THE IRISH IMMIGRATION BEFORE 1837. 383 Rifles; Austin Cooper Chadwick, of Guelph, Junior Judge of the County of Wellington. An old resident of Guelph is Colonel Higinbotham, the member in the Dominion Parliament for North Wellington. Born in the County Cavan, in 1830, he was educated at the National School there, and afterwards by the Rev. Wm. Little, of Cootehill. He early came to Canada and settled at Guelph, where for twenty years he carried on business as chemist and druggist. He is President of the Guelph St. Patrick's Society. He was a member of the Town Council of Guelph for many years, and on several occasions has held the office of Deputy Reeve and Mayor. He has been long connected with the Volunteer movement. He joined the active force in 1856, and was for four months on the frontier on the occasion of the first Fenian raid. He commanded the 30th Battalion Rifles (ten companies) from its organization until 1872, when he retired, retaining the rank of Captain. He was first returned to Parliament in 1872. He is described in "Mackintosh " as a Liberal, and a supporter of the Mackenzie Administration. I have now put the reader in a position to judge of the character of the Irish migration prior to the rebellion of 1837. I have not scrupled to complete a subject by giving particulars which relate to the present time. While showing what kind of settlers Ireland sent here, I have also shown what were the difficulties which had to be surmounted by all the settlers, whether Scotch, or English, of those early days. Founded as much of the information is, on the experience of the pioneers, told by themselves either in conversation or by letter, or else on the testimony of their children, in this and the preceding chapters, we have historical material of the highest value. These chapters will have enabled the student of Canadian history to realize the early beginnings of our national existence in the era anterior to politics; he will have been prepared for the impending struggle into which we are about to enter; he will have been supplied with a part, and not the least valuable part, of the data by which he must judge the character, physical, mental, and ethnological of our present population; he will have been put in possession of not the least suggestive facts by which he must appraise, if he will appraise justly, the claims of a great people. Other facts remain to be told, more in teresting, perhaps, but not more suggestive. I shall have, by-andbye, to describe the post-rebellion Irish immigration, with all the cultivating and refining influences which came in its train. But before doing that, the most stirring and instructive events in our annals will have to be recounted more fully than has yet been done by anybody, but not more fully than they deserve the heroic struggle against a tyrannical oligarchy, the birth amid bitter throes of our constitutional life. CHAPTER IX. I proceed to pass in review an eventful period during which many of the greatest men Canada has produced rose to their full stature. If we have in us the spirit of our sires, if we are made of the fibre of which ancestors should be made, if we have such hearts as are the fit foundation stones of nations, these men built for themselves an everlasting name. In those years two young men came into prominence who were destined to play great parts, who are still amongst us, whose hands have done much to mould this young country, but whose career and character it will not fall to my lot to paint. I speak of Sir John Macdonald and the Honourable George Brown. 66 [Authorities for Chapter IX.--Gourlay's Works; Lord Durham's Report; Newspapers; "Travel and Transportation," by Thomas C. Keefer, C. E., in "Eighty Years' Progress from 1781 to 1861;""Historical Sketch of Education in Upper and Lower Canada," by J. George Hodgins, LL.D., F.R.G.S., in "Eighty Years' Progress from 1781 to 1861;""Schools and Universities on the Continent," by Matthew Arnold; "The Emigrant to North America ; ' McMullen's History;" Kaye's "Life of Lord Metcalfe;" "Our Portrait Gallery" in the Dublin University Magazine; Willis's "Sketches in Canada;" Sir R. Bonnycastle's "Canada and the Canadians;" "Biography of the Hon. W. H. Merritt, M. P.; " Original sources: "Salmon-Fishing in Canada," by a Resident, edited by Colonel Sir James Edward Alexander, Knt., K.C.L.S., 14th Regiment, with illustrations; London: Green, Longman & Roberts, 1860. This is dedicated to an Irishman, Lieutenant-General Sir William Rowan, K.C.B., Colonel 19th Regiment, lately commanding the forces and administrator of the Government of Canada. Hansard.] CHARACTER OF THIS HISTORY. 385 shall, however, have to allude briefly to the parts played by these gentlemen in the great struggle; briefly, because I am dealing with Canadian history from a special standpoint, and yet that special stand-point will not prevent me treating the period on which we are now entering in the broad epic spirit of history. Singularly happy for this work is it, that the two great periods of Canadian history were controlled by Irish genius. In other parts of the book "We must tread a tamer measure and this little essay, from first to last, is but a tributary to the great river of history, and may one day be lost in its capacious stream. But the rivulet can quench the thirst of the faint, and refresh the weary limb; in its depths gems serene of ray may rest; the precious ore be cast up on its shores; beautiful lives glide through its crystal arcades; and this little book may likewise refresh, and inspire, and correct, and in the future even, speak fruitfully to men, undeceive the deceived, recall the betrayed from the mazes of betrayal, and help in that straightening, setting-up process, which I think is going