1837]

LORD DURHAM

II

from the mainland, using for the purpose a steamer called the Caroline. The English commander seized this vessel, set fire to her, and sent her in flames over the Niagara Falls. She was an American ship, and had been seized in American territory. Fortunately her character was too evident, the breaches of international law in which she had been engaged too flagrant to be justified, and the American Government thought it prudent to raise no formal complaint.

When the news of the Canadian insurrection was laid before the

Jan. 1838.

hastily summoned Parliament in January 1838, Lord Russell's proJohn Russell proposed to meet the difficulty by a measure posal. almost unprecedented, but which, in its principles, seemed to commend itself to all parties. The Constitution of Canada was to be suspended, and a person of first-rate importance, endowed with almost unlimited powers-with the double title of Governor-inChief and High Commissioner-was to be despatched to rule during the constitutional interregnum, and to devise a permanent and satisfactory Constitution for the Provinces. There were, undoubtedly, errors in the form of the Bill, and inevitable complications arising from the conflicting powers of the Imperial and Provincial Legislatures. Bent, as usual, rather on party victory than on national advantage, the Opposition made the most of these weaknesses. Peel triumphantly obliged Lord John Russell entirely to withdraw his preamble, and amendments were introduced which virtually deprived the new Governor of that unlimited authority which was probably necessary for the success of the plan. Though vested with the power of doing any act which the Legislature of Lower Canada could constitutionally do, he was restricted from repealing or altering any Act of the Imperial Parliament, or any Act of the Provincial Parliament which had in any way modified an Act of the Imperial Parliament. It was certainly not understood at the time how far-reaching that restriction was.

Durham sent

May 1838.

The Commissioner selected was Lord Durham, a man of great abilities and advanced Liberal views, but of an impulsive and self-asserting character. He took with him two men well out. fitted to assist him, Mr. Charles Buller and Mr. Wakefield. He ought, no doubt, to have understood from the tone of Parliament before he started, that the greatest care would be requisite in exercising his powers, and that those powers themselves were a good deal limited. He appears, on the other hand, to have believed that he was sent out as dictator, charged with the duty and responsibility of settling the great questions at issue single-handed. Immediately

on his arrival the treatment of the political prisoners presented itself as a difficulty. To try them by the ordinary forms of law would have been but to court failure. To bring them to justice in any way must have entailed a severity of punishment certain to thwart the success of the fair and conciliatory measures with which he held himself charged. He therefore found means to persuade the prisoners to confess their guilt, or rather to acknowledge their participation in the late rebellion. With the aid of his Special Council (which, in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, was able to perform any act for which the old Legislative Assembly had been competent), he issued an ordinance banishing from the country those prisoners who were in his power, and ordering their transportation to the Bermudas. A list of insurgent leaders who had escaped to America was added to those whom he thus deported, and the whole were forbidden to return to the Canadas, under pain of death, till leave should be given them to do so. Lord Durham believed that in this way he had cleared the ground for the work he had to do. Without failure of justice, without the exercise of vengeance, without attaching to a political crime the stigma of criminal punishment (for the Bermudas was not a criminal settlement), he had rid himself, for the time being, of those whose influence would have interfered with the settlement of the country. Unfortunately he had gone beyond his powers. It was clear, at all events— and he himself subsequently allowed it—that he had no power to insist upon the retention of his prisoners in the Bermudas, which lay entirely beyond his jurisdiction. It was also open to great question whether the creation of a new crime punishable by death did not entirely contravene the clause which had forbidden him to tamper with the Acts of the Imperial Parliament. It was certain, at least, The Opposition that a powerful Opposition-bent on employing every means of assaulting and hampering the Ministry, would fasten on such points, and, supporting them with the cry against despotism and unconstitutional government, which is always listened to in England-would use them as a terrible weapon. The Government, with a small majority in one House only, and that majority consisting of discordant elements, and in a permanent minority in the other House, was too weak to resist the assaults made upon it, and was compelled to disallow the ordinance. A fresh proof was afforded of the extreme difficulty, nay, impossibility, of employing with success the ability and energy of a single man, however well adapted for the purpose, in a country where the executive is paralysed by party interests and the ties of constitutional prejudice. Thus

demand his

recall,

Aug. 1838.

1838]

THE CANADA BILL

13

crossed at the very threshold of his reforms, Lord Durham, who was wholly deficient in that patience which enables a man to sink himself in his cause, and pursue his object regardless of temporary repulse, at once threw up his office. In this he did but anticipate his recall, which crossed his resignation on its way to England. His retirement was not dignified. He thought it necessary in intimating it to the Canadians to accompany it with a long proclamation, which was in fact an attack upon the home Government, and an appeal to the people against its authority. The feeling which it excited in England was such that the Times newspaper allowed itself to speak of him as "the Lord High Seditioner." But the interval between his arrival and his resignation, short though it was, had been by no means wasted. He had made a progress through the country, which, though perhaps too ostentatious, seems to have afforded him an opportunity of learning much. With the aid of Mr. Charles Buller, and some assistance from Mr. Wakefield, he prepared a report on the condition and prospects of Canada, the value of which it is difficult to overstate. On his return he was greeted by the extreme Liberal party with great enthusiasm, but before long found that the general feeling was disapproval of what he had done; and although he resumed his place in Parliament, he had practically ruined his career, and two years afterwards he died, still in the prime of life. Before he had been many weeks in England, and while he was still congratulating himself at meetings which were held in his favour on his perfect success in restoring peace in the Colonies, news of a fresh insurrection arrived. Sir John Colborne, on whom the care of the Colonies had devolved, and who subsequently succeeded to the vacant governorship, proved himself capable of meeting the difficulty, although complicated with an invasion from America; and in his hands, armed as he was with extraordinary powers, the colony awaited the restitution of its Constitution.

second out

break supColborne.

pressed by

Nov. 1838.

