Читать книгу Brown of the Globe - J.M.S. Careless - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

The Remaking of George Brown

1

Like any proper traveller, Brown had planned a wide itinerary for the British Isles. Thus D’Arcy McGee had furnished him with a letter to an editor friend in Dublin and listed all the sights to see there – from the grave of Daniel O’Connell to the cattle in Phoenix Park.¹ But as a returning native Brown meant to spend much of his time in old surroundings; in London, where he had once worked with the city agents of his father’s firm, and, of course, in Edinburgh, the scene of his boyhood. He set out for London first. And as soon as he had reached the smoke and splendour of the metropolis he went off to Westminster to hear the House of Commons debate of July 25.²

This, however, was more than a colonial politician’s exercise in filial piety. Parliament was just then discussing the highly interesting topic of Canadian defence. The House of Lords had debated the matter a few days before, and consequently Brown had missed the remarks of the Colonial Secretary himself, the Duke of Newcastle. But, watching from the gallery in the Commons chamber, he could follow some of the leading public figures of the empire as they expressed their opinions on his province: Palmerston, the aged but thoroughly agile Liberal Prime Minister, Thomas Baring, head of one of Britain’s greatest banking firms, and Benjamin Disraeli, the skilful House leader of the Conservative opposition, supported by Sir Charles Adderley, prominent Conservative critic on imperial affairs.

Half-unknown Canada was momentarily receiving a singular amount of attention in Great Britain. For when the news of the defeat of the colony’s Militia Bill had reached England, it caused a good deal of surprise and indignation, the latter most warmly voiced in the press by the mighty London Times, selfappointed to the task of prescribing policy for Britain and the world. Heedless of the widespread view in Canada that the late Militia Bill had been ineffective, extravagant, and based on a wrong principle, The Times, with much of British opinion behind it, saw only a supine and ungrateful colony that had readily accepted some 12,000 imperial troops but would do nothing to defend itself.³ And this was a judgment that played readily into the hands of the vociferous anti-imperialist or separatist faction in Britain, which regarded colonies only as unnecessary burdens to be thrown off.

Moreover, whether separatist or not, there were sizeable elements in both British parties that objected to the heavy weight of imperial expenses and looked to see them reduced. The outcry over Canada spurred them anew to demand that self-governing colonies take on greater responsibility for their own defence. Indeed, they might easily be led to doubt the whole value of supporting dependencies that would not share properly in their own protection. It was a serious problem; and so it appeared to Brown, who hoped to see Canada grow up within the British Empire, not cut off from it, and who regarded Britain’s aid and protection as vital to British North America for some indeterminate time to come. Nevertheless, convinced as he was that the likelihood of an American war was not really great, and that the causes of such a conflict would in any case arise between Britain and the United States, he still believed that the main responsibility for defence should lie with the mother country – that a smaller Militia Bill, within Canada’s means and already projected by the Sandfield Macdonald ministry, would be a fair and sufficient recognition of the colony’s obligations.⁴

Brown’s real concern, in fact, was whether the British government would be swept by the passing wave of resentment against Canada into an anti-imperial frame of mind. Hence he followed the debate in the British House keenly, to hear the different viewpoints presented there. Old J. A. Roebuck, the engrained radical, was the most sweeping, as he fumed: “I want the Canadians clearly to understand that England would not be sorry to see them depart from her tomorrow.”⁵ Adderley, the Conservative, was hardly less sweeping as he scathingly declared that Canada wanted only the cash that the British redcoats spent, that she was indefensible, and (somewhat illogically) that she should be told to defend herself or Britain would recall the troops. But the Conservative leader, Disraeli, affirmed that he would keep Canada, while complaining that self-defence should have been made a condition of her receiving responsible government in the first place. And Baring and a string of others expressed their confidence that Canada would yet do her duty. Most important of all, Palmerston also made plain that the British people had a solemn obligation to preserve their “fellow subjects”, despite the fact that local dissensions had for the moment kept the provincials from acting in their own behalf.⁶ All in all, Brown could conclude, in mixed annoyance and relief, that Canada had friends enough, although few were ardent and none seemed to understand the true reasons for the fate of the Militia Bill.

As he went about London in the days that followed, widely received and entertained in both political and business circles, he discovered how little indeed was known about Canada. “The ignorance of English politicians about Canadian affairs,” he decided, “is about as astounding as the helpless dependence of the capitalists on the nod of a few bell-wethers.”⁷ But he was glad to learn how things were actually handled at the centre of empire: “It is very funny, and very instructive!”⁸ At the same time he found the feeling against the United States in the London world he moved in “something horrible – and it is as senseless as it is bitter”.⁹ As for the policy of The Times, he wrote to Holton: “It seems to be nothing but a mean pandering to the passions of the people, without regard to the hostile feeling that will arise in future years between the nations.”¹⁰

Nevertheless, the Canadian visitor could only appreciate the ready kindness he was shown on every hand, even among those city business men deeply involved in financing the ruinous Grand Trunk Railway. “The truths told by the Globe in the last ten years,” Brown noted dryly, “have not prevented the Barings, and Glyns and Chapmans etc., being very civil – and those who escaped Grand Trunk benefits particularly so.”¹¹ In truth, he was perhaps disposed to be a little more civil to the Grand Trunk himself, since the recent reform and reorganization that Edward Watkin had sought to carry through would take the railway somewhat out of Canadian politics and put it more effectively under a directing board representing the major British interests behind the Company. Furthermore, that spring the Globe had welcomed the appointment of C. J. Brydges as the new Canadian general manager of the line. He was known as an efficient and experienced railway man, having been manager of the well-run Great Western, in which capacity George Brown had long had business dealings with him over Bothwell.¹²

Yet Brown still remained suspicious of the ultimate aims of Grand Trunk enterprise, fearful that its plans for recovery and extension would again turn out to be at public expense, that they would mean still further raids on the debt-encumbered Canadian treasury. It was, no doubt, in a mood of considerable scepticism that he went along to a crowded meeting of Grand Trunk shareholders, held in the well-known London Tavern on August 8.¹³ Its purpose was to ratify new arrangements that Watkin had negotiated with the Canadian government to enable the railway to continue operating. Thomas Baring presided as Chairman of the Board, while Brown joined the throng of some 800 unhappy but still hopeful investors, as they listened to speeches by leading Grand Trunk financiers. Watkin was the most effective, deftly switching from talk of staving off foreclosure on the railway to bold pronouncements on completing its “original design”, a line to the Atlantic through British territory, to be complemented thereafter by a line to the Pacific. At the end, he won his ratification by a large majority, and the shareholders dispersed, presumably comforted and heartened. But the Canadian Reformer, lacking enthusiasm for railway extension so brightly promised out of bankruptcy, only had his doubts confirmed.

