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Preface
AN old friend of mine, Mr. Joseph
Hatton, writing in Tinsley's Magazine says: "Still at the bottom of
all thought and speculation as to the future, there is a strong
layer of old English sentiment outside the Province of Quebec. The
great pioneers of Canada, the English and the Scotch look across the
broad waters of the Atlantic, and think of home. They feel proud of
the flag which is not only to them a national symbol, but a link
between the far-off settlement and the churchyard where their
forefathers sleep beyond the sea. Scarcely anybody in England knows
anything of Canadian history, and Mr. Hatton cannot be blamed for
not being aware that the majority of people in Ontario, as compared
with other nationalities, are Irish. The population of Ontario is
1,620,831: of these 559,442 are Irish, 328,889 Scotch, 439,429
English; and in the four Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia, the Irish number 846,414, as compared with 706,369
English, and 549,946 Scotch. The Irishman was here as early as
others; he fought against the wilderness as well as others; his arm
was raised against the invading foe as well as that of others; and
when a man who was not Irish lifted the standard of revolt, and
another who was not Irish betrayed his country and his flag, who
more faithful, who more heroic, than the countrymen of Baldwin and
Fitzgibbon in putting down that rebellion? That a literary man like
Mr. Hatton should wholly ignore the Irish, therefore, shows that
there was need of such a book as the present. Who to-day are more
truly attached to British connexion than the great majority of
Irishmen all over the Dominion? Amongst ourselves also, the Irish
have been too much ignored; chiefly because the follies and
absurdities of a few make hundreds averse from an assertion which
would be only the reasonable expression of self-respect. There is a
great dissimilarity in culture between the Irish cotter and the
Irish gentleman, between the Irish labourer and the Irish
professional man, but not more than there is between the Scotch
laird and the Scotch gillie, or between the English squire and the
English peasant. Why then is it that Irishmen of the more cultivated
class are sometimes found to run down the less cultivated class of
Irish, so that, as somebody has said, whenever an Irishman is to be
roasted, another is always at hand to turn the spit?
"My grandmother,"
says the Earl of Beaconsfield, "the beautiful daughter of a family
who had suffered much from persecution, had imbibed that dislike for
her race which the vain are apt to adopt when they find they are
born to public contempt. The indignant feeling which should be
reserved for the persecutor, in the mortification of their disturbed
sensibility, is too often visited on the victim." Something like
this process has taken place in the minds of Irishmen of a certain
class. But let any Irishman who reads these lines ponder what I say
: You can never lose your own respect and keep the respect of
others; you can never be happy and dress yourself solely in the
glass of other men's approval; you may as well seek to fly from your
shadow as to escape from your nationality. If you find any men
mistaken, or low down in type, or in popular esteem, it is your duty
to raise them, especially if they have on you national or family
claims.
I had not intended
to write a preface, and I have said enough in the opening chapter to
indicate the objects I have kept before me. The history of Canada
cannot be written without the history of the Scotchman, the
Englishman, and the German in Canada; the Frenchman in Canada has
found his historian. "The Scotchman in Canada" is in the hands of a
writer capable of doing justice to a great theme and an
extraordinary race, whose deeds here as elsewhere are illustrious
with such episodes as the Red Eiver settlement, planted under the
guidance of Lord Selkirk, by men with a determined bravery
comparable to that of the German troops at Gravelotte, again and
again attempting the hill, studded with rifle pits, which guarded
the French left. Even the Mennonite settlements will come within the
purview of the historian, and he will have to deal with a later
American immigration than the U. E Loyalist an immigration composed
mainly of men who entered Canada intending to settle in Michigan,
but, who, when they saw the splendid stretches of oak near London
and the neighbouring counties, settled here. Among these settlers
were the Shaws, the Dunbars, and the Goodhues. There was an eastern
settlement of the same class, in which we find the Burnhams, the
Homers, the Keelers, the Smiths, the Perrys. Some of these were led
to come to Canada by inducements held out by the Government of the
day to construct roads and build mills. Hence in many instances we
find American immigrants the great patentees where they settled.
In the index I do
not give every name, but only the leading names.
I have in the notes
thanked Mr. Charles Lindsey and the Hon. Christopher Fraser for
their assistance in placing books at my disposal. I have to thank
Chief Justice Harrison for the loan of books, and Mr. Justice Gwynne
for the loan of books and old files of newspapers. To Mr. Allan
McLean Howard my thanks are also due for books which could not well
have been procured elsewhere. To Dr. McCaul for books and hints
respecting the university, I must likewise express my obligation. My
thanks are due to my friends throughout the country who sent
information, and to the agents employed by my publishers.
Particularly are my thanks due to Mr. Sproule, of Ottawa, who,
though an Orangeman, has visited a large number of Roman Catholic
prelates and clergymen, in regard to this book, and got me more
Roman Catholic information than has come from all other sources
whatsoever. In a special manner, my thanks are due to Sir Francis
Hincks, who, both by word and letter, helped me to understand the
great period of which he could truly say pars magna fui. For
estimating the character and genius of Sullivan, he gave me
invaluable data. From Mr. Thomas Maclear, and Mr. Thomas A. Maclear,
I have received much assistance in collecting information for the
settler chapters, and in revising the proofs. Last though not least,
Dr. Hodgins, Deputy Minister of Education, claims my thanks for
books and pamphlets connected with his department. I have in places
departed from rules usually observed in books. For instance, in some
cases, I have not "spelled out" figures because I thought the use of
arithmetical symbols more suitable to the subject treated at the
moment.
The Irishman has
played so large a part in Canada! that his history could not be
written without, to some extent, writing the history of Canada, and
the following pages may, in the present stage of Canadian historical
literature, be found useful to the student and the politician.
TORONTO, September
22nd, 1877.
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