Canadian Notabilities - John Charles Dent (free ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📗

were permitted to retire unmolested, and no resistance was offered to the military, who appeared on the ground after a brief interval to restore order, and aid in extinguishing the flames. During the two following days a good deal of excitement prevailed in the streets, and some further acts of incendiarism were perpetrated. Similar scenes on a somewhat smaller scale, were enacted in Toronto and elsewhere in the Upper Province. The house of Mr. Baldwin and some other prominent members of the Reform party were attacked, and the owners burned in effigy.
Meanwhile addresses numerously signed came pouring in to the Governor from all quarters, expressing entire confidence in the Administration, and unbounded regret for the indignities to which he had been subjected. Lord Elgin, however, felt bound to tender his resignation to the Home Government. Meanwhile the Bill which had caused such an explosion in the colony, was running the gauntlet of the British Parliament. On June 14th it was vehemently attacked in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone himself describing it as a "measure for rewarding rebels." The strongest pressure had already been put upon Lord Elgin to induce him to refuse the Royal Assent to the Bill. To do so would have been to place himself in direct collision with his Parliament, and this he steadily refused to do. The Home Government, represented by Lord Grey, firmly supported him, approved his policy, and shortly afterwards conferred upon him a British peerage as an acknowledgment of the unshaken confidence of the Queen. Being urgently pressed to remain in office as Governor-General he consented, and the more readily because the agitation soon quieted down. From this time we hear no more of such disgraceful scenes, but it was long before the old "Family Compact" party forgave the Governor who had dared to be impartial. By many kinds of detraction they sought to weaken his influence and damage his popularity. And as the members of this party, though they had lost their monopoly of political power, still remained the dominant class in society, the disparaging tone which they set was taken up not only in the colony itself, but also by travellers who visited it, and by them carried back to infect opinion in England. The result was that persons at home, who had the highest appreciation of Lord Elgin's capacity as a statesman, sincerely believed him to be deficient in nerve and vigour; and as the misapprehension was one which he could not have corrected, even if he had been aware how widely it was spread, it continued to exist in many quarters until dispelled by the singular energy and boldness, amounting almost to rashness, which he displayed in China.
Since the session of 1849 no Parliament has ever sat, nor is any ever again likely to sit, at Montreal. In view of the riot and the burning of the Parliament Buildings it was determined to remove the Legislature, which met at Toronto for the next two years. Subsequently it met alternately at Quebec and Toronto until 1866, since which time Ottawa has been the permanent capital of the Dominion.
After the storm consequent on the Rebellion Losses Bill, the most important event by which Lord Elgin's Canadian administration was characterized was the negotiation of the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States. The conclusion of this Treaty was a matter requiring much time and a good deal of prudent negotiation. In 1854, after the negotiations had dragged on wearily for more than six years, Lord Elgin himself was sent to Washington, in the hope of bringing the matter to a successful issue. Within a few weeks the terms of a Treaty of Reciprocity were agreed upon, and they soon afterwards received the sanction of the Governments concerned. Lord Elgin returned to England at the close of 1854, being succeeded in the government of Canada by Sir Edmund Walker Head, who had examined him for a Merton Fellowship at Oxford in 1833. Soon after Lord Elgin's return home, the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster was offered him by Lord Palmerston, with a seat in the Cabinet; but he preferred to take no active part in public affairs, and enjoyed an interval of two years' rest from official labour. His subsequent career can only be glanced at very briefly. In 1857 he was sent to China to try what could be done to repair, or to turn to the best account, the mischiefs done by Sir John Bowring's course, and by the patronage of it at home, in the face of the moral reprobation of the people at large. He was present at the taking of Canton, and in conjunction with the French, succeeded by prompt and vigorous measures in reducing the Celestial Empire to terms. After signing a Treaty with the Chinese Commissioners at Tientsin, on the 26th of July, 1858, the conditions of which were highly favourable to the British, he sailed for Japan, and boldly entered the harbour of Jeddo, from which foreigners had always been rigidly excluded. Here he obtained very important commercial privileges for the British, and on the 26th of August concluded a treaty with the Japanese. He returned to England in May, 1859. The merchants of London, in recognition of his immense services to British commerce, did themselves honour by the thoroughness of their acknowledgment of Lord Elgin's services, and presented him with the freedom of the City.
He held the office of Postmaster-General till the hostile acts of the Chinese Government towards the English and French Ministers in China rendered it necessary that he should go out again, and opening Pekin to British diplomacy, returned to England in April, 1861. Almost immediately afterwards he was offered the Viceroyalty of India. This splendid appointment he was not disposed to decline. He accepted, and went out to the seat of his Government He lived only eighteen months longer, a period, says his biographer, hardly sufficient for him to master the details of administration of that great Empire, with which he had no previous acquaintance, and I quite insufficient for him to give to the policy of the Government the stamp of his own mind. He died of heart-disease; while making a vice-regal excursion through his dominions, on the 20th of November, 1863, and was buried in the cemetery at Dhurmsala, in a spot selected by Lady Elgin.
"Perhaps," says a sympathetic critic of Lord Elgin's career, "the noblest part of the history of England is to be found in the recorded lives of those who have been her chosen servants, and who have died in that service. Self-control, endurance, and an heroic sense of duty, are more conspicuous in such men than the love of action and fame. But their lives are the landmarks of our race. Lord Elgin, it is true, can hardly be ranked with the first of British statesmen, or orators, or commanders. His services, great as they unquestionably were, had all been performed under the orders of other men. Even among his own contemporaries he fills a place in the second rank. But happy are the country and the age in which such men are to be found in the second rank, and are content to be there."


MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES WOLFE.

"Tis in the prime of summer-time, an evening calm and cool,
When certain bright-eyed English boys come bounding out of school."
The school is at Greenwich, six miles below London Bridge, and is kept by the Reverend Samuel Swinden. Date, some time in the month of June, 1741. The boys are of all ages, from five years upwards, and most of them are sons of military and naval officers resident in the neighbourhood. One of them, a sturdy little urchin of seven years, is a son of the Treasurer of the great Marine Hospital down by the river's bank. He is destined by his father for the legal profession, but has already begun to shew his contempt for the law by breaking His Majesty's peace several times in the course of every week. He has been at school only a few months, and hitherto he has not displayed much aptitude for his lessons; but he has distinguished himself in numberless hand-to-hand engagements with his fellow-scholars, and has gained the reputation of being, for a youngster of his inches, tremendously heavy about the fist. On this particular evening the school has been dismissed barely five minutes before the pugnacious little rascal contrives to get into an altercation with a lad several years his senior. As to the precise nature, of the _casus belli_, history and tradition are alike silent. The pair adjourn to a secluded part of the playground to settle their differences _a la_ Dogginson, "by fighting it out with their fistes." The other boys follow as a matter of course, to see fair play. It is to be regretted that history has not furnished sufficient data to enable us to describe the passage of arms very minutely. Suffice it is to say that after a few rounds have been fought, it becomes apparent to all the spectators that Master Jackey Jervis has at last found his match. His opponent, a great hulking fellow without any forehead, who has arms like sledge-hammers, and who has hitherto found it impossible to learn the multiplication table, takes all Master Jackey's blows with seeming nonchalance, and ever and anon puts in a tremendous rejoinder which stretches the Treasurer's son upon the sward. When the contest has gone on after this fashion for some time the seconds propose that, as there has been a sufficient effusion of blood to vindicate the courage of both the combatants, there may well be a cessation of hostilities. The big fellow stolidly remarks that it is all one to him; but Master Jackey spurns the proposal with lofty contempt. The contest is renewed; another round is fought, and the lighter weight once more bites the grass. Before he can arise to resume the fray, the company receives an accession in the person of a tall, slabsided, awkwardly-made youth, who impetuously elbows the others aside, and makes his way to the centre of the fistic arena. The new-comer is somewhat older than any of the other boys, and is apparently verging towards manhood. His appearance is somewhat peculiar. The most partial admirer could hardly pronounce him handsome. Apart from his ungainly build, he has fiery red hair, high, prominent cheek bones, a receding forehead, and a proboscis of the kind which the French call a nose in the air. There is a set, decisive expression about his mouth which betokens an indomitable will; and a flash in his sparkling blue eyes bears witness that he has an ominous temper of his own. But, though his personal appearance is by no means that of an Adonis, the brightness of his complexion and a certain bold frankness of facial expression preserves him from absolute ugliness. Those who know him, moreover, are aware that he possesses qualities which more than redeem his plainness of feature. Though by no means of a robust constitution, he is endowed with unflinching courage. He has a high sense of honour, and is the repository of the secrets of nearly every boy in the school. He is a diligent student, and though somewhat vain of his superior knowledge, is ever ready to assist those of his fellow-pupils who are anxious to learn. Add to all this that he is the senior boy of the school; that, though a stern disciplinarian, he is generous, impartial, and a protector of the weak; and it will readily be understood that he is popular both with master and scholars. Unnecessary to say that there is no more fighting, for the senior boy has forbidden it, and he is not one who tolerates any opposition to his authority. Two minutes suffice to quell the disturbance; and the belligerents shake hands and march off