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Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France, a non-fiction book by Gilbert Parker |
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Chapter 18. Social And Political Progress |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PROGRESS Quebec had passed through her last ordeal of fire and sword, and for many years the 31st of December was celebrated with enthusiasm as the anniversary of the victory. But although the effort to detach the French Canadians from their allegiance to Great Britain resulted miserably in the defeat of Montgomery and Arnold, the Thirteen Colonies did not quite relinquish the hope of accomplishing their end. Instead of an army, Congress now despatched commissioners to Canada, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton being of the number. The mission, however, was without success; for the ancient capital, although the most foreign in speech and custom of all places in British North America, remained steadfast under the temptation to swerve from her allegiance. Franklin, indeed, added nothing to his reputation by his general relations with the settlements on the St. Lawrence. For twenty-four years he had held the position of Deputy-Postmaster General for the English colonies, Quebec being regarded as in some sense within his jurisdiction; and the unsatisfactory monthly service between Quebec and Montreal as well as the absence of intermediate post-offices, had made him unpopular along the Canadian river. It is not surprising, therefore, that he failed to arouse the enthusiasm of the French, especially for a cause which their strong monarchical principles failed to approve. It is estimated that more than twenty-five thousand United Empire Loyalists crossed the border at the end of the American Revolutionary War to live under the British flag. These, for the most part, went to Upper Canada, the settlements along Lake Ontario and the Bay of Quinte, being centres of vigorous life and progress; while not a few settled in Quebec, adding to the sound character of its sturdy population. A further accession, moreover, was made by the arrival of two regiments of Hessians and Brunswickers, who came out to garrison the citadel. Many of these presently obtained their discharge in order to marry and settle down in Quebec. The current directory discloses many names of German origin, names now high up in the roll of citizenship, but once in the books of the Hanoverian regiments of George III. A memorable figure passes across the stage of Quebec history just at this time. In 1782 the frigate _Albemarle_, twenty-eight guns, lay in the harbour, and her brilliant, handsome commander was Horatio Nelson. This paragon of fortune had entered His Majesty's Navy as a child of twelve; at fourteen he was captain's coxswain on the expedition of the _Carcass_ to the North Pole; and now, with an astonishing experience crowded into a life of twenty-four years, he dropped anchor before the rock of Quebec. The sober Haldimand was Governor, and the _Sturm und Drang_ of the American Revolution had cast a cloud upon the social life of Canada. For if Quebec was not what it had been in the days of Sir Guy and Lady Carleton, the sterner _regime_ of Haldimand had deeper influences behind it than the militarism of a rigid soldier. Nevertheless, Nelson and his gay company helped to lighten the heavy cloud, and for the space of a few weeks dinners and dances, on shore and on board the _Albemarle_, enlivened the autumn season in the capital. Southey's _Life of Nelson_ contains rather a quaint picture of the commander of the _Albemarle_ about this time. Prince William Henry, then known as the Duke of Clarence, regarded him as the merest boy of a captain he had ever seen. Dressed in a full-laced uniform, an old-fashioned waistcoat with long flaps, and his lank, unpowdered hair tied in a stiff Hessian tail of extraordinary length, he made altogether so remarkable a figure that, to use the Prince's own words, "I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was nor what he came about. But his address and conversation were irresistibly pleasing; and when he spoke on professional subjects, it was with an enthusiasm which showed he was no common being." Freemasons' Hall, at the top of Mountain Hill, was the fashionable rendezvous ashore, and not since the days of Murray's garrison had the old stone hostel been so merrily possessed. One Miss Mary Simpson appears to have been a _belle_ of the period; and Sir James Le Moine, the antiquary, has identified her as the lady whose charms might have changed the course of history. "At Quebec," writes his biographer, "Nelson became acquainted with Alexander Davison, by whose interference he was prevented from making what would have been called an imprudent marriage. The _Albemarle_ was about to leave the station, her captain had taken leave of his friends, and was gone down the river to the place of anchorage, when, the next morning, as Davison was walking on the beach, to his surprise he saw Nelson coming back in his boat. Upon inquiring the cause of his reappearance, Nelson took his arm to walk towards the town, and told him he found it utterly impossible to leave Quebec without again seeing the woman whose society contributed so much to his happiness, and then and there offering her his hand. 'If you do,' said his friend, 'your utter ruin must inevitably follow.' 'Then let it follow,' cried Nelson; 'for I am resolved to do it.' 'And I,' replied Davison, 'am resolved you shall not.' Nelson, however, on this occasion was less resolved than his friend, and suffered himself to be led back to the boat."[37] It is not clear why Nelson's utter ruin should "inevitably follow" his marriage with Mary Simpson. Was it on account of his youth? Or was the statement due to Davison's distrust of marriage in general? If this was the reason, it is evident that Nelson was not greatly moved by his friend's pessimism; for not much more than a year later we find him making an unsuccessful proposal of marriage to Miss Andrews, the daughter of an English clergy-man at St. Omer, France, a rebuff for which, in the following year, he found consolation in an alliance with Mrs. Nesbit.
