The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)

THE RIGHT REV. JOHN TRAVERS LEWIS, LL.D.,

BISHOP OF ONTARIO

Bishop Lewis is a son of the John Lewis, M.A., who was formerly Rector of St. Anne's, Shandon, Cork, Ireland; and grandson of Mr. Richard Lewis, who was an Inspector-General of Revenue in the south of Ireland. He is himself an Irishman by birth and education, but has passed the last thirty years of his life in Canada. He was born in the county of Cork, on the 20th of June, 1825. He received private lessons from his father, and afterwards obtained his more advanced education at Trinity College, Dublin. He enjoyed a somewhat brilliant career at the University. He obtained honours both in classics and mathematics during his course as an undergraduate; and upon graduating, in 1846, he was gold medallist and senior moderator in ethics and logic. His degree of LL.D. was received, we believe, from his alma mater. He was intended for the Church from boyhood, and was ordained Deacon in 1848, at the Chapel of Christ's College, Cambridge, by the Lord Bishop of Chester. He was soon afterwards ordained Priest by the Lord Bishop of Down, and became Curate of the parish of Newtownbutler, celebrated in Irish annals for the victory gained by the colonists over King James's troops in 1689. He did not long occupy that position, but resigned it in 1850, and came over to this country, where, soon after his arrival, he was appointed by the late Bishop Strachan to the parish of Hawkesbury, in the county of Prescott. Upon settling down in his parish he married Miss Anne Harriet Margaret Sherwood, a daughter of the late Hon. Henry Sherwood, a Canadian legislator who sat in the old Assembly from 1843 to 1854, and who held office as Solicitor-General and Attorney-General for Canada West, respectively, in the Ministry of Mr. Draper, during the régime of Sir Charles Metcalfe and Earl Cathcart.

After officiating in Hawkesbury for four years, Mr. Lewis was appointed Rector of Brockville, where he remained until his election, in 1861, to the position which he now occupies. The seven years passed in the rectory at Brockville must have been busy ones, as we find numerous published sermons and pamphlets from his pen during this time. His sermons and writings generally are marked by much learning, and by an evident fondness for dialectics. Some of them have received high praise from the reviewers. One of them, entitled "A Plain Lecture to Enquirers into the meaning of the Liturgy," was thus characterized by the American Quarterly Church Review: "As an argument for Liturgical worship, and an answer to popular objections to the Prayer-book, this is one of the most valuable works we have ever seen." Other tracts of his have also been highly praised by persons whose praise is of value. The best known of his writings are "The Church of the New Testament;" "Does the Bible need re-translating?" "The Popular Baptist Argument Reviewed;" and "The Primitive Method of selecting Bishops;" the last-named production being given to the world in the Journal of Sacred Literature, published in London, England. During his residence at Brockville he interested himself actively in various local matters, sectarian and non-sectarian, and contributed to build up several important public institutions. He lectured before the Brockville Library Association and Mechanics' Institute, and did much to extend its membership and beneficial influence.

The territorial division of the Diocese of Toronto was a project which began to take shape about the time when the subject of this sketch first arrived in this country. Up to that time the Diocese of Toronto comprehended the whole extent of Upper Canada, and was altogether too large to permit of one man's discharging the duties of the Bishopric with perfect efficiency, even though that man were endowed with the tremendous energy and vitality of the late Bishop Strachan. The Diocese of Huron was in due time set apart and the late Rev. Dr. Benjamin Cronyn was elected to the Bishopric. In 1861 the eastern division was also set apart as the Diocese of Ontario, and at the meeting of the Synod held at Kingston in the summer of that year Mr. Lewis was elected to the office of Bishop. He was then only thirty-six years of age, and was probably the youngest Prelate in America. He soon afterwards removed to Kingston, and thence to Ottawa, where he now resides.

It will thus be seen that the Bishop has had a remarkably successful career since his arrival in Canada. He devotes himself assiduously to his official labours, and is held in high veneration by many of the clergymen of his Diocese. He has a numerous family, and a large circle of attached friends. His pulpit oratory is marked by fluency and smoothness of rhetoric, as well as by much learning and depth of thought.

