The autobiography of John Galt

Chapter I

Reflections. — Unprovided for difficulties. — Presentiments. — Arrival at New York. — News from the Consul. —At Geneva, — At Batavia. — Buffaloe — Canada newspapers. — Conduct of Mr. Rolfe. — Arrival. — Wait on the Governor. — Consequences 1

Chapter IV

New rumours of the Company breaking up. — Strange conduct of the directors. — Payment due to government. — No money. — Resolution.— Effects. — Mr. Fellows’ report. — The directors of the Canada Company allow a bill for cash received to be protested ... 128

Chapter V

Acquisitions of knowledge. — Ancient fortifications. — Digging a well in a rock. — A funereal urn. — Natural phenomena. — A vast tree 138

Chapter VI

New Articles of export. — Operations. — Intentions. — A discovery. . 146

Chapter VII

Resume personal narrative — Journey to Lake Huron. —Lost ourselves at midnight in the forest, sixty miles from a known habitation. — Alarming adventure.— Scene at Goderich. — Adieu ...... 152

VI

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII. page

Speak of departure— Conduct of the settlers— Leave Guelph— Letter in my behalf from the Lieutenant Governor to the Secretary of State— Reach New York — Hear of my being superseded— Arrival at Liverpool— Reach London— Consequences. . 159

Chapter X

Sense of disease.— Abridged means of knowledge. — Rise of Canadian stock. — Joint stock companies.— Class of persons to whom adapted. — Fallacy as to interest. — Their objects. — The objects of commerce. — Kind of superabundant population. — Begin again to scheme 242

Chapter I

Reflections. — Unprovided for difficulties. — Presentiments. — Arrival at New York.r—News from the Consul,— at Geneva. — At Batavia. — Buffaloe. — Canada newspapers. — Conduct of Mr. Rolfe. — Arrival. — Wait on the Governor. — Consequences.

I did not feel myself entering seriously the arena of life, till I undertook my second mission to Canada. Absurd as the expression may seem, it is nevertheless just. Whatever I had done before or encountered, seemed mere skirmishing to what then awaited me. I felt the full weight of my task, it is true, but a persuasion that if it were

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well done, I would obtain a degree of enviable credit. The employment was inviting from that circumstance, and the difficulties were therefore undervalued ; they were, however, seen distinctly enough, but I trusted too much to the indulgence that would be conceded to time. I overlooked my being the representative of others, who had not paid the same attention to the subject as I had done myself, and who were not in consequence sufficiently acquainted with the difficulties to be overcome. In this there was an error, a pardonable one, however, for it implied that I only entertained that respect for the directors of the Canada Company, which their conduct had obtained for them in the world ; a man of more actual experience in the business awaiting him, would have fortified himself with better provisions, but though I thought them necessary, they did not seem of primary importance, or I never would have embarked under the same aspect of circumstances. Far be it from me, in stating this, to impute blame :

I think the directors did what they thought best. However, my object is merely to request the reader to bear in mind, that with the most liberal discretionary authority that any man could require in a great trust, and responsible for the administration of nearly a million of money, I was hampered with the most inconsistent restrictions.

JOHN GALT.

I was not allowed to take with me any clerk, far less a person in whom I coukl confide ; I had not even a letter of introduction but the official vouchers, although there were in the directory, gentlemen who had resided in Canada many years, and had numerous friends in all parts of the country. I had, no doubt, my own friends, but I had very little personal knowledge of them. In a word, I was left destitute of those resources of advice and information, which the nature of my mission so greatly required.

Perhaps it may be said that a person of more prudence would have hesitated to undertake so important a charge under such circumstances, but as my first class of objects were of the nature of inquiries, I did not regard these omissions as I ought ; but I did attach importance to them, and they did weigh so heavily on my mind, that for the greatest part of the passage out to New York, they actually seemed to me as of a sinister character, in spite of reason and the honourable reputation of those I had to deal with. In fact I could not entirely repel a strange presentiment with which I was haunted, that there was something of method in the proceedings that defied discernment, at least it baffled mine.

