Читать книгу The Lieutenant-Governors of Upper Canada and Ontario 1792-1899 - David Breakenridge Read - Страница 28

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Canada fell into the hands of Britain after the fall of Quebec, where Wolfe so gallantly led the attack in a contest that resulted in half a continent being added to the Empire of Great Britain. This was in 1759, and from the time of the peace of 1763 until 1791 the whole country was governed as the Province of Quebec. After the American Revolution there was a large exodus of what has been called the United Empire Loyalists into Canada, and these hardy and intrepid settlers began to form settlements and take up land in the western part of the Province. They were devoted to English laws and institutions, and it was soon seen that they would not easily submit to the French laws and customs which then obtained in Canada. The British Ministry saw that the time had come to divide the country, keeping what was to be called Lower Canada for the French and giving Upper Canada to the British. The Canada Act of 1791 was accordingly introduced and passed in the House of Commons, establishing the new province west of the Ottawa.

For the Province of Upper Canada a governor had now to be appointed, and for this office no better man was available than the distinguished officer, Colonel John Graves Simcoe. Simcoe had served with distinction in the Revolutionary War, and when the new Republic of the United States was established had assisted many loyal emigrants who, persecuted on account of their adherence to Britain's cause, and with estates forfeited for having carried arms on her behalf, sought in the Canadian wilderness a refuge from the republican tempest blowing so fiercely to the south.

Simcoe was a member of the Parliament which passed the Imperial Act, and had acquired his knowledge of parliamentary procedure and of statecraft under the tutelage of those two great statesmen, William Pitt and Charles James Fox. He had indeed taken some part in the debate in the House of Commons which resulted in the enactment of the Canada Bill. He had further qualifications for the post to which he was appointed. As commander of the Queen's Rangers throughout the Revolutionary War he had shown his aptitude for command, a penetration which had been most serviceable to the British cause in many emergencies, a loving care for those who served under him, and administrative capacity that could not but command the respect of his superiors. Beyond and above all this he had endeared himself to all those who took part with him in the conflict which resulted in the independence of the United States. Some idea of his popularity and acceptability to Canadians in his new office of governor may be gathered from the manner in which he was received at Johnstown on his first setting foot in the Province, in 1792, to take upon himself the responsibility of governing Upper Canada. There he was received by the inhabitants with a salvo of artillery, the ordnance for the occasion being an ancient cannon obtained from the old French fort on the island below Johnstown. Soon after the Governor left on his journey up the river, the gentry of the surrounding country, in their queer old broad-skirted military coats, their low tasselled boots, their looped chapeaux, with faded feathers fluttering in the wind, collected together, retired to St. John's Hall, and there did honor to the occasion in speech making and health drinking, as was the custom of the time. In the speech making, Colonel Tom Fraser said, "Now I am content—content, I say—and can go home to reflect on this proud day. Our Governor, the man of all others, has come at last. Mine eyes have seen it—a health to him, gentlemen—he will do the best for us."

Simcoe, whose father was commander of His Majesty's ship Pembroke, and who lost his life in the Royal service in the important expedition against Quebec in the year 1759, was born in 1752. His father had while on service been taken prisoner by the French and carried up the St. Lawrence, and thus had obtained a knowledge which enabled him to make a chart of that river and conduct General Wolfe in his famous attack on the citadel of Quebec. Naturally, therefore, we find him inheriting a spirit which only needed the events of the American Revolution to produce mature development.

