The Hostile Origins of Canada, or “Politics as War Continued by Another Means”

By ‘The Hicksite’

The history of the world is largely that of Empires. Republics have been the exceptions. The American Revolution is the greatest watershed in history. It changed the world, and the USA was strong enough to become the most long-lived republic ever to exist (though most of the world has little idea of how much they owe to it) Imperialists though, whose memories span millenia, see it is only a recent, and temporary setback, and have sought every means to either defeat, or co-opt it. 

Without true economic development, there can be no security. Without development, supposed security must always be a matter of war, as a means of control, and for that reason, empires have always been, and as long as they are tolerated, will always be, at war. Thus, the men sent by Empires to rule over their Dominions-whether Satraps over Satrapies, Propraetorian Legates over Imperial Provinciae, Governor-Generals over Colonies, or Beylerbey over Eyalets- have had two common qualities.

A. They had to function as both colonial administrators and military leaders. Thus, the British Empire’s term, Governor-General, means General, in the military sense of the word. They had to easily morph from politician to commander-in-chief. Thus, the Governor-General of Canada, even today, is also Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian armed forces. 

The most sophisticated of them, were also experts in cultural warfare. (Appendix 1)

B. They were Viceroys (meaning “in place of the King”), i.e., people who ruled as the Emperor or Monarch’s personal representatives, and were thus invested with the full prerogative and executive powers of that ruler, as the sole sovereign. Thus, the Governor-General, as Viceroy, has the power to constitute and dissolve parliaments. Acts of parliament do not become law, until approved by him. (Appendix 2)

The British Goal of Eliminating France

You cannot understand American history, without knowing that the British went to war against the French 6 times during the 17th century. Their goal was to eliminate France as a rival world power. These wars were world-wide, but were also fought out in the colonies. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht handed most of L’Acadie (today’s Maritime provinces) over to the British. The 1763 Treaty of Paris gave them all of New France (except Louisiana, which went to their Spanish allies).

Here is a map of New France in 1745:

It was much larger, geographically, than the English colonies, and was also older. 

Here is a map of the same area in 1763, after the Treaty of Paris which concretized the 1759 British military victory.

French claims were limited to two tiny islands, and some fishing rights. See if you can find them!

It is often said that the American Revolution was fueled by the British taxation of the colonists, which was done in order to pay for the Seven Years’ War. This can tend to misrepresent the American Revolution as a mere tax revolt. The truth lies on a deeper level. 

The same Treaty of Paris which brought an end to New France in 1763, also resolved the Carnatic Wars, the battle between the French and the British over control of India, in favor of Britain (How many even know that the French had a colonial involvement in India?)

The British Empire was now becoming a monolithic force of unprecedented power, and their long-standing hatred of American freedoms, and desire to overthrow them, could now be put into action. Taxation was only one aspect of the British quest to subjugate the American colonists. Subjugation, not taxation, was the primary objective. The British had long-sought to repress American freedoms, but after 1763,  thought they had the power to do so.

Some leaders of the Empire thought they might simply employ “Brutish” force, to crush the upstart Americans. Others recognized what Graham Lowry revealed to us much later: that the threat of independence from the colonies, especially Massachusetts, had to be  taken seriously, from the very beginning .

 Puritan leader John Winthrop arrived in Salem in 1630, and pronounced the colony, “a city upon a hill”- a model for all the world.

He soon had a colony of 2,000. By 1650 it would grow to 20,000 people. Winthrop got King Charles I to sign a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony that basically gave them independence. Governor John Winthrop also served as a colonel in a 1,000-man militia, and in 1638 wrote what sounds like a declaration of independence: 

Lastly, if our patent be taken from us, the common people, will here conceive that his majesty has cast them off, and that hereby they are freed from their allegiance and subjection, and will therefore be ready to confederate themselves under a new government, for their necessary safety and subsistence. 

In 1664, Charles II issued secret orders demanding to bring “that people to an entire submission and obedience to our government”

Like the Swiss in Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, the Americans were fighting not just to establish independence, but to prevent the usurpation of long-standing freedoms.

 The First Earl of Shelburne and Cultural Warfare

Lyndon LaRouche wrote of the crucial role played by Shelburne as the leading enemy of the American Revolution, and of his promotion of Adam Smith. Some “hard-cop” Imperialists thought they could simply bludgeon the new nation with “Brutish force.” Shelburne assumed the role, not only of soft-cop, but more importantly, expert in cultural warfare. He acted in a conciliatory manner towards the American colonists, whilst seeking to prey on their cultural weaknesses. For him what mattered more than the military and political outcomes, were the philosophical and epistemological ones.

He was very close to Adam Smith, who wrote a series of letters to him, and even mailed him a copy of his “Theory of the Moral Sentiments”. Shelburne was so impressed that he consigned his son to study with, and live with Smith. 

