The Earl of Dalhousie

George Ramsay, the ninth Earl of Dalhousie and former Governor General of the Canadas played an important role in the development of Ottawa, by patronising John By, feuding with John LeBreton, and making space for turning the Bytown camp into a proper settlement.

Transcript

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Good day everyone, and welcome back to the Ottawa History Hub Podcast. Recently, we've been talking about some trends that made the development of the city of Ottawa seem like something that was bound to happen sooner or later. We've talked about the massive government projects of the Rideau Canal, the migration of Loyalists, and the aftermath of the War of Independence, and the War of 1812. And most recently, we've followed a quartet as they traveled around the Ottawa area. We've also taken the time to look at the lives of two very important people, Philman Wright of Woburn, Massachusetts, and John Bye of Lambeth in London. Today we're going to add a third biography to our list of players, George Ramsey, the ninth Earl of Dalhousie. Ramsey is an important character in the history of Canada, and of Ottawa in particular, despite him not spending much time in the area. He was the Governor General of Nova Scotia, where he was a patron of the arts and education, and was then promoted to the Governor General of the Canada's, where he spent most of his time feuding with the Lower Canada Assembly. For casual students of history, fans of history, history buffs and the like, there's a tendency to fall into the habit of grand narratives. Whig history, spelt W-H-I-G, is when you look at the past as something that leads a gradual walk towards a happy present of a liberal democracy, functioning parliaments, and the arc of history bending in a steady curve to where it is today. Ramsey was a Scottish aristocrat who would have taken great offense if someone had called him a hero on the road to democracy. He was very much a man of his time and class, and was an enthusiastic true believer when it came to imperialism and colonialism. Much of his time in the British colonies of North America was dedicated to limiting the roles of assemblies and ensuring that the colonies were administered to the benefit of the natural leaders. Gerhild Hellener, an important Canadian economist from the University of Toronto, penned a little rhyme that goes like this. The poor complain, they always do, but that's just idle chatter. Our system brings rewards for all, at least for those who matter. Helliner intended that this be a little barb against unfettered capitalism, but Dalhousie would have thought that it was a wonderful description of the moral justice of empire. Baby George was born on twenty two october seventeen seventy, in Dalhousie Castle in Midlothian, Scotland. By the age of eighteen he had finished university and begun his military career by purchasing a cornetse with the Third Dragoons. A cornetse is the lowest officer rank in the cavalry. Three years later, he raised his own independent company and was thus promoted to captain, and he purchased a major's rank with the Second Foot in Gibraltar the following year. In seventeen ninety four, at the age of twenty four, he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel and commanded an unsuccessful attack against the French in Martinique. He remained at that rank for six years, serving in the Caribbean, Egypt, the Netherlands, and Spain. He would then become a full colonel, and then return to his fast pace of promotion, as he was named Brigadier General two years later while serving in Gibraltar. In eighteen oh eight he was promoted to Major General at the age of thirty eight. He was also a peer of the realm, representing Scotland in the House of Lords, and was close to his commander from the Napoleonic Wars, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, who would be the Prime Minister in the twenties and thirties. Like many of Wellesley's staff officers from the Peninsula War, Ramsay parlayed his connections with the Duke of Wellington into positions in the colonial administration after the abdication of Napoleon. On 24 October 1816, he arrived in Halifax to take on his new role as the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Up until this point we've met Ramsay as the son of the castle and rising up through the military based on wealth and position. Those who knew him in Nova Scotia would certainly concur that he was aloof, aristocratic, and used to being obeyed. He observed what was seen as a particularly dour version of Presbyterianism, and was generally regarded as prickly by his new community. This is not to say that he was a sociopath or a narcissist, just that he was the product of his time and class. Understanding him would be a great challenge, though we are fortunate that he was an avid diarist whose thoughts and observations are available to us. While he was inclined to the rugged terrain and struggle for agriculture of Nova Scotia, reminding him of his own native Vita Scotia, or Old Scotland. The avoidable crisis of the day since his arrival was the plight of