Bloody Relations (16 page)

“We're all ears,” O'Driscoll said.

“My view so far is that the conflict in Quebec is racially based. The political, religious, and social differences between French and English are wide enough to be insurmountable in the short term and problematic in the long term. In Upper Canada the conflict is political—pure and simple.”

“I wouldn't call it simple!” Finney said. “Nor is it unrelated to religion. I suppose Strachan was in here last evening bending your ear about the Clergy Reserves and the divine right of the Church of England.”

“I can't deny it,” Durham said with a rare smile. “But even the Clergy Reserves question is political. For example, if political power and will were not gridlocked between the governor with his appointed bodies and the elected assembly, then some compromise solution with the support of at least a decent majority of the populace would have been long ago worked out.”

“You're not seriously suggesting that the authority of the governor or his royal prerogative be subject to the passing whim of the rabble in the assembly?” O'Driscoll fumed.

Assemblyman Baldwin coughed discreetly.

“Let His Lordship speak,” Hepburn said sharply.

“I won't be silenced!”

That must have been some card game, Marc thought.

“As I was saying,” Durham continued, “I view the issue here as political, with entrenched positions taken up by the established elite on the one hand and the self-made men and prosperous
farmers on the other. If I had merely to propose a solution for Upper Canada, my task would be straightforward. I would recommend responsible government along the British model.”

“I knew it!” cried Finney, slapping the table as he did his pulpit on Sundays.

“I don't see any point in remaining—” O'Driscoll began, starting to rise.

“But, of course, I do not have that luxury,” Durham said, unfazed, and O'Driscoll sat down again. “A rebellious or disaffected Quebec, sharing the St. Lawrence River and a border with the rapacious republic to the south, will guarantee the economic collapse of this province regardless of its political structure. So I am compelled to work out a single, overarching set of solutions involving both the Canadas.”

“But I don't see the problem,” O'Driscoll said. “We've defeated the French. The so-called patriots abroad will be crushed before the new year. What does it matter if the French are disaffected? They forfeited their right to have any say when they took up arms against the monarch.”

“And someday they'll thank us for freeing them from the pope,” Finney added with the conviction of the righteous.

“But the French are the vast majority in that province,” Durham said. “They aren't likely to commit mass suicide just to please us.”

“If the provinces were united, however,” Hepburn ventured, “we English would soon be the majority.”

“That's the conclusion I've been moving towards these past few weeks,” Durham said without particular emphasis.

Harris spoke next. “You figure the French will be outmanoeuvred by the English in a single parliament?”

Marc suddenly recalled that Harris was not only Catholic but was married to a woman from Quebec.

“I wouldn't characterize it in quite those terms,” Durham said, and continued in a much more solemn tone: “My considered opinion is that the Quebec French are principally a rural people, an unsophisticated peasantry under the thumb of their priests and unable to liberate themselves from a medieval and pernicious seigneurial system. The landed aristocracy is minuscule in number, there is an impoverished middle class, and no universal and secular school system. In brief, Quebec is as different from Upper Canada as it is possible to be. My plan on first arriving here was to create a federated state composed of all five provinces—”

“That's preposterous!” O'Driscoll scoffed. “We can't get two provinces to agree, how could you persuade five of them?”

“Exactly what I concluded when I saw that Quebec's conflicts were unresolvable in and of themselves. So I started thinking about my fallback scheme: a union of the two Canadas with a single parliament. In this scheme the British citizens would very nearly equal the French. With the genius of the British political system before them and secure in the protection of British jurisprudence and due process, along with the satisfactions of economic growth and prosperity, the French will, over time, accept and eventually prefer your way of life.”

“You're suggesting that the French race is inferior?” Harris said, his voice raised for the first time.

“In the particular context and way that I just outlined, yes. As a Whig who is occasionally accused of being a Radical, I believe that political freedom is the first necessity of man. Independence of mind and enlightened self-interest will inexorably lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. They are also most
conducive to personal well-being and self-esteem. So in that context and in their current circumstances, yes, the Quebec people are ipso facto inferior.”

“But surely you're being naive or feckless,” Finney said, “if you expect three hundred thousand Norman peasants who've been here for two hundred years to turn into little Geordies in a generation. And don't go underestimating the pope.”

O'Driscoll grunted his agreement.

“Let me explain more fully,” Durham said. “I don't for a moment think that the French will abandon their religion or the customs of two centuries. Nor do I envision the English doing so, who are now in charge here and hanging on to their Englishness like a drowning sailor clinging to the last oar.” Durham ignored the multiple harrumphs. “That phenomenon is at the root of your problem. What is perfectly plain to any objective outsider is the degree to which the general populace of Upper Canada, despite its mix of British and American stock, has become neither.”

“Nonsense, sir! You're uttering pure, republican propaganda,” O'Driscoll fumed again.

“Well, why don't you look at what's around you. In two generations most of you native-born have lost your accents without adopting the American twang. You have no effective established church.”

This drew alleluias from Methodist Finney and Presbyterian O'Driscoll.

“You have no entrenched, hereditary aristocracy. Here, a gentleman may soil his hands with labour and still call himself a gentleman. Despite the desperate efforts of the Family Compact to stay the drift towards equality, the levelling of the classes has proceeded apace—not towards the lowest common denominator but, from what I've seen, towards the middle. I fought for
five years to have Britain's rotten boroughs eliminated and its cities represented in Parliament after one hundred and forty years of disenfranchisement. I failed to have the secret ballot made part of the Reform Bill, so at home seats in the Commons are still routinely purchased for five thousand pounds by both Whigs and Tories. Here there are no such rotten boroughs. Ridings are created rationally. The property qualification for the franchise is more generous. In my judgement, the broadly based ownership of property—the preponderance of yeoman farmers, so to speak—combined with an advancing and rational political system and freedom from the disease of inherited entitlement is rapidly producing an indigenous British North American culture.”

