swiss, who were extremely industrious and useful. On the whole, they were not the best colonists to build up a prosperous industrial community. The government gave the settlers large inducements in the shape of free grants of land, and practically supported them for the first two or three years. It was not until the Acadian population were removed, and their lands were available, that the foundation of the agricultural prosperity of the peninsula was really laid. In the summer of 1753 a considerable number of Germans were placed in the present county of Lunenburg, where their descendants still prosper, and take a most active part in all the occupations of life.

With the disappearance of the French Acadian settlers Nova Scotia became a British colony in the full sense of the phrase. The settlement of 1749 was supplemented in 1760, and subsequent years, by a valuable and large addition of people who were induced to leave Massachusetts and other colonies of New England and settle in townships of the present counties of Annapolis, King's, Hants, Queen's, Yarmouth, Cumberland, and Colchester, especially in the beautiful townships of Cornwallis and Horton, where the Acadian meadows were the richest. A small number also settled at Maugerville and other places on the St. John River.

During the few years that had elapsed since the Acadians were driven from their lands, the sea had once more found its way through the ruined dykes, which had no longer the skilful attention of their old builders. The new owners of the Acadian lands had none of the special knowledge that the French had acquired, and were unable for years to keep back the ever-encroaching tides. Still there were some rich uplands and low-lying meadows, raised above the sea, which richly rewarded the industrious cultivator. The historian, Haliburton, describes the melancholy scene that met the eyes of the new settlers when they reached, in 1760, the old homes of the Acadians at Mines. They came across a few straggling families of Acadians who "had eaten no bread for years, and had subsisted on vegetables, fish, and the more hardy part of the cattle that had survived the severity of