Canada. 1865

I do not pretend to offer any new observations on the climate, soil, or capabilities of Canada, nor can I venture to call these pages a “work” on that great province. I have nothing novel to advance in the hope of attracting an immigration to its wide-spread territories, and any statistical facts and figures I may use are accessible to all interested in the commerce or in the past, present, and future of the land.

Nor do I write with any particular theory in view, or with any crotchet on the subject of colonies, outlying provinces, and dependencies, and their value or detriment to the dominant commercial and imperial power.

My actual acquaintance with the country and the people is only such as I acquired in a few weeks’ travelling


 in the depth of winter; and such sort of knowledge as I gathered would certainly afford no great excuse in itself for intruding my remarks or opinions on the public when so many excellent books on Canada already exist.

But it happened that my visit took place at a very remarkable period of Canadian and American history, and at a time, too, when certain doctrines, broached not for the first time, but urged with more than usual ability, as to the relations between what for convenience I call the mother-country and her colonies, were exciting great attention across the Atlantic.

When I left Washington in the winter, a great crisis had been peacefully but not willingly averted by a concession on the part of the Federal Government to what the sentiment of the American people considered an exhibition of brute force. The first year of the war had closed over the Federals in gloom. Their arms were not wielded with credit at home—if credit ever can attach to arms wielded in a civil war—and the foreign power which it had been their wont to treat with something as near akin to disrespect as diplomatic decency would permit, aroused by an act which outraged the laws of nations and provoked the censure of every European power with business on the waters, had made preparations which could only imply that she would have recourse to hostility if her demands for satisfaction were refused.

It was under these circumstances that England obtained the reparation for which she sought, and in the eyes of Americans filched a triumph over their flag and took an insolent advantage over their weakened power “to do as they pleased.” General McClellan,


 playing the part of Fabius, perhaps because he knew not how to play any other part, had fallen sick and was nigh at death’s door in the malarious winter at Washington. The great Union army, like a hybernating eel in the mud, lay motionless, between the Potomac and the clever imposture of the Confederate lines and wooden batteries at Manassas.

But haughty and hopeful as ever, in tone if not in heart, the Americans raved about vengeance for their own just concessions. They boasted that the seizure of Canada would be one of the measures of retaliation to which they intended promptly to resort, as the indemnity to their injured vanity and as compensation for the surrender of Messrs. Mason and Slidell.

Meanwhile the small force of British troops stationed in Canada was reinforced by the speedy dispatch of some picked regiments from England, which did not raise it much beyond its regular strength, and tardy steps were taken to organise an efficient militia in the province. The volunteer movement had extended its influence across the ocean, and a commendable activity all over the British Colonies and Canada falsified the complacent statements of the American papers that the people were not loyal to the Crown nor careful of the connection, which, it was alleged, they would gladly substitute for the protection of the standard of the Northern Republic.

All these necessary precautions against the consequences of the refusal of the American Government to yield the passengers taken from under our flag, were watched angrily and jealously in the States. The British reinforcements were ridiculed; their tedious passages, their cheerless marches, were jeeringly chronicled.


 Whole ships were reported to have gone down with living cargoes. Those who landed were represented as being borne on sleighs by sufferance routes, which would be impracticable in war. The Canadians were abused—and so were the Provincialists. The volunteers were assailed with the weapons which the American press knows so well how to use.

But that was false policy. It gave a stimulus to the loyal feeling of the subjects of the Crown. The Canadian press retorted, and, exulting in the triumph of the Home Government over the Republican Administration, uttered the taunts which Americans least brook to hear.

It was assumed that the task of vengeance and conquest would be light. I received letters in which it was maintained that Canada could not be defended, and that she was not worth defending; others merely urged that if the Canadians would not take a prominent part in aid of imperial measures for their protection, they must be handed over to the invading Americans; that their country cost more than it was worth, and that it was a mistake to keep any connection with the wrong side of the ledger, no matter what the results of rupturing it might be.

