Chapter XVIII: The Jack and Parliamentary Union in Canada

In addition to its harmony with the story of the union and the growth of the Constitution in the Motherland, the Union Jack has also an interesting connection with the extension of the powers and advantages of the British Constitution in Canada, and particularly with the establishment of responsible parliamentary government among its people.

In 1759, the seeds of the new nationality had been sown upon the Plains of Abraham, where the blood of Wolfe and Montcalm had mingled to enrich the soil, and the power of European France in Canada became merged in the power of England.

The French forefathers of the new subjects of King George II. had come largely from those very portions of old France, whose people had crossed over to England with William the Conqueror, and given the British their King.

As says one of our French Canadian historians:

"The immigration of the French, extending from 1634 to 1720, was almost entirely from among the Normans of Dieppe and Rouen, so that the settled portion of Canada was to all intents and purposes a reproduction of a Norman province. The subsequent settlers were mainly selected in Rochelle, Poictou, Paris and Normandy, to the exclusion of persons from the south and east, and coming out single, they married the daughters of the settled Normans. This accounts for the marked absence of any but the Norman accent and form of speech throughout the French-speaking communities of Canada at the present day."[118]

[118] Benjamin Sulte: "The Origin of the French Canadians."

Thus the new French-speaking subjects in Canada were only returning in allegiance to the sovereignty of a king whose ancestors had been placed upon the English throne by their own Norman forefathers; upon whose royal arms (45) were displayed the three _fleurs-de-lis_ as sign of his claim, through his ancestors, to the throne of France (14); upon whose crown was the motto in their own French language, "_Dieu et Mon Droit_,"[119] and who by the retention of old customs still gave his consent to the laws enacted in his British Parliament in the same old Norman phrase, "_Le Roi le veult_" ("The King wills it"), which had been used by his Norman forefathers.[120]

[119] First used at Gisors, in Normandy, in 1198.

[120] The custom is still continued. The consent of Queen Victoria to Acts passed by Parliament was given in Norman French, "_La Reyne le veult_."

The French _habitant_ felt how easy was the renewal of the old relationship, and accepted the change in the way so well expressed in his Canadian voyageur patois:

"An' dat was de way we feel, w'en de ole régime's no more,
An' de new wan come, but don't change moche; w'y its jus' lak' it be
before,
Spikin' _Francais_ lak' we alway do, an' de English dey mak' no fuss,
An' our law de sam', wall, I don't know me, 'twas better mebbe for
us."[121]

[121] W. H. Drummond: "The Habitant."

There now commenced in Canada an evolution of internal government of the people similar to that which had taken place in the old land of England, but under reversed conditions, beginning here with the incoming of English rule, while there it had commenced with the Norman conquest of England. An eminent French authority[122] has stated his belief that England owed her liberties to her having been conquered by the Normans, and to this we may add the statement of a no less important English author,[123] that "assuredly England was gainer by the conquest." As the advent of Norman rule to England had resulted in such privileges to the English people, so assuredly the cession of Quebec and the introduction of English government into Canada brought equal blessings to the descendants of those selfsame Normans.

[122] Guizot: "Essais sur l'Histoire de France."

[123] Gibbon.

The French Canadian found that under his new Union Jack his property was secure. Under the old régime the French Canadian had practically no voice in the government of his country. There was no system of elective municipal government, no freedom for public meetings, all the legislative and executive power, even to its extremest details, being centralized through the Governor and Intendant in the person of the King of France, who was two thousand miles away. Finding his religious faith untrammelled, his freedom unimpaired, his language preserved, the _habitant_ soon settled down without objection to his new sovereignty.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Act known as the "Quebec Act," which granted an increased share of local government to the people of the great province comprising all Canada which was then set apart, and the greater portion of which is now within the present Dominion. This measure of self-government still further assured the French-descended Canadians of the protection of their liberties, so that when the English-descended colonists of the thirteen English state colonies to the south of them revolted from their British allegiance in 1775, French Canada stood firm by the British crown. The descendants of the Normans in Canada were true to the government which their forefathers had helped to create in England.

The march of events now brought an additional set of new subjects to the British Constitution as it had then been established in Canada.

The granting of separation to the thirteen United States, in 1783, was followed by the immigration to Canada of those loyal souls whose hearts revolted at the action of their old colonies in taking down the Union Jack, and who refused to separate themselves from the United Empire, in whose ultimate justice they had unwavering faith.

These "United Empire Loyalists" settled mainly in the parts now known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario. Of the quarter of a million souls who then formed the total population of Canada, about a hundred and forty thousand were of French language and descent, living in the counties adjacent to the St. Lawrence River; and of the forty to fifty thousand Loyalists who, it is estimated, reached the northern colonies during or immediately after the rebellion of 1775, over twenty-five thousand had, by 1786, settled along the western lakes.

