Inventing Sam Slick: A Biography of Thomas Chandler Haliburton 9781442627352

Citation preview

INVENTING SAM SLICK: A B IO GR A P H Y O F T H O M A S C H A N D L E R H A L I B U R T O N

Haliburton reading in a rustic chair, taken in the Private Portrait Studio of Arthur Jakes Melhuish, 12 York Place, Portman Square, London.

Inventing Sam Slick A Biography of Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Richard A. Davies

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-5001-8

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Davies, Richard A. Inventing Sam Slick : a biography of Thomas Chandler Haliburton / Richard A. Davies. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-5001-8 1. Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 1796–1865. 2. Authors, Canadian (English) – 19th century – Biography. 3. Judges – Nova Scotia – Biography 4. Politicians – Nova Scotia – Biography. 5. Lawyers – Nova Scotia – Biography. 6. Nova Scotia – Biography. I. Title. PS8415.A53Z64 2005

C8189.309

C2004-903175-9

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

For my grandson, Emlyn Koko

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Part One: ‘This is my own, my native land’ 1 Alias ‘Sam Slick’

3

2 Yankee Heritage

9

3 King’s College and Marriage

15

4 Annapolis Royal and the General Description 5 The Legislature and the ‘Club’ 6 Historian and Judge

32

39

7 Clifton and The Clockmaker

47

8 A Tradition of Yankee Humour 9 Career in Crisis

24

52

60

Part Two: A Literary Career 10 The Greatest Lion in London 11 Moving in the Best of Circles

69 74

12 Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham 13 Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western

90

81

viii Contents

14 More Clockmaking and More New Relations 15 The Death of Louisa

99

104

16 A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life 17 The Death of Tom Jr

120

18 Stepping Out of the Frame 19 Sam Slick Rides Again 20 End of an Era

128

138

148

Part Three: Sam Slick in England 21 A New Career

159

22 A Hectic Social Life

166

23 Member of Parliament for Launceston 24 The Clash with Gladstone

181

192

25 The Canada Land and Emigration Company 26 Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth 27 The Banting System 28 The Last of the Tories

221 226

Appendix: Haliburton Family Tree Notes

237

Works by Thomas Chandler Haliburton Illustration Credits Index

233

291

293

Illustrations follow page 156

289

212

203

112

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Acadia University for crucial research money that financed my travels to collect information enabling me to visit the University of Toronto Robarts Library; the Toronto Metropolitan Library; the Ontario Public Archives, Toronto; Trent University Archives, Peterborough, Ontario; the Haliburton County Historical Society, Haliburton, Ontario; the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa; the British Library in London, England, and its newspaper repository at Colindale, North London; the National Library of Scotland; the Widener and the Houghton Libraries at Harvard University; the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston; the American Antiquarian Society Library, Worcester, Massachusetts; the Public Archives of Nova Scotia in Halifax; the Killam Library, Dalhousie University, Halifax; the University of King’s College Library, Halifax; the Church of England Diocesan Archives, Halifax; the New Brunswick Public Archives in Fredericton; the Douglas Library in Saint John, New Brunswick; and the Charlotte County Archives, St Andrews, New Brunswick. I also used Acadia University’s invaluable Haliburton Collection and the Wilson Collection. I enjoyed every minute spent in archives big and small. I have incurred many personal debts. Chief among these are to the Haliburton descendants, who contributed generously to the store of knowledge from which this book has been written. When Charles and Patricia Wilson placed the Wilson Collection at Acadia University in 1991, it proved to be a major source of new information. I wish also to thank Mrs Audrey Robson of Vancouver. For help in obtaining the Wilson Collection, I want to thank Professor Carole Gerson of Simon Fraser University. De Coursey Fales Jr of Cambridge and Duxbury, Massachu-

x Acknowledgments

setts, and his brother, Haliburton Fales II of Gladstone, New Jersey, generously made the Fales family archive available to me. Haliburton Fales II later donated important originals of Haliburton documents to the Public Archives of Nova Scotia in Halifax and deposited his archive in the Fales Library, New York City. Virginia Barrington of The Barnes, London, gave permission for me to access Haliburton’s bank account at Coutts & Co., the Strand, London. Nearer to home, historian Gordon Haliburton, a descendant of Haliburton’s uncle, George Mordaunt Haliburton, has placed the fruits of his considerable genealogical knowledge in the public domain by writing Family Ties (1996). He generously prepared the genealogical chart. He also read two versions of the manuscript closely and corrected errors. I am also indebted to Dr James Gray, Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, who read an earlier version of the manuscript with extraordinary care. I have also benefited from knowing two Windsor, Nova Scotia, historians, the late Larry Loomer and the late John Duncanson. Both were witty and helpful over the years. In addition, Allen Penney of Halifax has always been a source of inspiration. His personal guided tour of Clifton in 1996 helped me make a great deal of sense of a house that has been altered considerably since Haliburton’s time. At the Haliburton house the guides and all those associated with the Nova Scotia Museum have always been courteous and helpful. Over a long period of time, Professors Gwendolyn Davies and Ruth Panofsky have fed me small but useful bits of information about Haliburton. Professor David Bell generously alerted me to the Parker letters at the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, and sent me a fascinating snippet of legal history I might not otherwise have known: Haliburton’s attendance in 1859 at a famous trial in London. Professor Philip Gerard, at Dalhousie University, equally generously, sent me chapters of his thesis on the Halifax lawyer Beamish Murdoch. Peter Booth, Beert Verstraete, and Barry Moody, all members of Acadia University’s Department of History and Classics, have always answered my queries. I owe an important debt to Neil Cooke of London, England, whose interest in the Burton family intersected with my interest in James Haliburton and Decimus Burton. For several years we exchanged important information. He helped me understand James Haliburton and confirmed and extended my knowledge of the relationship that I had already established between Edmund Hopkinson and the Burton family. The participants at the Thomas Raddall Symposium in 1996 helped clarify many matters for me. The generosity of Sherman Hines enabled the

Acknowledgments

xi

symposium’s attendees to take a memorable tour of the renovated and restored Old Stone House in Poplar Grove (Haliburton’s first house purchase). Many students assisted me over the years, Dianne MacPhee, Toby Stoddart, and Jay Ettinger among them. At the Acadia University Library, I want especially to thank archivists Patricia Townsend and Rhianna Edwards, as well as Edith Haliburton, Special Collections Librarian, for facilitating my use of the Haliburton Collection over an extended period of time. Gary Boates of the Educational Technology Centre helped prepare many of the illustrations. I wish to thank Acadia University for a small Article 25:55 grant, after the manuscript was completed, that enabled me to secure the illustrations. Scott Robson at the Nova Scotia Museum also generously helped me locate photographic materials. In Haliburton, Ontario, Tom Ballantyne, Harley Cummings, and Leopolda z L Dobrzensky freely assisted me. Leopolda’s book on pioneering in Dysart Township and the village of Haliburton is a fine piece of local history. Mr Cummings sent me his copy of the register of shareholders of the Canada Land and Emigration Company. The two readers for the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation helped me shape the manuscript in important ways. Their advice was both pragmatic and constructive. At University of Toronto Press, Gerry Hallowell retired before this book came to fruition. I thank him for his confidence that it would be written and Siobhan McMenemy for her efficient help and advice. I also wish to thank my copy editor, Matthew Kudelka, and managing editor, Frances Mundy, for notably improving my text. My wife, Beverly, has always offered constructive criticism as well as constant support throughout the many stages of writing of this book, and my two daughters, Harriet and Emily, have watched a good portion of my life being consumed by this project. My grandson, Emlyn Koko, has helped me put it all in perspective. My brother, John, and my sisterin-law, Jayne Dunn, have always been hospitable on my frequent visits to London. As an ‘alien’ (a word I first heard in Canada in the 1970s), I have done my best to contribute to the understanding of an important figure from Nova Scotia’s and Canada’s past. In some ways this book was for me a lesson in Canadian citizenship. Recovering the details of Haliburton’s life has been an education in itself. His imperfections remind us of our imperfect world and how it came into being.

This page intentionally left blank

PART ONE

‘This is my own, my native land’

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 1

Alias ‘Sam Slick’

For fifty years after 1837, Sam Slick the Clockmaker was the most celebrated literary Yankee of the day. The mere mention of him brought smiles to the faces of readers in Victorian Britain. He struck the funny bone of a nation with his barrage of Yankee slang. Few readers knew that his creator, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, was a gentleman, a Judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in the colony of Nova Scotia. Today, Sam Slick is still more famous than his creator. Haliburton began his writing career as a historian of local repute, yet he developed into an author of international stature. In 1896, on the centenary of his father’s birth, his son, Robert Grant, proudly reported that Sam Slick was one of Bismarck’s favourite writers.1 His international reputation rested on the success of his Slick books (he wrote six continuations), although a complete set of his writings amounts to twenty-seven volumes spanning nearly forty years. Some would say that much of his work has been deservedly forgotten. Few readers nowadays ever read his Letter Bag of the Great Western (1840) or Season Ticket (1860); they are most likely to encounter him only in the very first series of The Clockmaker; or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville, published by Joseph Howe in 1837, pirated by Richard Bentley in London, widely reprinted in both America and Europe, and still in print today.2 Readers today may also be drawn to The Old Judge (1849). But all who encounter him realize that Haliburton was not a novelist, and it is the novel that has lasted as a literary form. Haliburton specialized in something far more ephemeral – the miscellaneous sketch, sometimes satirical, sometimes sentimental, but always, like an essay, aiming to surprise and be clever. Today we favour writers who construct and control imaginative worlds of some complexity in the manner of Haliburton’s contemporar-

4 ‘This is my own, my native land’

ies, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope. Compared to them, Haliburton sounds like a brazen head uttering profound truths about colonial life in a form his contemporaries could easily assimilate. He chose a vehicle he found he could keep going forever: the ‘Sayings and Doings’ of a Yankee clock peddler who happens to meet a Nova Scotian squire and engage him in conversation while riding horseback on the open roads of the province. Haliburton’s reputation ebbed slowly but surely after his death in 1865. A project conceived in 1916 to publish his complete writings with one hundred original illustrations by C.W. Jeffreys, the British-born Canadian artist, never came to fruition. Jeffreys’s illustrations languished unseen for another forty years until they were finally published, a year after his death, in 1955.3 In the aftermath of the First World War, when imperialism and empire were the watchwords of the day, two scholars, John Daniel Logan and V.L.O. Chittick, singled Haliburton out for a book-length re-evaluation.4 In a despatch titled ‘Changed Beliefs’ written for the Toronto Star in 1923, Ernest Hemingway noted that one of his original assumptions had been ‘that there are no great Canadian writers. Writers, that is, of the first rank, such as Hardy, Conrad, Fielding, Smollett and Joyce.’ His eventual conclusion: ‘There is one. Thomas Chandler Haliburton, of Nova Scotia. Although I do not believe his works are widely read.’5 Haliburton’s books were reprinted only intermittently in the first half of the twentieth century.6 But when the study of Canadian literature came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Haliburton took his place, historically, at the head of what became a flourishing industry. Anthologies of Canadian literature and survey courses enshrined him as the most important (and certainly the most successful) literary figure from Canada’s pre-Confederation era. In his birthplace of Windsor, Nova Scotia, the house he had built in 1836 and vacated in 1856 became, in 1940, a provincial museum. It genuflects to an era now departed, approached as it is by a long, winding driveway. Although much altered by succeeding owners, it still stands aloof from the ever encroaching town. Visitors try hard to imagine what life must have been like for the original owner and his large family. The people of Windsor, eager to celebrate their connection with a successful writer, even though he moved to England in his last years and died there, have publicly harnessed the image of Sam Slick in his early twentieth-century incarnation by C.W. Jefferys and have honoured Slick with fibreglass figures at the east and west entrances to the town. Since 1972 the Windsor

Alias ‘Sam Slick’

5

Chamber of Commerce has been celebrating ‘Sam Slick Days’ in early August. For some years, Sam Slick’s Pub and Eatery (no longer in existence) greeted visitors as they drove into town. Until recently, Slick’s face in outline (again after Jeffreys) adorned lampposts on Water Street. Nowadays one’s eye is caught instead by a huge mural of an old-fashioned hockey player proclaiming Windsor to be the birthplace of hockey. In recent years a ‘Sam Slick Society’ has been formed in Windsor. Customers at the local Tim Horton’s cannot fail to notice that those premises have been renovated. The Windsor tourist brochure credits Haliburton with coining a plethora of colourful phrases such as ‘it’s raining cats and dogs,’ ‘the early bird gets the worm,’ ‘a stitch in time saves nine,’ and ‘quick as a wink,’ even though all are proverbial. And such has been the natural tendency of the literary character locally to eclipse Haliburton the author that the provincial highway department long ago posted a sign on nearby Highway 101 declaring Windsor the ‘Home of Sam Slick’ – this in defiance of the simple fact that Sam Slick was actually a Yankee from Slickville, Onion County, Connecticut. In 2000, a new provincial highway sign appeared: ‘Windsor, Home of Sam Slick’ gave way to a new claim that Windsor was the birthplace of hockey. Hoping to become the Canadian Cooperstown (the New York town where baseball was first played and that is home to the Baseball Hall of Fame), Windsor has clearly changed its strategy for attracting tourists. Ironically, this newest attempt to boost tourism in Windsor rests its case on a line in Haliburton’s Attaché, or, Sam Slick in England (1844), a memory of his schooldays, that alludes to playing ‘hurley on the long pond.’7 Since his schooldays (as opposed to his university days) date from 1804 to 1809, and since ‘hurley’ on ice is an early version of ice hockey, this is an early reference to the game that Canadians insist on loving. Haliburton has always been hidden behind his famous character, and he contributed greatly to this by slipping in and out of Slick’s persona as it served his purposes. As a gentleman, he preferred to publish his books anonymously; this cast an aura of gentility over his life that his own family tried hard to maintain after his death. His daughters Augusta and Susanna resented any encroachment on their father’s memory, especially by prospective biographers, and they protested loudly when others claimed that he was a less than dignified Judge on the Supreme Court bench. ‘I think the personal remarks about poor Pappa are very unkind & very unnecessary,’ wrote Augusta, commenting on ‘Mr. Crofton’s’ account of her father’s life, ‘& half of them untrue. His jests & caricatures taken on the bench & other things are slander. He was always grave & dignified on

6 ‘This is my own, my native land’

the bench whatever he may have been off it.’8 Their efforts to shield their father from the prying eyes of posterity were doomed because, by his own admission, Haliburton had spent the whole of his writing career placing himself prominently at the centre of all he wrote. Future biographers, he implied, would do well to start with his own writings. Lately, those writings have been scrutinized closely, and the attitudes and values they reflect have been a source of shock and horror. In the early 1990s, George Elliott Clarke, poet, critic, and seventh-generation African Canadian, triggered alarm bells when he published an attention-grabbing article, ‘In Defence of Giving Haliburton Hell,’ in the Halifax Chronicle Herald. Later, he developed his critique in two powerful scholarly articles exposing Haliburton’s racial bigotry. One of those articles appeared in the Nova Scotia Historical Review; the other was given at a plenary session at the Haliburton Bi-centenary Conference at Acadia University in 1996, and subsequently appeared in the printed proceedings of the Thomas Raddall Symposium under the provocative title ‘Must We Burn Haliburton?’9 Book burning has always offended the liberal imagination; even so, Clarke is sorely tempted when it comes to Haliburton. When Haliburton’s Planter grandfather came to Nova Scotia in 1761, he brought slaves with him. One hundred years later, during the American Civil War, Haliburton – as we will see – identified strongly with the southern slave-holding aristocracy, as did the vast majority of Nova Scotia’s genteel classes.10 In terms of attitudes, not much had changed between the grandfather’s time and that of the grandson. Haliburton’s books are filled with language that disturbs and offends. One hundred fifty years later, Clarke’s argument that Haliburton deserves to be quarantined has been so influential that sales of The Clockmaker in the New Canadian Library series – which purports to canonize Canadian writers – have plunged, and university professors now find him unteachable. Yet he remains a central figure in Canadian literary history. He serves as a reminder that his view of life was very much a part of Canada’s living tradition until the 1950s and 1960s, when social attitudes were transformed in an era of improved civil rights. Even Nova Scotia, a conservative place, has been forced to confront its gory racial past. A detailed account of Haliburton is long overdue. This book explores the man behind the famous literary creation. It relies, among a wide array of sources, on the rich archival record of Nova Scotia’s past to draw a portrait of him. It focuses on a man who, as he grew older, deliberately reshaped the way he presented himself to the

Alias ‘Sam Slick’

7

world. We can say of Haliburton at one stage in his life what Anthony Trollope said of his central character in Doctor Thorne (1858): ‘No man plumed himself on good blood more than Dr Thorne; no man had greater pride in his genealogical tree, and his hundred and thirty clearlyproved descents from MacAdam; no man had a stronger theory as to the advantage held by men who have grandfathers over those who have none, or none worth talking about.’11 In February 1860, when he was sixty-four, Haliburton began a biographical entry for Messrs Richard Griffin, publishers, with the words: ‘Haliburton. Honble Mr Justice – Born in Nova Scotia 17th Decr 1796, of ancient Scottish descent.’12 There had been a time when Haliburton could make fun of such pretensions: ‘The old man was always mad upon something or another’ (189), Slick comments in The Attaché (1844), regarding his father’s claim that his grandfather was the son of a first lord’s third brother (2: 2, 12, 184). Sam Slick’s father thought himself ‘the rael Airl of Tunbridge.’ But as his life unfolded, Haliburton took these matters much more seriously. He made his first visit to Scotland in August and September of 1838, in the company of a newfound ‘relation,’ an Egyptologist by the name of James Haliburton. After several months of sleuthing, he and James cosigned a quasi-legal document, a huge genealogical chart accompanied with notes, recording for posterity what they knew regarding their common ancestry.13 Haliburton intended to circulate a version of it privately among close family members, but only one copy of the document has survived – ironically, in the Yankee branch of the family, the very group he wished to impress most with his genealogical history. In an act of eventual apostasy, Haliburton later turned his back on his Yankee relations. He did so by reaffirming his Scottish roots, even though for the first forty-two years of his life, he knew Scotland only through what his greatgrandfather, an exiled ‘wig-maker,’ Andrew Haliburton, passed along to his son, William Haliburton, Thomas’s grandfather. William eagerly wrote to Sir Walter Scott’s father inquiring about lands near the Cheviots that once belonged to his ancestors.14 His grandson, the subject of this book, discovered that the celebrated Sir Walter had acted with ‘some disingenuousness’ by arranging to be buried as the last of the Haliburtons in Dryburgh Abbey, conveniently overlooking the North American Haliburtons in exile.15 The error was enshrined in the privately printed Memorials of the Haliburtons (1820).16 Thomas Haliburton was not amused. If Thomas Haliburton’s pride in his ancient Scottish descent was very real, his attitude toward his Yankee heritage was less positive. In a public address on 27 January 1862, at Isleworth in London, where he lived,

8 ‘This is my own, my native land’

responding to the American Civil War crisis, he spoke on the topic ‘Our Relations with America.’17 In a deliberate pun, he disavowed his own family ‘relations’: ‘The Southerners are the gentlemen of the nation, they hold the Yankees very cheap regarding them as petty traders or pedlars.’18 Like many others, Haliburton saw the American Civil War as a battleground between two worlds: one where purity of descent mattered, and another where it had been all but annihilated. Like many of his contemporaries, he believed in what one historian has called the ‘glittering illusion’ of the South.19 What his audience at Isleworth did not know was that his own immediate heritage was Yankee. His grandparents on his father’s side were New England Yankees. But the infusion of people into the North – people not of the best breed – had precipitated a decline in the ‘family likeness’: ‘Cousin is a word that admits of two spellings,’ he said, ‘and two different meanings.’20 The Yankees were ‘cozeners.’ We look in vain, he said, for a ‘family likeness’: ‘I sympathise with the Southerners (for in their case, their descent being undoubted, I admit they are our cousins).’ In blunt terms, he said that ‘the English blood in America has been so diluted by that of every nation in the known world, that it could scarcely be detected by the most careful chemical analysis.’ The fact is that Haliburton had many Yankee cousins; and try as he might to disavow the connection, he and the Yankee, Sam Slick, were indisolubly linked in the public imagination. He grew up surrounded by a large and complex family network in Windsor, Nova Scotia, at the centre of which stood his Yankee grandfather, William Haliburton, who died when Thomas was twenty-one. Although little is known about Thomas’s formative childhood experiences, we do know that his grandfather represented one of them: as he confessed, through the voice of Sam Slick, ‘my old grandfather used to rule a copy book, and I wrote on it’ (Attaché, 2nd series, 1: 16, 250). He could change the way he presented himself to the world, but he could not alter his own Yankee family connections.21 Like Trollope’s Dr Thorne, Thomas had a grandfather worth talking about. Thomas inherited from him an ambition to be a writer, a yearning for the gentlemanly trappings of life, and nostalgia for their Scottish birthright. As his life unfolded, he gave these intangibles as much substance as he could. He began his career as a published author when he was twenty-seven, he created his Clifton estate as soon as he had the means to build it, and after he became famous, he presented himself increasingly to the world as a gentleman, proudly displaying his family coat of arms on all his correspondence.

Chapter 2

Yankee Heritage

Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s paternal grandparents, William and Lusanna, had deep roots ‘in Puritan Massachusetts.’1 They were first cousins: William’s mother, Abigail Otis, and Lusanna’s father, Ephraim Otis, were brother and sister. The consequences of first cousins marrying have always been a matter of some delicacy. In the case of the descendants of William and Lusanna, some mental instability did arise. At various times, MacLean’s private lunatic hospital in Somerville, Massachusetts, admitted William and Lusanna’s son, George Mordaunt, as well as Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s eldest son, Tom, for treatment of mental infirmities.2 The marriage of the two Otis cousins may have aggravated a family tendency: a legendary figure in Otis family history, James Otis the Patriot (1727–83), reputedly went mad.3 Haliburton’s grandmother Lusanna came from a family of twelve children. Her sister, Rachel, lived close to her in Windsor, Nova Scotia (dying there in 1818), and the other members of the family lived in New England. For nearly two decades, she stayed in close contact with two sisters in particular, who had married successful Boston merchants, the brothers Abiel and Barney Smith. Additional family links were forged when William’s daughter Abigail married Samuel Fales of Boston in 1803; this renewed the connection between Nova Scotia and New England for another thirty-five years. When he was seventy, William wrote: ‘You feel, my daughter the strong tyes of affection for Nova Scotia. I feel the same for my native place Boston.’4 This was all placed in jeopardy, he said, by a ‘parracidal’ war between England and America (the two countries he loved most). For twenty years after his grandfather’s death in 1817, Haliburton sustained the family connections with New England. But the death in 1839 of Aunt

10 ‘This is my own, my native land’

Abigail, whom Haliburton described as the ‘nearest, dearest, and best friend I had,’5 was followed by a sharp decline in the frequency of communications between the two families. Haliburton stayed in only intermittent contact with his Yankee relations after 1839, as new vistas and opportunities opened up for him in England. The more famous Haliburton became through the success of the Yankee Sam Slick, the more he distanced himself publicly from the Yankee roots of his grandfather, under whose influence he had been reared.6 Haliburton’s formative years were spent in the company of two very different men, his grandfather and his father. In 1806, William urged his daughter Abigail and her husband, Samuel, to retrieve from Uncle Abiel a copy of his account of the ‘ambitious madman’ Napoleon Bonaparte, ‘A Warning to the United States of America.’7 He was always scribbling something or other. His son William Hersey Otis devoted his life to the pursuit of money.8 Even personal notes to family members were opportunities to transact business.9 Not surprisingly, then, Haliburton’s grandfather is the more interesting figure. He was a soldier, an adventurer, a risk taker, and a man with a bent for invention.10 He left a highly visible trail through Nova Scotia of his early activities in trade, land dealings, and writing. According to Georgianna Haliburton, many of his manuscripts were dumped into a flour barrel for the cook to use to singe chickens.11 This story points to the family’s neglect of a man who wrote voluminously but without public acclaim.12 He was an eighteenth-century enthusiast and a self-confessed philosophical ‘palaverer.’13 In 1761, William and Lusanna immigrated to Nova Scotia from New England to join William’s mother, Abigail, who had moved there with her second husband, Edward Ellis, and his three daughters by a previous marriage. William began life in the Nova Scotia wilderness. According to Georgianna Haliburton’s 1871 account of the family, William and Lusanna spent their first eighteen months in the province living under canvas, having brought enough provisions with them from Boston. In his first book, a General Description (1823), Thomas wrote feelingly about the early experiences of people like his grandparents: ‘What the sensations of those people were, who, separated from their friends and homes, by a thousand leagues of ocean, and first settled in the trackless forests of Nova Scotia, may be more easily conceived than described’ (163). But the wilderness was not for them. They soon retreated to the protection of the nearby town of Windsor.14 Like most Planters, William and Lusanna were slaveholders. Although slavery had been officially abolished in Brit-

Yankee Heritage 11

ish North America in 1834, acceptance of the institution remained deeply embedded in the consciousness of colonial gentlemen. Drew Gilpin Faust notes in Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830–1860 that ‘A conservative organic view of social order [was] implicit in proslavery thought from its earliest beginnings,’ and in America, ‘northerners continued publicly to defend slavery in significant numbers through the time of the Civil War.’15 Although slaves were eventually emancipated in the British colony, the state of mind that accepted the institution of slavery was harder to relinquish. William and Lusanna left the farming life as quickly as they could. They sold their cattle and established themselves in Windsor, where William set up as a ‘trader.’ In doing so, he fell deeply into debt with his Boston backers, Ward Nicholas Boylston, Joseph Barrell, and John Andrews.16 At one point he faced imminent bankruptcy and was forced to list all his worldly possessions, which included, in 1773, ‘a negro boy named Prince about four years old.’17 Thomas Haliburton later accused people like his grandfather of not focusing sufficiently on developing the agricultural potential of Nova Scotia.18 William Haliburton, slaveholder, was a strong influence on the childhood of Thomas Chandler Haliburton. The grandson would spend a lifetime mocking abolitionists through his Yankee mouthpiece, Sam Slick, and his views would reach a wide and approving audience. He was still repeating them on the floor of the British House of Commons in the early 1860s; by then, however, his audience had less patience and no longer found the subject so amusing. During the 1780s, William Haliburton became a land speculator in earnest, anticipating the large Loyalist migrations. On 27 February 1783, he took possession of 30,000 acres along the Kennetcook River; this land had already been surveyed into sixty-two farm lots along either bank.19 He and his associates set aside two lots for a ‘Glebe School and Common’ and distributed the remainder in a draw among the subscribers. William Haliburton (‘there being no notary but William Haliburton in Windsor’) arranged the drawing of the lots. Unfortunately, Colonel Small of the 2nd Battalion of the late 84th Regiment (recently disbanded), on the authority of the government officials who had granted William possession of the 30,000 acres, occupied the same tract of land.20 William Haliburton watched the soldiers settle the very ground that he and his associates had taken as their own. He tried to parley, but they refused his demands for compensation. His own associates then turned on him. Unable to pay the penalty of the

12 ‘This is my own, my native land’

bond, he eventually fled.21 He remained absent from the province between March 1792 and July 1793, ‘a wanderer for fifteen months at heavy expense,’ his attempt to form a land association having ended in disaster.22 William’s 1783 speculation haunted him for the next twenty years and placed his financial well-being in considerable jeopardy. William Haliburton also felt keenly his failure as a writer: ‘My writing is unknown,’ he wrote to Samuel Fales in 1807, ten years before his death.23 The same cannot be said for his grandson, whose prolific fictions became some of the most widely read in North America and England between 1835 and 1855. Thomas Chandler Haliburton possessed a remarkable capacity to chain himself to his inkhorn. He succeeded in translating the lofty but unfulfilled ambitions of his grandfather into reality. The fame the grandfather once yearned for, the grandson achieved almost by chance through the figure of Sam Slick. In many respects, Thomas Chandler Haliburton could not have been less like his grandfather: Mr William Haliburton was very abstemious and considered the use of all alcoholic liquors as injurious to the human Constitution. He maintained that a Man, reaping, mowing or doing manual labour of a Summer’s day, could do more work on Molasses and water than on any other beverage. With the exception of Tea and Chocolate he drank nothing but water and refused Wine when in his old age his Physician prescribed it; holding firmly to his own opinion, that cold water was the only drink, that Nature intended for Man, as well as the lower Animals – Tobacco he also disliked, but recommended his friends to chew Hemlock Bark! Which he said would aid Nature in keeping a Man in good health to extreme old-age. He made but very few converts at that time; to either Cold Water or Hemlock Bark though he set the example of drinking the one and chewing the other.24

Neither hemlock bark nor cold water appealed much to Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s taste. Indeed, in one of the earliest chapters in the first series of The Clockmaker, he mocks the Grahamite sect, whose views on a healthy diet are not too far from those of his grandfather: ‘They eat no meat and no exciting food, and drink nothin stronger than water. They call it Philosophy ... but I call tarnation nonsense’ (series 1, 99). He delighted in all the worldly pleasures that his planter grandfather shunned: smoking, tobacco chewing, and drinking. His meerschaum pipe still survives, one of those Victorian monster pipes that can be

Yankee Heritage 13

loaded for a long evening in the smoking room.25 The pleasures of the dinner table either at home or at his club he found irresistible. His love of drinking began at King’s College, where the students lived much as university students have always lived. Nothing illustrates the grandfather’s character better than his experience as an inventor during the year of Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s birth. In March 1796, William’s enthusiasm for a new invention, designed to keep a ship securely anchored in one place during a storm and to protect it from the violence of the waves, began to canter away with the best part of his reason. Just as he had boxed the invention in order to send it to Halifax, word came that his ‘Royal Highness, Prince Edward’ had learned of its existence and would be in Windsor in five days and might well view it.26 As it happened, the prince did not have time to do so en route to Annapolis. However, a Lieutenant Apthorp did come to see it and encouraged him to proceed. On his return from Annapolis, the prince, to William’s surprise, sent word that he wished to see the machine. William hastily removed the working model from its packing crate for the royal inspection. The Prince, suitably impressed, thought it of ‘national concern.’ Unfortunately, when William Haliburton finally met Admiral Murray in Halifax, he found him in mourning for the death of his lady. The admiral gave the machine something less than royal approbation, and the commissioner proved to be unavailable, having an inflammation of the eye, so the hapless inventor found himself on the Halifax dockyards debating the merits of the invention with a group of lesser naval personnel, who dismissed the fruits of ten years’ thought with ‘levity’ and ‘precipitancy.’ The full description of the apparatus appended to William’s account of it would not be out of place in Jonathan Swift’s ‘Academy of Lagado.’ Ten years’ work by a ‘Gentleman, a man of honour, and a Christian’ had come to nothing. Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s father was much more grounded in the world’s sober realities. It is to his father that the future writer stood indebted for his prosperous start in life. William Hersey Otis graduated from holding minor municipal offices to serving as a member of the Legislative Assembly for twenty-one years. For three months each year, his second wife lamented his absence in Halifax: ‘The Courts are his living that I feel thankfull he has health to attend – but the other might be dispensed with.’27 When his father died in 1829, Thomas inherited his many land holdings. That they were considerable is attested to by the records of land transactions in the Hants County Land Registry Office in Windsor and

14 ‘This is my own, my native land’

the King’s County Land Registry Office in Kentville. Thomas had, moreover, begun witnessing land transactions from the tender age of thirteen.28 His father built a fine house on Water Street, Windsor, in 1804, reputed to be the one in the illustration of Windsor that Haliburton commissioned for the Historical and Statistical Account in 1829. William Hersey Otis was a pragmatic man of business. In the 1820s, when his son demonstrated an early enthusiasm for writing history, he told him to concentrate on the demands of his chosen profession, the law. William Hersey Otis believed that business and romance were, as his son later put it, like ‘oil and water’ (Nature and Human Nature, 1: 335). He much preferred his son to dabble in gypsum – a venture that had earlier proved profitable for him – rather than waste his time writing about the province. He persuaded his son to purchase the Old Stone House in Poplar Grove (his wife, Louisa, renamed it Henley Farm), largely to gain access to the gypsum deposits on the land. Thomas sold it in 1834 at a heavy loss.29 Susanna Weldon’s family memoir recalls: ‘I think Mama had ten thousand pounds but am not certain. Greenwood & Cox Army agent had the money. Papa began to buy plaster quarries & soon lost a great part of it.’30 His father could always turn a profit from his land dealings, however small; in contrast, Thomas rarely could. Only in later life was he able to use his fame as an author and his privileged position as a member of Parliament to good financial advantage.31 It wasn’t for lack of trying. Thomas secured a post as Judge of Probate while living in Annapolis Royal in 1824 (his grandfather had held a similar post at Windsor). He found this a lucrative addition to his law practice. A year later, however, he invested in a fledgling iron company, predicting its failure and the subsequent loss of his £100 share in it. Although he inherited many of his writerly ambitions from his grandfather, his life unfolded alongside that of his more financially savvy father. They both were members of the Windsor militia, his father as a captain, Thomas as a first lieutenant.32 In 1824, William became a judge of the newly formed Inferior Court of Common Pleas. When his father died in 1829, Thomas, surprisingly, abandoned his own career as an MLA to seek his father’s position, securing it largely on the strength of his secure financial status. Almost immediately, he decided that his father’s roomy house on Water Street did not satisfy him, and he began to design his own estate to serve as both a rural retreat for his growing family and a place where he could devote himself to a life of writing – something that his grandfather had always inclined towards but that became possible only after his father provided the financial means.

Chapter 3

King’s College and Marriage

From the beginning, the Haliburton family was ambitious to succeed in their adopted colony. Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s education became part of that plan. There is an episode in The Old Judge where a Mr Channing, a Halifax merchant, who doesn’t know how to behave in polite company, has undertaken to mask his own social deficiencies by sending his son to the University of King’s College, Windsor, where ‘under the paternal instructions of its excellent principal, he was made a scholar and a gentleman.’ In due course, Mr Channing’s son becomes ‘one of the greatest ornaments of the bar in the colony; and, if he think proper to do so, can “ask a governor to dine” without occasioning a remark’ (1: 99). The Loyalist spirit that inspired the founding of King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1788 had been transferred there from King’s College, New York.1 That spirit, born out of the threat of revolution, nourished the Anglican connection and inculcated ‘knowledge, loyalty, and virtue.’2 Bishop Charles Inglis, the founder of King’s College in Windsor, had fled, like many of the governors of its namesake in New York, to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution. In 1789, Haliburton’s patriotic grandfather hailed the establishment of the college and its decision to locate in Windsor, seeing it as the dawn of a new era: we are to be ‘the Seat of the Muses,’ he proclaimed.3 Thomas Chandler Haliburton believed that the vision of the college’s founders succeeded in placing many of its old boys in positions of power in the judiciary, the church, and the government in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. His memories of King’s College always contained a large measure of social snobbery; he was inclined to exaggerate its significance as an institution. His belief in the social and spiritual values that inspired the creation of the college never wavered, even though the fortunes of this particular

16 ‘This is my own, my native land’

Anglican college fluctuated wildly throughout the nineteenth century, and even though the institution, in reality, fell well short of the founder’s vision. Henry Roper states that King’s struggled from the start. It catered to a privileged and increasingly embattled minority: the sons of well placed Anglican Loyalists and the leading Anglican merchants of the day.4 They intended King’s to produce an elite that would control the political fortunes of Nova Scotians – an intention never realized. At several points in its history, notably in the early 1800s and later in the 1830s, the college lurched from crisis to crisis, always financially on the edge of extinction. Although they were Planters, not Loyalists, the Haliburtons had always been Episcopalians – even in the days of Thomas’s great-grandfather Andrew when he lived on the Scottish Borders.5 They realized early that the Episcopalian faith had superior class connotations in America. The history of the American Episcopalian Church is a well-known story of privilege, wealth, position, and power.6 Those who founded King’s College in Windsor hoped to secure such privilege for themselves in Nova Scotia. Thomas Chandler Haliburton began his formal education at the grammar school in Windsor run by Dr Francis Salt, who had developed a good local reputation. Haliburton recalled his schooldays fondly in The Attaché: Don’t the old schoolmaster rise up before you as nateral as if it was only yesterday? And the schoolroom, and the noisy, larkin’, happy holidays, and you boys let our racin’, yelpin’, hollerin’, and whoopin’ like mad with pleasure, and the play-ground, and the game at bass in the fields, or hurly on the long pond on the ice, or campin’ out a-night at Chester lakes to fish – catchin’ no trout, getting wet thro’ and thro’ with rain like a drowned rat, – eat up body and bones by black flies and muschetoes, returnin’ tired to death, and callin’ it a party of pleasure. (112–13)

But before he could enter the University of King’s College, Thomas had to matriculate. No student could be admitted to King’s, said the board of governors, ‘who had not a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin languages.’7 The education that King’s offered shaped a gentleman, so a young matriculant had to be able to ‘construe Virgil and Horace, the Gospels in the Greek Testament, Homer’s Iliad, and Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Memorabilia, or some other book of Greek prose’ and be ‘capable of translating English into Latin, and of making Latin verses.’ Matriculation meant preparing by reading the classics but not

King’s College and Marriage 17

overpreparing, as William Bliss informed his brother Henry: ‘In my opinion you have read enough to qualify you for matriculation, if you have read it [a dialogue between Echo and Juvenis] carefully.’ 8 King’s College was a university in miniature. Henry Roper tells us: ‘During the 1810-11 academic year there were nine students in college, and enrolment never exceeded twelve during Haliburton’s period as an undergraduate.’9 It was, like most academic institutions, fraught with internal problems. Lewis Bliss wrote to his brother in 1813 inquiring about rumours he had heard: ‘What has been the matter at College, I am told grievous complaints have been made? Sir John Sherbrooke gives a bad acct tho’ I have only heard that immorality is got to a great height at college.’10 Apparently, the strict president, Dr Charles Porter, an Oxford graduate, had come in for a great deal of teasing from the young students: ‘I hope ... that your riots at Windsor are not of a serious nature,’ wrote Lewis, sending his brother the wine and porter he had requested (Henry having complained of the quality of that in his possession).11 Most of the boys preferred ‘the Doctor’ (Dr William Cochran, Professor of Languages and Moral Science, as well as Vice-President of King’s College). ‘I do not think the President is very fortunate in explaining any difficulties [in algebra and Euclid],’ commented William.12 But Cochran was a cantankerous Irishman who marched to the beat of his own drum, flouting university regulations regularly. 13 By the time the Earl of Dalhousie visited the college in 1818, the enmity between Porter and Cochran had become outright war. ‘I never in my life met so violent a hatred in private circumstances as these two Rev. Gentlemen bear to one another,’ he commented.14 When Haliburton published his first book, A General Description of Nova Scotia, anonymously in 1823, many thought that Cochran might have penned it (he was an amateur historian), and Cochran must have been as surprised as every one else to discover that its author was one of his former pupils. Cochran’s guarded review of the General Description appeared in the Weekly Chronicle.15 Haliburton never mentions Cochran in any of his writings, whereas he threw his energies into trying to secure government patronage for Charles Porter and his son, Michael, by writing to the Earl of Aberdeen in 1844, citing ‘a lively feeling of gratitude to a person to whom I am indebted myself for any little reputation I may have acquired as an author.’16 Haliburton took Charles Porter’s side in the battle of wills at King’s College. Haliburton’s academic career lacked any sort of distinction. He competed for scholarships, but he never won any.17 He always readily testi-

18 ‘This is my own, my native land’

fied that he received superior training as a scholar and a gentleman at King’s; the judgment of at least one modern Classical scholar is that his ‘competence in the classical languages would have been typical of his day and his alma mater.’18 Paradoxically, he adopted the voice of a vulgar, ungentlemanly Yankee trader, Sam Slick, to attract the attention of his readers. The living quarters for King’s students resembled a military barracks more than a dormitory. The students supplied their own tea and sugar for breakfast and took dinner every day at three o’clock. The steward supplied the students with bread, butter, and milk in their rooms. Supper consisted of bread and milk or bread and cheese and spruce beer. Students had to provide their own furniture and fuel. Antonio Gallenga (alias Luigi Mariotti), who published his memoirs Episodes of My Second Life in 1884, relates that on the strength of reading his book Italy, Past and Present and talking with one or two of his acquaintances, Dr John Inglis, the Bishop of Nova Scotia, hired him sight unseen to teach at King’s College in 1842. Mariotti filled the chair of Modern Languages and History: ‘It did not take long to acquaint me with the real nature of the institution I found myself connected with, and to which I had been inveigled under what might be called false pretences. The College was merely a divinity school, a nursery for clergymen of the Church of England, in a diocese in which the members of that establishment even in Halifax barely constituted one-third of the population, and were considerably outnumbered by the Roman Catholics.’19 Moreover, students’ accounts of life at King’s College do much to deflate the pomposities of more official sources.20 A letter from Haliburton’s contemporary, Henry Bliss, written to Neville Parker in 1815, opens up a world of precocious young gentlemen who often wore breeches several sizes too big for them: King’s College, June 15, 1815. Dear Parker, After an amusing lecture in Mr. Locke, your letter was very acceptable. We have been as gay in Windsor, as you have in St. John, not that we have had any very agreeable parties, but Inglis has much better wine than usual, and it has been poured down pretty freely ... The Term commenced with a great run of gaming. Monk about a week ago, had lost twenty pounds: yesterday he owed J. Uniacke eight pounds, but last night he reduced the whole, and run up again to four. I have won a little. J. Uniacke, at one time, had won upwards of twelve pounds ... They used to play all Sunday, in Mor-

King’s College and Marriage 19 ris’s room. Monk even carried a pack of cards wherever he went, in his pocket, and played at prayers, and dinner. I played one day from morning to night, and I never will do it again. I won that day four pounds five. Ned Morris, one day, on getting up from the table, said very indifferently, ‘I’ve lost more than I can ever pay’ ... For fashions, long gaiters are much in vogue: even I have ventured to Windsor, and to church in them. We all wear our caps wherever we go: it makes the university appear much more respectable. Cutting acquaintance is much practised. Few of us ever call any where: except for Mathew and Humphrey. Jack is laid up with the piles. All the rest are well. My love to your brother. Believe me your friend, Henry Bliss21

Throughout his life, Haliburton viewed King’s through rose-coloured glasses. He had so much affection for the companions of his university days that he couldn’t believe his schoolmate Henry Bliss might not want to meet him in London in 1843. Bliss harboured literary ambitions but did not realize them as fully as Haliburton. In a letter to Henry in July 1843, his brother, Lewis, alludes to possible jealousy: ‘As to Haliburton – I can say no more – if you cannot bring yourself to seeking him out – I cannot help it – That it is strange, and I almost think it is owing to his having written & written successfully.’22 Henry denied he felt this way: ‘Yes I will go and see Haliburton because you seem to desire it. I do not know where to find him but I will enquire, and ask him to dinner. I can not think that I envy him his success in authorship as you appear to apprehend. Whatever be his merit, why should a man covet posthumous fame?’23 But he did envy him, and Haliburton sensed it, writing an entire chapter, ‘Paying and Returning Visits,’ about the snub in the second series of The Attaché (2nd series, 2: ch. 8). At school, the Bliss brothers privately mocked Haliburton for his lack of poetic talent.24 Twenty-five years later, Haliburton’s fame fell like a discomforting shadow over both Henry and William. Only Lewis Bliss could manage faint praise of their contemporary: ‘I hear Tom under rated perhaps I over rate the man – but depend on it he has some cleverness and sense.’25 Henry Roper describes King’s as a college sadly out of touch with reality. Until 1923 (when it ceased to be an ‘independent entity’), the college existed – as Luigi Mariotti had so clearly recognized – as a ‘nursery for clergymen of the Church of England.’26 Because Haliburton associated King’s College with the education of the Anglican elite, and

20 ‘This is my own, my native land’

because conditions in Nova Scotia did not resemble those of the mother country, Henry Roper concludes that ‘expatriation was perhaps the only way [Haliburton’s contradictions in thinking] could be resolved.’ 27 When a petition circulated among alumni in 1824 to keep King’s College in Windsor, even Neville Parker, who found Windsor claustrophobic and boring when he was there, came to see its social significance: ‘I bear it a good deal of affection for the happy days I spent within its walls.’28 For Haliburton, going to King’s proved not to be the adventure that it must have been for some of his contemporaries – Robert and Neville Parker of Saint John, and William and Henry Bliss of Halifax, for example. At the end of every term, Haliburton’s contemporaries set out for home, whatever the weather, whereas he had only to go down the road. His first big adventure came after graduation, when he travelled to England in 1814 aboard the English store ship Buffalo (Attaché 1: 4) to visit his stepmother’s sister, Ann Piercy, who lived in Henley-on-Thames. He perhaps already knew that living with his host was an attractive, intelligent, and refined young woman by the name of Louisa Neville. Louisa was the daughter of Captain Lawrence Neville, whose career in the Light Dragoons, from ‘adjutant’ to ‘Paymaster,’ spanned the years 1784 to 1809.29 Captain Neville had authored the Treatise on the Discipline of Light Cavalry and was by all accounts a remarkable equestrian.30 His skills in training men in horsemanship earned him a special mention in the history of his regiment, The Nineteenth and Their Times, written by Colonel John Biddulph in 1899.31 The 19th Light Dragoons spent twenty-four years in India before disembarking at Tilbury on 18 April 1807.32 In 1809, when he was twenty-one, Captain Neville’s son, William Frederick, succeeded to his father’s position as paymaster, thus beginning his own career in the Dragoons, which ended on 3 February 1836, in India, with his death at the age of forty-eight.33 How Louisa Neville came to live with the Piercys is far from clear. In 1811, while Captain Neville lay dying in Henley-on-Thames, he remembered that an old friend, Captain Piercy, lived nearby. Even though it proved to be a case of mistaken identity, Richard Piercy and his wife Ann visited Captain Neville during his final illness.34 After her father’s death, Louisa moved in with the Piercys and was there when the eligible young bachelor from Nova Scotia came to visit. Richard Piercy died at Henley on 4 April 1815 at the age of sixty.35 Almost one year and one month later, on 28 May 1816, Francis Fell, the same curate who had conducted Richard Piercy’s funeral, officiated at the marriage of Louisa

King’s College and Marriage 21

Neville and Thomas Chandler Haliburton. Louisa then accompanied her new husband to Nova Scotia, having few ties to bind her to the old country. Her only brother, William Frederick, was currently stationed at Portage La Prairie and Chambly in Lower Canada, where he had been since 17 April 1813.36 There is no evidence that Haliburton remained in England from 1814 until the time of his marriage. Augusta says in her ‘Memo as to the Neville Family’ that her father returned to Nova Scotia to obtain his father’s consent to the marriage.37 The rumour mill among Haliburton’s contemporaries in Nova Scotia did not begin turning until very near the time of the marriage. For example, Haliburton’s marriage took Sarah Anderson, the ward of the old Chief Justice, Sampson Salter Blowers, completely by surprise: ‘Let it be published in the streets of Fredericton that Thomas Haliburton is married!! What a death blow would it be to your fair ones had they seen, known and admired him as we have done. This youth “excelling so in mien” has served the Acadians a shabby trick.’38 Haliburton, she said, had been very eager to ‘take flight to happier climes,’ so much so that she felt there had been very little chance of bagging ‘your rare bird.’ She looked forward to a summer’s amusement meeting and assessing Haliburton’s young wife. She had heard Louisa was ‘a fine accomplished young woman – now I want to see all this with my own eyes and then go home and wonder.’39 Louisa did not disappoint. On her arrival, she became the ‘great sensation’ of the little village, ‘one of the right sort, not one of your dashers.’40 Just who Louisa was, however, always remained something of a mystery. She exuded refinement, and she came with a legacy. ‘I should prefer single blessedness to 4000 [pounds] with such a wife,’ wrote Neville Parker to Henry Bliss on 6 October 1816.41 When Haliburton threw a ‘very stylish ball’ for all to see her, her accomplishments were evident even to Neville Parker, the most caustic of observers: ‘She plays and sings so as to beat Woodberry all hollow. Did you ever hear the wind through a key-hole?’ Sarah Anderson discovered, to her relief, that Louisa was ‘certainly a fine young woman that improves as she is known – Her manners are perhaps not perfectly polished but she has evidently been rather retired than much engaged in the gay world.’42 Louisa carefully guarded the story of her childhood and youth. ‘We know very few particulars,’ Augusta admitted in 1886 when she joined her elder sister, Susanna (affectionately known as Susan), and her brother Robert Grant, in trying to piece together her mother’s life.43 They knew their father’s world well enough, but their mother remained

22 ‘This is my own, my native land’

shrouded in mystery. ‘Mama often regretted her Father never could bear to talk of her mother & his past life,’ wrote Susanna. ‘Though he promised to tell her of the family he died rather suddenly. She herself had the same unfortunate reticence so I know very little as you see.’ Each of the children knew a small part of their mother’s past, and in later life, as family members often do, wrote down what they remembered. Much of it conflicted. Augusta showed Susanna’s memoir to her younger brother, Robert Grant. Robert wrote extensive marginal notes and addenda indicating his problems with Susanna’s versions of dates and events in their mother’s life. Emma Bainbridge Smith, Haliburton’s fourth daughter, also attempted later recollections, adding a further sixteen pages to the memoir.44 Emily Weaver, who published an account of Louisa’s life in the Canadian Home Journal in 1924, turned it into a romance.45 Louisa was born in 1793, attended ‘school in Paris & there continued ten years.’ 46 In later life, her children remembered some of the stories from her schooldays that she told to them in the nursery. She frequented the British embassy (the ambassador, Mr Bulstrode Whitelock, being a friend of her father’s). She sketched at the Louvre, although she lost the greater part of her portfolio of drawings and other papers on her journey from Paris to Dover (via Belgium).47 As they grew older, the Haliburton children thought themselves related, through their mother’s family, the Nevilles, to Lord Abergavenny – an illustrious but uncertain connection. Shortly after returning from England with his bride, Haliburton tried to secure his Master of Arts degree from King’s College. The Board of Governors at King’s refused to grant him an exemption from the residence requirements because he ‘assigned no reason why that indulgence should be extended to him.’ 48 He does not seem to have tried very hard to enlighten them, nor did he seem worried unduly about the rebuff. Instead he basked in his family’s new financial assurance. ‘You would be much gratified to see how very snug Thomas’s apartments are fitted up,’ wrote his stepmother to his Aunt Abigail in Boston. ‘His parlour which is very long painted blue yellow curtain & handsome sopha & chairs – All together cost his father 300 [pounds] all new furniture, I was determined it should be so if in my power.’49 Louisa was soon pregnant with the first child in what proved to be a very large family: five daughters and three sons survived infancy; three sons did not. Louisa granted her husband all the time, space, and quiet he needed to write during the 1820s and 1830s while she nurtured their children. Judging by the few letters of hers from the late 1830s that have

King’s College and Marriage 23

survived, as we will see, she diligently looked after the family for an entire year while ‘Haliburton’ (as she called him) enjoyed a sabbatical in England.50 Her musical and artistic tastes were evident to all: ‘Her Broadwood was the only piano in Windsor,’ noted Susanna. After the birth of her last child, Arthur, she took up oil painting again under a Mr Valentine’s tutelage.51 Her love of gardening and horticulture supported Haliburton’s grand plans in the 1830s for the building and shaping of his estate, Clifton, as a rural retreat.

Chapter 4

Annapolis Royal and the General Description

One era in the Haliburton family ended when William Haliburton died on 21 February 1817. According to Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s stepmother, the family patriarch’s mind had remained clear until the last moment. Another era began the following day, when Louisa gave birth to her first child. Whatever grief Haliburton felt at the death of his grandfather turned to elation the next day. ‘Tom has a little Louisa, he almost went mad when he found himself papa,’ wrote William Bliss, then a lawyer in training at the office of James Fraser of Windsor. 1 Fraser’s presence is what drove Haliburton to look elsewhere for professional opportunities. His gaze fell on Annapolis Royal, the old provincial capital, now a backwater, some eighty miles to the west at the other end of the Annapolis Valley. Perhaps he was attracted by its deep history, since it had little else to offer an ambitious and energetic young man. In a later account of Annapolis, writing as the corpulent Squire (‘I visit men, and not places’; Clockmaker, 2nd series, 308–9), Haliburton recalled the wealth of local places of interest, all of them requiring ‘bodily exertion to be seen.’ It is not hard to imagine him, on first arriving in Annapolis Royal, exploring the forest, climbing to the mountain summit where Champlain once stood, and visiting the ‘holy well,’ ‘the first encampments,’ ‘the ruins of the rude fortifications,’ ‘the first battleground,’ the ‘natural ice-house’ at Granville, ‘the cascade,’ ‘the mountain lake,’ ‘the beaver’s dam,’ ‘the General’s bridge,’ ‘the apocryphal Rossignol,’ ‘the iron mines’ and last but not least, ‘the Indian antiquities.’ Haliburton’s descriptions of Digby and its herring fishery in the Historical and Statistical Account (1829), compiled from ‘notes of conversations, which I have held with the persons engaged in it, and committed to paper at the time’ (2: 168), confirm his delight in exploring and recording local life first-hand.

Annapolis Royal and the General Description 25

In 1838, Haliburton would claim that his years in Annapolis Royal were both busy and lucrative: ‘In accepting the office I have now the honor to hold [Judge of the Inferior Court for the Middle Division of Nova Scotia], I relinquished a seat in the legislature, a local appointment of profit, and a practice at the bar, far exceeding my salary as a judge.’2 This assertion is hard to square with the realities of the legal profession as experienced by some of his contemporaries. In letters to his brother Henry, William Bliss lamented the lot of the lawyer: ‘We are in a fine flourishing condition as the country will think, when we shall starve by the dozen.’3 Twentyfive lawyers in Halifax served 12,000 people, and ten other communities in the province had, on average, one lawyer. Pictou had three, and Annapolis in the 1820s had two. The career of Haliburton’s fellow provincial historian, the lawyer Beamish Murdoch, offers an interesting perspective on Haliburton’s claims.4 Practising in Halifax, Murdoch made £100 in 1827.5 If Haliburton’s practice in Annapolis Royal was in fact lucrative, as he suggested, then he was in a far different category than most lawyers of his time and place, even though they were jacks-of-alltrades who made money any way they could. Besides recovering debts, drafting legal documents, and preparing petitions to the lieutenant-governor or the House of Assembly on behalf of individuals or groups, lawyers provided legal advice and arranged property matters, ‘including inter vivos conveyancing and the transmission of assets on death.’6 But the client base determined the wealth of a lawyer, and that base in Annapolis Royal, by Haliburton’s own admission, was limited: ‘Annapolis is unfortunately encompassed by Government inclosures, a large common, and glebe land. From these causes any considerable extension of the place is rendered impracticable, and many enterprising and wealthy persons [read ‘clients’], who would willingly have settled there in 1783, were compelled to seek a residence elsewhere’ (Historical and Statistical Account, 2: 159). Haliburton was admitted to the bar in October 1819.7 When he arrived in Annapolis Royal, he looked around, like most of his contemporaries, for a ‘government post with some income, even if modest.’8 He found it in 1824 as Judge of Probate at Annapolis. Lawyers were just beginning to take themselves seriously. William Bliss wrote: ‘We are endeavouring to establish our Bar into some kind of an Institution for the better regulating it and keeping up its respectability if it has any. There are so many in it who ought never to have been admitted that it will be a difficult task to keep them in order – The fees of the barristers here are paltry – They understand these matters better in New

26 ‘This is my own, my native land’

Brunswick ... I must get better paid it is clear or I had better change my profession.’9 Young men who wished to make a living solely from the law had to be opportunistic. David Sugarman writes of lawyers in England during this period: ‘Most lawyers had no standardized training or formal paper qualifications. Neither did they demand a full-time working commitment. Thus, into the late nineteenth century, English lawyers were incredibly heterodox and variegated, wearing several occupational hats at once rather than professing a single calling.’10 Colonial Nova Scotia was no different. Philip Girard observes, specifically regarding Nova Scotia: ‘It was for ordinary matters of civil law – debt, conveyancing, succession, marriage, business transactions – that people sought out lawyers, and it was their constant reliance on lawyers that allowed the latter to assume their unique role in colonial society.’11 Sugarman notes that in the nineteenth century, the ‘single most important source of income for attorneys and solicitors’ was ‘conveyancing.’12 The records of the various land registries (including that of Annapolis County in the 1820s) are eloquent testimony that for three generations the Haliburton family was devoted to the art of conveyancing. Because they had time on their hands, lawyers often dabbled in politics; some, like Haliburton, dreamed as well of literary fame. Haliburton lacked his father’s sharp nose for money. As we have already noted, his one major investment, in the Annapolis Iron Mining Company, ended in failure.13 Haliburton devotes two pages of his Historical Account to describing that enterprise’s destructive impact on the natural scenery (2: 162–4). The company was begun in 1825 and constituted in 1827. An enterprise that began in high hopes, with the purchase of valuable iron ore veins from local landowners, the building of a smelter, and the manufacture of some hollowware, soon ran into financial difficulties. The amount of capital required doubled. Even as early as 1825, Haliburton sensed that ‘our iron works are like to fail.’14 Otherwise, Haliburton’s legal career followed a conventional course. But after two years in Annapolis he was bored: ‘Want of society here has driven me to seek for sources of amusement at home,’ he informed Judge Peleg Wiswall at nearby Digby, ‘and it occurred to me that I might find some employment for leisure hours in compiling a History of Nova Scotia.’15 Wiswall (1763–1836), an Associate Supreme Court Judge, became his confidante in the latter part of 1822 ‘on subjects of general interest to the province.’ Haliburton had heard from George K. Nichols, Wiswall’s young nephew, who practised law in Digby, that the judge had already written a

Annapolis Royal and the General Description 27

statistical account of the province, so he sought access to it through Nichols: ‘I will take it as a particular favor if you will procure a sight of it by next post.’16 Wiswall was somewhat older than Haliburton and had a reputation of being ‘pleasant tho prosy’ (Harry King’s description of him in June 1831).17 On 31 December 1823, Haliburton informed Peleg Wiswall that he had drafted an outline of a history of Nova Scotia and that Walter Bromley (1775–?) in Halifax had persuaded him to recast it as an imigrant’s guide.18 He sent a copy of the resulting book as an introduction to the older man. Haliburton said that because it was hastily put together, he did not publicly acknowledge it as his own. What he had in mind was a more ambitious two-volume historical and statistical account of Nova Scotia that would combine a connected narrative of the early history of the province with a ‘statistical’ account of its present-day situation – an account he had already partly penned and now wished to expand. By this time he was broadcasting his ambitions among his friends. Neville Parker wrote to his old schoolmate, Henry Bliss: ‘I hear Tom Haliburton is writing a History of Nova Scotia.’19 Later, Neville cynically commented: ‘You want me to write a History of N.B. (I suppose to keep Haliburton in countenance) and tell me I have leisure for such an undertaking – My dear Bliss – get a wife and two children – a house to provide for – and add this to various occupations that we Lawyers of all works in this country have to attend to & will find no great time left for writing – anything more than declarations & letters.’20 Haliburton, however, did find the time, despite an ever-growing family and despite his active involvement in politics after 1826. Only Judge Wiswall and Henry Goldsmith (1786–1845), Haliburton said, knew that he had penned the General Description.21 He sought advice from both men. Goldsmith, barrister at law and collector of customs at Annapolis, was the brother of Oliver Goldsmith, author of the poem ‘The Rising Village’ (1825), and grandnephew of the man who wrote the The Vicar of Wakefield, She Stoops to Conquer, and ‘The Deserted Village’ (prototype for ‘The Rising Village’). Haliburton was turning for help to much older men: to Goldsmith (by ten years) and to Wiswall (by twenty-three) as well as to the Abbé Sigogne (1763–1844), the spiritual leader of the French Acadian community at Clare and a man from another era.22 Walter Bromley, who placed his press at Haliburton’s disposal to publish the immigrant’s guide, was eleven years his senior. Haliburton lived in Annapolis Royal from May 1821 until February 1830. There, by his own account, he prospered as a lawyer, wrote his first books, and decided to enter politics as a member of the provincial legis-

28 ‘This is my own, my native land’

lature. This latter aspect of his stay in Annapolis needs to be related separately, because during his three years in the Nova Scotia legislature, from 1826 to 1829, he made a considerable impact as an orator. He also expanded his social circle in Halifax to include a group of self-designated ‘worthies’ who flaunted their wit and wisdom in the columns of Joseph Howe’s newspaper, the Novascotian, under the title of the ‘Club.’23 These important and lively years were brought to a sudden end by Haliburton himself. In 1829, when he was thirty-four, his father died, and he sought and obtained (with some difficulty, as we will see) his father’s position as an Inferior Court Circuit Judge. At that point he reinvented himself, turning his back on legislative politics significantly adjusting his life to accommodate both the pressing needs of his large family and his own ambitions as a professional gentleman and as an author. The book that Haliburton was reluctant to acknowledge as his own is the General Description of Nova Scotia (1823). This work embarrassed him, yet it retains to this day a freshness and vitality that he would find difficult to summon in later years. He intended to publish it in Britain, because it contained, he said, many ‘observations and passages’ that might prove tedious to a knowledgeable Nova Scotian. Haliburton wrote it when he was twenty-seven. By his own admission in its preface, he had been interested in his province since he was twelve. This book expressed his own sense of his cultural identity as a native Nova Scotian. In it he declared that agricultural development was the key to the province’s progress. As a book written to attract immigrants, it argued that the province needed ‘farmers who carry with them from 200 to 500 pounds; men who, instead of beginning a settlement themselves, can purchase one already commenced’ (104). Nova Scotia needed ‘mechanicks & practical farmers possessing property of from 500 to 1500 pounds,’ which is within the general price range that Haliburton and his father regularly bought and sold land. Haliburton wrote with feeling and conviction, as well as with a certain amount of exaggeration as to the prospects for immigrants. Agricola had written that ‘it is cultivation, and cultivation only, that tempers the bitter and chilling blasts of winter, and softens the gentle breathings of the zephyrs ... Cultivation arrogates to itself a sort of omnipotence, controls the laws of nature, and stamps the character of climate.’24 In England, dukes, marquises, earls, and baronets not only served as patrons for agricultural developments but also implemented those developments. Haliburton linked agricultural progress to the development of a class of cultivated (and cultivating) gentleman, as reflected in passages such as this one: ‘The first log-house which the set-

Annapolis Royal and the General Description 29

tler builds generally consists of one or two rooms on the ground floor, with a kind of loft above. As his family increases, and his crops enable him, he builds an addition of the same size. And in process of time, when he begins to feel somewhat independent, he erects himself a frame house, of one or more stories, which is neatly painted. When he removes to this new edifice the old one is not often destroyed, but is converted into some convenient out-house’ (182). Throughout the General Description, today’s reader finds descriptions of places that are still remarkably fresh, as well as enthusiastic discussions of the province’s agricultural potential. Haliburton supports these discussions with as many trade statistics as possible; he also describes the workings of the colonial government and the education system. For example, his long description of the Collegiate School at Windsor and of the University of King’s College, and his accounts of other educational institutions in the province, reinforce the need for an informed populace well able to ‘pay proper regard to their superiors in the different stations of life’ (162) – a fundamental tenet of Haliburton’s conservative view of society. Haliburton ended the book on a note of high optimism, with the prophecy that Nova Scotia will ‘one day be the most populous and wealthy portion of North America’ (185). It is clear from the General Description that Haliburton was casting no ‘lingering looks’ back to the land from which his family had come. Nova Scotia was his home, an attachment that ‘arises from the knowledge that it contains the earthly remains of all the heart loved most, and from the secret hope that men cherish, of reposing in death near the objects of their affection’ (164). These words are a young man’s expression of patriotic idealism; over time, Haliburton would lose this idealism and come to regard himself as an exiled British gentleman for whom Nova Scotia was a ‘temporary residence’ (163). This change is astonishing in light of the passionate descriptions of his local world that Haliburton offers in his first book. How could this enthusiastic young man, who in 1826 threw himself into Nova Scotian politics, be so quickly and so easily disillusioned? Haliburton combined his interest in Nova Scotia’s past with a desire to serve its present interests. In 1826 he belittled the local candidates for the Nova Scotia legislature: ‘By the bye-election – Poor Annapolis County, how forlorn, when John Bath Wm Davies, William Roach &c. &c. are to be candidates.’25 He decided to run himself and, with the support of the Abbé Sigogne at Pointe de L’Église, to whom he would confess his political indebtedness just a month into his political career, he won by a large

30 ‘This is my own, my native land’

majority: ‘As a stranger, I was favoured with the unanimous support of all your people, in a manner so cordial and so friendly that I shall forever retain a most grateful remembrance of it.’26 Louisa helped him write a letter of thanks in French to his Acadian constituents. 27 Haliburton thought himself well suited for the fray. After all, he had spent four years writing about the province’s past and present state. Yet nothing had prepared him for his first exposure to the cut and thrust of debate in the Halifax legislature. In 1840, he reconstructed the moment as an episode in Sam Slick’s past: ‘Dear, dear, I shall never forget the day I was elected; I felt two inches taller, and about a little the biggest man in all Slickville. I knew so much was expected of me I couldn’t sleep atryin’ to make speeches’ (Clockmaker, 3rd series, 454): At last the great day came, and the governor, and senate, and representatives all walked in procession, and the artillery fired, and the band of the caravan of wild beasts was hired to play for us and we organized in due form, and the Governor’s message was read. I must say that day was the happiest one of my life. I felt full of dignity and honour, and was filled with visions of glory to come. Well, says I to myself, the great game is now to be played in rael airnest, and no mistake: what card shall I play? (455)

During his second session in the legislature, he had decided which cards to play: ‘I have laid down to myself a distinction between the general and local government; I hope, by referring to it, my conduct in this House will always appear consistent.’28 By general government he meant the ties that bound the colony to the old country: I would speak as I feel, not only with respect but affection. We owe it a debt of gratitude which we can never repay ... But the local government is entitled to no such honor. It is composed of people among ourselves, and if they arrogate to themselves a power which does not belong to them, if they advise the executive to derive his information, thro’ the partial views of public functionaries in the counties instead of relying on the representatives of the people ... I would boldly and manfully stand up in my place and arraign them.

And arraign them he did. Haliburton’s exuberant oratory masked an underlying principle and vision that he was fond of repeating:

Annapolis Royal and the General Description 31 There was one grand distinction which had formed itself in his mind, and by which he intended to regulate his legislative conduct. That all the minor features of the laws, such as those that were intended for the erection of schools, for the encouragement of agriculture, &c. and for the regulation of Commerce might be modified, according to circumstances; but those great leading principles of the Law which had come down to us from a remote antiquity, and which were stamped with the sacred seal of experience ought never to be touched.29

To his dismay, Haliburton found that the world of provincial politics resembled the eighteenth-century farce High Life Below Stairs (1759), one of his favourite works of literature.30 This popular piece revolves around a group of servants who mimic the world of their absent gentlemanly employer, a West Indian Planter, who decides to descend below stairs disguised as a servant in order to catch his servants red handed. Haliburton viewed the legislature’s activities in terms of the play’s moral: ‘But what an insufferable Piece of Assurance is it in some of these Fellows to affect and imitate their Master’s Manners ... If Persons of Rank would act up to their standard, it would be impossible that their Servants could ape them.’31 He saw British institutions as ‘high life,’ and he viewed the Nova Scotia legislature and the province’s political structures as ‘life below stairs.’ In The Clockmaker, Haliburton would recall being shocked to discover that the political structure prevented him as an elected member of the legislature from shaping the destiny of his colony. He didn’t mind bending to the superior power of the British Parliament, but to bend to an often hidebound Legislative Council was too much to bear. In the circumstances, all he could do was indulge in oratorical fireworks. To understand his frustration, remember that the elected legislature forwarded its bills to the unelected Legislative Council of twelve, which passed them to the lieutenant-governor, who then signed those bills into law. The council of twelve could block legislation whenever it wanted. Although he was no democrat, Haliburton believed that provincial politics could improve the lives of his fellow Nova Scotians. After only three years, he abandoned that belief.

Chapter 5

The Legislature and the ‘Club’

Haliburton honed his talent for satirical commentary in the Legislative Assembly in Halifax, where he found it increasingly difficult to curb his wit. In 1840, well clear of his three brief years in the legislature, he described politics as a series of follies. Slick yearns to erase those follies from his memory: ‘Doin’ big and talkin’ big for three months in the year don’t help a person adjust to the real world when they have to return to it’ (Clockmaker, 3rd series, 459–60). Haliburton uttered more negative remarks about politics than almost any other subject: ‘I wonder if folks will ever larn that politics are the seed mentioned in the Scriptur’ that fell by the road-side, and the fowls came and picked them up. They don’t benefit the farmer, but they feed them hungry birds, – the party leaders’ (Clockmaker, 2nd series, 242). Politics was a delusory ‘bubble,’ much like the properties of the water at nearby Wilmot Springs (264). Slick admits in the third series of The Clockmaker: ‘I was once an assemblyman, but since then I ginn up politics’ (454). Haliburton was one of twenty new members (in a legislature of only forty-one), and the Novascotian welcomed them all with enthusiasm.1 Haliburton was soon one of the star performers in the house. In the third series of The Clockmaker (1840), behind the mask of Sam Slick, he captured the plight of the neophyte politician: Save your country, says one; save it from ruin; cut down salaries. – I intend to, says I. Watch the officials, says another; they are the biggest rogues we have. It don’t convene with liberty that public servants should be masters of the public. – I quite concur with you, says I. Reduce lawyer’s fees, says some; they are a-eatin’ up of the country like locusts. – Just so, said I. A bounty on wheat, says the farmer, for your life. Would you tax the mechanic to enrich the agriculturist? Says the manufacturer. Make a law

The Legislature and the ‘Club’

33

agin’ thistels, says one; a regulator about temperance, says another; we have a right to drink if we please, says a third. Don’t legislate too much, says a fourth – it’s the curse of the state; and so on without eend. I was fairly bothered, for no two thought alike, and there was no pleasin’ nobody. Then every man that voted for me wanted some favour or another, and there was no bottom to the obligation. I was almost squashed to death with the weight of my cares, they was so heavy. (454–5)

During his first legislative session, Haliburton watched money being appropriated for all manner of bills – everything from a grant of £15,000 to the Shubenacadie Canal, to £5,000 for the ‘pastry Cook’s shop, called Dalhousie College,’ to £750 pounds for ‘Inspecting Field Officers,’ to £1,000 to purchase stallions, and a further sum to ‘import sheep.’ 2 The ‘brute species,’ he said, received every encouragement whereas his own School Bill had been rejected out of hand by the Legislative Council: ‘They have retained it hardly long enough to read it, and it has returned on the very heels of the clerk who took it up to them,’ Haliburton said as he rose to introduce the bill for a second time, not to shed tears on the deceased legislation but to challenge the House on the ‘uncourteous and uncivil manner’ with which they had returned it. Haliburton’s Education Bill sought to finance education through grants from the legislature, thus modifying a similar Bill that had been introduced during the previous session, which had raised money through direct taxation across the province. The arguments against his bill came from those who felt that the legislature would be liable for huge future costs of school education. During his second attempt to introduce the bill, he narrated in satirical and ‘imaginative’ terms the story of its initial rejection, describing the Legislative Council as ‘twelve dignified, deep read, pensioned, old ladies, but filled with prejudices and whims like all other antiquated spinsters.’ These twelve ‘Sybiline oracles’ knew nothing, he said, of the province beyond ‘Sackville Bridge.’ For his brother Henry in England, William Bliss, ever the close observer of his contemporary, summarized the resulting kerfuffle as he understood it: There has lately been a row with the House & Council. Tom Haliburton, who by the way is the orator and wit of the house, indulged in some remarks on the upper body which they resented – passed & published some resolutions & stopt all business with the house – the latter first offered some conciliatory half measures, which were rejected, and finally Tom was called to the Bar & censured, with which the Council were satis-

34 ‘This is my own, my native land’ fied – and business is again resumed – This idle affair at the time seemed to threaten a dissolution; for had the house persevered in their first resolutions & made no further concession, the matter must have ended thus.3

Haliburton often found himself at loggerheads not only with the legislature but also with fashionable Halifax society.4 During a debate on the better observance of the Sabbath, he mocked the social pretensions of a Halifax Sunday.5 In another debate, he poured scorn on the Halifax police force: ‘It might justly be said that Halifax had no Police at all ... the age of some and the weight of others, rendered them not very suitable guardians of the public peace and morality.’6 He was merely expanding on a dislike he had first displayed in the General Description, when he likened Halifax to ‘a watering place in England’ (73) – with most of the disadvantages. People came and went with little of the feeling of local attachment, that affection for things and places, that regard for names and persons, which, though apparently unimportant in itself, constitutes the very association of ideas, which is the parent of the amor patriae, or love of country ... The real wealth of the Province therefore is not at Halifax, it is in the country, in the owners of the soil, in the respectable body of yeomen who live on their own farms; whose improvements are their country’s, the individual amount of whose property is small but permanent. (74)

Haliburton reiterated his criticism of a ‘Halifax Blade’ in the first series of The Clockmaker. ‘I never see one of your folks yet that could understand a hawk from a handsaw’ (93), Slick says (‘a real conceited lookin critter as you een a most ever seed, all shines and didos’; 92), because Halifax has a ‘dose of opium’ that has put it to sleep. Haliburton disliked the way that commercial (as opposed to agricultural) interests appeared to dominate the legislature: ‘He prayed in all sincerity of heart that the meeting of Assembly [sic] might be summoned in another place. “Honest men, who came here with honest intentions, seemed to lose the firmness of their own opinions; and rather Sir, would I have the Assembly deliberate on Mount Desert, or the Ardoise Hill, on Mount Tom, or even in the centre of Carriboo Bog, where their minds would be free from all influence, than as now in the capital.”’7 It was not all satire and sharp words in the legislature. His speech seconding the abolition of test oaths in 1828 was deemed ‘surpassingly beautiful’ by one of those who heard it.8 It was a speech his grandfather

The Legislature and the ‘Club’

35

might have written, filled with purple prose and cloying eighteenth-century sentiment that could have been cribbed from Gray’s ‘Elegy’: ‘When that time shall come, as come it must, when the tongue that now speaks shall moulder and decay, when the lungs that now breathe the genial air of Heaven shall refuse their office, when these earthly vestments shall sink into the bosom of their Mother Earth and mingle with the clods of the valley, I will turn with him [the Catholic], I will take one longing lingering look behind.’9 The records show that after the first legislative season, Haliburton no longer leaped into the fray as often; instead, he spoke only when provoked. In his second session, with his enthusiasm waning, during a speech on the ‘Quit Rents,’ he denied that he sought to impress the public by taking ‘the lead in a place, where, although there are few who would voluntarily assume the post of honor, there are many who are entitled to do so.’10 By his third session in the legislature he had realized that many of the issues on which he felt strongly might never be resolved to his satisfaction. The legislature was debating the same topics in 1829 as it had in 1827 and 1828: customs house salaries, the Shubenacadie Canal, the Pictou Academy, and quit rents, for example. By 1829, the third and final session of his political career, his appetite for practical politics had waned. In the first session he attended, he had marched up to the Legislative Council with his ‘School Bill’ and had been rejected by a coterie of Haligonians. Two years later, he believed that only a radical restructuring local government to reduce the council’s power could move the province forward: Mr Halliburton [sic] said, he hoped the House would in future pursue a very different system of legislation; hitherto they had been in the habit of passing laws in such a way, that, after reciting all, that it was the intention of the House to do, they left some clause by which the Government and Council were authorised to do just what they pleased in the matter. All the complaints against the School Bill had originated more from the way in which it had been carried into operation, than from any defect in the Bill itself.11

The lack of support for the Pictou Academy run by Dr Thomas McCulloch was the last straw (‘seven Bills had passed that House with large majorities, and had been sent down from the Council rejected’). It confirmed Haliburton in his view that something had to be done to change the way the legislature did business. He ‘wished that Gentlemen would

36 ‘This is my own, my native land’

come prepared to resolve themselves into a Committee on the General State of the Province.’12 Mr Stewart, the member for Cumberland, asked whether he meant that he wanted the legislative council to be elected. Did he mean to hoist the ‘13 stripes’ on ‘Citadel Hill’? Haliburton responded with indignation, horrified that his words could be misconstrued as meaning that he wanted to tamper with the entire constitutional structure, and even more shocked at being accused of wanting to introduce the American standard.13 He saw that there had to be a better way of organizing the legislative process, but his conservative principles prevented him from acting on his more revolutionary instincts, which he repressed. Withdrawal from the world of active politics was a much more viable option, even though he could not yet see how he could accomplish it. Disillusioned with politics, Haliburton looked elsewhere in Halifax for consolation and relief. It seems that he found it among a group of men who combined their talents to write a series of satirical sketches for the Novascotian titled the ‘Club.’ The first instalment was published on 8 May 1828; further instalments appeared over the next three years. The Club offered a fresh perspective on the world of politics. All political bodies – the U.S. Congress, the legislatures of Upper Canada and New Brunswick, and especially ‘That august and eloquent Body, the Lower House of Parliament of the Province of Nova Scotia,’ received the close attention of the Club’s members.14 From the start, the ‘Club’ papers offered Haliburton moral support as he continued to level criticisms at the Legislative Council. The fictional group comprised the Major, a veteran of the Peninsular War; young Mr Barrington, very enthusiastic in matters of love; the Doctor; Frank Halliday, ‘Barrister and Attorney-at-Law’; and the ‘Editor.’ They met ‘to talk over the affairs of the world, after the fashion of Coleman’s worthies.’15 They had no object ‘save amusement,’ declared Haliday. Haliburton, Joseph Howe, Lawrence O’Connor Doyle, and Dr Grigor were the known instigators of the Club. Gwendolyn Davies has contended ‘that it is with the Club that Thomas Chandler Haliburton learned the effectiveness of many of the techniques (and addressed many of the subjects) that were to be refined in the “Recollections of Nova Scotia” (The Clockmaker) just a few years later.’16 However, the relationship between the Club papers and the satiric vehicle that Haliburton chose in 1835 was not a close one. The Club was modelled after Blackwood’s Noctes Ambrosianae, begun in 1823 and still in full flow in 1828; Sam Slick, as we will see, appeared from another direction entirely. That

The Legislature and the ‘Club’

37

Haliburton helped write one instalment is all we can prove. The Canadian Library Association microfilm of the Novascotian indicates the initials of the authors of occasional numbers. ‘TCH’ is written beside that of 5 February 1829.17 Yet the Club papers do exhibit Haliburton in two ways: through his recurrent association with the character of ‘Frank Haliday,’ and through the Club’s periodic scrutiny of his political career. In their characterization of the young lawyer Frank Haliday and their many references to the real-life Thomas Chandler Haliburton, the Club papers confirm aspects of Haliburton’s sociability as well as his love of port, brandy, and a fine Havana cigar. Even though attempts are occasionally made to differentiate Haliday from his real-life counterpart (Haliday is a bachelor and decides to stay in Halifax for the summer season rather than follow the Major to Annapolis to ‘smoke a cigar with Tom Haliburton’),18 the real identity of Haliday soon becomes transparent. ‘A very shrewd guess was made at your identity the other day,’ the Major tells Haliday.19 The juxtaposition of Haliday with Haliburton reveals a cigar-loving, clubbable man whose temper sometimes gets the better of him. At one point, Mr Homer provokes Haliday to threaten him with a decanter (a continuation of Haliburton’s sparring with him in the legislature).20 Nevertheless, Haliburton, according to the Major, is a ‘happy dog, that, nothing discomposes him long; he storms for a few moments and it is all over, clear sunshine again, the fellow is incapable of using any one in the diabolical way he is accused.’21 After two seasons at the forefront of the Club papers, Frank Haliday’s departure is announced regretfully in a long speech by the Major on 1 December 1830: ‘The gay, the witty, the philosophic Haliday expired in a fit of laughter at our last best pun.’22 He thereafter becomes ‘our much departed and much regretted friend.’ ‘Haliday’s Epitaph,’ published in the Novascotian of 10 February 1831, reads: Here, in this earthly cavity, Lies a sworn foe to gravity; Tread lightly, or from out his ashes May come some latent sparks, and brilliant flashes. Wit, Genius, Taste, to Hades wished to flee; Death gave A Frank, and sent them postage free.

Frank’s ghost hovers briefly in a few episodes in 1831, but increasingly the Club plays with the notion that he has passed into another dimension.23

38 ‘This is my own, my native land’

At the close of the 1829 session of the legislature, the Club evaluated Haliburton’s political career and his public persona. They accused him of being too fond of ridicule, but they also conceded his value ‘in dissipating the vapours which often obscure men’s views when laws are to be made.’24 Haliburton is called before the Club and made to answer charges that have been levelled against him. He responds forcefully: ‘Have I not attacked every individual or collective body, however powerful they might be, who I thought were doing mischief in the country; and have I not, on all occasions, spoken and acted openly and fearlessly in the House? nay, have I not made bitter foes of almost all of the men who have the whole power, patronage and influence of the government in their hands?’ The Major’s disappearance from January to September 1830, followed by Haliday’s, announced on 1 December 1830, forever altered the dynamics of the Club.25 These two were replaced by Merlin, Ratler, and Marlow, but the group was never the same again.26 The Club’s topics of discussion (‘the Scotch schools and continental philosophy’) became more cerebral. Merlin, moreover, spoke in an impenetrable Scottish accent. The episodes lost their vitality as they shifted away from politics toward literature. The new company of worthies soon lost interest in the legislature now that ‘Haliburton is no longer a Senator,’ and now that the legislature itself had become like ‘Saratoga in the winter.’ 27 Haliburton’s only known contribution to the Club, published on 5 February 1829, focused on familiar legislative topics such as ‘inspecting field officers’ and the ‘schools.’ Many of Haliburton’s strong views on ‘schools’ were placed in the Major’s mouth.28 At the opening of their second season the Club heard that ‘Haliburton ... from over application to his History of the Province, has grown quite lachrymose and penitent.’29 Haliburton’s friends already sensed that his new book, the Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, would be an act of atonement for his legislative attacks on the establishment.

