Chapter IV: Introduction

The Dominion of Canada, as we know it to-day, is a confederation of the former British Colonies and unorganized territories of North America which lie to the northward of the United States. The single exception is the Colony of Newfoundland, which so far has resisted all overtures looking to its absorption. The Dominion was formed in 1867 by the union of the then Colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, to which the others were added subsequently. At that time the Colony of Canada consisted of two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, known also as Upper and Lower Canada respectively. It is with these two provinces that our philatelic story of Canada begins.

But first let us delve a bit into earlier times and trace the development of the territory we are going to consider, as it may prove interesting for its historical value. Passing by the claims of the Norsemen in the tenth century to a somewhat vague exploration of the eastern American coast, we come to the discovery of Newfoundland by John Cabot in 1497, and it is upon this fact, in part, that England subsequently based her claim to the whole of North America. But for the most part the territory included within the well populated portion of the present Dominion was explored and settled by the French. In 1534 Jacques Cartier entered the St. Lawrence River and took possession of the country in the name of France, and in 1608 the first permanent settlement was made at Quebec by Samuel de Champlain. The name of the colony was apparently furnished by the Indians, for in the manuscript narrative of Cartier's second voyage,[1] under "Vocabulary of the natives," is found: "They call a town--Canada." Baxter says: "There can be no doubt that the word Canada is derived from _Kannata_, which in Iroquois signifies a collection of dwellings, in other words a settlement."[2] French control continued until the middle of the eighteenth century when, in the war with England, the decisive victory of Wolfe over Montcalm at Quebec, in 1759, practically brought it to a close, and by the treaty of Paris in 1763 Canada was permanently ceded to Great Britain.

[1] In the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

[2] =A Memoir of Jacques Cartier=, by J. P. Baxter, p. 135.

Tracing the development of the Colony under English rule, we find that by the so-called "Quebec Act" of 1774 it was placed under the administration of a Governor and Legislative Council appointed by the Crown. Following the American Revolution, however, there was a large immigration of former colonists into Ontario, and because of their English stock, while Quebec was French, a separation was deemed advisable. By the "Constitutional Act" of 1791 this was effected and two Colonies, Upper Canada (or Canada West) and Lower Canada (or Canada East) were constituted, each with its own separate government. Just fifty years later, in 1841, they were reunited under the single name of Canada. This brings us near the opening of our philatelic history. The united provinces had an area of about 350,000 square miles and a population, in 1850, of some 1,800,000 people. The Governor was appointed by the Crown and chose his own Executive Council; a Legislative Council of life members was also appointed by the Crown; and a Legislative Assembly was elected consisting of an equal number of representatives for each province. The Governor was made Governor-General of British North America.

The advantages of the union of Upper and Lower Canada gradually became so manifest, that a convention was held at Quebec in 1864 for the purpose of considering the advisability of uniting all the provinces. The result bore fruit in the passage of an Act of Union by the British Parliament on March 29, 1867, under which Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were formally united as the Dominion of Canada, the actual event being consummated on July 1, 1867. Subsequently, on July 20, 1871, the Colony of British Columbia, and on July 1, 1873, the Colony of Prince Edward Island, were added to the Dominion. In 1869 the vast territories of the Hudson's Bay Company were acquired by purchase, and out of them the province of Manitoba was formed and admitted to full privileges in the Dominion on July 15, 1870.

The absorption of the Company's Territories is interesting for, as we all know, this was a trading concern whose sole commodity was fur. The Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of the continent were the mecca of hunters and trappers, and their chief prey from the time the first French explorers began to search the Canadian lakes, and later when the Hudson's Bay Company succeeded to the French domain, was the beaver. In fact the early history of Canada was largely bound up with beaver catching and the sale of the skins, and for nearly a century the northern territories, both under French and English rule, were organized with a view to this traffic. In the early days of the Company the "standard of trade" of the Northwest was a beaver skin. Thus the beaver naturally became emblematic, which resulted later in its use as the "crest" of the Canadian coat-of-arms, a place that it retains to the present day over those of the Dominion. In this connection it would be unjust to omit a mention of that other symbol dear to the Canadian heart--the maple leaf. Like the rose, the thistle and the shamrock of the Mother land, the beautiful tree of the Colony, so widespread, so useful, and so gorgeous in its autumn coloring of red and gold--the blazon of the English arms--became a favorite emblem of the people. The particular variety that is so used is of course the rock or sugar maple (_acer saccharinum_).

