Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Thomas Mercer Jones, Esquire

one of the crew of the Canada Company, Goderich

The settlers in this tract—in totum or at least nearly so, have at present become fully convinced of the true fact, that it is now entirely useless, nay that it would be a folly manifested, were they yet any longer to look out—to hope for or expect any change for the better to take place here under the present utter mismanagement of affairs. They consider the worse than Chinese Wall built against the influx of emigration into this tract as too unsurmountable for emigrants whose life and properties are worth saving or taking care of, to attempt escalating it. And having experienced it too long and on too many occasions they (hemselves to ignore it are but too well aware of it that tho' their—the most of all human dwellingplaces has now years since become not merely reputed to be but is in fact and in reality haunted by the worst of evil spirits incarnate, and that such to be the case being now known all over Great Britain and other transatlantic countries as well as it is all over those this side, this tract is to be and remain untenanted for a period of time extending at least to beyond our natural fifes. And I say Amen to all afore stated.

All those stated evils and misfortunes are existant in this tract and are the natural result of your mismanagement and ill treatment to its inhabitants. Was such conduct on your part dictated either by your Superiors or by your own dispositions—or to paliate it—by your want of skill or inepty? We know not—we care not. The evils exist.

In consequence of the afore expressed sentiments I have been requested by a meeting numerously attended, particularly by the elder and most respectable settlers and even by some of your Porcupines, formerly acting, or endeavoring to act, like that described by Elope—to write and publish it in print to the world our most distressful and forlorn situation here—and with the Title of "A lash with a cracker for the Canada Company and for their servants in Upper Canada." The first to be composed of materials of my own, and the last to be spun of the proceeding of and speeches at all meetings prior to and at the said last meeting either by the settlers themselves or by their delegates selected by them, for the purpose of drafting Remonstrances against the mismanagement of all affairs here, and sending the same to both the Board of Directors and to that of the Proprietor of the Canada Company in England; and finally copies of these remonstrances also.

Now Sir! as a genuine son of a nation—previously to its having formally made and issued a declaration of war against its enemies, either attacked them unawares and unprepared, or took their property as a certain Government apparently well known to you has always been wont to do under the Macchiavelian political maxim "Ce qui est bon à prendre est bon à rendre", English: "What is worth taking is worth returning", but my Nation first cautioned the enemy and afterwards attacked face to face, and that its conduct I'll on this occasion immittate by pre-informing you of it here that I have not only acquiesced in the said request of my Brother-settlers but also written out and finished already a sketch of my intended publication—to be directed solely against measures and not against men; and leaving it entirely and alone to the judgment of the Readers to form their opinion of men by the results that have derived from their—either conduct or misconduct as they may find and feel proper to call it.

Further,—that I'll not either forget or omit inserting in that publication Copies extracted from the Conditions under which the Charters to the Canada Company have been granted to them and entered into them with the Imperial Government or with the Chief Secretary for the Colonies dated: 26 Nov. 1824 and 25 May 1826,—with my comments thereon.

And finally I inform of it, Sir, that, should you feel any desire to become acquainted with the contents of my said publication prior to its appearance in print, I'll cheerfully allow the reading of it to a Gentleman or Gentlemen whom you may choose to select and send to me for that purpose, provided always that he or they be not either in your permanent employ or indebted to you for other offices they may hold. And I allow y doing so. I have o shell once afligh in its course; and on this occasion I tell you. it will now be set alighting and prove as said, for certain, Sir.

On every previous occasion you have ostenseiously shown your relyance on being backed by a rich and influ­ential Company; I in return on this occasion rely on the support of at least 250,000 of the 300,000 inhabitants yet remaining of the 360,000 we counted ten years ago,—a support sufficiently strong to enable me (I think and confidently hope) to stand this time on solid botum face to face with the Canada Company and their Tail of .... at the backs of their Managers in Canada.