He learned, however, that hopes for railway expansion were echoed in high places, when the Duke of Newcastle requested his presence at an interview in Downing Street. Brown must have been impressed to have the Colonial Secretary lay the imperial government’s considerations frankly before him; “a most satisfactory interview”, he termed it.¹⁴ Emphatically, he told Holton: “Whatever small politicians and the London Times may say, you may depend on this – that the government and the leaders of the opposition perfectly understand our position, and have no thought of changing the relation between Canada and the Mother Country. On the contrary, the members of the government (with the exception of Gladstone) are set upon the intercolonial road and a grand transit route across the continent!”¹⁵ If the imperial power were behind the scheme, might this not change its prospects? And if the North West were thus to be opened, might not the railway to the Atlantic be managed as well?

One thing at least Brown felt was certain gain, after his discussions with Newcastle. “His scruples about Rep by Pop are gone entirely,” he reported happily, “and it would have done even Sandfield good to hear his ideas on the absurdity of the double majority.”¹⁶ There was another good sign. Alexander Galt, Canada’s former Minister of Finance, was in England that same summer; Brown at last made peace with his old enemy, whose financial policies he had so often led in criticizing. And Galt, he found, “goes in now for constitutional changes stiff”.¹⁷ Prospects for altering the Canadian union were looking better and better.

A month and more thus passed in England, though marred by the poignant news that his mother had died suddenly but peacefully while his ship had been at sea. “But for the sad thought,” he recorded, “that never more will I see my beloved Mother – ever recurring – my visit would have been one of intense pleasure throughout.”¹⁸ He had enjoyed being a welcomed visitor and privileged observer, and had no less benefited from exchanging views in the spacious atmosphere of London, so different from the cramped confinement of a colony. None the less, the stamp of Canada was on him strongly, and most clearly in his resentment of the widespread lack of comprehension in the motherland of his country across the Atlantic. He declined repeated invitations to speak, for, as he said stoutly: “I have no idea of defending Canada before the English people, and defence would be the only possible attitude at this moment.”¹⁹ Even when he moved on to his native Scotland early in September, and wandered through “the old loved spots” in Edinburgh, he felt no impulse to turn back from the land of his adoption. “I needed nothing to ‘reconcile’ me to Canada,” George Brown wrote, “but after all I have seen, I say now as earnestly as ever – Canada for me!”²⁰

2

In Edinburgh there were many friends, of course, and many happy meetings with old cronies – although he found that “the sad, sad blanks tell the tale of twenty-five years”.²¹ Yet one connection here that Brown renewed began to take on growing significance as the days went by: his link with the Nelsons, the wealthy Edinburgh publishing family whose handsome, hospitable mansion, Abden House in the suburb of Newington, was a substantial indication of the achievements of their big Hope Park printing works near by. William and Thomas Nelson, sons of the first Thomas Nelson, the late founder of the firm, had been George Brown’s schoolmates at the high school many years before.²² Brown had run into Tom Nelson in London, in fact, and the latter had written to his sister Anne at Abden House that it was “not unlikely that George Brown of Toronto will come and spend a week with us”.²³ He did come to stay, and did not move far away thereafter. For in Anne Nelson he found an attraction that would not let him go. Suddenly, surprisingly, the confirmed bachelor of forty-three was falling very much in love.

Anne was worth it; she was entirely worth it. Some ten years his junior, she was light-hearted, lively, and engaging, yet no less intelligent and firm-minded for that. Her glossy dark hair was pulled back tightly in the heavy chignon of the 1860s from her glowing, fair-complexioned Scottish countenance, her clear eyes shone warmly, her sensitive mouth smiled easily. She loved company and busy activity, but best of all her affectionate nature loved the intimate group of family and friends that gathered at Abden House. George Brown himself, happiest in a close-knit group of family intimates, could readily feel at home among the cordial Nelsons – and above all in Anne’s presence. She was the charming centre of a companionable circle that included her older brothers, William and Tom, the younger John and James, and her sister Jessie.

Anne, however, was far more than the devoted, contented daughter of a prosperous Edinburgh household, and Brown admired her all the more for it. She was quite widely travelled and certainly well cultivated. She had studied in Germany, knew the language, and still kept in touch with German friends in Heidelberg.²⁴ She had lived in Paris in her early twenties, and had written a conscientious journal of her grand tour from Paris to Avignon, Marseilles, and Nice, from Genoa to Milan and Switzerland, and on through Germany down the Rhine to the Low Countries.²⁵ Thanks, indeed, to her family’s wealth, she could keep up her European contacts, and accompany her brother James on later continental visits. And of course there were regular trips down to London. In short, hers was far from a narrow or secluded Victorian female existence.

Perhaps it was still surprising in that age that she had not already married, for, cultivated or not, Anne was no prim, learned spinster. Actually, the Nelsons had not married early, perhaps because of the very closeness of the clan, sufficient among themselves, and in this rather like George Brown’s own domestic circle. Yet more surprising was the fact that, although Anne and George had each apparently settled into an enduring single state in their own families, within five weeks of the almost chance encounter between the Edinburgh publisher’s daughter and the visiting journalist from Canada, they had definitely resolved on marriage. One of Anne’s friends complained urgently from France, “Though you have told me the thing, viz. that he is unquestionably the right man, you have stopped there regarding his name, appearance – and have left me in utter ignorance! ”²⁶

Assuredly Anne had decided for herself. She always knew her own mind, and while she would accept the lead of someone she respected, loved, and trusted, she still meant to share in the making of decisions. No doubt as a capable, keen-witted individual, with a place in society of her own, she had examined George Brown critically enough – this unknown quantity from the distant colonies. But he stood up very well under examination, as a staunch Liberal and Free Kirk Scot of her own Edinburgh background, wholly acceptable to her family, a man of undoubted power and prestige in Canada, and well-to-do besides. After all, these things mattered to a mature young woman, past any likely tendency to calf-love. But more important, surely, were George’s tall, commanding presence, kindly good nature, quick laugh, and eager, voluble conversation that would reveal high ideals and sensitive dreams to the right kind of woman. She was that kind. The decade’s difference in their ages did not matter, for their ideas and sympathies were in essential harmony. And, being both decisive, they saw no reason for delay. On an evening early in October, as they walked along the twilight shore of the Firth of Clyde, she agreed to marry him.²⁷ It would turn out to be the climactic step in George Brown’s life.

He had gone with the Nelsons for a late holiday on Arran (Gaelic for “the lofty isle”), the picturesquely rugged island in the Firth of Clyde that was already noted as a summer resort. Here Anne and he spent a brief, idyllic courtship – here in the soft radiance of the warm west coast, where summer still lingered and where the glens of Arran tumbled down to quiet inlets of the sea. There was one day that stood out particularly in their memory, the day of their expedition to Lochranza at the far northern end of the island, when together they paused at such an inlet to watch a boy sailing on a plank in the shining, placid water, while a tiny white sailboat passed silently by.²⁸ It was nothing and it was everything: a moment they would long hold in memory, because it was so completely their own.