on, and which years of slavery and a propaganda of passion and ignorance have made so necessary. It is better to be useful than famous. If these humble pages do a good day's work, others will take up the thread; echo will answer echo; an influence unknown and unthought of will live in the lives of Irishmen, nay, of all Canadians, when the hand that traces these letters will be a clod of the valley. Beautiful results will bloom around, because wounded feelings have been healed, drooping hopes invigorated, noble ambitions kindled, charity diffused, justice vindicated, the truth told. The rebellion of 1837-8, and the union of the two Canadas, were but incidents in the great struggle for responsible government, of which the foundation was laid in the closing years of the eighteenth century. But the structure rose slowly amid difficulty and strife. The building was a roofless shell until 1841, and the coping stone was not placed until six years afterwards. Early, in both Lower and Upper Canada, inevitable difficulties arose out of the fact that popular government was allied with personal government, qualified by the cupidity of a second chamber. A tendency towards independence in Lower Canada, and a dispute between the provinces respecting import duties, led the Imperial Parliament to attempt a solution by a Union Bill, which, while conceding the claims of Upper Canada in respect to import duties, leant strongly in the direction of making the Executive independent of the Assembly, a measure which caused much alarm among the people of French origin in Lower Canada. At a time, when the great question whether Frenchmen are fit for parliamentary government, is still discussed, it would be instructive to study the period now before us, in Lower Canada, and to note how much better, men of French descent understood the genius of popular institutions, than the English governors, or indeed English statesmen, always excepting, to go back nearly a quarter of a century, that extraordinary man Charles James Fox, whose genius made the future present, and the distant near. In Lower Canada, in 1825, the estimates were laid before the Assembly without any distinction between the funds appropriated by the Crown, and the supplementary vote required from the House. The next year, Lord Dalhousie having returned from his short leave of absence in England, great indignation was created by the estimates being laid before the Assembly in two classes, and its fancied power over the Executive destroyed. With French Canadians of talent excluded from office; the mass of the people speaking a language alien to the Imperial isles; favouritism; seignorial rights; what could be expected but discontent on the part of a Province, now numbering four hundred and twenty thousand souls, and opposition and protest on the part of a chamber whose functions were reduce 1 to the level of farce? In Upper Canada, the Crown and Clergy Reserves which interfered with the settlement of the Province, as Mr. Talbot points out very eloquently in his book, and other abuses, created discontent. When in 1817, the Assembly wished to inquire into such matters, it was prorogued by the Governor-contemptuous treatment which could have but one result, to aggravate discontent. Amid discontent and discussion, the root of existing evils was seen, and responsible government, in one form or another, began to take outline in thoughtful minds. About this time a Scotchman named Gourlay, appeared like a GOURLAY AND MACKENZIE. 387 portentous comet on the horizon of "The Family Compact." He was full of inquiries, and full of schemes, and therefore a visitor most unpleasant to those who were farming this great Province for themselves. The foolish Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, instead of seeing that whatever tended to raise discussion, and to foster interest in the country, was calculated to create a public spirit, without which free institutions are a doubtful blessing, levelled a paragraph of a speech from the throne at the head of a persecuted man, who, whatever his eccentricities, had new ideas, which are more valuable to a community than a thousand emigrants, being to it, indeed, what light and sunshine are to the physical world, bringing freshness, opening up lanes of beauty and avenues of wealth. In a population of one hundred and twenty thousand, meetings of delegates were prohibited, in order to hit poor Gourlay. This Act was a couple of years afterwards repealed, under the influence of an impending election. Every year the Reform Party was taking shape and consistency. The General Election of the Autumn of 1825, resulte l in an Assembly in which the Family Compact was in a minority, and outside the Assembly the mantle of Gourlay had fallen on William Lyon Mackenzie. Little need be said, especially in this work, of Mackenzie. His story, surely, notwithstanding some faults not an unaffecting one, has been told by an appreciative and able pen.* It would be ungenerous to deny either Mackenzie or Gourlay, some of the credit for responsible government. But neither of them conceived the idea of responsible government as we enjoy it. Mackenzie advocated making the Legislative Council elective. This, he thought, would remedy all existing evils. Baldwin was the first to see how the knot might be cut, and it is to him we owe our present form of government, and that the country tided successfully over a dangerous crisis. That there were ample grounds for complaint and agitation in those days may be easily shown. In 1825, a question arose respecting the reporting of the debates of the House of Assembly. A vote was passed to meet the expense, but was dishonoured by the governor. In 1826, a committee was appointed to inquire into * Charles Lindsey. |