In the midst of this political turmoil, Sir Guy Carleton, who, for his distinguished services, had been raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Dorchester, returned to Canada as Governor-General; and on the 23rd of October, 1786, Quebec welcomed her former deliverer at the landing-stage, the whole population, French and English, uniting to give him an honourable and joyous reception. Every one felt indeed that Dorchester was the man to solve the political difficulty of the period; and with these omens of success he set to work forthwith, dividing the province into four administrative districts on an English pattern, and preparing for the English government a careful report on the social, political, and judicial conditions of his province, to facilitate remedial legislation.
At last, however, the Bill became law under the title of the Constitutional Act; and on the 17th of December, 1792, the first legislature of Lower Canada assembled in the chapel of the Bishop's Palace, which had been fitted up as a council chamber. From the seventeenth century this hoary structure of stone had overlooked the Grand Battery from the top of Mountain Hill, commanding a view of the basin and the attenuated Cote de Beaupre, of which from the time of Laval it had been the seigneurial manor-house. In appropriating the episcopal palace for legislative purposes, the Imperial government recompensed the Catholic see of Quebec by an annuity. The old French building was demolished in 1834, and the new House of Parliament, soon afterwards erected on the same site, served to indicate the wonderful political development of the French province as an integral part of the British Empire. The proclamation of the Constitutional Act, on the 26th of December, 1791, was the signal for great public rejoicings in Quebec. During the day the regimental bands played to the trooping of the colours on the Esplanade, and in the evening the streets were ablaze with lights and torches, while fountains of fireworks broke from the high bastions of the citadel. A public dinner, attended by one hundred and sixty gentlemen, brought the _fete_ to a close. An unusual feature of these celebrations was the presence of His Royal Highness Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, son of George III., who had come to Quebec in the preceding summer as colonel of the Seventh Fusiliers. The transfer of this gay regiment from the Gibraltar of the Old World to the Gibraltar of the New did more than merely decorate the social annals of Quebec; for the visible presence of a prince of the blood contributed not a little to crystallise the loyalty of a French province not quite beyond the influence of the great revolutionary fires of Europe. Although he was but twenty-five, Prince Edward had the tact and _savoir faire_ of riper years; and during his three years' residence in the garrison, exerted a great and far-reaching influence on the fidelity of French Canada. The reception of the gallant Prince when he landed at the head of his regiment in August 1791 was marked by all that enthusiasm which the Gallic city had learned of old. Long since, in 1665, the Marquis de Tracy had schooled her in these august pageants, and now when Commodore Sawyer's squadron, consisting of the _Leander_, the _Resource_, the _Ariadne_, the _Thisbe_, the _Ulysses_, and the _Resistance_, dropped anchor in the basin, Quebec was streaming with flags and bunting and resounding with music. Next day his Royal Highness held a _levee_ at Chateau St. Louis, where the civic authorities assembled to do him honour. Prince Edward established himself at Kent House, the sombre mansion in St. Louis Street, which Bigot had built for the fascinating Angelique des Meloises almost half a century before. Here he held his court; but his heart was in the country, and except upon public occasions, he preferred the stately retirement of Haldimand House, a rustic retreat still standing near the brink of Montmorency Falls. Gaily he made his promenade along the Beauport Road, or shot over the marshes of La Carnardiere; and at his own or the neighbouring homestead of M. de Salaberry, the genial company whiled away many an evening with whist. Frequent balls and receptions in the old Chateau recalled the days of Frontenac's merry court; or, still further back, that night of Canada's first ball, the 4th of February, 1667, when the courtly soldiers of the Carignan-Salieres regiment led the grand dames of New France through the mazes of a Versailles quadrille. From a child, indeed, Quebec had conned the worldly wisdom of Fontainebleau. Her wholesome reputation for the social graces is reflected in the compliment paid by George III. to the first Canadian lady who had the honour to be presented at the Court of St. James's: "Madame, if the ladies of Canada are at all like you, I have indeed made a conquest!" It was among these gracious spirits that Prince Edward's lines were