It was afterwards, when they had just returned to Greenock (where John Nelson had his church as a Free Kirk minister), that George Brown asked Anne to marry him. This, too, he well recalled thereafter – “the dinner at John’s, the hope and the fear, the despair and the joy, changing every hour – until all was settled in that delightful walk along the shore”.²⁹ For, marvellously, Anne had accepted him, and they could announce the monumental fact to the family. They began at once on plans for the wedding, and for George’s return to Canada with his bride.

Naturally, the arrangements could not be concluded overnight. Time was needed to prepare for a sizeable company to attend the wedding, to collect a properly complete trousseau for a bride departing for the wild New World, and to arrange for the voyage itself. Tom Nelson would accompany them to Canada; they would sail in the Scotia for New York early in December. But, meanwhile, there was a month and more before the wedding would take place.

They were back in Edinburgh now, and no doubt George Brown was of little more use than any other bridegroom before the wedding. He wrote affectionate little notes to Anne when they both came down with mild chills and worried about each other.³⁰ He visited Alloa, his birthplace, some miles up the firth from Edinburgh.³¹ And he went back to London to deal with business for the Globe (probably to arrange more English correspondence for it), as well as to keep another appointment with the Duke of Newcastle.³² And then, at last, it was November 27, his wedding-day.

John Nelson officiated; Abden House was crammed with guests for the occasion.³³ There was music and singing to follow; but the newly married couple left early by carriage in a sparkling fresh snow-fall, ostensibly bound for York. (Anne’s mother wrote just afterwards: “My firm belief is you did not go very far from Edinburgh – we will find out bye and bye.”)³⁴ John Nelson gaily threw snowballs at George Brown as they departed – and was only sorry that his target was wearing a travelling cap instead of his new tall hat.³⁵ A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Brown returned from their honeymoon to rejoin the Nelsons at Liverpool, this time to say good-bye and make ready to embark. On December 6, they and Tom Nelson were aboard the Scotia as she steamed out towards the wintry North Atlantic.³⁶

Only one thing could have qualified George Brown’s complete happiness at that moment: the aching knowledge that his own mother would not be there at home to greet his bride. Yet he was sailing back to North America a different man from him who had disembarked in Liverpool a few months before: married, deeply contented, and very much in love.

3

It was a rough crossing. There were headwinds and much pitching about. Tom was miserably sea-sick, as were almost all the passengers, but George and Anne, with some special dispensation for the newly married, were wonderfully well, enjoying every minute of the voyage.³⁷ They landed in New York on December 19, and naturally went to stay with George and Jane Mackenzie at their house on Seventh Avenue.³⁸ A few days later the Browns and Tom Nelson went on by rail, but stopped, quite naturally again, to visit Niagara Falls – indeed, spent Christmas there.³⁹ Then on the twenty-sixth they caught the Great Western for Toronto. But when they reached Hamilton at six that evening, a large party of George Brown’s Toronto friends came thronging festively aboard and bundled them off to a special train hired for the occasion. Among the group were Oliver Mowat, William McMaster and John McMurrich – two leading Toronto Liberal business men, recently elected to the Legislative Council – and Thomas Swinyard, the managing director of the Great Western.⁴⁰ They told the surprised Brown and his still more startled wife that a huge public reception had been planned to greet them at their final destination.

At Toronto it was pouring rain; yet, none the less, as their special pulled into the Union Depot at seven-thirty, they found a mass of more than 5,000 people of all political opinions, jammed around the station in the wet black night to welcome them home.⁴¹ It was a triumphant, moving moment. Toronto was emphatically proud to have George Brown back; even his enemies had missed him. For the time being, differences, antipathies, were forgotten, as Grits and Tories, Orangemen and Catholics, lustily cheered the great man of the Globe. Oliver Mowat and the city alderman ushered him to the rear of the Depot to present a formal address from the citizens, while his wife was taken to a carriage. Brown was loudly called on to reply. He answered briefly, thanking them all for the “magnificent reception – as unexpected as it is gratifying”, and adding warmly: “I can only say that after six months’ visit to the noblest and best governed land on earth, I feel more than ever the necessity for Upper Canadians of all shades of political opinion to unite heartily in advancing the great interests of our country – to forget the minor differences which have so long separated us.”⁴² Then he, too, was taken to the carriage, to be escorted in a flaring torchlight procession through the rain and darkness to the home on Church Street.

There were bands blaring “Hail to the Chief”, and, for Anne, “Annie Laurie” and “Flowers of Edinburgh”.⁴³ There were hundreds of hissing torches, Roman candles, and rockets; the streets were lit like day. Cheering wildly, the crowd pushed along the greasy sidewalks and muddy roadways, and people thrust heads and waving handkerchiefs out of upstairs windows everywhere along the route. The noise, the stark contrasts of light and darkness, the great distorted shadows on the buildings – it was all thoroughly exciting for Anne, but bewildering and a little frightening too. Of course she had known that her husband was a powerful figure in provincial public life. But the fierce clamour, the near-frenzy that so frequently surrounded public men in Canada, she could hardly have surmised. She would never be really at ease with George Brown’s political career, and perhaps her sense that Canadian politics were in some way a strange and savage rival pulling at him began in this torchlit, tumultuous night introduction to her new homeland.

At the doorway of 204 Church Street, Brown turned to answer insistent calls for some final remarks. He spoke his thanks again, and again significantly referred to the need for unity he saw on his return. “I come back,” he earnestly proclaimed, “with vastly enlarged views of the greatness of England and the British people. I come back too with a better knowledge of public affairs and with a more ardent desire to serve … I trust that in all the public movements we make in Upper Canada we will pay more regard to the lessons read to us by the mother land – and that whenever the great interests of Canada are at risk, we will forget our merely political partisanship and rally round the cause of our country.”⁴⁴ That, he said, would be his new motto. Would he remember it? Here was a speculation for the future.

His father, Peter Brown, white-haired and frail, was waiting for him in the house – waiting there alone, without his wife of nearly fifty years. Tom Nelson noted George’s swift greeting: “Just, ‘O father!’ Not another word. I saw the tear in his eye and respected him for it.”⁴⁵ But now father and son who had always meant so much to each other were reunited. And now, as well, there was a new era beginning in the Brown home, as Anne moved easily and affectionately into possession. The journeying and receiving were done. The next step was to pick up the ordinary threads of daily life.

One of the first tasks was to answer the messages of welcome and felicitation that had come streaming in. “Many thanks for your kind congratulations,” George Brown replied to Luther Holton a few days after his return, “and I assure you my friends may well congratulate me, for I am a new man in mind and body and as happy as the day is long! ”⁴⁶ He was cheerfully occupied with suppers and receptions, as he proudly introduced his wife into Toronto society, and at home he delighted in each cosy domestic detail of his new existence. He had slipped almost eagerly out of the ways of bachelorhood. Restored in health, he seemed to pour his old accustomed gusto into his marriage – all his whole-hearted capacity for enjoyment. Perhaps because marriage had come late, he prized it the more. And always there was a recurring sense of wonder and gratitude that this could have happened to him, that Anne was his. He could laugh aloud at the very joy of it.

