The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton - William Wood
CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
Volume 12
THE FATHER OF BRITISH CANADA
A Chronicle of Carleton
By WILLIAM WOOD
TORONTO, 1916
CONTENTS
I. GUY CARLETON, 1724-1759
II. GENERAL MURRAY, 1759-1766
III. GOVERNOR CARLETON, 1766-1774
IV. INVASION, 1776
V. BELEAGUERMENT, 1775-1776
VI. DELIVERANCE, 1776
VII. THE COUNTERSTROKE, 1776-1778
VIII. GUARDING THE LOYALISTS, 1782-1783
IX. FOUNDING MODERN CANADA, 1786-1796
X. 'NUNC DIMITTIS,' 1796-1808
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER I
GUY CARLETON
1724-1759
Guy Carleton, first Baron Dorchester, was born at Strabane,
County Tyrone, on the 3rd of September 1724, the anniversary
of Cromwell's two great victories and death. He came of
a very old family of English country gentlemen which had
migrated to Ireland in the seventeenth century and
intermarried with other Anglo-Irish families equally
devoted to the service of the British Crown. Guy's father
was Christopher Carleton of Newry in County Down. His
mother was Catherine Ball of County Donegal. His father
died comparatively young; and, when he was himself fifteen,
his mother married the rector of Newry, the Reverend
Thomas Skelton, whose influence over the six step-children
of the household worked wholly for their good.
At eighteen Guy received his first commission as ensign
in the 25th Foot, then known as Lord Rothes' regiment
and now as the King's Own Scottish Borderers. At
twenty-three he fought gallantly at the siege of
Bergen-op-Zoom. Four years later (1751) he was a lieutenant
in the Grenadier Guards. He was one of those quiet men
whose sterling value is appreciated only by the few till
some crisis makes it stand forth before the world at
large. Pitt, Wolfe, and George II all recognized his
solid virtues. At thirty he was still some way down the
list of lieutenants in the Grenadiers, while Wolfe, two
years his junior in age, had been four years in command
of a battalion with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Yet
he had long been 'my friend Carleton' to Wolfe, he was
soon to become one of 'Pitt's Young Men,' and he was
enough of a 'coming man' to incur the king's displeasure.
He had criticized the Hanoverians; and the king never
forgave him. The third George 'gloried in the name of
Englishman.' But the first two were Hanoverian all through.
And for an English guardsman to disparage the Hanoverian
army was considered next door to _lese-majeste_.
Lady Dorchester burnt all her husband's private papers
after his death in 1808; so we have lost some of the most
intimate records concerning him. But 'grave Carleton'
appears so frequently in the letters of his friend Wolfe
that we can see his character as a young man in almost
any aspect short of self-revelation. The first reference
has nothing to do with affairs of state. In 1747 Wolfe,
aged twenty, writing to Miss Lacey, an English girl in
Brussels, and signing himself 'most sincerely your friend
and admirer,' says: 'I was doing the greatest injustice
to the dear girls to admit the least doubt of their
constancy. Perhaps with respect to ourselves there may
be cause of complaint. Carleton, I'm afraid, is a recent
example of it.' From this we may infer that Carleton was
less 'grave' as a young man than Wolfe found him later
on. Six years afterwards Wolfe strongly recommended him
for a position which he had himself been asked to fill,
that of military tutor to the young Duke of Richmond,
who was to get a company in Wolfe's own regiment. Writing
home from Paris in 1753 Wolfe tells his mother that the
duke 'wants some skilful man to travel with him through
the Low Countries and into Lorraine. I have proposed my
friend Carleton, whom Lord Albemarle approves of.' Lord
Albemarle was the British ambassador to France; so Carleton
got the post and travelled under the happiest auspices,
while learning the frontier on which the Belgian, French,
and British allies were to fight the Germans in the Great
World War of 1914. It was during this military tour of
fortified places that Carleton acquired the engineering
skill which a few years later proved of such service to
the British cause in Canada.
In 1754 George Washington, at that time a young Virginian
officer of only twenty-two, fired the first shot in what
presently became the world-wide Seven Years' War. The
immediate result was disastrous to the British arms; and
Washington had to give up the command of the Ohio by
surrendering Fort Necessity to the French on--of all
dates--the 4th of July! In 1755 came Braddock's defeat.