I have here made no mention of your Co-Commissioner, the Honorable William Allan,—why not? because he has (I think) as a man of great and true integrity as he is in my opinion, faithfully performed and answered all the objects the Court of Directors had in view by appointing him to the once. But you, it appears, have not, Sir. At all events, I feel fully entitled to say here: had been done here-what ought and should have been done agreeable to common sense, to the obligation contracted by the Canada Company and to the promises made and held out to intending emigrants etc., etc., for the fulfilment of their faith has been pledged to the world and in particular to us who have been allured by the same into this now so very unfortunate tract, our numbers would have been—if not 100, at least 60 for each one there is at present; all have felt happy and contented, and you yourself, Sir! might have felt no less but more so, as the Cause—the Creator of that state of our and the Company's affairs and situation. Is your present situation such an enviable one? I believe it not, indeed, Sir! And more—the lands then yet unsold would have fetched readily now from five to six dollars an acre, And will, I boldly put this question, any man dispute our full right and title as men allured and deceived as already stated, manly to remonstrate against the said This-conducts We have the right and title and will bring it to market to see what such commodities will fetch and bring to to us. We have now five years since borne with a patience bordering on the most abject servility,—slavery, a mass of oppressions, insults and wrongs which we, the sufferers of the same lively enough feel and daily describe. To continue bearing and suffering such a conduct toward us any longer would be shewing cowardice on our part—it would become a crime against all such, as we ought, by quitting that patience, to have cautioned against their coming and increasing the number of your victims here. All will quit being that patient and caution others.

I have the honour to subscribe

V E'd

And another class, always too numerous indeed for this part of the country, arrived here also during the year 1833, composed of old parasites and young idlers; half-beggared would-be Gentlemen, half-pays and no-pays cashiered officers, ex-West Indian negro-drivers, mushroom aristocrats, etc., etc., creatures either half worn out or but half made; knowing nothing and capable of nothing; and with more than £10 of pride for every penny in cash at their command; all brought here by the expectation of getting the clipping of all of us whose Bees would be worth to be so; and they were not disappointed, but soon provided, all but one only, with a keen paire of Scissors: the Canada Company's Viceroy here soon found out that, if appointed to some once, they would swell his court and prove fit tools, for they just intended mischief; but if not, hunger would make them bark and yelp, and by it he himself be hindered in getting and keeping all things here himself in his own way; and got them soon pledged; magistrates, commissioners of the Court of requests, coroners, registrars, clerks etc, etc. This done, his court was swelled indeed—all gathered around him were as flies do around a lump of sugar. 8 or 10 of them would usually form his horsegard on his journies through the tract, make Chesterfield bows to him and act quite equal with the courtiers of olden times—when insulted, nay kicked, merely reply 'Thank you, Sir!'. And thus all went on in grand state at our local headquarters; but with us all was put topsy-turvy by it. The chains for us had been shown prior to this time already; but they had been gilded or plated yet, now shown in their hideous nakedness and greatly multiplied, even as were our Whippers in from one to twenty odd.

But were no Canadians by birth or old residents appointed to any of those enumerated offices? Bah—and tut man with that your question! No such inconsequence or imprudence was committed here. Why put into such offices men stamped with the indissoluble sin of being either born or an old resident here, men not possessing either the qualifications or dispositions to make a fit tool for mischief—a gallant courtier, nor with the soupleness in their back to make bows deep and pleasing enough, and who are besides simple enough to care at least some about justice, right and humanity,—in fine, who would not barter their old-fashioned principle for offices. For the Canadians consolation on this point I refer them to the German strophe of a song:

·

'Es kann nicht immer so bleiben hier under dem wech­selnden Mond,

Wo alles vergeht und verwelket, was mit uns die Erde bewohnt.

Es werden viel fröhliche Menschen noch nach uns des Lebens sich frenen,

Und uns Ruhenden unter dem Grase den Becher der Freiheit noch weihen.'

I wish it to be well understood that by the above picture of our would-be Gentlemen without having any moral, intellectual or pecuniary botum to support it, by no means meant or intended to affront any one of the large number of real Gentlemen from Great Britain etc. who have become useful and respectable inhabitants of this province, or in any way by it to asperge his conduct or character, but very few of whom have ventured, hardly soon will venture, to locate themselves in our Backwoods. A very few have done so, and lived always on friendly terms with me, until all that could do so left here, chiefly for reasons given in that picture. The persons figuring in that picture pretended to but did not belong to the class or cast of Gentlemen, and even supposed any of them ever had, would Gentlemen not be fully entitled to say: "every cast in society has its Rabble?" The Gascognard on the very point of being hung at Paris, even he proved his conviction of it, viz: it being observed to him by the Lieutenant of police, his countryman, what a shame it was to their country that one of its sons he was to be hung in company with villain Lorain who had stole but a petty bag of nails, he replied "every cast in society has its canaille; his dirty bag of nails does not stand as a screen against my merits of having appropriated to myself tens of thousands of Louisdors."