Chapter 6

Historian and Judge

The appearance of the Historical and Statistical Account in 1829 unsettled Lewis Bliss and his brother William, who, in their letters to brother Henry in England, reported on its progress. ‘Haliburton’s book, History of Nova Scotia, is to be printed, if there can be found subscriptions enough to defray expense – 2 Vols – 20/- a map of the province annexed,’ Lewis wrote to Henry on 9 February 1828.1 Why not enter the lists with Haliburton, suggested Lewis to Henry? ‘Write something on the Colonies – on the currency – on the law & the Catholic question – Halliburtons book is nearly completed – ’2 William Bliss acknowledged the book’s importance but remained unimpressed: ‘The subject is too barren of incidents to be interesting. The second vol. Which contains more statistics, may be more useful.’3 Its appearance, however, while it stirred old jealousies among the Blisses, did much to calm the political waters that Haliburton had churned up in the legislature. Haliburton had worked on the book for nearly a decade, and its appearance could not have been more fortuitous. The sudden death of his father on 1 July 1829 presented him with the opportunity to leave the world of active politics just as quickly as he had entered it. But his father’s position as Inferior Court Judge for the Middle Division of Nova Scotia, with its annual salary of £450, was a piece of patronage that he could hardly expect to secure after his outspoken performance in the legislature over the previous three years. When the decision was finally made to appoint him in his father’s place, insider Judge James Stewart informed Peleg Wiswall that the lieutenant-governor ‘considered Halliburton’s conduct in the H. of Assembly as almost a barrier against the measure.’4 Haliburton had not been the first choice. William Bliss told his brother Henry that ‘Tom Haliburton ... & some others are candi-

40 ‘This is my own, my native land’

dates. Sir Peregrine has offered it to them who are senior to these gentlemen & among others to me – they have declined and so have I.’5 Later, William lamented: ‘I believe I told you that I had declined accepting a Judgeship of the Inferior Court with a salary of 450 about twice as much as my practice gives me. Do you not think I was a blockhead[?].’6 The publication of the Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, in two volumes, in a print run of 3,000 copies, accompanied by great fanfare and much local acclaim, was a sober expression of Haliburton’s penitence. Nevertheless, his decision to follow in his father’s footsteps bewildered those who had watched him lambaste the Legislative Council. As Haliburton himself later quipped, in the second series of The Clockmaker, his book was ‘the most important account of unimportant things I have ever seen’ (ch. 9, ‘The Snow Wreath,’ 290). Two years later, the Club still recalled his political oratory when it asked of the new legislature: ‘Have they any flash fellows like H ———n?’7 On 29 June 1831, the Club’s members alluded to Haliday’s ‘defection’: ‘Oh! no – we never mention him, His name is never heard; Our lips are now forbid to speak That once familiar word. From job to job we hurried him, To banish his regret; And though he won some smiles from us, We never paid the debt.8

The memory of Haliday was expressed in yet another verse, ‘Merlin’s Farewell to the Club’: One tear let us dash from each sorrowing eye, To the mem’ry of him that’s departed, And to Haliday fill every cup brimming high – He was once all we loved, merry hearted. He is gone – but wherever wild mirth strikes the ear, Or the joke or the glass goes round, Oh! Still let us think that his spirit is near, Full of laughter, as once it was found.9

Haliburton’s transformation from assemblyman to judge had not gone unnoticed.

Historian and Judge 41

The publication of the Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia did much to distract attention from his sudden decision to withdraw from the political limelight. What began as an idea in December 1823 took him six years to complete. He had expected to finish it in eighteen months. In a tribute to him on 1 April 1829, the House of Assembly passed a resolution unanimously praising his work, and he received absolution from the Speaker at the same bar of the House where he had earlier been reprimanded.10 Joseph Howe’s Novascotian hailed ‘the rising genius of the Country.’11 In his preface to the book, Haliburton explained the difficulties he encountered in the writing of it. Living in Annapolis without a library was a hardship. Assembling the necessary books was Haliburton’s greatest creative feat, notes historian M. Brook Taylor somewhat acidly. ‘Once the books were collected most of Haliburton’s creative task was over.’12 That is not entirely true: much still remained – too much for one fully engaged man to sustain alone. Among the fifty-seven gentlemen listed in the ‘preface’ are relations such as Andrew Dunlap of Boston and James Francklin of Windsor; his old schoolmaster, the Reverend Dr Cochran; old schoolmates, including Robert Parker and the Reverend James Shreve; fellow members of the legislative assembly, including Charles Fairbanks, Beamish Murdoch, Titus Smith, John A. Barry, John Wier, John Crowe, Alexander Stewart, George Smith, Thomas Dickson, John Morton, J. Homer, and W. Rudolf; old friends and correspondents, including Judge Wiswall, the Abbé Sigogne, Dr Bayard, and Samuel Bayard; Club members Joseph Howe, Lawrence Doyle, and Dr Grigor; surveyors Charles Morris and Henry William Crawley; and other notables such as Dr McCulloch, Judge Marshall, and Sir Rupert D. George. Dr William Cochran, his old schoolmaster at King’s College, publicly recorded his displeasure at Haliburton’s lack of scholarship: ‘It is a defect and makes confusion, that the dates are not marked in the margin,’ reprimanded Cochran. ‘It is a still greater defect that he does not quote his authorities after the manner of all modern Historians.’13 Haliburton admitted that he had copied entire passages, adding that he preferred not to interrupt his text by acknowledging them. As a researcher, notes M. Brook Taylor, Haliburton lacked devotion and his use of government records was ‘irregular and fitful.’14 All of those who work with archival materials experience the conflict between the sociable and the reclusive sides of their natures. Haliburton had been a studious youth; now he was an outgoing young man. As we

42 ‘This is my own, my native land’

can tell from the Club papers, he was highly active in Halifax society. He put his social gifts to good use by entering into ‘extensive correspondence with respectable and intelligent people in all parts of Nova Scotia’ (vii). This he enjoyed. It was with Judge Peleg Wiswall, in the 1820s, that Haliburton had the longest and fullest discussions about the problems of writing the book. He had planned to use the same structure as he had for the General Description; later he decided to abandon that one for another.15 The result was a considerably different book. He told Wiswall that he had ‘no history of Nova Scotia’ to relate – hence the title An Historical Geographical & Statistical Account of Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, he easily managed a first volume of 340 pages (although after page 240, he took Wiswall’s advice and continued it as a ‘Summary’). From the start, however, he maintained that the statistics in the second volume would be the most important part of the work.16 In the early stages, he had ambitions to include both New Brunswick and Cape Breton in order to make the work as complete as possible. Eventually, he included Cape Breton (largely the work of Richard Smith, Richard Brown, Judge Marshall, and W.H. Crawley) but dropped his plans to add New Brunswick. It is clear from his correspondence with Wiswall and others that he accepted help from whatever quarter he could. But even with such help at hand, during the winter of 1825 and spring of 1826, ‘various private affairs’ were already preventing him from ‘making much progress.’ Winter proved to be his best time for work. A year later, in a letter to Judge John George Marshall, Haliburton described the book as being ‘nearly ready for the press.’17 Further interruptions arose in early 1827, from a very full spring season at the legislature. As M. Brook Taylor notes, Haliburton differentiated himself from a plague of earlier promoters of the province by improving the quality of information he was presenting to the public. With the General Description he had seen his audience as potential immigrants. But he was not writing the Historical and Statistical Account for immigrants: ‘We do not desire emigration. – We require all the unoccupied land in Nova Scotia, for the expansive growth of our own population ... their introduction in any great numbers, if not to be regretted, is at least a matter of perfect indifference’ (2: 359–0). When he expanded chapter 2 of in the General Description, ‘Extent, Situation, Division, Government, and Representation [of Nova Scotia],’ he described the province’s ‘Boundaries, Extent, Situation, General Appearance, Civil Divisions’ in such a way as to imply that it could now be said to possess populated ‘civil divisions.’

Historian and Judge 43

Taylor sees nothing miraculous or surprising in Haliburton’s methodology: ‘Like a phrenologist feeling his way across a cranium, Haliburton probed for the potential of his province.’18 He and his helpers ‘served up a comprehensive and dependable array of facts meant to convince the sceptic.’ For Haliburton, descriptions of the very early years of the province were relevant only insofar as they led to the ‘carefully fashioned picture of British progress in a civil wilderness.’19 Taylor summarizes Haliburton’s two-volume Account as ‘a single drama in four acts: two in the past, one in the present, and one in the future.’20 Haliburton hoped that the future could be grasped. He expressed a genuine patriotism, and in the process he voiced ‘commonplace attitudes of his time.’21 Provided the imperial government supported them, Nova Scotians had the right ‘moral and intellectual qualities’ necessary for the task. The natural advantages of the province could be put to even better use: ‘We have every thing America wants,’ Haliburton once remarked to Peleg Wiswall in January 1824.22 In his Account, he tried to prove it. Many long sections of the General Description found their way unaltered into Volume 2 of the Account. Other sections underwent considerable amplification. With the help of local correspondents, he expanded the brief topographical tour of the province in chapter 6 of the General Description into a hymn of praise to Nova Scotia: ‘Every year pours forth, in increased ratio, new labourers, until their scattered clearings approximate on every side, and the rudely constructed log huts are succeeded by well built houses. Time, that crumbles into dust the exquisite monuments of art, cherishes and fosters their improvements, until at length, hills, vales, groves, streams and rivers, previously concealed by the interminable forest, delight the eye of the beholder in their diversified succession’ (2: 126). Much of the second volume of the Historical and Statistical Account is a celebration of this process. Haliburton is granting the province accolades that previous writers had been reluctant to bestow. In 1829, even the climate of Nova Scotia makes progress. At the heart of the narrative is an encomium for the Nova Scotian farmer, who is able to turn his hand to almost anything (2: 294). In the Account, Nova Scotia emerges from a wilderness and evolves into a cultivated landscape that rivals the United States in its agricultural and horticultural bounty. The chapter on trade ends with the claim that no citizen of the colonies would want to exchange the advantages of ‘political dependance’ for ‘a Republican Government’ (2: 389). Haliburton’s conclusion to the second volume of the Account declares that a resident of Nova Scotia had nothing ‘desirable – either political, civil, or religious’

44 ‘This is my own, my native land’

to gain from his neighbour to the south (389). Yet six years later, Haliburton would create a Yankee mouthpiece in The Clockmaker who alternately berates and praises the Nova Scotians; this suggests a collapse of the patriotic surge that led him to devote ten years of his life to charting and imagining Nova Scotia’s progress. There is no simple explanation for this transition. Haliburton began his literary career with two historical works intended to attract attention to Nova Scotia and to garner praise for its progress as a colony; a few short years later, in the opening sketch of the first series of The Clockmaker, he created a Yankee clockmaker who berated the somnolent Nova Scotians. When we look for early signs that he would develop into a prolific writer of satirical sketches, the natural place to start is not the Club papers, but his oratory in the legislature.23 His facility with words and images found its first release in the legislature, in his speeches, which displayed his wit and his gift for satire. In August 1829, after his father’s death, Haliburton’s uncle and aunt, Samuel and Abigail Fales, arrived in Windsor to console the family and to pay their respects to the widow. They were accompanied by their two daughters and Georgianna Haliburton, Thomas’s cousin, sister to Maria, who had grown up in Windsor. The New Englanders stayed for a month. An eyewitness, Harry King, Thomas’s second cousin, confessed to his fiancée, Halli Fraser of Halifax, that the daughters were thorough Yankees who spoke with ‘a most perfect Bostonian nasal.’24 Harry reassured Halli that although they were pleasant, they held no attraction for him: ‘There is something that you cant express about these republicans which rather upsets than attracts – I should say that our Nova Scotians were the North End of the Magnet & Bostonians the South.’ By October, it was clear that Haliburton would be taking over his father’s position. Harry King saw the benefit in the satisfying return of ‘an accomplished and amiable lady & very nice family’ to the community.25 An Inferior Court Judge occupied a middle position in the judicial hierarchy between the Justices of the Peace (who, as Haliburton discovered, were far from being as respectable as they should be) and the Supreme Court Justices, who presided over more serious cases. Haliburton’s new position meant that he would be travelling, at set times of the year, to Horton, Kentville, Digby, and Annapolis, as well as to Liverpool and Lunenburg on the south shore. Almost immediately, on 10 October, Haliburton left for his first circuit court at Lunenburg: ‘I sincerely hope [commented Harry King to Halli Fraser] those Dutch Magistrates will treat him well & set a good

Historian and Judge 45

example to those lawless men of Liverpool who burned his Father in Effigy and gave other specimens of their Education which I believe hastened the poor old Gentleman’s Death.’26 Shortly after the circuit court, Haliburton was afflicted with an illness so severe that he could recall it perfectly some eight years later in a letter to his friend Robert Parker of Saint John.27 On the 14 December 1829, Harry wrote to Halli: ‘Judge Thom – has at length succeeded in writing a letter – but you would not recognise his writing so weak is he still – His humour & fun are all that is left of him for he describes his person as quite changed.’28 The immediate effect of the illness was to turn his hair grey. At his first court, held in Windsor on 7 January 1830, Harry King noted that ‘Thom Haliburton made his appearance to the great surprise of every one of us – he had written to his mother to say he would be there but the letter arrived after the writer.’ 29 The Magistracy and the Bar received him warmly ‘and the gaping mob rushed to see the Grand installment of a First Justice.’ The courts, Harry said, brought the ‘bears’ in from the woods where ‘there’s not a Brush or Comb in their settlements’ (and Harry meant the magistrates, not the felons!). Haliburton’s recent illness ‘had reduced him very low’; even so, he made a ‘very neat and feeling’ speech to the Grand Jury. Harry thought that Thom would do better to change his style in future ‘for the truth is talking to such fellows is only throwing away words.’ He felt that the neophyte judge praised the honesty and industriousness of his audience too much: ‘Thom however has not found out all of them yet.’30 Haliburton’s children arrived back in Windsor before their father, who remained in Annapolis to ‘settle his affairs.’31 By 12 March 1830, Harry could report that ‘Thom Halliburton and his family are now settled here – he arrived Tuesday from Annapolis and seems quite recovered from his illness & looks very well.’32 On 15 July 1830, Harry King, Thom Haliburton, and Lewis Wilkins went over to Newport on ‘Chancery business’ and met Mr Archibald and Doyle (Lawrence O’Connor Doyle), ‘who came over with us & we all dined at Halliburtons very cheerfully and harmoniously.’ The ‘Newport ferry’ generated considerable amusement among the Halifax gentlemen.33 In November, Harry King accompanied Haliburton on another such commission to nearby Horton. Harry King found Tom Haliburton to be an agreeable presence.34 In 1834, Haliburton wrote to Sir Rupert D. George to claim his fees for all his extra commissions.35 They saved the expense of trying the accused in Halifax, and they helped transact justice between sittings of the

46 ‘This is my own, my native land’

Supreme Court. In every case, Haliburton held these ‘special courts’ at the same time that he dealt with the business of the Inferior Court. Haliburton held two special commissions in 1831, one in 1832, and six in 1833 and received an extra £65 for his services – money that he hoped to put to good use. He was contemplating building a new house for his growing family.

Chapter 7

Clifton and The Clockmaker

Haliburton was now the father of a large family. After Susanna, born in February 1817, Louisa had given birth to William Neville (baptized 1 December 1819), who died young, then to twins, Thomas and Lewis (baptized at Windsor 18 January 1821). Thomas survived but his twin brother died two days later.1 Thomas himself grew up with a congenital mental problem. William Bliss, writing to his brother Henry in 1837 to introduce young Tom (who was travelling in the company of a German tutor and heading for Germany to study music), described him as ‘rather defective in his upper works.’2 The family increased further with the arrival of Augusta Louisa (baptized 3 July 1823), Laura Charlotte (baptized 8 September 1824), and William Frederick Neville (baptized 1 December 1826 but buried ten months later, on 11 April 1827).3 The Haliburtons then had four more children between 1828 and 1832 – two more daughters and two more sons. The security of an income of £450 a year as an Inferior Court judge, added to his inheritance from his father, provided Haliburton with the means to reshape his life. On his return to Windsor in 1830, he first lived in his father’s house, a large and imposing home on Water Street. It was a handsome residence, but he wanted something more distinctive, so he began to rearrange his land holdings to develop an estate, which he would call Clifton. He sold many of his properties throughout 1832 and 1833,4 at the same time purchasing a parcel of land immediately adjacent to the town. This parcel rose to an eminence from the top of which he could see directly over to King’s College. Some contemporary prints capture the scene clearly. A map of the town of Windsor from the 1870s clearly indicates how large a portion of the town he owned. Haliburton wanted a retreat that would validate him as a ‘gentleman.’ The building of Clifton was his first step toward this.

48 ‘This is my own, my native land’

Clifton was not a grand structure. In fact, in the first recorded print of the house, it resembles a rural cottage more than a villa. But Haliburton was following in the footsteps of local gentry like Jonathan Belcher and Sampson Salter Blowers, as well as many New England worthies. In New England, as he knew, it was de rigeur for a gentleman to create a rural haven for himself as a relief from the demands of his work. Tamara Plakins Thornton, in Cultivating Gentlemen: The Meaning of Country Life among the Boston Elite, 1785–1860, describes in fascinating detail the ideal of the cultivated New England gentleman, especially in and around Boston, where Haliburton’s relations, the Fales, resided.5 Haliburton had visited the Fales in August 1833 and spent several weeks taking in the sights.6 In the last of the Slick books, Nature and Human Nature (1855), Haliburton wrote: ‘It takes two or three years to build and finish a good house. A wigwam is knocked up in an hour; and as you have to be your own architect, carpenter, mason, and labourer, it’s just as well to be handy as not’ (2: 249–50). There is evidence that Haliburton was handy. At one point he has Slick engage in a dialogue on the subject of ‘cement,’ and in doing so reveals his own detailed knowledge of the subject: ‘I make my own cement always, it is so much better than any I can buy’ (Nature and Human Nature, 2: 191–2). It is likely that as an ‘architect,’ Haliburton pored over some of the more popular architectural handbooks of the day for ideas. These contained many examples of the fashionable styles available for country places like his. Haliburton knew what he wanted in his domestic living arrangements and what effect he wished to achieve. As chief justice for the Middle Division of Nova Scotia, Haliburton stood at the centre of the community and was on call to the citizens in case of emergencies. This is clear from a news item in the Novascotian. A mad dog bit a man, a girl, and a boy, so ‘Judge Haliburton called the magistrates together directly, and the constables were ordered out to notify that every dog found in the streets would be shot. Several persons had their dogs killed immediately, and five or six were destroyed in the streets.’7 Clifton allowed him some genteel separation from the street life of the town. Haliburton began to create a haven for himself and his family according to the fashion of the day. At the time, rural cottages came in various styles suitable for all kinds of family situations. J.C. Loudon observed as much in his 1833 Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture. Clifton is sometimes referred to as a ‘villa.’ Strictly speaking,

Clifton and The Clockmaker

49

however, a villa meant a wealthy and cultivated man’s ‘cottage’ or ‘farm.’8 The farm and stable and kitchen areas were not supposed to be visible from the front a villa. ‘Design IX,’ ‘The Villa of Hannayfield, the Residence of ——— Hanney, Esq. in the neighbourhood of Dumfries’ in Loudon’s book bears an uncanny resemblance to the Clifton of the famous 1842 Bartlett print.9 In such a home each child had a bedroom, although those of the same sex often shared. The best designs, said Loudon, separated public and private spheres: ‘Kitchens [were] sometimes even in the basement,’ as was the case at Clifton.10 A villa’s gardens and grounds reinforced the separation of public and private areas: the barn and the stable were tastefully hidden. As A.J. Downing noted in Cottage Residences: ‘a family fond of social intercourse, and accustomed to entertain would greatly prefer, in a cottage or villa of moderate size, to have several handsome apartments, as a drawing room, library, dining room, etc, occupying exclusively the principal floor, placing its kitchen and its offices in the basement, and the bed-rooms in the second story.’11 J.B. Papworth suggested in his 1832 book of sample designs, Rural Residences, that a villa should combine the necessities of family life with ‘external claims to respectability.’12 The visitor entered through a gate, and perceived prospects ‘half concealed and half exposed.’ When William Chambers, editor of Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, saw Clifton in the 1840s, he likened it to ‘an English country-seat.’13 Haliburton must have relished that comment. In this regard, one of the real paradoxes of Haliburton’s life was that in the mid-1830s he created simultaneously two distinct images for himself. While physically constructing his genteel new house, he was writing the first twenty-one sketches of The Clockmaker and beginning what was to become a long literary career as a decidedly ungentlemanly clock trader. Whether he liked it or not, the personality of the vulgar Yankee clockmaker would come to overshadow that of his travelling companion, the Nova Scotian squire, who resembled Haliburton’s real-life concept of himself. In moving from Water Street, Windsor’s main thoroughfare, up to the land behind Ferry Hill, Haliburton was signalling his pursuit of both seclusion and gentlemanly status. That he thought of houses in these terms is reflected in a letter he wrote to Robert Parker in 1837 inviting him to buy Belvedere, a local estate that had just come on the market: ‘I had no idea of its value till I inspected it. It is the most beautiful, most compact, the easiest worked, and both the most profitable and most Gentlemanlike place in the Country – It is a perfect Gem – I wish your admiration had been strong enough to purchase it.’14 While Haliburton

50 ‘This is my own, my native land’

was stooping to conquer his reading public as ‘Sam Slick’ in The Clockmaker, he was firmly planting himself on his own private estate, where – like any self-respecting professional New England gentleman – he would work to raise the tone of his country existence above the level of the ‘mangle-wurzel and manure.’15 It didn’t matter that Clifton paled before the vast estates of New England squires like Daniel Webster, who acquired a 160-acre farm in Green Harbor in 1832 that eventually grew to 1,400 acres.16 Clifton’s modest size never troubled Haliburton. The important thing for him was the signal he was sending to his fellow Nova Scotians. Many early-nineteenth-century merchants, businessmen, and lawyers sought to re-establish their connections with the land in this way. Many of them hired gardeners from England, as Haliburton himself did in the early 1840s.17 According to Tamara Plakins Thornton, such estates became acts of ‘private self-characterization.’18 A law practice – or in the case of Haliburton, a judgeship in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas – thus became a means to an end. Haliburton was now living what he regarded as the next stage of the province’s development – the life of a cultivated landed gentleman. In reality, Haliburton concerned himself far more with the practical details of running his small farm than he would have liked to admit. That much is clear from a letter to his daughter Augusta in 1849, written while he was travelling the Inferior Court Circuit. In it, Haliburton listed fourteen items requiring attention at home. Haliburton superintended his estate right down to the size of the woodpile. 19 Allen Penney has demonstrated that the Haliburton house visited by tourists today is not exactly the same house that Haliburton lived in. 20 There have been many changes to its fabric. Haliburton originally built it as a haven for his family and as a place to welcome friends. In the Haliburton household, guests could expect music, dancing, cards, and a variety of convivial entertainments. Having few social amenities, the people of Windsor provided their own. As the years went by, entertainment in the Haliburton home increasingly centred on the dinner table, with guests coming from far and wide. In 1842, Luigi Mariotti broke the gloom of a Windsor winter by dining at Clifton. He found it a pleasure to ride out with Haliburton’s daughters.21 Clifton reflected Haliburton’s ambition for social status – an ambition that separated him from Beamish Murdoch, his contemporary, who practised law in Halifax and who also became a member of the Legislative Assembly. Philip Girard’s discussion of Murdoch’s law career demonstrates some significant differences in their career paths. Lawyers in

Clifton and The Clockmaker

51

the province, like Murdoch, pulled themselves up the social ladder by their bootstraps. By 1827, writes Girard, ‘His income was adequate and respectable, if not spectacular.’22 The acquisition of a judgeship after only ten years of legal practice enabled Haliburton to turn his back on his rural clientele. Having secured his father’s position, he sought as many of the outward and visible trappings of a gentleman that he could afford. His appetite for the world of the gentleman only increased with the enormous success of The Clockmaker.

Chapter 8

A Tradition of Yankee Humour

Haliburton’s Yankee connections gave him the confidence to draw the Yankee character. When Sam Slick rode into The Clockmaker on his horse, ‘Old Clay’ Haliburton may well have been genuflecting toward his uncle, Samuel Fales, merchant and businessman. Fales knew as well as Slick how to cypher. ‘We have but one mill in operation,’ he wrote to his son in 1835. ‘Should we conclude to sell our water power it will pay as equal to the Locks of Canals at Lowell you know the owners of these locks of Canal have each made handsome Fortunes by them.’1 In the Calendar of Wealth, Fashion and Gentility, compiled in 1846 and listing ‘those persons taxed in the city of Boston, credibly reported to be worth one hundred thousand dollars,’ Samuel Fales’s worth was listed at $200,000.2 He had come a long way for a man who began life in wholesale (dry goods) ‘and in the African trade with Samuel Sanford, (not slave trade).’3 Samuel Fales was a great admirer of Henry Clay: ‘Henry Clay is my man & I hope he will be chosen that our Country may go on prosperously for the next six years.’4 Haliburton well knew his uncle’s political leanings. Sam Slick’s ready knowledge of the fashionable venues of Boston society undoubtedly came from Haliburton’s familiarity with his uncle’s world. Haliburton chose to exhibit Nova Scotia to the outside world by appropriating a voice from another culture. He succeeded so well in attracting attention to Nova Scotia by means of Slick’s Yankee character that readers hailed Slick as an original. Yet characters like Sam Slick were already well established in the humorous writing of the day – with one significant difference. Haliburton was able to persuade his readers to overlook the traditionally dubious reputation of the Yankee peddler and find Slick appealing. In this way, he made Slick a positive incarna-

A Tradition of Yankee Humour

53

tion of the ‘go ahead’ philosophy that politicians like Henry Clay believed should drive American society. Haliburton made Slick a harbinger of the technological and industrial revolution afoot in the republic to the south. In American humour, the Yankee has long been a stock character. The first of them was ‘Brother Jonathan,’ who dominated the American consciousness between 1800 and 1840.5 Sam Slick was a regional upstart, but his lineage must not be confused with that of ‘Uncle Sam,’ who came to represent the American government during and after the Civil War.6 Haliburton was tapping into a popular tradition of humorous writing as surely as he tapped his maple trees in the spring. Stopping the flow, however, would become a lifelong struggle. One thing is certain; Haliburton was never, as Artemus Ward once called him, ‘the father of American humor.’7 Nothing could be further from the truth. Slick was one variation among several of the well-established Brother Jonathan figure, and he happened to bob to the surface of Haliburton’s mind at a time when Yankee comedians were the rage on the London stage. James Hackett, who played the Covent Garden Theatre in London on 5 April 1827, revived the figure of the stage Connecticut Yankee on his second tour to London in 1832–3 and again on a third visit to London in 1835.8 In his bid to express the ‘genuine Yankee,’ he had strong competition from both George Handel Hill and Charles Matthews. It is possible that during his stay in Boston from August to October 1833, Haliburton caught the act of George Handel Hill.9 Because Mr Hackett, ‘the acknowledged representative of Yankee character at the Park [Theatre] was absent in Europe,’ Hill was given a chance to perform.10 Like Hackett, Hill continued on to England in 1835; there, he starred as Hiram Dodge, the Yankee Peddler, at Drury Lane.11 George Handel Hill’s success in 1836 and 1838–9 in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris was the culmination of a long career in the theatre. The one sample of Hill’s Yankee style included in his autobiography, Scenes from the Life of an Actor (1853), is clearly in the vein that Haliburton mined when creating Slick.12 Hill competed for public attention with Charles Matthews. According to the author of a Sketch of Mr Matthews’s Entertainment Entitled A Trip to America, Charles Matthews ‘gives us next the real Yankee, whom he calls Jonathan W. Doubikins, who is very fond of relating long stories, which turn to no account.’13 Yet another rival for the attention of the theatre-going public was Dan Marble, who portrayed the ‘Western Yankee’ on stage: part Davy Crockett, part Mike Fink, and part Jonathan.14

54

‘This is my own, my native land’

The figure of Brother Jonathan dominated popular culture from 1776 until 1861 until displaced by Uncle Sam. In the early 1830s, Seba Smith’s creation, ‘Major Jack Downing,’ became one of Brother Jonathan’s first major rivals, representing ‘a conservative critique of mass democracy during Jackson’s presidency.’15 And it was the work of a Jack Downing imitator that inspired Haliburton to use the Yankee figure for his own particular ends.16 Haliburton’s own shrewd peddler amounted to a rival strand of Yankee humour.17 Haliburton perhaps encountered Charles Augustus Davis’s version of ‘J Downing’ in the columns of the Boston newspapers, where he appeared in September and October 1833. ‘Could you borrow Jack Downing? for a few days [sic],’ Haliburton asked Joseph Howe on 15 November 1835.18 There is no way of knowing for certain whether he meant Seba Smith’s original or Charles Davis’s purloined version of Jack Downing, but it is most likely the latter because he mentioned Davis in a speech he gave in Halifax in 1839. In response to the praise lavished on his own book, Haliburton raised his glass to toast ‘J. Davies, Esq. [sic] The author of “Major Jack Downing” ... he has written a book worth forty Clockmakers both for its sense, humour and originality ... there are many Sam Slicks, but there is but one Major Jack Downing.’19 In November 1833, Seba Smith and Charles Augustus Davis collided in the columns of the Portland Courier, with their two versions of Jack Downing competing for the public’s attention.20 But by Haliburton’s own admission, it was Davis that inspired him to enter the fray on his own account with a Yankee figure of a different but related kind.21 As solo performers, Hackett, Hill, and Marble tried to satisfy the public’s appetite for the Yankee by acting out monologues, giving impersonations, or telling stories in character ‘between acts, and within the framework of a play.’22 They did much to fuel the popular appetite for Yankee figures. This meant that Haliburton did not have to invent Sam Slick’s Yankee dialect and phraseology. Interest in the Yankee dialect was widespread. Lists of Americanisms began to appear often in magazines and books, culminating in 1847 with Bartlett’s famous Dictionary of Americanisms in 1847.23 As V.L.O. Chittick articulated in 1924, the Yankee dialect mingled freely with the Western and Southern vernacular. The Brother Jonathans and the Jack Downings competed for the public’s attention with the brasher voices of the Davy Crocketts, the Ben Hardins, and the Mike Finks.24 Later in his career, in 1852 and 1854, Haliburton edited two three-volume sets of anthologies of American writing, thus demonstrating that

A Tradition of Yankee Humour

55

he knew all of these traditions first-hand. Either he had clipped their work from newspapers over the years (as Chittick suggests),25 or he knew where he could go to find them – namely, William T. Porter’s sporting journal Spirit of the Times (1831–61). These collections found readers, as the Spirit of the Times put it, among the ‘very corinthian columns of the community.’26 Such stories, said Porter in the preface to his first anthology, ‘were furnished for publication mainly by country gentlemen, planters, lawyers, &c “who live at home at ease”’: ‘Most are gentlemen not only highly educated, but endowed with a quick perception of character, and a knowledge of men and the world.’27 Carolyn S. Brown observes: ‘During the next few decades, when any itinerant judge or small-time newspaper editor in the southwest could become a writer of backwoods sketches, tall tales were printed in newspapers, almanacs, and gift books, and were reprinted and circulated throughout the country.’28 Many writers of these pieces took care to differentiate themselves from their characters, just as Haliburton attempted to do at the start of The Clockmaker. Haliburton knew that, in using a Yankee as his mouthpiece, he was donning the mask of a man notorious for dishonesty in matters of business. Davy Crockett in his autobiography captured the public sentiment when he described ‘an itinerant class of gentry, now identified with every new country, whose adventures are as amusing as they are annoying to its inhabitants. I allude to the tribe yclept Clock Pedlers, which term implies shrewdness, intelligence, and cunning.’29 Haliburton’s achievement was that he took the hitherto unpalatable stock character of the itinerant Yankee clock peddler and made him attractive. The stock outline of Sam Slick can be found in Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee (1834): ‘Reader, did you ever know a full-blooded yankee clock pedler? If not, imagine a tall lank fellow, with a thin visage, and small dark grey eyes, looking through you at every glance, and having the word trade written in his every action, and then you will then have an idea of Mr. Slim.’30 Haliburton adapted Mr Slim and his modus operandi for his own purposes, infusing it with his own personality and energy. As the author of the Sketches reminded his readers, ‘a yankee clock now graces every cabin throughout the west.’ Slim flattered the women of the house with ‘tortoise shell combs,’ and ‘his counterfeit jewellery’ easily broke the resistance of any young lady or her mother, who promptly assisted him in selling a farmer a clock he did not need.31 Haliburton transformed the Yankee figure into ‘a far cry from the commonly accepted view of him as a cynical aphorist who

56

‘This is my own, my native land’

manipulates the common yokels of the northern backwoods.’32 Sam Slick first appeared in the columns of the Novascotian in a series of twenty-one episodes, beginning on the 23 September 1835 and concluding on 11 February 1836. They were so well received and widely circulated in provincial and American newspapers that Haliburton ‘therefore placed at his [Joseph Howe’s] disposal the remaining part of the series, that the whole may be included in one volume.’33 He wrote twelve additional sketches and corrected the instalments that had appeared in the newspaper. It took him a further eleven months to ready the first edition of The Clockmaker, which would be published under Howe’s imprint.34 Although dated 1836, it appeared on 4 January 1837.35 As always, it seemed, the Bliss brothers were watching closely. When it became obvious that Haliburton had achieved literary fame in a decidedly unclassical form, Henry wrote to his brother, bitterly disavowing the literary life: ‘Why should a man covet posthumous fame? Surely it is better that our name like our dust should be buried in obscurity and oblivion, rather than have our faults canvassed, our follies recorded, and our regrets proclaimed above our graves; which is almost all that literary success can do for us with posterity.’36 Haliburton was now shooting at folly from a distance: ‘Politics take a great deal of time, and grinds away a man’s honesty near about as fast as cleaning a knife with brick dust, “it takes its steel out.” What does a critter get arter all for it in this country, why nothin but expense and disappointment’ (Clockmaker, 1st series, 81). These words, which first appeared in the Novascotian of 30 December 1835, were meant for his friend, Joseph Howe, as a warning not to enter the legislature. ‘Why does a judge’s charge have more influence than an attorney’s speech? Because he belongs to no side,’ he added in a private letter.37 As he makes clear in no. 15, ‘The Dancing Master Abroad,’ nothing is more delusive than popularity, ‘soon won, soon lost,’ like ‘Colt,’ Sam’s father’s horse, ‘cried up sky high one minute, and deserted the next or run down; colt will share the same fate’ (Clockmaker, 83). The only independence a man can have, says Slick (and we can sense Haliburton nodding), is money in his pocket. ‘Never have nothing to do with elections,’ he told Howe. Departing from the centre of Windsor to Clifton, Haliburton had consolidated his sudden and decisive retreat from political life by beginning a literary career. The elaborate title of his first piece of sustained fiction, Recollections of Nova Scotia: The Clockmaker; or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville, echoes that of T. Crofton Croker’s Legends of the Lakes; or, Sayings and Doings in Killarney (1829), a book that the Novascotian had reviewed some

A Tradition of Yankee Humour

57

years earlier. Crofton’s book contained a mixture of politics, tales within tales, travelogue, illustrations of national character, Irish dialect, dialogues, and legends: ‘The plan is an excellent one. The traveller gives the conversations of the people he meets with. The book is, in fact, a colloquial tour or journal of what is heard, rather than what is seen.’38 The Sayings and Doings format placed Haliburton under few restrictions and provided him with a simple formula. First, in the opening of a typical chapter, he locates Sam Slick and the Squire geographically. The geography lesson is no more than a few paragraphs long and often draws (sometimes sentimentally) from Haliburton’s knowledge of the province, as in the opening of chapter 11, ‘Italian Paintings.’ But it is not his intention to write a travel book. As a travel book, The Clockmaker is a disappointment: ‘I visit men and not places,’ is Haliburton’s constant rule of thumb (309). Haliburton did not have the imagination of a novelist. He has no desire to involve his characters in a developing narrative. To power his book, Haliburton shifts his two central characters (Sam Slick and the Squire) from scene to scene; with each shift, new topics emerge for discussion. At forty-one, Haliburton had already begun to sense that a prosy future lay ahead for him. Many of the chapters in the second and subsequent series reveal to us his freewheeling, associative imagination. The Clockmaker opens with a letter from Slick accusing both the Squire and Howe of not acting the part of gentlemen in that they have stolen his ‘Sayins and Doins’ and blurted them out in print. Yet the book is not his (‘I can’t altogether jist say rightly whose it is’). Slick travels a ‘circuit’ through the province in much the same way that Haliburton did as a judge. Despite the obvious social differences between Haliburton and Slick, the topics Slick touches on over the course of the next thirty-two sketches are the same ones that first animated Haliburton during his legislative career. In developing Slick as his central figure, Haliburton invested his character with a great deal of his own congeniality. Haliburton could talk up a storm, as Harry King recognized soon after Haliburton returned to live in Windsor: ‘He likes me & I have paced the last 3 hours up and down before his door till I am tired of talking of everything.’39 A year later, Harry King reported: ‘Yesterday when I arrived and found the village deserted conceive my astonishment at hearing of a Picnic at Castle Frederick – Judge Haliburton was Ringleader and he had collected a dozen or two (from whence I know not) and kept them up till Sundown from 11 o clock.’40 Slick’s delight in social interaction mirrored Halibur-

58

‘This is my own, my native land’

ton’s own. Haliburton later tried to argue that The Clockmaker simply continued the vein he had tapped with the Historical and Statistical Account: I was also anxious to stimulate my countrymen to exertion, to direct their attention to the development of these resources, and to works of internal improvement, especially to that great work which I hope I shall live to see completed, the rail road from Halifax to Windsor. To awaken ambition and substitute it for that stimulus which is furnished in other but poorer countries than our own by necessity, for this purpose I called in the aid of the Clockmaker – (great cheering).41

On that occasion he tried to deny that he had any political motives: ‘It was written neither as a Tory, a Whig, or a Radical, but as a Nova Scotian – (Continued cheering) not for a party, for the country, for that country which “is my own my native land”.’ But in animating Slick, Haliburton was undermining the eulogy to the province that he had undertaken in both the General Description and the Historical and Statistical Account. He now began to take the measure of Nova Scotian life in a much more critical way. Readers found Slick’s voice attractive and amusing even as he chastised Nova Scotians and reminded them of the things that still remained to be done in order to move their society forward. British readers recognized immediately the quintessential Yankee, brash but energetic and appealing. American readers watched the birth of another national stereotype. But even the Americans liked Sam’s capacity to win an argument. Slick’s popularity diverted the attention of contemporary readers from the implied values of his creator. Yet those values are clear from the start as soon as Slick enters the book deliberately riding Old Clay, named after Slick’s favourite American politician, ‘our senator, who is a prime bit of snuff’ (Clockmaker, 1st series, 108), Senator Henry Clay. Clay exuded an ‘optimistic nationalism [and represented] a new type of Republican.’42 He bred racehorses.43 He charmed women.44 He became synonymous with the ‘American System for the protection of home industry – a system, into which, like that of Internal Improvements, he breathed the breath of life, and which has lived, and moved, and had its being, in his influence.’45 Slick soon declares himself to be a great admirer of both horses and women as he brings Nova Scotians up-to-date news of Clay’s ‘American System,’ a plan that would see the American federal government building roads,

A Tradition of Yankee Humour

59

bridges, canals, and railways to bind the country together.46 Everywhere that Slick travels in Nova Scotia he imagines how the landscape would look after being transformed by the ‘American System.’ Haliburton’s uncle, Sam Fales of Boston, as already noted, regarded Clay highly.47 Clay appealed to the ‘wealthy and conservative,’ united as they were in their opposition to Andrew Jackson.48 Slick shares Haliburton’s Boston uncle’s enthusiasm for technological improvements. Yet the paradox of Slick is that his creator characterizes him in mainly rustic terms. Haliburton’s champion of internal improvements delivers his message in rustic idiom. Haliburton is never short of a rustic image that enables Slick to utter some home truths. The writer reaches into his own rural world and pulls out as many verbal plums as he needs. The first series of The Clockmaker therefore mirrors a conflict between technological advance and rural life – a clash Haliburton felt acutely in his private world.49 Even though he designed Clifton according to the best taste in gentlemanly estates, he threw open its gates immediately for another venture in gypsum mining, building ‘a crude though labor-saving tramway upon which horse-drawn cars were operated’ to transport the plaster of Paris he mined on his own property to his private wharf on the Avon estuary.50 In the first series of The Clockmaker, even while he championed visible and tangible technological improvements such as bridges and railways, he realized they were threats to an older way of life. ‘Natur designed us for an agricultural people, and our government was predicated on the supposition that we would be so’ (Clockmaker, 1st series, 153–4), says Slick. The Reverend Hopewell agrees: ‘If the folks here want their country to go ahead, they must honor the plough’ (157). Farmers are the salt of the earth: ‘More honest than traders, more independent than professional men, and more respectable than either’ (159). As Slick gained energy and acceptance, Haliburton expressed in his choice of language the conflict between traditional rural ways of life and the visible signs of progress.

Chapter 9

Career in Crisis

Haliburton was deeply immersed in the realities of Nova Scotia. While Joseph Howe’s printing house was preparing to issue the first Clockmaker, Haliburton attended a meeting, on 28 December 1836, at Daniel Bishop’s – or the ‘half-way house’ – between Horton Mountain and Wolfville Ridge, in his capacity as president of the Avon Bridge Company.1 Despite severe weather, representatives from Kings County, Hants County, the Stage Coach Company, and the Avon Bridge Company gathered to discuss the need to improve the approach roads to the new bridge. The legislature had voted £25 to ascertain the best route. Haliburton had been involved with the Avon Bridge Company from its inception. The 1,150-foot bridge had been built in six months with no help from the province.2 In 1834 the initiators of the bridge scheme had incorporated themselves as the Avon Bridge Company: ‘The whole number of shares are limited to 320, which at £25 each makes an aggregate of £8000 ... All work to be done by contract, with responsible security for the performance thereof; but, no work to be undertaken until £6000 are subscribed. Shareholders to meet to appoint Directors when £4000 are subscribed. No individual responsible for more than the amount of his subscription.’3 In a depressed money market, raising the funds was a challenge.4 Haliburton helped raise the capital, organize the construction, and secure the services of an American engineer to build the bridge. The Novascotian complimented the liberal and handsome manner in which the people of Saint John had joined with ‘their Windsor friends’ to finance the project. It was completed ‘in the manner that such works are historically and usually done in the United States of America, and elsewhere.’5 Haliburton has Sam Slick proclaim that ‘a Bridge makes a town’ (Clock-

Career in Crisis

61

maker, 1st series, 98): ‘One such work as the Windsor Bridge is worth all your laws, votes, speeches, and resolutions, for the last ten years’ (Ibid., 189). Around this time, Haliburton was also concerning himself with family matters. On 15 May 1837, Lewis Bliss reported to his brother Henry that Haliburton had come to town with his son, Tom Jr, then sixteen years old but ‘quite a child’: ‘His father has two reasons for cultivating this [his musical talent] – the total want of any other [talent] and a rather uncommon (to say the least of it) musical disposition – .’ 6 ‘Tom,’ Lewis said, planned to send his son to Koblenz ‘in charge of the Revd Mr Cossman a German clergyman speaking scarcely any English who has been residing at Lunenburg.’ Lewis Bliss rendered them whatever assistance he could in Halifax and wrote to his brother Henry asking him to look out for the boy when he passed through London on his way to Rotterdam. Haliburton had given a copy of The Clockmaker to the other Bliss brother, William, to send to Henry; but William, knowing Henry’s negative response to the Historical and Statistical Account, had hesitated to forward it. On discovering that it was being published in London, he did not see the point of including a copy with his letter of 22 May 1837. He, too, was aware of Tom Jr’s trip to Koblenz. Tom Jr’s musical talent, he said, was his ‘only spark of intellect.’ Later in the year, Haliburton confided in his old schoolmate, Robert Parker: ‘I feel a good deal concerned about the gentleman who took Tom to Germany, he is over his time, and the storms at sea have been very disasterous [sic] to the shipping, all that have arrived lately having suffered more or less damage.’7 By November, his fears had been assuaged: ‘I have heard by last packet from Tom most satisfactorily, he is well and perfectly happy, and the gentleman in whose charge he is reports favorably on his progress.’8 Haliburton could consider sending Tom abroad for such a length of time because Louisa had recently received a legacy from her brother William Frederick, who had died in India in 1836. The legacy took a very long time to reach her. The Indian government released the bonds after a delay of twelve months. Unfortunately, William Neville had placed his money in two Calcutta banks that had failed.9 His estate was much less than they expected. When Robert Parker and his family visited Clifton in the summer of 1837, he found Haliburton in an expansive mood and ready to show him his new house and grounds. Haliburton wondered aloud: ‘Should Bowmans cottage be for sale (near Spaw Spring) shall I acquaint you of it? It

62 ‘This is my own, my native land’

is the only cottage orne in the neighbourhood.’10 The two families were fond of each other; they communicated regularly, sending plants and pictures back and forth. Haliburton sent Parker ‘a small box containing Siberian crab apples, magnum bonum [a variety of large yellow cookingplum], and Green Gages, none of which are eatable, the two former being preserving fruit, and the latter not ripe enough for any other use.’ Meanwhile, The Clockmaker’s first series was becoming a huge success. Many thought it deserved to reach a wider audience: ‘Several of these letters have been republished in the Yarmouth Herald, the Boston Courier, and other American and Colonial papers,’ Howe proudly told readers of the Novascotian on 17 December 1835. But as Georgianna Haliburton’s family memoir affirms, it was Colonel Charles Fox, husband of Lady Mary FitzClarence, daughter of William IV and the actress Mrs Jordan, who took the book with him to London and gave it to the publisher Richard Bentley.11 ‘In consequence of the favourable opinion expressed by you of the First Series of The Clockmaker, an English Publisher was induced to reprint it in London,’ wrote Haliburton to Fox on 21 April 1838 as he was dedicating the second series of The Clockmaker.12 It flattered Haliburton immensely that a member of the British aristocracy had recommended his book. Between 6 January 1837 and the 23 March 1827, the first series of The Clockmaker reached Richard Bentley’s literary advisor, Richard Barham, who quickly urged: ‘Lose no time but get it into type at once, if that can’t be done immediately, have it transcribed forthwith ... Print it at once if possible.’13 With no copyright law to prevent him, Richard Bentley commandeered The Clockmaker. He did not bother to check with either Haliburton or Howe. The speed with which Bentley appropriated the book was remarkable, and so was its success. It ran to four editions in England within the year. It rivalled in popularity the other literary sensation of the season, Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, which began publication in numbers in April 1836 and ran until November 1837. Boz and Slick found themselves literary sensations. Ruth Panofsky notes: ‘Between 1837 and 1840 the Clockmaker, first series, went through a total of nine printing events in Britain.’14 As 1837 drew to a close, Bentley approached Haliburton through Charles Archibald of Nova Scotia for a second series of The Clockmaker.15 For a new work in three volumes, Mr Bentley was offering £250 for 1,000 copies or £300 for the copyright. The letter apprised Mr Archibald that at the suggestion of Colonel Fox, a piece of plate had been forwarded to Mr Halliburton in acknowledgment of ‘Sam Slick.’16 Bentley recorded the price of the plate as £31.14.0; this represented the

Career in Crisis

63

only payment that Haliburton ever received from Bentley for the first series of The Clockmaker. ‘A token of the estimation in which my talent had been held in the Mother Country,’ he later remarked to his old schoolmate Robert Parker.17 What Haliburton didn’t tell Parker was that both his initial and his name were misspelled in the inscription.18 On 1 April 1837, the Literary Gazette noted: ‘The Yankee pedler of Mr. Hill is of the same genus, and those of you who have seen him on stage will have a tolerable idea of Mr Slick.’19 The Athenaeum identified The Clockmaker as a ‘Down Eastern book with a vengeance. Every American extravagance – every distortion of the English language – every Yankee vulgarism that memory could suggest, or invention muster up, has been pressed into the service of Mr. Samuel Slick, the clock pedlar ... We do not however think, rich as some of the stuff is, that so huge a mass of slang, slyness, and bitter bad words, will be relished by the ordinary palates of readers on this side of the Atlantic.’20 Nothing could have been wider of the mark. Some delicate ears did recoil at Slick’s vulgar manner and tone, but many more – and this included many English gentleman whose tastes verged toward the coarse, the vulgar, and the racially offensive – relished a ‘Yankee character of the Crockett class.’21 The Novascotian noted that within six months the London edition of The Clockmaker had achieved ‘a degree of popularity rarely attained by any modern work, and we believe never by a Provincial one.’22 It garnered praise that reached a crescendo in Blackwood’s magazine, whose enthusiasm for his book Haliburton relayed proudly to Robert Parker on 24 March 1838: ‘My book has had a prodigious run, in Blackwood’s magazine for November under tittle [sic] “The World We Live In,” you will see a remarkably flattering notice of it, concluding with a direct invitation to come home.’23 Blackwood’s declared that Haliburton represented an antidote to the wave of ‘treacle and water’ that Washington Irving had lately been pouring over the British reader. ‘We say, let the writer of Slick’s aphorisms try his powers on a subject adequate to their capacity. Let him leave Nova Scotia and come to England.’ These words would haunt Haliburton for the rest of his life. The virulently Tory and High Anglican Blackwood’s identified the author of Sam Slick as a kindred spirit, and desired more: ‘We want to see activity, ardour, and courage distinguish the good cause. Let them be shown, and success is unquestionable in any country of the globe.’ This attempt to entice the author of Sam Slick into trying his hand at British subjects – or, failing that, at something about ‘our affairs in Canada’ – is perhaps what provoked Haliburton to write The Bubbles of Canada (1839)

64 ‘This is my own, my native land’

while staying in England during 1838 and 1839. This humourless, polemical book was not what Blackwood’s had wished for. Joseph Howe, Haliburton’s Nova Scotia publisher, was not amused by any of the accolades being poured on Haliburton. On 18 May 1837, he wrote in the Novascotian: ‘We are still not quite sure that we shall not bring an action against Mr Publisher Bentley, for pirating the copyright, and printing an edition without our leave. However, we shall avail ourselves of his exertions, when the Squire has the next volume ready for the Press.’24 Curiously, it was Bentley rather than Howe who went to court in 1839 to protect his rights to The Clockmaker. Details of the case survive in the Bentley Papers at the British Library.25 In December 1839, Bentley sued the publishers of the Bookcase – a John Williamson & Co., 12 Warwick Square, London – for issuing The Clockmaker cheaply in three numbers. Mr Williamson had published The Clockmaker at 2d a number (compared to the 10/6 per volume that Bentley charged) and had made considerable unauthorized profits. After the appearance of the first number, Bentley filed an affidavit, thus preventing further publication. Williamson issued an apology on 31 December. In the process Bentley had to relate some of the early details of his publishing The Clockmaker in Britain. In so doing he nicely evaded his own act of piracy.26 As the book’s popularity soared, Haliburton told Robert Parker on 13 November 1837: ‘We are all in good health, joggin on in the old way, a pretty dull unvarying round but perhaps better for the body & the mind, than a gayer or more dissipated one.’27 That Haliburton often preferred a more dissipated existence is confirmed by his life-long propensity to eat fine meals, sip whisky, drink port, Madeira, and wine, and chew tobacco or puff on a cigar – very much like his creation Sam Slick. While in Boston in 1833, Haliburton visited the Tremont House, a fashionable club and eatery that would serve as the setting of one of Slick’s later sketches (Clockmaker, 3rd series, 593). Haliburton’s taste for the finer things in life began early and developed in earnest during his visit to England in 1838, when he became a member of the Athenaeum Club (‘as hard to enter as the proverbial eye of the needle’), the Garrick Club (where ‘the Gin-punch made with iced soda-water, is a notable potation’) and the Canada Club (‘one of the oldest and best known Dining Clubs of London’), which met outside London at favourite taverns along the Thames in the summer months.28 Haliburton found the Canada Club especially hard to resist. Haliburton hoped that Parker would visit him again the following summer, but then informed him on 15 November 1837 that he planned to ‘go

Career in Crisis

65

to Europe in January twelvemonth’ to see his son Tom if a leave of absence from his Inferior Court judgeship could be arranged. 29 In actual fact, he departed in April 1838 and remained in England for nearly twelve months. A particular sequence of events both literary and personal led to his early departure. Haliburton had complained to Bentley about the unauthorized publication of The Clockmaker.30 Even so, he wrote to Bentley in early January 1838 to mention that he was writing a sequel: ‘Would you like to have it if so, and supposing it to be equal to the first, what will you give for it, reserving the right (to republish here)[?].’ Bentley’s actual offer crossed in the mail. Haliburton ignored Bentley’s request for a three-volume work, promptly completed the second series in one volume, and took it with him to England to offer it to Bentley himself. Thus began Haliburton’s lengthy relationship with Richard Bentley, which was sealed with a £300 payment from Bentley for the copyright of ‘two series consisting of one volume each under the title of “The Clockmaker; or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville.”’31 As a result of the face-to-face encounter, Bentley modified the terms of his original offer considerably. Lewis Bliss expressed his negative view: ‘From what Haliburton told me I have my doubts whether the last [the second series] will be thought as much of as the first – It is more political and altho Haliburton says is on the whole the best, yet he seemed to think that there were some numbers of the first better than any thing in the second.’32 Haliburton admitted to Robert Parker: ‘We are no judges of these things ourselves.’33 In March 1838, Haliburton wrote to Robert Parker to congratulate both Parker brothers on attaining ‘the highest honors of the profession.’ Neville’s lucrative appointment as Master of the Rolls meant that both brothers had risen to the top of the legal establishment in New Brunswick. The contrast between their success and his own plight in Nova Scotia could not have been more obvious: ‘I am sorry to say things have not gone so well with me of late, not that I have been disappointed in promotion for I did not look for that, and have been content to retire into seclusion for the sake of superintending my family but that I have reason to complain of an extraordinary combination that has taken place here to throw over board the Judges of the Com. Pleas, for the purpose of settling the salary of the Judges of the Sup. Court.’ The shaky foundation of the Inferior Court had begun to collapse. There had been several previous attempts to remove the Inferior Courts, but none so threatening as the present one. On 13 February 1838, a select committee of the legislature, appointed to examine the

66 ‘This is my own, my native land’

Inferior Courts, reported that the three Supreme Court judges could assume the extra duties of the Inferior Court at no cost to the Treasury.34 Haliburton responded on 15 March with an angry letter to Sir Rupert George tendering his conditional resignation: In accepting the office I have now the honor to hold, I relinquished a seat in the legislature, a local appointment of profit, and a practice at the bar, far exceeding my salary as a judge – Preferring the retirement of private life, to the excitements of politics, and the study and administration of law, to the active pursuits of a profession I was willing to make the sacrifice, and supposed when I was doing so, that as it was done under the faith of a permanent statute, the arrangement would also be permanent.35

Haliburton offered the provincial authorities his resignation under whatever pecuniary circumstances they saw fit to grant. He found it humiliating that his Supreme Court colleagues were offering to do his job for nothing. On 22 March 1838, in the Novascotian, a report on the state of the judiciary concluded that the Supreme Court could indeed assume the work of the Inferior Court at considerable savings to the province. Two days later, Haliburton described what had happened as ‘a miserable clap trap for popularity for the purpose of having their salary adjusted, so as to include the fees controversy.’36 Haliburton declared that his honour had been impugned and that as a result he had been made a ready target for ‘demagogues to fire at.’ He was mortified that the betrayal arose from ‘the conduct of an old friend’ – a friend of thirty years, William Bliss – who had performed an ‘ungentlemanlike, unfriendly act’ that he would not have thought possible: ‘It was the only friendship I had existing in this province – I feel deeply hurt, and incline to think I shall quit the Province.’ Haliburton’s plans to visit England suddenly gained extra momentum. He would go on the first man-of-war ‘and look about me there, and see if I can do any thing for myself.’ After all, had not his book been well received, had not Bentley despatched a piece of plate, and had not Blackwood’s called upon him to try his talents in England? So to England he went, armed with letters from the governor to ‘Ellice late Secty at War’ (Edward Ellice), ‘Lord Glenelg’ (the Colonial Secretary), and ‘others,’ determined that if he could do nothing for himself, he would secure ‘patronage for poor Tom.’ The crisis in his career was such that Haliburton was willing to move anywhere where he would be appreciated, even at a high personal and financial cost.

PART TWO

A Literary Career

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 10

The Greatest Lion in London

On 26 April 1838, with the manuscript of a second series of The Clockmaker in his portmanteau, Haliburton sailed for England aboard the Tyrian, accompanied by Joseph Howe, Charles R. Fairbanks (who kept a journal that has since disappeared), Major Robert Carmichael Smith (William Makepeace Thackeray’s brother-in-law), and a Dr Walker of New Brunswick. Until the day prior to departure, Haliburton continued transacting routine court business.1 In public, Haliburton masked his anger over the impending dissolution of the Inferior Courts. After receiving a ‘flattering address’ from the bar at Lunenburg, Haliburton printed his polite response in the Nova Scotia Royal Gazette, claiming that his trip abroad would be only for a ‘short duration,’ and giving no public hint of his private plans.2 On 16 May, while still at sea, the Nova Scotia party aboard the Tyrian – a ‘coffin brig’ carrying the mails to Falmouth – sighted the first transatlantic steamer, the Sirius, on its return trip to England. Their curiosity on the occasion earned them a footnote in the history of transatlantic travel. John Malcolm Brinnin, a Haligonian by birth, imagines the scene in The Sway of the Grand Saloon (1971), which echoes closely the diary account of Joseph Howe.3 The Nova Scotian contingent considered transferring to the Sirius but decided against it, remaining content to visit the other vessel and explore its wonders. For five minutes they chatted with the passengers on the quarterdeck; then they took a glass of champagne with the captain. The splendour of the amenities aboard astonished them, and they retreated to the Tyrian somewhat dismayed at the length of time it would take them to reach Falmouth. The Sirius had ignited the enthusiasm of both Haliburton and Howe for this new mode of crossing the Atlantic, a mode that within their lifetime would reduce the length of the voyage from an average of thirty-three days to seventeen. 4

70 A Literary Career

After landing at Falmouth, Haliburton and Howe visited the offices of the Great Western Steamship Company in Bristol. There they sought a private audience with the company directors, hoping to convince them that transatlantic travel to New York via Halifax would be the quickest and safest route for steamers to take. In 1854, in the second volume of Nature and Human Nature, Haliburton would recall the meeting with some bitterness: ‘Now, when I set on foot a scheme for carrying the Atlantic mail in steamers, and calculated all the distances and chances, and shewed them Bristol folks, (for I went to that place on purpose,) that it was shorter by thirty-six miles to come to Halifax, and then go to New York, than to go to New York direct, they just laughed at me, and so did the English Government’ (2: 212). This incident lodged in his mind as an example of how easily and routinely the British scorned colonists. Later in life, he boasted that his greatest achievement had been his advocacy for the carrying of the Atlantic mail by steamship (Address, 18). In April 1859, he would present himself to his constituents in Launceston, Cornwall, as the ‘instigator of steam transit across the Atlantic.’ 5 The day after the encounter with the Sirius, the Tyrian passed the steamer Medea, which was carrying John Lambton, the Earl of Durham, out to Canada to begin his political mission.6 Following the failed rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, the British government had appointed the radical earl to investigate. On this day Haliburton and the earl crossed paths without locking horns; they would do the latter, however, before Haliburton returned to Nova Scotia. The publication of the Durham Report would drive a wedge between Haliburton and his old friend Joseph Howe. The resulting rift would be widened by Haliburton’s literary good fortune in England, which flattered his ego and deluded him into thinking he was capable of offering the British public an instant historical account of the political troubles in Canada. Bentley declared himself willing to publish whatever Haliburton chose to write. Haliburton, in haste, gave him The Bubbles of Canada, which Bentley published in 1839. It annoyed more people than it pleased and added little to his reputation as a writer. After the Durham Report was published in February 1839, Haliburton also wrote seven letters to the Times and the Standard, signing them ‘By a Colonist.’7 The damage these works did to Haliburton’s reputation would never be repaired in some quarters. They aligned him with a small group of conservatives who resented any intrusion into colonial matters by those who – so they claimed – had little firsthand understanding of the colonial world. Haliburton looked on Durham as simply one more visitor to North America, and one with no moral right to inform colonists about their own world.

The Greatest Lion in London 71

Haliburton arrived in England during the summer of Queen Victoria’s coronation. He and his Nova Scotia friends mixed freely in London society. It seems that Haliburton had the edge socially – something confirmed by Charles Fairbanks in his journal: ‘H. now the greatest Lion in London.’8 Almost immediately, he began to make a number of flattering friendships and contacts that would strongly influence his future. On 6 June at the Freemason’s Hall, he and Howe attended a dinner in honour of Sir Francis Bond Head, the late governor of Upper Canada. Howe was signally unimpressed by Sir Francis, who ‘stood for ten minutes without being able to blurt out more than a few sentences, and then sat down looking like the greatest fool I ever saw.’9 The next morning, ‘on returning to his lodgings Haliburton found a card with the name of James Haliburton, with his address.’10 James had read the guest list at the dinner the night before; this was the start of a friendship with James Haliburton that developed into broader contact with the Burton family. James had readopted the Haliburton name even though his family had changed theirs to ‘Burton’ when his father left Scotland for London earlier in the century. A mutual interest in their common Haliburton ancestry brought James and Thomas together; their friendship would last until 1844, when James suddenly disappeared from Thomas’s gallery of English acquaintances. Through James, Thomas met James’s brother, the architect Decimus Burton, and James’s brother-in-law, Edmund Hopkinson of Edgeworth Manor in Gloucestershire (who had married James’s and Decimus’s sister Octavia). They were all part of a large and prosperous family, the children of James Burton, Snr, one of London’s most successful builders.11 The man who left his card at Thomas’s lodgings that morning in June 1838 was a fine example of what Steven Marcus once referred to as the ‘other’ Victorians.12 James Haliburton (1788–1862) was an Egyptologist and had spent much of his life in a world far removed from that of Victorian middle-class respectability. He was one of a group of prominent British Egyptologists that included Robert Hay (1799–1863), Joseph Bonomi (1796–1878), and Sir John Gardiner Wilkinson (1797–1875). Together, these men pioneered British excavations in the Valley of the Kings. As part of this group, James lived for more than a decade in Egypt fortified by bottles of marsala, rum, brandy, and opium and the company of slave girls.13 He returned to London in 1834 at the request of his family, but he found the adjustment emotionally difficult and financially painful. In Cairo he had lived like a Turk, surviving on an allowance from his father; until 1834, he had ignored all appeals to return home. The papers of James Haliburton’s fellow explorer and geologist,

72 A Literary Career

George Greenough, which are kept at University College, London, provide eyewitness accounts of James’s other life: ‘Besides his black slaves before mentioned he has a young Greek purchased by a Scotch renegade by the name of Osman – she was a mere child when she came to him little more than 12 years old, dumpy & not handsome’ wrote Sheffield, another of his fellow Egyptologists.14 At a birthday celebration for one of his friends, Charles Humphrey, ‘B[urton] drank on this occasion till he fell off his chair.’ James kept his girls locked up and allowed no one but himself to approach them: ‘He has a superb French bed with a long looking glass.’ Almost all of his time ‘is spent in coffee, smoking & drinking spirituous mixtures.’ When he began to suffer from opthalmia, lumbago, liver complaints, and a scorbutic infection on his thigh, he turned to opium for relief, ‘to so great a degree’ that his friends feared ‘speedy madness or death.’ He lost weight (‘He is reduced to a mere skeleton’): ‘J. says his life is not worth five years purchase but it shall be a merry one at least while it does last.’ But James Haliburton did not die. He returned to England and completed his book about the Egyptian archaeological sites, which he had painstakingly explored in his moments of sobriety.15 After a life of sensual delights, ‘his divan – his harem’ among them, he now tried to return to a life of middle-class respectability.16 No trace of the previous decade remained on the surface. After Thomas Haliburton’s daughter Susanna visited the Burtons in 1839, she wrote home: ‘Mr James I admire very much. He is one of the most well bred persons I saw & so like Gussy he is decidedly the flower of the flock – They teaze him and call him my papa.’17 After a few weeks of hectic activity, she had not changed her opinion of him. Susanna had not seen as much of the world as her father, but he, too – attracted no doubt by the very respectable appearance of the Burton clan – suspected little of James’s other life. From his own perspective, he had stumbled upon a large family with a highly respectable place in London society. He met James’s sister Jane (1792–1879), married to Thomas Wood; he met Septimus (1794–1842), a solicitor of Lincoln’s Inn Square; he met Octavia (1796–1846) who was married to Edmund Hopkinson (1787–1869); he met the youngest of the sisters, Jessy (1804– 44), who was married to John Peter Fearon (1804–73); and of course, he met Decimus (1800–81) who was already on his way to becoming one of the Victorian age’s finest and most successful architects. Mrs Fearon lived in Regent’s Park; the Woods lived in St Leonard’s-on-Sea with their

The Greatest Lion in London 73

three daughters, Emily, Helen, and Rose; and Octavia lived in Gloucestershire. Haliburton met them all. At first, Haliburton embraced James Haliburton as a long-lost relation. Evidently, he believed he could rely on him, because he asked him to check the proofs of the Letter Bag of the Great Western in 1839 (‘but between ourselves,’ James wrote to his friend Robert Hay, ‘I wish I dared delay the publication’)18 and the third series of The Clockmaker in 1840.19 Soon he was moving in James’s private circle of Egyptologists. The two of them stayed with Robert Hay while on a trip to Scotland in search of their common ancestors.20 They made plans for James to visit Nova Scotia: ‘We proposed going to Canada and the States,’ Haliburton wrote to Robert Parker on 2 July 1839. But James had serious financial problems, which would continue well into the 1840s, and there is no record that he ever made the trip.21 James had returned to England reluctantly. Although he soon set his slaves free, his family never accepted his decision to take an Egyptian as his wife.22 They remained icy toward him for the rest of his life. He lived at first on money borrowed from Robert Hay of Ormiston Hall, East Lothian, one of his Egyptologist friends, to whom he remained indebted for a number of years.23 Susanna’s description of James as a ‘very pleasant sensible man of about forty-eight; a bachelor living on his money’24 was, in reality, wide of the mark. Perhaps her father, too, was deceived at first. As James laboured to produce his one important work, the Excerpta, his expectations in the settlement of his father’s estate never materialized. When James died in 1862, his brother Decimus struck an agreement with James’s wife, Adriana, that if she gave up any claim against his father’s estate, he would allow her £200 a year until she died.25 For the short time that Thomas and James Haliburton were friends, they celebrated their common ancestry. While staying at the home of Edmund Hopkinson on 21 March 1839, they prepared a large, legal-looking document to proclaim the links they believed existed between the two branches of their families.26 This document is now in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. As soon as he perceived the social advantages of doing so, Thomas Haliburton dusted down his ‘ancient Scottish lineage.’27 James Haliburton provided him with much of the documentary evidence he needed to prove that he possessed an ancient and illustrious Scottish ancestry. But when James did not prove socially advantageous enough, Thomas dropped him from his immediate circle.

Chapter 11

Moving in the Best of Circles

While abroad, Haliburton spent time with his Nova Scotian friends, but he also began developing social contacts that they could only admire from afar. At first, he and Joseph Howe toured the continent together. Howe exhausted himself trying to see as much as he could of Belgium, Germany, and France in three or four weeks. Together he and Haliburton visited Antwerp, Brussels, Waterloo, Koblenz (where Haliburton saw his son Tom, Jr), and Paris. The differences in their personalities were accentuated by their reactions to common experiences. In Paris, where their continental journey came to an end, during the celebrations for the Fête nationale, ‘Howe got involved with a group of young men who were seeking to carry off the flags from one burial place to another.’1 He imagined a second revolution and was exhilarated. Haliburton sensed only civic disorder and withdrew. Howe records that he spent a fatiguing day in the company of ‘Mr James Hal. and Humphreys – 16 years in Egypt.’2 He attended the races at Ascot, saw the sights in London, and on one occasion went ‘behind the scenes at Drury [Lane]’ – an event that Haliburton later incorporated into the third series of The Clockmaker (462–71).3 They also toured Scotland and Ireland together. Then Howe returned to Nova Scotia, leaving Haliburton to bask in his new fame. Haliburton enjoyed the acclaim he received, although not all of his new acquaintances found him interesting. In Scotland, he dined with William Chambers, editor of Chambers Edinburgh Journal, and a group of literary men. Chambers found Haliburton’s performance at the dinner table in 1838 so disappointing that he wrote to a friend in Nova Scotia asking if Haliburton had indeed written Sam Slick.4 The response is puzzling, as Haliburton was well known as a bon vivant.5 Perhaps he was

Moving in the Best of Circles

75

beginning to suffer from the wretched toothache that would wrack him incessantly throughout December and January. Regardless, he was invited often to the dinner table of Mrs Frances Trollope, where he met her son, Thomas Adolphus, and her daughter, Cecilia.6 Fourteen-year old Samuel Fales Dunlap (1825–1905), writing to Haliburton Fales (1815–69) in February 1839, heard that ‘cousin Tom Halliburton has been to the family seat of Sir Walter Scott in Scotland and in looking over Sir Walter Scott’s papers has found that the letter he wrote to our great great &c grandfather was written on purpose to deceive him, representing himself as the true heir of our branch. He has cheated us out of our burial place, which he had set apart for himself and his heirs. Tom intends having fifty copies of the Haliburton pedigree struck off one of which will be sent to us.’7 So began the resentment of the Haliburton family toward Sir Walter Scott – a grievance that was still alive fifty years later when Thomas Haliburton’s youngest son, Robert Grant, visited Scotland in the 1880s.8 The nub of the grievance was Sir Walter’s decision to have himself buried in the Haliburton family vault in the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey on the banks of the Tweed as the last of the Haliburtons, claiming consanguinity through his grandmother. In Scotland, questions of ancestry preoccupied Haliburton. James Haliburton, his guide through the backroads of the Jedburgh Hills, sprained his ankle while unveiling the mysteries of the ancient Haliburton lineage to his new friend.9 They parted company on the 21 September. On the 12 October, Fairbanks wrote in his journal: ‘He [Thomas Haliburton] is delighted with his visit to Scotland and Ireland, and the introduction his book has given him. Certainly he has been most fortunate in so easily placing him[self] among the foremost English writers.’10 In September, an advertisement in the London Standard announced the publication of the first and second series of the The Clockmaker in one volume at a price of 10s/6d.11 In a memorandum with Richard Bentley signed on 23 August 1838, Haliburton had agreed to furnish regular assignment of copyright (colonial rights excepted) for the second series.12 The evidence of his bank account at Coutts & Co. on The Strand confirms that Bentley paid £300 ‘at 3 and 6 months after the date of the agreement.’13 Haliburton’s income during his stay amounted to £1176; his expenditures between 14 August 1838 and 19 March 1839 amounted to £800.14 Charles Fairbanks knew that Haliburton had sold the rights for The Clockmaker to Richard Bentley for a ‘handsome sum,’ and he noted that the writer was in ‘high spirits,’ commanding more money than Captain Marryat.

76 A Literary Career

On 22 October 1838, the London Standard announced a second, illustrated edition in two volumes of The Clockmaker. The illustrations were provided by Auguste Hervieu, Mrs Trollope’s live-in gentleman friend. Although much reprinted, they never caught the imagination of later generations. Haliburton was in demand socially, and he gratified his admirers by sitting for a portrait by Eden Upton Eddis (1812–1901).15 A puff appeared in the Times of 12 January 1839: ‘The features of the learned judge are good; shrewd observation and keen judgement are denoted, and a smile sufficiently caustic, yet tempered with good humour, gives animation to the whole.’16 The lithograph by M. Gauci based on Eddis’s sketch of Haliburton is one of the most frequently reprinted likenesses of him. Towards the end of the year, Charles Fairbanks commented in his journal: ‘Haliburton has made agreement with Bentley for a volume on Canada to be prepared immediately – is to receive a very handsome price for it – he will commence on his return from Gloucester whither he goes on Tuesday.’17 At the peak of his social success, Haliburton had suddenly committed himself to writing The Bubbles of Canada, which Bentley published on 9 January 1839.18 To finish this work, Haliburton had shut himself in his rooms. In this hastily written book, he was purporting to explain the politics of Canada to his English friends. He had written about ‘Canadian Politics’ in the second series of The Clockmaker, in which he made very clear his abhorrence of any and all tampering with the social order. The recent rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada were a sign that society stood on the brink of civil war.19 It seems to have bothered him that his friend James Haliburton knew very little about the Canadas: ‘Indeed, when you told me at Melrose that you had been in Egypt during nearly the whole period of these Canadian disputes, and therefore wished to have a history of them, I had not the slightest idea that in undertaking to give you one, I was going to write a book’ (Bubbles of Canada, 5–6). Curiously, even though Bentley advertised Bubbles of Canada as being by the author of Sam Slick, Haliburton did not wish to acknowledge its authorship publicly. This book had been a miscalculation at several levels. Haliburton was speaking in his own voice to British conservatives with the goal of enlightening them as to the real state of affairs in British North America. He thought he would be able to steal the thunder from the impending Durham Report. Bubbles was Haliburton’s own account of the origins and progress of the turmoil in Lower Canada, so when Lord Durham finally delivered his report on 12 February 1839, Haliburton felt

Moving in the Best of Circles

77

compelled to address seven vituperative letters to the Times, signing them ‘A Colonist.’20 The letters were eventually published as a pamphlet under the title A Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham (1839). Both the book and the pamphlet expressed Haliburton’s deep conservative prejudice. Ten years later this molten prejudice had solidified; he recycled large chunks of his 1839 book in Rule and Misrule of the English in America (1851), his account of the early history of government in America. Before leaving Nova Scotia for what was to be an important year of his life abroad, Haliburton had penned the second series of The Clockmaker. In it he revealed more of himself than he perhaps intended: ‘It’s a better book than t’other one; it aint just altogether so local, and it goes a little grain deeper into things’ (432).21 He wrote it during the winter of 1837–8, giving in to his compulsion to comment as a colonial conservative on the issues that disturbed him. One of those issues was slavery. Anthologists in the present day are hard pressed to find a passage of The Clockmaker that will not offend our sensibilities. This is not simply a case of unfairly censuring the values of the past. Haliburton alludes to the ‘nigger’ whenever he wants to remind Nova Scotians of how low they have fallen. ‘We keep niggers,’ Slick says, ‘for jobs that would give the white man the cholera’ (25). Haliburton’s racism reverberates through his work. He tells us in no uncertain terms that the presence of Blacks in Nova Scotia is unwelcome: ‘Did you see that are niggar, said he, that removed the Oyster shells? Well, he’s one of our Chesapickers, one of General Cuffy’s slaves. I wish Admiral Cockburn had taken them all off our hands at the same rate. We made a pretty good sale of em are black cattle, I guess to the British; I wish we were well rid of them all’ (55). Every offensive Black stereotype of the age finds its way into The Clockmaker.22 The juxtaposition of ‘bluenoses’ and ‘niggers’ is intended to shock his readers: ‘Do you know the reason why monkeys are no good? Because they chatter all day long – so do the niggers – and so do the blue-noses of Nova Scotia – it is all talk and no work’ (19). Haliburton enjoyed setting up collisions of extremes. It is a fundamental premise of his work, which we encountered as early as the meeting of the vulgar Yankee clock peddler Sam Slick with the gentlemanly colonial Squire. Two good examples from the second series are ‘English Aristocracy and Yankee Mobocracy’ (chapter 14) and ‘The Schoolmaster Abroad’ (chapter 19). In the first, a veteran of the American Revolution (Sam’s father) rallies to his country’s flag and vows to die for his country’s freedom, while the Reverend Joshua Hopewell, the voice of the old American colonist loyal to Britain, who

78 A Literary Career

laments the loss of a monarch and the ‘great, harmonious, beautiful, social and political machine, the British constitution’ (341), expresses some of Haliburton’s deeper conservative concerns about the rising tide of equality and democracy (344). Our reaction as readers to the ninetyfive-year old Reverend Hopewell often resembles that of Sam’s father, who leaps up, sword in hand, and is only restrained from running him through only by the sight of his ‘cloth’ (346). In ‘The Schoolmaster Abroad,’ the pessimistic schoolmaster and the optimistic Sam Slick represent two sides of Haliburton. The schoolmaster voices the author’s increasingly despairing vision of life in Nova Scotia. Haliburton would come to describe Nova Scotia as a ‘dead sea’: ‘I have nothing and see nothing in this damned country.’23 The inebriated English schoolmaster abroad captures Haliburton’s growing personal sense of bitterness and disillusionment regarding life in Nova Scotia. Slick responds by listing all the aspects of Nova Scotia that Haliburton had celebrated in the Historical and Statistical Account. He even extols the marvels of gypsum (‘it has done more for us than steam’), describing that mineral as ‘the magic wand’ and the ‘philosopher’s stone’ (393). The schoolmaster’s arguments are the ones that Haliburton increasingly embraced: ‘What little they have here, sir, are secondhand airs copied from poor models that necessity forces out here. It is the farce of high life below stairs, sir, played in a poor theatre to a provincial audience’ (396). Though the tone had darkened considerably, Haliburton was echoing the disillusionment of ten years earlier. His racism did not harm his popularity in Victorian England. He felt encouraged by that popularity to search, while in England, for any new job opportunities that might suit him. In February 1839, for example, he applied to Lord Glenelg for the vacant position of the Registrar of Hackney Coaches in London, but it had already been given away.24 Even before leaving Nova Scotia, he had sensed that the prospects of finding something in England might not be good: ‘Tho the attempt is worth making, and [I] shall probably come back as I went, with no other advantage than allowing time for my vexation to subside, arranging some matters for my dear boy, and perhaps make an engagement with some publisher for writing occasionally.’25 His twelve months in England, from April 1838 to May 1839, were in many ways very pleasant for Haliburton. He met new people and visited new places, and with any luck he might well have created a new life there for himself. The excitement of the year away from home had rejuvenated him. ‘I actually feel younger,’ he boasted to Robert Parker in July 1839 upon his return.26

Moving in the Best of Circles

79

After Richard Bentley obtained the rights to both the first and second series, he promptly brought out a combined edition. For this he paid Haliburton handsomely, compensating him somewhat for the loss he had sustained on the first series.27 Haliburton saw this as his just desserts: ‘It has made more people hear of Nova Scotia than ever heerd tell of it afore by a long chalk’ (433). Haliburton moved in the very best of gentlemanly circles, which included Decimus Burton, the architect, and George Bellas Greenough (1778–1855), the geologist and geographer. Greenough’s diaries refer often to Haliburton’s presence in his house at dinner parties.28 Decimus had designed Greenough’s home, Grove House, as the second villa in an impressive Regent’s Park development. Grove House stood on three acres of magnificent garden adjoining the Regent’s Canal. Haliburton dined with Henry Fearon and his wife on 24 January 1839 (Jessy Fearon was Decimus’s sister), and visited St Leonard’s-on-Sea on 26 January, where he stayed for five days, returning by chaise to London with Greenough and Decimus Burton the day after the publication of the fourth edition of The Clockmaker. On 16 March, Haliburton received an invitation to visit Edmund Hopkinson, Decimus’s and James’s brother-inlaw, at Edgeworth, a small Gloucestershire village not far from Cirencester. He travelled there by railway and the Stroud coach. Edgeworth is still an impressive manor house, and the surrounding area is one of the most beautiful in England. Hopkinson, moreover, lived the life of an English squire, the kind of life that Haliburton and other cultivated gentlemen in North America longed to emulate. Haliburton renewed his friendship with Hopkinson in 1843 and 1853 and again after 1856. In early March, toward the end of his visit, he received an invitation to spend the weekend with John Wilson Croker, one of the founders of the Quarterly Review, and co-founder with Decimus of the Athenaeum Club. Haliburton and Croker liked each other. Just as Haliburton was about to board the Great Western at Bristol, Croker had a proofed copy of his own dissection of the Durham Report delivered to him. On his return to Nova Scotia, Haliburton wrote an effusive letter of thanks to Croker.29 He returned Croker’s kindness the following July by having Susanna Haliburton take with her to England, as a gift to Croker, a pamphlet written by Judge Chipman of New Brunswick on the subject of the Northeast Boundary Dispute. This dispute between the United States and Great Britain concerning the Maine–New Brunswick boundary was settled in 1842 with the Webster–Ashburton Treaty. Haliburton completed his travels with a return voyage on the Great Western, along with 108 passengers. This was one of the earliest transat-

80 A Literary Career

lantic steamers and was making only its seventh voyage across the Atlantic. Haliburton’s celebrity earned him a special mention in the Bristol Mirror: ‘Judge Hallyburton ... is confessedly one of the wittiest and wisest of judges, and he is a sound hearted and clear headed Conservative, the Tories of this city will no doubt regret that they could not, during his brief stay, render him the honours due to so powerful an advocate of Conservatism.’30 Several stokers were too drunk to take on board, and this delayed the ship’s departure until near 11 p.m. Three new engine crew were quickly broken in as the Great Western did a ‘round turn’ in Kingroad. Eleven hours later, the ship was steaming four leagues west of Lundy directly into what Haliburton later described as a hurricane, with a crew of one hundred, and a letter bag that amazed the public.31 A revolution in transatlantic travel was just dawning.32 The experience of sea travel, although it never troubled Haliburton, pushed even the best sea legs to the limit.33 Judging from the number of passengers who vomit in the book Haliburton was about to write – The Letter Bag of the Great Western; or, Life in a Steamer (1840) – the voyage must have been agony for all but the most seasoned sailors.