“What are you saying, then?” Hepburn asked, mystified.

“I'm saying that if we can find a productive political structure, all the other parts are already in place for these provinces to become uniquely something of their own. A hundred years from now, it will not matter whether your ancestors were Norman or Viking or Celt. But this ideal cannot even be whispered aloud until a productive political arrangement is created.”

Which, Marc thought, might well depend on his finding Sarah McConkey's killer.

“Let's get back to the notion of a union,” Hepburn said helpfully.

“Surely as victors we would have a majority in any unified assembly,” O'Driscoll declared.

“I think the best we can do, given the larger population of Quebec, is guarantee equal representation.”

“But the capital would have to be here, well away from the evil influences down there,” Finney said. “And only English ought to be spoken in the legislature.”

“I agree, but once the parliament is functioning, these questions will become a matter for the house itself to decide.”

“I can't see Sir Allan MacNab or John Strachan sitting in the same chamber with men who have taken up the sword,” Finney opined.

“The whole idea is unnecessary,” O'Driscoll said.

“You have a scheme of your own?” Durham asked, leaning forward.

“Yes. It is not mine but rather one that has wide support in the current assembly and is endorsed by many of the community leaders.”

“Then perhaps I heard it proposed last evening,” Durham said dryly.

“The solution we offer is straightforward,” O'Driscoll continued, and Marc noted the nods of assent from the other three whist players. “Upper Canada is to annex that part of Quebec that includes the island of Montreal. That will bring into the new state the mercantile and financial powers of the English minority there, leaving the French with the rest of the province, with their rural economy and ancient capital. They will be governed by the Queen's envoy and his appointed executive, though it would seem prudent in the long run to leave them to their own quaint ways and devices. In the meantime an expanded Upper Canada can get on with the business of prospering and maintaining its British and nonrepublican character.”

“With a conservative assembly as you have now,” Durham said, straight-faced, “and a strong lieutenant-governor like Sir George Arthur.”

“You see our point precisely,” Harris said, missing Durham's entirely. “My dear wife is from Quebec, but even she realizes that
without economic prosperity and a strong monarchist hand at the tiller, no race or religion is secure from the twin tyrannies of poverty and secular republicanism. Since the French in Quebec have found our ways intolerable, why not give them back their farms and parishes, and leave them to fend for themselves. Any of them who wish to better their lot by joining the nineteenth century may emigrate here, and be welcomed.”

“Are you saying, then, that you find any suggestion for a unified Canadian province or an equitable federated state intolerable?” Durham said, surveying the assembled grandees.

“We are,” Finney said. “We do not wish to share power with the French in an elected assembly unless the balance is weighted in our favour. And we don't envision a governor appointing them to his Executive Council or acknowledging their eccentric whims.”

“Nor do we wish any form of responsible government that would curtail the governor's absolute right to choose his own advisers and execute the Queen's will,” O'Driscoll added, as if that salient point had been overlooked.

“We haven't heard from you, Mr. Baldwin,” Durham said.

“I've been listening, Your Lordship,” Robert Baldwin said. “My views are well known: without genuine responsible government, whether we are placed in a united legislature with the French or not, none of the issues that prompted the revolt will be resolved.”

“Poppycock!” O'Driscoll snorted. “Responsible government is the one concession that must never—
never
—be made! It is a direct threat to the monarchy.”

“It'll turn this province into a republic with all the horrors we've watched with dismay in the United States,” Finney added.

“There'll be anarchy in the streets,” Harris averred. “Commerce will grind to a halt. We'll be ruled by the rabble!”

“I take your point, gentlemen,” Durham said. “But I should mention that despite the warnings given me by Sir John Colborne and Sir George Arthur that my life was certain to be in danger, Lady Durham and I travelled to New York State and found the natives both civilized and uninterested in regicide.”

“Do not make light of our concern, sir,” O'Driscoll said darkly.

“I believe you had not finished your commentary, Mr. Baldwin. Would you be so good as to resume?”

“What I wished to add to my initial comment,” Baldwin said, “is a warning to Your Lordship not to expect all the English and the French to line up with their own kind. The Rouge party in Quebec has more in common with English Reformers like me than with the Bleus, who speak their language. Nor are they likely to fade away in the near or distant future.”

O'Driscoll was about to disagree when Charles Buller interjected from his corner, “Time to break, milord?”

“Ah, so it is,” Durham said affably. “We shall resume after the luncheon that Sir George has laid on for us in his quarters. Mr. Buller will show you to your places. Thank you for your contributions thus far. After noon I'd like to focus on specific issues like the Clergy Reserves, the university question, the banking system, and the state of the public service.”

As the others dutifully followed Charles Buller towards the other section of Government House, Durham lingered in the foyer to talk to Marc.

“Well, there they are,” he said. “They seem to be united chiefly by their adherence to the extreme solution, as I term it: enlightened partition or divide and abandon.”

“That could well be the grounds for a conspiracy against you,”
Marc said. “It's the one plan you would never endorse. That and their implacable opposition to responsible government.” Marc didn't add that he believed the chances of Lord Melbourne's administration's approving the latter recommendation were slight.

“If you had to choose one of them as the instigator and perhaps as the nemesis of my nephew, whom would you select?”

Marc did not hesitate: “Alasdair Hepburn.”

“But he spoke little and acted as a moderating influence.”

“That's precisely why I suspect him. He seemed capable of subtlety.”