refugees from the War of 1812. Since the Home Office was urging austerity in spending, Dalhousie halved the numbers of aid recipients, insisting that the refugees use the spirit of industry given to them by their creator to better develop the land and themselves. As for the large population of black refugees, often runaway enslaved people, whom Dalhousie wanted to expatriate to Sierra Leone, he noted his belief that they were slaves by habit and education, no longer working under the dread of the lash. Their idea of freedom is idleness, and they are therefore quite incapable of industry. Sierra Leone was regarded as the best option as they quite reasonably feared reenslavement if they were to be sent back to another slaver society of the Caribbean. His opinion of the indigenous Mikmah was hardly more charitable. He viewed them as indolent, a sloth coming from both their race and the Catholicism thrust on them by years of missionaries dating back to the French period. One would assume by his hostility towards the black and indigenous Nova Scotians, that this was a product of what we would today call racism, and while that would be correct, he was hardly sympathetic to white Britons either. He thought that the numerous land grants given to loyalists and other prospective immigrants was slowing the development of a proper society. His diary again gave us insight, as he noted, every man is a laird here, and the classes, known in England as tenantry and peasantry, do not exist in these provinces, and probably will not be formed until a full stop is put to the system of granting lands and public sale introduced. Ramsay was a firm believer in education as a way to uplift people on a personal level, but also on a societal one, and he bemoaned the situation of education in Nova Scotia. King's College in Windsor, forty miles from Halifax, was the only college, and was a dedicatedly Anglican institution, while Jesuits held on to their control of other lesser schools. All this in a province that was three quarters Presbyterian. In eighteen eighteen, he founded Dalhousie College, now Dalhousie University, as a dissenter college. As the Lieutenant Governor of one of the British provinces of North America, Dalhousie was aware of Lennox, the Governor General of Upper and Lower Canada. You may recall from last week's episode that in eighteen twenty Lennox, the Duke of Richmond, went on a tour of Upper Canada. Along the way he got bitten in the hand by a fox. It seemed to heal all right, so he continued on his tour of the Lake Ontario settlement before returning to Kingston and heading up the Cataraco and down the Rideau Valley, visiting the newly established garrison town of Richmond. Along the way, he got more and more ill with hydrophobia or rabies. That is a terrible way to die, and he entered the promised land outside the town that shared his title. He was returned to Quebec City and buried in Holy Trinity Cathedral, the first officially Anglican church built outside of England. Bad for him, good for Dalhousie, who then assumed the position of Governor General of the Canadas. As an English-speaking Presbyterian authoritarian of a province with mostly English-speaking Presbyterian population, Ramsay's force of character was well met by the general population, even when he feuded with the Anglican hierarchy. When he moved to Quebec with a Roman Catholic population and a mixed Catholic and Anglican local ascendancy, his bullying tactics were not as well received. During his first year as the Governor General, he traveled up the Ottawa Valley, already with an eye towards scouting a good location for the canal to connect the Ottawa River to the Great Lakes, a task that would ultimately be passed on to John Bye. At the south end of the Chaudier Falls was a small settlement operated by Jaheel Collins, called Richmond Landing, as it was from there that soldiers would disembark and begin the trek to the town of Richmond. While hosting soldiers at a dinner, Ramsay said that he would like to purchase lot forty in Nipean, the location in question, in order to build an entrepot. He told those in attendance to let him know if lot forty were ever to come up for sale. Lot forty in Nipean stretched from a few hundred yards facing the Ottawa River, and stretched south through the uninhabitable Greater Dows Swamp, now drained and called Preston Street, until it hit the basin of Dow Swamp, now Dows Lake. This land was useless for agriculture, and would be of extraordinarily limited value until the Rideau Canal upended the natural drainage basins of the area. In attendance at this dinner was one Captain John LeBreton, who then left and went straight to Brockville, found Robert Randall, the owner of the lot, who was indebted and struggling. Out of the kindness of his heart, LeBreton convinced Randall to put the land up for a hastily organized auction, where the good captain managed to get a deed for four hundred and ninety-nine pounds. LeBreton then went to Quebec City and let Dalhousie know that he'd be willing to part with Lot forty for a mere three thousand pounds, netting himself a three hundred percent