The relevant quote from Smith’s 1759 Theory of the Moral Sentiments is this:

“To man is allotted a much humbler department …. Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts. Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them.”

Smith is identifying his belief that most people tend not to act out of love for the greater good, but in the comfort zone of narrow self-gratification. This, Shelburne thought, is something that can be manipulated.  

In October of 1776, another protege of Shelburne, Jeremy Bentham (Shelburne provided him with his lodgings), wrote contemptuously of the American Declaration of Independence, which had only been written 3 months earlier:

This, they hold to be self-evident. At the same time, to secure these rights they are satisfied that government should be instituted. They see not … that nothing that was ever called government ever was, or ever could be exercised but at the expense of one or another of those rights”

In other words: No  government can be trusted to defend your rights. Government will take them away from you. In 1780, Bentham elaborated on Smith’s outlook.

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. . . . Every effort we make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it…”  

Bentham’s idea is known as a “hedonistic calculus,”  the measure of all value by pleasure and pain. How much pain will you endure, to get the pleasure you desire.

The notion of the greater good is out the window! The colonists distrusted the British monarchical government. These scoundrels tried to leverage that into a distrust of all government. How many arguments do you hear today against “big government”; and for promoting “freedom” as mere licence and freedom from responsibility; that all large institutions are corrupt, and that the only real value that the “little person” can hang on to, is family?

Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, and it attacked Colbert’s directed economy, and any kind of regulation, in favor of a supposed free marketplace. Leave the economy alone, said Smith,  and an invisible hand will pick your pocket! Oops! Sorry! The invisible hand will guide economic growth to higher profits, in a mysterious way, but a far better one, than could any type of government intervention. The argument appealed to the heteronomy addressed in “Theory of the Moral Sentiments”, as well as a “get rich quick” mentality, but also a fear of abusive government, which they had all experienced.  It was the means by which an empire could keep a colony “contained.”

Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 Report on Manufactures took up the challenge, and defended Colbert’s method. The British Empire wished to keep America as a largely agrarian society, and thus, not a threat to the Empire.  Hamilton, and others, saw the need for the new republic to become an industrial power. That was the only way it could survive, and its people prosper. That was its only security. That required protection, and subsidies for industrial growth. The difference between the two systems was not a formal one, but a scientific one, and a moral one. 

Guy Carleton-Shelburne’s Viceroy in Canada

During, and after the revolution, British-controlled territory in North America was largely limited to lands they had taken from the French through military conquest.

Guy Carleton started out as a military officer. He became a protege of General James Wolfe, and was present at the final siege of Louisbourg in 1758, at Wolfe’s request. In 1759, during the Seven Years’ War (known locally as the French and Indian Wars), he was Quarter-Master for General Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham, the battle which ended French power in the New World.

As stated before, the long-standing desire of the Crown to repeal the freedoms enjoyed by the American colonists could now be played out. Taxation was just an aspect. The  1763 Treaty of Paris, was followed rapidly by the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765.

In the next year,1766, the British Parliament, under pressure, including from within Britain, repealed the Stamp Act, but were so angry over colonial legislatures passing their own laws and taxes, that they issued the Declaratory Act, which said, in part:

…the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain, and that the king’s majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever. 

And be it further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid: That all resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings, in any of the said colonies or plantations…are hereby declared to be utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever.” 

The colonists responded with the Great Rebellion of 1766. Carleton was immediately deployed as Lieutenant-Governor, then soon after, as Governor of Quebec. He wrote a short intelligence report to Shelburne, who had just become Secretary of State for the Southern District (which at the time was responsible for the American colonies). Carleton’s letter ended with:

 Right Honorable Earl of Shelburne: One of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State:

 …All these little Workings I look on as the natural Consequence of the late Tempest, which after a few Months settled Calm must insensibly subside and die away. In General His Majesty’s Subjects here seem rather to want Instruction, than Reproof. To know clearly the King’s Will, and to see it steadily pursued here, will, or I am much mistaken, soon occasion a quiet and dutiful Obedience, in Spite of the Opposition of a few self Interested Individuals,

I am with much Respect and Esteem, Your Lordships Most Obedient Humble Servant

GUY CARLETON

The settled calm did not come. The British imposed the “Townshend Duties”,  and Quebec was in sorry shape. The next year, Shelburne sent his personal secretary,  political adviser, and “literary critic”, Maurice Morgann, to join Carleton.

Shelburne wrote to Carleton:

…I have accordingly recommended to His Majesty Maurice Morgan Esqr as a person every way qualified for this business; and I request you will favour him with your good Offices, Protection, & Assistance in the execution of his Trust, that being furnished with every light that your experience may have acquired, he may, upon his return with your Report, be able to fulfill, as completely as possible, the intention of his appointment.

