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The selection of a successor to Lord Sydenham fell to the great Peel cabinet of 1841, and Stanley, who was Peel’s secretary of state for the Colonies, made what seemed a whimsical choice in Sir Charles Bagot. For Bagot belonged to an age and world very different from those of his Canadian subjects. He had been one of Canning’s men, filling in succession the positions of minister plenipotentiary at Washington, St Petersburg and The Hague. His years of service had included those in which Canning made his reputation as the greatest foreign minister of Britain since William III and Marlborough; and the greatness of the minister overshadowed the performances of his colleagues. In the history of diplomacy Bagot remains noteworthy as the negotiator of the Rush-Bagot treaty, the ambassador at St Petersburg when the definition of the north-west boundary of British North America was being arranged with Russia,^[1] and the recipient of Canning’s famous rhyming dispatch of January 31, 1826. In the caprice of imperial statesmanship he had been chosen to fill the governor-generalship of India, and through the same caprice he was deprived of the opportunity, which he had barely had time to refuse, because his brother had voted against Canning on a vital question.

In his voluminous correspondence before and after 1842 he presents himself as an admirable representative of the old and fading world of the eighteenth century and the Georges—witty and cultured, knowing the whimsies and foibles of men, and a little suspicious of their enthusiasms and their serious moods. Belonging to Canning’s set, he was a man rather enlightened than of fixed political principle, and more at home with ‘men’ than with ‘measures.’ He might have formed a bright and kindly figure in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair; and they were sending him to Canada, the antipodes of the world in and for which he had been bred.

At first sight he seemed hardly the man to mollify political bitterness. Doubts were expressed as to his fitness for facing an unusually troublesome popular temper, and the unrelenting tories, whose support was a very doubtful gift to any governor-general, looked to the member of an ancient English family, who was also the nominee of a great tory ministry, to exalt them over the heads of their rivals. Stanley, too, had his clear-cut opinion of the proper course for Canada. ‘You cannot,’ he had written in his instructions, ‘too early, and too distinctly give it to be understood that you enter the province with the determination to know no distinctions of natural origin or religious creed’—an admirable sentiment, but one which rather overshot the mark. His desire to extinguish hatreds and divisions and proscriptions went farther than English usage permitted, and planned some such administrative despotism as Bismarck imposed on Germany, or George iii attempted to create in England. If the people were not to be permitted to elect their rulers through the operations of party distinctions and prejudices, then the phrase ‘Responsible Government,’ to which government had consented in the declarations passed under Sydenham, was meaningless.

But by a whimsical chance the tory nominee of a great Conservative government proved the means by which Canada won her first substantial victory for self-government. Bagot had been chosen, partly with an eye to more amicable diplomatic relations with the United States, but also because he had never committed himself to any violent political position, and could conduct himself with firmness, discretion and temper. But the British ministry was hardly prepared to find their nominee force their hand, and precipitate a condition of self-government far beyond anything that even their moderate men could concede.

Bagot’s actual administration lasted only from January 12, 1842, when he arrived in Kingston, until, on March 29, 1843, he was able to write, from his death-bed, ‘The new Governor-general is this moment arrived in the town—I am to see him at 4 o’clock.’ Yet in these fourteen months he had accomplished what not all the efforts of his successor, backed by a powerful English ministry, could check, and prepared Canada for the self-government which she received at the hands of the Earl of Elgin.

Emery Walker, ph. sc.

SIR CHARLES BAGOT

From the painting by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A.

There is really only one central political situation during the administration, and even important secondary details must give place to the main issue. The need of Canada was efficient administration, yet Sydenham had left, as a means to that end, a ministry which had ignored the entire French-Canadian element, a majority which had disappeared, and a theory of state which contradicted the known desires of all the progressive elements in the land. To defeat the policy of the party of government, tories, French Canadians, and radical ‘ultras’ were in the habit of uniting and obstructing. Questions concerning the civil list, the new municipal council and the clergy reserves, to mention no others, gave the opposition ground for attack whenever they cared to advance.

