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When George-Étienne Cartier first opened his eyes upon the world a spirit of unrest was everywhere manifest. Great social and political transformations were in progress. Europe, enjoying a brief period of tranquillity, was soon to be again thrown into the convulsions of war; America still resounded with the clash of arms. George III sat upon the throne of England and Prince Louis Stanislas Xavier de Bourbon had been hailed in Paris as Louis XVIII, King of France and Navarre. On the first day of the very year in which Cartier was born Blücher crossed the Rhine and vast armies invaded France from all sides. The mighty Napoleon, standing at bay against the world, after a series of brilliant engagements saw his capital evacuated by the French soldiers and entered by the allied troops, and, retiring to Fontainebleau, he was forced to abdicate the throne which he had won by his sword. The venerable Pius VII, after suffering the discomforts of exile and the ignominy of imprisonment, once more occupied his rightful place in the city of the Cæsars, whilst the fallen emperor, languishing on the little isle of Elba, was gazing wistfully towards that Europe which within a few short months was to witness the wreck of all his hopes.

The position of the British possessions in North America was precarious in the extreme. Four weak and disunited provinces had no ties in common, with the exception of their allegiance to the British Crown. The cities of Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, St. John, and Halifax were but villages compared to the great centres which they are to-day, and the now prosperous west was a terra incognita over whose boundless plains the buffalo roamed at will. Each of the British North American Colonies was a law unto itself, with a hostile tariff against the others, and no bonds of communication. As to a national sentiment, as it is understood to-day, there was none. Isolation, not unity, was the feature of the situation.

In Canada proper the war begun in 1812—an outcome of the titanic struggle between Great Britain and Napoleon—was still in progress. Following the declaration of war by President Madison, American troops poured into Canada, but French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians rose as one man to defend their common country. A year before George-Étienne Cartier’s birth the heroic Brock fell upon Queenstown Heights in the hour of victory, and only a few months before the future Father of Confederation first saw the light of day in the little village of St. Antoine, the gallant De Salaberry, by repulsing the American troops on the field of Chateauguay, saved Canada to the British Crown. In the face of grave danger political issues were forgotten for the time being, but they were soon to assert themselves. Everywhere the people were demanding a greater share in government, and it was inevitable that Canada should be affected by the spirit of the times. The path to political freedom, however, in this country, as in other countries, was to be marked by many pitfalls. Agitation was followed by armed revolt, which in turn was succeeded by a constitutional struggle which eventuated in the full recognition of responsible government.

To treat exhaustively of the long series of events which culminated in the rising of 1837 in Lower Canada, or with the record of that stormy period, does not come within the scope of this work. But, as Cartier was a participant in the rising and as he played a rather prominent part in the preliminary agitation and in the initial engagement between the patriots and the British troops, it is essential that the reader should have a clear understanding of the political developments of which the events of 1837 were the outcome.

From the capitulation of Canada until the rising of 1837 a period of seventy-six years intervened. They were for Lower Canada, as well as for other portions of British North America, years of incessant political turmoil and struggle. By the Act of Capitulation signed on September 8th, 1760, Canada passed under British rule, and by the following year French domination, which had prevailed for over a century and a half, had ceased in every portion of the country.

Then began a struggle which was continued for many years. We shall see how the French-Canadians under the leadership of a long succession of distinguished public men, of whom Cartier was one of the most eminent, successfully resisted all attempts to denationalise them and how their solidarity as a people was preserved.

In reviewing this period of Canadian history it is absolutely necessary that we should divest ourselves of all partiality and prejudice, and view men and events in the cold light of facts. The mistake that is too often made is to regard past events from the viewpoint of the present, the fact being overlooked that what is to-day accepted as axiomatic in politics and in government was frequently in the past a matter of fierce contention and dispute. It may thus be a matter of surprise to us to see with what passion and prejudice such questions as parliamentary freedom and responsible government, so clear and simple to all to-day, were fought out in Canada, and how the contending forces were animated by the strongest racial animosity. But we must remember that each of the opposing forces regarded events from a different viewpoint, that to each of them the outcome was deemed of supreme importance, and that in the struggle many sincere and honest men were engaged on each side. The verdict of history upon the merits of the question at issue can now be but one, but we should at least treat the participants in the struggle dispassionately and give men credit for the sincerity of their motives, mistaken though they may have been.