The Government at first appeared inclined to proceed at once to legislation based upon the recommendations of Lord Durham's report. But the personal interests connected with the question, the weakness of the Government, and its apparent dread of encountering opposition, induced it to withdraw the Bill and to postpone the settlement till 1842. But the extraordinary powers vested in the Governor, without which no government could be carried on, lapsed in 1840; it became necessary, therefore, in that year to take some definite step. In the interval the principles of the Bill had been discussed in Canada itself, and although they had encountered some opposition, there seemed

Canada Bill based on

Durham's

report.

July 1840.

upon the whole to be sufficient willingness on the part of the colony to leave the question in the hands of the Imperial Government to render legislation possible. A new Bill was therefore introduced early in the session, and passed without any material opposition or amendment. It was based entirely upon the recommendations of Lord Durham. That statesman had been clearsighted enough to observe that it was not the form or principles of the Constitution which were the real grievance of the colonists, but that the mischief lay in the hostility of race, in the perversion of the principles of the Constitution, and in maladministration, and further, in the extreme ignorance existing among the French population. He therefore advised that a national, as contrasted with a local, feeling should be fostered by the union of the two Provinces; that the principles of self-government should be supported by placing in the hands of the Colonial Parliament everything except a few points of Imperial interest; that, a Civil List being secured for the maintenance of officials, all other financial questions should be left to the Assembly; that the Legislative Council, though still consisting of nominees, should be rendered more representative by the increase of its numbers; and that the Executive, with the exception of the Governor, should be responsible to the local Parliament. At the same time, for the purpose of increasing political life, he recommended the introduction of a good form of municipal government. The Bill, which was passed in July, incorporated these reforms, with the exception of the responsibility of ministers-which, however, from this time onwards was in practice always admitted. There was thus created Government as nearly as possible independent, with the effect that the Canadians at once turned their attention to their own improvement, and agitation practically ceased. Durham's report, in fact, laid down the lines which have been consistently followed in the government of our Colonies, and set on foot a system to which we probably owe the maintenance of our connection with them. The restoration of the Constitution was carried out with complete success by Mr. Poulett Thomson, who had been made Governor of Canada in August 1839.

Ireland the

victim of

Party

Next to the violent outbreak in Canada, which could brook no delay, the state of Ireland seemed to call for the first attention of Parliament. The part played by Irish politics in later English history has been a just retribution for the centuries of neglect and misrule to which that country had been subjected. It has been a constant weapon in the hands of

Government.

1837]

IRISH DIFFICULTIES

15

the Opposition, a constant and apparently incurable sore in every Administration. That it is the victim of Party Government is of itself sufficient to explain the evils from which Ireland suffers. It matters not whether the Government is inclined to leniency or to coercion, the Opposition has at once adopted the opposite line of politics; every measure has been thwarted and weakened, or delayed until its virtue has gone out of it. A country conquered, and practically occupied by a foreign and dominant race, torn asunder by the most violent differences of religion, with a population whose character and habits its conqueror could scarcely understand, and which maintained characteristics of an earlier and more barbarous civilisation, presented difficulties which it would have required the united liberal and patriotic efforts of all parties to bring to a settlement. Instead of meeting with any such large and generous treatment, the interests of the country have been again and again selfishly subordinated to party success; and every recognition of its reasonable demands has assumed the form of a concession wrung from the Government of the day under the influence of party pressure. Even Fox, whose wide liberality saw what was the necessity of the case, spoilt his noble advocacy of a proper treatment of the country by speaking of it under the odious word concession. "Concession," he said, “and again concession." It appears not to have occurred, even to his large mind, that it was not concession which was wanted, but a wise and just Government. It is this miserable view, fostering, as it inevitably does, the idea that everything was to be gained by outrage and clamour, which has prevented any happy settlement of Irish questions. Of the statesmen of importance in 1837 Lord Durham alone appears to have had a true view of the policy which should have been pursued in Ireland. He alone seems to have seen, as he saw in Canada, that the amalgamation of races, by allowing to the Irish a perfect equality with their more powerful neighbour, was the right course to pursue. With all others the object appeared to be the minimum of concession which would secure tranquillity. That there were evils to be cured no one denied ; but while the Liberal party would have met them with very considerable measures of reform, the Conservatives were still determined to govern with as high a hand as was at all consistent with peace. The Ministers were more especially pledged to a liberal course by the support which O'Connell and his Irish friends was affording them in Parliament. It had been with their assistance that the Conservative Government in 1834 had been driven to resign; in the present close balance of parties it was their support which alone