After a short hesitation—parliament would not meet until autumn—Bagot saw his policy, and acted with a resolution the more admirable because he was by no means sure of British backing. It was a case of the man with genuine local information and sympathy changing the instructions which had been composed in remote ignorance. He began by appointing a distinguished French Canadian, Vallières de St Real, to the chief justiceship of Montreal; and a moderate reformer, Francis Hincks, who was thoroughly trusted by the reform party, to be inspector-general of accounts.

In both cases he was met with an encouraging loyalty, which compensated for minor disappointments in his French-Canadian experiments.^[2] Then he advanced to the main attack. His council had, fortunately for him, most sympathetic interest in the situation, and, while one or two of the more negligible were absent, men of keen mind among the moderate conservatives, of whom W. H. Draper was the most notable, not only urged him to act, but offered to make necessary changes possible by resignation. The key of the situation lay in the French party, although matters were somewhat complicated by the fact that the French could not in honour accept office without stipulating that Robert Baldwin, the conscientious, intractable and pragmatic minister, whose resignation had threatened to destroy the peace of Sydenham’s first parliamentary session, should enter office along with them.

On September 10, certain that, if he remained inactive, he would have to face overwhelming parliamentary opposition, he sent for the recognized leader of the French party, La Fontaine. He had resolved on a partial surrender, and even if Baldwin had to receive a place, he would consent, but as an associate of the French reformers, and not on his own terms. To his frank confession that he required French support La Fontaine answered with his terms—four places in the council and a willingness to accept Baldwin. At the very moment of success an unexpected difficulty arose; for Baldwin’s conscience, which was accustomed to operate with a very wayward persistence, was uneasy at entering a ministry not entirely homogeneous, and in which reforms might be swamped by the other elements; and none of the new ministers was willing to consent at once to the pensions which Bagot wished to grant to certain of the retiring councillors. On the 13th La Fontaine refused to accept office on the terms which he himself had dictated, and the situation was the more critical since Bagot’s present ministers spoke of resignation, and Baldwin had already commenced the attack in an onslaught on the address. Bagot met the crisis by publishing in the assembly through Draper his very frank offers; after which, not only did the house approve, but the minister-elect came quietly in, and, writes Bagot with pardonable pride, ‘the House is now prepared to pass any measure or adopt any course I may suggest.’

That Sir Charles Bagot had accomplished a political stroke of the first importance, no one will now deny. It is true that the complete ruin of his health flung the reins of administration more completely into the hands of his new councillors than he had anticipated. It is also true that he was preparing trouble for a successor who did not care to follow in his footsteps. But the results in Canada were immediate and beneficial. Administration on sound lines became once more possible, and Bagot’s ministers stood by his memory in loyal defence, long after loyalty to the man could be of any personal advantage to them. In a time not overburdened with political sympathy and honest loyalty, Bagot’s minister of Finance was able to write: ‘Sir Charles Bagot’s policy was consistent from first to last, and there was never any reason to suppose that he would have obstructed a ministry which he had taken an active part in forming. To the last he maintained the most cordial relations with all his ministers, and took an affectionate leave of them shortly before his death, appealing to them to defend his memory.’

But British opinion hardly kept pace with the sound developments of the governor-general. It is true that Sydenham’s very able political secretary, Murdoch, wrote to say how entirely he agreed with Bagot’s new arrangements, but even among the radicals the principles of home rule were hardly yet understood by British politicians, and Stanley had no intention of granting what Lord John Russell himself suspected as separationist in its consequences. The actual displeasure shown towards Bagot, and the extent to which that displeasure weighed him down, have been exaggerated, but there is no doubt that Peel and Stanley yielded with a bad grace, and changed the system as soon as Bagot’s resignation gave them a chance. Stanley thought that Bagot should have rallied round him an essentially governmental party, and, strong in their support, have defied the hostile sections. In violation of all the most valid parliamentary traditions he and Peel cherished the hope that this party, formed by the detachment of individuals from both extremes, was a possibility, and that, even faced by a hostile majority, he could still carry on the ‘Queen’s Government.’

Peel gave his opinion in a letter pregnant with his calm wisdom, but undoubtedly mistaken in relation to Canadian facts. ‘I think,’ he wrote, ‘he should fight the battle as long as he possibly can, in the hope that by great prudence, and moderation, and strict adherence to constitutional forms, even where the extreme exercise of his power is necessary, he may call to his aid whatever there may be of a sound public opinion out of the Chamber, or may betray his opponents into some false steps which will give him an advantage.’