From the time of the cession of Canada to the British Crown two opposing forces were at work in the country. One, composed of British officials and British colonists, regarded Canada as a conquered country and their aim was to make it British in every sense of the word, British in laws, and in institutions, and English in language. Many of the British colonists or the “new colonists” as they were termed, especially those engaged in commercial pursuits, regarded the French-Canadians as a vanquished and inferior people with little or no claims to consideration from their new masters. It was this class which was largely responsible for much of the subsequent friction. It is not to be wondered at that the hardy habitants, rooted as they were to the soil, should have offered the strongest opposition to the attempts to denationalise them. In the contest that ensued strong passions were aroused on both sides, and it was not until after many years of bitter conflict that the struggle was decided and that the French-Canadians gained the plenitude of their political freedom. Nor is it perhaps surprising that people of such widely different temperaments and mentalities as the old and new colonists should have clashed before by long association they had learned to understand and appreciate the sterling qualities of each other. The original inhabitants, or, as they were generally known, the habitants, were then, as the great mass of them still are, a simple, industrious, God-fearing, easily contented people, to whom the restless spirit of so-called modern progress made little appeal. Their folklore and their legends show that they were, like most people of Latin stock, of a deeply religious and spiritual nature. The English, or the new colonists as they were styled, were people of an entirely different stamp. For the most part they belonged to the commercial class and were attracted by the opportunities that the country afforded for trading. Of a cool, calculating, practical temperament, with an eye to the main chance, they for the most part regarded the country simply as a field for exploitation and for material gain. With a practical training and experience of affairs, generally well provided with money and enjoying powerful connections in Great Britain, they were mainly concerned in seeking profitable avenues for their enterprise. To such a class of men, naturally aggressive in their methods, the simple contented life of the habitant seemed an anomaly. Utterly ignorant, as most of the newcomers were, of the heroic history of the people of the country, of their language, customs and institutions, they regarded the habitants as an inferior class whom it would be a blessing to Anglicise, and to inculcate with the spirit of commercial enterprise and of modern progress. The important fact that the simple industrious life of the habitant devoted mainly to agricultural pursuits, his spirit of loyalty, justice and fair play and his deep religious feelings were assets of the utmost value to the country, was completely overlooked. It is this difference in racial temperament and mentality that explains much of the friction that occurred between the two peoples. By long association that friction has to a great extent been happily removed, but whenever we find it recurring it may be explained to a large extent by the difference in racial temperament.

It is a fact of considerable interest that the French-Canadians of the period under review, whose descendants are naturally such keen politicians and so jealous of all the essentials of popular government, had no conception of the real meaning and scope of parliamentary institutions. The government of Canada under the French régime was as a matter of fact largely patterned upon that of France, the cardinal principles of which at that date have been well designated as absolutism and centralisation. It was through a Governor and Intendants that public affairs in Canada were administered, there also being a Superior Council which had legislative, executive and judicial powers. As far as the government of the country was concerned both the seigneur and the habitant were practically negligible factors under the French régime. Unlike the English colonies in America, there was never in the French colony any representative legislative body in which the people had a voice. “The very name of parliament,” as an eminent constitutional authority has remarked, “had to the French colonist none of that significance it had to the Englishmen, whether living in the parent state or in its dependencies.”[11]

But though the French-Canadian colonists did not enjoy parliamentary institutions, though in fact they had no conception of parliamentary freedom, once such institutions were secured their leading men were not long in grasping their full spirit and meaning and in realising what use might be made of them to assure the fullest political freedom for the French-Canadian people. The full realisation of the meaning of parliamentary institutions by the French-Canadians, their long struggle to achieve complete political freedom and the success which crowned their efforts form an historical study of absorbing interest. We must here content ourselves with a succinct review of the principal stages in that momentous struggle especially as related to the events in which Cartier played a conspicuous part.

The three régimes of 1760, 1763 and 1774, imposed successively upon the French-Canadian population by the British Government after the Cession, have been described by a French-Canadian historian as on the whole simply changes in forms of tyranny.[12] This, though certainly an extreme view, contains an element of truth. Canada at the outset was regarded, at least by the British officials, as a conquered country and in many respects treated as such. The inhabitants of the country had practically no voice in the government. Though under the royal proclamation issued by George III in 1763, constituting four new provinces in America, of which Quebec was one, express power was given to the governors to summon general assemblies, and though General Murray summoned such an assembly for Quebec in 1764, it never met, as the Roman Catholic members naturally refused to take an oath which would have been practically an abjuration of their faith. As a result, from 1763 to 1774 the government of the Province was conducted by the Governor-General with the co-operation of an Executive Council, only one member of which was a French-Canadian.

