CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Macdonald Is on Fire

1865–66

Early in 1865, Macdonald locked both himself and the boarding-house cat in his room and proceeded to practise his opening speech for the upcoming parliamentary debate on confederation, with the cat as his audience.⁴⁴ The most unusual part of all this was that Macdonald rarely, if ever, rehearsed a speech. One of his great skills was his ability to speak off the cuff, without notes.

This speech was apparently one of the longest and least convincing he ever gave. Among other things, Macdonald argued that confederation was an opportunity that might never recur and warned of the danger of impending anarchy. The debate continued until March 11, 1865, when, at 4:30 in the morning, the vote on the seventy-two resolutions was finally called and handily passed. It is possible that success was inevitable because everyone just needed to get to bed after nearly two months of confederation overload. Now it only needed to pass the British Parliament before becoming law.

With the session over, once again Macdonald packed his bags and left for England. He was travelling with a delegation of colleagues, including George-Étienne Cartier, John Alexander Galt, and George Brown. Their mission was to rally imperial support for the new nation. Choosing George Brown to go along was a strategic move on Macdonald’s part. It was a way of patching up their badly frayed relationship while simultaneously proving to the British that confederation was a joint decision, stretching across personalities, parties, and provinces.

The delegation was presented to Queen Victoria. They dined night after night in the mansions of dukes and lords and attended Derby Day at Epsom Downs, where even George Brown managed to get into the spirit of things and fire peas from his pea-shooter at the neighbouring open carriages. While they were at the races, the four Canadians, who had taken along a picnic hamper from Fortnum and Mason, hobnobbed with socialites, dined on turtle soup, and drank champagne cup, an elegant champagne cocktail.

Macdonald spent a day at Oxford where he received an honorary doctor of laws degree and promptly wrote to Louisa to brag a little, telling her, “This is the greatest honour they can confer, and is much sought after by the first men.”⁴⁵

The delegation arrived home on July 7, 1865, with their mission accomplished, which was easily enough done since their mission had been entirely ambiguous. Three weeks later, Premier Étienne Taché died, and Governor General Monck appointed Macdonald as first minister. Brown balked. He was, he insisted, Macdonald’s equal and should have had the same opportunity. Monck promptly ousted Macdonald and appointed Sir Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau, a former member of the Cabinet, as Tache’s successor. Poor Brown still wasn’t satisfied. He complained that Macdonald and Cartier were slighting him, and he quit speaking to Macdonald.

By December 1865, Brown had had enough. He quit politics again. He headed straight back to Toronto and the Globe, where he continued his endless griping about the government, in particular about the drinking habits of John A. Macdonald.

With uncertainty and rancour taking hold of the government once again, the Maritime provinces all but withdrew their intent to join Confederation. However, as sometimes happens, a threat from another quarter had a significant influence on the progress of the creation of a new nation. It came from the Fenians, an organization of Irish nationalists who sought to undermine the British presence in North America. They presented a very real threat to Canada, and not just in the Maritimes.

The first Fenian raid took place at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, in April 1866. Seven hundred-plus Fenians had assembled on the Maine shore across from the island but, due to logistical bumbling, had to wait for their weapons to arrive. Their large numbers alerted authorities and while the Fenians waited, the New Brunswick militia and six Royal Navy warships mustered in the area. When the Fenians finally attacked, they fled after firing only a few shots. No causalities ensued, although a British flag was stolen and a few buildings sustained fire damage.

On June 2, 1866, the Fenians, under Colonel John O’Neill, staged the Battle at Ridgeway (near Niagara Falls) and killed nine Canadians and injured thirty others. The attack was rumoured to be just the beginning, and newspapers warned of much worse to come, with the possibility of as many as 1,500 heavily armed Fenians crossing the Niagara River into Canada.

These initial attacks convinced most Canadians of the value of confederation. Despite the Fenians’ failure in the Campobello Island attack, the raid did help swing public opinion in New Brunswick in favour of confederation. In the provincial elections that took place in spring 1866, the anti-confederation government in New Brunswick was defeated and replaced with a pro-confederation one, paving the way for the final step: Britain’s approval of the British North America Bill.

