Grand Masters of Scotland - Onondaga and Oswego Masonic ...

Another problem was the famine migration from Ireland to Canada and the United States in 1847. Not only did it bring to Canada
some 70,000 Irish immigrants in that year, many of whom were to create burdens because of the ravages of cholera, but it also
made real the possibility of Irish Americans striking at Great Britain through British North America. Elgin had to keep watch on Irish
organizations and meetings in Montreal and on the Irish agitators of Boston and New York. Discontent in Ireland might too easily
blend with discontent in Canada.
To these concerns was added in 1847 the financial and commercial depression which followed the collapse of the railway boom
in the United Kingdom. Coming upon the repeal of the Corn Laws and the loss of guaranteed British markets for Canadian goods,
commerce in Canada was completely disrupted. The falling off of trade, the increase of bankruptcies, and the collapse of investment
values may well have been caused by the depression alone, but it was natural for Canadian businessmen to attribute them to the
ending of the familiar protective system.
The Canadian constitutional revolution of 1848 may have forestalled an echo in Canada of the European liberal revolutions of
that year begun in France. That there was apprehension is corroborated by the reaction to the return of Louis-Joseph Papineau*
from exile in Paris. He came out eloquently and strongly as the critic of the “sham” of responsible government, and set out to
become again the leader of French national feeling. The popularity he acquired almost immediately caused some fear among the
French Canadian supporters of the Reform party. But the French ministers, aided by Elgin, set out to undermine his popularity and
reduce him to an isolated figure mouthing the battle cries of an age of perpetual opposition. They remorselessly and cruelly
succeeded in damping down the embers of revolution in Canada, although dissension continued in the activities of the republican
and annexationist Rouges, the heirs of Papineau.
It was fortunate, in view of the next stage of the Canadian crisis, that Papineau had probably been reduced to impotence by the
end of 1848. For, even if Papineau were powerless, there was a measure, required by both justice and policy, which was to
demonstrate clearly to French Canadians that responsible government was not a sham but a reality. The indemnification of those
who had suffered damage by acts of the troops and government in suppressing the rebellion of 1837 in Lower Canada (it had been
done for Upper Canada) had been taken up by Draper’s ministry, and a royal commission had recommended payment for losses
incurred by those not actually convicted of rebellious acts. The Draper ministry took no action, but clearly an administration headed
by a French Canadian and supported by the French Canadian members of the assembly and under attack by Papineau, had, in
policy as well as justice, to take it up. The Rebellion Losses Bill was passed by majorities of both Lower and Upper Canadian
members despite the Tory opposition’s cry that it was a bill to pay “rebels.”
Fully to understand Elgin’s dilemma in dealing with the bill, it is necessary to realize that the Tory opposition, as well as the
government, were testing responsible government and learning the new rules, and that Elgin was their mentor little less than he was
that of his ministers. For the most part they, and especially their leader Sir Allan Napier MACNAB, were simply old-fashioned Tories,
not sure that the new regime might not lead to a continuation of earlier conditions when ministries acquired permanency, only this
time it would be a Reform ministry with French Canadian support. MacNab’s remarks early in the debates on the bill are suggestive:
“We must make a disturbance now or else we shall never get in.” He knew also that the governor general, as an imperial officer,
might properly decline to sanction the “paying of rebels,” and that he could in any case dissolve the parliament or reserve the bill for
the decision of the imperial government. MacNab was thus trying to force Elgin into using the powers left him under responsible
government.
Elgin refused to be turned away from the role he had assumed. His ministry had an unshaken majority; there was no indication
that an election would alter that fact and much that it would provoke racial strife in Lower Canada. The matter was also local, not
imperial; it was therefore to be dealt with locally by the governor’s assent; if his superiors disagreed, they could recall him. If he
reserved the bill, it would simply embroil the imperial government in local Canadian affairs and perhaps provoke another Papineau
rising with American and Irish aid. So he drove down to the parliament house on 25 April 1849, and gave his assent to the bill.
The immediate result was a violent attack by a mob of “respectable” demonstrators on the governor’s carriage as he drove
away. The next was the deliberate burning of the parliament buildings by the same mob, followed by rioting in the streets and
attacks on the houses of La Fontaine and Hincks. Montreal was at the mercy of an organized and aggressive Tory and Orange mob,
which conservative citizens either actively joined or refrained from resisting. When Elgin returned to meet parliament on 30 May to
receive an address, his carriage was again assaulted with missiles and he carried off a two-pound stone thrown into it. The home of
La Fontaine was again attacked, and one man killed by its defenders. Elgin remained outside the city for the rest of the summer in
order not to provoke yet another outburst, with the possibility of racial violence. This course, although criticized by some as
cowardice, showed great moral courage and was an important measure of his powers of restraint. His ministers could not be quite
as quiescent. Government went on, but the troops were called in and the police were increased. Their policy, modelled on Elgin’s
conduct, was, however, not to answer defiance with defiance, but to have moderate conduct shame arrogant violence. In the end
the policy succeeded, but only at the cost of suffering the climax of Tory Montreal’s frantic despair. In October 1849, after frequent
indications of what was to come, there appeared the Annexation Manifesto which advocated the political and economic union of
Canada and the United States and was signed by scores of persons of political and commercial significance. It was an act of
desperation, the act of men whose world had been turned upside down, the empire of protection and preference ended, the empire
of the St Lawrence centred on Montreal disrupted, British “ascendancy” replaced by “French domination.”
MacNab’s role in the outcry and riots against the Rebellion Losses Act had failed to coerce Elgin or to force his recall; at bottom
the Annexation Manifesto was a reply to Elgin’s firmness. If the queen’s representative was to welcome French Canadians to power
in equality with the English and to convert the commercial system of the old empire into a new system of local government, free
trade, and sentiment based on common institutions and common allegiance, the embittered loyalists and financially embarrassed
businessmen of Montreal thought annexation an alternative so just it would be given for the asking. To men thinking in the old terms
Elgin could seem only a traitor or a trifler. Elgin was neither. He foresaw a nation of diverse elements founded on the temperate
exercise of tested institutions and conventions. So did Grey and the Russell government, which showed its approval by advancing
Elgin to the British peerage with a seat in the House of Lords. So did his ministers. The men who had signed the manifesto while
holding commissions from the crown, as many Tories did, were required to abjure the manifesto or forfeit their commissions.
Montreal, which had attempted to coerce the parliament and government of all Canada, was declared unfit to be the seat of
government.
These measures stemmed the violence of the outraged Montrealers. Moreover, the general current of events turned the
attention of businessmen everywhere to more congenial pursuits. By 1850 prosperity was returning to Montreal and Canada. In
prosperity even responsible government and “French domination” could be tolerated. MacNab called on Elgin and was politely
received. Responsible government and all it implied – French Canadians in office, British, not American, conventions of government,
efficiency in public finance and the civil service, local decision-making and local control of patronage – had been tested in the fires of
riot and the threat of annexation.
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