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Canadian Confederate Cruiser: The Story of the Steamer Queen Victoria
192Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781771086608 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nimbus Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2018 |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d) |
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CHAPTER 1
The St. Lawrence: Great River of Canada
In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier set sail from his home port of Saint-Malo, France, with a commission from King Francis I to seek a western passage to the wealthy markets of Asia under the nowfamous royal commission "to discover certain islands and lands where it is said that a great quantity of gold and other precious things are to be found." He failed in that mission, but on this and two successive voyages he became the first European to describe and map the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the shores of the St. Lawrence River. He named the area "Country of Canadas" and claimed what is now part of Canada for France. The rest, they say, is history — our history.
The St. Lawrence is one of the greatest rivers in the world, an assertion fully endorsed by the renowned Canadian author Hugh MacLennan. He is reported to have said that "the St. Lawrence has made nations. It has been the moulder of lives of millions of people, perhaps by now hundreds of millions, in a multitude of different ways. ... [It is] the greatest inland traffic avenue the world has ever known."
The river, its grand estuary — among the deepest and largest in the world — and the Gulf of St. Lawrence combine with the Great Lakes to form a hydrographic system that extends 2,500 miles into the heart of North America. The river begins as an extended arm of Lake Ontario, flowing east through the spectacular Thousand Islands near Gananoque, past Brockville, Prescott, Morrisburg, Cornwall, and on down to Montreal. From here and continuing to Trois-Rivières the river is calm, but from this point onwards to Quebec City, the freshwater flow becomes reversible with the tides. The distance from Montreal to Quebec City is 150 miles, a segment which historically is referred to as the upper St. Lawrence. From Quebec City east to the gulf is generally referred to as the lower St. Lawrence.
At Quebec City, the river constricts, and just past the city it divides to encircle Île d'Orléans, and then gradually widens with the waters becoming more brackish and tidal. The riverbed changes dramatically near the mouth of the Saguenay River, where the water depth drops from an average of seventy-five feet to one thousand feet. At Pointe-des-Monts, about forty miles east of BaieComeau, the north shore turns radically north-northeast towards SeptÎles, effectively doubling the width of the river to over sixty miles.
According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, a line drawn from the north shore at the mouth of the Rivière Saint-Jean, thence south past the west tip of Anticosti Island to Cap des Rosiers on the Gaspé Peninsula marks the end of the river and the beginning of the gulf. Pointe-desMonts on the north shore has, in practice, been accepted as the western limit of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the beginning of the massive St. Lawrence River estuary, which extends from Île d'Orléans, downriver about two hundred miles to Point-des-Monts, where it widens into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The St. Lawrence River is entered by the gulf via the narrow Strait of Belle Isle, off the northern tip of Newfoundland, and, further south, through the Cabot Strait, which separates Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, from the southwestern coast of Newfoundland. The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a large body of water, a sea in fact, covering more than sixty thousand square miles. Half the ten provinces of Canada, to wit, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec, adjoin this body of water.
What began with Cartier's discovery in 1534 was continued seventyfour years later by another French explorer, Samuel de Champlain. It was the well-travelled Champlain who founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608. Apart from his skills as a navigator, he was an accomplished cartographer, draftsman, and diplomat. In the years immediately before founding Quebec City, Champlain had, in 1604, explored and helped settle what would later become Saint John, New Brunswick, and in 1605 Port-Royal in Acadia, what we now know as Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.
* * *
Quebec City, where Champlain died in 1635, is one of the oldest cities in North America. Its name is derived from the Algonquin word kebec, meaning "where the river narrows," as does the St. Lawrence between the city's promontory Cap Diamant (Cape Diamond) and the city of Lévis on the opposite bank. The Historic District of Old Quebec with its distinct Upper and Lower Towns was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985.
In the years after its founding, Quebec City gradually grew and flourished, initially on the fur trade and later on timber exports. As the local economy thrived and expanded, so did the use of the St. Lawrence River. By 1800, Quebec City (Stadacona) and the upriver city of Montreal (Hochelaga) had developed into formidable centres of trade and commerce on the St. Lawrence.
The types of watercraft to be found on the river by this time were many and varied. They included canoes, which to this day are used and create great excitement during the annual winter race across the ice of the frozen river between Lévis and Quebec City. A flat-bottomed skiff or bateau, capable of carrying four or five tons of cargo, eventually became a more popular mode of transport. This concept was greatly expanded upon with the appearance of barges; with lengths of up to ninety feet, these increased the cargo-carrying capacity. Rafts and ferries were in great abundance. Sailing vessels later appeared and, before the advent of steam, made Quebec City the main entrepôt on the river, as the progress further upriver by ships of sail was impeded by the St. Mary's current at Montreal. The introduction of steam to the river would change all this, and very quickly with it the economic fortunes of Quebec City in favour
The Montreal beer baron John Molson manufactured the first steamship to work the St. Lawrence River. In 1809, the Accommodation completed her maiden voyage from Montreal to Quebec City and was the first in a succession of tug steamers that would revolutionize transportation and ship movements on the river. Henceforth, sailing vessels subject to the vagaries of wind, weather, and tide could be towed upriver to their ultimate destination. The result was a great expansion in commercial traffic, which coincidentally brought about a pressing need for new rules and regulations governing navigation and pilotage.
