Facing The Glittering Cupolas Of Quebec, There Is A Fertile Area Of Meadow
And Cornfield Stretching From Dorchester Bridge To The Deep Ravine And
Falls Over Which The Montmorency, La Vache, Hangs Its Milk-White
Curtain Of Spray.
On the river shore, in 1759, stood Montcalm's earth and
field works of defence.
Parallel to them and distant about half a mile,
the highway, over which H.R.H. Prince Edward's equipage pranced daily,
during the summers of 1791-3, now a macadamized road, ascends by a gentle
rise, through a double row of whitewashed cottages, about seven miles, to
the brow of the roaring cataract spanned over by a substantial bridge,
half way, looms out the Roman Catholic temple of worship - a stately
edifice, filled to overflowing on Sundays, the parochial charge in 1841 of
the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, under whose auspices was built the Temperance
Monument on the main road, a little past the Beauport Asylum. This
constitutes the parish of Beauport, one of the first settled in the
Province. It was conceded by the Company of New France, on the 31st
December, 1635, to a French surgeon of some note, "le sieur Robert
Giffard." Surgeon Giffard had not only skill as a chirurgeon to recommend
him, he could plead services, nay captivity undergone in the colonial
cause. An important man in his day was this feudal magnate Giffard, to
whom fealty and homage were rendered with becoming pomp, by his
consitaires, the Bellangers - Guions - Langlois - Parents - Marcoux, of
1635, whose descendents, still bearing the old Perche or Norman name,
occupy to this day the white cottages to be seen on all sides.
On the highest site of this limestone ridge, a clever, influential,
refined, and wealthy Briton, the Hon. Henry Wistius Ryland, for years
Civil Secretary, Clerk of the Executive Council, a member of the
Legislative Council, with other appointments, purchased from Col.
Johnston, a lot, then a wilderness, for a country seat in 1805. Mr. Ryland
had come out to Canada with Lord Dorchester in 1795, as his secretary, at
the instance, we believe, of Lord Liverpool, his protector, at the age of
21 he was acting as Paymaster of two army corps, during the War of
Independence in America.
For more than thirty years, Mr. Ryland enjoyed the favour, nay the
intimacy of every ruler (except Sir George Prevost) which this then mis-
ruled colony owed to Downing Street.
Antipathies of race had been on the increase at Quebec, ever since the
parliamentary era of 1791; there was the French party, [300] led by fiery
and able politicians, and the English oligarchy occupying nearly all the
offices, and avenues to power. French armies under Napoleon I. swayed the
destinies of continental Europe, their victories occasionally must have
awakened here a responsive echo among their down-trodden fellow-countrymen
cowardly deserted by France in 1759, whilst Nelson's victories of the
Nile, of Trafalgar, of Copenhagen, and finally the field of Waterloo, had
buoyed up to an extravagant pitch the spirits of the English minority of
Quebec, which a French parliamentary majority had so often trammelled. It
was during the major part of that stormy period that Hon. Herman Wistius
Ryland, advised by the able Chief Justice Jonathan Sewell, - was in reality
entrusted with the helm of state. He was, as Christie the historian
observes, considered the "Fountain head of power." This subtle diplomat
(for such will be his title in history), however hostile in his attitude
he might have appeared towards the French Canadian nationality, succeeded
in retaining to the last the respect of the French Canadian peasantry who
surrounded him.
Probably never at any time did he wield more power than under the
administration of Sir James H. Craig. His views were so much in unison
with those of Sir James, that His Excellency deputed him to England with a
public mission threefold in its scope, the ostensible object of which was
first "to endeavor to get the Imperial Government to amend or suspend the
Constitution; secondly, to render the Government independent of the
people, by appropriating towards it the revenues accruing from the estates
of the Sulpicians [301] of Montreal, and of the Order of the Jesuits;
thirdly to seize the patronage exercised by the Roman Catholic Bishop of
Quebec, - the cures or church livings in his diocese; contending that no
Roman Catholic Bishop really existed in Canada, (but merely a
superintendent of cures), none having been recognized by the Crown.
It has been stated that he had a fair chance of succeeding on two points,
had not the great Lord Chancellor, Eldon, intervened to thwart his scheme.
The correspondence exchanged between Mr. Ryland and His Excellency, Sir
James H. Craig, preserved in the sixth volume of Christie's History of
Canada, exhibits Mr. Ryland at his best, and has led some to infer
that, had he been cast in a different sphere, where his talents and
attainments would have been more properly appreciated and directed, he
would have played a very conspicuous part. "We find the Beauport statesman
in 1810, in London, [302] consulted on Canadian affairs by the leading
English politicians and some of the proudest peers. The honored guest of
English noblemen, [303] he appears at no disadvantage, sips their old port
unawed, cosily seated at their mahogany. It must be borne in mind that, in
1810, Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool had their hands pretty full with
continental politics, perhaps too much so, to heed poor distant Canada.
Shortly after the arrival, at Quebec, of the Earl of Durham, viz., on the
29th July, 1838, the Hon. H. W. Ryland expired at his country seat at
Beauport, aged 78 years. He was born in 1760 at Northampton in England, of
a very ancient Saxon family, dating back to Edward the Confessor. Wm.
Ryland his great grandfather having successfully defended Oxford against
Oliver Cromwell, while his sons fought on the other side.
Mount Lilac then reverted to his son, George Herman Ryland, Esq., now
Registrar at Montreal, who added much to the charms of the spot.
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