In 1756 Montcalm arrived in Canada and won his first
victory at Oswego. In 1757 Wolfe distinguished himself
by formulating the plan which, if properly executed,
would have prevented the British fiasco at Rochefort on
the coast of France. But Carleton remained as undistinguished
as before. He simply became lieutenant-colonel commanding
the 72nd Foot, now the Seaforth Highlanders. In 1758 his
chance appeared to have come at last. Amherst had asked
for his services at Louisbourg. But the king had neither
forgotten nor forgiven the remarks about the Hanoverians,
and so refused point-blank, to Wolfe's 'very great grief
and disappointment... It is a public loss Carleton's not
going.' Wolfe's confidence in Carleton, either as a friend
or as an officer, was stronger than ever. Writing to
George Warde, afterwards the famous cavalry leader, he
said: 'Accidents may happen in the family that may throw
my little affairs into disorder. Carleton is so good as
to say he will give what help is in his power. May I ask
the same favour of you, my oldest friend?' Writing to
Lord George Sackville, of whom we shall hear more than
enough at the crisis of Carleton's career Wolfe said:
'Amherst will tell you his opinion of Carleton, by which
you will probably be better convinced of our loss.' Again,
'We want grave Carleton for every purpose of the war.'
And yet again, after the fall of Louisbourg: 'If His
Majesty had thought proper to let Carleton come with us
as engineer it would have cut the matter much shorter
and we might now be ruining the walls of Quebec and
completing the conquest of New France.' A little later
on Wolfe blazes out with indignation over Carleton's
supersession by a junior. 'Can Sir John Ligonier (the
commander-in-chief) allow His Majesty to remain
unacquainted with the merit of that officer, and can he
see such a mark of displeasure without endeavouring to
soften or clear the matter up a little? A man of honour
has the right to expect the protection of his Colonel
and of the Commander of the troops, and he can't serve
without it. If I was in Carleton's place I wouldn't stay
an hour in the Army after being aimed at and distinguished
in so remarkable a manner.' But Carleton bided his time.
At the beginning of 1759 Wolfe was appointed to command
the army destined to besiege Quebec. He immediately
submitted Carleton's name for appointment as
quartermaster-general. Pitt and Ligonier heartily approved.
But the king again refused. Ligonier went back a second
time to no purpose. Pitt then sent him in for the third
time, saying, in a tone meant for the king to overhear:
'Tell His Majesty that in order to render the General
[Wolfe] completely responsible for his conduct he should
be made, as far as possible, inexcusable if he should
fail; and that whatever an officer entrusted with such
a service of confidence requests ought therefore to be
granted.' The king then consented. Thus began Carleton's
long, devoted, and successful service for Canada, the
Empire, and the Crown.
Early in this memorable Empire Year of 1759 he sailed
with Wolfe and Saunders from Spithead. On the 30th of
April the fleet rendezvoused at Halifax, where Admiral
Durell, second-in-command to Saunders, had spent the
winter with a squadron intended to block the St Lawrence
directly navigation opened in the spring. Durell was a
good commonplace officer, but very slow. He had lost many
hands from sickness during a particularly cold season,
and he was not enterprising enough to start cruising
round Cabot Strait before the month of May. Saunders,
greatly annoyed by this delay, sent him off with eight
men-of-war on the 5th of May. Wolfe gave him seven hundred
soldiers under Carleton. These forces were sufficient to
turn back, capture, or destroy the twenty-three French
merchantmen which were then bound for Quebec with supplies
and soldiers as reinforcements for Montcalm. But the
French ships were a week ahead of Durell; and, when he
landed Carleton at Isle-aux-Coudres on the 28th of May,
the last of the enemy's transports had already discharged
her cargo at Quebec, sixty miles above.
Isle-aux-Coudres, so named by Jacques Cartier in 1535,
was a point of great strategic importance; for it commanded
the only channel then used. It was the place Wolfe had
chosen for his winter quarters, that is, in case of
failure before Quebec and supposing he was not recalled.
None but a particularly good officer would have been
appointed as its first commandant. Carleton spent many
busy days here preparing an advanced base for the coming
siege, while the subsequently famous Captain Cook was
equally busy 'a-sounding of the channell of the Traverse'
which the fleet would have to pass on its way to Quebec.