CHARLES, LORD METCALFE

In former sketches we have seen how Responsible Government, after being strenuously contended for during many years in this country, and after its adoption had been vigorously recommended by Lord Durham, finally became an accomplished fact. We have seen how Lord Sydenham was sent over here as Governor-General for the purpose of carrying out the new order of things, and how, during his administration of affairs, the Union of the Provinces was finally effected in 1841. The Canadian Administration was carried on by both Lord Sydenham and his successor, Sir Charles Bagot, in accordance with the spirit of our new Constitution. In 1841 the Imperial Ministry, under whose auspices this Constitution had been framed, was deposed, and a Tory Government succeeded to power. In this Government the late Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, held the portfolio appertaining to the office of Colonial Secretary. Soon after Sir Charles Bagot's resignation of the post of Governor-General, in the winter of 1842, Sir Charles Metcalfe was selected as his successor. The selection was made at the instance of Lord Stanley, who had all along been inimical to the scheme of Responsible Government in Canada, and there is reason for believing that he entertained the design of subverting it. His selection of Sir Charles Metcalfe, and his subsequent instructions and general policy, certainly lend colour to such a belief. The new Governor was a man of excellent intentions, and of more than average ability, but his previous training and experience had been such as to render him totally unfit for the post of a Constitutional Governor.

We can only afford space for a brief glance at his previous career, but even that brief glance will be sufficient to show how little sympathy he could be expected to have in colonial schemes of Responsible Government. He was born at Calcutta, on Sunday, the 30th of January, 1785, a few days before Warren Hastings ceased to be Governor-General of India. His father, Major Theophilus Metcalfe, of the Bengal army, was a gentleman of ample fortune, and a Director in the East India Company. Charles was the second son of his parents, and was destined at an early age for the Company's service. He was educated first at a private school at Bromley, in Middlesex, and afterwards at Eton College, where he remained until he had entered upon his sixteenth year, when he returned to India. He was appointed to a writership in the service of the Company, wherein for seven years he filled various offices, and in 1808 was selected by Lord Minto to take charge of a difficult mission to the Court of Lahore, the object of which was to secure the Sikh States, between the Sutlej and Jumna Rivers, from the grasp of Runjeet Singh. In this mission he fully succeeded, the treaty being concluded in 1809. He subsequently filled several other high offices of trust, and in 1827 took his seat as a member of the Supreme Council of India. Both his father and elder brother had meanwhile died, and he had become Sir Charles Metcalfe.

