A Reward Of 500l. Was Offered For His
Apprehension.
But our country removed grievances, recognized the
equality of French and English Canadians, united the Provinces, and
forgave the rebels.
All that sad contest is now forgotten."
The President seemed much struck, and, after a pause, he said, "Sir,
will you say that again?" I repeated the words, and he scribbled, as I
spoke, some notes on the blotter of the portfolio before him. He then
said, "A countryman of mine has been over to your side of the Atlantic
to teach you to tame horses. This gentleman, Mr. Rarey, uses what he
calls 'mild force.' Mild force will probably be useful with us." The
Fenian demonstrations in the United States against England were named
as a breach of comity. The President said, sharply, "Why don't your
people remonstrate? We hear no complaint."
To return to my narrative, Mr. Cartier arranged an interview for me
with the Governor-General, Sir Edmund Head, and I presented my letters
from Mr. Baring, and was assured of all the help he could give me.
"Your demands are very clear, and appear to me equally just. First you
ask the Government of Canada to aid you in passing a Bill through
Parliament, which clearly is for the benefit of Canada, because it
proposes to increase the efficiency of the railway service by a further
outlay of capital, and also to pay off debt, a considerable part of
which is incurred in Canada; and secondly, you ask for an immediate and
just settlement of the charge for the conveyance by you of the mails."
The Governor-General then sent for Mr. John A.
Macdonald, who came immediately, and the conversation which had taken
place was repeated.
This was the first time I had seen either Cartier, Sir Edmund Head, or
Macdonald.
Sir Edmund Head was a tall stately man, with thoughtful brow, and
complexion a little purpled by cardiac derangement. As the don of a
college he would have been great, and in his sphere: as the Governor of
a Province with a self-asserting people, I doubt if he had found the
true groove.
His despatches were scholastic essays. His simplest replies were grave
and learned, sometimes too complex for ordinary comprehension. When he,
subsequently, became Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, he tried to
manage a profit-and-loss undertaking as if he were governing a
province: just as when he governed a province he administered all
things as if he were dealing with Russia in Europe. He was, however, a
man of the kindest heart, and the strictest honor. But, after all, he
was one of the round men put into the square holes of Provincial
Government by the "authorities" at home. Still, on the whole, a noble
character, and in very truth a gentleman. His chronic ailment led to
some irritability of temper; and when, during the visit of the Prince
of Wales, one of the Governor's aides-de-camp was pushed over from the
steamer at Detroit by the press of the crowd, and fell into the water,
Colonel Irving said: - "Ah! there was no danger whatever to - - 's life.
The Governor-General has blown him up so much that he could never
sink." I was present at a farewell dinner to Sir Edmund Head at Mr.
Cartier's, at Quebec, in the winter of 1861-2. In response to the toast
of his health, he alluded to his infirmity of temper, admitted his
suffering - before concealed from outside people - and expressed his
apologies in a manner so feeling and so gentle that the tears came into
everybody's eyes. I heard more than one sob from men whose rough
exterior disguised the real tenderness of their hearts.
Mr. John A. Macdonald entered the Governor-General's presence with a
manly deference. I was at once struck by an odd resemblance in some of
his features and expressions to Disraeli - dark curly hair, piercing
eyes, aquiline nose, mouth sometimes firm, almost stern in expression,
sometimes so mild that he seemed especially fitted to play with little
children. I soon learned that, in tact, fixed purpose, and resources,
he was ahead of them all. And, after watching his career for a quarter
of a century, I have seen no reason to alter that opinion. He is the
statesman of Canada - one of the ablest men on the Continent. I wish he
administered the Colonial relations of the whole Empire. Had he done so
for the last ten years we should have escaped our mistakes in South
Africa, and the everlasting disgrace of Majuba Hill. Why is it that
such men are excluded from office at home? Sir John A. Macdonald (then
Mr. Macdonald) was once taken by me under the gallery, by special order
of Mr. Speaker, to hear a "great" speech of Mr. Gladstone, whom he had
not before heard. When we went away, I said: "Well, what do you think
of him?" He replied: "He is a great rhetorician, but - he is not an
orator." Would that men would not be carried away in a torrent of happy
words. One hour of the late Patrick Smyth was, to my mind, worth a week
of all the great rhetoricians.
A day or two after these interviews, the Hon. John Ross took me down to
Portland, to have an interview with the Hon. A. T. Galt, the Finance
Minister of Canada. I at once recognized in Mr. Galt a reduced likeness
of his father. Mr. Galt was about five feet eleven: his father, who I
had seen when a boy, about six feet four, and "buirdly" and stout in
proportion. The father wore spectacles - the son did not. The father was
the author of the "Annals of the Parish," "Laurie Todd," and many works
greatly read when I was young. He was, also, the founder of the town of
"Guelph," and of other towns in Upper Canada. If anyone wants to see an
admirable likeness of him, he had better consult "Fraser's Magazine,"
of one of the issues of 1830 to 1833, and he will there find a rough
engraving of the hoisting of the Union Jack at Guelph.
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