By the spring of 1816 the tables have been turned with a vengeance. Cameron, the Nor'wester, has been seized and sent to Hudson Bay to be expelled from the country. Fort Gibraltar has been pulled down and the timbers used to strengthen Fort Douglas, whose pointed cannon command all passage up and down Red River. It was hardly to be supposed that the haughty Nor'westers would submit to expulsion without a blow. From Athabasca, from New Caledonia, from Qu'Appelle … they rally their doughtiest fighters under Cuthbert Grant, the half-breed Plain Ranger. From Montreal and Fort William come spurring the leading partners, with one hundred and seventy French-Canadian bullies, and a brass cannon concealed under oilcloth in a long boat. The object of the Plain Rangers is to meet the up-coming partners with supplies for the year; but is that any reason for the riders who are striking eastward from Assiniboine to Red River, decking themselves out in war paint and stripping like savages before battle? The object of the partners is to meet the Plain Rangers on Red River; but is that any reason for bringing a cannon concealed under oilcloth all the way from Lake Superior? Or do men fighting a life-and-death struggle for the thing the world calls success ever acknowledge plain motives within themselves at all? Is it not rather the blind brute instinct of self-protection, forfend what may?
"Listen, white men! Beware! Beware!" the Cree chief Peguis warns Governor Semple. What means the spectacle of white brothers, who preach peace, preparing for war over a few beaver pelts? Chief Peguis cannot understand, except this is the way of white men.
And now, unluckily for Governor Semple, he quarrels with his adviser, Colin Robertson. Robertson, from his early training in Northwest ranks, reads the signs, and is for striking a blow before the enemy can strike him. Semple is still talking peace. Robertson leaves Red River in disgust, and departs for Hudson Bay to take ship for England. The Plain Rangers, it may be explained, have uttered the wild threat that if they "can catch Robertson," they will avenge the destruction of Fort Gibraltar "by skinning him alive and feeding him to the dogs." Also it is well known, Nor'westers of Qu'Appelle have muttered angry prophecies about "the ground being drenched with the blood of the colonists."
Still Semple talks peace, which is a good thing in its place; but this is n't the place.
"My Governor! My Governor!" pleads an old hunter of the Hudson's Bay with Semple; "are you not afraid? The half-breeds are gathering to kill you!"
Semple laughs. Pshaw! He has law on his side. Law! What is law? The old hunter of the lawless wilds does n't know that word. That word does n't come as far west as the Pays d'en Haut.
It is sunset of June 18, 1816. Old chief Peguis comes again to the Hudson's Bay fort on Red River.
"Governor of the gard'ners!" he solemnly warns; "governor of the land workers and gard'ners, listen!…" Not much does he add, after the fashion of his race. Only this, "Let me bring my warriors to protect you!"
Semple laughs at such fears.
It is sunset of June 19. A soft west wind has set the prairie grass rippling like a green sea between the fort and the sun hanging low at the western sky line. A boy on the lookout above one of the bastion towers of Fort Douglas suddenly shouts, "The half-breeds are coming!"
Semple ascends the tower and looks through a field glass. There is a line of sixty or seventy horsemen, all armed, not coming to the fort, but moving diagonally across from the Assiniboine to the Red towards the colony. And then, north towards the colony, is wildest clamor,—people in ox carts, people on horseback, people on foot, stampeding for the shelter of the fort. And up to this moment absolutely nothing has occurred to create this terror.
"Let twenty men follow me," orders Semple; and he marches out, followed by twenty-seven armed men.
As they wade through the waist-high hay fields they meet the fleeing colonists.
"Keep your back to the river!" shouts one colonist, convoying his family. "They are painted, Governor! Don't let them surround you."
Semple sends back to the fort for a cannon to be trundled out.
Young Lieutenant Holte's gun goes off by mistake. Semple turns on him with fury and bids him have a care: there is to be no firing.
The half-breeds have turned from their trail and are coming forward at a gallop.
"There 's Grant, the Plain Ranger, Governor! Let me shoot him," pleads one Hudson's Bay man.
"God have mercy on our souls!" mutters one of the colonists, counting the foe; "but we are all dead men."
All the world knows the rest. At a knoll where grew some trees, a spot now known in Winnipeg on North Main Street as Seven Oaks, Grant, the Ranger, sent a half-breed, Boucher, forward to parley.