In 1835, upon Lord W. Bentinck's resignation, Sir Charles Metcalfe was provisionally appointed Governor-General, which office he held until Lord Auckland's arrival in the year following. During this short period he effected many bold and popular reforms, not the least of which was the liberation of the press of India from all restrictions. Under his immediate predecessor, Lord William Bentinck, the press had been as free as it is in England; but there were still certain laws or orders of a severe character, which at the pleasure of any future Governor might be called into operation. These Sir Charles Metcalfe repealed. His doing so gave umbrage to the Directors, and caused his resignation and return to Europe, when he was appointed Governor of Jamaica. The difficult duties of this position — the emancipation of the negroes having but recently occurred — were discharged by him to the satisfaction of the Government and the colonists. After over two years' residence the climate proved so unfavourable to his health that he was compelled to resign. The painful disease of which he afterwards died — cancer of the cheek — had seized him in a firm grip. Years before this time, when residing at Calcutta, a friend had one day noticed a red spot upon his cheek, and underneath it a single drop of blood. The blood was wiped away; the red spot remained. For a long while it occasioned neither pain nor anxiety. A little time after his departure from India, disquieting symptoms appeared, and on his arrival in England he had consulted Sir Benjamin Brodie; but it was not till his return from Jamaica that it received the attention it really demanded. Then consultations of the most eminent surgeons and physicians were held, and the application of a severe caustic was determined on. When told that it would probably "destroy the cheek through and through," he only answered, "What you determine shall be done at once;" and the same afternoon the painful remedy was applied. The physicians and surgeons of London did what they could for him, and he retired into the country. The disorder had not been eradicated, but merely checked. About this time the ill-health of Sir Charles Bagot had rendered that gentleman's resignation necessary, and the post of Governor-General of Canada thus became vacant. It was offered to, and accepted by, Sir Charles Metcalfe. No appointment could have been found for him at that moment in the whole political world the duties of which were more difficult, when the nature of his instructions and the peculiar position of the colony are taken into consideration. Add to this that his whole life had hitherto been passed in administering governments which were largely despotic in their character. Responsible Government, as we have seen, had been conceded to Canada. Sir Charles professed to approve of this concession, but his conduct throughout the whole course of his administration was at variance with his professions, and showed that his sympathies were not on the side of popular rights. He came over in the month of March, 1843, and on the following day took charge of the Administration. For the composition of the Government and an account of the situation of affairs in Canada at this time the reader is referred to the life of Robert Baldwin which has already appeared in these pages. The circumstances under which the Governor contrived to embroil himself with the leading members of the Administration are there given in sufficient detail, and there is no necessity for repeating them at length in this place. Sir Charles chose his associates and advisers from among the members of the defunct Family Compact. He endeavoured to circumscribe the power of the Executive Council, which demanded that no office should be filled, no appointment made, without its sanction. We are, argued the members of Council, in the same relation to the House of Assembly as Ministers in England to the English Parliament. We are responsible to it for the acts of Government; these acts must be ours, or the result of our advice, otherwise we cannot be responsible for them. Unless our demand is complied with, there is no such thing as Responsible Government. On the other hand, Sir Charles contended that by relinquishing his patronage he should be surrendering the prerogatives of the Crown, and should also incapacitate himself and all future Governors from acting as moderator between opposite factions. It was not long before an appointment, made by Sir Charles, brought the contest to an issue. Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine, the two leading members of the Executive Council, urged upon the Governor to retract this appointment, or to promise that no other should be made without their advice. The Governor was firm in his refusal. The Executive Council resigned. To form a new Ministry was, under these circumstances, a most difficult task. Office went begging; a Solicitor-Generalship was offered to six individuals, and perseveringly refused by all. But Sir Charles was also persevering in his offers, and at last a seventh was found, who accepted. At last a weak Ministry was formed, and then followed a general election. Parliament met at Montreal on the 8th of November, 1844, when, after a hard fight, Sir Allan Macnab was elected Speaker of the Assembly by a small majority of three. The debate on the address, after strong opposition, was carried by a Tory majority of six. The session dragged on without any change in the character of the Ministry, which was supported by a small and feeble majority in the Assembly. The popular feeling against the Governor rose to the highest pitch. Meantime Sir Charles's terrible malady was rapidly doing its work upon him. He had lost the use of one eye, the eye which was still useful sympathized with that which was destroyed; nor was there any hope of the eradication of the cancer. He had now, to his great regret, to use the hand of another to write his letters and despatches. He was racked by pains above the eye and down the right side of the face as far as the chin. The cheek towards the nose and mouth was permanently swelled. He could not open his mouth to its usual width, and it was with difficulty he inserted and masticated food. He no longer looked forward to a cure. His Canadian medical attendants hesitated to apply the powerful caustic recommended by Sir Benjamin Brodie, and counselled him to return to England. "I am tied to Canada by my duty," was his constant reply. Mr. George Pollock, house surgeon of St. George's Hospital, was despatched from England, to examine the case and apply the most approved remedies. No aid which science could give was wanting, but the disease was beyond medical control. Its ravages were now most painful and distressing. So far as the body was concerned, it was but the wreck of a man that remained. On this wreck or ruin, however, was to descend, as if in mockery, the coronet of nobility. He was created Baron Metcalfe. Idle as the honour was in itself to the childless invalid, it was still a testimony that his services had been appreciated. "But," says his biographer, "he was dying, no less surely for the strong will that sustained him, and the vigorous intellect which glowed in his shattered frame. A little while and he might die at his post. The winter was setting in — the navigation was closing. It was necessary at once to decide whether Metcalfe should now prepare to betake the suffering remnant of himself to England, or to abide at Montreal, if spared, till the coming spring. But he would not trust himself to form the decision. He invited the leading members of his Council to attend him at Monklands; and there he told them that he left the issue in their hands. It was a scene never to be forgotten by any who were present in the Governor-General's darkened room on this memorable occasion. Some were dissolved in tears. All were agitated by a strong emotion of sorrow and sympathy, mingled with a sort of wondering admiration of the heroic constancy of their chief. He told them that if they desired his continuance at the head of the Government — if they believed that the cause for which they had fought together so manfully would suffer by his departure, and that they therefore counselled him to remain at his post, he would willingly abide by their decision." What their decision was need hardly be said. Lord Metcalfe embarked for England quietly and unostentatiously, as his suffering state compelled. He could not, from the nature of the struggle in which he had been engaged, expect to quit the shores of Canada with the same unanimous approbation that had erected to his memory the "Metcalfe Hall" at Calcutta, or raised his statue in Spanish Town, Jamaica. He returned to England — returned to doctors and the darkened room. He was in constant pain except when under the influence of narcotics; but he made no complaint, and endured his sufferings with fortitude. He died on the 5th of September, 1846, and was interred in a quiet, private and unostentatious manner in the little parish church of Winkfield, near Fern Hill. He had often expressed a wish that this should be his last resting place. On a marble tablet in this church is an epitaph written by Mr. — afterwards Lord — Macaulay, who knew and had served with him in India. Thus it runs: — "Near this stone is laid Charles Theophilus, first and last Lord Metcalfe, a Statesman tried in many high posts and difficult conjunctures, and found equal to all. The Three Greatest Dependencies of the British Crown were successively intrusted to his care. In India his fortitude, his wisdom, his probity, and his moderation are held in honourable remembrance by men of many races, languages, and religions. In Jamaica, still convulsed by a social revolution, he calmed the evil passions which long suffering had engendered in one class and long domination in another. In Canada, not yet recovered from the calamities of civil war, he reconciled contending factions to each other and to the Mother Country. Public esteem was the just reward of his public virtue, but those only who enjoyed the privilege of his friendship could appreciate the whole worth of his gentle and noble nature. Costly monuments in Asiatic and American cities attest the gratitude of nations which he ruled; this tablet records the sorrow and the pride with which his memory is cherished by private Affection."