After the death of Commander Simcoe his widow resided at Exeter, in England, and young Simcoe was sent to the Free Grammar School of that town, and from there, at the age of fourteen, to Eton. Thence he removed to Merton College, Oxford, where his classical education was completed, and where he acquired a love of Tacitus and Xenophon which made them his constant companions in after life. By the age of nineteen he had entered on his career, obtaining then a commission as ensign in the 35th Regiment of the line. He had been but three years in the army when his regiment was despatched to America to assist in quelling the rebellion of the colonists, and he landed at Boston on the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17th, 1775. Soon after this he was promoted to command a company in the 40th Regiment, and was with it at the battle of Brandywine, when General Howe defeated General Washington and became master of Philadelphia. Captain Simcoe in this battle so distinguished himself that he was marked out for promotion, and in the following October, having attained his majority in the meantime, he was made second in command of the Queen's Rangers. This regiment, originally raised in Connecticut and around New York by Colonel Rogers, and sometimes called Rogers' Rangers, was a provincial corps of light cavalry of Loyalist Americans, with attached companies of light infantry, and was originally about four hundred strong. It had done valiant service, and was severely cut up at Brandywine, and was now recruited with gentlemen of Virginia and young men of the regular army. On receiving his commission, on October 17th, 1777, Major Simcoe joined his regiment, then stationed at Germantown, now a suburb of Philadelphia. Soon after the regiment was moved to New York, when recruiting was vigorously prosecuted in order to bring the regiment up to the required strength. During the war a company of Highlanders and a company of Irish were added to the infantry wing of the regiment, and at full strength it numbered five hundred and fifty infantry, and was one of the most efficient and active corps in the service, the companies being swift of action and adepts at ambuscade and stratagem. Until the early summer of 1778 the regiment was under command of Colonel Mawhood, and in March of that year took part in a successful expedition into the Jerseys, where they defeated a strong body of rebels under command of a French officer, who was taken prisoner. On the recall of General Howe, and upon Sir Henry Clinton taking command of the army, Major Simcoe was promoted to the command of the regiment, and at the same time was given the colonial rank of lieutenant-colonel. Marching through New Jersey in June, 1778, the Rangers encountered a force of seven or eight hundred Americans under Baron Steuben, of the American army, and General Dickenson, in command of the Jersey militia. In the engagement Colonel Simcoe was wounded. After the close of the summer campaign the Rangers wintered at Oyster Bay, Long Island.

During the campaign of 1779 the Rangers were principally occupied in endeavoring to keep down the rebels in the Jerseys, but in October, in an expedition near Brunswick, Simcoe was ambuscaded, had his horse shot under him and himself taken prisoner, and was kept prisoner, undergoing considerable hardship, until the end of the year, when he was exchanged and rejoined his regiment at Richmond. He served with his regiment until after the capitulation of Yorktown, in October, 1781, and his health being bad, was invalided home on parole, and on his arrival home his rank of colonel in the provincial was confirmed in the regular army. He was released from parole in January, 1783, and from that time until 1791 lived in retirement in England.

Soon after his return to England he married Miss Guillem, a relative of Admiral Graves, who had been in command of the naval force at Boston during the Revolutionary War. She was an accomplished lady, and a talented artist and draughtswoman. Some of her sketches, made during her residence in Upper Canada, are still preserved as the only memorial of certain of the old notable buildings of the day.

In 1790 Colonel Simcoe was elected member of Parliament for the borough of St. Maws, Cornwall, and one of the first debates after he had taken his seat was that of April, 1791, when the Quebec Government bill was introduced by Mr. Pitt, and was vigorously opposed by Mr. Fox. It was over the constitution formulated by this Act that many and bitter contests were waged by Papineau, Mackenzie and other leaders of the rebellion of 1837. From the time of the introduction of the bill constant objection was made to the Legislative Council—the second chamber, appointed by the Crown—that, too frequently to please the aggressive Assembly or Commons, ignored the clamor of that body, and carried on the Government regardless of its wishes. In this debate Simcoe acquired some knowledge of his future sphere of action and of the rival elements, then indeed rather confined to the Lower Canadian Province—elements which he saw would not fuse, and whose fusion was rather prevented than aided by the Loyalists and Rangers, exiles from the United States, whose rooted conservatism was no friend of the Republicans of either of the Canadas.