The cares of my duties commenced with my arrival at New \ork, and the considerations which

b 2 depressed me on the voyage became fainter, but still I could not entirely shake off the bodements with which my thoughts were occasionally depressed.

In stating this, I am convinced that all who read it will think me indulgent to unwarrantable fancies, but the future will show how far I was affected by mere imaginary doubts.

The novelty of arriving in New York W'ould have superseded all apprehensions, but it happened that on the day I landed, the consul mentioned to me in a manner not calculated to allay my nameless apprehensions, that there had been a trial concerning Mackenzie, the editor of the Colonial Advocate, in which I was mentioned as one of his advisers. The story at the time surprised, but little interested me ; I only recollected the file of his newspapers, and the civility of the editors in general ; nor could I imagine that there was any thing in the transaction susceptible of an equivocal intrepretation.

From New York Mr. W and I pro-

ceeded to Geneva, where I stopped some time to examine the forms, books; and bonds, in the Pulteney’s-office there; where all was in the frankest manner thrown open, and I was highly pleased with my reception.

From Geneva I went to Batavia, and examined

JOHN GALT.

the same things in the Holland Company’s office, where I experienced equal confidence and gratification, especially when it turned out that I had many years before been acquainted with some of the agent’s friends. He was related to the Mons. Otto, who signed the preliminaries, on the part of the French, to the treaty of Amiens.

From Batavia we proceeded to Buffaloe, and without any particular adventure arrived at Niagara, with the intention of going to York next day. Here we met with Canada newspapers, and among them with Sir Peregrine Maitland’s speech at the opening of the provincial parliament. Conceive my astonishment, however, on seeing, notwithstanding what had been done for Mr. Rolfe, and his letter of acknowledgment, that he had given notice of his intention to bring in an alien bill, although the governor from the throne had announced a similar measure.

I had never then experienced such a prostration of principle on the part of any man.

Next day we reached York, and I immediately waited on the governor to deliver the letters from the secretary of state, and from the directors of the Canada Company. In the course of the conversation which ensued, I complained of the manner in which Mr. Rolfe had acted, and said, that if he persevered in his resolution, I should feel it my duty to petition the lower house against his nonsensical bill, for such it appeared to me to be, as it would have the effect of molesting the province, and thereby indirectly injuring the interests of the Canada Company.

The governor, at this interview, when I delivered Mr. Horton’s message, mentioned that Mackenzie* had made use of a letter I had sent him, in a trial to obtain damages for an outrage he had suffered in his property by a riot.

Little more then passed, but he invited me to dine with him, and politely requested I w r ould bring Mr. W. with me. In the mean time I sent the two letters which Archdeacon Strachan had, I have no doubt, with the kindest intentions, transmitted from Edinburgh, little, I think, aware that his own communication disclosed how much I should stand in need of patronage in the province. I then sent for Mr. Rolfe, and before Mr. W. made no effort to mitigate my reproaches. His excuse for the part he was playing was very lame, offering to introduce me to some members of his faction in the house of assembly, and particularly to a Mr. Bidwell, who was afterwards speaker, but I refused to have any thing to do with him or them.

* Editor of tlie Colonial Advocate.

JOHN GALT.

and I never afterwards spoke to him, or in any way recognized him, further than once in passing on the highway by a cold bow.

Subsequent transactions had, perhaps, some effect in hardening the decision I had come to, but never having been a politician all my life, the conduct of Ilolfe was not calculated to seduce me from the state of seclusion in which I had ever kept myself.

After dinner, at the government house, when the company adjourned to the gallery to take coffee, I thought that I perceived, from some sort of free-masonry between the two gentlemen to whom I had the letters from Archdeacon Strachan, that they appeared not to have previously communicated with each other, and that they had something to say together. They did not notice that they had received the letters, but I mentioned to them my surprize at the conduct of Rolfe, and declared if he persisted in attempting to force his alien bill, I would expose his conduct to the public by petition.