Americans told me “General Scott declares the Canadian frontier is not capable of defence.” True, Americans had told me some months ago that General Scott, now mis en retraite in New York, after a hasty return from Europe—not, as was asserted, with diplomatic authority or with the view of invading Canada, but to save his pension in case of foreign war—would be in Richmond about July 22nd or 24th, 1861. I heard some views of the same kind from our own officers,


 who expressed doubts respecting the possibility of a successful resistance to American invasion.

Now if that were so, it struck me that the troops we had in the country could prove but of little use, and that at the same time the relative condition of strength between the United States and Great Britain had undergone a vital change in face of the very agencies which ought to have established more solidly the results obtained in the last trial of force and resources between them on Canadian ground. It was worth while trying to ascertain the truth and to resolve these questions.

The United States, dreading a foreign war which might interfere with their invasion of the Southern States, had ungraciously made a concession, in revenge for making which their press declared they would on the first convenient occasion make war on the Power they had offended, in a country which they had invaded with all their united power—when Great Britain, steamless and remote, was engaged in European conflicts and destitute of maritime allies—only to meet with defeat, or with success of a nature to prove their incompetency to conquer.

Was the power of this distracted republic, contending furiously with rebellious members, then, become so great? If so, with what motive was Great Britain hurrying across the sea the élite of her troops—too few to save these vast domains, too many to lose, and far too many to return as paroled prisoners? Why try to defend on such terms what was worthless and indefensible? Canada, if not susceptible of defence, would be certainly unsuitable as a base for offensive operations against the States. Obviously the matter


 stood thus: that the military question depended on the temper and spirit of the people themselves.

The whole force of the Canadians, sustained by Great Britain, might, apparently, defy all the offensive power of the United States; and I desired to ascertain in what condition were their temper and defences.

At this time British officers were endeavouring to prepare the possessions of the Crown against threatened invasion. The Americans on their side were busy fortifying some important points on the lakes.

General Totten, an officer of the United States Engineers, well known for his ability, was understood to be engaged on a very elaborate plan of works along the frontier. Colonel Gordon, whose name will be for ever associated with the left attack at the siege of Sebastopol, aided by an experienced staff, was employed on our side, studying the capabilities of the frontier, and maturing a plan for the consideration of the Government in case of an American war.

There were reasons, too, of a personal character for my visiting Canada. I had a fever, which was contracted at Washington and laid me prostrate at New York. It was of the low typhoid type, which proved fatal to so many in the Federal army at the same time, and its effects made me weaker for the time than I ever remember to have been. There was no promise whatever of military operations, and I read every day of the arrival of friends and acquaintances in Canada, whose faces it would be pleasant to see, after the endurance of so many hostile glances and such public exhibition of ill-will.

I do not wish to dwell on private annoyances, but as an instance of the feeling displayed towards me in New


 York I may mention one circumstance. On my arrival in 1861 I was elected an honorary member of the club which derives its name from the state or city, and was indebted to its members for many acts of courtesy and for more than one entertainment. Returning to the city from Washington early this year, I was invited to dine at the same club by one or two of my friends. Certain members, as I afterwards heard, took umbrage at my presence, and fastened a quarrel on my entertainers. A day or two subsequently the people of New York were called on, by the notorious journalist who had honoured me with his animosity ever since I refused the dishonour of his acquaintance, to express their indignation at the conduct of the club; and the members received a characteristic reprimand for their presumption in letting me into the club, from which they had kept their censor and his clientele carefully out. My offence was rank; and public opinion—or what is called so—perhaps was in favour of the ostracism at that moment; for, as far as I know, the people must have believed I was the sole cause of the Federal defeat and flight at Bull Run.

There was some novelty in the idea of starting for Canada in the midst of the bitter winter wind and the dazzling snow; but I would have gone to Nova Zembla at the time to have escaped the monotony of New York, which the effects of recent illness rendered more irksome.

New York is among cities, what one of the lower order of molluscous animals, with a single intestinal canal, is to a creature of a higher development, with various organs, and full of veins and arteries. Up and down the Broadway passes the stream of life


 to and from the heart in Wall-street. In the narrow space from water to water on either side of this dry canal there is comparatively little animation, and nothing at all to reward the researches of a stranger.

