The Day of Sir John Macdonald

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Sir Joseph Pope. The Day of Sir John Macdonald

The Day of Sir John Macdonald

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I

YOUTH

The Macdonald homestead at Adolphustown. From a print in the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library

John A. Macdonald in 1842

Sir Allan Napier MacNab. From a portrait in the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library

CHAPTER II

MIDDLE LIFE

Sir Edmund Walker Head. From the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library

Sir Étienne Pascal Taché. From a portrait in the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library

Sir John A. Macdonald in 1872

Sir John A. Macdonald in 1883

CHAPTER III

OLD AGE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

INDEX

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty. at the Edinburgh University Press

THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES ILLUSTRATED

Edited by GEORGE M. WRONG and H. H. LANGTON

THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA

PART I. THE FIRST EUROPEAN VISITORS

PART II. THE RISE OF NEW FRANCE

PART III. THE ENGLISH INVASION

PART IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH CANADA

PART V. THE RED MAN IN CANADA

PART VI. PIONEERS OF THE NORTH AND WEST

PART VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM

PART VIII. THE GROWTH OF NATIONALITY

PART IX. NATIONAL HIGHWAYS

TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY

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Joseph Sir Pope

A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion

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In the same year, the year in which Macdonald was first elected to parliament, another young Scotsman, likewise to attain great prominence in the country, made his début upon the Canadian stage. On March 5, 1844, the Toronto Globe began its long and successful career under the guidance of George Brown, an active and vigorous youth of twenty-five, who at once threw himself with great energy and conspicuous ability into the political contest that raged round the figure of the governor-general. Brown's qualities were such as to bring him to the front in any labour in which he might engage. Ere long he became one of the leaders of the Reform party, a position which he maintained down to the date of his untimely death at the hands of an assassin in 1880. Brown did not, however, enter parliament for some years after the period we are here considering.

The Conservative party issued from the general elections of 1844 with a bare majority in the House, which seldom exceeded six and sometimes sank to two or three. Early in that year the seat of government had been removed from Kingston to Montreal. The first session of the new parliament—the parliament in which Macdonald had his first seat—was held in the old Legislative Building which occupied what was afterwards the site of St Anne's Market. In those days the residential quarter was in the neighbourhood of Dalhousie Square, the old Donegana Hotel on Notre Dame Street being the principal hostelry in the city. There it was that the party chiefs were wont to forgather. That Macdonald speedily attained a leading position in the councils of his party is apparent from the fact that he had not been two years and a half in parliament when the prime minister, the Hon. W. H. Draper, wrote him (March 4, 1847) requesting his presence in Montreal. Two months later Macdonald was offered and accepted a seat in the Cabinet.

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