by Gerald Therrien
Part 2 – The Tory Rebellion
‘The Burning of the Parliament Building in Montreal’, by Joseph Legare – a Patriote in 1837, a co-founder of the Societe-Saint-Jean-Baptiste at Quebec City in 1842, and perhaps, the person that should be considered the father of Canadian painting.
Elections took place in the Province of Canada in January of 1848, that resulted in the forming of a ‘Reform’ government, under the leadership of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine.
In Canada, with the economic downturn after the British adoption of free-trade, and with the fear that trade from western Upper Canada would be diverted by way of the Erie Canal to New York City, instead of by way of the St. Lawrence River (after considerable expenses to build canals and improve the waterways by the province), a bill was introduced by William Merritt to try to revive the commerce of Canada – with a reciprocity agreement with the United States. This agreement would involve agricultural products and raw materials – not manufactures. The duty on imported manufactures would remain at the 1847 rate of 7½%.
During its second session, on February 9th 1849, the Legislative Assembly of Canada resolved that:
“it was expedient to provide for the free admission of grain and breadstuffs of all kinds, vegetables, fruits, seeds, animals, hides, wool, butter, cheese, tallow, horns, salted and fresh meats, ores of all kinds of metals, ashes, timber, staves, wood and lumber of all kinds, of the growth or production of the United States of America into Canada, whenever similar articles the growth or production of Canada shall be admitted without duty into the said United States.”
The bill was finally passed, after having agreed to some amendments by the Legislative Council, on March 19th. But, prior to this, the fight over free-trade and reciprocity was also being debated in the United States.
Earlier in 1846, the British ministry had ‘directed Her Majesty’s minister at Washington, to submit a proposal to the Government of the United States, for the establishment of an equality of trade between that country and Canada’, that he did in December 1846, and that Robert Walker, the American Secretary of the Treasury under President James Polk, found favourable.
Accordingly, on December 20th, 1847, the House of Representatives resolved:
“that the Committee on Commerce be instructed to inquire into the expediency of establishing a system of commercial reciprocity between the United States and Canada, with a view to the admission of the products of either country into the ports of the other on a footing of equality.”
On May 4th 1848, a bill was introduced ‘to admit certain articles of the growth or production of Canada into the United States free of duty, upon the condition that the like articles, of the growth or production of the United States, are admitted into Canada free of duty’. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives on July 12th, the bill was introduced into the Senate but was laid aside, as the Senators instead took up the heated debate over the territorial governments for Oregon, California and New Mexico.
During the next session of the Senate, the reciprocity bill would be re-introduced by Dix of New York – remember that back in 1845, it was Dix who had introduced a petition for the annexation of Canada!
The reciprocity bill was re-introduced on January 8th 1849, by Dix, of New York, who urged that:
“speedy action also is looked for, as the Canadian Parliament is about to meet, and this measure, if adopted by us, will become the basis of a similar enactment there; and it is thought that it will prove highly beneficial to the interests of the two countries.”
Pearce, of Maryland, in opposing the bill, showed that in their treaty with Prussia, for example, it says that:
“no higher or other duty shall be imposed … than are or shall be payable on the like article being the produce or manufacture of any other foreign country … [and that] as soon as we admit Canadian breadstuffs free of duty, Russia and Prussia, which produce wheat at lower prices than we do, may and probably will demand that their breadstuffs shall come into the United States free of duty – and so we shall have free trade in breadstuffs with all those powers with whom we have reciprocity treaties … this bill, therefore, may be considered as the first movement towards the entire withdrawal of all, even incidental, protection to the grain-growers of the United States …”
Niles, of Connecticut, a supporter of the bill, asked:
“will the products of their soil, and the articles manufactured by them, be brought hither and carried to market through the United States? Or will our products and our manufactures be taken there and seek a market through Canada? … In this respect I apprehend that our advantages for carrying on a trade in grain, flour provisions, and perhaps all the articles enumerated, are double those of the provinces, and thus will give us the greater portion of this direct trade in foreign imports …”
Hunter, of Virginia, although a free-trader, opposed the bill because:
“this bill is partial and unequal in its operation … is it fair to take away all the protection afforded to the agricultural interest, while you retain that afforded to the manufacturing interest? … it is a bill of quasi annexation, because the advantages which are urged as arising from it seem to relate to some such measure in the future … to give the sole benefit of the Canadian trade to New York and New England.”