fallen; and within the space of three years the large-hearted Duke had bound the hearts of French Canada more firmly to the throne upon which his own daughter was to sit as Queen Victoria. * * * * * Meanwhile, in Europe, the feudalism which had lost Canada to France was in its mortal throes. The shock of the French Revolution was quivering through the hemisphere, and the convulsion was felt heavily in the New World. In the United States, Washington was President, Hamilton was at the Treasury, and Jefferson was Secretary of State, with Madison as a colleague in the Cabinet. In the early stages of the Revolution the United States had given enthusiastic sympathy to the movement; but as it grew in violence, all but the mob and Jefferson and Madison were alienated. No degree of tyranny appeared to offend the sensibilities of these latter statesmen; and when the French Convention declared war against England, their approval of that measure all but committed the United States to the principles of red republicanism. Genet, the French Ambassador to the United States, with an insolence that defeated itself, carried on unblushing intrigues until his recall was requested. For a time, moreover, the populace cried out for war with England, and only the calm resolution of Washington averted such a catastrophe. John Jay was presently despatched to England to negotiate the "Treaty of Amity and Commerce," but it required all the weight of the sober-minded portion of the population to secure its final ratification. This, however, did not prevent M. Adet, the new French Ambassador to the United States, from sending an address to the French Canadians, informing them of the success of the arms of France against the allied powers of Europe, and calling upon them to rally round the standard of the Republic. The response to this appeal in the Province of Lower Canada was absurdly feeble. The greatest power in all Canada--the Church--shrank in horror from the blood-stained banner of regicide France; and zealous always for the monarchy, the Catholic hierarchy indignantly spurned the overtures of a republic whose most cherished principle was atheism--which had abandoned the worship of God for the cult of Reason. "For God and the King" had been the priestly motto from time immemorial, and the new Republic repudiated obligation not to one only but to both. Accordingly, the vast influence of the Church was exerted on the side of loyalty to Great Britain. It must not be assumed, however, that the intrigues which the French Republic carried on by way of the United States, found no response whatever in Lower Canada; for naturally enough there were some whose habitual discontent made them ready for treasonable enterprise. Yet the promoters of disaffection miscalculated the numbers and strength of their party, and the resulting demonstration was factitious and puerile. Lord Dorchester was withdrawn from Canada in the midst of this small and abortive mutiny. For sixteen years, all told, this gallant soldier of Wolfe's army had administered the country he helped to conquer, and no Governor before or since has earned a more deserving fame. Quebec and Montreal strove to outdo each other in the protestations of loyalty and regret marking their valedictory addresses. On the 9th of July, 1796, the frigate _Active_ embarked the veteran Governor, and sailed for England. The vessel was wrecked, however, off the island of Anticosti, fortunately without loss of life; and in small boats Lord Dorchester and his companions reached Isle Percee, where they were afterwards picked up by a ship from Halifax and conveyed to England. General Prescott, who succeeded to the governorship, was a man of harsher temperament. But although his anxiety for the loyalty of the French province was much increased by the intrigues of revolutionary agents, he soon perceived their plans to be fatuous and their enterprise devoid of importance. While the forward spirits in Quebec were leavening the mass of the _habitants_ with specious reports of a French fleet ready to co-operate with them, a force composed for the most part of ill-disposed Americans was to percolate into Canada from Vermont. This so-called fleet consisted of a ship, ironically called the _Olive Branch_, which had sailed from Ostend bound for Vermont with twenty thousand stand of arms, several pieces of artillery, and a quantity of ammunition. She had not got far on her way, however, before a British cruiser seized her and bore her into Portsmouth harbour. Meanwhile, Du Milliere, an alleged French General, was scattering money about on the borders of Vermont, while a plausible American was intriguing at Quebec. With timber cutters and the simplest of artisans as his confederates, this misguided revolutionist hatched his theatrical conspiracy in the neighbouring woods. He proposed to overcome the city-guard with laudanum; and fifteen thousand men were only awaiting the uplifting of his