But the most famous event in river warfare during the conflict was the exploit of the daring Farragut in running past Forts St. Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi with his fleet of wooden vessels, breaking their iron chain, dispersing their gun-boats, and driving ashore the ironclad Manassas. The Confederates had also an ironclad battery, the Louisiana, but it proved of little service, and Farragut sailed triumphantly through the hail of fire of the forts, and on the same afternoon reached the wharves of New Orleans.
The most famous exploit of Farragut was the passing of the forts at Mobile. It is worth a brief relation, for in this the resources of ironclad warfare, as then developed, were fully employed, while the bottom of the channel was thickly sown with torpedoes, a mechanism in naval warfare to become of great importance in the following years. Farragut’s main fleet, indeed, was of wooden ships, but he had four monitors; while the Confederates, in addition to their forts and gunboats, had the ironclad ram Tennessee, the most powerful floating battery ever built by them. This formidable craft—for that period—was plated with six inch iron armor in front and five inch elsewhere; and, while carrying only six guns, these were 6- and 8-inch rifled cannon.
The torpedoes, of which no fewer than 180 were sown in the channel, were not quite ineffective, since one of them exploded under the monitor Tecumseh, and she went down head first with nearly all her crew. The Brooklyn, following in her track, halted as this disaster was seen, her recoil checking all the vessels in her rear. Farragut had taken his famous stand in the shrouds, just under the maintop, and hailed the Brooklyn as he came up in the Hartford. “What is the matter?” he demanded. “Torpedoes,” came back the reply. “Damn the torpedoes!” cried Farragut, in a burst of noble anger. “Follow me.” As the Hartford passed on the percussion caps of the torpedoes were heard snapping under her keel. Fortunately they were badly made, and no other explosion took place.
The story of the battle we may briefly complete. The ships dashed almost unharmed through the fire of the forts, driving the Confederate gunners from their pieces with a shower of grape and canister; and the contest ended with an attack upon the Tennessee, whose stern-port shutters were jammed and her steering gear shot away. Rendered helpless, she was forced to surrender, and the fight was at an end.
The Confederates were singularly unfortunate with their ironclads. With the exception of the temporary advantage gained by the Merrimac, all their labor and expense proved of no avail. The last of these war-monsters, the Albemarle, built in Roanoke River, and causing some alarm in the blockading fleet on the coast, was sent to the bottom by a daring young officer, Lieutenant Cushing, in one of the most gallant exploits of the war. He and a few men, in a steam launch carrying a large torpedo, sailed up the stream at night to where the ironclad lay in her dock at Plymouth. A protecting raft of logs guarded the Albemarle, but Cushing daringly drove his launch up on the slimy logs, exploded the torpedo as it touched the sides of the ship, and leaped with his men into the stream. The Albemarle sank to a muddy bed in the river’s bottom, and Cushing escaped to the blockading fleet, after a series of thrilling adventures.
But the most important thing achieved in this war was the entire transformation effected in naval science. Previously the warship had been of the type of an armed merchantship, propelled by sails or, latterly, by steam, and carrying a large number of small guns. Modern inventiveness made it, after the duel of the Monitor and Merrimac, a floating fortress of iron or steel, carrying a few enormously heavy guns. The glory of the old line-of-battle ship, with three or four tiers of guns on each side and a big cloud of canvas overhead, firing rattling broadsides, and manœuvring to get and hold the weather-gauge of the enemy—all that was relegated to the past forever. In its place came the engine of war, with little pomp and circumstance, but with all the resources of science shut within its ugly, black iron hull.
John Paul Jones, with his Bon Homme Richard, struck the blow that made universal the law of neutrals’ rights. Hull, with the Constitution, sending a British frigate to the bottom, showed what Yankee ingenuity in sighting guns could do. Ericsson and Worden, with the Monitor, sent wooden navies to the hulk-yard and ushered in the era of iron and steel fighting-engines. These were the great naval events of a century.
