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Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 23
Gaspé, 1760-1867
by David Lee
Part I: Gaspé and the Government
Government Presence in Gaspé
Effective the first day of May 1775, Major Nicholas Cox was created
"Lieutenant-Governor or Superintendant of Gaspée," immediately
responsible to Governor General Sir Guy Carleton at Quebec. Cox was born
in England in 1724 and had served in the 47th Regiment at the sieges of
Louisbourg (1758) and Quebec (1759). He arrived at Quebec to take up
his new duties in August 1775, just in time to become involved in
another siege. In the summer and autumn of 1775, an American army
supporting the independence of the thirteen colonies attacked the
Province of Quebec and Cox returned to military service for the emergency.
He served as an army instructor and later was appointed
état-major to Carleton.1 The Americans were not driven out
of Quebec until the summer of 1776 and Cox was not able to visit Gaspé
until the following summer.
In the summer of 1777 Carleton sent Cox to Gaspé to report on the
economy of the area, the Indians and the attitude of the inhabitants
toward the American Revolution.2 In 1780 a house was begun at
Percé to serve as his official residence; however, with the arrival of
the Loyalists in 1784, it was decided that the lieutenant governor
should reside among the Loyalists at New Carlisle, so the house at Percé
was abandoned.3 The Government House at New Carlisle was
never built and it appears that Cox never permanently lived in Gaspé. He
visited Gaspé in 1777, 1778 and 1780, and accompanied the Loyalists in
1784. In 1786 he arranged a land agreement with the Indians and took
oaths of allegiance from the Loyalists and Acadians of Chaleur Bay. He
appears to have resided in Gaspé on a year-round basis only in 1784
and 1790-91. It seems that he did not visit again after 1791.4
Because of Cox's absence, the governor general was deprived of
first-hand information concerning the needs and problems of Gaspé.
For the first few years of his term as lieutenant governor, Cox was
responsible for an area whose extent was vague and undefined; more
specific limits were not officially proclaimed until 1788. Then, in
1793, this political division became known as the "inferior district of
Gaspé."5
Cox died on 8 January 1794 at Quebec. Later that month Francis
LeMaistre, another veteran army officer, was named as Cox's replacement.
LeMaistre was a Jerseyman who had served with the 98th Regiment in the
West Indies and later with the Royal Fusiliers in Canada where he had
been aide-de-camp and military secretary to Carleton (now Lord
Dorchester). His last post had been as deputy adjutant general of the
army in Canada.
Although he was himself a lieutenant governor, LeMaistre's commission
put him under the authority of the lieutenant governor of Quebec as
well as the governor. The post carried an annual stipend of £400,
but LeMaistre received only £300, the remainder being used to
provide a pension for Cox's widow. In 1796 he petitioned the governor,
claiming that his salary was much too small to enable him to fulfill all
his duties (which also included the superintendency of trade and
fisheries in Labrador). LeMaistre visited Gaspé in 1795, perhaps the
only occasion. When he died on 13 February 1805, R.S. Milnes,
administrator of the province, said that it had been ill health which had
prevented LeMaistre
for some years past... from going to Gaspé, where it was intended
he should reside during a part, at least, of every year; and I am sorry
to find that the Public Concerns in that distant District have suffered
very essentially through the want of an acknowledged Agent on the part
of Government residing there.