Early in 1792 Simcoe organized his Government at Kingston. The organization and ceremonies attending, conformably with the wishes of the Governor, partook of a religious character, and took place in the wooden church opposite the market-place. After the Proclamation appointing Lord Dorchester Governor-General and John Graves Simcoe Governor of Upper Canada was solemnly read and published, the oaths of office were administered to His Excellency the first Governor of the Province. According to the Royal instructions he was to have five individuals to form his Executive Council. The five named were William Osgoode, William Robertson, James Baby, Alexander Grant, and Peter Russell, Esquires. These appointments were made on the 8th of July. On the following Monday Messrs. Osgoode, Russell, and Baby were sworn into office. Robertson was not then in the Province. Grant was sworn in a few days afterwards.

The Legislative Councillors were not elected till the 17th July, 1792, when a meeting of the Executive Council was held at Kingston, and the following gentlemen appointed: Robert Hamilton, Richard Cartwright, and John Munro. On the 21st July the Governor left Kingston for his new capital of Newark, now called Niagara. The first Parliament of Upper Canada was held at Newark on the 21st September, 1792, in answer to a call by His Excellency Governor Simcoe. In his address to the House the Governor remarked upon the "wisdom and beneficence of our most gracious Sovereign and the British Parliament, not only in imparting to us the same form of government, but in securing the benefit by the many possessions which guard this memorable Act (the Constitution of the Province), so that the blessings of our invulnerable constitution, thus protected and amplified, we hope will be extended to the remotest posterity."

There were only eight Acts passed this session, but they were Acts of a practical character, and such as were required for the early development of a new province. The Legislature was prorogued on the 17th October, 1792.

The second session of Parliament was held at Niagara on the 31st May, 1793. The most important paragraph in His Excellency's speech on opening the House was that which referred to the declaration of war by France against Great Britain, and the necessity which existed for the new modelling of a Militia bill for the Province, and to call to the recollection of the House "how often it had been necessary for Great Britain to stand forth as the protector of the liberties of mankind."

Before the next session of Parliament officialdom had taken its flight from Newark, and had become domiciled in York, which before this migration had been called Toronto. There can be no doubt that Governor Simcoe conferred this name of York upon the place, or that it came to be so called from the fact that he so named the harbor in honor of the Duke of York, the King's son.

The Governor, in selecting York for his new capital, was no doubt influenced by the fact that it had a magnificent harbor, and was distant from the United States frontier.

On the 26th August, 1793, the following order was issued from the Governor's headquarters:

"York, Upper Canada,

"26th August, 1793.

"His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor having received information of the success of His Majesty's arms under His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, by which Holland has been saved from the invasion of the French armies, and it appearing that the combined forces have been successful in dislodging their enemies from an entrenched camp supposed to be impregnable, from which the most important consequences may be expected, and in which arduous attempt the Duke of York and His Majesty's troops supported the national glory, it is His Excellency's orders that on raising the Union Flag at twelve o'clock to-morrow, a Royal salute of twenty-one guns be fired, to be answered by the shipping in the harbor in respect of his Royal Highness, and in commemoration of the naming of this harbor from his English title, York.

"E. B. Littlehales,

"Major of Brigade."

The first meeting of the Executive Council after the removal of the capital from Niagara to York was held at the Garrison in August, 1793.

Governor Simcoe, always watchful of the people's interests, and to encourage the fur traders of the North and West to bring their pelts to York, in October, 1793, accompanied by a party of officers, explored the country between York and Lakes Simcoe and Huron. Having made his exploration, in January, 1794, the Government surveyor, Augustus Jones, was ordered by the Governor from Niagara to York to direct operations in opening a road through the territory explored between York and Lake Simcoe. The work was soon accomplished by the Queen's Rangers, Simcoe's regiment, and the street or road was named Yonge Street after Sir George Yonge, Secretary of War in 1791.

In 1794 Governor Simcoe got into an entanglement with the high officials of the United States, arising out of a matter of great importance both to the United States and Great Britain. This matter was the erection of a fort by Governor Simcoe at the foot of Miami Rapids, about fifty miles from Detroit, and within what was claimed as American territory. Governor Simcoe was quite within his duty in erecting this fort, under the instructions of Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief. The Americans thought or affected to think that the British were erecting this fort in order to give aid and countenance to the western Indians, who were at war, or on the brink of war, with the United States, in a matter of difference as to the boundary between the United States and the Indian territory to the west. The western boundary of the United States was then undefined. The great West had not then been opened up or even explored, and was known as Indian territory, and further as the "Great American Desert." These plains were peopled by roving bands of Indians, many of whom claimed the protection of and professed allegiance to Britain, and this fort was now erected in what was considered by the British Government to be Indian and not United States territory, with a view to protect British fur traders and to maintain watch over the excitable and often treacherous Indians.