Surely, he was a new man – and most of the remaking was Anne’s work. Oliver Mowat would one day write to her: “Since you became his wife, the softer side of his nature has been developed under your loving influence – himself becoming an increasingly gentle, kind and considerate person.”⁴⁷ Yet Brown had changed in other ways as well. For one thing, his long ill-health had left a mark. True, he was well again, brimming once more with vigour and enthusiasm. But he would never have the old copious quantities of energy to burn, and, what is more, he seemed to realize it. He would seldom drive himself as hard as he had before, carrying on four or five jobs at once for months on end. He appeared less impetuous and impatient; he could even become detached, at times almost easy-going. Possibly his new engrossing centre of interest, his marriage, had much to do with this. Nevertheless, there was also some diminishing of his restless physical vitality (not that, compared with other men, he had grown quiet or sober!), and the fact that henceforth he was often subject to painful attacks of sciatica also seemed to point to some definite change in his constitution.⁴⁸ More than marriage was altering George Brown.

Another influence stemmed from his experience in Britain. As he had indicated in his own words, his British visit had brought him a new sense of scale, of dimension in politics. He had seen Canada’s problems against a background of imperial issues at the very focus of the world. He had been struck by British ignorance of Canada, but no less struck by the magnitude and power of Britain’s political and economic life. And so the vehement battles of Canadian politics, once so all-absorbing, could come to seem more like parochial quarrelling – “merely partisanship”.⁴⁹ Brown would not and could not throw off the views and habits of a lifetime. He believed intensely that honest politics and true patriotism lay in the maintenance of strong party principles; he would return repeatedly to attacks upon the expediency and corruption that pretended to some higher political morality than strict party loyalty. None the less, his mind had been opened to a possibility that for truly great ends it could be right to sink grave party differences. An able but restricted colonial politician had gained a new awareness that compromise and conciliation might be the way of constructive statesmanship.

Nor would the state of Brown’s own fortunes be without effect. He was becoming a decidedly wealthy man. Anne had brought with her a dowry of $120,000.⁵⁰ His holdings at Bothwell would soon be valued at more than twice that amount, and there was still the Globe, in a flourishing condition.⁵¹ In Canada of the day, these total assets meant substantial wealth indeed. Previously, Brown had achieved business prominence and owned much property, but he had rarely known financial ease. Now there was far less strain of business problems tugging at him; and in this way, too, he could relax somewhat. He could afford to take his time and push less hard.

Altogether, this new Brown was a broader, more mellowed, less demanding individual. Of course he had not wholly altered. Directness, force, fire, determination, still were all present, and dogmatism and over-confidence might show themselves again. What mattered, however, was that Brown’s whole personality had been modified, if not shaped anew. And how much it mattered would be revealed by the events of the next two years.

4

The question now was, what should he do about politics? Before he had left Canada the previous summer, George Brown had planned to return to parliament after his holiday was over. For, however much a burden public life had seemed at times, he still had felt its obligations as unfinished business, and unquestionably he had known excitement and gratification as well as duty and dedication in his political career. Even at the time of his defeat in the elections of 1861, he had spoken only of staying out of parliament for the present. In fact, when he had gone to England, the Globe had announced that his intention was to seek re-election on his return to Canada, once a suitable opportunity should present itself.⁵²

But that had been announced in August 1862. By January 1863, the new Brown had other ideas, and was by no means ready to return to parliament at all. He told Holton: “Entirely re-established in body and mind as I am, and free from nearly all business retardments, I have no desire whatever to enter parliamentary life, and would much rather accomplish through others what the country wants than be a prominent participant myself.”⁵³ Doubtless he meant to work through his position of power at the Globe office. In any case, it seemed he felt no yearning for his former role as party leader. He had, he said, “chalked out a course for myself pretty clearly”.⁵⁴ Perhaps he would be the judicious director off the parliamentary stage – the wirepuller behind the scenes, critics might charge. Yet, whatever happened, it appeared unlikely that Brown would pursue any course leading to the commanding position he had held in the Upper Canada Reform party between 1854 and 1861. He would be a power in Liberalism, but not an active commander – an overlord, perhaps, but not a captain in the field.

The reasons for the change were plain enough: his moderated outlook, his greater detachment, and, above all, his marriage. Past memories of all he had disliked in public life combined with his present consciousness of happiness, and made him shrink from the thought of losing one moment with Anne for the dubious pleasures of parliamentary existence: the bitter wrangles, the frustrations and disappointments, the long night hours, the loneliness of life in rented rooms at distant Quebec. In all this, the contrast between George Brown and his greatest rival, John A. Macdonald, was strikingly revealed. Brown did enjoy being with people, but in small circles of friends, and especially in his own home. He found little ease or pleasure in convivial evenings with political cronies at hotels or inns. Macdonald, on the other hand, not only had a natural zest for cameraderie, but also through his own domestic tragedy – the illness and death of his invalid wife – had long lacked any real home life, and had almost been forced to dwell in the public and political world.

Brown, however, cherished his own private world and meant to hold on to it. Furthermore, Anne herself wanted no less strongly to keep him with her.⁵⁵ She did not comprehend the power of political demands, and what she saw of them repelled her: the noise, the violence, and the passions. Why should George go back to these, subject himself again to strain, abuse, and shock? He was a notably successful journalist; the Globe was his first care; and certainly they had money and position enough. No doubt, she did not actually demand of him that he stay out of public life. She was strong-minded, but not domineering, and would do as he wished in all the big things. But in this case she had only to reinforce his own wishes and confirm his own desire to stay home. Let others, who cared to, think that they were running Canada!

All this was true. Still, what should he do about politics – about the deep sectional discord in the Canadian union that still demanded remedy, the inept moderate Liberal government that hoped to find the solution in the futile double-majority principle; the inflated talk of an Intercolonial Railway, egged on by Grand Trunk interests, and the pressing need, instead, to acquire the North West before the Americans thrust into it? And what of the campaign for reform of the union that Brown had led in parliament for nearly a decade? Could he really withdraw now, before these issues had been settled, the answers gained? Could he work as effectively for them from the outside?

In a sense, duty and determination pushed him forward while inclination and contentment held him back. But there was more to it than this. Brown, after all, had been deeply involved in active politics for years and he had unswervingly pursued a certain set of goals: reform of the union, justice for Upper Canada, north-west expansion. He was still too involved, whatever he might think and say – still too intent on seeing these goals achieved – to leave the uncompleted work to other hands. He had a good idea of his own value, and he had his characteristic single-minded concentration on ends. He felt that he was still needed. Not even Anne and all his devotion to their marriage could overcome that innermost conviction. Hence, almost against his will, as the opening weeks of 1863 passed by, he became more and more persuaded that he should stand for re-election to parliament.