"What do you want?" demands Semple.
"We want our fort!"
"Go to your fort, then!"
"Rascal! You have destroyed our fort!"
"Dare you to speak so to me? Arrest him!"
Boucher slips from his saddle. The Plain Rangers think he has been shot. Instantaneously from both sides crashes musketry fire. Semple falls with a broken thigh. Before Grant can control his murderous crew or obtain aid for the wounded governor, a scamp of a half-breed has slashed the fallen man to death. Two or three Hudson's Bay men escape through the long grass and swim across Red River. Two or three more save themselves by instant surrender. For the rest of the twenty-seven, they lie where they have fallen. They are stripped, mutilated, cut to pieces. Only one Nor'wester is killed, only one wounded.
Later, in order to save the lives of the settlers, Fort Douglas is surrendered. For a second time the colonists are dispersed. Before going down Red River in flatboats two of the Hudson's Bay people go out with Chief Peguis by night and bury the dead; but they have no time to dig deep graves, and a few days later the wolves have ripped up the bodies.
Near Lake Winnipeg the fleeing colonists meet the Northwest partners with their one hundred and seventy men. No need to announce what the spectacle of the terrified colonists means. A wild whoop rends the air. "Thank Providence it was all over before we came," writes one devout Nor'wester; "for we intended to storm the fort." Both crews pause. The Nor'westers interrogate the settlers. Semple's private papers are seized. Also, two Hudson's Bay men who took part in the Seven Oaks fight are arrested, to be carried on down to Northwest headquarters on Lake Superior. Then the settlers go on to Lake Winnipeg.
At the various camping places on the way down to Fort William, those two Hudson's Bay prisoners overhear strange threats. It is night on the Lake of the Woods. Voices of Northwest partners sound through the dark. They are talking of Selkirk coming to the rescue of his people with an armed force. Says the wild voice of a Nor'wester whose brother had been killed by a Hudson's Bay man some years before, "There are fine quiet places along Winnipeg River if he comes this way." … Then scraps of conversation.… Then, "The half-breeds could capture him when he is asleep." … Then words too low to be heard.… Then, "They could have the Indians shoot him." … Then in voice of authority restraining the wild folly of a bloodthirst for vengeance, "Things have gone too far, but we can throw the blame on the Indians."
The wild words of a man gone mad for revenge must not be taken as the policy of a great commercial company.
Meantime, where was Selkirk? He had arrived in Montreal. Secret coureur, whose adventures I have told elsewhere, had carried him word of the dangers impending over his colony. He at once appealed to the Governor General for a military force to protect the settlers, but it must be recalled how Upper and Lower Canada were to be governed under the Act of 1791. There were to be the governor, the legislative council appointed by the crown, and the representative assembly. The legislative council was entirely dominated by the Northwest Company. Of the different Quebec courts, there was scarcely a judge who was not interested directly or indirectly in the Northwest Company. Lord Selkirk could obtain no aid which would conflict with that company's policy. Then Selkirk petitioned the Governor that, in view of the threats against himself, he might be granted the commission of a justice of the peace and permission to take a personal bodyguard at his own cost to the west. These requests the Governor granted.
Thereupon, Selkirk gathers up some two hundred of the De Meuron and De Watteville regiments, mercenaries disbanded after the War of 1812, and sets out for the west. Not aware that Robertson has left Red River, he sends him word to keep the colonists together and to expect help by way of the states from the Sault in order to avoid touching at the Nor'westers' post at Fort William. The coureur with this message is waylaid by the Nor'westers, but Selkirk himself, preceded by his former governor, Miles MacDonell, has gone only as far as the Sault when word comes back of the Seven Oaks massacre. What to do now? He can obtain no justice in Eastern Canada. Two justices of the peace at the Sault refuse to be involved in the quarrel by accompanying him. Selkirk goes on without them, accompanied by the two hundred hired soldiers; but instead of proceeding to Red River by Minnesota, as he had first planned, he strikes straight for Fort William, the headquarters of the Nor'westers.
