Queen of Canada

“ The opening months of the queen’s reign were marked by rebellion in Canada. The close of it saw Canada one of the most loyal portions of the Empire. In Africa, the advance of the red line which marks the bounds of British dominion was even more rapid; while in India the Punjab, Sind, Oudh and Burma were some of the acquisitions added to the British empire while the queen was on the throne. When she died one square mile in four of the land in the world was under the British flag, and at least one person out of every five persons alive was a subject of the queen. ”

“ Standing here, on United States ground, beneath that flag under which we are proud to live, I repeat that no people was ever more loyal than are the Canadas to their Queen; and it is the purpose of the present Ministers of Her Majesty's Government to make the people of Canada so prosperous and happy, that other nations shall envy them their good fortune. ”

“ Her banner hath unfurled.
Fair Canada! all lands above
In power to conquer wrong; Thou yieldest love in turn for love,
Thy strength shall aye be strong. Oh beauteous, peerless, wide domains!
Oh ever teeming store! Though exiled myriads seek thy plains,
There's room for myriads more.
Now, where the Rocky summits rise,
At tender eve's decline, I watch the sun of cloudless skies
O'er many an acre shine. My heart's best treasures by my side,
The years may ebb and flow; Till I shall greet, 'yond storm and tide,
The loved of long ago. THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE. I.
Ring out, gay notes! ”

“ Even now Canada is regarded as much a part of the Empire as England, Ireland or Scotland, and she has become an important factor in the management and direction of concerns coextensive with Imperial Rule.
This is of vast moment, and a most desirable consummation. The colonial “soldiers of the Queen”, stained the soil of Africa with their blood for Britain's sake, but the sacrifice of life and treasure will not have been in vain, it with the cement of a brotherhood in death, it knits together irrevocably, the noble fabric of the British Empire. ”

“ Canada stands at the same place in the world's history as England stood in the Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth—on the threshold of her future as a great nation. Her population is the same, about seven million. ”

“ That, so far as my puny forces would go, I struggled for the union of the Canadian Provinces, in order that they might be retained under the sway of the best form of government—a limited monarchy, and under the best government of that form—the beneficent rule of our Queen Victoria. I like to say our Queen: for no sovereign ever identified herself in heart and feeling, in anxiety and personal sacrifice, with a free and grateful people more thoroughly than she has done, all along. ”

“ This was a very important step, and gave a vast impulse to the prosperity of Canada. The colony now has all the advantages—free from a few of the inconveniences—of being an independent country. England retains the right of nominating the Governor-General, and the Queen has the power, rarely if ever exercised, of putting a veto upon certain of the acts of the colonial legislature. England conducts all matters of war and diplomacy, and provides a regular military establishment for the defence of Canada ”

“ More than a hundred years ago, the Queen's father said to the red men living in Quebec and Ontario, I will give you land and cattle and set apart Reserves for you, and will teach you. What has been the result? There the red men are happy; instead of getting fewer in number by sickness they are growing in number; their children have plenty. The Queen wishes you to enjoy the same blessings, and so I am here to tell you all the Queen's mind, but recollect this, the Queen's High Councillor here from Ottawa, and I, her Governor, are not traders; we do not come here in the spirit of traders ”

“ She is at all times sorry to quit Quebec—a place she loves as much for the moral worth of its people as for the grandeur of its scenery. As for myself, gentlemen, I have obeyed a pleasant call in being amongst you to-day to testify my respect for our French-Canadian fellow-citizens, and my appreciation of the value of the element furnished by its noble and gallant race in influencing for good our young and growing Canadian nationality. I am here to show how much I prize the loyalty evinced by you on all occasions towards Her Majesty the Queen, whose representative I am. ”

“ The people of Canada are learning a useful piece of knowledge or two from what is passing so close to them. The annexation party are heard no more: in their room stand the people of Canada, loyal to the Crown and to the connexion, prepared to defend their homes and altars against invasion. So far as I have gone, in no place in the Queen’s dominions is there greater attachment to her person and authority.
The Canadians see with sorrow the ills which afflict their neighbours, in spite of all the ill-advised menaces of the Northern Press ”

“ When the great procession passed before the Queen of England on the day of the "Diamond Jubilee"—when delegates from all parts of a mighty, world-embracing empire gave her their loyal and heartfelt homage—Canada was represented by a Prime Minister who belonged to that race which has steadily gained in intellectual strength, political freedom, and material prosperity, since the memorable events of 1759 and 1760. ”

“ Before glancing at the development and condition of Canada in confederation we will complete the official outline by a reference to the civil service and to the militia. The British Government has withdrawn all the imperial troops from Canada except a small garrison at Halifax, and a naval establishment there and at Victoria. The Queen is commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces in Canada, but the control of the same is in the Dominion Parliament. The general of the military force is a British officer. ”

“ Responsible government has been conceded to Canada, and should be attended in its workings with all the consequences of responsible government in the mother country. What the Queen cannot do in England the governor-general should not be permitted to do in Canada. In making imperial appointments she is bound to consult her cabinet ”

“ On December 22, the British Parliament received the news of rebellion in Lower Canada. The distress occasioned by the financial panic of this year Canada restive in the United States had spread to Canada. It found vent in agitation against English rule on the part of the French Canadians. On the occasion of the announcement of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne, when Te Deums were sung in the churches, the French Canadians signified their Papineau disapproval by walking out of church. ”

