The Father of British Canada | Page 9

of removing from it, unless timely prevented by a Removal of the
present Governor.'
In forwarding this document Murray poured out the vials of his wrath
on 'the Licentious Fanaticks Trading here,' while he boldly championed
the cause of the French Canadians, 'a Race, who, could they be
indulged with a few priveledges which the Laws of England deny to
Roman Catholicks at home, would soon get the better of every National
Antipathy to their Conquerors and become the most faithful and most
useful set of Men in this American Empire.'
While these charges and counter-charges were crossing the Atlantic
another, and much more violent, trouble came to a head. As there were
no barracks in Canada billeting was a necessity. It was made as little
burdensome as possible and the houses of magistrates were specially
exempt. This, however, did not prevent the magistrates from baiting the
military whenever they got the chance. Fines, imprisonments, and other

sentences, out of all proportion to the offence committed, were heaped
on every redcoat in much the same way as was then being practised in
Boston and other hotbeds of disaffection. The redcoats had done their
work in ridding America of the old French menace. They were doing it
now in ridding the colonies of the last serious menace from the Indians.
And so the colonists, having no further use for them, began trying to
make the land they had delivered too hot to hold them. There were, of
course, exceptions; and the American colonists had some real as well as
pretended grievances. But wantonly baiting the redcoats had already
become a most discreditable general practice.
Montreal was most in touch with the disaffected people to the south. It
also had a magistrate of the name of Walker, the most rancorous of all
the disaffected magistrates in Canada. This Walker, well mated with an
equally rancorous wife, was the same man who entertained Benjamin
Franklin and the other commissioners sent by Congress into Canada in
1776, the year in which both the American Republic and a truly British
Canada were born. He would not have been flattered could he have
seen the entry Franklin made about him and his wife in a diary which is
still extant. The gist of it was that wherever the Walkers might be they
would soon set the place by the ears. Walker, of course, was foremost
in the persecution of the redcoats; and he eagerly seized his opportunity
when an officer was billeted in a house where a brother magistrate
happened to be living as a lodger. Under such circumstances the
magistrate could not claim exemption. But this made no difference
either to him or to Walker. Captain Payne, the gentleman whose
presence enraged these boors, was seized and thrown into gaol. The
chief justice granted a writ of habeas corpus. But the mischief was done
and resentment waxed high. The French-Canadian seigneurs
sympathized with Payne, which added fuel to the magisterial flame;
and Murray, scenting danger, summoned the whole bench down to
Quebec.
But before this bench of bumbles started some masked men seized
Walker in his own house and gave him a good sound thrashing.
Unfortunately they spoilt the fair reprisal by cutting off his ear. That
very night the news had run round Montreal and made a start for

Boston and Quebec. Feeling ran high; and higher still when, a few
weeks later, the civil magistrates vented their rage on several redcoats
by imposing sentences exceeding even the utmost limits of their
previous vindictive action. Montreal became panic-stricken lest the
soldiers, baited past endurance, should break out in open violence.
Murray drove up, post-haste, from Quebec, ordered the affected
regiment to another station, reproved the offending magistrates, and
re-established public confidence. Official and private rewards were
offered to any witnesses who would identify Walker's assailants. But in
vain. The smouldering fire burst out again under Carleton. But the
mystery was never cleared up.
Things had now come to a crisis. The London merchants, knowing
nothing about the internal affairs of Canada, backed the petition of the
Quebec traders, who were quite unworthy of such support from men of
real business probity and knowledge. The magisterial faction in Canada
advertised their side of the case all over the colonies and in any
sympathetic quarter they could find in England. The seigneurs sent
home a warm defence of Murray; and Murray himself sent Cramahe, a
very able Swiss officer in the British Army. The home government thus
had plenty of contradictory evidence before it in 1765. The result was
that Murray was called home in 1766, rather in a spirit of open-minded
and sympathetic inquiry into his conduct than with any idea of
censuring him. He never returned to Canada. But as he held the titular
governorship for