He arrives at the fort August 12, only a few days after the Northwest partners had come down from the scene of the massacre at Red River. Cannon are planted opposite Fort William. Things have "gone too far." The Nor'westers capitulate without a stroke. Then as justice of the peace, my Lord Selkirk arrests all the partners but one and sends them east to stand trial for the massacre of Seven Oaks. The one partner not sent east was a fuddled old drunkard long since retired from active work. This man now executes a deed of sale to my Lord Selkirk for Fort William and its furs. The man was so intoxicated that he could not write, so the afore-time governor, Miles MacDonell, writes out the bargain, which one could wish so great a philanthropist as Selkirk had not touched with tongs. Before midwinter of 1817 has passed, the De Meuron soldiers have crossed Minnesota and gone down Red River to Fort Douglas. One stormy night they scale the wall and bundle the Northwest usurpers out, bag and baggage.
July of 1817 comes Selkirk himself to the Promised Land. There is no record that I have been able to find of his thoughts on first nearing the ground for which so much blood had been shed, and for which he himself was yet to suffer much; but one can venture to say that his most daring hope did not grasp the empire that was to grow from the seed he had planted. He meets the Indians in treaty for their lands. He greets his colonists in the open one sunny August day, speaking personally to each and deeding over to them land free of all charge. "This land I give for your church," he said, standing on the ground which the cathedral now occupies. "That plot shall be for your school," pointing across the gully; "and in memory of your native land, let the parish be called Kildonan."
Of the trials and counter trials between the two companies, there is not space to tell here. Selkirk was forced to pay heavy damages for his course at Fort William, but the courts of Eastern Canada record not a single conviction against the Nor'westers for the massacre of Seven Oaks. Selkirk retired shattered in health to Europe, where he died in 1820. The same year passed away Alexander MacKenzie, his old-time rival.
The truth is, each company had gone too far and was on the verge of ruin. From Athabasca came the furs that prevented bankruptcy, and whichever company could drive the other from Athabasca could practically force its rival to ruin or union. When Colin Robertson had rallied the dispersed colonists from Lake Winnipeg, he had left John Clarke to conduct the two hundred Canadian voyageurs to Athabasca for the Hudson's Bay Company. Clarke had been a Nor'wester before he joined Astor, and was a born fighter, idolized by the Indians. So confident was he of success now that he galloped his canoes up the Saskatchewan without pause to gather provisions. Once on the ground on Athabasca Lake, he divided his party into two or three bands and sent them foraging to the Nor'westers' forts and hunting grounds up Peace River, down Slave Lake, at Athabasca itself. Weakened by division and without food to keep together, his men fell easy prey to the wily Nor'westers. Of those on Slave Lake eighteen died from starvation. Those on Peace River were captured and literally whipped out of the country, signing oaths never to return. Those at Athabasca being leading officers were held prisoners. Meanwhile the Hudson's Bay Company is defeated at Seven Oaks and victorious at Fort William. The Nor'westers at Athabasca were keen to keep the frightened Indians of the north ignorant that Selkirk had triumphed at Fort William, but the news traveled over the two thousand miles of prairie in that strange hunter fashion known as "moccasin telegram," and the story is told how the captured Hudson's Bay officers let the secret out for the benefit of the Indians now afraid to carry their hunt to a Hudson's Bay man.
Revels and all-night carousals marked the winter with the triumphant Nor'westers of Athabasca Lake. Often, when wild drinking songs were ringing in the Nor'westers' dining hall, the Hudson's Bay men would be brought in to furnish a butt for their merciless victors. One night, when the hall was full of Indians, one of the Northwest bullies began to brawl out a song in celebration of the Seven Oaks affair.
"The H.B.C. came up a hill, and up a hill they came,
The H.B.C. came up the hill, but down they went again."
Tired of their rude horseplay, one of the Hudson's Bay officers spoke up: "Y' hae niver asked me for a song. I hae a varse o' me ain compaesin."
Then to the utter amaze of the drunken listeners and astonishment of the Indians, the game old officer trolled off this stave:
"But Selkirk brave went up a hill, and to Fort William came!
When in he popped and out from thence could not be driven again."
The thunderstruck Nor'wester leaped to his feet with a yell: "A hundred guineas for the name of the men who brought that news here."
"A hundred guineas for twa lines of me ain compaesin! Extravagant, sir," returns the canny Scot.
From accounts held by the Hudson's Bay Company's Montreal lawyers it is seen that Clarke's expedition cost the Company 20,000 pounds.
