Canadian Notabilities Part 5

THE HON. ROBERT BALDWIN.

The life of Robert Baldwin forms so important an ingredient in the political history of this country that we deem it unnecessary to offer any apology for dealing with it at considerable length. More especially is this the case, inasmuch as, unlike most of the personages included in the present series, his career is ended, and we can contemplate it, not only with perfect impartiality, but even with some approach to completeness. The twenty and odd years which have elapsed since he was laid in his grave have witnessed many and important changes in our Const.i.tution, as well as in our habits of thought; but his name is still regarded by the great ma.s.s of the Canadian people with feelings of respect and veneration. We can still point to him with the admiration due to a man who, during a time of the grossest political corruption, took a foremost part in our public affairs, and who yet preserved his integrity untarnished. We can point to him as the man who, if not the actual author of Responsible Government in Canada, yet spent the best years of his life in contending for it, and who contributed more than any other person to make that project an accomplished fact. We can point to him as one who, though a politician by predilection and by profession, never stooped to disreputable practices, either to win votes or to maintain himself in office.. Robert Baldwin, was a man who was not only incapable of falsehood or meanness to gain his ends, but who was to the last degree intolerant of such practices on the part of his warmest supporters. If intellectual greatness cannot be claimed for him, moral greatness was most indisputably his. Every action of his life was marked by sincerity and good faith, alike towards friend and foe. He was not only true to others; but was from, first to last true to himself. His useful career, and the high reputation which he left behind him, furnish an apt commentary upon the advice which Polonius gives to his son Laertes:--

"This above all, to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

To our thinking there is something august in the life of Robert Baldwin.

So chary was he of his personal honour that it was next to impossible to induce him to pledge himself beforehand, even upon the plainest question.

Once, when addressing the electors at Sharon, some one in the crowd asked him if he would pledge himself to oppose the retention of the Clergy Reserves, "I am not here," was his reply, "to pledge myself on any question. I go to the House as a free man, or I go not at all I am here to declare to you my opinions. If you approve of my opinions, and elect me, I will carry them out in Parliament. If I should alter those opinions I will come back and surrender my trust, when you will have an opportunity of re-electing me or of choosing another candidate; but I shall pledge myself at the bidding of no man." A gentleman still living in Toronto once accompanied him on an electioneering tour in his const.i.tuency of North York. There were many burning questions on the carpet at the time, on some of which Mr. Baldwin's opinion did not entirely coincide with that of the majority of his const.i.tuents. His companion remembers hearing it suggested to him that his wisest course would be to maintain a discreet silence during the canva.s.s as to the points at issue. His reply to the suggestion was eminently characteristic of the man. "To maintain silence under, such circ.u.mstances," said he, "would be tantamount to deceiving the electors. It would be as culpable as to tell them a direct lie. Sooner than follow such a course I will cheerfully accept defeat." He could not even be induced to adopt the _suppressio veri_. So tender and exacting was his conscience that he would not consent to be elected except upon the clearest understanding between himself and his const.i.tuents, even to serve a cause which he felt to be a just one. Defeat might annoy, but would not humiliate him. To be elected under false colours would humiliate him in his own esteem, a state of things which, to high-minded man, is a burden intolerable to be borne.

It has of late years become the fas.h.i.+on with many well-informed persons in this country to think and speak of Robert. Baldwin as a greatly, over-estimated man. It is on all hands admitted that he was a man of excellent intentions, of spotless integrity, and of blameless life. It is not disputed, even by those whose political views are at variance with those of the party to which he belonged, that the great measures for which he contended were, in themselves conducive to the public weal, nor is it denied that he contributed greatly to the cause of political freedom in Canada. But, it is said, Robert Baldwin was merely the exponent of principles which, long before his time, had found general acceptance among, the statesmen of every land where const.i.tutional government prevails.