Johnson’s remark about Fleet-street would apply with truth to the gawky thoroughfare of the Atlantic Tyre. In the Broadway or its “west-end” extensions are to be found all the hotels, which are the ganglia of the feverish nervous system so incessantly agitated by the operations of the journalistic insects living in secret cysts nigh at hand. All day the great tideway is rolling in, headed by a noisy crest of little boys, with extras under their arms, and heralded by a confused surfy murmur of voices telling “lies” for cents, and enunciating “Another Great Union Victory!” in one great bore; or it is rushing out again with a dismal leaden current, laden with doubts and fears, as the news of some disaster breaks through the locks of government reservoirs and floods the press.

In my hotel, where I was fain to seclude myself in my illness, and to follow the very un-American practice of living in a suite of private rooms, there was but little conflict of opinion on any great event, real or fictitious, which turned up from day to day. The guests and visitors were well-nigh all of one way of thinking. They were of the old conservative party, so oddly denominated Democrats, who believed in States Rights: in the right of states to create and maintain their domestic institutions—to secede, if they pleased, from the Union—to resist the attempts of the General Government of the other states to coerce them by force of arms.

Some of these gentlemen were satisfied the South


 would not be coerced; some hoped the South would resist successfully. None, I fear, were “loyal” to President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, and I am sure none would have said so much for either of them or their friends as I would.

The majority principle forces people who hold similar views to meet together, and to select the same hotels to live in. This is unfortunate for a stranger who desires to hear the views of both sides. In the New York, from the highly artistic and skilful operator who flashed out cocktails at the bar, up to the highest authority, there was no man who would like to say that he was on good terms with Mr. Sumner, or that he did not think Mr. Seward the representative of evil principles. The rule was proved by the exceptions: two I suspect there were—stout Irish waiters, who did not approve of the attempts to destroy “our glorious Union,” but who did not find the atmosphere of the place quite favourable to the free expression of the opinion they mildly hinted at to myself.

The sameness of ideas, of expressions, of faces, became unbearable. I could tell quite well by the look of men’s faces what news they had heard, and what they were saying or going to say about it. Here were crafty politicals and practical men of business, and persons of a philosophical and reflective temperament, as well as the foolish, the mere pleasure-hunters, and the unthinking mass of an hotel world, all looking forward to a near to-morrow to end the woes of the state, always waiting for a “decisive” battle or “an indignant uprising of the people” to drive the Republicans out of power and office.

Not one of them could or would see that the contest,


 when terminated, would give birth to others—that the vast bodies of diverse interests, prejudices, hatreds, and wrongs set in motion by war over so enormous a surface, where they had been kept suspended and inert by the powers of compromise, could never be reconsolidated and restored to the same state as before, and that it would be the work of time, the labour of many years, ere they could settle to rest in any shape whatever.

I am told respectable Americans do not use the word “Britisher,” but I am bound to say I heard Americans who looked very respectable using the word at the time of which I speak, when there was still irritation on both sides in consequence of the surrender of Mason and Slidell—in the minds of the friends of the South, because they were balked in their anticipation of a foreign war; in the Federal mind, because, after much threatening and menaces, they had seen the captives surrendered to the British by the President, or, more properly speaking, by Mr. Seward.

Hence it was, perhaps, that Canada was always mentioned in such a tone of contempt, as though the speakers sought to relieve their feelings by abuse of a British dependency.

“Goin’ to Canada!” exclaimed the faithful Milesian who had been my attendant—in fact, my substitute for a nurse. “Lord help us! That’s a poor place, anyhow. I thought you’d be contint wid the snow we’ve got here. It’s plinty, anyhow. But Canada!” The man had never been there in his life, but he spoke as if it were beyond the bounds of civilisation. He had served in a British regiment for many years; many of his brothers had been, I think he told me, in the service,


 but now they were all in the States, and to his notion thriving like himself.

