CHAPTER IV
Colonel F. W. DesBarres, successor to General Fanning – His character as a Governor – Succeeded by Charles Douglas Smith – His character as displayed in his opening address – Proclamation of immunity from Proprietory conditions – Oppressive measures in regard to Quitrents – John McGregor, Sheriff – Public meetings called in the Counties – Tyranny of the Governor exposed – Arrival of Colonel Ready, and departure of Smith.
In July, 1805, Colonel Joseph F. W. DesBarres arrived in the island for the purpose of succeeding Governor Fanning. He was a man well advanced in life, and had held for some time the position of Lieutenant-Governor of Cape Breton, when that island was a separate province. His administration was notable for the occurrence of three important events, namely, the official announcement to the assembly that the act of 1803, which was intended to invest in the Crown the lands on which arrears had not been paid, was disallowed; the passing of the important resolutions of the assembly, to which reference has been already made, condemning the disallowance as grossly unjust, and in direct opposition to a settled and declared imperial policy; and the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain. Colonel DesBarres is said to have been a man of cultivated mind, who, during his administration, strictly adhered to the official line of duty; and if he did not originate, during the eight years he was in office, any measure which could be regarded as of striking public utility, he gave no evidence of a selfish or tyrannical disposition, which is more than could be affirmed of his successor, Charles Douglas Smith, – a brother of Sir Sydney Smith, – who succeeded DesBarres in 1813. The assembly met in November of the same year. The address which the governor delivered on that occasion was such as indicated the temper of the man: it was dictatorial and insolent in its tone. He prorogued the house in January, and indicated his estimate of the utility of the popular branch of the legislature by not again convening it till July, 1817. Its proceedings in that year were not satisfactory to the governor, who was determined to shackle the members and prevent them from adopting any measures which did not accord with his own notions of propriety. His excellency accordingly dissolved the house, and a new one was convened in 1818, which, proving quite as refractory as the previous one, was also suddenly dissolved, and another elected in 1820.
On the eighth of October, 1816, the governor had published a proclamation in which he intimated that the King had graciously resolved to extend to the proprietors of land in the island immunity from certain forfeitures to which they were liable by the conditions of their original grants, and also to grant the remission of certain arrears of quitrent, and fix a scale for future payment of quitrent. But the governor, before the amount of quitrent to be exacted had been determined by the home government, directed the acting receiver general to proceed, in January, 1818, to enforce payment of the arrears which had occurred between June, 1816, and December, 1817, on the old scale. Much distress was occasioned by these proceedings; and on the matter being represented to the home government, orders were issued to discontinue further action, and to refund the money exacted above the rate of two shillings for every hundred acres. It was at the same time intimated that the new rate would be rigidly exacted in future; but the years 1819, 1820, and 1821 passed over without any public demand being made. Several proprietors, during that period, had offered payment to the acting receiver general, by whom they were informed that he had no authority to receive it. The impression was therefore prevalent that no further quitrent would be demanded, more especially as payment was not exacted in the neighboring provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. But on the twenty-sixth of June, 1822, the following notice was posted up in Charlottetown by John Edward Carmichael, the receiver general: “This office will be kept open from the first to the fourteenth of July, ensuing, for the payment of all arrears of quitrent due and payable within this island. Office hours, from ten till two o’clock.” This demand not being peremptory in its terms, was disregarded by many who saw it, and the great body of proprietors in the country never heard of the notice.