I say there is no cast of men whichsoever under the moon but it has its genteel men and its Rabble both, and see myself fully borne out for sustaining it by Schiller's Carl Moor, or Robbers in the black forest in Bohemia, and also by what I have heard and seen myself of the famous Robbers Captains: Schinderhannes, Hessel and Geymuller—each of them having had from 90 to 130 men under their command. The first I saw guillotined in 1802 or 1803, and the two last ones both I assisted in condemning to capital punishment, and verily I say: had these three men been judged by a Court purely of equity in lieu of one of law, and their good deeds been allowed to weigh in contra of their misdeeds, they would have been honourably acquitted. It was the laws and not their crimes that condemned them. The citizens in Mentz (Mainz), well aware of such raised the son of the first nobly, and rightly esteemed him when grown to manhood. Love and gratitude to his father alone made Schinderhannes take revenge against a very rich Jew and rob him, to protect the poor; to protect the poor against their merciless oppressors he continued to steal. I speak this of his own acts and of those committed under his sanction alone.

Geymuller had been for thirty-five years an ornament to his country by his private and public conduct—when lascivious Satan in a Monk's dress ruined him. He left his great property with his priest-ridden wife behind, and undertook his journey toward this part of the Globe, was taken by a subdivision of Hessel's band, and plundered to his skin, and kept. by them. Hessel having seen him and been informed of all his misfortunes, resolved at once to accompany him to America; but being both without money, a theft was undertaken, under pledge faithfully to return the amount and to commit no act of violence, Geymuller assisted in it. They were caught soon after the theft was committed, and both lost their lives under the axe of the guillotine. This long desertion from our purpose in view may, it is possible, serve as a caution to young men, and therefore meet with an excuse, I hope.

In proof of this I will, and do, state here as a fact that he was wise and anxious to receive information and advice; and very thankful indeed to all and every person that gave him any useful,—was it either a Gentleman, a farmer, or a common day's Labourer; and more—the honourable James Crooks and Mr Peter Bamberger be considered, and that justly too, as the cleverest men in their respective standing or horisont, in local and practical knowledge, and he frequently asked them for their advice, and communicated to them, in return for their kindness shown to him, his intended plans of operation, and when some of them happened to be lauded by them, he would immediately reply "Yes, yes, but that plan has not originated with myself but with Mr ...., and I will by no means assume the merits due him for it." Did not such show his excellent and noble mind? We judge it did, and felt lively its contrast with these expressions made so frequently and even on more than one very public occasion, when either the talents or the good intentions of other persons in this Tract happened to be mentioned "yes, but he eclipses us; he has all the merits while we have none."

Reader, which of the two is the great, and which petty-minded man? Most certainly Mr Galt, you'll answer the first.

Did I not feel prevented by the fear of trespassing too much on your time or patience, or maybe on both, I could and would All a volume with well deserved encomiums on the noble sentiments, heart and conduct of that truly great and noble man, without injuring truth and good faith. All and each of you that is versed in our provincial affairs knows it, that he, Mr Galt, was always the most warm and the most industrious advocate in favour of the war losses being paid to the sufferers in this province and will, in consideration of those his services rendered, not disapprove of my rather etended dissertation on, or relation of, the good man's genuine merits. God bless Mr Galt, Mrs Galt and their dear children. Not one settler either here or in the Guelph Block but heartily responses: Amen. And not one of them I have found as yet to disagree with me when saying: Had Mr Galt been continued the Canada Com­pany's Superintendent, and enjoyed full discretion to act agreeable to the dictates of his own heart and mind, the number of settlers in this tract would have been more than a hundred for each one there is at present; and the land then yet unsold have been worth double what it is now.