A final conference in London was required to work out any remaining details before the matter was voted on in Westminster. On July 19, 1866, the East Coast delegation set sail for London. Meanwhile, Macdonald languished in Ottawa, refusing to budge. He rarely surfaced, though stories circulated that he was spending all his time in Ottawa’s Russell House Hotel and was now permanently drunk.⁴⁶

 

The Fathers of Confederation at the London Conference

 

In mid-August 1866, the Globe launched a public attack, alleging that for three days in a row Macdonald appeared in the House completely and utterly “gone” and unconscious of what he was doing, and further, that Macdonald and a Cabinet colleague (unnamed but thought to be D’Arcy McGee) were seen rolling helplessly on the ministerial benches.

Finally, on November 14, four months after the rest of the delegation, Macdonald managed to pull himself together and set sail for England. His travelling companions included his friend and ally Cartier, Alexander Galt, Hector-Louis Langevin, and two Reform ministers. The final confederation conference began on December 4, 1866 at London’s Westminister Palace Hotel and lasted three days. Shortly after the conference ended, the British House of Commons and House of Lords recessed for the Christmas and New Year break, and the Canadian delegation had little choice but to wait in London for Parliament to resume and vote on the British North America Bill.

At Macdonald’s recommendation, no minutes were taken at the London Conference and publicity was avoided. At least, most publicity was avoided. By the end of December, Macdonald had managed to light both himself and his hotel room on fire. He wrote to reassure his sister Louisa.

London, Dec. 27, 1866

My dear Louisa,

… For fear that such an alarming story may reach you, I may as well tell you as it occurred. Cartier, Galt & myself returned from Lord Carnarvon’s place in the country late at night. I went to bed but commenced reading the newspapers of the day, after my usual fashion. I fell asleep & was wakened by intense heat. I found my bed, bed clothes & curtains all on fire.

I didn’t lose my presence of mind, pulled down the curtains with my hands, and extinguished them with the water in my room. The pillow was burnt under my head and bolster as well. All the bed clothes were blazing. I dragged them all off on the floor & knowing the action of feathers on flame, I ripped open bolster and pillows and poured an avalanche of feather on the blazing mass, & then stamped out the fire with my hands & feet. Lest the mattress might be burning internally I then went to Cartier’s bedroom, & with his assistance carried all the water in three adjoining rooms into mine, & finally extinguished all appearance of fire. We made no alarm & only Cartier, Galt & myself knew of the accident. After it was all over, it was then discovered that I had been on fire. My shirt was burnt on my back & my hair, forehead & hands scorched. Had I not worn a very thick flannel shirt under my nightshirt, I would have been burnt to death, as it was my escape was miraculous.

… I had a merry Xmas alone in my own room and my dinner of tea & toast & drank to all your healths in bohea, though you didn’t deserve it.

… Love to Hugh, Magt & the Parson & believe me,

Affectionately yours,
John A. Macdonald ⁴⁷

 

The Victorian Proclivity for Alcohol

Despite the depictions of the Victorian era as morally upright and sexually repressed, the use of alcohol and drugs was so prevalent that it might be described as rampant. Even Queen Victoria’s servants were allocated eight pints of beer a day — though they were required to drink it “below stairs.” Granted, beer was slightly lower in alcohol than it is today but the eight pints were only the allocated ration. Many began drinking at breakfast. Beer and other forms of alcohol were generally regarded as safer than water because they were less likely to carry dangerous pathogens.

Public drunkenness in both Great Britain and in the colonies was common, especially amongst the working class, which generally consumed beer, cider, and gin. The middle and upper classes drank wine, scotch, and brandy. The irony was that drunkenness was likely as prevalent in the upper classes, however they were less apt to be found in public, in part because their houses afforded them privacy.

When the Temperance Society began stepping up its campaign against the consumption of alcohol Queen Victoria was said to have been outraged. In his book Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis, Amis writes, “the Great Queen was ‘violently opposed to teetotalism, consenting to have one cleric promoted to a deanery only if he promised to stop advocating the pernicious heresy.’”

John A. was known to drink the occasional ale, glass of brandy, or tumbler full of gin, which could be handily disguised as a glass of water, but his favourite tipple was wine, usually claret (also known as Bordeaux) or champagne. His fondness for champagne was a fashionable choice. By the mid-1800s it was tremendously popular among the upper classes in Britain and the colonies. England’s growing taste for wine was fed by the French wine industry, which helped usher in a productive period in this cornerstone of the French economy.

Champagne cup was a cocktail that was deemed suitable for celebratory occasions. In the first edition of her book, Mrs. Beeton included the following recipe and notes about champagne. In subsequent editions, she included a wide variety of cup renditions, including recipes for a badminton cup, claret cup, and a Parisian champagne cup.