THE FAMILY COMPACT.

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W hat was the nature and origin of this powerful organization—this informally-constituted league, the name whereof has been familiar to the ears of Upper Canadians during the whole, or nearly the whole, of the present century; which is referred to in nearly all books dealing with the political and social life of this Province before the Union of 1841; which for forty years regulated the public policy of the colony, and ruled with an iron hand over the liberties of the inhabitants?

Immediately after the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, whereby Canada was ceded by France to Great Britain, it became necessary for the British Government to appoint a considerable number of officials to fill the public offices in the country so ceded. It did not suit the policy of the conquerors to leave much power in the hands of the conquered. The introduction of the English language and laws was moreover a practical disqualification for most of the native inhabitants of the colony, and the new officials were nearly all sent over from England. Some of the principal personages among them were men of probity and brains. Others, though possessed of a full share of brains, had but a younger brother's portion of the other commodity. The underlings, generally speaking, had but a slender allowance of either. They were for the most part appointed on the recommendation of various supporters of the Government of the day, who were thus able to provide for a number of their needy relatives and dependants—a matter of vastly greater importance in their eyes than the proper administration of the affairs of a distant and newly-acquired colony. The Conquest thus proved a boon to many servile hangers-on of public men in Great Britain, and scores of the waifs and strays of British aristocracy began to turn their eyes towards Canada as a possible resource in the last emergency. It was said to be a cold and comfortless land, but it was surely preferable to the Fleet Prison or the Marshalsea, with the alternative of starvation or enlistment in the army. Many of these pimps and panders to the whims or the passions of those in high station found their way to Quebec and Montreal, and were provided for at the public expense by being installed in places of greater or less emolument.[45]

When Upper Canada was set apart as a separate Province, in 1791, the field of operations was considerably extended. Indeed, the Upper Province soon came to be regarded with special favour by intending aspirants to office, as it was in all respects an English colony; whereas Lower Canada, in spite of all attempts to Anglicize it, remained much more French than English. Lower Canada, indeed, remained in some respects more French than any other part of the world, not even excepting France itself, for in that country the Great Revolution had swept away many effete institutions which were still retained in all their decrepitude among the Frenchmen of the New World. Now, the French Canadians, though most of the avenues to power and office were closed to them, composed a vast majority of the population. They did not take kindly to the British colonists, and declined to fraternize with them. The latter could bear this isolation, as they were comforted by the spoils of office, but their lives were rendered much less agreeable than they would have been in a colony where no such disturbing elements were known. Upper Canada was precisely such a colony. No part of Britain was more British in sentiment. In no part of the world would an expatriated Englishman find himself more entirely in harmony with his environment, from a purely patriotic point of view. What wonder, then, that Upper Canada was regarded by place-hunting emigrants from England with wistful eyes? What wonder that an appointment to a public office in Upper Canada should have been regarded by such persons as a thing greatly to be coveted? Such aspirants were regarded with but little favour by Governor Simcoe. His great object was to launch the Province successfully on its career, and to lay the foundations of good government. He brought with him his own staff, selected by himself with a single eye to their fitness for the positions which they were respectively intended to fill. During his day there was little or no favouritism in public appointments, and but little, if anything, to find fault with in the conduct of the administration. His demission of office was almost immediately followed by a relaxation of discipline, and by a looseness in the management of the public business. As the years passed by, the Province became the resort of numerous office-seekers from beyond sea—half-pay officers and scions of good English, Scotch and Irish families, who sought to better their fortunes by expatriation. As they were, generally speaking, men of some education, and of manners more polished than were ordinarily found among the colonists, they naturally assimilated, and were drawn towards each other. They likewise coalesced, to some extent, with a few United Empire Loyalist families of exclusive pretensions, in whose veins the blood was supposed to possess an exceptionally cerulean tint. Several persons who had rapidly gained wealth by trade and speculation, and who had thereby acquired influence in the community, were also admitted. In an inconceivably short space of time this union of several influential cliques was followed by important results. They acquired a strength and influence which, in the then primitive state of the colony, carried all before them. They wormed themselves into all the more important offices, directed the Councils of the Sovereign's representative, and, in a word, became the power behind the Throne. In the early years of their domination they organized their forces with much tact and judgment, and did not develop their plans until they had been carefully matured. They may be said to have practically absorbed the Executive and Legislative Councils, as those bodies were entirely made up of persons either selected from among them or entirely subservient to their influence. No man, whatever his abilities, could hope to succeed in any profession or calling in Upper Canada if he dared to declare himself in opposition to them. A few made the attempt, and failed most signally.

Such was the Family Compact. "For a long time," says Lord Durham,[46] writing in 1838, "this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its members, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of Government; it maintained influence in the Legislature by means of its predominance in the Legislative Council; and it disposed of the large number of petty posts which are in the patronage of the Government all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its influence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this well-organized party the conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of this party: by grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the Province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit."

The influences which produced the Family Compact were not confined to Upper Canada. In the Lower Province, as well as in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, similar causes led to similar results, and the term "Family Compact" has at one time or another been a familiar one in all the British North American colonies. But in none of them did the organization attain to such a plenitude of power as in this Province, and in none of them did it wield the sceptre of authority with so thorough an indifference to the principles of right and wrong. Its name is a rather indefinite, but not inapt characterization. Lord Durham refers to the term "Family Compact," as being not much more appropriate than party designations usually are; "inasmuch as," he writes, "there is, in truth, very little of family connexion among the persons thus united.[47]" "Much" is a saving clause, but if his Lordship had thought it worth his while to enquire minutely into the relations subsisting between the members of this body, he would have found that there had been a good many intermarriages between them, and that the pecuniary interests which bound them together had been welded by the most powerful of social bonds.[48] The designation "Family Compact," however, did not owe its origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe. By the treaty signed at Paris on the 15th of August, 1761, by representatives on behalf of France and Spain, the contracting parties agreed to guarantee each other's territories, to provide mutual succours by sea and land, and to consider the enemy of either as the enemy of both. This treaty, being contracted between the two branches of the House of Bourbon, is known to history as the Family Compact Treaty, and the name was adopted in the Canadas, as well as in the Maritime Provinces, to designate the combination which enjoyed a monopoly of power and place in the community, and among the members whereof there seemed to be a perfect, if unexpressed, understanding, that they were to make common cause against any and all persons who might attempt to diminish or destroy their influence.