I am &c

SHELBURNE

Carleton realized that he needed to get Quebec into shape. It presented a poor image in comparison to the 13 colonies. The English speakers in Quebec were wayward, and largely adventurers who had little respect for any authority, let alone the Crown. Carleton clamped down on them, and objected to corrupt practices, such as payoffs to political figures. He wrote to Shelburne:

…none of the Principal Officers of Government and Justice, neither Governor, Judge, Secretary, Provost Martial, or Clerk of the Council should receive Fee, Reward or Present from the People.

Two years later, in 1768, things escalated. Americans boycotted English goods, and British ships landed troops to quell the rebellion and close Boston Harbor. Responsibility for the American colonies was transferred in England from Secretary of State for the Southern District, to the Secretary for the Colonies. Carleton, while remaining governor of Quebec, was immediately  promoted to the twin posts of Captain-General, and Governor-in-Chief of British North America. 

 Carleton wrote an extensive letter and intelligence report to Shelburne, called: 

“A HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION, DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICES OF THE MILITARY AND NAVAL FORCES OF CANADA FROM THE PEACE OF PARIS IN 1763, TO THE PRESENT TIME.”

 It Opens with a table of contents, which, rather than proceeding from 1763, leads up to it. It is typical of the British Empire’s extensive profiling, for purposes of control:

Chapter 1:

Characteristics of the early French colonists – Establishment of posts at Montreal and Trois Rivieres – The First Indian war- Enrollment of volunteers- … – Arrival of de Tracy-… Construction of forts along the Richelieu – expedition of Courcelles – the first military settlement – arrival of de Frontenac-… Le Barre’s expedition-… Iberville’s expedition to Hudson Bay – Raids by the Iroquois-… the first siege of Quebec – Schuyler’s Raid – Battle at La Prairie – Invasion of the Mohawk Country – Foundation of Fort Frontenac – Frontenac’s Invasion of the Indian Territory – Iberville’s Operations in Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay – The Peace of Ryswick – War of the Spanish Succession… The Conquest of Acadia (1710-FH) – The Peace of Utrecht (1713-FH)  … The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759-FH) … Final Conquest of Canada (1763-FH).

Chapter 2:

State of the Militia at the Conquest – Establishment of Military Courts – Duties of Militia Officers under the New Government – the War with the Western Indians – the organization of Bradstreet’s Expedition to Detroit – Arrangements made by Murray (Carleton’s predecessor as Governor- FH), Burton and Haldimand for raising volunteers in Canada… the Advance to Detroit – … Proposals by Carleton for Defense of the Province… Memorial for the Restoration of the French Laws and Customs –  passing of the Quebec Act (1774-FH),  Proposal for the Organization of a Canadian Regiment – Discontent among the English Settlers – Revolutionary Agitation.

That is just the table of contents!

                                         The Quebec Act: A Critical Point in World History

Two months after the April 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord,  American troops, led by Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold invaded Quebec. Carleton led the opposing British military forces. The Americans took Montreal, and Carleton retreated to Quebec City. Benjamin Franklin and Catholic Bishop Carroll of Maryland came to Montreal to convince the French-Canadians to join the American cause. The Americans could not take Quebec City though. Montgomery was killed, and Arnold was eventually driven back. 

Why was that partially successful invasion turned back? 

Part of the reason the Americans did not succeed, was that Carleton, like his mentor Shelburne, engaged in soft-cop cultural warfare. Many British hard-cops wished to assimilate the French forcibly, so that they would, in a few generations, become English-speaking Protestants. 

Carleton recognized that such a mentality could lead the French-Canadians (many of whom had a New World identity, and were inspired by the revolutionary events to the south) into joining forces with the Americans. He played on their fear of assimilation, and in 1774, the year before the American invasion, took the leading role, with Maurice Morgann, in passing “The Quebec Act ”. Carleton argued for it in front of the British Parliament. 

The Declaration of Independence decried it as an “intolerable act”.  The Continental Congress objected to the Quebec Act’s expansion of the area of Quebec, and its claim to former French territories, including Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, as well as protecting “Indian Lands” from the colonies. It was an attempt at a major land grab. The British, who had kicked the French out of North America, were now citing French claims to territory, as legitimate!

 Far more intolerable, was the suppression of the revolutionary spirit in the former New France, of which Francois Rabelais had written so elegantly. (Ft 7) The French had seized on an Iroqouis term “Kanata”, and designated everything N of the St Lawrence River, as Canada. The British appropriated the term “Canada” for themselves, and reduced French identity to the province of Quebec.

The Quebec Act guaranteed “la survivance”: survival of French culture, including the Catholic Church, French civil law, and the French language. This “freedom”, however, meant a total submission  to the British Crown.

