Delphi complete works of.., p.523
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 523
Bagot and Metcalfe can, from this point of view, be studied together. Both started from the Russell-Sydenham pact of 1839. Bagot saw that in order to interpret his government in terms of the union and of the governor’s disinterested impartiality, he must accept the logic of the Harrison-Sydenham resolutions of 1841 and follow it in order to save the new constitution and the administrator’s new rôle. He could not find the wishes of the people either in space or in a vague general will. He could not seek them in the “family compact” rump or in the Colonial Office. He could not turn back the clock. He could not divert the stream of development. He found the answer to the “responsible government cry” in the affirmative of responsible government itself. Metcalfe started from the same points and found a similar answer by negative means. Trained in India, he was a man under authority. If the British government said that the clock must go back, that the stream must flow another way, Metcalfe bowed the head. To the Colonial Office all things were possible and even expedient, and he was prepared at all costs not merely to obey orders, but to obey any method of carrying them out. Bagot saw things in terms of an honest mind working with elastic adaptability and the power of balancing choices which the spirit of his instructions would bear. Metcalfe’s mind was equally honest, but working in terms of an experience where the succession of time did not count, and where the diverting of streams was a regular occurrence. If the Colonial Office said “this is the way, walk in it,” he did so. They had used “union” and “party” and “people;” it was their duty to define and he would follow. In the issue, he proved Bagot’s conclusions. By accepting the Colonial Office’s definition of “people” he nearly wrecked the union, and by heading the “people” he became in spite of himself a party leader. His experience met that of Bagot in the practical matter of fact mind with which Lord Elgin finally solved the question.
Bagot’s instructions were issued by Lord Stanley on October 8th, 1841. Stanley was nothing if not brilliant, but his brilliancy was often of such a nature as to obscure any other light on a subject. He was a moderate conservative, who could not believe that there were real parties in Canada — nothing but parish politics and disloyal factions. If anyone was to have power he preferred that it should be the old reactionary group headed by Sir Allan Napier MacNab. He did not want political power to pass into the hands of any one section in the province, and he impressed this wish on Bagot. But as difficulties gathered and he found that VIEWING THE SITUATION comprehension did not work, he pointed out to the governor a line of action: “A stream you will have to pull against, do not doubt it; but having done your best to neutralize opposition by the nature of your measures, if the stream be still against you, bend your back to your oar like a man, and, above all, take none into your crew who will not bend their backs too, and who, instead of pulling with you, will either be cutting (sic) crabs, or backing water when they are most wanted for ‘hard all.’ MacNab is to dine with me on Thursday. . . . I think he is well disposed and reasonable . . . but, although I am far from wishing to reestablish the old ‘family compact’ of Upper Canada, if you come into difficulties that is the class of men to fall back upon, rather than the ultra-Liberal party; at least, unless I am much mistaken, they are both the soundest and carry with them the greatest individual and moral influence.”
Stanley, however, was forced to recognize Sydenham’s work — indeed he recognized it to such an extent as to use at times his words and ideas — and his instructions were drawn up in the light of “a great experiment actually in progress.” The momentous nature of his work was pointed out to Bagot and he was promised by express command of the Queen every assistance from the Imperial Cabinet, and “the most favourable construction” on any course which his judgment directed him to pursue. The general policy was outlined in the following terms: “You cannot too early and too distinctly give it to be understood that you enter the province with the determination to know no distinction of national origin or religious creed; to consult in your legislative capacity, and so far as may be consistent with your duty to your sovereign and your responsibility to her constitutional advisers, the wishes of the mass of the community; and, in your executive capacity, to administer the laws firmly, moderately, and impartially. You will invite to aid you in your labours for the welfare of the province all classes of the inhabitants; you will consider it your bounden duty to be accessible to the representations and prepared to listen to the complaints, or the statements of the views of all, and the only passports to your favour will be, loyalty to the Queen, attachment to British connection, and an efficient and faithful discharge of public duty.” This policy was avowedly that of Lord Sydenham. So strongly was Stanley impressed with the necessity of following it out that he borrowed words used by Sydenham at Halifax in 1840: “It must be your policy to withdraw the legislature and the population generally from the discussion of abstract and theoretical questions, by which the government of Canada in former times has been too often and too seriously embarrassed, to the calm and dispassionate consideration of practical measures.” Bagot was to attempt to THE SYDENHAM EXPERIMENT carry the assembly with him by continuing the benevolent paternalism of his predecessor and “responsible government” was to be shelved as a dangerous theory by an appeal to material interests.
Bagot was not long in the province before he found out that excellent as his instructions were in spirit, there were serious difficulties before him. Sydenham had as it were trained a team, which were going out to test themselves, and it was of the utmost importance if they could be taught to play to the whistle. The trainer had done his work, but he had not tested his men. Bagot realized, after a few weeks in consultation with his executive council, that Sydenham could never have hoped to control the assembly in a new session. Draper and Harrison informed him that they did not expect that the government would win on a vote of confidence. The Sydenham experiment was on the verge of failure. The moderate men were powerless against an “unnatural alliance” between the family compact and the French. The exclusion of the French Canadians at once impressed Bagot as a political volcano. “The narrowness of the foundations” on which the government was based constituted a grave error in tactics and had resulted in the most unlikely political combinations to defeat or to obstruct the administration. In actual life it had produced chaos. Acting under the direction of John Neilson, “the bitterest opponent of the union,” the local government of the lower province was at a standstill. The French Canadians refused to put in motion the municipal machinery and assumed an attitude of “passive resistance,” intending to hurt the central authority through a breakdown in local affairs. Bagot anticipated that a discussion of the civil list would take place in the assembly; and he had little hope of carrying out the imperial instructions. He found that Sydenham had entered into a personal quarrel with the French Canadians as a race and that, in spite of hopes to the contrary, he inherited it. They stood aloof in sulky antipathy.
Bagot tried hard to arrive at any course of action which was free from misinterpretation: “I have discovered,” he wrote, “that the pomps and circumstances attendant upon the great station of top-sawyer in these woods scarcely compensates for the constant effort to keep oneself upright and steady on the log.” He decided against an immediate summoning of the legislature. His executive warned him that he had not “sufficient materials to occupy their time and attention through the sessions,” and that thus the assembly would be left “to create business for themselves by the discussion of abstract and inconvenient questions, such as non-confidence in ministers,” which they might “possibly carry at this particular moment.” THE FRENCH CANADIANS He considered that the legislative council needed widening and that the judicial system of Lower Canada must be placed on a more secure footing. After long correspondence with the colonial office, in which Stanley canvassed the names from every angle of loyalty and safeness, Bagot succeeded in appointing several French Canadians to the higher judicial places. In his efforts to make his councils more comprehensive, he included Francis Hincks, a reformer and a financier of first-class ability. He failed to secure a strong member of the family compact in J. S. Cartwright. Cartwright saw the necessity even of giving weight to the French Canadians, but he refused to sit on any executive which included such a pronounced liberal as Hincks. Bagot, however, continued to hope that he could treat his advent as a new starting place, “a new chapter in the history,” by “doing away with all the old party divisions.” In spite of Stanley’s warning that his blendings of “white” toryism and “black” radicalism might not produce “a good grey,” he considered that the effort might be justified, even if it succeeded merely in taking away grounds of complaint. It was soon evident that these methods had failed to win over the French Canadians or to break the solidity of their opposition. Every French Canadian who accepted an appointment of any nature became immediately “le vendu,” and “le vendu” he remained. He immediately lost his influence over his compatriots. An individual was gained, not a race. The problem had passed beyond Sydenham’s formula and Bagot began to seek the intimate advice of Draper, a moderate conservative, and Harrison, a moderate reformer. With the advice which he received from them the plot thickened to its dramatic dénouement, and the dispatches from July to September 1842 became pregnant with momentous movements.
A dispassionate view of the situation disclosed to Bagot the fact that the government would go down to almost certain defeat without the French-Canadian vote, which undoubtedly possessed the political power. The executive was opposed to the representatives of the people and could command no confidence. The Sydenham-Harrison resolutions left no course open to them but to resign. The governor-general could then adopt one of two courses. He could dissolve the assembly and appeal to the people, with the certainty of having the vote of no confidence carried by the electorate. He could send for Baldwin and LaFontaine. Harrison advised the latter course immediately. It was the only wise solution. Draper was equally certain that the government must be reconstructed and that “public business could only be carried on through the French party.” A single appointment would avail nothing, the trial must be made of appealing to the leaders: “One thing I do not doubt at all, and that is that with the present THE CRUX OF THE SITUATION House of Assembly you cannot get on without the French, while it is necessary for me at the same time to declare frankly that I cannot sit at the council board with Mr. Baldwin. My resignation will be immediate on my becoming aware of his appointment.” Bagot hesitated. For nearly a fortnight he worked at the situation. He knew defeat for the government was practically inevitable. He had “no fear of admitting the French as a party into a share of the government” as far as regards any hostility to the union. He believed their admission “to a share in the government, to which, after all, they were, theoretically at least, justily entitled,” would result in lifting their theories and discontents out of discussion. Baldwin was the crux. Bagot was prepared to take “any hazards rather than see him again introduced into the council.” He had betrayed Sydenham and his inclusion would dissolve the ministry as then constituted. To make the plunge would call forth united opposition in England, would give the lie to Durham’s advice on the French-Canadian problem, and would provide an immediate censure of Sydenham’s régime. No illusions, however, remained: “The moment has come when this question must be determined one way or the other, and this government be carried on either in professed exclusion and defiance of the Canadians of French origin, or by their admission to such a share in it as they may be contented to receive, and the mother country may deem it safe and reasonable to give them. . . . It is impossible to disguise from oneself that the French members of the assembly possess the power of the country, and whoever directs that power by the most efficient means of controlling it is in a situation to govern the province most effectually.” Bagot had not, he confessed, the political courage to decide and he asked for a “simple ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ ” from the imperial cabinet. A small majority might possibly be secured and he proposed to follow Sydenham’s methods and open the session with a speech suggesting popular methods, perhaps an amnesty.
