The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
by John Charles Dent · English · Gutenberg #35647 · 876,926 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Author: John Charles Dent
Release date: March 21, 2011 [eBook #35647]
Language: English
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_THE CANADIAN_
_PORTRAIT GALLERY._
BY
JOHN CHARLES DENT,
ASSISTED BY A STAFF OF CONTRIBUTORS.
VOL. III.
TORONTO:
PUBLISHED BY JOHN B. MAGURN.
1881.
C. B. ROBINSON, PRINTER,
5 JORDAN STREET, TORONTO.
[Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year Eighteen
Hundred and Eighty-one, by JOHN B. MAGURN, in the office of the Minister
of Agriculture.]
[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes and Errata are placed at the end of this
file.]
CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
[A Preface and an Alphabetical Index will be given at the close of the
last volume.]
PAGE.
THE EARL OF DUFFERIN 1
THE REV. ROBERT FERRIER BURNS 13
THE HON. ALBERT NORTON RICHARDS 15
THE RIGHT REV. JOHN TRAVERS LEWIS, LL.D. 17
CHARLES, LORD METCALFE 19
THE HON. ALEXANDER MORRIS 23
THE HON. THOMAS TALBOT 27
THE HON. DAVID LAIRD 41
THE HON. CHARLES E. B. DE BOUCHERVILLE 44
THE REV. SAMUEL S. NELLES, D.D., LL.D. 45
THE HON. WILLIAM HUME BLAKE 48
THE REV. ALEXANDER TOPP, D.D. 54
THE HON. HENRI GUSTAVE JOLY 56
THE HON. MACKENZIE BOWELL 58
THE REV. JAMES RICHARDSON, D.D. 60
LORD SEATON 66
THE HON. SIR DOMINICK DALY 69
THE HON. WILLIAM MCMASTER 72
THE HON. WILFRID LAURIER 75
THE RIGHT HON. SIR CHARLES BAGOT 77
LA SALLE 79
THE RIGHT REV. JAMES W. WILLIAMS, D.D. 90
LIEUT.-COL. CASIMIR STANISLAUS GZOWSKI 91
THEODORE HARDING RAND, A.M., D.C.L. 98
THE HON. MATTHEW CROOKS CAMERON 100
THE HON. SIR LOUIS H. LAFONTAINE, BART. 104
JOHN CHRISTIAN SCHULTZ, M.D. 109
THE HON. GEORGE WILLIAM BURTON 114
LORD DORCHESTER 116
THE HON. WILLIAM PEARCE HOWLAND, C.B., K.C.M.G. 124
THE MOST REV. MICHAEL HANNAN, D.D. 128
GEORGE PAXTON YOUNG, M.A. 129
THE HON. TELESPHORE FOURNIER 132
THE HON. WILLIAM OSGOODE 133
THE HON. WILLIAM MORRIS 135
THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY MCGEE 138
DAVID ALLISON, M.A., LL.D. 149
THE HON. THOMAS GALT 152
THE RIGHT REV. WILLIAM BENNETT BOND, M.A., LL.D. 154
THE HON. LEMUEL ALLAN WILMOT, D.C.L. 156
THE HON. HENRY ELZÉAR TASCHEREAU 165
THE HON. ALFRED GILPIN JONES 167
THE HON. JOHN NORQUAY 170
THE HON. SIR RICHARD JOHN CARTWRIGHT 172
THE HON. THEODORE ROBITAILLE 175
THE HON. SAMUEL HUME BLAKE 177
THE MOST REV. ALEXANDRE ANTONIN TACHÉ 181
THE HON. JAMES COX AIKINS 191
THE HON. FELIX GEOFFRION, N.P., P.C. 193
THE HON. JOHN YOUNG 194
THE RIGHT REV. HIBBERT BINNEY, D.D. 200
THE HON. CHRISTOPHER FINLAY FRASER 201
SANDFORD FLEMING, C.E., C.M.G. 203
THE HON. DAVID LEWIS MACPHERSON 206
JAMES YOUNG 209
THE HON. PETER PERRY 212
THE HON. ADAM WILSON 215
THE HON. SIR ALEXANDER CAMPBELL 217
THE HON. LEVI RUGGLES CHURCH 220
CHARLES LENNOX, FOURTH DUKE OF RICHMOND 222
THE HON. CHARLES ALPHONSE PANTALEON PELLETIER, C.M.G. 225
THE HON. WILLIAM PROUDFOOT 227
THE HON. JOHN JOSEPH CALDWELL ABBOTT, B.C.L., D.C.L., Q.C. 229
THE HON. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON 231
HIS GRACE FRANCOIS XAVIER LAVAL-MONTMORENCY 233
JAMES ROBERT GOWAN 236
ROBERT FLEMING GOURLAY 240
THE EARL OF DUFFERIN.
Of all the many personages who have been sent over from Great Britain to
administer the Government in this country, since Canada first became an
appendage of the British Crown, none has achieved so wide a popularity
as Lord Dufferin. None of his predecessors succeeded in creating so wide
a circle of personal friends, and none has left so many pleasant
remembrances behind him. Lord Dorchester was a Governor, but the area
over which his sway extended was very small as compared with the vast
Dominion embraced within the purview of Lord Dufferin; and the
inhabitants in his day were chiefly composed of the representatives of a
single nationality. Lord Elgin was popular, but the exigencies of his
position compelled him to make bitter enemies; and while every one, at
the present day, acknowledges his great capacity and sterling worth,
there was a time when he was subjected to grievous contumely and
shameful indignity. Lord Dufferin, on the other hand, won golden
opinions from the time of his first arrival in Canada, and when he left
our shores he carried with him substantial tokens of the affection and
good-will of the inhabitants. One single episode in his administration
threatened, for a brief space, to interfere with the cordial relations
between himself and one section of the people. His own prudence and
tact, combined with the liberality and good sense of those who differed
from him, enabled him to tide over the critical time; and long before
his departure from among us he could number most of the latter among his
warm personal friends. His Vice-Regal progresses made the lines of his
face and the tones of his voice familiar to the inhabitants of every
Province. Wherever he went he increased the number of his well-wishers,
and won additional respect for his personal attainments. He identified
himself with the popular sympathies, and entered with a keen zest into
every question affecting the public welfare. He will long live in the
memory of the Canadian people as a wise administrator, an accomplished
statesman, a brilliant orator, a genial companion, and a sincere friend
of the land which he was called upon to govern.
He is descended, on the paternal side, from a Scottish gentleman named
John Blackwood, who went over from his native country to Ireland, and
settled in the county Down, towards the close of the sixteenth century.
The family has ever since resided in that county, and has played a not
unimportant part in the political history of Ireland. In 1763 a
baronetcy was conferred upon the then chief representative of the
family, who was conspicuous in his day and generation as a vehement
supporter of the Whig side in politics. In 1800 the head of the family
was created an Irish peer, with the title of Baron Dufferin and
Clandeboye. The father of the present representative was Price, fourth
Baron, who succeeded to the title in 1839. Fourteen years prior to his
accession to the title--that is to say, in the year 1825--this gentleman
married Miss Helen Selina Sheridan, a granddaughter of the Right Hon.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The distinguished orator and dramatist, as
all the world knows, had a son named Thomas Sheridan, who inherited no
inconsiderable share of his father's wit and genius. Thomas--better
known as Tom--Sheridan, had three daughters, all of whom were prominent
members of English society, and were conspicuous alike for personal
beauty and the brilliancy of their intellectual accomplishments. One of
them was the beautiful Lady Seymour, afterwards Duchess of Somerset, who
presided as Queen of Beauty at the famous tournament held at the Earl of
Eglinton's seat in Scotland, in the month of August, 1839. Another
daughter, the Hon. Mrs. Caroline Norton, won distinction by her poetical
effusions, and by several novels, one of which, "Stuart of Dunleath," is
a work exhibiting a high degree of mental power. This lady, whose
domestic misfortunes formed at one time an absorbing topic of discussion
in England, survived until 1877, having some months before her death
been married to the late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. The remaining
daughter, Harriet Selina, was the eldest of the three. She, as we have
seen, married Captain Price Blackwood, and subsequently became Lady
Dufferin upon her husband's accession to the title in 1839. She also won
a name in literature by numerous popular songs and ballads, the best
known of which is "The Irish Emigrant's Lament." She was left a widow in
1841, and twenty-one years later, by a second marriage, became Countess
of Gifford. She died in 1867. Her only son, Frederick Temple, the
subject of this sketch, was born at Florence, in Italy, on the 21st of
June, 1826.
He received his early education at Eton College, and subsequently at
Christ Church, Oxford. He passed through the curriculum with credit, but
left the University without taking a degree. In the month of July, 1841,
when he had only just completed his fifteenth year, his father's death
took place, and he thus succeeded to the family titles six years before
attaining his majority. During the first Administration of Lord John
Russell he officiated as one of the Lords-in-Waiting to Her Majesty; and
again filled a similar position for a short time a few years later.
One of the most memorable passages in his early career was a visit paid
by him to Ireland during the terrible famine which broke out there in
1846. Deriving his titles from Ireland, where the greater part of his
property is situated, and being desirous of doing his duty by his
tenantry, he had almost from boyhood paid a good deal of attention to
the question of land-tenure in that country. With a view to extending
his knowledge by personal observation, he set out from Oxford,
accompanied by his friend, the Hon. Mr. Boyle, and went over, literally,
to spy out the nakedness of the famine-stricken land. They for the first
time in their lives found themselves face-to-face with misery in one of
its most appalling shapes. They were young, kind-hearted and generous,
and the scenes wherewith they were daily brought into contact made an
impression upon their minds that has never been effaced. They published
an account of their travels under the title of "A Narrative of a Journey
from Oxford to Skibbereen, during the year of the Irish Famine," and
devoted the proceeds of the sale of the narrative to the relief of the
starving sufferers of Skibbereen. The realms of fiction may be ransacked
in vain for anything more truly pathetic and heart-rending in its
terrible, vigorous realism, than is this truthful picture of human
privation and suffering. Upon one occasion, having bought a huge basket
of bread for distribution among the most needy, they were completely
besieged as soon as their intention became known. "Something like an
orderly distribution was attempted," says the narrative, "but the
dreadful hunger and impatience of the poor people by whom the donors
were surrounded rendered this absolutely impossible, and the bread was
thrown out, loaf by loaf, from a window, the struggles of the famished
women over the insufficient supply being dreadful to witness." Of
course, all they could do to alleviate the sufferings in the district
was of little avail, but they gave to the extent of their ability, and
the poor, famishing creatures were warmly touched by their unfeigned and
tearful sympathy. When the two gentlemen left the town, their carriage
was followed beyond the outskirts by crowds of suffering poor who
implored the Divine blessing upon their heads. The publication of the
"Narrative," moreover, aroused a general feeling of philanthropy
throughout the whole of England and Scotland, and liberal contributions
were sent over for the benefit of those who stood most in need of
assistance.
The practical knowledge of the condition of the Irish people acquired by
Lord Dufferin during this visit was such as the most diligent study of
blue-books could not have imparted. From this time forward he gave more
attention than ever to the Irish question. It was a question in which he
might well take a deep interest, for he was dependent upon the rent of
his estates in county Down for the bulk of his income. His
unselfishness, however, was signally proved by the stand he took, which
was on the side of tenant-right. He has written and spoken much on the
subject, and has contributed more than his share towards enabling the
world to arrive at a just conclusion respecting it. His public
utterances displayed a genuine philanthropy and breadth of view,
mingled, at times, with a quaint and touching humour, which attracted
the attention of every statesman in the kingdom. Twenty years before Mr.
Gladstone's Irish Land Act was passed, its provisions had been
anticipated by Lord Dufferin, and urged upon the attention of the House
of Lords. In an eloquent and elaborate speech delivered before that Body
in 1854 he suggested and outlined nearly every important legislative
reform with reference to Irish Land Tenure which has since been brought
about. A work on "Irish Emigration, and the Tenure of Land in Ireland,"
gave still wider currency to his views on the subject, and it began to
be perceived that the brilliant young Irish peer had ideas well worthy
of the consideration of Parliament. He was created an English baron in
1850, by the title of Baron Clandeboye.
In politics he was a moderate Whig. The leading members of his party
recognized his high abilities, and thought it desirable to enlist them
in the public service. An opportunity soon presented itself. In the
month of February, 1855, Lord John Russell was appointed as British
Plenipotentiary to the conference to be held at Vienna for the purpose
of settling the terms of peace between Russia and Turkey. Lord John
invited Lord Dufferin to accompany him on the mission as a special
_attaché_. The invitation was accepted, and Lord Dufferin repaired to
the Austrian capital, where he remained until the close of the
ineffectual conference. Soon after his return to England he determined
upon a long yachting tour in the far northern seas, and in the early
summer of 1856 he started on his adventurous voyage. The chronicle of
this expedition, written with graphic force and humour by the pen of
Lord Dufferin himself, has long been before the world under the title of
"Letters from High Latitudes." The voyage, which lasted several months,
was made in the schooner-yacht _Foam_, and included Iceland, Jan Meyen
and Spitzbergen in its scope. There is no necessity for extended
comment upon a book that has been read by pretty nearly everybody in
Canada. Who is there among us who has not laughed over the account of
that marvellous bird that, as the nights became shorter and shorter,
never slept for more than five minutes at a stretch, without waking up
in a state of nervous agitation lest it might be cock-crow; that was
troubled by low spirits, owing to the mysterious manner in which a fresh
member of his harem used to disappear daily; and that finally,
overburdened by contemplation, went melancholy mad and committed
suicide? Or over that extraordinary dog-Latin after-dinner speech by
Lord Dufferin during his stay in the Icelandic capital, as voraciously
recorded in Letter VI.? And who among us has failed to recognize the
graphic power of description displayed in the account of the Geysers? Or
the weird poetic force of "The Black Death of Bergen"? In all these
various kinds of composition the author showed great natural aptitude,
and his book, as a whole, is one of the most interesting chronicles of
travel in our language.
In 1860 Lord Dufferin was for the first time despatched abroad as the
head of an important diplomatic mission. In the summer of that year,
Great Britain, France, Russia and other European powers united in
sending an expedition to Syria to protect the lives and property of
Europeans, and to arrest the further effusion of blood in the threatened
conflicts between the Druses and the Maronites. The immediate occasion
of the expedition was a shocking massacre of Syrian Christians that had
recently taken place, and a recurrence of which was considered highly
probable. Turkey professed inability to deal effectively with the
matter, and it became necessary that the leading European powers should
interfere in the cause of humanity. Lord Dufferin was appointed by Lord
Palmerston as Commissioner on behalf of Great Britain. He went out to
Syria, where he remained some months. He proved himself admirably
qualified to discharge a delicate diplomatic mission, and by his tact,
good-nature and popular manners, no less than by his practical wisdom
and good sense, succeeded in effecting a satisfactory settlement of the
matter. As a testimony of the Government's appreciation of his services
he immediately after his return received the Order of a Knight Commander
of the Bath (Civil Division). Another result of his mission was the
publication, in 1867, of "Notes on Ancient Syria," a work which, as its
title imports, smacks more of reading than of observation.
It fell to Lord Dufferin's lot, in December, 1861, to move the address
in the House of Lords, in answer to Her Majesty's Speech from the
Throne, referring to the death of the Prince Consort. The occasion was
one upon which the speaker might be expected to do his best, and the
speech made by him on that occasion drew tears from eyes which had long
been unaccustomed to weep. A perusal of it makes one regret that Lord
Dufferin's legitimate place was not in the other House, where his talent
for oratory would have had an opportunity of growing, and where he would
unquestionably have gained a high reputation as a parliamentary speaker.
It is a simple matter of fact that in the dull, lifeless atmosphere of
the House of Lords, Lord Dufferin's talents were almost thrown away. In
the Commons he would have made a figure, with a nation for his audience.
On the 23rd of October, 1862, he married Harriot Georgina, eldest
daughter of the late Archibald Rowan Hamilton, of Killyleagh Castle,
county Down. This lady, whose lineaments are almost as well known to
Canadians as are those of His Lordship, still survives, and is the happy
mother of a numerous family. In 1863 Lord Dufferin became a Knight of
St. Patrick; and in the following year he was appointed Lord Lieutenant
of the county Down. About the same time he was offered the position of
Under-Secretary of State for India, which he accepted. In 1865 he was
subjected to a searching examination respecting his views on the Irish
Land question, before a Select Committee of the House of Commons. His
examination lasted four days, and his evidence proved of incalculable
value in the framing of the Act of Parliament which was passed before
the close of the session. Several years later he put forth a vigorous
pamphlet entitled, "An Examination of Mr. Mill's Plan for the
Pacification of Ireland," in which he criticised John Stuart Mill's
proposal that the landed estates of Irish landlords should be brought to
a forced sale. Lord Dufferin's thorough knowledge of his subject, added
to the fact that his views were sound, proved too much, even for the
Master of Logic, who had made his proposal without due consideration of
the subject, and on an incomplete statement of the facts.
Lord Dufferin continued to fill the post of Secretary of State for India
until early in 1866, when he was offered the Governorship of Bombay. The
state of his mother's health--she had already begun to sink under the
malady to which she finally succumbed a year later--was such as to
forbid her accompanying him to India, and Lord Dufferin was too
affectionate a son to leave her behind. He was accordingly compelled to
decline the appointment. He accepted instead the post of Under-Secretary
to the War Department, which he retained until the close of Earl
Russell's Administration, in June, 1866. Upon the return of the Liberal
Party to power under Mr. Gladstone, in the end of 1868, Lord Dufferin
became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position which he
retained up to the time of his being appointed Governor-General of
Canada. He was also appointed Paymaster-General, and was sworn in as a
Member of Her Majesty's Privy Council. In November, 1871, he was made an
Earl and Viscount of the United Kingdom, under the titles of Earl of
Dufferin and Viscount Clandeboye.
The successive dignities thus heaped upon him are sufficient evidence of
the rising favour with which he was regarded by the Members of the
Government; and as matter of fact he had made great progress in the
esteem of the leading members of his Party generally. On the 22nd of
May, 1872, he received the appointment which was destined to give
Canadians a special interest in his career--that of Governor-General of
the Dominion of Canada.
By the great mass of Canadians the news of this appointment was received
with a feeling very much akin to indifference. The fact is that, except
among reading men, and persons intimately familiar with the diplomatic
history of Great Britain during the preceding twenty years, the name of
Lord Dufferin was entirely unknown in this country. A few middle-aged
and elderly persons remembered that an Irish peer named Lord Dufferin
had made an eloquent speech on the death of the Prince Consort. Others
remembered that a peer of that name had done something noteworthy in
Syria. A few had read or heard of "Letters from High Latitudes;" but not
one of us suspected that the new Governor-General was destined to be the
most popular representative of Great Britain known to Canadian history.
It was not suspected that, for the first time during many years, we were
to have at the head of our Administration a statesman of deep sympathies
and enlarged views; a nobleman combining elegant learning and brilliant
powers of oratory with a tact and _bonhomie_ which would win for him the
friendship and respect of Canadians of all social ranks, and of all
grades of political opinion. By many of us the office of a
Governor-General in Canada had come to be looked upon as a sort of
sinecure; as a part which any man not absolutely a dunce is capable of
playing. We regarded the Governor-General merely as the Royal
representative; as a figurehead whose duties consist of doing as he is
bid. He has responsible advisers who prescribe for him a certain line of
action, and all he has to do is to obey. When his Cabinet loses the
confidence of Parliament, he either sends them about their business or
accepts their resignation. The successors selected for him by the
dominant majority are accepted as a matter of course, and everything
goes on _da capo_. This, or something like this, was the way we had
learned to estimate the powers and functions which Lord Dufferin was
coming among us to discharge. It was reserved for him to give us a
juster appreciation of the position of a Canadian Governor-General. The
lesson learned by us during the six years of his residence among us is
one that Canadians will not soon forget. The learning of it has perhaps
made us unduly exacting, and it would have been most unfortunate had his
successor been chosen from the ranks of respectable mediocrity whence
Colonial Governors are not unfrequently selected. Happily the choice
fell upon a gentleman whose character and attainments bear some affinity
to those of his predecessor, and the dignity and respect due to the
Governor-General are not likely to suffer depreciation while the office
remains in his hands.