LeMaistre's widow received a £50 annual pension until her death
and his brother, William, for years afterward held the position of
grand voyer of Gaspé roads.6
To succeed LeMaistre, Milnes recommended an old friend, Alexander
Forbes, retired captain of the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards. Forbes
was born about 1752. His commission as lieutenant governor is dated 18
February 1805, but it was probably retroactive for his appointment was
not approved until August 1807. Forbes visited Gaspé in 1809 but
probably never again; for many years he was not even resident in North
America. By 1821 Louis-Joseph Papineau and his party in the assembly
were beginning to complain about this "unnecessary charge upon the
Public of this Province." In transmitting the assembly's resolution that
the post be abolished, Governor General Dalhousie wrote to Britain that
he needed "a Superior Officer residing there [Gaspé], as I have no means
of reaching it." Eventually Dalhousie felt obliged to visit Gaspé
personally in order to determine the needs and interests of the
district. Meanwhile, Forbes remained in Britain, claiming that his
health prevented him from visiting Gaspé. By 1826 the assembly was
refusing to vote his annual salary of £300. The governor general
managed to continue payment "from the private Funds of the Crown,"
apparently until Forbes's death, sometime in the 1830s.7
When the Province of Lower Canada was formed in 1791, a legislative
assembly and a legislative council were created at Quebec. No resident
of Gaspé ever appears to have sat on the legislative council of the
province,8 where the real power lay, until the 1840s. The
District of Gaspé (now also called a county) was given one seat in the
assembly. Difficult communications with the district caused problems
from the very beginning and at the turn of the century two concessions
had to be made to meet the particular situation of Gaspé. On account of
the vast expanse of the county, two polling sites were allowed instead
of the normal one (but even then the great distances and poor
communications disfranchised a large number of the electorate) and,
because the district was so remote from Quebec, the period allowed for
returning the election writs was extended from 50 to 100
days.9
Some of the men who were elected to represent the interests of Gaspé
were not residents of the district, but merely people who had travelled
there at one time or another (for example, William Vondenvelden, 1800 to
1804, and J.-T. Taschereau, 1819 to 1827). Over the years there were
many complaints about corruption and illegal polling
procedures10 and for the years 1827 to 1832 Gaspé had no
voice at all in the assembly. Five times Robert Christie was elected to
represent the county and five times he was refused his seat because he
had previously gained the enmity of Papineau and his party when he had
worked as a government official.
Knowing that the interests of Gaspé were not being represented to the
government, two governors general made personal tours of the district.
Lord Dalhousie visited Gaspé in 1826 and sent several recommendations to
the secretary for the colonies in Britain. He suggested a road be built
from Gaspé and New Brunswick to Quebec through the Matapedia valley.
This suggestion was eventually implemented but his other ideas were less
successful. He had also recommended more protection and aid for the
fisheries and assisted immigration to Gaspé which he believed had vast
expanses of rich, virgin soil.11 Lord Aylmer visited Gaspé in
1831, but little resulted from his tour.
By this time, however, some of the problems were easing. In 1832
Christie gave up (Aylmer may have encouraged him) his battle for
reelection so Gaspé County regained representation in the assembly.
Furthermore, a redistribution of seats had occurred and in 1832 Gaspé
County sent two members to Quebec. In addition, in 1830 the county had
been split and Bonaventure County created; it also sent two members to
Quebec. Thus, from 1832 to 1838 the Inferior District of Gaspé had four
seats in the provincial assembly (from 1838 to 1841 the assembly was
suspended). In the assembly of the United Province of Canada (1841-67)
the two counties had one seat each.12
Given the poor representation of Gaspé in government councils, the
governor occasionally solicited information on the district from an
assortment of people. He got information, for example, from the only
physician in the district, local judges and
customs officials, general sessions of the peace and surveyors
working in Gaspé.13 In addition, he received a great deal of
unsolicited correspondence from private individuals complaining about
conditions in the district and offering suggestions and information.
One of the matters most complained about was the judicial system.
Gaspé long suffered a law-and-order problem which was said to be the
reason for its slow development. The lawlessness can be attributed to
the remoteness of the district, but an additional reason was the large
numbers of itinerant fishermen who came there in the summer: Channel
Islanders, British and other Europeans as well as Québécois and
Americans often clashed with each other as well as with the residents.
The disorders, characteristic of Gaspé during the French régime,
resumed almost immediately after the Conquest. As early as 1764 the
problem of "such mixed & tumultuous Multitudes . . . gathered
together . . . at Gaspey" was recognized by the government, but little
was done to solve it.14
The arrival of the Loyalists in 1784 in an area where the judicial
apparatus was minimal only worsened the situation. Many of the newcomers
were unmarried, discharged soldiers who remained only a year or two.
They were a particularly disorderly group; as Cox said, "some of the
disbanded Soldiers are very bad men."15 There was little means of
controlling them and, as the land commissioners noted in 1820, the
magistrates were "compelled to wink at the crime, rather than incur the
risk of being insulted and probably maltreated in turn by the criminal."