In England, Stanley was under no wise guidance in Canadian affairs. MacNab was telling him “that the loyal party in Canada . . . felt that an unprincipled departure from the conservative policy had placed the country in the most imminent peril.” They had been “insulted, degraded, many of them ruined” from the encouragement given by the administration to men “whose whole career had been unmitigated hostility to the crown, government, and institutions.” The associates of rebels “sat at the governor’s table,” and “the ‘compact party,’ which took arms to suppress the rebellion,” had been disappointed in their loyal hopes. The news from Canada did not thus fall on very well prepared ground, and Bagot’s dispatches drove the Colonial Office into frenzied panic. Stanley sent them at once to Sir Robert Peel, and informed THE FRENCH PARTY him that if Bagot could not command a majority “the union was a failure and the Canadas were gone.” He hoped the governor would multiply “vendus” and disintegrate the French party, rather than dream of attempting to govern with traitors. Peel pleaded lack of intimate knowledge, but on general principles he advised to accept defeat and not to dissolve the legislature. Bagot could nurse the good sense and justice of the province, if the French party in case of extremes were called to power but wished to dictate terms. He appealed to the skill of George III and of Louis-Philippe in managing legislatures, and pointed out how “firmness, moderation, and dignified long-suffering” would help the perplexed and sorely tried governor in “combating a majority in a popular assembly.” Peel’s lack of knowledge was self-evident. Stanley went over the lists of the assembly with Murdoch, whom Bagot had inherited from Sydenham as civil secretary, and he thought he could just see a majority. Eight or ten seemed to be “waiters on Providence or rather on patronage.” The deduction ought to be self-evident. To call in the French could only be a last, final resort and ought not to be done “until it is manifest to this country and manifest to the conservatives and supporters of British influence in Canada generally, that you cannot carry on the government without the French party, and that you can carry it on through and by them. Do not mistake me. When I say the French party, I mean that party conducted by its present leaders and headed by men more or less implicated in the late rebellion. You may ultimately be forced to take these men; but do not take them till the world shall see that you are so forced and my hope and belief is that the necessity will never arise.” Multiply “vendus.” It may not conciliate the party, it may ruin the men, but “the example will be found catching.” The amnesty would be “a difficult card to play.”
Stanley’s dispatch was not received till September 21st. Meanwhile Bagot summoned the legislature on the 8th, and delivered a practical speech in which he alluded to the better relations with the United States under the recently concluded Ashburton Treaty and to the possibility of a reform of the Canadian tariffs. He had decided to meet the legislature with his composite council. The challenge to his courage was not long in coming. On the first day, John Neilson, “that lover of all mischief for its own sake,” moved for copies of any imperial dispatches relating to “an indemnity and general pardon.” Early in the afternoon of the 13th, Bagot wrote to Stanley hoping that he could shelve the question by an expression of good-will. Before night-fall, the circumstances for justification before the world had arisen, a working majority could not be secured. The day closed in dramatic episodes. Bagot communicated with BAGOT AND LAFONTAINE LaFontaine and made him large offers, which he hesitated to accept. The governor hesitated to advance. In the tense crisis, the executive council sent a unanimous communication stating that unless negotiations with the French Canadians were successful the government could not be carried on, and that in accordance with the Sydenham-Harrison resolutions they must resign. Bagot at once sat down and wrote, with the advice of his executive, to LaFontaine offering him four seats in the Cabinet and the Clerkship of the council. LaFontaine was asked to become attorney-general for Lower Canada with a seat in the executive council. His suggestions were invited in filling the office of solicitor-general for the same province. A French Canadian was to become commissioner for crown-lands with a seat in the council, and the post of confidential clerk was to be offered to a French Canadian. Baldwin’s name inevitably entered into the communications, and Bagot expressed his willingness to avail himself of his services. The surrender meant Draper’s resignation and the necessity of getting rid of Charles Richard Ogden, the attorney-general, and John Davidson, the crown-lands’ commissioner. Bagot felt compelled to lay down a condition that the two last should be provided with pensions. Meanwhile the “high conservative party” headed by the “intriguing, slippery unprincipled man,” MacNab, “had made overtures to the French Canadians and the extreme opponents of the government and were prepared to combine with them in order to overthrow the executive council, heedless of the inconsistency of such a course.” LaFontaine still held out, and a vote of “direct expression of want of confidence was moved.” Bagot decided on a bold move. He authorized Draper to read to the house his written proposals to LaFontaine: “The effect was instantaneous. The negotiation was renewed the next morning, the point at issue was compromised, and the arrangement completed.” The pensions were to be left an open question, and in addition to previous offers, Baldwin was to come in as one of the law officers for Upper Canada, sacrificing the present holder of the office. Accordingly, Ogden, Davidson, and Sherwood were firmly but courteously removed. Bagot’s letters to them practically amounted to peremptory commands, and the thin veneer of praise and regret could not hide the hard bargain which had been driven.