There was one circumstance which led many Canadians to look upon the
appointment of Lord Dufferin with no friendly eyes. He had been
appointed by the Gladstone Government, and the Gladstone Government had
manifested a disposition to treat Canada rather cavalierly. Canadian
interests had not been very efficiently cared for at the negotiation of
the Treaty of Washington, and there had been a good deal of diplomatic
correspondence between the Canadian and Imperial Governments, in which
the latter had pretty clearly intimated that Canada's separation from
the Mother Country would not be regarded as an irreparable loss to the
Empire at large. The London _Times_ openly advocated such a separation,
and it was known to speak the sentiments of persons high in power. It
was even conjectured by some of the more suspicious that Lord Dufferin
had been appointed for the express purpose of carrying out an Imperial
project for a separation between Canada and Great Britain. Had His
Lordship been a weak or commonplace man he would most probably have had
a very uncomfortable time of it in Canada. He was neither weak nor
commonplace, however, and he began to be popular from the very hour of
his arrival in the country. By the time he had been six months among us
everyone spoke well of him; and long before his administration came to
an end he had gained a firm hold on the hearts of the people throughout
the length and breadth of our land.
He arrived at Quebec on the 25th of June, 1872. During the same day he
was sworn in as Governor-General, and two days later reached his seat of
Government at Ottawa. There is no need to describe in minute detail the
various events which characterized his administration. Those events are
still fresh in all our memories, and have been recorded at full length
by two Canadian authors--Mr. Stewart and Mr. Leggo--in works to which
everyone has access. For these reasons it is considered unnecessary to
give more than a brief summary in these pages.
During the summer of 1872 Lord Dufferin made the first of his memorable
Vice-Regal tours, visiting Toronto, Hamilton, London, Niagara Falls, and
other places of interest in the Province of Ontario. To say that he made
a marvellously favourable impression wherever he went is simply to say
what everybody knows, and what might equally be said of all his
subsequent progresses through the Dominion. There was a general
election during the summer and autumn of this year, and an opportunity
was thus afforded His Excellency for observing the working of our
political institutions at such a time.
The result of the elections was a majority in favour of Sir John A.
Macdonald's Ministry. Parliament met in the following March, and on the
2nd of April Mr. Huntington made his serious, and now historic, charge
against the Government, in connection with the granting of the Pacific
Railway Charter, and the corrupt sale to Sir Hugh Allan. A motion was
made for a committee of investigation, but was voted down as a motion of
want of confidence in the Government. A few days later, Sir John,
knowing that a policy of reticence could not long be available, himself
moved for a committee. The motion was passed, and the committee was
appointed, but was unable to proceed, owing to its inability to take
evidence on oath. A Bill was introduced into the House to give the
committee the power required, and was passed without opposition, but was
subsequently disallowed by the Imperial Government as being _ultra
vires_. Meanwhile the inquiry was proceeded with; but on the 5th of May,
owing to the absence from the country of three important witnesses--Sir
George E. Cartier, Sir Hugh Allan and the Hon. J. J. C. Abbott--the
committee deemed it advisable to adjourn to the 2nd of July. The
ordinary Parliamentary business had been got through with, and there was
no necessity for the House remaining in session; but, as the committee
had no authority to sit during recess, it was thought desirable that
there should be an adjournment of Parliament instead of a prorogation,
until the committee should be prepared with its report. Accordingly, on
the 23rd of May, Parliament adjourned to the 13th of August, when it was
agreed that it should meet expressly for the purpose of receiving the
committee's report, and not for the despatch of ordinary legislative
business. It would thus be unnecessary for the Governor-General to be
present at the formal reassembling, and soon after the adjournment His
Excellency, with his family, started on a projected tour through the
Maritime Provinces. On the 27th of June, while on his travels, he
received a telegram from Lord Kimberley, Secretary for the Colonies in
the Home Government, announcing the disallowance of the "Oaths Bill," as
it was called, viz., the Act authorizing Parliamentary committees to
examine witnesses under oath. He at once gave notice of the disallowance
to the Premier, Sir John A. Macdonald, who made it known to the
committee. The committee was composed of five members, three of whom
were supporters of the Government, and the remaining two of the
Opposition. The Government supporters were the Hon. J. G. Blanchet, the
Hon. James Macdonald (of Pictou), and the Hon. John Hillyard Cameron.
The Opposition members were the Hon. Edward Blake and the Hon. A. A.
Dorion. On the 1st of July a proclamation was issued giving public
notice of the disallowance of the Oaths Bill. The Premier offered to
issue a Royal Commission to the committee, which would enable it to take
evidence under oath, and to demand the production of persons, papers and
records. The proposal was rejected by Messrs. Blake and Dorion, who
wrote to the Premier pointing out to him that the inquiry was undertaken
by the House; that the appointment of a Royal Commission by a Government
to investigate charges against that Government would be an unheard-of
and most unbecoming proceeding; and that the House did not expect the
Crown or anyone else to obstruct the inquiry.
When the Parliament met, pursuant to adjournment, on the 13th of August,
the committee, having been prevented from taking evidence, was unable
to report. A numerously signed memorial was presented to His Excellency
praying that there might be no prorogation of Parliament until the
charges against the existing Government had been subjected to
investigation. His Excellency, however, replied that he felt bound to
act on the advice of his Ministry. His Ministry advised him to prorogue
Parliament, and prorogued it accordingly was. Every Canadian remembers
the tumultuous scene which ensued--a scene almost without parallel in
modern Parliamentary history; a faint reflex of that memorable episode
which took place in the English House of Commons two hundred and twenty
years before.
The next act in the drama was the appointment by His Excellency of a
Royal Commission on his own authority. It was issued to the Hon. C. D.
Day, the Hon. Antoine Polette, and James Robert Gowan, three judges
learned in the law. The commission met, and on the opening of the
session in the following October its report was laid before Parliament.
The contents are familiar to every reader of these pages, and do not
form an attractive subject for extended comment. There could no longer
be any doubt as to the course to be taken by the Premier. A few days
afterwards Sir John Macdonald's Government resigned, and Mr. Mackenzie
was called upon to form a new one. This he soon succeeded in doing, and
on the 7th of November the new Administration took office. As was
abundantly proved at the ensuing elections, the new government had the
confidence of the country.
During the progress of these events, Lord Dufferin was assailed with a
good deal of rancour by one section of the Canadian press. The question
now to be considered is: How far were these assaults justifiable? In
other words: How far, if at all, was Lord Dufferin to blame?
The principal allegations made against him were, that his sympathies all
through this deplorable episode in our political history were with Sir
John Macdonald and his colleagues; that he assisted the latter to
postpone and evade investigation into their conduct; that his
partisanship was evinced by his prompt transmission of the Oaths Bill
for Imperial consideration, and by his subsequent prorogation of
Parliament in defiance of the wishes of a large body of the members.
It must be borne in mind, in considering these matters, that we at the
present day are in a much better position to form a correct opinion
respecting them than Lord Dufferin could possibly be in the summer of
1873. He came to this country an utter stranger to every man in Canadian
public life. He found at the head of affairs a gentleman who had long
held the reins of power; who had a very wide circle of warm personal
friends; who was regarded with affectionate loyalty by his Party; and
whose Government enjoyed an overwhelming support in Parliament. With
such a support at its back, the Government might reasonably lay claim to
possessing the confidence of the Canadian people, and, possessing such
confidence, it was entitled to the confidence of Her Majesty's
Representative. There was, moreover, a manifest disposition on the part
of some opponents of the Government to make the most of any little
shortcomings of which Ministerialists might be guilty. One of the most
virulent of the Opposition, a man whose own character could not be said
to be wholly above reproach, made certain wild charges against the
Government. These charges were so utterly monstrous and incredible that
any man of probity might reasonably refuse to believe them until they
were proved to be true by the most irrefutable evidence. Such evidence
was not forthcoming. The head of the Government hurled back the charges
in the teeth of the man who had made them; pronounced the latter a
slanderous calumniator; protested that his own hands were clean; and
called upon his Maker to bear witness to the truth of his avowal. His
conduct was not unlike that of an honest man smarting under a strong
sense of injustice. He professed to court inquiry, and while he treated
Mr. Huntington's motion as one of want of confidence in the Government,
and triumphantly voted it down, he himself came forward with his motion
for a committee. Both from his place in the House, and to the
Governor-General in person, he continued to protest before God that
there was no shadow of foundation for the charges made against him. He
spoke of his acquittal as a matter which did not admit of a moment's
question. Under these circumstances, is it any wonder if Lord Dufferin
refused to believe vague and unsubstantiated charges from such a source;
charges which might well have excited incredulity by the very depth of
their blackness? Is it to be wondered at, even if His Lordship
sympathized with those whom he believed to have been so shamefully
maligned, and who seemed so anxious to set themselves right before the
country? Such was the state of affairs when Parliament was adjourned on
the 23rd of May.
With regard to the prompt transmission to England of the Oaths Bill, His
Excellency simply complied with his official instructions, and with the
Union Act, which requires the Governor-General to transmit "by the
earliest convenient opportunity" all Acts of Parliament to which he has
assented on Her Majesty's behalf. His Excellency's despatch to the
Imperial Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 15th August, 1873,
puts this matter very clearly. It shows that he understood and was
prepared to do his duty, no matter what might be said by Opposition
members, and no matter how scurrilous might be the attacks of hostile
newspapers. "Amongst other respects," says the despatch, "in which my
conduct has been criticised, the fact of my having communicated to you
by the first opportunity a certified copy of the Oaths Bill, has been a
very general point of attack. I apprehend it will not be necessary to
justify myself to your Lordship in this particular. My law-adviser had
called my attention to the possibility of the Bill being illegal. Had
perjured testimony been tendered under it, no proceedings could have
been taken against the delinquent, and if, under these circumstances, I
had wilfully withheld from the Home Government all cognizance of the
Act, it would have been a gross dereliction of duty. To those in this
country who have questioned my procedure it would be sufficient to reply
that I recognize no authority on this side of the Atlantic competent to
instruct the Governor-General as to the nature of his correspondence
with Her Majesty's Secretary of State." The assertion so often made, to
the effect that the Law Officers of the Crown in England were improperly
influenced to advise a disallowance of the Bill, is in itself utterly
preposterous, and no attempt, so far as we know, has ever been made to
bring forward any proof of it.
There remains for consideration the prorogation of Parliament on the
13th of August.
Before the adjournment on the 23rd of May, as we have seen, it had been
understood that Parliament should meet only to receive the committee's
report, and not for the despatch of ordinary business. It had not even
been considered necessary that His Excellency should attend. During his
absence in the Maritime Provinces, however, the famous McMullen
correspondence had appeared in print, and this, together with other
circumstances which had come to his knowledge, had made him resolve to
be present at the reassembling of Parliament. The attendance of
Government supporters was not large, very few, if any, being present
from outlying constituencies. The Opposition on the other hand, was
fully represented, and was eager for the battle, which was regarded as
inevitable. It soon appeared that there was nothing to be done. Owing to
the disallowance of the Oaths Bill there was no report from the
committee. In the estimation of His Excellency, to proceed with the
investigation, as the Opposition members were desirous of doing, would
under these circumstances have been to place the Ministry at an unfair
disadvantage. A considerable number of its supporters were absent,
whereas the Opposition was in full force. It has been charged upon the
Ministry that this was part of their tactics, and that the absentees
were acting under the orders of their Chief in remaining at home. This
is another of those loose, sweeping assertions which may be true, but
the truth of which has not been proved. That unhappy Ministry has enough
to answer for at the Bar of History, without being called upon to refute
charges which have never been substantiated by evidence. In any case, no
fair-minded person will wish to hold the Governor-General responsible
for such tactics. His position was one of no ordinary difficulty. Very
damnatory correspondence had been given to the world, but it was not in
such a shape that the House could possibly regard it as free from
suspicion. The most serious charges seemed to point rather to the guilt
of Sir Hugh Allan and McMullen than to that of the Members of the
Government. The charges directly affecting the Government were solemnly
and emphatically repudiated by the Premier, who pledged himself to
explain the matter under oath to the satisfaction of the whole world, as
soon as a properly constituted tribunal should be appointed, with
authority to take evidence under oath. Sir Hugh Allan published a sworn
affidavit, negativing McMullen's charges, and McMullen himself had
subsequently admitted that his charges had been hasty and inaccurate.
The latter, moreover, was evidently a man whose character was not such
as to inspire respect. The Government could still command a majority of
votes in the House. Under such circumstances, can His Excellency be
blamed if he continued to act upon the advice of his constitutional
advisers by proroguing Parliament? He was determined, however, that
there should be no unnecessary delay, and exacted as a condition of
adopting that course that parliament should be convened with all
imaginable expedition. His reply to the memorial presented by the
Opposition is so much to the point that we cannot do better than abridge
a portion of it. "You urge me," says His Excellency, "on grounds which
are very fully and forcibly stated, to decline the advice which has been
unanimously tendered me by my responsible ministers, and to refuse to
prorogue Parliament. In other words, you require me to dismiss them from
my councils; for you must be aware that this would be the necessary
result of my assenting to your recommendation. Upon what grounds would I
be justified in taking so grave a step? What guarantee can you afford me
that the Parliament of the Dominion would endorse such an act of
personal interference on my part? You yourselves do not form an actual
moiety of the House of Commons, and I have no means of ascertaining that
the majority of that body subscribe to the opinion you have enounced. . .
It is true, grave charges have been preferred. . . but the truth of
these remains untested. . . Is the Governor-General, upon such evidence
as this, to drive from his presence gentlemen who for years have filled
the highest offices of State, and in whom, during the recent session,
Parliament has repeatedly declared its continued confidence?. . .
Certain documents of grave significance have lately been published in
the newspapers, but no proof has been adduced which necessarily connects
them with the culpable transactions of which it is asserted they formed
a part. . . Under these circumstances, what right has the
Governor-General, on his personal responsibility, to proclaim. . . that
he believes his ministers guilty of the crimes alleged against them?"
Such were the circumstances under which the prorogation of the 13th of
August, 1873, took place. Looking back on it, in the light of the seven
years which have since elapsed, it will be hard to arrive at any other
conclusion than that Lord Dufferin did not deserve the animadversions
which were heaped upon him. As he himself observed in his despatch to
the Colonial Secretary two days after the prorogation: "It is a
favourite theory at this moment with many persons that when once grave
charges of this nature have been preferred against the Ministry they
become _ipso facto_ unfit to counsel the Crown. The practical
application of this principle would prove very inconvenient, and would
leave not only the Governor-General, but every Lieutenant-Governor in
the Dominion very thinly provided with responsible advisers; for, as far
as I have been able to seize the spirit of political controversy in
Canada, there is scarcely an eminent man in the country on either side
whose character or integrity has not been, at one time or another, the
subject of reckless attack by his opponents in the press." In a word, he
acted on the well-established principle that every man is to be adjudged
innocent until he has been proved guilty; and in so acting he showed
that he understood the responsibilities of his position. That his
Ministers were culpable, as well as unwise, in advising the prorogation,
is certain; and when the next elections came on they paid the penalty of
their disingenuousness.
The events of Lord Dufferin's residence in Canada subsequent to the fall
of the Macdonald Ministry, which has already been reviewed, must be
given in few words. The political events by which his administration was
characterized have been given at sufficient length in sketches to which
they more properly belong. The Mackenzie Administration had not been
long in power before each individual member of it was on friendly terms
with the Governor-General, and there seems to have been a tacit
understanding that all past differences of opinion should be forgotten.
In the summer of 1874 His Excellency and suite made a tour through the
Muskoka District, and thence westward by steamer over lakes Huron,
Superior and Michigan. The tourists called at most of the interesting
points on the route, including Chicago, where they disembarked, and
returned overland by way of Detroit. All the most important towns in
Ontario were then visited, and the party returned home to Ottawa in
September, after an absence of about two months. It was during his
sojourn in Toronto, while on his return from this expedition, that Lord
Dufferin made his famous speech at the Toronto Club, which aroused the
enthusiasm of the press on both sides of the Atlantic. A part of the
summer and autumn of each succeeding year was spent by His Excellency in
making other tours through the various Provinces of the Dominion. The
last important one was made in 1877, and consisted of a pilgrimage
through Manitoba and part of the District of Keewatin. In 1875 he also
visited Ireland, and in 1876 attended the Centennial Exhibition at
Philadelphia. Wherever he went, his visits were marked by a continual
round of ovations. Lady Dufferin generally accompanied him on his
excursions, and contributed not a little by her personal graces and
accomplishments to the popularity of her lord. Perhaps the most
marvellous thing about him is his ability to make an eloquent speech on
any given topic, without ever repeating himself, and without descending
to platitudes or commonplaces. He has always something to say which is
appropriate to the particular occasion, and the special circumstances
in which he happens to be placed. The quick perception and ready wit
begotten of his Irish blood never fail him. Each of his replies to the
thousand-and-one addresses which at one time and another have been
presented to him has a merit of its own, has an application purely
local, and is unlike all the others. His more serious utterances are
marked not less by maturity of statesmanship than by brilliancy of
imagination. It would be faint praise to say of him that as an orator he
stands alone on the long roll of Canadian Governors. There has been no
other who is even worthy of being named as second to him. It has been
truly said of his speeches that they are "warm with the light of hope,
brimful of sympathy for the toiling and the struggling, sparkling with
humour, and moving with pathos."
As the term of his residence among us drew towards its close the
Canadian people began to realize how much they liked him. Addresses
poured in upon him from every corner of the Dominion, many of which, at
least, could only have had their origin in sincere esteem and hearty
good-will. When, on the 19th of October, 1878, he took his final
departure from among us,
"High hopes pursued him from the shore,
And prophesyings brave,"
for it was felt that, if his life and health were spared the record of
his future would not belie the record of his past. It was predicted that
the man whose consummate tact, noble courtesy and largeness of heart had
done so much to strengthen the ties between Great Britain and her
Colonies would render further important services to his Sovereign and to
the nation. That prediction has already been fulfilled. The effects of
his mission to Russia have been made apparent in improved relations
between the courts of St. Petersburg and St. James. In truth, no better
antidote to the "spirited Foreign policy" of the late British Government
could have been devised than the enrolment of Lord Dufferin in the
diplomatic service.
Since his departure for Russia it is said that the Vice-royalty of
Ireland and of India have both been tendered to and declined by him.
THE REV. ROBERT FERRIER BURNS.
Dr. Burns was born at Paisley, Scotland, on the 23rd of December, 1826.
After spending a term of four years at the Public Grammar School of that
town, he was entered as a student at the University of Glasgow in the
month of November, 1840, before he had quite completed his fourteenth
year. He remained at that seat of learning four sessions, during which
he achieved high standing in his classes, and carried off several
prizes, including two in Latin. He stood third in Greek, second in
Logic, and first in Moral Philosophy. While attending the University he
had for associates Principal McKnight, of Halifax, the Rev. William
Maclaren, of Blairlogie, and the late Rev. John Maclaren, of Glasgow. In
1844-5 he attended New College, Edinburgh, during the second session of
its existence, and sat at the feet of Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham and
Duncan. He had meanwhile resolved on emigrating to Canada, and on the
29th of March, 1845, he sailed from Greenock for Quebec. He made his way
to Toronto, where he attended two sessions at Knox College, having for
his contemporaries there Dr. Black, of Manitoba, and the late Rev. James
Nisbet, of the Prince Albert Mission. During his collegiate career he
acted as Student Catechist, and preached as a volunteer at Proudfoot's
Mills, and also at Oakville. During the summer of 1846 he laboured to
good purpose at Niagara. In April, 1847, he was licensed to preach by
the Presbytery of Toronto, and on the first of July following he was
ordained as first pastor of Chalmers Church, Kingston. During his
residence at Kingston he officiated for a year as Chaplain to the
Forty-first Regiment of Highland Infantry.