profit. Dalhousie named LeBretton a villain and did so publicly. The captain was ostracized by his fellow officers, and Dalhousie even recruited Robert Randall, the former owner of the lot, to agree that the auction was not publicized properly, and couldn't be considered as above board. LeBreton insisted that he wasn't at the dinner when Dalhousie said that he wanted the land, and that the Randall auction was publicized in a local newspaper. Both claims were rejected by Dalhousie. In 1826, Dalhousie went to Lieutenant Colonel Bai to begin work on the Rideau Canal with instructions not to purchase land from Le Breton, or supplies, or lumber, or rent space as a depot. Two lumbermen associated with the Rideau Canal moved on to Lot 40 and began to simply live there, fellowing trees for their own profit. LeBreton claimed that these two squatters were agents sent by Dhousie, who claimed to know nothing about what they were up to. However, when Le Breton sued the two men, named Andrew Berry and Isaac Firth, Dalhousie paid for their legal fees out of his own pocket. The Perth Court eventually found in Le Breton's favor. When Le Breton noticed the size of the labor camp assembling in what's now Lower Town, he saw potential for getting in on the ground floor of a new community. He began selling off parcels of land in Lot forty to start a new city across the river from Hull Township. And the crown had already paid for the building of a bridge. This location had everything needed to become a great city. And so begins the story of the city of Sherwood. What's that? You've never heard of the city of Sherwood. That's because no one from the labor camp could afford to buy land. Those who could were buying land in Upper Town between Barracks Hill, Modern Parliament Hill, and Modern Kent Street, the border with Le Breton's Sherwood Plan. Uppertown extended from the river, south to what's now Laurier, or as it was called then, Maria Street, named after John Bay's daughter. John LeBreton was left out in the cold for the early investment opportunities of a new city. Dalhousie spent most of his time in Quebec City, feuding with local forces, rather than focusing on the feuds up the Grand Ottawa River. He described local troublemaker Louis Joseph Papineau as an ill-tempered, cross, though clever barrister who scarcely knows the rules of good society. Dalhousie governed through executive council, and when the assembly voted that they had lost faith in the government, Ramsay claimed that the Canadas were unready for a parliamentary democracy. As he put it, the country is unfit for such an institution as a parliament in the present state of society and advancement. To have it granted was like the folly of giving a lace veil to a monkey or a bear to play with. Dalhousie was promoted to Governor General of India in eighteen twenty nine, and he left Canada never to return, and he was never invited back for that matter. As the Governor General of India, he divided his time between Calcutta and Simla. He was never able to accommodate himself to the heat, even though he stayed in the country for five years. He began to suffer fainting fits, and he lived in various fair weather homes in Europe, particularly Nice, Strasbourg, and Weisbaden. He returned to Scotland in thirty four and died senile, blind, and in pain four years later. His descendant and inheritor, James Hubert Ramsey, is the current seventeenth Earl of Dalhousie. He's a retired investment banker, and the deputy captain of the King's Bodyguards for Scotland, though I understand that to be more of a ceremonial title, rather than the seventy seven year old be the star of a future BBC action series. Though I'm sure Anthony Hopkins could pull it off. The administrative district of Dalhousie included the site of the future Ottawa until the district was merged with Carleton County. Dalhousie Street runs through Lower Town and has a reputation for, let's say, crochebelles and recreational pharmaceutical distribution. Dalhousie District in the city of Ottawa was a chunk of Napian that was annexed by Ottawa in 1888 and contained Old Lot 40, as well as Chinatown, Hindenburg, and the Civic Hospital. The district was disbanded in 1994. There is also a Dalhousie Mountain in Nova Scotia. Dalhousie is a town in New Brunswick, and Port Deluzi is a neighborhood in the north end of St. Catharines, Ontario. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of the Ottawa History Hub Podcast. This show is written, performed, and produced by myself, Brendan Ray. As always, please visit the website at OttawahistoryHub.com. You can see my references, a review of books, museums, and other things of interest to history fans in Ottawa. Please follow me on Blue Sky and Facebook as Ottawa History Hub, or on X Twitter as Ott History Hub. If you'd like to contact me directly, OttawahistoryHub at gmail.com is the best way. And if you've got a chance, please leave a five star rating and review wherever you download your podcasts. In our next episode, we're going to be looking at the first industry in the Ottawa area, the timber trade. And until then, advance Ottawa Anaba.