At this time, Quebec City was the capital of Lower Canada, or what later became the Province of Quebec. It was a colony of Britain, along with Upper Canada (Ontario) and the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. As such the merchants and politicians of Quebec City sought the experience and counsel of Britain in addressing the pressing need to regulate traffic and protect shipping on the St. Lawrence River.
* * *
In 1514, some twenty years before Jacques Cartier first found his way into the St. Lawrence, Britain had grappled with a similar challenge and increasingly urgent need to provide a means to improve navigation and protect shipping around its own coast. Henry VIII was the reigning monarch, and by this time war and commerce had increased the volume of shipping on the River Thames to the point that the need for pilotage and safe conduct became paramount to the Port of London.
On March 19, 1513, a guild of mariners, troubled by the inexperience and poor conduct of unregulated pilots on the Thames endangering life and cargo, petitioned the king for licence to set up a fraternity enabled to regulate pilotage on the capital's river. The petitioners were very well prepared and advanced the following case to the king:
The practice of pilotship in rivers, by young men who are unwilling to take the labour and adventure of learning the shipman's craft on the high seas, is likely to cause scarcity of mariners; and so this your realm which heretofore hath flourished with a navy to all other lands dreadful, shall be left destitute of cunning masters and mariners; also the Scots, Flemings and Frenchmen have been suffered to learn as loadsmen (pilots) the secrets of the King's streams, and in time of war have come as far as Gravesende and set owte English shippes to the great rebuke of the realm.
Henry VIII was duly impressed, and on May 20, 1514, he signed the Royal Charter incorporating that body of mariners as "the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild or Fraternity of the most glorious and individible Trinity and St. Clement in the Parish Church of Deptford Strond," a name that mercifully was later shortened to Trinity House. With respect to the name chosen for this fraternity, the word "Trinity" refers to the Holy Trinity, St. Clement to the patron saint of mariners, and Deptford at that time was the hub of transactions for the Port of London.
This new corporation was to be governed by a master, four wardens, and eight assistants who were to be elected annually, and were empowered for the general improvement of the science of navigation, to elect and expel any of their number; by-laws could be created, and transgressors punished by forfeit or expulsion. A seal served as the legal mark, and the corporation was authorized to hold property to conduct its charitable affairs and meetings, with a chaplain appointed to pray for the kings, queens, and brethren living and deceased.
To this day, the corporation is headed by the master whose extensive powers and jurisdiction are deferred to the deputy master. The first master of Trinity House UK was Sir Thomas Spert, master of the Mary Rose, flagship of King Henry VIII. In more recent times, the role of master has become largely ceremonial and filled by members of the royal family. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh served as master from 1969 until 2011, when he relinquished that role to Princess Anne, Princess Royal, the current master.
The deputy master is the executive of the corporation, presiding at board and court meetings, and expected to arrange all the business for the consideration of the court. Today this position is held by Captain Ian McNaught, who previously served with Cunard Line as the last master of the flagship Queen Elizabeth 2.
Trinity House UK today is ruled by thirty-one Elder Brethren, who are appointed from three hundred Younger Brethren, and act as advisors and perform other duties as needed. The Younger Brethren are generally lay people with maritime experience, often ship's masters, naval officers, pilots, and yachtsmen. As originally constituted, Trinity House to this day carries out three primary functions. First, it is the official General Lighthouse Authority for England, Wales, the Channel Islands, and Gibraltar, responsible for the provision and maintenance of navigational aids, lighthouses, light vessels, and buoys as well as radio and satellite communication systems. Second, it is the official Deep Sea Pilotage Authority and as such provides expert navigators for ships trading in northern European waters. Finally, Trinity House is a maritime charity, disbursing funds for the welfare of retired seamen, the training of young cadets, and the promotion of safety at sea.
Trinity House UK has a long and storied history. It celebrated its four hundredth anniversary in 1914. The following tribute appeared in Lloyd's List in May of that year and said simply: "As a matter of history the record of Trinity House is fascinating. In its time it has been many sided. It has served the nation in this capacity and that, and all the while it has somehow managed to make itself so indispensable that, in an age of scant reverence for ancient institutions, it stands not only unassailed, but, we might also add, unassailable." Yet another century would pass, when in 2014 Trinity House celebrated its quincentenary — five hundred years of service to a grateful nation as one of Britain's oldest and most singular institutions.
