chapter 3.

{381}

CANADA: A. D. 1837. The Causes of discontent which produced rebellion.

"It was in Lower Canada that the greatest difficulties arose. A constant antagonism grew up between the majority of the legislative council, who were nominees of the Crown, and the majority of the representative assembly, who were elected by the population of the province [see above: A. D. 1791]. The home Government encouraged and indeed kept up that most odious and dangerous of all instruments for the supposed management of a colony--a 'British party' devoted to the so-called interests of the mother country, and obedient to the word of command from their masters and patrons at home. The majority in the legislative council constantly thwarted the resolutions of the vast majority of the popular assembly. Disputes arose as to the voting of supplies. The Government retained in their service officials whom the representative' assembly had condemned, and insisted on the right to pay them their salaries out of certain funds of the colony. The representative assembly took to stopping the supplies, and the Government claimed the right to counteract this measure by appropriating to the purpose such public moneys as happened to be within their reach at the time. The colony--for indeed on these subjects the population of Lower Canada, right or wrong, was so near to being of one mind that we may take the declarations of public meetings as representing the colony--demanded that the legislative council should be made elective, and that the colonial government should not be allowed to dispose of the moneys of the colony at their pleasure. The House of Commons and the Government here replied by refusing to listen to the proposal. ... It is not necessary to suppose that in all these disputes the popular majority were in the right and the officials in the wrong. No one can doubt that there was much bitterness of feeling arising out of the mere differences of race. ... At last the representative assembly refused to vote any further supplies or to carry on any further business. They formulated their grievances against the home Government. Their complaints were of arbitrary conduct on the part of the governors; intolerable composition of the legislative council, which they insisted ought to be elective; illegal appropriation of the public money, and violent prorogation of the provincial parliament. One of the leading men in the movement which afterwards became rebellion in Lower Canada was Mr. Louis Joseph Papineau. This man had risen to high position by his talents, his energy, and his undoubtedly honourable character. He had represented Montreal in the representative Assembly of Lower Canada, and he afterwards became Speaker of the House. He made himself leader of the movement to protest against the policy of the governors, and that of the Government by whom they were sustained. He held a series of meetings, at some of which undoubtedly rather strong language was used. ... Lord Gosford, the governor, began by dismissing several militia officers who had taken part in some of these demonstrations; Mr. Papineau himself was an officer of this force. Then the governor issued warrants for the apprehension of many members of the popular Assembly on the charge of high treason. Some of these at once left the country; others against whom warrants were issued were arrested, and a sudden resistance was made by their friends and supporters. Then, in a manner familiar to all who have read anything of the history of revolutionary movements, the resistance to a capture of prisoners suddenly transformed itself into open rebellion."

_J. McCarthy, History of Our own Times, volume 1, chapter 3._

Among the grievances which gave rise to discontent in both Upper and Lower Canada, "first of all there was the chronic grievance of the Clergy Reserves [which were public lands set apart by the Act of 1791 for the support of the Protestant Clergy], common both to British and French, to Upper and to Lower Canada. In Upper Canada these reserves amounted to 2,500,000 acres, being one-seventh of the lands in the Province. Three objections were made against continuing these Reserves for the purpose for which they had been set apart. The first objection arose from the way in which the Executive Council wished to apply the revenues accruing from these lands. According to the Act they were to be applied for 'maintaining the Protestant religion in Canada'; and the Executive Council interpreted this as meaning too exclusively the Church of England, which was established by law in the mother-country. But the objectors claimed a right for all Protestant denominations to share in the Reserves. The second objection was that the amount of these lands was too large for the purpose in view: and the third referred to the way in which the Reserves were selected. These 2,500,000 acres did not lie in a block, but, when the early surveys were made, every seventh lot was reserved; and as these lots were not cleared for years the people complained that they were not utilized, and so became inconvenient barriers to uniform civilization. With the Roman Catholics, both priests and people, the Clergy Reserves were naturally unpopular. ... An additional source of complaint was found in the fact that the government of Upper and Lower Canada had found its way into the hands of a few powerful families banded together by a Family Compact [see above: A. D. 1820-1837]. ... But the Constitutional difficulty was, after all, the great one, and it lay at the bottom of the whole dispute. ... Altogether the issues were very complicated in the St. Lawrence Valley Provinces and the Maritime Provinces ... and so it is not to be wondered at that some should interpret the rebellion as a class, and perhaps semi-religious, contest rather than a race-conflict. The constitutional dead-lock, however, was tolerably clear to those who looked beneath the surface. ... The main desire of all was to be freed of the burden of Executive Councils, nominated at home and kept in office with or without the wish of the people. In Upper Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie, and in Lower Canada, Louis Papineau and Dr. Wolfred Nelson, agitated for independence."