In 1843 it was reported that public confidence in the system of justice
was so low that the amount of litigation had actually declined while
the population had increased greatly. The Acadians were not seen as
disturbers of the peace. The Indians were described as a "harmless
race," but that was only with respect to the Europeans: there existed a
very serious crime problem among the Indians due mainly to whisky
traders. The large-scale importation and sale of liquor caused distress
among both Indians and Europeans. Liquor licences were very difficult to
obtain and therefore ignored, and unlicensed distributors were
uncontrollable. Smuggling was rampant among itinerant traders and
fishing ships returning from Spain, Portugal and the West Indies. Many
petitions and complaints were sent to Quebec over the years, but
government controls were slow to come.16
The first justice of the peace for Gaspé, Felix O'Hara, was
appointed in 1765, but he was given authority to handle only minor cases.
By 1788 there were 17 such officers in Gaspé; however, numbers like
these were meaningless for many did not reside in the
district.17
The first Court of Common Pleas was established in Gaspé in 1779,
with O'Hara as judge.18 Later Charles Robin and Isaac Mann
were added to the court as judges. This court could only hear minor
cases, but even then it was not effective because of poor
communications. Charles Robin resigned in 1792 because O'Hara would
only hold sessions at Percé and Robin could not afford to travel there
once a year for three weeks, let alone four times a year. Under these
conditions it was difficult to find men to serve as judges19
and litigants as well found it difficult to get to the sessions. When
the government created three judicial districts in Lower Canada in 1793,
the county of Gaspé was set aside as an inferior district whose court
was not given competence equal to the others. The government granted
Gaspé a Provincial Court, but it could not hear cases concerning
Admiralty law, matters over £20, or actions concerning real
property.20 O'Hara was made first judge of this court. In
1807 the provincial judge in Gaspé was paid £200 a year while his
counterpart at Trois-Rivières received £500.21 Sessions were
supposed to be held annually at Bonaventure, Carleton, Percé and
Douglastown, but over the years they were held less and less
frequently.
In 1822 the government expanded the competence of the court to
include cases involving matters up to £100. Yearly sessions at New
Carlisle, Carleton, Percé and Douglastown were made obligatory, as were
general sessions of the peace. A session of the peace held in 1824 was
the first in 23 years. In the absence of municipal corporations, these
sessions allowed the local inhabitants to advise the government of the
conditions and needs of their communities, something long lacking in
Gaspé; however, while there had formerly been complaints about the
courts not sitting, now there were complaints about jurors being
selected to serve for long periods of time at inconvenient seasons and
at long distances from home. Because it was still a hardship to have to
take all criminal and Admiralty cases, all appeals and the more serious
civil actions to Quebec, few were referred there. In 1849 the Provincial
Court of Gaspé was finally given a competence equal to courts in the
rest of the province and the district thereby lost its
"inferiority."22
When the Loyalists arrived Gaspé got its first sheriff. In 1784
Lieutenant Governor Cox appointed Thomas Mann to this office at an
annual salary of £20. By 1808 Mann was receiving £50
annually, half the salary paid the sheriffs of the other districts of
the province.23 In that year also, the assembly first voted
money for the construction at New Carlisle and Percé of jails with
courthouses attached, but it was many years before they were completed:
the jail at New Carlisle was finished about 1820. A
few years later the government gave up plans for building one at
Percé and instead purchased a large stone building there from John
LeBoutillier to serve as a jail and courthouse.24
The people of Gaspé were not punitive by nature and the first
execution, performed there in 1866, generated widespread protest.
Gaspésians were always interested in the welfare of the prisoners kept
in local jails. At Percé, for example, an Indian was charged with arson
and held without trial. The sheriff neglected to provide heat and food
for him and he died of exposure after 20 months despite the efforts of
the townspeople to keep him and other prisoners alive. In another case,
the local people forced the government to release a sick, old bootlegger
despite the protests of the justice of the peace who felt it would make
"punishment a mockery."25 In 1851 the residents of
Bonaventure County petitioned the government for a railway to Quebec,
suggesting that criminals be used on the construction. They felt that
their "principal crimes are ignorance, poverty and misfortune," and that
they should be better kept "under the blue vault of Heaven in a healthy
climate."26
There were few other government officials in Gaspé and none was well
paid. There was a customs collector at Douglastown and at New Carlisle,
and a grand voyer of roads (he did not have many roads to
inspect). The government also paid stipends for a missionary to the
Restigouche Indians and for a few schoolteachers. With this small number
of officials, not all of them resident, the presence of the government
was not widely felt in the Inferior District of Gaspé.
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