The British employed some very backwards institutions, such as the feudal seigneurial system of land ownership, and a Jesuitical church, to both soothe and enforce. They induced a spirit of “littleness” among the French-Canadians, as later propounded by the supposed founder of Quebec nationalism, and fascist sympathizer, Abbe Lionel Groulx:

…Whatever may be said, we are a little people, who have never had much happiness to spare.

From The Tragic Consequences of the 1774 Quebec Act, by Pierre Beaudry

In point of fact, it is quite an irony of universal history that from the moment the British had actually created the Province of Quebec, under that name, any French subject that adopted the name of “Québécois” instead of “Canadien” had been made to believe he was secure in the comfort zone of a protected French enclave, while, in fact, he was actually being short-changed by being given a British identity!

There is, in french-canadian parlance, a curious British verbal expression, which was created during that period and which is a perfect description of this tragic moment of history. The expression translated into Québécois is: se faire enfirouaper. The Québécois think they are the proud creators of this expression. They are not. This verbal action is a very interesting metaphor which means “getting screwed,” or “being taken in,” that is, in the original polite British language of the 18th century: “getting in fur wrapped.” It also means being protected in warm blankets. Getting enfirouaper was precisely what has happened politically and historically to the Canadian population over two hundred years ago with the Quebec Act. They got royally screwed.

Getting wrapped in warm blankets allows one to justify selling out!  “Hey, I gotta live, don’t I?”

Beaudry’s insights lead us right back to Shelburne. Just as Shelburne’s Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham promoted an anti-Promethean, anti-heroic identity and sense of heteronomic littleness amongst the English-speaking colonists, Shelburne’s Carleton and Morgann  promoted an anti-Promethean littleness among “les Canadiens”. Both have aspects of an attempt to create an artificial “comfort zone.”

 Maurice Morgann, who had been Shelburne’s personal secretary and political advisor, was sent by Shelburne to visit Quebec and help Carleton. In 1777, Morgan wrote an essay trying to prove that Falstaff was not only not a coward;  but was actually courageous:

a man at once young and old, enterprising and fat, a dupe and a wit, harmless and wicked, weak in principle and resolute by constitution, cowardly in appearance and brave in reality; a knave without malice, a lyar without deceit; and a knight, a gentleman and a soldier…

…The Courage of Falstaff is my theme, and no passage will I spare from which anything can be inferred as relative to this point.

What is that all about? I do not know what precisely occasioned the work in 1777, but  Morgann was best-known as a colonial administrator. Anyone who knows Shakespeare knows that he does not present one-dimensional characters. We know who Falstaff is by his very name. He has made the “Staff of Life”, which ought to nourish one’s body and soul, into a “False Staff”, by fulfilling “original and immediate instincts“, and “seeking pleasure and avoiding pain,” without a “grain” of conscience. He was not a bad person though, and had many redeemable qualities. Through Falstaff, Shakespeare is posing the question of how to organize certain sections of the population towards something better, and higher. 

 Though Dr Samuel Johnson had declared Falstaff to be a coward, Morgan set out to find him courageous. All of Shakespeare’s nuance was lost. Morgan merely rallies passages that seem to make his point. What, though, does it mean to declare Falstaff as courageous? Can it justify that selling out one’s revolutionary identity, for “la Survivance”, is not only not cowardly, but even courageous?

Carleton was disappointed that he could not recruit the French Canadians to battle. Small wonder! Don’t suck the revolutionary spirit out of people, and then expect them to fight for you!  He did manage (with some help from backwards French institutions) to neutralize them, and keep them from joining the American Revolution. The decisive battle in the American Revolution was Yorktown in 1781.

Two hundred brave French-Canadians formed the 2nd Canadian Regiment, under the command of Lafayette. That battle, though, was led by the French army and navy. What had happened that prevented most of “Les Canadiens” from joining in a French-American victory over the British? 

The “hard cop” of the Quebec Act, was felt in the following provision, which all French-Canadians had to accept:

“I do sincerely promise and swear, That I will be faithful, and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King George, and him will defend to the utmost of my Power, against all traiterous Conspiracies, and Attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against His Person, Crown and Dignity; and I will do my utmost Endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors, all Treasons, and traiterous Conspiracies, and Attempts, which I shall know to be against Him or any of Them; and all this I do swear without any Equivocation, mental Evasion, or secret Reservation, and renouncing all Pardons and Dispensations from any Power or Person whomsoever to the Contrary.”

“So Help Me GOD.”

