Читать книгу The Life of John Graves Simcoe - William Renwick Riddell - Страница 17

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Essex; (ye Muses bless his name;) thy flight

Nor shall mischance nor envious clouds obscure;

Thou the bold Eaglet, whose superior height,

While Cadiz towers, forever shall endure.

O, if again Hope prompts the daring song,

And Fancy stamps it with the mark of truth,

O, if again Britannia’s coasts should throng

With such heroic and determined youth,

Be mine to raise her standards on that height,

Where thou, great Chief: thy envied trophies bore;

Be mine to snatch from abject Spain the state,

Which in her mid-day pride, thy valour tore;

And oh! to crown my triumph, though no Queen,

Cold politician, frown on my return,

Sweetly adorning the domestic scene,

Shall my Eliza with true passion burn,

Or smile, amid her grief, at Fame, who hovers o’er my urn!

[7] In fact he narrowly escaped defeat, March 5, 1788, when his “India Declaratory Act” was under discussion: Pitt being prevented by indisposition from replying to Fox, the Members of the House of Commons were so carried away by Fox’s eloquence that the Ministry had a very close call. Pitt had got drunk the night before at Lord Temple’s house in Pall Mall with Dundas and the Duchess of Gordon and had not got over the effects.

[8] Captain W. H. Wilkin: Some British Soldiers in America, London, 1914, pp. 111, 112. The letter of Simcoe was dated London, March 15, 1789—the King’s recovery was announced by the Lord Chancellor, February 19; and he resumed his authority, March 10, 1789, D. N. B., Vol. XXI, p. 186.

[9] In 1782 by the Act 22 Geo. III, c. 82, the Secretaryship of State created in 1768 to attend to American affairs was abolished, and the two Secretaryships remaining were denominated Home and Foreign. The Colonies and Ireland came under the care of the former. Evan Nepean who became a Baronet, was a person of much ability and influence, D. N. B., Vol. X, p. 222.

[10] The Correspondence of Lieut.-Governor John Graves Simcoe ..... collected and edited by Brigadier-General E. A. Cruickshank, LL.D., F.R.S.C., Ontario Historical Society, Toronto, 1923, Vol. I, p. 7. This is a timely and very valuable collection of letters to and from Simcoe including also some from and to others; but all the letters bear directly or indirectly on matters of interest to Simcoe. Simcoe Papers, I, 1, 7.

[11] 1 Correspondence, p. 10: Can. Arch. Q. 44, I, 130: Letter Dorchester to Grenville, Quebec, March 15, 1790.

[12] 1 Correspondence, p. 13: Can. Arch. Q. 44, I, 149, Letter, Private and Confidential, Grenville to Dorchester, Whitehall, June 3, 1790. The voice was almost certainly Nepean’s, if the hand was the hand of Grenville.

The antagonism between Dorchester and Simcoe already begun was increased by this denial of the former’s request in favour of the latter.

[13] Haldimand, who was at this time in London, notes in his Diary, Monday, June 12, that dining at Mr. Davison’s, Nepean being also there, Nepean told him that Dorchester would certainly return to England next spring and probably would never go back to Quebec. Then he proceeds: “Davisson (qu? Nepean) me fit d’autres confidences en me disant que le Col. Simko etait nommé pr. (pour) le nouveau gouvernment—que Lord Dorchester avait recomendé le chev. Johnson de la façon la plus forte.” “Davisson (qu? Nepean) made me other confidences, telling me that Col. Simko was named for the new Government—that Lord Dorchester had recommended Sir (John) Johnson in the strongest manner”. 1 Correspondence, p. 294: Haldimand Papers, Can. Arch. See Report, Can. Arch., for 1889, Vol. III, pp. 294 and 295.

[14] In 28 Parliamentary History, London, 1816, Col. 884, the constituency is called “St. Mawe’s: Wilkin, op. cit., p. 112, calls it “St. Maw’s”, as do some others, Morgan, &c.; Kingsford, Hist. Can., Vol. VIII, p. 339, calls it “Saint Maw”.

