Lord Goderich’s polite wish not to hamper any nor coerce—that these gentlemen might be “at full liberty, as members of the Legislature, to follow the dictates of their own judgment”—ended in the dictates of anger appearing in hard words in the official press. The affections of these tried Loyalists were said to have been estranged; moreover, “they were casting about in their mind’s eye for some new state of political existence” which would put them and their colony beyond “the reach of injury and insult from any and every ignoramus whom the political lottery of the day may chance to elevate to the chair of the Colonial Office.”

Now Mackenzie himself could not have done better than this, nor had he yet gone even thus far.

But the official in that chair was used to many hard knocks, and the individual was changed so often that the blows had no time to take effect. Nor was the incomer ever anxious to avenge the woes of his predecessor.

“Prosperity Robinson,” alias “Goosey Goderich,” soon to be Lord Ripon, “the dodo of the Reform party,” stepped out. Mr. Stanley, “Rupert of debate,” stepped in. The two dispossessed of Canadian power lost no time in presenting themselves at the Colonial Office, one of them going in as his small adversary, Mr. Mackenzie, happened to be coming out, and the personal interview with the possessors of “alienated affections” made the new Secretary make a bid for the return of these valuables by reinstating the ex-Solicitor-General, and giving the ex-Attorney-General the Chief-Justiceship of “Some place abroad,
Where sailors gang to fish for cod,”
in what was called the Cinderella of the colonies, Newfoundland. History is silent, as far as we can learn, on the state of his affections thereafter, transplanted and uprooted so often. We presume they withered and a’ wede awa’.

Now this Chief-Justice had formerly called Mackenzie a reptile, and the other gentleman had dubbed him a spaniel dog—quite a leap from the general to the special, had but Darwin, then somewhere near American waters casting his search-light of enquiry from H. M. S. Beagle, known of it.

Mackenzie was in despair: “I am disappointed. The prospect before us is indeed dark and gloomy.” But rallying from this despondency, in his usual peppery style he told Mr. Stanley the appointments would be “a spoke in the wheel in another violent revolution in America.” Hume wrote that he judged the disposition of the Secretary was to promote rather than to punish for improper conduct, and thereby encourage the misgovernment in Canada, which Lord Goderich’s policy had been likely to prevent.

Well might a Canadian paper, announcing the advent of the new Attorney-General, Jameson, say: “It is to be hoped he will view the real situation of the people of this province from his own observation.”

The Iroquois was always ready to drink to the King’s health, be he a George or a William; Stanley might declaim about “the most odious and blood-thirsty tyranny of French republicanism;” but this little Canadianized Scotchman, with his clever pen and tongue, misty conceptions of statesmanship, real grievances and revolutionary speech, was more than the Home Government could “thole.” The Earl of Ripon, in 1839, stated that Mackenzie in his correspondence of 1835 sought to make himself appear a very great man, whereas in reality he was a very little man. In his apologetic we find: “Well, he saw Mr. Mackenzie. He did not know that Mr. Mackenzie was a broken-down peddler. He knew that Mr. Mackenzie was an exceedingly troublesome person. He was perfectly satisfied, from the conduct of the individual, that Mr. Mackenzie was as vain and shallow a person as he had ever encountered. If the conference alluded to by Mr. Mackenzie was of only two hours’ duration, he must say it was the longest two hours he had ever known.”

How to make a common unity, a compact and harmonious people, out of their uncommon ancestors became the problem. “Not that our heads are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,” said the Canadian mélange, “but that our wits are so diversely coloured.” Some of the men who were to solve the problem do not read as if equipped by appearance or culture to handle with their delicate fingers such homely subjects. Scarcely a week passed without a fresh turn up of the cards in Canada; and although Mr. Warburton wondered if the colony were worth retaining, the game worth the candle, the young Queen, in that part of her speech which dealt with the Canadian question, had an undertone of determination “to maintain her supremacy throughout the whole of the North American colonies,” and how the game would finally turn out became daily involved at Westminster in greater doubt and difficulty. At this time an editor in the United States uttered prophecy: “We do earnestly believe that the Virgin Queen of England is destined to be one of the most extraordinary characters of the present age or any country. She is a little Napoleon in petticoats—as determined, as lofty, as generous, as original as he was. Wait and see.”

“My Lords,” said the Great Duke, referring to her speech quoted from, “I could have wished that this declaration of Her Majesty had been accompanied by corresponding efforts to enable Her Majesty to carry those intentions into effect.”

“Sir Robert Peel, who played upon the House as upon an old fiddle,” regretted that there was not also in that speech a stronger expression of sympathy for the sufferings of their brave and loyal fellow-subjects in the colonies—at which there were cheers from both sides of the House. He could not too much admire the bravery, the loyalty, the devotedness of the Canadians. Nor did this arise from interested motives; it was sincere attachment to monarchical principles, and sincere opposition to a republican form of government.

There were many men, interesting in themselves, in debate on us then; but individually, and as he borrowed interest from his position towards that centre of all observation, the young Queen, came Melbourne.