Chapter 12

Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham

Haliburton returned to Nova Scotia having left a lasting political legacy behind him in the shape of the two works he published in London: Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham. Together, they strongly affected how his fellow Nova Scotians perceived him. Georgianna Haliburton commented that although Haliburton was reluctant to write Bubbles of Canada, ‘eight hand carts of assorted documents were brought to his Lodgings in Picadilly.’1 In a matter of several weeks, he had reduced these eight handcarts to 325 pages of text, demonstrating considerable determination in the face of so many dinner invitations. As he explained in the preface, he had neither ‘the time nor the materials’ to do the job properly. Even the ‘small portion of time I have been able to devote to it, out of a hasty visit to London, has been subject to constant interruptions.’ He structured the book as a series of letters addressed to James Haliburton. Why he thought James would be interested in reading them is an open question. A primer on Lower Canadian politics was not typical reading for an Egyptologist. The Knickerbocker suggested that the light-sounding title was a ‘gross deception,’ as was the use of Sam Slick’s name to accompany it.2 The North American Review made note of ‘the heavy emptiness of Mr. Justice Haliburton’s “Bubbles”’ and accused him of stealing the title from Sir Francis Bond Head’s book, Bubbles of the Brunnens of Nassau.3 Even before its publication, Lewis Bliss was writing to his brother Henry: ‘The Bubbles of Canada is not a good name whatever the book may be.’4 Georgianna Haliburton maintained that ‘it was a popular title and caused the pamphlet to be widely read.’5 Richard Bentley, too, must have thought that a book like Bubbles would sell well, especially as it came from the pen of his latest find as an author.

82 A Literary Career

But Haliburton experienced more exasperation than satisfaction in the writing of it: ‘For gods sake stir up those fellows with a long pole, for it keeps me a prisoner here – Did Lockhart [Bentley’s manager] get the last pages? a man that drives so damned hard as Cox [the printer], is apt to drop some of his luggage on the road, from behind –.’6 Even his toothache found its way into the book: ‘If ever you had the misfortune to have had the tooth-ache, you have doubtless found that every one of your friends had an infallible remedy, each of which eventually proved, upon trial, to be nothing more than a palliative, a nostrum that soothed the anguish for a time, by conciliating the nerve; but that the pain returned, with every change of atmosphere, with increased power, while the sedative application became less and less efficacious the oftener it was repeated’ (Bubbles, 6). The Monthly Review called Bubbles ‘below mediocrity,’ and the Spectator criticized it severely for its lack of workmanship, describing it as ‘a dull party pamphlet in the shape of a volume.’7 Although it was universally criticized, Bentley was able to issue a second edition almost immediately.8 People bought the book even though it contained little that a reader could enjoy. What, they found instead were earnest and dogmatic reflections on the politics of Canada written in a verbose and stumbling style. As ‘an obscure provincial author’ and an admirer of the British constitution, Haliburton felt that he spoke authoritatively. He could not believe that Lord Durham – a mere tourist in his eyes – would have anything significant to say after only a brief visit to North America. Notwithstanding this, the Durham Report trumped Bubbles, leaving Haliburton no option but to fulminate publicly in the newspapers. Even though Ged Martin argues in his book The Durham Report and British Policy that ‘it would be still going beyond the evidence’ to say that Lord Durham’s report prepared the ground for the political evolution of the British colonies, it is Haliburton’s conservative riposte, rather than Durham’s Report, that has vanished down the gutter of time.9 Haliburton’s language in Bubbles was intolerant, prejudiced, and arrogant. He advocated a dental approach to the politics of Upper and Lower Canada: ‘forcible extraction.’ He was abusive toward French-speaking Canadians: ‘You cannot grant constitutional government to a populace that is negligent, indolent, dissipated and superstitious’ (50–1). He declared that the people of Lower Canada were not ‘sufficiently intelligent to receive the institutions of a free and enlightened people’ (48). In his view, the British Parliament had no choice but to uphold its right to exercise its supreme authority (a thing ‘no unprejudiced and right-

Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham 83

thinking man can doubt’; 300): ‘A colony is a dependent province, and Great Britain is an independent metropolitan state. The controlling power must obviously be greater than the power controlled’ (300). Haliburton agreed with ‘that great man’ Edmund Burke that when a revolution threatened, imperial power should be wielded (304). The British Parliament’s repeated attempts at conciliation angered him: ‘It is the fashion in this country to call every change reform, the exercise of every acknowledged right, an abuse, and every salutary restraint a grievance. In the colonies we have long looked to Great Britain as our model, and we have imported this fashion from her, as well as many other modern innovations’ (90). He ends the book by contending that if Britain were to withdraw its forces, like the Roman legions, from the distant parts of her empire, it would mean that England ‘conscious of her present weakness and past glories, is contracting her limits and concentrating her energies, to meet, as becomes her character, the destiny that awaits all human greatness’ (331–2). In a final, sarcastic footnote, he argues that they were wrong who maintained that Britain became richer as it contracted. Clearly, Haliburton believed the opposite. After Bubbles was published on 9 January 1839, the Times (who found it all ‘dry facts and dates’)10 summarized it, as a tribute to its tedium, in three long articles on 30 and 31 January and 1 February: ‘more than the Durham Report was to receive,’ notes Ged Martin.11 The Times then published the Durham Report, a sizeable document, on 8, 9, and 11 February, in its entirety, but beginning with the conclusion. On 11 February that report was tabled in the House of Lords, and, on 12 February it was published ‘by authority,’ along with several hundred pages of correspondence. The Times printed selections of the correspondence. Both Bubbles of Canada and the Durham Report garnered considerable publicity, but in the opening weeks of February all eyes were on the latter, and Haliburton was forced to reload for another shot across the bow of reform. Henry Bliss, ever alert to the activities of his old school friend, heard the next volley: ‘Haliburton’s letters signed Colonist are the best of his productions, to my taste – though written with little of either the delicacy of a scholar or the spirit of a gentleman. Snobbish – both in literature and manners.’12 However much Lewis tried to boost his brother Henry’s ‘pamphlet,’ An Essay on the Re-Construction of Her Majesty’s Government in Canada (‘There is more in yr. pamphlet of merit than in all the Clockmakers & Bubbles’),13 it was Haliburton who had become famous and successful. In the words of an anonymous commentator calling himself

84 A Literary Career

‘Sam Slick, Jnr.,’ The Clockmaker was ‘blown ski hi, and talked all over the old country.’14 Lewis Bliss tried to express his admiration for Haliburton in such a way that Henry would not feel too depressed: ‘Miss Thomas, the present Mrs Lewis Wilkins, now in town, was a poor looking girl and thought very little of when young – yet she became the prettiest in the province & what would be called pretty in the streets of London – So Tom Haliburton was long despised as to talents and laughed at for his first attempts at poetry – yet I shall not be surprised if some day even you find something to commend in him.’15 For Henry, who was inordinately fond of prostitutes, the analogy must have struck home. Unlike Henry, William criticized the letters to the Times: ‘I don’t much like the Colonists letter to Ld Durham,’ he wrote on 15 April 1839, ‘intemperate enough – he had [rather?] had laughed more good humouredly at the Report – but it deserves I must say all that it has got – wild visionary impracticable ... The report was the act of a theoretical visionary – the publication of a mischievous madman.’16 Haliburton’s own judgment on Durham was very similar: ‘It is the production of a theorist, and not a practical man’ (8). Why go to Canada to produce the report, Haliburton had asked? It ‘might have been compiled in England from public documents, and by a person who had never visited the Colonies at all’ (8). If a stranger can provide the world with his views on the colonies, there should be no objection when a ‘Colonist’ exercises a ‘similar privilege.’ The tone of his newspaper letters is strongly sarcastic and occasionally haughty, reflecting Haliburton’s dislike of what Durham represented (‘Your Lordship is an advocate of popular rights,’ 5). Civilized discourse had become, said Haliburton, ‘accustomed to hear constituted authorities treated with disrespect’ (6). According to Ged Martin, Durham returned from Canada, wrote a report that few read, and virtually disappeared from the political stage. 17 He had failed in a monumentally difficult mission. Yet Haliburton succeeded in arousing himself into a considerable passion over it. When it came to matters of disrespect for duly constituted authority, Haliburton was a hanging judge. The sections of Durham’s report referring to Nova Scotia caused Haliburton acute distress. As the author of two books puffing the province to the outside world, he felt especially qualified to refute Durham’s description of Nova Scotia as a province filled with abandoned houses (44). Haliburton felt that his own status as a gentleman had been impugned. He insisted in no uncertain terms that Durham was wrong: Nova Scotia did possess a landed class. Haliburton also contested Durham’s praise of the United States as a

Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham 85

tranquil society full of blessings denied to colonists. He listed the many social and political problems in the United States that could not possibly arouse envy. Throughout his attack on Durham, Haliburton alluded to the aristocratic identity of his antagonist: ‘I am a plain man, with all the rusticity of a colonist about me; and if my language is not courtly, you must attribute it to a provincial education’ (48). Durham, he said, was being misled by the radicals who had elected him their leader. Durham didn’t understand, he argued in the fifth letter, the differences between the colonies and the home country. Haliburton, who knew first-hand how local government worked in the colonies, found Durham’s schemes ‘unintelligible’ (58). He called for an end to ‘hallucinations’ and for a return to practical business, and he advised cauterizing the wound, not medicating the entire family in order to heal one member. Haliburton’s style in the Reply was as wordy as in Bubbles. Thus ‘misery loves company’ becomes ‘a great observer of human nature has informed us, that misery derives consolation from having associates in the same unhappy condition with itself’ (75). He often verbally overreaches: ‘Here again is disclosed one of those recondite discoveries that was to astonish mankind, and the parturition of the mountain has rewarded us with this secret in return for the anxious attendance upon it ensuring a trying and protracted period of gestation’ (77). He struck a highly pompous and abstract tone throughout. The untidy hodgepodge of prejudiced politics in Bubbles of Canada and the vehemence of the Reply laid bare the humourless conservative bedrock beneath the surface of Sam Slick’s wit. The deeply conservative vision of these works threatened to extinguish Haliburton’s newly won fame. When he returned to Nova Scotia, it was in triumph. But as Jonathan Swift once said, happiness is the state of being well deceived.18 In disembarking from the Great Western in April 1839, he was returning to an uncertain future as an Inferior Court Judge, having failed to secure a patronage appointment in the old country. However, he had established contacts with Britain’s leading literati and had mixed easily and happily with the Burtons, who had opened their doors to him. He made plans immediately to send his oldest daughter to consolidate the new family alliance. He did not know that while he was away, his political views as expressed in Bubbles and in the seven letters to the Times had brought a torrent of abuse down on his head in the Acadian Recorder. Two writers, one signing himself ‘Also a Colonist’ and the other ‘Peter Pindar,’ began to attack him openly. One claimed that he had knelt before ‘the idol of conserva-

86 A Literary Career

tism’ and become a ‘devotee at its sanguinary shrine.’ The other declared that he had ‘stigmatised and defamed the people of these colonies.’ Along with many others, these two critics were disgusted that Haliburton now viewed the world through conservative spectacles.19 On 4 June 1839, a month after his return, while his reputation was being attacked repeatedly in the Acadian Recorder, Haliburton’s friends honoured his international celebrity by holding a dinner for him.20 This occasion could not conceal the underlying uneasiness among his fellow Nova Scotians at the overt political nature of his recent writing. The event was held at the Mason Hall, Halifax. His friends were aware of the sudden downturn in his public reputation, and they tried to avoid controversy by playing up Haliburton’s past reputation as the patriotic historian of Nova Scotia. The Honourable J.B. Uniacke, an old schoolmate, chaired the proceedings and tried to steer the evening into calmer waters, without complete success. Haliburton’s friends did their best to help Uniacke. According to the account that appeared in the Novascotian, the band of the Fusiliers played a variety of ‘exquisite airs’ and contributed ‘vocal music’ as 110 gentlemen of ‘all shades of political sentiment’ sat down to dinner at seven p.m. The tables were ‘tastefully decorated with flags and transparencies belonging to the various Societies in the Town.’21 The guest list read like a Who’s Who of Halifax society. Uniacke was supported by James McNab, the lieutenant-governor, Sir Colin Campbell, Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Harvey, the Honourable Mr Villiers, the Honourable Chief Justice Brenton Halliburton, and many naval and military officers, among whom sat Captain Provo Wallis, who, when a lieutenant, had brought the Shannon into port in June 1813 after his captain had been fatally wounded. Haliburton wrote about his memories of that day at great length a year before his death.22 Wallis was a local hero, and his presence distracted attention from Haliburton himself. James Boyle Uniacke talked about ‘the days of our boyhood, ere experience of the world had clouded the warm friendships of youth – when side by side we pored o’er the classic page, drank deep at the Castalian fount; or, listless truants, loitered in the Academic grove.’23 His was a valiant effort to smooth the feathers that Haliburton’s satire had ruffled among his fellow Nova Scotians: ‘Though the censure might be severe, and the sarcasm cutting, yet the motive was so pure that we forgave; and, like the Sandal tree, shed perfume on the axe that wounded it.’ This was smooth talk indeed. Haliburton responded by speaking at length about his Historical and

Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham 87

Statistical Account (1829) and the need it had met. He had produced it, he said, while holding down ‘an arduous and extensive professional practice’ and fulfilling his obligations in the legislature. In the audience he noticed Mr Hartshorne, who had been one of the legislative members present at the public vote of thanks to him in the assembly. Even though they had occupied opposite ends of the political spectrum, he had been gratified at the legislative tribute. Haliburton reflected that night on the way his life had changed after the publication of the Historical and Statistical Account. ‘I retired into private life,’ he said, but he had made good use of his leisure: It occurred to me that it would be adviseable to resort to a more popular style, and, under the garb of amusement, to call attention to our noble harbors, our great mineral wealth, our fertile soil, our healthy climate, our abundant fisheries, and other natural advantages and resources, arising from our relative position to the Saint Lawrence, the West Indies, and the United States, and resulting from the circumstances of this country being the nearest point of the American continent to Europe.

The audience loudly cheered Haliburton’s claim that he had used The Clockmaker to continue his support of the province. They also accepted his astonishing claim that he had written it ‘neither as Tory, a Whig, or a Radical, but as a Nova Scotian (Continued Cheering).’ By his own admission, the success of The Clockmaker had exceeded all his expectations: ‘It has been reprinted in the States, and republished in Jersey, numerous editions have been put forth in England, and it has appeared in a new dress at Paris and other places.’ His public stance that night exuded the pride he felt in having presented unknown Nova Scotia to the outside world. In the middle of the speech, fearing that he was becoming too personal, he sat down despite the appeals of his audience that he continue. Toasts followed from the Garrison of Halifax, the Bishop of Nova Scotia (whose predecessor Haliburton had irritated over the split in the St Paul’s congregation some fifteen years earlier), and the Chief Justice, Brenton Halliburton, a member of the infamous Council of Twelve that Haliburton had scourged in 1828. ‘I have known him from his earliest years, and am delighted to see him where he is,’ said Halliburton, who then quickly changed the subject to Captain Wallis. The Chief Justice, though he could not agree in ‘political sentiment’ with the historian of Nova Scotia, nevertheless praised him for his achievement in ‘the broad

88 A Literary Career

fields of literature.’ He concluded with a toast to the military and naval annals of Nova Scotia represented by Provo Wallis, who felt obliged to reply. The seizing of the Chesapeake by the Shannon on 1 June 1813 had a special place in the psyche of a whole generation of Nova Scotians. Wallis was, inadvertently, just as much the man of the hour as Haliburton. He reminded those present of the brotherhood of the colonial gentleman. ‘Many in England, indeed, believed that its inhabitants were black,’ he said, complimenting Haliburton on enlightening them. The celebrations lasted until a late hour. The reporter for the Novascotian took down every word (except those of Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Harvey, who spoke so softly that he could not be heard). Toasts to the poets, sculptors, painters, and musicians of Great Britain followed, as well as to the historians of the world (the British world) who taught ‘Britons ... to value their rights.’ The chairman then rose to toast Sam Slick, who had taught Nova Scotians all they needed to know about time: ‘His shrewd and cute observations on men and manners have rendered him popular throughout Europe and America.’ After such praise and so many toasts, Haliburton rose to speak again. The mood of the assembly was now much more congenial. Speaking in the absence of Mr Slick, Haliburton announced a third series to much cheering. He had advocated steam navigation although people had attacked his motives, claiming that he wanted the contract himself. Haliburton denied it. Slick lacked the money to make such investments himself. Slick also advocated a railway from Windsor to Halifax (‘a hobby of mine’): ‘The same people say he only advocates it to speculate in the shares. This is most unkind.’ Clearly alluding to the torrent of abuse that had been poured on his head by the Acadian Recorder, Haliburton argued that it was a sure sign that Slick was getting ahead: ‘Curs never bark at a horse that is standing still tied to a fence.’ The only other speech of note was by Joseph Howe, who rose to acknowledge the honour proposed to the ‘Press.’ A letter in the Halifax Times signed by ‘A Conservative’ later accused Howe of cutting his seniors in the press corps to make the toast to Haliburton. In the next edition of his paper, Howe appealed to the chair, Uniacke, to set the record straight: ‘I heard some gentlemen your Seniors named, but none rising to return thanks, you did so; and, I am sure, in a manner satisfactory to all who heard you.’24 Howe recalled his recent travels in England and Europe, which furnished him with images of a free press, such as the sight of a man the day after the coronation wandering through The Strand with a placard on his back, sponsored by a newspaper, citing the

Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham 89

coronation as an abomination and a blasphemy. In Halifax he would have been thrown into the Queen’s dock, but in London he walked unmolested. Howe’s public praise for Haliburton contrasts with his private anger a year later, which he would express in a series of vitriolic letters (copied into his letter book), concerning his experience as publisher of the Historical and Statistical Account. At the dinner, Howe heaped only praise on Haliburton, who had alluded to Howe’s personal financial loss with the Historical and Statistical Account. Howe affirmed that it ‘was one he never regretted – it was one that gentleman had seized every opportunity to repair; and he was bound to add, that every transaction which they had had in a long series of years – though they had differed, and still differed on many points of politics, had been highly honorable to him, and had only cemented the personal friendship which early connections had formed.’25 Despite the many attempts to genuflect toward him as the revered historian of Nova Scotia, Haliburton’s recent pronouncements rendered all his declarations of political neutrality hypocritical. The letter to the Halifax Times referred to those present being required to take an oath not to allude to anything political. A barefaced lie, retorted Howe. Howe took almost a column in his newspaper to deny all such charges. The evening ended for Haliburton at 1:30 a.m., although many stayed on in the hall until the early hours of the morning. The effort by his Nova Scotian friends to raise him above local politics had failed. Bubbles of Canada and the Reply had opened his politics to the world’s inspection. His work was already being perceived as a political liability, even by his closest friends.

Chapter 13

Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western

Haliburton had returned home from England with a new perspective on the world. He had tasted fame and broadened his horizons considerably. His exhilarating experiences abroad deeply affected life at Clifton. Life there that summer buzzed with activity. On 24 June 1839, Haliburton informed Robert Parker that his twenty-four-year-old cousin, Haliburton Fales (1815–69), had arrived in Windsor for a visit.1 Haliburton Fales’s father, Samuel Fales, began his career as a shopkeeper and in time became president of the First National Bank in Boston. After his death he passed a handsome fortune on to his children. Haliburton Fales made the most of his wealth, touring the world as much as he could, keeping scrapbooks, and often sending back accounts of his travels to the Boston papers.2 On this occasion, he sent the latest gossip to his mother, Haliburton’s Aunt Abigail. Life in Windsor, he said, was surprisingly full: ‘I have dined out every day since I have been here & are today to dine with Mrs Mackay.’3 Susanna Haliburton, now twenty-two, intended to sail for England to visit for a year ‘with our new relations; & then she is going to make us a visit. I am trying to persuade Cousin Tom to let Augusta go up with me but am afraid I shall not succeed.’ Thomas himself talked of slipping away to Boston for a few days in the fall ‘just to see you all.’ But he never did slip down to Boston that year. Instead, he sent his daughter Augusta (at Haliburton Fales’s request). At the same time, Susanna travelled to England. Haliburton recognized the moment as ‘the first dispersion of the flock, one of those epochs in a man’s life that makes him feel old,’ but there was more to it than this: the ‘dispersion’ represented the contradictory pull of two strong but very different family influences.4 After the death that fall of his favourite Aunt Abigail, Haliburton’s interest in the Boston branch of the family diminished markedly.

Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western 91

Haliburton told Robert Parker that a busy summer lay ahead. He doubted if he would even have time to slip over to New Brunswick to visit him.5 Still basking in the glow of the contacts he had made in England, Haliburton redoubled his literary activities. He began to write the year round; he told Robert Parker that since his voyage to England, he felt ‘younger.’ He swallowed his anger and disappointment at being publicly betrayed by his old schoolmate, William Bliss. The two families continued to interact as usual.6 Susanna travelled to England in the company of Elizabeth Bliss, William’s daughter, who was being sent to school in Scotland. Haliburton quipped that she would soon be speaking a mixture of Scots and Yankee, ‘neither desirable as a compound, or as separate appendages.’7 On 22 October 1839, Louisa wrote to Augusta in Boston with the latest family news. Few clearer windows exist onto the Haliburtons’ life in Windsor in the late 1830s. Louisa claimed to have little to report of any significance; even so, she managed a long catalogue of gossip for Augusta regarding plays and concerts, births and deaths, the natural cycle of life in a small town. Inside Clifton, the rounds of educational activities for the Haliburton children continued unabated: ‘I think you need not get any German books as we have so many –.’8 Louisa demonstrated her motherly concern for her daughter’s musical education: ‘With regard to masters, as there is a piano in the house, I should like you to take lessons in music if it would not annoy Mrs Fales – I suppose the same master could teach singing also which you must try if they think you have any voice at all which at present is uncertain, as you have never tried yet.’ And again, she added: ‘Your Father intends having a Governess as tutor in the family next Spring to teach languages and other branches required, so that he thinks you had not take lessons in anything but music while in Boston, but just amuse yourself, take exercise, and endeavor to get well & strong -–and to do your best to please and make yourself useful to your dear Aunt, by reading to her, and amusing her in any way you can.’ Meanwhile, she cautioned Augusta to ‘spend as little money as you help my dear Augusta this is a very expensive year to us ... PS. Your Father will write about money.’ News had been received from the relations in England who were entertaining Susanna, and Louisa relayed it to Augusta in Boston: ‘We have letters from Decimus – James – Mrs Hopkinson & Mrs Wood, the last addressed to me – What nice kind people they are.’ Susanna had been to St Leonard’s, Southampton, and Regent’s Park (to stay with the Fearons). The good fortune of the Windsor family in discovering new relations in England must have been apparent to the Fales family as they

92 A Literary Career

read the long extracts Louisa had copied from Susanna’s letter. Susanna reported that she had attended the opera and had been complimented her on her manners: ‘They all say my manners surprise them, and constantly exclaim, “I think that I am talking to a person who has passed her life in the most polished circles” – they make me feel very foolish by saying where did you ever get those Lady-like manners.’ She dined each night with a different group of guests, danced afterwards, attended parties, visited the Hopkinsons at Edgeworth, and trod the same social paths that her father had walked just months earlier. For a young woman who had been sent to England to regain her health, she kept a busy schedule. ‘I am better but weak,’ she managed to say. She talked German with Decimus, found that all her dresses were in fashion, and constantly expressed amazement at the sheer number of Burton family members. As her favourite, she chose James Haliburton, the reformed rake (of his past and present sexual peccadilloes Susanna had not a clue). Invitations poured in from each branch of the family, and Susanna compared all of those whom she met with all of those that she had left behind in Windsor: ‘Jesse’s manners are like Mrs Gregors & Mrs Burton looks like Mrs Dalton and is remarkably Lady like – I like her amazingly – all the children have taken wonderfully to me, indeed they are nice little things one & all ... Rose looks like pa – Helen like Mrs Almon and Mrs John Ritchie and Emily like Sally Wilkins in manners.’ Their kindness overwhelmed her. She even encountered potential suitors: ‘I have always had the best partners where I danced, and the pleasantest escort at all the Picnics ... Major Bloomfield was so in raptures with my Waltzs that I had to play them every evening to him.’ In the fullness of time, the Yankee cousins, exposed to such enthusiasm, began to sense a real change in outlook: ‘Perhaps our cousins would feel disposed to make amends for some faults of last year, & show you a prodigious deal of attention,’ George Halliburton gossiped to his cousin Augusta Dunlap two years later. 9 Louisa ended her newsy letter by saying that Susan’s father had just finished the Letter Bag of the Great Western, although not in time for the October packet.10 Louisa explained in her reply to Mrs Wood on 25 November: ‘I think the subject a difficult one but Haliburton has treated it with his usual humour and tact, and I hope it will be well received.’11 Most of Haliburton’s books lacked tact, but none more than the Letter Bag of the Great Western. Few readers have ever found any sign of circumspection in the Letter Bag. According to her daughters, Louisa herself, deplored the nasty jokes that peppered her husband’s books.12 The talk that summer was of James Haliburton’s visit to Nova Scotia.

Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western 93

But by November, as Louisa implied, there was considerable uncertainty as to whether he would make the trip.13 The plan had been to take James to Niagara, but there is no evidence he ever came. Thomas Haliburton’s relationship with the man who had introduced him to the bountiful kindness of the Burton family was fading, slowly but surely, into oblivion. Yet Decimus, James’s brother, and Edmund Hopkinson, his brother-in-law, would remain Haliburton’s firm friends for the rest of his life. An 1855 letter from a James Knox to Alexander Fowden Haliburton (Haliburton’s future son-in-law), apparently considered important enough to keep, survives in the Wilson Collection at Acadia University.14 Alexander had sent Knox one of his marriage cards, and Knox had written back to compliment him on having crossed the Atlantic in search of his ‘bonie bride.’ In the letter, Knox briefly mentioned James Haliburton. He was now living in Scotland (he died in Edinburgh in 1862), and Knox occasionally heard news of him at the ‘Antiquarian Bookseller’s Stevenson, Princes Street’ (in Edinburgh): ‘He was the greater part of last summer at Tweedside, pursuing his enquiries, and I have no doubt would call frequently on an aged lady in the vicinity of Kelso.’ Knox related an earlier encounter with James Haliburton at the Harrow Inn, where they talked about their mutual interest in genealogy. They were having a hot toddy together when Knox suddenly became ill: ‘Mr. James Haliburton very kindly sent me home to Tipperlinne in a cab: nor have I seen him since.’ James Haliburton never published the results of his voluminous family researches. When his brother Decimus presented his papers to the British Museum after James’s death, they included none about family matters. When Thomas Haliburton boarded the Great Western in Bristol for his return to Nova Scotia, he experienced first-hand one of the wonders of the age. In the public imagination, that ship loomed as large as the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo. The big event of the summer of 1838 was the coronation of Queen Victoria, but the Great Western eclipsed even that. It was bringing two worlds, the old and the new, closer together in a way not surpassed until the invention of the telegraph. The first steamer to cross the Atlantic was the Sirius, which Haliburton and Howe had inspected in mid-ocean. It had arrived with 20,000 letters!15 But the Great Western, which left Bristol for its maiden voyage on 8 April 1838, arriving in New York on 23 April, was the first reliable and financially sound transatlantic steamer. Its success ushered in ‘a new era in colonial history,’ as Haliburton himself acknowledged in the The

94 A Literary Career

Clockmaker (443). The Great Western’s first letter bag had contained 5,555 letters and 1,750 newspapers.16 The Great Western, the brainchild of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, held the public’s imagination like no other steamer until the 1850s, when Brunel (again) built the Great Eastern. It was public knowledge that its letter bag had once been stolen while it was arriving in New York, so Haliburton began to play with the comic possibilities inherent in finding that letter-bag, opening it, and reading its contents. Haliburton wrote the Letter Bag of the Great Western between April and October 1839 after his return from England. He promptly sent it to Richard Bentley, describing it as a ‘book of fun, altogether, and well calculated to be popular, especially among sea-going people & travellers.’17 As he noted, it was ‘full of caricature and ought to be embellished, at any rate in a second edition.’18 He thought it a comic tour de force, ‘wholly a work of humor, and I think well calculated for popularity, as well on account of the variety in it, as the fun.’ Clearly, Haliburton felt that he had entered a new phase in his writing career: ‘I think this book both more difficult to write, and better executed than either of the Clockmakers, and have certainly bestowed twice the pains upon it.’19 He imagined a long and lucrative literary career that would compensate for life in ‘this damned country, this “dead sea.”’20 He asked Bentley for the same amount as he had been offered for the third series of the Clockmaker, namely, £500: ‘Winter is my time for work, in summer I live with the birds in the open air – in winter with the bears –.’ Bentley published the Letter Bag on 3 January 1840 and gave it a huge print run – 3,500 copies.21 Bentley’s ledgers indicate that the first series of The Clockmaker had been published in an edition of a 1,000 copies on 27 March 1837. There had, of course, been four additional editions in 1838.22 Bentley launched the second series of The Clockmaker in a slightly larger edition of 1,250, and Bubbles of Canada in a run of 1,500 (followed by a second edition of 500).23 Bentley was taking a huge leap of faith with the Letter Bag. In his later years, Haliburton presented himself as one of the age’s leading advocates for steamships. His early enthusiasm, he claimed, encouraged Samuel Cunard to go after the contract for transporting the Royal Mail.24 But it took Haliburton a long time to adjust to some of the social consequences of the new form of travel. In 1854, just after his fifth transatlantic crossing on a steamer, Haliburton made an especially nasty outburst: ‘Steamers carry a mob, and I detest mobs.’ He proceeded to list the social horrors experienced by the passenger on a steamship: ‘greasy

Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western 95

Jews, hairy Germans, Mullato-looking Italians, squalling children ... Englishmen ... Irishmen ... priests ... preachers ... women ... silk men, cotton men, and every sort of shopmen’ (Nature and Human Nature, 1, 45–6). As late as 1854, he wrote: ‘But there is no peace in a steamer, it is nothin’ but a large calaboose, chock full of prisoners’ (‘Calaboose is a Southern name for jail’; Nature and Human Nature, 2: 51). After writing this passage, Haliburton would cross the Atlantic nine more times (to and fro in 1855, one way in 1856, to and fro in 1860, 1861, and 1864). He also made trial voyages on P&O steamers when he lived in England. Six years later, he had recanted. In his final book, Season Ticket (1860), steamers had become what he always wished them to be – gentlemen’s smoking rooms afloat (no. 3, ‘Homeward Bound,’ 77). Haliburton loved and hated steamships; he criticized and praised them. Steamboats had been running on American rivers as early as 1807, and he had undoubtedly seen the steamer that plied the Bay of Fundy between Annapolis Royal and Saint John in the 1820s. But historians of the transatlantic steamship affirm: ‘In essence, the steamship was a function of ... industrialisation.’25 Its development became ‘Anglo-centric,’ and much vigorous scholarship has been devoted to the subject in recent years. Between 1838 and 1860, steamers began dominating the Atlantic run, although always assisted by sail.26 And they were always paddle steamers. The screw propeller began to replace the paddle wheel in the 1840s – Brunel used it in the Great Britain (1844) – but the commercial shipping companies resisted this new technology until the 1860s.27 The sail-assisted Great Western quickly became the ship of choice for transatlantic passengers. It never crossed by way of Halifax (to Haliburton’s chagrin); instead, it went directly from Bristol to New York. It was left to Samuel Cunard, a friend of both Haliburton and Howe and a fellow Nova Scotian, to seize the moment and establish a steamship company that placed Halifax on the world shipping map. When Charles Dickens crossed in the Cunard vessel, Britannia in 1842, he did stop at Halifax.28 The Letter Bag can be read nowadays as a guide to the lost social world of the steamship, a world that Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard recreated in Travelling by Sea in the Nineteenth Century.29 The Letter Bag also reminds us how much of a snob Haliburton was – how reluctant he was to face the social implications of a floating world in which class distinctions had been suspended. As Greenhill and Giffard note, social life on board ship centred on the long, narrow central saloon onto which the passenger

96 A Literary Career

cabins opened on either side.30 The stateroom served as a common dining and recreation area. It was seventy-five feet long and twenty-one feet wide, with a nine-foot ceiling. Painted panels executed by the Royal Academician ‘Parris’ adorned the walls in the style of Watteau (a painter Haliburton admired).31 The Great Western had only one class of cabins, so it became for Haliburton a symbol of the confusion of social classes in post-Reform England. For Haliburton, the outward and visible sign of the declining values of the Western world was the unavoidably close physical contact with the boat’s Black stewards. In The Letter Bag, the Great Western serves as a microcosm of society as Haliburton saw it: ‘One hundred and ten passengers, taken indiscriminately from the mass of their fellow beings ... a fair “average sample” of their species.’ The community aboard is agitated by the same feelings and actuated by the same prejudices as the world ashore: ‘Poor human nature is the same everywhere’ (312–13). Unmasking himself at the close of the book, Haliburton repeats his core argument that ‘life in a steamer is actually teeming with a moral’ (313). Unread, unknown, Haliburton’s Letter Bag of the Great Western, his fullest account of early transatlantic travel by steamer, has been entirely eclipsed by The Clockmaker series and the Old Judge (1849). It would be hard to find another book that has so completely slipped from view. Richard Bentley expected that the book would attract all of those whose imaginations had been ignited by the dawning of a new era in transatlantic travel. But the message of the book is far from celebratory. There is no doubt that Haliburton was fascinated by steamships, bridges, railways, and technological progress generally. But at the same time, he was a social conservative who instinctively disliked revolution because it threatened to destroy the social fabric of the ages. So how can we square his enthusiasm for technological innovation with his Tory values? William R. Harbour reminds us to define conservatives in terms of their ‘critique of modernity’ rather than their role as reactionary defenders of the status quo.32 Being a conservative does not preclude the sort of fascination that technology held for Haliburton, a fascination we can see in Slick’s advocacy of bridges, railways, and steamships. Haliburton himself sensed that his attraction to these things conflicted with his otherwise conservative instincts. Through Sam Slick the clockmaker, Haliburton could both criticize and advocate technological advance. He is much less ambiguous in The Old Judge (1849), perhaps the fullest statement of his conservative values. There, speaking in the voice of Mr Barclay, he resents even the electric bell that displaces the ‘good old brass knocker’ (Old Judge, 1: 60).

Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western 97

Haliburton once expressed reluctance to spend his money on a new haying machine that one of his men recommended to him; nevertheless, he built a tramway from his gypsum mine at Clifton to his wharf in Windsor, and he tirelessly advocated steamships, trains, and bridges for their commercial potential.33 In other words, he was attracted to what Harbour calls ‘the benefits of modern technology.’34 Haliburton wanted those benefits to support his conservative vision of life, and when they failed to do so, he retreated into the core values of conservatism, which he wished to defend. According to Harbour, those values were ‘generally to be found in the realm of his personal existence.’35 In The Letter Bag, as he portrayed the spectrum of social classes aboard the Great Western, Haliburton revealed a great deal about what troubled his personal existence. The book is a Victorian cacophony, a collection of socially discordant voices: male, female, working class, upper class, Black, white, Jewish, and gentile. The letters Haliburton invents depict the thoughts and experiences aboard ship of twenty-seven vastly different but, to his mind, representative people. Their accents and the subjects that preoccupy them vary, yet in all of them we hear Haliburton’s voice. The ship and its passengers become another peg (as Sam Slick had been) on which the author can hang his view of human nature. Haliburton had a highly reductive view of the world. He invents letters from ‘A Quaker,’ ‘A Traveller,’ and ‘A Stockholder,’ and from representatives of various countries: ‘A French Passenger’ and ‘An American Citizen.’ There are two letters from ‘A Colonist’ and one from a ‘New Brunswicker.’ Sometimes his targets are directly political: there are letters from ‘An Abolitionist’ and ‘A Loco Foco.’ There is a letter from a military man, Captain Haltfront. Other letters are from the crew: ‘A Midshipman,’ ‘A Cadet,’ ‘An Old Hand,’ and ‘A Stoker.’ There are two letters written by women, the first in the manner of Fanny Kemble, the actress, satirizing the journal of her trip to America, and the other in the guise of a servant, ‘Elizabeth Figg.’ Haliburton attempts a letter in the patois of the Black steward, ‘Cato Mignionette,’ and another in the Jewish voice of ‘Moses Levy’ (in which Haliburton positions himself firmly within the long English literary tradition of anti-Semitism). The final letter of ‘Coachman on the Railroad Line’ captures in a nostalgic vein the impact of the railway on the traditional English way of life. ‘Levlling coachmen down to stokers is the first step; the next is, lvelling the gents down to the Brummigim tradesman’ (280). In these letters some of his deepest anxieties emerge, which are gathered to develop a negative portrayal of the ship itself.

98 A Literary Career

In his deconstruction of Haliburton, George Elliott Clarke does not comment on the racism of The Letter Bag. Yet this seagoing account of high life below stairs is awash with offensive racial caricatures. Greg Marquis judges Haliburton to be no different from many of his contemporaries when it comes to racist rhetoric.36 But The Letter Bag of the Great Western demonstrates that Haliburton could be far more extreme even than that. The Black stewards aboard ship emit an ‘effluvia’ that is ‘worse than that of a slaver’ (31). A cadet appeals to his mother to emancipate him: he is turning Black with the smuts from the steamer (115). Even the paintings on the walls are daubed with the fingerprints of the stewards: ‘There should be no more black servants, for it is obvious that a hand that is always black must be dirtier than one that is occasionally so’ (156). The book ends with an exhortation for a railway to be built from Windsor to Halifax to complement the steamships that will soon arrive in Halifax. But The Letter Bag is only marginally about Nova Scotia. Rather, it is a litany of complaint about the discomforts of transatlantic travel, and it is a portrait of the Great Western as a ship of fools heading full steam to Hades. Haliburton championed steam travel and believed that technological advances like it would foster America’s links with Britain. Nevertheless, a dark shadow hangs over The Letter Bag. In it, Haliburton records in racial terms the plight of the gentleman class in a world in which class barriers have suddenly been removed.

Chapter 14

More Clockmaking and More New Relations

The Letter Bag had simply popped into Haliburton’s mind. It was in many ways an experiment. He knew that his fame rested with The Clockmaker. He was soon ready with a third series, which he mailed to Bentley on 1 September 1839 after spending the whole summer revising it: ‘I flatter myself that this work will give you much satisfaction – I wrote it easily, and have taken great pains in touching it since.’1 Posterity has all but buried it. Only with the recent publication of the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts edition of the first three Clockmakers have audiences been given a chance to read it again.2 Contemporary critics praised the third Clockmaker. The Literary Gazette, edited by William Jerdan, called it a ‘very clever volume ... decidedly the best of the series.’3 The Athenaeum declared: ‘The “Clockmaker” is always welcome; and even the Squire whose political philosophy recalls the days of innocence and of our grandmother, and is enunciated with a pompous emphasis, that reminds us of the dear old lady herself, – even he is amusing ... we read on and laugh, and are in no disposition to be critical.’4 The Times claimed that Sam Slick ‘conferred a boon on his countrymen and a benefit on Englishmen ... Not a page of his narrative can be read without improvement of some kind or other.’ 5 But Haliburton’s open expression of his political views through the Squire and Sam Slick continued to make him enemies. Joseph Howe passed through Windsor in June 1839 while Haliburton was still writing the third Clockmaker, and Haliburton read him extracts. Yet Howe did not grasp the full force of Haliburton’s satire until 25 December 1840, when he laid eyes on a printed copy. He promptly severed their business relationship and refused to put his name as publisher on the title page of the third series. ‘I would rather beg my bread than sell a copy of it,’ he said.6

100 A Literary Career

Although we have only Howe’s side of the argument, Haliburton’s written responses evidently sent Howe into a frenzy. The pent-up frustrations of a decade burst through. Haliburton taunted him with ‘the annoyance and little profit which our transactions had produced,’ which provoked Howe to set the record straight.7 He sent Haliburton a detailed reckoning of their literary relationship. According to Howe, the Historical and Statistical Account personally cost him £800, whereas Haliburton had made a profit of several hundred pounds. As to the first of the Clockmakers, ‘It brought you reputation – plate – books – and the means of earning thousands, a handsome sum in subsequent arrangements with Bentley, and it brought me £35. Clockmaker No II ... was profitable – from my being in England expenses were saved, and the bulk of the overplus of too large an edition were shipwrecked and insured ... the loss on [The Letter Bag] will equal the amount made on the first series of Clockmaker.’ Only one of Haliburton’s books had made Howe any money (about £250 to £280), ‘rather a poor compensation I should say, for all the time, trouble, conversation and correspondence, about Books, since the publication of the History.’ Howe let Haliburton know in no uncertain terms that some of Haliburton’s literary decisions had been foolhardy. Publishing Bubbles of Canada, Reply to Lord Durham, and then Letter Bag of the Great Western ‘have done your reputation a serious injury on this Continent, and, for the present, spoilt the sale of your works.’ After a year of canvassing, Howe had three hundred copies of the second series still unsold and only seven hundred subscribers to the third series. But Howe reserved his full fury for the passages he heard read at Windsor and for his discovery that a great many of his own views had been placed into ‘the mouths of your political villains.’ The personal attacks contained in these chapters were all the more incomprehensible to Howe because he had recently worked hard on Haliburton’s behalf to secure him a pension and a new position. Two chapters in particular of the third Clockmaker offended Howe: ‘Patriotism, or the Two Shears’s’ (chapter 7) and ‘Knowing the Soundings, or Polly Coffin’s Sandhole’ (chapter 13). In the first, Haliburton launched a double-attack on patriots, mocking William Lyon Mackenzie’s delegation to England and his success at securing an appointment in London. The story of the Shears brothers in Dublin proved that ‘the very name of a patriot awakens no other idea than that of the cowardly assassin, or midnight incendiary’ (510). In chapter 13, Haliburton’s lexicon of patriots included a ‘true patriot’ (defined as one who ‘supports

More Clockmaking and More New Relations 101

existin’ institutions as a whole, but is willin’ to mend or repair any part that is defective,’ 571), ‘Whole hogs’ (the ‘donkey breed,’ who resist any change), ‘Fashionable ones’ (those who imitate their betters) and ‘moderate ones’ (‘now extremes meet, and a moderate colonial compact chap and a true patriot are so near alike it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to tell ‘em apart,’ 572). ‘In which of the fine orders of patriots you place me, I cannot say,’ confessed an angry Joseph Howe, ‘but the only one in which I certainly am not is the one where you place yourself, all the others being rogues or idiots.’ Howe felt he had been caricatured, and he sensed that he was being sacrificed to Haliburton’s newly discovered friends in England.8 Even his wife could sense the insult: ‘Nothing could dissuade Mrs Howe that I had not been unfairly dealt with in the 2d book – she formed her own opinion of the 3d and perused it with painful feelings.’ Howe expressed the bitter hope that he would hear that Haliburton’s new ‘troop of friends’ would be less ‘troublesome’ than himself. Yet despite the theatrical finality of the break – ‘Farewell – hereafter we shall meet as strangers’ – Howe publicly supported Haliburton’s appointment as a Supreme Court Judge just two months later. Before Haliburton left London in April 1839, Henry Colburn made him ‘very liberal general offers in writing ... for any work on America in 2 Vols – 600 pounds.’9 Haliburton promised him something. This work was to be in addition to Haliburton’s own list of projects, which included a revision of The Letter Bag of the Great Western (to remove the indecencies), a revision of the Historical and Statistical Account (1829), and a work in two volumes, ‘Colonies & Colonists in North America’ (‘constitutional, historical, & political’), as well as a ‘work in numbers’ called the Attaché. The two proposed revisions – one a fading symbol of his fellow countrymen’s esteem (the Historical and Statistical Account), the other a recognition that he had seriously damaged his reputation – never materialized. The Attaché did appear in 1843–4 in two sets of two volumes (a first and second series); these constituted the fourth and fifth continuations of ‘Sam Slick.’ ‘Colonies and Colonists’ eventually emerged as the Old Judge (1849), a work that first appeared in numbers in Fraser’s Magazine in 1846– 7. The ‘constitutional, historical & political’ work of 1840 eventually became Rule and Misrule of the English in America (1851). Haliburton’s two three-volume anthologies of American frontier humour (1852 and 1854) fulfilled his promise to Henry Colburn. In all, Haliburton would produce twenty new volumes over the next fifteen years. Despite considerable burdens during the 1840s, both personal and

102 A Literary Career

professional, Haliburton remained a highly productive writer. Nothing slowed him down for long, not even Louisa’s death in 1841, or the death of his eldest son, young Tom, in a private mental asylum in Massachusetts in November 1847, or the long string of marriages that eventually removed his daughters from Clifton and left him pacing his own quarterdeck in solitude like a retired sea captain. Haliburton shared the profound restlessness of his famous characters, Sam Slick, the Squire, and Joshua Hopewell. They are always on the road and rarely at home. Haliburton’s grandiloquent patriotic statements in the Historical and Statistical Account (whose epigraph is ‘This is my own, my native land’), which suggested a deep pride in his Nova Scotian world, gave way in the late 1830s to a deep-seated dissatisfaction. As Joseph Howe noticed, the visit to England had a transformed Haliburton’s outlook. In England he found socially advantageous new relations. For example, he sent Maria Edgeworth, the novelist, a presentation copy of the third series of The Clockmaker. The post office misdirected her letter of thanks (intended for Susanna Haliburton, then visiting England) to a young lady in Lancashire by the name of Ellen Fowden Haliburton. On 27 October 1840, Haliburton received a letter from Ellen offering a short history of her family: ‘My father is one of the oldest magistrates of the County, & generally known – and you must allow me to add, not altogether a stranger to you, for having read some of your able productions, he tells me, that as you have been so far separated from our native land it may not be altogether uninteresting to you to have the following particulars of your ancestors.’10 She signed her letter, ‘Your affectionate Clanswoman,’ which resonated strongly with its recipient. A note in the hand of Thomas Haliburton’s daughter, Emma Maria, in the Wilson Collection at Acadia University acknowledges the letter as ‘the first communication between the two families.’ Suddenly, Thomas was in contact with another branch of the Haliburton clan, one that he had not met during his visit to England in 1838–9. In his lengthy reply to Ellen, dated 30 November 1840, Thomas presented himself to her as an exile of illustrious Scottish descent: ‘The name is all we have, but it is a good one, thrice enobled, honorable in prosperity and respected even in its poverty.’11 He shared with her his growing pride in his family name, recently enhanced by the researches that he and James Haliburton had made in Scotland, and he offered a genealogical view of his family origins that corresponds closely with the findings of modern enthusiasts like the Rutherfords.12 In exchange for the ‘abstract’ that Ellen had sent him he sent her a much longer account that he took pains to copy himself in order to inform ‘those who are to

More Clockmaking and More New Relations 103

come after me.’ He planned, he told Ellen, ‘to arrange these materials and print them for the use of the family only.’13 The only surviving document that comes close to it is the quasi-legal one that he and James signed at Edgeworth in March 1839.14 Thomas Haliburton at first hoped that his correspondence with Ellen would continue. Ellen, however, immediately handed her pen over to her brother, Alexander, to whom Thomas presented himself anew. Alexander could not match Thomas’s enthusiasm for things Scottish, having been encouraged by his father ‘to think of this [England] as our native land, where our friends and maternal relations resided.’ 15 But Thomas was elated. He had now connections with two English families of Haliburtons even though, curiously, neither knew of the other’s existence. They became aware of each other through Thomas. Alexander, after greeting Thomas as a ‘clansman’ and noting the ‘pleasure’ that his letter had aroused (‘We have been so little accustomed to the exhibition of any feeling of a family nature in our relations with the world around us’), proceeded to deflect Thomas’s inquiries on the subject of James Haliburton: with regard to the Mr. James Haliburton whom you mention, I may remark that I was present with my Brother at Gravesend, when he received his letter, and at the time we could not avoid having suspicions as to the genuineness of his blood, as he stated that he thought he had met my Brother in Scotland formerly, when he bore the name ‘Burton’, of which my Brother had no remembrance – I will, however, acquaint him with your remarks, and I am sure he will have great pleasure in making his acquaintance on his return.

Thomas had met almost all the Burton family, and their outward respectability gave him all the proof he needed of the genuineness of their blood. The current generation of Fowden Haliburtons did not have much to contribute to Thomas’s stock of knowledge with regard to their common Scottish heritage. Alexander explained that ‘my late revered Father having left Scotland as a very young man’ few traces of the family in Scotland remained: ‘In Scotland indeed from some inscrutable cause, the very name seems to have become almost extinct, and I think it possible there may not be one of the name who now owns a single acre in that country, when they formerly possessed such noble estates.’ Alexander soon shifted the subject to the ‘ladies of this family’ and soberly described himself as ‘a solitary bachelor by “my ain fireside.”’ Eventually, Alexander would become Thomas’s son-in-law.

Chapter 15

The Death of Louisa

In 1840, the Haliburton family began to mix socially with the new lieutenant-governor of the province, Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, and his wife, Amelia. Lady Falkland’s brother-in-law, Charles R. Fox, had taken the first series of The Clockmaker to England and shown it to Richard Bentley. Lady Falkland, a stunningly beautiful woman, was the daughter of William IV and the actress Mrs Jordan. She brought a touch not only of the aristocratic but also of the exotic to Halifax society, evoking memories of the short but amorous stay of Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria’s father, who regaled his French mistress on the shores of the Bedford Basin.1 In Nova Scotia, Lady Falkland painted and sketched wherever she went. She showed herself interested in people of all classes, in sharp contrast to the prejudiced world of the gentlemen who constituted the colony’s ruling class. In her private scrapbooks, portraits of Mi’kmaq and Blacks held pride of place.2 She soon discovered that Haliburton’s wife, Louisa, was a keen artist and that all the Haliburton girls had been encouraged to paint and sketch, so she included them in her circle, along with several young female artists. The Haliburton girls often accompanied her on sketching trips. As mementoes of her stay, Lady Falkland chose the best of her friends’ work for her private album. The work of the Haliburton girls did not match that of either Lady Falkland (who produced watercolours and sepia work of the highest quality) or her other protégés.3 Lady Falkland especially admired Mary McKie’s meticulous paintings of Mi’kmaq faces and figures.4 Friendship with the Falklands proved beneficial to the Haliburtons. On 29 March 1841, Lord Falkland appointed Haliburton to the Supreme Court without consulting the Executive Council; in doing so, he was

The Death of Louisa 105

ignoring the claims of at least three more senior members of the Inferior Court.5 The day before the swearing in, one of these judges, John G. Marshall, wrote to the Halifax Times protesting the appointment.6 Despite their recent quarrel, Howe choked back his bitterness and defended Haliburton’s appointment in the Novascotian.7 When the news of the appointment reached Haliburton’s cousin, Georgianna, on 31 May 1841, she wrote to Halli Fraser, wife of Harry King of Windsor: ‘Judge Haliburton really seems one of fortunes favorites. I am glad he has a situation that will prevent him writing any more of Sam Slick.’8 Judging from what she had read in the English newspapers on her travels abroad, ‘the last vol [the third series of The Clockmaker] has passed very quietly as I hear nothing about it.’ Haliburton’s new appointment saved his legal career. It also brought him an income of £560 per year, which he received in quarterly instalments. He now attended sessions of the Supreme Court at each of the county towns twice a year, and more often in Halifax. In 1842, he spent 120 days away from home on the business of the court in Cape Breton, Halifax, and the South Shore.9 The serious illness of Justice Lewis Morris Wilkins during the 1840s meant that the remaining judges had to divide up his workload among them. Haliburton did so, while resenting the fact that his salary was less than that of his fellow judges. His new appointment meant he would likely be spending more time in Halifax. ‘The girls will be pleased for they like not “Clifton” in the winter,’ commented Elizabeth Blowers to her son, William, on 2 April 1841.10 Haliburton’s new appointment meant that his daughter could enjoy a wider array of social activities. Their sketches of Halifax society from this period suggest a mischievous and satiric eye. Their rural upbringing had instilled in them an outsider’s perspective, and although they participated eagerly in all that Halifax had to offer in winter, they found it hard to mask their amusement at the follies of the town. Just when it seemed that fortune’s wheel was turning in Haliburton’s favour, Louisa became ill. ‘Poor Mrs H has had a hard sad time of it, for with the exception of her two first days when she attended the ball and the races she has been quite ill and unable to go outside the door,’ commented Elizabeth Bliss. ‘She had a violent sick headach and extreme bleeding at the nose which made it necessary for Dr Grigor to plug it and take blood from the arm. She has lost at least 4 quarts of blood since she has been in town.’11 Louisa was beginning to decline, and her illness cast a shadow over one of the brightest social seasons that Halifax had seen for some time. The city was celebrating the visit of the Prince de Joinville

106 A Literary Career

with a continuous round of ‘dinners and parties for the Prince and his officer.’12 As Louisa grew steadily worse, Sarah Bliss commented in early September: ‘there will be no chance of gaiety for the Haliburtons.’13 Ellen Nutting, one of Lady Falkland’s artist friends, visited Windsor in November and reported back on Louisa’s desperate plight: ‘Mrs Haliburton’s constitution is entirely gone.’14 She had retreated to her bed: ‘Judge H writes in very low spirits: he appears to think Mrs H has a bilious fever, but I think the fever is produced by extreme weakness.’ Thomas cancelled his duties on the circuit to face the imminent death of his wife. Elizabeth Bliss commented: ‘What an irreparable loss she will be to her family.’ On 7 October 1841, Harry King reported to Halli, now his wife, but absent from home: ‘I am going out this Evening to the Haliburtons ... the cards came today inviting you as well as myself – so you see you are not even considered absent – I have just returned from the Haliburtons and it is pretty late ... We had a large party and your absence was much regretted by many. It was not so spirited a party as our own.’15 Louisa died on 29 November 1841, throwing Clifton into gloom and leaving Thomas’s young family without a mother. Later in life, the children wished they had known their mother better, although what memories they did have of her were fond ones.16 Louisa was some three years older than her husband and had carried child after child between 1817 and 1832. She was forty-eight when she died. It was she who had created the stable home that enabled her husband to launch his political career, to work long hours on his books, and to come and go at will in pursuit of his literary and legal ambitions. In the few glimpses we have of her in the letters she wrote to her daughters and to Mrs Wood (one of the Burton clan) in 1839, she reveals herself to be intelligent and articulate. She deferred to her husband but was capable of altering his mind on matters requiring diplomacy.17 In private, Louisa called her husband ‘Haliburton,’ not Thomas or Tom, and according to her daughters, not all that he wrote met with her approval.18 She is buried in the Old Parish Burying Ground in Windsor, Nova Scotia – one of only four Haliburtons to be buried there. Thomas ordered a simple and unadorned gravestone for her. Louisa’s death immediately affected the tone of her husband’s letters to Richard Bentley. One Saturday in 1842, Thomas caught sight of an advertisement in the Quarterly Review for The Attaché: ‘a work of which not 5 pages are written.’19 He told Bentley he did not feel like writing the book at all ‘and if you will do me the favor to forget any projects I have talked to you about ... I shall feel very much obliged to you.’ By 1 March 1843, his

The Death of Louisa 107

annoyance had subsided. He completed The Attaché and decided to take it to England to see it through the press himself. He must have thought that another visit to England on a temporary leave of absence from the Nova Scotia bench would improve his state of mind. But while he was there, in 1843, he confessed to Frances Trollope that ‘my spirits are not the same, and when alone I suffer a good deal of depression.’20 After Louisa’s death, social interaction between Clifton and Halifax proceeded as best it could in the new circumstances. At forty-five, Haliburton was a widower with a large family to support, children still to educate, and five daughters to see into the world. In his new book, The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England, Haliburton revealed again that he was both an enthusiast for progress and a vigorous defender of the political status quo. Clearly, he found solace in work. He produced two volumes of three hundred pages each in 1843, and did the same again in 1844 with a second series of The Attaché. In all four volumes he tinkered significantly with the formula of the first three Clockmakers. Stanley E. McMullin contends that ‘with the passage of time, the vitality of Sam declined,’ but this remark does not capture a gradual but decisive shift in emphasis.21 In The Attaché, Haliburton split himself three ways instead of two. The travelling party is introduced as Sam Slick (now American attaché to the Court of St James’s), the Squire (who, ‘though not a subject of the Republic ... am still an American in its larger sense, having been born in a British province in this hemisphere’ [Series 1, 1: 4, 62]), and the ninety-five-yearold Reverend Joshua Hopewell (the Episcopalian voice of America past). Slick continues to represent Haliburton’s fascination for the ‘go-ahead’ Yankee philosophy, but he is now joined by the exiled minister, Hopewell, a conservative prophet of doom. For the first time, the Squire has a name – Squire Thomas Poker – and he invariably favours Hopewell over Slick. The voices of Hopewell and the Squire overlay that of Slick – a significant shift in tone and a reflection of Haliburton’s need to propound his conservative views. The effect disappointed his readers, who had grown to like Slick very much. Bentley puffed the new book widely in an article, ‘Notions of Sam Slick [With a Portrait of the Author],’ which he commissioned for Bentley’s Miscellany.22 It seems that the copy had been prepared before the writer of the piece had read the new work. On 27 June, Haliburton asked Bentley to instruct the author to add a word on the Reverend Mr Hopewell, ‘who is rather a prominent character in all the books and will be still more so in the forthcoming one.’23 He explained. ‘There were things to

108 A Literary Career

be said too wise and too deep for Sam, these I have given as the talk of the aged – gentleman – a scholar and divine – “in wit a man simplicity a child” wise in constitutional law – in natural & moral philosophy of great kindness and goodness of heart – but simple in manners, and utterly ignorant of what Sam knows so well – worldly knowledge.’24 Bentley obliged him. The writer of the review had originally puffed the figure of Slick exclusively, claiming that Slick represented the reallife school of writing as opposed to the artificial: ‘Its rude, unlettered Yankee hero may be defined as the incarnation of common sense.’25 The reviewer quickly adjusted the last two-and-a-half pages to confront the new work, praising the contrast between Slick and the Reverend Hopewell: ‘Nothing can be loftier, more humane, or more replete with philosophic wisdom, just touched with that soft melancholy which years and experience seldom fail to bring in their train, and from which minds of an elevated cast are never wholly exempt, than the reflections put into the mouth of this clerical philanthropist.’ Haliburton’s instructions had been followed to the letter. On Bentley’s orders, the reviewer exalted Haliburton, ranking him with Shakespeare, Burns, Scott, and Fielding. Haliburton would have been delighted with the flattery. Bentley’s obliging reviewer, no doubt receiving payment by the page, puffed Haliburton at length: ‘A man may be stamped a gentleman in the mint of fashion; his manners may be courtly; his costume unimpeachable; his bow perfection; yet, despite his external graces he may be as vulgar a dog as ever mistook his vocation. It is not the star on the breast, the coronet on the brow, or the full purse in the pocket, but the mind, – the heart, – the prevailing tone of thought and feeling, – these are the things that constitute the gentleman.’ Haliburton provided a better guide to the manners of the Americans, he said, than ‘even the novels of Cooper, or the graphic diaries of Hamilton or Marryatt [sic].’ Haliburton ‘is evidently a man of large grasp of mind, sharpened and disciplined by a long and intimate practical acquaintance with the every-day world about us.’ Haliburton uses the Squire and the Reverend Hopewell to modulate and restrain Sam. A good example is in chapter 11, ‘Cottages.’ Slick is his old loquacious self, yet it is Hopewell who commands reverence and respect from the occupants of an English cottage. That chapter is set in a public inn run by an immigrant named Obi Rafuse, replete with an unwashed ‘Aunty’ (the mother) and a herd of pigs that keep trying to gain entry to the keeping room. Sam tells a long story about ‘the night I spent at lake Teal, with old Judge Sandford’ (185), but it is Hopewell

The Death of Louisa 109

and the Squire who deliver the moral of the chapter: ‘There is not only nothing equal to it, but nothing of its kind at all like – an English cottage’ (201). Slick draws in the reader, while Hopewell and the Squire trumpet their strong attraction to English life. The itinerary the characters follow echoes Haliburton’s own during his visit of 1838–9: Nelson’s column (1: 10), the Tunnel and the Tower (2: 2), the races at Ascot (2: 3), the House of Commons (2: 8), and Tattershall’s (2: 12). At one point, the Squire obtains a passport at the ‘office of the Belgian Consul’ in order to visit Germany, where his son is at ‘school,’ just as Haliburton visited young Tom when the latter was studying music at Koblenz. The Squire also travels to Scotland, ‘the residence of my forefathers on the Tweed’ (Series 1, 2: 14, 267). Haliburton must have realized how much his own travel experiences resonated throughout the book, since he ended the second volume of the first series of The Attaché with a denial that he and his characters were related: ‘With respect to myself no disavowal is necessary ... Should any one imagine that he can trace any resemblance, to any private occurrence, I can only assure him that such resemblance is quite accidental’ (‘The Irish Preface,’ Series 1, 2: 15, 287). But, it did not matter to Haliburton which of his mouthpieces he used. All of the voices and many of the experiences are recognizably those of Haliburton himself. Reviewers still considered Sam Slick the highlight of Haliburton’s work. As the Athenaeum commented: ‘Sam is always amusing, and often instructive; but there was an easy familiarity about the Clockmaker – a bold daring, too, which is not quite so apparent in the Attaché.’ It added quickly: ‘He seemingly writes under a restraint of which there is no trace in his former works.’26 On the same day, the Spectator commented: ‘The style has degenerated into mannerism and a mannerism all the more unpleasing from the original manner being so strongly marked ... the fact is clear enough that Sam Slick attraction has sunk considerably, and Mr. haliburton has reached the poorest of all repetitions, that of repeating himself.’27 The Monthly Review disagreed: ‘Welcome Yankee woodenclock maker to our shores, whether as pedlar or diplomatist ... thy strictures ... must render these volumes extremely popular, both on account of the laughter which they provoke, and the pointed instruction they convey!’28 American reviewers were divided. Some, like the one in the Rover (out of New York), described The Attaché as Judge Haliburton’s best work;29 others were less generous. The reviewer for the New World (also of New York) commented: ‘This work is considered vastly funny in England, but to us it seems a very stupid affair.’30

110 A Literary Career

While in England, Haliburton tried to cheer himself up. Richard Barham helped get him admitted to the Garrick Club,31 and he revived other old contacts, writing to Cecilia Tilley (Mrs Frances Trollope’s daughter) on the 18 July while visiting Edmund Hopkinson in Gloucestershire. He felt that time was rushing past him.32 John Bright, the radical MP, wrote in his diary on the 31 July: ‘Vaughan called for me, and with him and Judge Haliburton of Nova Scotia (Sam Slick) went to Beckenham Kent, to W.A. Wilkinson’s (MP for Lambeth), chiefly to see Oliver Cromwell’s head, which it is believed he possesses. From the facts known with regard to it, it is highly probably that it really is Cromwell’s head. The pike is still in it on which it was affixed over Westminster Hall.’33 The story of Oliver Cromwell’s severed head34 is a gory footnote to English history. That one of the most famous radical politicians of the day and the man the Rover called a ‘colonial high Tory’ made a joint pilgrimage to view it proves, if anything does, that as Haliburton always insisted, extremes often meet. 35 Haliburton’s nerves were often frayed during his visit. No better example can be offered than the business he conducted at the Colonial Office, which he mentioned in a letter to Mrs Trollope.36 Before leaving England, he had appealed to Lord Stanley, the colonial secretary, to pay him half of the salary that had been disallowed him during his leave of absence.37 He embellished the argument with some personal details, arguing at length that he had accomplished all his legal work before leaving, and insisting that he often stayed away from home for up to 120 days each year. He should not be denied ‘that occasional opportunity for relaxation from labor or attention to urgent private affairs’ that is granted to the humblest clerk. John Stephen at the Colonial Office described Haliburton’s argument as ‘manifestly invalid’; even so, Lord Stanley granted his request. Stephen forwarded a copy of Lord Stanley’s letter to Viscount Falkland on 6 September.38 As further evidence of his overwrought mental state, before leaving England on 23 August, Haliburton wrote a farewell letter to Richard Bentley. Possibly it was never sent. But this letter, ‘Written to Mr. Bentley on leaving England,’ survives in Haliburton’s hand in the Wilson Collection at Acadia University: These are the last words I shall write in England. It is a sad word is that ‘Last’ whether it is a last book or a last farewell. It is the portal thro’ which the present passes into the past the threshold that divides what is, from what has been. It is a disruption of the chain of life. It is a double fracture for it not only dissevers that that is, from that that was, but from that that is

The Death of Louisa 111 to come. It is no wonder we linger over it & that we dread to pronounce it for tis ringing our own knell. Farewell – a long farewell. T.C. Haliburton.39

Haliburton sensed that he might not be returning for a long while. Bentley had paid Haliburton £750 for the copyright to The Attaché – a large sum, necessitated by Haliburton’s threat to go to Colburn. ‘Put out the new edition of Slick immediately,’ Bentley ordered his manager.40 (An advertisement for the second edition of The Attaché – ‘Now ready ... revised and corrected by the Author’ – appeared in the Standard on 29 August.) Haliburton returned home to more criticism in the Novascotian: ‘The political views it would inculcate must be execrated by every judicious reader ... As Haliburton is a Novascotian, we regret that he has sullied his literary fame by this last production of his pen. In all his works there has been a good deal of chaff with the wheat – but in this, there is little that is creditable to its author, honourable to Nova Scotia, or ornamental to the literature of the present day.’ The paper announced that it would not be publishing one iota of such ‘trash.’41 His reputation in Nova Scotia had soured, yet he could still depend on the flattery of his international readership to keep his self-esteem intact.

Chapter 16

A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life

More adverse criticism of Haliburton followed in 1844, this time from outside the province, when the president of Harvard University, Cornelius Conway Felton, in a review of The Attaché in the January issue of the North American Review, accused its author of propagating an insulting American stereotype.1 Sam Slick, wrote Felton, had leaped from a provincial writer’s brain. Almost as if he were a Southerner, Haliburton had created ‘a mythical and highly imaginative’ Yankee who was no ‘proper representative’ of his world: ‘He [Slick] is badly conceived; his character is an incongruous mixture of impossible eccentricities.’ Felton saw Haliburton as a freak of atavism: ‘The provincial Tory, who visits the mother country, is like a Tory of three hundred years ago returned to life ... What great work of literature or art has the colonial mind ever produced?’ The author of this book, he declared, was an ‘unjust, prejudiced, and narrow-minded man.’ If Haliburton read this attack at all, he shrugged it off. He spent the winter of 1843–4 creating a second and final series of The Attaché.2 As usual, he was confident of his achievement: ‘I think it will sustain the reputation and I hope increase it, of the entire work.’3 He needed to bring the series to an end because he had decided to write something completely different. ‘What do you think of the work promised in the last chapter “Sketches of Colonial Life?”’ he asked Bentley.4 But before the answer could come, Haliburton had quarrelled with him. After sending the manuscript of The Attaché in September, Haliburton heard nothing. In December, he wrote to Bentley to complain after seeing a copy of the Literary Gazette containing extracts from it. Why, he asked, had he been treated with such ‘supercilious indifference’? 5 Bentley responded immediately by accusing Haliburton of short-changing him with regard to the

A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life 113

size of the volumes (‘less in extent than the former by nearly 50 pages, requiring me to reduce the page by two lines below the scanty page of the Ist series’).6 Reluctantly, Bentley placed his notes for £500 with Coutts & Co. at six and nine months from the date of publication: ‘After the payment of this sum, there will I am confident be an eventual loss to me.’ In pencil, he later added two words: ‘There was.’ Haliburton expressed his astonishment. ‘You say it is fifty pages short of the Ist series, but give me no means of judging, having never sent me a copy of the work – A correspondence carried on in this manner, is not likely soon to end, I have therefore sent your agreement to Mr Burton 6 Spring Garden whom I have requested to see that justice is done to me –.’7 In June 1844, Haliburton turned to his old schoolmate, Robert Parker, at his daughter Augusta’s urging.8 He needed Parker’s counsel. His ‘poor boy Tom’ had become ill that winter, and even though life for his other children proceeded as usual and they were all well, he felt troubled. The future seemed dreary, and his only consolation lay in work: ‘The truth is dear Parker – that a desolate heart – blasted hopes – and a dreary future have taught me that we have little to expect here, and that tho the form & mode of affliction may vary, come it must in some shape or another and that none of us can hope for exemption from a lot common to all.’ In expectation of visitors from England (James Haliburton again was expected), he had been ‘busy in improving my house & grounds, making a carriage entrance in the rear &c. &c.’ But the second series of The Attaché, written to keep depression at bay, would do little to fortify or restore his literary reputation. Most reviews of the second series echoed that of the Spectator: ‘The matter is not very deep, the topics very novel, or the views very striking.’9 The Monthly Review had welcomed the first series of The Attaché; now it damned the sequel with faint praise: ‘His volumes will be read; but not with such eagerness as at first, unless we have more novelty of views, sentiment, and information.’10 The Athenaeum was more flattering, and now that he was ending the Slick books, wished to admit him to the pantheon of the great comic writers: ‘Must we say good-bye to Sam Slick? Let us take, then, a long look at him from head to heel, ere we put him on board the liner. He deserves to be entered on our list of friends containing the names of Tristram Shandy, the Shepherd of the Noctes Ambrosianae, and other rhapsodical discoursers on time and change, who, besides the delights of their discourse, possess also the charm of individuality.’11 These were fine words, but words were not exactly what Haliburton had been seeking. The ‘Valedictory Address’ at the close of The Attaché

114 A Literary Career

expressed Haliburton’s growing conviction that Slick had not brought him the rewards of patronage. His literary career was beginning to reflect the usual lot of the colonist; as Slick tells the Squire, ‘you are all out of sight and out of mind, and looked down upon from every suckin’ subaltern in a marchin’ regiment, that hante got but two idees, one for eatin’ and drinkin’, and t’other for dressin’ and smokin’ up to a parliament man, that sais, “Nova Scotia – what’s that? Is it a town in Canady, or in Botany Bay?” Yes, it aint often a colonist gits a chance, I can tell you, and especially such a smart one as you have’ (272–3). Slick advises the Squire to hook on to one of the main parties and flatter men of power and stop being a ‘crotchical’ Tory (274). Although the Squire denies he is seeking patronage – ‘I assure you I want nothing of those in power. I am an old man, I want neither office in the colony nor promotion out of it’ (274–5) – at the close of the second series Haliburton publicly advertised his disappointment at not receiving much of a reward for his portrayal of Sam Slick. He was just as unsuccessful in seeking patronage for others. He appealed to Lord Aberdeen, foreign minister in Sir Robert Peel’s 1841–6 government, to provide something for Charles Porter, the past president of King’s College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, now retired and living in reduced circumstances in St Thomas Parish, Exeter, England. The appeal was ignored.12 Haliburton’s feelings of helplessness ran deep. They provoked him to write one of the most disturbing passages in all his work, chapter 14 of the second series of The Attaché, ‘English Niggers.’ In it, he argued that colonists were slaves. In the United States, says Slick, we have ‘free niggers and slaves.’ The ‘free nigger’ is not free and can never enter Congress or become president, ‘that’s his condition ... The slave is a slave’ (2: 213). The ‘white colonist’ is different from the ‘free black nigger’ only in terms of colour. The English, Slick says, have two sorts of ‘niggers’: ‘American colonists ... free white niggers; and manufacturer’s labourers at home ... white slave niggers’ (2: 213). The colonial ‘nigger’ may appear to be free, but in reality is denied all the opportunities open to other citizens. When the Squire in an earlier conversation intervenes to say that negroes in England have been ‘emancipated,’ Slick castigates him for using the term ‘we,’ because a colonial does not share in the operations of the British Empire: ‘It is impossible for a colonist to rise above the surface, as for a stone to float on a river’ (2: 211). Until the English give you something that rates the epithet ‘our,’ says Slick, always use ‘your’ (2: 212). The Squire describes Slick as ‘eloquent’ and urges him to continue his analysis of the English slaves. Slick then pities the plight of ‘English

A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life 115

niggers,’ who do not receive the same kind treatment as their American counterparts: ‘A common interest binds our master and slave. There is no tie between the English factor and his nigger’ (2: 223). Haliburton handles both sides of the discussion here in a way that illustrates his sympathy for the institution of slavery in the southern United States. ‘English Niggers’ is an extraordinary chapter. In it, Haliburton unveiled his plan for a ‘Colonial council board to London’ (2: 214) with actual colonists as members (2: 215). Here was a plan to rescue the colonists from slavery and win Haliburton himself a seat in the British Parliament (2: 216). This passage is followed by a discourse from Hopewell on the ‘perverseness about English rule in America’ (2: 227) – a subject that preoccupied Haliburton more and more as the decade wore on. When Hopewell says, ‘Here I am in the same position, not only without a hope, but without a possibility of rising in the world,’ it is Haliburton’s voice we hear, wondering why he has not received more patronage for his literary services (2: 234): ‘Even bondsmen sometimes merit and receive their manumission.’ He defines true freedom as the colonist being rewarded in the same way as the Englishman. Haliburton’s arguments in ‘English Niggers’ have a pathological intensity. At the end of the four volumes of The Attaché, he reluctantly retired Sam Slick, who had served him well and catapulted him to fame. But it galled Haliburton that his social success in England resulted from his being Slick’s creator, not a talented colonial: ‘I’ve been made a lion of, and makin’ a lion of a man is plaguy apt to make a fool of a feller, I can tell you’ (2: 243, chapter 16, ‘The Ebb Tide’). To redress the balance, Haliburton announced that his next project would be Provincial Recollections; or Sketches of Colonial Life. He would garner the rich harvest of colonial life, place it on view (2: 291), and draw attention to his province once again. The invitation for readers to accompany him to his ‘native land’ meant he would be able to recycle (again) much of the material that had fuelled the Slick books. He saw himself as unappreciated because he was a colonist, so he would try one more time to show his English friends what they failed to understand about colonial life. Since his quarrel with Richard Bentley, Haliburton had decided to seek another publisher for ‘Sketches of Colonial Life.’ For the first time in his life he arranged to publish his new work in instalments, or ‘numbers.’13 But almost immediately, the demands of the bench prevented him responding expeditiously to the proofs of ‘The Lone House,’ the first number of The Old Judge. He received them on 22 April 1845 but did not respond until 15 November 1846, nearly seven months later. Consid-

116 A Literary Career

ering his frequent complaints about Richard Bentley’s tardy correspondence, this was dilatory communication by any standard. The episode finally appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in May 1846.14 The second instalment, ‘The Tombstones,’ took just as long to be published, appearing in February 1847.15 Subsequent instalments, however, appeared monthly until December 1847. After ten chapters, he stopped. The relationship between the chapters that appeared in Fraser’s Magazine and The Old Judge (1849) itself is discussed by Malcolm Parks in the introduction to his 1978 Tecumseh Press edition.16 Possibly late in 1848, argues Parks, Haliburton wrote the preface ‘and revised the whole for book publication.’ For the book we read today, he wrote eight additional chapters, transposed the order in which he had allowed his English readers initially to read them, and expressed his outrage at a ‘a great fraud’ perpetrated by the New York publishing house, Stringer & Townshend, which ‘reprinted 7 or 8 numbers that appeared in Fraser’s Magazine and put them forward as the entire work.’17 In the absence of firm evidence, Parks speculates that composition spanned the winters of 1844–5 and 1845–6. Perhaps the remaining eight chapters were finished by late 1846, perhaps not until the winter of 1847–8.18 The resulting book, The Old Judge, has been described as ‘a forgotten masterpiece’: ‘an ancient treasure chest into which a few have glanced, but whose gems have not been carefully examined.’19 The tendency today is to rank it much higher than The Clockmaker. As everyone now senses, The Old Judge is a key work in Haliburton’s corpus, one that brings together many strands of his life experience. His grandfather, William, lived to be an old judge, dying in Windsor in 1817 when he was seventy-eight. Old Judge Peleg Wiswall, Haliburton’s confidante in the 1820s, and his nephew George K. Nichols, who practised law in Digby, are the likely prototypes for Old Judge Sandford and young Mr Barclay. The title also glances at old Chief Justice Sampson Salter Blowers, whose death on 25 October 1842, at the age of one hundred, marked the end of an era in Nova Scotia. In both his early books, Haliburton heaped praise on Blowers. Moreover, Blowers’s estate in Windsor, painted by George Heriot in 1807, provided a model for what Haliburton sought for himself at Clifton. After he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1841, Haliburton worked alongside another old judge, Lewis Morris Wilkins, Sr, who died in January 1848 at the age of eighty, and with whose son Haliburton had shared a room at King’s College. Barry Cahill contends that Wilkins, Sr, was ‘the real old Judge.’20 However, Halibur-

A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life 117

ton stated in the preface to his book that in the characters he portrayed ‘ideal representatives of their several classes.’ The many possible real-life contenders for the attribution make it unlikely that Haliburton had only one old judge in mind.21 Although Haliburton denied that his sketches were in any sense political, The Old Judge lays open his politics for inspection like no other book he ever wrote. He injected his Tory creed into The Old Judge as it evolved from individual instalments into a published book. For the first time in his literary career, Haliburton revised and transposed his sketches over an extended period of time. An anonymous stranger-narrator from England is inducted into Nova Scotian life by the old judge, Judge Sandford, and his nephew, Mr Barclay, and learns to see life simultaneously through two different lenses: the nostalgic one of Judge Sandford, who laments the passing of the old ways of life, and the bitter, ascetic one of Mr Barclay, a young lawyer who describes a world in which he can never flourish because the colonial power of the mother country does not understand the plight of colonists. It is possible that the book’s structure was influenced by Augustus Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes (1835). Georgia Scenes contained twelve sketches presented by one narrator, Lyman Hall, and six by another narrator, Abram Baldwin: ‘two sanctimonious halves of a single personality,’ as one critic has expressed it.22 Haliburton adapted the two narrators of Georgia Scenes for his own purposes in The Old Judge. Together, they induct the English visitor into the Masonic mysteries of colonial life. Haliburton owed much to Longstreet’s example. He knew Georgia Scenes well and later raided it for his 1852 anthology of American writing. In the words of Kenneth Lynn, Longstreet was attempting ‘to impose the political opinions of the author and his aristocratic friends on the Georgia community, and beyond Georgia, on the whole south.’23 Haliburton’s own aims in The Old Judge with respect to Nova Scotia and England were identical. Haliburton succeeded in expressing graphically what he had been trying to communicate all his life. Once again, the approach he took was to bring together social extremes and record the ensuing conversations. He wanted to demonstrate to his English readers that the colonist had a civilized past and a diminished present. In the course of the narrative, Haliburton’s gentlemen characters are again and again drawn below the stairs of Nova Scotian life. There, they find that innocence, vibrancy, hedonism, and independence of spirit are still intact but under threat from the incoming tide of democracy. Innocence and pleasure are being undermined by puritanical dissent, the temperance movement, advances

118 A Literary Career

in agricultural science, the magnetic doorbell, and a general decline in social values. The Old Judge is filled, as Janice Kulyk Keefer has noted, with powerful yeoman voices that threaten to displace those of the gentlemen. Stephen Richardson, the ring-tailed roarer figure, is a vigorous example of what will be lost as a result of the new political order. Stephen embodies many of the qualities that Haliburton admired: manliness, practical knowledge of the world, independence from the world of politics and patronage. The lively Stephen and the even more loquacious Zeb Allen both know their place and are just as disturbed as anyone else when they find themselves elevated beyond their class. Those who think themselves above their station, like Nicholas Spohr in ‘Horse Shoe Cove,’ receive their comeuppance.24 There is no better example of Haliburton’s ability to orchestrate his political and social message than the story of Channing the merchant in ‘Asking a Governor to Dine.’ Haliburton creates a scene in which the two ends of the social spectrum collide. Among the gubernatorial party, Mr Trotz demonstrates a ‘profound contempt’ for colonists and shows an inordinate interest in the ‘Negroes and Indians’ of the province, ‘who alone could boast of purity of blood, and were the only gentlemen in it’ (1: 66). Then Lord Edward Dumbkopf insults the host’s choice of wine (1: 75). Mr Channing’s social inferiority makes him an easy target: ‘He knew that a man who steps out of his proper sphere in life must inevitably provoke ridicule’ (1: 83). It is, however, in the ‘afterpiece’ of the evening that we see Haliburton’s racially charged imagination at work. As Channing accompanies the governor and his staff to his study to retrieve their cloaks and wrappings, they stumble on the Black cook and the other servants enjoying themselves mightily. The cook wears the governor’s sword and ‘military hat and plumes’; three other Black servants, also hired for the day, don the accoutrements of the two aides and the military secretary. They dance a reel to the accompaniment of a boy who hums a tune for them and beats time with his fingers ‘on the crown of his master’s hat’ (1: 92). Lest we suspect that Haliburton favours the natural exuberance of the servants over the stiff and staid snobbery of the governor’s party, we are quickly led to the point of the scene as Haliburton conceives it. In her haste to escape a reprimand, the cook trips over her sword and knocks Mr Trotz over. For a brief moment two extremes meet: Mr Trotz and the Black cook. Trotz’s sympathy for the ‘Negroes’ (1: 66) of the province is put to a test that Haliburton takes an extra delight in detailing: Poor creature! Though deeply versed in the mysteries of her art, she was not well read. Her knowledge was derived from experience, and not from

A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life 119 books; and she knew not that Swift had cautioned cooks – ‘But lest your kissing should be spoil’d, The onion must be throughly boil’d.’ (1: 94).