The members of the Family Compact, with very few exceptions, were members of the Church of England, which, owing to the before-mentioned provisions in the Constitutional Act, they regarded as the State Church of Upper Canada, established by law, and entitled to the special veneration of the inhabitants. They accounted all persons as members of the Church of England who were not actual members of some other religious body, and in enumerating the people for statistical purposes they sometimes even went so far as to include the infant children of Dissenters as Episcopalians. They sought to defend the alleged establishment of a State Church in Canada by arguments which it is astonishing to think that men of education and intelligence should ever have stooped to employ. "There should be in every Christian country an established religion," said Dr. Strachan, in his evidence before the Select Committee on Grievances, in 1835, "otherwise it is not a Christian but an infidel country."[49] According to their theory, one of the principal ends of the Government of Upper Canada was the propagation of religious truth as set forth in the doctrines of the Church of England. True, the arguments on the subject were not so well understood then as now. Mr. Gladstone's little volume on "The State in its Relations with the Church," and Macaulay's answer thereto in the Edinburgh Review, had not then been published. But some of the most conclusive arguments adduced by Macaulay were as old as the world itself; and even Mr. Gladstone, in all his youthful exuberance, did not venture to take so preposterous a stand as was assumed by the upholders of a State Church in this Province. Their bigotry and intolerance were utterly out of keeping with the times in which they lived, and were better suited to the days of Archbishop Laud or Sir Robert Filmer. Of that heaven-born charity which suffereth long, and is kind; which vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up; which seeketh not her own, and is not easily provoked; which thinketh no evil; which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things—of the spirit which impels to such a state of mind as this, we find few traces in the lives and writings of the upholders of State-Churchism in Upper Canada in those days. We find, on the contrary, much unkindness, much vaunting of themselves, much selfish conceit, much seeking, not only of their own, but of that which of right belonged to their neighbours. The champions of ecclesiastical monopoly were easily provoked to anger, and to thinking and speaking all manner of evil of those who differed from them as to the distribution of the Clergy Reserves. Roman Catholicism they contemplated with a certain amount of toleration, as the Roman Catholic hierarchy yielded the Government an unwavering support in return for the freedom and privileges which they enjoyed. But their toleration was not broad enough to cover any other form of religious belief. Dissent, in all its multiform phases, they looked upon with mingled abhorrence and contempt—as a thing to be shunned and tabooed by all right-minded persons. Dissenting ministers of religion were regarded as "low fellows," whom it was no sin to persecute, and, if possible, drive out of the country. Comparatively few of the latter were permitted to solemnize matrimony during the first forty years of the Province's history. By the statute 38 George III., chapter 4, passed in 1798, the privilege of doing so was accorded to ministers of "The Church of Scotland, or Lutherans or Calvinists;" but it was hedged about with cumbrous restrictions which must have been felt as humiliating and unnecessary. No person was to be regarded as a minister under the Act until he had appeared before the Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions, and had produced satisfactory credentials of his ordination. He was also compelled to take the oath of allegiance. Even after complying with all formalities, his functions were restricted to cases where one or both of the parties to be joined together belonged to his own religious society. Ministers of other denominations, including those of the Methodist body, which was the most numerous religious community in the Province, were not allowed the privilege of solemnizing marriage rites till the year 1831. The ignominous disqualification was removed by the statute 11 George IV., chapter 36, which was passed in 1830, but which did not receive the royal assent until the following year. A similar measure had repeatedly been passed by the Assembly in former sessions, but had as often been rejected by the Upper House. Before the law was finally and equitably settled as above mentioned, several ministers of religion had been tried and banished from the Province for having ventured to solemnize matrimony without legal authority. It is said that in one case where a minister was tried on a charge of this kind, the accused protested against his sentence, alleging that the Chief Justice, who presided at the trial, had himself sanctioned the performance of the ceremony. The Chief Justice, being called upon to descend from the judgment seat and give evidence as to this fact, declined to do so; but he afterwards procured a pardon for the prisoner.[50]