While therefore the régimes of 1760 and 1763 were of an arbitrary character, the Quebec Act of 1774, which was carried despite the strongest opposition not only in England itself but in the English-speaking colonies, has been well described by an eminent French-Canadian historian as truly the Magna Charta of the French-Canadian people.[13] This Act substituted the laws and usages of Canada for English law, provided that Roman Catholics should no longer be required to take the test oath, but simply the oath of allegiance and gave the French-Canadians “additional assurances that they would be secured in the rights guaranteed to them by the terms of the capitulation and the subsequent treaty. Roman Catholics were permitted to observe their religion with perfect freedom and their clergy were to enjoy their accustomed dues and rights with respect to such persons as professed that creed.” It is true that no reference was made either in the terms of capitulation or in the subsequent treaty in regard to the use of the French language, but apparently it was not regarded as necessary that any such provision should be made. To make a people speak any particular language or to prevent them from speaking their mother tongue is not to be effected by either laws or treaties, a fact which is clearly demonstrated by the tenacity with which French-Canadians have held and still hold to their language.

It is important that the foregoing provisions of the Quebec Act should be especially emphasised, as it was upon these provisions that Cartier, as well as all other French-Canadian leaders, based their claims for the due respect of solemn assurances. Many, especially amongst newcomers to the country, ignorant alike of its history and its traditions, have seemed, and in many cases still seem, to think that the French-Canadians enjoy certain unusual privileges to which they have no right, and which should be put an end to as soon as possible. It is therefore well to emphasise that what the French-Canadians enjoy in respect to their institutions and their religion are not privileges but rights guaranteed to them alike by treaty, by the law of nations and by the pledged honour of the British Crown.

The Quebec Act was generally regarded as for that period a most liberal measure, and it has been admitted by Garneau, the most eminent of French-Canadian historians, that it greatly tended to reconcile the French-Canadians to British rule. Liberal however as the Act was, it did not provide for representative institutions. Under it the government of the Province was entrusted to a Governor and a Legislative Council appointed by the Crown, it being declared that it was “inexpedient to call an Assembly.” During the seventeen years that the Act continued in force, the agitation in favour of parliamentary institutions was continued. The English-speaking element was amongst the first to petition for such institutions, hoping that by means of a representative assembly in which they would have the predominating influence to carry out successfully their idea of Anglicising the French-Canadians. It was because they feared this that a number of French-Canadians petitioned against the granting of a representative assembly. Joseph Papineau and other eminent French-Canadian leaders, however, with striking perspicacity, foresaw that the division of the country into two provinces with a representative assembly for each, chosen by the people, would eventually make the French-Canadians masters of their own destinies. Owing largely therefore to Papineau’s influence, numerous petitions were forwarded to England between 1783 and 1790, demanding representative institutions. “Let His Majesty,” said Papineau the elder, “give us a House of Assembly, where we may defend and conserve our laws and expose our griefs and our needs.” Papineau had his wish gratified in 1791, when, by what is known as the Constitutional Act, two provinces were established in Canada, each province being given a Legislative Council, and Assembly with power to make laws.

So persistent had been the opposition on the part of the French-Canadians to all attempts to denationalise them, that leading British statesmen realised that any such endeavour must prove futile and the Constitutional Act of 1791 was adopted in the hope that, French-Canadians being left in the majority in one province and the British in the other, harmony would prevail.[14]

The 17th of December, 1792, is a date which must be forever memorable in the annals of Quebec, as it marked the beginning of representative parliamentary institutions for the French-Canadian people. It was in the previous month of June that the people of the province first exercised the proud privilege of electing members to a representative assembly, and it was on December 17th that the legislature of the Province of Quebec met for the first time.[15] The line of cleavage between the two parties became apparent at the very outset, the so-called British party endeavouring to secure the election of an English-speaking member as Speaker, and to impose the English language as the sole official mode of communication upon an Assembly composed of a large majority of French-speaking members. These attempts were frustrated, but they were but the prelude to a fierce and bitter struggle which continued for a period of over forty years.