Mr Galt had, as is generally the case with good and clever men, good Agents in his service, and so were his clerks of his own selection, but those sent him by the Company were, at the best, very indifferent ones. All were found and continued in their respective situations by his successor; but afterwards partly spoiled by him and partly brought to quit him. Decent men will always refuse to serve mere bladders filled top full with pride and arrogance. No other choice then was left him but this: to chuse his underlings from amongst the low and darkly spotted characters—excellent tools for doing evil and mischief, to torture their fellowmen and their betters, they were and have proved themselves to be indeed, the really good amixt us, I may confidently hope, may count on receiving and console themselves for the certainty of reward prepared for them on the other side of their graves; tribulations all, nothing but tribulations, is their lot in this life.

Now to the text!

By which the Canada Company was bound to expend and lay out the £48000 the Imperial Government had allowed for that purpose in public works and improvements calculated and undertaken for our use and benefits, viz:

1st Canals	—	they made none
2nd Bridges	—	they never built one except those absolutely required on the main roads, however much inconvenience, nay loss of property, catle, the fifes of human beings have been alone owing to the want of them, in particular in the township of Colborne.
3rd Highroads	—	Lord Bathurst having put restrictions on the making of these and other reasons induce me to suppress on the same until I'll have got through with the other works prescribed by the present article contained in the extract.
4th Churches	—	Mr. Galt, as above stated, intended to establish one at every distance of six miles along this, the Huron Road—they, the Company or their managers, have built—not one. And worse—in 1829, when I was yet living here 20 miles from my nearest neighbour east of me, and 18 miles from Goderich, I received a solemn promise of 200 acres of land, pointed out to me then, and besides the expectation of getting 400, or at least one, they said "200 acres more, all for churches and school purposes; provided I did succeed in procuring a good commencement of a settlement in the neighbourhood. Having succeeded therein, I got at my own and sole expenses 4 acres of land cleared off, a schoolhouse built on the said promised 200 acres, and paid during two years the schoolmaster's wages for teaching the children of the neighbourhood; and when the settlers around it had increased to such numbers from 60 to 100, and I believe on some Sabbaths more than the last number attended divine service in my own house, those 200 acres were retaken to themselves by the Company, and others promised not as positively were of course lost to us also. Such, Reader, is the good faith of the Honourable Canada Company! And I here challenge all and every one of their Satrapaes in this province to deny the truth of this my statement.
5th Wharves	—	They made a kind of these at Goderich, and some kind of a pier also—both with part of the £48,000 destined for our use and benefit, and for having done such thing they have known to obtain a charter, granting them tolls from our imports and exports, truly à la Canadienne.
6th Schoolhouses	—	none! no, no, they were and are yet too prudent to build any such for us. Well aware of it, that well kept and spirited horses are apt sometimes to kick, to raise high up their heads, and to throw their merciless riders, they always have been, and are yet, very attentive to keeping us down, poor, lean and in ignorance besides.
3d Highroads	—	In regard of these, they have paid but little attention to Lord. Bathurst's restrictions, but trespassed on them by expending on these alone—chiefly to promote their own direct interest, large sums, a great part of which ought, agreeable to Lord Bathurst's distinctly expressed intentions aforementioned, been applied to the erection of churches and schoolhouses, opening side and concession roads and bridges, procuring the means of communication between neighbour and neighbour, etc, etc. But in what consisted the payments they made for the opening