Trotz recognizes that he has been performing (against his will) in the ‘vulgar farce of High Life Below Stairs.’ After all the guests have departed, Channing confesses to Barclay that he is happiest in ‘the sphere in life in which Providence has placed me’ (1: 96). So that his own son will not be uncomfortable in such company, Channing has chosen to send him to King’s College so he will be able to ‘ask a governor to dine’ without making the same social blunders as his father. The London press hailed Haliburton’s The Old Judge: ‘Both volumes abound in lively sallies, capital sketches, and amusing anecdotes, all given in Sam Slick’s attractive and inimitable manner.’ 25 But not all readers indulged the book’s ‘interminable’ talkers. The Sunday Times of 21 January 1849: ‘This is far from an uninteresting book, but is, nevertheless, one which might, we think, have been with advantage compressed into one volume ... His idea seems to be that we can never have too much of a good thing.’26 In the opinion of the Sunday Times reviewer, only ‘The Keeping-Room’ sequence appealed, especially Stephen Richardson’s ‘long night and long story – one of the most capital in the book.’ Most English readers agreed with the critic in John Bull that Haliburton in The Old Judge seemed ‘as fresh as ever in this new production.’27 Few stopped to analyse what the same journal described as his ‘extensive knowledge of the world,’ and none of his English readers minded that Haliburton’s colonial world came with powerful social and racial exclusions.

Chapter 17

The Death of Tom Jr

The continuing illness and incapacity of Judge Lewis Wilkins meant that Haliburton and the other four Supreme Court judges had to share the existing workload among themselves. As a result, progress on the new book was slow: it was almost three years before it was published in London. This was also a time of intense personal stress for Haliburton brought about by the mental deterioration of his eldest son, Tom. Some of the earliest evidence that Tom suffered from mental problems is found in remarks made by the Bliss brothers in the 1830s.1 That Haliburton’s eldest son died in an insane asylum in Massachusetts in November 1847 has long been known. It has not been known that the hospital was the famous private McLean’s hospital, that his stay there was very short (the hospital admitted him on 19 October 1847, and he died there on 4 November), and that the same hospital admitted another Haliburton family member on two occasions (in 1824 and 1840).2 McLean’s was by then developing a strong reputation throughout and beyond New England. The superintendent, Dr Luther Bell, advocated a moral regimen for treating the insane in an era when psychiatric knowledge was sparse and treatments varied considerably. Some practitioners regarded mental illness as ‘a disease of the mind,’ and some saw it as a ‘bodily disease.’ Still others, ‘inspired by phrenology, held that the brain was a series of discrete organs, each mediating a particular mental faculty, and that various forms of insanity were brought about when particular organs were diseased.’3 Methods of treatment varied from bloodletting to drugs to rigorous restraint.4 Treatment inside McLean’s hospital proved to be ‘quite different’: the accommodations there were ‘as good as any hotel in the country,’ according to Dr Bell. Most of the patients lived in private apartments. The staff provided patients ‘with every comfort and

The Death of Tom Jr 121

every luxury to which they have been accustomed at home.’5 But as Nina Fletcher Little notes, ‘the humaneness of McLean’s treatment was for the cooperative, not the recalcitrant.’6 The moral regimen that made Dr Bell famous had its steely side. Troublesome patients were placed in strong rooms and stripped of their clothing, and Bell used opium freely. 7 Even so, Haliburton sent his son to what was generally considered one of the very best places for help. Certainly, McLean’s had a strict admissions policy: ‘This Asylum desires to receive no patients except on its own terms; it asks no patronage; it was established to confer, not to receive benefits,’ Dr Bell wrote in his Annual Report for 1842.8 No patient would be admitted unless he or she agreed to stay for a ‘fair trial of six months, if so long a period is necessary.’ 9 In Haliburton’s extant correspondences there is no indication previous to 1844 that young Tom’s mental condition was reaching a crisis point. In that year he wrote to Robert Parker: ‘My poor boy Tom has been exceedingly ill this winter, and his constitution has received a shock, which will I fear never be wholly recovered from – He is now convalescent, tho very delicate, quite homesick & wants to return to Germany.’10 Since the 1830s, Haliburton had been supporting Tom’s musical career, sending him to Koblenz, Germany, to study music. This effectively kept him away from home for long periods. On his admission to the hospital, the doctors there diagnosed young Tom’s ‘supposed condition’ as an ‘original defect of mind.’11 The admissions process required either Haliburton or another relative to sign for Tom to be admitted. Long-term hospitalization meant a contract to pay all living costs on a quarterly basis. It is possible that this process was handled by Haliburton’s uncle, George Mordaunt (himself a former patient), or by the Reverend Joseph Clinch, minister of St Matthew’s Church, Boston, who had married one of the Cunningham sisters of Windsor, Nova Scotia. Haliburton wrote to him on 17 December 1847, enclosing a draft to pay for expenses incurred as a result of young Tom’s burial in Mount Auburn Cemetery.12 They buried young Tom in the Samuel Fales family tomb, and there he remained until his removal on 14 November 1866. Why he was removed after Haliburton’s death remains a mystery. The family placed a tombstone to his memory, but it no longer exists.13 The removal of his remains after Haliburton’s death effectively reduced Tom’s status to that of a pauper in a cemetery where status mattered even more in death than in life. 14 Haliburton wrote about Mount Auburn in the third Clockmaker: ‘It’s actilly like a pleasure ground, it’s laid out so pretty, and is the grandest

122 A Literary Career

place for courtin’ in I know on, it’s so romantic.’15 Mount Auburn ‘was originally set up under the auspices of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.’16 It remains to this very day the resting place for the Boston élite and a tribute to its designers in the early 1830s, who intended it to be as genteel a last resting place as money could buy. How young Tom died is still shrouded in mystery. The death certificate gives his name, his date of death, his age (twenty-six), his place of death (the ‘Lunatic Hospital’), his place of burial (Mount Auburn Cemetery on 6 November), and even the name of the undertaker, ‘William A. Brabiner.’ But it does not list ‘Disease or Cause of Death.’17 The entry for that is left conspicuously blank. The entry in the register of St Matthew’s Church, South Boston (Joseph Clinch’s church), adds nothing.18 Throughout his life, Haliburton never let down his guard on the subject of young Tom. His only allusion to mental infirmity and to asylums is found in the Season Ticket: He is, therefore, received into a private asylum, the keeper of which pays the recommending physician fifteen per cent on the amount of the annual charge for his custody and support. The unfortunate victim is outrageous at this false imprisonment, and thereby affords the proof which was before wanting of insanity. He is laced up in a strait-waistcoat, his head shaved and blistered, and he is kindly admonished to keep himself cool and quiet. Nothing can ever effect his release save poverty or death. Death does sometimes occur, not from insanity, but from a broken heart (146).

The portrait is a severe one, and it is Haliburton’s only reference in all his work to mental illness – a subject he clearly knew something about. During his later speech-making days in England in 1857, he once exchanged polite letters with Dr William Browne (1805–85), author of What Asylums Were, Are, and Ought to Be (1837).19 Browne had married a sister of Decimus Burton. Haliburton’s daughters and two remaining sons, in all that they wrote to one another – even when they commented on other family members – remained silent about young Tom. The only glimpse we have of hem comes from the cynical remarks of the Bliss brothers in the late 1830s. Young Tom Haliburton may have inherited a streak of mental instability from his Otis great-grandparents. Nina Fletcher Little in her book on the early years of McLean’s hospital mentions James Otis’s madness in the eighteenth century.20 Even Haliburton himself, in the early 1840s, confessed to a depression of the spirits arising from the death of his

The Death of Tom Jr 123

wife, overwork, and a general feeling of isolation, especially in winter. In the early 1840s, his eldest son’s mental instability added to his despair. He seems to have responded to life’s bitter draughts by taking a stronger interest in formal worship. In December 1845, Lady Falkland told Susanna, Haliburton’s eldest daughter, that ‘the Judge looks so well, & is I think looking younger & handsomer than ever.’21 She was raising money for St Matthew’s Chapel of Ease in Windsor, which Haliburton helped establish by donating land within the town limits. He purchased the land on 25 February 1845 for £71.17.6 and conveyed it the following day to the churchwardens of Christchurch on the condition that no part of it be used as a burial ground.22 The reason for the new chapel is not hard to see. It would be a much more convenient place to attend services on Sundays; the alternative, Christ Church, which had been built by Michael Francklin, former Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, was some distance from the centre of town. Judging from Susanna’s drawing (c. 1850), the Chapel of Ease was a very simple structure.23 Nearly forty years later, after a sentimental journey to Windsor, Susanna informed Augusta, then living in Torquay, England, that ‘the salvation army has our poor little Church in Windsor. Is it not sad [?].’24 In response to queries from Ernest Hawkins, the secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Reverend Alfred Gilpin in his annual report for 1854 estimated the attendance at the Parish Church as 150, and at the Chapel of Ease, 175.25 Haliburton took an interest in the affairs of the church but had very little patience for the style and manner of the Reverend Gilpin. Haliburton thought that Gilpin was neglecting the poor,’26 and he spoke at a vestry meeting on the subject. No person could be in all places at once, Haliburton admitted, but Gilpin had not solicited the help of any other ‘clergyman’ in his parish. In the eyes of dissenters, this lack of zeal had a ‘most pernicious appearance.’ He accused Gilpin of just such a lack of ‘zeal.’ He also felt that the ‘church which was rapidly filling’ had begun to empty because of the rector’s autocratic decision to terminate chanting, ‘which formed such an attractive and interesting part of the service.’27 Haliburton’s relationship with Ernest Hawkins, secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (the missionary arm of the Anglican Church), became a social one during Haliburton’s visits to England in 1853 and 1855. Haliburton strongly praised the Anglican Church in North America in the early chapters of his next book, Rule and Misrule: ‘Her sterling worth is stamped on her children, and an Englishman may well be proud of the parent that instructed his tender years, and

124 A Literary Career

implanted in his mind all those virtues that invigorate, and those graces that adorn his character’ (1: 79). After he moved to England in 1856, Haliburton made at least one after-dinner speech on the subject of the church in North America. Still later he declared that one of the goals of the Canada Land and Emigration Company (which he chaired) would be to found model Anglican communities in central Ontario.28 In his estimation, the ideal qualities for a church leader were ‘zeal, energy, moderation, and orthodoxy ... easier extolled than found.’ 29 A church schism in Halifax in 1824 over the appointment of the new minister of St Paul’s made a deep and lasting impression on him. He alluded to it twice in the first three Clockmakers.30 In his attack on Harriet Martineau (252), Haliburton has Slick relate the story of how the congregation in Slickville split over the election of an elder.31 The Squire and Slick join forces to defend the Church of England: ‘Our church may be aristocratic; but if it is, it teaches good manners, and a regard for the decencies of life’ (255). Haliburton’s most serious attempt to eulogize the Episcopal Church is, of course, his portrait of the old minister, Joshua Hopewell. He thought that Hopewell expressed many of his own deepest spiritual feelings – feelings too deep to place in the mouth of any other character. He presents Hopewell as a victim of the ‘Voluntary System’ that disestablished the church in Connecticut and forced Episcopal ministers into a life of penury. The displacement of men like Hopewell had, in Haliburton’s opinion, destroyed American society (Clockmaker, 2nd series, ch. 2, ‘The Voluntary System’). Two of Haliburton’s daughters married clergymen. Emma Maria married John Bainbridge Smith in 1851, and her younger sister, Amelia, married Edwin Gilpin, who later became Dean of Nova Scotia. Bainbridge Smith came to King’s College as a professor and found an establishment in decline. Bishop John Inglis hoped that Bainbridge Smith, who complained loudly that local churchgoers were not celebrating communion often enough (only four times a year), might not be a soured man of High Church tendencies.32 But Bainbridge Smith felt he had much to complain about, being asked, as he was, to lecture at the college on secular subjects.33 His missionary zeal would later take him to Smyrna, a chaplaincy that his wife preferred not to share with him. She educated her daughters in Boulogne-sur-Mer and then later lived in Dover, England. The history of the Episcopal Church in America is one of privilege and class.34 Haliburton’s family had always been Episcopal, even during their days on the Scottish borders – an affiliation that had fostered in

The Death of Tom Jr 125

them pretensions to social status that they never relinquished. Haliburton’s sense of social superiority is closely linked to his family’s adherence to a religion of social privilege. But even the church could not console him for the pain he experienced at the death of his son Tom. Tom’s death did nothing to smooth out Haliburton’s fluctuating moods during the 1840s. His relationship with Richard Bentley foundered in the 1840s following his exasperation at not hearing of the safe arrival of the second and last series of The Attaché.35 The two did not correspond again for several years after 1844, except on one occasion, when in 1847 Haliburton formally asked Bentley to issue a new edition of The Clockmaker and The Attaché.36 Their relationship improved somewhat in May 1851, when Bentley wrote to repair the breach between them, expressing the hope that their differences, which had severed their ‘literary connection,’ could be considered as ‘bygones.’ 37 Following this, in July 1851, Haliburton invited his old friend to take a run across the water to visit him in his ‘wigwam.’ Even though their friendship revived, Bentley published nothing of Haliburton’s until The Season Ticket (1860), and they quarrelled once again over that.38 Neither man knew that the other was experiencing a decade of considerable personal difficulties. The heady days of Bentley’s Miscellany were long past. In 1854, Bentley sold the Miscellany, and in 1855 his creditors pressed him to make ‘special arrangements.’39 Nevertheless, after 1856, while living in London, Haliburton acted as one of Bentley’s literary advisers. Although their relationship fluctuated, there is no question that Haliburton benefited greatly from Richard Bentley’s patronage. Through Bentley, Haliburton met many other writers and gained significant notoriety for himself; as a result, he achieved a secure place in the imagination of educated Englishmen of the mid-nineteenth century. The British public knew about Sam Slick even if they did not know much about the man who created him. Richard Bentley made all this possible. Noting how prolific he had been so far, Haliburton in an 1853 letter asked Bentley to issue in a ‘uniform edition.’40 His body of published works now included three volumes of The Clockmaker, The Letter Bag of the Great Western, two series of two volumes each of The Attaché, and two volumes of The Old Judge, not to mention his early histories and his ill-fated adventure in political polemic, The Bubbles of Canada. In Haliburton’s view, the books that Bentley had published had been prohibitively expensive for the colonies, where only the first two series of The Clockmaker had circulated widely.41 As early as February 1847, he complained to Bentley

126 A Literary Career

that a new edition was needed ‘in a cheaper form’ for general circulation. He felt that his work had enough resonance that his books could be reissued with new prefaces and ‘copious notes’ and ‘good illustrations.’42 In February 1849, he also urged Messrs Lea and Blanchard to consider a uniform edition for the colonial market.43 He asked only that he be able to correct the proofs. The recent ‘errors of the London press’ with respect to The Old Judge had been, he noted, ‘most numerous.’44 A combined edition of The Attaché was published in Philadelphia in 1849, but no complete edition of Haliburton’s works ever emerged. Book collectors resorted to binding the volumes uniformly. After his death, in his memory, Haliburton’s widow presented a uniformly bound complete edition of his works to the Isleworth Library. Just before Christmas in 1849, Haliburton sent two brace of partridge to Lady Falkland ‘enclosed in a box to a friend who will undertake to deliver them.’ He told her that the political situation in the colonies remained ‘very critical,’ in a state of ‘chrisolis.’45 Around this same time, he was preparing to write a history of the republican experiment in the United States from its earliest days to the revolution and beyond. His decision to write Rule and Misrule is not hard to explain. His ‘connected sketch,’46 as he called it, would target those ‘restless politicians who imagine a republican form of government suitable to the inhabitants of every country in the world’ (Rule and Misrule, 2–3). Rule and Misrule proved, if proof were needed, that his political views were unchanged. In the book’s dedication, he told Lork Falkland as much. Stanley McMullin has written: ‘For Haliburton, conservatism was a way of life, a set of ideals to which men aspired. It transcended the bounds of any party ideology. It was a set of mind. It was organic, providential, inspired by God. Religion and education were its handmaidens. It awarded merit and acknowledged tradition.’47 With beliefs like these, Haliburton stood to the right politically even of someone like Lord Falkland, whom he regarded as the man the British had entrusted to bring ‘responsible government’ into being: ‘I never had a very exalted opinion of what is called “Responsible Government” knowing that the term was an indefinite one, and that an interpretation had been put upon it by many people, that made it almost amount to sovereignty’ (vi). Even though Falkland helped bring it about, Haliburton praised him for not becoming a cipher like other governors. Despite their differences of opinion, they remained friends. Haliburton would later recall spending many ‘happy hours’ in Falkland’s company. McMullin is one of the few readers to have scrutinized Haliburton’s

The Death of Tom Jr 127

ideas in Rule and Misrule. He argues that reading The Clockmakers in the context of Haliburton’s historical writing helps us see Slick as the ‘postrevolutionary Yankee’ who has lost touch with the ‘old pre-revolutionary moral vision’ represented by the Squire and the Reverend Hopewell, who in turn ‘affirm the values of a Tory social order.’48 Rule and Misrule is a message delivered to his contemporaries: ‘Whatever wisdom or experience may be gathered from the pages of history in general, it is certain that the annals of the old provinces, so rich in instruction, have imparted but little knowledge to those in England, in whose hands are entrusted colonial destinies’ (1, 173). Haliburton’s earlier fury at the Durham Report and all it represented had now abated. He had resigned himself to the events unfolding in the colony of Nova Scotia. Haliburton intended a ‘political sketch,’ as is clear from the way he returns, after his account of misrule in America, to a subject that had preoccupied him in 1838–9, misrule in Canada. Almost ten years later, he was repeating verbatim the language of The Bubbles of Canada, thus affirming that his political thought was dogmatic at its core. In Haliburton’s view, between 1837 and 1847, ‘paternal authority’ had been flouted: ‘The nucleus of every society is a family. The father is despotic’ (301). While monarchies have charms, democracy has ‘no charms for any one above the yeoman’ (2: 303). ‘There is no democracy in nature’ (2: 300). It is destructive of the refinement that one finds in ‘polished circles.’ When he returned to the original premise of the book – the early American revolution – Haliburton concluded that ‘every enlargement of the franchise is a downward step toward democracy’ (2: 333) and a threat to the landed proprietor class. V.L.O. Chittick felt that Haliburton never wrote better, and never came nearer to commanding respect for the outworn political views to which he had long adhered with perfect confidence in their unalterable right and justice ... One leaves the English in America with regret that Haliburton’s fully matured gifts of eloquence should not have been employed in some cause more likely to insure a proper regard for them to-day ... it attains to a much higher level of literary achievement than any of the volumes of popular humor which have won for its writer a world-wide fame.49

Rule and Misrule is an interesting book, but not worthy of the high literary praise that Chittick gives it.

Chapter 18

Stepping Out of the Frame

In early 1849, while Haliburton was writing Rule and Misrule, Nova Scotians were experiencing a hard winter, ‘the hardest winter here I ever knew, for the last 3 months I have not seen the ground, so heavy has been the snow.’1 For Haliburton, the harder the winter, the harder the work: ‘Winter is my time for work, in summer I live with the birds in the open air – in winter with the bears –.’2 His judicial duties had prevented him for seven straight years from crossing the Atlantic. As he explained to Alexander Fowden Haliburton, his routine was fixed by the judicial calendar: ‘I shall leave home therefore on Monday the 9th of April, and return about 15th May, continuing there till about the 5th of July, absent till 1st August – at home from thence till middle of September.’3 But that year, by the middle of April, in Lunenburg, he found his work all ‘tedious and laborious.’4 At fifty-three, he was tired of travelling around Nova Scotia: ‘I am tired but tolerably well, with the exception of a weakness of chest which I think arises from cold.’ Directing daily life at Clifton from a distance had become a chore: 1st Potatoes must be put into hot bed, and the field potatoes sprouted 2. also corn (Indian) without delay – 3. I only want one sheep fattened as I have not food enough for all – 4. Team must be kept a going, 5. no extra hiring but Latty who was to come on 16th, till I return, 6 Send Arthur to Dy Sherriff to say to Ross I will take the two cows – Sangster will value them and any body also Ross chooses and he shall have credit for their valuation 7th. After Monday the 23rd of April whenever ground is in order Clarke may sow the 4 acre field near hedge (plowed last fall with oats)

Stepping Out of the Frame 129 7 [sic] I should like him to see Sangster about filling up hole over Tunnel in Pasture – my team & his men can help raise it a little above level as it will settle – 8 Lowther must get a bottle of blistering ointment from Harding & blister my horses Ankle – It must be first washed with warm water ... Mr. Porter will shew him if needful – Hotbed must be pushed, for we are always backward in that – 9 When did Calf go? And who got it if not gone it had better be kept a few days for Butcher, as there is eventually a job going to be done by giving a bargain to some one – 10 Send to John Smith to make sky light tight. When I return I will attend to floor 10 [sic] Tell Arthur to look at the work every day – it is a great check – and see no cattle are poaching meadow lands 11 Let Lowther clear from carriage yard & keep it in order removing the ladder to the back of the fence of coach yard – where it will be handy – 12 Tell Arthur any rainy day he cant get to school to see that the men split wood – 13 Arthur will tell Clarke that I want ground where oats were last year very heavily manured, for green crops as it is better to have at home just now than from Windsor, as it will expedite work – Let me be written to next week, giving me an acct at Shelburne of all work done up to that date.

These instructions indicate just how much control Haliburton exerted over affairs at home even while he was travelling. The letter shows us Haliburton the yeoman farmer more than Haliburton the gentleman farmer. He wrote toward the end of Rule and Misrule: The best agricultural writers of this century, though they differ, as it is natural to suppose they should, as to the best size for a farm, all agree in this, whatever may be its extent, which must ever depend on a variety of accidental circumstances, it should not be so large as to induce the occupier to speculation in the markets, whereby he is apt to withdraw his attention from his legitimate business, and expose himself to bankruptcy, nor so small as to require him to cultivate it with his own hands, which degrades him to the station of a mere labourer, and engages him in a perpetual struggle with poverty, which in his declining years is sure to overpower him at last. (2: 364)

Haliburton micro-managed his estate for the benefit of his family

130 A Literary Career

rather than for the profits he could earn by selling his produce. When it came to speculation, he preferred books. One by one, Haliburton’s daughters married respectably. Eventually, he would count among his sons-in-law a New Brunswick judge, two clerics, the second son of a shipping magnate, and the son of an English ironmaster (both the latter having considerable private means). In contrast, his sons did not marry during his lifetime. Arthur’s career in the Army Commissariat demonstrated – very much like his father’s career in law – how sheer application to duty could take the place of natural ability. Arthur would marry Mariana Emily (Schuster) Clay in 1877. Robert Grant, after a promising start to his legal career, divided his time between North America and England. He avoided matrimony and led a wandering, roving life. ‘Poor Robert’s wandering, isolated life makes one sad,’ wrote Susanna to her sister Augusta late in her life.5 On 16 August 1848, Susanna Haliburton, Thomas’s eldest daughter, married the Honourable John Wesley Weldon of Richibucto, judge of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick and speaker of the House of Representatives. Weldon’s first wife, Frances Chandler Upham, had died in 1844.6 The Uphams and the Chandlers (Thomas Haliburton’s mother’s family) were relatives by marriage.7 Susanna found herself transplanted to Loyalist circles in New Brunswick.8 Newly married and living in Richibucto, she soon received a visit from Augusta. Superintending Clifton in Augusta’s absence became much more difficult for Haliburton. ‘Laura fancies she aint well but she only misses you and is very cross with every body,’ he wrote to Augusta, ‘what she will do when I go [on his Fall circuit] I don’t know, for she has to fly to me from necessity now.’ 9 Laura, the third daughter, was unhappy. A local man, John Cunningham, had courted her a few years earlier, but he could not convince Haliburton that he had sufficient prospects in life. 10 Haliburton explained to Cunningham at the time that his own financial situation precluded a settlement on Laura. Haliburton felt that because Cunningham could not guarantee he could support Laura in her accustomed style, he must refuse the young man’s request that the relationship be allowed to continue. His duty as a parent overruled the young couple’s feelings and Cunningham’s claim that they had an ‘understanding.’ Laura, who had much artistic talent, later married William Cunard, the second son of Samuel Cunard, and lived a life in which her material well-being would always be secure.11 Haliburton went on the fall circuit in 1849, ‘bothered enough as you may suppose, from a variety of causes, never to occur again I hope.’12 In

Stepping Out of the Frame 131

the same letter home, he quibbled over the cost of stabling his horses: ‘I like Ross very well, but I cant find a man for stable and 4/- a day is ruinous for the care of horses only.’ He may well have been anxious about his legal liability for a sizeable debt incurred by his long-time gypsum-mining partner, J.L. Sangster.13 After the Bank of Nova Scotia filed suit against him, he found himself owing almost £900. This compelled him, in 1852, to raise as much money as he could and to cut expenses.14 His new sonin-law, Weldon, suggested an inexpensive wash for painting the buildings Haliburton owned in Windsor: ‘It is as good as paint it answers remarkable well. The materials cost only 2/-.’15 According to Chittick, the financial embarrassment delayed Haliburton’s departure for England, but I can find no supporting evidence for this.16 Haliburton first asked that the verdict be set aside – a request rejected by the Supreme Court in 1854. By then, however, he was able to manage the Sangster debt with some ease. Between 1849 and 1853, Haliburton earned a considerable amount of money from his writing. On 16 May 1851, Henry Colburn paid £200 into his Coutts & Company account for Rule and Misrule of the English in America. Thus was followed by another £200 on 15 October 1851 from Hurst & Co. (successors to Henry Colburn),17 and on 17 December, by another £250.18 Thus in one year he had earned £650 over and above his judicial salary. In the ‘Introductory Letter’ to Sam Slick’s Wise Saws (1853), he described this as ‘doin’ a little bit of business by the way to pay charges, and cover the ribs of my bank book; not to say that I need it much either, for habit has more to do with business now with me than necessity.’ Even before he auctioned off his new book Sam Slick’s Wise Saws to the highest bidder (which turned out to be Hurst and Co.), Haliburton received two further payments of £50 from Colburn & Co. on 16 April 1852 and 7 October 1853. This was for the second three-volume compilation he had prepared, even though they did not issue it until 1854.19 There were few signs in 1849 that life at Clifton was drawing to a close for Haliburton and that he and his family would be gone within six years. He was working on plans to gentrify the house to make it more comfortable for himself, his visitors, and his remaining daughters and sons.20 Two years later, on the spring circuit again, and writing from Barrington en route to Yarmouth from Shelburne, he listed some of the physical changes he had ordered for Clifton: ‘The floor of the addition must be on a level with Kitchen, in other words it must be excavated level with cellar.’21 Two years after using penny-pinching language in a letter to Augusta, he was discussing renovations to the house. From Rule and Misrule: ‘The common operation of altering a dwelling-house requires

132 A Literary Career

great care; every change begets another, as new difficulties are constantly arising in its progress, which were either not foreseen, or not sufficiently provided against; and at last it is not unfrequently found that it would have been better not to have undertaken the enlargement at all, or to have pulled down the edifice and reconstructed it’ (2: 270–1). Visitors to Clifton today will look in vain for the house that Haliburton actually inhabited, so greatly have later owners changed it. Allen Penney’s fascinating article on the subject in the Bi-centenary Chaplet reminds us just how practical a house Clifton always managed to be. It served well as both a family retreat and a gentleman’s residence for entertaining friends; at the same time it was a working farm.22 Haliburton was contemplating changes to Clifton at a time when his younger daughters, Emma Maria, Laura, Amelia and Augusta were one by one getting married. His two sons had already left to make their own careers.23 Haliburton followed Rule and Misrule (completed on 31 March, 1851) with two three-volume compilations of American writing, which he titled Traits of American Humour (1852) and The Americans at Home (not published until 1854). He concluded the first of these three-volume projects in June 1851. One of the last stories he included was ‘Ben Wilson”s Last Jug Race,’ taken from the 24 May 1851 issue of Spirit of the Times.24 In Traits of American Humour, Haliburton blended humorous sketches and tales by well-known practitioners of Yankee humour with tales by humorists from the south and west (where the tall tale reigned supreme). He organized the book as a series of alternating examples of the two styles. He sometimes departed from this arrangement, but generally he observed it. Haliburton’s subtitle, ‘By Native Authors,’ signalled clearly to British readers that the subject matter was American. In his brief introduction to Traits, he revealed his extensive knowledge of this genre, which he felt must be adapted for the educated reader (xii). ‘I never write for the newspapers,’ he once told Richard Bentley.25 But he certainly read the stories that appeared in the papers, and he knew exactly where to go to gather his material. He knew that William T. Porter’s journal, Spirit of the Times, was the ‘general receptacle of all these fugitive pieces.’26 He raided not only Porter’s magazine but also two popular anthologies compiled by Porter, as well as a more recent one that T.A. Burke had assembled in 1851. Here he found much of the material he now presented to the British reading public. V.L.O. Chittick describes these two anthologies of Haliburton’s as ‘two rich storehouses of the dialect curiosities, odd customs, and hard living conditions which once prevailed in an America that has

Stepping Out of the Frame 133

all but vanished.’27 The description better fits the second three-volume compilation, Americans at Home, in which Haliburton attempts to place before the British reader a geographically broad spectrum of rural life in America, as reflected its subtitle, ‘Byeways, Backwoods, and Prairies.’ The two collections are analogous but in no way identical. These volumes reveal a link between Haliburton and American writers of humorous sketches – a link so strong that readers of Canadian literature who expect English and colonial models for his work might be surprised at how greatly Haliburton was influenced by American writers. These influences shaped Sam Slick and assisted Haliburton in his use of ‘Americanisms.’28 Haliburton’s knowledge of early American writing went far beyond the upstart country bumpkin figure of Jack Downing and significantly influenced, as we have seen, the structure and content of The Old Judge (1849).29 In William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times (1957), Norris W. Yates reminds us that Mrs Frances Trollope had an extremely low opinion of that American periodical, describing its contents as ‘a debasing influence on literary taste.’30 To understand the full force of Mrs Trollope’s remark, recall that Spirit of the Times began in 1831 as a sporting journal dealing exclusively with matters relating to the ‘Turf.’ As racing declined in the late 1830s, and with it the social prestige of the southern plantocracy, the magazine began to publishing ‘rough-hewn native humour of the southern frontier.’31 The public liked the stories so much that Porter published two widely read anthologies, Big Bear of Arkansas and Other Sketches, Illustrative of Characters and Incidents in the South and South-West, in 1843, and Quarter Race in Kentucky, and Other Sketches, Illustrative of Scenes, Characters, and Incidents, Throughout ‘The Universal Yankee Nation,’ in 1847.32 In these two volumes, Porter reprinted a total of fifty-four stories. Nine of the twenty-one selections in Big Bear would find their way into Haliburton’s Traits. T.A. Burke’s Polly Peasblossom’s Wedding; and Other Tales followed in 1851,33 and Haliburton’s own huge contribution in 1852. When Haliburton stated on his title page that he had edited and adapted the stories, he meant that he had excised anything about them that would identify them as magazine articles. Sometimes, he changed a piece’s title, and often he dropped the author’s name. Not all the pieces in the Spirit could be identified anyway. As William T. Porter explained in his introduction to Big Bear (1845), the stories ‘were furnished for publication mainly by country gentlemen, planters, lawyers, &c., “who live at home at ease.” We are utterly precluded, by repeated injunctions

134 A Literary Career

of secresy, from giving the “name” or “local habitation” of any one of those not designated in the introduction to the respective sketches.’34 These humorists were writing for a gentlemanly audience, the ‘corinthian columns of the community,’35 clearly identified as southern aristocrats and planters who found violence and cruelty both interesting and amusing. Haliburton well understood how a gentleman might feel reluctant to place his name on a title page. In the first three volumes, he identified only a few of the authors of the sketches; in the next three, he would identify none of them, even though some of the names had already appeared in the pieces as published in Spirit of the Times. For his anthologies, Haliburton selected many pieces from Spirit of the Times. Many were lifted directly from the columns of that publication for the years 1850 and 1851. Clearly, Haliburton was aiming for topicality, even though he also reprinted many classics of the genre that earlier anthologists had chosen. His anthologies are the largest of their kind. He was assuming that his typical reader would have a huge appetite for such writing. At the end of the sixth volume, 1,800 pages from the start, even the most ardent enthusiast for early American humorous sketches would have had enough. In Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor, Kenneth Lynn notes that the narrators of these stories were kept outside the action by means of a narrative frame. In this way, the morally irreproachable gentleman was separated from the life he described.36 Lynn charts the inevitable triumph of the vernacular over the gentlemanly voice and the gradual loss of control over the frame by gentleman authors in the 1850s.37 But in Haliburton’s case, Slick’s vernacular voice always posed a threat to Haliburton’s gentlemanly poise as the Squire. Similar tendencies can be observed in The Old Judge, in which Stephen Richardson and Zeb Allen dominate the voices of the more gentlemanly narrators. Regarding writers of Southwestern humour, Lynn contends that their efforts to retain a gentlemanly control over the narrative expressed their desire to hold the slavocracy of the South together by throwing out ‘lifelines of class consciousness.’ 38 The attempt to save the South ended in failure when the breach between the various sections of society widened to the point of threatening the Union itself. After twenty years of presenting Sam Slick and the Squire, Haliburton’s gentlemanly aura was largely invisible. In the Slick revivals of the 1850s, and in Haliburton’s real-world afterlife in England after 1856, the author and his character were one and the same in the popular imagination. Haliburton had always signalled his own gentlemanly status by provid-

Stepping Out of the Frame 135

ing Latin epigraphs on his title pages.39 This served as a wink to educated readers. As Slick continuation followed Slick continuation, Haliburton affiliated himself with a tradition of humorous writing fostered mainly by Southern planters, state governors, lawyers, and merchants (for example, Governor Alexander McNutt of Mississippi created the famous ‘Jim’ and ‘Chunkey’ stories). What astonishes us today is that Haliburton could conceive of pursuing a conservative political agenda with any measure of plausibility through the ungentlemanly figure of Sam Slick. His anthologies exposed British readers to the rough-and-ready American way of life. They provided glimpses of rural life, and they confirmed the existence of a world fast disappearing ‘beneath the advancing strides of romance-destroying civilization’ (Traits, 277). Here in the language of the tall tale are Mike Fink, Colonel David Crockett, Mike Hooter, Captain Simon Suggs, Major Jones, and a vast horde of similar larger-thanlife figures, who brought the frontier alive for readers in cities. In his second anthology, Haliburton searched for descriptive pieces that would evoke a sense of rural life in America. He found many. Volume 1 included 5 ‘Maple Sugar,’ 11 ‘A Modest Estimate of Our Own Country,’ 13 ‘A Quilting,’ 21 ‘The Lumberer’s Camp,’ and 23 ‘The Settler’s LogHouse’; volume 2 had 4 ‘Stopping to “Wood,”’ 5 ‘Who Shall Cook for the Camp?’ 9 ‘San Francisco,’ 11 ‘Launching the Pine Logs,’ 17 ‘Sunday at the Camp,’ and 31 ‘Cat Fishing on the Ohio’; while volume 3 included 10 ‘The Sleigh Ride,’ 11 ‘A Short Recipe for a Potato Pudding,’ 16 ‘Above Work, But Not Beyond Want,’ and 21 ‘Timber Jams, and Running the Wagon.’ Haliburton also tried to range far geographically. Thus he included one or more tall stories from Arkansas, Missouri (especially the swamps), Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Jersey, Maine, Virginia, California, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, New York, and Michigan. Many of the stories had recognizable local settings, such as the ‘Turkisage’ (1: 3), the ‘Rackensac’ (1: 14), the ‘Yazoo river’ (2: 22), and the Blue Mountains (3: 17). In the stories that comprise the second compilation, Americans at Home, hunters encounter every kind of animal – grizzlies, alligators, coons, wolves, deer, elk, and buffalo – and live to tell the tale. There are fewer New England stories in the second three volumes, and the figure of the Yankee is much less in evidence. There is much nostalgia in the stories (and by implication in the second anthology itself) for a way of life that is ‘fast passing away’ (Americans, 3: 288). The life being celebrated is generally pre-steamboat and pre-railway. As ‘Old Bland, the Pioneer’ says in one of the stories, gentlemen ‘is

136 A Literary Career

like freemasons, they can understand each other all over the world’ (3: 305). In these stories the gentleman descends to the bottom rung of society’s ladder, surveys all about him, and enjoys the spectacle, but then hastens back to the security of his own life. Several of the later stories place the gentleman narrator in peril, as a traveller in a frightening world in which lynch law and social disorder are ever-present realities. Norris Yates, referring to Spirit of the Times, contends that the reality of slavery in such stories ‘was usually kept in the editorial closet – the national skeleton.’ But the authors could not disguise their attitudes toward Blacks, Indians, and the poor squatters of the backwoods, nor could they conceal their delight in coarse sexuality. These gentlemen had two sets of morals, one for the public and one for their private world.40 Haliburton’s interest in the phenomenon that Spirit of the Times represented points to an important but forgotten facet of his own selfcharacterization. Yates points out that the presence of slavery was usually hidden in these stories; yet the stories Haliburton collected often depicted the Black presence in American society. The opening story of Americans at Home lauds the relationship between master and slave as superior to the one between a man and his wife. In ‘Aunt Nabby’s Stewed Goose’ (1: 8), the Black help is referred to as ‘the little black specimen of the human family’ (108) and ‘the web-footed mortal’ (109). In ‘Captain Stick and Toney,’ a master relishes whipping his slave every Saturday. He takes his account book and settles the reckoning in a businesslike way. In the story’s language and tone, there is no suggestion that the reader should do anything except laugh at Captain Stick’s appetite for whipping his young Black servant. The author, Johnson Jones Hooper, wrote the story in 1849, and there is nothing in his own political and social outlook to ameliorate the violence he presents. There is no hidden subtext that exposes the worst excesses of slavery. The story’s sadism is meant to be enjoyed. Similarly, Crockett’s account of how a bear approaches his ‘nigger’ Doughboy – ‘The bear got up to him jest as I war putting down my ball, and I expected to see him swaller the b’y without greasing; but he no sooner smelt of him than he turned up his nose in disgust’ (Traits, 1: 299) – is meant to provoke a laugh. Haliburton liked the passage so much that he borrowed the joke himself.41 Finding himself restricted by what Slick represented politically, Haliburton invented Hopewell – a figure of extreme conservatism and reaction – to support the Squire. He managed the counterpoint between Slick and Hopewell and the Squire for four volumes of The Attaché until

Stepping Out of the Frame 137

he began to tire of it. After completing the second series of The Attaché, he felt he would never use the figure of Slick again. But in 1853 he gave the British public more of the figure they had always liked. He had always fuelled Slick with many of his own personal traits, but he had also always tried to retain the distinction between Slick and the Squire. In 1853 and the two-volume continuation in 1855, Haliburton stepped out of the frame and onto the stage as Sam Slick himself.

Chapter 19

Sam Slick Rides Again

In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle on 31 August 1853, Haliburton explained his need to visit England to arrange for a ‘new edition’ of his Historical and Statistical Account.1 No new edition ever appeared, although Haliburton had clung to the idea of revising it for nearly ten years since 1840, when he first tried to interest Bentley in financing it. ‘For this purpose a sum of two hundred and fifty pounds would be requisite,’ Haliburton had said.2 Bentley did not respond at that time. Nevertheless – and surprisingly, considering its complete lack of commercial success when first published – Bentley did reissue The Attaché in one volume on 31 October 1853.3 This reissue was an indication that the two men had revived their friendship. On 11 May 1851, Haliburton had received a note and the present of a book from Richard Bentley asking him to consider their ‘differences’ as ‘bygones.’4 He quickly wrote back to tell Bentley that it gave him great pleasure to hear from him again: ‘The misunderstanding which occurred between us never could have happened if we had seen the light of each others countenances – a few minutes talk would have set all to rights –.’5 Ever the optimist about the quality of his own work, Haliburton approached Bentley on 12 May 1852 to see if he would publish his new book, Sam Slick’s Wise Saws and Modern Instances.6 Ever confident of his ability to appeal to a wide readership in England, he asked Bentley for £500.7 Bentley responded: ‘I much regret ... The state of business is so altered, especially the demand for works of light literature, that the old ratio of price has ceased to be a criterion ... I feel your kindness so much that I have resolved to go to the utmost verge of prudence upon this occasion; and therefore offer you 300 for the copyright.’8 Unaware of the problems afflicting Bentley’s business, Haliburton bristled: ‘It differs

Sam Slick Rides Again 139

essentially [from The] Clockmakers in not depen[ding for its] success on quaintness in American [idi]oms.’9 Haliburton felt that he had revamped the figure of Sam and made him more appealing. To work the idea through would require, he said, a second series. Bentley refused to bite. So Hurst and Blackett would publish Sam Slick’s Wise Saws (1853) and its successor, Nature and Human Nature (1855). Haliburton received £300 for the first series and £290 for the second.10 Bentley may have felt relief when he read the review of Sam Slick’s Wise Saws that appeared within an article titled ‘Contemporary Literature’ in his own Miscellany: ‘It may be doubted whether there is any great amount of novelty in Sam Slick’s Wise Saws ... As he grows older, we think his selfcomplacency comes out with more unctuous flavour.’11 According to V.L.O. Chittick, the new volume exuded an ‘unmistakeable ... air of wearied fag-endedness.’12 One thing is certain: the mask of Sam Slick now barely concealed its creator. In the ‘Introductory Letter’ dated ‘Slickville, April, 1852,’ Haliburton’s voice as Slick is indistinguishable from his own. Lately, Slick says, he had stayed close to home, adding to it ‘considerable in buildin’s and land, and begin to think sometimes of marryin’ ... I have spent some wet spells and everlastin’ long winter evenins lately in overhaulin’ my papers completin’ of them, and finishin’ up the reckonin’ of many a pleasant, and considerable boisterous days passed in different locations since we last parted’ (2). Sam Slick’s Wise Saws is filled with memories of England and being seated at the table of the rich and powerful, dating ostensibly from Slick’s days as the second attaché to the ambassador, but in actual fact from Haliburton’s visits to England in 1838–9 and 1843. The book is also a storehouse of stories about Nova Scotia life, ‘notched down at the time, and others ... related from memory’ (4). The effect is rambling. The book becomes a journal of Sam’s experiences, sent to the Squire for editing prior to publication, written in a colloquial style, but more significant now for its ‘delineation of character, knowledge [of men?] & things & a vein of proverbial [philoso]phy to sustain its name of “Wise [Saws],”’ as Haliburton tried to persuade Richard Bentley.13 The chapters are not ‘methodized’ (4); rather, they are strung together on the flimsy basis that Slick is now a commissioner for the fisheries, appointed by the president himself to tour Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore (though all the places visited in the first two volumes are on Nova Scotia’s South Shore) and to report back on his findings: ‘No, I wouldn’t sort the articles, only select them’ (7), is Slick’s advice to the Squire.

140 A Literary Career

Haliburton’s satirical strategy, as George Elliott Clarke has shown, relies heavily on viewing the Black identity as a kind of social leprosy that colonists must avoid.14 Haliburton’s recurrent need to design such scenes defines him for us in a way that until recently few readers were willing to confront. His views echo the delineation of the South that we find in John Pendleton Kennedy’s Swallow Barn, or Life in the Old Dominion (1832). Published under the pen name of Mark Littleton, Kennedy’s book is one of the most famous evocations of the Southern plantocracy.15 Kennedy’s book celebrates the lost pastoral world of the slave plantation, where Scipio, the free Negro, lives in contentment.16 Hence, at the homestead of Goose Van Damn, Slick observes ‘black Scipio’ in the heat of the day: ‘What a look of placid happiness is on his face!’ His peacefulness is later broken by a ‘free Yankee nigger,’ Caesar, who arrives in the farmyard to disturb Scipio from his slumbers. Caesar is on his way to an abolition meeting in Halifax, ‘for the gubbenor is a great abolitionist.’ The old Negro is unimpressed. Scipio’s view of abolition is that it is a foot of snow on the ground. Haliburton quickly juxtaposes Scipio with a shipwrecked English sailor, who complains that in reality the ‘colonists have no nationality: they are like our free niggers; they are emancipated, but they hante the same social position as the whites’ (2: 222). Slick claims to be dispensing a vast storehouse of wit and wisdom called ‘wise saws’ and ‘modern instances,’ the fruits of a lifetime of experience and travel. Whatever the situation, whatever the topic, Slick always has an illustration to hand. Even when the tales are tall and off colour, he insists on telling them: ‘Well, I wouldn’t swap my stories for your Latin and Greek, nor the embassy to boot’ (2: 93).The more Slick talks, the more he becomes the vehicle for Haliburton’s own armchair wisdom. The conversations are sometimes lengthy, and Haliburton tends to lecture his readers interminably, as in chapter 10, ‘The WaterGlass; or, a Day-Dream of Life,’ in which Slick plays (like Tristram Shandy and others before him) with the idea of a ‘Breast-Glass’ that enables him to see into people. The resulting daydream is an extended meditation on happiness: Haliburton’s prosy reflections on life at the age of fifty-six. Slick contends that the world is filled with few saints but many sinners and ‘is overrun with political knaves and quack knaves’ (confidence men of all kinds) and that none of our desires is ever satisfied in life. The antidote is hard work, duty, and each individual’s capacity to ‘kick up his heels’ occasionally (1: 205). Just how much Slick has been harnessed and tamed is clear in the

Sam Slick Rides Again 141

final chapter of Wise Saws, when Haliburton juxtaposes him with a Yankee confidence man. We are introduced to ‘a noted bird – a bold, darin’, onprincipled feller’ (2: 282), the Daugertype man [sic]. Daugertype represents a new and more powerful Yankee threat to the colonies; he sweeps all before him in Lower Canada before coming to the Maritimes. Sorrow, Slick’s Black servant, is convinced he is the devil. Haliburton could still stir both the admiration and the ire of his audience. American and British critics praised his new book: ‘Sam Slick once more, and as full of fun as ever’;17 ‘highly entertaining, full of quaint common sense, penetrating if not always flattering views of human nature, and droll pictures of individual character and passing fact ... Amidst the levities and slang of this amusing writer, there occur every here and there passages of admirable wisdom, and even of fine sentiment.’18 Once more, the Acadian Recorder offered ‘unmitigated condemnation of the work in question’: ‘If Sam would only remain, always, what he is, most of the time, that is, neither more nor less, than the judge himself, detailing his social, political, and religious views by means of a slang dialect – we could understand him.’19 By the late 1840s, Haliburton was living in a house full of eligible young ladies. One by one, they married: Susanna in 1848, Amelia in 1849, Emma in 1850, Laura in 1851, and Augusta in 1854. In Sam Slick’s Wise Saws we find reflections on a house full of children: ‘A crew is a family, and we all know what that is. It may be a happy family, and it ought to be, but it takes a great deal to make it so, and every one must lend a hand towards it. If there is only one screw loose, it is all day with it. A cranky father, a scoldin’ mother, a refractory boy, or a sulky girl, and it’s nothin’ but a house of correction from one blessed New Year’s Day to another’ (1: 94–5). Every April, May, and July, and from mid-September to December, Haliburton attended to his duties as a circuit judge. He spent approximately one-third of the year away from home. While away he relied on Augusta and Arthur to regulate the household. Attacks of gout, which became more frequent in his middle years, hampered him but did not sideline him. In May 1851, his suffering at Liverpool ‘was almost insupportable – I took 4 gout pills to kill pain, which they did, but they had a very stupefying effect.’20 His lack of exercise disconcerted him (‘the only inconvenience I suffer is from confinement’). His normal regime included a good deal of physical activity, usually riding. After writing so much for three years and at so much profit, Haliburton decided to visit England again in 1853. He crossed the ocean without knowing if he would receive his judicial salary for the time of his

142 A Literary Career

absence.21 He and Augusta travelled on the steamer Canada and happened to find themselves in the company of an American literary sensation, Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The meeting between Haliburton and the greatest nineteenth-century advocate for the emancipation of slaves was polite and formal. Augusta secured Mrs Stowe’s autograph – ‘Steamer Canada St George’s Channel April 9 1853 H.B. Stowe Forum haec olim meminisse jurabit’ – and treasured it.22 Six years later, in The Season Ticket, Haliburton has his brash American character, Amos Peabody, relate how he took a ‘rise’ out of ‘Mrs Beecher Stowe’: ‘I met her once at New York, just before she came over here, to make fools of whimpering gals and spoony Lords about Uncle Tom ... Well, Aunt Stowe was collecting horrors, like Madame Tussaud, when I met her. So, thinks I, if I don’t stuff you like a goose, it’s a pity; and I’ll season it with inions, and pepper, and sage, and what not, till it has the right flavour’ (51). When Peabody is asked whether the Negro feels like other human beings, he relates what is probably Haliburton’s most racially repulsive story, about a dead Negro who has his hide turned into a razor strop. ‘It’s the grandest strop I ever had in my life,’ says Peabody. ‘Now, if a nigger’s hide is as thick as that, how in the nature of things can he feel a whip?’ (55). Mrs Stowe sees it as her duty to report Peabody’s story to the world, and Haliburton implies that she is easily duped. Haliburton would have expected his gentlemanly audience to laugh heartily at his account of the meeting between Peabody and Stowe. On 19 April, before Haliburton arrived in Britain, Hurst & Blackett (successors to Henry Colburn) paid £300 into his London bank account for Sam Slick’s Wise Saws.23 On 9 May, Haliburton dedicated the new book to ‘His Friend and Kinsman,’ Alexander Haliburton. According to Augusta’s later recollections in the 1880s, she and her father visited Henley-on-Thames, once the home of her mother: ‘Capt Neville lived in an Hotel & in lodgings at Henley in Hart Street, I forget the name of the Hotel. My father showed me both houses & Mrs Piercey’s in 1853 when we went to Henley & saw a Miss Langley who had known Mama.’24 Haliburton also showed Augusta their ancestors’ haunts in Scotland. Before they set off on their Scottish tour, Haliburton participated in a charitable scheme to support the founding of St Paul’s College, ‘a school for colored boys ... opened in Bermuda under the headmastership of a Rev. Dowding.’25 Dowding was trying to revive Bishop Berkeley’s centuryold dream of founding a school for the Christian civilizing of America.26 He arrived in London to try to raise money for ‘a university ... without distinction of colour,’ and to that end established a London committee

Sam Slick Rides Again 143

to raise the money for a building.27 Haliburton attended one of the several fundraising meetings: ‘Dowding was pleased to see the Earls of Shaftesbury and Waldegrave and half a dozen other peers, together with Justice Haliburton of Nova Scotia.’28 The project, writes Bermuda historian Henry Wilkinson, inspired several pamphlets and raised ‘provocative questions’: ‘Poor Dowding seemed to understand neither color, while both of them saw through him pretty well.’29 S. Brownlow Gray published one of the pamphlets in London in April 1853, The Revival of Bishop Berkeley’s College. The Board of Education in Bermuda called it a ‘preposterous proposal.’30 The Bermuda Herald of 20 and 27 January 1853 warned that the result would be social confusion and the levelling of all distinctions.31 The details of the school were widely publicized; the plan was for the institution to confer degrees. Harriet Beecher Stowe, among others, lent her support to the project. In Bermuda, Dowding found the response of whites disappointing. What he thought of Haliburton’s views on the subject is recorded not by him but by Samuel Ringgold Ward, the Black abolitionist, who arrived in England on 20 April 1853 and remained there until 1855, when he left for Kingston, Jamaica. Ward published his version of the meeting that both he and Haliburton attended; Haliburton published his rejoinder in Nature and Human Nature (2: 13–14).32 From Ward’s perspective,’ ‘it was next to impossible to find a more malignant enemy to the Negro than the Honourable C.S. [sic] Haliburton.’33 Haliburton did not think a college for Negroes was possible because colleges ‘were generally understood to be a place for the education of a gentleman – a gentleman, among that race, was entirely out of the question’ (180). According to his own account in Nature and Human Nature (2: 13–14), Haliburton seconded a motion at the meeting while speaking against a project, and in doing so pleased nobody: ‘I gave them a dose of common sense, as a foundation to build upon. I told them niggers must be prepared for liberty, and when they were sufficiently instructed to receive and appreciate the blessing, they must have elementary knowledge, furst in religion and then in the useful arts, before a college should be attempted, and so on, and then took up my hat, and walked out’ (2: 15). The audience, Haliburton records, ‘almost hissed me, and the sour virgins who bottled up all their humanity to pour out on the niggers, actilly pointed at me and called me a Yankee Pusseyite.’ What follows in the Nature and Human Nature chapter is a portrait of Slick’s servant, Sorrow, of whom Haliburton asks: ‘Here is a sample of the raw material, can it be manufactured into civilization of a high order?’

144 A Literary Career

For Haliburton, the Negro was always a comic, somewhat bumbling figure who yearned for the lost life of the plantation and who outside of its protective framework was incapable of enjoying the same quality of life as a white man. Slick’s pro-slavery attitudes flowed easily from Haliburton’s pen: ‘I build no theories on the subject of the Africans; I leave their construction to other and wiser men than myself’ (2: 31). On the question of educating a Black gentleman, Haliburton was no ‘spoony abolitionist.’ He reserved his sympathy for the southern slaveholder. Shortly after this meeting, on 14 June 1853, Haliburton and Augusta began their tour of Scotland. Along the way, Augusta built up a scrapbook of postcards, photographs, and prints, dating them meticulously.34 They stopped first at Melrose and Dryburgh Abbey, where they viewed – as many a Haliburton descendant has since – the beautiful setting of Sir Walter Scott’s tomb. After a busy week seeing the sights, Haliburton left Augusta to continue her tour in the company of others. On 23 June he wrote a short note to Richard Bentley from 6 Spring Gardens, his London address.35 Five days later, he wrote a letter to the colonial secretary complaining that half his salary had been withheld during his leave of absence.36 Augusta remained in Scotland until the 30 June. By 1 July, Haliburton was staying with Henry Fearon, at the Rectory, Loughborough. While there, he accepted T. Lloyd Barwick Baker’s invitation to visit Hardwicke Court, Gloucestershire, on Monday 11 July, and to attend the Royal Agricultural Society’s meeting, which was to be held at Gloucester later that week.37 Baker, a philanthropist and prison reformer, was a ‘real country squire, who united in his own person a natural progressive tendency with the tenacious attachment of the genuine Tory to the past.’38 He had founded Hardwick Court Reformatory in 1852. Haliburton was still travelling alone at this point; there is no mention of Augusta being present with him at the Royal Agricultural Society Ball held on 14 July.39 Those who did attend filled the Shire Hall to capacity. The Scots Fusilier Guards provided the music, and those present danced until dawn. Although it poured with rain at Gloucester on 14 July and everyone had to wade through ‘ankle-deep’ mud, and although the correspondent of the Gloucester Journal had only criticism for the quality of the livestock on show, nothing could dampen the spirits of those attending the ‘Pavilion Dinner,’ which began at four p.m. and saw a thousand agriculturalists sitting down to supper. Haliburton found himself among the honoured guests.

Sam Slick Rides Again 145

After the dinner, ‘the American Minister’ spoke first, introduced by Lord Ashburton, who had settled the boundary dispute between the United States and Canada. Haliburton listened with the assembled throng to a good deal of brag about the fine state of American agriculture, supported by reams of statistics. Toasts followed to the ‘Labouring Classes’ and ‘Agricultural Societies Throughout the World.’ The president of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Murchison, sitting next to ‘a glorious representative of a true Englishman (Cheers), “Sam Slick”’ then called on Haliburton to respond to the toast to the Agricultural Societies. He did so at length. Haliburton told his audience that he derived his knowledge of human nature from talking to farmers: ‘Though he could not say that he had contributed anything towards agricultural shows, a little wooden clock he had exhibited to his countrymen with moral lessons which, he hoped, had done them good (Cheers and laughter). These moral lessons, read by the English as well as the American farmer, showed the value of time, the hours of work, and the hours of recreation.’ Just the mention of Slick’s name produced ‘much laughter.’ Haliburton explained that ‘he was a native of another part of the world; and 150 years ago his forefathers left these shores.’ How they managed it he did not know. He hoped to be ‘transported’ back: ‘He had never spent two such delightful days in his life as attending the present meeting.’ He presented himself to them as a practical farmer, fond ‘of cultivation of the soil.’ He explained that he had come directly from Scotland and that he wished it to be known that the working class now respected themselves, and that respect ought to be shown them in turn: ‘prejudice against machinery’ was no longer an issue. In the audience that night were some people who would significantly alter the course of Haliburton’s life: a ‘Mr. Mrs Watkins’ and ‘Miss Williams.’ ‘Miss Williams’ was, in fact, Mrs Sarah Harriet Hosier Williams, a widow. Thus Haliburton began his acquaintance with the woman who would eventually become his second wife. She immediately invited Haliburton to her home at Eaton Mascott, just outside Shrewsbury, where in August he signed the preface to the second edition of Sam Slick’s Wise Saws. Haliburton recalled something of the moment of their meeting when he later wrote about the mystery of love in Nature and Human Nature: ‘You, Squire, may go into a ball-room, where there are two hundred women. One hundred and ninety-nine of them will pass with as much indifference as one-hundred and ninety-nine pullets; but the two hundredth irresistibly draws you to her. There are one hundred hand-

146 A Literary Career

somer, and ninety-nine cleverer ones present; but she alone has the magnet that attracts you’ (1: 157). Sarah Harriet was a woman of good social standing. She had been a childhood friend of Charles Darwin and his equally famous neighbours, the Wedgwoods.40 She brought a good deal of sophistication and comfort to Haliburton’s later years, if we are to judge by the surviving photographs of their life together at Gordon House, Isleworth. Yet it would be three more years before he extricated himself from his life in Nova Scotia. His meeting Sarah Harriet in July 1853 paved the way for his transition to England – a transition for which he had always yearned. ‘Oh, how I hourly miss that clearest of heads, & kindest of hearts,’ Sarah Harriet wrote to Richard Bentley after Haliburton’s death.41 Sarah Harriet and Haliburton shared a comfortable world together in Isleworth, Middlesex, where they welcomed each other’s established friends as well as their various family members. She affectionately called him ‘the judge.’42 The Haliburton family especially seems to have embraced her, without the sourness that sometimes accompanies second marriages. She became his ‘prop’ in his old age (as the Halifax Morning Journal put it),43 and Haliburton’s sons and daughters remained on friendly terms with her long after their father’s death. Haliburton worked hard to provide Sarah Harriet with the kind of life that she had always known. After his death, however, she was left with only a few investments and faced a sudden and sad decline in wealth. Two years after his death, she moved out of their rented villa into a lodging house in Richmond, Middlesex, where as the years went by she was forced to sell pieces of her fine collection of Battersea enamels to make ends meet.44 Richard Bentley did not publish the new Sam Slick book; he did, however, reissue Sam Slick the Clockmaker, Sam Slick the Attaché, and The Letter Bag of the Great Western as the first three volumes of his new ‘Bentley’s Parlour Bookcase’ series on 31 August – a very surprising move, considering that public opinion had always considered Haliburton’s books unsuitable for the parlour.45 Captain Marryat and Mrs Trollope also shared a high profile in the new series. Before returning to Nova Scotia in early September 1853, Haliburton travelled with Augusta to Killarney in Ireland to attend the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland meeting on 10 and 11 August. Haliburton arrived by train.46 He was instantly recognized by the Cork Examiner reporter as the ‘celebrated Judge Haliburton.’ At the customary banquet, Haliburton sat among three hundred guests on the left of the Duke of Leinster, the president of the Royal Agricultural Society. Haliburton’s speech con-

Sam Slick Rides Again 147

cluded the evening. He found himself ‘loudly called for and rose amidst enthusiastic cheering.’ Amid the noise of the hall, the reporter, being some distance from where Haliburton stood, strained to hear him as best he could. He told his listeners that he had visited Killarney once before – with Joseph Howe in 1838–9. He came not only to observe the landscape but as a ‘farmer on a small scale’ to view the show. He had been received as a judge, as an author, and as a stranger: ‘The author and the judge he would repudiate both (hear, hear, and laughter). He was plain Samuel Slick, of Union [Onion] County, State of Ohio [sic], a country which boasted of its gals, onions, and geese (great laughter and cheering).’ He then spoke a few words on ‘the poor small farmer.’ He praised the class system in Ireland and the virtues of the Duke of Leinster, ‘a man who at a public table put himself upon a perfect footing of equality with everybody, and who did not do so as a matter of condescension, but did so from the native nobleness of his heart – God bless him (loud cheers).’ He wished that those in America who talked of ‘republican constitutions’ could witness this: ‘Give him the great nation where every man knew his own place and conceded their places to others, where property put by the barrier which surrounded it, and Providence called upon those who had talents that they must not hide them in a napkin (cheers).’ The following night, he and Augusta attended the ball in the Banquet Room, which was prefaced by an elegant supper at 9:30. Dancing continued until 4:30 in the morning, ‘when the Special Train started for Cork’ with Haliburton and Augusta aboard. After Cork, the remainder of an enjoyable summer went quickly. He embarked for Halifax on 2 September to undertake his duties on the fall circuit of the Supreme Court. 47

Chapter 20

End of an Era

The Niagara steamed into Halifax on 14 September 1853, after a passage of ten-and-a-half days.1 Once again, the contrast between his reception in Britain and the one at home must have shocked Haliburton. At home, his appeal against the loss of his quarterly salary of £175 was falling on deaf ears.2 He consulted two local lawyers, James Johnston and James Stewart, who agreed with him that his salary ought to be paid. 3 He travelled to Halifax on 29 October and submitted his request to the accountant general, but it was refused. In his letter of that date, Haliburton argued that the regulations invoked to deny him his salary did not apply to judges (clerics, yes, but not judges, who had no deputies to undertake their duties in their absence).4 He could not be bound by the rules of the ‘Secretary for the Colonies’ because the Crown did not pay his salary. His position remained independent of the Crown. He had been paid during his absence in 1843 and so, subsequently, had Judge Bliss. On 14 November, in his role as Provincial Secretary, Joseph Howe told Haliburton that the lawyers consulted by the Crown disagreed with Haliburton’s views on the matter. Writing on behalf of the lieutenantgovernor, Howe maintained that the legislature determined a judge’s salary during his absence. In the margins of his letter we find the words ‘cancelled by command.’5 The Crown’s law officers were arguing that Haliburton had violated ‘the instructions of the Secretary of State’ pertaining to leaves of absence.6 Haliburton retorted that he had been ‘misunderstood.’ He then proceeded to detail the misapprehensions under which the representatives of the Crown had delivered their decision. The dispute quickly began to split legal hairs. Haliburton responded sensibly by recapping his argu-

End of an Era 149

ment: he had always been paid ‘from the treasury of the province, in the usual manner under and by virtue of an act of the General Assembly, and that law, being a permanent one, does not require a vote of the legislature to authorise a warrant for each or any payment, as the act itself contains the authority itself.’7 He viewed the withholding of his salary as an illegal act, not to mention a political one. He appealed to ‘his Excellency,’ Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant, in blunt terms: ‘I do not ask my salary as a favor, I demand it as a right.’ He had served the province for twenty-five years and felt that the ‘tone and tenor’ of Howe’s note had been inappropriate. His own language in turn annoyed the lieutenantgovernor, who took umbrage at his use of the word ‘right’ and had Howe communicate his displeasure: ‘When you say “I do not ask my salary as a favor, I demand it as a right” you use language which neither the late Master of the Rolls, Judge Bliss, nor any other Judge who had been absent thought it proper to use on any similar occasion.’8 Sir John, in a letter of 23 November to the colonial secretary, the Duke of Newcastle (who had received two letters from Haliburton, one on 28 June, the other on 31 August), complained vociferously about Haliburton, who, he said, had displayed considerable ‘animus’ in an affair that might well have resulted in a public ‘scandal’ had Haliburton not relinquished ‘at the eleventh hour’ his correspondence on the matter.9 Sir John informed the colonial secretary that Haliburton had been prepared to employ as his counsel in England, ‘Sir Frederick Thesiger and Sir Fitzroy Kelly; and at the advice of his Counsel here he was about to enter a prosecution in the Supreme Court against the Receiver General and Financial Secretary for withholding the moiety of Salary.’10 Haliburton had directed his animus at the lieutenant-governor rather than his mouthpiece, the provincial secretary. He had a low opinion of Lord Falkland’s successor: ‘What can a man learn in five years except the painful fact that he knew nothing when he came, and knows as little when he leaves’ (Nature and Human Nature, 2: 228). On 6 December 1853, in an act of provocation that Haliburton knew was an overreaction, he tendered his resignation as a Supreme Court judge, conditional on receiving his pension as a retired Inferior Court Judge – a pension he had forgone when accepting a seat on the Supreme Court bench twelve years earlier.11 In the middle of the acrimonious dispute, he nevertheless wrote Joseph Howe a letter of sympathy in early November 1854 on the death of Howe’s twenty-year-old daughter, Mary: “I deeply, and sincerely (and from sad experience) feelingly sympathise with you.’12 The conditional letter of resignation began a lengthy battle with the

150 A Literary Career

Nova Scotia government, a battle that Haliburton must have sensed would require legal reinforcements from England. He would leave, he told the lieutenant-governor, when ‘that pension is again sanctioned by a permanent and unconditional act of the legislature.’13 In Haliburton’s view, the new crop of conservative politicians were unprincipled. He had expected better from them: ‘What conservatives are I never knew, for I never understood the term, but of sacrificing a man and doing injustice to him to aim to obstruct a government, is the principle or policy of the party, the lord save us from their domination – A radical I know and a tory I know, they have creeds & [disciplines?] of their own which they avow & practice, they have ear marks by which they can be distinguished, but conservatism it appears is a name like an alias on an indictment, a designation to baffle all proof of identity.”14 Haliburton battled over the pension issue for ten more years, even though the lieutenant-governor ostensibly relented in a letter of 9 December 1853, when he had Howe indicate ‘that the restoration of your pension under the circumstances will not be considered unreasonable.’15 The lieutenant-governor could not control the legislature, however, and Haliburton – after years of very public political commentary from the sidelines – had few friends and supporters there. After the flurry of activity over his salary and his announcement that he would retire when awarded a pension, and after he had completed the work of the fall circuit (by mid-December), Haliburton settled in for his usual winter spell of writing before the spring circuit began. His mind once again turned to the thought of a ‘uniform edition of his works,’ even though Bentley had published some of his books and Hurst and Blackett others: ‘I hardly know how it is to be done by either of you,’ he wrote to Bentley.16 At first he considered purchasing the copyright from Bentley; on 21 December he wrote to ask how much it would cost. It is doubtful that he could have afforded it. The copyright remained with Bentley far beyond Haliburton’s lifetime. In the 1880s his daughters would find it an impediment to their plans to publish a selection of his works. 17 On 26 June 1854, Alexander Fowden Haliburton arrived in Halifax on the steamer Canada accompanied by William and Laura Cunard. Alexander and Augusta married on 27 June at Windsor. The Reverend Edwin Gilpin, Jr, Amelia’s husband, performed the service.18 They spent their honeymoon, which was delayed until 1856, on an extended tour of the Holy Land, during which they lived in tents with huge amounts of luggage in tow.19 In Constantinople, Augusta was reunited with Arthur, who had been posted there with the Army Commissariat.20 Both Augusta and

End of an Era 151

her new husband wrote long and chatty letters home, recording the excitement of travel and the adventure of living under canvas in the Holy Land. Augusta had been Haliburton’s chatelaine. Now that she was gone, he ‘reflected that ... I was alone in my own house, the sole surviving tenant of all that large domestic circle, whose merry voices once made its silent halls vocal with responsive echoes of happiness’ (Nature and Human Nature, 1: 296). He had returned ‘from foreign lands’ to find that his daughters and sons had all ‘scattered and gone’ (1: 297). As he paced ‘his lonely quarter-deck’ (as he called the gravel walk in front of his house), time hung heavily on his hands. Clearly, Haliburton was finding the loneliness too much to bear. In January 1855, he booked himself passage on a steamer to England, and spent several months there, first with Augusta and then in London with his old circle of cronies.21 Decimus Burton told John Wilson Croker on 29 March: ‘I hope and believe Lord Brougham is interesting himself in favor of the Judge in regard to the vacant appointment of a Commissioner of Charities. Haliburton is very desirous of obtaining a place which would enable him to throw up his judgeship and to reside in London.’22 Instead of wallowing in selfpity and isolation, Haliburton set about restyling his life. The sepulchre, he knew, would come soon enough. Haliburton had decided to leave Nova Scotia soon after his visit to England in 1853. But until August 1856, he remained on the Supreme Court bench, where he continued to perform what had now become onerous judicial duties. He also wrote the two-volume Nature and Human Nature, a sequel to Sam Slick’s Wise Saws. Early in February 1855, Hurst & Co. credited Haliburton’s account at Coutts & Co. with another £290. 23 Sir John Beverly Robinson, Chief Justice of Upper Canada, dined with him on 3 February at 4 Dean Street, Park Lane, in the company of Ernest Hawkins, the Bishop of Lichfield, and others: ‘Mr Haliburton has got stout & has an annoying protuberance on his left (I think) jowl – He was in great spirits – has a book just coming out – I had much talk with him. He is [? ?] coming to live in England where he has his married daughters residing –.’24 There is no mention by John Beverley Robinson of Haliburton’s impending marriage to Sarah Harriet. There are, nevertheless, many hints of it in Nature and Human Nature, in which Slick meditates on married bliss with Sophy (from Jordan Falls) (2: 260). On 23 March he dined in London with Decimus Burton and J.W. Croker at ‘Gloucester Gardens,’ Decimus’s Bayswater house. Haliburton circulated now among only those of his well-connected friends who could

152 A Literary Career

be of advantage to him in his search for patronage. But once again he failed to secure patronage when he most needed it. On 12 February 1856, John Joseph Marshall presented a ‘Memorial’ on Haliburton’s behalf to the House of Assembly.25 It briefly rehearsed Haliburton’s career as a judge and claimed that ‘owing to the present infirm state of his health (which altho for the present sufficient to enable him to perform his duties, taxes all his mental & bodily powers to their utmost and renders them daily more irksome & onerous),’ he wished to retire. In other words, he did not wish to die in harness, but wished to withdraw from the bench, provided the legislature restored the pension that had been promised to him for his services as an Inferior Court Judge. The first and only reading of ‘A Bill entitled An Act to provide for the retirement of Thomas C. Haliburton one of the puisne Judges of the Supreme Court’ was made in the House of Assembly on 25 March 1856.26 Confident that something would come of it, Haliburton had already begun reorganizing his land holdings so that he could move to England.27 The sale of Clifton marked the end of an era. Finding someone who could afford to take it over was not easy. On 12 July 1856, he registered a deed of sale between himself and James Peter Pellow, merchant, a local man who had made his fortune in the California Gold Rush. Haliburton wanted £6,000 for the sixty-acre property. Pellow did not have enough money to purchase Clifton outright, so he entered into a mortgage with Haliburton, who never recouped the full cost of building Clifton. 28 The day after he sold Clifton, Haliburton purchased a lot in Windsor from Rebecca Dill for £130. On 24 July he sold James M. Geldert (innkeeper) a three-and-three-quarter acre lot in Windsor for £645.29 Geldert, too, entered into a mortgage with Haliburton.30 Haliburton retained several of his town properties, including ‘a certain tract of land in Windsor situated between Victoria Street and “Clifton” Street and also other lands bounding on Plunkett St, Albert St and Victoria St,’ which he would try to sell in 1861. On 11 August 1856, Haliburton could wait no longer: he tendered his resignation as a Supreme Court judge,31 something he had long promised to do once he received his pension. On 20 August he mortgaged land on the south side of Water Street, along with the rents and profits of the buildings located there, to John Bailey Bland for £1,500.32 He had already sorted his papers, and now, for safekeeping, gave many of them to his son Robert, then a lawyer on Hollis Street in Halifax. They were destroyed a few years later in a fire that razed Robert’s house.33

End of an Era 153

His decision to leave Clifton and rent a large villa on the banks of the Thames in fashionable and salubrious Isleworth, Middlesex, is best understood in the context of the following comment by F.M.L. Thompson: ‘Renting a house, in a liberally supplied market where there was plenty of choice, almost invariably cost less in annual outlay than buying it on a fixed-period mortgage; or to put it another way, the same annual expenditure could rent a bigger and better house than it could buy.’34 Haliburton was doing the prudent thing financially. He had always felt that colonists were perceived as nobodies; by his choice of a house he was making it clear that in England he intended to live the life of a somebody. By surrendering his Nova Scotia estate – to a man who had profited, like Sam Slick the clockmaker, from being in the right place at the right time – he was preparing for a substantial change in his way of life. Canon F.W. Vroom in ‘Reminiscences of Windsor in the Seventies’ recalled that three of Haliburton’s daughters visited their old home in 1881: Mrs Weldon, Mrs Gilpin, and Mrs Bainbridge Smith. Vroom recalled ‘meeting old Smith [the caretaker] a little later, I said, “I suppose you had a visit from Mrs Weldon when she was here.” “Yes, sir,” he said, ‘I did, and she cried right out there in the garden.”’35 The once-proud garden looked after by Haliburton’s English gardener had begun to return to wilderness. As Susanna stood in the garden she recalled its halcyon days between 1836 and 1841, when her mother and father had shaped a fashionable retreat for their large family. In a letter to her sister Augusta in Torquay in 1887, she further lamented: ‘Poor old “Clifton” – They hired it for a day party during the Jubilee. Someone who was there described it – but was too young to remember our time. Windsor is nasty little trading place now.’36 On 30 September 1856, Haliburton married Sarah Harriet Hosier Williams (née Mostyn Owen) at St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London.37 The Bishop of London officiated. Haliburton later wrote in The Season Ticket: ‘When people marry, fashion ordains that they should make a wedding tour. Some go to Ireland (it is a pity more don’t follow their example), and some to Paris ... If these newly married persons really love each other, they can have but little inclination for sight-seeing; and if they don’t, both matrimony and its inevitable tour must be great bores’ (97). He described the usual marriage scene: ‘There is a well-dressed mob in the church, and a badly-dressed one at the door; there is crowd of bridesmaids, and another of groomsmen, while two or three clergymen assist the overtasked bishop in a laborious service that extends to the extraordinary length of fifteen minutes. The bells ring a merry peal, so loud and

154 A Literary Career

so joyous, one can scarcely believe they could ever toll’ (97–8). Amidst all the new things, he wrote, ‘it is a pity the bridegroom is not new also. He is a good deal worn; but, then, he is well got up, and looks as fresh as ever’ (98). That he and Sarah Harriet took a wedding tour is almost certain (‘Perhaps, after all, there is some sense in wedding tours,’ 99). He had married well with Sarah Harriet and found contentment with her. It is possible that Gordon House became available to them through Haliburton’s friendship with Lady Falkland.38 The owner of the house was Lord John Frederick Gordon, the third son of George, the 9th Marquess of Huntly. He happened to be the husband of Augusta FitzClarence, daughter of William IV and the actress Mrs Dorothy Jordan, and Lady Falkland’s (Amelia Fitzclarence’s) sister. The owner of the house had taken the name Lord Frederick Hallyburton in 1845, although he no longer lived there in 1856. The coincidence pleased Haliburton. Gordon House included a large house, lodges, pleasure grounds, a walled garden, greenhouses, and a summer house. Sarah Harriet, who came from a Shropshire county family and had a fondness for gardening and china collecting, made an easy transition from her estate in Shropshire. Like Louisa before her, she took a great interest in horticulture: ‘I am beginning to form horticultural plans for the Spring & Summer,’ she wrote to the Parkers in January 1865.39 Surviving photographs of Gordon House from 1865 reveal the fine state of the gardens. In photographs of the interior of the house there are glimpses of the large collection of Battersea enamels she loved to collect. After the move into Gordon House, Haliburton began living the life of a typical upper-class Victorian, with plenty of servants to sustain it. Just how many were needed at Gordon House is revealed in the census of 18 April 1861. It is clear that Sarah Harriet brought her own butler with her from Shropshire.40 Besides him, there were the following: a page, Henry Turner, twenty-six, from Essex; a cook, M. Morley, thirty-four, from Liverpool; a lady’s maid, Emily Lehmann, thirty-four, from Saxony; two house maids, Catherine Craig, twenty-seven, from Scotland, and Elizabeth Argent, fourteen, from Isleworth; and a dairy maid, Ann Ward, sixteen, from Hickley, Devon; finally there was a domestic gardener, John Matthews, from Andover, Shropshire, who lived in the lodge with his son Charles, fourteen, and daughter, Alex, thirteen. To Haliburton this was a novelty. He has one of his characters say in The Season Ticket: ‘I said these two officials, butlers and cooks, were genteel and honourable people, sir, and so they are; and so are ladies’ maids too – I loves them, the dear little creatures, for they is so refined and fashionable – how they perk up their

End of an Era 155

pretty mouths when they speak, don’t they? And mince their words as fine as if a big one would choke them, or crack their tender young jaws’ (112– 13). At the end of the same chapter, Haliburton’s narrator pontificates on the pros and cons of having so many servants: ‘Much of the disappointment we experience in the conduct of servants, is our own fault ... We are afraid to speak the truth’ (123). He was in favour of not giving servants good references when they did not deserve them. The adjustment for Sarah Harriet was not as great. She had grown up on the Mostyn Owen family estate at Woodhouse, in a beautiful mansion of white freestone with a portico supported by four circular columns, in Rednall Township thirteen miles northwest of Shrewsbury.41 After her first marriage, she had moved to Eaton Mascott Township, where she lived on a property of 495 acres.42 Haliburton learned how to handle English servants from Sarah Harriet. Gordon House offered them both the trappings of ease and ready access to the growing city of London. It also meant that Haliburton, despite his severe gout, could lead a life of considerable social, literary, and political activity. Thus he stepped into the genteel world of Victorian England, where a man had certain domestic comforts and a great deal of personal freedom. Living at Gordon House – adjacent to two other grand villas, Lacy House and St Margaret’s, in an area famous for its connections with the aristocracy, near the Duke of Northumberland’s Syon Park estate, and not far from his fellow Nova Scotian Samuel Cunard, who lived at Orleans House, Twickenham – Haliburton now had much of what he needed to feel happy. 43

This page intentionally left blank

Old Stone House, Poplar Grove, Hants County, N.S. (ca. 1930–1). Haliburton purchased it in 1818 and sold it in 1834. It gradually fell into decay during the 1960s, but has now been rebuilt by photographer Sherman Hines.

University of King’s College, Windsor, from Ferry House, 1803. Drawn from nature by Benjamin Gerrish Gray.

University of King’s College, Windsor, ca. 1850? Painted by Susanna Lucy Anne Weldon (Haliburton).

Louisa Neville, from a painting by Mr Valentine ca. 1836. Photograph by Cox & Durrant, Torquay.

Windsor, 1871, showing the extent of the Clifton estate – an insert from the map by A.F. Church.

Clifton, from a print published by William Bartlett in 1842. Originally published in Canadian Scenery Illustrated (London: G. Virtue, 1842).

Avon River Bridge, Windsor, ca. 1850, painted by Susanna Lucy Anne Weldon (Haliburton).

The inscribed presentation silver salver from Richard Bentley, 1838. Note the misspelling of the name and the wrong initial. The salver is at the Haliburton House Museum, Windsor.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 1838, a lithograph by M. Gauci from a painting by E.H. Eddis, published in London by M.M. Holloway, 1839.

A ball, Halifax. Pencil and watercolour sketch by Emma Haliburton, ca. 1840–6.

Luncheon at the Mess Room on the day of the sham fight, July 26, Halifax. Pencil and watercolour sketch by Emma Haliburton, ca. 1844.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, painted by William Beatham, 1853. The original hangs in the Nova Scotia Legislature.

St Matthew’s Chapel of Ease, Windsor, painted by Susanna Lucy Anne Weldon (Haliburton), ca. 1850.

Judge Haliburton on horseback, ca. 1844. A pencil sketch by Mr Torre of Halifax. Included in Lady Falkland’s album.

Courtyard of Gordon House, 1865, one of a series of twelve photographs taken in the final year of Haliburton’s life. Two of the images were presented to the Nova Scotia Museum, leaving ten remaining in a box dated 1865, now in the Wilson Collection at Acadia University.

The garden, Gordon House, 1865. Mrs Haliburton took great interest in the gardens, which were tended by a gardener who lived at the lodge.

Another view of the garden, Gordon House, 1865, showing the temple in the background.

Gordon House before 1867. This is one of the few images of Gordon House prior to its transformation in 1867, when the Earl of Kilmorey reoccupied the house. Reprinted from The Centenary Chaplet (Toronto: William Briggs, 1897).

Plan showing the position of the Canadian Land and Emigration Company’s townships and the roads leading to them ca. 1867. Haliburton never made the trip to the territory purchased by the company.

A family group, 1865: from left to right, Arthur, unidentified, Thomas, Sarah Harriet, Alexander Fowden Haliburton, Augusta.

Haliburton seated in the drawing room, Gordon House, 1865. Sarah Harriet’s china collection is on prominent display.

The dining room, Gordon House, 1865. A portrait of Haliburton hangs above the fireplace.

Thomas Chandler Haliburton in his library, Gordon House, 1865. Notice the date on the mantlepiece.

The library, Gordon House, 1865. Again, the date is 27 August, the day of his death, and we can glimpse the 1838 Gauci print of him above the clock.