Some of Durell's ships destroyed the French 'long-shore
batteries near this Traverse, at the lower end of the
island of Orleans, while the rest kept ceaseless watch
to seaward, anxiously scanning the offing, day after day,
to make out the colours of the first fleet up. No one
knew what the French West India fleet would do; and there
was a very disconcerting chance that it might run north
and slip into the St Lawrence, ahead of Saunders, in the
same way as the French reinforcements had just slipped
in ahead of Durell. Presently, at the first streak of
dawn on the 23rd of June, a strong squadron was seen
advancing rapidly under a press of sail. Instantly the
officers of the watch called all hands up from below.
The boatswains' whistles shrilled across the water as
the seamen ran to quarters and cleared the decks for
action. Carleton's camp was equally astir. The guards
turned out. The bugles sounded. The men fell in and
waited. Then the flag-ship signalled ashore that the
strangers had just answered correctly in private code
that all was well and that Wolfe and Saunders were aboard.
Next to Wolfe himself Carleton was the busiest man
in the army throughout the siege of Quebec. In addition
to his arduous and very responsible duties as
quartermaster-general, he acted as inspector of engineers
and as a special-service officer for work of an
exceptionally confidential nature. As quartermaster-general
he superintended the supply and transport branches.
Considering that the army was operating in a devastated
hostile country, a thousand miles away from its bases at
Halifax and Louisbourg, and that the interaction of the
different services--naval and military, Imperial and
Colonial--required adjustment to a nicety at every turn,
it was wonderful that so much was done so well with means
which were far from being adequate. War prices of course
ruled in the British camp. But they compared very favourably
with the famine prices in Quebec, where most 'luxuries'
soon became unobtainable at any price. There were no
canteen or camp-follower scandals under Carleton. Then,
as now, every soldier had a regulation ration of food
and a regulation allowance for his service kit. But
'extras' were always acceptable. The price-list of these
'extras' reads strangely to modern ears. But, under the
circumstances, it was not exorbitant, and it was slightly
tempered by being reckoned in Halifax currency of four
dollars to the pound instead of five. The British Tommy
Atkins of that and many a later day thought Canada a
wonderful country for making money go a long way when he
could buy a pot of beer for twopence and get back thirteen
pence Halifax currency as change for his English shilling.
Beef and ham ran from ninepence to a shilling a pound.
Mutton was a little dearer. Salt butter was eightpence
to one-and-threepence. Cheese was tenpence; potatoes from
five to ten shillings a bushel. 'A reasonable loaf of
good soft Bread' cost sixpence. Soap was a shilling a
pound. Tea was prohibitive for all but the officers.
'Plain Green Tea and very Badd' was fifteen shillings,
'Couchon' twenty shillings, 'Hyson' thirty. Leaf tobacco
was tenpence a pound, roll one-and-tenpence, snuff
two-and-threepence. Sugar was a shilling to eighteen
pence. Lemons were sixpence apiece. The non-intoxicating
'Bad Sproos Beer' was only twopence a quart and helped
to keep off scurvy. Real beer, like wine and spirits,
was more expensive. 'Bristol Beer' was eighteen shillings
a dozen, 'Bad malt Drink from Hellifax' ninepence a quart.
Rum and claret were eight shillings a gallon each, port
and Madeira ten and twelve respectively. The term 'Bad'
did not then mean noxious, but only inferior. It stood
against every low-grade article in the price-list. No
goods were over-classified while Carleton was
quartermaster-general.
The engineers were under-staffed, under-manned, and
overworked. There were no Royal Engineers as a permanent
and comprehensive corps till the time of Wellington.
Wolfe complained bitterly and often of the lack of men
and materials for scientific siege work. But he 'relied
on Carleton' to good purpose in this respect as well as
in many others. In his celebrated dispatch to Pitt he
mentions Carleton twice. It was Carleton whom he sent to
seize the west end of the island of Orleans, so as to
command the basin of Quebec, and Carleton whom he sent to
take prisoners and gather information at Pointe-aux-Trembles,
twenty miles above the city. Whether or not he revealed
the whole of his final plan to Carleton is probably more
than we shall ever know, since Carleton's papers were
destroyed. But we do know that he did not reveal it to
any one else, not even to his three brigadiers, Monckton,
Townshend, and Murray.
Carleton was wounded in the head during the Battle of
the Plains; but soon returned to duty. Wolfe showed his
confidence in him to the last. Carleton's was the only
name mentioned twice in the will which Wolfe handed over
to Jervis, the future Lord St Vincent, the night before
the battle. 'I leave to Colonel Oughton, Colonel Carleton,
Colonel Howe, and Colonel Warde a thousand pounds each.'
