Duncan Campbell

“ Yet, in the face of such overwhelming evidence, the colonial secretary had the coolness to parade the opinion of the law officers of the Crown before the government, legislature, and people of Prince Edward Island, that there was no reference or award, properly so called, very prudently abstaining from any expression of his own opinion on the point.
The principle on which the Duke of Newcastle rejected the award was, that a man who agrees to refer his case to one tribunal cannot, therefore, be forced to submit it to another. The equity of that principle cannot be denied. ”

“ The people have learned to put no confidence either in governments or princes; but, under Almighty favor, by economy, temperance, and hard work, to trust to their own efforts in sweeping from the island the remnants of a pernicious system, and of attaining that measure of independence and prosperity to which such formidable obstacles have been presented, but the ultimate realization of which the capabilities of the island warrant. Since the island became British property, not a petition or complaint has been laid at the foot of the throne which has not breathed the most devoted loyalty ”

“ He was also president of the Bank of Prince Edward Island. During his long official career he discharged his public duties with ability and dignity.
In private life he was remarkable for his generous hospitality and urbanity, for his kindly disposition and the constancy of his friendship. He was ever ready to listen to all who sought his counsel or assistance, and very many were the recipients of both. Time appeared to have laid its hand gently upon him. He was never known to the world as an ailing man. ”

“ A governor has just as much power to do the one as the other. I should like to know what opinion you would have of a country where the validity of public contracts depended on the will of the governor.
“The purchases were made in the very worst period of the war, when the property was very precarious indeed, and when no man in England would have given hardly a guinea for the whole island. It is now peace, and fortunately we still remain a part of the British Empire. The lands are consequently esteemed more valuable, and the proprietors have become clamorous for their loss. ”

“ The emigrants sent out by the few were disheartened by the surrounding wilderness owned by the many, who made no effort to reclaim it, or were tempted to roam about or disregard the terms of settlement by the quantity of wild land, with no visible owner to guard it from intrusion. By mutual co-operation and a common policy, the proprietors might have redeemed the grants of the imperial government from the charge of improvidence. The want of these indispensible elements of success laid the foundation of all the grievances which subsequently afflicted the colony. ”

“ On the proceedings of the assembly, his grace remarked that if a union, either partial or complete, should hereafter be proposed, with the concurrence of all the provinces to be united, he was sure that the matter would be weighed in England by the public, by parliament, and by Her Majesty’s government with no other feeling than an anxiety to discern and to promote any course which might be most conducive to the prosperity, the strength, and the harmony of all the British communities in North America. ”

“ The act, as a precedent, will, doubtless, be cast in the teeth of the owners of British property by our modern communists, the tendency of whose views finds the solemn sanction of law in this measure. It is unjust to the landlord, inasmuch as it compels him to sell his land even when he deems it his interest to retain it; and it is unjust to the tenant, as it necessitates his paying, if he be desirous of securing the fee-simple of the land, a comparatively high price. ”

“ It ought not, therefore, to be matter for surprise that, although he might be ready and willing to pay a fair equivalent, either in rent or otherwise, for the land occupied, he should feel dismayed at the prospect of being deprived of the hard-earned fruits of the labor of the earliest and best years of his manhood, whether from an accumulation of heavy arrears of rent, which he was unable to realize from the land, or from the refusal of the proprietor to grant him a tenure of sufficient endurance to ensure to his family the profits of his industry ”

“ In forming plans for the settlement of the American Colonies, the object the Commissioners had principally in view was to advance and extend the commerce and navigation of the kingdom, to preserve a due dependence in the colonies on the mother country, and to secure to them the full enjoyment of every civil and religious right, so that the colonists might have just reason to value themselves on being British subjects. In order to attain these objects, the Board had recommended such a mode of granting lands as might encourage industry, which is the life and spirit of commerce ”

“ While immigrants to other portions of America obtained good land in fee-simple for the merest trifle, and were working their way to competence and independence, the farmers of Prince Edward Island, weighed down by rent, were doomed to clear the forest and improve the land, finding themselves in many cases, in their old age, no richer than on their arrival in the country, with no prospect before their families but hard work, and with no hope of a permanent or adequate return. ”

“ Deferring reverently to the public opinion of his own province, he would cheerfully go amongst his people, and explaining it as well as he could, he would ask them to support a measure which he believed would enhance their prosperity. Few, and comparatively poor, as the people of Prince Edward Island may be now, its fertile fields and valleys are capable of supporting a population at least three times greater than it is at present. ”

“ By holding an open court in all the shire towns, they had given to every man on the island, however poor, an opportunity to explain his grievances, if he had any. By bringing the proprietors and tenants face to face before an independent tribunal, mutual misunderstandings and exaggerated statements had been tested and explained, and the real condition of society and the evils of the leasehold system had been carefully contemplated from points of view not often reached by those whose interests were involved in the controversy. ”

“ Those that are poor, and cannot pay their passage, or can rake together only a trifle, are going to a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp, called Prince Edward Island, in the horrible Gulf of Saint Lawrence ”

“ Instead of adopting this manly and honest course, the Crown ignored the injury inflicted on the tenants, and allowed the proprietors to retain their land in a wilderness state, thus causing long-continued misery and bitterness in the island, and almost permanently obscuring the lustre of one of the brightest gems in the British colonial diadem. The charge of indifference to the just complaints of the people cannot be brought against the successive local legislatures and governments of the island. ”