This, be it observed, was within a few hours after my arrival, when I had no time to do any thing, and when, what I proposed to do, was necessarily contingent on the approval of Sir Peregrine Maitland.

Chapter II

Letters from Sir P. Maitland,

The inexplicable boding of evil with which I had entered Upper Canada, and the causes of which I have explained, was not long of taking a tangible form. Next morning after my arrival I received the following letter from the lieutenant-governor, which I ascribed to the nature of the verbal communication I had made, on delivering to him the Secretary of State’s letter.

No. i.

“ Government House, Dec. 13th, 1826.

“ I must confess I experienced no small degree of disappointment, when I was last night informed by Major Hillier, of the course you were pursuing in respect to a bill before the House of Assembly considered by you as interfering with the interests of the Land Company. You cannot be ignorant that it rests with me at once to refuse the royal assent, or to reserve (as I may think proper) any bill for the signification of his Ma-

JOHN GALT.

jesty’s pleasure ; and you must permit me to say, that in my opinion, it would have been consistent with the spirit of the communication, which, through your hands, I had the honour to receive from the Court of Directors, had you laid your objections before me, instead of courting a communication with a party in the assembly whose proceedings are principally marked by their virulent and undiscriminating opposition to this government. The course which I have alluded to, it cannot, I think, be denied, would be more consistent with propriety, and obviously more advantageous to the general interests of the Company, as the reservation of a bill would necessarily afford the Court of Directors an opportunity of making known their sentiments to his majesty’s ministers before the objectionable enactment could possibly have the operation of a law.

“ From your conversation yesterday, as well as from the highly gratifying and satisfactory letter of the Court of Directors, I cannot but suppose that they feel the strongest confidence in the justice of his Majesty’s ministers and of the Colonial Government in all matters which can affect the interests of the Canada Company ; and you may be assured, that the measure I have above mentioned is one which I should always be disposed to adopt on a well grounded representation of any unjust interference with their rights ; and by the way, in respect to any bill of naturalization, the reservation of it is the only course which I am at liberty to adopt.

“ You must be aware that any communication had by you with members in opposition with a view to influence their public conduct, would subject the government to misconstructions and misrepresentations more unpleasant and injurious than any acts of those persons can possibly be. I am sure that his Majesty’s government, and the Court of Directors of the Canada Company, of whose sentiments I am so unreservedly put in possession, would be most unwilling to believe that your expectation of exercising an influence on the conduct of such persons could be grounded on any community of feeling, or any strong tie of personal friendship ; and if on the other hand, it were left to be supposed, that feeling and thinking and acting with the government, you trusted to any personal influence from the weight which the confidence reposed in you by the Canada Company, or by the government, must confer upon you, to make representations which might naturally be supposed to be derived from the government, you must feel that it would be a kind of discretion which I could not willingly commit to any person whatsoever. And 1 think it right to acquaint you

JOHN GALT.

that any indirect attempts to influence the public conduct of the members of Assembly is a course diametrically opposite to those principles upon which this government is conducted.

“ You must perceive how solicitous 1 am to avoid all occasion of difficulty, and to remove every obstacle to the most candid communication, when I have availed myself of the first occasion thus fully to express my sentiments upon a subject of no common delicacy, and I think it right to go a step further, and to observe that it is only by your abstaining altogether from mixing in local politics, that a good understanding can be insured ; for I must frankly confess, that the impressions I have received from past occurrences would be very apt to dispose me to put an unfavourable construction upon such interference.

“ P. MAITLAND.”

“ To John Galt, Esq.”

To this I returned the following answer :

No. II.

^ Steamboat Hotel, 13th Dec, 1826.