PART THREE

Sam Slick in England

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 21

A New Career

It is doubtful that in the new life Haliburton was creating for himself he ever intended to write another book. Nature and Human Nature reads and feels like his finale. Its two volumes are filled with reflections on both his life and his writing. There is a strong sense in Nature and Human Nature that he was beginning to feel posterity looking over his shoulder: ‘Now a biographer ... would ruin me for everlastingly. It ain’t pleasant to have such a burr as that stick on to your tail, especially if you have no comb to get it off, is it?’ (2: 323–4). Nature and Human Nature constituted the tenth and eleventh volumes in the Sam Slick series. Reviewers greeted it with surprising warmth. ‘We enjoy our old friend’s company with unabated relish,’ said the Athenaeum.1 Haliburton had become a British institution: ‘The Author of “Sam Slick” has the air in this book of taking leave of his public. So did Mrs Siddons when she thought she had enough of the stage, but she took leave some dozen times – and the public never had enough of Mrs Siddons so long as she was able to appear.’2 The first chapter – the only one narrated by the Squire – is an account of Slick arriving at Windsor to deliver his journal for editing. In the ensuring conversation, Slick offers the Squire instructions on how not to edit the manuscript and how to differentiate his views from those of the Squire: ‘People sometimes I actilly believe, take you for me. If they do, all I have to say is that they are fools not to know better, for we neither act alike, talk alike, nor look alike, though we may think alike on some subjects’ (1: 11). Haliburton could fool some of the people some of the time. The dominant effect in Nature and Human Nature is of Haliburton trying to gauge his own place in history, assess his own value as a writer, and determine whether ‘these Journals of mine ... when mellowed by

160 Sam Slick in England

time, will let the hereafter-to-be Blue-noses, see what the has been Nova Scotians here from ’34 to ’54 were’ (2: 188). The recipe remained the same as for all the Sam Slick books. Like the others, this one mixed generalizations about life with talk about contemporary politics both in England and America, with numerous stories and anecdotes ostensibly picked up by Slick in the course of his travels, and with glimpses of Nova Scotian life. Sometimes the source of Slick’s stories is Haliburton’s imagination, but most often Haliburton takes his material directly from life itself. In his later books, such as Nature and Human Nature, Haliburton often indicates whether a story is true or not in a footnote: ‘*The names of the persons and rivers are alone changed in this extraordinary story. The actors are still living, and are persons of undoubted veracity and respectability’ (1: 126–32). As Slick says about his stories: ‘Somehow or another, when I want them they won’t come, and at other times when I get a goin talkin, I can string them together like onions, one after the other, till the twine is out’ (1: 123). Haliburton’s ability to string these elements together in Slick’s ‘Yankee’ voice was the root of his books’ perennial appeal. The pattern of his work never varied: each chapter has a central unifying idea, usually a clever turn of phrase. In the course of one chapter Haliburton might switch interests and subjects several times. His declared preference is to meander from topic to topic: ‘For the way I travel through a tale, is like the way a child goes to school. He leaves the path to chase a butterfly, or to pick wild strawberries, or to run after his hat, that has blown off, or to take a shy at a bird, or throw off his shoes, roll up his trousers, and wade about the edge of a pond to catch polly-wogs; but he gets to school in the end, though somewhat of the latest, so I have got back at last, you see’ (1: 280–1). Haliburton ends Nature and Human Nature, the last of the Slick books, with one of his fullest affirmations of his conservative political views (2: ch. 13, ‘The Recall,’ 398–409). Right to the end of the Slick series, the subject of slavery is never far from view. In the final volume, Haliburton delivers a lecture on the difficulties of emancipation from the Southern planter’s point of view: ‘Slavery in the abstract is a thing that nobody approves of, or attempts to justify. We all consider it an evil – but unhappily it was entailed upon us by our forefathers, and has now grown to be one of such magnitude that it is difficult to know how to deal with it – and this difficulty is much increased by the irritation which has grown out of the unskilful and unjustifiable conduct of abolitionists’ (2: 319). Yet through Slick, Haliburton defends the Southern planter: ‘The

A New Career 161

planter has rights as well as the slave, and the claims of both must be well weighed and considered before any dispassionate judgement can be formed’ (2: 320). The final pages of Haliburton’s long odyssey with Sam Slick once again target the abolitionist: ‘You will break up the social system of the south, deprive the planter of his slave, and set the nigger free; but you will not admit him to your family circle, associate with him, or permit him to intermarry with your daughter’ (2: 393). In the first volume, Slick encounters Peter Macdonald, formerly with the North-West Fur Company, who has married an Indian and has two ‘half-caste’ daughters (1: 81). This offers Haliburton a chance to celebrate Peter Macdonald’s daughter, Jessy (half Scots, half native Indian), in two linked chapters, ‘A Day on the Lake Parts 1 & 2.’ Slick prevents Jessy from retreating to her people because as a ‘half-cast and out-cast’ (1: 345) she would not be accepted by the general mass of society. Slick maintains that colour is no barrier to marriage (1: 351) – a rare moment of racial empathy in Haliburton’s work. In the mid-1850s, Isleworth was one of the fastest-growing suburbs of London. It appealed to the genteel middle classes who worked in the grimy city and yearned for a more pleasant place to live. Today, Isleworth and nearby Hounslow have been engulfed by urban sprawl. Airliners pass over Gordon House on their way to Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest. The house itself was long ago transformed into an educational institution.3 The gardens have disappeared and the fine walls surrounding the house are now covered with graffiti. The Thames is now dirty and full of barge traffic. It is hard to imagine how pleasant it was in the mid-nineteenth century. Nearby Haliburton Road reminds us of Haliburton’s time there; so does a chipped plaster bust of him in a cupboard by the electric meter in the Isleworth branch library. Librarians will still bring it out to show interested North American visitors.4 Haliburton delighted in his new location. ‘Since I saw you,’ he wrote to Joseph Howe, in November 1856, ‘I have become a married man, and am settled down quietly at the above address in one of the most beautiful villas on the banks of the thames, ten minutes walk to Richmond station, and the same distance from those of Twickenham, and Isleworth, and by either train 20 minutes from London – By a singular coincidence it belongs to Lord Hallyburton who is married to a sister of Lady Falkland the place was a present from Wm 4th to his daughter.’5 It was a fortunate conjunction of the stars that brought him to Isleworth, where he thrived. The Post Office Directory of Middlesex in 1860 listed him as ‘Sir Thomas Chandler Haliburton, M.P.,’ a false tribute to the grandeur and

162 Sam Slick in England

apparent authority that now surrounded him. He made the most of his social and literary eminence in pursuing some old political ambitions. On 16 December 1856, almost immediately after arriving, he spoke at the prestigious Manchester Athenaeum. The full text of his speech was reported in the Times of 19 December 1856: ‘A very numerous and influential audience assembled in the Manchester Athenaeum, on Tuesday evening,’ wrote the correspondent, ‘to hear an address “On the British Colonies” from the distinguished author of Sam Slick.’6 Haliburton had covered the same topic in some detail in a chapter in the second volume of Nature and Human Nature, ‘The Bundle of Sticks.’ As a speaker, Haliburton kept the entertaining style he had developed in book after book. He still knew how to illustrate his general remarks with anecdotes and stories. Even allowing for the sympathetic reporting of speeches like this one and for the positive impact that interpolated comments such as ‘Hear, hear’ and ‘Laughter’ have on a reader more than 150 years later, there is no doubt that his audience at Manchester received his speech warmly and that Haliburton had lost little of his capacity to amuse and entertain. Haliburton even risked an indelicate allusion or two to remind his listeners that he and Slick were closely acquainted: ‘He believed he might say he knew every inch of Nova Scotia – he almost knew every man in it, not to mention the women (Cheers and laughter).’7 Among gentlemen, a joke or two along these lines to lighten the discourse did not seem out of place. Indeed, his audience expected as much from the creator of Sam Slick. To appeal to an audience of Manchester businessmen with an eye on the colonial market, he launched into an old argument concerning the colinists’ dependence on the English in matters of trade: the colonists possessed the raw materials, and they depended on the English for their manufactured goods. He adapted a passage from the third series of The Clockmaker to make his speech more amusing.8 He soon reached the nub of his argument: ‘the gross ignorance, the gross neglect, the great contempt, the great injustice, that had been exhibited towards and practised upon the colonists ever since the colonies were settled.’9 During the War of 1812, he said, a colonial minister sent some Yankee prisoners to Louisbourg, even though that fortress had been demolished fifty years earlier. This story encapsulated the staggering ignorance of the mother country when it came to colonial matters. In his view, the colonists had three options: ‘Were they to continue as they desired, appendages to this great empire – were they to be absorbed in a neighbouring republic, or were they to be cut adrift to form an inde-

A New Career 163

pendent sovereignty for themselves?’ His own preference was to make them ‘part and parcel of England.’ Yet English society had no place for the colonist ‘in any public arrangements’: ‘They had been degraded and treated like serfs and would bear it no more.’ ‘The colonists must have fair representation in Parliament,’ he argued. ‘There was, however, no Canadian to be found in our House of Peers.’ As much as he admired that institution, it should undergo ‘necessary modifications.’10 His critique of the Colonial Office is supported by the classic study of its operations during the nineteenth century. For most of that time, 13 and 14 Downing Street were cramped warrens of civil service clerks and undersecretaries. The Northcote–Trevelyan report of 1853 (which reviewed the civil service) concluded that ‘incompetents’ abounded.11 By the time letters from the Colonial Office reached their destinations, the problems they were addressing had usually disappeared.12 Although steamships and the electric telegraph threatened to disrupt the office’s routines, very little had changed between 1840 and 1860. Haliburton’s Manchester audience found his remarks on colonies both apt and amusing. Yet Haliburton immediately began to rein in his new career as a public speaker. On 23 December, he turned down an invitation from the Reverend Edward Girdlestone (the ‘Agricultural Labourer’s Friend,’ as he was called), canon residentiary at Bristol, to attend a meeting of the Bristol Athenaeum: ‘Engagements both at home and abroad, from which I cannot extricate myself, preclude the possibility of my doing so.’13 On 15 January 1857 he wrote to Joseph Howe: ‘I have been requested to address meetings at Bristol Leicester Leeds & other places on the same subject and have had to decline, as I do not feel authorised to speak any opinions but my own.’ He continued: ‘I have also had an offer of a seat in Parliament, which I should have liked, but it is attended with expence I cant afford – I don’t mean expence of seat for that was offered free, but the incidental expence of attendance – If I could get my pension I should feel I could accept.’ To obtain that pension, he sought Howe’s support; he also sent another petition to Willy Cunard (his son-in-law) to give to someone to present at the legislature. He lamented that unlike the people of Manchester, who had their Brights and Cobdens in Parliament, the colonists had no one to represent them. Haliburton began his pitch for colonial representation in Parliament at the Manchester Athenaeum at the exact same time he was advertising his own suitability for the task. The offer of a seat in Parliament flattered him, but it would be three more years before the opportunity presented itself again. On his arrival in London, Haliburton began advising Richard Bentley,

164 Sam Slick in England

his old friend and publisher. One of his first initiatives was to act as an intermediary between Bentley and Lady Falkland, who was seeking a publisher for her travel journal, Chow-Chow. The negotiations failed, and Lady Falkland published the book with Hurst & Blackett.14 Judging by the number of times Bentley visited Gordon house for supper on Saturday nights and then stayed over until Sunday, the two men had become firm friends again. They met for dinner more and more often over the next few years. Bentley consulted Haliburton on the state of his business and treated him as a companion with whom he could unwind from the stresses of the publishing business. Haliburton liked to adjourn after dinner to his summer house to smoke his huge Turkish meerschaum pipe15 or a cigar, and to partake of a glass of whisky and a chat. Bentley became one of his regular companions. So did William Watkins, a former Manchester alderman and mayor, a Liberal and a free trader, the husband of Sarah Harriet’s closest friend, Ellen Watkins.16 The two-year-old government of Lord Palmerston fell at the end of February 1857, over the bombardment of Canton by the British. Palmerston’s actions after the Arrow (ostensibly a British vessel) had been boarded brought down a hail of criticism on his head, much of it from the radical politician Richard Cobden (‘Cobden has “gone and done it,”’ Haliburton wrote to Watkins on 7 March).17 Haliburton accepted one more invitation to speak, in Glasgow on 26 March 1857. To ease the journey he asked W.B. Watkins to join him. To avoid having to make further speeches, he had his Glasgow speech published in London by Hurst and Blackett under the title Address on the Present Condition, Resources, and Prospects of British North America. In it, he said it was a pleasure to be able to address ‘the great mercantile emporium’ of the Glasgow Athenaeum in ‘my ancient fatherland.’ He was speaking as ‘a Scotchman ... by descent’ (6). He tried to convince his audience that the British North American colonies were superior to the United States and that the colonies had endured ‘shameful neglect.’ He then suggested how that neglect could be remedied. In Manchester, he had dipped into his history of the misrule of the English in America; in Glasgow, he felt obliged to take his audience on a geographical tour of the huge North American continent, from Newfoundland to ‘New Britain’ (British Columbia). He spoke ‘to draw together, in more intimate bonds of connexion, the two countries ... to combine the raw material of the New, with the manufacturing skill of the Old World ... to add to the grandeur of the Empire’ (8). In this lecture he was evoking a version of the American dream. But

A New Career 165

after all the description and hyperbole, he warned his audience ‘that if there be not a change in the colonial policy of this Empire, the distant extremities will inevitably fall off from the body-politic, from their own unwieldly bulk and ponderosity’ (34). The colonist, he said, was ‘a nobody’ (38) who had no nationality. As usual, it galled Haliburton to think that even a Haitian ‘has got his black ambassador.’ A colonist had nothing. They reaped very few rewards ‘from all imperial employment and preferment’ (38), whereas the British found the colonies an unparalleled opportunity for wealth. Haliburton saw four possible ‘remedies’ for the current situation: annexation, a federal union, incorporation with Britain, or independence (42). He doubted that England would be able to retain her colonies in North America.

Chapter 22

A Hectic Social Life

Haliburton was very much in demand as an after-dinner speaker. Sam Slick had opened doors for him. Furthermore, Haliburton could sense that there were both political and business opportunities associated with being a North American in England. He had retired from his professional duties as a judge, yet he still possessed sufficient physical and mental energy to begin writing another book. He discovered, once again, that the easiest way to shift the British gaze from the United States to the British colonies to the north was by mimicking the Yankee tendency to brag. In what turned out to be his final book, The Season Ticket (1860), although the narrator is an Englishman, two of the dominant voices are American: Senator Lyman Boodle of Michigan (who relays most of Haliburton’s knowledge about the colonies) and Mr Peabody, a tall-tale-telling, ring-tailed roarer of a Yankee, who utters some of the most racially appalling commentary that Haliburton ever wrote. In the gentleman’s clubs that Haliburton frequented, such as the Athenaeum and the Garrick, this sort of bigotry went unnoticed. He was soon to join another club, the House of Commons. As we will see, his Parliamentary career, even though he entered it through one of the few back doors available in the ‘reformed’ British electoral system, would be a passport to the centre of the British political world. Today’s politicians fall into trouble when they are caught fraternizing too closely with special interest groups; this did not worry MPs in the nineteenth century, a time when the ethical lines between politics and business could be blurred with brazen impurity. Haliburton, who had expressed so much distrust and cynicism about politics and politicians, would soon sit in the British House of Commons, where he would reap the social and financial rewards that came with being a member of that exclusive

A Hectic Social Life 167

club.1 As a result of his investments and business dealings, he would earn £8,000 a year in each of the last two years of his life.2 Moreover, he would enjoy the conviviality and status that such a life conferred. Formal Victorian banquets served up many courses and much prandial pleasure. Haliburton attended a good many of them in the summer of 1857, and he readily acknowledged that they had become a regular feature of his existence. On 19 May, for example, he attended the dinner for the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Royal Literary Fund.3 This fund raised money for indigent writers: ‘About 200 gentlemen sat down to a sumptuous dinner,’ among them ‘Mr. Justice Haliburton,’ ‘Mr Thackeray,’ ‘Mr Bentley,’ ‘Mr Hurst,’ and ‘Mr Blackett,’ as well as a raft of MPs and military dignitaries and a large contingent of Indian potentates. As so often when he attended such occasions, Haliburton was called on to speak. To loud cheers, he rose to speak on ‘The Literature of the Colonies.’4 But literature demanded leisure, he noted, and colonists had very little – they were too busy building roads and bridges and cities. To see his name coupled with ‘the Literature of the Colonies,’ he said, required some explanation and apology: ‘He was at a loss where to look for it. It reminded him of the trite saying, “The Spanish fleet you cannot see, because it is not in sight” (great laughter).’ Haliburton could only speculate as to why it didn’t exist. He soon diverted the attention of his audience away from the literature of the colonies to the literature of the Empire: ‘for he believed the literature of the mother country would bind the colonies by the strongest bond of union between them.’ When Thackeray began the evening’s main toast, he looked around the table and, as he did so, noted that ‘on his left there were those dark faces that had greeted him under the palms of India; to his right he saw an old friend whom he had never seen till that evening (laughter).’ All of England regarded Haliburton as an old friend and welcomed him on those terms. He was in danger of becoming an exception to his own view that colonists were nobodies. Haliburton’s friendship with the Lord Mayor of London, Thomas Quested Finnis, earned him countless invitations to attend banquets and participate in charitable schemes: ‘He had visited with his lordship, at midnight the refuge of the houseless and destitute, and the cheers which greeted their unexpected visit had gone to his heart.’5 In June 1857, Haliburton and his wife attended a grand banquet at the Mansion House for the Archbishop and Bishops. Helen Watkins, the daughter of W.B. Watkins, who had been staying at Gordon House, accompanied them.6 On 1 August, a Saturday, he joined Finnis at his house in Wan-

168 Sam Slick in England

stead to participate in the ‘London Shoeblacks’ annual treat.7 The Shoeblacks were brigades of homeless children. They received a religious education while participating in remunerative employment and learning to behave as honest citizens. Everyday, at their headquarters near Temple Gate, seventy-four boys from the twenty ragged schools in the district donned red uniforms and went out into the city to blacken shoes and boots. Ten lawyers of the Temple and Lincoln’s Inn managed them. The Victorians declared this program a huge success story in ‘practical Christian benevolence.’8 Haliburton enjoyed a full afternoon at the mayor’s country house in Ilford, where the boys played cricket and other rustic sports before returning to the city by train. On 7 August, Haliburton attended a state dinner on the Lord Mayor’s barge just above Richmond Bridge. ‘I have been so dissipated lately, dining out or acquaticisng every day,’ he wrote to W.B. Watkins.9 On 24 August, he attended a meeting at the Mansion House to devise a means for helping the victims of the Indian Mutiny.10 From this distance in time, it is hard to recapture the powerful impact that the Indian Mutiny had on the British public and on the nation as a whole. On the Indian Subcontinent, years of social unrest came to a head at Meerut on 9 May 1857, when eighty-five Sepoys refused, on religious grounds, to accept the issue of the new Enfield cartridge. This triggered a mutiny that soon spread to Delhi and eventually to Lucknow and Cawnpore. ‘Every outpost, I fear, has fallen,’ wrote the commander, Sir Henry Lawrence, on 12 June.11 The massacre of women and children at Bibigarh, near Cawnpore, on 15 July sent shock waves through Britain. In retaliation, the British launched a reign of terror that resulted in the eventual retaking of Lucknow and Delhi. One historian has noted: ‘In Britain the Mutiny did more than produce a wave of hysteria and a desire for vengeance: it convinced politicians that the crown must assume full responsibility from the East India Company for the government of India. This was done by royal proclamation on November 1, 1858.’12 Haliburton saw in the Indian Mutiny another glaring example of Britain’s neglect of its colonies – a neglect that had serious consequences for the empire’s stability. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the cause of the Indian Mutiny Relief Fund. The fund aimed to help the widows and children of public employees and military officers, the families of missionary and educational establishments, the families of the vast number of European and East Indian clerks and assistants at the different stations, the families of European tradesmen and indigo planters, and the families of European sergeants and pensioners scattered throughout the country.13 At the Mansion

A Hectic Social Life 169

House meeting, speaker after speaker emphasized that the mutiny had been an outrage committed against the standard bearers of Christianity in India. ‘It proved,’ said one cleric, ‘that all that had been said of the advance of civilisation apart from British power and apart from religion was a delusion.’ Haliburton rose to honour the charity of all those ladies present, sidestepping whether India had been governed well or not, and whether ‘religious superstition’ had been excessively tolerated among the natives. Instead, he claimed that as ‘an old judge,’ he had always followed crime with punishment. His philosophy was an eye for an eye: ‘He had no mawkish sensibilities on the subject and did not cry out shame for punishing wretches who had surpassed in their atrocities all that history could produce.’ He was sure that North Americans would be ready to give just as generously: ‘Nothing in the conduct of the red devils ... could be compared to the outrage perpetrated in the late outbreak in India. He trusted therefore, that though the punishment might not be bloodthirsty, it would be adequate (applause).’ The resolution was passed unanimously. For the next three months, the National Co-ordinating Committee established that day (Haliburton became one of its members) worked to send speedy relief to India. In addition, Richard Bentley made considerable use of Haliburton as a literary adviser in satisfying the public’s appetite for the gory details of the mutiny. Publishers vied with one another to secure the human-interest stories behind the distant atrocities. In March 1858, Haliburton acted as Richard Bentley’s intermediary with Lady Inglis, wife of Sir John Inglis, formerly a student at King’s College, Windsor, who had commanded the 32nd at Lucknow. Haliburton knew the general’s mother, the widow of John Inglis, Bishop of Nova Scotia from 1824 until 1850. She lived in Tunbridge Wells.14 Negotiations foundered, however, and her book, Siege of Lucknow: A Diary, remained unpublished until 1892. In May and June of 1858, Haliburton corrected the proofs for Mrs Adelaide Case’s Day by Day at Lucknow: A Journal of the Siege of Lucknow (he suggested the title).15 He told Bentley he had information that might help secure the journal of the Reverend Henry Polehampton, chaplain at Lucknow.16 His confidence was based on Sarah Harriet’s family connections in and around Shrewsbury. Haliburton took a special interest in the mutiny and kept among his private papers a translated copy of a message (as well as the original) sent from Colonel Inglis at Lucknow to General Havelock, written partly in code and enclosed in wax in a quill for transmission by carrier pigeon.17 On 31 August 1857, Haliburton wrote to Richard Bentley: ‘Either Fri-

170 Sam Slick in England

day eveng [sic] or very early on Saturday morning I go to Southampton to go to sea with one of the Peninsular and Oriental Companys boats on a trial trip – I don’t know how far they intend to go.’18 He left on the Euxine and returned three weeks later after a voyage to Lisbon, where he caught (he said) ‘malaria.’19 Despite this, Haliburton clearly enjoyed the trip and repeated it several times. He used these experiences to write an episode for Season Ticket in which the narrator and his companions are offered a trip home from Cork in Ireland to Southampton in the P&O steamer Madras: ‘I have more than once made a voyage in the noble vessels of this Company, in other parts of the world, and they well merit the high character they have for speed, comfort, and safety ... of all the other Ocean Steam Associations [besides the exceptional case of the Cunard Co.] that of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company is by far the best managed, and the most successful’ (75–6). Haliburton could say now something he had never said before: ‘I like a steamer ... how superior is it to a railway train: you have room to move and to walk about, you inhale with delight the fresh air, and you soon become known to your fellow-travellers ... Oh! commend me to an ocean steamer, and let those who prefer railways have their monopoly of smoke, dust, noise, tremulous carriages, and sulky, supercilious companions’ (77–8). For Haliburton, steamers had become floating men’s clubs: ‘Your companions are generally men of the world, and from all parts of the globe, and the conversation is equally various and amusing’ (78). By the late 1850s, he had recanted his negative view of them: ‘The saloon is as different a thing from the cabin of former days as can well be imagined. Well lighted and ventilated, spacious and admirably adapted, either for the purposes of a dining or sitting room, it has all the convenience that a vessel is capable of affording, while the means and mode of cooking, and the number and training of the waiters, are such as to leave passengers no ground to complain of their dinner, or the manner in which it is served. They are literally floating hotels’ (87–8). Haliburton loved talking with his fellow travellers over wine and taking the soundings of human nature. He was in Southampton on 1 April 1858 for the launching of the P&O ship Northram.20 The London dignitaries, including Haliburton, returned by the five o’clock train, and thus the idea for The Season Ticket was born. The narrator of his last book is a regular traveller on the London-toSouthampton line. In November, December, and January, with England’s national pride in a fragile state, Isambard Kingdom Brunel attempted to launch the

A Hectic Social Life 171

biggest iron ship ever built, the Great Eastern. Haliburton planned to witness the launch whenever it occurred, and he hoped Watkins would join him.21 In November, while waiting for the launch, Haliburton travelled to Gloucester to visit his old friend Edmund Hopkinson at Edgeworth. On 21 November 1857, Hopkinson took him to a local conservative dinner given by the members of the ‘Bull Club’ at the King’s Head, Cirencester. This was purely a social gathering.22 The squire of Edgeworth shared many of Haliburton’s interests. It should be noted that in his later years, Haliburton found he enjoyed the society of men with political views that differed greatly from his own, men like the well-known liberal and free trader in Manchester, W.B. Watkins. Some of the warmest letters Haliburton ever wrote he wrote to Watkins. In one he offered a remedy for a sore throat: ‘Dissolve in brandy as much salt as it will take up – Take a dessert spoonful occasionally (3 or 4 times a day) raw. I knew this cure an awful astma (is that spet right?) of 25 years standing – It operated like a miracle. I want you to clear your throat before you come, for I have stories that will choke you otherwise –.’23 At the end of November, Haliburton invited Richard Bentley to dine ‘quietly’ with him on a Saturday night and to spend Sunday at Gordon House.24 Richard Bentley often ran the gantlet of Nova Scotia moose meat or a brace of Nova Scotian partridge. Sometimes Haliburton’s guests complained. W. Russell, the Times journalist, told Haliburton in no uncertain terms about the effect ‘your American birds produced on us’: ‘We ate very small portions each, but about 3 hours afterwards we all fell sick, with a great falling of the pulses & cold hands & feet.’25 Even a dog that ate a portion of the bird cold fell ill. Dining at Gordon House, as Richard Bentley did on a regular basis, was a dangerous experience. He never knew in advance when a piece of Nova Scotia meat would appear on the table. Haliburton fancied himself an expert on cooking. Bentley once sent him Charles Francatelli’s book, the Cook’s Guide (1861), to look over to see if anything could be added to it.26 Haliburton admired its new chapter on wines. He became something of a gourmand in his old age, and his waist expanded accordingly. The opening line of The Season Ticket makes a veiled reference to this: ‘Everything has altered its dimensions, except the world we live in’ (1). Haliburton led a hectic social life. Arranging meetings with Bentley to discuss literary and other matters was sometimes difficult. On 9 April 1858, he was in Brighton with friends and could not get away.27 Inevitably, his diet exacerbated his gout. The attacks became more frequent

172 Sam Slick in England

and usually laid him up for a week at a time, but he had an impressive ability to bounce back and accept further dinner invitations. ‘But give me your arm, sir, for I think I feel a slight twinge of that abominable gout,’ says a judge in the second chapter of The Old Judge (1: 43). His son, Robert, as he grew into middle age, discovered that he had inherited a similar ailment: ‘I have had suppressed rheumatic gout for years. I am a particularly abstemious man otherwise I shd have found out what was wrong long ago.’28 His father was not abstemious and paid the full price for it. On 9 August 1858, he suffered an attack that lasted many months. He told Richard Bentley in October that he had been forced to try the waters at Buxton.29 In Buxton, he and Sarah Harriet lodged in comfortable rooms at the St Ann’s Hotel. After taking the baths, he at first felt ‘rather worse.’30 The pain shifted to his knee, and he was forced to use a stick when walking. He owned ‘a walking cane’ that had once belonged to Dr Johnson.31 At this stage in his life, he certainly needed it: ‘My suffering at Buxton was something quite dredful [sic],’ he wrote later to Richard Bentley.32 Over the next few years, the gout afflicted his hand, and Sarah Harriet occasionally took over the task of writing to his many correspondents.33 On 17 May, the Hebdomadal Council at Oxford University proposed that he be awarded an Hon. D.C.L. in Convocation. He received the degree on 16 June 1858 as part of the Encaenia, the celebration of the dedication of the Sheldonian Theatre, and the commemoration of the benefactors of the university. It was reported that when the undergraduates greeted him with cheering, ‘he threw up to his admirers one of his arch glances and set the whole of the gallery in a roar of laughter.’34 In late September, Haliburton visited William Watkins in Manchester. A month later, he regretted doing so: his gout had returned and seized him in the left arm.35 Nevertheless, at the beginning of November he attended the gala opening of the new Hounslow Town Hall. There, he set at the left hand of the Lord Chief Baron as one hundred gentlemen celebrated the civic occasion. He could not resist invitations to dine out. On 12 November 1858, he wrote a letter to Anthony Trollope, whose career as a novelist had eclipsed that of his mother, whom Haliburton had known since 1838.36 In passing, Haliburton praised Trollope’s novels: ‘I have also had the gratification of reading your singularly clever works and congratulate you with all my heart, upon attaining the enviable distinction of being by far the best delineator of female character of the present day – If I were capable of entertaining a feeling of envy, it would be in that masterly & delicate hand that truly & so skilfully

A Hectic Social Life 173

pourtrays the feelings, impulses and instincts of the fair sex.’ What Victoria Glendinning says of Trollope – ‘He loved the company of woman’ – is true of Haliburton as well. But he entirely lacked Trollope’s subtlety in portraying them. There is a great deal of sexual flirtation in the final four volumes of Sam Slick. At fifty-eight, Haliburton still loved the company of women, although he never wavered in his dislike of petticoat government.37 He had written to Anthony because Trollope proposed visiting the West Indies on Post Office business. One of Trollope’s biographers, Victoria Glendinning, locates him ‘in London being briefed for the first two weeks of November.’ After the West Indies, Trollope planned to visit Panama and Costa Rica, then proceed to Bermuda, sail to New York, and travel north to Albany and Niagara Falls. In actual fact, he returned to New York via Montreal and sailed back to Liverpool on the Royal Mail steamer Africa, arriving on 3 July 1859.38 He does not seem to have used the letter of introduction to Laura Cunard in Halifax that Haliburton went out of his way to send him. In his letter, Haliburton told Trollope that ‘sorrow & years’ had made an unmistakable impact on their mutual friend, Richard Bentley.39 He was right. Some personal sorrow had afflicted Bentley, but most of the stress he experienced was the result of overwork. In 1854, finding his business in trouble, Bentley sold his famous Bentley’s Miscellany. In 1855, with creditors pressing him to make ‘special arrangements,’ two inspectors were appointed to oversee his publishing business. By 1857 the claims of creditors had been reduced to two-thirds of the original amounts. He recovered, but slowly.40 It did not help matters that one of Bentley’s new ventures, Bentley’s Quarterly Review, had failed. Haliburton found himself caught up in this. The journal was a political review launched in 1859 under the joint editorship of Sir Robert Cecil, MP, and the Reverend Mr William Scott. They intended it to be ‘progressive in politics and liberal but not latitudinarian in religion.’41 One wonders how Bentley could have thought that anything Haliburton wrote could fall into either category. The first number was published in March 1859; only three more came out before it folded. It contained only one leading article per number, followed by book reviews. At Bentley’s invitation, Haliburton wrote an article for the new magazine, and he spent considerable time over the Christmas season doing the research.42 Haliburton’s mood that December could not have been good. Mrs Haliburton explained to Richard Bentley on 2 December that ‘the Judge’s fingers being still disabled,’43 she was writing on her husband’s behalf.

174 Sam Slick in England

Yet the same day, Haliburton’s fingers managed to clutch a pen to write a note accepting an invitation to attend what proved to be one of the great bacchanalian events of the century, the Robert Burns Centenary Meeting at the City Hall in Glasgow on 25 January 1858.44 The Burns Centenary Meeting, he later confided in Richard Bentley, proved to be ‘a jolly time’: ‘My speech they tried to flatter me was the best of the evening – I had an unexpectedly warm and enthusiastic reception – It was badly reported in the Glasgow papers & wholly omitted from The Times.’45 The account in the North British Daily Mail for 26 January is the fullest, and occupies the entire first page of the paper. Against the backdrop of a ‘magnificent allegorical painting’ illustrating the ‘various monuments to the memory of Burns’ himself, 620 gentlemen sat down to dinner (with room for 300 ladies in the gallery).46 As the guests assembled, the city organist played in the background. At five o’clock, the platform party (which included ‘Judge Haliburton’) entered while the assembly sang ‘Scots wha ha’e wi Wallace bled.’ He sat on the second left of the chairman, Sir Archibald Allison, between the Lord Provost and Richard Monkton Milnes, MP. The guests consumed dinner to the music of the Royal Sherwood Foresters. After the gentlemen had finished their meal, the chairman rose to indicate that all toasts to Burns would be in flowing bumpers of champagne as if he were alive. He hoped that the gentlemen would find their ‘function’ ‘of a most agreeable nature. (Laughter and loud cheers). As the cheering continued, the ladies proceeded to fill the galleries, the company standing, and the band playing “Green grow the rashes O.”’ Then followed toasts to ‘the Queen,’ ‘The Navy and Army of Great Britain,’ and ‘The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns’ (‘Tremendous cheering continued for several minutes’), followed by a response by Colonel Burns, son of the bard, and many subsequent toasts: ‘Lord Clyde and his Companion at Arms,’ ‘Both Houses of Parliament,’ ‘The Poets of England,’ the ‘Peasantry,’ the ‘Poets of Scotland,’ the ‘City of Glasgow and its Civic Rulers,’ the ‘Poets of Ireland’ (responded to by Samuel Lover), and the toast that Haliburton proposed, ‘The Clergy of Scotland.’ The audience received Haliburton with ‘immense cheering,’ and Haliburton felt overcome. He stood before them, he said, as the ‘first’ of his family to make an appearance in his fatherland since his ancestor left the borders of Scotland 150 years earlier to seek his fortune in the wilds of America. At first, he said, he didn’t think it appropriate for the ‘humble author of Sam Slick (Roars of laughter)’ to give the toast to the clerics. Nevertheless, he talked ‘at some length’ (the reporter truncating his

A Hectic Social Life 175

speech at this point) about the contribution the clergy had made to the settling of North America. He also talked of the ‘delusive’ pictures of American immigration currently being circulated before reverting back to the topic for the evening, Robert Burns. Haliburton overcame his life-long antagonism to poetry to shower accolades upon Robert Burns. After his speech, the toasts became more diffuse: ‘Colonel Burns and the Other Existing Relatives of the Poet,’ ‘The Centenary Celebrations all over the World,’ ‘Our Guests,’ ‘The Festival Committee,’ ‘The Press,’ ‘The Lasses,’ and ‘The Chair,’ followed by the ‘Croupiers.’ The entire evening came to an end at twenty minutes past eleven with a rousing chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ sung by those who could still stand. The same paper that reported the event in great detail also editorialized that ‘not a few headaches and other penalties of pleasure will this morning be found remaining behind.’47 The paper reported that a Mr Muir sang two renderings of ‘A man’s a man for a’that’: ‘During the whole time, Judge Haliburton (author of “Sam Slick”) leaned back and watched the singer with the most marked attention.’48 The warmth of Haliburton’s reception on this occasion surprised Haliburton himself. On their way back from Glasgow at the end of January, Haliburton and Sarah Harriet visited Sarah’s family seat, Woodhouse in Shropshire. Sarah Harriet’s grandfather, William Mostyn-Owen, had died in 1850. He had left the Woodhouse estate to his son and heir, William, with generous settlements throughout the family.49 They then stayed a few days at Coed Coch, Abergele, the home of John Lloyd Wynne (1807–87), JP and DL, who became High Sheriff of Denbigh in 1865.50 Then they moved on to the home of Charles Kynaston Mainwaring (1803–61), at Otely Park, Ellesmere, a ‘beautiful mansion ... in the Elizabethan style, situated in a park strikingly diversified with hill and dale.’ 51 These splendid estates were Sarah Harriet’s world, and she gladly shared it with Haliburton. Throughout the tour of Sarah’s old haunts, Haliburton worked on the article for Bentley’s Quarterly Review (on the ‘Overland Route’). It irritated him considerably to discover that the editorial hand behind the venture was Sir Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury, later prime minister), not Bentley. Cecil postponed publishing the article for reasons of length.52 In writing it, Haliburton had relied on news reports in the Times that he had asked Bentley to send him.53 He was irritated by Cecil’s response but cooled his anger sufficiently to revise the article. Back in London, he called on Bentley on 25 February to clarify matters.54 The following day, Bentley told him that the article would not be appearing in the first issue. Chagrined, Haliburton demanded financial compensation of 20

176 Sam Slick in England

guineas for his time and effort; at the same time, he acquitted Bentley of all blame in the matter.55 Considering his hectic social activities in the fall and winter of 1858 and early 1859 and the crippling effects of a three-month gout attack (August to November 1858), it is surprising that Haliburton still had energy to write another book. He chose to publish it serially in the Dublin University Magazine beginning in March 1859. Only once before, with The Old Judge, had he published a book in numbers. The choice of the Dublin University Magazine is not at all surprising; it had been founded by a ‘group of bitter young Tories’ after the Reform Act of 1832.56 On 1 January 1856, the magazine had been bought by Hurst & Blackett: ‘Cheyne Brady, a nephew of the Lord Chancellor, became editor, and ... remained so until 1861.’57 The involvement of Hurst & Blackett ensured that the magazine would have a ‘general appeal’; however, conservative principles would dominate the ‘type’ and the ‘editorial mentality.’58 V.L.O. Chittick wrote of The Season Ticket: ‘There is little about the mixture that is novel either in matter or manner, though its flavor is not by any means disagreeably familiar. Its constituents consist mostly of expansions and borrowings from the Glasgow Address, Nature and Human Nature, Rule and Misrule, The Attaché, and even from The Clockmaker, amply padded by generous borrowings from its author’s abundant “tall tale” stories.’59 The book is filled with contemporary commentary, references to events of the day that help date the writing, and discussions of many of Haliburton’s favourite topics that flush out our portrait of the aging writer. The book has four interlocutors: the narrator, an Englishman with the unlikely name of Shegog; Carey, his college friend; and two Americans already mentioned, Senator Lyman Boodle from Michigan, and Peabody, Haliburton’s newest incarnation of the Yankee spirit of brag. The book is set in the carriage of a train rolling back and forth between London and Southampton. This carriage becomes a version of the gentleman’s smoking room; in it, men of the world discuss the issues of the day in comfort. V.L.O. Chittick thought the book dull.60 For the biographer, The Season Ticket contains few surprises; Haliburton is following his usual path. Extremes continue to meet. On the one hand, there is Lyman Boodle: ‘It was manifest he was a person of importance, both wise and circumspect, a statesman, and a divine, and equally respectable as an orator and a preacher’ (8). On the other, there is Peabody, ‘a rollicking, noisy, thoughtless fellow, caring little what he said or did, up to anything and equal to everything’ (8). To Peabody, women are ‘corn-fed galls’ (10); however, as Boodle cautions, ‘there is more in

A Hectic Social Life 177

him than there appears to be’ (13). Haliburton clearly reserved the right to communicate some of his thoughts through Peabody. The book is a mish-mash of familiar ideas, a ‘gallimaufry’ (Haliburton’s term for ‘a stew of various kinds of edibles, fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetables; and when well made, and properly seasoned, let me tell you it is by no means an unsavoury dish’).61 The book is a ‘narrative of all I have heard or seen, or said or done’ (Season Ticket, 187). It is close to being Haliburton’s very own journal for the years 1859-60, thinly disguised. As to flavour, there are, as is usual in Haliburton, many scenes that the modern reader will find distasteful. He had re-entered the political fray in April 1859, just as the third number of The Season Ticket appeared in the Dublin University Magazine. Even so, he had lost none of his old cynicism about politics or politicians: Well, after the election is over, you begin to open your eyes, as puppies do after nine days. The after-piece comes then, and a grand farce it is. (158) Election promises, my good friend, are like pie-crusts, short, flaky, and brittle; they won’t hold together till they reach your mouth. (160) The only interest worth having in this country is parliamentary interest. (161) Never bother your head about elections; a vote is a curse to a man; it involves him in politics, excites him, raises a bushel of enemies, and not one friend for him, and makes him look tipsy, as you did last night, though you warn’t the least in liquor. (304) I observe that bankers, lawyers, merchants, and farmers grow rich; but that politicians are like carrion birds, always poor, croaking and hungry, and not over particular as to the flavour of their food, or how they obtain it. (304)

Once again, as with The Clockmaker, he is shooting at folly as it flies past him. Whether he speaks through Lyman Boodle or the more extreme Peabody, he is expressing only bitterness about the failure of colonials to gain patronage. ‘Show me a native that ever got his commission!’ demands Peabody (231). All that remains in a colony is the office of ‘hog-reeve.’62 If Lyman Boodle sounds like a book (as Peabody says he does), it is because Haliburton regularly has him recite chunks (as Chittick noticed) from the speech Haliburton gave in Glasgow in March 1857

178 Sam Slick in England

(236). Everything leads to the same conclusion: ‘The truth is, the Colonial Office is a dead weight on the Empire’ (242). No. 11, ‘Colonial and Matrimonial Alliances,’ is Haliburton’s strongest condemnation of the colonial office. Throughout Season Ticket, Haliburton argues two contradictory things: that the colonies have sufficient energy to go it alone, and that most colonists wish for closer ties with the mother country, to exist on a level of equality with the people of Britain, and to share in massive wealth and power of the Empire. ‘Colonial and Matrimonial Alliances’ is archetypical Haliburton. The argument that the colonial office must be reformed is deliberately juxtaposed with the situation of a man who has ten wives. Haliburton apparently thinks the comparison witty. He ends the chapter with some more smoking room talk well suited to his gentlemanly interlocutors, his intended audience. The final chapter of The Season Ticket, ‘Big Wigs,’ is one of the few accounts of the judiciary to be found in Haliburton’s work. He had spent much of his life on the bench in Nova Scotia, yet he rarely commented on the law as a profession. One night in 1859, in his constituency, the borough of Launceston, he announced that he would speak on his ‘Circuit Reminiscences,’ but at the last moment he changed the topic to a more general discussion of the history of the judiciary in North America – very much the topic he pursues in the final chapter of The Season Ticket.63 After touring ‘several law courts,’ the Senator and Peabody compare the British and American judiciaries, and the Senator delivers a full account of the place of the judiciary in the American Constitution. Haliburton still had a more than passing interest in judicial matters during his years in England. Celebrated figures often sat in on cases that attracted unusual interest.64 On 5 and 6 July 1859, Haliburton sat beside the learned judge at Patience Swinsen v. Lord Chelmsford (Sir Frederick Thesiger). Haliburton had consulted Thesiger (among other lawyers) in 1843 regarding his salary dispute with the Nova Scotia government, a dispute that led to his quarrel over his pension.65 The case involving Thesiger in London proved to be much the better theatre and went to the very heart of the judicial system of the day: ‘No less a personage than a former lord chancellor was called to defend himself from the charges of legal malpractice and one of the most distinguished judges of the day – Sir Cresswell Cresswell – was implicated. Both of these men and the sitting chief justice in England were called upon to testify.’66 In The Season Ticket, Haliburton has an ‘old Indian officer’ (175) offer a succinct summary of the sensational trial:

A Hectic Social Life 179 Mrs Swinsen claimed an estate worth £50,000, under a will, and the question was, whether the testator was ‘of sound disposing mind and memory,’ as it is called, when he executed this will: if he was, then Madame would have it, if not, it would go to the heir-at-law. Well, Thesiger (afterwards Lord Chancellor), was Mrs. Swinsen’s lawyer; the cause came on to be tried, and he saw it was going against her, so he compromised the suit for an annuity of £1000 a-year, and the payment of the costs by the other side; and a very judicious arrangement it appeared, but she refused her consent, and repudiated his act. Well, the trial was brought on again, and by one of those chances that do sometimes occur, she gained it, and has got possession of the estate. Now she has brought an action against Thesiger, for the loss she has sustained, by what she calls ‘exceeding his authority’ in settling the suit. (178)

According to the account in the Times, the trial occupied the ‘Lord Chief Baron, and a special jury for two days at Guildhall.’67 In her suit, Mrs Swinsen accused her defence counsel and the presiding judge at the first trial of collusion and fraud – ‘absurd and malignant’ charges according to a lengthy editorial in the Times. Haliburton supplied more colourful commentary: ‘The gun was overcharged, burst, and damaged the man that fired it off’ (178). Although Thesiger had clearly been at fault, the jury in Swinsen v. Lord Chelmsford found in Thesiger’s favour. Mrs Swinsen managed, however, to raise a matter of some significance for English legal practice, and to issue a salutary warning to lawyers and judges that they could not exceed their authority. On 7 December 1859, while Haliburton was writing No. 11, ‘Colonial and Matrimonial Alliances,’ he reported to Richard Bentley that Mrs Haliburton lay in bed suffering ‘from internal inflammation.’68 The episode must have brought back memories of Louisa’s last days. A month later he reported a substantial improvement in her health. On the same day, Haliburton asked Bentley to consider ‘a manuscript’ that Haliburton said he had been commissioned to offer him: ‘Please read it over & say what you will give for it, or on what terms you will publish it.’ The manuscript might well have been Haliburton’s own Season Ticket which Bentley would eventually publish on 6 March 1860. The situation is somewhat puzzling, in that Haliburton spoke about the manuscript as if it were the work of another (‘Will you be so good as [to] give a reply about msst. Or return it, as the author wishes to leave town’).69 When the Dublin University Magazine issued a loose-leaf insertion advertising The Season Ticket as Haliburton’s, Haliburton was furious: ‘I told you

180 Sam Slick in England

over and over again I could not and would not avow this work, for many reasons, for any price.’ He continued: ‘Who is supposed to know better than the publisher, who is the author of a work put forth by him – If I was not the author, then you are not authorized to attribute it to me – If I am, you are precluded by agreement from saying so.’ Bentley had bought the work at ‘an anonymous price,’ and by advertising it to be the work of the author of Sam Slick had secured a bargain. Haliburton felt the consequence for his writing career to be terminal: ‘How can I go on writing after this, you have knocked my pen out of my hand.’ The ending of The Season Ticket hints at a continuation: ‘Whether I shall renew, or accept the invitation of my American friends, from whom I have derived much amusement and instruction, to accompany them on a short tour into the country, I have not yet decided’ (376). Bentley’s mishandling of Haliburton’s desire for ‘anonymity’ and his haste in bringing the book out almost before the last instalment had cleared the Dublin University Magazine – and before Haliburton himself had chance to revise the printed version – added to the author’s exasperation: ‘It is full of errors & I feel very ill used in the matter – The tittle page [sic] is not complete nor the preface, nor the notice of its being copied from the D—U Magazine.’70 Haliburton’s annoyance redoubled; it might, he said, insult the editor Cheyne Brady and ‘compromise my character’ at the same time. A small note did appear in the book to indicate it had already been serialized in the Dublin University Magazine, and Bentley called personally on Haliburton to try and smooth the waters (21 February), penning a brisk note the next day to Cheyne Brady to say that the book would be published simultaneously with the sale of the magazine. He wrote, he said, at the ‘wish of the judge.’71 Haliburton never wrote a second volume, and the book ended very much in mid-thought.

Chapter 23

Member of Parliament for Launceston

With only two chapters of the new work published, Haliburton’s life took another unexpected turn when he was offered a seat in Parliament in a way that must have surprised even him. At sixty-four, he was given the chance to represent Launceston in north Cornwall. It might as well have been the Outer Hebrides. Launceston could not easily be reached from London (four or five hours by railway, said Haliburton, though he knew well that the railway had not yet reached Launceston). It had somehow survived the sweeping changes of the 1832 Reform Act, being one of the few remaining rotten boroughs in the country, still in the pocket of Haliburton’s neighbour in Isleworth, the Duke of Northumberland. When the incumbent MP, Mr Jocelyn Percy, fell from his horse and was compelled to resign the seat, the constituency was offered to Haliburton. The pages of the Launceston Weekly News for 23 April 1859 relate the full story of how Haliburton presented himself at the Central Subscription Room in Launceston on Monday, 18 April 1859, at three o’clock, as the Conservative candidate. He could not have known (though he might well have anticipated) that the borough was a hotbed of political discontent. Some local electors, tired of the duke’s control over the borough, had already written a satirical open letter to him urging immediate reform.1 It is possible that sending Haliburton to stand as the Conservative candidate was the Duke’s gesture of appeasement. Certainly, the voters turned out in great numbers to the nomination meeting to see this ‘gentleman of world-wide reputation.’2 They were handed a biographical account of Haliburton taken from Herbert Fry’s ‘National Gallery of Distinguished Men.’ This provided a brief account of Haliburton’s suitability for the task of representing the constituency and the broader interests of the nation at large.

182 Sam Slick in England

The efforts of the local organizers did not quell all the dissent. A Dr Robbins immediately brought to the meeting’s attention the duke’s insult to the constituency (‘Hear, hear, cheers and uproar’). Haliburton then spoke to the assembled audience who greeted him with ‘much cheering.’ He immediately pacified them by saying that if elected he would represent those who opposed him as well as those who had voted for him. He reminded everyone that he served no party and no government and was a free and independent citizen. He would, he said, put Launceston on the map by serving not only the local constituents but all of those on the other side of the Atlantic who had no representation in the English Parliament: ‘To look at I am an old man, but young enough to do good service.’ He knew what it was like to represent differences of opinion. When he stood as the member of a large county, he had not been elected unanimously. Anyone present who glanced at his brief biography would know that he had not been politically active for thirty years. Any who had read his books closely would realize that he regarded politics with suspicion and harboured a deep distaste for politicians. Yet with a straight face, he presented himself this way to the electors of Launceston: ‘But let there be no mistake; I don’t call myself an advanced Conservative, a Liberal Conservative, but a plain Conservative.’ Haliburton was in good form. His speech provoked both cheers and many roars of laughter. To his local constituents he presented himself as a ‘man of business, and a promotor.’ He had promoted steam transportation, and he had worked tirelessly for railways: ‘I am not a capitalist, but I have influence with leading men, and shall be most happy to use it in your behalf.’ He convinced most of his audience. However, Dr Robbins would not be pacified. Haliburton was, he said, the Duke of Northumberland’s nominee, and the hoary inner workings of an incurably rotten borough were plain for all to see: ‘I protest against a peer of the realm interfering in the elections of the borough of Launceston.’ Dr. Robbins ... Will he say he is not sent here by the Duke of Northumberland? Mr. Haliburton. – I will say that, neither directly nor indirectly, have I had any communication with him about this election. (Cheers.) Dr. Robbins. – With his agent? Mr. Haliburton. – No. I should be ashamed to put such a question, and would not sit as his nominee. (Loud cheers.)

Haliburton held his ground while Mr Robbins made some remarks

Member of Parliament for Launceston 183

about the different elections since 1832, but ‘the Chairman interposed, a scene of great uproar having taken place, and requested him to keep to the point; a plain question had been put, and a plain answer given. (Hear, hear.).’ Dr Robbins declared the ‘election’ a ‘monstrous farce’ and all the votes ‘promised before.’ He began a scathing attack on Haliburton’s credentials, mocking them at every turn, as well as on the actions of Mr Gurney, the duke’s steward, in bringing forward such a man: ‘I admire a man, whether Tory, Radical, or Liberal, who sticks to his creed, but I detest those, who for the sake of a few pears and plums, crawl and lick spittle in Mr Gurney’s presence, saying one thing before his face, and another behind his back. This is a place of crawling sycophancy and despotism ... The sooner such a place is annihilated, the better.’ Haliburton staunchly defended his desire to represent the colonies at a crucial time in their relationship with the mother country. He also threw in an analogy that Slick would have been proud of: But my friend yonder [Mr Robbins] shows the benefit of free discussion. It lets off the steam. When such high pressure as his is carried, if the steam were not let off, the boiler would burst, spreading dirt and destruction all about. If he hadn’t let off his steam he might have had a fit to night that would have killed him; now he will go home and sleep well. As to his hits at the Old Judge, I am happy to tell him he does not feel anything the worse for them. [Laughter and cheers]

Other questions followed concerning church rates, the extension of the franchise, the disenfranchisement of borough freeholders, the ballot, and the prohibition of canvassing. Like all wise politicians, Haliburton offered no comment where he did not have to. On the question of the ballot, he remained sceptical that it would work: ‘One of the Canadian States, after many years’ trial of the ballot, wished to give it up.’ Dr Robbins attempted to move no confidence in the candidate, but the motion failed for lack of a seconder. ‘You may be a good lawyer, but you are no orator,’ he charged. Haliburton replied, ‘I am an old lawyer, and have a great deal of confidence [Laughter and cheers].’3 So began Haliburton’s re-entry into active politics. The election was held a week later, on Friday, 29 April 1859, in the Corn Market. It was a much quieter affair. The mayor took his place on the hustings at eleven o’clock, followed shortly ‘by the only candidate, Mr. Justice Haliburton, and his committee, together with a large number of the principal gentry and electors of the town and neighbourhood.’4 Mrs Haliburton was also present. No doubt recalling the uproar of the

184 Sam Slick in England

previous week, the mayor asked all present to behave like gentlemen. G.W. Webber, claiming an acquaintance with Haliburton of ‘many years,’ presented him to the electors as ‘the right man in the right place,’ as ‘efficient’ a representative as they could wish to have: ‘I have tasted his father’s hospitality, have visited the place of his birth, and retain many pleasing recollections of that visit.’ Dr Pethick seconded the motion by eulogizing Haliburton as a candidate with a broader perspective, well suited to the events and issues of the day, in particular world trade: ‘In the whole House I believe there will not be a single member whose opinion will be so much deferred to, as that of Mr. Haliburton.’ When Haliburton arrived in Launceston, said Dr Pethick, he had not considered the disenfranchising of the borough holders. Haliburton had since spent more than a week among his constituents, and Dr Pethick stated the candidates’s position clearly: he would not surrender the borough vote. A deputation had already expressed their views on the railway to him, and as a projector of many of Canada’s railways he would advocate their cause. The mayor declared Haliburton elected in the absence of any other candidate. Haliburton then proceeded to make a speech of thanks in an atmosphere very different from that of the previous week. He thanked those present ‘in the name of 4 millions of inhabitants, British subjects, on the other side of the water, who have no individual in the House of Commons to make themselves heard.’ Canada’s vast expanses belonged to Britain and remained a wide field of immigration for their children. He had talked to ‘each elector’ in the borough during his short stay there (in 1871 there were 795 electors),5 and he repeated his desire to serve both those who agreed with his conservative principles and those who did not. That morning, news had reached Launceston of the outbreak of the Franco-Austrian War. The news made Haliburton apprehensive: he did not know how far the war would spread, and the colonies lacked any means of defence. He hoped that United States would not seize the moment to attack. He had seen what war could be like, and he dreaded it. He preferred peace without dishonour at any price.6 On the subject of railways, Haliburton boasted of a system of communication that stretched from Liverpool to China: ‘I have lived to see great changes, though not an old man yet.’ Transatlantic steamships and the advent of ‘machinery’ had transformed life and made the North American colonies even more significant strategically. Furthermore, Nova Scotia had a coalfield bigger than the one in the north of England. Halifax possessed one of the best harbours in the world, and so did Canada’s

Member of Parliament for Launceston 185

west coast. In two years he would return to tell them what he had done for Launceston. He could promise much, but that would be unwise. He would need their co-operation to move the railway along: ‘As a new member, not a young one, I shall devote myself to the best of my ability to the consideration of the various measures that may be presented.’ There remained a solid undercurrent for reform among those present. This is confirmed by the remarks of Mr W.D. Pearse, a Radical, who urged Haliburton to kick away the ladder that had elevated him and make his first vote in the new Parliament to abolish the ‘incurably rotten and miserable borough’ of Launceston. The opposition was overcome by a round of cheering for the newly elected candidate, ‘heartily repeated.’ Amid laughter, a solitary ‘draper’s youth’ ‘proposed the like honour for Lord John Russell and Bright [John Bright, the radical politician] which was feebly responded to.’ Early on Saturday morning, as the Launceston Weekly News went to press, Haliburton left for London. In the letter he penned immediately after the meeting and placed with the editor of the local paper for publication the following week, Haliburton thanked the electors for treating him so civilly. He once more reaffirmed his desire to serve the entire borough. A parliamentary career lay ahead. He did not expect to grab the headlines, but he planned to listen and comment on the affairs of the day as they arose. The London papers, bored with the stale politics of the day, regarded Haliburton as one of the few attractions in the new Parliament. From the Illustrated Times: ‘Scarce a single new man of any mark is in the field. judge haliburton, at Launceston, is an exception, and – if he be viewed as a probable representation of colonial ideas and interests – a desirable one.’7 Haliburton’s entry into Parliament attracted a good deal of attention: The most notable man that the general election has sent up to Parliament is unquestionably Mr. Justice Haliburton, the conservative member for Launceston ... He is in person tall and portly, rather bald, and the hair that he has is grey. His face is full and somewhat florid, and he wears neither whiskers nor beard; and, on the whole, he appears to a casual observer at a distance, a commonplace, plodding man, and might be taken for a farmer of the better class, or a respectable tradesman. This was our impression of Mr Haliburton, alias ‘Sam Slick’, when from the gallery we saw him walk into the House, take his seat on the Ministerial side, and afterwards come up to the table to be sworn; and we said to ourselves, ‘So this is the immortal Sam! Well, he is not at all the man that we have imagined. Is it possible

186 Sam Slick in England there can be so much humour, archness, and waggery in that stolid looking man?’ But, afterwards, we had an opportunity of seeing him closer, and then he looked somewhat different. And when, in the course of conversation, his face lighted up with a smile, we saw at once indications of his peculiar power: his small eyes seemed to twinkle and get closer together, and there was an expression about his mouth full of that archness and roguery which abound in his books. At a distance he seems Mr. Justice Haliburton, but closer, and when his face was lit up, we could easily imagine him to be Sam Slick.8

So it was as a balding old man with grey hair, ‘portly’ and aging, that Haliburton entered the political fray. He did so as someone who had won a place in the affections of the nation. It was as Sam Slick that he was welcomed to the House of Commons. Mid-nineteenth-century British politics has been the subject of much debate. Historians have two broad subjects to choose from: the rise of the Whigs, and the decline of the Conservatives, who, led by Lord Derby, held power for a brief sixteen months during 1858–9 in a minority situation, with a platform (if such it can be called) that rested on finance, foreign affairs, religion, and parliamentary reform. In The Season Ticket, Haliburton undertook his own analysis of the current political scene: ‘There are three parties in this country – Conservative, Whigs and Radicals. The Whigs are the weakest and smallest, but they cheat at cards, and come off winners’ (254). It is sometimes hard for later observers to distinguish clearly among the parties. Certainly, Haliburton had problems himself. Radicals he knew. Tories he also knew (he felt himself to be one). But the newfangled in-between world of the Conservatives and the Whigs puzzled and annoyed him considerably. What he did see clearly were the pragmatic and complicated alliances in the House of Commons: ‘The Whigs rely on Conservative votes to defend them against the great Liberals, and on the support of the Radicals, because they outbid the Tories’ (254). The Whigs, in his view, were merely better card players. They governed in a minority situation that ‘was actually less than either of the parties’ (254). Haliburton was not the only one who found it difficult to define and distinguish the parties. Modern historians face the same problem: The term ‘Whig’ is even harder to define in this period than at other times. At the core of Whig identity were a small number of immediately wealthy, higher aristocratic families, such as Russell (Dukes of Bedford) Cavendish

Member of Parliament for Launceston 187 (Dukes of Devonshire), Leveson Gower (Dukes of Sutherland), and Grosvenor (Earls, later Dukes of Westminster) ... With their supporters, these families continued to dominate the inner circles of the Whig party until the 1860s or even later. They supported religious and intellectual freedom, limited government, liberal rule, and regarded the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 as the defining moment in British history.9

But there were various shades of ‘Whiggery,’ some Conservative, some Liberal, and some Radical. The Conservatives, out of office from the downfall of Sir Robert Peel in 1846 until 1866 except for two-and-a-half years (a brief stint in government in 1852 and another in 1858–9), foundered on the free trade issue. Peel’s ‘free trade’ stance in 1846 sealed the future of the Conservatives for the next thirty years. Free trade split the party in two with an everdiminishing number of Conservatives (including Haliburton) clinging to the wreckage of protectionism. Conservatives could also be recognized by their interest in ‘patriotism, order, and tradition.’ 10 Almost immediately after Haliburton’s ‘election,’ the Conservative government lost a motion of confidence in June 1859 and Parliament dissolved. Haliburton’s fellow MPs returned to their constituencies to court the electorate. Haliburton had no need to contest his seat again because the borough of Launceston was an ancient relic of the British electoral system. So in the heat of the English summer of 1859 (‘When the glass stands at 92 here in the shade, it is equal to 120 on Demerera or Jamaica’), Haliburton continued to write more of The Season Ticket: No. 5, ‘John Bull and his Diggins’ in June, and No. 6, ‘Black Jobs and White Favors’ in July. Parliament reconvened with a new Whig majority. On 25 July 1859, Haliburton rose to make his maiden speech during a debate on the subject of ‘National Defences.’ His audience received him warmly.11 It cannot be said that his Parliamentary career was a dismal failure; only in his later years (1864 and 1865) did he experience problems with his speaking voice. Haliburton spoke twice during his first session in Parliament, eight times in 1860 (publishing his speech on ‘The Repeal of the Differential Duties on Foreign and Colonial Wood,’ delivered on 21 April of that year), five times in 1861, eight times in 1862, twice in 1863, three times in 1864, and twice in the early part of the session of 1865. Just as he promised his constituents, he did not force himself on the house; rather, he spoke only when a subject attracted his attention. In the first debate he participated in, the question of how the colonies

188 Sam Slick in England

should pay for their own defence prefaced a discussion of the need to consolidate British defences on the south coast, given the new state of unrest in Europe and worries that entire stretches of the coast lay unprotected. The Times reported that when Haliburton stepped into the discussion, ‘Mr. horsman, Lord lovaine, and Mr. haliburton rose together, but upon the call of “new member,” the two first-named members yielded precedence.’12 Haliburton took his parliamentary duties seriously. For several years after 1860, he and Sarah Harriet leased rooms in London during the winter months so that he could avoid the fatigue of a lengthy journey home to Isleworth following late sittings of the House. Westminster maintained the air of a club; although its members belonged to parties, gentlemen of differing political persuasions often mingled. For example, Haliburton circulated with the shipping magnate, William Schaw Lindsay (1816–77), member for the Northern Whig stronghold of Tynemouth and North Shields. Whig MPs, as one historian reminds us, could be described as ‘middle-class, often self-made.’13 While most Whigs endorsed ‘the radical programme of limited government, free trade, religious freedom and equality, and a decrease in the power and influence of the Tory “Establishment” as they understood it, a growing number ... were themselves moving to the political right, keen to see their children enter the gentry class, and glorying in Britain’s power and might.’ Lindsay had purchased Shepperton Manor in London in 1855 and became, to all intents and purposes, a squire. His interest in shipping kept him at the forefront of political issues and brought him into frequent contact with Haliburton.14 It perhaps appears something of a paradox that Haliburton travelled in Lindsay’s company when the latter visited his Tynemouth constituents in August 1859. But Lindsay viewed himself as ‘the independent representative of the independent Liberals of the borough.’15 If Lindsay thought he stood above the electorate, he was soon to discover that times had changed. One of his recent parliamentary voting decisions had reached the ears of his constituents, and they had asked him to explain himself. Lindsay had voted for the retention of Lord Derby’s Conservative administration rather than for the prospect of another term of Whig rule under Lord Palmerston. He had chosen, he said, the lesser of two evils. But in the process, he had revealed his Conservative bias. When 113 of the 3,000 voters in his constituency signed a letter censuring his conduct in the late Parliament, he lost no time in appearing before the electors after the session officially ended on 12 August. Lindsay favoured an extension of the £10 franchise to the counties

Member of Parliament for Launceston 189

(the urban franchise had been established under the great Reform Act of 1832 at the £10 householder level); he opposed the abolition of Church Rates; and he favoured the ballot. In those senses he was a Liberal. But on the question of parliamentary reform, he leaned toward Lord Derby, because he thought Derby alone had the power to move parliamentary reform through the House of Lords and thereby prevent the issue from becoming a political shuttlecock. Lindsay thought the presence of his friend, Haliburton, could help him mute the strong reaction of his northern constituents. It is unclear why he thought so. Haliburton’s presence gave the occasion a deeply conservative tinge, signalling to Lindsay’s constituents that he had indeed crossed the floor of the House on this issue. In the account of Haliburton’s visit to Tynemouth that survives, Lindsay’s tone is often defensive. Even so, the electors reaffirmed him by acclamation, although some of those present felt he had made a mistake in his vote. Following the reaffirmation, ‘Judge Halliburton, being called upon by the meeting, in a few remarks paid a high compliment to Mr. Lindsay’s practical knowledge and usefulness as a member of Parliament.’ The following day, Lindsay and Haliburton travelled to North Shields, where they received a warmer reception. At a soirée in the Albion Assembly Rooms, six hundred people watched while the ‘Non-Electors’ of North Shields presented Lindsay with a handsome rosewood cabinet filled with some of the best literature of the day. 16 Haliburton sat on the left of the chairman, Dr Dodd, who after a ‘bountiful tea’ referred to him as a man ‘whose writings and whose genius were known wherever the English language was spoken – (applause) – and who had caused more happiness from having caused more laughter than perhaps any living man. (Applause).’ Lindsay then introduced Haliburton as a man who ‘had for many years taken a deep interest in the welfare of the industrious classes.’ The audience greeted him with enthusiastic cheers ‘and one more for “Sam Slick.”’ Haliburton replied at length. In the course of his speech, he said that ‘he laboured under the disadvantage of having an alias: he was known by the name of Halliburton [sic], and also as Sam Slick. He hoped this would not operate so much against him as he had seen an alias operate against others.’ He then spoke at length about the value of the Mechanics’ Institutes, a subject that the ‘Editorial’ in the Daily Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser endorsed the next day.17 Conservatives like Haliburton sought to protect the essential frame of the constitution. This meant protecting the established church against

190 Sam Slick in England

threats from Catholics, Evangelicals, and reformers from within (Puseyites in particular).18 It also meant strengthening the army and navy in order to defend Britain against any possible invasion from Europe. Haliburton saw Napoleon III in particular as harbouring the same imperial ambitions as his ambitious forebear. In foreign affairs, Conservatives regarded Britain as a watchdog for mercantile interests. The Empire had grown enormous, and the mother country was obligated to protect it. Britain’s world supremacy came at a high price, and Conservatives tended to be critical of anything that threatened that supremacy. Conservatives feared universal suffrage and showed little enthusiasm for proposals to introduce a second reform bill. Haliburton knew that a second such bill would wipe his little borough off the map and end his parliamentary career. Some outspoken critics such as John Bright (1811– 89) and Richard Cobden (1804–65) considered Britain an insufferably aristocratic and privileged society. Juxtaposed with their fiery oratory, ‘Liberalism came to look respectable.’19 The Whig/Liberal party wished to reduce the amount spent on defence, economizing at every turn, and it regularly tried to shake the constitutional tree (especially the parliamentary reform branch); yet the party drew most of its strength from the aristocracy and gentry: ‘This inner core of Whigs was, thus, paradoxically at one and the same time incredibly exclusive and wealthy and also championed liberalism and reform.’ 20 Palmerston’s second administration, from 1859 to 1865 – exactly contemporary with Haliburton’s Parliamentary years – proved to be the first truly ‘liberal’ one.21 Even though the Liberals had a majority of only fifteen and their support remained shaky, William Ewart Gladstone (as Chancellor of the Exchequeur) stepped out from under the shadow of Lord Palmerston and prepared the ground for Liberalism for the next half-century. One of Gladstone’s first clashes with Palmerston was over the issue that prompted Haliburton to speak for the first time in Parliament: coastal fortifications and the defence of Britain (Palmerston won the first round, and the defences cost £8.4 million).22 The outbreak of the American Civil War made Conservative MPs more nervous yet. If America, the bastion of democracy, could fall apart, then Britain ought to be cautious about the nature and scale of parliamentary reform. Stability and security became the watchwords for Conservatives. England in 1860, rather like Haliburton himself, was ‘comfortably plump and complacent.’23 Haliburton saw himself as the voice of practical colonial experience. He was a North American born and bred (so he noted in almost every speech he made in England), yet had found himself in a Parliament in

Member of Parliament for Launceston 191

which few had any interest in the colonies or any grasp of the realities of colonial life. He had entered Parliament deeply disenchanted with the path taken by the Conservatives after their betrayal by Sir Robert Peel on the free trade issue. That battle had been lost but, like an old soldier who refused to accept defeat, Haliburton continued the struggle to defend the remnants of protectionist policies for the colonies. In his first speech, Haliburton managed to sound like his own character, Mr Barclay, in The Old Judge. He joined a debate in which the Secretary of State for Defence, Sidney Herbert, in discussing at length the enormous costs of supporting the colonies in matters of defence, stated the prevailing parliamentary opinion of the day, which favoured abandoning the defence of the colonies in order to find more money to strengthen defences at home.24 Haliburton tried reprimanding the minister: ‘England did not manage their affairs, but mismanaged them.’ 25 In a loudly cheered speech, he pointed out that the colonies had been consistently loyal during the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, and had supported the Patriotic Fund, yet now they were being abandoned.26 The debate ignored all of Haliburton’s sallies against British misrule of the colonies. Its end result was the appointment of a three-person commission to report within three months on the state of the country’s defence readiness. Haliburton had fired a few rounds across the defence secretary’s bow and had reminded the House in no uncertain terms that colonists existed. But nothing could block the parsimonious Chancellor of the Exchequeur, William Ewart Gladstone, whose budgets of 1860 and 1861 began an era of fiscal restraint that crimped all aspects of defence spending. This would have important consequences for Britain’s ability to protect its distant colonies.

Chapter 24

The Clash with Gladstone

Haliburton wrote the last number of The Season Ticket in the first week of February 1860, just after the opening of the new parliamentary session on 24 January. In it he alluded to Gladstone having ‘put off his budget till Friday’ (363). Gladstone had been ‘stricken down on 3 February.’ By the next morning (a Saturday) he had become worse, and this caused a fourday postponement of his budget speech.1 The Times pronounced that the ‘question of the day had become “How is Mr Gladstone’s throat?”’ Haliburton quipped that Gladstone had eaten too many of his own words. On 10 February, when Gladstone had recovered, he made, according to his biographer, Roy Jenkins, the ‘third-longest speech that even he ever made in Parliament ... he took fiscal themes and, over four hours, presented them, persuasively but often pedestrianly, as fiscal themes.’ 2 Gladstone had begun to establish his formidable political presence. Early in the parliamentary session of 1860, on 28 February 1860, during a debate in committee on the French Treaty and its many trade provisions, Haliburton clashed for the first time with the new parliamentary colossus. The occasion was the government’s decision to grant special trading privileges to Algeria. As a French colony, it was being granted privileges withheld from British colonies.3 Haliburton and several other MPs were appalled. In an exchange of remarks with Gladstone on the floor of the House, it became obvious that Gladstone had little patience or sympathy for Haliburton’s or anyone else’s desire for protectionist colonial policies. In Gladstone’s view, the colonies had often acted against British manufacturing interests.4 Haliburton and Gladstone clashed again on 9 March on the question of ‘Timber Duties.’ Haliburton had presented a petition ‘from a number of merchants connected with North America, praying that an alteration

The Clash with Gladstone 193

might be made in the differential duties on shipping.’5 He wanted to know when the chancellor would consider the matter: ‘British colonial merchants had no representative in that House, there was no person charged with the interests of a particular colony, or with the colonies generally; and he therefore wished to ask – though in doing so he was not acting at their request – whether there would be any objection to allow British North Americans to be heard at the bar of the House on a question which was of such great importance, and which they alleged would extinguish the trade of these colonies.’6 Haliburton spoke, he said, not as a representative of any North American interests but as a loyal colonist who had listened to a British chancellor accuse the provinces of North America of protecting their own interests. Haliburton reminded Gladstone that the colonies ‘had not adopted the free-trade principles of the Government of this country, nor were they to be taunted for it; they had as much right to their opinion as the Chancellor of the Exchequeur had to the one-sided free-trade which he had introduced into this country.’7 The chancellor, he said, had sneered at the colonial merchants (now in Liverpool). Haliburton added that he should be ashamed to be a colonist if he didn’t object to the chancellor’s ‘superciliousness.’ Haliburton found himself overmatched. He had chosen to spar with one of the great parliamentarians of the age – indeed, of any age. Even in the 1840s, before he had reached his zenith as a parliamentarian, Gladstone ‘was already a formidable and fearsome parliamentary performer.’8 His eloquence revealed itself physically, in his falconlike eyes: ‘His oratory aroused apprehension as well as admiration.’9 That night of 9 March, Haliburton felt the sting of it first-hand when Gladstone turned his full oratorical power on him. Gladstone mocked him with searing sarcasm, accusing him of remaining silent when the issue first came before the House, and of his returning home to nurse his wrath ‘to keep it warm (laughter).’10 Haliburton, he said, had come down to the House, and, under the plea of putting a question, which he says he is very unwilling to put, to take the opportunity of making charges against me which I hope are not justified by the manner in which I generally endeavour to discharge my duties in this House (cheers), and which, I must say, if they were justified, would undoubtedly convict me of the grossest culpability, and make me deserving of far severer punishment than I have just now received from the hon. Gentleman. (Laughter).

194 Sam Slick in England

Gladstone mocked Haliburton’s request that the discussion of the timber duties be delayed until colonists could appear at the bar of the House – a procedure that had no precedent (Haliburton interjected a loud ‘No! No!’). Gladstone said he had heard complaints and observations about the demise of the colonies as a result of free trade since 1842, and the truth was that they had only prospered. He did not deny the honourable gentleman’s concern, but he had grown ‘utterly impervious’ to such complaints. Gladstone accused Haliburton of being asleep at the helm. Haliburton could do little but listen to the laughter and cheers from the government side of the House and stand exposed as an old-fashioned protectionist in a House that fully embraced free trade. Gladstone’s new budget had reduced the number of items ‘on which duty was levied from the thousand or so which prevailed at the beginning of the main Peel government and the 419 which were still there in early 1859 to 48, of which only 15 produced significant amounts of revenue.’11 However, ‘timber’ (as Roy Jenkins admits) did not constitute a minor change. Haliburton had chosen his battlefield carefully and would return to the subject again. In early April, he was still brooding over Gladstone’s words. At the fifteenth anniversary of ‘the Royal General Theatrical Fund,’ held at the Freemason’s Tavern, he attempted a face-saving adjustment of his position, reminding his audience that ‘Mr. Gladstone, the most eloquent as well as the most reckless of Ministers (a laugh), might abolish the differential duties with respect to the trade of North America, but the people would still be bound by differential duties to the English crown.’12 Three days later, in Manchester, Haliburton put the finishing touches on a speech he had prepared for the forthcoming discussion of the Timber Duties Bill. Of the several versions that exist of this speech – in Hansard, in the columns of the Times, and in Haliburton’s published version of the speech – the one in the newspaper is the liveliest.13 Throughout the printed version, there are signs of Haliburton amending what he said for posterity. Some alterations are merely stylistic; others are extensive additions to improve the tone and flow. The feeling of ‘discouragement’ that had come over him when he considered that the people he represented had no representation in the House, is in Hansard ‘such discouragement ... as he believed no other man had ever felt before,’14 but in the printed speech ‘a painful feeling of isolation ... which he was quite certain was never before experienced by any member of that assembly.’15 In his argument about the bill’s financial effects on timber manufacturers, he added several sentences to sharpen the focus.