Before the massacre of Seven Oaks Colin Robertson had gone down to Hudson Bay in high dudgeon with Semple, intending to take ship for England; but that fall the ice drive prevented one ship from leaving the bay, and Robertson was stranded at Moose Factory for the winter, whither coureurs brought him word of the Seven Oaks tragedy and Selkirk's victory at Fort William. Taking an Indian for guide, Robertson set out on snowshoes for Montreal, following the old Ottawa trail traversed by Radisson and Iberville long ago. Montreal he found in a state of turmoil almost verging on riot over the imprisonment of the Northwest partners, whom Selkirk had sent east. Nightly the goals [Transcriber's note: gaols?] were illuminated as for festivals. Nightly sound of wandering musicians came from the cell windows, where loyal friends were serenading the imprisoned partners. They were released, of course, and acquitted from the charge of responsibility for the massacre of Seven Oaks.
Presently Robertson finds himself behind the bars for his part in destroying Fort Gibraltar and arresting Duncan Cameron. He too is acquitted, and he tells us frankly that a private arrangement had been made beforehand with the presiding judge. Probably if the Nor'westers had been as frank, the same influence would explain their acquittal.
Robertson found himself free just about the time Lord Selkirk came back from Red River by way of the Mississippi in order to avoid those careful plans for his welfare on the part of the Nor'westers at "the quiet places along Winnipeg River." The Governor of Canada had notified members of both companies unofficially that the English government advised the rivals to find some basis of union, which practically meant that if the investigations under way were pushed to extremes, both sides might find themselves in awkward plight; but the fight had gone beyond the period of pure commercialism. It was now a matter of deadly personal hate between man and man, which, I am sorry to say, has been carried down by the descendants of the old fighters almost to the present day. Each side hoped to drive the other to bankruptcy; and the last throes of the deadly struggle were to be in Athabasca, the richest fur field. While Selkirk is fighting his cause in the courts, he gives Robertson carte blanche to gather two hundred more French voyageurs and proceed to the Athabasca.
Midsummer of 1819 finds the stalwart Robertson crossing Lake Winnipeg to ascend the Saskatchewan. At the mouth of the Saskatchewan a miserable remnant of terrified men from the last Athabasca expedition is added to Robertson's party; and John Clarke, breathing death and destruction against the Nor'westers, goes along as lieutenant to Robertson. Everywhere are signs of the lawless conditions of the fur trade. Not an Indian dare speak to a Hudson's Bay man on pain of horsewhipping. Instead of canoes gliding up and down the Saskatchewan like birds of passage, reign a silence and solitude as of the dead. Though Robertson bids his voyageurs sing and fire off muskets as signals for trade, not a soul comes down to the river banks till the fleet of advancing traders is well away from the Saskatchewan and halfway across the height of land towards the Athabasca.
The amazement of the Nor'westers at Fort Chippewyan in Athabasca when Robertson pulled ashore at the conglomeration of huts known as Fort Wedderburn, may be guessed. Two or three of the partners ran down to the shore and called out that they would like to parley; but John Clarke, filled with memory of former outrages and rocking the canoe in his fury so that it almost upset, met the overtures with a volley of stentorian abuse that sent the Nor'westers scampering and set Robertson laughing till the tears ran down his cheeks.
The change of spirit on the part of the Nor'westers was easily explained. The most of their men were absent on the hunting field. In a few weeks Robertson had his huts in order and had dispatched his trappers down to Slave Lake and westward up Peace River. Then, in October, came more Nor'west partners from Montreal. The Nor'westers were stronger now and not so peacefully inclined. Nightly the French bullies, well plied with whisky, would come across to the Hudson's Bay fort, bawling out challenge to fight; but Robertson held his men in hand and kept his powder dry.