“ I cannot but feel sensibly indebted to your Excellency for the friendly candour of the communication you have done me the honour to make with reference to my conversation last night in the Government House with Major Hillier. I most sincerely repent that what I said to Major Hillier should have been so expressed as to lead him so completely to misunderstand me, or to suppose me so unacquainted either with the powers or the discretion confided to his Majesty’s representative.

“ I fully comprehend the delicacy of the circumstances to which your Excellency alludes, and I feel indeed grateful for the suggestion with respect to local politics. I hope I shall be able to satisfy your Excellency that I have no disposition to meddle with any such matters, and I am only anxious for an occasion in which I may prove the sincerity of this sentiment, as well as of those assurances in the public letter of the Canada Company, which I had the honour to deliver, and which was framed by myself.

“ It gives me great pain to understand that your Excellency should have received, of past occurrences, any impression unfavourable respecting me. I am totally unable to devise what these occurrences have been ; but the kindness of the caution to prevent me from falling into error, is an assurance that I shall be afforded an opportunity of being informed in what manner I may, by possibility, have been misrepresented.

" I will not allow myself to suppose, that the unwarranted breach of common decorum, which has been made with a note of indispensible courtesy, can be included in the occurrences alluded to.

JOHN GALT.

because the politeness of Sir Peregrine Maitland would suggest a far better excuse for the incident to which I refer, than any explanation I could undertake to offer, if excuse in such a trifling case were necessary. I hope it will not be deemed unbecoming in me on the present occasion to say, that I esteem your Excellency’s communication as one of personal favour to myself, and calculated by the feeling it has afforded to serve the interests with which I am entrusted.

“ JOHN GALT.”

u To his Excellency, Sir P. Maitland, G.C.B. ”

The reader is requested to bear in mind, that at this time I had not any opportunity of making myself either acquainted with local feelings or local politics.

My reply to Sir P. Maitland brought an answer which did indeed surprise me, for it shewed such a total misapprehension of character, and, as it appeared to me, ignorance of human nature, that I am yet at a loss to conceive how he could pen such an epistle. He surely never could have discerned that he was bringing against me vital charges. To suppose that any man who had the smallest portion of self-respect would submit to

TIIE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP such accusations, can only be excused by believing that he did not give credit to them.

That he had full reliance on his authorities I unequivocally believe, and that he heard their inventions in consequence with credulous ears, is equally evident ; but that he had any other ground for giving heed to them I knew to be untrue, and of course could have no desire but to know what the charges were. 1 acquitted him most entirely of being actuated by any sinister motive, and therefore what I afterwards said must be regarded as less addressed to him than to those he too readily believed.

His second letter was :

No. III.

“ Government House, 14th Dec. 182G.

“ I can have no objection to afford you the explanation which you are desirous to obtain ; but it is for yourself to consider whether it may not tend to prejudice that good understanding which the Company desires, and which I am equally anxious to preserve. If you are confident that you can so entirely separate individual feeling from public duty as to justify your repeating the request, I know not that in justice to you, or to myself, I can hesitate to comply.

“ You may, in the mean time, be assured that you will not find in me any disposition to comply less readily with any wish of yours, and of the Canada Company, than the Court of Directors can have anticipated.

“ Allow me, on this occasion, to ask whether from your intimation that you framed the letter, which you presented to me from the Court of Directors, I am to infer that it is in any degree the less to be regarded as conveying the sentiments and wishes of the Company ; or whether your appointment extends to a more sole and exclusive direction of its affairs, than I might have been naturally led to suppose.

“ P. MAITLAND.”

u To John Galt, Esq/*

An explicit answer was necessary, and mine was as follows :

No. IV.

“ Steamboat Hotel, 14th Dec. 182G.

“ Being altogether unconscious of having in any way, or at any time, done, said, or written, the slightest matter of intentional offence towards the Colonial Government, I should be wanting in the respect due to myself and to your Excellency, were I not to repeat the request for an explanation. I shall never allow my private feelings to interfere with my public duty.