From 1792 until 1812 Papineau the elder, Bédard, and other French-Canadian parliamentary leaders waged a ceaseless struggle for the achievement of parliamentary freedom. The great defect of the existing system was even then clearly seen by one at least of those eminent statesmen. Bédard in the legislature of 1808 declared that there was but one way to remedy the defects of the Constitution of 1791, that was to create a responsible ministry. In a series of articles in his newspaper, Le Canadien, which had been established expressly to advocate the popular cause, Bédard ably maintained his proposal, a proposal which was to be put into practice only after long years of agitation and conflict. The majority of the early governors, who were sent over to Canada by the Imperial government, were men better fitted to command troops than to govern a liberty-loving people. Many of their acts were of a most arbitrary character, but it must be said, in justice to their memories, that they were acting according to their lights, that they were largely guided by instructions from the Imperial authorities, and that the Colonial Ministers of that period had no conception of the broad and enlightened policy which was subsequently adopted and which made the self-governing provinces of the Empire towers of strength instead of sources of weakness and dissatisfaction. Racial animosity was increased and the solidarity of the French-Canadian population strengthened by the fact that the governors, in the majority of cases, looked to the so-called British party for support, a party by whom the French-Canadians were regarded with disdain.

It was under the administration of Sir James Craig (1807-1811) that the real contest for the control of the machinery of government began. Craig has been well described as a soldier with pronounced ideas on such subjects as the necessity of discipline and the due subordination of inferiors; as one who detested the French-Canadians as a race, was suspicious of their church, doubted their loyalty and had no faith whatever in their capacity for self-government.[16] While the French-Canadian party was dominant in the Assembly, the British party looked to the Executive Council for support and they generally found in the Governor a zealous partisan. The seizure of the newspaper Le Canadien (1810), the imprisonment of Bédard, Taschereau and Blanchet and other measures of a like arbitrary character were but incidents in a reign of terror intended to strike fear into the hearts of the people. Craig’s methods, however, failed in their object, and the struggle was continued by the popular leaders with renewed vigour, only to be interrupted by the war of 1812, which effected a truce between the contending parties in face of the common danger.

It is at this stage that there first appears upon the political scene one who was destined to play a leading part in public affairs, who for a long period was the stormy petrel of Canadian politics and whose career has been the subject of much acrimonious criticism and discussion. By some historians Louis Joseph Papineau has been pictured as an unscrupulous demagogue and agitator, and an unprincipled politician; by others he has been lauded as a peerless statesman, a faultless patriot and a much maligned man. In neither of these extreme views is to be found the exact truth. A fairer and a juster estimate of his career will show that Papineau, though great in many respects, had his limitations, and that, though like all human beings he had his faults, they were accompanied by eminent virtues. This is not the place to estimate the value of the services he rendered to his country, as that may be better done at a subsequent stage of the narrative. At present it is solely essential that the great struggle Papineau conducted from 1820 until 1837 for parliamentary freedom should be reviewed especially in the bearing that struggle had upon George-Étienne Cartier’s career.

Born in Montreal on October 7th, 1786, Papineau was a young man twenty-eight years of age in the year which witnessed Cartier’s birth. Elected to the Quebec Assembly in 1812, two years before Cartier was born, Papineau had already made a name for himself by the brilliancy of his oratory and his personal gifts. He was even then marked as the destined leader of the French-Canadians, and a worthy successor of his distinguished sire, who had so valiantly upheld the rights of his people. A man of the most attractive personality, of commanding presence, of wonderful eloquence and of the highest character, he appeared eminently fitted to lead his countrymen, and to be the champion of his people’s rights. In 1815, though only in his twenty-ninth year, he was elected to the high office of Speaker of the Assembly. From 1815 until 1820 Papineau, it has been remarked, still hoped for the removal of the existing abuses by means of the Constitution of 1791, which he then regarded “as a nearly perfect instrument of government.”[17] Papineau’s hopes in this respect were destined to prove illusive. It is not my purpose to enter into all the details of the long struggle which ensued, and in which Papineau boldly stood forth as the fearless champion of the rights of the people. In its essence, the French-Canadian question, as an eminent authority has said, was simple enough; it was whether the British minority or the French majority should rule.[18] While the French-Canadians had been given representative parliamentary institutions, those institutions had been practically rendered inoperative. The people possessed the shadow without the substance of parliamentary government. It was a British system without what such a system implied—British freedom. The Assembly in fact, as has been well remarked, was “not much more than a debating society which might fume and froth and pass revolutionary resolutions without any one being a penny the worse.”[19] Lord Durham subsequently hit on the crux of the situation when he remarked “How could a body strong in the consciousness of wielding the public opinion of the majority confine itself to the mere business of making laws and look on as a passive or indifferent spectator while those laws were carried into effect, or evaded, and the whole business of the country was conducted by men in whose intentions and capacity it had not the slightest confidence.”[20] “The Assembly,” says a writer from whom I have already quoted, “could not appoint a single Crown servant. The Executive Council, the law officers and such heads of administrative departments as there were were placed in power without consulting the Assembly and remained in power however strongly the Assembly might desire their removal. The Governor and his little knot of advisers could always get the Legislative Council to reject a bill with which they were dissatisfied; and even when after repeated struggles the Assembly succeeded in forcing a law through, it had to be administered by the very men who most strenuously opposed it. The Governor who came out from England, generally an old soldier, knew nothing of the temper of the people. He was thrown into the arms of the little group of officials which had governed the country before he came, and could hardly escape coming under their influence. From the point of view of the Assembly, the Governor was an opponent from the day he landed.”[21] The people of Lower Canada, as has been well remarked by a high constitutional authority, after having had some years’ experience with representative institutions, “could not now be satisfied with the working of a political system which always ignored the wishes of the majority who really represented the people in the legislature; consequently the discontent at last assumed so formidable a character that legislation was completely obstructed.”[22] It was that discontent which was to culminate in the rising of 1837.

