The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)

Governor Carleton, who had done so much to preserve Canada from falling into the hands of the Americans, and whose efforts, considering his limited resources, had been almost incredibly successful, was not a little chagrined at being superseded in his military command. He considered that he had been slighted by the Government, and that his brilliant successes had merited a different reward. And he was right. To him, more than to any other man, is due the praise of having prevented Canada from becoming, at least for the time, a part of the American Republic. Mr. J. M. Lemoine, the historian of Quebec, pays a well-merited compliment to his memory. "Had the fate of Canada on that occasion," says Mr. Lemoine, "been confided to a Governor less wise, less conciliating than Guy Carleton, doubtless the 'brightest gem in the colonial Crown of Britain' would have been one of the stars of Columbia's banner; the star-spangled banner would now be floating on the summit of Cape Diamond."

With a heart smarting under a keen, if not loudly-expressed sense of injustice, Carleton demanded his recall. His successor, Major-General Haldimand, having arrived in Canada in July, 1778, Carleton surrendered the reins of Government to him and proceeded to England. The ministry of the day, however, mollified his resentment, and paid assiduous court to him. Various honours and substantial emoluments were conferred upon him. In 1786 he was raised to the peerage of Great Britain, by the title of Baron Dorchester of Dorchester, in the County of Oxford — a title still borne by his descendant, the fourth Baron. During the same year he was requested to once more take charge of the Canadian Administration. He consented, and came over to this country as Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces in America. He retained both these positions for ten years — a period marked by many important civil reforms, and by the passing of the Constitutional Act of 1791, whereby Canada was divided into two separate Provinces. Lord Dorchester's tenure of office tended to still further endear him to the Canadian people, and to this day his name is held in affectionate remembrance by the inhabitants of the Lower Province where he resided. He took his final departure from our shores in the summer of 1796, amid the heartfelt regret of the people over whose affairs he had so long presided. Upon reaching England he retired to private life, and did not again take any prominent part in public affairs. His old age, like that of King Lear, was "frosty, but kindly," and for twelve years he lived a life of cheerful and dignified repose. He continued to correspond with friends in Canada, and in one of his letters, still extant, expresses a wish to revisit the scenes of his past achievements, and mayhap to lay his bones among them. The wish, however, was not gratified. He died, after a brief illness, on the 10th of November, 1808, in his 83rd year.

He married, on the 22nd of May, 1772, Maria, daughter of Thomas, second Earl of Effingham, by whom he had a family of seven children. His three eldest sons died in his lifetime. He was succeeded by his grandson, Arthur Henry, son of his third son, Christopher.

THE HON. WILLIAM PEARCE HOWLAND,

C.B., K.C.M.G

Among the hundred passengers who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, on the 22nd of December, 1620, was a God-fearing Quaker named John Howland. He seems to have been unmarried at the time of his emigration; or at any rate his wife, if he had one, did not accompany him on the expedition. He settled in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and left behind him a numerous progeny, whose descendants are to be found at the present day in nearly every State of the Union. From him, we understand, the subject of this sketch claims descent. The father of Sir William was Mr. Jonathan Howland, a resident of Dutchess County, in the State of New York. The latter was in early life a farmer, but subsequently engaged in commercial pursuits at Greenbush, in Rensselaer County, on the west bank of the Hudson River. He died at Cape Vincent, Jefferson County, in the year 1842. The maiden name of Sir William's mother was Lydia Pearce. Her family resided in Dutchess County, and were well-known and influential citizens. This lady still survives, and has attained the great age of ninety-four years. Soon after the death of her husband she took up her abode in Toronto, where she has ever since resided.