But, Douglas, of Illinois, also a supporter of free-trade, tried to persuade Mr. Hunter and other southern senators that:
[it would] “be a benefit to the shipping interest, to our works of internal improvement, and to all parties connected with this trade; and I do not see that it injures any one. I do not believe that they can bring in agricultural products from Canada so as to undersell us. I believe, on the contrary that we can undersell them.”
Responding to this, Westcott, of Florida, proposed an amendment to allow for free trade with Cuba and Porto Rico, and Downs, of Louisiana, argued that:
“if this principle [i.e. reciprocity with Canada] is to be adopted, I think that reciprocity should be extended to Cuba.”
This reciprocity bill – introduced and debated in the United States Senate in January 1849 (and that was introduced and debated in the Canadian Legislative Assembly in February 1849) occurred shortly before the United States Congress met on February 14th to count the results of the votes of the Electoral College for the presidential election that had been held on November 7th 1848 – the first time that the presidential election had been held at the same time in every state.
A great setback to the British and American free-traders occurred when the Whig party’s candidate, Zachary Taylor, was elected as the next President of the United States – to be inaugurated on March 5th.
Later, on July 23rd 1849, Dix spoke again in support of the bill, trying to address the opposition to it, and included his belief that ‘the adoption of this great measure – the free navigation of the St. Lawrence – depends on the passage of this bill’.
Again, the bill was laid aside, as the Senators now debated the admission of California as a state.
During that same session of the Canadian Legislative Assembly (when the reciprocity bill was passed), on February 13th 1849, La Fontaine and Baldwin introduced a question:
“to take into consideration the necessity of establishing the amount of Losses incurred by certain inhabitants in Lower Canada* during the Political Troubles of 1837 and 1838, and of providing for the payment thereof.”
*Note: Previously, in 1845, under a previous (Tory) government, an act had been passed to give compensation to those inhabitants in Upper Canada for damage suffered in the rebellion of 1837-1838, and to set aside up to ₤40,000 – to be raised from receipts from the tavern licenses in Upper Canada. A commission had been set up to look into the question of indemnification for Lower Canada, but no satisfactory amounts of compensation could be arrived at, and so the matter had rested.
After 6 days of debating various amendments to the question, La Fontaine introduced 7 resolutions, including resolution #5:
“provided that none of the persons who have been convicted of High Treason alleged to have been committed in that part of the province formerly Lower Canada, since the 1st day of November 1837, or who, having been charged with High Treason, or other offences of a Treasonable nature, and having been committed to the custody of the Sheriff in the Gaol of Montreal, submitted themselves to the will and pleasure of Her Majesty, and were thereupon transported to her Majesty’s Islands of Bermuda, shall be entitled to any indemnity for Losses sustained during or after the said Rebellion, or in consequence thereof.”
The resolutions were finally passed, and a bill was presented, passed by the Legislative Assembly on March 6th, sent to and passed by the Legislative Council on March 15th, and sent to the Governor for his assent.
It would seem reasonable that compensation should be given to the innocent colonists in Lower Canada, just as it had been given to those in Upper Canada! And, with amendments that would exclude anyone who had been convicted of treason or who had been sentenced to be transported! [At least it would seem so?!?]
But the Tory journals tried to infuriate the English-speakers of Canada. Lord Elgin, the Governor of Canada, wrote to Earl Grey, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, that:
“the opposition leaders who are very low in the world at present, have taken advantage of the circumstance to work upon the feelings of the old Loyalists as opposed to Rebels, of British as opposed to French, of Upper Canadians as opposed to Lower, and thus to provoke from various parts of the Province the expression of not very temperate or measured discontent.”