Factional turmoil led to Carleton (now Sir Guy), being returned to Britain for several years. But, in March of 1782, Shelburne came back into office, and soon became Prime Minister. Carleton was appointed Commander-in-Chief of British armed forces in North America at the same time, and Shelburne again appointed Maurice Morgann as Carleton’s personal secretary. It was a fluid situation. 1782 was the year between the American victory at Yorktown, and another Treaty of Paris, which recognized U.S. Independence. Carleton and Shelburne had to manage the transition. They had to both make the British Empire look good in face of the obvious superiority of American freedom, and position themselves to repeal America’s independence down the road.

The Book of Negroes

Upon arrival Carleton, in 1782, as Commander-in-Chief, immediately ordered the cessation of British hostilities. He and Shelburne acted friendly to the Americans. They manipulated slavery in a cynical manner. In 1772, Morgann had written a “Plan for the Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies.” The British Empire, which had led the world’s slave trade, was now presenting itself as the very promoter of racial equality, as does its modern Avatar, the Commonwealth, today. 

Slavery had been introduced on a mass scale into the American colonies during the Restoration by Lord Shaftesbury and John Locke, to a point where by 1700, England’s Royal African Company led the world’s slave trade. 

The introduction of mass black African slavery was not done for profit only, but to poison the well of America’s claims to freedom and equality. Shaftesbury had also played a leading role in attempting to suppress the freedoms of Massachusetts. British claims to opposition to slavery were as fraudent as can be.

 Part of this manipulation lay in how Britain offered blacks who fought on their side in the revolutionary wars, “freedom and a farm”. Some Black Loyalists were sympathetic to the American cause, but it was probably not a difficult choice for them to make, since slavery was the alternative. Carleton is praised today, for resisting American demands to return the slaves to their ” rightful owners.” In 2007, Canadian author Lawrence Hill wrote a book about it, which was made into a BET mini-series called “The Book of Negroes”. Hill was given a “Commonwealth Award” and even an audience with the Queen for writing the book. 

Carleton had ordered an officer, Samuel Birch, to draw up the Book of Negroes, which simply listed the names of those who would be evacuated, with a brief description. If your name was not in the book, you did not go. 

He succeeded in evacuating some 3,000 black loyalists to today’s Nova Scotia. The problems of racial prejudice became greatly exacerbated. Carleton also had 10,000 white Loyalist/Tories holed up in New York. He wished to move them to Nova Scotia as well, but earlier British policy had left him with a problem:

In preparation for the 1756-1763 Seven Years War, the British committed one of the first genocidal acts in the modern era. They had conquered French L’Acadie in 1710, and renamed the entire area Nova Scotia (New Scotland). Though the French-speaking Acadians had been British subjects for decades, they were suspected of being loyal to New France. In 1755, before the Seven-Years-War even began, the British rounded up all the Acadians they could find, virtually overnight, and shipped them out in leaky boats, with no destination. Many died. Some boats never landed. “The Mary”, started out with 300, and landed with 3. Those who ended up in Louisiana called themselves “Cajuns”, derived from Acadians. 

The British replaced the expelled French-speaking  Acadians with English speakers, largely from New England. 

Whoops!

During the American Revolution, their sympathies lay with the folk back home. They wanted nothing to do with the Loyalists. Guy Carleton’s brother Tom, who became Lieutenant-Governor of the area, called them “worse than the Americans.” Nova Scotia was not an option for relocation of the Loyalists. 

Guy Carleton created a new colony, carved out of the former French L’Acadie, which he named New Brunswick, to house the Loyalists. There was no infrastructure there to accommodate 10,0000 refugees. Homelessness and unemployment grew. A second American revolution almost broke out, among the Loyalists! The desperate white settlers took out their frustrations on the black, and it was brutal. Riots occurred in Shelburne, and Birchtown. 

Only seven years into the resettlement, almost 1/2 of the black population of Nova Scotia took the desperate act of sailing for Sierra Leone, based on British promises of financial support, which were never realized      

A New (anti) American Colony

Carleton (now Baron Dochester) was appointed Governor-in-Chief of British North America from 1786 to 1795. This overlapped with the career of another scoundrel, hard-cop John Graves Simcoe. 

The British had hoped to utilize their Loyalists/Tories, as a militia against the new USA, but New Brunswick was too far away to be an effective base of operations, and the situation there was chaotic.  

So, in 1791 (the same year as Alexander Hamilton wrote the Report on Manufactures), Quebec was split in half.

Present-day Quebec was Lower Canada, but the new colony, Upper Canada (present-day Ontario), was carved out of an underpopulated French fur-trapping territory. Simcoe was appointed as Lieutenant-Governor. 

The official Canadian government explanation for this division, is the desire to appease the tension between English and French-speaking settlers, by creating a new province, Upper Canada, for English speakers. The truth is much uglier. In 1791, the European monarchies were preparing for the French Revolutionary Wars, which broke out in 1792. Britain was a member of the first coalition opposing France.