Responsible government, it is said, would have become an accomplished fact, even if Robert Baldwin had never lived. Other much-needed reforms with which his name is inseparably a.s.sociated would have come, it is contended, all in good time, and this present year, 1880, would have found us pretty much where we are. To argue after this fas.h.i.+on is simply to beg the whole question at issue. It is true that there is no occult power in a mere name.

s.h.i.+p-money, doubtless, was a doomed impost, even if there had been no particular individual called John Hampden. The practical despotism of the Stuart dynasty would doubtless have come to an end long before the present day, even if Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange had never existed. In the United States, slavery was a fated inst.i.tution, even if there had been no great rebellion, and if Abraham Lincoln had never occupied the Presidential chair. But it would be a manifest injustice to withhold from those ill.u.s.trious personages the tribute due to their great and, on the whole, glorious lives. They were the media whereby human progress delivered its message to the world, and their names are deservedly held in honour and reverence by a grateful posterity. Performing on a more contracted stage, and before a less numerous audience, Robert Baldwin, fought his good fight--and won. Surrounded by inducements to prove false to his innate convictions, he nevertheless chose to encounter obloquy and persecution for what he knew to be the cause of truth and justice.

"Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide,"

says Professor Lowell. The moment came to Robert Baldwin early in life. It is not easy to believe that he ever hesitated as to his decision; and to that decision he remained true to the latest hour of his existence. If it cannot in strictness be said of him that he knew no variableness or shadow of turning, it is at least indisputable that his convictions never varied upon any question of paramount importance. What Mr. Goldwin Smith has said of Cromwell might with equal truth, be applied to Robert Baldwin: "He bore himself, not as one who gambled for a stake, but as one who struggled for a cause." These are a few among the many claims which Robert Baldwin has upon the sympathies and remembrances of the Canadian people; and they are claims which, we believe, posterity will show no disposition to ignore.

In order, to obtain a clear comprehension of the public career of Robert Baldwin ft is necessary to glance briefly at the history of one or two of his immediate ancestors. In compiling the present sketch the writer deems it proper to say that he some time since wrote an account of Robert Baldwin's life for the columns of an influential newspaper published in Toronto. That account embodied the result of much careful and original investigation. It contained, indeed, every important fact readily ascertainable with reference to Mr. Baldwin's early life. So far as that portion of it is concerned there is little to be added at the present time, and the writer has drawn largely upon it for the purposes of this memoir.

The former account being the product of his own conscientious labour and investigation, he has not deemed it necessary to reconstruct sentences and paragraphs where they, already clearly expressed his meaning. With reference to Mr. Baldwin's political life, however, the present sketch embodies the result of fuller and more accurate information, and is conceived in a spirit which the exigencies of a newspaper do not admit of.

At the close of the Revolution which ended in the independence of the United States, there resided near the City of Cork, Ireland, a gentleman named William Wilc.o.c.ks. He belonged to an old family which had once been wealthy, and which was still in comfortable circ.u.mstances. About this time a strong tide of emigration set in from various parts of Europe to the New World. The student of history does not need to be informed that there was at this period a good deal of suffering and discontent in Ireland. The more radical and, uncompromising among the malcontents staid at home, hoping for better times, many of them eventually took part in the troubles of '98.

Others sought a peaceful remedy for the evils under which they groaned, and, bidding adieu to their native land, sought an asylum for themselves, and their families in the western wilderness. The success of the American Revolution combined with the hard times at home to make the United States "the chosen land" of many thousands of these self-expatriated ones. The revolutionary struggle was then a comparatively recent affair. The thirteen revolted colonies had become an independent nation, had started on their national career under favourable auspices, and had already become a thriving and prosperous community. The Province of Quebec, which then included the whole of what afterwards became Upper and Lower Canada, had to contend with many disadvantages, and its condition was in many important respects far behind that of the American Republic. Its climate was much more rigorous than was that of its southern neighbour, and its territory was much more spa.r.s.ely settled. The western part of the Province, now forming part of the Province of Ontario, was especially thinly peopled, and except at a few points along the frontier, was little better than a wilderness. It was manifestly desirable to offer strong incentives to immigration, with a view to the speedy settlement of the country. To effect such a settlement was the imperative duty of the Government of the day, and to this end, large tracts of land were allotted to persons whose settlement here was deemed likely to influence colonization. Whole towns.h.i.+ps were in some cases conferred, upon condition that the grantees would settle the same with a certain number of colonists within a reasonable time. One of these grantees was the William Willc.o.c.ks above mentioned, who was a man of much enterprise and philanthropy. He conceived the idea of obtaining a grant of a large tract of land, and of settling it with emigrants of his own choosing, with himself as a sort of feudal proprietor at their head.