While still William Lamb he had hated what he called the creeping palsy of misgiving, tried hard to resist it, and developed into one of those not afraid to advance with the age. He had no “extreme faith in religion, politics, or love.” Accordingly, to him patriotism and wisdom were not confined to the Whigs alone. The oh-oh’s and ironical cheers from what he knew to be a powerful majority moved him not; he was as easy, comfortable, good-humoured, as ever. Quaintness, originality of a manner fitful, abrupt, full of irony, at times of a tenderness almost feminine, distinguished him, together with an insuperable aversion to “platitudes, palaverings,”—and bishops. In an age when swearing was as common in drawing-rooms as in the field, England’s Prime Minister was an acknowledged past-master in the art, and by inflections gave a dozen changes to the small familiar four-lettered British adjective in most common use. In ordinary transactions he loved a chirpy oath; but in his dealings with the bishops was forced to coin a “superdamnable.” The Order of the Garter was a great favourite with him, “because there was no damned merit about it.” Utilitarian levelling like Bentham’s he regarded as nonsense; state parsimony like Hume’s, a “pettifogging blunder;” radicalism after the manner of Cobbett and others he called mere ragamuffinism; but he told his peers plainly that the time had gone by when any set of men could put themselves up as a check against national opinion, that antique usages could not prevail against reason and argument—truths spoken with the voice of the Commons in that place where such a voice was almost unknown, seldom heard. Yet rancour was foreign to his nature: “The great fault of the present time (1835) is that men hate each other so damnably; for my part, I love them all.” And all with the air of a good-tempered, jovial gentleman.

“If something of his amiable spirit could be caught by others,” said a friend, “and grafted on Lord Wellesley’s counsel to ‘demolish these people,’ matters would not be difficult.”

Called upon frantically by friend and foe at a time of crisis “to do something,” the responsibility of the times thrown on him, he sat tight and calmly answered, “Whenever you are in doubt what should be done—do nothing.”

This all sounds like the man for the Canadas. Nine hundred or so of his peers gnashed their teeth at him,—if peers ever so use their molars; and in Canada they wrote of “the prolific source of political evil, the profligate course of imbecile rulers.”

William the Fourth had called him “a great gentleman,” although he and his government had been “kicked out” by that obstinate, morbid, prejudiced and somewhat imaginative monarch. Naturally, Melbourne refused an earldom and a garter; but in his final advice to the sovereign he was as tactful as ever in making the latter partially modify the note of dismissal, thereby averting a storm of popular feeling and individual resentment of ministers. “Mind what you are about in Canada,” said the King when final instructions were given to Lord Gosford before he left England, and Melbourne and Glenelg—the Sleeping Beauty—found the monarch as hard to manage as the colony itself. “By —— I will never consent to alienate the Crown Lands nor to make the Council elective. Mind me, my lord, the cabinet is not my cabinet; they had better take care, or by —— I will have them impeached. You are a gentleman, I believe, I have no fear of you; but take care what you do.”

Posing as a man of pleasure, in reality a capable man of business, Melbourne lounged through his duties in a way to exasperate friend and foe. But as he lounged, he learned men and manners, determined to see into things, and even in Ireland, when Chief Secretary, said, “If agitation would not go to bed he would like to have a chat with it.” He was ever pleading for concession to the demands of the people, dreading the consequences of refusal. “Everything about him seems to betoken careless desolation; anyone would suppose from his manner that he was playing at chuck-farthing with human happiness, that he was always on the heels of fortune, that he would giggle away the great Charter.... But I accuse our Minister,” said his critic, “of honesty and diligence; I deny that he is careless and rude; he is nothing more than a man of good understanding and good principle, disguised in the eternal and somewhat wearisome affectation of a political roué.” Perfectly courteous to others, it was impossible for others to be discourteous to him, always excepting Brougham. But even before Brougham he did not quail, and always could give tit for tat, much to the delight of the audience of peers who, like schoolboys, exulted whenever their terror, the bully of the class, got a drubbing. The tongue which Brougham sarcastically spoke of as attuned to courtly airs, made to gloze and flatter, flayed him so completely with its quiet polish that he winced under its lash and betrayed, by his own increased violence of invective, the weight of the punishment. Soon after the accession the press said Lord Melbourne was about to publish a work on chess—the best method of playing the Queen, of getting possession of the castle, an entire disregard of the old system as to bishops, being points in the book. This genial, indolent statesman, who fearlessly told the truth irrespective of party, was rubicund, with the aquiline nose of the aristocrat; his large blue eyes sometimes flashed with fire, but oftener brimmed with merriment. The noble head, sturdy plainly clad and careless-looking figure, consorted well with the laisser aller expression of face. Strange to say, he, like Lord John Russell, usually stuttered out his speeches, thumping the table or desk before him as if to work out the sentences that would not get themselves delivered. The Reform Bill made him specially energetic. Sitting next to him was a very noble earl who wore his hat well over his brows, weighing the pros and cons of too much liberty—for other people. Melbourne in his heat took his own white hat in his right hand, beat the air with it in inarticulate struggle, and brought the white to bear, crown to crown, upon the black one. The blow was fair, the arm muscular; the very noble earl looked like the ancient White Knight, with head apparently wedged between his shoulders. He sat speechless for a moment, and then nimbly springing to his feet, amid roars of laughter, twisted his head free and regained his vision. And when the roar subsided, the Duke of Buckingham thought that the great statesman so suddenly beclouded could scarcely see his way out of the difficulty, and the laughter was renewed. To see a way out of the Canadian difficulty was to find a clue in a maze.