In December, 1822, the acting receiver general posted up another notice, intimating that payments must be made by the fourteenth of January; but no steps were taken to give due publicity to the notice throughout the island, neither was any warning given to the proprietors as to the consequences of nonpayment. In January a distress was taken on the lands of two of the principal proprietors on townships thirty-six and thirty-seven. Immediately after doing this, the officers proceeded to the eastern district of King’s County, which was one of the most populous on the island, and astonished the people by demanding instant payment, or promissory notes payable in ten days, on pain of having their land and stock disposed of by public sale. This district was inhabited by highlanders, who spoke no other language than their native Gaelic. Men who would have faced an open foe in the field, with the courage characteristic of the Celtic race, had a profound respect for law, and dread and horror of the bailiff; and, in order to pay the demand so suddenly and unexpectedly made, many of the poor fellows loaded their carts with such produce as they could collect, and began a journey of from fifty to sixty miles to Charlottetown, in the depth of winter, in order to redeem the notes which they had given to the heartless myrmidons of the law. The sudden influx of grain into the market thus produced, caused a great decline in prices. This, with the suffering occasioned by the long journey, roused public indignation, and the people resolved to hold meetings in the respective counties, and take measures for their own protection against the tyranny to which they were subjected. At this time, John McGregor, subsequently Secretary to the Board of Trade in London, and M.P. for Glasgow, was high sheriff of the island, and a requisition was immediately drawn up and presented to him. It began in the following terms: “We, His Majesty’s loyal subjects, freeholders and householders in different parts of this island, in the present alarming and distressing state thereof, – threatened at this time with proceedings on the part of the acting receiver general of quitrents, the immediate effect whereof cannot fail to involve a great part of the community in absolute ruin, – feel ourselves irresistably impelled – when the island has been nearly three years deprived of that constitutional protection and support which might be expected from our colonial legislature – to call upon you, as high sheriff of the island, to appoint general meetings of the inhabitants to be held in the three counties into which this island is divided, that they may have an opportunity, according to the accustomed practice of the parent country, of consulting together for the general benefit, and joining in laying such a state of the colony at the foot of the Throne, for the information of our most gracious Sovereign, as the present circumstances thereof require.” The requisition was signed by forty individuals, and the sheriff appointed the meetings to be held at certain specified dates at Charlottetown, St. Peter’s, and Princetown.
This very legitimate procedure on the part of the people did not accord with Governor Smith’s notions of propriety, and he deemed it proper to remove Mr. McGregor from the office of sheriff, and to confer it on his late deputy, Mr. Townshend. On the eighteenth of February, the Hilary term of the supreme court commenced, and Mr. Townshend, at the request of the governor, struck out the name of John Stewart from the panel. During the term, petitions were presented to the grand jury, complaining of the conduct of the acting receiver general and his deputies, and true bills were found against the latter; but no trial took place in consequence of the interference of the governor.
On the sixth of March, the first meeting called by the sheriff took place at Charlottetown. Considering the deep snow on the ground and the state of the roads, it was numerously attended, and the proceedings were conducted with the utmost order and regularity. A number of resolutions were passed, which were embodied in an address to the King, containing grave charges against the governor. It was said that, though he had resided on the island for ten years, he had only been once absent from Charlottetown, when he ventured to drive eighteen miles into the country, thus failing to make himself acquainted with its actual condition. He was charged with illegally constituting a court of escheat in 1818, and, in violation of his own public proclamation of the 8th of October, 1816, harassing by prosecution the tenants of township number fifty-five. He was charged with refusing to receive an address from the house of assembly in answer to his speech at the opening of the session in November, 1818, though he had appointed an hour for that purpose. In addition to this public insult, he was accused of sending a message, on the fifteenth of December, to the assembly, requiring both houses to adjourn to the fifth of January following; and before the business in which they were then occupied was finished, and when the lower house was on the point of adjourning, in accordance with the said message, it was insulted by Mr. Carmichael, the lieutenant-governor’s son-in-law and secretary, who, advancing within the bar, addressed the speaker loudly in these words: “Mr. Speaker, if you sit in that chair one minute longer, this house will be immediately dissolved,” at the same time shaking his fist at the speaker; and while the house was engaged in considering the means of punishing this insult, the lieutenant-governor sent for the speaker, and, holding up his watch to him, said he would allow the house three minutes, before the expiration of which, if it did not adjourn, he would resort to an immediate dissolution; and this extraordinary conduct was soon after followed by a prorogation of the legislature, in consequence of the house having committed to jail the lieutenant-governor’s son for breaking the windows of the apartment in which the house was then sitting. The lieutenant-governor was also charged with screening Thomas Tremlet, the chief justice of the island, from thirteen serious charges preferred against him by the house. He was also accused of degrading the council by making Mr. Ambrose Lane, a lieutenant of the 98th regiment, on half pay, and then town major of Charlottetown, a member of it, without having any claim to the position, save that of having recently married a daughter of the lieutenant-governor. Another member was a Mr. William Pleace, who came to the island a few years previously as a clerk to a mercantile establishment; from which trust he was dismissed, and then kept a petty shop of his own, where he retailed spirits. These were some of the charges brought against the governor, and the address concluded with the following words: “That your Majesty’s humble petitioners regret much the necessity they are under of approaching your Majesty’s sacred person in the language of complaint now submitted to your paternal consideration, and humbly trust, on a full review thereof, your Majesty will be satisfied that the further continuance of Lieutenant-Governor Smith in the command of your Majesty’s island must be distressing to its inhabitants, and, by preventing the usual course of legislative proceedings, greatly impede its prosperity.” The addresses, adopted by the other counties were similar to that of which we have just given a sketch.