On the 1st of July, 1852, he married Miss Elizabeth Holden, a daughter
of Dr. Rufus Holden, of Belleville, and a sister of the wife of
Professor Gregg, of Toronto. By this lady he now has a family of eight
children, consisting of four sons and four daughters. After a pastorate
of exactly eight years he left Kingston on the 5th of July, 1855, and
settled at St. Catharines as first pastor of the United Church. He
remained there nearly twelve years, during eight of which he also had
charge of a congregation at Port Dalhousie, four miles distant. During
his ministry at St. Catharines the new church now known as Knox Church
was erected, and his congregation subsequently worshipped there. In 1862
he took a conspicuous part in starting Sabbath School Conventions in
this country, which have since been attended by many blessings to the
young. In the month of July, 1866, the degree of Doctor of Divinity was
conferred upon him by Hamilton College, near Utica, in the State of New
York, the leading literary institution of the New School of
Presbyterians in that State. On the 20th of March, 1867, he became first
pastor of the First Scotch Presbyterian Church in Chicago, which then
and for some years thereafter belonged to the Canadian Church. During
his incumbency of this charge he received several calls from various
churches, all of which were declined. His Chicago pastorate lasted three
years, during which the membership of his church trebled in number, and
a fine new church was erected by the congregation on the corner of Adams
and Sagamore Streets. In October, 1867, he accompanied the Rev. D. L.
Moody, the Evangelist, from Chicago to Toronto, on the occasion of the
first sitting of the Young Men's Christian Association Convention in the
latter city. In the beginning of May, 1870, he returned to Canada, and
was inducted into the pastorate of Cote Street Church, Montreal, where
Dr. Fraser and the present Principal McVicar had previously ministered.
Here he remained five years.
On the 18th of March, 1875, he was settled over Fort Massey Church,
Halifax, of which the Rev. J. K. Smith, of Galt, had been for two years
pastor. Here Dr. Burns has ever since remained. The congregation has
since its commencement discarded pew rents, and has been conducted on
the weekly free-will-offering system, the offertory being collected at
the church door. Their annual givings to church purposes are said to
exceed $100 for each family. He was Moderator of the Synod of Montreal
in 1873, and also Chairman of the Montreal College Board; and on his
removal to Halifax he was elected to the same post there, which he still
fills. During the session of 1877 he delivered special courses of
lectures before the Montreal and Halifax students, and in 1878 these
were followed up by a second special course in the Halifax College. In
1877 he was associated with Principal Grant and others in pushing
forward the $100,000 College Endowment Fund.
Dr. Burns is also known as an author. As early as 1854 he contributed to
the _Anglo-American Magazine_, published in Toronto; and several years
later to the _Presbyterian Magazine_. In 1857 he published "The Progress
and Principles of Temperance Reform;" and in 1865, in conjunction with
the Rev. Mr. Norton, of St. Catharines, "Maple Leaves for the Grave of
Abraham Lincoln." In 1872 he wrote and published his most voluminous
work, "The Life and Times of Dr. Robert Burns, of Toronto." This work
passed through three editions, and was a decided success. His other
works are chiefly pamphlets, sermons, and short fugitive pieces.
At the meeting of the General Assembly held at Ottawa in 1879 Dr. Burns
was one of the eight clerical delegates elected to attend the General
Presbyterian Council, to be held in Philadelphia during the present
year. Last summer he attended the Sunday School Celebration held in
London, England, to commemorate the founding of Sunday Schools by Robert
Raikes, in Gloucester, a century ago.
[Illustration: ALBERT NORTON RICHARDS, signed as A. N. RICHARDS]
THE HON. ALBERT NORTON RICHARDS,
_LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF BRITISH COLUMBIA._
Mr. Richards is the youngest son of the late Mr. Stephen Richards, of
Brockville, and a brother of the Hon. William Buell Richards, ex-Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of the Dominion, a sketch of whose life
appeared in the first volume of this series. Some account of the family
history is contained in the sketch alluded to. Albert Norton Richards
was born at Brockville, Upper Canada, on the 8th of December, 1822. Like
his elder brothers, William and Stephen, he received his early education
at the famous Johnstown District Grammar School, and embraced the legal
profession as his calling in life. He studied law in the office of his
brother William, with whom he entered into partnership after his call to
the Bar in Michaelmas Term, 1848. Though perhaps somewhat less
conspicuous at the Bar than his partner, he took a high position, and
was distinguished for the acumen and soundness of judgment which seem to
be inherent in every member of his family. After his brother's elevation
to the Bench, he himself continued to practise at Brockville. His
business was large and profitable. He took a keen interest in politics,
and was identified with the Reform Party. He did not seek Parliamentary
distinction, however, until the year 1861, when he was an unsuccessful
candidate for the representation of South Leeds in the Legislative
Assembly of Canada--his successful opponent being Mr. Benjamin Tett. At
the general election of 1863 he again offered himself in opposition to
the same candidate, and on this occasion was returned at the head of the
poll. In the month of December following he accepted office in the
Sandfield Macdonald-Dorion Administration, as Solicitor-General for the
Upper Province. He was at the same time created a Queen's Counsel. Upon
returning to his constituents for reëlection, after accepting office, he
was compelled to encounter the full strength of the Conservative Party.
The Government of the day existed by a mere thread, their majority
averaging one, two and three, and it was felt that if Mr. Richards could
be defeated the Government must resign. The constituency of South Leeds
was invaded by all the principal speakers and agents of the Conservative
Party, headed by the Hon. John A. Macdonald and the late Mr. D'Arcy
McGee, and no stone was left unturned to defeat the new
Solicitor-General. The result was the defeat of the latter by Mr. D.
Ford Jones, the Conservative candidate, by a majority of five votes. Mr.
Richards, after the resignation of the Government, remained out of
public life until 1867, when he unsuccessfully contested his old seat
for the House of Commons with the late Lieutenant-Governor Crawford, the
latter being elected by a majority of thirty-nine. In 1869 Mr. Richards
was offered by the Government of Sir John Macdonald the office of
Attorney-General in the Provincial Government which Mr. Macdougall, as
Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories, was about to establish
at Fort Garry. Mr. Richards accepted the office, and accompanied Mr.
Macdougall on his well-known journey, until stopped by Louis Riel at
Stinking River. In the following year he visited British Columbia on
public business, and in 1871 he again visited that Province, this time
for the benefit of the health of his children, eight of whom he had lost
by death during his residence at Brockville. At the general election of
1872, Mr. Richards made another and a successful appeal to the electors
of South Leeds, and was returned to the House of Commons. He held his
seat until January, 1874; when, being absent from the country, on a
visit to British Columbia, he was unable to return in time to be
nominated for his old constituency, and South Leeds became lost to the
Reform Party. Mr. Richards continued to reside in British Columbia, and
for several years was the official Legal Agent of the Dominion
Government in that Province. He took an active part in endeavouring to
bring about various much-needed law reforms, as to several of which he
was ultimately successful. On the 29th of July, 1875, he was appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, a position which he has ever since
held. His sterling qualities have obtained recognition, and he has won
great popularity.
He has been twice married. His first wife, whom he married on the 17th
of October, 1849, was Frances, daughter of the late Benjamin Chaffey,
formerly of Staffordshire, England. This lady died in April, 1853. On
the 12th of August, 1854, he married Ellen, daughter of the late John
Cheslett, also of Staffordshire. His second wife still survives.
THE RIGHT REV. JOHN TRAVERS LEWIS, LL.D.,
_BISHOP OF ONTARIO._
Bishop Lewis is a son of the John Lewis, M.A., who was formerly Rector
of St. Anne's, Shandon, Cork, Ireland; and grandson of Mr. Richard
Lewis, who was an Inspector-General of Revenue in the south of Ireland.
He is himself an Irishman by birth and education, but has passed the
last thirty years of his life in Canada. He was born in the county of
Cork, on the 20th of June, 1825. He received private lessons from his
father, and afterwards obtained his more advanced education at Trinity
College, Dublin. He enjoyed a somewhat brilliant career at the
University. He obtained honours both in classics and mathematics during
his course as an undergraduate; and upon graduating, in 1846, he was
gold medallist and senior moderator in ethics and logic. His degree of
LL.D. was received, we believe, from his _alma mater_. He was intended
for the Church from boyhood, and was ordained Deacon in 1848, at the
Chapel of Christ's College, Cambridge, by the Lord Bishop of Chester. He
was soon afterwards ordained Priest by the Lord Bishop of Down, and
became Curate of the parish of Newtownbutler, celebrated in Irish annals
for the victory gained by the colonists over King James's troops in
1689. He did not long occupy that position, but resigned it in 1850, and
came over to this country, where, soon after his arrival, he was
appointed by the late Bishop Strachan to the parish of Hawkesbury, in
the county of Prescott. Upon settling down in his parish he married Miss
Anne Harriet Margaret Sherwood, a daughter of the late Hon. Henry
Sherwood, a Canadian legislator who sat in the old Assembly from 1843 to
1854, and who held office as Solicitor-General and Attorney-General for
Canada West, respectively, in the Ministry of Mr. Draper, during the
_régime_ of Sir Charles Metcalfe and Earl Cathcart.
After officiating in Hawkesbury for four years, Mr. Lewis was appointed
Rector of Brockville, where he remained until his election, in 1861, to
the position which he now occupies. The seven years passed in the
rectory at Brockville must have been busy ones, as we find numerous
published sermons and pamphlets from his pen during this time. His
sermons and writings generally are marked by much learning, and by an
evident fondness for dialectics. Some of them have received high praise
from the reviewers. One of them, entitled "A Plain Lecture to Enquirers
into the meaning of the Liturgy," was thus characterized by the
_American Quarterly Church Review_: "As an argument for Liturgical
worship, and an answer to popular objections to the Prayer-book, this is
one of the most valuable works we have ever seen." Other tracts of his
have also been highly praised by persons whose praise is of value. The
best known of his writings are "The Church of the New Testament;" "Does
the Bible need re-translating?" "The Popular Baptist Argument Reviewed;"
and "The Primitive Method of selecting Bishops;" the last-named
production being given to the world in the _Journal of Sacred
Literature_, published in London, England. During his residence at
Brockville he interested himself actively in various local matters,
sectarian and non-sectarian, and contributed to build up several
important public institutions. He lectured before the Brockville Library
Association and Mechanics' Institute, and did much to extend its
membership and beneficial influence.
The territorial division of the Diocese of Toronto was a project which
began to take shape about the time when the subject of this sketch first
arrived in this country. Up to that time the Diocese of Toronto
comprehended the whole extent of Upper Canada, and was altogether too
large to permit of one man's discharging the duties of the Bishopric
with perfect efficiency, even though that man were endowed with the
tremendous energy and vitality of the late Bishop Strachan. The Diocese
of Huron was in due time set apart and the late Rev. Dr. Benjamin Cronyn
was elected to the Bishopric. In 1861 the eastern division was also set
apart as the Diocese of Ontario, and at the meeting of the Synod held at
Kingston in the summer of that year Mr. Lewis was elected to the office
of Bishop. He was then only thirty-six years of age, and was probably
the youngest Prelate in America. He soon afterwards removed to Kingston,
and thence to Ottawa, where he now resides.
It will thus be seen that the Bishop has had a remarkably successful
career since his arrival in Canada. He devotes himself assiduously to
his official labours, and is held in high veneration by many of the
clergymen of his Diocese. He has a numerous family, and a large circle
of attached friends. His pulpit oratory is marked by fluency and
smoothness of rhetoric, as well as by much learning and depth of
thought.
CHARLES, LORD METCALFE.
In former sketches we have seen how Responsible Government, after being
strenuously contended for during many years in this country, and after
its adoption had been vigorously recommended by Lord Durham, finally
became an accomplished fact. We have seen how Lord Sydenham was sent
over here as Governor-General for the purpose of carrying out the new
order of things, and how, during his administration of affairs, the
Union of the Provinces was finally effected in 1841. The Canadian
Administration was carried on by both Lord Sydenham and his successor,
Sir Charles Bagot, in accordance with the spirit of our new
Constitution. In 1841 the Imperial Ministry, under whose auspices this
Constitution had been framed, was deposed, and a Tory Government
succeeded to power. In this Government the late Lord Derby, then Lord
Stanley, held the portfolio appertaining to the office of Colonial
Secretary. Soon after Sir Charles Bagot's resignation of the post of
Governor-General, in the winter of 1842, Sir Charles Metcalfe was
selected as his successor. The selection was made at the instance of
Lord Stanley, who had all along been inimical to the scheme of
Responsible Government in Canada, and there is reason for believing that
he entertained the design of subverting it. His selection of Sir Charles
Metcalfe, and his subsequent instructions and general policy, certainly
lend colour to such a belief. The new Governor was a man of excellent
intentions, and of more than average ability, but his previous training
and experience had been such as to render him totally unfit for the post
of a Constitutional Governor.
We can only afford space for a brief glance at his previous career, but
even that brief glance will be sufficient to show how little sympathy he
could be expected to have in colonial schemes of Responsible Government.
He was born at Calcutta, on Sunday, the 30th of January, 1785, a few
days before Warren Hastings ceased to be Governor-General of India. His
father, Major Theophilus Metcalfe, of the Bengal army, was a gentleman
of ample fortune, and a Director in the East India Company. Charles was
the second son of his parents, and was destined at an early age for the
Company's service. He was educated first at a private school at Bromley,
in Middlesex, and afterwards at Eton College, where he remained until he
had entered upon his sixteenth year, when he returned to India. He was
appointed to a writership in the service of the Company, wherein for
seven years he filled various offices, and in 1808 was selected by Lord
Minto to take charge of a difficult mission to the Court of Lahore, the
object of which was to secure the Sikh States, between the Sutlej and
Jumna Rivers, from the grasp of Runjeet Singh. In this mission he fully
succeeded, the treaty being concluded in 1809. He subsequently filled
several other high offices of trust, and in 1827 took his seat as a
member of the Supreme Council of India. Both his father and elder
brother had meanwhile died, and he had become Sir Charles Metcalfe.
In 1835, upon Lord W. Bentinck's resignation, Sir Charles Metcalfe was
provisionally appointed Governor-General, which office he held until
Lord Auckland's arrival in the year following. During this short period
he effected many bold and popular reforms, not the least of which was
the liberation of the press of India from all restrictions. Under his
immediate predecessor, Lord William Bentinck, the press had been as free
as it is in England; but there were still certain laws or orders of a
severe character, which at the pleasure of any future Governor might be
called into operation. These Sir Charles Metcalfe repealed. His doing so
gave umbrage to the Directors, and caused his resignation and return to
Europe, when he was appointed Governor of Jamaica. The difficult duties
of this position--the emancipation of the negroes having but recently
occurred--were discharged by him to the satisfaction of the Government
and the colonists. After over two years' residence the climate proved so
unfavourable to his health that he was compelled to resign. The painful
disease of which he afterwards died--cancer of the cheek--had seized him
in a firm grip. Years before this time, when residing at Calcutta, a
friend had one day noticed a red spot upon his cheek, and underneath it
a single drop of blood. The blood was wiped away; the red spot remained.
For a long while it occasioned neither pain nor anxiety. A little time
after his departure from India, disquieting symptoms appeared, and on
his arrival in England he had consulted Sir Benjamin Brodie; but it was
not till his return from Jamaica that it received the attention it
really demanded. Then consultations of the most eminent surgeons and
physicians were held, and the application of a severe caustic was
determined on. When told that it would probably "destroy the cheek
through and through," he only answered, "What you determine shall be
done at once;" and the same afternoon the painful remedy was applied.
The physicians and surgeons of London did what they could for him, and
he retired into the country. The disorder had not been eradicated, but
merely checked. About this time the ill-health of Sir Charles Bagot had
rendered that gentleman's resignation necessary, and the post of
Governor-General of Canada thus became vacant. It was offered to, and
accepted by, Sir Charles Metcalfe. No appointment could have been found
for him at that moment in the whole political world the duties of which
were more difficult, when the nature of his instructions and the
peculiar position of the colony are taken into consideration. Add to
this that his whole life had hitherto been passed in administering
governments which were largely despotic in their character. Responsible
Government, as we have seen, had been conceded to Canada. Sir Charles
professed to approve of this concession, but his conduct throughout the
whole course of his administration was at variance with his professions,
and showed that his sympathies were not on the side of popular rights.
He came over in the month of March, 1843, and on the following day took
charge of the Administration. For the composition of the Government and
an account of the situation of affairs in Canada at this time the reader
is referred to the life of Robert Baldwin which has already appeared in
these pages. The circumstances under which the Governor contrived to
embroil himself with the leading members of the Administration are there
given in sufficient detail, and there is no necessity for repeating them
at length in this place. Sir Charles chose his associates and advisers
from among the members of the defunct Family Compact. He endeavoured to
circumscribe the power of the Executive Council, which demanded that no
office should be filled, no appointment made, without its sanction. We
are, argued the members of Council, in the same relation to the House of
Assembly as Ministers in England to the English Parliament. We are
responsible to it for the acts of Government; these acts must be ours,
or the result of our advice, otherwise we cannot be responsible for
them. Unless our demand is complied with, there is no such thing as
Responsible Government. On the other hand, Sir Charles contended that by
relinquishing his patronage he should be surrendering the prerogatives
of the Crown, and should also incapacitate himself and all future
Governors from acting as moderator between opposite factions. It was not
long before an appointment, made by Sir Charles, brought the contest to
an issue. Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine, the two leading members of the
Executive Council, urged upon the Governor to retract this appointment,
or to promise that no other should be made without their advice. The
Governor was firm in his refusal. The Executive Council resigned. To
form a new Ministry was, under these circumstances, a most difficult
task. Office went begging; a Solicitor-Generalship was offered to six
individuals, and perseveringly refused by all. But Sir Charles was also
persevering in his offers, and at last a seventh was found, who
accepted. At last a weak Ministry was formed, and then followed a
general election. Parliament met at Montreal on the 8th of November,
1844, when, after a hard fight, Sir Allan Macnab was elected Speaker of
the Assembly by a small majority of three. The debate on the address,
after strong opposition, was carried by a Tory majority of six. The
session dragged on without any change in the character of the Ministry,
which was supported by a small and feeble majority in the Assembly. The
popular feeling against the Governor rose to the highest pitch. Meantime
Sir Charles's terrible malady was rapidly doing its work upon him. He
had lost the use of one eye, the eye which was still useful sympathized
with that which was destroyed; nor was there any hope of the eradication
of the cancer. He had now, to his great regret, to use the hand of
another to write his letters and despatches. He was racked by pains
above the eye and down the right side of the face as far as the chin.
The cheek towards the nose and mouth was permanently swelled. He could
not open his mouth to its usual width, and it was with difficulty he
inserted and masticated food. He no longer looked forward to a cure. His
Canadian medical attendants hesitated to apply the powerful caustic
recommended by Sir Benjamin Brodie, and counselled him to return to
England. "I am tied to Canada by my duty," was his constant reply. Mr.
George Pollock, house surgeon of St. George's Hospital, was despatched
from England, to examine the case and apply the most approved remedies.
No aid which science could give was wanting, but the disease was beyond
medical control. Its ravages were now most painful and distressing. So
far as the body was concerned, it was but the wreck of a man that
remained. On this wreck or ruin, however, was to descend, as if in
mockery, the coronet of nobility. He was created Baron Metcalfe. Idle as
the honour was in itself to the childless invalid, it was still a
testimony that his services had been appreciated. "But," says his
biographer, "he was dying, no less surely for the strong will that
sustained him, and the vigorous intellect which glowed in his shattered
frame. A little while and he might die at his post. The winter was
setting in--the navigation was closing. It was necessary at once to
decide whether Metcalfe should now prepare to betake the suffering
remnant of himself to England, or to abide at Montreal, if spared, till
the coming spring. But he would not trust himself to form the decision.
