Canadian Transport Sourcebook

V

COLONEL VAN EGMOND AND SIR JOHN COLBORNE

SPEAKING IN 1837, Van Egmond states that he made the acquaintance of Sir John Colborne twenty-odd years before. This acquaintance came about naturally in the following way.

Prince William of Orange, son of the King of Holland, had, through his education in England, become so intimately associated with the people there that his father once remarked: "Why, you will never be fit to be the king of your own country. You can't even speak your own language." In July, 1814, a high honour was conferred on Colonel Sir John Colborne; he was appointed military secretary to the Prince of Orange, who was then in command of the British forces in the Netherlands. In this capacity Colborne had the practical direction of these forces until Napoleon's return from Elba. Thus he and Colonel Van Egmond, who served under the Prince of Orange, would naturally be thrown together, and the opportunity furnished for a close companionship.

By a strange turn of events these two soldiers, who had fought together in the campaign of 1814 and 1815 against Napoleon and distinguished themselves in the final act at Waterloo, both entered upon the Canadian scene at almost the same moment.

On November 3rd, 1828, Sir John Colborne arrived in York to be Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada; Colonel Van Egmond entered Canada in 1822, and in 1828 took up land in the Huron Tract. And not only the beginning but the end also of their activity in Canada nearly coincided in point of time. After eight years as Lieutenant Governor, Sir John Colborne commanded the forces in Canada through the rebellions of 1836 and 1837, and was for a short time Governor-General of Canada before his return to England in 1838. Van Egmond's ten years in Canada present a strange contrast,—outstanding contribution to the opening up of the Huron Tract, disappointment over the mismanagement of the Canada Company, open campaigning against the Family Compact, a last-minute participation in the Rebellion of 1837, and a tragic end in a Toronto jail. While Van Egmond s life was so dramatically snuffed out in the abortive revolt led by Mackenzie in Upper Canada, Sir John Colborne was engaged in suppressing the much more sanguinary rebellion led by Papineau in French Lower Canada.

In his energetic management of the Canada Company John Galt never enjoyed the goodwill of the government under Sir Peregrine Mainland, and his final breach with the directors of the Company in London and departure from Canada occurred five months after Sir John Colborne had taken over as Mainland's successor. Colonel Van Egmond, who had co-operated so heartily and effectively with Galt, saw Galt's incompetent successor, Thomas Mercer Jones, become the obsequious tool of the Government, and the affairs of the Company, as he thought, so mismanaged that he presently resigned his position as Honorary Agent to which Galt had appointed him—an office, be it remembered, unpaid and voluntary.

Van Egmond's chief object in offering himself as candidate in the first Huron county election (in which he was only narrowly defeated by a brother of Tiger Dunlop) was to have an opportunity to air publicly the grievances of the settlers against the Canada Company. "Mr. Jones knew I would do so, and it was his chief reason why he so sternly opposed my being elected. 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."

Toronto Jail and Court House in 1837. Sketch by the architect, John G. Howard

Photostat of letter of Colonel Anthony Van Egmond

The paths of the one-time companions in arms, Sir John Colborne and Colonel Anthony Van Egmond, had now widely diverged. I see no evidence of an inclination to resume personal relations in Canada during Colborne's governorship.

But Van Egmond does not include Sir John in his general strictures upon officialdom. Writing in 1837, he says: "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."