Consequences of the Election of 1836

The Family Compact had changed a minority of eleven in the late Assembly into a majority of twenty-five in the new.

Continuing The 1837 Canadian Rebellion,
our selection from A Short History of the Canadian People by George Bryce published in 1914. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The 1837 Canadian Rebellion.

Time: 1837

Sir Francis boasted of having no political views, and of having had no political experience. He was a man whose shallow nature, flippant letters and dispatches, and speedy subserviency to the Family Compact rendered him in the end an object of detestation in Canada. Denunciation too severe can scarcely be visited upon a man who deliberately proceeds to aggravate and irritate a disturbed community. The new Governor was surprised, as he himself tells us, to see in large letters on the walls of Toronto on his arrival, “Sir Francis Head, a tried reformer,” and before four months had elapsed those who had made the placards were possessed with still greater surprise and vexation when they looked back at what they had done.

Governor Head, shortly after his arrival, was called on to fill three vacancies in the Executive Council, one-half of the offices being already held by adherents of the Family Compact. The Governor, passing over Mr. Bidwell, for whom he from the first took a strong dislike, called to the Council Messrs. Baldwin, Rolph, and Dunn. Soon finding that Chief-Justice Robinson and Doctor Strachan, who were not in the Executive Council at all, were the virtual advisers of the Governor, the new councilors resented the interference and resigned in three weeks’ time. The new Governor was no more independent than Sir John Colborne had been, and was less dignified.

Sir Francis concluded, soon after his arrival, that the oppositionists were not a party of gentlemen, and was in a short time engaged in discrediting them before the country, utterly forgetful of his position. The Assembly sought to protect itself, and adopted a formal deliverance, charging the Governor with “deviations from truth and candor.”

A general election was soon to follow, and the opposition found to their cost that the Provincial electorate had much changed since the year 1830. Since that date the population of Upper Canada had nearly doubled. The new inhabitants were largely from the British Isles, and were strongly monarchic in their views. While a section of the opposition desired a constitution which would be “an exact transcript” of that of Great Britain, it was well known that some of them favored an approximation to republican forms. Bidwell and perhaps Mackenzie were among the latter.

Governor Head threw himself heartily into the struggle in the election of 1836, and, no doubt honestly believing there was a section of the late Assembly disloyal to Britain, stirred up the new British electors, who had not a single principle in common with the Family Compact, to look upon Bidwell, Mackenzie, and their followers as untrue to British connection, pointing as he did to the disloyal letter from Papineau, which had been read by Speaker Bidwell in the Upper Canada Assembly.

But the Governor, though but “winning his spurs” as a political manipulator, showed evidence of talent in not trusting to appeals to sentiment alone. He used the stronger inducements of self-interest. It was given out that settlers who voted with the Government would receive the patents for their lands, for which in some cases they had waited long, and these patents were openly distributed on the days of polling. The Family Compact organized the “British Constitutional Society” in Toronto, the more effectually to fasten the charge of disloyalty on their opponents. “Hurrah for Sir Francis Head and British Connection!” was their rallying-cry. The influence of that redoubtable politician Egerton Ryerson was likewise thrown in the same direction.

The election was a political Waterloo for the Governor’s opponents. Bidwell, Perry, Lount, and even Mackenzie were all defeated. The Family Compact had changed a minority of eleven in the late Assembly into a majority of twenty-five in the new, and now they were able to contend that constitutional harmony between Governor, Executive and Legislative Councils, and the Legislative Assembly had been completely restored.

Mackenzie was exasperated, revived his Colonial Advocate, under the name of the Constitution, and was now more fierce in his attacks than he had ever been before. Those in power, confident of their majority, heard his denunciations without attempting to repress their vilifier. Soon the Governor’s influence began to wane. Even the Parliament elected through his interference to some extent asserted its liberties as against his arbitrary control, and the whole population saw the error that had been committed in returning a Legislature subject to the Family Compact.

Now was the time for wisdom and self-control on the part of the leaders of the opposition. Sad indeed was it for the country that the unwise and unpatriotic counsel of Mackenzie was that which asserted itself most strongly. No doubt the malign influence of the Lower Canadian party of sedition, led by Papineau, with whom Mackenzie and others were in constant communication, was felt in Upper Canadian affairs. The French-Canadians spoke with the utmost freedom of a resort to arms should their demands be refused. About the end of July, 1837, an organization, known as the “Committee of Vigilance,” was formed in Upper Canada, and William Lyon Mackenzie was chosen as “agent and corresponding secretary.” This society did not professedly aim at rebellion ; the great majority certainly did not suspect outward violence; a few ardent spirits may from the first have intended sedition. Mackenzie was most active : he stirred up the Province from end to end by incendiary addresses, and professed to have obtained thousands of names of those willing to make a hostile demonstration against the Governor, and to form a provisional government.

Bidwell would have nothing to do with violent measures ; Rolph played a double part. He was in secret with Mackenzie planning mischief, and was the man selected by the plotters to be the head of the new government proposed, but he succeeded in imposing on the Governor as to his loyalty.

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