There was no real self-deception here. George Brown sincerely did not want to leave so much that he prized for so much that he detested. Yet the feeling of urgent need impelled him, especially as he saw the Macdonald-Sicotte government making ready to meet the legislature with little more to offer than a more limited Militia Bill and their hopeless double-majority notion. If there was any self-deception in his thinking, it might have been in his growing conviction that he would be indispensable to the Reform cause in parliament under such a fumbling régime. Yet was his conviction wrong?

On February 12, the day parliament opened, Brown wrote to Holton: “I confess I view the position of our party with some alarm – more alarm than I have felt in ten years. Ministers may get their supporters to vote down rep by pop, or they may treat their voting on that question with indifference – but the country will not do so.… Divisions will spring up – in every store and bar room of Upper Canada the contest will be waged … one set will be pitted against the other – and when the election comes, the result will be seen. I have no desire to enter parliament. On the contrary, nothing but the strongest sense of duty would tempt me into it at present – but sometimes when I think of the gulf before us, I am almost tempted to wish myself once more in the House.”⁵⁶

Hastily he added: “A little reflection, however, soon brings me back stronger than ever for quiet and happiness.”⁵⁷ But Holton, who had now returned to parliament himself, having been elected to the upper chamber, at once answered, expressing his own anxiety to see Brown in the Assembly “at the earliest possible moment”, and reported on a movement at Quebec to secure him an immediate nomination in South Oxford.⁵⁸ This Liberal seat had been vacated through Skeffington Connor’s appointment to the judicial bench. Leading Reformers in the constituency had already written to urge Brown to run. He had declined, but evidently on the ground that he knew “less of South Oxford perhaps than of any county west of Belleville” – hardly an indication that he was against the very idea of running.⁵⁹ “Were I desirous of going in,” he mused, “I suppose I could do so by stumping the county.… A little stumping would, I dare say, make the thing sure enough.”⁶⁰ In reality he had almost decided already as he weighed the challenging situation in the riding: the fact that he knew only Ingersoll in South Oxford (which had been Francis Hincks’s old stamping-ground), although North Oxford had been familiar territory to him since his electioneering there back in 1847.⁶¹

And so Brown’s resolution to stay out of parliament finally broke down. Pushed by his own feelings, pulled by the insistence of his political associates, he accepted a requisition signed by more than a thousand Liberals of South Oxford. The Globe announced his decision on February 26. Anne wisely did not stand in the way, however much she must have regretted the move. Nevertheless, her husband took up the candidacy assuring her that this was only a temporary return, and he meant it: “I am into it for this struggle.”⁶² He would stay to resolve the issues to which he was committed. As ever, he was in politics for a purpose, not for a career.

In any event, his returning to political life under these conditions, and with this attitude, still further indicated that a much more detached Brown would sit in parliament. He would sit there with one eye on the clock, waiting for debates to end, writing letters to Anne at his desk in the chamber and thinking of home, repeatedly restless for the business of the session to be wound up. Moreover, he intended to remain a semi-independent back-bencher, or at least to function in the House apart from the front-bench Liberal leaders. In other words, if Brown did feel obliged to return to parliament, he had still not given up the idea he had expressed to Holton; of seeking rather to “accomplish through others what the country wants, than be a prominent participant myself”.⁶³ If this could be done at all, assuredly the old George Brown, the urgent, authoritarian commander of other years, could not have managed it. But perhaps the new one might bring it off – and then be able to escape joyfully from public duty, back to Anne and home.

5

“My Dearest Anne: Well, I am fairly into it – and I do assure you I wish I were once more quietly home in Church Street by your side. I find a wonderful change in my feelings about all this since the olden time. I am persuaded that had I stayed out of it for a year longer I would never have returned.”⁶⁴ It was a note scribbled from Ingersoll on the night of February 25, as Brown’s by-election campaign got under way. His only adversary was Warden Bodwell – a Reformer himself, for the constituency was so solidly Reform – a locally prominent politician whose main hope of winning rested on the appeal of the resident against the outsider. Of course, the moderates, some Conservatives, and the old anti-Brown friends of Hincks backed Bodwell. Their chances did not seem bright, however, when at the nomination meeting their own man endorsed Brown’s twohour speech on the state of public affairs and, somewhat overawed, chiefly pleaded that he was the local choice.⁶⁵

The campaign that followed was swift, by no means bitter, and hardly in doubt for a moment. “It is very pleasant to find how kind every one is to me,” Brown remarked. “Not a harsh word except for coming to drive out Bodwell – and Bodwell himself is compelled to say all sorts of kind things.”⁶⁶ He gave his best none the less: up till two in the morning and off at seven in chill but clear weather, to talk here, move on eight miles and talk there: at Norwich and Woodstock, Otterville and Tillsonburg. He thought the outcome safe enough. “Twist and turn it every way, I don’t think it possible he can beat me.”⁶⁷ Still, he asked Anne to pass on word to Gordon that the Globe should talk moderately about the contest. “We will crow when victory is won.”⁶⁸

The polls came on March 5 and 6, and from the start Brown commanded a sure majority.⁶⁹ When the official declaration was held at Hillman’s Corners a few days later, the member-elect again struck the note of conciliation. He was specially gratified, he said, by the “kindly feeling which has been manifested throughout”.⁷⁰ He thanked those Conservatives who had voted for him, moreover, proclaiming it a sign that “Upper Canadians were coming to a right sense of their position, and would not permit partisanship to prevent a settlement of the great questions now under discussion”.⁷¹ There was a victory banquet at the Royal Hotel in Ingersoll that night.⁷² Then he went back to Toronto, where Anne was fretting for his return.

By this time, since parliament was soon to adjourn for a threeweek recess, it was hardly worth while for Brown to set out for Quebec. Instead, he paid a visit to Bothwell in early April, to see to his property there before taking up his parliamentary post. Now the south-western countryside was warming into spring. It was mild, clear weather, and the laird greatly enjoyed his rambles through the greening fields, watching the ploughing and examining the sheep and cattle with a would-be professional eye.⁷³ Beyond this, there was the land boom. “The oil wells are a great fact,” he told Anne. “There seems no doubt that oil in any quantity will be had here. Many people arrive daily from different quarters to inquire into the prospects, and already three or four new companies have been formed to open wells. Every dwelling house in the village is occupied.… Three vacant taverns are anxiously inquired after.”⁷⁴

But soon it was time to go back to Toronto and make ready for the trip to parliament. There was a brighter side to it, however: Anne would accompany her husband for this first return. They would be together in Quebec. They would also stop en route in Montreal to visit the Holtons, so that Mrs. Brown could meet Mrs. Holton and the children.⁷⁵ Accordingly, the session had already recommenced when the member for South Oxford and his wife finally established themselves in comfortable rooms at Mrs. Steele’s residential house in the Lower Canadian capital.⁷⁶