Yet the American navy was greatly neglected in the years succeeding the Civil War, while foreign nations, quick to learn the lesson taught at Hampton Roads, were straining every nerve to build powerful fleets of iron and steelclad ships, and to develop the breech-loading rifled cannon into an implement of war capable of piercing through many inches of solid steel. It was not until after 1880 that our government awoke to the need of a navy on the new lines, and began to take advantage of the lessons that had been learned abroad. It is not our purpose to speak in detail of the results. The steelclad battleship and cruiser, the armor-piercing breech-loader, the quick-firing gun, the machine gun, the submarine torpedo-boat, the anchored mine, the automobile torpedo, and other devices have come to make the naval warfare of our day a wonderfully different thing from that of the past.
The United States began late to build a modern navy, but has made highly encouraging progress, and while still far in the rear of Great Britain and France in the number of her ships, possesses some of the finest examples of naval architecture now afloat upon the waters. Among commerce-destroyers the Columbia and the Minneapolis, with their respective trial speeds of 22.81 and 23.07 knots, stand beyond any rivals to-day in the navies of Europe, while the inventive naval engineering of the Americans is exemplified in the double turrets of the Kearsarge and Kentucky, two additions to our navy of original formation, and likely to give an excellent account of themselves should any new war occur.
Of modern fleets, however, far the most powerful one is that of Great Britain, the government of which island shows a fixed determination to keep its naval force beyond rivalry. This stupendous fleet forms the most striking example of naval destructiveness the world has ever seen, and the nations of the world are entering the twentieth century with powers of warfare developed enormously beyond those with which they entered the nineteenth. We can only hope that this vast development both in army and navy may prove to exert a peace-compelling influence, and that every new discovery in the art of killing and destroying may be a nail in the coffin of Mars, the god of war.
A third of a century passed after the great struggle of the United States for the existence of the Union, and then, in almost the closing year of the nineteenth century, came another war, this time fought in the interests of humanity. It was not a war for gain or conquest; the thought of territorial acquisition did not enter into the motives leading to it, despite the fact that this country gained new territory as one of its results; in its inception humane feeling, the sentiment of sympathy with the oppressed and starving people of Cuba, alone prevailed, and the nineteenth century fitly reached its end with a war entered into for humanity’s sake alone, it being one of the very few instances in the history of the world in which a nation has gone to war from purely philanthropic motives.
It is not necessary here to repeat the story of Spain’s tyranny in Cuba. It is too well known to need telling again, and simply carried out the colonial policy of Spain from the time of the discovery of America. The successful rebellion of her colonies on the American continent failed to teach that country the lesson which England learned from a similar occurrence, and in Cuba was continued the same system of tyranny and official oppression which had driven the other colonies to revolt. The result was the same, Cuba blazed into rebellion, and for years war desolated that fair island.
The United States, however, sedulously avoided taking any part in the affair until absolutely driven to interfere by the horrible inhumanity displayed by Captain-General Weyler. It was the awful policy of “reconcentration” that stretched the forbearance of the people of this country to the breaking point. Not content with fighting the rebels in arms, the brutal Weyler extended the war against the people in their homes, burning their houses, destroying the crops in their fields, driving them in multitudes into the cities and towns, and holding them there in the most pitiable destitution and misery until they died by thousands the terrible death of starvation. It was not until word came to this country that not less than 200,000 of the helpless people had perished in this horrible manner, and that there seemed no hope of alleviation of the frightful situation, that a practically universal demand for the government to interfere. Spain was asked to fix a date in which the war should be brought to an end, with the intimation that if the contest was not concluded or the independence of the island conceded by that date, this country would feel obliged to take decisive steps.
No satisfactory answer was received, and anticipations of war filled all minds, though many hoped that this dread ultimatum might be avoided, when, in the last week of January, 1898, the battleship Maine was ordered to proceed from Key West to the harbor of Havana. Her visit was ostensibly a friendly one, but there had been riots in Havana which imperilled the safety of American residents, to whom the Spanish inhabitants of that city were bitterly hostile, and it was felt that some show of force in that harbor was imperative.