Papineau’s labours from 1820 to 1837, both in the House of Assembly and on the public platform, were of a herculean character. As a popular tribune he was facile princeps. During this great period of his career, that is to say from 1820 to 1837, Papineau was, to use the words of a French-Canadian writer, “the personification of a whole people.” During that whole period he was undoubtedly the outstanding figure in Lower Canadian politics, and he had an almost unbounded sway over his fellow countrymen. Those who have treated Papineau as a mere agitator and demagogue have done him a great injustice. His utterances, it is true, were, especially in the latter stages of the great struggle, often marked by extreme language, but the very weakness of the popular body which was supposed to be the voice of the people will explain in a great measure, as Lord Durham pointed out, the violent and revolutionary speeches of Papineau and some of his chief lieutenants. “They were not like a constitutional opposition preparing the way for their return to power ... they were a permanent opposition. Nothing short of a revolution could put them in office.”[23] To political hostility were added racial animosity and prejudice. “The old-fashioned Tories who surrounded the Governor-General,” as another writer observes, “witnessed the exclusion of the House of Assembly from all power and patronage with a fullness of enjoyment not given to the Family Compact of Upper Canada. The pleasure of keeping down the representatives of the people was indeed common to both, but the former had the additional satisfaction of knowing that in their case the people were of an alien race and that in vindicating their political principles they were gratifying their natural prejudices.”[24] Is it any wonder that under such circumstances Papineau’s patience should have been sorely tried and that at times his language was far from conciliatory?

The efforts of the so-called British party were persistently directed to the subordination of the French element and the annihilation of their political power. It was with this object that a bill was introduced in the British Commons in 1822 making a single province of Upper and Lower Canada, abolishing the use of the French language and giving an enormous preponderance to English-speaking representatives in the proposed Canadian parliament. It was only through the sense of justice of leading British statesmen that the proposal was shelved.

It is not necessary to enter into all the details of the momentous struggle which was waged for a period of nearly twenty years between the parliamentary forces led by Papineau and the executive or ruling forces headed by the respective governors of the period. From that struggle, though it met with apparent defeat as the result of the unsuccessful rising of 1837, was destined, as will be seen, to ultimately result responsible government, and the political liberties which Canadians at present enjoy. Papineau, basing his contention on British principles, maintained the supremacy of the people’s representatives and his remedy for the exciting abuses was the application of the elective principle to every part of the administration and especially to the Legislative Council. “I solemnly declare,” he said in 1834, “that no harmony whatever can exist in this country between the several branches of the legislature until the elective principle shall have been applied to every part of the administration; it must above all be applied to the Legislative Council, where a pack of old men paralyse by their ceaseless opposition all the efforts of the representatives of the people.”