The British oligarchy hoped that America would join in the war on the side of their former ally France, which would put them at war with Britain. In 1794, the Governor-General, Carleton (Lord Dorchester), expecting the US to ally with France, said that war was likely to break out between the US and Britain before the year was out. Dorchester ordered Simcoe to rally the Indians and arm British vessels on the Great Lakes. He also built Fort Miami (present-day Maumee, Ohio) to supply the Indians. Simcoe expelled Americans from a settlement on the southern shore of Lake Erie which had threatened British control of the lake. President Washington denounced the “irregular and high-handed proceeding of Mr. Simcoe.” While Dorchester planned for a defensive war, Simcoe urged London to declare war: “Upper Canada is not to be defended by remaining within the boundary line.”

Many Americans did wish to ally with France, and Britain was sorely disappointed when the U S did not do so, and the Jay Treaty of 1795 established firm borders between the USA and British North America.  Carleton went out of control, and made an inflammatory speech to natives, ordering the re-occupation of Fort Miami in Ohio. He was eased out of his post by 1796. 

Carleton and Simcoe had another motive, to prove the superiority of the British oligarchical system over American democracy. 

1. They phased out slavery in 1793, 40 years ahead of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 in the British Empire. (Five years later, Simcoe became commander of all British forces in St Domingue (Haiti), and attempted to stop the slave rebellion led by Toussaint L’Overture. )

2. He offered free land to all Americans who would come and settle them, though this was largely because he failed to attract enough Rangers. He thought he could recruit these people as Loyalists, but at a certain point Upper Canada took measures to try and restrict American immigrants from voting.

3. He built infrastructure, but mainly for military purposes.

4. His oligarchical economic and political institutions did not do so well. The appointed) Executive Council had no responsibility towards the (also appointed) legislature. This led  in a couple of decades to autocratic rule by a wealthy group known as the “Family Compact”, who had tight control over everything. Not surprisingly, pioneer life in wilderness with its long winters meant isolation, deprivation, and hardship. Willam Lyon MacNenzie’s  attempted 1837 rebellion (joined by Thomas Edison’s father) against them  failed.. 

John Graves Simcoe-Hard Cop

Who was Simcoe, and why was he appointed as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada in 1791? Like Carleton, he had spent many years trying to supress the American Revolution.

From October 1777 on, he was head of the Queen’s Rangers. As such, he was responsible for many atrocities:

A.  The Battle of Crooked Billet-1777

Simcoe led a surprise dawn attack upon the Americans. The Royal Pennsylvania Gazette reported:

They left between 80-100 dead on the field; The royal party did not lose a single man on this occasion.

Almost immediately after the battle, reports surfaced that British and Loyalist troops had committed atrocities, including the murder of prisoners-of-war, and setting fire to the American wounded.

The man in charge of American forces, Brigadier General John Lacey, reported:

Some of the unfortunate, who fell into the merciless hands of the British, were more cruelly and inhumanely butchered. Some were set on fire with buckwheat straw, and others had their clothes burned on their backs. Some of the surviving sufferers say they saw the enemy set fire to wounded while yet alive, who struggled to put it out but were too weak and expired under the torture. I saw those lying in the buckwheat straw—they made a most melancholy appearance. Others I saw, who, after being wounded with a ball, had received near a dozen wounds with cutlasses and bayonets. I can find as many witnesses to the proof of the cruelties as there were people on the spot, and that was no small number who came as spectators.

B.   In 1778, Simcoe led an attack on the home of Judge Wiiliam Hanock, and bayoneted people in their sleep. Hancock was a Loyalist, but they killed him anyway. The next morning Simcoe’s commandos brandished their blood-stained weapons at civilians, saying: “see the blood of your countrymen.”

C. Also In 1778, Simcoe exterminated 40 Mohican warriors. These Mohicans had sided with the Americans. They were the first Native-Americans to be converted to Christianity, through the Moravians, who saw music not just as entertainment, but an essential part of life. Music must have played a powerful role in this conversion. Simcoe wiped them out.

This is the butcher who was chosen as Lieutenant-Governor for the new colony of Upper Canada. It may not surprise you that his aim was to overthrow the American Revolution. To such purpose, he recruited his fellow Rangers to move north. Many of them did. Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, known as “Monster Brant” for his role in the Cherry Hill massacres, moved north. Ontario’s city of Brantford, is named after him today. 

John Butler was the leader of “Butler’s Rangers”. In the Wyoming massacre in Western Pa, his Seneca allies took over 200 scalps, but went on to destroy over 1,000 homes. Most of the area’s able-bodied men were in the Continental army, and thus, far away.  Butler was largely slaughtering the elderly and disabled. He moved north at Simcoe’s invitation. There is a bust of him in Ottawa today (see image below). 

That only addresses the foundation of Canada.Though much has changed since then, do not believe that this monarchy is not capable of much “Carney-age” today.              