One of the accusations brought against the governor, which has not yet been mentioned, was, that he permitted, as chancellor of a court over which he himself presided, heavy and vexatious additions to the fees since the appointment of Mr. Ambrose Lane as registrar and master. On the fourteenth of October, the lieutenant-governor, on pretence that this charge was a gross libel and contempt of the court of chancery, commenced proceedings before himself – on the complaint of his son-in-law – against the members of the committee appointed by Queen’s County to manage the address to the King, who were all served with an attachment, and subsequently committed to the custody of a sergeant-at-arms. The object of these proceedings was evidently to get hold of Mr. Stewart, in order to prevent him from going to England with the petitions, – of which the lieutenant-governor had determined to get possession. Mr. Stewart only got notice of the governor’s intentions two hours before officers arrived at his house on purpose to take him into custody; but he escaped to Nova Scotia with the petitions, and thence proceeded to England. Had Stewart been taken into custody, there would, doubtless, have been a rebellion in the island, for the people were exasperated. Chagrined beyond measure at Stewart’s escape, the lieutenant-governor determined to lay a heavy fine on the other members of the committee, and sequestrators were appointed to enter upon their property and secure the amount; but being now alarmed at unmistakeable symptoms of a popular tumult, he prudently ordered proceedings to be delayed till his judgment could be enforced. The defence was ably conducted by Messrs. Binns and Hodgson.
On Saturday morning, the twenty-sixth of July, 1823, appeared the first number of the Prince Edward Island Register, printed and edited by James D. Haszard, in which newspaper all the proceedings to which we have alluded were published. For the publication of these, Mr. Haszard was served with an order to appear at the bar of the court of chancery, being accused as guilty of a contemptuous libel against the court and the officers of the court. Mr. Palmer was agent for the prosecutor. Mr. Haszard was asked if he would disclose the authors of the publication complained of, – which he agreed to do. The parties were Messrs. Stewart, McGregor, Mabey, Dockendorff, Owen, and McDonald. Addressing himself to Mr. Haszard, the chancellor said: “I compassionate your youth and inexperience; did I not do so, I would lay you by the heels long enough for you to remember it. You have delivered your evidence fairly, plainly, clearly, and as became a man; but I caution you, when you publish anything again, keep clear, sir, of a chancellor! Beware, sir, of a chancellor!” And with this solemn admonition, Mr. Haszard was dismissed from the bar.