He invited the leading members of his Council to attend him at
Monklands; and there he told them that he left the issue in their hands.
It was a scene never to be forgotten by any who were present in the
Governor-General's darkened room on this memorable occasion. Some were
dissolved in tears. All were agitated by a strong emotion of sorrow and
sympathy, mingled with a sort of wondering admiration of the heroic
constancy of their chief. He told them that if they desired his
continuance at the head of the Government--if they believed that the
cause for which they had fought together so manfully would suffer by his
departure, and that they therefore counselled him to remain at his post,
he would willingly abide by their decision." What their decision was
need hardly be said. Lord Metcalfe embarked for England quietly and
unostentatiously, as his suffering state compelled. He could not, from
the nature of the struggle in which he had been engaged, expect to quit
the shores of Canada with the same unanimous approbation that had
erected to his memory the "Metcalfe Hall" at Calcutta, or raised his
statue in Spanish Town, Jamaica. He returned to England--returned to
doctors and the darkened room. He was in constant pain except when under
the influence of narcotics; but he made no complaint, and endured his
sufferings with fortitude. He died on the 5th of September, 1846, and
was interred in a quiet, private and unostentatious manner in the little
parish church of Winkfield, near Fern Hill. He had often expressed a
wish that this should be his last resting place. On a marble tablet in
this church is an epitaph written by Mr.--afterwards Lord--Macaulay, who
knew and had served with him in India. Thus it runs:--"Near this stone
is laid CHARLES THEOPHILUS, first and last LORD METCALFE, a Statesman
tried in many high posts and difficult conjunctures, and found equal to
all. The Three Greatest Dependencies of the British Crown were
successively intrusted to his care. In India his fortitude, his wisdom,
his probity, and his moderation are held in honourable remembrance by
men of many races, languages, and religions. In Jamaica, still convulsed
by a social revolution, he calmed the evil passions which long suffering
had engendered in one class and long domination in another. In Canada,
not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled
contending factions to each other and to the Mother Country. Public
esteem was the just reward of his public virtue, but those only who
enjoyed the privilege of his friendship could appreciate the whole worth
of his gentle and noble nature. Costly monuments in Asiatic and American
cities attest the gratitude of nations which he ruled; this tablet
records the sorrow and the pride with which his memory is cherished by
private Affection."
Had it been his good fortune to die before receiving the appointment of
Governor-General of Canada, Sir Charles Metcalfe would have left behind
him a high reputation on all hands, and there would have been nothing to
detract from the praise which would have been justly his due. His tenure
of office in this country was a somewhat inglorious close to a long and
useful public career. As Governor of a colony to which Responsible
Government had been conceded he was altogether out of his element. He
was simply unfit for the position, as well by reason of his personal
character as by the training to which he had been subjected. Good
intentions were undoubtedly his, and he acted up to the light that was
in him; but to this modicum of praise no Canadian writer can justly add
much in the way of commendation.
THE HON. ALEXANDER MORRIS.
Mr. Morris is the eldest son of the late Hon. William Morris, whose name
is prominently identified with the history of the Clergy Reserve and
School Land questions in this country; and a nephew of the late Hon.
James Morris, who held the portfolio of Postmaster-General in the
Baldwin-Lafontaine Administration, and who was subsequently
Receiver-General in the Administration organized under the leadership of
Messrs. John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis Victor Sicotte. The chief
points of public interest connected with the family history are outlined
in the sketch of his father's life, which appears elsewhere in these
pages. The subject of the present memoir was born at Perth, Upper
Canada--where his father then resided and carried on business--on the
17th of March, 1826. In boyhood he attended the local Grammar School,
which enjoyed a high reputation for the efficiency of its educational
training. His father, who was desirous that his son should enjoy higher
scholastic advantages than were then obtainable in this country, sent
him, while he was still in early youth, to Scotland, where he entered as
a student at Madras College, St. Andrews. After spending about a year at
that establishment he was transferred to the University of Glasgow,
where another industrious year was passed. Returning to his native land,
he began to devote himself to the business of life. He at this time was
intended for commercial pursuits, and spent three years in the
establishment of Messrs. Thorne & Heward, commission merchants, at
Montreal. The knowledge and experience gained during these three years
have since proved of great service to him, although he was not destined
to engage in commercial business on his own behalf. He had meanwhile
resolved to enter the legal profession in Upper Canada, and was
accordingly articled as a clerk to Mr.--now the Hon. Sir--John A.
Macdonald, in the office of Messrs. Macdonald & Campbell, Barristers, of
Kingston. Here he studied with such assiduity that his health gave way,
and he was compelled to relinquish his studies for some months. His
father having previously removed to Montreal, he returned to that city
and resumed his scholastic studies in the University of McGill College,
where he took the degrees successively of B.A., M.A., B.C.L., and D.C.L.
He was the first graduate in the Arts course of that institution, and
was subsequently elected by the graduates one of the first Fellows in
Arts, and thence was promoted to be one of the Governors of the
University, which position he held for several years. He entered the
office of the then Attorney-General Badgley, who subsequently became a
Judge of the Court of Queen's Bench in Quebec. He completed his course
of studies in the office of Messrs. Badgley & Abbott, and then proceeded
to Toronto, where he presented his credentials to the Benchers of the
Law Society and requested to be called to the Bar, under the provisions
of the law which enabled any person who had been duly registered as a
clerk or student during the necessary period for the Bar of Lower
Canada, to be called to the Bar of Upper Canada, after passing the
necessary examination. He was examined in due course by the Benchers of
Upper Canada, admitted to the degree of Barrister-at-Law, and was
thereafter sworn in as an Attorney--both in Hilary Term of the year
1851. He was then about to establish himself in the practice of the law
in the city of Toronto, having been offered a partnership by the then
Attorney-General, the late Hon. John Ross, when family circumstances led
to his return to Montreal, where, having presented his diploma as a
Barrister-at-Law of Upper Canada, he was after examination called to the
Bar of Lower Canada as an Advocate. In November of the same year he
married Miss Margaret Cline, daughter of the late Mr. William Cline, of
Cornwall, and niece of the late Hon. Philip Vankoughnet, of the same
place. He entered upon the practice of his profession in Montreal. His
ability and social connections soon secured for him a large and
lucrative practice, and having entered into partnership with the present
Mr. Justice Torrance, he became known as one of the most successful
practitioners in the Province, devoting himself mainly to commercial
law. Like his father before him, he attached himself to the Conservative
side in politics, and first entered active political life in 1861, when
he contested the constituency of South Lanark, in Upper Canada, for the
Legislative Assembly, in opposition to Mr. John Doran. His father had
represented that constituency for twenty years, and he had no difficulty
in securing his election. Upon the opening of the session he took his
seat in the House, and made his first speech, on the debate on the
Speech from the Throne, which was on the question of Representation by
Population--a measure which he did not believe to be the true remedy for
the unsatisfactory state of things which existed throughout the country.
The true remedy, as he believed, and as he repeatedly urged, both from
his place in Parliament and elsewhere, was the Confederation scheme
which was subsequently adopted. In the negotiations which led to the
formation of the Coalition Government, of which Sir John A. Macdonald
and the late Hon. George Brown were members, and which secured the
necessary Imperial legislation in order to bring about Confederation, he
took an active and initiatory part, as appears by the record of the
steps taken to form the Government, and secure that policy submitted to
the Parliament of Canada at the time. He continued to represent South
Lanark in the Assembly until Confederation, after which he represented
it in the House of Commons until the general election of 1872. He was an
active member, and stood high in the esteem of his Party. In the month
of November, 1869, he accepted office in the then-existing Government as
Minister of Inland Revenue, which he retained until, having resigned his
position in the Government owing to broken health, he received the
appointment of Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba,
in July, 1872. Of this office he was the first incumbent, no Court of
Queen's Bench having previously existed there. The highest judicial
tribunal which had existed in the Prairie Province up to that time was
the Quarterly Court, as it was called, organized under the authority of
the Hudson's Bay Company's Charter, and conducted in a rather primitive
way. A short time prior to the date last mentioned this tribunal was
abolished, and the Court of Queen's Bench established in its place.
After accepting the office of Chief Justice, Mr. Morris prepared a
series of rules introducing the English practice into the Court. He did
not long retain his seat on the Judicial Bench, as, two months after his
appointment as Chief Justice, he was nominated as Administrator, in
place of Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, who was absent on leave. On the
2nd of December, 1872, he received the appointment of
Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, a
position which he retained for five years. On the creation of the
District of Keewatin he became Lieutenant-Governor of that territory _ex
officio_. He was also appointed Chief Superintendent of Indian Affairs
in the Manitoba Superintendency, and one of the Special Commissioners
for the making of treaties three, four, five and six, and the revision
of treaties one and two; and, as will be seen from the last report of
the Minister of the Interior, he suggested the making of the last and
seventh treaty--that with the Blackfeet. In the making of these treaties
he was the active Commissioner and chief spokesman, and was very
successful in winning the confidence of the Indian tribes. The treaties
in question extinguished the natural title of the Indian tribes to the
vast region extending from the Height of Land beyond Lake Superior to
the Blackfeet country in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, covering
the route of the Canada Pacific Railway, and opening up a vast extent of
fertile territory to settlement. When Mr. Morris assumed the government
of Manitoba the Province was in a very disturbed condition. He had the
satisfaction of leaving it reduced to order, and far advanced in
settlement and legislative progress. On his departure from Manitoba, the
_Free Press_, the organ of the Liberal Party, thus referred to his
career in the North-West: "To-morrow is the last day of Hon. Alexander
Morris's connection with Manitoba as Lieutenant-Governor. When, five
years ago, the announcement was made that Chief Justice Morris had been
appointed to the position which he is now just about vacating, very
general satisfaction was manifested by the people of the Province. Mr.
Morris succeeded to the office when it was surrounded by difficulties
great and complicated; and the task before its incumbent was by no means
an easy one. The Province occupied a most peculiar position; having just
had constitutional self-government thrust upon it, without any
preparatory training. The Lieutenant-Governor necessarily found himself
at the head of a people who, no matter how good their intentions, could
not reasonably be expected to have a very perfect appreciation of the
true position of a Lieutenant-Governor under such a government.
Lieutenant-Governor Morris during the early part of his official career
had plenty of evidence of this, and it devolved upon him, in no small
degree, to impress upon them exactly what such government entailed--that
the Lieutenant-Governor was supposed to act almost solely upon the
advice of the Crown Ministers of the day, who in turn were responsible
to the people's chosen representatives in Parliament. And in no one way
has Governor Morris more distinguished himself than in the observance of
this fundamental principle of our constitution, however much he may
actually have assisted in the government of the country by his ripe
experience and statesmanship. The smallest Province though Manitoba is,
the office of its Lieutenant-Governor has entailed more extensive
responsibilities than that of any other Province in the Dominion."
Upon the completion of his term of office Mr. Morris returned from
Manitoba to his native town of Perth, in Ontario, where he had a
residence. At the last general election for the House of Commons, in
1878, he contested the constituency of Selkirk, Manitoba, with the Hon.
Donald A. Smith, but was defeated by nine votes. Mr. Smith was, however,
unseated on petition. About two months later the Hon. Matthew Crooks
Cameron, who sat in the Local Legislature of Ontario for East Toronto,
was appointed to a Puisné Judgeship of the Court of Queen's Bench. This
left a vacancy in the representation of East Toronto, and Mr. Morris,
who was then a resident of Perth, was nominated for the vacancy by a
Conservative Convention. He offered himself as a candidate for the
constituency, and was elected by a considerable majority over his
opponent, Mr. John Leys. At the general local elections held on the 5th
of June following Mr. Morris was again returned for East Toronto--of
which he had in the interval become a resident--by a majority of 57 over
the Hon. Oliver Mowat, Premier of Ontario. He continues to represent
that constituency, and occupies a prominent place as a member of the
Opposition.
Mr. Morris has also made a creditable name for himself in literature. In
1854 he published a quasi-professional work embodying the Railway
Consolidation Acts of Canada, with notes of cases. In 1855 appeared
"Canada and Her Resources," an essay to which was awarded the second
prize offered by the Paris Exhibition Committee of Canada--the first
prize having been awarded to the well-known essay by the late Mr. John
Sheridan Hogan by Sir Edmund Head, then Governor-General. Three years
later--in 1858--he delivered a lecture before the Mercantile Library
Association of Montreal, in which was predicted the federation of the
British American Provinces and the construction of the Intercolonial and
Pacific Railways--subjects to which Mr. Morris had given a good deal of
attention ever since, when a youth, he had read and studied Lord
Durham's famous "Report" on Canada. This lecture was published, in
pamphlet form, under the title of "Nova Britannia; or, British North
America, its extent and future," by the Library Association. It was
widely circulated, and attracted a good deal of attention, not only in
this country but in Great Britain and the United States. No fewer than
three thousand copies of it were sold in ten days. A contemporary notice
of this pamphlet thus refers to the author and his theory: "Mr. Morris
is at once statistical, patriotic and prophetic. The lecturer sees in
the future a fusion of races, a union of all the existing provinces,
with new provinces to grow up in the west, and a railway to the Pacific.
The design of the lecture is excellent, and its facts seem to have been
carefully collected." In 1859 Mr. Morris delivered and published another
lecture of a somewhat similar nature, under the title of "The Hudson's
Bay and Pacific Territories," advocating the withdrawal of the
North-West Territories from the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, and
their incorporation with the Confederacy of Canada along with British
Columbia. His latest work, published during the month of May last, is
entitled, "The Treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the
North-West Territories." It gives an account of all the treaties made
with these Indians, from the original one made by Lord Selkirk down to
the present time; contains suggestions for dealing with them, and
predicts a hopeful future for them.
Mr. Morris has for many years taken an active part in the Church Courts
of, first, the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the
Church of Scotland, and since the union of the four Presbyterian
Churches of the Dominion as the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as a
representative to the Assembly of that Church. He has been for twenty
years a Trustee of Queen's College, Kingston, of which his father was
one of the active founders. Mr. Morris actively assisted in bringing
about the union of the Churches above alluded to, affirming it to be in
the highest interests of Presbyterianism and religion in the Dominion
that such a consummation should be brought about.
[Illustration: THOMAS TALBOT, signed as Thomas Talbot]
THE HON. THOMAS TALBOT.
Not often does it fall to the lot of the biographer to chronicle a more
singular piece of history than is afforded by the life of the founder of
the Talbot Settlement in Western Canada. A contemporary writer has
proved to us that Ireland has, at one time and another, contributed her
full share of notable personages to our population; and Colonel Talbot
is certainly entitled to rank among the most remarkable of them all. A
man of high birth and social position, of good abilities, with a decided
natural turn for an active military career, and with excellent prospects
of success before him, he voluntarily forsook the influences under which
he had been reared, and spent by far the greater part of a long life in
the solitude of the Canadian wilderness. He was the early associate and
life-long friend of the illustrious Duke of Wellington. At the outset of
their careers, any impartial friend of the two youths might not
unreasonably have predicted a higher and wider fame for the scion of the
House of Talbot than for Arthur Wellesley; for the former was the
brighter, and apparently the more ambitious of the two, and his
connections were at least equally influential. Had any one indulged in
such a vaticination, however, his prediction would have been most
ignominiously falsified by subsequent events. Arthur Wellesley lived to
achieve a reputation second to that of scarcely any name in history. He
became the most famous and successful military commander of modern
times. Nations vied with each other in heaping well-deserved honours
upon his head, and his Sovereign characterized him as "the greatest
general England ever saw." Statesmen and princes hung upon his words,
and even upon his nod; and lovely women languished for his smiles. When
he died, full of years and honours, and everything of good which a
grateful nation has to bestow, his body lay in state at Chelsea
Hospital. It was visited by the high and mighty ones of the Empire, and
was contemplated with an almost superstitious awe. It was finally borne
with regal pomp, through streets draped in mourning, and thronged by a
countless multitude, to its final resting-place in the crypt of the
noblest of English cathedrals. The funeral rites were solemnized amid
the tears of a nation, and formed an event in that nation's history. The
obsequies of "the Iron Duke" took place on the 18th of November, 1852.
In less than three months from that date his friend Colonel Talbot also
went the way of all flesh. But by how different a road! His life, though
it had by no means been spent in vain, had had little to commend it to
the emulation or envy of mankind. Its most vigorous season had been
passed amid the solitude of the Canadian forest, and in its decline it
had become the prey of selfishness and neglect. Colonel Talbot died in a
small room in the house of a man who had once been his servant. He must
have tasted the bitterness of death many times before he finally entered
into his rest. Neither wife, child, nor relative ministered to his
wants. But scant ceremony was vouchsafed to his remains. His body,
instead of lying in state, was deposited in a barn, and was finally
attended to its last obscure resting-place in a little Canadian village
by a handful of friends and acquaintances. The weather was piercingly
cold, and we may be sure that the obsequies were not unnecessarily
prolonged. Surely the force of antithesis could not much farther go!
And yet, as we review the widely diverse careers of these two remarkable
men, it is difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that the
result in each case was the legitimate outgrowth of their respective
qualities. Arthur Wellesley, in his earliest boyhood, formed a definite
purpose in life; and that purpose, during all the years of his
probation, was kept constantly in view. Every other passion was kept in
due subordination to it. Fortune was kind to him, and he well knew how
to avail himself of her favours. The acquisition of fame, moreover,
bears some analogy to the acquisition of wealth. The first step is by
far the most difficult. Dr. Johnson once said that any man of strong
will has it in his power to make a fortune, if he can only contrive to
tide over the time while he is scraping together the first hundred
pounds. Arthur Wellesley, having got his foot firmly on the first rung
of the ladder, found the rest of the ascent feasible enough. Now, Thomas
Talbot was endowed by nature with a will so strong as almost to deserve
the name of stubbornness, but that was almost the only quality which he
shared in common with his friend. If he ever formed any definite scheme
of life he was certainly very inconsistent in pursuing it. His moods
were as erratic as were those of the hero of Locksley Hall. He was
unable to bring his mind into harmony with the inevitable, and knew not
how to subordinate himself to the existing order of things. Even as an
army-officer he was not always amenable to discipline. The follies and
frivolities of society disgusted him, and his mind early received a warp
from which it never recovered. He lived in a time when there was plenty
of work ready to his hand, if he would but have condescended to take his
share of it. The work, however, was not to his taste, and his ambition
seems to have deserted him at a most inopportune time. He "burst all
links of habit," withdrew himself from his proper place in the world,
and passed the rest of his days in solitude and obscurity. As the
founder of an important settlement in a new Province, he certainly
accomplished some good in his day and generation. The enterprise,
however, does not seem to have been undertaken with any definite design
of accomplishing good, but merely with a view to securing a more
congenial mode of life for himself. That a man reared as he had been
should find anything congenial in such a life is a problem which is
insoluble to ordinary humanity.
The family from which he sprang has long been celebrated both in English
and continental history. Readers of Shakespeare's historical plays are,
it is to be hoped, sufficiently familiar with that "scourge of France"
who was defied by Joan of Arc, and who, with his son, John Talbot, fell
bravely fighting his country's battles on the field of Castillon, near
Bordeaux. It would be difficult for a man to sustain the burden of a
long line of such ancestors as these. It is therefore reassuring to
learn that the Talbot line has been diversified by representatives of
another sort. Readers of Macaulay's History are familiar with the name
of Richard Talbot, that noted sharper, bully, pimp and pander, who
haunted Whitehall during the years immediately succeeding the
Restoration; whose genius for mendacity procured for him the nickname
of "Lying Dick Talbot;" who became the husband of Frances Jennings; who
slandered Anne Hyde for the money of the Duke of York; who, in a word,
was one of the greatest scoundrels that figured in those iniquitous
times; and who was subsequently raised by James II. to the Earldom of
Tyrconnel. "Lying Dick" was a member of the Irish branch of the Talbot
family, which settled in Ireland during the reign of Henry II., and
became possessed of the ancient baronial castle of Malahide, in the
county of Dublin. The Talbots of Malahide trace their descent from the
same stock as the Talbots who have been Earls of Shrewsbury, in the
peerage of Great Britain, since the middle of the fifteenth century. The
father of the subject of this sketch was Richard Talbot, of Malahide.
