The John A. Macdonald Retrospective 2-Book Bundle. Ged Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ cesspit froze, causing an “insufferable” smell from blocked sewage. Late in February 1868, Canada’s first prime minister told Alexander Campbell he was close to quitting. Campbell tried to cheer him: because Macdonald was “a little depressed,” he was considering an option “which in moments of more robust health you would not contemplate.” Campbell hoped Macdonald would not retire, “but if on mature consideration … you should really set about such a move,” the obvious answer was to appoint himself lieutenant-governor of Ontario. The job would provide “ease and quiet” and, equally important, it would remove Macdonald from Ottawa. “You have filled too large a space in our horizon to adopt the plan of occupying an independent seat in Parliament — of necessity, you must either lead for the government or opposition.” It was the first attempt to find a way out for the politician who dominated public life. A career as a lawyer was no longer attractive, and he did not wish to become a judge. When well-wishers suggested he should appoint himself to the judicial bench, he replied that he would rather go to Hell. The exit strategy problem was never solved, and Sir John A. Macdonald carried on until he died.

      When Parliament was sitting, Agnes waited up to welcome her husband back from late-night sittings. Macdonald was in “cheery” form when he came home around 2:00 a.m. on April 7, 1868, full of a ringing speech by D’Arcy McGee pleading for harmony with the discontented Nova Scotians. Suddenly “a low, rapid knocking at the front door” brought terrible news: McGee had been shot dead by terrorists. Hours of horror and days of fear ensued. “John’s face was white with fatigue, sleeplessness and regret,” Agnes wrote, but “he never gave in or complained.” The tragedy brought them close together: within a few weeks, Agnes was pregnant.

      Political insecurities abounded. In February and March 1868, the still-resentful Cartier explored the possibility of an alliance with George Brown. The feelers lapsed because Brown was busy expanding the Globe, but it triggered unsettling rumours. There was friction too with Sandfield Macdonald in Ontario. Foreseeing tensions between centre and periphery, Sir John A. made it clear that he would strike down objectionable provincial laws. “By a firm yet patient course, I think the Dominion must win in the long run.” Sandfield complained that he was not consulted on important matters, yet it was his namesake who was blamed when the Ontario government controversially decided to axe grants to denominational colleges. Sir John privately denounced Sandfield as “bigoted and exceedingly narrow-minded” on the issue, but he confessed himself “quite powerless in the matter,” even though the funding cut impacted upon Queen’s, in his Kingston riding. The Ontario government, he admitted, was “very jealous of anything like dictation on our part.” Meanwhile, the Globe denounced Sandfield as Ottawa’s puppet.

      Nova Scotia remained the main challenge. Macdonald sought to avoid confrontation but aimed to seize the right moment to seek compromise, branding Tupper’s plans to barnstorm the province with pro-Confederation oratory as “zeal without discretion.” Nova Scotian political culture worked in his favour: Bluenoses were vocally loyal to Britain, preferring, as Joseph Howe put it, London under John Bull to Ottawa under Jack Frost. But when John Bull refused to release them from Confederation, they faced a choice between revolution and compromise. Nova Scotia had rejected revolution in 1776, and Howe was too old to fight now. Everything depended on timing, and John A. Macdonald was an expert at combining long periods of patience with sudden bursts of decisive activity.

      The moment of greatest danger also presented the best opportunity to seek agreement. In August 1868, anti-Confederation members of the Dominion and provincial legislatures gathered in Halifax in an ominously titled “convention,” which might even declare Nova Scotian independence. Hastily, Sir John A. Macdonald assembled a high-powered delegation, with Sandfield as his prize exhibit — the former opponent of Confederation who was now running the Dominion’s largest province. Agnes came along too. Although her pregnancy was only confirmed after her return (“the Blessing from on high, has been with us,” as she put it), she had felt queasy back in June, but blamed the sultry Ottawa climate. Her presence signalled that Macdonald had come in friendship. The “convention” failed to trap the visitors into formal negotiations, as if they represented a foreign power, but Macdonald jollied its members, offering to remedy practical grievances. The mission enabled Howe to strike a face-saving deal — and even enter Macdonald’s Cabinet. In June 1869, the Dominion Parliament approved “better terms” for Nova Scotia. Extra money was thrown at the province — and the Grits reminded Ontario taxpayers that they provided the cash.

      “I have never seen my husband in such cheery moods,” Agnes noted as she welcomed new Cabinet recruit Joseph Howe to dinner in January 1869. Within weeks, their world came crashing down. Agnes gave birth to a girl on February 8, after an excruciating labour: little Mary had an enlarged head, which was soon diagnosed as hydrocephalus, “water on the brain.” The Macdonalds faced the tragedy that their daughter would suffer mobility problems and probably impaired mental development too. For Agnes, Mary’s disability was a divine message, although its meaning was not clear. “Only teach me, Heavenly Father, to see the lesson it was destined to teach.” The occasional joyful outbursts that punctuated her first two years of marriage were replaced by the stern, grey discipline of two lives yoked together by a handicapped daughter. There were no more children.

      While Macdonald digested the terrible news that his daughter would never live a normal life, a second blow fell. His massive overdraft was now controlled by Montreal banker, Hugh Allan. In April 1869, Allan called in the debt. It totalled just short of $80,000, ten times Macdonald’s annual salary as prime minister. This was a heavy blow but not a complete disaster: his law firm still reaped income from its Trust and Loan Company business. Hewitt Bernard had insisted on a marriage settlement for Agnes, a kind of Victorian “pre-nup,” to protect her own capital from Macdonald’s creditors. But paying off the overdraft wiped out Macdonald’s property portfolio. Aged fifty-four, and given contemporary life expectancy, Sir John A. Macdonald could not count on many active years to rebuild his savings and provide for his handicapped child. Retirement now seemed impossible.

      Macdonald responded to the double disaster with a series of embarrassing binges. The Globe later alleged that he drank heavily during the summer of 1869, although there was then “no unusual pressure upon Ministers.” In October, Macdonald “committed himself disgracefully” at an official luncheon in Toronto in honour of Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Arthur: his minder, Hewitt Bernard, was “kept in a state of miserable anxiety about Sir John” throughout the trip. Agnes initially blamed her own “over-anxiety” for her husband’s lapses, but on November 7, 1869, she faced the failure of the matrimonial pact of 1867. “I was overconfident, vain, presumptuous in my sense of power. I fancied I could do much, and I failed signally.”

      Macdonald’s daughter, Mary, 1893. Still in mourning for her father, this photograph fails to capture her happy personality.

       Courtesy of William James Topley/Library and Archives Canada/PA-025746.

      Macdonald’s binge-drinking erupted just as Canada was about to take a mighty leap to the Rocky Mountains. After negotiations in London, the Dominion purchased the territorial rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company (covering the future provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta), with the transfer date set for December 1, 1869. Aboriginal people were ignored in the deal. So too was the small Red River settler community. Half of its 11,000 population were French-speaking Catholic Métis, descendants of European fur-traders and Native women, known by the racist term “half-breeds.” The remainder were English-speaking Métis, plus about 1,500 recent arrivals, mostly from Ontario. Generally contemptuous of the Métis, the incomers were disruptive but too few to seize control.

      Ottawa’s first governor was William McDougall, a Reformer and Macdonald’s Cabinet colleague since 1864. He travelled through the United States, with orders to keep a low profile until he received confirmation of the December 1 transfer. On November 2, his route to the Red River was blocked by French СКАЧАТЬ