and construction of these Highroads? One third part only in money, and the other two thirds in Land credit, at. first received by them in payment for lands in this Tract only; but later for all other lands purchased from them also. When the contract for the opening of this and the road from Goderich to London were given out, there were but four settlers between Goderich and Mr Springer's in Blenheim as yet, and none at all between Goderich and London; not one of those four raised as yet one fourth of the provisions required for the support of their families, one of them—Mr Fryfogle—had one yoke of working cattle; another, had two yoke, the two others no catle of any kind whichsoever; and the roads by which we had to get. provisions were in such a state that I had at one time to pay $270 in hard and ready cash for 6 barrels of flour, or $45 for each of them: that shortly afterwards my son having went to Oxford with two men, driving each a wagon drawn by one yoke of most powerful oxen and bought and loaded there 3 Bb on each waggon, had to buy two other yoke of strong working catle, and with those double teams it took them 21 days hard travelling homewards alone, no other house or shelter during that journey but that of Mr Seebach alone. Men acquainted with the woods—with extensive wilderness like this Tract then was, can alone form a just idea of the difficulties we had and of the prices we had to pay for provisions for ourselves and for our Road Labourers; and these could not be induced to work in our dark, gloomy and pathless forest, and suffer during nights and days both the uninterrupted torments of millions of insects, otherwise than by very high wages. All such had to (be) paid for, and for working catle, vehicles, and working tools of all kinds likewise. How far did our one third in money go towards defraying all those expenditures? To the first year and to about five eighths the second year, and the remainder we had by hard shifting to pay in orders on the Canada Company called "Landcredit orders". And at what price would the sellers to us and the men working for us take them) The first year at 75 percent discount, later at 50 and 40 percent. In those few instances that they were nominally valued higher, the price of the property sold was held higher in proportion; and what reduced the value of the socalled Landcredit orders to us further was this: the great difficulties we had to encounter to find out the persons who either had purchased or intended to purchase land from the Company, made us s frequently more weeks than it would have, had we had the cash to pay for the articles we stood in need of, taken us days. We knew all the aforestated well, when we made contracts with the Company for the performance of works for them, and we, of course, made our prices accordingly, and would not contrary to justice and common reason, were we at present to blame them for having paid us in the manner aforesaid; but knowing it as we at present do, that they were bound to pay for those and all other works wholly in money allowed them by the Imperial Government, and not with their own means, as we then thought, we are entitled to censure them for having paid for two thirds of the making of those roads etc. in Landcredit, and by it defraud the settlers of the amount thus nominally overpaid for those works, and state it as a true fact that, had they paid all in money, double the work could and would have been made for the amount now paid—nominally for what has been done. Not satisfied with having defrauded the settlers that much, and paid so large an amount in land for land purchased at—so to say—"a mere song", at the tune of from 7/6 to 15/- an acre, they pretend to be entitled yet and besides to High Honour and great credit for having made those roads. Has not every one of their underlings, even to the most scabby one from amongst them, on every occasion, on the very tip of his tongue, these arrogant expressions "damn ye mean dirty .... look at the roads the Company has made for you and your cursed set! You ought to take off your hats whenever you hear but the name of one of their Agents mentioned." Aye, to be sure we ought to indeed! To pray the Devils not to do them yet more harm is a religious tenet with some nations, why should not we here profess it also? Reader! nothing whatever will satisfy their canine hunger for pilf; nothing will satisfy their craving thirst for our sweat and blood; nothing will satisfy their hellish pride, arrogance and insolence.

It has been of late, and might be otherwise observed again to me, "But our Lieutenant Governor to have the controll over the expenditure of £48,000 has been pointedly expressed and commanded by Lord Bathurst; has he not performed that duty? has he not appointed and sent men to examine them, how and what for expended the money, and not finally approved of their works completed? I must, I think, here answer those questions, viz: to the first two: he has never done either of the two, unless he had appointed to do so Charles Prior, Esquire, the then acting Head Agent of the Canada Company in this Tract, and by such an appointment made him the chief and sole judge of his own performances. If ever he has done so, it would be worse indeed than total neglect of a very important. duty prescribed to him by his superior—the Head Secretary for the Colonial Department.

And to the last: he must undoubtedly have finally approved of their accounts, on patient paper, of their expenditures made. Do we then not yet know it but too well, that other investigations than those made of papers alone, have long left Upper Canada and embarked themselves for more congenial climes? And what more to do could be reasonably expected from Sir John Colbornek—always held in and guided by leading strings—transatlantic and indigenous both: And we, the contractors for the works furnished (unacquainted as yet then with the company's charters, and likewise with the conditions on which they had been granted to them) we ourselves, the means to deceive the Governor, by signing general receipts, mentioning their amounts in "pounds, shillings and pence". The Company's managers of affairs here at least, always playing against us settlers, were attentive and cunning enough, carefully to prevent our making even a peep into their cards. I warmly feel to own it to Sir John Colborne here to state it in vindication of his neglect or conduct afore alluded to, that I have known him these twenty-odd years since, as a most gallant officer and nobly disposed gentleman, and always considered him (while our Governor), as anxiously wishing to advance the prosperity of this province; but his Maker had, it appears, given him but little—very little indeed—of the disposition of St Thomas in holy writ—he was too easy "a believer", and such generally are truly honest men.