But the rule of the chancellor was destined not to be of much longer duration; for on Thursday, the twenty-first of October, 1824, His Excellency Colonel Ready, accompanied by Mr. Stewart, arrived in a brig from Bristol, after a passage of twenty-eight days. “He was loudly cheered on landing by a great concourse of spectators, and was received on the wharf by a guard of the 81st regiment and a number of the most respectable inhabitants.” A public meeting of the inhabitants, called by the sheriff, Mr. William Pope, was held for the purpose of voting an address to the lieutenant-governor. Colonel Holland, Mr. Hodgson, and Mr. Binns were appointed to prepare it. “We feel,” said the inhabitants, “the utmost confidence that the harmony which ought always to exist between the government and the people is perfectly established, and that your excellency will believe that loyalty, obedience to the laws, and a love of order is the character of the inhabitants of Charlottetown. We cannot omit on this occasion to express our unfeigned gratitude and thanks for the attention which His Majesty has been graciously pleased to pay to the interests of this colony, in confiding its government to your excellency’s hands, and to add our most fervent wishes that your administration of it may be long and happy.” The town was illuminated in the evening, and, to the credit of the inhabitants of Charlottetown, the exuberance of joy and festivity on the occasion was not marred by any impropriety, or insult to the man who had exercised his functions with a harshness and tyranny which made him the most unpopular governor who ever ruled on the island. The new governor was entertained at dinner in the Wellington Hotel. John Stewart was chairman, and the Honorable George Wright croupier. It is only fair to say, that an address was presented to the late governor, previous to his embarkation for England, signed by the members of council, principal officers of government, and two justices of the peace. Considering the character of Governor Smith’s administration, there is a spice of humor in the following portion of his reply: “I assure you I must ever feel a high interest in the prosperity of a colony whose welfare, it is well known to many of you, I have unceasingly watched over. It is my confident hope, as well as my fervent wish, that the island may continue to flourish under my successor, aided as he will be by the same support and advice from which I have myself so much and so generally benefited.”
CHAPTER V
Governor Ready desires to govern constitutionally – Energetic legislation – George Wright, Administrator – Change in the mode of paying Customhouse Officials – Fire in Miramichi – Petitions of Roman Catholics to be relieved from civil disabilities – Proceedings of the Assembly touching the question – Dispute between the Council and Assembly – Catholic Emancipation – The Agricultural Society – Death of George the Fourth – Cobbett on Prince Edward Island – Colonel Ready succeeded by A. W. Young – The Census – Death of Governor Young – Biographical Sketch of him.
Governor Smith delighted in autocratical rule, and had not called an assembly together since 1820; but Governor Ready, wishing to govern the island in a more constitutional manner, summoned, on his accession to office, a new house, which met in January, 1825, and proceeded to business with some degree of spirit and earnestness. Acts were passed for the encouragement of education, for regulating juries and declaring their qualifications, for regulating the fisheries, for limiting and declaring the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, for empowering the governor to appoint commissioners to issue treasury notes to the extent of five thousand pounds, and for increasing the revenue by taxation. Another session of the house was held in October of the same year, when the house displayed equal energy and diligence in transacting the public business. John Stewart was speaker, and the members elected for Charlottetown were Robert Hodgson and Paul Mabey. Mr. Samuel Nelson was an unsuccessful candidate for the town. He had been accused of not signing the address to the King, praying for the recall of Governor Smith. In his reply to that charge, Mr. Nelson stated a fact which shows the inherent meanness of the late governor in his treatment of the people. “Governor Smith,” said Mr. Nelson, “never did anything for me. On the contrary, he broke me as a captain in the militia, and when I was putting a porch to my door he sent a peremptory demand to pull it away.”
The governor returned to England towards the close of the year, on private business, and during his absence the government was administered by the Honorable George Wright.
The officers of customs received in this year official instructions from the lords commissioners to discontinue the exaction of fees after the fifth of January ensuing, as fixed salaries were to be granted to them, – a regulation which extended to all the colonies.
In this year, eighteen vessels arrived at the island from Great Britain, and one hundred and twenty-eight from the British colonies. There were imported fifty-four thousand gallons of rum, two thousand five hundred gallons of brandy, three thousand gallons Geneva, and two thousand gallons of wine, which, for a population of about twenty-three thousand, was a large supply. The imports were valued at £85,337, and the exports at £95,426.
In the autumn of 1825 an extensive and most destructive fire took place in Miramichi, which swept over an immense area, destroying timber, farm steadings, and cattle. Many of the unfortunate inhabitants perished in the flames, and hundreds were left destitute. A liberal collection was made in the island for the relief of the suffering, and a vessel chartered to convey produce to the scene of the disaster.