With this object in view he came out to Canada in or about the year 1790, to spy out the land, and to judge from personal inspection which would be the most advantageous site for his projected colony. In setting out upon this quest he enjoyed an advantage greater even than was conferred by his social position. A cousin of his, Mr. Peter Russell, a member of the Irish branch of the Bedfords.h.i.+re family of Russell, had already been out to Canada, and had brought home glowing accounts of the prospects held out there to persons of capital and enterprise. Mr. Russell had originally gone to America during the progress of the Revolutionary War, in the capacity of Secretary to Sir Henry Clinton, Commander-in-chief of the British forces on this continent. He had seen and heard enough to convince him that the acquisition of land in Canada was certain to prove a royal road to wealth.

After the close of the war he returned to the Old Country, and gave his relatives the benefit of his experience. Mr. Russell also came out to Canada with Governor Simcoe in 1792, in the capacity of Inspector-General.

He subsequently held several important, offices of trust in Upper Canada.

He became a member of the Executive Council, and as the senior member of that body the administration, of the Government devolved upon him during the three years (1796-1799) intervening between Governor Simcoe's departure from Canada, and the appointment of Major-General Peter Hunter as Lieutenant-Governor. His residence in Canada, as will presently be seen, was destined to have an important bearing on the fortunes of the Baldwin family. Meanwhile, it is sufficient to note the fact that it was largely in consequence of the valuable topographical and statistical information, furnished by him to his cousin William Willc.o.c.ks that the latter was induced to set out on his preliminary tour of Asenation.

The result of this preliminary tour was to convince Mr. Willc.o.c.ks that his cousin had not overstated the capabilities of the country, as to the future of which he formed the most sanguine expectations. The next step to be taken was to obtain his grant; and, as his political influence in and around his native city was considerable, he conceived that this would be easily managed. He returned home, and almost immediately afterwards crossed over to England, where he opened negotiations with the Government. After some delay he succeeded in obtaining a grant of a large tract of land forming part of the present Towns.h.i.+p of Whitchurch, in the County of York.

In consideration of this liberal grant he on his part agreed to settle not fewer than sixty colonists on the laud so granted within a certain specified time. An Order in Council confirmatory of this arrangement seems to have been pa.s.sed. The rest of the transaction is involved in some obscurity. Mr. Willc.o.c.ks returned to Ireland, and was soon afterwards elected Mayor of Cork--an office which he had held at least once before his American tour. Munic.i.p.al and other affairs occupied so much of his time that he neglected to take steps for settling his trans-Atlantic domain until the period allowed him by Government for that purpose had nearly expired. However, in course of time--probably in the summer of 1797--he embarked with the full complement of emigrants for New York, whither they arrived after a long and stormy voyage. They pushed on without unnecessary delay, and in due coa.r.s.e arrived at Oswego, where Mr. Willc.o.c.ks received the disastrous intelligence that the Order in Council embodying his arrangement with the Government had been revoked.

Why the revocation took place does not appear, as no change of Government had taken place, and the circ.u.mstances had not materially changed. Whatever the reason may have been the consequences to Mr. Willc.o.c.ks and his emigrants were very serious. The poor Irish families who had accompanied him to the New World--travel-worn and helpless, in a strange land, without means, and without experience in the hard lines of pioneer life--were dismayed at the prospect before them. Mr. Wilc.o.c.ks, a kind and honourable man, naturally felt himself to be in a manner responsible for their forlorn situation. He at once professed his readiness to bear the expense of their return to their native land. Most of them availed themselves of this offer, and made the best of their way back to Ireland--some of them, doubtless, to take part in the rising of '98. A few of them elected to remain in America, and scattered themselves here and there throughout the State of New York.