In no country on earth is an old nationality so soon absorbed as in America. I am inclined to think the regard professed for England by American literary men is sentimental, and is produced by education and study rather than by any feeling transmitted in families or by society.

The emigrant, it is remarked, speedily forgets—in the hurry of his new life the ways of the old slip out of his memory. One day I said to my man, as a regiment of volunteers was marching down Broadway, “Those fellows are not quite as well set up as the 41st, Pat.” “Well, indeed, and that’s thrue; but they’d fight as well I b’lieve, and better maybe, if they’d the officers, poor craychures! Anyhow,” continued he with great gravity, “they can’t be flogged for nothin’ or for anything.” “Were you ever flogged?” “No, sirir—not a lash ever touched my back, but I’ve known fine sogers spiled by it.” It is likely enough that he had never thought on the subject till he came to the States—a short time before and he would have resented deeply the idea that any regiment on earth could stand before Her Majesty’s 41st.

It was now near the end of January, and as a gleam of fine weather might thaw the glorious Union army of the Potomac, and induce them to advance on the inglorious army of the Confederacy, I resolved to make the best of my way northwards forthwith.

My companions were a young British officer, distinguished in the Crimea, in India, and in China, who represented a borough in Parliament, and had come out to see the great contest which


 was raging in the United States; and an English gentleman, who happened to be at New York, and was anxious to have a look at Niagara, even in its winter dress.

On the 27th January we were all packed to start by the 5.30 p.m. train by Albany to Niagara, and thence to Toronto. The landlord made me up a small assortment of provisions, as in snow-time trains are not always certain of anything but irregularity. I was regarded as one who was about to make myself needlessly miserable when he might continue in much happiness. “You had better stay, sir, for a few days. I have certain intelligence, let me whisper you, that the Abolitionists will be whipped at the end of this week, and old Abe driven out of Washington.”

The little boys still shout out, “Another great Union victory.” The last, by-the-bye, was of General Thomas, at Somerset, which has gradually sublimed into uncertainty, though he handled his men well, and is not bad at a despatch.

The credulity of the American mind is beyond belief. Populus vult decipi—and certainly its wishes are complied with to the fullest extent. The process of a Union victory, from its birth in the first telegram down to its dissolution in the last despatch, is curious enough.

Out comes an extra of the New York Herald—“Glorious Union Victory off Little Bear Creek, Mo.!—Five Thousand Rebels Disposed of!—Grand Skedaddle!—General Pumpkin’s Brilliant Charge!—He Out-Murats Murat!—Sanguinary Encounters!—Cassius Mudd’s Invincibles!—Doom of the Confederacy!—Jeff Davis gone to Texas!” and so on, with a display o


 large type, in double-headed lines, and a profusion of notes of admiration.

There is excitement in the bar-rooms. The Democrats look down-hearted. The War Christians are jubilant. Fiery eyes devour the columns, which contain but an elaboration of the heading—swelled perhaps with a biographical sketch of Brigadier-General Cyrus Washington Pumpkin, “who was educated at West Point, where he graduated with Generals Beauregard and McDowell, and eventually subsided into pork-packing at Cincinnati, where he was captain of a fine company till the war broke out, when he tendered his sword,” &c. Cassius Mudd’s biography is of course reprinted for the twentieth time, and there is a list of the names of all the officers in the regiments near the presumed scene of action.

Then comes the action:—“An intelligent gentleman has just arrived at Chicago, and has seen Dr. Bray, to whom he has given full particulars of the fight. It was commenced by Lieutenant Epaminondas Bellows (‘son of our respected fellow-citizen, the President of the Bellowstown and Bellona Railway’—here follows a biography of Bellows), who was out scouting with ten more of our boys when they fell into an ambuscade, which opened on them with masked batteries, uttering unearthly yells. With Spartan courage the little band returned the fire, and kept the Seceshers, who were at least 500 strong, at bay till their ammunition was exhausted. Bellows, his form dilated with patriotism, his mellow tones ringing above the storm of battle, was urged to fly by a tempter, whose name we suppress. The heroic youth struck the cowardly traitor to the earth, and indignantly invited the enemy to come on.


