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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ government could urgently contact Britain. When Macdonald learned of McDougall’s setback, he cabled London to delay the transfer: Canada would only accept the territory when Britain had pacified its inhabitants. However, McDougall knew nothing of this and, on December 1, acting on his own initiative, he proclaimed himself governor of the Northwest. Believing that he was filling a vacuum, MacDougall in fact created one, by prematurely proclaiming the end of the Company control without being able to assert his own authority. As Macdonald realized, under international law, the Red River people were now entitled to establish their own government — which the Americans might recognize. McDougall probably expected that the “Canadian party” would rally to his proclamation and install him as governor. In fact it was the francophone Métis who took control.

      In 1868, Macdonald had pacified 370,000 Nova Scotians. In 1869 he stumbled into a dangerous confrontation with a few thousand people at the distant Red River. Contrasting cultures explained the difference. Nova Scotians made speeches and passed resolutions; Métis armed themselves to hunt buffalo. Macdonald met with frowns in Halifax; McDougall was confronted with firearms. Macdonald had ruthlessly sidelined Nova Scotia’s Unionist minority; in the Red River, the “Canadian party” were both arrogant and inept. The dominant figure in Nova Scotia, Joseph Howe, was a veteran and skilled politician; his counterpart in the Red River was the twenty-four-year-old Louis Riel, catapulted into leadership because he had studied, unsuccessfully, for the Catholic priesthood in Montreal. Above all, Macdonald controlled policy towards Nova Scotia himself, travelling to Halifax when he judged the moment right to strike a deal. But the Red River was inaccessible, especially during the winter, and he had to work through William McDougall.

      Macdonald grumbled that the stand-off was “a most inglorious fiasco,” and he censured McDougall for exceeding instructions. But, as prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald was responsible for appointing someone notorious for outspoken inflexibility. In 1861, McDougall had controversially threatened to “look to Washington” to secure representation by population. He had called French Canadians “a foreign race” with an alien religion. Métis distrust was further aroused by his actions, as a member of Sandfield Macdonald’s ministry in 1862, in strong-arming the Ojibwa into allowing settlement on Manitoulin, the giant island in Lake Huron. McDougall was an obsessive expansionist, driven by a sense of mission: in the year before his appointment, he had survived a serious illness and the unexpected death of his wife. Although Macdonald assured McDougall that he had “every confidence in your prudence and tact” in managing the transition to Canadian rule, the truth was he had made a totally unsuitable appointment. Equally unfortunate was Macdonald’s failure to foresee the communications problem: arrangements should have been made to send coded telegrams to St Paul, Minnesota, and rush them by courier on to Pembina.

      Macdonald also blamed the “supineness” of the Hudson’s Bay Company officials. “They gave us no notice of any feeling of discontent at the change.” But everybody knew that Company rule had been somnolent for decades, and Macdonald had made little effort to find out about the Northwest. “We are in a blissful state of ignorance as to what the requirements of that country may be,” he remarked to a job-seeker early in November 1869 — remarkably casual preparation for the annexation of two million square kilometres. Indeed, Canada’s advance moves had been counterproductive: Métis suspicions were aroused by survey teams, sent to forestall claim-jumping squatters. Most bizarre was the appearance of Joseph Howe at the Red River in October 1869 on a personal fact-finding visit, his very presence a reminder that Nova Scotian discontent had forced concessions from the Dominion. Howe should either have been sent with an Ottawa welcome pack, or discouraged from travelling altogether. When trouble broke out, Macdonald called the Métis “these poor people … handed over like a flock of sheep,” but his own failure to engage with the Red River community had precipitated the crisis.

      Through the winter of 1869–70, there were almost too many negotiators shuttling in slow motion over two thousand kilometres between Ottawa and the Red River, sometimes on overlapping missions. Suddenly, Riel upped his demands, insisting that the eleven thousand people should become a full province — and so the Red River became Manitoba. The convoluted negotiations left one dangerous issue unresolved. Ottawa wisely signalled that a blind eye would be turned to the extra-legal activities of Riel’s provisional government. But how far could that amnesty extend? The issue was highlighted by the tragic death of Thomas Scott. A young Irish Protestant who had arrived via Ontario, Scott was imprisoned for opposing Riel. Openly contemptuous of his French-speaking Catholic captors, Scott was court-martialled for insubordination — and sentenced to death. Unwisely believing that it would strengthen his authority, Riel confirmed the execution. On March 4, 1870, Scott was shot by firing squad, although there were rumours that he was still alive when dumped in his coffin, and that his body was contemptuously thrown into an icy river. Ontario honoured him as a slaughtered Orangeman. The Catholic bishop, Alexandre-Antonin Taché, reached Red River four days after Scott’s killing, bearing Macdonald’s verbal assurance (not quite a binding promise) of a general amnesty — but Ontario would not forget what it regarded as cold-blooded murder.

      By late April, 1870, Parliament in Ottawa was waiting for the prime minister to introduce legislation to create the new province. But, suddenly, Macdonald’s Commons attendance became “very irregular”: reports that he was “indisposed” caused “much comment and speculation.” Tired and in poor health, he had gone on a bender. News even filtered back to England where one politician noted that, generally, “no especial notice” was taken in Ottawa of Macdonald’s twice-yearly binges. The complaint on this occasion was not that he was drunk for a whole week but rather “that he should not have waited till the urgent business … was disposed of.”

      The Globe was less philosophical. In a leader headed “A Foul Disgrace,” it charged that Macdonald had “again yielded to the temptation of drink.” No other country would tolerate its prime minister “staggering” around the parliamentary bar, “babbling in maudlin intoxication” as his colleagues steered him to safety. Since “Sir John A. Macdonald’s drinking fits usually last for some little time,” nobody knew how long he would “leave the affairs of the country to look after themselves.” Two days later, the inebriate managed to introduce the Manitoba Bill but the Globe kept up a sustained denunciation that few politicians could survive.

      Suddenly, it was not Macdonald’s career that was threatened, but his life. He had returned to his desk after a Cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon, May 6, 1870. From his adjoining office, Hewitt Bernard heard a strange noise and found Canada’s prime minister writhing in agony on the floor. Macdonald’s underlying health problem was finally diagnosed: he had been felled by a gallstone, much of it still trapped in his system. With a barely detectable pulse, John A. Macdonald seemed to be dying. Parliament adjourned; an Ottawa newspaper typeset an eight-column obituary. Agnes converted Macdonald’s office into a sickroom where he remained for almost three weeks, with bursts of pain so severe that morphine injections were required. Recovery was slow. Early in June, he was carried the short distance to the apartment of the Speaker of the Commons, and on fine days he was wheeled to the cliff overlooking the Ottawa River. The first, dangerous experiments in gallbladder surgery lay a decade in the future, so his diet had to be tightly controlled. Limiting him to half an oyster as a treat, his doctor sternly reminded him that “the hopes of Canada” depended upon Macdonald’s survival: Sir John A. was amused at the hopes of Canada depending upon half an oyster.

      Macdonald’s illness reminded Canadians that they appreciated him and needed him. Luther Holton, who had often clashed with him, expressed “the highest admiration” and “the warmest personal regard” for the stricken prime minister. As the Montreal Gazette sympathetically observed, “few have any notion of the wear and tear of mind, and downright fag work” of Cabinet ministers “from early morn till late at night. It is a constant strain.” Macdonald seemed “to divine by the intuition of genius what he could and what he could not do” in managing Parliament, returning good humoured replies to the most insulting provocations.

      In July, Macdonald escaped the heat of Ottawa for a summer of convalescence on Prince Edward Island, which was СКАЧАТЬ