Mr. Wilc.o.c.ks himself, accompanied by one or two families, continued his journey to Canada, where he soon succeeded in securing a considerable allotment of land in Whitchurch and elsewhere. It is probable that he was treated liberally by the Government, as his generosity to the emigrants had greatly impoverished him, and it is certain that a few years later he was the possessor of large means. Almost immediately after his arrival in Canada he took up his abode at York, where he continued to reside down to the time of his death. Being a man of education and business capacity he was appointed Judge of the Home District Court, where we shall soon meet him again in tracing the fortunes of the Baldwin family. He had not been long in Canada before he wrote home flattering reports about the land of his adoption to his old friend Robert Baldwin, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Mr. Baldwin was a gentleman of good family and some means, who owned and resided on a small property called Summer Hill, or Knockmore, near Cairagoline, in the County of Cork. Influenced by the prospects held out to him by Mr. Willc.o.c.ks, he emigrated to Canada with his family in the summer of 1798, and settled on a block of land on the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, in what is now the Towns.h.i.+p of Clarke, in the County of Durham. He named his newly-acquired estate Annarva (Ann's Field), and set about clearing and cultivating it. The western boundary of his farm was a small stream much until then was nameless, but which has ever since been known in local parlance as Baldwin's Creek. Here he resided for a period of fourteen years, when he removed to York, where he died in the year 1816. He had brought with him from Ireland two sons and four daughters. The eldest son, William Warren Baldwin, was destined to achieve considerable local renown as a lawyer and a politician. He was a man of versatile talents, and of much firmness and energy of character. He had studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and had graduated there two years before his emigration, but had never practised his profession as a means of livelihood. He had not been many weeks in this country before he perceived that his shortest way to wealth and influence was by way of the legal rather than the medical profession. In those remote times, men of education and mental ability were by no means numerous in Upper Canada. Every man was called upon to play several parts, and there was no such organization of labour as exists in older and more advanced communities. Dr. Baldwin resolved to practice both professions, and, in order to fit himself for the one by which he hoped to rise most speedily to eminence, he bade adieu to the farm on Baldwin's Creek and came up to York. He took up his quarters with his father's friend and his own, Mr. Willc.o.c.ks, who lived on Duke street, near the present site of the La Salle Inst.i.tute. In order to support himself while prosecuting his legal studies, he determined to take in a few pupils. In several successive numbers of the _Gazette and Oracle_--the one newspaper published in the Province at that time--we find in the months of December, 1802, and January, 1803, the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:--"Dr. Baldwin, understanding that some of the gentlemen of this town have expressed some anxiety for the establishment of a Cla.s.sical School, begs leave to inform them and the public that he intends, on Monday, the first day of January next, to open a School, in which he will instruct Twelve Boys in Writing, Reading, Cla.s.sics and Arithmetic. The terms are, for each boy, eight guineas per annum, to be paid quarterly or half-yearly; one guinea entrance and one cord of wood to be supplied by each of the boys on opening the School. N.B.--Mr. Baldwin will meet his pupils at. Mr. Willc.o.c.ks' house on Duke street. York, December 18th, 1802."

This advertis.e.m.e.nt produced the desired effect. The Doctor got all the pupils he wanted, and several youths, who, in after life; rose to high eminence in the colony, received their earliest cla.s.sical teaching from him.

It was not necessary at that early day that a youth should spend a fixed term in an office under articles as a preliminary for practice, either at the Bar or as an attorney. On the 9th of July, 1794, during the regime of Governor Simcoe, an act had been pa.s.sed authorizing the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or person administering the Government of the Province, to issue licenses to practise as advocates and attorneys to such persons, not exceeding sixteen in number, as he might deem fit. We have no means of ascertaining how many persons availed themselves of this statute, as no complete record of their names or number is in existence. The original record is presumed to have been burned when the Houses of Parliament were destroyed during the American invasion in 1813. It is sufficient for our present purpose to know that Dr. Baldwin was one of the persons so licensed. By reference to the Journals of the Law Society at Osgoode Hall, we find that this license was granted on the 6th of April, 1803, by Lieutenant-Governor Peter Hunter. We further find that on the same day similar licenses were granted to four other gentlemen, all of whom were destined to become well-known citizens of Canada, viz., William d.i.c.kson, D'Arcy Boulton, John Powell, and William Elliott. Dr. Baldwin, having undergone an examination before Chief Justice Henry Alc.o.c.k, and having received his license, authorizing him to practise in all branches of the legal profession, married Miss Phoebe Willc.o.c.ks, the daughter of his friend and patron, and settled down to active practice as a barrister and attorney. He took up his abode in a house which had just been erected by his father-in-law, on what is now the north-west corner of Front and Frederick streets. [It may here be noted that Front Street was then known as Palace Street, from the circ.u.mstance that it led down to the Parliament buildings at the east end of the town, and because it was believed that the official residence or "palace" of the Governor would be built there.] Here, on the, 12th of May, 1804, was born Dr. Baldwin's eldest son, known to Canadian history as Robert Baldwin.