His mother was Margaret, Baroness Talbot; and he himself was born at
Malahide on the 17th of July, 1771.
All that can be ascertained about his childhood is that he spent some
years at the Public Free School at Manchester, and that he received a
commission in the army in the year 1782, when he was only eleven years
of age. Whether or not he left school immediately after obtaining this
commission does not appear, but his education must have been very
imperfect, as he was not of a studious disposition, and in 1786, when he
was only sixteen, we find him installed as an aide-de-camp to his
relative the Marquis of Buckingham, who was then Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. His brother aide was the Arthur Wellesley already referred to.
The two boys were necessarily thrown much together, and each of them
formed a warm attachment for the other. Their future paths in life lay
far apart, but they never ceased to correspond, and to recall the happy
time they had spent together,
"Yearning for the large excitement that
the coming years would yield."
Young Talbot continued in the position of aide-de-camp for several
years. In 1790 he joined the 24th Regiment, which was then stationed at
Quebec, in the capacity of Lieutenant. We have no record of his life
during the next few months. Upon the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor
Simcoe at Quebec, at the end of May, 1792, Lieutenant Talbot, who had
nearly completed his twenty-first year, became attached to the
Governor's suite in the capacity of private secretary. He continued to
form part of the establishment of Upper Canada's first
Lieutenant-Governor until just before the latter's removal from this
country. "During that period," says General Simcoe, writing in 1803, "he
not only conducted many details and important duties incidental to the
original establishment of a colony, in matters of internal regulation,
to my entire satisfaction, but was employed in the most confidential
measures necessary to preserve the country in peace, without violating,
on the one hand, the relations of amity with the United States; and on
the other, alienating the affection of the Indian nations, at that
period in open war with them. In this very critical situation, I
principally made use of Mr. Talbot for the most confidential intercourse
with the several Indian Tribes; and occasionally with his Majesty's
Minister at Philadelphia; and these duties, without any salary or
emolument, he executed to my perfect satisfaction."
It seems to have been during his tenure of office as secretary to
Governor Simcoe that the idea of embracing a pioneer's life in Canada
first took possession of young Talbot's mind. It has been alleged that
his imagination was fired by reading a translation of part of
Charlevoix's "Historie Générale de la Nouvelle France," a work which
describes the writer's own experiences in the wilds of Canada in a
pleasant and easy fashion. This idea is probably attributable to an
assertion made by Colonel Talbot himself to Mrs. Jameson, when that
lady visited him during her brief sojourn in Upper Canada. "Charlevoix,"
said he, "was, I believe, the true cause of my coming to this place. You
know he calls this the Paradise of the Hurons. Now I was resolved to get
to Paradise by hook or by crook, and so I came here." It is much more
probable, however, that he was influenced by his own experiences in the
Canadian forest, which for him would possess all the charm of novelty,
in addition to its natural beauties. He accompanied the
Lieutenant-Governor hither and thither, and traversed in his company the
greater part of what then constituted Upper Canada. He formed a somewhat
intimate acquaintance with the Honourable William Osgoode, the first
Chief Justice of this Province, who was for some time an inmate of
Governor Simcoe's abode at Niagara--or Newark, as it was then generally
called. The Chief Justice felt the isolation of his position very
keenly, and was doubtless glad to relax his mind by communion with the
young Irish lieutenant, who possessed no inconsiderable share of the
humour characteristic of his nationality, and could make himself a boon
companion. At this time there would seem to have been nothing of the
misanthrope about Lieutenant Talbot. He seemed to take fully as much
enjoyment out of life as his circumstances admitted of. His constitution
was robust, and his disposition cheerful. He was prim, and indeed
fastidious about his personal appearance, and was keenly alive to
everything that was going on about him. He was popular among all the
members of the household, and was the especial friend of Major
Littlehales, the adjutant and general secretary, whose name is familiar
to most persons who take an interest in the history of the early
settlement of this Province.
On the 4th of February, 1793, an expedition which was destined to have
an important bearing upon the future life of Lieutenant Talbot, as well
as upon the future history of the Province, set out from Navy Hall[1] to
explore the pathless wilds of Upper Canada. It consisted of
Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe himself and several of his officers, among
whom were Major Littlehales and the subject of the present sketch. The
Major kept a diary during the journey, which was given to the world more
than forty years afterwards in the _Canadian Literary Magazine_, a
periodical of which several numbers were published in Toronto in 1834.
The expedition occupied five weeks, and extended as far as Detroit. The
route lay through Mohawk village, on the Grand River, where the party
were entertained by Joseph Brant; thence westward to where Woodstock now
stands; and so on by a somewhat devious course to Detroit, the greater
part of the journey being necessarily made on foot. On the return
journey the party camped on the present site of London, which Governor
Simcoe then pronounced to be an admirable position for the future
capital of the Province. One important result of this long and toilsome
journey was the construction of Dundas Street, or, as it is frequently
called, "the Governor's Road." The whole party were delighted with the
wild and primitive aspect of the country through which they passed, but
not one of them manifested such enthusiasm as young Lieutenant Talbot,
who expressed a strong desire to explore the land farther to the south,
bordering on Lake Erie. His desire was gratified in the course of the
following autumn, when Governor Simcoe indulged himself and several
members of his suite with another western excursion. During this journey
the party encamped on the present site of Port Talbot, which the young
Lieutenant declared to be the loveliest situation for a dwelling he had
ever seen. "Here," said he, "will I roost, and will soon make the forest
tremble under the wings of the flock I will invite by my warblings
around me." Whether he was serious in this declaration at the time may
be doubted; but, as will presently be seen, he ultimately kept his word.
In 1793 young Talbot received his majority. In 1796 he became
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifth Regiment of Foot. He returned to Europe,
and joined his regiment, which was despatched on active service to the
Continent. He himself was busily employed during this period, and was
for some time in command of two battalions. Upon the conclusion of the
Peace of Amiens, on the 27th of March, 1802, he sold his commission,
retired from the service, and prepared to carry out the intention
expressed by him to Governor Simcoe nine years before, of pitching his
tent in the wilds of Canada. Why he adopted this course it is impossible
to do more than conjecture. He never married, but remained a bachelor to
the end of his days. One writer ventures the hypothesis that he had been
crossed in love. The only justification, so far as we are aware, for
this hypothesis, is a half jocular expression of the Colonel's some
years afterwards. A friend having bantered him on the subject of his
remaining so long in a state of single blessedness, took an opportunity
of questioning him about it, and in the course of a familiar chat, asked
him why he remained so long single, when he stood so much in need of a
help-mate. "Why," said the Colonel, "to tell you the truth, I never saw
but one woman that I really cared anything about, and she would'nt have
me; and to use an old joke, those who would have me, the devil would'nt
have them. Miss Johnston," continued the Colonel, "the daughter of Sir
J. Johnston, was the only girl I ever loved, and she wouldn't have me."
Whatever cause may have impelled him, it is sufficiently evident that he
had become out of sorts with society, and had resolved to betake himself
to a distance from the haunts of civilized mankind. Aided by the
influence of ex-Governor Simcoe and other powerful friends, he obtained
a grant of five thousand acres of land as a Field Officer meaning to
reside in the Province, and to permanently establish himself there. The
land was situated in the southern part of the Upper Canadian peninsula,
bordering on Lake Erie, and included the site of what afterwards became
Port Talbot. This, however, was only a portion of the advantage
derivable from the grant. In addition to the tract so conferred upon him
he obtained a preëmptive or proprietary right over an immense territory
including about half a million acres, and comprising twenty-eight of the
adjacent townships.[2] For every settler placed by the Colonel on fifty
acres of this land, he was entitled to a patent of a hundred and fifty
additional acres for himself. He thus obtained practical control of an
expanse of territory which, as has been said, was "a principality in
extent." Armed with these formidable powers he once more crossed the
Atlantic, and made his way to the present site of Port Talbot, which had
so hugely attracted his fancy during his tour with Governor Simcoe. He
reached the spot on the 21st of May, 1803, and immediately set to work
with his axe, and cut down the first tree, to commemorate his landing to
take possession of his woodland estate. The settlement which
subsequently bore his name was then an unbroken forest, and there were
no traces of civilization nearer than Long Point, sixty miles to the
eastward, while to the westward the aborigines were still the lords of
the soil, and rules with the tomahawk. In this sequestered region
Colonel Talbot took up his abode, and literally made for himself "a
local habitation and a name."
At the time of his arrival he was accompanied by two or three stalwart
settlers who had crossed the Atlantic under his auspices, and with their
assistance he was not long in erecting an abode which was thenceforward
known as Castle Malahide. It was built on a high cliff overhanging the
lake. The "Castle" was "neither more nor less than a long range of low
buildings, formed of logs and shingles." The main structure consisted of
three divisions, or apartments; viz., a granary, which was also used as
a store-room; a dining-room, which was also used as an office and
reception-room for visitors; and a kitchen. There was another building
close by, containing a range of bed-rooms, where guests could be made
comfortable for the night. In his later years, the Colonel added a suite
of rooms of more lofty pretensions, but without disturbing the old
tenements, and these sumptuous apartments were reserved for state
occasions. There were underground cellars for wine, milk, and kitchen
stores. This description applies to the establishment as it appeared
when finally completed. For some time after the Colonel's first arrival
it was much less pretentious, and consisted of a single log shanty. In
order to prevent settlers and other people from intruding upon his
privacy unnecessarily, the Colonel caused one of the panes of glass in
the window of his office to be removed, and a little door, swung upon
hinges, to be substituted, after the fashion sometimes seen at rural
post-offices. By means of this little swinging door he held conferences
with all persons whom he did not chose to admit to a closer
communication. This, which at a first glance, would seem to smack of
superciliousness, was in reality nothing more than a judicious
precaution. In the course of his dealings with settlers and emigrants,
some of them were tempted, by the loneliness of his situation, to
browbeat, and even to manifest violence towards him. On one occasion, it
is said, he was assaulted and thrown down by one of the "land pirates,"
as he used to call them. The solitary situation in which he had
voluntarily placed himself, and the power he possessed of distributing
lands, required him to act frequently with apparent harshness, in order
to avoid being imposed upon by land jobbers, and to prevent artful men
from overreaching their weaker-minded brethren. His henchman,
house-steward and major-domo, was a faithful servant whose name was
Jeffery Hunter, in whom his master had great confidence, and who, as we
are gravely informed, was very useful in reaching down the maps.
Jeffery, however, did not enter the Colonel's employ until the later had
been some time in the country. Previous to that time this scion of
aristocracy was generally compelled to be his own servant, and to cook,
bake, and perform all the household drudgery, which he was not
unfrequently compelled to perform in the presence of distinguished
guests.
Some years seem to have elapsed before the Colonel attracted any
considerable number of settlers around him. The work of settlement
cannot be said to have commenced in earnest until 1809. It was no light
thing in those days for a man with a family dependent upon him to bury
himself in the remote wildernesses of Western Canada. There was no
flouring-mill, for instance, within sixty miles of Castle Malahide. In
the earliest years of the settlement the few residents were compelled to
grind their own grain after a primitive fashion, in a mortar formed by
hollowing out a basin in the stump of a tree with a heated iron. The
grain was placed in the basin, and then pounded with a heavy wooden
beetle until it bore some resemblance to meal. In process of time the
Colonel built a mill in the township of Dunwich, not far from his own
abode. It was a great boon to the settlement, but was not long in
existence, having been destroyed during the American invasion in 1812.
For the first twenty years of the Colonel's settlement, the hardships he
as well as his settlers had to contend with were of no ordinary kind,
and such only as could be overcome by industry and patient endurance.
Colonel Talbot for many years exercised almost imperial sway over the
district. He even provided for the wants of those in his immediate
neighbourhood, and assembled them at his house on the first day of the
week for religious worship. He read to them the services of the Church
of England, and insured punctual attendance by sending the
whiskey-bottle round among his congregation at the close of the
ceremonial. Though never a religious man, even in the broadest
acceptation of the term, he solemnized marriages and baptized the
children. So that his government was, in the fullest and best sense,
patriarchal. His method of transferring land was eminently simple and
informal. No deeds were given, nor were any formal books of entry called
into requisition. For many years the only records were sheet maps,
showing the position of each separate lot enclosed in a small space
within four black lines. When the terms of transfer had been agreed
upon, the Colonel wrote the purchaser's name within the space assigned
to the particular lot disposed of, and this was the only muniment of
title. If the purchaser afterwards disposed of his lot, the vendor and
vendee appeared at Castle Malahide, when, if the Colonel approved of the
transaction, he simply obliterated the former purchaser's name with a
piece of india-rubber, and substituted that of the new one.
"Illustrations might be multiplied," says a contemporary Canadian
writer, "of the peculiar way in which Colonel Talbot of Malahide
discharged the duties he had undertaken to perform. There is a strong
vein of the ludicrous running through these performances. We doubt
whether transactions respecting the sale and transfer of real estate
were, on any other occasion, or in any other place, carried on in a
similar way. Pencil and india-rubber performances were, we venture to
think, never before promoted to such trustworthy distinction, or called
on to discharge such responsible duties as those which they described on
the maps of which Jeffery and the dogs appeared to be the guardians.
There is something irresistibly amusing in the fact that such an estate,
exceeding half a million of acres, should have been disposed of in such
a manner, with the help of such machinery, and, so far as we are aware,
to the satisfaction of all concerned. It shows that a bad system
faithfully worked is better than a good system basely managed."[3]
During the American invasion of 1812-'13 and '14, Colonel Talbot
commanded the militia of the district, and was present at the battles of
Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie. Marauding parties sometimes found their way
to Castle Malahide during this troubled period, and what few people
there were in the settlement suffered a good deal of annoyance. Within a
day or two after the battle of the Thames, where the brave Tecumseh met
his doom, a party of these marauders, consisting of Indians and scouts
from the American army, presented themselves at Fort Talbot, and
summoned the garrison to surrender. The place was not fortified, and the
garrison consisted merely of a few farmers who had enrolled themselves
in the militia under the temporary command of a Captain Patterson. A
successful defence was out of the question and Colonel Talbot, who would
probably have been deemed an important capture, quietly walked out of
the back door as the invaders entered at the front. Some of the Indians
saw the Colonel, who was dressed in homely, everyday garb, walking off
through the woods, and were about to fire on him, when they were
restrained by Captain Patterson, who begged them not to hurt the poor
old fellow, who, he said, was the person who tended the sheep. This
white lie probably saved the Colonel's life. The marauders, however,
rifled the place, and carried off everything they could lay hands on,
including some valuable horses and cattle. Colonel Talbot's gold,
consisting of about two quart pots full, and some valuable plate,
concealed under the front wing of the house, escaped notice. The
invaders set fire to the grist mill, which was totally consumed, and
this was a serious loss to the settlement generally.
It was not till the year 1817 that anything like a regular store or shop
was established in the settlement. Previous to that time the wants of
the settlers were frequently supplied from the stores of Colonel Talbot,
who provided necessaries for his own use, and for the men whom he
employed. The Colonel was punctual in all his engagements, and
scrupulously exact in all monetary transactions. The large sums he
received for many years from the settlers were duly and properly
accounted for to the Government. He would accept payment of his claims
only in the form of notes on the Bank of Upper Canada, and persons
having any money to pay him were always compelled to provide themselves
accordingly. His accumulations were carefully stored in the place of
concealment above referred to; and once a year he carried his wealth to
Little York, and made his returns. This annual trip to Little York was
made in the depth of winter, and was almost the only event that took him
away from home, except on the two or three occasions when he visited the
old country. He was accustomed to make the journey to the Provincial
capital in a high box sleigh, clad in a sheepskin greatcoat which was
known to pretty nearly every man in the settlement.
Among the earliest settlers in the Talbot District was Mr. Mahlon
Burwell, a land surveyor, who was afterwards better known as Colonel
Burwell. He was of great assistance to Colonel Talbot, and became a
privileged guest at Castle Malahide. He surveyed many of the townships
in the Talbot District, and later on rose to a position of great
influence in the Province. His industry and perseverance long enabled
him to hold a high place in the minds of the people of the settlement,
and he enjoyed the reflection of Colonel Talbot's high and benevolent
character. He entered the Provincial Parliament, and for many years
retained a large measure of public confidence. Another early settler in
the District was the afterwards celebrated Dr. John Rolph, who took up
his quarters on Catfish Creek in 1813. He was long on terms of close
intimacy and friendship with Colonel Talbot, and in 1817 originated the
Talbot Anniversary, to commemorate the establishment of the District,
and to do honour to its Founder. This anniversary was held on the 21st
of May, the Colonel's birthday, and was kept up without interruption for
about twenty years. It was attended by every settler who could possibly
get to the place of celebration, which was sometimes at Port Talbot, but
more frequently at St. Thomas, after that place came into existence.
Once only it was held at London. It is perhaps worth while mentioning
that St. Thomas was called in honour of the Colonel's Christian name.
Here the rustics assembled in full force to drink bumpers to the health
of the Founder of the settlement, and to celebrate "the day, and all
who honour it." The Colonel, of course, never failed to appear, and even
after he had passed the allotted age of three score and ten, he always
led off the first dance with some blooming maiden of the settlement.
Practically speaking, there is no limit to the number of anecdotes which
are rife to this day among the settlers of the Talbot District with
respect to the Colonel's eccentricities and mode of life. On one
occasion a person named Crandell presented himself at Castle Malahide,
late in the evening, as an applicant for a lot of land. He was ushered
into the Colonel's presence, when the latter turned upon him with a
flushed and angry countenance, and demanded his money. The Colonel's
aspect was so fierce, and the situation was so lonely, that Crandell was
alarmed for his life, and forthwith surrendered all his capital. He was
then led off by Jeffery to the kitchen, where he was comfortably
entertained for the night. The next morning the Colonel settled his
business satisfactorily, and returned him his money, telling him that he
had taken it from him to prevent his being robbed by some of his
rascally servants. On another occasion a pedantic personage who lived in
the Township of Howard, and who spent much time in familiarizing himself
with the longest words to be found in the Dictionary, presented himself
before the Colonel, and began, in polysyllabic phrases, to lay a local
grievance before him. The language employed was so periphrastic and
pointless that the Colonel was at a loss to get at the meaning intended
to be conveyed. After listening for a few moments with ill-concealed
impatience, Talbot broke out with a profane exclamation, adding: "If you
do not come down to the level of my poor understanding, I can do nothing
for you." The man profited by the rebuke, and commenced in plain words,
but in rather an ambiguous manner, to state that his neighbour was
unworthy of the grant of land he had obtained, as he was not working
well. "Come, out with it," said the Colonel, "for I see now what you
would be at. You wish to oust your neighbour, and get the land for
yourself." After enduring further characteristic expletives, the man
took himself of incontinently. Although many of his settlers were native
Americans, the Colonel had an aversion to Yankees, and used to say of
them that they acquired property by whittling chips and barter--by
giving a shingle for a blind pup, which they swopped for a goose, and
then turned into a sheep. On another occasion, an Irishman, proud of his
origin, and whose patronymic told at once that he was a son of the
Emerald Isle, finding that he could not prevail with the Colonel on the
score of being a fellow-countryman, resorted to rudeness, and, with more
warmth than discretion, stood upon his pedigree, and told the Colonel
that his family was as honourable, and the coat of arms as respectable
and as ancient as that of the Talbots of Malahide. Jeffery and the dogs
were always the last resource on such occasions. "My dogs don't
understand heraldry," was the laconic retort, "and if you don't take
yourself off, they will not leave a coat to your back."