Brown found the Sandfield Macdonald-Sicotte government deep in difficulty when he arrived. Indeed, it had known little else since its constitution the previous summer. In the Lower Canadian half of the ministry Sicotte had managed to include McGee and Dorion, bringing the latter back into parliament in June of 1862. Yet the long-time Rouge leader had not been comfortable in office, even though there was no barrier of principle to keep him or McGee from the cabinet. The eastern Liberals had not been committed to any set policy of constitutional reform, much less to rep by pop. Dorion, however, was firmly devoted to the cause of retrenchment and hostile to railway entanglements. When in September the government had adopted expensive proposals actually to build the Intercolonial Railway, he had very soon resigned, and efforts made in January of 1863 to win him back had failed.⁷⁷

The ministry, in fact, had made rather a mess of its Intercolonial policy. At Quebec, in September 1862, an interprovincial conference of the governments of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia had agreed to send new delegations to negotiate with the imperial authorities for an Intercolonial railway, and had even agreed on a provisional sharing of the costs. Doubtless there was mounting popular interest in the project in Canada, particularly in the East, and doubtless it found Liberal as well as Conservative advocates. D’Arcy McGee was one, impressed as he was with the need of effective communications for development and defence.⁷⁸ The ministry, moreover, took the line that the Intercolonial was necessary as a quid pro quo for further imperial military aid; Canada must prove that she would take her own share of burdens.

Nevertheless, it was still a shock when a government that had proclaimed rigid retrenchment boldly announced a huge new programme of railway expansion, and when ministers who had won office by defeating a militia bill because it far exceeded the needs of defence now urged defence needs as justification for their costly railway. Upper Canadian Reformers, who had accepted the Macdonald-Sicotte régime because it at least promised an end to Coalition extravagance and Grand Trunk railway jobs, were particularly upset. Consequently, even while Howland and Sicotte were being sent to London as Canadian delegates to negotiate on the Intercolonial, Sandfield Macdonald and Co. realized that they had gone too far. They could not hope to keep western Reform votes on an Intercolonial bill. And so the Canadian delegates in London suddenly broke off the successfully advancing negotiations, on the pretext that a sinking fund proposed by the imperial government to safeguard the financing of the line was unacceptable. When they returned home at the beginning of 1863, the Macdonald-Sicotte ministry had been saved from its blunder at the cost of a bad taste in everyone’s mouth – and a bad reputation for Canadian probity in the angry and disgruntled Maritime Provinces.

Then, when parliament opened in February, the government went still further in its career of alienating friends and disillusioning people. Naturally, the representation question at once came up. Some western Conservatives moved rep-by-pop amendments in an attempt to embarrass the ministry. As could be expected, their motions were readily defeated by a solid block of Lower Canadians voting in combination with the western moderates.⁷⁹ But what was more significant, the Macdonald-Sicotte ministers did not introduce their own resolutions on the double-majority principle, promised on their taking office. The fact was that they did not dare to. There were too many hostile interests, Reform and Conservative, which, though mutually opposed, would assuredly combine to defeat resolutions on the double majority. And so the government strove to avoid the whole issue, and Sandfield Macdonald used all his undoubted resources of peppery courage, biting wit, and parliamentary strategem just to keep his administration alive. Now, however, came the fatal mistake, the result of a new separate-schools bill put forward by Richard Scott, member for Ottawa and a Roman Catholic.

Scott had been introducing similar measures since 1860, to remove certain anomalies in the provisions for Roman Catholic state-supported schools and round out Catholic educational rights in Upper Canada. He had made little headway until 1862, when John A. Macdonald, Chief Superintendent Ryerson, and the Catholic hierarchy reached agreement on a modified bill, which was then brought in by Scott. But on the fall of the Cartier-Macdonald régime he had withdrawn his measure, presumably because the new Macdonald-Sicotte government had promised him better consideration at the next session, when they were more prepared.⁸⁰

Sandfield Macdonald himself, though a Roman Catholic, was no great believer in separate schools. But his cabinet contained their most eloquent and devoted champion, D’Arcy McGee, who endorsed Scott’s bill as a government measure designed to bring final settlement to the perennial schools question.⁸¹ Sicotte, another Lower Canadian, was no less eager to settle Upper Canada’s school affairs.⁸² Consequently, when the bill came before parliament in March of 1863, it was bound to involve the ministry deeply, and no less to revive bitter religious controversies over education. In general, it made only minor adjustments and small enlargements to the scope of Catholic schools. Yet an Upper Canadian Protestant majority stood flatly opposed, precisely because they did not believe that these would be final adjustments, but merely further nibbles at Upper Canada’s publicschool system, just as previous “final” claims had been. The fact that a leading Roman Catholic organ, the Canadian Freeman, declared Scott’s bill only an instalment did not prove this opposition wholly wrong.⁸³ Two years later, indeed, new “final” terms would be demanded.

As a result, the Scott bill was hotly contested in parliament, and a whole series of amendments put forward, which were only overcome by majorities dependent on the votes of French Catholic Canada. It passed its third reading on March 13 by a vote of 76 to 31.⁸⁴ Yet this decisive vote was most instructive. Upper Canada itself had definitely rejected the measure, 31 to 22; and the twenty-two western members who had supported it were all Conservatives except for one Liberal and three ministers.⁸⁵ Several things accordingly were clear. First, the Upper Canada Reform party had voted overwhelmingly against the cabinet on an actual ministerial measure. Second, Lower Canadian domination had been demonstrated once more, for the West now had another school act by virtue of eastern votes. And, third, the Macdonald-Sicotte ministry had ignored – no, flatly contradicted – its own doctrine of the double majority by forcing a measure on one-half of Canada against the clearly expressed will of that section. It, too, had had to govern by using Lower Canada against Upper.

The “moderate” government did not resign, but it was doomed. Its raison d’etre had proved void and meaningless. In short, the sectional differences had exposed the double-majority principle as the impossibility it was: the Canadian union could not be maintained on such a basis. Constitutional reform was only made the more inevitable – as George Brown would have predicted long before.

6

These events had occurred before parliament’s recess, and before Brown rejoined the House in mid-April. In consequence, he had played no part in the fight over the Scott bill, although there was no doubt where he stood, especially when the Globe condemned the measure as heralding a new assault upon the national school system.⁸⁶ Nevertheless, he had not been personally entangled, and certainly this time moderates could not hold George Brown’s “extremism” responsible for any of the difficulties in governing the union. Instead, they had been shown rather clearly that sectarian and sectional problems existed quite independent of him.