The subject of this sketch, who was the eldest son of his parents, was born at the town of Paulings, Dutchess County, New York, on the 29th of May, 1811. He was brought up to farm work, but early displayed an aptitude for commercial life. After attending at a public school, and afterwards for a short time at the Kinderhook Academy, he determined to embark in a mercantile career. In the autumn of the year 1830, when he was barely nineteen years of age, he came to Canada, and settled in the village of Cooksville, on Dundas Street, in the township of Toronto. Here he obtained a situation as assistant in a country store of the period. In this store was kept the post-office for the village, the management of which largely devolved upon his own shoulders. The postal system in this Province had not then been very elaborately systematized. The mails for the whole of the western part of the Province passed over this route. The mail-matter for the different offices was not classified, but thrown into a bag, from which each successive postmaster selected such matter as was addressed to his office. The state of the roads was generally such that the mails had to be carried on horseback. Young Mr. Howland's duties required him to get up at one o'clock in the morning to receive the mail, which arrived at Cooksville at that hour. He was accustomed to select the mail-matter himself from the bag, after which he would hand the outgoing mail to the carrier, who then passed on westwardly to Dundas and Hamilton. Such was the primitive method of handling His Majesty's mail in Upper Canada in the year of grace 1830. It is scarcely to be wondered at that Mr. Howland, after such practical experience of the necessity for reform, should have allied himself with the Reform Party when he began to take a share in the politics of the country.

His share in politics, however, lay as yet far distant. For some years he devoted himself exclusively to laying the foundation of the princely fortune which he subsequently realized. A man with such a remarkable faculty for success in mercantile life was not likely to remain long an assistant in a country store. Erelong we find him embarked in business on his own account, in partnership with his younger brother, Mr. P. Howland, now of Lambton Mills. Their operations were conducted with the most careful circumspection, and were so successful that they soon had several establishments in the townships of Toronto and Chinguacousy. In addition to a general commercial business they engaged in lumbering, rafting, the manufacture of potash, and other pursuits incident to pioneer mercantile life. Their operations increased in volume yearly, and they became, both commercially and otherwise, men of mark in their district. The subject of this sketch for some time kept the post office at Stanley's Mills. Although the quantity of matter distributed by the mails was infinitesimal in those days as compared with the present, a country postmaster had no sinecure. The greatest difficulty he had to encounter was the collection of postage on letters. Those, be it remembered were the days of high postage. The rate on a single-weight letter from Great Britain to Upper Canada was 5s. 9d. sterling — equal, in round numbers, to about $1.50. From Quebec, the rate was 1s. 6d. sterling; and the rates from other places were proportionate. There was little money in the Province, and commercial transactions largely took the form of barter. The postmaster was constantly compelled to give credit, for it was an altogether exceptional thing for a settler to have so large a sum as 5s. 9d. in ready money; and to refuse to deliver mail-matter to a poor but deserving settler would have been neither gracious nor politic for a man keeping a country store. In this way the postmaster was frequently compelled to wait for his money for a year, and he was fortunate if he was not then compelled to receive payment in ashes or produce.

At the time of the rebellion Mr. Howland had become a prosperous man, and his operations were still extending. There was a good deal of feeling in his neighbourhood that Mr. Mackenzie had been badly used by the Family Compact Party, and that many reforms were needed in the body politic. A deputation of these malcontents waited upon Mr. Howland, and endeavoured to enlist him in the insurrection which broke out in December, 1837. Mr. Howland, however, was too wise to connect himself with an enterprise which never had any chance of being permanently successful. Moreover, he had not then been naturalized, and as an alien, he did not deem that he had any right to engage in political contests of any kind. His naturalization took place soon after the Union of the Provinces. He did not, however, take any very active part in the periodical election contests until the general election of 1848, when Mr. James Hervey Price successfully opposed the Conservative candidate in the West Riding of the county of York, just prior to the formation of the second Baldwin-Lafontaine Administration. Mr. Howland's sympathies were with the Reform Party, and he worked hard to secure Mr. Price's return. He thenceforward took a not inactive part in all the election contests, and always on the side of the Reform Party, with which he became identified. He had meanwhile removed to Toronto, and had embarked in a large wholesale business, with large interests in the produce, milling, and other branches of trade. Among his commercial friends he enjoyed a high reputation for capacity and genuine business worth. He became a magnate among the wholesale merchants of Toronto, and amassed a fine fortune which has steadily augmented. His political views became more pronounced, and he supported the wing of the Reform Party led by Mr. Brown after the disruption in its ranks. He soon came to be looked upon as an eligible candidate for Parliament. His eligibility was proved at the general elections of 1857, when he was returned to the Assembly by the constituency of West York, in which he had resided for many years. He continued to sit for that constituency during the whole of his Parliamentary career, which was terminated by his acceptance, in 1868, of the Lieutenant-Governorship of Ontario.