The Compact always contained within its ranks a few persons of more than average ability. Some of them doubtless believed that the course pursued by their organization was for the advantage of the colony, though, reasoning by the light of present knowledge, it is difficult to comprehend how men of even moderate perspicacity and judgment could have brought themselves to such a conclusion. It was, however, inevitable that persons of such narrow and contracted views—persons to whom self and pelf were the mainsprings of life—should degenerate, mentally as well as morally. The persons composing the second generation were, with very few exceptions, striking illustrations of the doctrine of the descent of man. Their sires had been men of energy and force of character. They themselves were—to borrow a phrase from the acting drama—the mere walking gentlemen of the colony. The sires had originated a bold and determined policy, and had from first to last pursued it with consistent vigour. The sons had neither brains to conceive nor discretion to carry out the conceptions of others. The sires had been persons whom it had been possible for the commonalty to respect. The sons were persons whom it was impossible not to despise. Surely a more superlatively commonplace and contemptible race of human beings has seldom been seen on the earth than four-fifths of the second generation of this bastard aristocracy of Upper Canada. It bore no resemblance to any other aristocracy whereof history has preserved any record. The old Roman commonalty, while they groaned beneath the iron heel of tyranny, were one and all conscious of a secret pride in their imperial oppressors. For the Roman aristocracy was an aristocracy of nature. The Roman patricians made foreign rulers to crouch and tremble at the name of Rome. Their triumphs were the triumphs of the nation. Caius of Corioli, Furius Camillus, Titus Capitolinus, were names the mere utterance of which stirred the Roman blood like the blast of a trumpet. For many a long year after one haughty dictator had slept his last sleep beneath the walls of PrÆneste, and after another had taken his final plunge beneath the yellow Tiber or from the Tarpeian rock, their exploits furnished themes for tale and song around the Roman camp-fires. These puissant representatives of the dominant class had shown little sympathy for the plebeians, upon whom they had looked down from a lofty height, and towards whom they had ever borne themselves with haughtiness and disdain. But their pride was a something to be tolerated by Romans of every degree, for they had achieved much glory for the Roman name. In the words of one who has interpreted the sentiment of those times with rare felicity, Rome could bear the pride of him of whom herself was proud. The old French noblesse, again, were not devoid of redeeming qualities. Their galling yoke would not have been borne from reign to reign, and through century after century, even by such seeming reconcilables as constituted the bulk of the French populace during the ante-Revolutionary period, if they had all been like the wicked St. EvrÉmonde of Mr. Dickens's tragic story. As a class, they had a subtle French grace about them which rendered their most grievous exactions less hard to bear than were the exactions of their eastern neighbours. They were an unmistakable haute noblesse, ever polished and dignified. Some of them, like Philippe EgalitÉ, had the cunning, when the time of trial arrived, to bend to the popular storm, and even to affect a zeal for citizenship. Comparatively few of them were at once blasÉ and brainless. It may be doubted if a single one of them combined—as did many of the rank and file of the second generation of the Family Compact of Upper Canada—the pretensions of an aristocrat with the sentiments of a boor and the intellectual development of a child. Yet further. The feeling of veneration with which the English commonalty have for centuries regarded the House of Lords is easy enough to understand. That feeling seems to be rapidly passing away, if, indeed, it has not already departed. But it would not have endured from the time of the Plantagenets to the time of Queen Victoria if it had not had some substantial foundation to rest upon. The House of Lords has always contained a number of men of high integrity and ability. Take it for all and all, it is probably the most just-minded and intellectual aristocratic assembly the world has ever seen. This may not be very high praise, but it may at least be taken for what it is worth. Its individual members are seldom brought sufficiently near to the lower order of the commonalty to enable the latter to detect their weaknesses. Their wealth, prestige and social position give them a vast influence, while at the same time their legislative powers are held in check by the direct representatives of the people. Most of these conditions were directly reversed in Upper Canada, where the members of the dominant faction were brought into the closest relations with the people generally, insomuch that their many deficiencies could not be concealed. Such wealth as they had they were too often known to have obtained at the expense of the rest of the community. The Lower House formed no efficacious check upon them, for they either managed to return a sufficient number of their tools to control the vote in that body, or else they rendered the Assembly's operations of no avail by means of their influence in the Legislative Council. They had none of the graceful suavity of the Lower Canadian seigneurs. Nor could they boast of the superiority derived from a liberal education. Many of them—even including some of those who held high public offices—were so illiterate that they were unable to write a simple business letter without committing errors of orthography of which any one but Artemus Ward or Jeames de la Pluche might well feel ashamed.

Nearly all the leading spirits of this strangely-assorted oligarchy were either wealthy or on the direct road to wealth. Being comfortably provided for at the public cost, in the form of fat offices or wild lands, or both, they assumed a swelling port, and aped, as best they knew how, the manners and customs of the upper classes in Great Britain. They built their dwellings in imitation of old-fashioned English manor-houses, with a variety of wings and gables, and with broad entrance halls which in an emergency might have served the purpose of presence-chambers. They dined long and late, and with much old-world pomp and ceremonial. They drove out in coaches emblazoned with heraldic bearings, and attended by broad-calved flunkeys in family livery. Certain social observances of the early Georgian era, long since effete and worn out in England, flourished in the social life of Little York down to a period within the memory of many persons who are still living. The aristocratic clique which preserved these customs was in the highest degree rigid and exclusive. No outsider was admitted into the charmed circle unless he came duly ticketed and accredited. The attempt to transplant the usages of an old and advanced state of society into the primitive streets and lanes of such places as York, Kingston, and Woodstock was for a time more successful than might be supposed. Such of the families as had been to the manner born carried off these observances with considerable grace. They had brought their traditions with them across the Atlantic, and though such traditions were not well suited to the genius of a young and sparsely-settled colony, they were at least maintained with some regard to the sources whence they had been derived. With the pretenders who formed a portion of the clique, and who had been admitted into it for special political reasons, the attempt to copy the habits of their social superiors was, generally speaking, less satisfactory. There was, in truth, an inner social circle which these latter were never invited to join. They, however, enjoyed all the political and pecuniary advantages arising from their connection, and were not easily distinguishable by outsiders from the very head and front of the organization.

So far as to the wealthy members of the ruling faction. But there were a good many of them who not only were not wealthy, but who were in positively indigent circumstances. These, for the most part, were members of old country families who had sent them to Canada with the sole object of getting rid of them. Others were half-pay officers who had spent their whole fortunes in settling on land, after which they had found themselves unable to make a livelihood, and had then sold their property for as much—or as little—as they could manage to get. These latter, after having disposed of their lands, generally repaired to the towns, and most of them sooner or later found their way to the Provincial capital. There they became obedient slaves of those in authority, and picked up a precarious livelihood by making themselves useful in various ways. The Executive could always find a certain amount of work for such persons, though, if the truth must be told, the supply was often greater than the demand. The code of social ethics in vogue among this class was such as might have been expected from persons who had been reared to regard themselves as the objects of a special dispensation of fortune. They looked upon manual labour as degrading. Any person, no matter what his abilities, who earned a livelihood by the sweat of his brow, or even by honest trade, was considered as no fit company for the brood of parasites who hung on to the heels of the Compact, and who nevertheless did not hesitate to perform tasks from which the average costermonger would have shrunk in disgust. Their employers occasionally admitted them to their tables, and even to some degree of social intimacy. More frequently they presented them with their cast-off clothing, with new gowns for their wives at Christmas, or—when things were at a remarkably low ebb—with a hundredweight of flour or half a barrel of mess pork. Yet the recipients of these favours piqued themselves upon their good birth and high connexions, and would have felt themselves insulted if anyone had ventured to hint that they should visit, upon terms of equality, with the grocer or the butcher in the next street.

The reader now has before him a sufficient array of facts to enable him to form a pretty accurate conception of the state of social life in Upper Canada during ante-Rebellion times. It was a matter of course that such a monopoly of power as was possessed and exercised by the ruling faction should excite envy and opposition on the part of those who did not revel in its smiles or share in its plunder. Loud murmurings began to make themselves heard against the delay and partiality in the land-granting department, and against the corrupt manner in which the public affairs of the Province generally were carried on. Before the close of Governor Hunter's rÉgime these murmurings had become loud enough to occasion no little disquiet to some of the officials who had most reason to dread enquiry and investigation. The abuses were greater in some branches of the service than in others, but peculation prevailed to a greater or less extent almost everywhere. The Indian department was notorious for the corruption of its officials. A sum of sixty thousand pounds sterling was annually granted by the Imperial Government for distribution among the various tribes, and for the payment of agents and interpreters. The distribution among the Indians chiefly took the form of commodities which had a particular fascination for the mind of the noble savage—such commodities, for instance, as muskets, powder, bullets, knives, tomahawks, hatchets, blankets, spangles, pocket mirrors, and—last, but by no means least—fire-water. The opportunities which this grant afforded for peculation and plunder were too tempting to be resisted. The agents and their subordinates, from highest to lowest, owed their positions to their servility and usefulness to those in authority. So long as they proved serviceable and obedient to their masters, there was not much likelihood of their being called to serious account for any iniquities they might commit towards Mohawk or Seneca, Oneida or Mississauga. By way of consequence, the Indians were robbed and the Government was robbed; and the robbers, feeling secure of protection from their superiors, plied their nefarious traffic with impunity.[51] There were equally culpable but less notorious abuses of power in other branches of the service. Probably not one in ten of these ever came to light, but from time to time there were awkward revelations which could not be suppressed. All these things combined to beget a widespread lack of confidence in the official clique. The want of confidence, not without good reason, extended even to the administrators of the law. The judges, as already mentioned, held office at the will of the Executive, and, at least in some instances, were shamelessly servile and corrupt. This led to their dicta being disregarded by sturdy juries who cared less for the letter of the law than for its spirit. Mr. John Mills Jackson, in his "View of the Political Situation of the Province of Upper Canada," published in 1809, speaks of an instance where the people became tumultuous, and broke the public stocks in the presence of the Chief Justice.[52] The public distrust of the administrators of the law does not seem to have been confined to the judges of the Superior Courts. It extended to the rural magistrates, some of whom turned their offices to commodity in a manner which would have excited the admiration of Falstaff himself. "The shop-keepers," writes Mr. Jackson, "are Justices of Peace. They have the means of extortion, and the power of enforcing payments. They are first the criminals, then the judges; and the court of appeal seems to be so constructed as to prevent an honest verdict from passing into effect. The practice of the court is unjust, oppressive, and influenced. Favourite attorneys were made deputy clerks of the peace, so that process might be entered and writs obtained most partially. The crown lawyer is allowed nearly seven pounds sterling for every criminal prosecution! an inducement to listen to trifling complaints, and prefer frivolous indictments, when, if power was gratified and independence harassed, it was a sufficient excuse for an inflated contingent account." The author of this scathing philippic against petty oppression proceeds to recount a case wherein an action was brought against a magistrate who had exerted his authority in an illegal and oppressive manner. A verdict was obtained against him for a hundred pounds. An application was made to the Court of King's Bench to set the verdict aside, which was rejected; whereupon the clerk of the court in which the judgment had been obtained was ordered by the Crown lawyer not to issue execution. The clerk knew better than to disobey an order from such a source, and the plaintiff accordingly took nothing by his verdict. The unrighteous magistrate escaped the penalty of his misdeeds, and furnished a sort of standing precedent for magisterial iniquity. Other equally flagrant perversions of justice are recorded by the same authority. An illegal and unjustifiable extent issued, at the suit of the Crown, against one of the civil officers. It lasted for years; yet the officer dared not resist oppression by applying for justice. "When [the extent] was as imperiously taken off as it was arbitrarily laid on," writes Mr. Jackson, "the sheriff dared not apply for fees expended in holding possession under the writ, or the printer sue for the money voted him by the House of Assembly for printing their journals. The surveyors could not obtain the money they had actually expended in the public service, nor the people find redress for extorted fees. Therefore, when there was neither substance nor shadow of law or justice, but the will of power was the rule of decision, the public mind was agitated in the extreme, and universal gloom pervaded the Province."