It was at least the merit of Papineau that he was no exclusionist, that he demanded nothing that he was not ready to concede to others. “The Government I long for,” declared the French-Canadian leader in a striking speech in the Assembly in 1835, “is one composed of friends of legality, liberty and justice, a government which would protect indiscriminately every proper interest and accord to all ranks and to each race of the inhabitants equal rights and privileges. I love, I esteem all good men as men, not preferentially because they are of this or that descent, but I detest those haughty dominators who come amongst us and dispute our right to enjoy our own laws, customs and religion.... There is no lawful distinction between their status in the province and ours, the same rights and a like just claim for protection are common to us both.... Briefly we demand for ourselves such political institutions as are in accordance with those of the rest of the Empire and of the age we live in.” That was the speech of a patriot and a statesman. With the idea of making common cause with the reformers of Upper Canada and other portions of British North America, who at the same time were engaged in an equally strenuous struggle for political freedom, Papineau corresponded and conferred with William Lyon Mackenzie, the great Upper Canada reformer, who, like Papineau himself, had a positive genius for political agitation, and who has been well described as the greatest agitator that ever Upper Canada has had. Correspondence also passed between Papineau and Joseph Howe, the great Nova Scotia reformer.

Nor did Papineau have the support in Lower Canada of his French-Canadian countrymen alone in his agitation for reform, at least in the earlier stages of it. One of his strongest supporters and one of the truest friends of the French-Canadians was John Neilson of the Quebec Gazette, in whom the cool and prudent temperament of the Scot was united with the Scotchman’s love of justice and freedom. James Cuthbert, of Berthier, and other leading English-speaking Canadians, were also earnest upholders of Papineau until the extreme attitude assumed by him in the later stages of the agitation led to a rupture. Representatives of the Eastern Townships, peopled by descendants of the United Empire loyalists, were frequently found voting in the Assembly with Papineau and his party for the constitutional reforms which they advocated. When the Assembly at its session of 1834 expressed its grievances in a series of resolutions, a number of the inhabitants of the Eastern Townships assembled at Stanstead and passed resolutions in approbation of the Assembly’s action, and at the height of the agitation Papineau visited the Townships in person and was enthusiastically received as the champion of political freedom.

The Imperial authorities from time to time showed a disposition to make some concessions to the people’s demands, but they were not ample enough to meet the approval of the majority of the Assembly. Thus at the session of 1831 it was announced that in accordance with the concessions and reforms recommended by Lord Goderich, the Home Government was willing to give up all control over the Colonial revenues, except the casual and territorial income, on condition that a civil list of £19,000 a year should be given to His Majesty for life. These concessions, which in the opinion of the more moderate members might have been made the basis for further concessions, the Assembly refused to sanction, more sweeping reforms and guarantees for additional ones being demanded by the majority.

The demands of the parliamentary representatives of the people eventually found formal expression in the famous Ninety-two resolutions proposed by Elzéar Bédard in the Assembly of 1834. These resolutions, which were inspired by Papineau and drafted by Augustin-Norbert Morin, who has been well described as the ablest political writer of the day and who was destined to fill a great rôle in Canadian politics, were carried in the Assembly by an overwhelming majority. In a rather diffuse manner, they summed up the grievances of the people’s representatives, alleging “arbitrary conduct on the part of the Government, intolerable composition of the Legislative Council, which they insisted ought to be elective, illegal appropriation of the public money and violent prorogation of the provincial parliament.” It was declared that “The French-Canadians had been treated with contumely, that they had been debarred from public office and that their habits, customs and interests had been disregarded.” “Since the origin and language of the French-Canadians,” declared the people’s representatives, “have become a pretext for vituperation, for exclusion, for their meriting the stigma of political inferiority, for deprivation of our rights and ignoring popular interests, the Assembly hereby enters its protest against such unjust assumptions and appeals against them to the justice of the King and Parliament of Great Britain, likewise to the honourable feeling of the whole British people.”

The Assembly had, at a previous session, almost unanimously adopted the report of a committee, by which, in order that peace and harmony might be established in the province, there had been demanded:

1. Independence of the judges and their exclusion from the political business of the province.

2. Responsibility and accountability of political officers.

3. A greater independence of support from the public revenues and more intimate connection with colonial interests in the composition of the Legislative Council.

4. Application of the Jesuit Estates to educational purposes.

5. The removal of obstructions to land settlement.

6. A redress of grievances generally.

These resolutions were embodied in addresses to the Imperial parliament which, at the instance of the Assembly, the Governor transmitted to London. It was the decision of the Assembly that in no case would it recede from its determination to assume unlimited control over the entire financial receipts and public expenditure; that the Imperial parliament, wherein Canada had no representative, had no right to interfere for the renovation of laws which the Canadians considered needful for the maintenance of their rights. At the same time the people’s representatives intimated that interference in the local legislation of Canada in any way by British legislatures could only aggravate existing evils.