hand! These and similar illusions possessed a poor dupe named M'Lane, until the Government having decided upon the apprehension of the leading conspirators, M'Lane was arrested and charged with high treason. Chief Justice Osgoode presided at the trial, and a jury condemned him to death. On the 21st of July, 1797, above two thousand troops were drawn up in the streets of Quebec as the chief conspirator was led forth to his execution on the _glacis_ just outside St. John's Gate. "I saw M'Lane conducted to the place of execution," writes De Gaspe excitedly. "He was seated with his back to the horse on a wood-sleigh whose runners grated on the bare ground and stones. An axe and a block were on the front part of the conveyance. He looked at the spectators in a calm, confident manner, but without the least effrontery. He was a tall and remarkably handsome man. I heard some women of the lower class exclaim, whilst deploring his sad fate, 'Ah, if it were only as in old times, that handsome man would not have to die! There would be plenty of girls ready to marry him in order to save his life!' And even several days after the execution I heard the same thing repeated. This belief, then universal among the lower class, must, I suppose, have arisen from the fact that many French prisoners, condemned to the stake by the savages, had owed their lives to the Indian women who had married them. The sentence on M'Lane, however, was executed in all its barbarity. I saw all with my own eyes, a big student named Boudrault lifting me up from time to time in his arms so that I might lose nothing of the horrible butchery. Old Dr. Duvert was near us, and he drew out his watch as soon as Ward the hangman threw down the ladder upon which M'Lane was stretched on his back, with the cord round his neck made fast to the beam of the gallows....'He is quite dead,' said Dr. Duvert, when the hangman cut down the body at the end of about twenty-five minutes....The spectators who were nearest to the scaffold say that the hangman then refused to proceed further with the execution...and it was only after a good supply of guineas that the sheriff succeeded in making him execute all the sentence, and that after each act of the fearful drama his demands became more and more exorbitant. Certain it is that after that time Mr. Ward became quite a personage, never walking in the streets except with silk stockings, a three-cornered hat, and a sword at his side. Two watches, one in his breeches pocket and the other hanging from his neck by a silver chain, completed his toilet." With Black, the ship-carpenter who turned king's evidence against M'Lane, the reward was far different. Blood-money failed to solace him for the contumely heaped upon him; and, according to the historian Garneau, he was so overcome by public contempt that after some years he was reduced to begging his bread in the streets of Quebec. Since the enactment of this gruesome tragedy more than a century ago, the steep declivity which joins the Lower to the Upper Town, just outside St. John's Gate, has retained the name of Gallows Hill. No other executions appear to have taken place upon the spot, a well-known hillock upon the Plains of Abraham having been for many years the Golgotha of Quebec, while Gallows Hill only served this purpose during a transition period. By 1814 we find an execution taking place from the gaol erected four years before in St. Stanislaus Street within the walls. On the 20th of May in this year, Patrick Murphy paid the extreme penalty of the law for the wilful murder of Marie Anne Dussault of the Parish of Les Escuriels. Four years later Charles Alarie and Thomas Thomas were executed at the same place, "for stealing to the value of forty shillings in a vessel on a navigable river." The same register chronicles the dire fate of John Hart, a Nova Scotian who, for larceny, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and to be publicly "whipt between ten and twelve in the market-place." Hart had no stomach for this ignominy, and escaped from gaol on the 14th of February, 1826. Having been recaptured three days later, in November of that year he stood with the noose about his neck upon the fatal door. It is doubtful, indeed, whether the unfortunate creatures behind those stout walls on the Cote St. Stanislaus ever breathed the prayer contained in a quaint inscription which till lately survived upon the lintel of their prison-house: "_Carcer iste bonos a pravis vindicare possit._"[39] To-day the building itself serves a more kindly purpose, though the pious legend over the doorway might need but slight revision. Morrin College occupies one wing, and the other contains the well-stocked library of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Valuable manuscripts have taken the place of useless malefactors in the donjon keep, and the vaults are full of the gold and myrrh of history.
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