The precedent of the younger Pitt was obviously in the writer’s mind; but there was really no resemblance between the cases. Pitt was backed by royal influence; Bagot had no such munitions of war. Pitt had to control a chamber peculiarly susceptible to the means of persuasion then at the disposal of the king’s minister, and, being gentlemen of intellectual tastes, equally susceptible to arguments and manœuvres, which appealed to them as members of the political aristocracy; Bagot had to face a keenly democratic assembly. Pitt happened to be fighting against an unscrupulous alliance of parties, with popular feeling on his side; Bagot was asked to thwart the people of Canada in one of their most dearly cherished ambitions. Parallels, despite Plutarch, are of little value in history and politics, and the circumstances in politics make each new venture something unique and unprecedented.

Stanley could not but feel regret that things happened as they did, and while he admitted necessity as a plea, he said explicitly to Bagot that he should have preferred to see the necessity ‘demonstrated’—a phrase which means, if it have any meaning, that Stanley was prepared to see Canada plunged into disorder before he yielded. In the end he gave a reluctant assent, not disapproving in so many words, but hoping even yet that Bagot might be able to recover in other directions his concessions in the council. ‘The present seems to me a favourable time for impressing on your government as a body, the propriety and necessity of adopting that act [the Act of Union] as a whole; and of declaring their intention to stand by the provisions, including civil list, and any other debatable point—to take it, in short, as a fait accompli.’

That Bagot felt the underlying distrust is no doubt true. He bade Peel and Stanley give frank expression to their displeasure, if it existed in excess, by public recall. But there is nothing to suggest that he brooded over the feeling. On the contrary, there are repeated expressions of pleasure, in his latest dispatches, at the support he had received. ‘I think I could satisfy you,’ he wrote on November 11, 1843, ‘if it should become necessary, that I took the least of two evils.’ A little later he was ‘abundantly satisfied, and gratified, and fortified, by the light in which the government is disposed to view my late measures’; and just before the end he could assure Peel, at once of his confidence that the surrender had been wise, and of his happiness in Peel’s approval: ‘Your letter, the communications, both public and private which I have received from Lord Stanley, and the language held in the House of Commons, as to my recent measures, which I always knew might be as hazardous as they were clearly inevitable, have carried me through a period of anxiety such as I hope will never befall me again.’

MEMORANDUM FROM MR LA FONTAINE

TO SIR CHARLES BAGOT

(Translation.)

Kingston, 27th Sept. 1842.

Mr La Fontaine has the honour to inform His Excellency the Governor General that, complying with the authorization he received, he communicated with Mr Girouard, making known to him His Excellency’s wish to offer him the office of a Land Commissioner, with a seat in the Executive Council.

Mr La Fontaine has to express sincere regret that the failing and uncertain health of Mr Girouard will not allow him to accept this office. In addition to the official reply of Mr Girouard transmitted with this, Mr La Fontaine feels it to be a duty to send His Excellency also a private letter from this gentleman on this subject.

Mr La Fontaine more than any one will feel the loss of the active services of Mr Girouard; but at the same time he feels it his duty, in the interests of the same object that His Excellency has in view, respectfully to suggest the name of Mr Morin, whose integrity, talents and ability are so well known.

Mr La Fontaine is still confined to his room by sickness, and in consequence begs His Excellency to accept his apologies for not being able to wait upon him in person.

Few men have done their inglorious duty with more unswerving honesty, and with less credit from headquarters, than Bagot. It is always easy to be relentlessly dogmatic in error—the conventional pose of the hero. The difficulty lies in accommodating preconceptions fortified by dignity to suit things as they are. That Bagot accomplished, but he certainly laid up a store of troubles for his successors; for Metcalfe was the man that Bagot was not—a Quixote with fixed principles.

[1]	He has therefore a secondary interest for Canadians as being indirectly responsible for the facts connected with the Alaska Boundary Award.

[2]	Of Hincks he writes: ‘He has accepted the office, and accepted it in a manner which I think does him much credit, making no exception to any one of his future colleagues in the cabinet, nor any stipulations for himself of any kind,’ Bagot to Stanley, June 12, 1842.