Early on the morning of October the 11th, Robertson's valet roused him from bed with word that a man had been accidentally shot. Slipping a pistol in his pocket and all unsuspicious of trickery, Robertson dashed out. It happened that the most of his men were at a slight distance from his fort. Before they could rally to his rescue he was knocked down, disarmed, surrounded by the Nor'westers, thrown into a boat, and carried back to their fort a captive. In vain he stormed almost apoplectic with rage, and tried to send back Indian messengers to his men. The Nor'westers laughed at him good-naturedly and relegated him to quarters in one room of a log hut, where sole furnishings were a berth bed and a fireplace without a floor. Robertson's only possessions in captivity were the clothes on his back, a jackknife, a small pencil, and a notebook; but he probably consoled himself that his men were now on guard, and, outnumbering the Nor'westers two to one, could hold the ground for the Hudson's Bay that winter. As time passed the captive Robertson began to wrack his brains how to communicate with his men. It was a drinking age; and the fur traders had the reputation of capacity to drink any other class of men off their legs. Robertson feigned an unholy thirst. Rapping for his guard, he requested that messengers might be sent across to the Hudson's Bay fort for a keg of liquor. It can be guessed how readily the Nor'westers complied; but Robertson took good care, when the guard was absent and the door locked, to pour out most of the whisky on the earth floor. Then taking slips of paper from his notebook, he cut them in strips the width of a spool. On these he wrote cipher and mysterious instructions, which only his men could understand, giving full information of the Nor'westers' movements, bidding his people hold their own, and ordering them to send messages down to the new Hudson's Bay governor at Red River,—William Williams,—to place his De Meuron soldiers in ambush along the Grand Rapids of the Saskatchewan to catch the Northwest partners on their way to Montreal the next spring. These slips of paper he rolled up tight as a spool and hammered into the bunghole of the barrel. Then he plastered clay over all to hide the paper, and bade the guard carry this keg of whisky back to the H.B.C. fort; it was musty, Robertson complained; let the men rinse out the keg and put in a fresh supply!
All that winter Robertson, the Hudson's Bay man, captive in the Nor'westers' fort, sent weekly commands to his men by means of the whisky kegs; but in the spring his trick was discovered, and the angry Nor'westers decided he was too clever a man to be kept on the field. They would ship him out of the country when their furs were sent east.
On the way east he succeeded in escaping at Cumberland House. Waiting only a few hours, he launched out in his canoe and followed on the trail of the Northwest partners, on down to see what would happen at Grand Rapids, where the Saskatchewan flows into Lake Winnipeg. A jubilant shout from a canoe turning a bend in the river presently announced the news: "All the Northwest partners captured!" When Robertson came to Grand Rapids he found Governor Williams and the De Meurons in possession. Cannon pointed across the river below the rapids. The Northwest partners were prisoners in a hut. The voyageurs were allowed to go on down to Montreal with the furs. This last act in the great struggle ended tragically enough. What was to be done with the captured partners? They could not be sent to Eastern Canada. Pending investigations for the union of the companies, Governor Williams sent them to York Factory, Hudson Bay, whence some took ship to England, others set out overland on snowshoes for Canada; but in the scuffle at Grand Rapids, Frobisher, one of the oldest partners, with a reputation of great cruelty in his treatment of Hudson's Bay men, had been violently clubbed on the head with a gun. From that moment he became a raving maniac, and the Hudson's Bay people did not know what to do with such a captive. He must not be permitted to go home to England. His condition was too terrible evidence against them; so they kept him prisoner in the outhouses of York Factory, with two faithful Nor'wester half-breeds as personal attendants.
One dark cold night towards the first of October Frobisher succeeded in escaping through the broken bars of his cell window. A leap took him over the pickets. By chance an old canoe lay on Hayes River. With this he began to ascend stream for the interior, paddling wildly, laughing wildly, raving and singing. The two half-breeds knew that a voyage to the interior at this season without snowshoes, food, or heavy clothing, meant certain death; but they followed their master faithfully as black slaves. Wherever night found them they turned the canoe upside down and slept under it. Fish lines supplied food, and the deserted hut of some hunter occasionally gave them shelter for the night. Winter set in early. The ice edging of the river cut the birch canoe. Abandoning it, they went forward on foot. From York Fort, Hudson Bay, the nearest Northwest post was seven hundred miles. By the end of October they had not gone half the distance. Then came one of those changes so frequent in northern climes,—a sunburst of warm weather following the first early winter, turning all the frozen fields to swimming marshes, and the travelers had no canoe. By this time Frobisher was too weak to walk. As his body failed his mind rallied, and he begged the two half-breeds to go on without him, as delay meant the death of all three; but the faithful fellows carried him by turns on their backs. They themselves were now so emaciated they were making but a few miles a day. Their moccasins had been worn to tatters, and all three looked more like skeletons than living men. Then, the third week of November, Frobisher could go no farther, and the servants' strength failed. Building a fire in a sheltered place for their master, the two faithful fellows left Frobisher somewhere west of Lake Winnipeg. Two days later they crept into a Northwest post too weak to speak, and handed the Northwesters a note scrawled by Frobisher, asking them to send a rescue party. Frobisher was found lying across the ashes of the fire. Life was extinct.