The governor returned from England towards the close of the year 1826, and again assumed the reins of government. The house met in March following. In his opening address, the governor congratulated the house on the improvements recently made in the internal communications of the country, – the western line of road being completed up to Princetown, and surveys having been made for extending the line to Cascumpec and the North Cape. His excellency also referred to the advantages which would accrue from the establishment of an agricultural society. Among other useful measures passed during the session was one for ascertaining the population of the island, and for authorizing the formation of a fire engine company for Charlottetown.
During the last session a petition was presented by the Roman catholics of the island, praying that they should be relieved from those civil disabilities under which they suffered. Consideration of the important subject was at that time deferred on account of the advanced period of the session. The subject was now brought up by Mr. Cameron, in a temperate and sensible speech, in which he stated that, notwithstanding the predictions of persons hostile to the prayer of the petitioners, not a single petition was presented to the house against the proposed change. Mr. Cameron concluded by proposing the following resolution: “Resolved, that it is the opinion of this house that the right of voting at elections of members to serve in the general assembly ought to be extended to His Majesty’s subjects of the Roman catholic religion within the island, and that the election laws should be altered conformable to this resolution.” A long and animated discussion took place, in which the attorney general, Dr. McAulay, Mr. Hodgson, and others supported it; and Mr. Campbell, Mr. McNeill, and Mr. Montgomery led in opposition. On the question being put, the votes were equal; but the speaker, Mr. Stewart, gave the casting vote against the resolution, on the ground that the question had not been settled in England. The speaker was one of the most enlightened men in the assembly, and his decision on this occasion cannot be said to have been in accordance with his general character. Had the resolution passed, the assembly would have had the honor of being in advance, on this question, of the parliament of Great Britain. As subjects of the Crown, the Roman catholics, in asking to have a voice in the election of the legislature, – whose laws they were bound to obey in common with protestants, – claimed no favor, but a right which ought never to have been withheld, and the subsequent concession of which experience has proved to be as satisfactory in practice as it is equitable in principle. On the presentation of the petition in 1825, a voluminous and very able correspondence was carried on in the columns of the Register, in the conduct of which the best talent in the island, on both the catholic and protestant sides, was enlisted. Theological questions, that had no bearing on the subject in dispute, were, unhappily, imported into the controversy; and, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the discussion in its religious aspect, there can be none as to the fact of every argument advanced against the Roman catholic’s right to be put on an equal footing with the protestant in all matters appertaining to civil and religious liberty, being completely demolished by the accomplished advocates of the Roman catholic claims. While the elaborate communications to which we have referred were imbued on both sides with considerable bitterness, yet, to the credit of the island combatants, it may be truly said that such bitterness was sweetness itself compared with the venom characteristic of similar controversies, as carried on at this period in other places. Fidelity to historical accuracy, at the same time, constrains us to state that, while on the part of catholics, as the aggrieved party, whose rights were tyranically and persistently disregarded, paroxysms of irritation were the natural result of oppression, no such apology can to the same extent be offered in behalf of their opponents.
In October, 1825, the council passed a resolution to the effect that they would not in future be disposed to give their assent to any bill for appropriating money, unless the sums and services therein contained should be submitted in separate resolutions for their concurrence. This resolution was not agreeable to the assembly, who claimed the sole right of originating all money bills, and who denied the right of the council to alter or amend them. This difference of opinion led to a protracted controversy. In May, 1827, the council sent a message to the assembly, in which the question was elaborately argued, to which the assembly returned an equally elaborate reply. The dispute resulted, in 1827, in the council agreeing to the two principal bills of supply, and rejecting an ad valorem duty bill; but in the following session – that of 1828 – the appropriation bill was rejected by the council, which obliged the governor to confine the expenditure of the year to purposes of necessity. In meeting the house, in 1829, the governor expressed the hope that the unfortunate dispute of the last session would be brought to an amicable adjustment, and recommended a system of mutual compromise as the most effectual mode of securing that object. Although the council had resolved to transact no further business with the assembly until the latter body expunged a previous resolution from their journals containing certain imputations on the council, yet the house had refused to do so. Business communication was, however, resumed, and continued as if nothing had happened.