Appendix/Footnote 1:
An infamous case of this triple role during the Victorian era, was the repugnant Lord Kitchener, of Listowel Ireland.

His functions included: 

• Commander-in-Chief during the Boer War (He implemented Lord Roberts’ concentration camp system),  and later, High Commissioner of S Africa. 
• Commander-in-Chief in India: he campaigned for Viceroy of India, but lost.
• Governor of the Egyptian Provinces of Sudan, and Commander-in-Chief (Sirdar) of the Egyptian army.
• As Commander-in-Chief (Sirdar), he overthrew the Mahdist Islamic State in Sudan. Later, Governor-General of The Sudan.
• Secretary of State for War during WWI. 

In his function as cultural warrior, he not only spoke fluent French, but spoke  Arabic well enough to have mastered several Bedouin dialects.

We will leave aside what “Kitchener’s Boys” was all about, though the description of him as cruel, and without emotion is not irrelevant. After killing thousands of Sudanese, he commented, “Well, we gave them a good dusting.” He was accompanied by a young Winston Churchill, who rejoiced in a moment when nobody knew who they were shooting at-it was just killing for its own sake. Sadism, and lack of respect for life (according to a “melanistic calculus” ?), is part of the British Empire’s cultural warfare.

Kitchener as Sirdar, wearing a Tarboosh.

Appendix/Footnote 2: 
This “authoritarianism”, where the monarch is “sole sovereign”, is common among Empires. 

A.  The Constitution of the Russian Empire of 1932, established a legislature, but gave the Czar, as God’s appointee, the power to dismiss it at will. 

B. In Belgium, a royal order could dissolve the Chamber, the Senate, or both. It was last done in 1884.

C. In Japan The Emperor both convenes the Diet and dissolves the House of Representatives, but “only does so on the advice of the Cabinet.”

The list goes on. Republican pressures, largely flowing from the aftermath of the American Revolution, have forced many adaptations in the Imperial system, but that system usually refuses to give up formal power. Why?  

The British Empire is very good at “playing possum”.

 Before 1982, the Constitution of Canada  was known as the “British North America Act”. When a Canadian Constitution was adopted in 1982, the BNA Act was retroactively named the ” Constitution Act of 1867″, as though the BNA  Act had never existed, but for 115 years the “Constitution” of Canada, did not even have the name Canada in its title, and it was mainly just a division of federal and provincial powers.The 1982 Constitution establishes three branches of government:

• Executive 
• Legislative
• Judicial

Sounds just like the USA, doesn’t it? Not quite. 

• The Judicial branch is appointed by an appointee of the appointed Governor-General, the Governor- General in Council. 
• The Queen is the Executive. Her office is carried out by the appointed Governor-General.
• The Prime Minister is part of the elected Legislative branch, known as the government. 
• The Prime MInister is not voted for independently, as is the president of the USA, thus separating executive and legislative branches. In British parliamentary systems, each political party chooses a leader., who is also a Member of Parliament. The man who becomes Prime Minister is the leader of the party that gains the most seats, but is also an MP. If his party’s seats outnumber all of the others put together, he has a majority government. If not, a minority government, and he must always seek a coalition to pass bills. If the government puts forth a bill  and cannot pass it, it is a non-confidence vote, and the Governor-General is asked to call an election. It is easy to destabilize such governments. The American division of powers is far more stable.

 Executive powers, as carried out by the Governor-General  include:

•  giving Royal Assent to bills passed in the Canadian House of Commons and Senate (also in the Australian House of Representatives and Senate, etc., etc.)
• reading the Speech from the Throne which outlines the Canadian federal government agenda for a new session of Parliament
• executing orders-in-council or cabinet decisions.      
• appointing superior court judges, on the advice of the cabinet.
• summoning, closing and dissolving Parliament, on the advice of the Prime Minister
• inviting the leader of the party with the most support in the House of Commons to form the government. That party leader becomes Prime Minister
•  in times of emergency or special circumstances, exercising “reserve power”,  the special personal authority of the Governor General to appoint or dismiss a prime minister or dissolve Parliament.
• The Queen is Head of the Armed Forces in the UK, and her Governor-Generals are in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belize, Bahamas, etc. 

• Sir Francis Edward Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, 8th Baron Thurlow KCMG, appointed in 1958 at Governor and Commander -in-Chief of the Bahamas.

Though the British Empire is very good at  making all of this seem ceremonial, Governor-Generals have a few times used their “reserve power.”