The Clash with Gladstone 195

During the committee stage for the ‘Customs Bill,’ when the discussion moved to the ‘Duties on Timber and Wood,’ Haliburton told the House that he had a ‘long statement’ to make. He wished to expound at length on the impact that the cut in differential duties would have on colonies such as New Brunswick and on the trade of North America generally (timber being its major export). But he sensed the lateness of the hour (twenty-five minutes to midnight), and he hesitated presenting his statement to the House.16 In genial and expansive tones, Gladstone urged him to continue: ‘Though the hour might be considered late in some countries, it was according to the usages of the House an early hour (Laughter).’17 ‘How could there be a more appropriate time?’ said the spider. ‘Oh, yes; a most favourable time for you. (Laughter),’ replied the fly.18 This remark is found only in Haliburton’s printed version; neither Hansard nor the Times records any such retort. The debate over timber duties was a highly symbolic one for Haliburton. It was his last stand as a protectionist, but no one was listening. The economic historian, Arthur R.M. Lower, maintains that ‘the preference disappeared [in 1860] with hardly a comment.’19 But Haliburton did speak out, as a lone colonial voice against the inexorable march of free trade. He moved that page 16, line 31, of the bill be amended by inserting after ‘sawn or split, planed or dressed’ the line ‘except deals, battens and boards,’ which he wished to remain at ‘the present duty.’20 The amendment provided the excuse he needed to dilate at length on the well-being of the North American colonies. Haliburton was trying to transform the ‘timber duty’ issue into a turning point in the history of Britain’s relations with its North American colonies, in the same way that the taxation and representation issue had been a turning point for the American colonies. The timber duties issue cut the cable that bound colony and mother country together, and he predicted that the British navy, and consequently its ability to protect North America, would be diminished. He said that while the House of Commons fiddled over Savoy, the French were busily working to annex Newfoundland.21 Haliburton resorted to one of his favourite arguments, one that he had used at length in The Attaché and that was designed to shock his audience into submission: On a recent occasion, when the question of what names should be given to four different townships in our North American provinces had been referred to the Governor General for his decision, his wife had had the good taste to impose upon them the names of Tiny, Floss, Hops, and Emily

196 Sam Slick in England – these being the names of the pampered lap-dogs of a pampered master. Against their enemies the colonists were able to protect themselves; he asked for protection for them against the repetition of such an insult as that which he had just mentioned. Why, the Americans acted better by their negroes than to treat them after such a fashion. Instead of naming them after lapdogs, they called them Cato, Scipio, Venus, and Juno, after the heroes of antiquity, and the goddesses of ancient mythology. Were our North American colonists the sons of dogs that they should be placed on a lower level than the negro?22

The House received these remarks with ‘Hear, hear’ and a ‘laugh.’23 Haliburton had been pursuing the same line of argument, off and on, for twenty-five years. This time, however, the racially offensive nature of his remarks did not go unnoticed. On 26 April 1860, the Times published a letter from A.B. Hawke, Government Chief Emigration Agent for Upper Canada, writing from Liverpool. In this letter, Hawke condemned Haliburton both for his mockery of the townships being named after lapdogs in the time of Sir Peregrine Maitland and for his disparagement of the American Negro, who, the writer said, often sought freedom in Canada West after a perilous and miserable journey through swamps and rivers.24 Haliburton responded on 27 April with a letter of his own, in which he was highly dismissive of Mr Hawke’s ‘unworthy’ remarks and of his central contention that ‘every office in the gift of the Imperial Government is open to colonials as well as Englishmen.’25 This was a sentiment to which Haliburton could never assent. Gladstone flatly rejected Haliburton’s comparison of Negroes and colonists.26 To Gladstone, Haliburton’s ‘old Tory opinions’ were washed-up protectionist attitudes that had been already jettisoned by free trade. The move to free products from differential duties had wide support, and Gladstone would delay the vote on Haliburton’s amendment no longer.27 Only twenty-four members supported Haliburton. After debating one more clause, the House rose for the night at one o’clock. Haliburton’s speech and the chancellor’s reply had taken about an hour-and-a-half of the House’s time. In his parliamentary speech, Haliburton argued that the colonists were being thrown toward the Americans. He reminded the house that ‘the whole object of his life and writings had been to unite, by bonds firmer and more indissoluble, Canada with England, to unite the raw material of the new country with the manufacturing skill of the old, in order that, both possessing one language, one literature, one blessed

The Clash with Gladstone 197

system of freedom, they might grow together in prosperity and greatness under the ancient and glorious flag of Britain.’ Haliburton felt that his speech represented the present state of the colonial alliance. He published it to affirm the significance of the moment. The ‘cheers’ that concluded the speech in the Times become ‘great cheers’ in his printed version.28 The published version of the speech, complete with stylistic improvements, reflects a significant turning point in the history of the colonies. Haliburton had thrown himself on two parliamentary spikes: the powerful momentum toward free trade that Gladstone’s new budget would only strengthen, and the wit and eloquence of Gladstone himself. A year later, Gladstone remembered Haliburton’s speech and characterized it as a ‘doleful wail.’29 Haliburton had tried to play the colonial David in his opposition to Gladstone, the British Goliath, after some lumber merchants had approached him (when their own approaches to the chancellor had not succeeded), and he had reluctantly taken up their cause. He now turned the occasion into a long and far-ranging reminder to his fellow parliamentarians that British self-interest could drive loyal colonists to distraction. His speech on the timber duties expressed his continuing bitterness over Downing Street’s colonial policy and its general neglect of British North American interests. The only support Haliburton garnered was from the ‘Editorial’ in the Times for 23 April 1860, which argued that even though Haliburton had been ‘entirely wrong’ and his position contrary to the spirit of ‘modern legislation,’ his speech deserved ‘a better answer than it had received in the House of Commons.’30 The Times wondered, with Haliburton, whether Gladstone might well be exhibiting the same parliamentary hubris that had lost Britain its other American colonies. Haliburton’s speech, said the Times, ‘was powerful and well conceived’ and would be widely read in British North America, as would Gladstone’s reply: ‘It was an occasion upon which a short, careless reply was an insult.’ The English public was ‘no party to this cavalier treatment.’ The editorial writer regretted that a minister could be so discourteous. The words of the Times editorial, however, were not enough to heal Haliburton’s parliamentary wounds. Gladstone’s budgets, as Roy Jenkins indicates, quickly became a ‘national institution’: ‘The university boat race in March, a Gladstone budget in April, the opening of the Royal Academy in May were all signs of stability.’31 He produced a total of seven budgets under Palmerston. At the heart of his 1861 budget stood the repeal of the Paper Duties Act, which had been defeated in the House of Lords the previous year. He

198 Sam Slick in England

also resisted requests from Palmerston to increase substantially the budget for naval defences. He announced a budget surplus but the opposition saw only smoke and mirrors. The fact is that parliamentarians and the country at large had begun to accept Gladstone’s free trade message. The debate on the budget on 25 April 1861, though vigorous, could not stem the tide of Liberalism he represented. Gladstone, in a break with past years, presented the entire budget as a package (a constitutional issue that one speaker, the member for Dublin University, Mr Whiteside, examined in some detail). This year, Gladstone would take no chances: no small part of the budget could be rejected without rejecting the whole. Gladstone was well aware as he presented his budget that his leader, Viscount Palmerston, wanted to spend money for the defence of the nation. Gladstone himself was seeking to curb all unnecessary spending. During the debate on the budget, there were several intelligent analyses of Gladstone’s fiscal policy before Haliburton stepped up on its second night.32 By the time Haliburton rose to his feet, the debate had already been protracted. To cheers and support from his own side of the House, he proceeded to attack the fulsome vocabulary of his opponent – a dangerous strategy. He risked being excoriated a second time, especially when he asserted that the budget surplus was ‘a wonderful sleight of hand.’ 33 Haliburton, like Palmerston, wished to see a strong army and navy ‘kept up for the defence of the nation.’34 Instead, the money levied as a result of Gladstone’s budget was designed to support ‘the younger branches of the aristocracy out of the taxes wrung from the hard earnings of the poor.’35 He saw Gladstone’s tax on tea and sugar as an attack on the working classes, whereas the tax on paper touched only the upper reaches of society (those able to buy expensive books with a limited circulation).36 For the chancellor to call the tax on paper a ‘tax on knowledge’ in an era of the penny newspaper seemed to him palpably absurd: ‘It was all cant.’ Haliburton said he knew cant when he heard it: ‘If there was one thing more detestable than another, it was cant, whether political cant, or religious cant.’ He associated cant with ‘disunion in the United States.’ Suddenly, Haliburton found himself walking, yet again, down a familiar argumentative path, one he had gone down many times before. He declared boldly and plainly that all the dissensions in the United States were entirely owing to political cant.37 That word ‘cant,’ for Haliburton, always invoked the language of the antislavery movement. Cant always meant for Haliburton an oversimplification of a complex political situation, and the abolitionist movement was to him the best example of this: ‘Slavery was an institution, unfortu-

The Clash with Gladstone 199

nately – we must blush when we said so – unfortunately a legacy, we left to the United States. But it was an institution known, and recognized, and protected by the Constitution of the United States from its origin.’38 Haliburton’s discourse on the cant surrounding the institution of slavery stretched the patience of his audience to breaking point. Immediately, shouts of ‘Question, question!’ rang out. Haliburton shouted back: ‘He was not surprised that hon. Members opposite below the gangway did not like this subject. He could easily understand why it was so distasteful to them and why they seemed so uneasy when he spoke of political cant.’ His audience sniffed a man who was more than simply astride an innocent hobbyhorse. Because he was pursuing a familiar and favourite argument, one he had used many times, both in his Slick books and more recently in the Season Ticket, he felt he had enough argumentative fuel to allude to his previous attacks on Gladstone: ‘To pass, however, to the matter that had led him to rise, the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought proper in his self-glorification the other night to allude to a petition from North America, in reference to the timber duties, in very insolent and scornful terms.’ Gladstone could not ignore Haliburton’s analogy between the cant of the antislavery lobby and the language of his budget speech. Gladstone could not contain himself. Suddenly, Hamletlike, he turned Haliburton into an aged Polonius. Gladstone rose amid shouts of (‘Oh!’ ‘Order!’ and ‘Hear, hear’)39 to object, ‘not on personal grounds, but because the language of the hon. Gentleman affects the dignity of the House.’ The Speaker agreed and ruled the expressions used by Haliburton unparliamentary. Haliburton retracted them immediately: ‘But if he had spoken warmly, he felt deeply [‘Hear, hear!’].’ The house greeted his attempts to talk further with cries of ‘Question!’ Haliburton quickly retorted that if the house saw fit not to hear him they denied the voice of four million North Americans who had no other means of representation. He had brought the matter up because the chancellor had alluded to a ‘doleful wail from Canada (and then he threw his hand back as one would wave away a beggar in the street), and many predictions of ruin.’ If the chancellor wanted a doleful wail, he could find it in Coventry, where the population had been ‘reduced to a state of beggary and destitution in consequence of his French Treaty,’ or in Oxford [Gladstone’s constituency]: where, in shady groves and academic retreats ... the remnants of a past age, occupied themselves with the record of bygone times, and taught the dialects of the dead to living men, and there he would hear lamentations that

200 Sam Slick in England a tacit contract had been too rudely broken between him and them – the contract that whoever had the high honour to represent that great, learned and venerable body, should be a stanch [sic] supporter of the institutions of Church and State, and not a man who gave a cold, reluctant, or silent support; not one of those who – ‘Damn with faint praise – assail with civil leer,/And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.’40

At this point the Hansard records cries of ‘Divide!’ The Times, in contrast, records shouts of ‘“Hear, hear” and “Oh!”’41 Others immediately joined the fray. Bernal Osborne said that as a literary man, Haliburton might revive the Rambler when he had a moment! The chancellor had, he said, reduced income tax by a penny and still managed a surplus. There had been ‘a Chinese war and a bad harvest’ and still a surplus.42 Osborne picked up Haliburton’s own statement about the dons of Oxford being a remnant of a past age and used it against him, prompting a Major Edwards to say that Haliburton had ‘as much life and brilliancy in him as his assailant would have, for all the presumptuous tone he adopted in the House, if he lived for a century.’43 Haliburton once again had revealed the prejudice-laden bedrock of his conservatism. The new parliamentary session opened on 5 February 1861. Between February and 6 August, when the session ended, Haliburton spoke several times. On 22 February 1861, he asked the ‘Under Secretary for the Colonies’ (Mr Chichester Fortesque) a question about the Anderson slave case.44 The case caused considerable consternation in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. John Anderson, a fugitive slave from Missouri, had murdered a white man on his way to Canada. The American authorities sought his extradition. Haliburton objected: ‘The colony had a government and a legislature of its own, and was competent to perform all the acts that were necessary to the government of its people.’45 He complained loudly of ‘a double invasion of the rights of the people of Canada ... the one consisting in the action of the English Court of Queen’s Bench, which has deemed it right, upon the application of a private individual, to issue a writ of habeus corpus to Canada,’ and the other being the action of the Duke of Newcastle in instructing the government of Canada not to extradite the prisoner.46 On 12 March 1861, Haliburton spoke during a discussion of ‘Railway Accidents’: ‘To establish the real responsibility of boards of direction it would be necessary to make their negligence a penal offence, and if a director were hanged occasionally it would be astonishing how the num-

The Clash with Gladstone 201

ber of accidents would diminish.’47 Haliburton, like many of the other speakers, condemned the way railways operated and the poor-quality materials used in their construction to save money: ‘bad quality of iron and bad materials.’48 Railway accidents in the winter could not be blamed on the cold weather: ‘but he, being acquainted with frosts more severe than were experienced in this country, said it was a mistake to attribute accidents to the frost.’ He wanted directors of railway companies to be held responsible to the travelling public. In a discussion of the ‘Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill’ on 21 March, Haliburton expressed indignation at debtors who fled the country to evade their debts: ‘Everybody acquainted with the Continent must be aware that English debtors living there were a disgrace to this country.’49 On 8 May 1861, he interjected a satirical remark on the second reading of a private member’s bill on ‘Cruelty to Animals Prevention’: ‘Now there were two sorts of animals – a dumb animal, called a donkey, and a speaking animal, called a man. Cruelty in both those cases was very reprehensible, and it was a cruel infliction of the Members of this House either to have to listen to the Bills so crude and ill-digested that they could not be licked into any shape whatever.’50 He helped force the withdrawal of the bill. Roy Jenkins explains in Gladstone (1995): ‘There is a widespread view that parliament in the mid-nineteenth century was an undemanding occupation for gentlemen of leisure.’51 Yet for members like Haliburton, who regularly attended and listened intently, the parliamentary year (from January to August) could be arduous: ‘The parliamentary day was slung very late, but it was long, with many of the most crucial hours being those after midnight, and the weekend.’52 The typical day started at 4:30 p.m., adjourned for a brief dinner interval at 7:30 p.m., and then continued until 1:30 a.m. During the winter months, in successive years, Haliburton took lodgings in the city to avoid having to return to Gordon House late at night. He generally gave these lodgings up at Easter, preferring once the weather grew warmer to take the train home from Waterloo to Isleworth. Gordon House, where he lived, stood at some distance from the village station. He once told Anthony Trollope that the cab drivers knew him well.53 The long parliamentary day absorbed Haliburton totally. To him, the House of Commons was another gentleman’s club, which he attended every day of the week. On weekends, he returned to the peace and seclusion of Isleworth, usually dining at home on Saturday nights before taking his ease in his summer house with a cigar and a glass of whisky.

202 Sam Slick in England

On Sunday afternoons in summer, he would bask in the garden watching the Thames flow by. Wrote a local newspaper reporter: ‘We never row by Gordon House without wishing health and happiness to the venerable Democritus, who may be frequently seen enjoying the pleasures of a summer evening from his grounds near the river.’54

Chapter 25

The Canada Land and Emigration Company

The parliamentary year meant a long off-season. In three of the five remaining years of his life, Haliburton used it to travel to North America. Three times he gathered up his remaining physical resources, conquered his disposition to gout, and boarded a steamer for North America. In so doing he opened one of the final North American chapters of his life through his involvement in the Canada Agency Association and its offshoot, the venture that became known as the Canada Land and Emigration Company. Haliburton became the first chairman of the Canada Land and Emigration Company, whose business dealings he helped direct until his death. The company purchased a huge tract of land in what is now south central Ontario. They intended to survey it into lots and sell it to immigrants at a profit. The company directors eventually decided to name the district Haliburton. The county and its main town carry that name to this day. We are both fortunate and unfortunate in the records of the Canada Land and Emigration Company. On the one hand, their activities are a matter of public record in the Archives of Ontario. 1 On the other, their minute books have vanished. Archivists at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, where the papers once resided, have been unable to trace them (although they may well appear in due course). But with the help of local historians in Haliburton, Ontario, we can piece together enough to get a clear idea of the company’s utopian vision and the dystopian reality experienced by the early settlers. The company intended to establish ‘model agricultural communities which would strengthen ties between Great Britain and Canada and enhance the founder’s image as public-spirited men on both sides of

204 Sam Slick in England

the Atlantic.’2 While its directors’ vision did not extend to village greens and duck ponds, they nevertheless fondly cherished the notion that immigrants could settle and prosper on their lands. The company had noble intentions; unfortunately, much of the land it purchased proved to be stony and of poor agricultural quality. Settlers found the terrain resistant to both livestock and people. The district’s real wealth was in the vast stands of timber that draw lumbermen farther and farther north – stands that are still the basis of local prosperity. The pursuit of wealth by cutting timber clashed with the high ideal of taming the wilderness to establish settlements. The lumber barons soon found themselves in conflict with the London-based company, which suddenly owned vast chunks of land, and whose procedures and regulations often ran counter to their interests. With this project, the ideal of the immigrant experience clashed with the realities. As a practical man, Haliburton at least had the sense to travel to North America in an effort to resolve the company’s problems on the ground. But there is no evidence that he ever made the arduous journey to the land that the company owned. Had he done so, he might well have been dismayed at the chasm between the company’s highflown rhetoric and what it could actually offer immigrants. His trials and troubles as the chairman of the Canada Land and Emigration Company connect him strongly to his entrepreneurial grandfather, whose own immigration scheme had foundered almost ninety years earlier. Haliburton’s intense physical involvement in the scheme suggests he was not comtemplating retirement. His successive trips to North America show that in fact, he still possessed considerable stamina. The Novascotian reported his arrival in Halifax on 27 August 1860 aboard the steamer Arabia.3 In early September, he travelled to the Upper Canada Land Registry in Quebec to transact company business. He then continued to Toronto to meet John Beverley Robinson, who was acting on behalf of the Ontario government, as well as P.M. VanKoughnet, the Ontario Land Commissioner. His journey was anchored at both ends with a stay in Halifax. The Prince of Wales happened to be touring North America at this exact same time. Haliburton arrived in Toronto two days after the prince had left for Niagara Falls.4 He made his way back to Halifax by way of New York and Boston.5 The first of his three final trips to North America ended on 10 October.6 When he made contact with Richard Bentley on 30 October, he described his visit as ‘charming.’ 7 Susanna, his eldest daughter, still lived in New Brunswick. Amelia, Laura, and Robert lived in Halifax, where he also visited Joseph Howe.

The Canada Land and Emigration Company 205

Howe told him of the plight of his son, a casualty of the Crimean War, who had been invalided to the hospital ship Haslaar, docked at Gosport near Portsmouth. Haliburton promised that in return for Howe’s active support in his battle for a pension from the Nova Scotia government, immediately upon arriving back in London he would visit Howe’s son and report on his condition.8 Haliburton later sent Howe a circumstantial account of his subsequent day trip to Portsmouth. Howe’s son had been moved from Gosport to the Victory, now a hospital ship. Two days later he sent Howe reassuring news that his son had been discharged from the hospital.9 The Land and Emigration Company counted among its share subscribers many Church of England clerics.10 Haliburton County historian Leopolda z L. Dobrzensky has written: ‘The planned settlement of Dysart was part of a bold but unrealistic dream to turn the timberlands of the Ottawa-Huron territory into prosperous agricultural country. The dream died on the rocky hills of the Laurentian shield, only a few years after the first acres were cleared. But the community survived, against all odds.’11 Almost as great an obstacle as the terrain was the bureaucracy the company had to overcome before the first settlers could move in, clear their ten acres of land, plant crops, and build their 16-by-20-foot houses. Dobrzensky writes: ‘The Canadian Land and Emigration Company was genuinely interested in developing flourishing settlements, and to this end spared neither effort nor money; but they were investors too, and expected immediate and substantial returns from a property bought in good faith.’12 Their lack of knowledge of local conditions ‘cost them dearly.’ The would-be immigrant, on arriving in North America, travelled to Port Hope by way of Montreal or New York, and then took the train to Peterborough, a stage to Chemony Lake, a steamer to Bobcaygeon, another stage to Minden, a wagon to the end of Lake Kashagawigamog, and a second steamer to Haliburton. With good connections, the trip from Lake Ontario to Haliburton could be made in three days. Mail from Toronto took four days. Three directors of the company did visit in 1868, three years after Haliburton’s death, but what they found hardly resembled the dream of model agricultural communities that had inspired the formation of the company.13 The company first planned to purchase ten townships. They knew that unless they negotiated better terms, there would be little incentive for British investors to interest themselves in an immigration company: ‘The machinery for carrying out the enterprise involves a large annual capital,’

206 Sam Slick in England

wrote Haliburton as he focused his mind on the practical details of the enterprise.14 The Money Market Review in London noted: ‘Land of great intrinsic value can be bought from the Government [of Ontario] with an indefeasible title, at an almost trifling price [2s 1d an acre].’15 Although he had seemed to his fellow directors a good choice as chairman, Haliburton made his own share of mistakes as he attempted to direct the company’s affairs from London. The story of the Canada Land and Emigration Company is one of mounting frustration and insurmountable obstacles. Not even time could overcome all of the frustrations with government bureaucracy or the physical obstacles to successful settlement of the land. Before the company could regard itself as even moderately successful, Haliburton was dead. While he lived, he poured a great deal of energy into trying to make it a success. He began by revising the new company’s prospectus to extol the virtues of the Canadian climate. He did his best verbally to downplay the severity of Canadian winters and to attract immigrants to the company’s land. But even he could not succeed at this. Then he used his influence in the House of Commons to involve MPs who already had some knowledge of North America, such as Sir Allan MacNab.16 Haliburton’s hard work bore some fruit. The company share register included a respectable showing of names. He and seven others signed a memorandum on 11 April 1861 to take one hundred shares each. The company was incorporated on 15 April, and by 21 March 1862 it had sold 21,000 shares, with Samuel Cunard, the Nova Scotian shipping magnate, purchasing 500 of them.17 But almost immediately, the first flush of success began to fade. What followed was a series of unforeseen setbacks. On 26 June 1861, in a letter to the government of Upper Canada, Haliburton said that Chief Justice Robinson had not listened to the ‘friendly advice’ he had given him.18 Mr Gossage, a surveyor, had been asked to select a township and subdivide it for settlement. But he had not done so. In response, Haliburton made one of his first mistakes: he selected Reginald Porter, his old lawyer friend in Windsor, Nova Scotia, as the company’s commissioner. Windsor, Nova Scotia, was hardly more convenient than Old Broadstreet in London (the company headquarters) for overseeing the proposed settlement. Haliburton had chosen Porter only because Porter knew Land Commissioner VanKoughnet’s brother ‘when at Windsor.’19 Porter lasted only a short time as company commissioner. Meanwhile, VanKoughnet wrote to inform Haliburton that the Canada Agency Association had treated John Beverley Robinson ‘scurvily’ and

The Canada Land and Emigration Company 207

that the government had lost confidence in the association’s board, even though it still supported the land company fully.20 When the British parliamentary session concluded in August 1861, Haliburton felt it necessary, given the gravity of the situation, to make another trip across the Atlantic. At almost exactly the same time as the previous year, he embarked once again on the Cunard steamer Arabia. He stopped at Halifax for only a few hours before continuing on to Boston and Toronto.21 In Toronto, Haliburton stayed at the Rossin House Hotel. The headline in the Toronto paper proclaimed the arrival of ‘a Distinguished Visitor.’22 The local reporter wrote: ‘The hon. Gentleman appears to be in excellent health.’ Haliburton was able to negotiate changes in the original conditions of sale, and on 21 September a committee of the Honourable Executive Council approved the report of the Commissioner of Crown Lands ‘on the application of Judge Haliburton, representing the purchasers of ten townships en bloc recently sold by the Government.’23 There had been unexpected delays in the surveys, and he managed to negotiate a six-month extension. The balance of the purchase money, however, was now due before the end of the year. On his return to London, Haliburton received the bill for the purchase of the land: $79,711.20.24 By separate letter, he received also the original seven conditions of sale and the modifications that the commissioner had allowed the company.25 The company’s attempt to encourage actual settlement proceeded against the backdrop of the American Civil War, which made prospective emigrants apprehensive. ‘The war spirit is effectually aroused here,’26 reported Frederic T. Roche, the company’s agent in Canada, on 14 December, adding: ‘It may be of interest ... to be informed that the free grant settlements along the Bobcaygeon Road present a very flourishing aspect. Good crops have been raised there during the past season, and a great deal of clearing is now going on.’ However, as Roche soon discovered, even the simplest document confirming the purchase price and the modifications to the original conditions of sale would prove difficult to obtain from the Ontario government, which had also changed.27 Gossage, the government surveyor, reported to the company in January 1862 on the large amount of ‘inferior or second and third class land’ that it owned.28 This news was disconcerting because the company was actively courting German settlers29 and knew that only quality land would attract them. P.M. VanKoughnet, while in London in January 1862, met with Hugh Montgomerie and Haliburton to discuss the question of the

208 Sam Slick in England

poor-quality land.30 On behalf of the company, Montgomerie and Haliburton told VanKoughnet that they should not have to pay the full price for the inferior land and VanKoughnet agreed: ‘He replied ... when the survey was completed, if the company would address him on the point, he would be prepared to arrange for the complete sale at a low rate – say a few cents per acre.’31 But by September 1862, VanKoughnet was no longer the Commissioner of Crown Lands. His verbal assent in the January memorandum lacked any lasting authority. Even so, on the strength of the January 1862 meeting, the company began to advertise in Canadian newspapers in earnest. At the first Annual General Meeting, held on 6 March 1862, the company still had not executed the contract of sale.32 By then it had hired its own surveyor.33 In a ‘Memorial’ dated 19 January 1863, it now offered twenty-five cents per acre for second-class land, and ten cents per acre for the third-class lands (even though unfit for settlement).34 But the company still did not have title to the land and it now threatened to abandon the purchase. Nevertheless, at the half-yearly meeting in London, the directors exuded confidence: ‘The survey of the ten townships having been now completed, however, it is believed that no further procrastination will take place in bringing negotiations to a satisfactory conclusion.’35 Three years into the venture, the company had only inched its way toward its goals. The appointment of yet another new Commissioner of Crown Lands, on 25 May 1864, brought further delays.36 The government was now openly repudiating VanKoughnet’s earlier promise to let the company have the land unfit for settlement at a reduced price.37 Timber companies were offering to pay half a dollar an acre for the uninhabitable swamps that the government had earlier contemplated offering the company free of charge. In government circles in Canada, the company’s persistent lobbying for better terms had become ‘disagreeable.’38 According to the assistant commissioner, A.J. Russell, writing on 12 July 1864, the government no longer favoured selling the land en bloc. There were no more bargains to be had. Charles Blomfield, the company secretary, understood clearly that the government favoured the timber interests.39 Haliburton therefore made his final journey to North America in August 1864 to resolve the impasse and to secure execution of the company’s original bond of purchase. 40 The government asked the company if it had ‘corporate powers in Canada,’ which it did not.41 Over the course of four years, most of the idealism that had inspired the company’s founders had evaporated. In the words of a later historian, the district was still ‘only a dense forest.’42 Look-

The Canada Land and Emigration Company 209

ing back from the 1890s, one hunter and trapper said: ‘The land the company got was and is yet of little value, and I used to hear an old hunter and trapper say “it was only fit for darned fools and bears to live on.”’43 Nevertheless, a lumber mill opened on 8 December 1864. The company threw a celebratory dinner, and the mill proprietors invited all the early settlers (seventy of them attended) to watch the inaugural splitting of the first timbers: ‘The union Jack was then run up to top of a prodigiously long flag staff,’ and the settlers feasted.44 After a meal, and after the ‘tea-tackle’ had been provided by the wives of the settlers, and after the pipe of peace had been smoked, people gathered around to discuss the settlement’s future prospects. There was much talk of building roads: ‘These roads would all centre at Haliburton and there would be nothing to prevent Haliburton becoming a great and important town, possessing within itself all the resources necessary to give it a first place among the leading towns of Canada – (Cheers).’ The advantages of settling on company property had become clear. Snowden and Minden (both government-settled areas) had no roads to speak of. Prognostications for the future were good. There were many signs of rapid improvement: a church had opened its doors on Christmas Day, a sawmill was in operation, and all kinds of structures were being promised for the area. There was a brief whiff in the air of the company’s founding idealism. Schools would be built, agricultural meetings would be held, and the company would contribute to ‘those good old Saxon institutions which made the people themselves the managers of their own affairs.’ The company’s agents spread the gospel as best they could, emphasizing the need to raise good stock and to make the most productive use of the land. The agent, Charles Stewart, spoke as the chairman of the company would have wished as he imagined the metropolis of Haliburton rising from the wilderness: ‘Where was the County Town to be if not at Haliburton?’ As ‘ridiculous’ as it might now seem, he said, a mere glance at the map would confirm its vital importance to the area. During the company meeting, the government mail carrier arrived with the first of the mails. Charles Stewart, in his role as postmaster, received the mailbag amid loud cheers. He radiated buoyancy on behalf of the company: ‘At the rate he [Charles Stewart] was now selling land he should have settled Dysart in another year, – and if the settlement prospered, in nine years more the remaining nine townships belonging to the company would also be settled.’ But the transfer of funds by the company to the Ontario government still had not taken place. It owed $97,521.30.45 The government still

210 Sam Slick in England

favoured the timber companies, and the company sensed that the government might be holding monies collected from the timber companies that rightfully belonged to them.46 To press its case, the company proceeded on 23 January 1865 to an Act of Incorporation. 47 On 20 March 1865. Haliburton arrived late at the annual general meeting of the Land Company. Montgomerie was already in the chair. The directors felt they were close to a deal. They had read the optimistic report from Charles Stewart extolling the high quality of the settlers, and they had heard him say, ‘I believe the Company is in a fair way to substantial success.’48 Stewart talked of establishing a Scandinavian settlement and of hiring a Norwegian clergyman to act as communication link between the new settlers and the English. On this basis, the company solicited the shareholders to contribute a further ten shillings per share now and ten shillings in three months’ time to complete the work of settlement in the area. Finally, at long last, on 20 May 1865, the company completed the purchase of 261,500 acres.49 Haliburton remained active in the company’s business until the very end of his life. He lived long enough to see the purchase agreed to and all the details of the agreement completed. But enthusiasm for the venture had long since ebbed, despite what Dobrzensky describes as ‘frantic’ advertising by the company.50 Now that it had clear title to the land – and now that the American Civil War had ended – it expected to make a profit. Nevertheless, the German settlers, so eagerly courted in the early days of the company, were unsettled by the ‘Fenian invasion.’ 51 The Germans and Scandinavians immigrated to the United States. Outbreaks of cholera on immigrant ships frightened settlers, so once again the company sought a three-year extension of the settlement duties agreement with the Canadian government, until 1 January 1868. By now the flow of settlers had diminished to a trickle (only fifteen new ones in 1866).52 The Canadian government began offering land free to settlers, creating a serious problem for the company.53 Charles Stewart resigned in November 1866, and the company auctioned off its pine timber. It never realized the financial returns its shareholders expected. In the late 1870s, the opening of Manitoba signalled the death knell for the company: ‘And so the dream [writes Dobrzensky], of which only fragments survive, came to an end.’54 By the late 1870s the imagined metropolis of Haliburton was still only a village. In 1889 a new company arose out of the ashes of the old one and began to develop the natural resources that the original company had neglected. Mrs Haliburton, after she had been widowed, never forgot the Can-

The Canada Land and Emigration Company 211

ada Land and Emigration Company. She donated a cabinet organ, worth one hundred dollars, to the ‘Mission at Dysart’ in memory of her husband, and the following year she promised a bell for the church.55 Collections began in 1870 for a new, larger church at Haliburton (the old one would be used as a schoolhouse). According to folk memory in the region, Mrs Haliburton is said to have visited the town: ‘When the widow of Thomas Chandler Haliburton came to the village which bears her husband’s name to present an organ to St George’s, the congregation assembled to greet her. In a spontaneous gesture of goodwill, Mrs Haliburton wrapped her soft black and white shawl around Elizabeth Dart’s shoulders to shield her from a cold draft.’56 The Dart family donated Mrs Haliburton’s shawl to the local museum, where it can still be viewed.

Chapter 26

Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth

At the end of March 1861, Haliburton told Richard Bentley, ‘On Thursday I am off to Launceston.’1 He had promised to lecture to an audience that ‘comprised most of the gentry of the town and neighbourhood’ in order to raise money for the ‘Building Fund of The Grammar School, Launceston.’2 He delivered his talk in the Central Subscription Room; the announced subject was ‘“Circuit Reminiscences.”’3 In compliance with local custom, his arrival in Launceston, at one p.m. on the day of the talk, was greeted with the peel of church bells.4 At the last minute, Haliburton decided to change his announced subject: ‘The subject I had proposed to address you upon this evening was my “Circuit Reminiscences” of former days: but as I should have had the unpleasant task of talking so much of myself, I have adopted another course, and intend to explain the nature of its laws, courts, and the manner in which those laws are administered, showing the difference between that country and this in those respects.’ He added that they should not worry; his talk was for popular consumption, and he had no desire to mesmerize them. The mere mention of Sam Slick provoked cheers from the audience. He peppered his speech with anecdotes: ‘An amusing instance was related of a negro being named for a jury, and a Devonshire man refusing to sit with him. Whereupon, he (Mr. Haliburton) being the judge on the occasion fined the man, and the others chose the negro as foreman (Laughter).’ Haliburton then told the story of an Irish judge who wished to go home to his ten acres of grass. So he dealt leniently with the first man who pled guilty. All subsequent defendants also pled guilty, but he applied the full force of punishment to them and returned to his ten acres of grass early. His account of the first set of stocks in New England also provoked ‘loud laughter.’

Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth 213

The following day, a Tuesday, amidst sunshine, ‘the portly celebrity Mr. Justice Haliburton, well known for the racy humour of his writings,’ laid the foundation stone for the Launceston grammar school.5 The citizens of Launceston made a ceremony of it: Between 12 and 1 o’clock the boys of the Grammar School, attired in a neat and picturesque volunteer uniform, accompanied by the masters, and bearing flags, proceeded to the Council Room, where they were headed by the mayor, corporation, and several other gentlemen. First came Mr. Justice Haliburton, supported on one side by the present mayor, J. Dodge, Esq ... and also the various members of the body corporate, the extreme van of the procession being headed by the town-sergeants with silver maces.6

Under ‘antiquated cocked hats,’ the municipal parade passed by the tower, down Castle and Northgate streets through the Northgate (‘now the “baseless fabric of a vision”’), and down the New Road, halting within sight of the priory and the little church of St Thomas (‘nestling unobstrusively through the trees’). Now it entered the school grounds toward the spot where excavations had already begun for the new building. The headmaster conducted the service, and Mr Justice Haliburton, ‘who we remark would be more at home and at ease filling a judicial chair, than in stooping to prepare the bed for the safety and repose of foundation stones,’ laid the stone. Through all of this, Haliburton was suffering from a heavy cold.7 Nevertheless, twenty-six of his ‘friends’ arranged a dinner for him at the King’s Arms Hotel: ‘The dinner was served in very good style, the wines, attendance, and viands being all that could be desired.’ Haliburton left early the next day for Plymouth en route for London, ‘as he had engagements ... the following day.’ This fleeting visit to his constituency was Haliburton’s opportunity to thank the people for choosing him as their representative. No sooner had he accomplished his duties than he left. He struck his constituents as a busily engaged MP. Judging from the newspaper account, there was no visible residue of the unrest that had characterized his ‘election’ two years earlier. Two issues dominated the parliamentary session of 1862, which opened on 6 February and ended on 7 August: ‘The American War’ and ‘The Lancashire Distress.’8 As a result of the Civil War in the United States, the cotton-manufacturing industry was facing economic depression: ‘The Northern blockade cut supplies to Britain to a trickle ... By early 1862, however, a quarter of a million people in Lancashire found

214 Sam Slick in England

themselves out of work, and supported by local relief or private charity.’9 Notwithstanding the views he had expressed in his speech on the American crisis, Haliburton believed that the British government was making a mistake in declaring its neutrality. In practice, that neutrality most often meant sympathy for the Southern cause. As Roy Jenkins notes, Gladstone had effectively recognized the South during a speech in Newcastle on 6 October 1862: ‘It was a major indiscretion stating that the attempt of the North to uphold the Union by force was lost, and implying strongly that Britain was about to recognize the Confederacy.’10 As before, Haliburton participated in the debates that interested him. On 4 March 1862, in a debate on colonial military expenditures, he began what promised to be another lengthy effusion on British ignorance of the colonial perspective. He argued that the colonists would need no resident army if the railway from Toronto to New Brunswick were completed so that troops could be sent to Canada from the mother country in twelve days. The House greeted his remarks with a chorus of ‘Agreed! agreed!’ forcing him to curtail them. There was little sympathy for his views in a House that favoured cutting all costs associated with the colonies.11 He spoke on 10 March 1862 about ‘Affairs of Mexico,’ and again on 21 March about ‘Colonial Fortifications.’12 He could find little to celebrate in the attitudes of those around him, who staggered him with their ignorance of the countries they dared discuss. On North American issues, Haliburton had a fund of information at his disposal, but on other foreign policy matters, such as Mexico, he relied on what he read in the American newspapers: ‘They were not a very good authority, but if they knew anything at all, they must know what was going on in New York; and what made him more anxious was that our colonists were afraid of it, and they knew what was taking place at the other side of the water much better than we did.’13 Haliburton therefore asked the Under Secretary of State for the Foreign Office, Mr Layard, ‘whether information has reached the Government that Mexican agents have been commissioned to fit out in America privateers, to operate against the commerce of this country; and whether measures have been taken in anticipation or in consequence thereof?’14 Mr Layard replied fully and knowledgeably to every one of Haliburton’s questions and comments, correcting him on almost every detail. Mr Layard knew that the Mexicans had been in New York with letters of authority from their government, and the British navy had duly been instructed to deal with any Mexican interference with British commerce.15

Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth 215

The 4 March debate on ‘Colonial Fortifications’ continued a fortnight later on 21 March. That evening’s debate opened with a resolution ‘that the colonies should not only provide for their internal order and security, but should also assist in their external defence, and that there should be no charge upon the Imperial treasury for fortifications.’16 The discussion always returned to the same issue: Should Britain continue to spend vast sums of money defending its colonies when those colonies had a measure of responsible government? On this topic, the prevailing sentiment was against Haliburton. The House heard many examples of wasteful expenditures. Haliburton jumped to his feet when he heard this litany of colonial waste. The thought of dismantling the British Empire, the envy of the world, made him quiver: Some time ago [said Mr Adderley, Member for North Staffordshire], when the French were about to garrison St. Pierre and other islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the attention of that House was called to the subject by an hon. Member. On that occasion a sagacious person remarked that the wisest course would be to take no notice whatever of the matter, but to let the French go on and make that deduction from their military strength, and the larger the garrisons they so locked up in remote parts of the world the better for us.17

Mr Adderley now argued that for every soldier England sent to the colonies, ‘she had prevented 100 Canadians from arming themselves.’ On the opposition benches, Haliburton bristled: ‘He [Mr Adderley] saw that the hon. Member for Launceston (Mr. Haliburton) dissented from that observation; and we could hardly anticipate much thanks from Canada for the effort we did make.’ Haliburton replied to Adderley’s comments with ‘the greatest possible good humour’: ‘He should always listen to the right hon. Gentleman with pleasure whenever he talked about anything of which he knew something.’18 The Times noted that ‘laughter’ accompanied the remark.19 Haliburton could not contain his cynicism: ‘The hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution had once, he believed, made a trip across the Atlantic, and had ever since taken as a hobby the subject of Atlantic steam navigation, but he did not know whether the hon. Gentleman had ever been at Quebec.’20 Quebec had been targeted during the debate as a useless colonial outpost of no military significance. Haliburton could not stand by and see the colonies and colonists attacked. In response, Adder-

216 Sam Slick in England

ley maintained that he was only quoting Haliburton’s own words when he said ‘that no thanks were due to the country for sending troops to Canada.’21 Haliburton denied that he had ever uttered such words (and they are nowhere in the Hansard.) The debate received a ‘disclaimer from the Secretary at War of the intention of the Government to lay out large sums of money upon these fortifications,’ and the House appeared satisfied. Haliburton spoke on four more occasions during the 1862 session: on 21 May, 18 June, 3 July, and 9 July.22 He spoke during the second reading of the Sale for Spirits Bill.23 He made his second speech during the committee stage of the Clergy Relief Bill that would allow Church of England clerics to dissent from the church. Haliburton found it hard to contain himself: ‘Judas departed from the church, and the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock wanted to give the clergy the same privilege which Judas exercised. Nobody would object to that if the right hon. Gentleman would also extend another privilege exercised by Judas that they should all go and hang themselves.’24 Haliburton’s retort interjected some needed levity into a very sober discussion. On 3 July, he asked a question of the vice-president of the Committee of Council on Education regarding the infringement on school examination protocol by Roman Catholic school inspectors,25 and on 9 July he spoke during the second reading of the Sale of Beer &c. Bill.26 Parliament had amended the Tippling Act with respect to hard liquor; the mover of the present bill was arguing that working men should not be allowed to run up debts for beer consumed in public houses. 27 The bill being proposed would prevent the working man from obtaining his pint of beer to accompany his dinner if he did not have money in his pocket. Haliburton jumped in on the side of the working man, pointing out the differences between ‘spirituous liquors’ and beer: ‘It was the noxious drugs put into his liquor, by the publican, and not the beer itself, which produced intoxication.’ This virulent attack on publicans clearly came from the heart.28 In a Parliament where temperance forces clashed with advocates of what became known as the ‘Permissive Bill’ (the modifications to the Tippling Act), Haliburton stood on the side of the tipplers. The bill very narrowly moved forward by a majority of three. Away from Parliament, Haliburton thoroughly enjoyed living in the pleasant surroundings of Isleworth. Whether he was hosting family gatherings at Gordon House or attending regular quarterly meetings of the Isleworth Public Reading Room, he was fully engaged in the community. Gordon House was more than large enough to entertain family and old friends. Regarding family gatherings, especially at Christmas,

Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth 217

Haliburton has Mr Peabody say in Season Ticket: ‘Of all the uncomfortable things in this world, an assembly of brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts, and imps of children is the worst ... Save me from family parties; nothen in nature equals them.’29 Nevertheless, Haliburton held several such gatherings in his last years. Isleworth, on the Thames very near the Duke of Northumberland’s Syon Park estate, exuded considerable charm. ‘The place has altogether a most inviting and peaceful air,’ noted the Middlesex Chronicle in the column ‘Our Neighbourhood.’30 But even Isleworth felt pressured by the modern world. The ‘Old Ferryman’ at Railshead, very near Gordon House, had been replaced by a public footbridge across the Thames.31 Mrs Haliburton wrote at the end of one of Haliburton’s letters to William B. Watkins in 1860: ‘PS. As our old ferryman says, “I say en core to this.”’32 The Middlesex Chronicle recorded the vast changes underway in the metropolis of London. An underground railway between the city and Paddington now carried 225,000 passengers, forcing the company to hire extra staff. New streets, new overhead railways, new bridges, and magnificent new buildings could be found all over the capital.33 Isleworth could not and did not remain untouched by progress. ‘On summer evenings there is a continuous succession of carts and waggons, laden with fruit and vegetables, passing through Brentford to Covent Garden, from nine o’clock till past midnight,’ reported the Middlesex Chronicle in August 1863.34 Gordon House’s position on the bank of the Thames and its walled garden largely concealed Haliburton and its other occupants from the outside world. The local reporter described the walk along the Thames near the old Railshead Ferry as ‘one of the most lovely walks ... in England. The river here is wide and clear; the banks are always “with verdure clad” and abound in a great variety of aquatic plants.’35 As he rowed past Gordon House in search of articles about the neighbourhood, he glimpsed Haliburton sitting in his garden, enjoying the summer evening. In the fall of 1862, Haliburton organized a successful lecture series for the Isleworth Reading Room to help it raise money for new premises.36 On 7 January 1863, the Reading Room, now in a flourishing state, held a testimonial to its secretary, ‘W.H. Brougham Esq.’ This well-attended event was held at the School Room on North Street and include a magic show by Signor Rubini.37 A week later, on 15 January, Haliburton participated in a meeting of the Ruri-Decanal Association at the Town Hall, Brentford: ‘It consisted of all members of the Church in those places who desire to cooperate with the bishop in promoting and expanding

218 Sam Slick in England

the benefits of the parochial system throughout the deanery [the rural deanery of Ealing].’38 Here, Haliburton supported the Bishop of London in fostering an association (‘a thorough practical one’) where clergy and laity could work together for the common good. On 29 January 1863, Haliburton welcomed Mr Mason, the ‘confederate envoy,’ to dinner at Gordon House.39 Mr Mason had been at the centre of the Trent affair: ‘In November 1861 Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, sent two negotiators, James M. Mason and John Slidell, to London to explain the Southern case. After journeying from the South to Havana, Cuba, they crossed the Atlantic on a British ship, the Trent. An American warship stopped the Trent and took custody of the two men. A major diplomatic incident ensued, with Britain coming to the brink of recognising the South and even of declaring war.’40 Mason’s visit to Gordon House signalled the start of Haliburton’s involvement in what eventually became known as the ‘Southern Independence Association.’41 In early 1864 his friend, William Schaw Lindsay, gathered a group of like-minded MPs and dignitaries into ‘an association for the promotion of Southern Independence.’42 Its purpose was to lobby Parliament to alter its stance of neutrality. This effort, however, came at a time when Haliburton’s health was becoming too poor for him to participate much. Lindsay, Mason’s ‘principal confident and friend,’ engineered a motion in Parliament in June 1864 to persuade Palmerston to break the public display of British neutrality.43 The attempt foundered over the core issue of emancipation.44 There is no doubt that Haliburton shared the Southern Independence Association’s values on the subject of slavery, summarized in James Hunt’s controversial paper, On the Negro’s Place in Nature, published in 1863.45 At the end of January 1863, to be near the House, Haliburton once again took lodgings in the city, this time at 18 Park Street in Westminster.46 Here he could handle both the affairs of the House and his business interests without the fatigue of extra travel. He returned to Isleworth at the end of February in order to participate in local preparations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, to Princess Alexandria Christian of Denmark.47 A committee of fifty-one gentlemen (Haliburton included) formed an executive committee of seven, which declared a general holiday for 10 March. Local communities vied to outdo one another in displays of loyalty to the Crown. ‘Isleworth is alike proverbial for loyalty and charity,’ boasted the local paper. On the day itself, a procession formed at Brentford-end at eleven a.m.48 Led by the Beadle of Isleworth and the band of the 16th S.W.

Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth 219

Middlesex Rifles, the committee and subscribers, churchwardens, and children of the National Green, British, Catholic, St John’s, Brentfordend, and Sunday Schools, and those of the Union, walked four abreast, each with a medal and rosette, waving a banner or flag. When the march was over, the procession sang the National Anthem in the town square. Two hundred forty children and adults dined at the Vestry Room on South Street. The organizers provided food for 958 people. They held games, and in the evening they set alight a triumphal arch at the Woodland’s nursery. Bells pealed and cannon fired, yet the local paper complained that the people of Isleworth ‘were dreadful “slow” and old in making any popular display.’ In London, at St Paul’s, crowds flocked to see the ‘electric light’ display. According to the Middlesex Chronicle, they ‘were disappointed.’ Haliburton regularly attended the Isleworth Philanthropic Society, which met on Mondays at Mr Pepper’s Railway Inn.49 His favourite place, though, was the Isleworth Public Reading Room. On 18 June 1863, it held a ‘Grand Flower Show’ to raise money.50 Once again, the beadle and the 16th S.W. Middlesex Volunteers marched in procession from the village church through the town to the recreation ground, where a handsome stage had been erected. A thousand people attended throughout the day: ‘By means of dancing and the ruder sports, “Aunt Sally,” &c, the entertainment was prolonged till night-fall.’51 But Haliburton definitely did not attend. Nor did he attend the Philanthropic Festival on 25 June.52 He also missed the annual dinner of the Philanthropic Society at the Railway Tavern on 25 June. He did not chair the quarterly public meeting of the Reading Room on the 29 June,53 and he missed the Philanthropic Fête held at Whitton on 13 July.54 One of the key attractions of the fête was the unveiling of a marble bust of Mr John Farnell, the brewer, by ‘Mr Henry May, a talented and self-taught young man, a native of Isleworth.’ May’s bust of Haliburton, made on another occasion, can still be seen in the Isleworth Library.55 Haliburton could not attend any of these functions because his health had suddenly deteriorated. Haliburton was so seriously ill that on 1 September he wrote his will, leaving everything he had to his wife, Sarah Harriet, and appointing her ‘Executrix.’56 William Nathaniel Russell, Captain, R.N. Scarborough, and Charles Benjamin Mainwaring, of Old Palace, Richmond, witnessed the will. But Haliburton recovered and continued his normal round of parliamentary and business activities in 1864, the penultimate year of his life. Even so, he was a shadow of his former self. In 1863, because of ill health,

220 Sam Slick in England

he spoke only twice in Parliament: on 23 March, during a committee debate on ‘Supply – Army Estimates,’57 and on 22 April regarding the Elections during Recess Bill.58 He took a keen interest in the former debate, especially when it focused yet again on the subject of fortifications in the colonies. The estimates included large sums of money for fortifications in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (among other foreign stations), and the usual protests were entered by MPs keen to curb overseas expenditures.59 When Mr Baxter, MP for Montrose, suggested that no more money be allotted to the fortifications at Halifax until the previous year’s allocation had been spent, Haliburton said that Baxter resembled Paganini, who played ‘many tunes’ on a one-string fiddle. Baxter had two strings to his fiddle but ‘upon these strings he played the same tune every Session.’60 Haliburton described Halifax as a dockyard without a dock, and he continued in high ironic vein: ‘But he believed that no harm would be done to the people of Nova Scotia if the whole town was burnt. It consisted principally of wooden houses; and the only improvement it had undergone in his time was that which had succeeded several large fires. He complained very much of those continual discussions about the Colonies in an assembly where they were not represented.’ The House found his remarks amusing. By the end of September, he had been taken in hand by Sarah Harriet who was insisting that her husband try ‘the Banting System,’ in order to shed some of his excess weight, and face the future with a new approach to diet and life.

Chapter 27

The Banting System

Although Parliament would not reopen until 4 February 1864, Haliburton took a lease on a property in London – 8 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge – from early January. Besides chairing the Canada Land and Emigration Company, he had become a director of the Credit Foncier (based on the Credit Foncier in Paris) and the Credit Mobilier. As W.D. Rubinstein notes, ‘some rather significant legislation’ passed in 1856 permitted ‘all companies, apart from banks, to become limited liability concerns.’1 Companies could ‘expand, by issuing shares for sale, without any liability for the debts or losses of the company being incurred by shareholders apart from the value of their shares.’ The public distrusted these new limited-liability companies. Most investors preferred private partnerships and ‘family-oriented concerns.’ The Money Market Review commented that like Banquo’s ghost these new financial companies kept coming: ‘The Right Hon. James Stuart Wortley, the chairman, the Hon F.C. [sic] Haliburton, M.P., and the other directors of the Credit Foncier (Limited), are no myths, but are real beings, accustomed to deal in sterling realities, and they are the Chairman and directors of this latest of the new Financial Institutions, “The Credit Mobilier, Limited.”’ 2 The Money Market Review described the company as ‘concentrators and redistributors of the accumulated savings and the industrial energies of the country, for the production of more commodities, the creation of more and greater national wealth, and the accumulation of more and greater national savings.’ Much of Haliburton’s increased income in his last years flowed from his involvement with ventures of this sort. While the Canada Land and Emigration Company struggled, these financial companies flourished, and the directors received ample reward for their involvement.

222 Sam Slick in England

He wrote to his daughter, Augusta: ‘Our lease is out, on the 18 March.’3 Haliburton wondered whether he should stay in London and take a flat ‘in the new Lodging House near Palace Hotel’ or return to Gordon House. He said he would rather not return because he wished to avoid ‘the Parkers’ (that is, Neville Parker and his wife). He asked Augusta, ‘Will you endeavour to find out their movements, from her [Mrs Parker], without letting her know when we go home.’ He lived in fear of being waylaid by Mrs Parker, a woman with a propensity for laying Christian tracts across the path of everyone she met, very much in the manner of Miss Clack, one of Wilkie Collins’s characters in The Moonstone.4 On 19 February 1864, Haliburton spoke at some length in the House. He told Augusta that he ‘was utterly unconscious of having been ever affected in speech.’5 He planned to speak again the following Friday (March 4), and he regarded his ability to make these speeches as nothing short of miraculous, given the severity of his recent illness. His first question of the new session, addressed to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, concerned the recapture of the Chesapeake by the Northern navy at Sambro, near Halifax, in December 1863.6 Haliburton’s account of the vessel’s capture by the Confederates, who then sailed to Nova Scotia to evade the Nothern navy, is alluded to briefly by Greg Marquis in his detailed account of the Chesapeake incident in In Armageddon’s Shadow: ‘A number of Nova Scotians ... were embarrassed by the colony’s growing notoriety as a nest of Rebel sympathizers.’7 Haliburton wanted to know whether Britain had complained about the outrageous seizure of the ship by Northern forces, and he brought Viscount Palmerston to task for praising the American courts which dealt with such vessels ‘without rhyme or reason.’8 The undersecretary of state, Mr Layard, responded that the Confederates aboard the Chesapeake had taken control of the ship and murdered one of the officers. They had sailed it to Nova Scotia, where they had been seized by an American gunboat. Even before the British government lodged a protest, the American Secretary of State, William H. Seward, had ‘made a full and ample apology.’ Layard proceeded to read Seward’s assurance to the British government that the offenders aboard the Chesapeake had been handed over to British authorities. Haliburton declared that he was satisfied.9 On 18 March 1864, Haliburton rose in the Commons to speak on the matter of ‘M. Mazzini.’10 A member of the government, Mr Stansfield, had allowed his name to be used as a cover for the ‘secret correspondence’ of M. Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian rebel leader.11 Stansfield’s long friendship with Mazzini erupted in public scandal. Stansfield

The Banting System 223

offered his resignation, but the government refused it. MPs were divided over Stansfield’s conduct and whether it merited his resignation. Palmerston came under considerable attack for allowing Stansfield to continue in the government despite being aware of his close friendship with Mazzini, whom many in the House (Haliburton included) regarded as a threat to European stability and order. Haliburton described Mazzini as ‘the father of assassins,’ noting that a plot had been hatched in London to kill the French emperor in 1858 (the Orsini plot).12 Mazzini had incited assassination, and he had participated in the murder of the King of Sardinia. Haliburton catalogued the charges against Stansfield. Palmerston wisely refused Haliburton’s bait and remained silent. The house spent the remainder of the debate lamenting and justifying in almost equal measure the element of personal witch-hunt that had crept into the proceedings. Judging from the reports in the Times, the House cheered and supported every attack on the government.13 Haliburton proved as effective as any other member of the opposition that night. He informed Augusta: ‘At one time (3 months ago,) I was afraid I never should be able [to speak] – I am more than 7 inches less in circumference – I propose to stop when I reach ten inches.’14 He had lost weight, and his health had revived in a spectacular way. The epithet ‘portly,’ used by the reporter on the Launceston Weekly News in 1861, had not been an exaggeration.15 A career of public dinners had increased his girth considerably. On 21 January 1865, Sarah Harriet informed Robert Parker that Haliburton had been strictly following the ‘Banting System’ since September 1863: ‘And thanks to the “Banting system” ... he has been entirely free from gout for that time, has lost a stone & half in weight, & 10 inches in waist – the effect has altogether been marvellous.’16 J.C. Drummond and Anne Wilbraham note in their fascinating book, The Englishman’s Food: A History of Five Centuries of English Diet: ‘Banting’s name has passed into everyday use in connection with slimming measures.’17 In December 1863, William Banting privately published his Letter on Corpulence: Addressed to the Public. He issued a first edition of 1,000 copies at a price of 6d, and a second edition of 1,500. By April 1864, the book had reached a fourth edition.18 In its preface, the author explained: ‘I am now nearly 66 years of age, about 5 feet 5 inches in stature, and, in August last (1862), weighed 202 lbs ... I now weigh 167 lbs, showing a diminution of something like 1lb per week since August.’19 He had tried everything to lose weight. The only thing that worked had been a strict diet, abstaining from ‘Bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer, and potatoes,’ hitherto the

224 Sam Slick in England

mainstay of his diet.20 Because they contained ‘starch and saccharine matter, tending to create fat,’ he now avoided them altogether. The book caught the attention of the Haliburtons because it specifically addressed Haliburton’s own gout-ridden condition. ‘I have a strong feeling,’ it read, ‘that gout (another terrible parasite upon humanity) might be greatly relieved, if not cured entirely, by this proper natural dietary, and sincerely hope some person so afflicted may be induced to practice the harmless plan for three months.’21 The diet had proved effective for Banting, who testified, ‘My girth is reduced round the waist, in tailor phraseology, 12¼ inches.’22 The protein-rich diet worked by catapulting the body into a meltdown of fat – something that some proteinrich modern diets have emulated: For breakfast, I take four or five ounces of beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon, or cold meat of any kind except pork; a large cup of tea (without milk or sugar), a little biscuit, or one ounce of toast. For dinner, Five or six ounces of any fish except salmon, or any meat except pork, any vegetable except potato, one ounce of dry toast, fruit out of a pudding, any kind of poultry or game, and two or three glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira – Champagne, Port and Beer forbidden. For tea, Two or three ounces of fruit, a rusk or two, and a cup of tea without milk or sugar. For supper, Three or four ounces of meat or fish, similar to dinner, with a glass or two of claret. For a nightcap, if required, a tumbler of grog – (gin, whisky, or brandy without sugar) – or a glass or two of claret or sherry.23

Haliburton took to this inviting diet very easily. It blended well with many of his dietary habits! Banting himself described the system as ‘dangerously generous.’24 But it worked. Fat fell away at a rapid rate. As a bonus, the diet allowed smoking. By the end of 1864, Haliburton felt well enough to take another trip, his last, across the Atlantic. Before he left, on 27 May he received a letter from a Polish émigré in Paris by the name of ‘Joseph Haliburton,’ who had seen Haliburton’s name in a French newspaper and had wondered if he might be distantly related to him.25 He sent Haliburton full details of his origins and hoped their paths would cross some day. Haliburton loved to expound on the ancient lineage of the Haliburtons. Even though Joseph wrote shaky English, he sent Haliburton a ‘minute ... account of our ancestors’ (Joseph’s words).26 He could not compete with Haliburton when it came

The Banting System 225

to tracing ancestors. His ancestors had left Scotland in the seventeenth century, fifty or sixty years before Haliburton’s family left for America. He had only an imperfect knowledge of them. In response, Haliburton sent him a recent photograph: ‘I am told it is justice without mercy.’27 That summer, no doubt to maintain the appropriate fluid intake for his diet, Haliburton laid in an order of wine. ‘The boy lost the order but the wine sent is all right,’ he wrote to a Mr C. Ellis on 12 June.28 On 2 August 1864, he made a payment of £45-2-0 to the ‘Cadiz Wine Co.’29 Clearly, he intended to stick with the Banting system for as long as he could. In June 1864, in response to a request from a descendant of the man who brought the H.M.S. Shannon along with her prize, the Chesapeake, into Halifax harbour in June 1813, nearly fifty-one years earlier, Haliburton committed to paper his memories of that Sunday morning in 1813. The event had been a turning point in the 1812 war against the United States and a much needed boost to colonial morale. The people of Boston had anticipated an American victory and they expected the British ship would be brought into Boston harbour as its prisoner. The reverse proved to be the case: the Shannon captured the American ship. At each stage in the account, Haliburton commended the gallant actions of the British. At the age of seventeen, Haliburton and a young friend had taken a boat and rowed out to the Chesapeake and glimpsed the gore on board: ‘Pieces of skin, with pendant hair ... adhering to the sides of the ship; and in one place I noticed portions of fingers protruding.’30 Haliburton described it as ‘one of the most painful reminiscences of my youth.’

Chapter 28

The Last of the Tories

On 24 June 1864, Haliburton’s friend William B. Watkins died at Leigh House, Ardwicke, at seventy-five. His remains ‘were consigned to the tomb on Thursday, in the presence of a large concourse of sorrowing friends and relatives.’1 Haliburton, surprisingly, did not attend the funeral, although he was capable of doing so. They had been good friends despite the differences in their political philosophies. Haliburton had not allowed Watkins’s membership in the Anti–Corn Law League or his ‘Liberal’ politics to stand in the way of their friendship. Watkins died just as Haliburton was preparing for another trip to Nova Scotia, which he undertook in July and August. According to Sarah Harriet, the visit to Nova Scotia did Haliburton a great deal of good. On his return, he attended the first general meeting, at the London Tavern, of the Credit Mobilier Limited, which announced a 205 per cent profit for its first months of operations. 2 The company planned an amalgamation with the Credit Foncier, and a discussion ensued of new shares and who should have them. On 11 September, Haliburton guaranteed J. Sandfield Macdonald one hundred shares in the newly created company.3 Perhaps sensing that soon the entire Haliburton clan would no longer be able to gather, several of Thomas’s daughters and his son Arthur converged on Gordon House in January 1865. Laura, now Mrs Cunard, was grieving the loss of one of her children, ‘a very fine child of six years old.’4 As Sarah Harriet noted, ‘poor Laura’s spirits were so defeated ... they will remain till May or June, I hope.’ Emma Maria, now Mrs Smith; Augusta and her husband, Alexander Haliburton; and Arthur joined the gathering. In March, Sarah Harriet wrote to Robert Parker that her husband had

The Last of the Tories 227

decided not to reoffer after the end of the 1865 session of Parliament: ‘I think it a wise decision, as it is really fatiguing & irksome to him to attend from Gordon House & late hours do not suit him.’5 They took a ‘small house’ in London until Easter.6 The judge’s weight loss and the nonrecurrence of his gout could not conceal from his wife that he was in decline. Yet family tradition has it that he remained active until the weekend of his death. Haliburton’s neighbour, the Duke of Northumberland, died on 12 February 1865.7 On 18 March, Sarah Haliburton reported to Robert Parker that Sir Samuel Cunard’s ‘health is very precarious.’8 He died on 28 April, at nearby Twickenham, leaving a considerable fortune of £350,000. William and Laura had been in frequent attendance on him. Cunard had been nine years older than Haliburton, and both their paths had led from Nova Scotia to London. The two families had drawn closer with the marriage of Cunard’s second son and Haliburton’s third daughter. Haliburton’s old friend Richard Bentley still occasionally sent him parcels of books to read, and Haliburton, despite his fragile health, still sometimes invited Bentley to dine at Gordon House.9 On 17 May, Haliburton was one of 1700 people to receive an invitation to attend the ‘State Ball at Buckingham Palace.’10 However, he could not attend, ‘prevented by unavoidable cause from obeying her Majesty’s command.’11 The Hounslow Parish Magazine noted: ‘Some time back the friends of “Sam Slick” were alarmed by statements as to his health. We are glad to find that the worthy Justice’s indisposition was but temporary, and that we are not (D.V.) likely to lose merely an eminent literary character, but a good neighbour.’ The clerk of the local council wrote to Haliburton, as the occupier of Gordon House and the person legally responsible, to ask him to repair the footpath by the side of the river.12 The clerk visited Gordon House in July, and Haliburton assured him that the matter would be dealt with.13 Two years later the Board of Surveyors sought payment for the repairs from Mrs Haliburton.14 In June 1865, Robert Kempt asked Haliburton for permission to dedicate his book to him: American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humour, first published in 1861, was about to enjoy a second edition.15 When it appeared at the end of July, the dedication read: ‘to sam slick of slickville, the first of american humourists, This Volume is (by permission) admiringly and gratefully Dedicated.’16 It contained seven hundred Yankee facetiae: ‘I have enjoyed a hearty laugh over many of the stories, & consider you have made an admirable selection,’ Haliburton wrote to Kempt on 29 July, adding, ‘I am at present suffering from

228 Sam Slick in England

indisposition, & going to the sea in a few days.’17 Haliburton went to the Grand Hotel, Brighton, on 5 June, a brief stay that cost him seventeen guineas.18 On 8 July 1865, a letter of Haliburton’s appeared in the Launceston Weekly News in which he stated that he was resigning his parliamentary seat – a promise he had made in 1863 ‘on account of the state of my health.’19 His last words to his constituents warned them not to be deluded by Gladstone’s claim that ‘the doctrine of manhood suffrage is the true principle of our elective system!!’20 Lord Derby’s ‘well considered Reform Bill’ had been rejected by the ‘Whig-Radical opposition’ in 1859, and now the ‘cravings of all’ had brought the threat of ‘Reform so ample, and so sweeping, as to embrace all the democratic blessings of the American constitution.’ Haliburton predicted dire consequences for the country. The 1865 election returned another Parliament with a Whig–Liberal majority (360 Liberals to 298 Conservatives). But Parliament did not meet for seven months. By that time, Earl Russell had become prime minister and Gladstone had initiated a Reform Bill that would have lowered the franchise to £7 rental in the boroughs and, furthermore, would have dissolved and redistributed many smaller boroughs.21 Gladstone’s Whig– Liberal bill foundered. Ironically, it would be Lord Derby, in 1867, during yet another minority Conservative government, who introduced a Reform Bill that succeeded in passing the House.22 The Derby–Disraeli bill outflanked the Whigs and ‘enfranchised approximately a million new voters, as opposed to the 400,000 which is all that the too radical Russell– Gladstone bill of the previous session would have done.’ 23 After his resignation, ‘imperatively’ demanded by the state of his health, Haliburton undertook a cleaning of his financial house. On 29 June, John Bailey Bland of Halifax, in return for £2050 paid to him by Haliburton, returned to Haliburton the indenture he held.24 Pellow still owed £4000 to Haliburton for the purchase of Clifton, and the a mortgage was reassigned to Benjamin Weir, merchant, of Halifax, on 29 June.25 The records of Haliburton’s bank account at Coutts & Co. tell a story of some prosperity. His investments brought in a great deal of money. Several companies provided him with income during his later years: the Vancouver Coal Company and the British Columbia Saw Mill Company, as well as the Canada Agency Company, Credit Foncier, the English and Scottish Assurance Company, and the Colonial Securities Company.26 His accounts reveal many bills discounted through the Bank of British North America, Glyn and Company. His lifetime habit of matching his income with equal expenditure was maintained to the end.

The Last of the Tories 229

During the financial year 1864–5, his credits stood at £8834-2-6, his debits at £8549-5-3. Right to the end Haliburton kept up his memberships at the Athenaeum and Carlton clubs. At his death, the value of Haliburton’s estate amounted to less than £6000.27 The end came suddenly. Georgianna Haliburton provides the only surviving account of his last days: The Friday previous to his decease he had gone to the City by rail; on his return he gave his family an entertaining account of all he had seen and heard and the news of the day: on the Sunday following he was sitting on the lawn with his family; he declined going into dinner; but afterwards feeling faint requested to be carried into the House; his son Arthur who stood beside him with the assistance of an attendant at once carried him; but before they got half way across the chamber to place him on the bed he had expired.28

He had sensed death coming for several years, yet he had always written about it with the confidence of a man some years away from it. In The Season Ticket he had written facetiously about ‘black jobs’ (funerals) from the perspective of an undertaker who has eighty-four black horses kept for the melancholy purpose of conducting ‘the dead to their final resting-place’ (165): ‘Death is a sad thing, sir, even when you are accustomed to see it, but it is awful to feel. It is so cold, the heart slowly gives up beating, and the blood don’t sarkelate no more, but thickens little by little, till all stands still, and congeals up solid’ (171). Haliburton’s own blood had ceased to circulate. He had requested, said Georgianna, that ‘his funeral should be private,’ but if those were his wishes, they do not seem to have been followed.29 All the shops in Isleworth were closed for the afternoon of the funeral. ‘The funeral took place at twelve o’clock, and was of a public character, consisting of a hearse drawn by four horses plumed, three mourning coaches, plumed, and the deceased’s private carriage.’30 Haliburton’s death brought a wide range of obituary notices and an equally wide array of comments. The Age We Live In described Sam Slick as a ‘Republican Panurge’ and mentioned Haliburton’s constant attendance at the House in his later years and the few times that he actually spoke, ‘probably in consequence of the natural weakness of his voice, which prevented his being distinctly heard.’31 Thus began the story that he seldom spoke and that when he did he was seldom heard. The Gentleman’s Magazine, in contrast, described him as a ‘frequent and fluent speaker in Parliament.’32

230 Sam Slick in England

The Illustrated London News provided an engraved portrait ‘from a photograph by Mr. Herbert Watkins.’33 The Hounslow Parish Magazine described him as ‘the last of the Tories,’ a man of ‘eccentric talent but sterling worth.’34 In England, Haliburton had not faded into oblivion. The British had hailed him as a man who touched the jocular nerve of a nation. When he spoke to the men of Tyneside in August 1859, he had said that his intent as a writer had been to do ‘a very great service to his countrymen, provided he could convey to them certain truths, either too humble for them to care much about or too dry, unless like doctor’s pills they had a little sugar put around them.’35 Posterity has found many of those paper pills unpalatable. What is difficult for a modern reader to grasp is how Haliburton’s gentlemanly aura could coexist alongside his association in the public imagination with a literary figure of marked vulgarity and indelicacy (one obituary characterized his work as ‘racy wit and half-concealed philosophy’).36 The juxtaposition of the very first Clockmaker and the building of Clifton was only the beginning of the tension between two seemingly incompatible worlds. Haliburton in his own life embraced the Victorian cliché of ‘extremes meet.’ Despite his many racist jokes, Haliburton’s posthumous reputation suffered no decline. Almost as soon as he died, on 30 September 1865, Routledge issued reprints of his books in their ‘Railway Library’ series. So did Bentley, who reissued The Season Ticket on 1 January 1866.37 Haliburton’s continuing appeal after his death is revealed by the number of his books in print between 1865 and 1890. He had struck a chord in Victorian society.38 It would take another hundred years for his racial attitudes to come under scrutiny. Gradually, new editions of his books dwindled to a trickle. By 1895, they were out of print in Canada and had become ‘an untasted delight.’39 The death of Susanna’s son and amanuensis, Haliburton Weldon, in 1873, and his daughters’ failure to obtain the copyright of their father’s work, frustrated Susanna’s and Augusta’s efforts to memorialize their father by bringing out a selection of his work. 40 They proposed winnowing the chaff from the wheat in order to celebrate the sterling quality of their father’s mind. Their intention was to filter out the impurities, ‘the nasty jokes which poor mama never could stand – which disfigure his writing.’41 With the passing of their stepmother, Sarah Harriet, in 1887, Susanna dusted down the manuscript of the book she and her son had planned: ‘For fourteen years I had forgotten it – & I am surprised to find how good it is.’

The Last of the Tories 231

Sarah Harriet stayed on at Gordon House after Haliburton’s death until 1867, when she held a large sale of furniture and china items. At the sale, the South Kensington Museum bought a selection of her Battersea enamels.42 She died in penury at Bridge House, Richmond, in 1887, and lies buried in the same Isleworth grave as Haliburton. Six years earlier, Susanna had stood in the garden at Clifton and shed a tear for a vanished life.43 She alone kept her ties with Windsor until the end, reserving a space for herself in the Old Parish Burying Ground for her grave, next to her son Haliburton. In her last years, the was helped financially by her sister Augusta, who died at Torquay in 1891, leaving £47,000.44 Augusta had been the centrepiece of the family ever since her days as her father’s chatelaine at Clifton. She left £10,000 to her husband’s niece, with smaller legacies to her sisters and brothers. Her property went to Emma Maria, and so did her collection of family documents. They passed to subsequent descendants of Emma Maria. One hundred years later they became the Wilson Collection at Acadia University.45 In March 1897, Arthur, to the chagrin of his brother Robert, presented the United States ambassador, Mr Bayard, with ‘a walking cane and snuff box that had belonged to Dr. Johnson’ – a prized possession of their father’s.46 Arthur later became embroiled in a controversy over the reorganization of the army with Mr Arnold Foster in the columns of the Times (December 1897).47 Queen Victoria made him Baron Haliburton of Windsor in the Province of Nova Scotia and the Dominion of Canada in 1899, a year after he published Army Reorganisation, A Short Reply to Long Service (Edward Arnold, 1898).48 Susanna died in Halifax, in lodgings, on 11 September 1899: ‘There was a fair attendance of the citizens [said the obituary] but most of those who were formerly intimate with the family have passed away.’49 On 6 March 1901, the roving Robert Grant died in Pass Christian, Mississippi. His youngest sister, Amelia, died on 14 January 1902; her remains were interred in the cemetery at Annapolis Royal.50 On 27 July 1902, the Reverend Edwin Gilpin, Amelia’s husband, delivered a sermon in Christ Church, Windsor, at the unveiling of a ‘triplet’ church window commemorating Thomas Chandler Haliburton and his wife Louisa Neville, presented to the church by the three remaining children, Lord Haliburton, Mrs Bainbridge Smith, and Mrs Cunard.51 In their later years, the surviving children spent a considerable amount of time exchanging information about their mother, a woman they did not know nearly as well as their father. Indeed, because of her ‘painful reticence in speaking of the dead & our being young at the time of her

232 Sam Slick in England

death’ she had died without passing on to them even the most rudimentary information about her background and origins.52 Edwin Gilpin considered writing Haliburton’s life. Perhaps he was stymied by the loss of a great deal of information in the fire at Robert’s office in 1858.53 Emma, Laura, and Arthur lived on in England. Arthur died first, on 21 April 1907, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery. He left only £2600.54 Laura died in Nice, France, on 26 December 1910, and Emma Maria at 12 East Cliff, Dover, on 22 November 1911. In 1996, Acadia University held a Thomas Chandler Haliburton Bicentenary Conference as part of its ongoing Thomas Raddall Symposia series. That same October, Canada Post, in acknowledgement of Haliburton’s important place in Canada’s literary past, issued a stamp in his honour. Reassessments of his work continue in earnest.55 Haliburton’s prolific literary legacy is a door that opens both outward and inward. It opens outward onto the life of Nova Scotia between the years 1834 and 1855, just as Haliburton claimed it did, but it also opens inward to reveal his Tory mentality, which revels in the meeting of extremes. Throughout his life and after his death, he was inextricably linked to his Yankee character. In a boxed set of ten interior and exterior photographs of Gordon House dated 1865, part of the Wilson Collection at Acadia University, the gentlemanlike existence and aura that Haliburton managed to exude is captured for posterity.56 There are hints that these photographs, taken in the summer of 1865, were turned into a memorial tribute to him because in two of them, the date on the mantlepiece in his study is 27 August, the day of his death. They demonstrate that in the last years of his life at Isleworth, he was able to escape his identification with the literary character that enveloped him from 1835 onwards and that dominates the public’s perceptions of him down to the present day.

APPENDIX

Haliburton Family Tree

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

1: Alias ‘Sam Slick’ 1 ‘A Sketch of the Life and Times of Judge Haliburton,’ Haliburton: A Centenary Chaplet (Privately printed, 1899), 42. 2 See the comprehensive ‘Published Versions of the Text,’ The Clockmaker, Series One, Two, and Three by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, ed. George L. Parker (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995), 771–820. 3 Lorne Pierce, ed., Sam Slick in Pictures: The Best of the Humour of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, illustrated by C.W. Jeffreys, text by Malcolm Parks (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1956). 4 John Daniel Logan, Thomas Chandler Haliburton (Toronto: Ryerson Press, [1923]); V.L.O. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’): A Study in Provincial Toryism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924). 5 Ernest Hemingway Dateline Toronto: The Complete Toronto Star Dispatches, 1920– 1924, ed. William White (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985), 388. 6 Chief among these is the ‘Third Routledge Edition’ of Sam Slick, The Clockmaker His Sayings and Doings, with an introduction by E.A. Baker, issued as a ‘First Impression’ in 1904, a ‘Second Impression’ in 1907, a ‘Third Impression’ in 1912, a ‘Fourth Impression’ in 1913, and a ‘Fifth Impression’ in 1921. See ed. Parker, Clockmaker, 812–13. 7 In recent years, Haliburton’s memories of his schooldays (Attaché, series 1, 1: 112–13) have been the basis of what the late Larry Loomer, Windsor historian, has described as ‘Wagnerian caterwauling on the subject of Long Pond.’ The focus of the debate has shifted from Haliburton’s childhood memory of playing ‘hurley’ on the Long Pond to the location of Long Pond itself. See the Hants Journal, 4 July 2001, 9, ‘Historical Society hears history of Long Pond’; 17 October 2001, 8–9, ‘Ending the Long Pond Debate’; 31 October 2001, 5, ‘Lots of Hearsay floating around’; 21 November 2001, 12, ‘Thank you Mr.

238 Notes to pages 6–7

8

9

10

11

12 13

14

15 16

Loomer – the final proof of Long Pond location.’ See also the Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2002, A1, A8, ‘A Great Hockey Fight Rivets Nova Scotia and Two Old Gents.’ I thank Larry Loomer for bringing these articles to my attention. Augusta Haliburton to Susanna Weldon, 53 Brenton St, 29 March [1889], Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ai. The reference is to F. Blake Crofton, Haliburton: The Man and the Writer (Windsor, NS: J.J. Anslow, 1889), The Haliburton Series, No. 1, King’s College, Windsor. Chronicle Herald, 15 October 1993; ‘White Niggers, Black Slaves: Slavery, Race and Class in T.C. Haliburton’s The Clockmaker,’ Nova Scotia Historical Review 14, no. 1 (1984): 13–40; Richard A. Davies, ed., The Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet: Papers Presented at the 1996 Thomas Raddall Symposium (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997), 1–35. See Greg Marquis, In Armageddon’s Shadow: The Civil War and Canada’s Maritime Provinces (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), chapter 1, ‘The War Next Door.’ Marquis attributes the swing in Nova Scotian opinion against the North and towards the South to the battle of Bull Run and the Trent affair. See ‘Anti-Yankeeism’ (34–5). Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne (London: The Trollope Society, 1996), 23. I am indebted to N. John Hall’s Trollope: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 516n1. British Library, Add Ms, 28, 510, 173. The chart is now at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia (PANS), MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 47, kindly donated by Haliburton Fales II, of Gladstone, New Jersey. ‘Copy of William Scott’s Letter’ (26 December 1845) in ‘An Exercise Book: From Mamas [Emma Maria Bainbridge Smith] handwriting,’ Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 4De: ‘I remember about 1790 when I was a young man of a Haliburton writing from America to a Mr Brown of Melrose stating his descent & if I remember enquiring after the lands of Calcourt and as having pertained to his progenitors near the Cheviots ... the letter was sent to my uncle Walter Scott father of Sir Walter Scott who gave some information on the subject’ (25). Thomas Haliburton to Ellen Fowden Haliburton, Windsor, Nova Scotia, 30 November 1840, Wilson Collection, Section 1, 1Aa. (Edinburgh: James Ballantyne and Company, 1820): ‘Genealogical notices drawn up by the late Mr Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet, representative of the family of Newmains and Mertoun, in right of his mother, Barbara Haliburton ... It appears to have been drawn up in answer to the enquiries of Mr William Haliburton, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who claimed a descent from the Haliburtons of Hadden.’

Notes to pages 8–10 239 17 Standard, 28 January 1862, 2, col. d. 18 Ibid., col. e. 19 Sheldon Vanauken, The Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy (Worthing: Churchman Publishing, 1988). 20 Standard, 28 January 1862, 2, col. e. 21 See the Reverend A.W.H. Eaton, ‘Old Boston Families Number Five: The Haliburton Family,’ New England Historical and Genealogical Register 71 (January 1917): 57–74, and Gordon Haliburton, ‘Family Influences on Thomas Chandler Haliburton,’ Family Ties: The Ancestral and Familial Connections of Thomas Chandler Haliburton (Wolfville, NS: Stoney Hill Publishing, 1996), 35–61. 2: Yankee Heritage 1 Haliburton, Family Ties, 15. 2 The Admission and Discharge Register at McLean’s reveals the admission of George Mordaunt in 1824 and 1840. The hospital admitted Tom Haliburton Jr on 19 October 1847. He died there on 4 November 1847. See below, ‘17: Death of Tom, Jr.’ 3 Gordon Haliburton says ‘in later years he seemed deranged’ (Family Ties, 16). Other sources omit the ‘seemed.’ 4 PANS, MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 14, ‘18 Jany 1803’ (Family Ties, 81–2). 5 Richard A. Davies, ed., The Letters of Thomas Chandler Haliburton (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 110. 6 PANS MG 1, vol. 2950A, no. 7, ‘April 2d 1808.’ Family Ties, 89. 7 Ibid., no. 5, ‘Windsor 30 March 1806.’ Family Ties, 84–5. 8 Ibid., no. 2, ‘Portsmouth. December 15 1789.’ Family Ties, 66. 9 Ibid., no. 14, ‘18 Jany 1803.’ Family Ties, 81–2. 10 A Short Account of the Haliburtons of Windsor, Nova Scotia from 1760 to 1865. By a Relative [Georgianna Haliburton]. Boston, MA, U.S.A., February 28 1873, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston. Haliburton Fales II, Gladstone, New Jersey owns ‘A Muster-Roll of a Company of Foot in His Majesty’s Service under the command of Captain Joseph Billings in a regiment raised by the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, for the Reduction of Canada, whereof Joseph Williams Esq is Colonel.’ William Haliburton spent eight months and one day in service. 11 A Short Account of the Haliburtons of Windsor, Nova Scotia from 1760 to 1865. By a Relative [Georgianna Haliburton]. Boston, MA, U.S.A., February 28 1873, 16. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston. 12 A brief account of the Author of the Manuscripts in this Volume: William

240 Notes to pages 10–14

13

14 15 16

17

18 19 20 21

22

23 24 25 26

27

28

Haliburton – Esquire – of Windsor Nova Scotia by Georgianna Haliburton, New England Historic Genealogical Society, SBHAL 1 S-6I. William Haliburton to B. St Croix, 20 September 1795: ‘In truth I now begin to think that we two should make an excellent figure in a sign, entitled, the Two Palaverers’ (PANS, MG 1, vol. 2950A, no. 37). Hants County Land Registry Office, 2:3, no. 37. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 4. Hants County Land Registry Office, 3:287, no. 188; 3:259, no. 236; 3:298, no. 300. See also a series of land exchanges at the Hants County Land Registry Office, 2:3, no. 36; 4–5, no. 37; 10–11, no. 42; 17–18, no. 47; 39–40, no. 66; 50–1, no. 73; 51–2, no. 74. Ibid., 3:298, no. 300. See Gary Hartlen, ‘Slaves in the Planter Migration,’ in Making Adjustments: Change and Continuity in Planter Nova Scotia, 1759–1800 ed. Margaret Conrad (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press, 1991), 123–8. Haliburton, General Description, 105: ‘they understood neither the climate or soil so well.’ Hants County Land Registry Office, 4:143–44, no. 106. Ibid., 4:333–34, no. 212. ‘The Memorial and Petition of William Haliburton for himself and certain Persons his Associates,’ 13 June 1797 (PANS RG 1, vol. 287, no. 46, Reel 15371). Ibid. A committee of the House of Assembly investigated William Haliburton’s petition on 30 June 1797 and reported that it could not report on a matter that involved claims and questions ‘only cognizable in a Court of Justice’ (PANS RG 5, Series A, vol. 6, no. 28). William and Lucy Haliburton to Samuel Fales, 24 July 1807, PANS MG 1, vol. 2950A, no. 6. Georgianna Haliburton, A Brief Account, etc., New England Historic Genealogical Society, SBHAL 1. S-6I. The pipe is now in the possession of the Rev. Nicholas Charrington. ‘Letter from William Haliburton to Jeremy Belknap with an account of an invention to keep ships at sea in safety during the most violent Tempests,’ Windsor, 1 September 1796, presented by William Haliburton to the Massachusetts Historical Society, 30 January 1798. ‘Windsor, March 25th 1817,’ PANS, MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 39, Family Ties, 95. Haliburton’s mother, whom William Hersey Otis married in 1794, died three months after giving birth to him. His father married Susanna (Francklin) Davis, also a widow, in 1803. Hants County Land Registry Office, 8:285–6, no. 232, a land deal made by W.H.O. Haliburton and witnessed by Thomas C. Haliburton and Elizabeth Mills. Duncan Macdonald, the mortagee, made only his mark.

Notes to pages 14–17 241 29 Haliburton purchased the property that became known as Henley Farm in Poplar Grove for £1,500 (12:409, no. 281) and sold it in 1834 for £1,050 (22:176– 77, no. 124,). Other gypsum transactions are recorded in 12, no. 286 (8 September 1818); 12, no. 314 (9 November 1818); 13, no. 5 (9 December 1818). 30 ‘Recollections of her early life told to me when a child & afterwards by my mother’ [by Susanna Weldon with marginal notes by Augusta Haliburton and Robert Haliburton], Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ca, 13. 31 Haliburton opened his account at Coutts & Co. on 24 June 1817 to process Louisa’s inheritance of £2,690.14.6. There are long periods of inactivity in the account. He activated it in 1838–9 on his visit to England, and the account received his publisher’s payments for his books for the next twenty years. From 1856 onwards the activity is detailed. His income rose to £8,834 in the final year of his life. 32 PANS, RG 22, vol. 12, ‘Militia Records, 1794–1849.’ 3: King’s College and Marriage 1 David Humphrey, From King’s College to Columbia, 1746–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 270. 2 Ibid. 3 Windsor 29 July [17]90, PANS, MG 1, vol. 2950A, no. 35. 4 Henry Roper, ‘Haliburton and King’s College,’ The Haliburton Bi-Centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies, 87–9 (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997). 5 See Haliburton, Family Ties, 20–5, for a full discussion of the Episcopalian Haliburtons. 6 See Kit and Frederica Konolige, The Power and the Glory. America’s Ruling Class: The Episcopalians (New York: Wyden Books, 1978), and E. Digby Baltzell, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America (New York: Random House, 1964). 7 Nova-Scotia Royal Gazette, 7 October 1802, an account of the first meeting of the Board of Governors appointed under Royal Charter, 12 May 1802. 8 Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG1, vol. 1604, no. 28. 9 Roper, ‘Haliburton and King’s College,’ 86. 10 28 September 1813, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG1, vol. 1604, no. 29. 11 Ibid., 19 April 1813. 12 7 October 1813. 13 King’s College Board Minutes, 1: 195, 1787–1814. 14 Quoted by Roper, ‘Haliburton and King’s College,’ 90. 15 Weekly Chronicle, 9 January 1824. The review is signed ‘Candidus’: ‘I took it up in an idle hour, from mere curiosity; and I can say with truth, that I found myself very agreeably disappointed.’