_W. P. Greswell, History of the Dominion of Canada, chapter 16._

ALSO IN: _J. McMullen, History of Canada, chapter 19-20._

_Earl of Durham, Report and Dispatches._

_Sir F. B. Head, Narrative._

_Report of Commissioner appointed to inquire into the grievances complained of in Lower Canada, (House of Commons, February 20, 1837)._

{382}

CANADA: A. D. 1837-1838. The rebellion under Papineau and Mackenzie, and its suppression. The Burning of the Caroline.

"Immediately on the breaking out of the rebellion, the constitution of Lower Canada was suspended; the revolt was put down at once, and with little difficulty. Though the outbreak in Upper Canada showed that a comparatively small portion of the population was disaffected to the government, there were some sharp skirmishes before the smouldering fire was completely trodden out. ... On the night of the 4th of December, 1837, when all Toronto was asleep, except the policemen who stood sentries over the arms in the city hall, and a few gentlemen who sat up to watch out the night with the Adjutant-General of Militia in the Parliament House, the alarm came that the rebels were upon the city. They were under the command of a newspaper editor named Mackenzie, whose grotesque figure was until lately [this was published in 1865] familiar to the frequenters of the Canadian House of Assembly. Rumours had been rife for some days past of arming and drilling among the disaffected in the Home and London districts. ... The alarm threw Toronto into commotion. ... The volunteers were formed in the market square during the night and well armed. In point of discipline, even in the first instance, they were not wholly deficient, many of them being retired officers and discharged men from both the naval and military services. ... Towards morning news came of a smart skirmish which had occurred during the night, in which a party of the rebels were driven back and their leader killed. During the succeeding day and night, loyal yeomen kept pouring in to act in defence of the crown. Sir Allan, then Colonel, Macnab, the Speaker of the House of Assembly ... raised a body of his friends and adherents in the course of the night and following day, and, seizing a vessel in the harbour at Hamilton, hurried to Toronto. ... The rebels were defeated and dispersed next day, at a place some two miles from Toronto. In this action, the Speaker took the command of the Volunteers, which he kept during the subsequent campaign on the Niagara frontier, and till all danger was over. ... Mackenzie soon rallied his scattered adherents, and seized Navy Island, just above Niagara Falls, where he was joined by large numbers of American 'sympathizers,' who came to the spot on the chance of a quarrel with the English. On receipt of this intelligence, the Speaker hastened from the neighbourhood of Brantford (where he had just dispersed a band of insurgents under the command of a doctor named Duncombe) to reinforce Colonel Cameron, formerly of the 79th, who had taken up a position at Chippewa. Navy Island, an eyott some quarter of a mile in length, lies in the Niagara River within musket-shot of the Canadian bank. The current runs past the island on both sides with great velocity, and, immediately below it, hurries over the two miles of rocks and rapids that precede its tremendous leap. The rebels threw up works on the side facing the Canadians. They drew their supplies from Fort Schlosser, an American work nearly opposite the village of Chippewa." A small steamboat, named the Caroline, had been secured by the insurgents and was plying between Fort Schlosser and Navy Island. She "had brought over several field-pieces and other military stores; it therefore became necessary to decide whether it was not expedient for the safety of Canada to destroy her. Great Britain was not at war with the United States, and to cut out an American steamer from an American port was to incur a heavy responsibility. Nevertheless Colonel Macnab determined to assume it." A party sent over in boats at night to Fort Schlosser surprised the Caroline at her wharf, fired her and sent her adrift in the river, to be carried over the Falls.

_Viscount Bury, Exodus of the Western Nations,