Canadian Tories were triumphant over the fall of the Ministry on the Jamaica question. “We cannot guess,” says one editor, “into what hands Her Majesty may be pleased to commit the trust which Lord Melbourne has declared his unfitness to administer.” The incoming man, Peel, quoted the state of Canada as among the trying questions which made the office of premiership the most arduous, the most important that any human being could be called upon to perform ... the greatest trust, almost without exception, in the whole civilized world, that could fall on any individual. A few moments later he had to confess that there was one question worse than the Canadian one, greater than colonial politics, a “question de jupons.” So the Government, after forty-eight hours’ attempt at change, reverted to its former holders; Canadian Tories were as glum as ever, and said Melbourne was again the governor of the petticoatocracy.

The St. Lawrence alone made the colony worth keeping; also, Canada by its confines came in contact with Russia; it was the seat of the most valuable fur trade in the world, and England would not be out of possession of it for two months before a French fleet would be anchored in the Gulf. These were thoughts impossible to think with calmness, worse even than annexation to the United States. The least calm of these men who debated upon what we were worth, and just what should become of us, was Brougham. Like most who love to torment, he himself was easily tormented. How does this champion of liberty look as he rises to condemn the policy on the Canadian question as “vacillating, imbecile, and indolent;” as he puts his awkward questions to those whom he calls his “noble friends” or “the noble lords,” all looking marvellously uncomfortable when their names are in that merciless mouth. We hear of him as absent from his place, ill in Paris through having swallowed a needle; yet after his return, one could imagine, in spite of his pointed replies, that his gastronomic feat had been to swallow a flail. “The foolish fellow with the curls has absolutely touched him,” says a contemporary writer.... “Make way, good people, the bull is coming—chained or loose, right or wrong, he can stand it no longer; with one lashing bound he clears every obstacle—there he is, with tail erect and head depressed, snorting in the middle of the arena.” The eyes flash, the brows gather, the dark iron grey hair stands up rigid, his arm is raised, his voice high; he is well out of the lush pastures of rhodomontade and diffuseness. The display of his power and the fertility of his mind amazes friend and foe; for the genius of his fervent intellect includes French cookery, Italian poetry, bees and cell building, and a host of subjects seemingly far removed from law and politics. This must have been knowledge gained at the cost of his profession, for an epigram has it that he knew a little of everything, even of law. “Brougham, though a Whig, is not a goose,” says the Noctes. Certainly “the whipster peer” who was so lately defiant does not look as if he thought so, as his late pretty bits of rhetoric rattle about his own ears. Sarcasm on his tongue, bile in his heart, Brougham talks pure vitriol, and everywhere a word falls a scar remains.

His foes accused him of being “one of those juggling fiends” “Who never spoke before,
But cried, ‘I warned you,’ when the event is o’er.”
He contended that his conduct on the Canadian question had been “impudently, falsely and foully aspersed.” So far from being a juggling fiend who did not warn until the event was o’er, instead of standing by and not giving a timely warning, he had, not less than ten months before, standing in that place, denounced the policy of the Government. More, he had entered his protests on the journals, warning, distinctly warning, the Government that their proceedings would lead to insurrection; and to mark the falseness of the quotation, more marvellous still, he had never twitted them when the event was o’er by saying he had warned them.

There were, however, occasions and combinations which dismayed even Brougham. He, Ellis, Hume, Papineau and Bedard, happened to meet in Paris. Much to the satirical disgust of some Canadian papers, Lord Brougham declined a dinner invitation and remained in bed in order to be quite incapacitated, as he had good reason to fear that his seat at table would be opposite Papineau.

But there is a grave in the Benchers’ Plot at Lincoln’s Inn which tells the tale of the one vulnerable spot, the wound which would not heal, in this extraordinary, audacious, eloquent man, this free lance, the critic of administrations, so prone to wound others. There he laid his only remaining child, a girl of seventeen, his application to have her so buried listened to by the Benchers because he too wished to be laid there in the same grave with her.

The third in this trio who faithfully laboured to abolish or mitigate “toil, taxes, tears and blood,”—who all for their pains were burned in effigy in Quebec and other places—was Lord Glenelg. The following is a travesty on what were supposed to be the instructions given by him, when debates as to what would prevent rebellion were followed by debates on what would cure it, Lord Durham chosen the Physician Extraordinary for colonial ills. The document was intended to regulate the Canadian Government, and showed the zeal and watchfulness of Lord Glenelg:

“First of all, endeavour to discover of what rebellion consists; it is not exactly murder or manslaughter, or precisely highway robbery or burglary; but it may, in a measure, consist of all.” The witty gentleman who wrote thus far was quite right, but his words were two-edged. Lount’s death has more than once been called murder, and rebellion losses discovered some pretty kinds of robbery. “I have looked into all the dictionaries, and I find that the definitions given are pretty much alike; but I would not be quite certain that they are right.” Lord Glenelg had personally written Sir F. B. Head on his appointment a year or so before, “You have been selected for this office at an era of more difficulty and importance than any which has hitherto occurred in the history of that part of His Majesty’s dominions. The expression of confidence in your discretion and ability which the choice implies would only be weakened by any mere formal assurance which I could convey to you.” Now any man who could ascribe discretion and ability to Sir Francis Bond Head had need of recourse to dictionaries.