"Will not, either your brother settlers in conjunction with yourself, or our provincial House of Commons, make the Company disgorge yet the money they have so nefarious sly defrauded you of and pocket ted themselves, or enforce them yet to do the whole amount of works that could have been made if they had paid for the same in money, as they were prescribed, and had bound themselves to do?" To this I reply: As for ourselves, we poor deluded Bondmen to the Canada Company dare not, and we can not, effect anything like against them—a wealthy body of men authorized to the enforcement of the laws of the land against us, enjoy in full their protection, but not at all subject they themselves to them,—a wheel within a wheel, as brother Jonathan stiles it. All hope and endeavours yet remaining to us are: first, to pay off our honest debts, and then to get shoes and be off and away from here as fast and as far as one pair may prove able to carry us. As for our Assembly—what it may either do or not do in our behalf, I can not tell—their future conduct, it is natural, layes as yet beyond my Horisont. But this much I assure you, that had I been a member of that House of late, I would have boldly made the attempt to force the Canada Company to do full justice to their settlers on this point and on many others besides, and never been bribed by the Company to desist from it. Mr. Jones knew I would do so, and it was his chief reason why he so sternly opposed my being elected such. No Roman Catholic ever exerted himself so strenuously, by signs of the cross, to keep "the Evil One" at a proper distance off, as did Mr Jones to keep me off and away from the floor of the house of Assembly. His success therein was an important victory to the Company; the reverse to their settlers here. Occurrences similar to the kind above stated are, I think, not rarer in Upper Canada, than are Phoenixes and wite Ravens.

"Let us now take a short retrospective view of the general management of affairs here after Mr Galt's departure and Mr Jones' arrival: Viz: Mr Jones could, and did in fact, know no more of the requisites for settling wild lands here than we must suppose the man in the moon to know about it, but he shewed much affability and a certain portion of good will towards us settlers, and affairs proceeded onwards, not in healthy and industrious Man's, but snail's pace until the year 1830 had brought to here a pretty large number of settlers, and until he, after that event, at once and altogether changed his personal conduct, and that as a Company's Commissioner likewise—both for the worse. It was then that for the first time and that very frequently indeed we heard these expressions: "By the number of settlers we have now, all difficulties are conquered and overcome, and we become released of restraint; we can, and will too, henceforth shew our power and authority. The Lords of the manners (sic) and other large Landholders in Great Britain do it to their subjects, why should we, that owe millions of acres, not do it here also? Yes, the thumb on the throats and the whip on the necks of our d ... d subjects."

Reader! need I tell it to you that those expressions made without any or the least provocation whichsoever had called them forward, forthwith candled my genuine Dutch punk, nay put it into a blaze?, that I made a stout and bold reparty to them, and at. once resigned my office of an honorary, voluntary and not paid Agent? I did all such, and have been wronged out of thousands of pound for it, and teased and tantalized in every manner and shape besides since then until this time. Thanks to my God! and to my lenient creditors for not having as yet been ruined for it! In times like ours have been and yet continue to be—times in which even men of very large property can command no ready money. Notwithstanding that unhappy and highly arrogant change of conduct on the part of the Canada Company, or on that of their servants at least, some emigrants (induced to come to this by letters of prior dates from their friends or kin here) arrived yet in the year 1833, but after that time it became known, as well all over Great Britain as all over this continent, that our unfortunate tract was not merely reputed to be—in fact and in reality to be—haunted by the worst of Evil Spirits, and as such destined to become, to be and to remain untenanted; and by it a total stop was put to all further influx of emigration, and a desertion from here by all such as were able to procure the means of escape, commenced. And both have, alas! continued until this present time.

All the aforestated together is intended merely to be a correcting lash. Should the Canada Company and its servants prove themselves, however, to be incorrigibles, then, and only then, I will show it to them, that I had already now, and kept in petto—in reserve—true and genuine matter sufficient to fill 800 pages in large octavo. In the meantime I'll but yet (in order to finish my said lash) put a cracker to it—a cracker composed of materials flown from the lips and from the pens of large numbers of my brothers settlers; of only seven speeches, and those the most moderate amongst the several dozens I have at my command, and who were made to, and highly and unanimously approved of by large and respectable meetings; and of two memorials by two delegates chosen by each township, composed and sent to the Canada Company, I will spare the lash, viz: