Before introducing to the reader the soldier-statesman who is the subject of this memoir, it seems advisable to give a short sketch of existing conditions in the country which he was called upon to govern. Indeed it is almost necessary thus to prepare the ground for the advent of our proconsul, so that the reader may properly understand the kind of furrow he had to break. One may affirm too with perfect safety that the great lull which fell upon Canada at the close of the stir and turmoil of the Seven Years’ War and the downfall of French power...

Guy carleton was the third son of Christopher Carleton a landowner near Newry, County Down in Ireland and was born in 1724. The family came originally from Cumberland and were essentially, therefore, members of that Ulster plantation settled by emigrants from Scotland and the English border. The Carletons in short belonged to that virile Scotch-Irish stock which has given Great Britain so many great captains of war and industry, to the United States such a host of hardy settlers and able citizens, and to Canada a proportionately valuable contribution. Both these types of Anglo-Irishmen have in truth produced an extraordinary...

Carleton soon after this returned himself to England, but in the meantime we have anticipated some what, and must take note of some of the minor incidents and duties that helped to occupy the busy hours of his first four years of office in Canada. His deputy-governorship ended in 1768, when Murray resigned his titular appointment, a detail, however, without significance in our story. The troubles which were seething in the provinces to the south had affected Canada as yet but little. The Stamp Act and all that followed was a trifling matter among the more vital issues which agitated...

Almost immediately on the passing of the-Quebec Act Carleton sailed for Canada and landed on September 18th, 1774. During his long stay in England he had married the Lady Maria Howard, daughter of the Earl of Effingham, who with her two children born of the marriage accompanied her husband across the Atlantic. The lady was less than half Carleton’s age, which was now forty-eight. A family tradition attributes the fact of Carle ton’s remaining so long unmarried to an early disappointment in a love affair with his cousin, Jane Carleton. The circumstances of his marriage were somewhat singular, and were...

It is generally conceded that the hand of congress had been somewhat forced by Ethan Allen and Arnold in their prompt seizure, during the spring of 1775, of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The inspiration at least had in this case been local rather than federal, and the exploit, which was creditable in a tactical rather than heroic sense, was at the time not admitted as having been authorized. Strong professions of reluctance to harass Canada were expressed at headquarters for some weeks after wards, and we must remember that warlike acts during this whole summer were regarded, officially at any...

The little battery of four guns at Près de Ville had been thus admirably and effectively handled by Captain Barns fare with an artillery sergeant and fifteen sailors. In the blockhouse above were thirty-five French-Canadians, whose bullets followed the flying enemy into the darkness. Strange to say, however, an extraordinary panic succeeded this doughty deed, apparently caused by an old woman, who cried out that the rebels had forced the Sault-au-Matelot, and were upon them in the rear. One might be permitted to wonder if this was the same old woman who had taken Montgomery's insulting missive to Carleton, and...

The only criticism to be made upon the American retreat from Quebec is the illregulated fashion and undignified despatch with which it was executed, and the loss of material thereby involved. The surviving troops of Arnold and Montgomery had at least deserved well of congress, which had made great and not unsuccessful efforts throughout the winter and spring to reinforce them, as the figures already quoted will have shown. It was beyond doubt of great importance to the revolutionary leaders that Canada should be regarded in the colony as a virtually annexed province for as long as possible, even if...

Through most of August and the whole of September, 1776, Carleton was among his troops and shipbuilders. The former were cantoned at various points down the Richelieu from St. Johns and also along the overland route from there to Laprairie, while barracks and redoubts were being constructed at Ile-aux-Noix, fifteen miles above St. Johns, and not far from the foot of the lake, the island being intended to serve as a depot for supplies during the campaign in prospect. It was not till October 5th that the newly constructed fleet sailed lakewards from St. Johns. All the troops, except the...

Carleton remained in office another year, and continued his administration with unabated zeal. But he was very sore and could not resist a dig at Germain from time to time in his official correspondence. Burgoyne arrived in Canada almost simultaneously with Germain’s letter to Carleton. There is no reason whatever to suspect him of disloyalty to his former chief; on the contrary he had faithfully presented Carleton’s plans for the coming campaign to Germain in London, and had made his own recommendations freely and more or less on the same lines. But Germain had another plan, and Burgoyne seems to...

The surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in October, 1781, proved to be the last military operation of any moment in the War of Independence. The thoughts of almost all Englishmen were now from different motives turned towards peace, those of the Tories slowly and reluctantly, those of the Whigs with a sense of relief in which an inevitable measure of humiliation was tempered by the sordid satisfaction of a party triumph. For then as to-day in England colonial problems, fraught with fateful issues and understood not at all save by a mere handful of Englishmen, were used as weapons of...

After two years spent in England, which, so far as we know, were uneventful ones to Carleton save that he was created Baron Dorchester, he was offered and accepted the chief-governorship of Canada at the beginning of 1786. With the sudden influx of Loyalist refugees variously estimated at from thirty to fifty thousand, a third of whom perhaps would be in Canada proper, the equilibrium, social, political and religious of that country, bade fair to be considerably upset. New cleavages, new issues and new difficulties were imminent within the province. Without it France was in a highly electrical condition, while...

Lymburner in the meantime had arrived in England, during the summer of 1789, to represent the views of the British-Canadians and of a fraction of the French who were against partition and in favour of an elective assembly. He somewhat ignored the paucity of his French supporters in urging the wishes of his fellow-colonists on the British government, but otherwise was a sensible and clearheaded man. Reforms of some kind were impending and inevitable, and it was only right that his party should be heard, particularly as many of their claims had become reasonable through altered circumstances and unforeseen developments....

Dorchester sailed for England on August 18th, 1791, leaving Sir Alured Clarke, the new lieutenant-governor, in charge. Clarke had gained some reputation in the West Indies, and sustained it by his conduct in Canada. It was his privilege to inaugurate the first step in constitutional government, though perhaps of a more apparent than actual kind, the Act passing into effect with much ceremony and festivity on December 26th. The council remained much as before:—Chief-Justice Smith (Speaker), St. Ours, Finlay, Baby, Dunn, DeLongueuil, Panet, Mabane, DeLevy, Harrison, Collins, Lanaudiere, Pownall, de Boucherville, John Fraser and Sir John Johnson, the first...

In this war with the French republic the situation was in some respects more serious for British interests in Canada than it had been when the former country was actually allied with the Americans in the revolutionary struggle; for France was at that time still a monarchy, and her emissaries, even with the utmost exercise of casuistry, could hardly make much of the retrospective blessings of the ancient regime as a stimulant to Canadian discontent, while the seigniors and the Church, who might have been susceptible, had been attached to the British connection by practical, and to them beneficent, measures....