A terrible disaster succeeded. In one fatal instant, on the night of February 15th, the noble ship was hurled to destruction and her crew into eternity. This frightful event took place about 9.45 in the evening, while the ship lay quietly at anchor in the place selected for her by the Spanish authorities. Intense darkness prevailed in the harbor, Captain Sigsbee was writing in his cabin, the men were in their quarters below, when of a sudden came a terrible explosion that tore the vessel asunder and killed most of her crew. So violent was the shock that the whole water-front of the city was shaken as by an earthquake, telegraph poles were thrown down and the electric lights extinguished. The wrecked vessel sank quickly into the mud of the harbor’s bottom, and a great flame broke from her upper works that illuminated the whole harbor. Of three hundred and fifty-three men in the ship’s company only forty-eight escaped unhurt, and the roll-call of the dead in the end reached two hundred and sixty-six.
This terrible event was the immediate cause of the war. It intensified the feeling of the people and of their representatives in Congress to such an extent that no other solution of the difficulty now seemed possible. The popular indignation was increased when the court of inquiry announced that, in its opinion, “the Maine was destroyed by a submarine mine.” It was universally felt that the disaster was another instance of Spanish malignity, the war-fever redoubled, and Congress unanimously voted an appropriation of $50,000,000 “for the national defense.” The War and Navy Departments hummed with the activity of recruiting, the preparations of vessels and coast defenses, and the purchase of war material and vessels at home, while agents were sent to Europe to procure all the warships that could be purchased. Unlimited capital was at their command, and the question of price was not an obstacle. When hostilities impended the United States was unprepared for war, but by amazing activity, energy and skill the preparations were pushed and completed with a rapidity that approached the marvelous.
Negotiations went on, it is true, but they were principally with the purpose of gaining time to permit American citizens to leave Cuba. Consul-general Lee left Havana on April 11th, and on the same day President McKinley sent a message to Congress in which he described in earnest terms the situation in Cuba, reciting the dreadful results of Weyler’s heartless policy and asking for power to intervene. “In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization,” he said, “the war in Cuba must stop.” On April 18th, Congress responded with a series of resolutions that were virtually a declaration of war, and on the 22d war actually began, the fleet which had gathered at Key West being despatched to Cuba with orders to blockade Havana and some other leading ports. On the following day a call was issued for 125,000 volunteers to serve in the coming conflict.
While it seems important to give the preliminary events that led to the war, we do not propose to tell the story of the war itself, but to confine ourselves to a description of its more important incidents, in accordance with the plan of this work. It may be said here, however, that the war was in great part a naval one, and gave rise to naval operations of intense interest and great importance, so that this chapter will fitly round out the preceding one, which deals with the progress in naval warfare during the century. We there described the contests of ironclad ships during the Civil War. In other chapters have been told the stories of the fight between Austrian and Italian ironclads at the battle of Lissa and of the Japanese and Chinese ironclad fleets at the battle of the Yalu. We have now to tell the final events in naval warfare of the century, the epoch-making contest in Manila Bay, and the desperate flight and fight off Santiago harbor. If these examples of ocean warfare be contrasted with those between the Constellation and the French frigates L’Insurgente and Vengeance a century before, they will place in striking clearness the immense advance in naval warfare within the hundred years involved.
Of these two events the greatest was that which took place in Manila Bay. War, it must be remembered, is governed by a different system of ethics from that operative in peace. Though inhumanity in Cuba was the cause of the war, to strike the enemy wherever he could be found was the demand of prudence and military science. Spain had an important possession in the eastern seas, the Philippine Islands, off the southeastern coast of Asia. There, in the bay of Manila, near the large city of that name, lay a Spanish fleet, which, if left unmolested, might seek our Pacific Coast and commit terrible depredations. In the harbor of Hong Kong lay a squadron of American war-vessels under Commodore Dewey. Prudence dictated but one course under the circumstances. There was flashed to Dewey under sea and over land the telegraphic message to “find the Spanish fleet and capture or destroy it.” How Dewey obeyed this order is the circumstance with which we are now concerned.