242 Notes to pages 17–21 16 Davies, ed., Letters, 139. 17 King’s College, Board Minutes, entry for ‘9 Sept 1811.’ 18 Ross Kilpatrick, ‘Education, Culture, and the Classics in Thomas Chandler Haliburton: Sundry Observations by Mr. Samuel Slick of Slickville, Onion County, Connecticut,’ Cahiers des études anciennes 34 (1998): 69. 19 Episodes, 1, 121–2. 20 See for example, Thomas B. Akins, A Brief History of the Origin, Endowment and Progress of the University of King’s College Windsor (Halifax: McNab & Shaffer, 1865); F.W. Vroom, King’s College: A Chronicle, 1789–1939 (Halifax: Imperial, 1941). 21 MS 4/1, Charlotte County Archives, St Andrew’s, N.B. 22 17 July 1843, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG1, vol. 1607, no. 4. 23 2 August 1843, Ibid. 24 5 January 1839, ibid., vol. 1606, no. 10. 25 Ibid. 26 Roper, ‘Haliburton and King’s College,’ 88. 27 Ibid., 91. 28 Neville Parker to Henry Bliss, 17 November 1824, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG1, vol. 1605, no. 5. 29 Public Record Office (Kew), W.O. 12, 1085, 1086, 1089 (Muster Rolls). 30 (London, 1795), iv. See Wilson Collection, Section I, Series 3Ca, 8. 31 (London, 1899), 66. See also ‘Copy of Aunt Susan’s Letter of July 1886 with notes by A.L.N.H,’ Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Cb, f.3v. One of the first extended marginalia by Augusta refers to Arthur’s retrieving a sword belonging to Captain Neville from a nephew of Mr Hopkinson, to whom Haliburton had presented it. It is described in 3Cd, f. 8, ‘Recollections & extracts’ as a ‘silver mounted Hindoostanneei Saber [sic].’ The sword was one of a considerable number acquired by the victors at Seringapatam. 32 John Biddulph, The Nineteenth and Their Times (London: Murry, 1899), 171. 33 United Kingdom, Public Record Office (Kew), WO 25, 783, ‘Statement of the Services of Paymaster W.F. Neville of the 11th Dragoons.’ 34 ‘Copy of Aunt Susan’s letter of July 1886 with notes by ALNH,’ Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Cb, f.10v: ‘I believe the real version was a little different,’ the note begins. 35 Burials in Henley-on-Thames, 1815, no. 147. 36 Public Record Office (Kew), WO 25, 783, ‘Statement of the Services of Paymaster W.F. Neville of the 11th Dragoons.’ He stayed in Canada until 17 September 1817. 37 ‘Memo as to the Neville Family’ [marginal notes by Augusta Haliburton], Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ce, f.4.

Notes to pages 21–5 243 38 Sarah Anderson to Henry Bliss, 23 July 1816, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG 1, vol. 1604, no. 32. 39 Ibid., 27 May 1816. 40 Ibid., 5 August 1816. 41 Neville Parker to Henry Bliss, 6 October 1816, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG 1, vol. 1604, no. 32. 42 Sarah Anderson to Henry Bliss, 22 January 1817. 43 Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ca, 15. 44 Section 1, Series 3Ca-e, ibid. 45 ‘Women of Canada. Louisa Neville, Wife of the Author of “Sam Slick”,’ Canadian Home Journal (1924), 14, 70. Reprinted in the Hants Journal 73 no. 40, 21 February 1940, 3, 11. She had access to the documents now in the Wilson Collection. 46 ‘Recollections,’ Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ca. 47 ‘Copy of Aunt Susan’s Letter of July 1886 with notes by A.L.N.H,’ ibid., 3Cb 4v–5r. 48 King’s College Board Minutes, 1, 24 September 1816: ‘The Secretary read a Petition from Mr. Thomas Halliburton A.B. praying that he might be permitted to keep his terms for his Masters degree without residing in College.’ 49 PANS, MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 39, ‘Windsor, March 25th 1817.’ See Family Ties, 93. 50 Louisa Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Clifton 22d October 1839, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 2Ae. 51 ‘Recollections,’ ibid., Section 1, Series 3Ca, 14. 4: Annapolis Royal and the General Description 1 William Blowers Bliss to Henry Bliss, 16 March 1817, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG 1, vol. 1604, no. 33. See ‘Windsor, March 25th 1817,’ PANS, MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 39 (Haliburton, Family Ties, 93). 2 Davies, ed., Letters, 92. 3 William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 15 January 1825, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, 1605, no. 6. 4 Philip Girard, ‘The Making of a Colonial Lawyer: Beamish Murdoch in Halifax, 1822–1842,’ Essays in the History of Canadian Law, vol. 7, Inside the Law: Canadian Law Firms in Historical Perspective, ed. Carol Wilton (Toronto: Osgoode Society and University of Toronto Press, 1996), See also Philip Girard’s ‘Patriot Jurist: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax, 1800–1876’ (PhD diss., Dalhousie University, 1998), ch. 4, ‘The Legal Profession, 1800–1840.’ 5 Girard, ‘The Making of a Colonial Lawyer,’ 71.

244 Notes to pages 25–8 6 7 8 9

10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

Ibid., 67. Davies, ed., Letters, 6–7. Girard, ‘The Making of a Colonial Lawyer,’ 62. William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 10 February 1825, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1 1605, no. 6. See D.G. Bell, ‘Paths to the Law in the Maritimes, 1810– 1825: The Bliss Brothers and Their Circle,’ Nova Scotia Historical Review 8, no. 2 (1988): 6–39. David Sugarman, ‘Lawyers and Business in England, 1750 to 1950,’ Essays in the History of Canadian Law, vol. 4, Beyond the Law: Lawyers and Business in Canada, 1830 to 1930, ed. Carol Wilton 448 (Toronto: The Osgoode Society, 1990). Girard, ‘The Making of a Colonial Lawyer,’ 60. Sugarman, ‘Lawyers and Business,’ 456. For a short summary of the company’s activities, see Bridgetown Land Registry Office, 28: 303 (1831). Davies, ed., Letters, 31. Ibid., 12. Ibid., 11. Public Archives of Canada (PAC), King-Stewart Family, MG 24, 1, 182, vol. 3, File 2, 1183. Davies, ed., Letters, 12–13. Neville Parker to Henry Bliss, 2 May 1824, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1605, no. 5. Neville Parker to Henry Bliss, 27 November 1824, ibid. Davies, ed., Letters, 17. See Gerald C. Boudreau, ‘Haliburton’s “Affectionate Intercourse” with Sigogne and the Acadians of Clare,’ in The Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997), 165–76. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, 800–6, describes Sigogne as ‘a man of refinement, sensibility, and substantial culture’ who was possibly more highly regarded outside the Acadian community than inside it. Sigogne, apparently, did not assent to the myth of the idyllic, God-fearing Acadian community, a myth that Haliburton did much to foster in his various references to the Acadians, in his Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia (1829), The Clockmaker, Second Series (1838), and Nature and Human Nature (1855). The Club began on the 8 May 1828 and ended on 12 October 1831 with ‘Merlin’s Farewell to the Club.’ It ran intermittently between these dates. The Letters of Agricola on the Principles of Vegetation and Tillage Written for Nova Scotia and Published First in the Acadian Recorder by John Young (Halifax: Holland & Co., 1822) 60–1.

Notes to pages 29–37 245 25 Davies, ed., Letters, 28. 26 Ibid., 37. 27 Annapolis April 24th 1826, New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–1. 28 Novascotian, 28 February 1828, 72, col. c. Quit Rents (the equivalent of ground rent charged by the Crown on colony land) had suddenly been demanded by the British government after a long period of dormancy. The discussion in the Halifax legislature proved lively. Haliburton found himself defending the right of the British Crown to extract the rent but questioned the ability of the province to collect it. 29 ‘Provincial Legislature,’ Novascotian, 8 March 1827, 84. 30 The Rev. James Townley, High Life Below Stairs: A Farce in Two Acts (London, 1759). 31 Ibid., 54. 5: The Legislature and the ‘Club’ 1 1 February 1827. 2 ‘Supplement,’ Novascotian, 29 March 1827. 3 William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 7 April 1827, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1605, no. 8. 4 Novascotian, 6 March 1828, 32, col. c. 5 Ibid., 15 March 1827, 91, col. c. 6 Ibid., 22 March 1827, 102, col. a. 7 Ibid., ‘Agency Question,’ 22 February 1827. 8 Ibid., ‘Catholic Petition,’ 8 March 1827, 83, col. b. 9 Ibid., 1 March 1829, 78, col. a. 10 Ibid., 28 February 1828, 72, col. c. 11 Ibid., 19 February 1829, 61, col. c. 12 Ibid., 26 March 1829, 102, col. b. 13 Ibid., col. c. 14 Ibid., 1 January 1829, col. b. and c. 15 Ibid., 8 May 1825, 152, col. d. 16 ‘The Club Papers: Haliburton’s Literary Apprenticeship,’ in The Thomas Chandler Haliburton Symposium, ed. Frank M. Tierney (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1985), 81. 17 Canadian Library Association microfilm, quoted by Gwendolyn Davies, ibid., 79. 18 Novascotian, 4 June 1829, 178, col. c. 19 Ibid., 2 April 1829, col. b.

246 Notes to pages 37–42 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Ibid., 174, col. b. Ibid., 21 May 1829, 162, col. b. Col. b. ‘Merlin’s Farewell to The Club,’ ibid., 17 February 1831, 19 June 1831 and 12 October 1831, Ibid., 21 May 1829, 162, col. b. Ibid., 13 January 1830, 9, col. b., 1 September 1830, 273, col. a., and 1 December 1830, 377, col. b. Haliday reappears on 17 February 1831, 29 June 1831, and 12 October 1831. Ibid., 25 February 1830, 61, col. c. and col. b. Ibid., 5 February 1829, cols a–d. Ibid., Thursday, 1 January 1829, 1, col. d.

6: Historian and Judge 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10

11 12

13

14 15 16

PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1605, no. 9. Ibid., 31 March 1829. Ibid., William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 22 August 1829. 3 August 1829, PANS, Wiswall Papers, MG 1, vol. 980, folder 10, no. 152. 15 July 1829, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1605, no. 10. Ibid. Sir Peregrine Maitland (1777–1854), army officer and colonial administrator, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, 1816–28, then Nova Scotia, 1828–34. He was one of the pallbearers at the Duke of Wellington’s funeral in 1851. See DCB, VIII, 596–604. Novascotian, 10 February 1831. Ibid., 29 June 1831, 201, col. d. Ibid., 12 October 1831, 321, col. a. Beamish Murdoch in the Novascotian, 2 April 1829, 110, col. b. Haliburton was also elected an honourary member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. See Novascotian, 1 April 1830. Ibid., col. c. Promoters, Patriots, and Partisans (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 55; ‘approximately 70 per cent of the narrative in volume one was copied.’ Memoranda on Mr H History of Nova Scotia (12 pages) inserted in the front of Dr William Cochran’s MS. History of Nova Scotia, Volume 2, PANS, MG 1, vol. 223, no. 4. Taylor, Promoters, Patriots, and Partisans, 56. Davies, Letters, 13. Ibid., 15.

Notes to pages 42–47 247 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35

Ibid., 35. Taylor, Promoters, Patriots, and Partisans, 47. Ibid., 50. Ibid., 59. Ibid., 61. Davies, Letters, 17. For an opposite view, see Gwendolyn Davies, ‘The Club Papers: Haliburton’s Literary Apprenticeship,’ in The Thomas Chandler Haliburton Symposium, ed. Frank M. Tierney (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1985), 65–82. Harry King to Halli Fraser, Saturday, 1 August 1829, PAC, King-Stewart Family, MG 24, I, 182, vol. 1, File 2, 158–9. Harry King to Halli Fraser, 4 October 1829, PAC, King-Stewart Family, MG 24, I, 182, vol. 1, File 2, 201–2. Ibid., 206. 13 November 1837, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–11. Harry King to Halli Fraser, PAC, King-Stewart Family, MG 24, I, 182, vol. 1, File 3, 258. Ibid., vol. 2, Harry King to Halli Fraser, 557. Ibid., 557–8 Ibid., 574–5. Ibid., 610. Ibid., vol. 2, 697. Lewis Morris Wilkins (1801–85), the son of Lewis Morris Wilkins (1768–1848), graduated with a B.A in 1819, was noted for his quick temper and reputedly once attacked his college roommate, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, with a poker (see DCB, VII, 910–13). Haliburton, however, graduated in 1814, five years before Wilkins, who became a lawyer, politician, and judge like his father before him. In 1856, he replaced Haliburton on the Supreme Court bench. Ibid., File 2, 715, 13 August 1830, marked ‘Wednesday night 11 o’clock.’ Davies, ed., Letters, 73.

7: Clifton and The Clockmaker 1 A.W.H. Eaton, ‘Old Boston Families Number Five: The Haliburton Family,’ New England Historical and Genealogical Register 71 (January 1917): 71. 2 William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 22 May 1837, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 8. 3 Eaton, ‘Old Boston Families,’ 71. 4 Bridgetown Land Registry Office, 30:449 (2 May 1833); Hants County Regis-

248 Notes to pages 48–51

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12

13 14 15

16 17

18 19

20

21 22

try Office, 21:106 (2 October 1832); 22, doc. 11 (23 July 1833); 21, doc 323 (28 July 1833); 21: 185–7, doc. 115. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989). Boston Daily Advertizer and Patriot, 13 August 1833, 188: in the Cordelia from Halifax, ‘Hon. Judge Haliburton, of Windsor.’ 21 February 1832. A New Edition (London, 1867), 763. Ibid., 850–2. Clifford Edward Clarke, Jr, The American Family Home, 1800–1960 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 42. A.J. Downing, Cottage Residences or, A Series of Designs for Rural Cottages and Cottage Villas, and their Gardens and Grounds adapted to North America, 4th ed. (New York, 1856), 3. Rural Residence, Consisting of a Series of Designs for Cottages, Decorated Cottages, Small Villas, and other Ornamental Buildings; Accompanied by Hints on Situation, Construction, Arrangement, and Decoration, in the Theory and Practice of Rural Architecture: Interspersed with Some Observations on Landscape Gardening, 2nd ed. (London, 1832), 61–2. Things as They Are in America (New York, 1854), 38. Thomas Haliburton to Robert Parker, 7 October 1837, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Collection, 159–3. Tamara Plakins Thornton, Cultivating Gentlemen: The Meaning of Country Life among the Boston Elite, 1785–1860 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 180. Ibid., 195. See The Stevens Families of Nova Scotia, rev. ed. (Baton Rouge, LA: Oracle Press, 1983), 503; William Stephens immigrated to Nova Scotia in the 1830s and worked as Haliburton’s gardener. Thornton, Cultivating Gentlemen, 32. Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Lunenburg, Wednesday, 18 Ap [18]49, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ad. See below, Chapter 18, ‘Stepping Out of the Frame.’ ‘An Architectural Interpretation of “Clifton” Grove, Windsor, Nova Scotia; Home of the Honourable Thomas Chandler Haliburton,’ in The Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997), 101–43. Antonio Gallenga, Episodes of My Second Life (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884), 2: 124. Philip Girard, ‘Patriot Jurist: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax, 1800–1876’ (PhD diss., Dalhousie University, 1998), ch. 5 ‘The Making of a Colonial

Notes to pages 53–4 249 Lawyer, 1822–27,’ 188. See also 177–89 for a discussion of Murdoch’s early career. 8: A Tradition of Yankee Humour 1 Richmond, Virginia, 2 May 1835, Private Collection of Haliburton Fales II, Gladstone, New Jersey. 2 Richard Hildreth, ‘Our First Men’: A Calendar of Wealth, Fashion, and Gentility, Containing a List of those Persons Taxed in the City of Boston, Credibly Reported to be Worth One Hundred Thousand Dollars with Biographical Notices on the Principal Persons (Boston, 1846). 3 The Aristocracy of Boston; Who They Are, and What They Were: Being a History of the Business and Businessmen of Boston, for the Last Forty Years (Boston, 1848), entry for FALES, Samuel. 4 Boston, 12 May 1844. Private Collection of Haliburton Fales II, Gladstone, New Jersey. 5 Winifred Morgan, An American Icon: Brother Jonathan and American Identity (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1988), 25–7. 6 Ibid., 116–18. 7 V.L.O. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’): A Study in Provincial Toryism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), 358. 8 Francis Hodge, Yankee Theater: The Image of America on the Stage, 1825–1850 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), 121, 135. 9 Scenes From the Life of an Actor By a Celebrated Comedian [Yankee Hill] (New York: Garret & Co., 1853), 79–80. 10 Ibid., 80. 11 Ibid., 127. 12 Ibid., 232–4, 238. 13 As Now Performing with great éclat at the English Opera House (London, 1824), 53. 14 Hodge, Yankee Theater, 222. 15 Winifred Morgan, ‘Preface,’ An American Icon. See also 17–18, 74. 16 Ibid., 32. 17 Lawrence E. Mintz, Humor in America: A Research Guide to Genres and Topics (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 4. 18 Davies, ed., Letters, 78. 19 Novacotian, 12 June 1839, 187, cols. a and b. See also Mary Alice Wyman, Two American Pioneers: Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927), ch. 4. 20 Ibid., 70–84. 21 See Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 374.

250 Notes to pages 54–8 22 Portia Kernville, ‘Yankee Types on the London Stage, 1824–1880,’ Speech Monographs 14 (1947): 139. 23 ‘Appendix B, David Humphrey’s Glossary of Yankee Words (1815),’ in Francis Hodge, Yankee Theater; ‘Americanisms,’ Virginia Literary Museum and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, &c 1, no. 27 (16 Dec 1829); no. 32 (20 January 1830); no. 37 (24 February 1830); ‘Collection of Vulgarisms; or Yankeeisms,’ American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge 1 ([Boston] 1835): 416. 24 Ch. 8, ‘The Gen-u-ine Yankee.’ 25 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 536. 26 Norris W. Yates, William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times: A Study of the Big Bear School of Humor (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), 15. 27 William T. Porter, The Big Bear of Arkansas and Other Sketches Illustrative of Characters and Incidents in the South and South-West (Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1847), xii. 28 The Tall Tale in American Folklore and Literature (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 6. 29 Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee (London: O. Rich, 1834), 150–1. 30 Ibid., 151. 31 Ibid., 155–8. 32 David E. Sloane, ed., The Literary Humor of the Urban Northeast, 1830–1890 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983), 19. 33 ‘Gentle Reader,’ Novascotian, 10 February 1836, 41. 34 Ruth Panofsky, ‘A Bibliographical Study of Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s The Clockmaker, First, Second, and Third Series’ (PhD diss., York University, Toronto, 1991), 25–6; Bruce Nesbitt, ‘The First Clockmakers,’ in The Thomas Chandler Haliburton Symposium, ed. Frank. M. Tierney (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1985), 93–102. 35 ‘New Publications,’ Novascotian, 4 January 1837, 1. See George Parker, ed., The Clockmaker, Series One, Two, and Three (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995), xxviii–xxix. 36 Henry Bliss to Lewis Bliss, 2 August 1843, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1607, no. 4. 37 Davies, ed., Letters 77. 38 (London, 1829), 234. Reviewed in Novascotian, 14 May 1829, 156. 39 Harry King to Halli Fraser, Wednesday night 11 o Clock (postmarked 13 August 1830), PAC, King-Stewart Papers, MG 24, I, 182, vol. 2, 715. 40 Harry King to Halli Fraser, early August, 1831, ibid., vol. 3, File 3. 41 Novascotian, 12 June 1839, 186, col. c.

Notes to pages 58–62 251 42 Clement Eaton, Henry Clay and the Art of American Politics, ed. Oscar Handlin (Boston: Little Brown, 1957), 34. 43 Ibid., 73. 44 George D. Prentice, Biography of Henry Clay, 2nd ed. rev. (New York: 1831), 168. 45 Ibid., 179. 46 Robert V. Romini, The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 53. 47 Boston, 12 May 1844. Private Collection of Haliburton Fales II, Gladstone, New Jersey. 48 George Rawlings Poage, Henry Clay and the Whig Party (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936), 64. 49 See Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1964). 50 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 158. 9: Career in Crisis 1 A letter sent to Joseph Howe from ‘A Friend,’ Novascotian, 28 December 1836. 2 Novascotian, 5 January 1837, 7, col. b. 3 Ibid., 3 May 1834. See Statutes of Nova Scotia, 1834–35, c. 66, Act of Incorporation of Company to erect Bridge across Avon River. 4 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 159. 5 Novascotian, 10 December 1835. 6 15 May 1837, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 8. 7 Thomas Haliburton to Robert Parker, 7 October 1837, New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–3. 8 2 November 1837, Ibid., 159–10. 9 James R. Rotton to Thomas Haliburton, 21 July 1837, Wilson Collection, Series 1Bb. 10 7 October 1837, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–3. 11 Georgianna Haliburton, A Short Account of the Haliburtons of Windsor, Nova Scotia from 1760 to 1865. By a Relative [Georgianna Haliburton]. Boston, Massts, U.S.A., February 28 1873, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 9. 12 The Clockmaker, Series One, Two, and Three by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, ed. George L. Parker (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995), 207. 13 Quoted by Royal A. Gettman, A Victorian Publisher: A Study of the Bentley Papers, 198. The original manuscript is in the Berg Collection, New York Public Library.

252 Notes to pages 62–9 14 For details on the complicated publishing history of The Clockmaker, see Parker, 751–820, and Panofsky, ‘A Bibliographical Study,’ 22–46. 15 —— Archibald, Esq, Nova Scotia, December 27th 1837, Memorandum, British Library, Add. Ms. 46,640, 183v, ‘Bentley’s Letterbook.’ Charles Dickson Archibald (1802–68) was the son of S.G.W. Archibald, M.L.A. for Truro, 1826–30. He married an English heiress and moved to England. 16 Ibid., 183v. 17 Thomas Haliburton to Robert Parker, 24 March 1838, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection 159–2. 18 The plate is at Haliburton House in Windsor, Nova Scotia. 19 No. 1054, 204, col. a. 20 No. 494, Saturday, 15 April 1837. 21 ‘From the London Weekly Dispatch, April 12,’ Novascotian, 8 June 1837, 182. 22 See Richard A. Davies, ed., On Thomas Chandler Haliburton: Selected Criticism (Ottawa: Tecumseh Press, 1979), 13–14. 23 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Collection, 159–2. See ‘The World We Live In,’ Blackwood’s Magazine 42 (1837): 677. 24 Novascotian, 18 May 1837, 154. 25 Bentley Papers, British Library. Add. Ms. 46, 634, 138–45. 26 Ibid., Suit, 108–58. 27 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–11. 28 Guy Boas, The Garrick Club, 1831–1947 (London: Garrick Club, 1948), 11; see Humphry Ward, History of the Athenaeum, 1824–1925 (London: Printed for the club, 1926) and J.G. Colmer, The Canada Club (London): Some Notes on Its Origin, Constitution and Activities (London: Committee of the Club, 1934), 6, 28. 29 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–11. 30 Davies, ed., Letters, 90–1. 31 British Library, Add. Ms. 46,613, 120, dated ‘23 August 1838.’ 32 PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 9. 33 Thomas Haliburton to Robert Parker, 24 March 1838, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–2. 34 Journals ... of the House of Assembly, 1838, Appendix 39. 35 Davies, ed., Letters, 92. 36 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–2. 10: The Greatest Lion in London 1 Davies, ed., Letters, 96. 2 Ibid., 95. 3 A Social History of the North Atlantic (London: Macmillan, 1972), 73–7.

Notes to pages 69–73 253 4 Peter Allington and Basil Greenhill, The First Atlantic Liners: Seamanship in the Age of Paddle Wheel, Sail and Screw (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1997), 15. It is just as well that Haliburton and Howe stayed with the Tyrian as the Sirius ran into difficulties on that return voyage. Within two days of the British Isles she was run at half-speed, then had to stop at Falmouth to take on coal before proceeding to her destination. See Howard Robinson, Carrying British Mails Overseas (London: Allen & Unwin, 1964), 127. I would like to thank Dr James Gray for bringing this interesting piece of information to my attention. 5 ‘Launceston Election. Mr. Justice Haliburton. A Conservative Candidate,’ Launceston Weekly News, 23 April 1859. 6 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 220. The lost Charles R. Fairbanks’s journal is his source of information. 7 Published on the 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, and 26 February, and issued by Richard Bentley as A Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham (1839). 8 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 222. 9 J. Murray Beck, Joseph Howe, 1, 181–2. 10 New England Historic Genealogical Society, SG FAL 10, ‘Mrs W.H.O. Haliburton to her niece in Boston 3d Sept 1838,’ in Notes on the Genealogy of the Fales Family by Miss Georgianna Haliburton, Boston 1873. 11 I am indebted to Neil Cooke of London for considerable help in understanding the Burton family. 12 See Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 243, n15. There is, however, no mention of the meeting in Georgianna Haliburton’s A Short Account (1873), as Chittick’s note seems to imply. See The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-Nineteenth Century England (London: Corgi edition, 1969), 102: ‘underneath the world of Victorian England as we know it – and as it tended to represent itself to itself – a real, secret social life was being conducted, the secret life of sexuality.’ 13 University College, London, Papers of George Bedas Greenough (1778– 1855), 35/2, James Haliburton to George Greenough, 22 July 1822. See also 35/4 ‘Sheffield’s Account’ of Burton’s life in Cairo: ‘J keeps both his girls locked up & lets no one approach them but himself.’ 14 Ibid., 35/4. 15 Excerpta Heiroglyphica (Cairo, 1840), 64 lithographs. 16 Greenough Papers, 35/4. 17 Louisa Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Clifton 22d October 1839, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 2Ae. See Richard A. Davies, ‘“Wilson Collection” at Acadia University,’ Canadian Literature, 134 (autumn 1992): 84. 18 James Burton to Robert Hay, British Library Add. Ms. 38,094, 127.

254 Notes to pages 73–5 19 Davies, ed., Letters, 109, 119. 20 James [Hali]burton to Robert Hay, 28 August 1838, British Library Add. Ms. 38094, 112: ‘we shall take Ormiston Hall in on our way to Kelso.’ 21 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–4. 22 James Haliburton took his friend Humphreys’s paramour, Adriana Copigliana, as his wife after Humphreys died in 1836. She outlived James (who died in 1862) by many years. Decimus mentions her in his will. I am indebted to Neil Cooke for this information. 23 James Haliburton to Thomas Pettigrew, 11 January 1842: ‘My affairs continue as yet in an unsettled state but my friend Hay with whom I have been staying incognito has vigorously taken part with me.’ 24 Louisa Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Clifton 22 October 1839, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 2Ae. 25 See the provisions of Decimus Burton’s will, 30 June 1870. Information supplied courtesy of Neil Cooke. 26 Haliburton Fales II of Gladstone, New Jersey, donated the legal-looking document to the PANS in 1991. 27 Britsh Library Add. Ms. 28,510, 173. 11: Moving in the Best of Circles 1 2 3 4 5

Beck, Joseph Howe, 182–3. PANS, Joseph Howe Papers, Reel 21, no. 10,325, 33. Ibid., 26. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 223. Albion 1 no. 8 (23 February 1839): 62. In a review of The Bubbles of Canada in the New York paper, the reviewer mentioned that Haliburton had ‘already gained a reputation in the social circles for his lively qualities and conversational powers.’ 6 Whether he met the young Anthony at this stage is uncertain. Patricia Neville-Sington, Fanny Trollope: The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman (New York: Viking, 1997), 264, describes Haliburton as a ‘large, burly, red-faced man who was also an inveterate tobacco chewer.’ Haliburton’s friendship with Mrs Frances Trollope (1780–1863), mother of the celebrated novelist, was an unlikely conjunction of opposites. Mrs Trollope’s prolific career as a social satirist, ‘a champion of women, children, and the labouring poor’ resulted in her addressing ‘such themes as political injustice, moral hypocrisy, and sexual inequality in a variety of genres’ (Ann-Barbara Graff, ‘“Fair, Fat and Forty”: Social Redress and Fanny Trollope’s Literary Activism,’ Fanny Trollope and the Novel of Social Change, ed. Brenda Ayres (Westport, CT:

Notes to pages 75–7 255

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22

Greenwood Press, 2002), 53. Haliburton invited Mrs Trollope’s live-in companion, artist Auguste Hervieu, to illustrate The Clockmaker in 1838. He had illustrated several of Mrs Trollope’s books in the 1830s, notably, The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, or, Scenes on the Mississippi, published by Richard Bentley in 1836. Hailed as one of the first abolitionist novels, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw most certainly placed Mrs Trollope on the furthest extreme from Haliburton’s known views on the subject of slavery. Fales Family Papers, Boston, Feb. 1, 1839 (Private Collection of Haliburton Fales II, Gladstone, New Jersey). Robert Grant Haliburton to ‘Blackwood,’ 2 July 1873, National Library of Scotland MS, 4304, James Haliburton to Robert Hay [28 August 1838?], and James Haliburton to Robert Hay, 28 September 1838, British Library, Add.Ms. 38094, 112, 114. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 223. 27 September 1838. British Library, Add. Ms. 46,613, 120. Ibid. Details of Haliburton’s bank account are quoted with permission of Virginia Barrington, Barnes, London, and Coutts & Co, 440 The Strand, London. Davies, ed., Letters, 100. ‘Portrait of Judge Haliburton,’ p. 5, col. b. Alexander F. Baillie, The Oriental Club and Hanover Square (London, 1901), 235, described Eddis as ‘the father of the Athenaeum Club.’ Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 243. Add. Ms. 46,637, Vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73. See William Kilbourn, The Firebrand William Lyon Mackenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956) and Joseph Schull, Rebellion: The Rising in French Canada 1837 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1996). See also William Lyon Mackenzie, Sketches of Canada and the United States (London: Effingham Wilson, 1833): ‘Were I a person of colour, and felt as I now feel, I would never rest nor cease my efforts until the last badge of degradation and inequality had been taken from the necks of my countrymen’ (274). The series of letters ‘By a Colonist’ ran in the Times from Monday, 18 February 1839, until the 26 February 1839 (a total of seven letters). Davies, ed., Letters, 94: He had said the same thing to Robert Parker: ‘I think it better than the first.’ Haliburton’s attitudes toward slavery have been analysed by George Elliott Clarke, an ‘Africadian’ and seventh-generation Nova Scotian, who has linked Haliburton’s racial prejudice to the history of conservatism. See his essays: ‘White Niggers, Black Slaves: Slavery, Race and Class in T.C. Haliburton’s

256 Notes to pages 78–81

23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31

32 33

The Clockmaker,’ Nova Scotia Historical Review 14, no. 1 (1994): 13–40; ‘Must We Burn Haliburton?’ in The Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997), 1–35. Davies, ed., Letters, 109. Ibid., 104. New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–2. Thomas Haliburton to Robert Parker, 2 July 1839, Ibid., 159–4. British Library Add. Ms. 46, 637, Vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73: ‘The Clockmaker ... 2 Vols post. 8vo.’ University College, London, ‘Greenough’s Diaries and Engagement Books,’ 7/43–46, 1839–42. I am indebted to Neil Cooke of London, England, for this information. Haliburton attended a dinner party with Greenough, Henry Burton, James Haliburton and others on 6 November, and repeated the visit on 4 December. On the 2 February, Haliburton dined with Decimus, his brother Alfred and others at Grove House, an invitation repeated on the 8 February. On 7 February, Greenough took Haliburton to Dunstable House, then to Charles Babbage’s soirée. Haliburton attended another gathering at Grove House on the 16 February along with the Hopkinsons, the Fearons, Decimus Burton, and Miss Burton. He attended there again on 22 February. Davies, ed., Letters, 106. Bristol Mirror, Saturday, 23 March 1839. Ibid., Saturday, 2 February 1839: ‘It is a fact that the ship’s letter-bag, made up at the Company’s office contained upwards of 4000 letters. This is in addition to the regular mail made up at the Post Office.’ On the return journey from the United States, there were 7,142 letters. Allington and Greenhill, The First Atlantic Liners, 15. See Charles Dickens, American Notes and Pictures from Italy (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), ch. 2, ‘The Passage Out’: ‘To say that all is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is nothing. Words cannot express it [the voyage out]. Thoughts cannot convey it. Only a dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and passion’ (16).

12: Bubbles of Canada and Reply to the Earl of Durham 1 Georgianna Haliburton, A Short Account of the Haliburtons of Windsor, Nova Scotia from 1760 to 1865. By a Relative [Georgianna Haliburton]. Boston, Mass., U.S.A., February 28 1873, New England Historic Geneological Society, Boston, 10–11. There is no clue as to the identity of the ‘party’ mentioned here. 2 Vol. 13 (1839), 354–5. 3 Vol. 49 (1839), 375–6.

Notes to pages 81–6 257 4 PANS, Bliss Family Papers, Lewis Bliss to Henry Bliss, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 10, 5 January 1839. 5 Haliburton, A Short Account, 11. 6 Davies, ed., Letters, 102. 7 Monthly Review 1 (1839), 300; The Spectator 12, no. 551 (1839): 64. 8 Add. Ms. 46,637, Vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73. ‘February 8 Sam Slick’s “Bubbles of Canada” 2nd edn. 12/- Honble Judge Haliburton 1 Vol. Demy 8 vo 500 Cox.’ 9 The Durham Report and British Policy: A Critical Essay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 4. Martin later comments: ‘Haliburton was a colonial Tory who had recently become widely known in Britain as the creator of Sam Slick, a home spun Yankee story-teller whose adventures were to fill a series of novels, all now deservedly forgotten’ (39). 10 Times, Wednesday, 30 January 1839, col. b. 11 Martin, Durham Report, 39. 12 PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 10, Henry Bliss to Lewis Bliss, 3 March 1839. A writer, calling himself ‘Also a Colonist,’ demonstrates some of the weaknesses of Haliburton’s attack on Lord Durham’s Report in the Acadian Recorder, 25 May 1839, p. 2, cols. 1–3: ‘Your letters ... abuse and vilify the Earl of Durham, the advocate of constitutional rights.’ 13 Ibid., Lewis Bliss to Henry Bliss, 5 January 1839. 14 Yankee Notions (London: Ball, Arnold, & Co., 1839), iv–v. 15 PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 10, Lewis Bliss to Henry Bliss, 5 January 1839. 16 Ibid., William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 15 April 1839. 17 Martin, Durham Report, 3: ‘It is nonetheless the argument of this essay that the evidence shows the Report to have been remarkably uninfluential in Britain at the time of its publication, that it exercised little influence on British policy and that it owes its high position in imperial historiography mainly to later symbolic misconceptions, especially in the twentieth century.’ 18 A Tale of a Tub, ed. A.C. Guthkelch and D. Nicol Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920), 171, ‘A Digression on Madness’: ‘For, if we take an Examination of what is generally understood by Happiness, as it has Respect, either to the Understanding or the Senses, we shall find all its Properties and Adjuncts will herd under this short Definition: That, it is a perpetual Possession of being well Deceived.’ 19 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 277–80, 284–5. 20 Novascotian, 12 June 1839. Chittick’s view is that ‘in spite of anything that the generous approval of his friends could do to restore it, Haliburton’s per-

258 Notes to pages 86–93

21 22 23 24 25

sonal popularity, none too general in Nova Scotia at any period of his career, never recovered’ (286). Ibid. Davies, ed., Letters, 249–53. Novascotian, 12 June 1839, 186. Ibid., 19 June 1839, 194. Ibid., 12 June 1839, 186.

13: Microcosms: Clifton and the Great Western 1 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–4, 2 July 1839. 2 De Coursey Fales, The Fales Family of Bristol, Rhode Island. Ancestry of Haliburton Fales of New York (privately printed, 1919), 137. His articles appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript. 3 Haliburton Fales to Abigail Fales, 24 June 1839, PANS, MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 41. 4 Davies, ed., Letters, 106. 5 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–4. 6 Lewis Bliss to Henry Bliss, 15 July 1839, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1606, no. 10, refers to Haliburton driving William back from Windsor in his chaise, leaving ‘Miss Haliburton to follow in the coach.’ William’s other daughter, Fanny, spent most of July and August with the Haliburtons at Clifton (William Bliss to Henry Bliss, 24 August 1839). 7 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–4. 8 Louisa Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Clifton, 22nd October 1839, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 2Ae. 9 George Halliburton to Augusta Dunlap, 15 June 1841, PANS, MG 1, vol. 2950A, no. 32. 10 Louisa Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Clifton, 22nd October 1839, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 2Ae. See also Davies, ed., Letters, 108–9. 11 Louisa Haliburton to Mrs Wood, ‘Windsor,’ 25 November 1839, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Af. 12 Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, ‘53 Brenton St, Halifax,’ July 18 [1886?], ibid., Section 1, Series 3Ad. Susanna sent Augusta the first ten chapters of their projected anthology of Haliburton’s writing. ‘Your great care & trouble,’ she wrote, ‘will be in putting your pen through all those nasty jokes, which poor mama never could stand.’ 13 Louisa Haliburton to Mrs Wood, Windsor, 25 November 1839, ibid., Section 1, Series 1Af. 14 James Knox to Alexander Haliburton, Tipperlinne, March 6, 1855, ibid., Section 1, Series 3Fa. 15 Bristol Mirror, 26 May 1838.

Notes to pages 94–6 259 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23

24

25 26

27 28

29 30 31 32

Ibid., 7 April 1838. Davies, ed., Letters, 107. Ibid., 108. Ibid., 109. Ibid. British Library, Add. Ms. 46, 637, vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73. Bentley deposited his note for £250 in Haliburton’s bank account at Coutts and Co. on 19 June 1840 and 19 September 1840. George L. Parker, ed., The Clockmaker, Series One, Two, and Three (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995), 773–5. British Library, Add. Ms. 46, 637, vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73. Later editions of Haliburton’s work, such as The Attaché, began to decline in numbers from 2,500 to 2,000 as the writer’s popularity waned. For background on the steamship phenomenon, see R.A. Fletcher, Travelling Palaces: Luxury in Passenger Ships (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd, 1913), 34–5; Francis Hyde, Cunard and the North Atlantic 1840–1873: A History of Shipping and Financial Management (London: Macmillan, 1975), 4–14; Brinnin, The Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic (London: MacMillan, 1972), 95; J.C. Arnell, Steam and the North Atlantic Mails: The Impact of the Cunard Line and Subsequent Steamship Companies on the Carriage of Transatlantic Mails (Canada: Unitrade Press, 1986), 51. Robert Gardner, ed., The Advent of Steam: The Merchant Ship before 1900 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1993), 127. Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard, Steam, Politics, and Patronage: The Transformation of the Royal Navy, 1815–54 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1994), 25. Basil Greenhill and Peter Allington in The First Atlantic Liners of 1997) discuss in detail the subject of seamanship in the age of transition. Gardner, ed., The Advent of Steam, 166–8. Lewis Bliss to Henry Bliss, 1 February 1842, PANS, Bliss Family Papers, MG 1, vol. 1607, no. 3: ‘Dickens came out in the last steamer – Every body ran to see him ... Howe carried him off – took him to the opening of the Legislature session and lionized him as far as possible. The day was fine & upon the whole Halifax had its best face on, yet the Author may have spied out a few wrinkles & deformities. Will he shew these up?’ (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1972). Ibid., 41. Ibid., 42. Evidence in the Wilson Collection confirms that Haliburton owned a Watteau. The Foundations of Political Thought: An Anglo American Tradition in Perspective (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), 177–83, ‘Conclusion: Conservatism and Modernity.’

260 Notes to pages 97–104 33 Thomas Haliburton to Robert Parker, 28 November 1837, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–9. 34 Harbour, The Foundations of Political Thought, 181. 35 Ibid., 183. 36 ‘Haliburton, Maritime Intellectuals and “The Problem of Freedom,”’ in The Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997), 195–235. 14: More Clockmaking and More New Relations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

Davies, ed., Letters, 120. Ed. George L. Parker. 7 November 1840. 14 November 1840. 27 November 1840, 6. Halifax, 25 December 1840, PAC, MG 24, B29, vol. 33. Halifax, 2 January 1841, ibid. Howe is not more precise about what offended him. It would appear that in Haliburton’s list of patriots he saw himself lampooned. Davies, ed., Letters, 119. 27 October 1840, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Bc. Copy of a letter from Thomas Haliburton to Ellen Fowden Haliburton, Windsor, Nova Scotia, 30 November 1840, ibid., Series 1Aa. William Kenneth Rutherford and Anna Clay (Zimmerman) Rutherford, Genealogical History of the Halliburton Family (Kansas City, MO: Brown-WhiteLowell Press, 1959), ‘Generations of David Halyburton Son of Tructe the Saxon, Scotland, 1176–1824,’ 7–35. Thomas Haliburton to Ellen Fowden Haliburton, Windsor, Nova Scotia, 30 November 1840, Wilson Collection, 1, Series 1Aa. PANS, MG1, vol. 2950A, no. 47. Alexander Fowden Haliburton to Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Whitely, 4 November 1842, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Bd.

15: The Death of Louisa 1 See Judith Fingard, Janet Guildford, and David Sutherland, eds., Halifax: The First 250 Years (Halifax: Formac Publishing, 1999), 29. 2 Lady Falkland Album, Documentary and Photography Division, National Archives of Canada, Ottawa. See 1990-207-76X, Head and Shoulders of an Indian; 1990-207-77X, Indian Woman; 1990-207-95X Nancy Lewis; 1990-20796RX, Profile of an Old Indian Woman; 1990-207-97X, Anne Alexis, 1845. Amelia

Notes to pages 104–9 261

3

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

FitzClarence, the last of Mrs Jordan’s children by the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), was born in March 1807. She was thirty-four years old and stunningly beautiful. See, for example, Emma Haliburton’s A Ball, Halifax, N.S. and Luncheon at the Mess Room the Day of the Sham Fight, July 26th [Halifax]. PAC, Lady Falkland’s Collection. See Jim Burant et al., A Place in History: Twenty Years of Acquiring Paintings, Drawings and Prints at the National Archives of Canada (Ottawa: National Archives of Canada, 1991), 103. Chittick, Thomas Chaudler Haliburton, 415. Ibid., 416–17. 8 April 1841. PAC, MG24, I, 182, vol. 3, 1477. Thomas Haliburton to Lord Stanley, London, 21 August 1843, Davies, ed., Letters, 134. PANS, MG 1, 1607, no. 2. Elizabeth Anne Bliss to William Blowers Bliss, 3 August 1841, ibid. William Blowers Bliss to his son William, 17 September 1841, PANS, MG 1, 1607, no. 2. S.A. Bliss to William Blowers Bliss, 2 September 1841, ibid. Elizabeth Anne Bliss to William Blowers Bliss, 17 November 1841, ibid. PAC, King-Stewart Family Papers, MG 24, I, 182, vol. 3, File 4, 1331–2. See Emily Weaver’s article. The gist of the article was previously published in Builders of the Dominion: Men of the East (Toronto: Copp, Clark Company, 1904), 74, ‘Judge Haliburton or, “Sam Slick.”’ Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 2Ae. Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, 4 April [1886], ibid., Series 3Ac. Davies, ed., Letters, 125. The letter is undated. The Attaché itself was published on 1 July 1843 (Bentley’s ledger, British Library Add. Ms. 46,637, vol.1, 1829– 73). Ibid., 132. ‘Thomas Chandler Haliburton,’ in Canadian Writers and Their Works, vol. 2, ed. Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley (Toronto: ECW Press, 1989), 63. 14 (1843): 81–94. Bentley reprinted the M. Gauci print of the painting by E.H. Eddis. Davies, ed., Letters, 128. Ibid., 128–9. Bentley’s Miscellany, 83. No. 850 (Saturday, 15 July 1843): 650. No. 785 (Saturday, 15 July 1843): 664–5.

262 Notes to pages 109–13 28 29 30 31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Fourth Series (1843): 475. 1, 348–9. 7 (12 August 1843). Davies, ed., Letters, 130. Ibid., 131. Privately, in 1843, while in London, Haliburton tried to make contact with Henry Bliss, his old schoolmate, but Bliss expressed reluctance to meet him. Haliburton remembered the slight and wrote about it in the second series of The Attaché: ‘If your skunk of a bluenose friend could a-made anything out o’ you, he’d a-called on you the day arter you arrived.’ R.A.J. Walling, ed., The Diaries of John Bright (New York: William Morrow, 1931), 150. See Lorna Clymer, ‘Cromwell’s Head and Milton’s Hair: Corpse Theory and Spectacular Bodies of the Interregnum,’ The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 40, no. 2 (1999): 91–112. See also Antonia Fraser, in Cromwell Our Chief of Men (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), 697 et seq. who offers a summary of the ‘fate of the head.’ I am indebted to Dr James Gray for the latter reference. The head was eventually buried in secret at Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960. (New York, 1843), 1: 348. Davies, ed., Letters, 132. Ibid., 133. PRO. CO 217/185 f.243. Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ab. Houghton Library, Harvard University, 45M-546, Richard Bentley to his Manager, ‘Albion Place, Ramsgate, Aug. 24, 1843.’ 4 September 1843, 283.

16: A Three-Hundred-Year-Old Tory Returned to Life 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

8 January 1844: 211–7. Davies, ed., Letters, 135. Ibid., 136. Ibid., 137. Ibid., 137–8. Harvard University, Houghton Library MS, 45M-546. Davies, ed., Letters, 140. 3 June 1844, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159– 5. 9 No. 854 (9 November 1844): 1073. 10 4th ser., no. 3 (1844): 564.

Notes to pages 113–20 263 11 Reviewed in the Athenaeum and reprinted in Littel’s Living Age 4 (1845): 161. 12 Davies, ed., Letters, 139. 13 Ibid., 142. 14 33: 505–14. 15 Ibid., 35: 141–7. 16 (Ottawa: Tecumseh Press, 1978). 17 Davies, ed., Letters, 149. 18 Parks, ed., The Old Judge, viii. 19 Katharine Morrison, ‘In Haliburton’s Nova Scotia: “The Old Judge or Life in a Colony,”’ Canadian Literature 101 (1984): 67. 20 Cahill, ‘The “Old Judge” in The Old Judge: Nostalgic Tory-Loyalism as the Key to Understanding Nova Scotia’s Pre-Modern Culture,’ in The Haliburton BiCentenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997), 261. 21 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 492–3, cites locals ‘within very recent years’ affirming that ‘the original of the Old Judge himself was Judge William Frederick Desbarres.’ 22 Quoted by Paul R. Lilly, Jr ‘Augustus Baldwin Longstreet,’ Dictionary of Literary Biography. vol. 2, American Humorists, 1800–1950, Part 1, A–L, ed. Stanley Trachtenberg (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982), 278. 23 Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor (Westport, CT: 1972), 63. Lyman Hall’s contributions to Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. in the First Half Century of the Republic (1835) are darker than Baldwin’s (his sketches tend to mix cynicism and nostalgia for a lost world). ‘The Ball’ (one of Baldwin’s sketches) compares interestingly with ‘A Ball at Government House,’ told by Old Judge Sandford in The Old Judge (1849). See David Rachels, ed., Augustus Baldwin Longstreet’s Georgia Scenes Completed (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1998), 80–7. 24 The Old Judge, 2: 173–226, ch. 17 and 18. 25 Sun, 17 January 1849: 3, cols b. and c. 26 2, cols c & d. 27 February 3, 1849: 71, col. c. 17: The Death of Tom Jr 1 See above, chapter 9, ‘Career in Crisis.’ 2 Admission and Discharge Register, 1952–2864. The hospital admitted George Mordaunt Haliburton, Haliburton’s uncle, in 1824 and 1840. 3 Samuel B. Thielman, ‘Madness and Medicine: Trends in American Medical

264 Notes to pages 120–3

4

5

6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Therapeutics for Insanity, 1820–1860,’ Bulletin of the History of Medicine 61 (1987): 29. Thielman discusses bloodletting and drugs, ibid., 37–9, 40–6. See also Nina Fletcher Little, Early Years of the McLean Hospital (Boston: 1972), 113: ‘Moral treatment had not eliminated the more rigorous treatment of insanity but had merely softened it.’ Mary Ann Jimenez, Changing Faces of Madness: Early American Attitudes and Treatment of the Insane (Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 1987), 134. Little, Early Years of the McLean Hospital, 120. Ibid., 119. Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Physician and Superintendent of the McLean Asylum for the Insane, to the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, 1842), 26. Twenty-Second Annual Report (Boston, 1840), 17. Windsor, N.S., 3 June 1844, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–5. Admission and Discharge Register, Patient no. 2001. Davies, ed., Letters, 144. The asylum asked families to reimburse funeral expenses in the case of death. De Coursey Fales, The Fales Family of Bristol, Rhode Island Ancestry of Haliburton Fales of New York (privately printed, 1919), 191. See Barbara Rotundo, ‘Mount Auburn Cemetery: A Proper Boston Institution,’ Harvard Library Bulletin 22 (July 1974): 268–79: ‘A True Bostonian ... I own a villa, lawn, arcades, And last a handsome burial lot In dead Mount Auburn’s hallowed shades. St. Peter mused, and shook his head, Then as a gentle sign he drew. ‘go back to Boston, friend,’ he said, Heaven isn’t good enough for you.’ Parker, ed., The Clockmaker, 584. Rotundo, ‘Mount Auburn Cemetery,’ 270. Deaths Registered in the City of Boston from 1801 to 1848 Inclusive. St Matthew’s Church Register, 55, no. 318. Davies, ed., Letters, 191. Little, Early Years of the McLean Hospital, 50. Lady Falkland to Susanna Haliburton, Decr 16, 1845, Wilson Collection, Section I, Series 3Ab. Hants County Land Registry Office, 30, nos. 208 and 209.

Notes to pages 123–6 265 23 Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, Acc: JRR 2212, Cab II, Repro: T 15846. 24 Wilson Collection, Section I, Series 3Ae, Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, ‘53 Brenton Street, 28 July [1887].’ 25 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP), ‘C’ Series B.1.10 fo.106–26, Reel 25, 9 January 1854. 26 Davies, ed., Letters, 150. 27 Ibid., 150–1. 28 See below chapter 25, ‘The Canada Land and Emigration Company.’ 29 Davies, ed., Letters, 154. 30 First Series, No. 30 ‘A Tale of Bunker’s Hill’: ‘Did you ever see, said he, a congregation split right in two by a quarrell, and one part go off and set up for themselves’ (Parker, Clockmaker, 179); Second Series, Chapter 5, ‘Travelling in America’: ‘Our congregation, said I, at Slickville, contained most of the wealthy and respectable folk there, and a most powerful and united body it was. Well, there came a split once on the election of an Elder, and a body of the upper-crust folks separated and went off in a huff’ (Parker, 254) 31 See R.V. Harris, The Church of Saint Paul in Halifax, N.S., 1749–1949 (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1949), chapter 21, ‘Disruption and Division (1824– 1825),’ 164–73. 32 Archives of the Diocese of Nova Scotia Anglican Church of Canada, SPGFP ‘C,’ Series B. 1/10, 106–26, Reel 17, item 378. 33 John Bainbridge Smith to the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, ibid., Reel 31. 34 See Kit and Frederica Konolige, The Power and The Glory. America’s Ruling Class: the Episcopalians (New York: Wyden Books, 1978). 35 Davies, ed., Letters, 137. 36 Ibid., 143. 37 British Library, Add. Ms. 46, 641, 137–8. 38 Davies, ed., Letters, 157. 39 Gettman, A Victorian Publisher, 23–6. 40 Davies, ed., Letters, 175. 41 Ibid., 148. 42 Ibid., 143. 43 Ibid., 148–9. 44 Ibid., 149. 45 Ibid., 152. 46 Ibid., 153. 47 Stanley E. McMullin, ‘In Search of the Tory Mind: Thomas Chandler Haliburton and Egerton Ryerson,’ in The Thomas Chandler Haliburton Symposium, ed. Frank Tierney (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1985), 48.

266 Notes to pages 127–31 48 Ibid., 2. 49 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 509. 18: Stepping Out of the Frame 1 Thomas Haliburton to Alexander Fowden Haliburton, 21 March 1849, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ac. 2 Davies, ed., Letters, 109. 3 Thomas Haliburton to Alexander Fowden Haliburton, 21 March 1849, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ac. 4 Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Lunenburg, 18 Ap[ril] [18]49, ibid., Section 1, Series 1Ad. 5 Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, 53 Brenton St 2nd Jany [1887], ibid., Section 1, Series 3Ag. 6 The Chandler Family, ibid., Series 3Db: four pages in Emma Maria’s hand (signed ‘EMS’) containing details of the Uphams. 7 See also two unpublished letters from Thomas Chandler Haliburton to Charles W. Upham (1802–75), both written in 1826 following the death of Charles Upham’s mother (See the Upham Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, 42: 490, 665. I am indebted to David Bell at the University of New Brunswick for drawing these letters to my attention. 8 She began collecting Loyalist china. See Marie Elwood, ‘Two 19th Century Collectors and Their Collections,’ American Ceramic Circle Journal 7 (1989): 7–23. 9 Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Windsor 17th Sepr [18]49, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ae. 10 Davies, ed., Letters, 145. 11 Laura had a home in Halifax, Nova Scotia (‘Oaklands’) and a succession of homes in London, among them Orleans House in Twickenham, and the Villa Lefevre near Nice in the South of France, where she eventually died in 1910. According to Kay Grant, Samuel Cunard: Pioneer of the Atlantic Steamship (London: Abelard-Schurman, 1947), ‘Laura entertained in the grand style’ (164). 12 Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Windsor 17th Sepr [18]49, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ae. 13 A good account of the matter can be found in George Patterson’s ‘Side Lights on Haliburton,’ More Studies in Nova Scotia History (Halifax: The Imperial Publishing Company, 1941), 98–110. 14 Ibid., 98. Patterson’s source is Alexander James, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (Halifax: James Barnes, 1855),

Notes to pages 131–3 267

15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28

29

1: 350–63, ‘Bank of Nova Scotia v. Haliburton.’ On 4 February 1852, he sold Haliburton Farm on the Kennetcook River (1,000 acres) to Andrew Morrison for £500 (Hants County Land Registry Office, 34, no. 219). On 1 April he entered into a bond with Joseph Thompson for £300 (34, no. 287). On 29 March 1853, he sold 1,000 acres in Douglas for £250 (34, no. 286), and he reassigned a mortgage for £150 with Joseph Thompson to Francis Salt (the former Windsor schoolmaster), now living in Great Yarmouth, England (34, no. 288). Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Windsor 17th Sepr [18]49, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ae. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 573–4. Coutts & Co. account. Followed by another £50 on 16 April 1852. Coutts & Co. account. Allen B. Penney, ‘An Architectural Interpretation of ‘Clifton’ Grove, Windsor, Nova Scotia: Home of the Honourable Thomas Chandler Haliburton,’ in The Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies, 103–14 (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997). Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, 2 May 1851, Wilson Collection, Scetion 1, Series 1Af. Penney, ‘An Architectural Interpretation,’ 118, Figure 10. Robert became a lawyer. Although Haliburton claimed Arthur’s suitability for the church, Arthur eventually entered the Army Commissariat and served with eventual distinction. Spirit of the Times 21, 24 May 1851, 52. See Traits, 3, 70–8. Davies, ed., Letters, 122. Traits, 1: xvii. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 543. Novascotian, 13 June 1839, 187, cols. a and b. Speaking on behalf of Slick, Haliburton says ‘he has a friend that the Americans are considerable proud of, and he is one that I am happy to say is most popular in the Colonies, and highly esteemed in England, namely J Davies Esq, the author of “Major Jack Downing.”’ Charles A. Davis’s column in the New York Advertiser became Letters of J. Downing, Major, Downingville Militia, second Brigade, to his old friend, Mr. Dwight of the New York Daily Advertiser (New York, 1834). See Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 367–74. Seba Smith, creator of Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing, of Downingville, Away Down East, in the State of Maine (Portland, ME, 1833) found himself trumped by a successful imitator. For a discussion of the Brother Jonathan figure, see Winifred Morgan, An American Icon: Brother Jonathan and American Identity (Newark: University of

268 Notes to pages 133–8

30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41

Delaware Press, 1988). ‘Brother Jonathan’ eventually gave way to ‘Uncle Sam’ (18). This indebtedness did not prevent Haliburton picking up ideas from others nearer to home: Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton (378–9) cites the inference of the Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure (1821–2), first published in the Acadian Recorder. D.M.R. Bentley argues for another influence in a passage from John Howison’s Sketches of Upper Canada (1821) that Haliburton clearly adopted for the opening chapter of the first scene of The Clockmaker, in 1835. See ‘Another Source for Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s The Clockmaker’ in Canadian Poetry 30 (Spring/Summer, 1992): 74–7. However, the evidence of Haliburton’s life-long interest in early American humorous writing and his early acknowledgment of it is very strong. Norris W. Yates, William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times: A Study of the Big Bear School of Humor (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), 5. Ibid., 17. Both are published in Philadelphia, the first by T.B. Peterson and the second by Carey and Hart. (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson and Brothers, 1851). Porter, xii. Yates, William T. Porter, 15. (Westport, CT, 1972), 64. Ibid., 84–6. Ibid., 114. See Ross Kilpatrick, ‘Education, Culture, and the Classics in Thomas Chandler Haliburton: Sundry Observations by Mr. Samuel Slick of Slickville, Onion County, Connecticut,’ Cahiers des études anciennes 34 (1998): 65–75. Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor, 136. For Sam Slick’s Wise Saws I, 8, ‘The Best Natured Man in the World’ 173.

19: Sam Slick Rides Again 1 Davies, ed., Letters, 167. 2 Ibid., 121. 3 Bentley’s Publication List, vol. 1. 1829–1873, British Library, Add. Ms. 46, 637, vol. 78. Bentley issued 1,000 copies. 4 Davies, ed., Letters, 155 n1. 5 Ibid., 155. 6 Ibid., 157–8. 7 Ibid., 159. 8 British Library Add Ms, 46,641, 233–4: Bentley’s Letterbook 24 July 1852.

Notes to pages 139–43 269 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22

23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Davies, ed., Letters, 160. Coutts & Co. account, entries for 19 April 1853 and 2 February 1855. Bentley’s Miscellany (London, 1853), 33: 734–5. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 545. Davies, ed., Letters, 160. ‘White Niggers, Black Slaves: Slavery, Race and Class in T.C. Haliburton’s The Clockmaker,’ Nova Scotia Historical Review 14 (1994): 13–40. Pseud. Mark Littleton, Swallow Barn; or, A Sojourn in the Old Dominion (Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1832). See Lewis P. Simpson’s The Dispossessed Garden: Pastoral and History in Southern Literature (Athens: University of Georgia, 1975), 43. Southern Literary Messenger 19 (1853). Chambers Edinburgh Journal 19–20 (1853): 394–96. 18 June 1853, p. 3, cols. a and b. Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, Barrington, 2nd May 1851, Friday evening, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Af. Davies, ed., Letters, 162–3. Haliburton appealed to the Duke of Newscastle, Colonial Secretary, for an exemption from the docking of half his salary while on leave. Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 5c. The Latin is from Virgil’s Aeneid, Book 1, line 203, translated as: ‘It is good to remember these things in the future,’ spoken by Aeneas, following a terrible storm, when safely landed on the coast. The implication is that the steamer might have come through some rough weather. I am grateful to Dr Beert Verstraete of Acadia University’s History and Classics Department for help in identifying the allusion. Coutts & Co account. Recollections of her early life told to me when a child & afterwards by my mother, Wilson Collection, Series 3Ca, a family journal written by Susanna Weldon. Terry Tucker, Bermuda Today and Yesterday, 1503–1973 (London: Robert Hale & Company, 1975), 116. William Zuill, Bermuda Journey: A Leisurely Guidebook (Hamilton, Bermuda, [1946], 1984), 88. Henry C. Wilkinson, Bermuda from Sail to Steam: The History of the Island from 1784 to 1901 (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 2: 635. Ibid., 2: 637. Ibid., 2: 640. Ibid., 2: 638. Ibid., 2: 636. Chapter 3, ‘Pro-Slavery Men in England,’ Autobiography of A Fugitive Negro: His

270 Notes to pages 143–8

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42

43

44 45 46 47

Anti-Slavery Labors in The United States, Canada, & England [1855]. (Repr. London: Johnson Publishing Co., 1970). Ibid., 180. Wilson Collection, Section 2, Series 1Fa. Davies, ed., Letters, 162. Ibid., 162–3. Ibid., 163–4. See Professor Von Holtzendorff, An English Country Squire As Sketched at Hardwicke Court Gloucestershire, trans. Rosa Gebhard (Gloucester, 1878), 3. ‘Supplement,’ Gloucester Journal, 16 July 1853. See H.E. Litchfield, Emma Darwin, Wife of Charles Darwin: A Century of Family Letters (Privately Printed: Cambridge University Press, 1904), 1: 180: ‘My father kept to the end of his life a warm friendship for Sarah, the eldest Miss Owen (afterwards Mrs Haliburton), and many were the stories we heard about his visits to Woodhouse.’ Cf: Adrian Desmond and James Moore, The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist: Darwin (New York: Warner Books Edition, 1992), 46. Harvard Library MS, 45 M 542. The letter is black-bordered, undated, and headed, ‘Grosvenor Hotel, Park St, Saturday Evening.’ Davies, ed., Letters, 201–2. Two additional letters of Sarah Harriet’s to Robert Parker survive at the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, Webster Manuscript Collection, dated 21 January 1865, and 18 March 1865. Both reveal Sarah’s solicitude for her husband. 27 October 1856: ‘We understand that the ex-judge T.C. Haliburton who, in consequence of “age and infirmities” retired the other day from active life and the duties of the Bench, has just taken to himself a wife, in England, as a prop for the rest of his way. Let the “Clockmaker” alone for driving a good bargain. We are sorry not to have it in our power to “journalise” particulars, but we beg leave to wish the Old Judge every happiness in this closing term of his “resignation.”’ See Lady Charlotte Schreiber’s Journals: Confidences of a Collector of Ceramics, ed. Montague J. Guest (London, 1911). British Library, Add. Ms. 46, 637, vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73. Cork Examiner, Friday evening, 12 August 1853, ‘Last Night’s Banquet.’ Davies, ed., Letters, 166.

20: End of an Era 1 Novascotian, 19 September 1853, 303. 2 Davies, ed., Letters, 168–70.

Notes to pages 148–50 271 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11 12 13 14

15 16 17

18

19

Ibid., 170. Ibid., 168–9. PANS, RG1, vol. 158, 130. Davies, ed., Letters, 170. Ibid., 172. Joseph Howe to Thomas Haliburton, 19 November 1853, PRO, CO 217/212. Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant to the Duke of Newcastle, Government House, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 23 November 1853, PRO, CO217/212, no.73, 48–9. Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant to the Duke of Newcastle, ‘Government House, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 23 November 1853, PRO, CO217/212, no.73, 48–9. Davies, ed., Letters, 174. Ibid., 173. Ibid., 174. Thomas Chandler Haliburton to Joseph Howe, Windsor 15th March 1854, PAC, Joseph Howe Papers, MG 24 B 29, vol. 51, 119–20. Previously unpublished. I am grateful to Dr Ruth Panofsky for bringing this letter to my attention. PANS, RG1, vol. 158, 144. Davies, ed., Letters, 175. Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, 53 Brenton St, Oct 17 [1887], Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Af: ‘There is only one thing I am anxious to ascertain. Whether all copyright has ceased – & we are at liberty to select & publish.’ Novascotian, 26 June 1854, p. 3. col. c; p. 6., col. d., ‘Passengers’; 3 July 1854, p. 6, col. d, ‘haliburton-haliburton – On the 27th ult. at Windsor, by the Rev. Edwin Gilpin, A. M. Fowden Haliburton, Esq of Whitely near Wigan, to Augusta Lousia Neville, Daughter of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, of “Clifton,” near Windsor.’ Augusta Haliburton to Jane Fowden Haliburton, n.d. [written prior to 16 June 1856],Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ba: ‘Between Boodle and myself we have two portmanteaus & two bags – Then there is a portmanteau full of books medecine chest essence of coffee & some other little things of the sort. A large leather roll like a monster Bologna sausage containing two hair mattresses with a sort of stuff they call American Leather on one side it is waterproof & if one wants it in the daytime part is like a leather cushion air pillows – A gun case, a Clacking case, arrowroot – Bags of carpenter’s tools & two portable Baths which fold up quite flat – & some other little things among them – a flag for our Nile boat. – Then the ninth is the old red bag,

272 Notes to pages 150–2

20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29 30 31 32

33

which was intended to have been sent back to Whitely but when the last moments came every thing was full & there were still odds & ends about ... I don’t think for three people it is much for such a journey as taking out the books & bedding it is only two packages for each person. We have a canvas bag for all the umbrellas & canes, & a portable drawing table A. got for me – the top goes in my box & the legs with the umbrella.’ Alexander Haliburton to Jane Fowden Haliburton, 12 June 1856, ibid., 3Be: ‘We knocked Arthur up the morning we arrived and it was very early – he looks well but perhaps thinner.’ James Knox to Alexander Fowden Haliburton, Tipperlinne, 6 March 1855, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Fa: ‘I did not, till this moment observe that you have the Judge with you at Whitley just now, and I am overjoyed to find it so, though I fear he may be gone before this reaches you.’ British Architectural Library, Burton/Croker Papers, BuD/1/6/14. I am grateful to Neil Cooke of London for this reference. Coutts & Co. account: the entry is dated 2 February 1855. Diary of Sir John Beverley Robinson England Jan to June 1855, J.B. Robinson Papers, Ontario Public Archives, Toronto, MS 4 (9), 1064–5. Davies, ed., Letters, 177. PANS, MS, RG 5, Series ‘U,’ vol. 24, no. 87. On 29 January 1856, he sold Perez Cunningham, Barrister at Law, for £400, a lot of two-and-a-half acres in Windsor he had once purchased from Harry King (Hants County Land Registry Office, 37, no. 158). On the 5 April 1856, he sold a further 200 acres in Douglas to Richard Parker (Ibid., no. 147), and on 1 July, he sold Clifton (Ibid., no. 298). Hants County Land Registry Office, 37, no. 299. Haliburton signed partial releases to Pellow on the 9 January 1862 and 13 August 1864 (ibid., 44, no. 107; 47, no. 53). By 5 May 1865, just several months before his death, Pellow still owed a large amount to Haliburton, who transacted another partial release on 3 July 1865 (ibid., 47, no. 396; 48, no. 7). Ibid., 37, no. 299. Ibid., 37, no. 315. Davies, ed., Letters, 178. Hants County Land Registry Office, 38, no. 17. On 29 June 1865, two months before his death, Haliburton registered an ‘Assignment’ in which John Bailey Bland, of Halifax, returned the ‘Indenture’ to Haliburton after receiving the £2,050 Haliburton owed him (ibid., 48, no. 7721). Sketch of the Life of Captain Lawrence Neville, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Bg, 2–3.

Notes to pages 153–62 273 34 The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain 1830–1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 170–1. 35 PANS, MG 100 vol. 247, no. 22. Microfilm no. 9959. 36 Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, 53 Brenton St, 28 July [1887], Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ae. As W.D. Rubenstein indicates in his book, Britain’s Century: A Political and Social History, 1815–1905 (London: Arnold, 1999), 223: ‘The year 1887 saw the 60th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837. This event, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, was celebrated by a grand public ceremony on 21 June 1887, the likes of which had never been seen before, and formed one of the best-remembered events of that time.’ 37 Shrewsbury Chronicle, 10 October 1856, 4, col. 6. 38 Alan C.B. Urwin, Railshead, Isleworth: The History of Gordon, Lacy, and St. Margaret’s Houses (Newport, Mon: Hounslow and District Society, 1974), reprints the ‘Parish Rate Books,’ which lists those persons responsible for paying the rates on the property. Haliburton made quarterly rental payments to Lord Frederick Hallyburton (a detail revealed by the entries in his bank account at Coutts & Co). 39 Sarah Harriet Haliburton to Robert Parker, Jany 21st 1865, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 157–12. Sarah Harriet Haliburton to Robert Parker, 4 Queen Street, Mayfair, March 18th [18]65, ibid., 159–13: ‘By this mail, you will probably be somewhat surprised to receive a queer looking little bag, containing flower seeds.’ 40 Return for Gordon House, PRO RG 9/771. 41 Post Office Directory (1856), 49. 42 S. Bagshaw, Shropshire Gazeteer (1851), 500–1. 43 See Urwin, Railshead. 21: A New Career 1 Quoted with other glowing praise in the Standard, 16 March 1855. 2 No. 1428, 10 March 1855, 287. 3 Urwin in Railshead mentions that the first school to use Gordon House, a certified Industrial School for girls (39), opened on 12 December 1897 and closed in 1922 (45). The Maria Grey College for the training of teachers (founded in 1878) moved to Gordon House in September 1949. 4 See ‘Frontispiece’ in Davies, ed., Letters. 5 Ibid., 184. 6 5, cols. d. and e. Reprinted also in the Standard, 19 December 1856, cols. c. and d.

274 Notes to pages 162–8 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15 16 17

Ibid., col. d. Chapter 6, ‘Snubbing a Snob.’ Times, 19 December 1856, 5, col. e. Ibid., col. f. John W. Cell, British Colonial Administration in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Policy Making Process (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), 28. Ibid., 42. Davies, ed., Letters, 186. Ibid., 189. See Amelia Carey, Chow-Chow; Being Selections From a Journal Kept in India, Egypt, and Syria: By the Viscountess Falkland, 2 vols. (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1857) and Chow-Chow: A Journal Kept in India, Egypt and Syria, ed. H.G. Rawlinson (London: Scholartis Press, 1930). Now in the possession of Nicholas Charrington, Shropshire, England. Details of William B. Watkins’s career can be found in the Manchester Official Handbook (1843 onwards). Davies, ed., Letters, 189. See W.D. Rubenstein, Britain’s Century: A Political and Social History, 1815–1905 (London: Arnold, 1998), 131–2.

22: A Hectic Social Life 1 See T.A. Jenkins, The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1994), 105: ‘the institutional, clubbable atmosphere of Westminster.’ 2 Coutts & Co. account. 3 Standard, 20 May 1857, col. g. 4 Ibid. For the purpose of the fund, see The Royal Literary Fund ... Annual Reports 1857 (London, 1857). 5 Standard, Wednesday, 26 August 1857, col. f. 6 Ibid., 17 June 1857. 7 Davies, ed., Letters, 192. 8 ‘Something about the Shoeblacks of London,’ Middlesex Chronicle, 14 March 1863. 9 Davies, ed., Letters, 193. 10 Reported in Standard, 26 August 1857, 5, cols. e. and f. 11 The Horizon History of the British Empire, ed. Stephen W. Sears (American Heritage Publishing, 1973), 172. 12 Ibid. According to George Trevor, India: An Historical Sketch (London: Religious Tract Society, n.d. [1858?]), ix–xii, the act in question, ‘An Act of Parliament for the Better Government of India’ (21 and 22 Vict., c. 106) took

Notes to pages 168–73 275

13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

effect from 2 September 1858, thirty days after it was passed. I am indebted to Dr James Gray for this information. Standard, 26 August 1857, 5, col. e. Davies, ed., Letters, 199n2 and n6. British Library, Add. Ms. 46,642, 163. Davies, ed., Letters, 200–1. Colonel Inglis at Lucknow to General Havelock, Wilson Collection, Section I, Series 1Cb: a copy of a coded letter ‘enclosed in wax in a quill, suitable for being sent by pigeon.’ I am indebted to Patricia Wilson’s notes and deductions for this fascinating piece of information. Davies, ed., Letters, 194. Ibid., 195. Times, 12 April 1858, 10, col. b. Davies, ed., Letters, 197. Gloucester Journal, 21 November 1857: ‘conservative dinner.’ Davies, ed., Letters, 195–6. Ibid., 196. W. Russell to Thomas Haliburton, Jan 28, [18]58, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–8. Davies, ed., Letters, 241–2. Ibid., 199. Robert Grant Haliburton to W. Blackwood, 2 August 1881, Scottish National Library, Autographs, 4419. Davies, ed., Letters, 202. Ibid., 201–2. J.B. Atlay, Lord Haliburton: A Memoir of His Public Service (London, 1909), 4. Arthur gave the walking stick to Mr Bayard, the United States Minister, in 1897. Davies, ed., Letters, 202. For example, Ibid., 201–2. ‘Sam Slick in Parliament,’ Launceston Weekly News, 18 June 1859. From the Illustrated Times. Davies, ed., Letters, 203. Ibid., 205–6. Novascotian, 29 March 1827, ‘Supplement,’ col. b, ‘I never liked petticoat government, and this completed my distaste to it’ (Haliburton’s description of the Executive Council in Nova Scotia after their rejection of his Education Bill). Of the Executive Council he wrote: ‘They consist of twelve dignified, deep read, pensioned, old ladies, but filled with prejudices and whims like all other antiquated spinsters.’

276 Notes to pages 173–6 38 Anthony Trollope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 245 and 254. According to N. John Hall, Trollope: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 112 passim and 374–5, Trollope visited a slave plantation in Cuba where there were 150 Black slaves. His reactions make an interesting comparison to Haliburton’s views: even though he described himself as a ‘conservative liberal,’ as N. John Hall says, ‘Trollope’s moral sense, like that of most of his contemporaries, simply did not register the horror of this analysis.’ Trollope’s view was that the Blacks of Australia ‘must go’ but ‘perish without unnecessary suffering.’ I am grateful to Dr James Gray for suggesting the comparison. 39 Davies, ed., Letters, 205. 40 Gettman, A Victorian Publisher, 23–6. 41 Ibid., 145. 42 Davies, ed., Letters, 209. 43 Ibid., 207. 44 Ibid., 208. 45 Ibid., 211. 46 North British Daily Mail (Glasgow), 26 January 1859, cols. a, f, and g. 47 ‘Editorial,’ ibid. 48 Notes on the Great Burns’ Centenary Meeting in the City Hall, ibid. 49 Draft Statement of the Affairs of Major Owen for his Consideration, Shropshire County Records Office, Shrewsbury, SALT 1011/330, prepared by Sir James Parker (Salt & Son, Shrewsbury). 50 Davies, ed., Letters, 211. 51 Post Office Directory (1856), 49. 52 Davies, ed., Letters, 219. 53 16 February 1859, 12, col. d., and 17 February 1859, 9, cols. b., c., and d. On 16 February an article had appeared titled, ‘Exploration of the Rocky Mountains,’ and on 17 February Haliburton had read a long report about the gold fields of British Columbia. 54 Davies, ed., Letters, 221. 55 Ibid. The article did not appear, and Bentley’s new venture did not last beyond four issues. 56 Michael Sadleir, Dublin University Magazine: Its History, Contents and Bibliography: A paper read before the Bibliographical Society of Ireland, 26 April 1937 (Dublin: Bibliographical Society of Ireland, 1938), 60. 57 Ibid., 65. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu succeeded him. 58 Ibid., 80. 59 Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 587. 60 Ibid., 588.

Notes to pages 177–88 277 61 Ibid., 587. See The Season Ticket, 186. 62 According to A.W.H. Eaton, ‘Old Boston Families: Number Five, The Haliburton Family,’ New England Historical and Genealogical Register 71 (1917), ‘Of town offices Andrew Haliburton [Haliburton’s great grandfather] held only those of scavenger ... and hogreeve’ (59). 63 Launceston Weekly News, 6 April 1861, ‘Circuit Reminiscences,’ a talk advertised to be given at the Central Subscription Room, Launceston, became ‘Law in North America.’ 64 W. Wesley Pue, ‘Ideologies and the English Bar in the 1860s,’ Law and Social Enquiry, Journal of the American Bar Foundation 15 (1990): 62. I am indebted to David Bell for this source. 65 PANS, RG 39 ‘M’ v. 28, Halifax Supreme Court Judge’s Notes and Minutes (unsorted). 66 Pue, Law and Social Enquiry, 62. 67 ‘Editorial,’ 7 July 1859, p. 8. 68 Davies, ed., Letters, 226. 69 Ibid., 228. 70 Ibid., 229. 71 British Library Add. Ms. 46,642, 202, vol. 83, Bentley Papers. 23: Member of Parliament for Launceston 1 Quoted in H. Spencer Toy’s The Cornish Pocket Borough (Penzance, 1968), 80–1. 2 ‘Launceston Election,’ Launceston Weekly News, 23 April 1859, col. b. 3 Ibid., col. d. 4 Ibid., 30 April 1859, col. c. 5 H.J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of Disraeli and Gladstone (Sussex: Archon Books, Harvester Press, 1978), 47. 6 ‘Launceston Election,’ Launceston Weekly News, 30 April 1859, col. d. 7 Ibid., 7 May 1859, col. b. 8 ‘Sam Slick in Parliament,’ Launceston Weekly News, 18 June 1859. From the Illustrated Times. 9 W.D. Rubinstein, Britain’s Century: A Political and Social History, 1815–1905 (London: Arnold, 1998), 86. 10 Ibid., 19. 11 Hansard, 3d series, vol. 155 (1859), cols. 406–10. 12 Times, 26 July 1859, 5. To judge his performance in Parliament by the Hansard record alone is not to tell the whole story. The Times also published Parliamentary speeches on the following day with what we might describe as the

278 Notes to pages 188–93

13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26

sound effects (and the reactions of listeners). Hansard is the far more sober record of the two. Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 86. He wrote, among other books, Our Merchant Shipping (1860) and a History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce, 4 vols. (London, 1874–6). ‘Mr. Lindsay and His Constituents,’ Daily Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser, 23 August 1859, 3. Ibid., 24 August 1859, p. 3, ‘Non-Electors Presentation to Mr. Lindsay at North Shields.’ 25 August 1859, p. 2. Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 308–9: Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–82) at Oxford University helped lead the conservative defence of the Church of England. Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), 191. Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 35. Sixty per cent of the party had connections to the aristocracy and gentry, according to T.A. Jenkins, The Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1994), 105. Jenkins, The Liberal Ascendancy, 90. Parry, Rise and Fall, 185. Sheldon Vanauken, The Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy (Worthing: Churchman Publishing, 1988), 14. Hansard, vol. 156, cols. 405–6. Ibid., vol. 156, col. 408. Times, 26 July 1859, p. 7, col. e.

24: The Clash with Gladstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Roy Jenkins, Gladstone (London: Macmillan, 1996), 222. Ibid., 222–3. Customs Acts – Committee, Hansard, 3d series, vol. 156, cols. 1971–84. Ibid., col. 1983. Ibid., vol. 157, col. 237. Ibid., cols. 237–8. Ibid., col. 239. Jenkins, Gladstone, 72. Ibid. Jenkins is himself quoting John Morley’s Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (1903). Times, 10 March 1860, 6, col. d. I am indebted to Dr James Gray for reminding me that Gladstone’s quip is from Robert Burns’s ‘Tam O Shanter. A Tale’: ‘Whare sits our sulky sullen dame, / Gathering her brows like gather-

Notes to pages 194–200 279

11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

ing storm / Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.’ The opening reference in Burns’s poem to ‘chapman billies’ (peddler fellows) leaving the street and finding refuge ‘at the nappy’ (ale house) might have prompted Gladstone’s wit, at this point, to apply the lines to the creator of Sam Slick, the Yankee clock peddler. Jenkins, Gladstone, 225. The Age We Live In, 7 April 1860, 10, col. a. Hansard, 3d series, vol. 157, cols. 2095–110; Times, 23 April 1860, ‘Customs Bill,’ 8, cols. a–c.; Speech of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, M.P. in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, the 21st of April, 1860, on the Repeal of the Differential Duties on Foreign and Colonial Wood (London: Edward Stanford, 1860). Hansard, 3d series, vol. 157, col. 2097. Speech of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, M.P., 5. Hansard, col. 2097. Times, 8, col. a. Speech of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, M.P., 4. Great Britain’s Woodyard: British America and the Timber Trade, 1763–1867 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973), 92. Hansard, col. 2097. Ibid., col. 2107. Ibid., col. 2109. Times, 23 April 1860, 8 col. c. Ibid., 26 April 1860, 6. Ibid., Friday, 27 April 1860, 12, col. c. Hansard, 3d series, vol. 157, col. 2111. Ibid., cols. 2111–12. Speech of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, M.P., 39. Hansard, 3d series, vol. 158, col. 572. Times, 23 April 1860, 8. Jenkins, Gladstone, 235. Ways and Means – Committee, Hansard, 3d series, 25 April 1861, vol. 162, cols. 1117–29. Ibid., col. 1130. Ibid., cols. 1130–1. Ibid., col. 1131. Ibid., col. 1132. Ibid., cols. 1132–33. Ibid., col. 1133. Times, 26 April 1861, 8, col. a. 25 April 1861, Hansard, 3d, vol. 162, col. 1135.

280 Notes to pages 200–4 41 Times, 26 April 1861, 8, col. a. 42 25 April 1861, Hansard, 3d series, vol. 162, col. 1136. Ralph Bernal Osborne (1808–92), MP for Liskeard, Cornwall, from 1859 until 1865, was an advanced Liberal. 43 Ibid., col. 1142. Most likely, Sir Henry Edwards, Bart, MP for Beverly from 1857, Lt. Col. and Commandant of the second West York Yeoman Cavalry, and a Conservative. 44 22 February 1861, Hansard, 3d series, vol. 161, cols. 821–8. 45 Ibid., col. 823. See also Greg Marquis, In Armageddon’s Shadow: The Civil War and Canada’s Maritime Provinces (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), 67: ‘The case ... received wide press coverage in the Maritimes.’ 46 22 February 1861, Hansard, 3d series, vol. 161, col. 826. 47 Railway Accidents, 12 March 1861, ibid., vol. 161, cols. 1837–8. 48 Ibid., col. 1838. 49 Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill, 21 March 1861, ibid., vol. 162, col. 177. 50 8 May 1861, ibid., col. 1749. 51 Jenkins, Gladstone, 255. 52 Ibid., 256. 53 Davies, ed., Letters, 205: ‘The address on this letter is known to every cab man in Richmond.’ 54 ‘Our Neighbourhood. XXXIII – Isleworth,’ Middlesex Chronicle, 15 August 1863. 25: The Canada Land and Emigration Company 1 Archives of Ontario, Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 1868/69, 397, Reel 1. Agreements and Correspondence between the Canada Land and Emigration Company and the Government of Upper Canada. 2 Leopolda z L. Dobrzensky, Fragments of a Dream: Pioneering in Dysart Township and Haliburton Village, 2nd ed. (Peterborough: Heritage Publications, 1986), 17. 3 6, col. d., ‘From Liverpool to Halifax – Judge Haliburton.’ 4 Daily Globe, 10 September 1860, 11 September 1860, 12 September 1860, 13 September 1860, 14 September 1860, and 15 September 1860, gives detailed accounts of his movements and activities. Haliburton arrived on 16 September. 5 Ibid., 232. 6 Novascotian, 8 October 1860, 6, cols. c. and d., ‘Per Europa, from Halifax to Liverpool ... Judge Haliburton.’ The Europa had arrived from Boston on 5 October (6, col e.).