During his first few weeks back, Brown took only a minor part in debates, as he felt out both sides of this parliament. He took time as well to go with Anne on a spring excursion to Montmorency Falls in company with Malcolm Cameron and Egerton Ryerson’s daughter – a rather oddly assorted group.⁸⁷ Cameron, by now a virtually nominal Liberal in the Upper House, was in confidential communication with John A. Macdonald, and sent him a report on Brown. “Nothing is nearer to his heart,” judged Cameron, “than to upset the ship, but it is to him impossible unless Rep by Pop is got over.”⁸⁸ Actually, this was not very sensational information. Brown had made no secret of his dislike for the existing ministry, nor of his reluctance to turn it out merely to bring back the old gang without advancing rep by pop. The Globe had said so; he had said so himself in South Oxford. He had recently remarked to Holton on the ministry’s deplorable career: “How John A. must be chuckling! I confess I can hardly make out whether he and Sandfield are working together or not.”⁸⁹

He would soon have the chance, however, to register his views of Sandfield’s government. On May 1, urged on by impatient followers, John A. Macdonald finally struck the blow that had been impending for weeks. He moved a direct vote of no confidence in the administration, “as at present constituted”.⁹⁰ But it was a motion that condemned the ministry’s composition rather than its programme (which, in point of fact, was not very different from that of the old Coalition), and seemed to imply that a suitably reconstituted cabinet might prove quite acceptable to the Conservatives. Undoubtedly it looked like the old Macdonald game of dealing in men rather than measures. It might even point the way to an alliance between the two Macdonalds, Sandfield and John A., which Grit Liberals had often apprehended.⁹¹

Brown himself had heard a few weeks earlier that this very combination was in prospect.⁹² And on the other side of politics, that remarkably partisan civil servant, Egerton Ryerson, expressed to John A. Macdonald his own wish for such a happy consummation.⁹³ The play conceivably would run as follows: many Grits, disgusted with Sandfield’s ministry, would vote against it on a test of confidence; whereupon, in no less angry disgust, Sandfield and those he could carry with him would join forces with John A. Macdonald, Cartier and Co. The old firm would not only come back in: it would come back stronger than ever, while the Reform party would be split again and left in shattered opposition. In short, there was a chance here for a new coalition coup as dazzling as that of 1854, with Sandfield Macdonald cast in the role Francis Hincks had played.

And again, as in 1854, a great deal would turn on George Brown’s course of action. Now, as then, he was outside the Reform ministry, yet potentially the chief focus of sentiment within the Upper Canada party. Would he once more, as in 1854, vote with Conservatives for the sake of demolishing an unprincipled Liberal government – and thus open the way for a new moderate-Liberal and Conservative combination? He would not, for this was a different Brown. He was just as desirous as ever of seeing party principles sustained, but now his view was broader, his recognition of political realities sharper. In fact, he meant to challenge John A. Macdonald at his own game: to see the ministry reconstituted, but as he, George Brown, wanted it. First, therefore, Sandfield must be maintained in office, and then steered to true paths of Reform.

And so, as the debate on the motion of no confidence proceeded, the member for South Oxford was distinctly restrained. He waited, took the opinions of his Reform colleagues, yet kept his own counsels. Then, as the debate moved to a close on Thursday evening, May 7, he rose to speak. It was a strong speech, but not the old impassioned sort: blunt rather than fiery, measured and deliberate.⁹⁴ He criticized the course of the government in evading constitutional reform; he also criticized the Conservative non-confidence motion which had equally evaded the real question at issue, the future of the union itself. The best answer to that question, he asserted, was still the federation plan of the Toronto Convention. Again Brown read its resolutions. He assured Lower Canadians of guarantees for their security under any measure of constitutional reform; he fully acknowledged the problems of language and race in the union, no less than the need for rep by pop. And, finally, he declared that while a change of system must come, he still preferred the existing government to the last. He preferred, he said, to keep the Conservatives still in opposition to reflect on their past misdeeds, until they showed more convincing signs of a change of heart!

This was the right note at the decisive time. The angriest Grit could follow Brown in supporting the moderate Liberal ministers as the lesser evil, while echoing his frank warning that “he would kill them off when he could do better”.⁹⁵ When the vote was taken shortly afterwards, it seemed that the member for South Oxford had made his case. True, the ministry was beaten, 59 to 64, because there were still a small number of defections – enough in a closely balanced House to bring it to defeat.⁹⁶ Yet this was no resounding triumph for John A. Macdonald. In fact, the government carried a majority within Upper Canada; the Grits went overwhelmingly with Brown to support Sandfield’s régime. Hence, if the Liberal ministry had not been saved, the Liberal party had been. There had been no significant split in Upper Canadian Reform. Moreover, even John A.’s limited success soon proved hollow, for Sandfield asked the Governor-General for a dissolution of parliament and a new general election, and, unlike Sir Edmund Head in 1858, Lord Monck immediately granted the request. Now it was the Conservatives’ turn to rail against a governor-general, as on May 12 parliament was prorogued and the members left Quebec to prepare for new election campaigns.

The night before prorogation, Brown drafted a full, confidential report to his brother Gordon, explaining the events behind the scenes, as he traced the course he had followed on the motion of no confidence.⁹⁷ “I sounded out our fellows,” he began directly, “and discovered that I could carry with me a respectable division of them for the motion. Still there would be a larger section against it, and a rupture of the party [would] ensue. A coalition of John S. and John A. would have followed immediately. Our party would have been broken up, Rep by Pop would have been indefinitely postponed, and I blamed for the whole. On the contrary, if I carried through the ministry, I felt that I would be master of the situation. And so it has proved.”

“I kept perfectly secret,” he continued, “how I intended to vote – with a view to frighten Sandfield into modifying his policy, as well as to induce the opposition to speak out on Rep by Pop.… Consequently, my speech excited consternation in the Tory ranks – they fully calculated on my support.” On the other hand, the Reformers had been delighted with his remarks – “and are ready to stand by me unitedly in our future policy”. Yet another dividend had been secured. Sandfield Macdonald had given him “express assurance that if he had an Upper Canadian majority he would entirely change his policy and reconstruct his government so as to make it as acceptable as possible to Dorion and myself”. In fact, as soon as the vote had been declared, Sandfield had sent to Brown asking his aid in a reconstruction of the ministry.

Yet George Brown still intended to work through others. “I replied that I could not go into a government under any circumstance, but that I would heartily aid as an outsider. What then would I advise? … Make Dorion leader in Lower Canada, take in Mowat and other reliables, pitch over the Intercolonial … and cut down the expenditure to the lowest shilling. Then give us an acceptable policy on Rep by Pop, and all will be right.” And this Sandfield Macdonald had fully agreed to do, so conclusive was Brown’s victory!

There had probably been another influence working on Sandfield besides, although Brown had not known of it at first. It was the Governor-General, Lord Monck, himself, who only the week before had had a significant interview at his own request with the member for South Oxford. They had been together for over two hours, discussing “all sorts of things”.⁹⁸ “He was amazingly frank, straightforward and kind in all that passed,” Brown reported. “He admitted all the evils I complained of, felt strongly the necessity of remedying them – admitted I was seeking the right remedy, and put the question direct, ‘Mr. Brown, could you repeat what you did in 1858 – would Mr. Dorion go with you to the extent he then did?’ I explained to him the change in circumstances, but expressed my belief that a satisfactory government might even now be formed. It seems that I had no sooner left him than he sent for Sandfield, told him that there was great force in what I said – that sooner or later my views must be carried out, and (I gather from what Sandfield has let fall bit by bit) strongly advised him to throw himself into the hands of Dorion and myself.”⁹⁹

Whether or not this last conjecture was correct, it was apparent that the burly, likeable Monck – so different from the prim, pedantic Head – had made a conquest. It was one of much importance, for Brown had gained a confidence in this governor’s understanding of Canada’s needs that would further affect his own course in politics. It seemed evident, too, that Monck had made a very different assessment of the potentialities of the short-lived Brown-Dorion government of 1858 than Head had done; and that was both vastly encouraging and pleasantly soothing to a still-felt wound. At any rate, from this moment on, Brown with good cause believed in Monck’s recognition of the necessity for constitutional reform.