“ I am satisfied that in my trusts for the Canada Company, your Excellency will afford me every aid and favour which the Court of Directors anticipated ; the condescension of your candid admonition of yesterday, I have really felt as an earnest of the good understanding which I am persuaded will continue.

“ In adverting to the public letter of the Court of Directors, and as having been framed by myself, I was only desirous that your Excellency should connect me more intimately with the assurances which it contains, that the officers of the Company would be found in unison with those of the Government ; that document conveys the unanimous sentiments of the Court, and I am only to be considered as acting under specific instructions.

“ JOHN GALT.”

“ To His Excellency, Sir P. Maitland, G.C.B.”

JOHN GALT.

Chapter III

The charges of the Lieutenant-Governor My private letter to Mr.

Horton in consequence.

Before I received the answer to my reiteration for an account of the delinquency of which Sir Peregrine Maitland believed me guilty, I endeavoured to recollect every thing of my transactions that affected him. The preceding narrative describes them all. I would not be wilfully guilty of misrepresenting any fact, and if aught has been omitted, the omission is wholly a fault of memory.

His answer was as follows : —

No. v.

“ Government House, December 14th, 182C.

“ I did hope that my letter, having but the single object in view which you appear correctly to have understood, would not have brought on any thing like a discussion with respect to past occurrences, for it has been my desire to convince you, that it is only your proceedings from this time, at which your mission is officially announced to me, that will be allowed to influence any acts of this government in relation to the Canada Com-

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pany. It was, not however in my power to be so explicit as I desired to be without making' use of the expression which has appeared to you to give a claim to some explanation.

‘*1.1 mention it as an impression which I have reason to think was not by any means confined to myself, or to the members of this government, or even of this society, that during your last visit here you discovered a disposition to extend your enquiries, which were to be directed to a specific object, to public matters, not having any obvious connexion with it, and that somehow or other it happened, that you were resorted to in a manner that none of your brother commissioners were, by persons who stated themselves to have rights to claim, or wrongs to redress ; and that you did not appear sufficiently to feel, that besides that there was no possible pretence for your lending a credulous or even a ready ear to complaints of any description, it clearly became you in a particularly marked manner to disclaim all appearance of interposing, and all right to interpose, in the public matters of this colony, — an interposition, indeed, which never could be necessary, because an immediate appeal to the decision of the king’s government is uniformly afforded by me to any person whose application I might feel it my duty to reject.

JOHN GALT.

“ 2. Again, I will not conceal from you that I have been applied to for explanations from the Colonial Department, which were rendered necessary by communications received from you, upon various public measures of this government; and that, setting aside the consideration that these were not all on subjects very closely connected with the object of your late mission, and that several of the matters contained in them were so misunderstood as to be wholly misrepresented, I could not fail to be struck with the apparent want of disposition to do justice either to the motives or the measures of the colonial government, as well as with the want of fairness in some of the arguments used.

“ 3. I do not wish you to believe that these considerations, added to your communications to Major Hillier on the day of your arrival, are all that I alluded to ; it would not be right that I should suffer you to remain in the belief that I regard as trifling the particular circumstance that you consider as such, or that I am capable of preventing its having its natural effect on my mind. Though a breach of confidence on the part of a very worthless person may have brought your letters to Mr. M‘Kenzie before the public, the fact is not less a fact, from the manner of its becoming known, and to me the great occasion for regret

c 2 has been, that a person who it was desirable should be most closely connected with the government, in conduct and in feeling, should have occasion to icproach with a breach of private confidence the editor of a paper distinguished above all otheis by a scurrilous abuse of the government, and which was saved only from prosecution by the despicable character of its contents, and by the contempt ol all persons of good feeling for its obscure and unprincipled conductor.