'All my books and papers, both here and in England, I
leave to Colonel Carleton.' Wolfe's mother, who died five
years later, showed the same confidence by appointing
Carleton her executor.
With the fall of Quebec in 1759 Carleton disappears from
the Canadian scene till 1766. But so many pregnant events
happened in Canada during these seven years, while so
few happened in his own career, that it is much more
important for us to follow her history than his biography.
In 1761 he was wounded at the storming of Port Andro
during the attack on Belle Isle off the west coast of
France. In 1762 he was wounded at Havana in the West
Indies. After that he enjoyed four years of quietness at
home. Then came the exceedingly difficult task of guiding
Canada through twelve years of turbulent politics and
most subversive war.
CHAPTER II
GENERAL MURRAY
1759-1766
Both armies spent a terrible winter after the Battle of
the Plains. There was better shelter for the French in
Montreal than for the British among the ruins of Quebec.
But in the matter of food the positions were reversed.
Nevertheless the French gallantly refused the truce
offered them by Murray, who had now succeeded Wolfe. They
were determined to make a supreme effort to regain Quebec
in the spring; and they were equally determined that the
habitants should not be free to supply the British with
provisions.
In spite of the state of war, however, the French and
British officers, even as prisoners and captors, began
to make friends. They had found each other foemen worthy
of their steel. A distinguished French officer, the Comte
de Malartic, writing to Levis, Montcalm's successor,
said: 'I cannot speak too highly of General Murray,
although he is our enemy.' Murray, on his part, was
equally loud and generous in his praise of the French.
The Canadian seigneurs found fellow-gentlemen among
the British officers. The priests and nuns of Quebec
found many fellow-Catholics among the Scottish and Irish
troops, and nothing but courteous treatment from the
soldiers of every rank and form of religion. Murray
directed that 'the compliment of the hat' should be paid
to all religious processions. The Ursuline nuns knitted
long stockings for the bare-legged Highlanders when the
winter came on, and presented each Scottish officer with
an embroidered St Andrew's Cross on the 30th of November,
St Andrew's Day. The whole garrison won the regard of
the town by giving up part of their rations for the hungry
poor; while the habitants from the surrounding country
presently began to find out that the British were honest
to deal with and most humane, though sternly just, as
conquerors.
In the following April Levis made his desperate throw
for victory; and actually did succeed in defeating Murray
outside the walls of Quebec. But the British fleet came
up in May; and that summer three British armies converged
on Montreal, where the last doomed remnants of French
power on the St Lawrence stood despairingly at bay. When
Levis found his two thousand effective French regulars
surrounded by eight times as many British troops he had
no choice but to lay down the arms of France for ever.
On the 8th of September 1760 his gallant little army was
included in the Capitulation of Montreal, by which the
whole of Canada passed into the possession of the British
Crown.
Great Britain had a different general idea for each one
of the four decades which immediately followed the conquest
of Canada. In the sixties the general idea was to kill
refractory old French ways with a double dose of new
British liberty and kindness, so that Canada might
gradually become the loyal fourteenth colony of the Empire
in America. But the fates were against this benevolent
scheme. The French Canadians were firmly wedded to their
old ways of life, except in so far as the new liberty
enabled them to throw off irksome duties and restraints,
while the new English-speaking 'colonists' were so few,
and mostly so bad, that they became the cause of endless
discord where harmony was essential. In the seventies
the idea was to restore the old French-Canadian life so
as not only to make Canada proof against the disaffection
of the Thirteen Colonies but also to make her a safe base
of operations against rebellious Americans. In the eighties
the great concern of the government was to make a harmonious
whole out of two very widely differing parts--the
long-settled French Canadians and the newly arrived United
Empire Loyalists. In the nineties each of these parts
was set to work out its own salvation under its own
provincial constitution.
Carleton's is the only personality which links together
all four decades--the would-be American sixties, the
French-Canadian seventies, the Anglo-French-Canadian
eighties, and the bi-constitutional nineties--though, as
mentioned already, Murray ruled Canada for the first
seven years, 1759-66.
James Murray, the first British governor of Canada, was
a younger son of the fourth Lord Elibank. He was just
over forty, warm-hearted and warm-tempered, an excellent
French scholar, and every inch a soldier. He had been a
witness for the defence of Mordaunt at the court-martial
held to try the authors of the Rochefort fiasco in 1757.