The discontent produced by official tyranny was however almost impotent as against the wrong-doers, who were so strongly entrenched in their places that it seemed as though nothing could shake them. Many of them, conscious of their misconduct, doubtless felt secret misgivings whenever any specially significant outburst of popular dissatisfaction occurred. But for many years they were able to present a united and brazen front, and to crush anyone who dared to so much as wag a finger against them. It was intimated on a former page that Robert Gourlay was not the first victim of Executive tyranny. The first conspicuous victim of whom any record has been preserved was Mr. Robert Thorpe, an English barrister of much learning and acumen, who in 1805 was appointed a puisne judge of the Court of King's Bench for Upper Canada. Previous to his arrival in this country Mr. Thorpe had never been remarkable for any specially liberal opinions, but he was a man of enlightened mind, and actuated by an honest desire to do his duty. He was not long in perceiving that the administration of justice in this Province was little better than a hollow mockery. He resolved to do what one man could to restore public confidence in the judicial bench, and his court erelong became a popular forum for honest litigants, for it was evident to all that he held the scales of justice with an even hand, and was not to be either cajoled or bullied into perverting the law. Before he had been a twelvemonth in the country he was known far and wide as an upright judge, and as a sort of champion of popular rights. Grand juries took him into their confidence, and tabulated their grievances before him. These were laid by him before the authorities at York, upon his return from circuit; a proceeding which was quite sufficient to bring down upon his head the opposition of the faction which flourished by reason of those very grievances. The whole of the Family Compact influence arrayed itself against him in deadly enmity. Francis Gore arrived in the capacity of Lieutenant-Governor in the summer of 1806. He was informed by his Councillors that Judge Thorpe was a dangerous and revolutionary personage. It was certain that the past year had been signalized by a decided propensity on the part of the people to assert themselves against the intolerable exactions of their oppressors, and that a spirit of opposition was on the increase throughout the land. Governor Gore and his Councillors reversed the inductive process, and attributed the popular discontent to the influence of the new judge. This seeming conviction on their parts was strengthened by certain remarks of Judge Thorpe himself, made in reply to an address from the Grand Jury of the London District. "The art of governing," said he, "is a difficult science. Knowledge is not instinctive, and the days of inspiration have passed away. Therefore, when there was neither talent, education, information, nor even manners in the Administration, little could be expected, and nothing was produced." The reference here is manifestly to the rÉgime of Governor Hunter and Commodore Grant; and the intimation is that better things are to be hoped for under the recently-arrived Governor. "But," continued the judge, "there is an ultimate point of depression, as well as of exaltation, from whence all human affairs naturally advance or recede. Therefore, proportionate to your depression, we may expect your progress in prosperity will advance with accelerated velocity." He also in the course of his address, inveighed against the Alien Act of 1804. When he reached York, at the close of the circuit, he laid before the new Lieutenant-Governor the various recapitulations of grievances which had been entrusted to him. They were received by Mr. Gore and his Councillors with a very ill grace. The complaints from the London District were stated with great vigour and lucidity, and as they had got into print they could not be suppressed or wholly ignored. An attempt was made to show that the chapter of grievances had been presented by the jurors, not because there was really anything of importance to complain of, but because Judge Thorpe himself had instigated them to such a course. As this charge was openly made, Mr. Thorpe in his capacity of a Justice of the King's Bench, caused a proceeding of the nature of scandalum magnatum to be instituted. His brother judges, however, some of whom were members of the Executive Council, and all of whom were subject to strong influences from that quarter, ruled that the proceeding could not be maintained, and it accordingly fell through. An attempt was also made, first to intimidate, and afterwards to corrupt the Grand Jury. A letter was sent to them from the office of the Lieutenant-Governor, requesting them to state the grounds of their complaints more specifically. The recipients responded by preparing and forwarding a stronger case than before. A recantation was then drawn up by a skilful hand, and presented to each individual member of the Jury, a reward being at the same time offered as an inducement to sign it. The jurymen, however, were not prepared to barter away their liberties in this manner, and the attempt wholly failed. While the Executive were deliberating as to how they could most effectually strike Judge Thorpe, a vacancy occurred in the representation of one of the constituencies in the Home District. In those times, as has already been seen, a judgeship was no disqualification for political life, and a deputation waited on Mr. Thorpe with a numerously signed address, requesting him to become their representative. He replied that he would not become a partisan, but that if he were returned to Parliament he would not hesitate to do his duty. No sooner did it become known that "the Radical Judge," as he was called, was a candidate for the Assembly than the leading spirits of the Compact aroused themselves to defeat him. This was natural enough. That they should employ against him every means which their ingenuity could devise—among others, bribery, vilification and deliberate slander—that also was natural, when the time and persons are considered. "Every engine within the reach of authority," writes Mr. Jackson, "was used for the purpose of defeating the wishes of the people on this occasion. All interests were required to yield in favour of the candidate most likely to succeed as against Mr. Thorpe. Any person in employment, in expectation of, or entitled to land, was gratified, promised, or threatened; magistrates were made and unmade, as best suited the purposes of electioneering; grants were given; fees excused, or promised to be paid by those high in authority. Even domestics were bribed with places, land, and money, to vilify and accuse, by direct falsehoods, the most upright, serviceable and esteemed persons in the Province." For once public opinion proved too strong for Family Compact influence. Judge Thorpe was returned, and great things were hoped for from his career in Parliament. But the triumph of freedom was short-lived. The Compact was too strong to be opposed by the multitude with impunity. Lieutenant-Governor Gore was subservient to its wishes, and besides he had by this time come to hate the popular judge on his own account, and his mind was fully made up to solicit from the Colonial Secretary Judge Thorpe's recall. One of his private letters, written from Kingston, during a journey from York to Montreal, several months after the Judge's election to the Assembly, announces this resolution in unmistakable terms. "The object of Mr. T.'s [Thorpe's] emissions," he writes, "appears to be to persuade the people to turn every gentleman out of the House of Assembly. However, keep your temper with the rascals, I beseech you. I shall represent everything at St. James'." He was as good as his word, and in October, 1807, the announcement was made in the Gazette that the Lieutenant-Governor had been instructed to suspend Mr. Thorpe from his judgeship, which we may be quite sure was done without unnecessary loss of time.