The bogus Lord Glenelg then continues his theorizing, on the basis that a mascot is a mascot. “A rebel is undoubtedly a person who rebels, and rebellion is unquestionably the act of a rebel; you will therefore ascertain whether there is a rebel, whether that rebel rebels, and if he does rebel whether it be rebellion. Having decided the point, you will then consider what is to be done. I am strongly of opinion that as long as rebellion lasts it will continue. Now, it would be requisite to learn the probable duration of the rebellion, which, I should think, would depend in some measure on the causes which excited it. Your object will be, therefore, to make its continuance as short as possible; and if you cannot suppress it all at once, you will do it as soon as you can. Then, as to the method of suppressing. I know of no way so efficacious as that of putting it down. I would advise neither severity nor conciliation, but only measures which will deter the bad or win them over. I would neither hang, pardon nor fine a single rebel, but let the law take its course, tempered with mercy.” The last Sir George Arthur did.

“By following these general instructions you will most assuredly set the Canadian question at rest, and I comfort myself with the idea that my rest will not be broken up again while I hold the colonial seat. Should any difficulty occur, I beg of you to send to me for further instructions; but I place such confidence in the advice I have already given that I shall not anticipate any application to disturb my slumbers.”

At the date of this ironical issue there were questions, seriously enough put, as to why Lord Gosford should be decorated with the Order of the Bath, the inference from the wording being that, unlike the Garter, it had some “merit” in it; merit which this Tory sheet failed to discover: “Given in a mad spirit of democratical arrogance to make rank and honours mere butts for public derision ... they generate a swarm of obscure baronets”—poor Sir Francis! “Last, and worst, they bestow that distinction, which was intended for the highest military and civil merit, on Lord Gosford, who found a colony in peace(!) and left it in rebellion.” The colony did not think so: il était un excellent homme. L. O. David says that only where he found it impossible to work out his mission of pacification he took vigorous measures, which were forced upon him. He left behind him, says the legend, le trop-célèbre Colborne.

I have laboured with all my wits, my pains and strong endeavours, said each debater; and Canada, Shakespearian in turn, replied, “Pray you, let us not be the laughingstocks of other men’s humours.”

There were many winter nights of ’37 made anxious to the colonies, when “Goderich, amiable but timid, ... Lord Glenelg, sleepy, ... Howick, mischievous, ... and the real Judas, Mr. Stephen, debated leisurely, and Mr. Disraeli began his romance of politics.”

“Well, Mr. Disraeli,” said Lord Melbourne, “what is your idea in entering Parliament?” “To be Prime Minister, my Lord,” was the daring answer; not quite as, in their minor world of politics, Papineau and Mackenzie dreamt of presidency in new republics.

On the night of Gallows Hill, December 7, ’37, while Toronto was in a flutter of excited wonder and self-congratulation, while Mackenzie was speeding one way, Rolph another, and Papineau had already crossed the lines, the British House of Commons echoed to the sonorous brogue of the Celtic Thunderer and to Mr. Disraeli’s famous failure of a maiden speech. “A failure is nothing,” said the man destined to be great; “it may be deserved or it may be remedied. In the first instance, it brings self-knowledge; in the second, it develops a new combination which may be triumphant.” Words as prophetic for the failure in Canada as for his own.

If, with Henry VI., we can say of Mackenzie, a bedlam and ambitious humour makes him oppose himself against his king, so might these Lords and Commons, Governors and Commanders, have taken pains with the habitant to “attend him carefully and feed his humours kindly as we may.” The French were such very children. “Oh mon Dieu,” cried one from the bottom of a boat while he and his companions looked momentarily for destruction, “if you mean to do anything, do it quickly! Once we are at the bottom it will be too late. Allons mon Dieu! just one little puff of wind, and we shall escape!”

Far back as the times of the beloved Murray, when they had at his recall petitioned the King to send him back to them—for he and his military council “were upright officers, who, without prejudice and without emolument,” did their best—and received as answer the arrival of Carleton in his stead, they were satisfied. For Carleton “was chosen by your Majesty.” Even the Duke of Richmond, in his short and stormy encounter with the Houses of Assembly, was beloved; why? They hailed the prestige of his exalted rank, for he was not only Duke of Richmond but Duc d’Aubigny, direct from the Duchess of that title, who had been invested with it by Louis Quatorze, their own Grand Monarque, as his other ancestors had been by Charles. Why did not some quick wit in the year ’37 follow the Scotch plan of providing a monarch for England instead of allowing that that place provided rulers for Scotland, and draw a parallel between James, who was Sixth of Scotland before he added England to his domain, and the young Queen whose claim to anything and everything came straight down from France? “The Norman-French of Quebec may well feel proud when they remember that they can claim what no other portion of the Empire can assert—that they are governed by a monarch of their own race, who holds her sceptre as the heir of Rollo, the Norman sea-king, who first led their ancestors forth from the forests of the north to the plains of Normandy.”