Later that April, resolutions were introduced for changing (and lowering) the rates of the custom duties (from the 1847 rates), and after being debated and being agreed to, Francis Hincks, the Inspector-general, introduced a bill to set the new rates. On April 25th, the bill was passed by the Legislative Assembly, sent to the Legislative Council and passed. That same day, the Governor, Lord Elgin, arrived at the parliament buildings to give royal assent to the new tariff bill that the government had urgently requested, and since he was there, he also gave royal assent to forty-one other bills, including the ‘Rebellion Losses Bill’. But, when he left parliament, he was met with protesters who shouted insults, and who threw eggs and rocks at him!
That evening, the (English-language) Montreal Gazette issued a special ‘Extra” – a call-to-arms – that:
“when Lord Elgin – no longer deserves the name of Excellency – made his appearance on the street to retire from the Council Chamber, he was received by the crowd with hisses, hootings, and groans. He was pelted with rotten eggs; he and his aide-de-camps were splashed with the savory liquor; and the whole carriage covered with the nasty contents of the eggs with mud. When the eggs were exhausted, stones were made use of to salute the departing carriage, and he was driven off at a rapid gallop amidst the hootings and curses of his countrymen. The End had begun. Anglo-Saxons! You must live for the future. Your blood and race will now be supreme, if true to yourselves. You will be English “at the expense of not being British”. To whom and what, is your allegiance now? Answer each man for himself. The puppet in the pageant must be recalled, or driven away by the contempt of the people. In the language of William the Fourth, “Canada is lost, and given away”. A Mass Meeting will be held on the Place d’Armes this evening at 8 o’clock. Anglo-Saxons to the struggle, now is your time.”
A crowd of 1500 gathered at the meeting (relocated to Champs-de-Mars) and heard speeches from orators – James Ferres, editor of the Montreal Gazette, Hugh Montgomerie, Augustus Heward and Gordon Mack – when Alfred Perry shouted that the time for petitions and speeches is past and that they should follow him to the Parliament House (where the Assembly was still sitting).
Upon arriving, the mob threw stones through the windows, forced their way in, destroyed the seats and desks, vandalized the chambers, and then set the building on fire – consuming both the Assembly chambers and the Council chambers, the two libraries and the public archives – as the legislators and councillors were forced to flee the fire. The following evening, the homes of La Fontaine and of other reform legislators were vandalized.
Soon afterward, each member of the Lower Canada Reform party would hold meetings in their ridings and would have their constituents sign addresses to Elgin – to disapprove of the rioting that had taken place in Montreal, to approve of the governor, and to express confidence in his administration – since the Tories were demanding his removal. (If the British ministry removed Elgin, the reformer’s experiment with the colonial government as set up by the 1841 Act of Union would be over). LaFontaine would meet with Bishop Bourget who would tell his clergy to support the addresses in each parish.
By the end of May, the Assembly would approve the relocation of the government from Montreal to Toronto in Upper Canada, and the provincial parliament would be prorogued until it would finally reconvene, one year later, in May 1850.
Lord Elgin would write to Lord Grey, the Secretary for War and the Colonies, on September 3rd that:
“But I regret to say that I discover as yet nothing in it to warrant the belief that the seat of Government can properly remain at Montreal … the city council consists of an utterly inefficient Mayor (Fabre) who is attached to Papineau in politics, and of councillors, for the most part equally inefficient, who may be generally classed as Papineau-istes, repeal Irish, and British Ultras – Nothing is to be hoped for from such a body, until the seat of Government is removed … In addition to the reasons which I have given, there is one argument in favor of leaving Montreal which struck me forcibly even before the recent disturbances occurred. You find in this city I believe the most Anti-British specimens of each class of which our community consists – the Montreal French are the most Yankeefied French in the Province – the British, though furiously anti-Gallican, are, with some exceptions, the least loyal – and the commercial men the most zealous annexationists which Canada furnishes – It must, I think, do great mischief to the members who come from other parts of the Province to pass some months of each year in this hot bed of prejudice and disaffection.”
After the Tory rioters had burned down the Parliament buildings in Montreal, the Tories were now being punished by having the government relocated to the Tory bastion of Toronto!?!
It was at this time – while the legislative assembly was not sitting, while the provincial capital was moving to Toronto, and while the Governor was no longer present at Montreal, that the Tory plot would begin to unfold.
[next week – part 3 – The Tory Confederation Plot]