Had it been his good fortune to die before receiving the appointment of Governor-General of Canada, Sir Charles Metcalfe would have left behind him a high reputation on all hands, and there would have been nothing to detract from the praise which would have been justly his due. His tenure of office in this country was a somewhat inglorious close to a long and useful public career. As Governor of a colony to which Responsible Government had been conceded he was altogether out of his element. He was simply unfit for the position, as well by reason of his personal character as by the training to which he had been subjected. Good intentions were undoubtedly his, and he acted up to the light that was in him; but to this modicum of praise no Canadian writer can justly add much in the way of commendation.

THE HON. ALEXANDER MORRIS

Mr. Morris is the eldest son of the late Hon. William Morris, whose name is prominently identified with the history of the Clergy Reserve and School Land questions in this country; and a nephew of the late Hon. James Morris, who held the portfolio of Postmaster-General in the Baldwin-Lafontaine Administration, and who was subsequently Receiver-General in the Administration organized under the leadership of Messrs. John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis Victor Sicotte. The chief points of public interest connected with the family history are outlined in the sketch of his father's life, which appears elsewhere in these pages. The subject of the present memoir was born at Perth, Upper Canada — where his father then resided and carried on business — on the 17th of March, 1826. In boyhood he attended the local Grammar School, which enjoyed a high reputation for the efficiency of its educational training. His father, who was desirous that his son should enjoy higher scholastic advantages than were then obtainable in this country, sent him, while he was still in early youth, to Scotland, where he entered as a student at Madras College, St. Andrews. After spending about a year at that establishment he was transferred to the University of Glasgow, where another industrious year was passed. Returning to his native land, he began to devote himself to the business of life. He at this time was intended for commercial pursuits, and spent three years in the establishment of Messrs. Thorne & Heward, commission merchants, at Montreal. The knowledge and experience gained during these three years have since proved of great service to him, although he was not destined to engage in commercial business on his own behalf. He had meanwhile resolved to enter the legal profession in Upper Canada, and was accordingly articled as a clerk to Mr. — now the Hon. Sir — John A. Macdonald, in the office of Messrs. Macdonald & Campbell, Barristers, of Kingston. Here he studied with such assiduity that his health gave way, and he was compelled to relinquish his studies for some months. His father having previously removed to Montreal, he returned to that city and resumed his scholastic studies in the University of McGill College, where he took the degrees successively of B.A., M.A., B.C.L., and D.C.L. He was the first graduate in the Arts course of that institution, and was subsequently elected by the graduates one of the first Fellows in Arts, and thence was promoted to be one of the Governors of the University, which position he held for several years. He entered the office of the then Attorney-General Badgley, who subsequently became a Judge of the Court of Queen's Bench in Quebec. He completed his course of studies in the office of Messrs. Badgley & Abbott, and then proceeded to Toronto, where he presented his credentials to the Benchers of the Law Society and requested to be called to the Bar, under the provisions of the law which enabled any person who had been duly registered as a clerk or student during the necessary period for the Bar of Lower Canada, to be called to the Bar of Upper Canada, after passing the necessary examination. He was examined in due course by the Benchers of Upper Canada, admitted to the degree of Barrister-at-Law, and was thereafter sworn in as an Attorney — both in Hilary Term of the year 1851. He was then about to establish himself in the practice of the law in the city of Toronto, having been offered a partnership by the then Attorney-General, the late Hon. John Ross, when family circumstances led to his return to Montreal, where, having presented his diploma as a Barrister-at-Law of Upper Canada, he was after examination called to the Bar of Lower Canada as an Advocate. In November of the same year he married Miss Margaret Cline, daughter of the late Mr. William Cline, of Cornwall, and niece of the late Hon. Philip Vankoughnet, of the same place. He entered upon the practice of his profession in Montreal. His ability and social connections soon secured for him a large and lucrative practice, and having entered into partnership with the present Mr. Justice Torrance, he became known as one of the most successful practitioners in the Province, devoting himself mainly to commercial law. Like his father before him, he attached himself to the Conservative side in politics, and first entered active political life in 1861, when he contested the constituency of South Lanark, in Upper Canada, for the Legislative Assembly, in opposition to Mr. John Doran. His father had represented that constituency for twenty years, and he had no difficulty in securing his election. Upon the opening of the session he took his seat in the House, and made his first speech, on the debate on the Speech from the Throne, which was on the question of Representation by Population — a measure which he did not believe to be the true remedy for the unsatisfactory state of things which existed throughout the country. The true remedy, as he believed, and as he repeatedly urged, both from his place in Parliament and elsewhere, was the Confederation scheme which was subsequently adopted. In the negotiations which led to the formation of the Coalition Government, of which Sir John A. Macdonald and the