By the time the year 1826 came round, Colonel Talbot, in consequence of
his exertions to forward the interests of his settlement, had begun to
be very much straitened for means. He accordingly addressed a letter to
Lord Bathurst, Secretary for the Colonies in the Home Government, asking
for some remuneration for his long and valuable services. In his
application for relief we find this paragraph: "After twenty-three years
entirely devoted to the improvement of the Western Districts of this
Province, and establishing on their lands about 20,000 souls, without
any expense for superintendence to the Government, or the persons
immediately benefited; but, on the contrary, at a sacrifice of £20,000,
in rendering them comfortable, I find myself entirely straitened, and
now wholly without capital." He admitted that the tract of land he had
received from the Crown was large, but added that his agricultural
labours had been unproductive--a circumstance not much to be wondered at
when it is borne in mind that his time was chiefly occupied in selling
and portioning out the land. The Home Government responded by a grant of
£400 sterling per annum. The pension thus conferred was not gratuitous,
but by way of recompense for his services in locating settlers on the
waste lands of the Crown. That he was entitled to such a recompense few,
at the present day, will be found to deny. He was a father to his
people, and, in the words of his biographer, "acted as the friend of the
poor, industrious settler, whom he protected from the fangs of men in
office who looked only to the fees."[4]
In course of time the Colonel's place of abode at Port Talbot came to be
a resort for distinguished visitors to Upper Canada, and the
Lieutenant-Governors of the Province frequently resorted thither. The
late Chief Justice Sir John Beverley Robinson was a frequent and an
honoured guest at Castle Malahide; and Colonel Talbot, in his turn,
generally availed himself of the hospitality of the Chief Justice during
his annual visits to Little York. Among scores of other distinguished
visitors may be mentioned the Duke of Richmond, Sir Peregrine Maitland,
Lord Aylmer and Sir John Colborne. Mrs. Jameson also visited the spot
during her sojourn in this country just before the rebellion, and
published the most readable account of it that has yet appeared.
Speaking of the Colonel himself, she says: "This remarkable man is now
about sixty-five, perhaps more, but he does not look so much. In spite
of his rustic dress, his good-humoured, jovial, weather-beaten face, and
the primitive simplicity, not to say rudeness, of his dwelling, he has
in his features, air, and deportment, that _something_ which stamps him
gentleman. And that _something_ which thirty-four years of solitude have
not effaced, he derives, I suppose, from blood and birth--things of more
consequence, when philosophically and philanthropically considered, than
we are apt to allow. He must have been very handsome when young; his
resemblance now to our royal family, particularly to the King, (William
the Fourth,) is so very striking as to be something next to identity.
Good-natured people have set themselves to account for this wonderful
likeness in various ways, possible and impossible; but after a rigid
comparison of dates and ages, and assuming all that latitude which
scandal usually allows herself in these matters, it remains
unaccountable. . . I had always heard and read of him as the 'eccentric'
Colonel Talbot. Of his eccentricity I heard much more than of his
benevolence, his invincible courage, his enthusiasm, his perseverance;
but perhaps, according to the worldly nomenclature, these qualities come
under the general head of 'eccentricity,' when devotion to a favourite
object cannot possibly be referred to self-interest. . . Colonel
Talbot's life has been one of persevering, heroic self-devotion to the
completion of a magnificent plan, laid down in the first instance, and
followed up with unflinching tenacity of purpose. For sixteen years he
saw scarce a human being, except the few boors and blacks employed in
clearing and logging his land: he himself assumed the blanket-coat and
axe, slept upon the bare earth, cooked three meals a day for twenty
woodsmen, cleaned his own boots, washed his own linen, milked his cows,
churned the butter, and made and baked the bread. In this latter branch
of household economy he became very expert, and still piques himself on
it." Of the château itself and its immediate surroundings, she says:
"It" (the château) "is a long wooden building, chiefly of rough logs,
with a covered porch running along the south side. Here I found
suspended, among sundry implements of husbandry, one of those ferocious
animals of the feline kind, called here the cat-a-mountain, and by some
the American tiger, or panther, which it more resembles. This one, which
had been killed in its attack on the fold or poultry-yard, was at least
four feet in length, and glared on me from the rafters above, ghastly
and horrible. The interior of the house contains several comfortable
lodging-rooms; and one really handsome one, the dining-room. There is a
large kitchen with a tremendously hospitable chimney. Around the house
stands a vast variety of outbuildings, of all imaginable shapes and
sizes, and disposed without the slightest regard to order or symmetry.
One of these is the very log hut which the Colonel erected for shelter
when he first 'sat down in the bush,' four-and-thirty years ago, and
which he is naturally unwilling to remove. Many of these outbuildings
are to shelter the geese and poultry, of which he rears an innumerable
quantity. Beyond these is the cliff, looking over the wide blue lake, on
which I have counted six schooners at a time with their white sails; on
the left is Port Stanley. Behind the house lies an open tract of land,
prettily broken and varied, where large flocks of sheep and cattle were
feeding--the whole enclosed by beautiful and luxuriant woods, through
which runs the little creek or river. The farm consists of six hundred
acres; but as the Colonel is not quite so active as he used to be, and
does not employ a bailiff or overseer, the management is said to be
slovenly, and not so productive as it might be. He has sixteen acres of
orchard-ground, in which he has planted and reared with success all the
common European fruits, as apples, pears, plums, cherries, in abundance;
but what delighted me beyond everything else was a garden of more than
two acres, very neatly laid out and enclosed, and in which he evidently
took exceeding pride and pleasure; it was the first thing he showed me
after my arrival. It abounds in roses of different kinds, the cuttings
of which he had brought himself from England in the few visits he had
made there. Of these he gathered the most beautiful buds, and presented
them to me with such an air as might have become Dick Talbot presenting
a bouquet to Miss Jennings. We then sat down on a pretty seat under a
tree, where he told me he often came to meditate. He described the
appearance of the spot when he first came here, as contrasted with its
present appearance, or we discussed the exploits of some of his
celebrated and gallant ancestors, with whom my acquaintance was
(luckily) almost as intimate as his own. Family and aristocratic pride I
found a prominent feature in the character of this remarkable man. A
Talbot of Malahide, of a family representing the same barony from father
to son for six hundred years, he set, not unreasonably, a high value on
his noble and unstained lineage; and, in his lonely position, the
simplicity of his life and manners lent to these lofty and not unreal
pretensions a kind of poetical dignity. . . Another thing which gave a
singular interest to my conversation with Colonel Talbot was the sort of
indifference with which he regarded all the stirring events of the last
thirty years. Dynasties rose and disappeared; kingdoms were passed from
hand to hand like wine decanters; battles were lost and won;--he neither
knew, nor heard, nor cared. No post, no newspaper brought to his
forest-hut the tidings of victory and defeat, of revolutions of empires,
or rumours of unsuccessful and successful war."
The faithful servant, Jeffery Hunter, came in for a share of this
clever woman's keen observation. "This honest fellow," she tells us,
"not having forsworn female companionship, began to sigh after a
wife--and like the good knight in Chaucer, he did
'Upon his bare knees pray God him to send
A wife to last unto his life's end.'
So one morning he went and took unto himself the woman nearest at
hand--one, of whom we must needs suppose that he chose her for her
virtues, for most certainly it was not for her attractions. The Colonel
swore at him for a fool; but, after a while, Jeffery, who is a
favourite, smuggled his wife into the house; and the Colonel, whose
increasing age renders him rather more dependent on household help,
seems to endure very patiently this addition to his family, and even the
presence of a white-headed chubby little thing, which I found running
about without let or hindrance."
In politics Colonel Talbot was a Tory, but as a general rule he took no
part in the election contests of his time. His servant Jeffery Hunter,
however, who seems to have had a vote on his own account, was always
despatched promptly to the polling-place to record his vote in favour of
the Tory candidate. The Colonel was a Member of the Legislative Council,
but he seldom or never attended the deliberations of that Body. During
the Administration of Sir John Colborne, when the Liberals of Upper
Canada fought the battles of Reform with such energy and vigour, the
Colonel for a single campaign identified himself with the contest, and
made what seems to have been rather an effective election speech on the
platform at St. Thomas. He traced the history of the settlement, and
referred to his own labours in a fashion which elicited tumultuous
applause from the crowd. He deplored the spread of radical principles,
and expressed his regret that some advocates of those principles had
crept into the neighbourhood. The meeting passed a loyal address to the
Crown, which was dictated by Colonel Talbot himself. This, so far as is
known, was the only political meeting ever attended by him in this
Province.
The Colonel was nominally a member of the Church of England, and
contributed liberally to its support, though, as may well be supposed,
he was never eaten up by his zeal for episcopacy. By some people he was
set down as a freethinker, and by others as a Roman Catholic. The fact
is that the prevailing tone of his mind was not spiritual, and he gave
little thought to matters theological. During the early years of the
settlement, as we have seen, he was wont to read service to the
assembled rustics on Sunday; but this custom was abandoned as soon as
churches began to be accessible to the people of the neighbourhood; and
after that time, though he was occasionally seen at church, he was not
an habitual attendant at public worship. He was fond of good company,
and liked to tell and listen to dubious stories "across the walnuts and
the wine." A clergyman who officiated at a little church about five
miles from Port Talbot was his frequent guest at dinner, until the
Colonel's outrageous jokes and stories proved too much for the clerical
idea of the eternal fitness of things. "It must," says his biographer,
"have been rather a bold venture for a young clergyman to come in
contact with a man of Colonel Talbot's wit and racy humour, and a man
who would startle at the very idea of being priest ridden; in fact, who
would be much more likely to saddle the priest. The reverend gentleman
bore with him a long while, till at length finding that he was not
making any progress with the old gentleman in a religious point of
view--on the contrary, that his sallies of wit became more frequent and
cutting--he left him to get to heaven without his assistance. Colonel
Talbot was never pleased with himself for having said or done anything
to provoke the displeasure of his reverend guest, but being in the habit
at table, after dinner, of smacking his lips over a glass of good port,
and cracking jokes, which extorted from his guest a half approving
smile, he was tempted to exceed the bounds which religious or even
chaste conversation would prescribe, and came so near proving _in vino
veritas_, that the reverend gentleman would never revisit him, although
I believe it was Colonel Talbot's earnest desire that he should."
Bad habits, if not checked in season, have a tendency to grow worse. As
the Colonel advanced in years his liking for strong drink increased to
such an extent that the _in vino veritas_ stage was, we fear, reached
pretty often. To such a state of things his solitary life doubtless
conduced. He had an iron constitution, however, and it does not appear
that his intemperate habits during the evening of his life materially
shortened his days. He lived long enough to see the prosperity of his
settlement fully assured. For many years prior to his death it appears
to have been his cherished desire to bequeath his large estate to one of
the male descendants of the Talbot family, and with this view he invited
one of his sister's sons, Mr. Julius Airey, to come over from England
and reside with him at Port Talbot. This young gentleman accordingly
came to reside there, but the dull, monotonous life he was obliged to
lead, and the Colonel's eccentricities, were ill calculated to engage
the affections of a youth just verging on manhood; and after
rusticating, without companions or equals in either birth or education,
for some time, he returned to England and relinquished whatever claims
he might consider he had on his uncle. Some years later a younger
brother of Julius, Colonel Airey, Military Secretary at the Horse
Guards, ventured upon a similar experiment, and came out to Canada with
his family to live at Port Talbot. About this time the Colonel's health
began seriously to fail, and his habits began to gain greater hold upon
him than ever. As a necessary consequence he became crabbed and
irritable. The uncle and nephew could not get on together. "The former,"
says his biographer, "had been accustomed for the greater portion of his
life to suit the convenience of his domestics, and, in common with the
inhabitants of the country, to dine at noon; the latter was accustomed
to wait for the buglecall, till seven o'clock in the evening. Colonel
Talbot could, on special occasions, accommodate himself to the habits of
his guests, but to be regularly harnessed up for the mess every day was
too much to expect from so old a man; no wonder he kicked in the traces.
He soon came to the determination of keeping up a separate
establishment, and another spacious mansion was erected adjoining
Colonel Airey's, where he might, he thought, live as he pleased. But all
would not do, the old bird had been disturbed in his nest, and he could
not be reconciled." He determined to leave Canada, and to end his days
in the Old World. He transferred the Port Talbot estate, valued at
£10,000, together with 13,000 acres of land in the adjoining township of
Aldborough, to Colonel Airey. This transfer, however, left more than
half of his property in his own hands, and he was still a man of great
wealth. Acting on his determination to leave Canada, he started, in his
eightieth year, for Europe. Upon reaching London, only a day's journey
from Port Talbot, he was prostrated by illness, and was confined to his
bed for nearly a month. He rallied, however, and resumed his journey. In
due time he reached London the Greater. He was accompanied on the voyage
by Mr. George McBeth, the successor to the situation of Jeffery Hunter,
who had died some years before. McBeth had gained complete ascendancy
over the Colonel's failing mind. Being a young man of some education,
and a good deal of finesse, he was treated by his master as a companion
rather than as a servant, and the latter merited his master's regard by
nursing him with much care and attention.
Colonel Talbot remained in London somewhat more than a year, during
which period, as also during his previous visits to England, he renewed
old associations with the friend of his youth, the great Duke. He was
often the latter's guest at Apsley House, and the stern old hero of a
hundred fights delighted in his society. London life, however, was
distasteful to Colonel Talbot, and, after giving it a fair trial, he
once more bade adieu to society and repaired to Canada--always attended
assiduously by George McBeth. Upon reaching the settlement he took
lodgings for himself and his companion in the house of Jeffery Hunter's
widow. Here, cooped up in a small room, on the outskirts of the
magnificent estate which was no longer his own, he received occasional
visits from his old friends. Colonel Airey, meanwhile, had rented the
Port Talbot property to an English gentleman named Saunders, and had
returned to his post at the Horse Guards in England. Mr. Saunders had
several daughters, to one of whom George McBeth paid assiduous court,
and whom he afterwards married. Upon his marriage he removed to London,
accompanied by Colonel Talbot, who resided with him until his death, on
the 6th of February, 1853. When the Colonel's will was opened it was
found that with the exception of an annuity of £20 to Jeffery Hunter's
widow, all his vast estate, estimated at £50,000, had been left to
George McBeth.
The funeral took place on the 9th. On the previous day--the 8th--the
body was conveyed in a hearse from London to Fingal, on the way to Port
Talbot, so as to be ready for interment on the following morning. By
some culpable neglect or mismanagement it was placed for the night in
the barn or granary of the local inn. The settlers were scandalized at
this indignity, and one of them begged, with tears in his eyes, that the
body might be removed to his house, which was close by. The undertaker,
who is said to have been under the influence of liquor, declined to
accede to this request, and the body remained all night in the barn. On
the following morning it was replaced in the hearse and conveyed to Port
Talbot, where it rested for a short time within the walls of Castle
Malahide. A few attached friends from London and other parts of the
settlement attended the coffin to its place of sepulture in the
churchyard at Tyrconnel. The officiating clergyman, the Rev. Mr.
Holland, read the service in a cutting wind, and the ceremony was ended.
A plate on the oaken coffin bore the simple inscription:
THOMAS TALBOT,
FOUNDER OF THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT,
Died 6th February, 1853.
[Illustration: DAVID LAIRD, signed as D. LAIRD]
THE HON. DAVID LAIRD,
_LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES._
The Hon. David Laird is the fourth son of the late Hon. Alexander Laird,
a Scottish farmer who, in the year 1819, emigrated from Renfrewshire to
Prince Edward Island. The late Mr. Laird settled in Queen's County,
about sixteen miles from Charlottetown, the capital of the Province, and
devoted himself to agriculture. He was a man of high character and great
influence, alike in political and social matters. For about sixteen
years he represented the First District of Queen's County in the Local
Assembly, and during one Parliamentary term of four years he was a
member of the Executive Council. He was a colleague and supporter of the
Hon. George Coles, who is called the father of Responsible Government in
Prince Edward Island. He was one of the signatories to the petition
forwarded by the Assembly to the Home Government in 1847, praying that
Responsible Government might be conceded; and he had the satisfaction of
sitting in the Assembly on the 25th of March, 1851, when Sir Alexander
Bannerman, the Governor, announced that the prayer of the petition had
been granted. He was also for many years one of the most active members
of the Managing Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society of Prince
Edward, an institution which did much for the advancement of
agricultural industry in the Province, by encouraging the importation of
improved stock, and by other similar operations.
The subject of this sketch was born at the paternal home, near the
village of New Glasgow, Queen's County, in the year 1833. He was
educated at the district school of his native settlement, and afterwards
entered the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church of Nova
Scotia, which was then situated at Truro, in that Province. He completed
his education at the Seminary, and soon afterwards embarked in
journalism at Charlottetown, where he founded a newspaper called _The
Patriot_. Under his editorship and business management this journal
became, in the course of a few years, the leading organ of public
opinion in Prince Edward Island. It advocated Liberal principles, and
was conducted with much energy and ability. The editor had inherited
Liberal ideas from his father, and spoke and wrote on behalf of them
with great effect. After a time he became estranged from the leader of
the Liberal Party, the chief cause of estrangement arising from the
latter's having lent his countenance to some proceedings tending to
exclude the Bible from the Common Schools. All minor causes of
controversy, however, were cast into the shade by the great question of
Confederation. After the close of the Quebec Conference in October,
1864, Mr. Laird took a firm stand against the terms of the scheme agreed
upon by the delegates, in so far as they related to his native Province.
He assigned as his principal reasons for adopting this course the fact
that the terms contained no proposal for the settlement of the Land
Question, which had long been a sore grievance with the tenantry of the
island; and the further fact that no provision was made for the
construction of public works, although the island could be called upon
to contribute its quota of taxation towards the Intercolonial Railway,
the canals, and the Pacific Railway. He took an active part in the
promotion of sanitary and other local improvements, and was for some
years a member of the Charlottetown City Council. His first entry into
Parliamentary life took place in 1871. The then-existing Government,
under the leadership of the Hon. James Colledge Pope (the present
Minister of Marine and Fisheries in the Dominion Government), had
carried a measure for the construction of the Prince Edward Island
Railway, running nearly the entire length of the island. This project
Mr. Laird had opposed, on the ground that it should have been first
submitted to the people at the polls, and also because he regarded the
undertaking as beyond the resources of the Province. The Government,
however, had carried the Bill providing for the construction of the road
through the House during the previous session, and the surveyors and
Commissioners had been appointed. The Chairman of the Commissioners, the
Hon. James Duncan, represented the constituency of Belfast in the
Legislative Assembly, and was obliged to return to his constituents for
reëlection after accepting office. Mr. Laird offered himself as a
candidate in opposition to the Government nominee. His candidature was
successful. The Commissioner was defeated, and Mr. Laird secured a seat
in the Assembly. A good deal of dissatisfaction had been excited by the
proceedings of the Local Government in connection with the construction
of the road, the result being that Mr. Pope, when he next met the House,
found he had lost the confidence of the majority, and being defeated, he
dissolved the House and appealed to the country. The appeal was
disastrous to his policy, a majority of the members returned being
hostile to his Government. Among these was Mr. Laird, who was elected a
second time for Belfast. A new Government was formed with Mr. R. P.
Haythorne as Premier. During the following autumn Mr. Laird accepted
office in this Government, and was sworn in as a Member of the Executive
Council in November, 1872. Finding that if the railway were proceeded
with on the credit of Prince Edward Island alone, the Provincial
finances would be seriously embarrassed, the new Ministers responded
favourably to an invitation from Ottawa to reconsider the question of
Union. Mr. Laird formed one of the delegation which proceeded to Ottawa
and negotiated terms of Union with the Dominion Government. After the
return of the delegates the Local House was dissolved in order that the
terms agreed upon might be submitted to the people. A good deal of
finesse was practised by the Opposition, and various side issues were
imported into the election contest. The result was the return of a
majority hostile to Mr. Haythorne's Ministry, and Mr. Pope again
succeeded to the reins of Government. Under his auspices the terms of
Union were slightly modified, and Prince Edward Island entered
Confederation.