He lost no time. Leaving port in China on April 27th, he arrived off the entrance to Manila Bay on the night of the 30th. An island lay in the neck of the bay, with well-manned batteries on its shores. It was probable that torpedoes had been planted in the channel. But George Dewey had been a pupil of Farragut in the Civil War, and was inspired with the spirit of that hero’s famous order, “Damn the torpedoes! Follow me!” Past Corregidor Island in the darkness glided the great ships, several of them being out of range of its batteries before the alarm was taken. Then some shots were fired, but the return fire from the squadron silenced the Spanish guns and the ships passed safely into Manila Bay.
About five o’clock on the morning of May 1st Dewey’s fleet swept in battle-line past the front of the city of Manila, and soon after rounded up in face of the Spanish fleet, which extended across the mouth of Bakoor Bay, within which lay the naval station of Cavité. There were ten of the Spanish ships in all, with shore batteries to add to their defensive force, while the effective American ships consisted of six, the cruisers Olympia, Baltimore, Raleigh, Boston, and the gunboats Petrel and Concord. The Spaniards had two large and four small cruisers, three gunboats and an armed transport. They were not equal in size or weight of metal to the American vessels, but their fixed position, their protection by shore batteries, and the acquaintance of their officers with the waters in which they lay gave them an important advantage over the Americans, which was added to by their possession of torpedo boats and by the mines which they had planted in the track of an attacking fleet. Dewey and his men were, in fact, in a position of great peril, and if the Spaniards knew how to work their guns none of them might leave that bay alive. Fortunately for them the Spaniards did not know how to work their guns.
On swept the gallant squadron of assault, the Olympia leading with Dewey on the bridge. He had a look-out place protected by steel armor, but he preferred to stand in the open and dare all peril from the Spanish guns. The mines were there. As the flagship drove onward two of them exploded in her path. Luckily the nervous hands at the electric wires set them off too soon. Heedless of such perils as this Dewey pursued his course, and at 5.40 A.M. opened fire, followed by the remainder of his ships. From that moment the fire was deadly and continuous, the boom of the great guns seconded by the rattle of the rapid fire pieces until the air seemed full of the roar of ordnance. The Spanish returned as hot a fire, but by no means so effective. While most of their shot were wasted on the waves, the bulk of those from the American ships found a goal, and death and destruction reigned in the Spanish ships while their opponents moved on almost unharmed.
Back and forth across the Spanish lines swept Dewey’s ships, five times in all, at first at 5,000 yards distance, then drawing in to a distance of 2,000 yards. And during all this time the great guns roared their message and the small guns poured out their fiery hail, rending the Spanish hulls and carrying death to their crews, while the flames that shot up from their decks told that another element of destruction was at work. Early in the fight two torpedo boats darted out towards the Olympia, but were met with a torrent of fire that sent one to the bottom and drove the other hastily to the beach. Then, with an instinct of desperation, Admiral Montojo drove gallantly out in his flagship, the Reina Christina, with the purpose of engaging the Olympia at shorter range. At once Dewey turned his entire battery upon her, and poured in shot and shell at such a frightful rate that the Spaniard hastily turned and fled for the shelter of Bakoor Bay. But the deadly baptism of fire with which she had been met proved the end of her career. Swept from stern to stem by shells as she fled, she burst into flames, which continued to burn until she sank to a muddy death.
Meanwhile the Spanish ships and batteries returned the fire vigorously, but with singular lack of effect. While they were being riddled and sunk, the American ships escaped almost unhurt, and while hundreds of their crews fell dead or wounded, not an American was killed and seven men alone were slightly wounded. What little skill in aiming the Spaniards possessed was utterly disconcerted by the incessant and deadly American fire, and their balls and shells screamed uselessly through the air to plunge into the waves.