Turning now to early postal history, it is necessary to go back to the reign of Queen Anne, although Canada was not then under British dominion. In the year 1710 an Act was passed by the British Parliament "For establishing a General Post-Office in all Her Majesty's Dominions," which not only repealed all previous enactments but placed the postoffice establishment on a new basis. A "General Post and Letter-Office" was established in London "from whence all letters and packets whatsoever may be with speed and expedition sent into any part of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to North America and the West Indies, or any other of Her Majesty's dominions, or any country or kingdom beyond the seas," and "at which office all returns and answers may be likewise received." For the better "managing, ordering, collecting, and improving the revenue," and also for the better "computing and settling the rates of letters according to distance, a chief office is established in Edinburgh, one in Dublin, one at New York, and other chief offices in convenient places in Her Majesty's colonies of America, and one in the islands of the West Indies, called the Leeward Islands." "The whole of these chief offices shall be under the control of an officer who shall be appointed by the Queen's Majesty, her heirs and successors, to be made and constituted by letters patent under the Great Seal, by the name and stile of Her Majesty's _Postmaster-General_." "The Postmaster-General shall appoint deputies for the chief offices in the places named above." The rates to New York under this Act were fixed at 1 shilling per single letter. Other rates were charged to other parts of the American continent according to the distance from New York.

In 1753 Benjamin Franklin received the royal commission as Deputy Postmaster-General for the American Colonies. No man in America had been so identified with the interests of the Colonial postoffice as he, and from 1737 he had been postmaster of Philadelphia. All his energies were devoted to his new work and when Canada passed by treaty to Great Britain in 1763, as already mentioned, his jurisdiction was extended to cover the new territory. It is thus curious to record that the (afterwards) first Postmaster-General of the United States was also the first Postmaster-General of Canada.

In the evidence given by Franklin before the House of Commons in the year 1766, in regard to the extent of the post-office accommodation in North America, he made the following statement:--

The posts generally travel along the sea coasts, and only in a few
cases do they go back into the country. Between Quebec and Montreal
there is only one post per month. The inhabitants live so scattered
and remote from each other in that vast country, that the posts
cannot be supported amongst them. The English Colonies, too, along
the frontier, are very thinly settled.

By 1774, however, Franklin, then in England as the Representative of the Colonies, had become obnoxious to the British Government, and on January 31st of that year was removed from his office. After the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Hugh Finlay, who had previously been postmaster at Quebec, received the appointment of "Deputy Postmaster-General of His Majesty's Province of Canada." He had in 1791 eleven post-offices under his management, one as far west as Mackinaw and one as far east as the Baie des Chaleurs. There was a weekly mail between Quebec and Montreal and a monthly mail for the Western country. From a Quebec almanac of 1796 it appears that there were seven post-offices in Upper Canada and five in Lower Canada. At that time mails were despatched monthly to England, and semi-weekly between Quebec and Montreal, or Halifax. At the Baie des Chaleurs the visits of the postman must have been few and far between, as they were only favored with a mail "as occasion offered."

In 1800 Mr. George Heriot succeeded Mr. Finlay. At this time New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island were all under the authority of the Canadian administration. The number of post-offices was increased to twenty-six.

The following is taken from the advertising column of the _Upper Canada Gazette_ in 1807:--

The mail for Upper Canada will be despatched from the post-office at
Montreal, on the following days, to wit:

Monday, 14th January.

Monday, 12th February.

Monday, 10th March.

Monday, 7th April--the last trip.

A courier from Kingston may be looked for here in 14 or 15 days from
the above periods, where he will remain 2 or 3 days, and then return
to Kingston.

Another courier will proceed from this with the Niagara mail, via
Messrs. Hatts', where the Sandwich [So. Essex] letters will be left,
both from Niagara and this, 'till the courier comes from there to
return with them.

Letters put into the post-office will be forwarded any time by

W. ALLAN,
Acting Deputy-Postmaster.

Mr. Heriot resigned in 1816 and was succeeded by Mr. Daniel Sutherland who, on his accession to office found Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island withdrawn from Canadian charge. New Brunswick, however, continued to be included, but appears to have been withdrawn in 1824, so that from that year until the federation of the Provinces in 1867 the Postmaster-General was concerned only with Canada proper. Mr. Sutherland established a daily mail between Quebec and Montreal and a weekly mail between Montreal and Toronto. In 1827 there were 101 post-offices and 2,368 miles of established post-route, the number of miles of mail-travel being 455,000 per annum. The letters that year were estimated at 340,000 and the newspapers at 400,000.

The following extract from the _Quebec Mercury_, published on July 18, 1829, conveys some idea of the postal communication with England at that period:--

No later advices have been received from Europe since our last. Some
further extracts from the London papers, to 31st May, inclusive,
brought to New York by the _Corinthian_, will be found in another
part of this number.

In the _Montreal Courant_, dated September 2nd, 1829, was the following paragraph, showing the improvement which had been effected in the communication between Prescott and that city:--

EXPEDITIOUS TRAVELLING:--On Saturday last, the Upper Canada line of
stages performed the journey from Prescott to this city in about 17
hours, leaving the former place at a little before 3 a. m., and
arriving here a few minutes before 8 in the evening. Not many years
ago this journey occupied two, and sometimes three days, but owing
to the great improvements made by Mr. Dickinson, the enterprising
proprietor, by putting steam-boats on the lakes St. Francis and St.
Louis, and keeping his horses in excellent condition, it is now
performed in little more than one-third of the time.

