plan to disable him politically by distracting him with business troubles. At any rate, Brown grimly agreed afterwards with a sympathetic Holton that it had been “a regularly got-up attack”. Apologizing as usual for being slow to write, he added soberly, “I am indeed incorrigible in the matter of correspondence – and the knowledge of that fact makes another argument in favour of my getting out of public life – which I very much long to do.”105
Yet a different and pleasantly exciting distraction soon appeared. Edward, Prince of Wales, the twenty-year-old heir to the throne of empire, was now en route to Canada for the eagerly anticipated royal visit. When he landed at Quebec on August 18, in stifling heat, Brown went there to greet him with the other members of the loyal and perspiring legislature.106 As Canada’s first royal tour moved grandly forward, all eyes were fastened on its heavy daily schedule of public welcomes and processions, official receptions and farewells: partly because reverence for the Crown and belief in the British connection were real indeed; partly because Canada itself was on display, a Canada enjoying its first great chance for self-appreciation. But the sharp strains and conflicts within the province could only be momentarily obscured by the radiance of this princely visit, as briefly dazzling as the late summer sun. Suddenly, at Kingston early in September, they broke through.
Kingston was an Orange Conservative stronghold: the very citadel of Upper Canada Conservatism. The Orangemen of Kingston had erected a splendid arch, suitably adorned with Orange emblems, to welcome the Prince with all the loyalty due from British subjects, but specially claimed by the Orange Order as its own particular prerogative. Yet while this loyal and Protestant order was lawful in Canada, in Great Britain it was still an illegal body, a secret society linked with age-old Irish troubles. And the Duke of Newcastle, now Colonial Secretary, who was travelling with the young Prince as his official guardian, was determined that Her Majesty’s government should not be embarrassed by Her Majesty’s heir’s recognizing this disreputable and proscribed organization in any way.107
The Orangemen of Kingston were no less determined to display their loyalty and themselves; and to their loyalism was added a righteously indignant Protestantism, mindful that in French Lower Canada the Prince had received the leaders of Roman Catholic bodies readily enough. Again the rallying cries of race and religion were sounded, as Kingston stood defiantly to its Orange arch and banners. On September 5, therefore, the royal steamer moved on past the town, bearing Prince and Duke away uncompromised, but leaving the Orangemen to an angry anticlimax, Kingston merchants and mamas to deepest disappointment, and John A. Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues in Upper Canada to no little embarrassment of their own.
As party leaders they were committed to the Orange Order, which provided them with so much organized and lusty election support. But as provincial ministers they were inevitably involved in the official repudiation of Orangeism, whether it was a matter of high imperial policy or not. Nor did the Orange issue stop at Kingston, for, as the tour went on across the West (still amid most loyal enthusiasm), Orangemen several times sought to entice the Prince under their arches, and the Duke repeatedly had to take hurried evasive action to save his bewildered charge.
The game was played in Toronto, for example. As the royal party drove to St. James’ Cathedral on Sunday morning, they had suddenly to swerve from an arch where a portrait of William of Orange, patron saint of the Order, had unaccountably appeared.108 Newcastle had angry words for Mayor Wilson afterwards; but otherwise the Toronto visit went ecstatically, for no one blamed the young Prince for his mentor’s policy.109 George Brown himself was proudly with the official group at the grand Yacht Club regatta on September 11.110 Moreover, the decorations at the Globe office were quite outstanding in a city that outdid itself in welcoming display. There were flags and patriotic mottoes all across the Globe’s façade, an arc of illuminated globes along the top, and, within it, Prince of Wales plumes done in coloured gaslights, to shine out resplendently in red, white, and blue.111
Meanwhile, however, the clamour of Conservatives against their own ministerial leaders continued to rise: a most enjoyable and heartening spectacle for Brown. The Globe exploited it to the full, condemning Orangemen for their traditional rowdyism while conceding their legal position in Canada; censuring the Colonial Secretary’s high-handedness, but largely forgiving it on grounds of ignorance; and reserving the chief blame for Macdonald and Co. who, as the responsible ministers in the province, should have foreseen the inevitable situation in Upper Canada and given full and proper advice to the Crown.112
Yet even in these circumstances Brown did not change his fundamental stand on the Orange Order. He had always held it a disorderly, disruptive force that made for sectarian violence, not religious liberty, and did the cause of Protestantism far more harm than good.113 He had said so even during the height of his campaign against Roman Catholic power in the early fifties. Now, however, it was still possible to repudiate Orange excesses in the Globe as “utterly indefensible”, and yet point out why the troubles had occurred, and, above all, to inveigh against the government’s failure to prevent them – through incompetence, spinelessness, and total disregard for the interests of Upper Canada. It was an old trumpet call; but the enemy had suffered a severe blow. They were faltering badly, in fact, and Brown knew it.114
This was the auspicious moment to take to the public platform again. Before the Prince had left the province, within a few days of his Toronto visit, the Liberal leader was off to Galt to address a major Reform demonstration there. There were flags, bands, and a gala parade on that sparkling early autumn day, for this was a major party occasion.115 Brown rose to it with his best soul-stirring oratory, denouncing all the evils of misgovernment and the failings of the union, and calling once again for the Convention remedy of federation. But as he held forth, someone in the audience broke in to question his alliance with D’Arcy McGee, the Lower Canadian Roman Catholic Irish leader – a query doubtlessly inspired by the wave of Protestant anger sweeping Upper Canada at the contrast in the official treatment accorded Roman Catholic organizations in the East and the Orange Order in the West. Brown’s reply was prompt and plain. He paid warm tribute to McGee’s abilities, emphatically declaring, “I would rather a thousand times act with Mr. McGee than the dough-faced Protestants that misrepresent Upper Canada! ”116 Clearly the Orange furore was not going to lead him to any out-and-out campaign for “Protestant union”.
McGee responded gratefully when he heard of the Galt speech: “I have to thank you for the exceedingly kind mention you there made of myself. Its boldness was worthy of you, and its kindness far more than I invited.”117 For his own part, Brown told Luther Holton: “The Galt affair … has done much good already. I owe that fellow who cried ‘What about McGee?’ something handsome. It was the very chance I have been seeking for a long while. I hope I have done McGee justice – I intended to do it as handsomely as possible, for indeed he is a noble fellow and deserves a generous return.”118 He admitted that his own inclination was to “pitch right into the mêlée on the Protestant side – but some of our friends are weak brethren, and I do not wish, if it can be avoided, to weaken McGee’s position.”119 In short, for the sake of the party, he still hoped to keep ties with eastern Liberalism through his likeable Roman Catholic ally. He rather expected that the western Conservatives would themselves try to “get up a great Protestant cry”, but did not fear it; nor “the Orange game of John A.”, who was working manfully by this time to redeem himself with his outraged Orange supporters.120
Truly, the tide seemed to have swung back to Reform that autumn. Orangemen massing at St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto, early in October, proved they were not yet mollified. They flatly denounced the Liberal-Conservative government, while the Globe beamed.121 Moreover, in the elections under way that month for a portion of the Legislative Council seats, Reformers made increasing headway in Upper Canada. Malcolm Cameron, for one, gained a Council place, while the Lambton seat he thus vacated in the Assembly was taken shortly afterwards by an old Sarnia friend of Brown’s, Hope Mackenzie, Alexander’s brother. Meanwhile, the harvest