On the sixth of January, 1825, died Benjamin Chappell, late postmaster of the island, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. He and his brother William emigrated from England in the year 1775. They owned one of the first packets that sailed between Charlottetown and the mainland. He saw the country in its rude and wilderness state, and was an attentive observer of all the vicissitudes it underwent in its gradual progress towards improvement, and few took a deeper interest in its prosperity. He was a man of sterling piety, actively devoted to the cause of religion, and may with truth be considered the founder of the present Methodist establishment of the island. He was personally known and beloved by John Wesley, who was in the habit of corresponding with him for many years; and it afforded Mr. Chappell much delight to detail to his friends many interesting anecdotes that grew out of his intimacy with that great and good man. He was brought up to the millwright business, and was well acquainted with machinery in all its extensive branches. He was a man of intelligence and strong mind, and, with a perfect knowledge of his own business, possessed a great deal of useful information. If a life of consistent piety, as expressed in the virtues that dignify human nature, can endear a man to society, the memory of Benjamin Chappell will be long and affectionately cherished in the island.
In the session of 1829 a select committee of assembly, for preparing a specific plan on which a bill might be founded for promoting classical education, presented their report, recommending the establishment of a classical academy in Charlottetown, to be designated the “Central Academy,” vesting the management in a patron and nine trustees. Two masters were to be employed, each to receive a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; and no religious test was to be permitted. A bill in conformity with these recommendations was accordingly introduced and sanctioned.
The most important act passed in the session of 1830 was one “for the relief of His Majesty’s Roman catholic subjects.” The agitation for the removal of the disabilities under which the Roman catholics suffered in the old country resulted in catholic emancipation; and the British government recommended the adoption of similar measures in the colonies, which recommendation weakened unreasonable opposition to the change. The act now passed provided that all statutes which imposed on Roman catholics civil or political disabilities should be repealed, and that all civil and military offices and places of trust or profit should be as open to them as to other portions of the King’s subjects.
The agricultural society, which had been for some time in operation in the island, was active in accomplishing the beneficent purposes for which it was established: it encouraged improved stock by an annual exhibition and premiums, and imported seeds. District societies were formed at Saint Eleanor’s and Princetown. The governor took a practical interest in the operations of the society, of which the Honorable George Wright was president; the Honorable T. H. Haviland, vice-president; and Mr. Peter MacGowan, secretary and treasurer.
In August, 1830, intelligence of the death of King George the Fourth, which had occurred on the twenty-sixth of June, reached the island. The reign of His Majesty lasted about ten years and a half; but, including his regency, he was at the head of the government more than nineteen years. He was succeeded by William the Fourth.
The ignorance which in our days prevails in the old country respecting the American colonies is not quite so deplorable as that which existed at the period of the island history at which we have now arrived. It may amuse the reader to learn what the celebrated Cobbett thought at this time of Prince Edward Island, as a home for emigrants, and of the kind of business that was prosecuted there: “From Glasgow,” wrote Cobbett, “the sensible Scots are pouring out amain. Those that are poor, and cannot pay their passage, or can rake together only a trifle, are going to a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp, called Prince Edward Island, in the horrible Gulf of Saint Lawrence; but when the American vessels come over with indian corn and flour and pork and beef and poultry and eggs and butter, and cabbages, and green pease, and asparagus for the soldier, and other tax-eaters that we support upon that lump of worthlessness, – for the lump itself bears nothing but potatoes, – when these vessels return, the sensible Scots will go back in them for a dollar a head, and not a man of them will be left but bed-ridden persons.” If such are the doctrines which were taught to the people of Britain by men like Cobbett, what must have been the depth of ignorance respecting the North American colonies which pervaded the masses? The very articles which the islanders were prepared to export to the states, if an inlet for them were permitted, were the articles which the foolish grammarian imagined they were importing. He little thought that in the capital of this island of “rock” a cargo of whinstones would be very acceptable, and find ready sale.