George Brown. John Lewis
denied to Canada. Responsible government was withheld; the governor named his councillors in defiance of the will of the legislature. Advocates of responsible government were stigmatized by the governor's friends as rebels, traitors, radicals and republicans. The Globe proclaimed its adherence to Lord Durham's recommendation, and said: "The battle which the Reformers of Canada will right is not the battle of a party, but the battle of constitutional right against the undue interference of executive power." The prospectus of the paper contained these words: "Firmly attached to the principles of the British Constitution, believing the limited monarchy of Great Britain the best system of government yet devised by the wisdom of man, and sincerely convinced that the prosperity of Canada will best be advanced by a close connection between it and the mother country, the editor of the Globe will support all measures which will tend to draw closer the bonds of a mutually advantageous union."
On March 25th, 1844, the campaign was opened with a meeting called by the Toronto Reform Association. Robert Baldwin, "father of responsible government," was in the chair, and William Hume Blake was the orator of the night. The young editor of the Globe, a recruit among veterans, seems to have made a hit with a picture of a ministry framed on the "no party" plan advocated by Governor Metcalfe. In this imaginary ministry he grouped at the same council table Robert Baldwin and his colleague Francis Hincks; Sir Allan MacNab, the Tory leader; William Henry Draper, Metcalfe's chief adviser; John Strachan, Bishop of Toronto; and Dr. Ryerson, leader of the Methodists and champion of the governor. His Excellency is on a chair raised above the warring elements below. Baldwin moves that King's College be opened to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects. At once the combination is dissolved, as any one who remembers Bishop Strachan's views on that question will understand.
Dr. Ryerson, whose name was used by Brown in this illustration, was a leader among the Methodists, and had fought stoutly for religious equality against Anglican privilege. But he had espoused the side of the governor-general, apparently taking seriously the position that it was the only course open to a loyal subject. In a series of letters published in the summer of 1844, he warned the people that the Toronto Reform Association was leading them to the edge of a precipice. "In the same manner," he said, "I warned you against the Constitutional Reform Association, formed in 1834. In 1837 my warning predictions were realized, to the ruin of many and the misery of thousands. What took place in 1837 was but a preface of what may be witnessed in 1847." The warning he meant to convey was that the people were being drawn into a conflict with the imperial authorities. "Mr. Baldwin," he said, "practically renounces the imperial authority by refusing to appeal to it, and by appealing through the Toronto Association to the people of Canada. If the people of Canada are the tribunal of judgment on one question of constitutional prerogative, they are so on every question of constitutional prerogative. Then the governor is no longer responsible to the imperial authority, and Canada is an independent country. Mr. Baldwin's proceeding, therefore, not only leads to independence but involves (unconsciously, I admit, from extreme and theoretical views), a practical declaration of independence before the arrival of the 4th of July!"
In this language Dr. Ryerson described with accuracy the attitude of the British government. That government had, as we have seen, disapproved of Governor Bagot's action in parting with so large a measure of power, and it was fully prepared to support Metcalfe in pursuing the opposite course. Dr. Ryerson was also right in saying that the government of Great Britain would be supported by parliament. In May, 1844, the affairs of Canada were discussed in the British House of Commons, and the governor's action was justified by Peel, by Lord Stanley, and by Lord John Russell. The only dissentient voices were those of the Radicals, Hume and Roebuck.
Metcalfe and his chiefs at home can hardly be blamed for holding the prevailing views of the time, which were that the changes contemplated by Durham, by Bagot, and by Baldwin were dangerous and revolutionary. The idea that a colony could remain connected with Great Britain under such a system of autonomy as we enjoy to-day was then conceived by only a few men of exceptional breadth and foresight, among whom Elgin was one of the most eminent.
The wise leadership of Baldwin and Lafontaine and the patience and firmness of the Reformers are attested by their conduct in very trying circumstances. Finding their demand for constitutional reform opposed not only by the Canadian Tories, but by the governor-general and the imperial government and parliament, they might have become discouraged, or have been tempted into some act of violence. Their patience must have been sorely tried by the persistent malice or obstinate prejudice which stigmatized a strictly constitutional movement as treason. They had also to endure the trial of a temporary defeat at the polls, and an apparent rejection of their policy by the very people for whose liberties they were contending.
In the autumn of 1844 the legislature was dissolved and a fierce contest ensued. Governor Metcalfe's attitude is indicated by his biographer.[1] "The contest," he says, "was between loyalty on the one side and disaffection to Her Majesty's government on the other. That there was a strong anti-British feeling abroad, in both divisions of the province [Upper and Lower Canada] Metcalfe clearly and painfully perceived. The conviction served to brace and stimulate him to new exertions. He felt that he was fighting for his sovereign against a rebellious people." The appeal was successful; Upper Canada was swept by the loyalty cry, and in various polling places votes were actually cast or offered for the governor-general. The Globe described a conversation that occurred in a polling place in York: "Whom do you vote for?" "I vote for the governor-general." "There is no such candidate. Say George Duggan, you blockhead." "Oh, yes, George Duggan; it's all the same thing." There were candidates who described themselves as "governor-general's men"; there were candidates whose royalist enthusiasm was expressed in the name "Cavaliers." In the Montreal election petition it was charged that during two days of polling the electors were exposed to danger from the attacks of bands of fighting men hired by the government candidates or their agents, and paid, fed, and armed with "bludgeons, bowie-knives, and pistols and other murderous weapons" for the purpose of intimidating the Liberal electors and preventing them from gaining access to the polls; that Liberals were driven from the polls by these fighting men, and by cavalry and infantry acting under the orders of partisan magistrates. The polls, it was stated, were surrounded by soldiers, field-pieces were placed in several public squares, and the city was virtually in a state of siege. The charges were not investigated, the petition being rejected for irregularity; but violence and intimidation were then common accompaniments of elections.
In November the governor was able to record his victory thus: Upper Canada, avowed supporters of his government, thirty; avowed adversaries, seven; undeclared and uncertain, five. Lower Canada, avowed supporters, sixteen; avowed adversaries, twenty-one; undeclared and uncertain, four. Remarking on this difference between Upper and Lower Canada, he said that loyalty and British feeling prevailed in Upper Canada and in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, and that disaffection was predominant among the French-Canadian constituencies.[2] Metcalfe honestly believed he had saved Canada for the empire; but more mischief could hardly have been done by deliberate design. In achieving a barren and precarious victory at the polls, he and his friends had run the risk of creating that disaffection which they feared. The stigma of disloyalty had been unjustly affixed to honest and public-spirited men, whose steadiness alone prevented them, in their resentment, from joining the ranks of the disaffected. Worse still, the line of political cleavage had been identified with the line of racial division, and "French-Canadian" and "rebel" had been used as synonymous terms.
The ministry and the legislative assembly were now such as the governor had desired, yet the harmony was soon broken. There appeared divisions in the cabinet, hostile votes in the legislature, and finally a revolt in the Conservative press. An attempt to form a coalition with the French-Canadian members drew a sarcastic comment from the Globe: "Mr. Draper has invited the men whom he and his party have for years stigmatized before the country as rebels and traitors and destructives to join his administration." Reformers regarded these troubles as evidence that the experiment in reaction was failing, and waited patiently for the end. Shortly after the election the governor was raised to the peerage, an honour which, if not earned by success in Canada, was fairly due to his honest intentions. He left Canada at the close of the year 1845, suffering from a painful disease, of