At the hour of 7.35 Dewey withdrew from the fight, that he might see how all things stood on his ships and give the men an interval of rest and an opportunity for breakfast. He knew very well that the Spaniards must await his return. Fight and flight were alike taken out of them. When he came back to the attack, shortly after 11 o’clock, nearly all the Spanish ships were in flames and some rested on the bottom of the bay. For an hour longer the firing continued on both sides. At the end of that time the batteries were silenced and the ships sunk, burned, and deserted. The great battle was at an end, and Dewey had made himself the hero of the war.
When the news of the result reached Europe, the naval powers of the nations heard with utter astonishment of the fighting prowess and skill of the Yankees. Anything so complete in the way of a naval victory the century had not seen before, and it was everywhere recognized that a new power had to be dealt with in the future counsels of the nations. Americans, previously looked upon almost with contempt from a military point of view, suddenly won respect, and Dewey took rank among the great ocean fighters of the century. His nation hastened to honor him with the title of rear-admiral, and finally with that of admiral, its highest naval dignity, and on his return home in autumn of the following year he was received with an ovation such as few Americans had ever been given before. To his fellow citizens he was one of the chief of their heroes, and they could not do him honor enough.
The second notable naval event of which we have spoken took place off the harbor of Santiago, a city on the southern coast of Cuba, at a date after that just described.
The finest fleet possessed by Spain, that under the command of Admiral Cervera, consisted of four cruisers, the Christobal Colon, plated with a complete belt of 6-inch nickel steel, and with a deck armor of steel 2 to 6 inches thick, and the Vizcaya, the Almirante Oquendo, and the Infanta Maria Teresa, each of 6890 tons, with 10- to 12-inch armor and powerful armament. They were all of high speed, and were the only vessels of which any dread was felt in the United States. With them were three torpedo boats, the Terror, the Furor and the Pluton, among the best of their class, and dangerous enemies to deal with.
This fleet lay in the Cape Verde Islands at the opening of the war. From there, in May, it set sail, causing doubt and dread in American coast cities while its destination remained unknown, and yielding relief when the news came that it had reached some of the lower islands of the West Indies. On May 21st it was learned that the dreaded squadron had reached Santiago and was safely at anchor in its harbor.
The Atlantic fleet of the United States meanwhile had been partly engaged in blockading the Cuban ports, partly in searching for Cervera’s fleet, and there was a decided sensation of relief when the tidings from Santiago were confirmed. Thither from all quarters the great ships of the fleet hastened at full speed, battleships, cruisers, monitors, gunboats, and craft of other kinds, and soon they hung like grim birds of war off the harbor’s mouth, determined that the Spanish fleet should never leave that place of refuge except to meet destruction. To the battleships of the fleet was soon added the Oregon, which had made an admirable journey of many thousand miles around the continent of South America, and barely touched land in Florida before it was off again to take part in the great blockade.
The story that follows is, if given in all its details, a long one, but we must confine ourselves to its salient points. Admiral Sampson, in command of the American fleet, at first sought to lock up the Spaniards in their harbor of refuge, by sinking a coaler, the Merrimac, in the narrow channel of Santiago Bay. The work was gallantly and ably done by Lieutenant Hobson and his daring crew, but proved a failure through causes beyond his control. The Merrimac sank lengthwise in the channel, and the passage remained open. This being recognized, the most vigilant watch was kept up, battle-ships, cruisers, and gunboats lying off the harbor’s mouth in a wide semicircle, with their lookouts ever closely on the watch.
On the morning of Sunday, July 3d, the long-looked for alarm came, in a yell from the sentinel on the Brooklyn, “There is a big ship coming out of the harbor!” A like alarm was given on other ships, and Commodore Schley, on the Brooklyn, hastened to signal the fleet and to give the order, “Clear ship for action.” Almost in an instant the lazily swinging fleet awoke to life and activity, and the men sprang from their listless Sunday rest into the most enthusiastic readiness for duty.
