The Father of British Canada Part 7

No war came. And, as we have seen already, Carleton's last year, 1796, was more peaceful than his first. But even then the external dangers made the governor-general's post a very trying one, especially when internal troubles were equally rife. Thus Carleton never enjoyed a single day without its anxious moments till, old and growing weary, though devoted as ever, he finally left Quebec on the 9th of July. This was the second occasion on which he had been forced to resign by unfair treatment at the hands of those who should have been his best support. It was infinitely worse the first time, when he was stabbed in the back by that shameless political a.s.sa.s.sin, Lord George Germain. But the second was also inexcusable because there could be no doubt whatever as to which of the incompatibles should have left his post--the replaceable Simcoe or the irreplaceable Carleton. Yet as H.M.S.

_Active_ rounded Point Levy, and the great stronghold of Quebec faded from his view, Carleton had at least the satisfaction of knowing that he had been the princ.i.p.al saviour of one British Canada and the princ.i.p.al founder of another.

CHAPTER X

'NUNC DIMITTIS'

1796-1808

Our tale is told.

The _Active_ was wrecked on the island of Anticosti, where the estuary of the St Lawrence joins the Gulf. No lives were lost, and the Carletons reached Perce in Gaspe quite safely in a little coasting vessel. Then a s.h.i.+p came round from Halifax and sailed the family over to England at the end of September, just thirty years after Carleton had come out to Canada to take up a burden of oversea governance such as no other viceroy, in any part of the world-encircling British Empire, has ever borne so long.

He lived to become a wonderful link with the past. When he died at home in England he was in the sixty-seventh year of his connection with the Army and in the eighty-fifth of his age. More than any other man of note he brought the days of Marlborough into touch with those of Wellington, though a century lay between. At the time he received his first commission most of the senior officers were old Marlburians. At the time of his death Nelson had already won Trafalgar, Napoleon had already been emperor of the French for nearly three years, and Wellington had already begun the great Peninsular campaigns. Carleton's own life thus const.i.tutes a most remarkable link between two very different eras of Imperial history. But he and his wife together const.i.tute a still more remarkable link between two eras of Canadian history which are still farther apart. At first sight it seems almost impossible that he, who was the trusted friend o Wolfe, and she, who learned deportment at Versailles in the reign of Louis Quinze, should together make up a living link between 1690, when Frontenac saved Quebec from the American Colonials under Phips, and 1867, when the new Dominion was proclaimed there. But it is true. Carleton, born in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, knew several old men who had served at the Battle of the Boyne, which was fought three months before Frontenac sent his defiance to Phips 'from the mouth of my cannon.' Carleton's wife, living far on into the second quarter of the nineteenth century, knew several rising young men who saw the Dominion of Canada well started on its great career.

All Carleton's sons went into the Army and all died on active service. The fourth was killed in 1814 at Bergen-op-Zoom carrying the same sword that Carleton himself had used there sixty-seven years before. A picture of the first siege of Bergen-op-Zoom hangs in the dining-room of the family seat at Greywell Hill to remind successive generations of their martial ancestors. But no Carleton needs to be reminded of a man's first duty at the call to arms. The present holder of the Dorchester estates and t.i.tle is a woman. But her son and heir went straight to the front with the cavalry of the first British army corps to take the field in Belgium during the Great World War of 1914.

Carleton spent most of his last twelve years at Kempshot near Basingstoke because he kept his stud there and horses were his chief delight. But he died at Stubbings, his place near Maidenhead beside the silver Thames, on the 10th of November 1808.

Thus, after an unadventurous youth and early manhood, he spent his long maturity steering the s.h.i.+p of state through troublous seas abroad; then pa.s.sed life's evening in the quiet haven of his home.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The Seigneurs and the Loyalists, both closely a.s.sociated with Carleton's Canadian career, are treated in two volumes of the present Series: _The Seigneurs of Old Canada_ and _The United Empire Loyalists_. Two other volumes also provide profitable reading: _The War Chief of the Six Nations: A Chronicle of Brant_, the Indian leader who was to Carleton's day what Tec.u.mseh was to Brock's, and _The War Chief of the Ottawas: A Chronicle of the Pontiac War_.

Only one life of Carleton has been written, _Lord Dorchester_, by A. G. Bradley (1907). The student should also consult _John Graves Simcoe_, by Duncan Campbell Scott (1905), _Sir Frederick Haldimand_, by Jean McIlwraith (1904), and _A History of Canada from 1763 to 1812_ by Sir Charles Lucas. Carleton is the leading character in the first half of the third volume of _Canada and its Provinces_, which, being the work of different authors, throws light on his character from several different British points of view as well as from several different kinds of evidence. Kingsford's _History of Canada_, volumes iv to vii, treats the period in considerable detail. Justin Smith's two volumes, _Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony_, is the work of a most painstaking American scholar who had already produced an excellent account of _Arnold's March from Cambridge to Quebec_, in which, for the first time, _Arnold's Journal_ was printed word for word. _Arnold's Expedition to Quebec_, by J.

Codman, is another careful work. These are the complements of the British books mentioned above, as they emphasize the American point of view and draw more from American than from British sources of original information. The unfortunate defect of _Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony_ is that the author's efforts to be sprightly at all costs tend to repel the serious student, while his very thoroughness itself repels the merely casual reader.

So many absurd or perverting mistakes are still made about the life and times of Carleton, and a full understanding of his career is of such vital importance to Canadian history, that no accounts given in the general run of books--including many so-called 'standard works'--should be accepted without reference to the original authorities. Justin Smith's books, cited above, have useful lists of authorities; though there is no discrimination between doc.u.ments of very different value.

The original British diaries kept during Montgomery and Arnold's beleaguerment have been published by the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in two volumes, at the end of which there is a very useful bibliography showing the whereabouts of the actual ma.n.u.scripts of these and many other doc.u.ments in English, French, and German. In addition to the American and British diarists who wrote in English there were several prominent French Canadians and German officers who kept most interesting journals which are still extant. The Dominion Archives at Ottawa possess an immense ma.s.s of originals, facsimiles, and verbatim copies of every kind, including maps and ill.u.s.trations. The Dominion Archivist, Dr Doughty, has himself edited, in collaboration with Professor Shortt, all the _Doc.u.ments relating to the Const.i.tutional History of Canada from 1759 to 1791_.

The present Chronicle is based on the original evidence of both sides.

END