The governor was willing; Sandfield was willing; the problem now was to reconstruct the government in order to carry out reform. A meeting was arranged between the premier and Brown, Mowat, Dorion, and Holton. The group foregathered. “I took the lead,” said Brown, “as amicus curiae.”¹⁰⁰ At first all went well, as he asked for Dorion to have carte blanche in Lower Canada, and for a thorough change in the Upper Canadian half of the ministry – though Sandfield Macdonald here won an agreement that McDougall must be kept in, lest he “create a row and damage the administration from the start”. Various policies were rapidly settled, until at length they came to the critical question of rep by pop. Sandfield again professed his own willingness to concede it, but hit shrewdly at the crucial point: “I will do whatever Dorion and Holton say they can carry the elections with.”

“Very good.” [So Brown recorded it.] “What say you, Dorion?” “I say that it can be made an open question, but nothing more can be done without destroying us in Lower Canada.” They were at the old stumbling-block again, the old barrier to reform of the union. Brown did his best. “I put the matter in every way – urged and hotter urged, but to no avail. They would not budge.” The meeting was adjourned to give everyone time to consider, while Sandfield warned ominously that if the negotiations failed he would “make the same offer elsewhere – and it will be accepted”. Dorion equally declared that, if agreement broke down, “he and his friends would feel at liberty to form combinations with any other party in U.C.” “Certainly – we never thought otherwise,” replied George Brown.

Fair words – but he was facing a new crisis, a new threat of Reform disunity and collapse. Again he recognized reality. It was better to have rep by pop once more an open question than to leave the Grits in isolation, confronting some new party combination in power. He decided to bow to the terms set by Dorion and Holton in their own realistic appraisal of the Lower Canadian situation. “I became perfectly satisfied,” he told his brother, “that we ought to accept. We would have in the L.C. section the men most friendly to Rep by Pop. If it cannot be got from them, it can be got from none.” Besides, although the Grits might sweep Upper Canada in the coming elections, what good would it do if they had no friends in the East? “Who should we look to to help us in L.C.? Recollect that many of our best friends are frightened at (I had almost said tired of) the policy of coercion.”

Here was a remarkable admission from the once unyielding champion of Upper Canadian sectionalism, who earlier had held that it would be sufficient to unite all Upper Canada behind the demand for representation by population in order to overawe Lower Canada and force her to give way. Now he acknowledged the need for Lower Canadian help – that coercion could not be enough. Truly he had changed! Yet there was another reason, besides, for hopefully accepting half a loaf: “This is not to be forgotten, that the Governor is thoroughly with us – and this is half the battle.”¹⁰¹

Now arrangements for the reconstructed ministry could be speedily concluded. By May 16, the Sandfield Macdonald-Dorion cabinet had been announced. Dorion had brought in a completely new eastern section, consisting of himself and Holton, Thibaudeau, Letellier de St. Just, Huntington, and Drummond. In the West, Foley and Wilson were dropped, while Howland now became Receiver-General. He was replaced as Minister of Finance by Holton, who would now leave the Council and seek re-election to the House: a man of much stronger character and speaking power, and one whose reputation as a leading business man stood at least as high as Howland’s. The other western ministers, besides Sandfield Macdonald and McDougall, were Mowat, Fergusson Blair, and Lewis Wallbridge. It was a definite shift leftward of the moderates.

About the only serious loss in the change was D’Arcy McGee, whose strong advocacy of the Intercolonial had weakened his ties with Dorion while his renewed efforts for separate schools had loosened them with Brown. Brown, however, continued to hold his personal regard for McGee, though the latter felt bitter enough at being excluded from Dorion’s section of the cabinet. As for the real cabinet-maker, George Brown, he was thankfully back in Toronto now, entirely persuaded that “my course has been right throughout”.¹⁰² That much had not changed, at any rate.

7

At last there was a strong Liberal ministry – full of real Reformers, both East and West. Now everything depended on the elections. If they could carry them, then the problems of the union might finally be ended. Justice could be brought to Upper Canada, security to Lower. That was Brown’s great hope, as he went up to South Oxford to begin his own campaign for re-election.

His nomination speech in Ingersoll’s Town Hall on May 19 showed his wider concern for both Canadas, as he frankly told his audience of western Grits: “It was perfectly impossible to make representation by population a cabinet question and carry the elections in Lower Canada.”¹⁰³ He succeeded in convincing them, too, for this time the Reformers of South Oxford supported him without division from the start.

The Conservatives put up a man against him, Dr. Cook, who had been a Hincksite member for the constituency from 1854 to 1857. Yet he was so slight a threat that Brown even took time to tour through North Oxford as well, on behalf of Hope Mackenzie, the Grit candidate there. Indeed, it was like the strenuous old days, as he campaigned on horseback into the back concessions, or talked till two in the morning at one meeting, then drove till broad daylight for the next, trying to snatch some sleep in a swaying, bouncing carriage, half frozen in the unseasonably cold night.¹⁰⁴ But in the end victory came easily. When the polls closed on June 16, Brown had received nearly ten times his opponent’s votes.¹⁰⁵ Hope Mackenzie swept North Oxford as well. The tide was running strongly with the Grits.

That was evident throughout Upper Canada. When all the returns were made, by July 4, it appeared that Reformers had taken some forty seats in the West, Liberal-Conservatives only twenty-two.¹⁰⁶ All the old Grit stalwarts had been returned, and more added. Toronto, for example, had been recaptured from the Tories, and now was represented by John Macdonald and A. M. Smith, two wealthy Liberal business men. The triumph of Reform, the rout of John A. Macdonald, was above all a vote for representation by population, the great theme of the Upper Canada campaign. But it also reflected the West’s acute dissatisfaction with Macdonald Conservatism, which had had nothing more to offer but another round in the threadbare game of ins and outs. Whatever the rep-by-pop protestations of individual Conservatives, their leaders had merely proposed to put the old Coalition back in office to sustain the inequitable union of the Canadas; and that union had just given renewed proof of the inequity that enabled an over-represented Lower Canada to impose laws on Upper Canada by the passage of the Scott Act. Under these circumstances indignant Upper Canadians had pinned their hopes for relief on the Reform party, which Brown had kept united. Grit Liberalism, in consequence, had never looked more close-knit, confident, and powerful.