Admiral Sampson, unfortunately for him, was absent, having gone up the coast in the cruiser New York, and the direction of affairs fell to Commodore Schley. He was capable of meeting the emergency. It was soon evident that Cervera’s fleet was coming out, the flagship, Infanta Maria Teresa, in the lead, the others following. On clearing the harbor headland they turned west, and the Americans at once set out in pursuit, firing as they went. “Full speed ahead; open fire, and don’t waste a shot,” shouted Schley. The Oregon had already opened fire from her great 13-inch guns, and was followed by the battleships Texas, Indiana, and Iowa. The Brooklyn joined in with her 8- and 5-inch batteries, and soon a rain of shells was pouring upon the devoted fugitive ships. The Maria Teresa ran towards the Brooklyn as if with intention to ram her, but the danger was avoided by a quick swerve of the helm, and Cervera’s flagship turned again and sped away in flight.
The fugitive ships soon found themselves the centre of the most terrific fire any war vessels had ever endured, with the exception of those at Manila. Big guns and little guns joined in the frightful concert, shot after shot telling, while the response of the Spaniards was little more effective than that of their compatriots in Manila Bay. One man killed on the Brooklyn was the sole loss of life on the American side, while the unfortunate Spaniards were swept down by hundreds.
The first ship to succumb to this hail of shells was the Maria Teresa, which quickly burst into flames, and soon after ran ashore. Then the Brooklyn, Oregon and Indiana concentrated their fire on the Almirante Oquendo, which was similarly beached in flames. Next the Vizcaya drew abeam of the Iowa, which turned its fire from the Oquendo to this new quarry, pouring in shells that tore great rents in her side, while the Vizcaya fired back hotly but ineffectively. As the Spaniard drew ahead of the Iowa, the fire of the Oregon and Texas reached her, and an 8-inch shell from the Brooklyn raked her fore and aft. The next moment a great shell exploded in her interior, killing eighty men. She was clearly out of the race, and ran in despair for the beach.
Meanwhile the Christobal Colon was running at great speed along the beach, pursued by the American ships. Of these the Oregon and Brooklyn alone were able to keep within hopeful distance. For an hour the chase kept up, then the Oregon tried a 13-inch shell, which struck the water close astern of the Colon, four miles away. Another was tried and reached its mark. Soon after a shell from the Brooklyn pierced the Colon at the top of her armor belt. Then she too gave up and ran for the beach, Admiral Sampson, on the New York, reaching the scene in time only to receive the surrender of her officers.
Perhaps the most telling work of the day was that done by the little Gloucester, a yacht turned into a gunboat, which was commanded by Richard Wainwright, one of the surviving officers of the Maine. Two torpedo-boat destroyers had followed the Spanish ships from the harbor, and these were gallantly attacked and sunk by Wainwright in his little craft, thus finally disposing of the second Spanish fleet with which the Yankees came into contact.
The annals of naval history record no more complete destruction of an enemy’s fleet than in the two cases we have described, and never has such work been done with so little loss—only one man being killed and a few wounded in both American fleets. It taught the world a new lesson in the art of naval warfare, and admonished the nations that the United States was a power to be gravely considered in the future in any question of war.
We have told the only incidents of this short war with which we are concerned. In the conflict on land there was nothing of special character. An American army landed near Santiago and fought its fight to a quick finish in the capture of that city; and a similar story is to be told of Manila; while the attempted conquest of Porto Rico was cut short in the middle by the signing of a peace protocol. In December a treaty of peace was signed in which Spain abandoned her colonies of Cuba and Porto Rico, the latter being ceded to the United States, while the Philippine Islands, the scene of Dewey’s great victory, were likewise ceded to this country. The latter, however, was not to the pleasure of the island people, who took up arms to fight for freedom from the dominion of the whites.