Government in Canada had hitherto been conducted by a Governor and a Legislative Council appointed by the Crown, there being no elected representative. A further advance in constitutional self-government was now considered desirable, and the "Constitutional Act of 1791" was passed by the parent Parliament in Great Britain. The ancient Province of Quebec was divided into two provinces, called Lower Canada and Upper Canada, very fairly representing the localities occupied, the one by the older or French-speaking subjects of His Majesty, and the other by the newcoming English-speaking Loyalists, who had followed their old flag into the forests of the northland.

This Act of 1791 gave the right of Parliamentary government to the people of Canada. A Legislative Council and a House of Assembly were created for each Province, the members of the latter house being elected by the votes of people in the counties and towns of each.

The Legislature of Upper Canada held its first session at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) in 1792, summoned, as said Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe in his opening speech, "Under the authority of an Act of Parliament of Great Britain, passed in the last year, which has established the British Constitution in this distant country." To this he added:

"The wisdom and beneficence of our Most Gracious Sovereign and the British Parliament have been eminently proved not only in imparting to us the same form of government, but in securing the benefit of the many provisions which guard this memorable Act, so that the blessings of our invulnerable constitution, we hope, will be extended to the remotest posterity."

As a sign of this self-government under the British Crown, the King issued his warrant from the Court of St. James on March 4th, 1792, authorizing a "_Great Seal for the Province of Upper Canada_," to be used in sealing all public instruments. The engraving (46), which is a photo reproduction of the seal attached to the Crown Patent of a grant of one hundred acres of land near Port Hope, Upper Canada, made to a U. E. Loyalist, shows the details of the design, being, as described in the royal warrant, "an anchor and sword crossed on a calumet of peace, encircled by a wreath of olives, surmounted by an imperial crown and the Union of Great Britain."

This "Union," which will be seen in the upper right-hand corner of the seal, was the Union Jack of Queen Anne.

The United Empire Loyalists sought their loved two-crossed Union Jack in Canada. They found it not only flying on the flagstaff, but also impressed on the seals of the Grants of land which were made to them in recognition of their loyalty. On these it came to them as a sign of the surety of their legal rights under British law and their full protection under the administration of British justice.

The introduction of this Union Jack had been the result of an Act passed by the British Parliament, that "mother of parliaments," which continues to this day to have vested in it the ultimate political sovereignty of every local Parliament which it has created.

This Union Jack on the Great Seal is in this way the emblem of parliamentary union between Great Britain and Canada, and the sign of the spread of British constitutional government to the continent of America.

But the French Canadian has also an interest in this same _Great Seal_, for on its reverse side it bore the royal coat-of-arms of the reigning sovereign, and in this were still shown the three lilies of France, in the same way as in the arms of his predecessor, George II. (45). What the Union Jack on the one side was to the English-speaking Canadian, the "_fleurs-de-lis_" on the other was to the French-Canadian--a visible sign of his own personal connection with the glories of his forefathers, and the evidence of his glad allegiance to the Sovereign whose connection with the ancient realm of France was represented by these emblems, and with whose realm he was now reunited.

In drawings of the arms of the Province of Ontario (the new name given to the Province of Upper Canada at the time of Confederation, in 1867), the Jack has frequently been shown as containing three crosses. A reference to the impressions made by the seal itself upon the great pieces of white wax, four and a half inches broad by three-quarters of an inch in thickness, which were attached by bands of parchment or of tape to the official documents, shows, as is seen in the photograph, that the "Union" contained two crosses only, namely, the cross of St. George and the cross of St. Andrew.

This Union Jack of 1707 was also shown in the arms of the Department of Education of Upper Canada, from 1844 to 1876, during the régime of Dr. Ryerson as Superintendent. In these the design was the same as on the Great Seal, but the Union Jack was removed from the upper corner and placed upon a shield in the centre, upon which the two crosses of Queen Anne are plainly shown.

In earlier stained glass windows placed in the Normal School, Toronto, the head offices of the Department of Education of Ontario, the three-crossed flag had been shown, but this, on the suggestion of the writer, has been corrected in the new windows placed in the library in 1896.

A further adoption of the national emblem is shown in the design on the early currency, which was coined for use in the Province. The "penny" of the Bank of Upper Canada (47) shows on the one side St. George and the dragon, and on the other the arms of the Great Seal, having on it the Union Jack,[124] which good national emblem, no doubt, made the money that the Canadian Loyalist earned more acceptable to him. These must have been happy reminders to the patriot, for on the coins which passed current among his people, and on the seal of the deed of the grant of land which his Loyalist father or himself had received for his new home, was the imprint of the old Union Jack, placed there by an Act of the Union Parliament of Great Britain, as the sign of his parliamentary union with that United Empire which ever commanded his allegiance.

[124] The design of this Bank of Upper Canada penny was made by F. W. Cumberland, the father of the writer.