Simcoe seems to have taken an active part in the election for the county—we find a letter to him from John Rolle who was elected member for Devonshire along with John Pollexfen Bastard. Rolle, who afterwards became Baron Rolle of Stevenstone, who had been member for Devonshire in the two previous Parliaments, 1780 and 1784, and was an ardent supporter of Pitt, a bitter Conservative all his life, was the hero of “The Rolliad”, “in which he was gibbeted as the degenerate descendant of Rolle”. D. N. B., Vol. XLIX, p. 164. Writing to Simcoe from Bidwell (Buton?), Saturday, July 3, 1790, as to a familiar friend, Rolle thanks him “for the great assistance I have experienced from your exertions during the contest. To the very active part taken by yourself and others and your very spirited conduct in particular at the conclusion I attribute the event being terminated so early. The opposition was crushed at a lucky moment. Every hour confirms me in the opinion that the plot was deeper than first imagined”. Wolf. I, 1, 337. To be a political friend of Rolle showed Simcoe’s politics. We find their friendship indicated in a letter of Simcoe’s from Wolford Lodge March 1, 1785—Wolf. I, 1, p. 240.

[15] 1 Correspondence, p. 16: Sim. I, 1, 16-19. There is difficulty in the matter of this letter dated November 12, 1790. It is addressed to “Henry Dundas Secty. State”. Henry Dundas (afterwards Viscount Melville) did not become Secretary of State until June 8, 1791: he was at this time P.C. and Treasurer of the Navy. William Wyndham Grenville (who in this year became Lord Grenville) was Secretary of State in 1790 for the Home Department; and as Simcoe had a conversation with him concerning Canada, and it was already arranged or was to be soon arranged that Simcoe should go to Canada, it seems likely that the proposal of Simcoe was to him and not to Dundas. The first letter to Dundas in the Canadian Archives is June 2, 1791, Can. Arch., Q. 278, p. 228: but it was understood that Dundas was to be Secretary of State, and it may be that Simcoe wrote him as such before his formal appointment.

[16] 28 Parl. Hist., ut suprâ, Cols. 1128-1140. In my Slave in Canada, Journal of Negro History, Vol. X, (July, 1920), p. 55, I incautiously said that “Simcoe had spoken against it (slavery) in the House of Commons in England”—cf. my The Slave in Upper Canada, Journal of Negro History, Vol. IV, (October, 1919), p. 377. My authority was a letter from a contemporary of Simcoe’s in Canada; but on examination of the Proceedings in the House of Commons, for 1790 and 1791, it appears that while his old friend and comrade, Lieut.-Col. Tarleton, spoke against abolishing the Slave Trade in 1791—28 Parl. Hist., Col. 1208: 29 Parl. Hist., Coll. 279-281 saying “he should oppose the abolition of the slave trade whenever and in whatever shape it was brought forward”, 29 Parl. Hist., Col. 293: as did Simcoe’s colleague, Sir William Young, 29 Parl. Hist., Coll. 294, 314, 358, Simcoe is not reported as having spoken on the subject. He almost certainly voted in the minority of 88 which fell before the majority of 163 when Wilberforce’s motion was lost, do. do. do. Col. 359.

He took part in Committee in discussion of the Canada or Constitutional Act of 1791, 31 George III, c. 31, as appears from Debrett’s Parliamentary Register, Vol. 29, p. 414, in the report for Thursday, May 12, 1791, and p. 425, Monday, May 16.

Colonel Simcoe

“Colonel Simcoe read an extract from an American paper, to prove that the congress thought a very small number sufficient for the members forming the House of Assembly for a western Province, and that two or four would be enough to represent Montreal and Quebec.”

Colonel Simcoe

Again on Report stage, Monday, May 16, Debrett, p. 425, “Colonel Simcoe spoke in favour of the Bill, and having pronounced a Panegyric on the British constitution, wished it to be adopted in the present instance, as far as circumstances would permit.”

[17] 1 Correspondence, p. 17; we shall meet “Canvas Houses” again.

[18] See as to this scheme Chapter V, infrâ: the Message will be found in 28 Parl. Hist., Col. 1271: 4 Ont. Arch. Rep., (1906), p. 158.

[19] 4 Ont. Arch. Rep., (1906), pp. 158-160: Documents relating to The Constitutional History of Canada, 1791-1818, by Dr. Arthur G. Doughty and Duncan A. McArthur, Ottawa, King’s Printer, 1914, pp. 3-5.

[20] The Exeter “Flying Post” of Thursday, June 9th, 1791, contains the announcement:—“Monday, the lady of Colonel Simcoe was safely delivered of a son and heir, at their seat at Wolford Lodge, near Honiton”.

[21] The story of the voyage is entertainingly told by Mrs. Simcoe, Diary, chapter V, pp. 43-52.

[22] Diary, p. 48.