Mr. Laird had meanwhile succeeded to the leadership of the Liberal
Party. The House did not divide, however, on the question of
Confederation, and both Parties concurred in supporting the measure. Mr.
Laird resigned his seat in the Local Legislature, and offered himself as
a candidate for the House of Commons for the electoral district of
Queen's County. He was returned by a large majority, and on the opening
of the second session of the second Parliament of the Dominion, in
October, 1873, he took his seat in the House of Commons at Ottawa. The
Pacific Scandal disclosures followed, and Sir John A. Macdonald's
Government made way for that of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie. In the new
Administration Mr. Laird accepted the portfolio of Minister of the
Interior, and was sworn into office on the 7th of November. Upon
returning to his constituents in Queen's County he was returned by
acclamation. He was again returned by acclamation at the general
election of 1874. He retained his office of Minister of the Interior
until the 7th of October, 1876, when he was appointed by the
Governor-General to the Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-West
Territories. This position he has ever since filled with the best
results to the Dominion. During his tenure of office as Minister of the
Interior he carried several important measures through Parliament,
and--in the summer of 1874--effected an important Treaty with the
Indians of the North-West, whereby he secured to the Crown the
possession of a tract of 75,500 square miles in extent, and thus
guaranteed the peaceable possession of a large portion of the route of
the Canada Pacific Railway and its accompanying telegraph lines.
In 1864 Mr. Laird married Mary Louisa, second daughter of the late Mr.
Thomas Owen, who was for many years Postmaster-General of Prince Edward
Island. An elder brother of the Lieutenant-Governor, the Hon. Alexander
Laird, held office in the late Local Government of Prince Edward Island,
and at present represents the Second District of Prince, in the Local
Assembly.
THE HON. CHARLES E. B. DE BOUCHERVILLE.
The Bouchers and De Bouchervilles for over two hundred years have played
no unimportant part in the history of Canada. Lieutenant-General Pierre
Boucher, Sieur de Grobois, Governor of Three Rivers in 1653, the founder
of the Seigniory of Boucherville, and a man of great influence in his
day, was one of the most noted members of the family. The late Hon. P.
Boucher de Boucherville, for many years a Legislative Councillor of
Lower Canada, was the father of the subject of this sketch, who was born
at Boucherville, Province of Quebec, in 1820. He was educated at St.
Sulpice College, Montreal. He subsequently went to Paris, pursued his
studies in the medical profession there, and graduated with high
honours. He has been married twice, first to Miss Susanne Morrogh,
daughter of Mr. R. L. Morrogh, Advocate, of Montreal; and after her
death, to Miss C. Luissier, of Varennes. In 1861 he was elected to the
House of Assembly for the county of Chambly. He continued to represent
this constituency until 1867, when he entered the Legislative Council,
and became a member of Mr. Chauveau's Ministry, with the office of
Speaker of the Council, which position he held until February, 1873. On
the reconstruction of the Cabinet, September 22nd, 1874, he was
entrusted with the formation of a Ministry. This duty he accomplished
successfully, taking for himself the portfolio of Secretary and
Registrar, and Minister of Public Instruction. On the 27th January,
1876, he changed his portfolio for that of Agriculture and Public Works.
In February, 1879, he was called to the Senate, an honour which he
accepted without resigning his seat in the Legislative Council.
The De Boucherville Ministry remained in power until the 4th of March,
1878, when it was summarily dismissed by the Hon. Luc Letellier de St.
Just, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, for reasons which appeared to
him to be just. The facts with reference to this matter have been
detailed in the sketch of the life of Mr. Letellier, contained in the
first volume of this work. On the refusal of Mr. De Boucherville to name
a successor, Mr. Letellier called in the Hon. Henri Gustave Joly of
Lotbinière, and invited him to form a Ministry. In October, 1879, the
ex-Premier and his friends succeeded in defeating the Liberal
Government. A Conservative Ministry was formed, in whose councils,
however, Mr. De Boucherville has taken no part, though his efforts to
drive from power the Liberal Administration were conspicuously displayed
in the Upper Chamber of the Province. He is a good speaker, precise,
moderate and adroit. He is skilful in defence and equally skilful in
attack. His administrative capacity is considerable, and the duties of
the several offices which he has held at various intervals, have been
ably and industriously performed.
[Illustration: SAMUEL NELLES, signed as S. S. NELLES]
THE REV. SAMUEL NELLES, D.D., LL.D.,
_PRESIDENT OF VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, COBOURG._
Dr. Nelles's life, like that of most men of purely scholastic pursuits,
has been comparatively uneventful, and does not form a very fruitful
field for biographical purposes. It has, however, been an eminently
useful one, and has been attended with results most beneficial to the
educational establishment with which his name has long been associated,
and over which he has presided for a continuous period of thirty years.
He is of German descent, on both the paternal and maternal sides. His
paternal grandparents emigrated from Germany to the State of New York
sometime during the last century, and settled in the historic valley of
the Mohawk, where some of their descendants still reside. There Dr.
Nelles's father, the late Mr. William Nelles, was born, and there he
passed the early years of his life. He married Miss Mary Hardy, who was
also of German stock on the mother's side, and was born in the State of
Pennsylvania. By this lady he had a numerous family, the eldest son
being the subject of this sketch. The parents emigrated from New York
State to Upper Canada soon after the close of the War of 1812-15, and
devoted themselves to farming pursuits. The Doctor was born at the
family homestead, in the quiet little village of Mount Pleasant--known
to the Post Office Department as Mohawk--in what is now the township of
Brantford, in the county of Brant, about five miles south-west of the
present city of Brantford, on the 17th of October, 1823. At the present
day, the schools of Mount Pleasant will bear comparison with those of
many places of much larger population; but fifty years ago, when young
Samuel Nelles was in attendance there, they were like most other schools
in the rural districts of Upper Canada--that is to say, they afforded no
facilities for anything beyond a very rudimentary educational training.
Such as they were, however, they furnished the only means of instruction
at his command until he had entered upon his seventeenth year. Previous
to that time he had lived at home, attending school and assisting his
father in farm work. He had, however, displayed great fondness for
study, and had, by dint of his natural ability and steady application,
made greater progress than could have been made by any boy who was not
possessed by an ardent thirst for knowledge. His parents accordingly
resolved that he should have an opportunity of following out the natural
bent of his mind. In 1839 he was placed at Lewiston Academy, in the
State of New York, where he spent an industrious year, and where he had
for a tutor the brilliant, witty and humorous John Godfrey Saxe. Mr.
Saxe was not then known to the world as a poet, but he was an
accomplished philologist, and was reading for the Bar. He had just
graduated at Middlebury College, Vermont, and was teaching
_belles-lettres_ in the Lewiston Academy contemporaneously with the
prosecution of his legal studies. In October, 1840, young Nelles
transferred himself to an academy at Fredonia, in Chautauqua county,
N.Y., where he remained ten months. In the following October (1841) he
entered the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, at Lima, N.Y., where he devoted
his time chiefly to Classics, Mathematics, English Literature and
Criticism. Having spent a profitable year at Lima, he entered Victoria
College, Cobourg--which was then under the Presidency of the Rev.
Egerton Ryerson--in the autumn of 1842. He was one of the first two
matriculated students at the institution, which had just been
incorporated as a University. After an Arts course of two years at
Victoria College, and a year spent in study at home, he attended for
some time at the University of Middletown, Connecticut, where he
graduated as B.A. in 1846. He then spent a year as a teacher in Canada,
and took charge of the Newburgh Academy, in the county of Lennox. In
June, 1847, he entered the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist Church,
and was placed in charge of a congregation at Port Hope, where he
remained for a year. He was then transferred to the old Adelaide Street
Church, Toronto, where he laboured for two years. Thence he was
transferred to London, but had only resided there about three months
when, in the month of September, 1850, he was appointed President of
Victoria College. This important and responsible position he has held
ever since.
At the time of his taking office, the institution was by no means in a
flourishing condition. It was carried on under circumstances of great
difficulty and embarrassment, and had a competent administrator not been
found to take charge of it, its future would have been very
problematical. An improvement in its condition, however, was perceptible
from the time when Mr. Nelles took the management. It has continued to
prosper ever since, and has long ago taken rank among the most
noteworthy educational institutions in the Dominion. At the time of
Professor Nelles's appointment there was only a single
Faculty--Arts--and the attendance was very small. The teachers were only
five in number. The Professor's vigorous administration soon effected a
marked change for the better. In 1854 the Faculty of Medicine was added.
It at first embraced only one medical college, which was presided over
for many years by the late Dr. Rolph. In process of time a second
institution, L'École de Médecine et de Chirurgie, Montreal, became
affiliated, and still continues to hold the same relationship to the
University. A Law Faculty was added in 1862, and in 1872 a Faculty of
Theology.
When Professor Nelles became President he at the same time became
Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Logic, and the Evidences of
Religion. These subjects he has continued to teach ever since, with the
addition, since 1872, of Homiletics. He has devoted his life to the task
of building up the institution, and has been ably seconded by the staff
of teachers whom he has from time to time gathered about him. Until
comparatively recent times there was no endowment fund, and the College
had to depend for its support solely on tuition fees, on the annual
contributions of the ministers and people of the Wesleyan Methodist
Body, and on a Parliamentary grant which Victoria College, in common
with other denominational schools, had been wont to receive. After
Confederation, all grants to denominational colleges were discontinued,
and Victoria College was left almost entirely unprovided for. At a
meeting of the Methodist Conference it was proposed by President Nelles
that an appeal should be made to the people for contributions to an
endowment fund. The proposal was adopted by the Conference, and the Rev.
Dr. Punshon, who was then resident in Canada, took an active personal
interest in the movement. He contributed $3,000 out of his own pocket,
and made a personal tour through part of Ontario, holding public
meetings, whereby a sum of $50,000 was secured. Several other Methodist
ministers followed his example, and the fund steadily increased. In
1873, however, the amount was still insufficient, and the Rev. Joshua H.
Johnson was appointed by the Conference to make further collections. Mr.
Johnson entered upon his task, and pursued it with great vigour. His
efforts were supplemented by a munificent bequest of $30,000 from the
late Mr. Edward Jackson, of Hamilton. The requisite amount was
eventually obtained, and the future of Victoria College secured.
The erection of Faraday Hall, at a cost of $25,000, chiefly for
Scientific purposes, marks a new epoch in the history of Victoria
College. This Hall was formally opened on the 29th of May, 1878. Dr.
Haanel, a distinguished German Professor, was placed in charge of the
scientific department, and the results of his teaching are already
apparent in an awakened interest in scientific matters displayed by the
students of the College.
Upon the whole, Dr. Nelles may well be pardoned if he looks back upon
his thirty years' Presidency of Victoria College with a considerable
degree of complacency. To him, more than to anyone else, is due its
present state of prosperity and enlarged efficiency. He has also taken a
warm interest in educational matters unconnected with the College, and
his influence is perceptibly felt in all the local schools. He was for
two successive years elected President of the Teachers' Association of
Ontario, and his views on all matters pertaining to public instruction
are held in high respect.
Dr. Nelles was chosen a delegate to represent the Canadian Conference at
the General Methodist Conference held at Philadelphia in 1864, at the
New Brunswick Conference of 1866, and at the English Wesleyan Conference
held at Newcastle in 1873. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was
conferred upon him by the University of Queen's College, Kingston, in
1860. His Doctor's degree in Law was conferred upon him in 1873 by the
University of Victoria College. He is the author of a popular text-book
on Logic, and has frequently contributed to periodical literature. He
enjoys high repute as a lecturer, more especially on educational
subjects; and his sermons, some of which have been published, are said
to be of an exceptionally high order.
On the 3rd of July, 1851, he married Miss Mary B. Wood, daughter of the
Rev. Enoch Wood, of Toronto, by whom he has a family of five children.
THE HON. WILLIAM HUME BLAKE.
The late Chancellor Blake, one of the most distinguished jurists that
ever sat on the Canadian Bench, was a member of an Irish family, known
as the Blakes of Cashelgrove, in the county of Galway. The family was
well connected and stood high among the county magnates. Sometime about
the middle of the last century, Dominick Edward Blake, its chief
representative, married the Hon. Miss Netterville, daughter of Lord
Netterville, of Drogheda. After her death, he married a second wife, who
was a daughter of Sir Joseph Hoare, Baronet, of Annabella, in the county
of Cork. By this lady he had four sons, one of whom, christened Dominick
Edward, after his father, took orders as a clergyman of the Church of
England, and became Rector and Rural Dean of Kiltegan and
Loughbrickland. This gentleman married Miss Anne Margaret Hume, eldest
daughter of Mr. William Hume, of Humewood, M.P. for the county of
Wicklow. During the progress of the rebellion of 1798, Mr. Hume sent his
children to Dublin for safety, and took personal command of a corps of
yeomanry raised in his county. He fell a victim to his loyalty, and was
shot near his own residence at Humewood by some rebels of whom he was in
pursuit. Lord Charlemont, in a published letter, alluded to this
deplorable event as "the murder of Hume, the friend and favourite of his
country," and characterized it as an "example of atrocity which exceeded
all that went before it."
William Hume Blake, the subject of this memoir, was the grandson and
namesake of the unfortunate gentleman above referred to, and was one of
the fruits of the marriage of his father, the Rev. D. E. Blake, to Miss
Hume. He was born at the Rectory, at Kiltegan, County Wicklow, on the
10th of March, 1809. He was the second son of his parents, his elder
brother, Dominick Edward, being named in honour of his father and
paternal grandfather. The elder brother emulated his father's example,
and became a clergyman of the Church of England. The younger, after
receiving his education at Trinity College, Dublin, studied surgery
under Surgeon-General Sir Philip Crampton. Surgery, however, was not
much to his taste. The accompaniments of that profession--notably the
coarse jokes and experiments which he was daily called upon to encounter
in the dissecting-room--proved at last so repulsive to his nature that
he abandoned surgery altogether, and entered upon a course of
theological study with a view to entering the Church. His studies had
not proceeded far, however, before he and his elder brother determined
to emigrate to Canada. This determination was carried out in the summer
of 1832. A short time before leaving his native land, the younger
brother married his cousin, Miss Catharine Hume, the granddaughter--as
he himself was the grandson--of the William Hume whose tragical death
has already been recorded. This lady, who shared alike the struggles
and triumphs of her distinguished husband till the close of his earthly
career, still survives.
The Blake brothers were induced to emigrate to this country, partly
because their prospects at home were not particularly bright, partly in
consequence of the strong inducements held out by the then
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Sir John Colborne. The
representations of Major Jones, the elder brother's father-in-law,
doubtless contributed something to the result. The Major was a retired
officer who had served in this country during the war of 1812-'13-'14,
and had taken part in the battles of Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane.
He was fond of fighting his battles over again by his own fireside and
that of his son-in-law. He was never weary of enlarging on the beauty
and primitive wildness of Canadian scenery, the pleasures and freedom
from conventionality of a life spent in the backwoods, and the brilliant
prospects awaiting young men of courage, energy, endurance, and ability,
in the wilds of Upper Canada. The Blake brothers were Irishmen, and were
gifted with the national vividness of imagination. They doubtless
pictured to themselves the delights of "a lodge in some vast
wilderness," where game of all sorts was abundant, and where game laws
had no existence. They had of course no adequate conception of the
struggles and trials incident to pioneer life. They were not alone in
their notions about Canada. Many of their friends and acquaintances
about this time became imbued with a desire to emigrate, and upon taking
counsel together they found that there were enough of them to form a
small colony by themselves. Having made all necessary arrangements they
chartered a vessel--the _Ann_, of Halifax--and sailed for the St.
Lawrence in the month of July, 1832. Among the friends and relations of
the brothers Blake embarked on board were their mother, who had been
left a widow; their sister and her husband, the late Archdeacon Brough;
the late Mr. Justice Connor; the Rev. Benjamin Cronyn, late Bishop of
Huron; and the Rev. Mr. Palmer, Archdeacon of Huron. After a six weeks'
voyage they reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence, whence by slow
degrees they made their way to Little York, as the Upper Canadian
capital was then called. Here they remained until the following spring,
when they divided their forces. Some of them remained in York;
others--including Mr. Connor and Mr. Brough--proceeded northward to the
township of Oro, on Lake Simcoe; and others settled on the Niagara
peninsula. The elder Blake had meanwhile been appointed by the
Lieutenant-Governor to a Rectory in the township of Adelaide, and there
he accordingly pitched his tent. His brother, the subject of this
sketch, purchased a farm in the same part of the country, at a place on
Bear Creek--now called Sydenham River--near the present site of the
village of Katesville, or Mount Hope, in the county of Middlesex. He
then had an opportunity of realizing the full delights of a life in the
Canadian backwoods. "With whatever romantic ideas of the delights of
such a life Mr. Hume Blake had determined on making Canada his home,"
says a contemporary Canadian author, "they were soon dispelled by the
rough experiences of the reality. The settler in the remotest section of
Ontario to-day has no conception of the struggles and hardships that
fell to the lot of men who, accustomed to all the refinements of life,
found themselves cut off from all traces of civilization in a land,
since settled and cultivated, but then so wild that between what are now
populous cities there existed only an Indian trail through the forest.
Mr. Blake was not a man to be easily discouraged, but soon found that
his talents were being wasted in the wilderness. In after years he was
fond of telling of the rude experiences of life in the bush, and among
other incidents how that he had, on one occasion, walked to the
blacksmith's shop before mentioned to obtain a supply of harrow-pins,
and, finding them too heavy to carry, had fastened them to a chain,
which he put round his neck, and so dragged them home through the
woods."
It was during the residence of the family at Bear Creek that the eldest
son, Edward, was born,[5] but he was not destined to receive his
educational training amid such surroundings. While he was still an
infant the family removed to Toronto. A life in the backwoods had been
tried, and was found to be unsuited to the genius and ambition of a man
like William Hume Blake. He had tried surgery, divinity, and
agriculture, and had not taken kindly to any of those pursuits. He now
resolved to attempt the law, and commenced his legal studies in the
office of the late Mr. Washburn, a well-known lawyer in those days.
During the troubles of 1837 he was, we believe, for a short time
paymaster of a battalion, but fortunately there was no occasion for his
active services. In 1838 he was called to the Bar of Upper Canada, and
was not long in making his way to a foremost position. His rivals at the
Bar were among the foremost counsel who have ever practised in this
Province, and included Mr. (afterwards Chief Justice) Draper, Mr.
(afterwards Judge) Sullivan, Mr. Henry John Boulton, Mr. (now Chief
Justice) Hagarty, Robert Baldwin, Henry Eccles, and John Hillyard
Cameron. Mr. Blake soon proved his ability to hold his own against all
comers. He enjoyed some personal advantages which stood him in good
stead, both while he was fighting his way and afterwards. His tall,
handsome person, and fine open face, his felicitous language, and bold
manly utterance gained him at once the full attention of both Court and
Jury; and his vigorous grasp of the whole case under discussion, his
acute, logical dissection of the evidence, and the thorough earnestness
with which he always threw himself into his client's case, swept
everything before them. In the days when such men as Draper, Sullivan,
Baldwin and Eccles were at the Bar, it was something to stand among the
foremost. Mr. Blake became associated in business with Mr. Joseph C.
Morrison--now one of the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench--and some
years later, his relative, the late Dr. Connor, who in 1863 became one
of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, entered the firm. Business
poured in, and the number of Mr. Blake's briefs increased in almost
geometrical proportion. His arguments were of due weight with the judges
of those times, but with juries his force was irresistible. Many
incidents have been related of his forensic triumphs. Among other cases
recorded by the writer already quoted from, that of Kerby vs. Lewis
occupies a conspicuous place. The question at issue was Mr. Kerby's
right to monopolize a ferry communication between Fort Erie and some
point on the American shore. This right the defendant contested, and
employed Mr. Blake to conduct his case. The judges appear to have leaned
strongly to the side of the plaintiff, and granted a succession of new
trials, as, on each occasion, Mr. Blake's telling appeals to their
sympathy with the defendant, as the champion of free intercourse between
the two countries, extorted from the juries a verdict in favour of his
client. It is said that the Court finally refused to grant any further
new trials in sheer hopelessness of any jury being found to reverse the
original finding.