In 1820 the union of the companies put an end to the ruinous and criminal struggle. George Simpson, afterwards knighted, who has been sent to look over matters in Athabasca, is appointed governor, and Nicholas Garry, one of the London directors, comes out to appoint the officers of the united companies to their new districts. The scene is one for artist brush,—the last meeting of the partners at Fort William, Hudson's Bay men and Nor'westers, such deadly enemies they would not speak, sitting in the great dining hall, glowering at each other across tables: George Simpson at one end of the tables, pompously dressed in ruffles and satin coat and silk breeches, vainly endeavoring to keep up suave conversation; Nicholas Garry at the other end of the table, also very pompous and smooth, but with a look on his face as if he were sitting above a powder mine, the Highland pipers dressed in tartans, standing at each end of the hall, filling the room with the drone and the skurl of the bagpipes.
By the union of the companies both sides avoided proving their rights in the law courts. Most important of all, the Hudson's Bay Company escaped proving its charter valid; for the charter applied only to Hudson Bay and adjacent lands "not occupied by other Christian powers"; but on the union taking place, the British government granted to the new Hudson's Bay Company license of exclusive monopoly to all the Indian territory, meaning (1) Hudson Bay Country, (2) the interior, (3) New Caledonia as well as Oregon. In fact, the union left the fur traders ten times more strongly intrenched than before. By the new arrangement Dr. John McLoughlin was appointed chief factor of the western territories known as Oregon and New Caledonia. When the War of 1812 closed, treaty provided that Oregon should be open to the joint occupancy of English and American traders till the matter of the western boundary could be finally settled. Oregon roughly included all territory between the Columbia and the Spanish fort at San Francisco, namely, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, parts of Montana and Wyoming. It was cheaper to send provisions round by sea to the fur posts of New Caledonia, in modern British Columbia, than across the continent by way of the Saskatchewan; so McLoughlin's district also included all the territory far as the Russian possessions in Alaska.
This part of the Hudson's Bay Company's history belongs to the United States rather than Canada, but it is interesting to remember that just as the French fur traders explored the Mississippi far south as the Gulf of Mexico, so English fur traders first explored the western states far south as New Spain. This western field was perhaps the most picturesque of all the Hudson's Bay Company's possessions.
Fort Vancouver, ninety miles inland from the sea on the Columbia, was the capital of this transmontane kingdom, and yearly till 1846 the fur brigades set out from Fort Vancouver two or three hundred strong by pack horse and canoe. Well-known officers became regular leaders of the different brigades. There was Ross, who led the Rocky Mountain Brigade inland across the Divide to the buffalo ranges of Montana. There was Ogden, son of the Chief Justice in Montreal, who led the Southern Brigade up Snake River to Salt Lake and the Nevada desert and Humboldt River and Mt. Shasta, all of which regions except Salt Lake he was first to discover. There was Tom McKay, son of the McKay who had crossed to the Pacific with MacKenzie, who, dressed as a Spanish cavalier, led the pack-horse brigades down the coast past the Rogue River Indians and the Klamath Lakes to San Francisco, where Dr. Glen Rae had opened a fort for the Hudson's Bay Company. Then there was the New Caledonia Brigade, two hundred strong, which set out from Fort Vancouver up the Columbia in canoes to the scream of the bagpipes through the rocky canyons of the river. Close to the boundary, shift was made from canoe to pack horse, and, leaving the Columbia, the brigade struck up the Okanogan Valley to Kamloops, bound for the bridle trail up Fraser River. This brigade, in later days, was under Douglas, who became the knighted governor of British Columbia. Tricked out in gay ribbons, the long file of pack ponies, two hundred with riders, two hundred more with packs, moved slowly along the forest trail with a drone as of bees humming in midsummer. So well did ponies know the way that riders often fell asleep, to be suddenly jarred awake by the horses jamming against a tree, or running under a low branch to brush riders off, or hurdle-jumping over windfall. Each of these brigades has its own story, and each story would fill a book. For instance, Glen Rae at San Francisco has a difficult mission. The company has a plan to take over the debts of Mexico to British capitalists and exchange them for California. Glen Rae is sent to watch matters, but he commits the blunder of furnishing arms to the losing side of a revolution. The debt for the arms remains unpaid. Glen Rae suicides, and the company withdraws from California.