“ I did indeed participate in the mortification and astonishment of the public in whose hearing your letters were read. I regretted to see the support of so respectable an association as the Canada Company given with apparent eagerness to such a production, at a time when the Company was declared not to exist for any other purpose of patronage but this. And when I heard of the warm commendations of the talent displayed in attacks upon my government, and of the intimations conveyed in your private letters as to the manner in which attacks upon public officers might be made with greater caution and equal effect, you will not be surprised that as governor of this colony I felt keener regret, from the reflection that your residence here w r as alone owing to the circumstance of your being vested with the execution of a royal commission under the seal of this pro-

JOHN GALT.

vince, and that it was as embarrassing as it was extraordinary, to have an additional weight afforded to your communications, by the very circumstance which I thought must have rendered them * impossible.

“ I have now said all that I desire to say on this subject, and must beg to add that I cannot continue a correspondence of this nature further ; and that if you discern in this or in my former letter any reason to apprehend that I have formed erroneous impressions, you may rest perfectly assured that every just effect will be given to your future proceedings for removing them, and you may in the mean time rely that you will not find in me any disposition, from the circumstances I have laid before you, to comply less readily with every wish of yours and of the Company than the Court of Directors can have anticipated.

“ P. MAITLAND.”

“ John Galt, Esq.”

No. VI.

“ Thursday evening.

“ I have to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this day, and in consequence of the request you have repeated I send you the explanation you desire ; and I take this opportunity of thanking you for the satisfactory explanation you have afforded me in the last paragraph of your letter.

On this letter I had only to remark the prohibition of any reply. It left me no alternative but to make a private communication of the whole affair to Mr. Horton, which I did, as follow's : — u ( Private.)

“ Little York, 18th Dec. 182£.

“ I w 7 as not sensible of the obligations you laid me under when you advised me to request Sir Peregrine Maitland to communicate directly with myself, should any thing be reported to him respecting me or my proceedings ; but an incident has already happened, which has caused me, and deeply too, to feel the kindness of your advice. Before, however, you take the trouble of looking over the appended correspondence, I ought to state that my reception by his Excellency was most satisfactory ; indeed, considering the impressions which had been made to my prejudice, I shall ever deem it singularly well calculated to have prevented me from suspecting I had been such an object of malicious espionage.

JOHN GALT.

“ You will recollect under what circumstances I brought Dr. Strachan and Mr. Rolph into communion in London, and the good reasons which in consequence I had to expect that the bitterness of party animosity here would be moderated. I had really strong cause to hope the latter gentleman would be the first to afford the example of moderation. Judge then of my disappointment when, on arriving at Niagara, I saw by the newspapers the course which he had adopted at the opening of the provincial parliament.

“ My first duty on reaching this place was to wait, as instructed, on the Governor. Conscious of never having given him any cause of offence, I received his very cordial reception as an earnest of an agreeable accomplishment of the objects of my mission ; and on returning from the Government House I sent for Mr. Rolph, and in no equivocal terms expressed to him how greatly he had disappointed me. A friend was present at all which has passed between us.

“ In the evening, at the Government House, I spoke to Major Hillier on the subject, and among other things connected with it, remarked, that as whatever tended to exhibit the country at a distance in an unsettled or unsound state, would of necessity impair the interests of the Canada Company, it would be my duty to take a decided part against any measure having that tendency, — that the alien question, as mooted by Mr. Rolph, was of this description, and I added that, if his Excellency had no objection, I should, besides remonstrating with Mr. Rolph on the intemperance of his party, petition against his Bill, for having adopted that act of the late king which I have pointed out to yourself as making mere residence in a foreign country a species of high treason. That Major Hillier intentionally misrepresented the conversation to his Excellency is, of course, not to be supposed, but it would seem that his report produced a most unfavourable impression. The letter No. I. was the result. To his Excellency’s letter marked No. III. I had no choice but to repeat the request for an explanation, as in No. IV. By a felicitous instance of tact and good taste, to prevent further discussion, his Excellency had anticipated the repetition of the request by having No. V. prepared to send when he received No. IV.