late Hon. George Brown were members, and which secured the necessary Imperial legislation in order to bring about Confederation, he took an active and initiatory part, as appears by the record of the steps taken to form the Government, and secure that policy submitted to the Parliament of Canada at the time. He continued to represent South Lanark in the Assembly until Confederation, after which he represented it in the House of Commons until the general election of 1872. He was an active member, and stood high in the esteem of his Party. In the month of November, 1869, he accepted office in the then-existing Government as Minister of Inland Revenue, which he retained until, having resigned his position in the Government owing to broken health, he received the appointment of Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba, in July, 1872. Of this office he was the first incumbent, no Court of Queen's Bench having previously existed there. The highest judicial tribunal which had existed in the Prairie Province up to that time was the Quarterly Court, as it was called, organized under the authority of the Hudson's Bay Company's Charter, and conducted in a rather primitive way. A short time prior to the date last mentioned this tribunal was abolished, and the Court of Queen's Bench established in its place. After accepting the office of Chief Justice, Mr. Morris prepared a series of rules introducing the English practice into the Court. He did not long retain his seat on the Judicial Bench, as, two months after his appointment as Chief Justice, he was nominated as Administrator, in place of Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, who was absent on leave. On the 2nd of December, 1872, he received the appointment of Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, a position which he retained for five years. On the creation of the District of Keewatin he became Lieutenant-Governor of that territory ex officio. He was also appointed Chief Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Manitoba Superintendency, and one of the Special Commissioners for the making of treaties three, four, five and six, and the revision of treaties one and two; and, as will be seen from the last report of the Minister of the Interior, he suggested the making of the last and seventh treaty — that with the Blackfeet. In the making of these treaties he was the active Commissioner and chief spokesman, and was very successful in winning the confidence of the Indian tribes. The treaties in question extinguished the natural title of the Indian tribes to the vast region extending from the Height of Land beyond Lake Superior to the Blackfeet country in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, covering the route of the Canada Pacific Railway, and opening up a vast extent of fertile territory to settlement. When Mr. Morris assumed the government of Manitoba the Province was in a very disturbed condition. He had the satisfaction of leaving it reduced to order, and far advanced in settlement and legislative progress. On his departure from Manitoba, the Free Press, the organ of the Liberal Party, thus referred to his career in the North-West: "To-morrow is the last day of Hon. Alexander Morris's connection with Manitoba as Lieutenant-Governor. When, five years ago, the announcement was made that Chief Justice Morris had been appointed to the position which he is now just about vacating, very general satisfaction was manifested by the people of the Province. Mr. Morris succeeded to the office when it was surrounded by difficulties great and complicated; and the task before its incumbent was by no means an easy one. The Province occupied a most peculiar position; having just had constitutional self-government thrust upon it, without any preparatory training. The Lieutenant-Governor necessarily found himself at the head of a people who, no matter how good their intentions, could not reasonably be expected to have a very perfect appreciation of the true position of a Lieutenant-Governor under such a government. Lieutenant-Governor Morris during the early part of his official career had plenty of evidence of this, and it devolved upon him, in no small degree, to impress upon them exactly what such government entailed — that the Lieutenant-Governor was supposed to act almost solely upon the advice of the Crown Ministers of the day, who in turn were responsible to the people's chosen representatives in Parliament. And in no one way has Governor Morris more distinguished himself than in the observance of this fundamental principle of our constitution, however much he may actually have assisted in the government of the country by his ripe experience and statesmanship. The smallest Province though Manitoba is, the office of its Lieutenant-Governor has entailed more extensive responsibilities than that of any other Province in the Dominion."

Upon the completion of his term of office Mr. Morris returned from Manitoba to his native town of Perth, in Ontario, where he had a residence. At the last general election for the House of Commons, in 1878, he contested the constituency of Selkirk, Manitoba, with the Hon. Donald A. Smith, but was defeated by nine votes. Mr. Smith was, however, unseated on petition. About two months later the Hon. Matthew Crooks Cameron, who sat in the Local Legislature of Ontario for East Toronto, was appointed to a Puisné Judgeship of the Court of Queen's Bench. This left a vacancy in the representation of East Toronto, and Mr. Morris, who was then a resident of Perth, was nominated for the vacancy by a Conservative Convention. He offered himself as a candidate for the constituency, and was elected by a considerable majority over his opponent, Mr. John Leys. At the general local elections held on the 5th of June following Mr. Morris was again returned for East Toronto — of which he had in the interval become a resident — by a majority of 57 over the Hon. Oliver Mowat, Premier of Ontario. He continues to represent that constituency, and occupies a prominent place as a member of the Opposition.