Brief as was the war, it had the effect of radically changing the position of the United States, which for the first time in its history became a colonial power, and acquired an interest in that troublesome Eastern Question which reached, at the end of the century, a highly critical stage. Into what complication this new political relation is likely to lead the republic of the West it is impossible to say, but this country will certainly play its part in the shaping of the future destiny of the East.
Occupying the northern section of the western hemisphere lies Great Britain’s most extended colony, the vast Dominion of Canada, which covers an immense area of the earth’s surface, surpassing that of the United States, and nearly equal to the whole of Europe. Its population, however, is not in accordance with its dimensions, being less than 5,000,000, while the bleak and inhospitable character of much the greater part of its area is likely to debar it from ever having any other than a scanty nomad population, fur animals being its principal useful product. It is, however, always unsafe to predict. The recent discovery of gold in a part of this region, that traversed by the Klondike River, has brought miners by the thousands to that wintry realm, and it would be very unwise to declare that the remainder of the great northern region contains no treasures for the craving hands of man.
It is the development of Canada during the nineteenth century with which we are here concerned, and we must confine ourselves, as in the case of the other countries treated, to its salient points, those upon which the problem of its progress turns. First settled by the French in the seventeenth century, this country came under British control in 1763, as a result of the great struggle between the two active colonizing powers for dominion in America. The outcome of this conquest is the fact that Canada, like the other colonies of Great Britain, possesses a large alien population, in this case of French origin; and it may further be said that the conflict between England and France in America is not yet at an end, since political warfare, varied by an occasional act of open rebellion, has been maintained throughout the century by the French Canadians.
The revolution of 1775 in the colonies to the south failed to gain adherents in Canada, which remained loyal to Great Britain and repelled every attempt to invade its territory. It met invasion in the war of 1812 in the same spirit, and despite the fact that there has long been a party favoring annexation to the United States, the Canadians as a whole are to-day among the most loyal colonial subjects of the home government of Great Britain.
At the opening of the nineteenth century the population of Canada was small, and its resources were only slightly developed. Its people did not reach the million mark until about 1840, though since then the tide of immigration has flowed thither with considerable strength and the population has grown with some rapidity. In 1791 the original province of Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada, a political separation which by no means gave satisfaction, but led to severe political conflicts. As a result an act of union took place, the provinces being reunited in 1840.
Upper Canada, at the opening of the century, was only slightly developed, the country being a vast forest, without towns, without roads, and practically shut out from the remainder of the world. The sparse population endured much suffering, which, in 1788, deepened into a destructive famine, long remembered as a terrible visitation. But it began to grow with the new century, numbers crossed the Niagara River from the States to the fertile lands beyond, immigrants crossed the waters from Great Britain and France, Toronto was made the capital city, and the population of the province soon rose to 30,000 in number. Lower Canada, however, with its old cities of Quebec and Montreal, and its flourishing settlements along the St. Lawrence River, continued the most populous section of the country, though its people were almost exclusively of French origin. The strength of the British population lay in the upper province.
These historical particulars are desirable as a statement of the position and relations of Canada at the opening of the nineteenth century, though in the succeeding history of the country only an occasional event occurred of sufficiently striking character to fit into our plan. We have already detailed the events of the war of 1812 on the Canada frontier, in which the capture and burning of York (now Toronto) served as an excuse for the subsequent indefensible burning of Washington by the British. Battles were fought on Canadian soil in 1814 at Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane—the latter the bloodiest battle of the war. But though the Americans were victorious in these engagements, they soon after withdrew from Canada—to which they have never since returned in a hostile way. Many political complications have arisen between the two countries, and at times sharp words have been spoken, but all the questions have been amicably settled and the two countries remain fairly good friends, with only such disputes as too close neighborhood is apt to provoke.
The leader of public opinion in Canada during the three years’ struggle with the United States was a clergyman of the English church, John Strachan, rector of York. Though a clergyman of the English establishment, Strachan was by birth a Scotchman, and a decidedly pugnacious and determined character, a man of courage, persistence, cunning and political skill, whose ambition drove him forward, until, with his party, he formed in 1820 what was long known as the “Family Compact,” which for years ruled the country in an autocratic way. The governor and council were the tools of Strachan and his allies; they filled the public offices with their favorites, and went so far as to drive Robert Gourlay, an honest and capable business man, from the country, because he was so presumptuous as to reflect on the character of their administration.
In 1824 their power was for a time overturned. William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scotchman of impetuous disposition, started the Colonial Advocate newspaper, which opposed the “Compact” so vigorously as to arouse the hatred of its adherents. The office of the Advocate was gutted by a mob, but Mackenzie recovered large damages, an opposition Assembly was elected, and the Family Compact fell from power. Strachan however, was only temporarily defeated. A religious quarrel arose which lasted for thirty years, and in which he played the leading part. This turned upon the use of what was known as the “clergy reserve fund,” an allotment of one-seventh of the crown lands for the support of a Protestant clergy. A portion of this fund was demanded by a Scotch Presbyterian congregation, but Strachan, who had a controlling voice in its disposition, claimed it all for the English Established Church, and entered into this new fight with all his old energy. He gained strong support, was promoted to the dignity of a bishop, founded King’s College from part of the fund, and, in 1853 obtained a transfer of the fund—which had been placed at the disposal of the British Parliament for religious purposes—to Canada. The controversy was finally settled in 1854, an act being passed which secured their life interests to the clergy already enjoying them, while the remainder of the fund was devoted to public education.
Thus for forty years and more John Strachan made himself the most prominent and powerful figure in Upper Canada. Meanwhile a strained condition of affairs existed in Lower Canada, due to the rivalry and struggle for power of the inhabitants of French and British descent. The strife became so intense as in 1837 to lead to open rebellion.
The great supremacy of the French in numbers gave them a decided majority in the Assembly, and for years Louis Papineau was elected by them speaker of that body, though bitterly opposed by the British population. When Lord Dalhousie, the governor-general, refused to recognize him in this position, sufficient influence was brought to bear upon the home government to have the autocratic lord transferred to India, and the French retained their control of the Assembly. A reform in the government of the province was recommended by a committee of the British Parliament, which resulted in 1832 in giving the Assembly control of the local finances.
This gave the French Canadians a perilous power, and they endeavored to rid themselves of the English judges and civil officials by a process of financial starvation. Salaries were unpaid and the government was blocked through lack of funds. The sharpness of the strife was added to by resolutions in the British Parliament which condemned the Canadian legislature and supported the council—an arbitrary body under the governor’s control, and in the British interest.
The strife eventually deepened into revolt. Both provinces vigorously demanded that the council should be chosen by the votes of the people, and thus truly represent the country. Lower Canada became violently excited on this question; funds known as “Papineau tribute” were collected; the liberty cap was worn; imported goods were replaced by homespun clothes, and military training soon began. These movements were followed by hostile acts, the English “Constitutionalists” and the French “Sons of Liberty” coming into warlike contact. But Sir John Colborne, the governor, was a man of energy and decision, and quickly brought the incipient rebellion to an end. The insurgents were attacked and dispersed wherever they showed themselves, Dr. Nelson, one of their leaders, was captured, and Papineau, the head of the revolt, was obliged to escape across the border.
This movement in Lower Canada was accompanied by a similar revolt in Upper Canada under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie, the former opponent of the Family Compact. He, as a leader of the opposition forces, had continued bitterly to oppose the oligarchy which controlled Canadian affairs. Three times he was elected to the Assembly of Upper Canada, and three times expelled by the tyrannical majority. The law officers of Great Britain pronounced his expulsion illegal, and he was re-elected by a large majority, but the arbitrary Assembly again refused to admit him.