Governor Simcoe in a spirited manner vindicated his conduct, and showed that instead of erecting the fort to assist the Indians it was done upon the principle or self-defence. In a paragraph in his reply to Secretary Randolph's complaint, he wrote: "My having executed the order of His Majesty's Commander-in-Chief in North America, Lord Dorchester, in reoccupying a fort on the Miami River, within the limits of those maintained by the British forces at the peace in 1783, upon the principle of self-defence, against the approaches of an army which menaced the King's possessions, is what I presume Mr. Secretary Randolph terms Governor Simcoe's invasion."

In 1794 General Simcoe was promoted to the rank of major-general.

During the winter of 1794-95, Governor Simcoe was engaged in projecting plans for the future of York, and arranging for its civil and military administration. A soldier himself, he could bivouac in his tent, but arrangements had to be made for public buildings for the accommodation of officials and for the meeting of the Legislature. We have the authority of Mr. Bouchette, who surveyed Toronto harbor, for saying that His Excellency, in the winter of 1793-94, made his headquarters in the neighborhood of the Old Fort, at the entrance of the harbor, in a tent or canvas house which had served Captain Cook in his voyage round the world and was now the property of Governor Simcoe. After the Governor had got fully established at York, he spent part of his time at Castle Frank, on the bank of the Don, built by the Governor and named in honor of his oldest son and heir, Frank Simcoe. It thus seems that some idea of perpetuating his son's name still remained with the Governor, though far removed from his native land of hereditary honor and degree.

Although the Governor had removed his headquarters to York, the Parliament in 1795 assembled at Niagara as before, in consequence of the non-completion of the public buildings at York. In June, 1795, the Governor entertained the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, who in a book of travel gave a very graphic description of his reception, and the ceremonies attending the opening of Parliament, which took place during his visit. In his reference to the Governor, Liancourt wrote: "He is just, active, enlightened, brave, frank, and possesses the confidence of the country, of the troops, and of all those who join him in the administration of public affairs."

This and much more he says of him. Surely this is a worthy monument to his memory.

The session of Parliament of 1795 was a short but important one. It lasted only fourteen days, but during that period the legislators were enabled to pass laws to regulate juries and to "establish a superior court of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and to regulate the Court of Appeal," and some other equally useful measures.

In this same year Governor Simcoe visited the celebrated Indian Chief, Joseph Brant, at the Grand River, and had a conference with him in regard to Indian lands. The Governor was always foremost in his advocacy of Indian claims, and was the steadfast friend of the Indians during the whole of his administration of the Government of Upper Canada.

On the 1st December, 1796, Governor Simcoe was appointed Civil Governor of St. Domingo, and Commander-in-Chief in the room of Sir Adam Williamson.

St. Domingo was then divided into two parts, one of each being held by the British and French. On Simcoe's arrival there he found the island in a state of turmoil, and he was kept in a state of continual warfare with the celebrated Toussaint L'ouverture, the negro general, at one time leader of the black insurgents, but now appointed by the French Government General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo.

In August, 1797, wearied of a conflict in which he had no support, he went to England to procure a sufficient force. But England had too much use for her soldiers on the continent, and none could be spared. Remaining in England, Simcoe was made a lieutenant-general in 1798, and had no service until August, 1806, when he was appointed a commissioner to the court at Lisbon, to command an army of protection against France, then threatening to invade Portugal. On the voyage out he was taken ill and compelled to return to England, where he died soon after his arrival.

A monument to his memory may yet be seen in the walls of Exeter Cathedral, suitably inscribed, and is as follows: