John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham

“ Durham was at this time courted by the youthful Disraeli, who, when Melbourne became prime minister in succession to Grey in 1834, declared that the Whigs could not exist as a party without Lord Durham. Brougham’s animosity became undisguised at the great banquet given to Lord Grey at Edinburgh in September 1834, where he made a venomous attack on Durham, repeated shortly afterwards at Salisbury, and anonymously in the Edinburgh Review. ”

“ His colleagues, who were appointed rather as his assistants than as his equals, were Lord John Russell, Sir James Graham and Lord Duncannon; and it was Durham who selected Lord John Russell, not then in the cabinet, to introduce the bill in the House of Commons; a selection that was hotly opposed by Brougham, whose later vindictive animosity against Durham is to be traced to his having been passed over in the selection of the committee of four. Durham was present with Grey at an audience of the king which led to the sudden dissolution of parliament in March 1831 ”

“ Soon after entering parliament he protested against the coal-mining monopoly granted by the crown to the creditors of the Duke of York, and at a later date he and his brother George were largely instrumental in procuring its abolition. In 1838, towards the close of the rebellion of the French Canadians, Young was among those invited to meet Lord Durham at Quebec and discuss the complaints of the French population [see Lambton, John George, first Earl of Durham] . ”

“ This was John George Lambton, created Earl of Durham in 1833, a man of whom Lord Brougham said that he had many good and some great qualities, but all were much obscured, and even perverted, by his temper, which was greatly affected by the painful liver disease from which he suffered. Creevy speaks of him, soon after the death of his first wife, as an excellent host, as full of good qualities, and possessing remarkable talents, adding that “his three little babies are his great resource.” Durham once said that he thought £40,000 a year a moderate income—one which a man might just jog on with ”

“ At length, irritated by the perpetual compromises of the cabinet, his health gave way, and he became anxious to retire. Upon Lord Palmerston's refusal to cancel the appointment of Stratford Canning as minister to St. Petersburg (an appointment which Durham had promised the Emperor of Russia should be revoked) , Durham resigned (14 March 1833) , and was created Viscount Lambton and Earl of Durham by letters patent dated 23 March 1833 (Journals of the House of Lords, lxv. 389) . ”

“ And We do hereby declare, ordain and appoint that you, the said John George Earl of Durham, shall and may hold, execute and enjoy the said offices of High Commissioner and Governor-General of Our said Provinces on the Continent of North America, and of the said Islands of Prince Edward and Newfoundland, as aforesaid, together with all and singular the powers and authorities hereby granted unto you for and during Our will and pleasure. ”

“ The man born for the crisis was a type of a class hardly to be understood by the Canadian democracy. He was an aristocratic radical. His recently acquired title, Lord Durham, must not be allowed to obscure the fact that he was a Lambton, the head of an old county family, which was entitled by its long descent to look down upon half the House of Peers as parvenus. At the family seat, Lambton Castle, in the county of Durham, Lambton after Lambton had lived and reigned like a petty prince. ”

“ The common people throughout the kingdom are deeply moved at this spectacle—riots follow—troops shed more blood—Ministers denounce the agitators—Burdett defends them—Brougham [30] defies Ministers, and Lord John Russell numbers the days of Grampound. The next session he moves to disfranchise that rotten borough, which had been convicted of bribery, and transfer its members to Leeds. He fails. The next session, Lambton (Earl Durham) brings in a bill for a radical reform, and is defeated by a scurvy trick of Ministers. ”

“ As long as a revenue is raised, which leaves a large surplus after the payment of the necessary expenses of the civil Government, and as long as any member of the Assembly may, without restriction, propose a vote of public money, so long will the Assembly retain in its hands the powers which it every where abuses, of misapplying that money. The prerogative of the Crown which is constantly exercised in Great Britain for the real protection of the people, ought never to have been waived in the Colonies ”

“ The executive government had been defending the prerogative of the Crown, and the institutions which, in accordance with the principles of the British Constitution, had been established as checks on the unbridled exercise of popular power. Though, during the dispute, indications had been given of the existence of dissensions yet deeper and more formidable than any which arose from simply political causes, I had still, in common with most of my country-men, imagined that the original and constant source of the evil was to be found in the defects of the political institutions of the Provinces ”

“ The British, on the contrary, to whichever party they belong, appear to agree in desiring that the connexion with the mother country should be drawn closer. They differ very little among themselves, I imagine, in desiring such a change as should assimilate the Government of Upper Canada, in spirit as well as in form, to the Government of England, retaining an executive sufficiently powerful to curb popular excesses, and giving to the majority of the people, or to such of them as the less liberal would trust with political rights, some substantial control over the administration of affairs. ”

“ An elective executive council would not only be utterly inconsistent with monarchical government, but would really, under the nominal authority of the Crown, deprive the community of one of the great advantages of an hereditary monarchy. Every purpose of popular control might be combined with every advantage of vesting the immediate choice of advisers in the Crown, were the Colonial Governor to be instructed to secure the co-operation of the Assembly in his policy, by entrusting its administration to such men as could command a majority ”

“ The people of England are not accustomed to rely on the honest and discreet exercise of absolute power; and if they permit a despotism to be established in their Colonies, they feel bound, when their attention happens to be directed towards them, to watch its acts with vigilance. The Governor and Council would feel this responsibility in all their acts: unless they happened to be men of much more than ordinary nerve and earnestness, they would shape their policy so as merely to avoid giving a handle to attacks ”

“ For those who support this system have never yet been able to devise, or to exhibit in the practical working of colonial government, any means for making so complete an abrogation of political influence palatable to the representative body. It is not difficult to apply the case to our own country. Let it be imagined that at a general election the opposition were to return 500 out of 658 members of the House of Commons, and that the whole policy of the ministry should be condemned, and every Bill introduced by it, rejected by this immense majority. ”

“ In the present state of feeling among the French population, I cannot doubt that any power which they might possess would be used against the policy and the very existence of any form of British government. I cannot doubt that any French Assembly that shall again meet in Lower Canada will use whatever power, be it more or less limited, it may have, to obstruct the Government, and undo whatever has been done by it. Time, and the honest co-operation of the various parties, would be required to aid the action of a federal constitution ”

“ But Brougham had at least started the question, and he never ceased to keep it moving during his long life. Other reformers, too, as well as Mackintosh and Brougham, were making their voices heard above, or at all events through, the din and clamor of the controversy between the friends of the King and the champions of the Queen. Lord John Russell may be said to have then begun his noble career as reformer of the system of parliamentary representation, and Mr. Lambton, afterwards to be better known as Lord Durham, made more than one bold effort in the same direction. ”

“ Dunn, was an Englishman, who had held the office of Receiver General for nearly 14 years, and up to that time had abstained from any interference in politics. These gentlemen were, at first, reluctant to take office, because they feared that, as there were still three of the former Council left, they should be constantly maintaining a doubtful struggle for the measures which they considered necessary. ”

“ One by one the ancient English leaders of the Assembly have fallen off from the majority, and attached themselves to the party which supported the British Government against it. Every election from the townships added to the English minority. On the other hand, year after year, in spite of the various influences which a government can exercise, and of which no people in the world are more susceptible than the French Canadians ”

“ It exists in the beneficial operation of those British institutions which link the utmost development of freedom and civilization with the stable authority of an hereditary monarchy, and which, if rightly organized and fairly administered in the Colonies, as in Great Britain, would render a change of institutions only an additional evil to the loss of the protection and commerce of the British Empire. ”

“ This fund is voted by the Assembly on the motion of its members; the necessity of obtaining the previous consent of the Crown to money votes never having been adopted by the Colonial Legislatures from the practice of the British House of Commons. There is a perfect scramble among the whole body to get as much as possible of this fund for their respective constituents; cabals are formed, by which the different members mutually play into each other's hands; general politics are made to bear on private business, and private business on general politics ”

“ Responsibility of Government in England.In England, this principle has been so long considered an indisputable and essential part of our constitution, that it has really hardly ever been found necessary to inquire into the means by which its observance is enforced. When a ministry ceases to command a majority in Parliament on great questions of policy, its doom is immediately sealed; and it would appear to us as strange to attempt, for any time, to carry on a Government by means of ministers perpetually in a minority, as it would be to pass laws with a majority of votes against them. ”

“ While it excites the exultation of the enemies of British institutions, its reality is more strongly evinced by the reluctant admission of Your Majesty's most attached subjects. It is no true loyalty to hide from Your Majesty's knowledge the existence of an evil which it is in Your Majesty's power, as it is Your Majesty's benevolent pleasure, to remove. For the possibility of reform is yet afforded by the patient and fervent attachment which Your Majesty's English subjects in all these Provinces still feel to their allegiance and their mother country. ”

“ The higher classes, and the inhabitants of the towns, have adopted some English customs and feelings; but the continued negligence of the British Government left the mass of the people without any of the institutions which would have elevated them in freedom and civilization. It has left them without the education and without the institutions of local self-government, that would have assimilated their character and habits, in the easiest and best way, to those of the Empire of which they became a part. They remain an old and stationary society, in a new and progressive world. ”

“ The proofs, which many who are much dissatisfied with the existing administration of the Government, have given of their loyalty, are not to be denied or overlooked. The attachment constantly exhibited by the people of these Provinces towards the British Crown and Empire, has all the characteristics of a strong national feeling. They value the institutions of their country, not merely from a sense of the practical advantages which they confer, but from sentiments of national pride ”

“ Thus a bold and intelligent democracy was impelled, by its impatience for liberal measures, joined to its national antipathies, to make common cause with a government which was at issue with the majority on the question of popular rights. The actual conflict commenced by a collision between the Executive and the French majority; and, as the English population rallied round the Government, supported its pretensions, and designated themselves by the appellation of 'loyal', the causes of the quarrel were naturally supposed to be much more simple than they really were ”

“ He was created Earl of Ravensworth, a title that died with his son, when the Barony passed to a cousin. The Very Rev. Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and some time Vice-Chancellor of that University, was one of the compilers of the well-known Greek lexicon.
The Bowes family was once as widely scattered over Durham as the Conyers. Streatlam Castle and Gibside, Bradley Hall, Biddick, and Thornton Hall, were all residences of the Boweses at one time. One branch only in the male line survives, and is now resident at Croft. ”