* * *
At the dawn of the nineteenth century in the colonies, shipping traffic had greatly increased on the St. Lawrence River. As had been the case in Britain, increasingly there was a need for some form of control and oversight to protect shipping from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and upriver to Montreal via Quebec City. The ensuing "Trinity House movement" in the Province of Quebec would bring about the extension to the St. Lawrence of officially disciplined navigation, in much the same manner as happened in Britain nearly three hundred years earlier.
So it was, using Trinity House in the mother country as a model, that the Trinity House of Quebec was established in 1805. The corporation was an autonomous body under the government of the Province of Lower Canada. It was created by an Act of Provincial Parliament, "with full power and authority to make, ordain and constitute such and so many by-laws, Rules and Orders, not repugnant to the maritime laws of Great Britain or to the laws of this province…for the more convenient, safe and easy navigation of the River Saint Lawrence, from the fifth rapid above the City of Montreal, downwards, as well by the laying down as taking up of buoys and anchors, as by the erecting of lighthouses, beacons or landmarks, the clearing of sands or rocks or otherwise howsoever."
As originally constituted, the Trinity House of Quebec was governed by a master, a deputy master, two wardens appointed in Quebec and three in Montreal (which initially was a subordinate branch of the parent body), as well as various officers. Its first appointments included: Master Honourable John Stewart; Deputy Master H. LeMesurier; Wardens Honourable George Pemberton, David Burnet, G. B. Symes, Harbour Master John Lambly, and Superintendent of Pilots Robert Young. The officers included E. B. Lindsay and George Manly Muir (clerk and registrar), Errol B. Lindsay (treasurer), Assistant Harbour Master and Superintendent of cul-de-sac William K. Rayside; B. Simon, alias LaFleur, (water bailiff); and Pierre Rodrigue, messenger and wharfinger.
When created in 1805, Trinity House of Quebec was conceived to maintain order at the growing port of Quebec City, which up until that time was the upstream limit of sailing navigation for ocean-going ships. Steam had yet to appear on the scene. Between 1790 and 1810, ship traffic greatly increased as the wood and timber trade overtook furs as Quebec's primary export.
Shipping on the St. Lawrence was seasonal — the river froze up during the winter months. During the shipping season all manner of vessels plied the river — fishing sloops, tugboats, barges, horse-drawn ferries, rowboats, canoes, and soon steamers. Trinity House of Quebec wardens regulated all this traffic. As originally incorporated, Trinity House of Quebec had responsibility to look after lights and buoys from Montreal to the Strait of Belle Isle, or virtually the entire upper and lower St. Lawrence. This was no mean task. In addition, the corporation issued pilot's licences, looked after lights and buoys in the St. Lawrence River, and dealt with criminal matters. It quickly assumed and maintained a dominant role as overseer of the St. Lawrence.
Some years later, as the upriver port of Montreal prospered and grew, a Trinity House of Montreal was established by similar legislation enacted in February of 1832. It too was based on the British model with much the same governance as the Quebec operation. Henceforth, Trinity House of Montreal was able to make its own laws, license pilots, appoint harbour masters, clerks, and bailiffs. Its jurisdiction included the upper St. Lawrence and the port of Montreal (thus relieving Quebec of that responsibility), within which area it was to place lights, buoys, and other aids to navigation. Like Quebec, it also had a quasi-judicial role by which it could hear disputes between the masters of ships and pilots and complaints between pilots and harbour authorities. Upon inception it was managed by Master Robert Armour; Deputy Master Jules Quesnel; Wardens John Molson, William Edmonstone, H. L. Routh, John Try, and Andrew Shaw; officers Hypolite Guy (registrar and treasurer) and John N. Ogilvy (water bailiff).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Canadian Confederate Cruiser"
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Copyright © 2018 John G. Langley.
Excerpted by permission of Nimbus Publishing Limited.
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Table of Contents
Foreword Ian McNaught 6
Preface 7
Part I Queen Victoria, Ship of State
Chapter 1 The St, Lawrence: Great River of Canada 11
Chapter 2 Mr. Baby's Steamers 23
Chapter 3 Queen Victoria: Provincial Steamer to Royal Yacht 35
Part II The Canadian Confederate Cruiser: Steaming Towards a New Nation
Chapter 4 Not Yet a Nation: Maritime Union or Confederation? 51
Chapter 5 North and South: The Tallahassee Affair 63
Chapter 6 Circus Act in Charlottetown 73
Chapter 7 Assault on Charlottetown 83
Chapter 8 Mopping Up: Quebec Conference 93
Part III Attempts to Repatriate Canada's Liberty Bell
Chapter 9 The Last Voyage of Queen Victoria 107
Chapter 10 Rescue and Retribution 119
Chapter 11 An Important Gesture 129
Chapter 12 Canada's Liberty Bell 145
Epilogue: For Whom the Bell Tolls 155
Acknowledgments 161
Appendix 1 Short Biographies for Fathers of Confederation 165
Appendix 2 Biography of Rear Admiral Hugh Francis Pullen 175
Selected Bibliography 177
Bibliography 181
Image Credits 185
Index 187