Presently come American settlers and missionaries over the mountains. The American government delays settling that treaty of joint occupancy, for the more American settlers that come, the stronger will be the American claim to the territory. McLoughlin helps the settlers who would have starved without his aid, and McLoughlin receives such sharp censure from his company for this that he resigns. When the American settlers set up a provisional government, the foolish cry is raised, "54, 40 or fight," which means the Americans claim all the way up to Alaska, and for this there is no warrant either through their own occupation or discovery. The boundary is compromised by the Treaty of Oregon in 1846 at the 49th parallel.
When settlers come, fur-bearing animals leave. Long ago the Hudson's Bay Company had foreseen the end and moved the capital of its Pacific Empire up to Victoria. A string of fur posts extends up Fraser River to New Caledonia.
How the Family Compact worked—The old order changeth—"Loyalty cry"—Gourley driven mad—Richmond's tragic death—Patriots of the plow—Defeat of patriots—Duncombe's escape—Execution of patriots—Bloodshed in Quebec—Chenier's tragic death—Durham gives Canada a Magna Charta—Confederation—What of the future
It will be recalled that on the coming of the United Empire Loyalists to Canada, the form of government was changed by the Constitutional Act of 1791, dividing the country into Upper and Lower Canada, the government of each province to consist of a governor, the legislative council, and the assembly. Unfortunately, self-government for the colonies was not yet a recognized principle of English rule. While the assemblies of the two provinces were elected by the people, the power of the assemblies was practically a blank, for the governor and council were the real rulers, and they were appointed by the Crown, which meant Downing Street, which meant in turn that the two Canadas were regarded as the happy hunting ground for incompetent office seekers of the great English parties. From the governor general to the most insignificant postal clerk, all were appointed from Downing Street. Influence, not merit, counted, which perhaps explains why one can count on the fingers of one hand the number of governors and lieutenants from 1791 to 1841 who were worthy of their trust and did not disgrace their position by blunders that were simply notorious. Prevost's disgraceful retreat from Lake Champlain in the War of 1812 is a typical example of the mischief a political jobber can work when placed in position of trust; but the life-and-death struggle of the war prevented the people turning their attention to questions of misgovernment, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Act of 1791 reduced Canadian affairs to the chaos of a second Ireland and retarded the progress of the country for a century.
It has become customary for English writers to slur over the disorders of 1837 as the results of the ignorant rabble following the bad advice of the hot-heads, MacKenzie and Papineau; but it is worth remembering that everything the rabble fought for, and hanged for, has since been incorporated in Canada's constitution as the very woof and warp of responsible government.
Let us see how the system worked out in detail.
After the War of 1812 Prevost dies before court-martial can pronounce on his misconduct at Plattsburg, and Sir Gorden Drummond, the hero of Fort Erie's siege, is sworn in.
Canada is governed from Downing Street, and it is my Lord Bathurst's brilliant idea that forever after the war there shall be a belt of twenty miles left waste forest and prairie between Canada and the United States, presumably to prevent democracy rolling across the northern boundary. Fortunately the rough horse sense of the frontiersman is wiser than the wisdom of the British statesman, and settlement continues along the boundary in spite of Bathurst's brilliant idea.
Those who fought in the War of 1812 are to be rewarded by grants of land,—rewarded, of course, by the Crown, which means the Governor; but the Governor must listen to the advice of his councilors, who are appointed for life; and to the heroes of 1812 the councilors grant fifty acres apiece, while to themselves the said councilors vote grants of land running from twenty thousand to eighty thousand acres apiece.
After the war it is agreed that neither Canada nor the United States shall keep war vessels on the lakes, except such cruisers as shall be necessary to maintain order among the fisheries; but the credit for this wise arrangement does not belong to the councils at Toronto or Quebec, for the suggestions came from Washington.
As the legislative councilors are appointed for life, they control enormous patronage, recommending all appointments to government positions and meeting any applicants for office, who are outside the "family" ring, with the curt refusal that has become famous for its insolence, "no one but a gentleman."