Most of the demands of the people’s representatives would appear as perfectly reasonable in the light of present ideas of free government. These demands, however, fell upon deaf ears. The British statesmen who at that period successively filled the office of Colonial Minister were not men animated by the broad principles of colonial policy which guided their successors. Following the adoption of the Ninety-two resolutions and the refusal of the authorities to meet the demands of the reformers political conditions in the province went from bad to worse. Since 1832 the Assembly had persistently refused to vote supplies and the Governor was eventually driven to the extremity of paying salaries by loans from the war funds. By 1835 the government of the province had practically arrived at a deadlock, and it was under such circumstances that a special commission with Lord Gosford at its head was sent out by the Imperial authorities to investigate conditions. Lord Gosford, a man of broad and enlightened views, was in favour of conciliation and reform, but he was overridden by his colleagues and their report was a hard blow to those who hoped that the people’s grievances might be redressed in a constitutional manner. The report in substance declared against the principle of an elective upper house, stated that ministerial responsibility was inadmissible and favoured means being found to elect a British majority to the legislature by a change in the franchise. Coercion was finally recommended as the last resort. On March 6th, 1837, Lord John Russell submitted to the British parliament a series of resolutions respecting Lower Canada which were destined to bring matters to a head. These resolutions stated in substance that no supplies had been voted since April 31st, 1832, that the supplies up to the current year (1837) amounted to £142,160, that the House of Assembly demanded an elective Legislative Council and other concessions, that in the present state of the Province the granting of these demands was inexpedient, and “that, for defraying the arrears due and the customary charges of the government, the Governor be empowered to apply to those objects the hereditary territorial and casual revenues of the Crown.”[25] Despite the strongest opposition on the part of some of the leading members of the British Commons, the entire series of resolutions was, after protracted debate, agreed to on April 24th.

Historic Church at St. Antoine in Which George-Étienne Cartier Was Baptised

A storm of popular disapprobation and protest followed in Lower Canada. That the Imperial government felt that the proposal to defray the customary charges of the government without the sanction of the people’s representatives would be regarded as an arbitrary and unconstitutional step, and that it might result in trouble was shown by the fact that the Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg, empowered Lord Gosford to draft any troops he might be in need of from Nova Scotia. The dissatisfaction in many portions of the province gradually reached such a pitch that in the month of June the Governor-General issued a proclamation warning the people against agitation. Despite the proclamation Papineau, Morin, LaFontaine and other popular leaders addressed a series of public meetings at which the action of the Imperial government was strongly denounced. Towards the end of June Lord John Russell announced in the British Commons his willingness to leave in abeyance the bill founded upon his resolutions and duly adopted in the hope that the Assembly of Lower Canada would be convinced that their demands were incompatible with their status as colonials. Lord John Russell frankly admitted that the measure was one that bore a harsh and coercive character, but at the same time he desired it to be understood that he was conceding nothing to the Canadians as to their propositions for organic changes and he trusted that other views would animate the Assembly at their next sitting. Lord John Russell’s emphatic declaration was a clear intimation to the people’s representatives that they need expect nothing from him in regard to the reforms which they had demanded. The legislature of Lower Canada was summoned by Lord Gosford for August 18th and the Governor in opening parliament recommended the Assembly to make arrangements for the employment of the revenue, intimating that if they did not do so the Imperial government would order it to be done for them. The answer of the Assembly was to vote an address protesting against the recommendations made by the report of the Commissioners. When this address was presented to the Governor on August 26th, he at once prorogued the legislature. It was to be many years before the people of Lower Canada were again to have a legislature of their own.

The summary prorogation of the legislature was the signal for further popular protests. The Richelieu district, which included the six populous counties of Richelieu, St. Hyacinthe, Rouville, Chambly, Verchères and L’Acadie, was the hot-bed of popular dissatisfaction. A sort of political compact known as the Confederation of the Six Counties was formed with the support of a dozen members of the Assembly and a number of militiamen marshalled by officers who had had their commissions cancelled as a result of their activity in the agitation. Political excitement ran high throughout the district. At the successive meetings which were held numerous banners were displayed bearing such inscriptions as “Papineau and the Elective System,” “Honour to those who have resigned their commissions and been sent adrift,” “Shame upon their successors,” “Our Friends of Upper Canada,” “Honour to the brave soldiers of 1813, the colony needs their services,” “Independence.” The Legislative Council was pictorially represented on flags by a death’s head and cross bones.