A Call to Umbrellas.
“We must have bloody noses, and cracked crowns, and pass them current, too.”

In 1837 people did not do things by halves. De mortuis nil nisi bonum doubled its meaning from the fervour of the abuse and obloquy cast upon the subject of it during life. William IV. found even his Queen—to whom, by the way, though she was jostled on the edge of accession by Mrs. Jordan and others, he seems to have been devoted—satirized, lampooned, vilified, by press and tongues alike. No sooner is he himself dead than his demise becomes “mournful intelligence,” “melancholy event,” “affecting news,” “distressing circumstance of the death of our beloved monarch.”

Out of the chaos left behind him steps a girlish figure, not unlike, in her bare feet and streaming hair, to some picture of early Italy, a Stella Matutina.

Her head and hands are touched with the holy Chrism; Melbourne redeems the sword of state with a hundred shillings; two archbishops and some peers lift the tiny figure into the throne; no champion throws the glove; the acclamations of thousands proclaim her crowned, peers and peeresses put on their coronets; trumpets blare above the boom of cannon; the heads of a nation are bowed in the silence of prayer; “Stand firm and hold fast,” adjures His Grace; the old do homage and become her liege men of life and limb and of earthly worship, and of faith and truth which they will bear unto her, to live and die against all manner of folk. All the romance of the Middle Ages seems crowded round that small figure in St. Edward’s chair, and Stella Matutina becomes Queen Regnant.

When she opened her first Parliament the Repeal Cry and disturbed Canada were vexing elements in discussion; but the young sovereign placed her trust “upon the love and affection of my people;” and that trust, as we see, was not misplaced.

The Far West was long in hearing of her accession. “There was a deep slumberous calm all around, as if Nature had not yet awoke from her night’s rest; then the atmosphere began to kindle with gradual light; it grew brighter and brighter; towards the east the sky and water intermingled in radiance and flowed and glowed together in a bath of fire. Against it rose the black hull of a large vessel, with masts and spars rising against the sky. One man stood in the bows, with an immense oar which he slowly pulled, walking backwards and forwards; but vain seemed all his toil with the heavy black craft, for it was much against both wind and current and it lay like a black log and moved not. We rowed up to the side and hailed him, ‘What news?’ What news indeed, to these people weeks away from civilization, newspapers and letters. ‘William Fourth was dead, and Queen Victoria reigned in his stead.’”

“Canada will never cost English ministers another thought or care if they will but leave her entirely alone, to govern herself as she thinks fit.” Then came the division of opinion as to what was fit, to be followed later by the opinions of Lords Durham and Sydenham upon the dominant party, to be in the meantime fought for by all. Some held it wisdom to say that a despotic government was the best safeguard of the poorer classes. A certain gentleman aired this idea in Canada, saying a governor and council was the only thing for that country. His Canadian listener looked at him fixedly for a moment, asking again if that were really his opinion,—“Then, sir, I pity your intellects.”

There was an ominous smoke from the fire in Canadian hearts over this question of class prejudices. Those were the days when a barrister would not shake hands with a solicitor, nor would a “dissenting” minister be allowed within the pale of society. Governor Maitland had been particularly hard upon this latter so-called shady lot of people. A store-keeping militia officer refused a challenge because the second who brought it was a saddler. The honourable profession of teaching was looked at so askance that to become a teacher was an avowal of poverty and hopelessness. Yet joined to this Old World nonsense, transplanted to a world so new that the crops sprung out of untilled ground, was the fact that many of the noblesse, indigenous as the burdock and thistle, drew their rent rolls from the village stores, and with the rearing of the head of what was called “the hydra-headed democracy,” Froissart’s fear was shared “that all gentility was about to perish.”

Under these circumstances military life naturally gave scope for much originality in uniform, accoutrement, and deportment. At one drill three or four hundred men were marshalled, or rather scattered in a picturesque fashion hither and thither. A few well-mounted ones, dressed as lancers, in uniforms which were anything but uniform, flourished back and forth over the greensward to the great peril of spectators, they and their horses equally wild, disorderly, spirited and undisciplined. Occasionally a carving or butcher knife lashed to the end of a fishing pole did good duty for lance,—not a whit more astounding in appearance and use than the concert of marrow-bones and cleavers which some years before had nearly frightened the Duchess of York to death on her arrival in England.

But the lancers were perfection compared with the infantry. Here there was no attempt at uniformity of dress, appearance or movement; a few had coats, others jackets; a greater number had neither coats nor jackets, but appeared in shirt-sleeves, white or checked, clean or dirty, in edifying variety. Some wore hats, some caps; some had their own shaggy heads of hair. Some had fire-locks, some had old swords suspended in belts or stuck in waistbands; but the greater number shouldered sticks. An occasional umbrella was to be seen, but umbrellas were too precious to allow of liberties; some said, “But for these vile guns I myself would have been a soldier;” some were willing to enlist for gardin’, but not for shootin’. The word of command was thus given:—“Gentlemen with the umbrellas, take ground to the right; gentlemen with the walking-sticks, take ground to the left.” They ran after each other, elbowed and kicked, stooped, chattered; and if the commanding officer turned his back for a moment, very easily sat down. One officer made himself hoarse shouting out orders which no one thought of obeying with the exception of two or three men in front. But the lancers flourished their lances, galloped, and capered, curvetted (and tripped) to the admiration of all. The captain of the lancers was the proprietor of the village store, and shortly after the military display might have been seen, plumed helmet in hand, vaulting over his counter to serve one customer a pennyworth of tobacco and another a yard of check. The parade day ended in a riot, in which the colonel was knocked down and one or two others seriously, if not fatally, injured. “Most elegantly drunk,” “superbly corned,” the gallant lancers, for want of an enemy, fought with one another. One invention of ’37 was a fuddleometer, an instrument designed to warn a man when he had taken his innermost utmost. But it does not seem to have been adopted at the War Office. Be that as it may, “these were the men who were out in ’37, and they did good work too.”