Even so late as 1833, newspaper proprietors found it (particularly in the Upper Province) better to employ their own couriers. As a proof of this we transcribe from the _Queenstown_ (Niagara) _Colonial Advocate_ of that year, the following advertisement:--

POST-RIDER WANTED IMMEDIATELY.

The proprietor of this newspaper wishes to contract with a steady
man (who can find and uphold his own horse) to deliver it to the
subscribers once a week during the winter, on the route between York
and Niagara, via Ancaster.

Mr. Thos. A. Stayner succeeded Mr. Sutherland in 1831, at which time there were 151 post-offices. Through Mr. Stayner's recommendation a uniform rate of 1s. 2d. sterling, per half ounce, was adopted in 1841 between any place in Canada and the mother country. This resulted from the establishment of regular steam communication across the Atlantic in 1840, by means of the Cunard Line between Liverpool and Halifax.

During all this period the carrying of letters was a profitable business. There was, for example, a profit of $21,000 in 1824 and of $47,000 in 1831, all which sums were duly remitted to England to swell the Imperial revenue. The rates, however, were exceedingly high. It cost eighteen cents to send a letter from Toronto to Kingston, and thirty cents to send one to Montreal. The charge for sending a weekly paper through the mails was a dollar a year, as much as the paper now costs, and the postage on a daily was over two dollars a year.[3]

[3] Most of the foregoing information is taken from extracts from the Canadian Postal Guide, published in the =Stamp Collector's Magazine= for Aug. 1, 1868, and the Halifax Philatelist, II: 138.

The net revenues of the post-office given for 1831 must have dropped considerably, for we find that in 1845 the surplus of the Canadian Post-office was but [L]7184 ($35,000) against the $47,000 given above for fourteen years earlier. This amount rose to [L]22,188 ($110,000) in 1848, fell to [L]15,725 ($78,500) the next year, and had risen again to a basis of [L]20,000 ($100,000) in the year previous to the introduction of postage stamps and the reduction of rates. The inland postage rates then in force, as charged under the Imperial Laws, were, for a letter not exceeding 1/2 ounce in weight:

For any distance not exceeding 60 miles, 4d.
For any distance exceeding 60 miles and not exceeding 100 miles 6d.
For any distance exceeding 100 miles and not exceeding 200 miles 8d.
And for every additional 100 miles or fraction an additional 2d.

For one hundred and forty years Great Britain had managed her colonial posts, or at least directed them, when on 28th July, 1849, the British Parliament passed an "Act for enabling Colonial Legislatures to establish Inland Posts."[4] This was the signal for the voluntary withdrawal of most of the colonial postal systems then under Imperial direction, and for the establishment of local systems where none had previously existed. Because of its historical interest we quote from the provisions of the Act as follows:--

Whereas under or by virtue of [_various Acts_] Her Majesty's Post
Master General has, by himself or his Deputies, the exclusive
Privilege of establishing Posts, collecting, conveying, and
delivering Letters, and collecting Postage, within Her Majesty's
Colonies, and the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have
Authority from Time to Time to fix the Rates of Postage to be
charged within such Colonies: And whereas the said Postmaster
General and Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury respectively
have, in exercise of such Privilege and Authority, established Posts
and fixed Rates of Postage in certain of such Colonies: And whereas
it is expedient to Authorize the Establishment of Posts and Postage
Rates in Her Majesty's Colonies by the Legislatures of such
Colonies: Be it enacted, therefore.... That it shall be lawful for
the Legislatures or proper Legislative Authorities of Her Majesty's
Colonies, or any of them, by Acts, Laws, or Ordinances to be from
Time to Time for that Purpose made and enacted in the Manner and
subject to the Conditions by Law required in respect of Acts, Laws,
or Ordinances of such Legislatures or Legislative Authorities, to
make such provisions as such Legislatures or Legislative Authorities
may think fit for and concerning the Establishment, Maintenance, and
Regulation of Posts or Post Communications within such Colonies
respectively, and for charging Rates of Postage for the Conveyance
of Letters by such Posts or Post Communications, and for
appropriating the Revenue to be derived therefrom.

II. [_Where the Postmaster General has actually established posts
and his power has not "determined," such colonial acts, etc., shall
not take effect until approved by Her Majesty and Privy Council, nor
until such time as the assent may be proclaimed in the Colony, or
such subsequent time as may be signified._]

III. [_After the establishment of Posts by Colonial Legislatures the
powers of the Postmaster General shall cease._]

IV. [_The Acts of Colonial Legislatures are to apply only to Posts
within the limits of the Colony and to rates of postage within such
limits._]

[4] 12^o & 13^o Vict. Cap. LXVI.

Canada lost no time in taking advantage of the above Act, and in the next year (1850) passed the required ordinances for the transfer of its domestic postal system to the control of its own Government. The next chapter will therefore start the Canadian postal history proper.