Thus did might continue to triumph over right. There was not the slightest imputation of any sort against the Judge's character. His professional attainments were high; his personal character without a stain. His continued presence in Canada would have been a blessing to all but the race of tyrants who trampled on popular liberty. Yet he was removed because he respected himself and his office too highly to pervert judgment, and because he bade fair to abridge the rule of corruption. Upon his return to England the Colonial Office urged nothing whatever against him, and merely suggested, by way of justification for his recall, that his stay in Upper Canada would have led to perpetual disturbance of the public tranquillity. He instituted proceedings in one of the English courts against Mr. Gore, who was convicted of libel, but who escaped much more easily than he deserved with a fine of trifling amount. By way of recompense for his recall from Upper Canada, Judge Thorpe was appointed Chief Justice of Sierra Leone. There he remained for two years, by which time his constitution had become so much broken by the climate that he was compelled to return home. At the request of a number of the inhabitants he carried with him to England a petition complaining of certain abuses of power there. For this he was discarded by the Ministry of the day. His appointment as Chief Justice was cancelled, and another judge was sent out to West Africa in his stead. The rest of his life was passed in obscurity and neglect, and when he died his family were left without any provision for their future. Such was the untoward fate of an honourable and high-minded man, whose only fault was that he was too pure for the times in which he lived, and for the people among whom his lot was cast.

Another early victim, whose life record seems to contradict the adage that honesty is the best policy, was Surveyor-General Wyatt. There is no need to go minutely into the particulars of his case. He was universally recognized as a competent and honest official, insomuch that it was currently said of him that he was too good for the masters whom he served. But he ventured to interfere on behalf of one of the subordinates in his office, who had been refused a stipend to which Mr. Wyatt considered him entitled. Then, he presumed to oppose the Council in respect of an irregular purchase of a large tract of land from the Mississauga Indians. Finally, he went so far as to profess a high degree of respect for the manly and independent conduct of Judge Thorpe. The secret conclave speedily pronounced his doom. No one ventured to allege any fault against him, yet he was deprived of his situation by the Lieutenant-Governor, and a pliable tool was installed in his office.

Joseph Willcocks had a more bitter experience still. He was an Irishman, of liberal education, and of much energy of character, whose influence in official circles was wide enough to obtain for him the post of Sheriff of the Home District. For several years no occasion for any difference of opinion arose between him and his superiors. He was known as a competent officer, who discharged his duties with great consideration for the impecunious and unfortunate. But his frequent official peregrinations through the Home District enabled him to see with his own eyes the disastrous effects of the Clergy Reserves, of the land-granting system, and of Family Compact domination generally; and on several occasions he had sufficient courage to express his opinions thereupon. Attempts were made to silence him, first by remonstrances, and afterwards by threats, but all to no purpose. When Judge Thorpe began to figure as a sort of popular tribune, Willcocks declared himself as being also on the side of the people. When the Judge became a candidate for Parliament, the Sheriff, who had a vote in the constituency, recorded it in his favour. For this he shared the fate of the Surveyor-General, and was promptly dismissed from office by the Lieutenant-Governor. But he came of a fighting stock, and was not to be suppressed by the mere circumstance of being deprived of an official income. He started a newspaper called The Upper Canada Guardian, or Freeman's Journal. In this sheet, which was edited by Mr. Willcocks himself, various desirable measures of reform were advocated, and the dominant faction were from time to time referred to in opprobrious, but certainly not untruthful or unmerited language. The paper obtained a considerable circulation, and soon made its editor an object of bitter hatred on the part of the authorities. The vilest abuse was poured out upon him, and he was subjected to a course of persecution well-nigh as grievous as subsequently fell to the lot of Robert Gourlay. Governor Gore himself, in a letter still extant, written in 1807, refers to him as "that execrable monster who would deluge the Province with blood." The execrable monster's influence, however, continued to grow, and upon Judge Thorpe's retirement from Upper Canada, he was returned to the Assembly in his stead, for the West Riding of the County of York, the First Riding of the County of Lincoln, and the County of Haldimand. As he was a ready and powerful speaker, as well as a vigorous writer, it was felt that he would soon become intolerable if his career were not effectively checked. He was accordingly tried before the Assembly on a frivolous charge of having, in a private conversation held at the house of a Mr. Glennan, in York, spoken disrespectfully of some of the members. The proceedings were the veriest travesty of the forms of justice. The accused was found guilty, and committed to the common jail of the Home District, there to remain during the sitting of Parliament.[53] This indignity he was compelled to suffer, being confined for many weeks in a small close cell, which he was not permitted to leave for a single moment. He was further wrought upon by informations for libel, as well as by secret inquisitions into his private affairs. After his enlargement he continued to publish his paper, but he was so tortured by the incessant persecutions to which he was subjected that he could accomplish little or nothing in the way of reform. From some of his votes in the Assembly it would appear that he made tacit overtures towards reconciliation with his enemies,[54] but he had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and their rancour was not to be appeased. Eventually he was compelled to relinquish the publication of the Guardian for want of funds to carry it on. Notwithstanding all that he had endured, his loyalty remained unshaken, and when the War of 1812[55] broke out he responded to the call for volunteers by shouldering his musket and doing his devoirs like a man at the battle of Queenston Heights. Even this obtained for him neither complaisance nor immunity from abuse. He found himself ruined in fortune, opposed and hated by those in authority, without any prospect before him but starvation. It is not singular that a man subjected to such conditions should become disheartened. In a moment of exasperation he deserted the ranks where he had been held as of so little account. Accompanied by a small body of Canadian volunteers, he repaired to the camp of the enemy, where he offered his services, and obtained a colonel's commission. He served under Major-General Brown at the siege of Fort Erie, where he was slain while planting a guard.

Such are three of the most notable examples of ministerial tyranny in comparatively early times. As before mentioned, they attracted less widespread attention than did Mr. Gourlay's case some years later, because, though they were signal instances of the abuse of power, they were not marked by such refinement in cruelty, and because they appealed to the political sympathies of comparatively few. In the time of Judge Thorpe, Wyatt and Willcocks, the dominating class not only held a monopoly of power, but they and their adherents were numerically in the ascendant. At the time of Gourlay's persecution the population was much more evenly divided. The oligarchy still had control of all the avenues to power, but there was a large and steadily-increasing class in the community who recognized the fact that many changes were necessary before Upper Canada could become a prosperous and well-governed colony, and a satisfactory place of abode for the average British immigrant.

In closing this hasty review of the nature and effects of Family Compact domination in Upper Canada, I would not be understood as pronouncing a sweeping condemnation upon all the individual members of that body. John Beverley Robinson, for instance, though he lent himself to many high-handed acts of oppression, was a man of undoubted ability, and of a character which inspired respect. His descendants are to-day among the most respected and influential members of society in our Provincial capital. Several others were men of high personal character, and of abilities above the average. They acted in accordance with time and circumstance, and must be supposed to have done so conscientiously. But such persons as these composed but a very slender proportion of the Compact's entire membership. The rank and file were of a totally different complexion. The characteristics of the more poverty-stricken among them have already been hinted at; but, independently of these, there were many who were well-to-do, and who held their heads high in the air, who were nevertheless very ill qualified to win admiration for the caste to which they belonged. To state the simple truth, most of them were very ordinary commonplace personages, respectable, sapless, idealess—what Dr. Johnson would have characterized as exceedingly barren rascals. Some were of obscure origin, and would have been hard put to it if required to trace their ancestry beyond a single generation. Of these latter, a few, as has already been seen, had amassed wealth by trade or speculation, and had made their way into the exclusive circle by a fortunate combination of circumstances.

Among the Compact, then, the number of persons of good birth and descent, possessed of sufficient qualifications to justify their aristocratic predilections, and of sufficient capacity to enable them to direct the colonial policy, was small. And it must by no means be supposed that all the good blood in the Province was confined to the Compact. There were many persons among the pioneers of Upper Canada of gentle nurture and breeding, who nevertheless scorned to pose in the character of aristocrats in a land where such assumptions were altogether out of place, and who manfully accommodated themselves to their primitive surroundings. As has been well remarked by Mr. MacMullen,[56] "While they learned to wield the axe and swing the cradle with the energy and skill of the roughest backwoodsman, they retained their polished manners, their literary tastes, their love for the beautiful and the elegant; and thus exercised the most beneficial influence upon their rustic neighbours. In the absence of schools, of churches, of most of the refining influences of civilized society, this class of the early settlers of Upper Canada were foremost in usefulness. Their superior education, their well-bred manners, their more refined habits, raised them in the estimation of the rural population, who soon tacitly admitted a superiority which would never have been conceded [had it been] more directly asserted." Most, though not all, of these gentlemen were Tories, and, with hardly an exception, preserved their loyalty through all chances and changes. During the War of 1812-15, and again during the agitation arising out of the Rebellion, they proved true to their Tory instincts, and rallied to the side of the Government with ready fervour. Their social proclivities were equally removed from the rude boorishness of the ordinary settler as from the pretence and ceremonial of the clique of self-constituted aristocrats. They generally preserved a modicum of state in the regulation of their household affairs, though they kept aloof from the Compact and its practices, and devoted themselves to various branches of industry—among others, to the education of youth; to the practice of the learned professions; to the opening and cultivating of new avenues of commerce; and to reducing the pathless forests to arable and smiling fields.

One other fact it is essential to bear in mind, in estimating the effects of the Compact's rÉgime. In seizing upon all the official and other spoils within their reach, and in trampling upon the liberties of the people, the magnates of Upper Canada were merely treading in the footsteps of the Tite Barnacles of Great Britain. The period was one of transition, all over the civilized world. Popular rights were but imperfectly understood, and the idea that good government is best served by the extension of justice and equal rights to all classes was only beginning to dawn upon the minds of public men, even in old and long-established communities. That Canada was not in advance of the times is not to be wondered at; but the ordeal through which she was compelled to pass on the way to full and assured liberty forms an epoch highly necessary to be understood and frequently remembered by all who appreciate the blessings which are the birthright of every Canadian of the present day. A knowledge of the principles and practices of the Family Compact in the olden days constitutes the most effectual guarantee that such days can never return, and that neither our children nor our children's children will ever be compelled to fight over again the battle which was so long and so patiently waged by their ancestors.