The plain, unpretending structure in which Robert-Baldwin first saw light has a history of its own. Dr. Baldwin resided in it only about three years, when he removed to a small house, long since demolished, on the corner of Bay and Front streets. Thenceforward the house at the foot of Frederick Street was occupied by several tenants whose names are famous in local annals. About 1825 it was first occupied by Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie, who continued to reside in it for several years. It was here that the _Colonial Advocate_ was published by that gentleman, at the time when his office was wrecked and the type thrown into the bay by a "genteel mob," a farther account of which lawless transaction will be found in the sketch of the life of W. L. Mackenzie, included in the present series. The building subsequently came into the possession of the Cawthra family--called by Dr. Scadding "the Astors of Upper Canada"--who carried on a large and marvellously successful mercantile business within its walls. It was finally burned down in the winter of 1854-5.

Dr. Baldwin applied himself to the practice of his several professions with an energy and a.s.siduity which deserved and secured a full measure of success. His legal business was the most profitable of his pursuits, but in the early years of his residence at York he seems to have also had a fair share of medical practice. It might not unreasonably have been supposed that the labour arising from these two sources of employment would have been sufficient for the energies and ambition of any man; but we find that for at least two years subsequent to his marriage he continued to take in pupils. Half a century later than the period at which we have arrived, Sir John Beverley Robinson, then a baronet, and Chief Justice of the Province, was wont to pleasantly remind the subject of this sketch that their mutual acquaintance dated from a very early period in the latter's career. At the time of Robert Baldwin's birth, John Robinson, then a boy in his thirteenth year, was one of a cla.s.s of seven pupils who attended daily at Dr.

Baldwin's house for cla.s.sical instruction. Two or three days after the Doctor's first-born came into the world, Master Robinson was taken into the nursery to see "the new baby." Differences of political opinion in after years separated them far as the poles asunder on most public questions, but they never ceased to regard each other with personal respect. The late Chief Justice Maclean was another pupil of Dr. Baldwin's, and distinctly remembered that a holiday was granted to himself and his fellow students on the day of the embryo statesman's birth. Doctor Baldwin seems to have been fully equal to the multifarious calls upon his energies, and to have exercised his various callings with satisfaction alike to clients, patients, and pupils. It was no uncommon occurrence in those early days, when surgeons were scarce in our young capital, for him to be compelled to leave court in the middle of a trial, and to hurry away to splice a broken arm or bind up a fractured limb. Years afterwards, when he had retired from the active practice of all his professions, he used to cite a somewhat ludicrous instance of his professional versatility. It occurred soon after his marriage. He was engaged in arguing a case of some importance before his father-in-law, Judge Willc.o.c.ks, in the Home District Court, when a messenger hurriedly arrived to summon him to attend at the advent of a little stranger into the world. The circ.u.mstances were, explained to the Judge, and--it appearing that no other surgical aid was to be had at the moment--that functionary readily consented to adjourn the further consideration of the argument until Dr. Baldwin's return. The latter hurriedly left the court-room with the messenger, and after the lapse of somewhat more than an hour, again presented himself and prepared to resume his interrupted argument. The Judge ventured to express a hope that matters had gone well with the patient; whereupon the Doctor replied, "Quite well.

I have much pleasure in informing your Honour that a man-child has been born into the world during my absence, and that both he and his mother are doing well." The worthy Doctor received the congratulations of the Court, and was permitted to conclude his argument without any further demands upon his surgical skill.

Almost from the outset of his professional career, Dr. Baldwin took a strong interest in political matters. The fact that he was compelled to earn his living by honest labour, excluded him from a certain narrow section of the society of Little York. The society from which he was excluded, however, was by no means of an intellectual cast, and it is not likely that he sustained much loss by his exclusion. By intellectual society in Toronto, he was regarded as a decided acquisition. He could well afford to despise the petty littleness of the would-be aristocrats of the Provincial capital. Still, it is probable that his political convictions were intensified by observing that, among the members of the clique above referred to; mere merit was regarded as a commodity of little account. He became known for a man of advanced ideas, and was not slow in expressing his disapprobation of the way in which government was carried on whenever a more than ordinarily flagrant instance of injustice occurred. In 1812, he became treasurer of the law Society of Upper Canada, and while filling that position, he projected a scheme for constructing a suitable building for the Society's occupation. The times, however, were impropitious for such a scheme, which fell through in consequence of the impending war with the United States.