A glance at the method of preparation at times employed by their enemies shows a uniformity in style. One captain, in calling his company together, enumerating “You gentlemen with the guns, ramrods, horsewhips, walking-canes and umbrellas, and them that hasn’t any,” could not get his men together, because at the time most of them happened to be engaged either as players in, or spectators of, a most interesting game of fives. The captain consulted his hand-book of instructions to see what was proper to do in such circumstances, and exhorted them persuasively and politely:

“Now, gentlemen, I am going to carry you through the revolutions of the manual exercise, and I hope, gentlemen, you will have a little patience. I’ll be as short as possible; and I hope, gentlemen, if I should be going wrong, one of you gentlemen will be good enough to put me right again, for I mean all for the best. Take aim! Ram down cartridge—no, no, fire—I remember now, firing comes next after taking aim; but with your permission, gentlemen, I’ll read the words of command.”

“Oh, yes, read it, Captain, read it, that will save time.”

“’Tention, the whole then. Please to observe, gentlemen, that at the word ‘fire,’ you must fire, that is if any of your guns are loaded; and all you gentlemen fellow-soldiers, who’s armed with nothing but sticks and riding switches and cornstalks, needn’t go through the firings, but stand as you are and keep yourselves to yourselves.... Handle cartridge! Pretty well, considering you done it wrong end foremost.... Draw rammer! Those who have no rammers to their guns need not draw.... Handsomely done, and all together too, except that a few of you were a little too soon and some a little too late.... Charge bagonet!”

(Some of the men) “That can’t be right, Captain. How can we charge bagonets without our guns?”

“I don’t know as to that, but I know I’m right, for here it is printed, if I know how to read—it’s as plain as the nose on your—faith, I’m wrong! I’ve turned over two leaves at once. I beg your pardon, gentlemen,—we’ll not stay out long, and we’ll have something to drink as soon as we’ve done. Come, boys, get off the stumps.... Advance arms! Very well done; turn stocks of your guns in front, gentlemen, and that will bring the barrels behind; and hold them straight up and down please.... Very well done, gentlemen, you have improved vastly. What a thing it is to see men under good discipline. Now, gentlemen, we come to the revolutions—but Lord, men, how did you get into such a higglety-pigglety?”

The fact was, the sun had come round and roasted the right wing of the veterans, and, as they were poorly provided with umbrellas, they found it convenient to follow the shade. In a vain attempt to go to war under the shadow of their own muskets, and huddling round to the left, they had changed their crescent to a pair of pothooks. The men objected to the captain’s demand for further “revolutions,” as they had already been on the ground for three-quarters of an hour, and they reminded him frequently of his promise to be as quick as he could. He might fine them if he chose, but they were thirsty and they would not go without a drink to please any captain. The dispute waxed hotter, until he settled it by sending for some grog, and the fifteen guns, ten ramrods, twelve gun-locks, three rifle-pouches and twenty-two horse-whips, walking-canes and umbrellas, fortified themselves for further exertions. The result of the next order or two was doubly groggy.

“’Tention to the whole. To the left, no—that is the left—I mean the right—left wheel—march.” He was strictly obeyed, some wheeling to the right, others left, and some both ways.

“Halt—let’s try again! I could not just tell my right hand from my left—long as I have served, I find something new to learn every day—now gentlemen, do that motion once more.” By the help of a non-commissioned officer in front of each platoon they succeeded in wheeling this time with some regularity.

“’Tention the whole—by divisions—to the right, wheel—march!”

They did wheel and they did march, and it seemed as if Bedlam had broken loose; every man took the command:

“Not so fast on the right!”

“Haul down those umbrellas!”

“Faster on the left—keep back in the middle!”

“Don’t crowd so!”

“I’ve lost my shoe!” And by this time confusion was so many times confounded that the narrative had to cease perforce.

There is a Sherlock Holmes-like story told of a deserter from the British army who tried to enlist in Buffalo. His good manner and address were noticeable, and he was supposed to be no common recruit. A surgeon who suspected him suddenly called out “Attention!” and as the man’s hands dropped by his side he stood confessed a soldier.