 They did so at last. The lieutenant, resisting desperately, then fell, and our men carried his body to the camp, to the skirts of which they were followed by the Secesh cavalry and four guns. Our loss was only two more—the enemy are calculated to have lost 85. The farmers at Munchausen say they were busy all day carrying away their dead in carts.

“On reaching the camp, General Pumpkin thought it right to drive back the dastardly polluters of our country’s flag. He disposed his troops in platoons, according to the celebrated disposition made by Miltiades at Marathon, covering his wings with squadrons of artillery in columns of sub-divisions, with a reserve of cavalry in echelon; but he improved upon the idea by adding the combination of solid squares and skirmishers in the third line, by which Alexander the Great decided the Battle of Granicus.

“In this order, then, the Union troops advanced till they came to Little Bear Creek. Here, to their great astonishment, they found the enemy under General Jefferson Brick in person (Brick will be remembered by many here as the intelligent clerk in our advertisement department, but he was deeply tainted with Secesh sentiments, and on the unfurling of our flag manifested them in such a manner that we were obliged to dispense with his services). The infamous destroyer of his country’s happiness had posted his men so that we could not see them. They were at least three to one—mustering some 7,000, with guns, caissons, baggage waggons, and standards in proportion—and were arranged in an obtuse angle, of which the smaller end was composed of a mass of veterans, in the order adopted by Napoleon with the Old Guard at Waterloo:


 the larger, consisting of the Whoop-owl Bushwackers and the Squash River Legion in potence, threatened us with destruction if we advanced on the other wing, whilst we were equally exposed to danger if we remained where we were.

“General Pumpkin’s conduct is, at this most critical moment, generally described as being worthy of the best days of Roman story. He simply gave the word ‘Charge.’ ‘What, General?’ exclaimed our informant. ‘Charge! Sir,’ said the general, with a sternness which permitted no further question. With a yell our gallant fellows dashed at the enemy, but the water was too deep in the creek, and they retired with terrific loss. The enemy then dashed at them in turn. They drove our right for three miles; we drove their left for three-and-a-quarter miles. Their centre drove our left, and our right drove their centre again. They took five of our guns; we took six of theirs and a bread-cart.

“Night put an end to this dreadful struggle, in which American troops set an example to the war-seamed soldiers of antiquity. Next morning General Pumpkin pushed across to Pugstown, and occupied it in force. Union sentiment is rife all through Missouri. We demand that General Pumpkin be at once placed at the head of the Army of the Potomac.”

Now all this—in no degree exaggerated—and the like of which I have read over and over again, affords infinite comfort or causes great depression to New York for an hour or so, coupled with an “editorial,” in which the energy and enterprise of the Scarron are duly eulogised, old Greeley’s hat and breeches and umbrella handled with charming wit and eloquence, and the inevitable


 flight of the Richmond Government to Texas clearly demonstrated. Next day some little doubt is expressed as to the exact locality of the fight—“Pumpkin’s force was at Big Bear, 180 miles west of the place indicated. We doubt not, however, the account is substantially correct, and that the Secesh forces have been pretty badly whipped.”

Next day the casualties are reduced from 200 killed and 310 wounded to 96 killed and none wounded; and scrutinising eyes notice a statement, in small type, that the “father of Lieutenant Bellows has written to us to state his son was not engaged on the occasion in question, but was at home on furlough.” And by the time “Another Great Union Victory!” is ready, the fact oozes out, but is by no means considered worth a thought, that General Pumpkin has had an encounter with the Confederates in which he suffered a defeat, and that he has gone into winter quarters.

I do not suppose for a moment that these deceitful agencies are exercised only in the North, but am persuaded, from what I know, that the Southern people are at least as anxious for news, and as liable to be led away by suppressions of truth or distorted narratives, as those of the Free States. If we had had a telegraphic system and a newspaper press during the Wars of the Roses, or the struggle of 1645, it is probable our partisans, on both sides, would have been as open to imposture; but I do not think they would have continued long in the faith that the ever-detected impostor was still worthy of credence.