[45] It may perhaps be thought by some readers that the closing sentences of this paragraph are pitched in too high a key. Those who entertain that opinion will receive light on the subject by a careful perusal of various official reports issued just prior to the passing of the Quebec Act in 1774, and more especially of A Cry from Quebec, published at Montreal in 1809.[46] Report on the Affairs of British North America, English folio edition, p. 53.[47] Ib.[48] How far Lord Durham was justified in saying that there was "little of family connexion" among the members of the Compact will appear from the following "curious but accurate statement," prepared by Mr. W. L. Mackenzie for his Sketches of Canada and the United States, published in England in 1833. It will be found on pp. 405-409 of that work. "When I left Upper Canada last year," writes Mr. Mackenzie, "some of the offices, sinecures, and pensions of the Government were divided as follows:—No. 1. D'Arcy Boulton, senior, a retired pensioner, £500 sterling. 2. Henry, son to No. 1, Attorney-General and Bank Solicitor, £2400. 3. D'Arcy, son to No. 1, Auditor-General, Master in Chancery, Police Justice, etc. Income unknown. 4. William, son to No. 1, Church Missionary, King's College Professor, etc., £650. 5. George, son to No. 1, Registrar of Northumberland, Member of Assembly for Durham, etc. Income unknown. 6. John Beverley Robinson, brother-in-law to No. 3, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, Member for life of the Legislative Council, Speaker of ditto, £2000. 7. Peter, brother to No. 6, Member of the Executive Council, Member for life of the Legislative Council, Crown Land Commissioner, Surveyor-General of Woods, Clergy Reserve Commissioner, etc. £1300. 8. William, brother to Nos. 6 and 7, Postmaster of Newmarket, Member of Assembly for Simcoe, Government Contractor, Colonel of Militia, Justice of the Peace, etc. Income unknown. 9. Jonas Jones, brother-in-law to No. 2, Judge of the District Court in three districts containing eight counties, and filling a number of other offices. Income about £1000. 10. Charles, brother to No. 9, Member for life of Legislative Council, Justice of the Peace in twenty seven counties, etc. 11. Alpheus, brother to Nos. 9 and 10, Collector of Customs, Prescott, Postmaster at ditto, Agent for Government Bank at ditto, etc. Income £900. 12. Levius P. Sherwood, brother-in-law to Nos. 9, 10, 11, one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench. Income £1000. 13. Henry, son to No. 12, Clerk of Assize, etc. 14. John Elmsley, son-in-law to No. 12, Member of the Legislative Council for life, Bank Director, Justice of the Peace, etc. 15. Charles Heward, nephew to No. 6, Clerk of the District Court, etc. Income £100. 16. James B. Macaulay, brother-in-law to Nos. 17 and 19, one of the Justices of the Court of King's Bench. Income £1000. 17. Christopher Alexander Hagerman, brother-in-law to No. 16, Solicitor-General. £800. 18. John McGill, a relation of Nos. 16 and 17, Legislative Councillor for life. Pensioner, £500. 19 and 20. W. Allan and George Crookshanks, connexions by marriage of 16 and 17, Legislative Councillors for life, the latter President of the Bank. £500. 21. Henry Jones, cousin to Nos. 9, 10, etc., Postmaster of Brockville, Justice of the Peace, Member of Assembly for Brockville, Income unknown. 22. William Dummer Powell, father of No. 24, Legislative Councillor for life, Justice of the Peace, Pensioner. Pension, £1000. 23. Samuel Peters Jarvis, son-in-law to No. 22, Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, Deputy-Secretary of the Province, Bank Director, etc. Income unknown. 24. Grant, son to No. 22, Clerk of the Legislative Council, Police Justice, Judge Home District Court, Official Principal of Probate Court, Commissioner of Customs, etc. Income £675. 25. William M., brother to 23, High Sheriff Gore District. Income from £500 to £800. 26. William B., cousin to Nos. 23 and 25, High Sheriff, Home District, Member of Assembly. Income £900. 27. Adiel Sherwood, cousin to No. 12, High Sheriff of Johnstown, and Treasurer of that district. Income from £500 to £800. 28. George Sherwood, son to No. 12, Clerk of Assize. 29. John Strachan, their family tutor and political schoolmaster, archdeacon and rector of York, Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils, President of the University, President of the Board of Education, and twenty other situations. Income, on an average of years, upwards of £1800. 30. Thomas Mercer Jones, son-in-law to No. 29, associated with No. 19, as the Canada Company's Agents and Managers in Canada. This family connexion rules Upper Canada according to its own good pleasure, and has no efficient check from this country to guard the people against its acts of tyranny and oppression. It includes the whole of the judges of the supreme civil and criminal tribunal (Nos. 6, 12, and 16)—active Tory politicians. Judge Macaulay was a clerk in the office of No. 2, not long since. It includes half the Executive Council or provincial cabinet. It includes the Speaker and other eight Members of the Legislative Council. It includes the persons who have the control of the Canada Land Company's monopoly. It includes the President and Solicitor of the Bank, and about half the Bank Directors; together with shareholders, holding, to the best of my recollection, about 1800 shares. And it included the crown lawyers until last March, when they carried their opposition to Viscount Goderich's measures of reform to such a height as personally to insult the government, and to declare their belief that he had not the royal authority for his despatches. They were then removed; but, with this exception, the chain remains unbroken. This family compact surround the Lieutenant-Governor, and mould him, like wax, to their will; they fill every office with their relatives, dependants, and partisans; by them justices of the peace and officers of the militia are made and unmade; they have increased the number of the Legislative Council by recommending, through the Governor, half a dozen of nobodies and a few placemen, pensioners, and individuals of well-known narrow and bigoted principle; the whole of the revenues of Upper Canada are in reality at their mercy;—they are Paymasters, Receivers, Auditors, King, Lords, and Commons!"[49] See his evidence annexed to the Committee's Report, p. 86.[50] Gourlay, commenting upon this episode, remarks: "Who pardoned all the poor sinners that for years had been getting bastards, and who legitimized these, was not determined when I bade farewell to Upper Canada."—Statistical Account, Vol. 2, p. 348.[51] Those who wish to gain an insight into some of the most revolting features of this traffic may consult Claws and the Clauses, a pamphlet published at Buffalo in 1818; also Gourlay, vol. 2, pp. 486, 487; together with Jackson's pamphlet referred to in the text.[52] This must have been Chief Justice Thomas Scott, after whom Scott Street, Toronto, was called. He was Chief Justice from August, 1806, to Michaelmas Term, 1816. He is referred to by Dr. Scadding in Toronto of Old, p. 51, as "a man of fine culture, spoken of affectionately by those who knew him." A picture of him in his decline is presented on page 130 of the same work.[53] For a full account of these infamous proceedings, the reader is referred to The Upper Canada Guardian of February 6th and March 18th, 1808, quoted by Gourlay in his Statistical Account, Vol. 2, pp. 655-662.[54] See an extract from the minutes of the proceedings in the Assembly, 10th March, 1810, quoted by Gourlay, Vol. 2, pp. 328, 329. See also Gourlay's remarks thereon, Vol. 2, pp. 334, 335.[55] There is reason to believe that the discontent begotten of the abuse of power in Canada was one of the inducements to this attempt on the part of the United States, the Government of which was led to believe that Canadians generally would welcome any relief from the yoke which the Compact had placed upon their necks.[56] History of Canada, p. 243.