In Parliament, though a steady supporter of the Reform Party, Mr. Howland was by no means demonstrative in enforcing his views, and was doubtless valued as a party man chiefly because of his respectability and personal influence. When the Reform Party came into power in April, 1862, under the leadership of the Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis Victor Sicotte, Mr. Howland was offered the post of Minister of Finance, which he accepted and held for a year, when he was succeeded by the Hon. Luther H. Holton in the Macdonald-Dorion Cabinet, which was then formed. In that Cabinet Mr. Howland was assigned the office of Receiver-General. He held this position until the defeat of the Government in 1864. He was not a member of the Coalition Government as formed in June of that year, and consequently was not present either at the Charlottetown Convention, which assembled on the 1st of September, or at the famous Quebec Conference that met on the 10th of the following month, at which, during eighteen days' deliberation, the "Seventy-two resolutions" were agreed to. He was, however, an active and most influential supporter of the Reform wing of the Coalition; and on the elevation of the Hon. Mr. Mowat to the Bench in November, 1864, he succeeded that gentleman as Postmaster-General, and became a member of the Executive Council. He continued to be Postmaster-General until the retirement of the Hon. Alexander T. Galt in August, 1866, when he succeeded the latter as Finance Minister. This office he held till the Union, when, on the formation of the first Dominion Government, on the 1st of July, 1867, he was appointed a member of the Privy Council, and Minister of Inland Revenue.

In the discharge of his public duties while a Minister of the Crown, Mr. Howland accompanied Mr. Galt on the mission to Washington, in 1865, concerning the then proposed renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty. This mission is memorable for its political rather than its commercial results, for while with respect to the latter it merely taught Canada that she must rely upon herself, with respect to the former it almost led to the breaking up of the Coalition, and to the indefinite postponement of Confederation. That these grave political results were merely threatened, instead of having become realities, was largely due to Mr. Howland, who, considering the gravity of the situation, and endorsing, also, the Cabinet policy on the Reciprocity question, refused to follow his leader out of the Government. He accepted instead a commission to fill up the vacancy created by Mr. Brown's resignation with an Upper Canada Reformer, thereby preserving the balance of parties as established in 1864. Mr. Howland was one of the three delegates representing Upper Canada at the London Conference at which the Union Act was framed; and for his services there, as well as generally for the prominent part he had taken in promoting Confederation, he was one of the two Upper Canada Ministers decorated with the Order of the Companionship of the Bath, on the 1st of July, 1867.

There was another conference which Mr. Howland attended in 1867, and one of much political significance — the great Reform Convention held at Toronto in June, for the purpose of reuniting the Reform Party and abolishing the alliance with the Conservatives. Messrs. Howland and McDougall were both present, and vigorously contended against the restoration of party lines on the old basis; and their course there and subsequently at political gatherings throughout the country no doubt did much towards determining the result of the general election held during the summer of that year.

The work of confederating the British American Provinces was one of compromise among the statesmen, the political parties and the people concerned. Nobody, perhaps, got exactly what he wanted; no Province secured the full realization of its own views; no political party was able to put its hand upon the scheme, as first framed at Quebec in 1864, or as subsequently re-modelled in London in 1866-67, and say, "this is exactly what we wanted." Concessions were made to Conservative opinion and to Reform opinion; to Protestant feeling and to Catholic feeling; to the necessities of the several Provinces according to geographical or other reasons; and in a great degree to the divergent views on constitutional government held by the representative men who took part in the negotiations. When, therefore, Mr. Howland, who had been a leading spirit at the inception of the scheme, claimed that those who had so far matured it as to fit it for the consideration and judgment of the Canadian Legislature had deserved well of their country for the political and personal sacrifices they had made in the cause of general harmony, he claimed no more than was due to him and his colleagues, and no more than was, at the time, freely accorded by their supporters.