At least three times in the 20th century, Governor-Generals have invoked that “reserve power”: 

• In June of 1926, Canadian Prime MInister MacKenzie King, requested that Governor-General Byng dissolve the parliament and call an election. (British Lord Byng was also a Field Marshall, and had been in charge of Canadian troops on the western front in WWI).  Byng refused to do so. He ignored Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King’s  demand that he call an election, causing a “Constitutional crisis,” (even though Great Britain had, and still has, no written constitution),  Four months later, during the Imperial Conference of 1926, the “Balfour Declaration” declared the colonies to be
•  “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs.”  

• That was a blatant lie, though there were many reasons for it, including the anti-imperial, revolutionary mode after WWI.  What did change, is that Governor-Generals were no longer sent over from Britain, but chosen from colonial ranks. Today, people of Hatian and Maori background are chosen as Governor-Generals. Though nominated by parliaments, they are still subject to approval by the monarchy, and their powers remain unchanged. The acceptance of minorities in such positions was forced on the British.

The key phrase is “acting on advice of the Prime minister, or parliament”, as though the Governor-General were a mere figurehead. If so, why keep the formal “reserve power” on the books? Have you ever heard a member of the royal family, or their extended power network, refer to themselves as “mere figureheads?”

• In a 1953 crisis, Governor -General Gulam Muhammed of Pakistan fired the Prime Minister, even though he had the support of the Constituent Assembly. When the Constituent Assembly challenged him, he fired them as well, using his “reserve power.”
• Many may be saying, “I thought Pakistan became independent in 1947? Pakistan still celebrates  Aug 14th, 1947 as its Independence Day.  On aug 14th and 15th of that year, Lord Mounbatten held back-to-back press conferences in Pakistan, then India, supposedly granting them independent status.  He actually granted them “Dominion” status, which as Canadians and others SHOULD know,  is still colonial status.  Mountbatten, in his “magnanimity”, reduced his title from Viceroy and Governor-General of India, to merely Governor-General.  Pakistan also had a Governor-General. When riots broke out over this manipulation, Mounbatten cynically  commented that this is what happens when colonial rule ends. Unfortunately, too many Americans share this racist outlook, that “these people cannot govern themselves.” The method of the British (and Belgian) colonial rulers, when “freeing” their colonies, was to make sure that chaos would ensue, thus “proving” their point. 
• India made itself into a republic in 1949 (many Americans supported them), but Pakistan did not until 1956. Both are members of the British commonwealth today, and despite their truly independent status, still exchange High Commissioners with the UK, rather than ambassadors. You will read that they are one and the same, but it is still in the books that a High Commissioner can intervene into a colony, though it has not been used since the 19th century.
• By 1975, Australian Labor Prime MInister Gough Whitlam had introduced many positive changes, such as
  • universal health care, 
  • government support for college education.
  • replacing the High Commissioners of the commonwealth with ambassadors (part of an effort to “modernize the Australian constitution.)
  • Though a WWII Vet, he was critical of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and the conscription of troops associated with it. As Opposition leader, he described the war as “disastrous and deluded.” 
  • abolishing the death penalty, and establishing legal aid.
  • replacing “God Save the Queen ” with “Advance Australia Fair ”, as the national anthem.
  • the “Racial Discimination Act” of 1974.
  • an anti-colonialist stance. He encouraged the Republic of Indonesia,  which had earlier gained independence from the Dutch, to promote stability by  annexing the recently liberated Portuguese colony of East Timor.The British oligarchy had plenty of reasons to want to get rid of this guy.
•  Even though the Senate was stonewalling on his government’s legislation, causing denial of  “supply” (appropriations), he had a majority in the House of Representatives, and rightly refused to call an election. It did not constitute a situation of “non-confidence.”Governor-General Sir John Kerr. a board member of the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom,  dissolved the parliament, placing the leader of the opposition in charge of a caretaker government,  pending elections. Whitlam was out.
• Suspicion has long been present as to whether the British monarchy was involved, since beforehand Kerr wrote 211 private letters to the Queen’s personal secretary, Martin Charteris, and in 1976, Prince Charles wrote to Kerr “What you did last year was courageous and the right thing to do.”

Another Imperial power is ” The Emperor’s Whim.” Think of the Queen of Hearts, in Alice in Wonderland, and her “Off with his Head.” Because the Emperor was appointed by God, he could rule by whim. At one point the Canadian Criminal Code opened with a statement that you do not have rights because of any natural, higher law, you have them because the Queen, by her whim, grants them to you. 

Another is Lèse-majesté, which asserts that it is  a crime to insult royalty. 

•   Lese-majeste lawsare in force in several European countries including Germany, Denmark, Holland, Spain and Greece.      
•   A severe modern case is Thailand, where the 2016 Constitution, still contains the clause: “The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action.” Thai criminal code elaborates in Article 112: “Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years.”…From January 2006 to May 2011, more than 400 cases have come to trial.
• The Japanese practiced  Lèse-majesté until 1947, when it was outlawed by the American occupation under General MacArthur.