Another proof of his energy and ingenuity was given in the Webb arson
case, which made a considerable noise at the time. Webb was the owner
of a shoe store in Toronto. Having on more than one occasion obtained
compensation from fire insurance companies for losses he had sustained,
suspicion was excited against him, and, on another fire occurring, the
companies decided on prosecuting. Webb retained Mr. Blake. The theory of
the defence was that a stove-pipe from the adjoining store, which
connected with Webb's premises, had become heated, and had ignited some
"rubbers" hanging in the vicinity. The prosecution denied that "rubbers"
were combustible in any such sense as the defence represented. To put
his theory beyond a doubt, Mr. Blake, on the evening before the trial,
had set his two boys, Edward and Samuel, to look up every piece of
information they could obtain from encyclopaedias or other sources as to
the properties of rubber. Then an old pair of "rubbers" was procured,
experiments were engaged in, and both father and sons were occupied
during the greater part of the night in their investigations, to the no
small discomfort of the other members of the household. When the trial
came on next day, after the case for the prosecution had been presented,
Mr. Blake began his defence. He dissected the prosecutor's evidence with
an amazing fund of irony and sarcasm, and requested the jury to place as
little reliance on the general testimony for the prosecution as they
would soon do on the theory of "rubbers" being non-combustible. Then a
candle and a pair of old "rubbers" were produced; a few strips cut from
the latter were held in the flame, and the interested crowd of
spectators saw them burn. The jury accepted this as sufficient, at all
events, to cast doubts on the whole case against the prisoner, and Webb
was acquitted.
The "Markham gang," as they were called, are still well remembered by
the older inhabitants of Toronto and the adjoining country. In several
of the prosecutions arising out of the outrages of the gang, Mr. Blake
was defending counsel, and invested the defence with additional
interest, in the eyes of the legal profession, by raising the question
of the admissibility of the evidence of an accomplice. Another case
which showed the earnestness and conscientiousness of Mr. Blake, who
prosecuted, was the trial of two persons--a man named McDermott and a
girl named Grace Marks--charged with the murder of Mr. Kinnear and his
housekeeper, near Richmond Hill, in the year 1843.[6] Not content with
secondhand information, the hard-working lawyer devoted the only holiday
which intervened between the committal of the prisoners and the trial to
a careful and minute examination of the house and premises where the
murder had occurred, so that in going into court he had the most perfect
familiarity with every detail connected with the crime. The prisoners
were convicted; the man suffered the extreme penalty of the law, and the
woman, who was reprieved, was only liberated from the Penitentiary after
an incarceration of twenty years. No man could more readily seize hold
of the salient points of a case presented to him; few could make so much
out of a small and apparently insignificant point; but no one ever made
the business before him the subject of more patient study or more
exhaustive attention. Honourable and high-minded himself, he sought to
inspire those about him with the same feelings. He endeavoured at all
times to encourage a gentlemanly bearing in the young men who studied
under him, and would tolerate nothing inconsistent with perfect fairness
and honesty in transacting the business of the office.
Mr. Blake and his partners were all active members of the Liberal Party.
In the early contests for Municipal Institutions, National Education,
Law Reform and all progressive measures, they took an earnest part--and
in the struggle with Lord Metcalfe and his Tory abettors for the
establishment of British Parliamentary Government in Canada, they did
excellent service to the popular cause. Mr. Blake, at the general
election of 1844, was the Reform candidate for the second Riding of
York--now the county of Peel--but was defeated by a narrow majority on
the second day of polling by his Tory opponent, Mr. George Duggan. A
little later, he contested unsuccessfully the county of Simcoe, in
opposition to the Hon. W. B. Robinson. At the general election of 1847,
while absent in England, he was returned by a large majority for the
East Riding of York--now the county of Ontario. The result of that
election was the entire overthrow of the Conservative Government, and
the accession of the Liberal Party to power, under Messrs. Baldwin and
Lafontaine, on the 10th of March, 1848. Mr. Blake became
Solicitor-General under the new arrangement, and was duly reëlected for
East York. Then followed the struggle over the famous Rebellion Losses
Bill. In that contest Mr. Blake took an active part in support of Lord
Elgin, who was so outrageously treated by the Opposition leaders in
Parliament, and by the mob of Montreal that followed in their wake. For
his powerful advocacy of the Governor-General, and his scathing
diatribes against the tactics of the Opposition, he was fiercely
denounced by the Conservative leaders. So far was this denunciation
carried that a hostile meeting between Mr. Blake and Mr. Macdonald--the
present Sir John A. Macdonald--was only prevented by the interference of
the Speaker of the House. The Opposition press, without the slightest
justification, published articles in which the writers professed to
believe that Mr. Blake was wanting in courage, and afraid to meet his
antagonist in the field. The _Globe_, which was the organ of the
Government in those days, replied in a spirit which did it honour. In an
article written by the late Mr. Brown himself, and published in the
_Globe_ on the 28th of March, 1849, we find these words: "The repeated
insinuations against the courage of Mr. Blake, to use the ordinary
phrase, are as untrue as they are base and ungenerous. We are quite
aware of all the circumstances of what was so near leading to one of
those transactions called affairs of honour. We know, and we state it
with regret, that there was, on Mr. Blake's part, no wish to shrink from
the consequences of the intended affair, but a great anxiety to meet it.
We would have thought it far more creditable to him, and far more
becoming the station he holds in the councils of the Province, if he had
exhibited that higher courage which would shrink from being concerned in
an affair which, however it may be glossed over by the sophistry and the
practice of the world, is a crime of the deepest dye against the law of
God and the well-being of society."
The Court of Chancery for Upper Canada had been for years a mark for
scorn and derision on account of the personal deficiencies of Mr.
Vice-Chancellor Jameson, and the lack of organization in the whole
Chancery system. The Baldwin-Lafontaine Government undertook the reform
of the Court, increased the number of Judges to three, and gave it the
improved system of procedure which has earned for the Court its present
efficiency and popularity. When the measure became law, the question
arose as to who should be appointed to the seats on the Bench that had
been created. There was but one answer in the profession. Mr. Blake was
universally pointed out as the man best fitted for the post of
Chancellor. He accepted the Chancellorship of Upper Canada on the 30th
of September, 1849, which he continued to fill until the 18th of March,
1862, when failing health compelled him to retire. There were not
wanting political opponents who declared that Mr. Blake had created the
office that he might fill it; but all who knew the man and the position
in which he stood were aware that it was with extreme reluctance he
accepted the place. As his great judicial talents came to be recognized
the voice of the slanderer ceased, and the services which he rendered on
the Bench will, we doubt not, be now heartily acknowledged by all
parties. Mr. Jameson for a short time continued to sit on the Bench as
Vice-Chancellor, side by side with Mr. Blake. In the month of December,
1850, he was permitted to retire on a pension of £750 a year.
Mr. Blake, while at the Bar, held for a number of years the position of
Professor of Law in the University of Toronto, but resigned it when he
became Solicitor-General. He took a deep interest in all the affairs of
the University, of which he was for a long time the able and popular
Chancellor.
Afflicted with gout in its most distressing form, Mr. Blake, after his
retirement from the Bench, sought relief from his sufferings in milder
climes. He returned to Canada in 1869, but it was evident that his end
was not far distant. He died in Toronto, on the 17th of November, 1870.
The late Chancellor Vankoughnet paid an eloquent tribute to his memory.
"With an intellect fitting him to grasp more readily than most men the
whole of a case," said Mr. Vankoughnet, "he was yet most patient and
painstaking in the investigation of every case heard before him. He
never spared himself; but was always most careful that no suitor should
suffer wrong through any lack of diligence on his part. He had,
moreover--what every Equity judge should have--a high appreciation of
the duties and functions of the Court--of the mission, if I may so term
it, of a Court of Equity in this country: not to adjudicate drily upon
the case before the Court, but so to expound the principles of Equity
Law as to teach men to deal justly and equitably between themselves. I
have reason to believe that such expositions of the principles upon
which this Court acts have had a salutary influence upon the country;
and Mr. Blake, in the able and lucid judgments delivered by him,
contributed largely to this result. He always bore in mind that to which
the present Lord Chancellor of England gave expression in one of his
judgments--'The standard by which parties are tried here, either as
trustees or corporations, or in various other relations which may be
suggested, is a standard, I am thankful to say, higher than the standard
of the world.'"
THE REV. ALEXANDER TOPP, D.D.
The life of the late Dr. Topp, like the lives of most members of his
sacred calling, was comparatively uneventful. He was born at
Sheriffmill, a farm-house near the historic old town of Elgin, in
Morayshire, Scotland, in the year 1815. He was educated at the Elgin
Academy, the present representative of the old Grammar School of the
burgh, and an establishment of much local repute. Thence, in his
fifteenth year, he passed to King's College, Aberdeen--an institution
affiliated with the University--where he passed through a very
creditable course, winning one of the highest scholarships, and
retaining it for four years. In 1836, immediately upon attaining his
majority, he received a license to preach, and was appointed assistant
to the minister of one of the churches in Elgin. This minister soon
afterwards died, leaving the pastorate vacant. The abilities and zeal of
his young assistant had made themselves recognized, and it was thought
desirable that the latter should succeed to the vacant charge. The
appointment was hedged in with certain restrictions, and was at the
disposal of Government. A petition from the congregation and from the
Town Council was successful, and Mr. Topp was inducted into the charge.
Upon the disruption in 1843 he seceded from the Establishment, and
carried over with him nearly the entire congregation, which erected a
new church and manse for him. He continued in this charge until 1852,
when he removed to Edinburgh, having accepted a pressing call from the
Roxburgh Church there. Here he continued to minister for about six
years, during which period his congregation increased to such an extent
as to render the accommodation insufficient. A project for erecting a
new and larger church was set on foot, but before it had been fully
matured Mr. Topp had accepted a call from the congregation of Knox
Church, Toronto. This was in 1858. Two years before that date he had
received a pressing call from the same quarter, which he had then
thought proper to decline. At the time of entering upon his charge in
Toronto the membership of Knox Church was only about three hundred.
Under his ministry there was a steadily perceptible increase, and at the
time of his death the membership was in the neighbourhood of seven
hundred. His abilities commanded recognition beyond the limits of his
own congregation, and he steadily won his way to position and influence
in the community. In 1868 he was elected Moderator of the General
Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church, and thus afforded the first
instance of a unanimous nomination by the various Presbyteries to that
office. He took a prominent part in the movement to bring about the
Union between the Canada Presbyterian Church and the Church of Scotland,
and the successful realization of that project was in no small degree
due to his exertions. In 1876 he was elected Moderator to the General
Assembly of the United Church. His doctor's degree was conferred upon
him in 1870 by the University of Aberdeen, where he had been so
successful a student forty years previously.
For several years prior to his death Dr. Topp's constitution had given
unmistakable symptoms of having become seriously impaired. In the autumn
of 1877 his physicians acquainted him with the fact that he was
suffering from a mortal disease--organic disease of the heart--but it
was not supposed that the malady had made such progress as to endanger
his life for some years to come. In the early summer of 1879 he paid a
visit to his native land, and of course spent some time in Elgin,
renewing the pleasant associations of his youth. He received many
pressing overtures to preach, but the state of his health formed a
sufficient excuse for his declining. One Sunday, however, contrary to
the advice of a local medical practitioner, he consented to occupy the
pulpit, and preached a long and vigorous sermon to his old congregation.
His audience was very large, and his nervous system was naturally
wrought up to a high pitch. It is believed that his efforts on that
occasion materially shortened his life. Immediately after his return to
his home in Toronto he sent in his resignation as pastor of Knox Church,
but it had not been accepted ere the shades of death closed around him.
The end came more suddenly than had been anticipated. He passed away on
the 6th of October, 1879, while reclining on a sofa in the house of one
of his parishioners. His death was very calm, and apparently free from
all pain. He left behind him a name which will long be borne in
affectionate remembrance by the members of the Presbyterian Church in
Canada. He was kind and gentle in his demeanour, and was loved the most
by them who knew him best. At the time of his death he had been pastor
of Knox Church for more than twenty-one years, during the greater part
of which he had laboured assiduously in all the various fields connected
with his sacred calling. He was open-handed in his charities, and was an
invaluable consoler in the sick-room. He literally died in harness, for
death came upon him while he was paying a pastoral visit to a member of
his congregation.
The _Canada Presbyterian_, which may be presumed to reflect the opinions
of Canadian Presbyterians generally, concluded an obituary notice
written immediately after his death in the following words: "The name of
Dr. Topp will never be forgotten in this country. While we regret that
he has so suddenly been called away, we rejoice that in his case there
are left to us so many happy remembrances of a useful and honourable
career, and that he has bequeathed to the youthful ministry of the
Church the example of a brave and faithful servant of Christ."
THE HON. HENRI GUSTAVE JOLY.
Since Confederation the Hon. Mr. Joly has occupied a prominent position
in the politics of the Province of Quebec. His high morality, integrity
of character, and fine social qualities, have created for him a
reputation which it is the lot of few public men to enjoy. He is
conspicuous in the history of Quebec as the instrument through whose
exertions the Liberal Party were restored to power for the first time
since the Union. He is also noteworthy as being the Minister on whom
devolved the office of selecting a Government to succeed the De
Boucherville Administration, upon its dismissal by Mr. Letellier in the
month of March, 1878.
He was born in France on the 5th of December, 1829, and is the son of
the late Gaspard Pierre Gustave Joly, Seigneur of Lotbinière, and Julie
Christine, daughter of the late Hon. M. E. G. A. Chartier de Lotbinière,
who was Speaker of the Quebec Assembly from 1794 until May, 1797, and
was afterwards a prominent member of the Legislative Council. Mr. Joly
received a liberal education at Paris, and while yet very young removed
with his parents to Canada, settling in Lotbinière. Having chosen the
law for a profession, he devoted five years to legal studies, and in the
month of March, 1855, he was called to the Bar of Lower Canada. He first
entered political life in 1861, when he was returned to the Canadian
House of Assembly for the county of Lotbinière. This seat he continued
to hold until the Union of the Provinces, when at the general elections
which followed the formation of the Dominion he was elected by
acclamation to both the Commons of Canada and the Assembly of Quebec. He
sat in both Houses until 1874, when, on dual representation being
abolished, he resigned his seat in the Commons, and directed all his
energies to the furtherance of Liberal principles in the Quebec House of
Assembly. The same year he was offered a seat in the Senate, but
declined to accept that dignity, preferring to fight the battles of
Liberalism in the more popular Assembly, in which he had already
achieved a high reputation as a statesman and debater, as well as much
personal popularity. In January, 1877, he again declined elevation to
the Upper House, and refused the portfolio of Dominion Minister of
Agriculture which had been tendered him by the Mackenzie Administration.
The constituency of Lotbinière has never proved fickle to her trust, but
has regularly returned Mr. Joly as her representative to the popular
branch of the Legislature. From the Union, he has been the acknowledged
head of the Liberal Party in Lower Canada, and the chosen leader of the
Opposition in the House of Assembly. In March, 1878, the Hon. Luc
Letellier de St. Just, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, dismissed his
Ministry under circumstances which have already been detailed at
length in these pages; and on the then Premier--Mr. De
Boucherville--refusing to nominate a successor, Mr. Joly was sent for
and invited to form a Cabinet. He promptly accepted the responsibility,
selected his colleagues, and, on being defeated in the Chamber, appealed
to the people for a ratification of the principles of his Party. The
contest was fought with great vigour and pertinacity on both sides, and
the result was a victory, though a slight one, for the Liberal Party.
Mr. Joly was opposed in Lotbinière by Mr. Guillaume E. Amyot, an
advocate and journalist of Quebec. He was elected by a majority of more
than three hundred votes. He became Premier and Minister of Public
Works--an office which requires the utmost tact and delicacy in its
administration. He set on foot a policy of retrenchment and purity, and
contemplated several much-needed reforms which he did not retain office
long enough to see brought into operation. Mr. Joly's Administration was
based on principles of the closest economy, and every effort was made to
check all unnecessary outlay of the public expenditure. The salaries of
the Ministers were reduced, an effort was made to abolish the
Legislative Council, and the railway policy of the country was developed
with caution. Wherever the pruning knife could be advantageously
employed, the Premier applied it, and if he was not always successful,
the fault was certainly not his own. His personal popularity was
sufficiently attested by the fact that although he is a Protestant, with
fixed opinions on theological matters, he was Premier of a Province
where a large majority of the population are adherents of the Roman
Catholic faith. He carried on the affairs of the country with combined
spirit and moderation until October, 1879, when, on being defeated in
the House, he and his Government resigned their seats in the Executive,
and Mr. Chapleau was sent for. Mr. Chapleau succeeded in forming an
Administration, which at the time of the present writing still holds the
reins of power in the Province of Quebec.
[Illustration: HENRI GUSTAVE JOLY, signed as H. G. JOLY]
Mr. Joly is a good departmental officer, a graceful speaker, a man of
much force of character, and one who has always the courage of his
convictions. Whether in power or in Opposition his language and
demeanour are marked by conciliation and courtesy. He is a man of many
friends, and has few personal enemies, even among those to whom he has
been a life-long political opponent. He has devoted a good deal of
attention to the study of forestry, and is the author of several
important and valuable treatises on that subject. Among other offices
which he holds may be mentioned the Presidency of the Society for the
rewooding of the Province of Quebec, the first Presidency of the Reform
Association, of the _Parti Nationale_ of Quebec, of the Lotbinière
Agricultural Society No. 2, and of the Society for the Promotion of
Canadian Industry. He is also Vice-President of the Humane Society of
British North America, and one of the Council of the Geographical
Society of Quebec, of which latter association he was once
Vice-President.
Some years ago Mr. Joly married Miss Gowan, a daughter of Mr. Hammond
Gowan, of Quebec.
THE HON. MACKENZIE BOWELL,
_MINISTER OF CUSTOMS._
Mr. Bowell is English by birth, but has resided in this country ever
since his tenth year. He was born at Rickinghall Superior, a pleasant
little village situated in the northern part of the county of Suffolk,
on the 27th of December, 1823. His father, the late Mr. John Bowell,
emigrated from Suffolk to Canada in the spring of 1833, and settled in
what is now the city of Belleville. His mother's maiden name was
Elizabeth Marshall. He has been compelled to make his own way in the
world, and has risen from obscure beginnings to the elevated position
which he now occupies by dint rather of natural ability than of any
adventitious aids. In his boyhood he enjoyed few educational advantages.
He had been only a few months in Canada when he entered a printing
office in Belleville, where he remained until he had completed his
apprenticeship. He then became foreman of the establishment. He began to
take an interest in politics at the very outset of his career, and
attached himself to the Conservative side. He was very industrious, and
during the term of his indentures did much to repair his defective
education. He availed himself of every opportunity which came in his way
for increasing his stock of knowledge, and erelong attained a position
and influence far more than commensurate with his years. In 1853 he
became sole proprietor of the Belleville _Intelligencer_, with which he
continued to be identified for a period of twenty-two years. Under his
management the _Intelligencer_ became one of the leading exponents of
public opinion in the county of Hastings, and his own local influence
was thereby greatly promoted. Other causes contributed to enhance his
position and influence. When only eighteen years old he allied himself
with the Orange Body, in which he rose to the highest dignities in the
gift of that Order. For eight years he was Grand Master of the
Provincial Grand Lodge of Ontario East. At the annual meeting of the
Grand Lodge of the Loyal Orange Institution of British North America,
held at Kingston in 1870, a change was made in the Grand Mastership,
which had been held for many years by the Hon. John Hillyard Cameron.
Mr. Bowell was unanimously elected to the office, and continued to
occupy it until 1878, when he declined r
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