Britain, their population was estimated at seventy 1866-7. thousand. This was probably below the mark; for in 1774 Sir Guy Carleton, who by his wisdom preserved these provinces from joining the American rebellion, told the House of Commons that it was about a hundred and fifty thousand, almost all Catholic, and almost all French. In 1866, when there were more Protestants than Catholics, and fewer French than English, the inhabitants of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick amounted to four millions. Lord Durham's Report of 1838, which led to the union of Upper and Lower Canada, had suggested Federation as a final settlement. At that time, and for many years afterwards, defective means of communication were a fatal obstacle to this scheme, and it was now proposed to remove the difficulty by constructing a railway from Halifax to Quebec. Since 1858 Ottawa had been the capital of the Dominion. But it was at Quebec in 1864 that the first Conference of Delegates was held to promote a formal Federation of the North American Provinces. Lord Palmerston's Government expressed cordial sympathy through Mr. Cardwell, a statesman with the rare gift of foresight, who acted on the two principles of giving the Colonies perfect liberty, and providing, by the recall of British troops, that they should be no burden on the British tax-payer. Lord Carnarvon, adopting his predecessor's policy, introduced the Federation Bill into the House of Lords at the beginning of the new session. There it was warmly welcomed by Lord Russell, and unanimously read a second time. All its stages in Feb. 19, both Houses were equally smooth, and the opposition of Nova Scotia, which had long impeded its appearance, was overcome. British Columbia and Vancouver Island on one side of the Continent, 1 Trevelyan's American Revolution, Part II. vol. i. p. 78. 1867. 1866. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island on the other, refused to join the new union.1 But Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were confederated, with the consent of their respective Legislatures, under the common name of Canada, with a Governor-General and a central Parliament sitting at Ottawa. Each Province was to have a Lieutenant-Governor and a separate Legislature for dealing with local affairs, while questions affecting the whole Dominion were reserved for the Dominion Parliament. This simple piece of constitutionmaking, which really emanated from the Canadians themselves, was both interesting in itself and successful in its results. But very few Englishmen, if any, appreciated its true significance at the time. It was regarded by most people as a step towards independence rather than a fresh guarantee for the unity of the whole by the greater strength and independence of the parts. Although Lord Carnarvon was unfortunately wrong in expecting that the larger Dominion would adopt a policy of Free Trade, he would have committed a far more serious mistake than any erroneous prophecy if he had attempted to restrict the commercial freedom of the Confederation. But the new Secretary of State was more felicitous than some of his political opponents when he described the Bill as removing for ever "all chances of disunion, and difference, and jealousy which could exist between the mother country and her child." Mr. Bright suggested the alternative courses of independence or annexation to the United States; and even Lord Russell, who had taken as Prime Minister a sympathetic interest in Colonial progress, went out of his way to declare that Canada should be allowed to set up for herself whenever she pleased. A politician of a different 1 British Columbia joined the Dominion in 1871. It now includes all North American possessions of the Crown, except Newfoundland. school, the able journalist who was then writing 1866. the Annual Summaries of the Times, remarked, after many months of calm reflection, that the Colonial Office, "once the most onerous department in the Imperial Government, was now in a great measure relieved of its legislative and administrative functions." Mr. Disraeli was silent. He had not found out the value of the Colonies in the development of party. Lord Derby did indeed propose for the Dominion an exquisitely felicitous motto in Latin,' which was was unfortunately not adopted. But neither he nor any of his contemporaries believed that the magnet would gravitate towards the more distant pole. The Federation Act was accompanied by a guarantee of three millions, being three-fourths of the sum which the Quebec and Halifax railway was expected to cost. Although this loan met with some opposition from strict economists, especially from Mr. Lowe, it received the powerful support of Mr. Gladstone, who had approved of it as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was carried by a very large majority. The security was perfect, being the revenues of the Colony, not the profits of the line, which would furthermore assist Canadians in making provision for their own defence. The outbreak in Jamaica, and the measures taken for its suppression, did not divide the front benches in the House of Commons. The new Government adopted the Report of the Commission and the recall of Mr. Eyre. Indeed Lord Carnarvon condemned the cruelties practised upon negroes and negresses more strongly than his predecessor. For a Governor of Jamaica he wisely had recourse to that great school of administrative capacity, the Civil Service of India. He appointed Sir John Peter Grant, the second of the 1 Juventas et patrius vigor. — Horace, Odes, iv. 4, 5. 1866. The return of Mr. Eyre. 66 two eminent men bearing that name and title, under whose impartial and virtually despotic rule the island soon recovered its normal tranquillity. After the Report of the Commissioners had been published the subject was brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Charles Buxton, son of the famous emancipator; and the House, without mentioning names, unanimously deplored the extensive punishments which followed the suppression of the disturbances of October 1865 in the parish of St. Thomas, and especially the unnecessary frequency with which the punishment of death was inflicted." But if the House of Commons, much to its credit, was unanimous, the country was not. On the twelfth of August 1866 Mr. Eyre arrived at Southampton, and immediately became the object of flattering attentions from enthusiastic admirers. In Southampton he was entertained at a public dinner, where the Reverend Charles Kingsley, by the caprice of Lord Palmerston Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, spoke in the strange company of Lord Cardigan, and selected for special praise the humanity displayed by the guest of the evening. A more illustrious personage came forward on the same side. The great hero-worshipper of the age found in Mr. Eyre a congenial hero. All the light that had yet reached Thomas Carlyle on Mr. Eyre and his history in the world, "went steadily to establish the conclusion that he was a just, humane, and valiant man, faithful to his trusts everywhere, and with no ordinary faculty for executing them; and that his late services in Jamaica were of great, probably of incalculable value, as certainly they were of perilous and appalling difficulty." "The English nation," as he truly remarked, "have never loved anarchy." But neither have they loved cruelty, and all the charges made against Governor Eyre Defence Jamaica related to things done after anarchy had ceased to 1866. exist. For the reasons which he thus expressed, and perhaps also from his dislike of "Quashee,' as he called the negro, Carlyle became chairman of the Eyre Defence Fund, to which Tennyson The Eyre and Ruskin were among the subscribers. The Fund. Government refused to prosecute Mr. Eyre for murder. They regarded Eyre as a strong man who had put down a rebellion by his promptitude, and prevented its renewal by his severity. But in England prosecutions may be set on foot by private individuals, and a Jamaica Com- The mittee, with John Stuart Mill as chairman, was Committee. formed for the purpose of bringing Eyre to justice. Mill was earnestly supported by Huxley, by Thomas Hughes, by Herbert Spencer, and by Mr. Goldwin Smith, who had lately resigned the chair of Modern History at Oxford. It was in furtherance of the Committee and their aims that Goldwin Smith delivered his incomparably brilliant lectures on the "Three English Statesmen," Pym, Cromwell, and Pitt, though Pitt would have transported the Committee, and Cromwell did far worse things than Eyre. A Government, said Mr. Smith, should uphold their representatives in difficulty always, in error sometimes, in crime never. Zealots cited the precedent of Joseph Wall, Governor of Goree, who was hanged in 1802, after twenty years, for murders committed in his official capacity. It was certainly not Mill's desire that Governor Eyre should perish on the scaffold, but that the honour of the country should be vindicated by an authoritative exposition of the law. Few subjects so little discussed in Parliament have so sharply divided public opinion as the conduct of Governor Eyre. Political leaders took the line of treating the Report as conclusive, and desired that no more should be said about it. But |