The first of the great series of popular demonstrations which were to precipitate the rising was held at St. Ours in the Richelieu district on May 7th, 1837. The meeting, which was presided over by Côme-Séraphin Cherrier, a leading patriot, attracted a large gathering. The principal speaker was Dr. Wolfred Nelson, of St. Denis, who had attained marked prominence in the patriot ranks and who was destined to have a leading part in the impending conflict. A series of resolutions were adopted, strongly denouncing the Russell resolutions as a violation of the terms of capitulation, the treaty and the constitutional acts granted to the province, and denying the right of the British parliament to legislate for the internal affairs of the colony against its consent and without its participation and demand. It was further resolved that the people should abstain as far as possible from using and consuming imported articles, and to render this effective it was decided that a patriotic association should be formed, the object of which should be to have only articles manufactured in the colony used. It was further declared advisable that the people should rally around Papineau, who was hailed as the “regenerator of a nation.”

The St. Ours meeting was followed by others at which similar resolutions were adopted. On June 15th Lord Gosford issued a proclamation forbidding such meetings, an action which was hailed as another attack upon the people’s rights of free assembly. Public meetings and demonstrations were continued with greater enthusiasm than ever. “Vive Papineau,” “Vive la Liberté,” “Point de Despotisme,” “A Bas la Proclamation,” “Hurrah for the English who are our friends,” “Down with those who would injure us,” now became the rallying cries of the popular gatherings. Papineau in some of his addresses denounced Lord Gosford’s proclamation as an infringement of the people’s rights and in many places where the proclamation was posted up it was torn down by the enraged people. During the months of June and July Papineau addressed another series of monster meetings, proceeding on the south shore of the St. Lawrence as far as Kamouraska, while LaFontaine and other speakers addressed a series of similar gatherings on the north shore. In the meantime the supporters of the government, or, as they were styled, the Constitutionalists, were not idle and a number of monster meetings were held under their direction. These divergent meetings and the speeches made at them helped to fan the public excitement.

The climax of the popular agitation was reached at a great mass meeting held on October 23rd, 1837, at St. Charles, which was shortly afterwards to be the scene of a sanguinary conflict between the patriots and the British troops. The St. Charles meeting has been rightly termed the most important of all the public gatherings which preceded the rising of 1837, as it precipitated the dénouement by leading the authorities to intervene.[26] Delegates were present from all of the six confederated counties of the Richelieu district, and a gathering of over six thousand people collected. Papineau and O’Callaghan, one of his chief lieutenants, were amongst the principal speakers, and were supported by thirteen members of the Assembly. A column was erected surmounted by the cap of liberty and bearing the inscription “A Papineau, Ses Compatriotes Reconnaissants, 1837.” In presenting Papineau to the gathering as the chief orator of the day Dr. Wolfred Nelson, who had been chosen chairman, declared that the action of Lord John Russell and Lord Gosford’s proclamation prohibiting public meetings should lead the people to organise in order to meet violence by violence. Papineau, who was the recipient of a great ovation from the people, who were always stirred by his powerful eloquence, whilst expressing the grievances of the country and strongly protesting against the actions of the Imperial government and Lord Gosford’s conduct, counselled the people to restrict themselves to constitutional agitation. It was at this period of Papineau’s speech that Dr. Nelson, who was soon to lead the patriot forces on the battlefield of St. Denis, is reported to have exclaimed, “Well I differ from Mr. Papineau. I maintain that the time has arrived to cast our spoons into bullets.” Despite Papineau’s pacific utterances, extremely violent language was used by some of the speakers, Dr. Côté, one of the most outspoken, closing his discourse with the remark “The time for speeches is past, it is bullets that we must now despatch to our enemies.”

Before the great gathering dispersed a series of resolutions, thirteen in number, were adopted declaring in substance for the rights of man, affirming the right and necessity of resisting a tyrannical government, urging the English soldiers to desert the army, encouraging the people not to obey the magistrates and the militia officers named by the Government and to organise themselves.[27] A military air was given to the gathering by the presence of a company of dismissed militiamen who, under the command of Captains Lacasse and Jalbert, surrounded the column of liberty, and before dispersing many of the enthusiasts in the crowd swore before the column to be faithful to their country, to conquer or to die.

It was the St. Charles meeting, followed closely by others of a similar character, that led the authorities to consider the advisability of taking drastic measures against the popular leaders. A report which gained currency that warrants for the arrest of the patriot chiefs were likely to be issued furnished the spark to the fuel of discontent. The storm was almost ready to break.