Judges are appointed by favor. So are local magistrates. So are collectors at the different ports of entry. Smaller cities like Kingston are year after year refused incorporation, because incorporation would confer self-government, and that would oust members of the "family compact" who held positions in these places.
Officeholders are responsible to the Crown only, not to the people. Therefore when Receiver General Caldwell of Quebec does away with 96,000 pounds, or two years' revenue of Lower Canada, he accounts for the defalcation to his friends with the explanation of unlucky investments, and goes scot free.
Quebec is a French province, but appointments are made in England; so that out of 71,000 pounds paid to its civil servants 58,000 pounds go to the English officeholders, 13,000 pounds to French; out of 36,000 pounds paid to judges only 8,000 pounds go to the French.
And in Upper Canada, Ontario, it was even worse. In Quebec there was always the division of French against English, and Catholic against Protestant; but in Upper Canada "the family compact" of councilors against commoners was a solid and unbroken ring. When the assembly raises objections to some items of expense sent down by the council, writes Lieutenant Governor Simcoe in high dudgeon, "I will send the rascals," meaning the commoners, "packing about their business," and he prorogues the House.
Not all the governors and their lieutenants are as foolishly blind to the faults of the system as Simcoe of Ontario. Sir John Sherbrooke of Quebec, who succeeds Drummond in Lower Canada, knows very well he is surrounded by a pack of thieves; but they are his councilors, appointed for life, and there he is, bound to abide by their advice. Nevertheless, he kicks over traces vigorously now and then, like the old war horse that he is. The commissary general comes to him with word that 600 pounds is missing from the military chest, and he needs a warrant for search.
"Search, indeed!" roars Sir John. "There's not the slightest need! Whenever there is a robbery in your department, it is among yourselves! Go and find it!"
Curious it is how good men reared in the old school, where the masses exist for the benefit of the classes and the governed are to be allowed to exist only by favor of those who govern—curious how good men fail to read the sign of the times. Colonel Tom Talbot's settlement in West Ontario has, by 1832, increased to 50,000 people, and the mad harum-scarum of court days is becoming an old man. Talbot has been a legislative councilor for life, but it is not on record that he ever attended the council in Toronto. Still he views with high disfavor this universal discontent with "being governed." The secret meetings held to agitate for responsible government, Tom Talbot regards as "a pestilence" leading on to the worst disease from which humanity can suffer, namely, democracy. The old bear stirs uneasily in his lair, as reports come in of louder and louder demands that the colony shall be permitted to govern itself. What would become of kings and colonels and land grants by special favor, if colonies governed themselves? Colonel Tom Talbot doffs his homespun and his coon cap, and he dons the satin ruffles of twenty-five years ago, and he mounts his steed and he rides pompously forth to the market place of St. Thomas Town on St. George's Day of 1832. Bands play; flags wave; the country people from twenty miles round come riding to town. Banners inscribed with "Loyalty to the Constitution" are carried at the head of parades. The venerable old colonel is greeted with burst after burst of shouting as he comes prancing on horseback up the hill. The band plays "the British Grenadiers." The Highland bagpipes skurl a welcome. Then the old man mounts the rostrum and delivers a speech that ought to be famous as an exposition of good old Tory doctrine:
Some black sheep have slipped into my flock, and very black they are, and what is worse, they have got the rot, a distemper not known in this settlement till some I shall call for short "rebels" began their work of darkness under cover of organizing Blanked Cold Water Drinking Societies, where they meet at night to communicate their poisonous schemes and circulate the infection and delude the unwary! Then they assumed a more daring aspect under mask of a grievance petition, which, when it was placed before me, I would not take the trouble to read, being aware it was trash founded on falsehood, fabricated to create discontent.
At the end of a half hour's tirade, of which these lines are a sample, the good old Tory raised his hands, and in the words of the Church's benediction blessed his people and prayed Heaven to keep their minds untainted by sedition.
Looking back less than a century, it is almost impossible to believe that the colonel's speech—it cannot be called reasoning—was applauded to the echo and regarded as a masterly justification of people "being governed" rather than governing themselves.
Perhaps, after all, it was not so much the Constitution of Canada that caused the conflict as the clash between the old-time feudalism and the spirit of modern, aggressive democracy. The United States fought this question out in 1776. Canada wrestled, it cannot be called a fight, the same question out in 1837.