Wolfe, who was a witness on the other side, referred to
him later on as 'my old antagonist Murray.' But Wolfe
knew a good man when he saw one and gave his full confidence
to his 'old antagonist' both at Louisbourg and Quebec.
Murray was not born under a lucky star. He saw three
defeats in three successive wars. He began his service
with the abortive attack on pestilential Cartagena, where
Wolfe's father was present as adjutant-general. In
mid-career he lost the battle of Ste Foy. [Footnote:
See _The Winning of Canada_, chap. viii. See also, for
the best account of this battle and other events of the
year between Wolfe's victory and the surrender of Montreal,
_The Fall of Canada_, by George M. Wrong. Oxford, 1914.]
And his active military life ended with his surrender of
Minorca in 1782. But he was greatly distinguished for
honour and steadfastness on all occasions. An admiring
contemporary described him as a model of all the military
virtues except prudence. But he had more prudence and
less genius than his admirer thought; and he showed a
marked talent for general government. The problem before
him was harder than his superiors could believe. He was
expected to prepare for assimilation some sixty-five
thousand 'new subjects' who were mostly alien in religion
and wholly alien in every other way. But, for the moment,
this proved the least of his many difficulties because
no immediate results were required.
While the war went on in Europe Canada remained nominally
a part of the enemy's dominions, and so, of course, was
subject to military rule. Sir Jeffery Amherst, the British
commander-in-chief in America, took up his headquarters
in New York. Under him Murray commanded Canada from
Quebec. Under Murray, Colonel Burton commanded the district
of Three Rivers while General Gage commanded the district
of Montreal, which then extended to the western wilds.
[Footnote: See _The War Chief of the Ottawas_, chap. iii.]
Murray's first great trouble arose in 1761. It was caused
by an outrageous War Office order that fourpence a day
should be stopped from the soldiers to pay for the rations
they had always got free. Such gross injustice, coming
in time of war and applied to soldiers who richly deserved
reward, made the veterans 'mad with rage.' Quebec promised
to be the scene of a wild mutiny. Murray, like all his
officers, thought the stoppage nothing short of robbery.
But he threw himself into the breach. He assembled the
officers and explained that they must die to the last
man rather than allow the mutineers a free hand. He then
held a general parade at which he ordered the troops to
march between two flag-poles on pain of instant death,
promising to kill with his own hands the first man who
refused. He added that he was ready to hear and forward
any well-founded complaint, but that, since insubordination
had been openly threatened, he would insist on subordination
being publicly shown. Then, amid tense silence, he gave
the word of command--_Quick, March!_--while every officer
felt his trigger. To the immense relief of all concerned
the men stepped off, marched straight between the flags
and back to quarters, tamed. The criminal War Office
blunder was rectified and peace was restored in the ranks.
'Murray's Report' of 1762 gives us a good view of the
Canada of that day and shows the attitude of the British
towards their new possession. Canada had been conquered
by Great Britain, with some help from the American
colonies, for three main reasons: first, to strike a
death-blow at French dominion in America; secondly, to
increase the opportunities of British seaborne trade;
and, thirdly, to enlarge the area available for British
settlement. When Murray was instructed to prepare a report
on Canada he had to keep all this in mind; for the
government wished to satisfy the public both at home and
in the colonies. He had to examine the military strength
of the country and the disposition of its population in
case of future wars with France. He had to satisfy the
natural curiosity of men like the London merchants. And
he had to show how and where English-speaking settlers
could go in and make Canada not only a British possession
but the fourteenth British colony in North America. Burton
and Gage were also instructed to report about their own
districts of Three Rivers and Montreal. The documents
they prepared were tacked on to Murray's. By June 1762
the work was completed and sent on to Amherst, who sent
it to England in ample time to be studied there before
the opening of the impending negotiations for peace.
Murray was greatly concerned about the military strength
of Quebec, then, as always, the key of Canada. Like the
unfortunate Montcalm he found the walls of Quebec badly
built, badly placed, and falling into ruins, and he
thought they could not be defended by three thousand men
against 'a well conducted _Coup-de-main_.' He proposed
to crown Cape Diamond with a proper citadel, which would
overawe the disaffected in Quebec itself and defend the
place against an outside enemy long enough to let a
British fleet come up to its relief. The rest of the
country was defended by little garrisons at Three Rivers
and Montreal as well as by several small detachments
distributed among the trading-posts where the white men
and the red met in the depths of the western wilderness.