Mr. Howland's health, which had not been very robust for several years, became so enfeebled that he desired to retire from the double drudgery of Parliamentary and Ministerial life; and in July, 1868, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Ontario, which position had been, from the Union up to that time, held by Major-General Stisted, under an ad interim appointment similar to that which had been conferred on the first Lieutenant-Governors of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Concerning Mr. Howland's tenure of office as Lieutenant-Governor there is nothing to be said except that he discharged his duties with ability, and with acceptance to the people. He continued to be Lieutenant-Governor until the month of November, 1873. In 1875 his services were again called into requisition by the Government of the day to report on the route of the Baie Verte Canal.

On the 24th of May, 1879, Mr. Howland was created a Knight of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, by the present Governor-General, acting on behalf of the Sovereign.

He still continues to superintend the most important details of his great wholesale commercial business in Toronto, and in his seventieth year preserves a physical and intellectual vigour such as is seldom found in persons who have passed middle age. He is President of the Ontario Bank, and of various prosperous mercantile and insurance companies. He has been twice married. His first wife, whom he married in 1843, was formerly a Mrs. Webb, of Toronto. She survived her marriage about six years. By this lady he has several children, one of whom is a partner in the business, which is carried on under the style of Sir William P. Howland & Co. Sir William's second wife, whom he married in 1866, was the widow of the late Captain Hunt, of Toronto.

THE MOST REV. MICHAEL HANNAN, D.D.,

R. C. ARCHBISHOP OF HALIFAX

The successor of the late Archbishop Connolly was born at Kilmallock, in the county of Limerick, Ireland, on the 21st of July, 1821. He received his education at various schools in his native land, and in 1840, when he was nineteen years of age, he emigrated to the Province of Nova Scotia, where he has ever since resided. Soon after arriving in the Province he was appointed a teacher in St. Mary's College, which had then recently been established in Halifax by Dean O'Brien. While holding that position he studied theology, and in 1845 was ordained to the priesthood. He has ever since been an assiduous promoter of education, and of the interests of the faith which he professes. His labours have been conducted with a quiet energy which has been productive of not unimportant results, but which has not been the means of making him widely known, as his distinguished predecessor was, beyond the limits of Nova Scotia. In or about the year 1853 he founded a Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Halifax, over which he thenceforward exercised a personal supervision. He subsequently became Vicar-General of the Diocese of Halifax, an office which he held for some years, and in the exercise of which he displayed the same quiet zeal which characterizes all his public actions. Upon his retirement he was presented with an address, numerously signed by Protestants, as well as by the adherents of his own faith, expressive of strong regret for his resignation, and of appreciation of his services.

Upon the death of Archbishop Connolly, on the 27th of July, 1876, all the Roman Catholic bishops of the Province united in signing a recommendation to His Holiness in favour of Dr. Hannan's appointment to the Archiepiscopal See of Halifax. The recommendation was acted upon, and on the morning of Sunday, the 20th of May, 1877, he was consecrated and installed at St. Mary's Cathedral, Halifax, with imposing ceremonies, Bishop Conroy, Papal delegate, acting as consecrating bishop. His tenure of office has not been marked by any event of special interest to the public. He devotes himself to the duties pertaining to his high office, is kind and benevolent to the suffering poor among his flock, and continues to interest himself in the cause of education, though, unlike his predecessor, he is in favour of separate educational training for Protestants and Roman Catholics. "Dr. Hannan's mind," says a contemporary writer, "is of a different stamp from that of his illustrious predecessor — not different in degree, but in mould. Archbishop Connolly was emotional and impetuous, fervid and eloquent, with a clear head and a warm Irish heart, which sometimes carried him away. Dr. Hannan, on the other hand, is calm and equable, with a judgment naturally sound and solid, a temper not easily ruffled, and a sagacity seldom at fault."