“ His political opponents will acknowledge that he never abused the power of the press, and that he knew how to combine a singularly consistent political career with conciliatory manners. Edward Whelan’s nature revolted from any mean or vindictive action. He neither bullied his opponents nor begged favors; he relied upon the strong innate love of justice of every intelligent mind; and, although he died comparatively young, he lived long enough to see, to a large extent, the results of his labors in the extension of civil liberty. ”

“ In shameful violation of the principles of national honor and justice, the representations of the people, through their representatives, were disregarded, in consequence of the influence brought to bear, by the grantees, on a weak and incompetent government; and thus there was on the part of Britain a flagrant breach of faith with the immigrants who had been tempted to leave their native country, trusting to guarantees the violation of which was never suspected. ”

“ But, in the meantime, the inhabitants of the island are subjected to the greatest inconvenience—nay, the most serious injury—from the state of the property in land. The absent proprietors neither improve the land themselves, nor will let others improve it. They retain the land and keep it in a state of wilderness. Your lordship can scarcely conceive the degree of injury inflicted on a new settlement hemmed in by wilderness land, which has been placed out of the control of government, and is entirely neglected by its absent proprietors. ”

“ It is scarcely necessary to premise, before giving this important state document, that Lord Durham is considered the highest authority on those colonial subjects of which he treats in his celebrated report,—a document which will stand for successive generations as a lasting monument of his ability as a statesman, and which has been and is now recognized as embodying the most masterly exposition of colonial questions which has ever been published. ”

“ The place of interment was the Uigg Murray Harbor Road churchyard, eighteen miles distant from Charlottetown. The funeral was the largest ever witnessed in the colony. All classes united in paying the last tribute of respect to the honored dead. The cortege numbered over three hundred and fifty sleighs. As the great procession moved down through the country, at the roadsides and at the doors and windows of the houses might be seen old men weeping, and women and children sobbing as if they had lost a father ”

“ The lieutenant-governor of the island was to appoint one commissioner; the governor-general of the Dominion another; and a third was to be appointed by each of the proprietors whose land was to be valued. As we write, the commissioners are sitting, and the value of the lands is being irrevocably determined. The measure, though one of absolute necessity,—so far as the local government and the interest of the tenants are concerned,—must be regarded as the most unconstitutional act that ever received imperial sanction. ”

“ Immediately after doing this, the officers proceeded to the eastern district of King’s County, which was one of the most populous on the island, and astonished the people by demanding instant payment, or promissory notes payable in ten days, on pain of having their land and stock disposed of by public sale. This district was inhabited by highlanders, who spoke no other language than their native Gaelic. Men who would have faced an open foe in the field, with the courage characteristic of the Celtic race, had a profound respect for law, and dread and horror of the bailiff ”

“ Loyalty must be indigenous to a soil where, under such adverse conditions, it has taken such deep root and flourishes.
In the very year when the commissioners were prosecuting their inquiries, Prince Edward Island responded to the call for a defensive force by organizing twenty companies of volunteers, mustering upwards of a thousand men, showing a degree of loyalty, zeal, and energy in that direction inferior to no other portion of the Queen’s dominions. ”

“ The ignorance which in our days prevails in the old country respecting the American colonies is not quite so deplorable as that which existed at the period of the island history at which we have now arrived. ”

“ That, even if a union of the continental provinces of British North America should have the effect of strengthening and binding more closely together those provinces, or advancing their material interests, this house cannot admit that a federal union of the North American Provinces and colonies, which would include Prince Edward Island, could ever be accomplished on terms that would prove advantageous to the interests and well-being of the people of this island, separated as it is, and must ever remain, from the neighboring provinces, by an immovable barrier of ice, for many months in the year ”

“ As it was not improbable that five years would be required to purchase the estates, and expend the loan to advantage, it might happen that the revenue would increase as fast as the interest was required, without any increase in the tariff, or diminution of the appropriations. But it might be reasonably assumed, when a new spirit was breathed into the island, and its population turned to the business of life, with new hopes and entire confidence in the future, that trade would be more active, and the condition of the people improve. ”

“ A public meeting of the inhabitants, called by the sheriff, Mr. William Pope, was held for the purpose of voting an address to the lieutenant-governor. Colonel Holland, Mr. Hodgson, and Mr. Binns were appointed to prepare it. “We feel,” said the inhabitants, “the utmost confidence that the harmony which ought always to exist between the government and the people is perfectly established, and that your excellency will believe that loyalty, obedience to the laws, and a love of order is the character of the inhabitants of Charlottetown. ”

“ Towards the close of 1837, a rebellion broke out in Canada. The insurgents mustered in considerable numbers, but without sufficient organization, and their leaders—utterly incompetent and cowardly—were the first to escape after a few shots were fired. The militia of the island offered their services in vindication of the King’s authority; but the troops in Canada were quite sufficient to extinguish the rebellion, ere it had attained to any formidable dimensions. ”

“ The commissioners concluded their report by expressing their deliberate opinion that whilst a paper circulation, based on adequate and available capital, was, under prudent management, of the utmost benefit to a commercial and agricultural population, and would contribute largely to its prosperity, unconvertible paper was a curse and a deception,—a delusive and fictitious capital, which left no solid foundation to rest upon in any time of reverse and difficulty. ”