“ The English franklin and the English peasant who come here usually weigh their allegiance a little before they make up their minds; but, if they have been persuaded that Queen Victoria's reign is a "baneful domination," they either go to the United States at once, or to those portions of Canada where sympathy with the Stars and Stripes is the order of the day. [2]
If they be Scotch Radicals, the most uncompromising and the most bitter of all politicians, they seek Canada only with the ultimate hope of revolutionizing it. ”

“ I can assure them, if they wanted the assurance, the people of Canada are proud and grateful for their visit. If there are any shortcomings among us it is because we are a young country; but we will do our best any way and you must take the will for the deed. (Applause.) I am sure I express the sentiments of all in giving the Association a most hearty greeting to the Dominion of Canada. (Loud applause.) The national anthem was then sung by the entire audience, and on three cheers being given for the Queen, the meeting dispersed. ”

“ The brilliant Frenchman, who is yet so proud of his country and of being a British subject, who has been honored and received by Her Imperial Majesty the Queen, decorated with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor by France, and given audience in the Vatican by the Pope, has taken a stand in Canada and wielded an{183} influence for good government, broad statesmanship and a wide-reaching Imperial policy that falls to the lot of few men to have the opportunity given them, and to still fewer the ability to grasp when the opportunity arrives. ”

“ No British colony had previously received a like attention. Canada accorded the prince all the honours due to his royal station. In the United States, too, where it was stipulated by Queen Victoria that he should travel as a private person under his incognito of Baron of Renfrew, the fiction went for nothing, and he was greeted as England's heir-apparent no less emphatically than in British North America. ”

“ While the American Colonies were still English, the British Ensign floated over Boston town, and good Queen Anne was prayed for in Puritan pulpits, an expedition was fitted out under Sir Hovenden Walker to drive the French out of Canada. In the previous year, 1710, the Legislature of New York had taken steps to lay before the Queen the alarming progress of Gallic domination in America, saying:—
"It is well known that the French can [Pg 52] go by water from Quebec to Montreal ”

“ Upper and Lower Canada, the English and French territories of the rebellion, are now known as the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and with them are confederated New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Manitoba, and the North-West Territories. The population of Canada has risen from about one million and a half in 1841 to five millions at the present day, and progress in commerce and wealth has been equally rapid. ”

“ He is a great philosopher, and seldom moved, unless by the dogs before mentioned."— (Dickens' American Notes, p. 38.)
[112] CANADA'S ROYAL VISITORS—WHO HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE 1787.—"Canada has been honoured with visits from the following Royal personages:—His Royal Highness Prince William Henry (afterwards William IV.) uncle of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, landed in Quebec in 1787. H.R.H. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, visited Canada in 1791, four years later than his brother. ”

“ Give the people back their old laws and customs in civil matters, let them feel thereby secure in their property, take a few Canadians into the service of the Crown, enlist in the King’s forces ‘a few companies of Canadian foot, judiciously officered’, ‘hold up hopes to the gentlemen, that their children, without being bred up in France, or in the French service, might support their families in the service of the King their master,’ and, at any rate, some proportion of the French Canadians would be found loyally attached to the British Government. ”

“ THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY IN COUNCIL.
Whereas there was read this day at the Board the Draft of a Proclamation declaring Gold Coins made at the Branch of the Royal Mint at Sydney, New South Wales, a legal tender in certain of Her Majesty's Possessions abroad, specified in a Schedule attached to the said Draft Proclamation. ”

“ But it must always be a subject of keen, if unavailing, regret that the French Canadians were not guaranteed their own way of life, within the limits of the modern province of Quebec, immediately after the capitulation of Montreal in 1760. They would then have entered the British Empire, as a whole people, on terms which they must all have understood to be exceedingly generous from any conquering power, and which they would have soon found out to be far better than anything they had experienced under the government of France. ”

“ In Canada, I am able to receive with pride testimonials of respect, reverence, and love for her rule, from men whose Government represents a force, if population and material resources be taken into account, far greater than that possessed of old by England, even in those days which ring with the deeds of her heroes, and have been called the "spacious times of great Elizabeth." ”

“ With such names inscribed upon her banner, we may well forgive her such as the infamous Angelique de Pean and forget the madness that came upon her when Bigot lorded it in Quebec and virtue and honor were looked upon by most of the women of that city as encumbrances to pleasure or ambition. To-day her women worthily sustain the standard which has been left them as a legacy by their noble sisters of the past; so Canada may well be content in this wise, even though she has furnished no leaders in the march of present-day womanhood toward its desired goal. ”

“ The Canadians were politically children. They had never known even the semblance of representative institutions. They had from all time been born and bred under authority—under the King, under the Church, under the seigniors. They had learnt unquestioning obedience, and could not at once be re-cast in a democratic [77] mould. The printing press, the Assembly for law-making and debate, the standing quarrels with governors, the withholding of supplies, the aggressive freedom in every form which characterized the English communities in North America, all were alien to the French Canadian. ”

“ Like their own proverb, “In love there is always one who kisses and one who holds the cheek,” French Canada was expending a good deal of sentiment upon people who had forgotten that tucked away in a remote corner of the new world was “a relic preserved in ice,” a relic of France before the Revolution, its capital the farthermost point of manner and civilization, a town with an Indian sounding name, which yet bore upon its front the impress of nobility. For Quebec is and should be the central point of interest for all Canadians ”

“ The presence of your illustrious consort in Canada seems to have drawn us closer to our beloved Sovereign, and in saying farewell to your Excellency and to her Royal Highness, whose kindly and gracious sympathies, manifested upon so many occasions, have endeared her to all hearts, we humbly beg that you will personally convey to Her Majesty the declaration of our loyal attachment, and of our determination to maintain firm and abiding our connection with the great Empire over which she rules. ”