At Fort Brady, with its whitewashed palisades and little mushroom towers, was a castle, unrivalled in modern architecture. On the greensward in front were drilled an awkward squad of matchless awkwardness, in that way the superiors of any Canadians whom they might propose to attack. On occasion one would give his front file a punch in the small of the back to speed his movements, another would aim a kick for the same purpose; each had a humour to knock his neighbour indifferently well. The sentinels, in flannel jackets, were lounging up and down, looking like ploughboys ready to shoot sparrows, quite in keeping with their surroundings. But on the Canadian side there were not even these vivid demonstrations of power. Enthusiasm, however, made up for many shortcomings.

In all the newspapers of the two provinces such productions as that shown in reduced fac-simile on the opposite page might be seen; age has robbed the original, now lying before us, of a few words, but the lettering and alignment are unaltered.

The chronicler has it that Brockville’s corps began with twenty-three inoffensive and respectable men of small merchandise, who essayed to hearten themselves and terrify the French by adopting the name Invincibles. This amused Kingston, and a corps was accordingly turned out from there, called the Unconquerables, in order not to be behind “the paltry little village down the river,” and in a bogus notice from one “Captain Focus, commanding,” there was an N.B.: “No Unconquerable permitted to attend muster without his shoes well blacked and his breeches well mended.”

One colonel issued instructions that above all things solid form must be preserved,—should a man fall, close and cover the vacancy. An Irishman with a bass voice and sepulchral delivery gravely asked, “And would your honour have us step on a did man?”

The word “halt” had little power to make some militia corps stationary; it rather accelerated their speed. “Halt—halt—halt!” cried a perspiring officer as he chased his men, and as near explosion point as his own gun; “if you don’t halt I’ll walk you five miles!” The threat prevailed, and they halted. But they were peremptory enough when individually they had to give the same order. Both sides, loyalist and patriot, saw an enemy in every bush and were always ready for a spy. Excitement was running high in a Yonge Street village one day, when a lad, young Jakeway, hearing an unusual noise in the street, walked out to see what it was. One of a number of armed men before the village inn called to him to halt, taking him for a spy. But the lad turned away and did not hear. The man, upon no further provocation, raised his gun to shoot, but another, less ardent, knocked the weapon up and contented himself with Jakeway’s arrest. The leader recognized him as an inoffensive onlooker, and dismissed him with an apology. No one was to pass certain outposts out of Kingston without passport, the parole and countersign. The Montreal mail with four horses dashed to the bridge at Kingston Mills as the militia sentry’s halt rang out. But the coachman, as fit as himself, paid no heed; so the sentry’s bayonet pierced the breast of one of the leaders. Complaint was made to the Postmaster-General, but the sentry was promoted and Government would afford no redress. It knew a good man. That same night brought commanding officer and men, clothed and armed, to parade. By lantern light they were made load and told “the time was come.” On the principle of first fire, then enquire, a man in the front rank—of course an Irishman—discharged his musket in his officer’s face. “Be jabers,” said he, when asked for explanation and congratulated on the harmlessness of his aim, “Colonel, I wuz that full of fight I cuddn’t help it.”

But at the grand inspection in and about Kingston, which took place chiefly before St. George’s church, with the same hearty bluff Englishman, Colonel Bonnycastle, in command, the troops, six hundred and fifty in number, newly clothed and equipped, made a handsome showing, and considering their rawness performed their evolutions creditably and without damage to themselves or him.

“Are these British soldiers?” asked an onlooker who was shrewdly guessed to be a military spy from the other side.

“Oh, no, not at all, only the Frontenac militia.”

“Then if they are militia,” returned the American, “all I can say is they must be regular militia.”

Old Peninsula officers, remnants of Brock’s army, veterans from everywhere British, helped from Quebec to Sarnia to leaven this mass of raw colonial fighting material, and they developed it into something very ugly to tackle.

But even veterans want substantial recompense for service, and in ’37 Sir Francis received a strong appeal from one of them: “May it please your Honor and Glory, for iver more,
Amen.

“I, —— ——, formly belonging to the 49th Regt of Foot was sent to this country in 1817 by his Majesty George the Forth to git land for myself and boys; but my boys was to small, but Plase your Honor now the Can work, so I hope your honor wold be so good to a low them Land, because the are Intitle to it by Lord Bathus. I was spaking to His Lord Ship in his one office in Downing Street, London, and he tould me to beshure I wold Git land for my boys. Plase your Honor, I was spaking to Lord Almor before he went home about the land for my boys, and he sed to beshure I was Intitle to it. Lord Almor was Captain in the one Regt that is the Old 49th Regt foot. Plase your honor I hope you will doe a old Solder Justis. God bless you and your family.

“Your most humble Sarvint
“—— ——

“N.B. Plase your Honor I hope you will excuse my Vulgar way of writing to you, but these is hard times Governor so I hope you will send me an answer.”

Not one of them was too far off to hear the despatchmen as they rode along the half-made roads, with bugles blowing the call to arms. Spear in boot, sword clanking by his side, the despatchman was an impressive figure which still lives in the memory of some of those who in their youth answered to his call. No one disputed his word; at his behest the farmer had to go, and the farmer’s horses had to be harnessed to furnish transport for recruits. “Four of us were out, ’cause why, we had to. Two of us were stacking cornstalks, one was at the creek with the horses, and I was mending the fence. It was a beautiful day, and the air was clear enough to hear anything, let alone that bugle. The tooting was followed by the appearance of a lot of men, and we were ordered to fall in. It took me only a minute to run into the house for some things; none of us had a gun, and on the way we cut ourselves cudgels. There was not any volunteering about it, for it was a regular press. I was the youngest, and mother she did cry like sixty.”