Notes to pages 204–7 281 7 Davies, ed., Letters, 233–4. 8 Ibid., 232–4. Rubinstein notes, ‘This was the only significant war which Britain fought between 1815 and 1899’ Britain’s Century, (117). 9 Ibid., 233. Though the incident revealed some limitations to Haliburton’s physical capacities, nevertheless, he often travelled around Britain visiting friends, or popped into the city on matters of business. 10 ‘List of Persons holding Shares in the Canadian Land and Emigration Company Limited on the Twentieth day of March 1862, showing their Names and Addresses, and an account of the Shares so held’ (47–56). I am grateful to Mr Harley Cummings of Haliburton, Ontario, for forwarding a copy of this list to me. 11 Dobrzensky, Fragments of a Dream, 11. 12 Ibid., 48. 13 Canada Land and Emigration Company, Folder 2, ‘Excerpts from the annual reports of the CL & Em.Co. 1870–1885’ (typescript), makes reference to the Director’s ‘Deputation,’ Trent University Archives, B 77–023. 14 Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 11. 15 27 April 1861, 340. 16 Davies, ed., Letters, 237. 17 H.R. Cummings, Early Days in Haliburton (Toronto: Ontario Department of Lands and Forests, 1962), 23–4. Cummings gives no sources for his statements. One of the sources is the ‘List’ mentioned in note 10. 18 Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 12. 19 Ibid., 14. 20 Ibid., 14–15. 21 Novascotian, 9 September 1861, 2, col. d., reported that the steamship Arabia arrived on Tuesday [3 September] via Queenstown; 3, col. d. reported, ‘Judge Haliburton arrived here on Tuesday, in the Arabia, from England’; 6, col. c., reported a voyage of eleven days. It continued to Boston the same day with 102 passengers. 22 Daily Leader, 7 September 1861. 23 Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 15. 24 Ibid., 17. 25 Ibid., 17–18, ‘Regulations for the Sale and Management of the Public Lands approved by His Excellency the Governor General in Council.’ 26 Ibid., 20. 27 Money Market Review, 7 March 1863; Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 68. 28 Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 34. 29 Ibid., 28. On 9 January 1862, H.E. Montgomerie wrote from London: ‘I said I had been in communication with one gentleman who was of the opinion

282 Notes to pages 208–10

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48

that he could, in one season, forward enough German emigrants to settle one of our townships.’ Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 26, ‘Memorandum B,’ ‘London, 30th January, 1862.’ Ibid., 27. Cummings, Early Days in Haliburton, 25. Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 33–6. Ibid., 34. Money Market Review, 5 September 1863: 215. Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 38. Ibid., 39–40. Ibid., 40, ‘Crown Timber Office, Ottawa, 12th July, 1864.’ Ibid., 50–1, ‘Toronto, October 1st, 1864.’ Mentioned in Sarah Harriet’s letter to Robert Parker, 21 January 1865: ‘I think his trip to Halifax last July did him much good.’ New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–12. Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 53. Vernon B. Wadsworth’s words from his Reminiscences of Haliburton Village in 1864, quoted by Dobrzensky, Fragments of a Dream 50. Capt. Geo. S. Thompson, Up to Date, or the Life of a Lumberman Illustrated (The Times Printing Co., 1895), 19. Reprinted in Centennial Haliburton Village, 1864–1964. Haliburton County 1874–1974, 2nd ed. (Peterborough, ON: Maxwell Review, 1975), compiled and published by Ronald J. Curry and Rotary Club of Haliburton, 1964. ‘The English Company’s Townships,’ Peterborough Review, 23 December 1864. Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 54. Ibid., 56. Ibid., 58–9. Archives of Ontario, N 11, Reel 43, 7/295, the Globe (Toronto), 20 March 1865. Another sign of the community establishing itself comes from the pen of the man who conducted the opening service at Haliburton, who wrote an account of his ‘Visit to the Back Townships’ in the Peterborough Review for 17 February 1865 and who expressed his optimism that a resident cleric would soon be found. The company had put two hundred acres aside on the north shore of Head Lake as ‘glebe land.’ Before a clergyman’s house, was built, clergymen could use a company house about five-and-a-half miles from the present church (Rev. Richard Sandars to the editor of the Church Chronicle, Toronto, 11 January 1865, Ontario Archives, N 82 R 3). The company was soon boasting that a church had been erected at Haliburton and that a resident clergyman had been appointed.

Notes to pages 210–16 283 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 65–6. Dobrzensky, Fragments of a Dream, 75. Ontario Legislative Assembly Sessional Papers, 68. Dobrzensky, Fragments of a Dream, 105. Ibid., 117. Ibid., 251. ‘The Mission at Dysart,’ Peterborough Review, 16 September 1870. Dobrzensky, Fragments of a Dream, 140.

26: Launceston, Parliament, and Isleworth 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Davies, ed., Letters, 238. Launceston Weekly News, 6 April 1861, col. c. Ibid., 30 March 1861. Ibid., 6 April 1861, col. c. ‘Laying the Foundation Stone of the Launceston Grammar School,’ Launceston Weekly News, 6 April 1861. Ibid., 30 March 1861. ‘Dinner to Mr Justice Haliburton,’ ibid. Business Gazette, 22 November 1862. Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 138. Jenkins, Gladstone, 237. Hansard, 3d series, vol. 165, cols. 1032–8. Affairs in Mexico – A Question; Colonial Fortifications – A Resolution, ibid., cols. 1268–78 and cols. 1894–1988. Affairs in Mexico – A Question, ibid., col. 1273. Ibid., col. 1268. Ibid., cols. 1273–8. See also the Times, 11 March 1862, 8, for an editorial summary of the exchange. Hansard, 3d series, vol. 165, col. 1895. Ibid., col. 1913. Ibid., col. 1915. Times, 23 March 1862, 6. Hansard, 3d series, vol. 165, col. 1915. Ibid., col. 1916. Ibid., vol, 166, col. 1998; vol 167, col. 707, col. 1335; vol. 168, col. 1988. Ibid., vol. 166, col. 1998. Clergy Relief Bill – Committee, 18 June 1862, ibid., vol. 167, col. 709. Ibid., col. 1335. Ibid., vol. 168, vol. 1998.

284 Notes to pages 216–20 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

Ibid., col. 1988–90. Ibid., vol. 168, cols. 1998–9. The Season Ticket, 305–6. ‘XXXIII – Isleworth,’ 1 August 1863. Middlesex Chronicle, 18 February 1863. Davies, ed., Letters, 231. Middlesex Chronicle, 18 February 1863. 8 August 1863. ‘Our Neighbourhood, XXXIII – Isleworth,’ Middlesex Chronicle, 15 August 1863. ‘Isleworth Public Reading Room,’ 3 January 1863. ‘Testimonial to W.H. Brougham, Esq.,’ Middlesex Chronicle, 10 January 1863. ‘Ruri-Decanal Association,’ Middlesex Chronicle, 24 January 1863. Davies, ed., Letters, 246. Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 137. See Ephraim Douglass Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1925), 2: 191; Brian Jenkins, Britain and the War for the Union (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1974), 2: 318– 19. Adams, Great Britain, 187. Ibid., 205. Ibid., 216–23. See Sheldon Vanauken, The Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy (Worthing: Churchman Publishing, 1988), 90. Davies, ed., Letters, 247. Middlesex Chronicle, 28 February 1863. Ibid., 14 March 1863. Ibid., 4 April 1863. See Richard A. Davies, ‘Thomas Haliburton in Isleworth, 1856–65,’ Dalhousie Review 57 (1977): 619–27. Middlesex Chronicle, 20 June 1863. Hounslow Parish Magazine (1863). Middlesex Chronicle, 27 June 1863. Ibid., 4 July 1863. Hounslow Parish Magazine (July 1863), 1. See ‘Frontispiece,’ in Davies, ed., Letters. Public Record Office (Somerset House, London). Hansard, 3d series, vol. 169, col. 1778. 22 April 1863, ibid., vol. 170, col. 536. Ibid., vol. 169, col. 1772. Ibid., col. 1778.

Notes to pages 221–4 285 27: The Banting System 1 Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 139. 2 5 March 1864, 246. 3 Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, 8 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge, 20 Feby [18]64, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ah. 4 J.T. Murray to Henry Bliss, 1 January 1827, Bliss Family Papers, PANS, MG1, vol. 1605, no. 8, mentions Neville Parker’s ‘religious opinions, which have lately through the influence of his wife turned quite to the Evangelical.’ 5 Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, 8 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge, 20 Feby [18]64, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ah; Hansard, 3d series, vol. 173, cols. 823–4. 6 United States – Capture of a Confederate Vessel in a British Harbour – Question, Hansard, 3d series, vol. 173, cols. 823–4, 7 The Civil War and Canada’s Maritime Provinces (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998), 177. 8 Hansard, col. 824. 9 Times 20 February 1864, p. 7. 10 M. Mazzini – The Greco Conspiracy – Position of Mr. Stansfield, Hansard, 3rd series, vol. 174, cols. 329–32. 11 Ibid., col. 322. 12 Ibid., col. 330. 13 19 March 1864, p. 8. 14 Thomas Haliburton to Augusta Haliburton, 8 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge, 20 Feby [18]64, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Ah. 15 ‘Laying the Foundation Stone of the Launceston Grammar School,’ 6 April 1861, col. d. 16 New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–12. 17 2nd impression (London: Jonathan Cape, 1940), 479. 18 The actual edition I consulted at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Room in Toronto. 19 William Banting, Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, 4th ed. (London: Harrison, 1864), 10. 20 Ibid., 15. 21 Ibid., 41–2. 22 Ibid., 29. 23 Ibid., 18–19. 24 Ibid., 30. 25 Copies of two letters received by Haliburton, dated Paris, 27 May 1864 and 18 July 1864, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 1Bg and h.

286 Notes to pages 224–9 26 27 28 29 30

Ibid., Series 1Bh. Davies, ed., Letters, 258. MS privately owned by C. Buhagiar of Toronto. Coutts & Co. account. Davies, ed., Letters, 252.

28: The Last of the Tories 1 ‘The Late Mr. W.B. Watkins,’ Manchester City News, 2 July 1864, 2, col. f. 2 Banker’s Magazine, Journal of the Money Market, and Commercial Digest, 247 (October 1864): 967. 3 Davies, ed., Letters, 254. 4 Sarah Haliburton to Robert Parker, January 21, [18]65, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Manuscript Collection, 159–12. 5 March 18, [18]65, ibid., 159–13. 6 Sarah Haliburton to Robert Parker, January 21, [18]65, ibid., 159–12. 7 Hounslow Parish Magazine (March 1865). 8 March 18, [18]65, New Brunswick Museum, Webster Collection, 159–13. 9 Davies, ed., Letters, 235. 10 Standard, 6, col.d. 11 Hounslow Parish Magazine (March, 1865). 12 Isleworth Surveyor’s Minutes, 6–1865. 13 Ibid., 7–1865. 14 Ibid., 4–1867. 15 Davies, ed., Letters, 255. 16 Robert Kempt, comp., The American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humour (London: Adams and Francis, 1865). The preface to the second edition is dated ‘Windsor, June, 1865’ and is in way of memorial to Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated on 14 April 1865. 17 Davies, ed., Letters, 258. 18 Coutts and Co. account. 19 Davies, ed., Letters, 256. 20 Ibid., 257. 21 Rubinstein, Britain’s Century, 142–3; see also 110–13. 22 Ibid., 143. 23 Jenkins, Gladstone, 273–4. 24 Hants County Land Registry Office, 48, no. 7721. 25 Ibid., no.8. 26 Coutts and Co. account. 27 The Will of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, proved in the Principal Registry

Notes to pages 229–31 287

28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50

of Her Majesty’s Court of Probate, 27 September 1865, by Sarah Haliburton, Executrix: ‘Effects under £6000.’ New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston: A Short Account of the Haliburtons of Windsor, Nova Scotia, from 1760 to 1865 by a relative. Boston, Mass, U.S.A, February 28th 1873, 13. Ibid., 14. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 642–58. 4, col. c. December 1865, 787–8. Supplement, 9 September 1865. October 1865. Daily Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser, 24 August 1859, 3. Bookseller, 31 October 1865. British Library Add. Ms. 46,637, Vol. 78, Publication List, vol. 1, 1829–73. See Parker, ed., The Clockmaker, 772–820. ‘Books and Authors,’ Toronto Saturday Night, 18 May 1895, 7, col. a. I am indebted to Gwendolyn Davies for this snippet of information. Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, 53 Brenton St, 21 January [1887], Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Ah: ‘It does seem a pity no child of poor Papa’s could have carried out what we intended but the copyright prevents us.’ Susanna Weldon to Augusta Haliburton, 18 July [n.d.], ibid. William Chaffers, Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain 3rd ed. (London, 1870), 738. Canon Vroom, ‘Reminiscences of Windsor,’ PANS MG 100 vol. 247, no. 22. Microfilm no. 9959. Last Will and Testament of Augusta Louisa Neville Haliburton of Grafton House, Torquay, 1 October 1891. Generously donated by Charles and Patricia Wilson of North Vancouver, British Columbia. J.B. Atlay, Lord Haliburton: A Memoir of His Public Service (Toronto: William Briggs, 1909), 4–5. Ibid., 114. Ibid., 218. ‘Death of Mrs. J.W. Weldon, September 11, 1899.’ A copy of a newspaper cutting kindly sent to me in 1976 by Mrs Betty Campbell, Halifax, Nova Scotia. ‘A Noted Funeral. Interment at Annapolis Royal of the Daughter of “Sam Slick,”’ a copy of a cutting from the Evening Mail (Halifax), 18 January 1902, sent to me by Mrs Betty Campbell.

288 Notes to pages 231–2 51 A copy of the Sermon Preached in Christ Church, Windsor, N.S., at the unveiling of a Window in Memory of the Late Judge Haliburton (Sam Slick) and Louisa Neville, His Wife, 27 July 1892, by the Dean of Nova Scotia, taken from Church Work: 313–16, sent to me by Mrs Betty Campbell. 52 Sketch of the Life of Captain Lawrence Neville, Wilson Collection, Section 1, Series 3Bg, 2. 53 Ibid., 2–3. 54 Last Will and Testament of Arthur Lawrence Haliburton, Baron Haliburton, 18 June 1906. 55 The proceedings are published as The Bi-centenary Chaplet, ed. Richard A. Davies (Wolfville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 1997). 56 The box is dated 1865. There were originally twelve photographs in the box, but two were presented to the Haliburton House Museum at an earlier date. I included one of these two photographs in Letters, 180; the other is included in the photo section in the present volume and shows Thomas and Sarah Harriet as well as Arthur and Augusta and her husband.

Works by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

A General Description of Nova Scotia; Illustrated by a New and Correct Map. Halifax: Printed at the Royal Acadian School, 1823. An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova-Scotia, in Two Volumes. Illustrated by a Map of the Province and Several Engravings. Halifax: Joseph Howe, 1829. The Clockmaker; or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville. Halifax: Joseph Howe, 1836. The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville. Second series. Halifax: Joseph Howe, 1838. The Bubbles of Canada. By the Author of ‘The Clockmaker.’ London: Richard Bentley, 1839. A Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham. By a Colonist. London: Richard Bentley, 1839. The Letter Bag of the Great Western; or, Life in a Steamer. By the author of ‘The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick.’ London: Richard Bentley, 1840. The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville. Third series. London: Richard Bentley, 1840. The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England, By the Author of ‘The Clockmaker; or Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick,’ &c.&c.&c. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1843. The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England, By the Author of ‘The Clockmaker; or Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick,’ &c.&c.&c. Second and last series. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1844. The Old Judge; or, Life in a Colony. By the Author of ‘Sam Slick, The Clockmaker,’ ‘The Attaché,’ &c. 2 vols. London: Henry Colburn, 1849. Rule and Misrule of the English in America. By the Author of ‘Sam Slick, the Clockmaker,’ ‘The Attache,’ ‘The Old Judge,’ etc. 2 vols. London: Colburn & Co., 1851. Traits of American Humour, By Native Authors. Edited and Adapted by the Author of ‘Sam Slick,’ ‘The Old Judge,’ ‘The English in America,’ &c.&c. 3 vols. London: Colburn and Co., 1852.

290 Works by Haliburton The Americans at Home; or, Byeways, Backwoods, and Prairies. Edited by the Author of ‘Sam Slick.’ 3 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1854. Sam Slick’s Wise Saws and Modern Instances; or, What He Said, Did, or Invented. 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1853. Nature and Human Nature. By the Author of ‘Sam Slick the Clockmaker,’ &c.&c. 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1855. An Address on the Present Condition, Resources and Prospects of British North America, Delivered by Special Request at The City Hall, Glasgow, on the 25th of March, 1857 by The Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1857. The Season Ticket. London: Richard Bentley, 1860. Speech of the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton, M.P. in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, the 21st of April, 1860, on the Repeal of the Differential Duties on Foreign and Colonial Wood. London: Edward Stanford, 1860.

Illustration Credits

Acadia University, Wilson Collection: Haliburton in rustic chair; Louisa Neville; courtyard of Gordon House; garden at Gordon House; garden at Gordon House with temple view; Haliburton in the drawing room; the dining room at Gordon House; Haliburton in his library; the library at Gordon House Archives of Ontario: Canadian Land and Emigration Co. plan National Archives of Canada: sketch of a ball, C3419; sketch of a luncheon, C3418; Haliburton on horseback, C3417 Nova Scotia Museum, Haliburton House: engraved salver Nova Scotia Museum, History Collection: family group in 1865 Nova Scotia, Province House Collection: Haliburton by Beatham (1853) Public Archives of Nova Scotia: Old Stone House, 7118; University of King’s College (1803), 7343; map of Windsor; Haliburton painted by Eddis (print by Gauci) Toronto Public Library, J. Ross Robertson Collection: University of King’s College (1850), T 15847; Avon River Bridge, T 15829; St Matthew’s Chapel, T 15846

This page intentionally left blank

Index

Abbotsford, 75 Aberdeen, Earl of, 17, 114 Abergavenny, Lord, 22 Abolition of test oaths, 34–5 Acadian Recorder, 85, 86 Acadia University, 232 Act of Incorporation (Avon Bridge Company), 251n3 Act of Parliament for the Better Government of India, 274–5n12 Adderly, Mr (MP), 215 Aeneid, 269n22 Africa (steamer), 173 Age We Live In, The, 229 Albany, 173 Alexandria, Princess, 218 Algeria, 192 Allison, Sir Archibald, 174 Almon, Mrs, 92 American Civil War, 6, 8, 53, 190, 207, 210, 213 American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humour (Kempt), 227, 286n16 American Minister, The, 145 American Revolution, 15, 77, 127 American system, 58–9

Americanisms, 54, 133, 250n23 Anderson, John, 200 Anderson, Sarah, 21 Anderson slave case, 200 Andrews, John, 11 Annapolis Iron Company, 14, 26 Annapolis Royal, 14, 24, 27, 37, 41, 44, 45, 95, 231 Annual General Meeting (Canada Land and Emigration Company), 208, 210 Antwerp. 74 Apthorp, Lieutenant, 13 Arabia (steamship), 204, 207, 281n21 Archibald, Charles Dickson, 62, 252n15 Archibald, Mr, 45 Archibald, S.G.W., 252n15 ‘Architectural Interpretation of “Clifton” Grove, Windsor, Nova Scotia: Home of the Honourable Thomas Chandler Haliburton’ (Penney), 132 Ardoise Hill, 34 Argent, Elizabeth (servant), 154 Army Commissariat, 130, 150, 267n23 Army Reorganisation, A Short Reply to

294 Index Long Service (Arthur Haliburton), 231 Arrow (steamship), 164 Ascot, 74 Ashburton, Lord, 145 ‘Asking a Governor to Dine’ (The Old Judge), 118 Athenaeum, 63, 99, 113, 159 Athenaeum Club, 64, 79, 166, 229 ‘Aunt Nabby’s Stewed Goose’ (Americans at Home), 136 Avon bridge, 61 Avon Bridge company, 60 Avon river, 59 Bainbridge Smith, John, 124, 130 Baker, T. Lloyd Barwick, 144 Baldwin, Abram (character), 117, 263n23 ballot, the, 183, 189 Bank of British North America, 228 Bank of Nova Scotia, 131 Bank of Nova Scotia v. Haliburton, 267n14 Banting, William, 223–4 Banting system, 220, 223–5 Barham, Richard, 62, 110 Baron, Lord Chief, 179 Barrell, Joseph, 11 Barrington (NS), 131 Barry, John A, 41 Bartlett, James Russell, 54 Bartlett, William Henry, 48, 49 Bath, John, 29 Battersea enamels, 231 Battle of Bull Run, 238n10 Baxter, Mr (MP), 220 Bayard, Dr, 41 Bayard, Mr (American Minister), 231, 275n31

Bayard, Samuel, 41 Bay of Fundy, 95 Beckenham (Kent), 110 Bedford Basin (Halifax), 104 Belcher, Jonathan, 48 Belgium, 74 Bell, Luther, 120, 121 Belvedere, 49 Bentley, Richard: and first series of The Clockmaker, 3, 104; and Haliburton, 62–3, 66, 100, 106, 112–13, 115, 116, 125, 132, 144, 150, 163–4, 169, 171, 172, 179, 204, 212, 227, 259n21; and rights to The Clockmaker, 64, 79; and second series of The Clockmaker, 65; publishes Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham, 253n7; and The Bubbles of Canada, 76, 81–2; publishes Mrs Trollope, 255n6; and The Letter Bag, 94, 96; and third series of The Clockmaker, 99, 107–8; and The Attaché, 110–11, 261n19; reprints Gauci’s print of Haliburton, 261n22; declines Sam Slick’s Wise Saws, 138–9; declines Nature and Human Nature, 146; and Miscellany, 173; and Bentley’s Quarterly Review, 175–6 Bentley Papers, 64, 75 Bentley’s Miscellany, 139, 173 Bentley’s Parlour Bookcase, 146 Bentley’s Quarterly Review, 173, 175 ‘Ben Wilson’s Jug Race’ (Spirit of the Times), 132 Berkeley, Bishop, 142 Bermuda, 143, 173 Bermuda Herald, 143 Bibigarh (Cawnpore), 168 Biddulph, Colonel John, 20 Big Bear of Arkansas and Other Sketches

Index 295 Illustrative of Characters and Incidents in the South and South-West (Porter), 133 Billings, Captain Joseph, 239n10 Bishop, Daniel, 60 Bismarck, Otto von, 3 Blackett, Mr (publisher), 167 Blackwood’s, 36, 63, 64, 66 Bland, John Bailey, 152, 228, 272– 3n32 Bliss, Elizabeth Anne, 91, 105, 106 Bliss, Fanny, 258n6 Bliss, Henry: and King’s College, 17, 18–19, 20; and Haliburton’s marriage, 21; and legal profession, 25; and Historical and Statistical Account, 27, 39; hears of Haliburton being censured, 32; hears of Tom Jr, 47, 61; disavows literary life, 56; and Bubbles of Canada, 81, 83; fondness for prostitutes, 84; remarks on Tom Jr, 122; hears of Neville Parker’s wife, 285n4 Bliss, Lewis: and King’s College, 17; and Henry Bliss, 19, 39, 56; view of Tom Jr, 61; and second series of The Clockmaker, 65; and Bubbles of Canada, 81; praises Henry’s pamphlet, 83–4; cynical remarks about Tom Jr, 122 Bliss, Sarah, 106 Bliss, William Blowers: matriculation at King’s College, 17; and Haliburton, 19, 24, 33; King’s College, 20; laments status of lawyers, 25; declines Inferior Judgeship, 39–40; account of Tom Jr, 47, 122; declines Henry a copy of the Historical and Statistical Account, 61; volunteers to perform work of Inferior

Court gratis, 66, 91; criticizes Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham, 84; paid during absence in England, 148; mentioned by Lieutenant Governor, 149 Blomfield, Charles, 208 Bloomfield, Major, 92 Blowers, Elizabeth, 105 Blowers, Sampson Salter, 21, 48 Blowers, William, 105 Board of Surveyors (Isleworth), 227 Bobcaygeon, 205, 207 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 10 Bonomi, Joseph, 71 Bookcase (John Williamson & Co), 64 Boston, 9, 22, 44, 52, 53, 59, 90, 91, 204, 206, 225 Boulogne-sur-Mer, 124 Bowman, Mr, 61 Boylston, Ward Nicholas, 11 Boz. See Dickens, Charles Brabiner, William A., 122 Brady, Cheyne, 176, 180 Brentford (London), 217, 218 Brief History of the Origin, Endowment and Progress of the University of King’s College Windsor (Akins), 91 Bright, John (MP), 110, 163, 185. 190 Brighton, 171 Brinnin, John Malcolm, 69 Bristol, 70, 79, 93, 95 Bristol Athenaeum, 163 Bristol Mirror, 80 British Columbia Saw Mill company, 228 British House of Commons, 11, 82, 115, 166, 184, 186, 195, 201, 206, 228, 229 British Museum, 93 Bromley, Walter, 27

296 Index Brompton Cemetery (London), 232 Brother Jonathan, 53–4 Brougham, W.H, 217 Brown, Carolyn S., 55 Brown, Richard, 42 Browne, William, 122 Brunel, Isambard Kingdom, 94, 95, 170 Brussels, 74 Bubbles of the Brunnens of Nassau, The (Head), 81 Buckingham Palace, 227 Buffalo (sailing ship), 20 Buhagiar, C., 286 Burke, Edmund, 82 Burke, T.A., 132, 133 Burns, Colonel, 174, 175 Burns, Robert, 108, 174, 175 Burton, Decimus: meets Haliburton, 71; settles £200 on James Haliburton’s widow, 73; includes Haliburton in his circle, 79; writes to Haliburton, 91; talks German with Susanna, 92; friendship with Haliburton, 93; helps Haliburton search for patronage appointment, 151; dines with Haliburton, 256n28 Burton family, 71, 72, 85, 92, 93, 103, 106, 144 Burton, Helen, 92 Burton, James. See Haliburton, James Burton, James Sr, 71, 73 Burton, Jane, 72 Burton, Jessy (Mrs Fearon), 72, 79, 91, 92, 256n28 Burton, Mrs, 92 Burton, Octavia (Mrs Edmund Hopkinson), 71, 72, 73, 91, 256n28 Burton, Rose, 92

Burton, Septimus, 113 Buxton, 172 Cadiz Wine Co., 225 Cahill, Barry, 116 Cairo, 71 Calcutta, 61 Calendar of Wealth, Fashion and Gentility (Boston), 52 Campbell, Sir Colin, 86 Canada, 76, 84, 200, 208, 209, 216 Canada Agency Association, 206, 228 Canada Club, 64 Canada Land and Emigration Company, 123, 203–11, 221 Canada (steamer), 142, 150 Canada Post, 232 Canada West, 196 Canadian Home Journal, 22 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, 203 Candidus. See Cochran, William Canton, 164 Cape Breton, 42, 105 ‘Captain Stick and Toney’ (Americans at Home), 136 Carey, Amelia. See Fitzclarence, Amelia (Falkland, Lady) Carey, Lucius (Lord Falkland), 104, 110, 126, 149, 154 Cariboo Bog NS, 34 Carlton Club, 229 Castle Frederick, 57 Catholic Emancipation, 35 Cavendish family, 186–7 Cawnpore (India), 168 Cecil, Sir Robert (Lord Salisbury), 173, 175 Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts, 99

Index 297 Chambers Edinburgh Journal, 74 Chambers, William, 49, 74 Chancellor, Lord, 176, 179 Chandler family, 130 Chandler, Lucy, 130 Changing Faces of Madness: Early American Attitudes and Treatment of the Insane (Jimenez), 264n5 Charlotte County Archives (St Andrew’s), 242n21 Charrington, Nicholas, 240n25, 274n15 Chelmsford, Lord. See Thesiger, Sir Frederick Chemony, lake (Ontario), 205 Chesapeake, 88, 222, 225 China, 184 Chipman, Ward Sr, 79 Chittick, V.L.O., 4, 54, 55, 127, 131, 132, 139, 176, 177 Chow-Chow: A Journal Kept in India, Egypt and Syria (Rawlinson, ed.), 164 Christ Church (Windsor), 123, 231, 288n51 Chronicle Herald (Halifax), 6 Church rates, 189 Cirencester, 79 Clack, Miss (character), 222 Clarke, 129 Clarke, George Elliott, 6, 98, 140 Clay, Henry, 52, 53, 58 Clay, Mariana Emily (Schuster), 130 Clifton, 4, 8, 14, 23, 46, 47–50, 56, 59, 60, 90, 91, 95, 102, 105, 106, 107, 116, 128–9, 131–2, 152–3, 228, 230, 231 Clinch, Joseph, 121, 122 Clockmaker, Series One, Two, and Three by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The (Parker), 99

Club, the, 36–8, 40, 41, 42, 44 Cobden, Richard, 163, 164, 190 Cochran, William, 17, 41 Cockburn, Admiral, 77 Coed Coch (Abergele), 175 Colburn, Henry, 101, 111, 142 Coleman’s worthies, 36 Collegiate School, Windsor, 29 Collins, Wilkie, 222 Colonial Office, 110, 163, 166 Colonial Securities Company, 228 ‘Colonist, A.,’ 77. See also Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, Works ‘Colonist, Also a,’ 85 Confederacy, the, 214, 222 Connecticut, 124 Conservatives, 186–7, 189–90 Constantinople, 150 Cook’s Guide (Francatelli), 171 Copigliana, Adriana, 73 Cork, 147, 170 Cork Examiner, 146 Cosman, Francis (tutor), 47, 61 Costa Rica, 173 Cottage Residences or, A Series of Designs for Rural Cottages and Cottage Villas, and their Gardens and Grounds adapted to North America (Downing), 49 Courier (Boston), 62 Court of St James (London), 107 Coutts & Co (Bankers), 75, 113, 131, 142, 151, 228 Covent Garden (London), 217 Covent Garden Theatre, 53 Cox (printer), 82 Craig, Catherine (servant), 154 Crawley, Henry William, 41 Credit Foncier Co Ltd, 221, 226, 228 Credit Mobilier Co Ltd, 221, 226

298 Index Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, 178 Crimean War, 191, 205 Crockett, Davy, 53, 54, 55, 63, 135, 136 Crofton, F. Blake, 5 Croker, John Wilson, 79 Croker, T. Crofton, 56–7 Cromwell, Oliver, 110 Crowe, John, 41 Cuffy, General, 77 Cultivating Gentlemen: The Meaning of Country Life among the Boston Elite, 1785–1860 (Thornton), 48 Cunard, Samuel, 95, 155, 206, 227 Cunard Steamship Company, 170 Cunard, William, 130, 150, 163, 227 Cunningham, Charlotte (Mrs Joseph Clinch), 121 Cunningham, John, 130 Daily Chronicle and Northern Counties Advertiser, 189 Dalhousie, Earl of, 17 Dalton, Mrs, 92 Dart, Elizabeth, 211 Dart family, the, 211 Darwin, Charles, 146 Davies, Gwendolyn, 36 Davies, William, 29 Davis, Charles Augustus, 54 Davis, Jefferson, 218 Delhi (India), 168 Demerara, 187 Denmark, 218 Derby, Lord, 186, 188–9, 228 Deserted Village, The, 27 Dewolfe, Rachel, 9 Dickens, Charles, 4, 62, 95 Dickson, Thomas, 41 Dictionary of Americanism (Bartlett), 54 Digby, 24, 26, 44, 116

Dill, Rebecca, 152 Disraeli, Benjamin, 228 Dobrzensky, Leopolda z L., 205, 210 Dodd, Dr, 189 Dodge, Hiram (Yankee Peddler), 53 Dodge, J., 213 Doubikins, Jonathan W. (stage character), 53 Dover, 124, 232 Dowding, William, 142–3 Downing, A.J., 49 Downing, Jack (character), 54, 133 Downing, Major Jack, 54 Downing Street (London), 163, 197 Doyle, Lawrence O’Connor, 36, 41, 45 Dr Thorne, 7 Drummond, J.C., 223 Drury Lane (London), 74 Dryburgh Abbey, 75, 144 Dublin University, 198 Dublin University Magazine, 176, 177, 179–80 Dumfries, 49 Dunlap, Andrew, 41 Dunlap, Augusta, 92 Dunlap, Samuel Fales, 75 Durham, Earl of (George John Lambton), 70, 84, 85, 257n12 Durham Report and British Policy, The (Martin), 82 Dysart (Ontario), 209, 211 Ealing (London), 218 East India Company, 168 Eaton Mascott (Shropshire), 145, 155 Eddis, Eden Upton, 76 Edgeworth Manor (Gloucestershire), 71, 73, 79, 92, 103, 171 Edgeworth, Maria, 102 Edinburgh, 93

Index 299 Edinburgh Journal (Chambers), 49 Education Bill, 33, 35 Edward, HRH Prince (Duke of Kent), 13, 104 Edwards, Sir Henry, 200 Egypt, 71, 74, 76 electric telegraph, 163 ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ (Gray), 35 Eliot, George, 4 Ellice, Edward, 66 Ellis, C,, 225 Ellis, Edward, 10 Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture (Loudon), 48, 49 English and Scottish Assurance Company, 228 Englishman’s Food: A History of Five Centuries of English Diet, The (Drummond and Wilbraham), 223 Episcopalians, 16, 107, 124–5 Episodes of My Second Life (Mariotti), 18 Essay on the Re-Construction of Her Majesty’s Government in Canada (Bliss), 83 Europa (steamship), 280n6 Euxine (steamship), 170 Exerpta Heiroglyphica (Burton), 72, 73 Fairbanks, Charles R., 41, 69, 70, 71, 75, 76 Fales, Abigail, 9, 10, 44 Fales family, 48, 91 Fales, Haliburton, 75, 90 Fales, Samuel, 9, 12, 44, 52, 59, 90, 121 Falkland, Lady. See Fitzclarence, Amelia

Falmouth, 69, 70 Farnell, John, 219 Faust, Drew Gilpin, 11 Fearon, Henry, 79, 91, 144 Fearon, John Peter, 72 Felton, Cornelius Conway, 112 Fenian invasion, 210 Ferry Hill, 49 Ferryman, the (Railshead), 217 Fête nationale, 74 Fielding, Henry, 108 Fink, Mike, 53, 54, 135 Finnis, Thomas Quested, 167 First National Bank (Boston), 90 Fitzclarence, Amelia (Lady Falkland), 104, 126, 161, 164 Fitzclarence, Augusta, 154 Fitzclarence, Lady Mary, 62 Fortesque, Chichester (MP), 200 Foster, Arnold, 231 Fox, Colonel Charles, 62, 104 Francatelli, Charles, 171 France, 74 Francklin, James, 41 Francklin, Michael, 123 Franco-Austrian war, 184 Fraser, Antonia, 262n34 Fraser, Halli, 44, 45, 105, 106 Fraser, James, 24 Fraser’s Magazine, 101, 116 Freemason’s Hall (London), 71 Freemason’s Tavern, 194 Fry, Herbert, 181 Gallenga, Antonio. See Mariotti, Luigi Garrick Club, 64, 110, 166 Gauci, M, 76 Geldert, James M., 152 George, Sir Rupert D, 41, 45, 66 Georgia, 117

300 Index Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. in the First Half Century of the Republic (Longstreet), 117 Gentleman’s Magazine, 229 Germany, 47, 74, 109, 121 Giffard, Ann, 95 Gilpin, Alfred, 123 Gilpin, Edwin Jr, 124, 130, 150, 231, 232, 271n18 Girard, Philip, 26, 50–1 Girdlestone, Edward, 163 Gladstone (Jenkins), 201 Gladstone, William Ewart, 190, 191, 192–9, 214, 228 Glasgow, 164, 174, 177 Glasgow Athenaeum, 164 Glendinning, Victoria, 173 Glenelg, Lord, 66, 78 Glorious Revolution, 187 Gloucester, 76, 144 Gloucester Gardens (London), 151 Gloucestershire, 73, 79 Glyn and company, 228 Goldsmith, Henry, 27 Goldsmith, Oliver (dramatist), 27 Goldsmith, Oliver (grandnephew of dramatist), 27 Gordon House (Isleworth), 146, 154, 155, 161, 167, 171, 201, 202, 217, 218, 222, 226, 227, 231, 232 Gordon, Lord John Frederick (later Hallyburton), 154, 161, 216 Gosport, 205 Gossage, Mr (surveyor), 206, 207 Grand Hotel (Brighton), 228 Granville, 24 Gray, S. Brownlow, 143 Gray, Thomas, 35 Great Britain, 79, 82, 88 Great Britain (steamship), 95

Great Eastern (steamship), 94, 171 Great Western (steamship), 79–80, 85, 93–4, 95–6, 97 Green Harbor, 50 Greenhill, Basil, 95 Greenough, George Bellas, 72, 79 Greenwood & Cox army agent, 14 Griffin, Messrs Richard, 7 Grigor, Mrs, 92 Grigor, William, 36, 41, 105 Grosvenor family, 187 Grove House, 79 Guildhall (London), 179 Gurney, Mr, 183 gypsum, 14, 59, 78, 97, 241n29 Hackett, James, 53, 54 Haliburton, Abigail (Mrs Samuel Fales), 22, 90, 91 Haliburton, Alexander Fowden, 93, 103, 128, 130, 142, 150–1, 226 Haliburton, Amelia (Mrs Gilpin), 47, 124, 132, 141, 150, 153, 204, 231 Haliburton, Andrew (great-grandfather), 7, 16 Haliburton, Arthur: last child born, 23, 47; retrieves sword from Edmund Hopkinson, 242n31; helps regulate Clifton, 128–9, 141; marries late in life, 130; reunited with Augusta in Constantinople, 150; gives Mr Bayard his father’s walking stick, 275n31; stays at Gordon House, 226; present at death of father, 229; made Baron Haliburton of Windsor, 231; dies, 232; photographic image of, 288n56 Haliburton, Augusta (Mrs Alexander Haliburton): defends father’s

Index 301 memory, 5; helps compile memoir of her mother, 241n30, 242n31; account of father’s marriage, 21; shows memoir to Robert Grant, 22; baptized, 47; receives letter from her father, 50; visits Boston, 90; helps compile anthology of her father’s work, 258n12; urges father to confide in Robert Parker, 113; lives in Torquay, 123; receives instructions from her father, 128–9; hears of Robert’s wandering life, 130; marriage, 132; hears about father’s cheap paint, 131; regulates Clifton, 141; meets Harriet Beecher Stowe, 142; visits Scotland, 144; visits Killarney, 147; visits Arthur in Constantinople, 150–1; compiles selection of father’s work, 150, 271– 2nn17–19; hears of Clifton’s state, 153; asked to check on Parkers, 222; hears state of father’s health, 223; joins gathering at Gordon House, 226; helps compile memorial to her father, 230; dies, 231; frustrated by lack of copyright, 287n40; photographic image of, 288n56 Haliburton, Barbara (Sir Walter Scott’s grandmother), 75, 238n16 Haliburton Bi-centenary Chaplet: Papers Presented at the 1996 Thomas Raddall Symposium (Davies), 6, 132 Haliburton, Ellen Fowden, 102–3 Haliburton, Emma Marie (Mrs Bainbridge Smith), 22, 47, 102, 124, 132, 141, 153, 226, 231, 232, 238n14 Haliburton farm (Kennetcook), 267n14 Haliburton, George Mordaunt, 9, 121, 239n2

Haliburton, Georgianna, 10, 44, 62, 81, 92, 229 Haliburton girls, the, 104 Haliburton, Gordon, 239n3 Haliburton house (Windsor), 252n18, 288n56 Haliburton, James (formerly Burton): travels to Scotland with Haliburton, 7; befriends Haliburton, 71–2; checks proofs, 73; stays with Robert Hay, 254n20; marries an Egyptian wife, 254nn22–3; spends day with Joseph Howe, 74; in Scotland with Haliburton, 75; ignorance of Canadian politics, 76; Thomas Haliburton stays with James’ brother-in-law, 79; attends dinner party, 256n28; Bubbles of Canada addressed to him, 81; writes to Haliburton, 91; Susanna’s favourite, 92; plans visit to Nova Scotia, 93; compiles genealogy, 102–3; expected to visit Nova Scotia, 113 Haliburton, Jane Fowden, 271nn19– 20 Haliburton, Joseph, 224–5 Haliburton, Laura Charlotte (Mrs Cunard), 47, 130, 132, 141, 150, 173, 204, 226, 227, 232, 266n11 Haliburton, Lewis, 47 Haliburton, Louisa. See Neville, Louisa Haliburton, Lusanna, 9, 10, 11 Haliburton, Maria, 44 Haliburton, Miss, 258n6 Haliburton (Ontario), 203, 205, 209, 282n48 Haliburton road (Isleworth), 161 Haliburton, Robert Grant: his father is Bismarck’s favourite, 3; helps

302 Index compile memoir, 21; modifies memoir, 22; born, 47; visit to Scotland, 75; becomes a lawyer, 130, 267n23; accepts father’s papers, 152; suffers from rheumatic gout, 172; resides in Halifax, 204; dies in Mississippi, 231; office catches fire, 232 Haliburton, Susanna (Mrs Weldon): defends father’s memory, 5; father buys quarries, 14; father obtains permission to marry, 21; lack of knowledge of mother, 22; born, 47; takes gift to J.W. Croker, 79; travels to England to visit Burtons, 85, 90; travels with Elizabeth Bliss, 91; helps compile anthology of father’s work, 258n12; communicates with Maria Edgeworth, 102; receives letter from Lady Falkland, 123; marries, 130, 141; revisits Clifton, 153; seeks copyright of father’s works, 271n17; lives in New Brunswick, 204; death of son, 230; inability to purchase copyright, 287n40; death of, 287n49 Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 237n7, 240n28, 241nn29–31, 243n48, 254–5n6, 257n9, 258n6, 258n12, 259n21, 259n23, 259n31, 260n8, 260n13, 262n32, 267n28, 267–8n29, 270n43, 272n21, 272nn28–30, 272–3n32, 273n38, 276n53, 280n4, 281n9, 281n21, 288n56 – life and career: ancestry, 7; Yankee roots, 10; grandfather’s influence on, 8, 11; father’s influence on, 14; early formal education, 16; university

career, 17–18, 20; first trip to England, 20; marriage, 20–1; applies for Master of Arts, 22, 243n48; begins family, 22, 24; admitted to bar, 25; lieutenant in militia, 14; invests in iron company, 26; moves to Annapolis Royal, 27; law practice, 14, 66; Judge of Probate, 14, 25, 66; as MLA, 28, 29–30, 32–3; member of the Club, 28, 36– 7; and Frank Haliday, 36–7; conflict with Legislative Council, 32; and School Bill, 32, 35; conduct in legislature, 34–5, 38, 39; supports Pictou Academy, 35; censured by House of Assembly, 33–4, 41; disillusionment with politics, 36; death of father, 28; secures father’s position, 51; serious illness, 45; Judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, 25, 28, 39–40, 44, 45; and Windsor, 44, 56; claims for extra commissions, 45–6; orders dogs shot, 48; concern for future of Inferior Courts, 65; elected member of Massachusetts Historical Society, 246n10; visits Boston, 48, 248n6; visits Tremont House, Boston, 64; and Clifton, 47–50; President of Avon Bridge Company, 60–1; on sabbatical in England, 1838–9, 23, 64–5, 66, 241n31; enthusiasm for steam ships, 69–70, 93–4; social life in London, 71; and James Haliburton, 71; first visit to Scotland, 73; visits Abbotsford, 75; and Sir Walter Scott, 75; explores ancestry, 73, 75; and Joseph Howe, 74; and William Chambers, 74; seeks job in England, 78; admires Edgeworth,

Index 303 79; and Lord Durham, 82, 84–5; hostility to French Canada, 82–3; public dinner in his honour, 86–9; attacked by Acadian Recorder, 88; and Joseph Howe, 89, 99–101, 149; offers resignation, 66; appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 5, 101, 104–5; relations with Fales Family, 90; first communication with Ellen Fowden Haliburton, 102–3; wife’s illness and death, 105–6; and depression, 106– 7, 122–3; visit to England in 1843, 110; and Richard Bentley, 110–11, 113, 163–4, 180; raises political storm, 111; criticized by Cornelius Felton, 112; seeks patronage, 114, 151–2; illness and death of son Tom Jr, 120–2; praise of Anglican Church, 123–4; undertakes judicial duties, 128; and Clifton, 128, 131–2, 151, 152; denies Laura permission to marry, 130; visits England, 142–7, 151; criticizes charitable scheme in Bermuda, 142–3; attends Royal Agricultural Society in Gloucester, 144–5; and Sarah Harriet Owen Williams, 145–6; visits Killarney, 146; offers to retire from the bench, 152; letter of resignation, 149–50, 152; second marriage, 270n43, 153–4; rents Gordon House, Isleworth, 153; speaks at Manchester Athenaeum, 162–3; offered seat in Parliament, 163; becomes MP, 166–7; speaks at Royal Literary Fund, 167; speaks at Mansion House, 169; and Indian Mutiny relief, 168–9; visits Edgeworth, 171; receives Hon D.C.L. at

Oxford University, 172; speaks on ‘The Clergy of Scotland,’ 174–5; MP for Launceston, 181–8 passim; visits Tynemouth, 188–9; as conservative MP, 14, 190–1; on American Civil War crisis, 7–8; and Gladstone, 192–6, 198–9; on Timber duties bill, 194–7; on bankruptcy bill, 201; on cruelty to animals, 201; chair of Canada Land and Emigration Company, 203–12; trip to North America, 204; speaks at Launceston, 212; attends RuriDecanal Association meeting, 217– 18; becomes ill, 219; follows ‘Banting System,’ 220, 223–5; director of Credit Mobilier Co., 221; and Joseph Haliburton, 224–5; memories of the Shannon and Chesapeake, 225; visits Nova Scotia, 226; does not reoffer for Parliament, 226–7; death of, 229–30; photographic memorial tribute, 232; income, 167, 241n31, 228–9 – opinions: and anti-Semitism, 9; and racism, 77–8, 94–5, 97–8, 114–15, 118–19, 136, 143–4, 195–6, 198–9, 230; and sympathy for slaveholders, 144, 160–1; on Harriet Beecher Stowe, 142; fear of democracy, 78; patriarchal view of society, 127; conservative vision, 85–6, 96–7, 117, 126–7, 135, 160–1, 196, 200; and technological innovation, 96–7; on Yankees, 8; on King’s College, 15, 19; on politics, 30–1, 32, 126, 177; on Nova Scotia, 28–9, 43, 113, 117–18; on the Acadians, 244n22; on Halifax, 34; on the United States, 43; on

304 Index the Earl of Durham, 70; on farming, 129–30, 145; on Colonial Office, 163; on conservatives, 150; on colonial ties to Britain, 162–3, 164–5; on Indian Mutiny, 169; on steamships, 170; on Anthony Trollope, 172–3; on British politics, 186–7; and delight in worldly pleasures, 12–13, 64 – friendships: with Richard Bentley, 125; with Henry Bliss, 19, 262n32; with William Bliss, 66; with with Decimus Burton, 93; with J.W. Croker, 79; with Lord Falkland, 104–5, 126; with Thomas Quested Finnis, 167; with James Haliburton, 73, 93; with Edmund Hopkinson, 93, 171; with Joseph Howe, 205; with William Schaw Lindsay, 188; with Robert Parker, 61–2; with Abbé Sigogne, 244n22; with Mrs Frances Trollope, 254n6; with W.B. Watkins, 164, 226 – writing life: consults Peleg Wiswall, 42; accused of plagiarism, 41, 246n12; as a historian, 42–3; contributes to the Club, 36–7, 38; simple formula for The Clockmaker, 57; writes about familiar topics, 57; defends aim of The Clockmaker, 58; makes Slick a social being, 57; popularity of first series of The Clockmaker, 62, 63; receives silver plate, 62–3, 66; and American humorous tradition, 52– 5, 132–3; and Charles Augustus Davis, 54; transforms figure of Yankee, 55; lacks novelist’s imagination, 57; dedicates second series of The Clockmaker, 62; praised by Black-

wood’s, 63; receives payment for copyright of The Clockmaker, 65; replies to the Durham Report, 70; sells copyright of The Clockmaker second series, 75; poor reception of The Bubbles, 81–2; reflections on The Clockmaker (First Series), 86–7; announces third series of The Clockmaker, 88; negotiates The Clockmaker (third series), 94; puffed in Bentley’s Miscellany, 107–8; criticism of the Great Western, 94–5; future plans for books, 101–2, 112; bases The Attaché on own English experience, 109; reception of The Attaché, 109; prototypes for the old judge, 116–17; influenced by Georgia Scenes, 117; desires uniform edition of his works, 125–6; earnings, 131; anthologizes tall tales, 135; steps out of the literary frame, 137; signals gentlemanly status to reader, 134–5; satirical strategy, 140; recipe for the Slick books, 160 – Works General Description, 10, 17, 27, 28, 29, 34, 42, 43, 58 Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, 14, 24, 25, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 58, 61, 78, 86–7, 89, 100, 101, 102, 138, 244n22 The Clockmaker (First Twenty-One Sketches), 49, 50, 56, 255n6 The Clockmaker (First Series), 3, 6, 12, 34, 36, 44, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60–1, 62, 63, 64, 65, 75, 76, 77, 79, 84, 87, 94, 100, 104, 107, 116, 124, 125, 126, 146, 176, 177, 230, 265n30, 268n29 The Clockmaker (Second Series), 24, 32,

Index 305 40, 41, 62, 65, 69, 73, 75, 76, 77, 79, 93–4, 100, 107, 124, 125, 126, 244n22, 265n30 The Clockmaker (Third Series), 30, 31, 32–3, 64, 65, 74, 94, 99, 100–1, 102, 105, 107, 124, 125, 126, 162 The Bubbles of Canada, 63–4, 70, 76, 81–3, 85, 89, 94, 100, 125, 126, 254n5 A Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham, 70, 81, 84, 85, 89, 100 Letter Bag of the Great Western (1840), 3, 73, 80, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97–8, 99, 100, 101, 125, 146 The Attaché, 5, 7, 16, 18, 20, 101, 106–7, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114–15, 125, 126, 136, 137, 138, 146, 176, 195, 259n23, 261n19, 262n32 The Old Judge, 3, 15, 96, 101, 115–19, 121, 125, 126, 133, 134, 172, 176, 191 Rule and Misrule of the English in America, 101, 123, 126–7, 128, 131, 132, 176 Traits of American Humour, 54–5, 101, 132, 135, 136 The Americans at Home, 54–5, 101, 132, 133, 135, 136 Sam Slick’s Wise Saws, 131, 138–41, 142, 145, 151 Nature and Human Nature (1855), 14, 48, 70, 95, 139, 143–4, 145, 149, 151, 159–61, 162, 176, 244n22 Season Ticket (1860), 3, 95, 122, 125, 142, 153, 154–5, 166, 170, 171, 176–80, 186, 187, 192, 199, 217, 229, 230 ‘On the British Colonies’ (speech), 162

Address on the Present Condition, Resources, and Prospects of British North America, 164, 176 ‘The Literature of the Colonies,’ 167 ‘The Clergy of Scotland’ (speech), 174 ‘Law in North America’ (speech), 212, 277n63 Speech …on the Repeal of the Differential Duties on Foreign and Colonial Wood, 187, 194–6 ‘Our Relations with America’ (speech), 8, 214 – Characters Allen, Zeb, 118, 134; Barclay, Mr (character), 96, 116, 117, 110, 191; Boodle, Senator Lyman, 166, 176, 177; Carey, 176; Channing, Mr, 118, 119; Dumbkopf, Lord Edward, 118; Hopewell, Reverend Joshua, 59, 77, 78, 107, 108, 115, 124, 126, 136; Peabody, Mr (character), 142, 166, 176–7, 178, 217; Richardson, Stephen, 118, 119, 134; Slick, Sam, 3, 5, 8, 12, 16, 18, 30, 32, 36, 44, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 55–6, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 74, 77, 78, 81, 85, 88, 96, 99, 102, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119, 124, 125, 133, 134, 137, 139, 140–1, 143, 145, 147, 153, 159, 160, 166, 173, 174, 185–6, 189, 212, 227, 229, 267n28; Shegog, 176; Spohr, Nicholas, 118; Squire, the, 77, 99, 102, 107, 108, 109, 114, 124, 126, 134, 136, 137, 145, 159 Haliburton, Tom Jr, 9, 47, 60, 65, 66, 74, 102, 109, 113, 120–2, 125, 239n2 Haliburton, William, 7, 9, 11, 34, 116, 238n16; slave-owner, 6; death of, 8,

306 Index 24; ‘A Warning to the United States of America’, 10; eight months in service, 239n10; and writing, 10, 12; arrival in NS, 10; as a ‘trader,’ 11; notary, 11; flees NS, 11–12; inventor, 12, 240n26; memorial and petition, 240nn21–2; hails King’s College, 15 Haliburton, William Frederick Neville, 47 Haliburton, William Hersey Otis, 39, 47, 51, 240n28; pursuit of money, 10; municipal office holder, 13; MLA, 13; death of, 13, 44; man of business, 14; burnt in effigy, 45 Haliburton, William Neville, 47 Haliday, Frank (Club character), 36, 37–8, 40, 246n26 ‘Haliday’s Epitaph’ (the Club), 37 Halifax, 32, 34, 50, 58, 61, 70, 86, 87, 88, 95, 98, 104, 105, 107, 140, 147, 148, 150, 152, 173, 184, 204, 207, 220, 228 Halifax Chronicle Herald, 6 Hall, Lyman (character), 117, 263n23 Halliburton, Brenton (Chief Justice), 86, 87 Halliburton, George, 92 Hallyburton, Lord Frederick. See Gordon, Lord John Frederick Halyburton, David, 260n12 Hants County, 60 Hants County Land Registry Office, 13 Harbour, William R., 96, 97 Hardin, Ben (character), 54 Harding, 129 Hardwick Court (Gloucestershire), 144 Hartshorne, Mr, 87

Harvey, Sir Thomas, 86, 88 Haslaar (hospital ship), 205 Havana (Cuba), 218 Havelock, General, 169 Hawke, A.B., 196 Hawkins, Ernest, 123 151 Hay, Robert, 71, 73, 254n23 Head Lake (Ontario), 282n48 Head, Sir Francis Bond, 71, 81 Hemingway, Ernest, 4 Henley Farm (Old Stone House), 14, 241n29 Henley-on-Thames, 20, 142, 242n35 Herbert, Sidney (MP), 191 Heriot, George, 116 Hervieu, Auguste, 76, 254–5n6 High Life Below Stairs (Townley), 31, 78, 98, 119 Hill, George Handel (‘Yankee’), 53, 54, 63 hockey, 5 Homer, Mr (MLA), 37, 41 Hooper, Johnson Jones, 136 Hooter, Mike (character), 135 Hopkinson, Edmund, 71, 72, 73, 79, 92, 93, 110, 171, 242n31, 256n28 Horsman, Mr (MP), 188 Horton, 44, 45 Horton mountain, 60 Hounslow (Middlesex), 161, 172 Hounslow Parish Magazine, 227, 230 House of Assembly, 50, 152, 163, 240n22 House of Lords, 163, 167, 189, 197 Howe, Joseph, 88–9, 93, 102, 105, 149, 161, 163, 204–5, 253n4; publishes first series of The Clockmaker 3, 56, 60; member of the Club, 36; hails Historical and Statistical Account, 41; lends Jack Downing, 54; mentioned

Index 307 in The Clockmaker 57; puffs first series of The Clockmaker, 62; resents Bentley’s piracy of The Clockmaker, 64; and steam travel, 69–70; and Sir Francis Bond Head, 71; and Haliburton, 74; and Dickens in Halifax, 259n28; and anger over the third series of The Clockmaker, 99–101, 260n8; communicates as Provincial Secretary, 148, 271n8 Howe, Mary, 149 Howe, Mrs, 101 Humphrey, Charles, 72, 74, 254n22 Hunt, James, 218 Huntly, George, Marquess of, 154 hurley, 5, 16, 237n6 Hurst and Blackett (publishers), 139, 142, 164, 178 Hurst & Co (publishers), 131, 151 Hurst, Mr, 167 Ilford (London), 168 Illustrated London News, 230 Illustrated Times (London), 185 In Armageddon’s Shadow: The Civil War and Canada’s Maritime Provinces (Marquis), 222 India, 167, 169 Indian Mutiny, 168–9, 191 Indian Mutiny Relief Fund, 168–9 Inferior Courts, 65–6, 105, 149 Inglis, Charles, 15, 18 Inglis, John, 87, 124 Inglis, Lady, 169 Inglis, Sir John, 169 Inspecting Field Officers, 32 Ireland, 75 Irving, Washington, 63 Isleworth, 7, 161, 181, 188, 201, 216, 217, 218, 229, 231

Isleworth Library, 126, 161, 219 Isleworth Philanthropic Society, 219 Isleworth Reading Room, 216, 217, 219 Italy, Past and Present (Mariotti), 18 Jackson, Andrew, 54, 59 Jedburgh Hills, 75 Jefferys, C.W., 4, 5 Jenkins, Roy, 192, 194, 197, 201, 214 Jerdan, William, 99 Jersey, 87 ‘Jim’ and ‘Chunkey’ stories, 135 John Bull, 119 Johnson, Samuel, 172, 231 Joinville, Prince de, 105 Jones, Major (character), 135 Jordan, Mrs Dorothy, 62, 104, 154 Jubilee, the, 153, 273n36 Kashagawigamog, lake (Ontario), 205 Keefer, Janice Kulyk, 118 ‘Keeping-Room, The’ (The Old Judge), 119 Kelly, Sir Fitzroy, 149 Kelso, 93, 254n20 Kempt, Robert, 227 Kennedy, John Pendleton (pseud. Mark Littleton), 140, 269n15 Kennetcook River, 11 Kentville, 44 Killarney, 146, 147 Kilpatrick, Ross, 18 King, Harry, 27, 44, 45, 50, 57, 105, 106 Kingroad (Bristol), 80 King’s Arms hotel (Launceston), 213 King’s College, 13, 15–16, 17–20, 41, 47, 114, 116, 119, 124, 169 King’s College, New York, 15

308 Index King’s County, 60 King’s County Land Registry, 14 King’s Head (Cirencester), 171 Knickerbocker, 81 Knightsbridge (London), 221, 285n3, 285n5, 285n14 Knox, James, 93 Koblenz, 61, 74, 109, 121 Lacy House (Isleworth), 155 Lambeth, 110 Lancashire, 102, 213 land association, 12 Langley, Miss, 142 Latty (servant), 128 Launceston, 178, 181–5, 187, 205, 215 Launceston grammar school, 213 Launceston Weekly News, 181, 185, 223, 228 Lawrence, Sir Henry, 168 Layard, Mr (MP), 214, 222 Lea and Blanchard (publishers), 126 legal profession, 25–6, 27 Legends of the Lakes; or, Sayings and Doings in Killarney (Crofton), 56–7 Legislative Council, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40, 87 Lehmann, Emily (servant), 154 Leigh House (Ardwicke), 226 Leinster, Duke of, 146, 147 Letter on Corpulence: Addressed to the Public (Banting), 223–4 Leveson Gower family, the, 187 Liberal Ascendancy, 1830–1886, The (Jenkins), 180 Lincoln, Abraham, 286n16 Lincoln’s Inn Square (London), 72 Lindsay, William Schaw, 188–9, 218, 278nn14–16 Lisbon, 170

Litchfield, Bishop of, 151 Literary Gazette, 63, 252n19, 99, 112 Little, Nina Fletcher, 121, 122 Littleton, Mark (pseud.). See Kennedy, John Pendleton Liverpool (England), 173, 184, 193, 196 Liverpool (NS), 44, 45, 141 Lockhart (Bentley’s manager), 82 Logan, John Daniel, 4 London, 51, 62, 63, 64, 71, 74, 78, 81, 84, 89, 101, 115, 119, 120, 125, 155, 161, 164, 167, 170, 176, 181, 185, 205, 206, 207, 213, 217, 218, 219, 227 London, Bishop of, 153, 218 London Shoeblacks, 168 London Tavern, 226 ‘Lone House, The’ (The Old Judge), 115 Long Pond, 16, 237–8n7 Longstreet, Augustus, 117 Loomer, Larry, 237n7 Loudon, J.C., 48, 49 Loughborough, 144 Louisbourg, 162 Lovain, Lord (MP), 188 Lover, Samuel, 174 Lowell, 52 Lower, Arthur R.M., 195 Lower Canada, 70, 76, 82, 141 Lowther, 129 Loyalists, 16 Lucknow (India), 168, 169 Lundy, 80 Lunenburg, 44, 61, 69, 128 Lynn, Kenneth, 117, 134 Macdonald, Duncan, 240n28 Macdonald, J. Sandfield, 226

Index 309 Mackenzie, William Lyon, 100 Mackay, Mrs, 90 MacNab, Sir Allan, 206 Madras (India), 170 Maine, 79 Mainwaring, Charles Benjamin, 219 Mainwaring, Charles Kynaston, 175 Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 40, 246n6 Major, the (Club character), 37, 38 Manchester, 162, 164, 171, 172, 194 Manchester Athenaeum, 162, 163 Manitoba, 210 Mansion House (London), 167, 168–9 Marble, Dan, 53, 54 Marchant, Sir John Gaspard Le, 148 Marcus, Steven, 71 Maria Grey College (Isleworth), 273n3 Mariotti, Luigi, 18, 19, 50 Marlow (Club character), 38 Marquis, Greg, 98 Marryat, Captain, 75 Marshall, John George, 41, 42, 105, 152 Martin, Ged, 82, 83, 84 Martineau, Harriet, 124 Mason Hall (Halifax), 86 Mason, James M., 218 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 122 Matthews, Alex (servant), 154 Matthews, Charles, 53 Matthews, Charles (servant), 154 Matthews, John (servant), 154 May, Henry, 219 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 222–3 McCulloch, Thomas, 35, 41 McKie, Mary, 104 McLean’s Hospital (Somerville, Mass), 9, 102, 120–1, 122, 239n2

McMullin, Stanley E., 107, 126 McNab, James, 86 McNutt, Alexander, 135 Medea (sailing ship), 70 Meerut (India), 168 Melrose, 76, 144 Merlin (Club character), 38 ‘Merlin’s Farewell to the Club,’ 40 Mexico, 214 Middlesex Chronicle, 217, 219 Middlesex Rifles, 16th SW, 218–19 Mi’kmaq, 104 Mills, Elizabeth, 240n28 Milnes, Richard Monkton, 174 Minden (Ontario), 205, 209 Missouri, 200 Money Market Review, 206, 221 Monk (student at King’s College), 18–19 Montgomerie, Hugh, 207–8, 210 Monthly Review, 82, 109, 113 Montreal, 173, 205 Montrose, 220 Moonstone, The (Collins), 222 Morley, M. (servant), 154 Morning Journal (Halifax), 146 Morris, Charles, 41 Morris, Ned (student at King’s College), 19 Morton, John, 41 Mount Auburn Cemetery (Boston), 121–2 Mount Desert (NS), 34 Mount Tom (NS), 34 Muir, Mr, 175 Murchison, Sir Roderick, 145 Murdoch, Beamish, 41, 50–1 Murray, Admiral, 13 Napoleon III, 190, 223

310 Index ‘National Gallery of Distinguished Men’ (Fry), 181 Neville, Lawrence, 20, 142 Neville, Louisa (Mrs Thomas Chandler Haliburton): brother’s legacy, 61, 241n31; living in Henley-uponThames, 20; marries Haliburton, 21; past life, 22; musical and artistic talents, 23, 30, 104; gives birth to eleven children, 47; relays news to Augusta in Boston, 91–3; illness and death of, 102, 105–7; interest in horticulture, 154; last days, 179; memorial window, 231, 288n51 Neville, William Frederick, 20, 21, 61 New Britain (British Columbia), 164 New Brunswick, 42, 65, 79, 91, 130, 195, 204, 214, 220 New Brunswick legislature, 36 Newcastle, 214 Newcastle, Duke of, 138, 269n21, 148, 200 Newfoundland, 164, 195 Newport ferry, 45 Newport (NS), 45 New World (New York), 109 New York, 70, 93, 94, 95, 116, 173, 204, 205, 214, 254n5 Niagara (steamship), 148 Niagara Falls, 93, 173, 204 Nice (France), 232 Nichols, George K., 26, 116 Nineteenth and Their Times, The (Biddulph), 20 Nineteenth Light Dragoons, The, 20 Noctes Ambrosianae, 36 North American Review, 81, 112 North British Daily Mail, 174 Northcote-Trevelyan report (1853), 163

Northeast Boundary Dispute, 79 Northram (steamship), 170 Northumberland, Duke of, 155, 181, 182, 217, 227 ‘Notions of Sam Slick [With a Portrait of the Author]’ (Bentley’s Miscellany), 107 Nova Scotia, 220 Nova Scotia Department of Highways, 5 Nova Scotia legislative assembly, 32, 38, 44 Nova Scotia Royal Gazette, 69 Novascotian, 28, 32, 36, 37, 41, 48, 56, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 86, 88, 105, 111, 204 Nutting, Ellen, 106 Old Broadstreet (London), 206 Old Parish Burying Ground (Windsor), 106, 231 Ontario, 123, 203, 204 Ontario, Lake, 205 Ontario Land Commissioner, 204 On the Negro’s Place in Nature (Hunt), 218 Orleans House (Twickenham), 155, 266n11 Ormiston Hall (home of Robert Hay), 73 Orsini plot, 223 Osborne, Ralph Bernal (MP), 200 Osman, 72 Otely Park (Ellesmere), 175 Otis, Abigail, 9, 10, 122 Otis, Ephraim, 9, 122 Otis, James, 9 Owen, Mostyn family, 155 Owen, Sarah Harriet Mostyn (Mrs Haliburton, formerly Mrs Hosier

Index 311 Williams), 169, 172, 173, 175, 179, 188, 210–11, 217, 220, 223, 226, 227; meets Haliburton, 145–6; childhood friend of Charles Darwin, 270n40; solicitude for Haliburton, 270n42; marriage, 151, 153–4; moves to Gordon House, 155; sends seeds to the Parkers, 273n39; and Ellen Watkins, 164; executrix of Haliburton’s will, 219, 287–8n27; death of, 230–1; photographic image of, 288n56 Owen, William, 175 Owen, William Mostyn, 175 Oxford, 199 Oxford University, 172, 200, 278n18 P & O Steamship Company, 95 Paddington (London), 217 Palmerston, Lord, 164, 188, 190, 198, 218, 222, 223 Panama, 173 Panofsky, Ruth, 62 Panurge (character), 229 Paper Duties Act, 197 Papworth, J.B., 49 Paris, 74, 87, 153, 224 Parker, Mrs Neville, 222 Parker, Mrs Robert, 154 Parker, Neville, 18, 20, 21, 27, 65, 222 Parker, Robert, 41, 49, 61, 63, 64, 73, 90, 121, 154, 223, 226, 227, 273n39; schoolfriend of Haliburton’s, 20; hears of Haliburton’s serious illness, 45, 78; hears Haliburton’s opinion of second series of The Clockmaker, 65, 91; acts as Haliburton’s confidante, 91, 113 Parker, Sir James, 276n49 Parks, Malcolm, 116

Parris, Edmund Thomas (Royal Academician), 96 Pass Christian (Mississippi), 231 Patience Swinsen v. Lord Chelmsford, 178–9 Patriotic Fund, 191 Pearse, W.D., 185 Peel, Sir Robert, 114, 187, 191, 194 Pellow, James Peter, 152, 228, 272n28 Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, 170 Penney, Allen B., 50, 132 Pepper’s Railway Inn (Isleworth), 219 Percy, Jocelyn (MP), 181 Peterborough (Ontario), 205 Pethick, Dr, 184 Philadelphia, 126 Piccadilly, 81 Pickwick Papers, 62 Pictou Academy, 35 Piercy, Ann, 20, 142 Piercy, Captain Richard, 20 Pindar, Peter, 85 Planters, 16, 55 Plymouth, 213 Polehampton, Henry, 169 ‘Polly Peasblossom’s Wedding’ and Other Tales (Burke), 133 Poplar Grove, 14 Porter, Charles, 17, 114 Porter, Michael, 17 Porter, Reginald, 129 Porter, William T., 55, 132 Port Hope (Ontario), 205 Portland Courier, 54 Portsmouth, 205 Post Office Directory of Middlesex (1860), 161 Prince, 11 Provost, Lord (Glasgow), 174

312 Index Puseyites, 190 Quarterly Review, 79, 106 Quarter Race in Kentucky, and Other Sketches, Illustrative of Scenes, Characters, and Incidents, Throughout ‘The Universal Yankee Nation’ (Porter), 133 Quebec, 204, 215 Queen’s Dock (Halifax), 89 Quit Rents, 35 Radicals, 186–7 Railshead ferry, 217 Railshead (Isleworth), 217 Railway Library series (Routledge), 230 Rambler, The, 200 Ratler (Club character), 38 Rednall Township (Shropshire), 155 Reform Act, 1832, 176, 181 Reform Bill, 1867, 228 Regent’s Canal, 79 Regent’s Park, 72, 79, 91 Registrar of Hackney Coaches, 78 ‘Reminiscences of Windsor in the Seventies’ (Vroom), 153 Report on the Affairs of British North America (Durham), 70, 76, 79, 82, 83, 126 Revival of Bishop Berkeley’s College, The (Gray), 143 Richibucto, NB, 130 Richmond (London), 146, 161, 168, 219, 231 ‘Rising Village, The,’ 27 Ritchie, Mrs John, 92 Roach, William, 29 Robbins, Dr, 181–2 Robert Burns Centenary Meeting, 174

Robinson, Sir John Beverley, 151, 204, 206 Roche, Frederic T., 207 Roper, Henry, 16, 17, 19–20 Ross, 128, 131 Rossin House Hotel (Toronto), 207 Rotterdam, 61 Routledge (publisher), 230 Rover (New York), 109 Royal Academy, 197 Royal Agricultural Society, 144 Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, 146 Royal General Theatrical Fund, 194 Royal Geographical Society, 145 Royal Literary Fund, 167 Rubenstein, W.D., 221 Rubini, Signor, 217 Rudolph, W, 41 Rural Residences, Consisting of a Series of Designs for Cottages, Decorated Cottages, Small Villas, and other Ornamental Buildings; Accompanied by Hints on Situation, Construction, Arrangement, and Decoration, in the Theory and Practice of Rural Architecture: Interspersed with Some Observations on Landscape Gardening (Papworth), 49 Ruri-Decanal Association, 217 Russell, A.J., 208 Russell family, the, 187 Russell, Lord John, 185, 228 Russell, W, 171 Russell, William Nathaniel, 219 Rutherford, Anna Clay (Zimmerman), 102 Rutherford, William Kenneth, 102 Saint John NB, 45, 60, 95

Index 313 Salt, Francis, 16 Sambro (Halifax), 222 Sam Slick Days, 5 Sam Slick, Jr, 84 Sam Slick Society, 5 Sam Slick’s Pub and Eatery, 5 Sandford, Judge (character), 108, 116, 117, 263n23 Sandford, Samuel, 52 Sangster, J.L., 128, 129, 131 Sardinia, King of, 223 Savoy, 195 Scarborough, 219 Scenes from the Life of an Actor by a Celebrated Comedian (Hill), 53 Schull, Joseph, 255n19 School Bill, 32, 35 School Room (Isleworth), 217 Scotland, 71, 73, 74, 75, 91, 93, 102, 103, 109, 142, 144, 174, 225 Scott, Reverend William, 173 Scott, Walter (father of Sir Walter), 7, 238nn14, 16 Scott, Sir Walter, 7, 75, 108, 144, 238n14 Scott, William, 238n.14 Seige of Lucknow: A Diary (Lady Inglis), 169 Seringapatam, 242n31 Seward, William H., 222 Shaftesbury, Earl of, 143 Shakespeare, William, 108 Shannon (sailing ship), 86, 88, 225 Sheffield (Egyptologist), 72 Shelburne (NS), 131 Sheldonian Theatre, 172 Shepherd, The (Noctes Ambrosianae), 113 Shepperton Manor (London), 188 Sherbrooke, Sir John, 17

She Stoops to Conquer, 27 Short Account of the Haliburtons of Windsor, Nova Scotia from 1760 to 1865. By a Relative (Georgianna Haliburton), 62, 105 Shrewsbury, 155, 169 Shreve, James, 41 Shropshire County Records Office, 276 Shubenacadie Canal, 33, 35 Siddons, Mrs, 159 Sigogne, Abbé, 27, 28, 41 Sirius (steamship), 69, 70, 93 Sketches and Eccentricities of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee, 55 Sketch of Mr Matthew’s Entertainment Entitled A Trip to America As Now Performing with great éclat at the English Opera House, 53 slavery, 10–11, 77, 114–15, 136, 160–1, 198–9, 254–5n6, 255–6n22, 276n38 Slidell, John, 218 Slim, Mr, 55 Small, Colonel, 11 Smith, Abiel, 9, 10 Smith, Barney, 9 Smith (caretaker), 153 Smith, George, 41 Smith, John, 129 Smith, Richard, 42 Smith, Robert Carmichael, Mjr, 69 Smith, Seba, 54, 267n28 Smith, Titus, 41 Smyrna, 124 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP), 123 Southampton, 91, 170, 176 Southern Independence Association, 218

314 Index South Kensington Museum (London), 231 South Shore (Nova Scotia), 105 Spa Springs, 61 Spectator (London), 82, 109, 113 Spirit of the Times, The, 55, 132, 134, 136 Stage Coach Company, 60 Standard (London), 70, 75, 76, 111 Stanley, Lord, 110 Stansfield, Mr (MP), 222–3 St Ann’s Hotel (Buxton), 172 steamship travel, 69, 95–6 Stephen, John (Colonial Office), 110 Stephens, William (gardener), 50, 153, 248n17 Stewart, Alexander, 41 Stewart, Charles, 209, 210 Stewart, James (Judge), 39 Stewart, Mr (MLA), 36 St George’s Church (Dysart), 211 St George’s Church (London), 153 St Lawrence River, 215 St Leonards-on-Sea, 72, 79, 91 St Margaret’s (Isleworth), 155 St Matthew’s Chapel of Ease (Windsor), 123 St Matthew’s Church (Boston), 121, 122 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 142, 143 St Paul’s Church (Halifax), 87, 124 St Paul’s Church (London), 220 St Paul’s College (Bermuda), 142–3 St Pierre (island), 215 St Thomas’s Church (Launceston), 213 Strand, The (London), 75, 88 Stringer & Townshend (publishers), 116 Stroud, 79

Sugarman, David, 26 Suggs, Simon (character), 135 Sunday Times, 119 Supreme Court of New Brunswick, 130 Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 46, 65–6, 104, 105, 116, 120, 131, 147, 149, 150, 152 Swallow Barn, or Life in the Old Dominion (Kennedy), 140 Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic, The (Brinnin), 69 Swift, Jonathan, 13, 85 Swinsen, Mrs Patience, 178–9 Syon Park (Isleworth), 155, 217 Taylor, M. Brook, 41–3 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 4, 69, 167 Thames, river, 161, 202, 217 Thesiger, Sir Frederick, 149, 178–9 Thomas Chandler Haliburton Bi-centenary Conference, 232 Thomas, Miss (Mrs Lewis Wilkins), 84 Thomas Raddall Symposia series, 232 Thompson, F.M.L., 153 Thornton, Tamara Plakins, 48, 50 Timber duties Bill, 194 Times (Halifax), 88, 89, 105 Times (London), 76, 77, 83, 84, 162, 171, 174, 175, 188, 194, 195, 196, 197, 215, 223, 231 Tipperlinne, 93 ‘Tombstones, The’ (The Old Judge), 116 Toronto, 204, 207, 214 Toronto Star, 4 Torquay, 153, 231 Townley, James, 31

Index 315 Trafalgar, Battle of, 93 Travelling by Sea in the Nineteenth Century (Greenhill and Giffard), 95 Treatise on the Discipline of Light Cavalry (Neville), 20 Tremont House (Boston), 64 Trent affair, 218, 238n10 Tristram Shandy, 113, 140 Trollope, Anthony, 4, 7, 172–3, 201 Trollope, Frances, 75, 76, 107, 110, 133, 146 Trollope, Thomas Adolphus, 75 Trollope, Cecilia, 75, 110 Trotz, Mr (character), 118 Tunbridge Wells, 169 Turner, Henry (servant), 154 Tweed, river, 75 Tweedside, 93 Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Physician and Superintendent of the McLean Asylum for the Insane, to the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital (Bell), 121 Twickenham, 161 Tynemouth and North Shields, 188, 189 Tyneside, 230 Tyrian, 69, 70, 253n4 Uniacke, James Boyle, 18, 86, 88 Uncle Sam, 54, 268n29 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 142 United States of America, 77, 79, 84– 5, 87, 115, 164, 166, 184, 199, 210, 213, 222 University College (London), 72 Upham, Charles W., 266n7 Upham family, 130, 266n6 Upham Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, 266n7

Upham, Frances Chandler, 130 Upper Canada, 36, 70, 71, 76, 82, 151, 196, 206, 246n6 Upper Canada Land Registry, 204 Upper Canada legislature, 36 Up to Date, or the Life of a Lumberman (Thompson), 282n43 Urwin, Alan C.B., 273n3, 273n38, 273n43, 285n6 U.S. Congress, 36 Valentine, William, 23 Valley of the Kings, 71 Vanauken, Sheldon, 239n19, 278n23, 284n45 Vancouver Coal company, 228 VanKoughnet, P.M., 204, 206, 207–8 Vaughan, Mr, 110 Verstraete, Beert, 269n22 Vicar of Wakefield, The, 27 Victoria, Queen, 71, 93, 104, 227, 231, 273n36 Victorian Publisher: A Study of the A Bentley Papers (Gettman), 251–2n13, 265n39, 276nn40–1 Victory (hospital ship), 205 Villa Lefevre (Nice), 266n11 Villiers, Mr, 86 Virgil, 269n22 Vroom, F.W., 153 Waldgrave, Earl of, 143 Wales, Prince of, 204, 218 Walker, Dr, 69 Wallis, Provo, 86, 87–88 Wanstead (London), 167–8 Ward, Ann (servant), 154 Ward, Artemus, 53 Ward, Samuel Ringgold, 143 War of 1812, 9, 162

316 Index Waterloo, 74, 201 Waterloo, Battle of, 93 Water Street (Windsor), 5, 14, 47, 49, 152 Watkins, Mrs Ellen, 145, 164 Watkins, Helen, 167 Watkins, Herbert, 230 Watkins, W.B., 145, 164, 168, 171, 172, 217, 226, 274n16 Watteau, Antoine, 96, 259n31 Weaver, Emily, 22 Webber, G.W., 184 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 79, 145 Webster, Daniel, 50 Wedgwood family, 146 Weekly Chronicle, 17 Weir, Benjamin (merchant), 228 Weir, John, 41 Weldon, Haliburton, 230, 231 Weldon, John Wesley, 130 Weldon, Susanna. See Haliburton, Susanna Wellington, Duke of (Arthur Wellesley), 246n6 West Indies, 173 Westminster, 188, 218 Westminster Hall (London), 110 What Asylums Were, Are, and Ought to Be (Browne), 122 Whigs, 186–7, 188, 190 Whitelock, Bulstrode, 22 Whiteside, Mr (MP), 198 Whitton (London), 219 Wilbraham, Anne, 223 Wilkins, Lewis Morris Jr, 45, 247n33 Wilkins, Lewis Morris Sr, 105, 116, 120, 247n33 Wilkins, Sally, 92 Wilkinson, Henry C., 143 Wilkinson, Sir John Gardiner, 71

Wilkinson, W.A. (MP), 110 Will of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, 286–7n27 William IV, 62, 104, 154, 161, 260–1n2 Williams, Colonel Joseph, 239n10 Williams, Miss. See Owen, Sarah Harriet Mostyr Williamson, John & Co (London publisher), 64 William T. Porter and the Spirit of the Times: A Study of the Big Bear School of Humor (Yates), 133 Wilson Collection, 93, 102, 110, 231, 232 Windsor Chamber of Commerce, 5 Windsor militia, 14 Windsor (NS), 4, 10, 14, 20, 45, 47, 49, 50, 56, 57, 58, 60, 88, 90, 97, 99, 105, 114, 116, 121, 129, 150, 152, 153, 159, 169, 206, 231 Wiswall, Judge Peleg, 26–7, 39, 41, 42, 43, 116 Wolfville ridge, 60 Wood, Mrs, 91, 92, 106 Wood, Emily, 73, 92 Wood, Helen, 73, 92 Wood, Rose, 73 Wood, Thomas, 72 Woodhouse (Shropshire), 155, 175, 270n40 Wortley, James Stuart, 221 Wynne, John Lloyd, 175 Yankees, 8 Yates, Norris W, 133, 136 Yarmouth (NS), 131 Yarmouth Herald, 62