Everywhere the rigours of barrack life, drill, and life generally were lightened by practical jokes and bogus challenges. John Strachan, junior, once gravely challenged a cow, gave her one more chance to answer, and then, in defence of his country, took her life. What is more, he had to pay for her.

In Quebec the volunteer days of ’37-38 were festive times. With population that followed a thin line of river border and condensed at the two cities, and with superior means of equipment and drill, the period of formation was not so lengthy as in Upper Canada. Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable James Hope was chosen by Lord Gosford as commander of the volunteer force. In December, ’37, the garrison at Quebec was reduced to one company of Royal Artillery. No greater compliment could be paid Major Sewell, late of the 49th, Brock’s own—with his regiment in uniforms of “blue coat and buff breeches, white blanket coat and green facings, blue cap and light band”—than to put him in charge of that important post. He had some veterans among them, Henry Lemesurier, a captain minus his right arm, which had been carried away by a round-shot at the battle of Salamanca when bearing the colours of his regiment—the 74th—for one. The militia force in the beginning of the year was incomplete and inefficient, looking formidable with its list of every officer from colonel to corporal, but with many, officers and men alike, who had never handled a musket. But they were to get used to the smell of powder. “Lord love your honour, the smell of gunpowder, did you say? Divil a bit do we care for it—it’s the balls we do be moindin’.” And well he might say so, for not even H. M. Regular Rocket troop was to be entirely trusted. At St. Eustache, under the impression that rockets like wine improve with age, one, a relic of the Peninsula, was fired. It was a mellow old fellow, slow in making up its mind. Instead of rising it fell, failed to clear the unaccustomed snake fence which lay in the track, broke off its tail and sent its huge head whirling and whizzing, twirling and sizzling, over a ploughed field, with Head-quarter staff, Rocket troop and all before it in mad flight to escape. It seized upon one volunteer to play particular pranks with, and chased him round and round the field, until, exhausted, he fell between the furrows, and the rocket, balked of its prey, went out with a final bang. Convinced that his enemy was defunct the man got somehow to his feet, and never drew breath—so the story goes—until Montreal was reached.

The first paid corps raised at Quebec was named the Porkeaters, a regiment some six hundred strong, able-bodied, resolute fellows, mostly Irish labourers, mechanics and tradesmen, who did no discredit to their supposed diet. These bacon-fed knaves began by looking the awkward squad; but drill by the non-coms, of the regulars, aided by strict discipline, soon made them perform their evolutions with the regularity and precision of their instructors. It is easy to fancy this regiment going into action under Colonel Rasher, with the wholesome advice, Salvum Larder, floating to the breeze in the hands of Ensign Flitch—“Charge, Sausage, charge; On, Bacons, on,” the last words of some local Marmion.

A fine cavalry corps, well-mounted, muscular fellows, under Major Burnet, did good work; yet temperate withal, not like Strange’s troop in Kingston. The latter had been in semi-activity since ’34—that is to say, they were drilled on foot, with sticks for sabres. The consequence was that when they were furnished with arms and mounted on steeds of many sizes, difficulties ensued. Calm Sergeant Nobbs, sword in hand, all his neighbours equally hard at work mastering horse and weapon, unfortunately drew the curb at an inopportune moment as he was demonstrating his mode of parrying. Up came the horse’s head, and off went its ears.

Also at Quebec were the Queen’s Pets, composed of seafaring men, under Captain Rayside, a veteran naval officer, in long blue pea-jackets, blue breeches, round fur caps with long ears, and red woollen cravats—evidently the young Queen was supposed to be fond of novelty—their arms, horse pistols, broad cutlasses and carronade. Companies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 in this regiment had blue loose coats with red collars, blue breeches, and high fur caps with long ears; the Highland company had Rob Roy tartan trews, Scotch bonnets and dark frock coats.

The Fauch-a-Ballaughs were gayer still, in white blanket coat, red sash, green buttons, green facings and green seams, high cap with green top falling over—an old hat and the humour of forty fancies pricked int’ it for a feather—and blue breeches with a red stripe.

One corps had a euphonious and suggestive Dahomean title from corporations gained in forty years of piping peace and good dinners. They were chiefly Lower Town merchants, veterans in business if not in war, who soon brought their cognomens under the discipline of black leather belts, cartouche box and twenty rounds of ball cartridge; good Brown Besses rested on the shelves provided by a kindly Mother Nature; and with much puffing and blowing, their eyes fronted and righted until a permanent cast was threatened.

All corps dined much, whether they were to fight or not. Military dinners were frequent, and always went off with great éclat, the local excitement lending “go” to them all. Even in that time of ferment there were, as there had been since the Conquest, sensible men, French and English, of the better classes who had made the fact of a common enemy—the American assault of Quebec—a ground for a common patriotism. History has handed down a glowing account of one St. Andrew’s dinner given in ’37, in Quebec, and Mr. Archibald Campbell’s lines, sung by himself in a clear and mellow voice, are worth reproduction as indicative of the Scottish spirit: