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A Forthright Man
Two kinds of immigrants
came to Upper Canada from Britain.
One consisted of people
in authority, exercising power directly or indirectly and expecting
obedience. This group included the government officials, their
authority coming from the Crown. These officials ranged from
the Governor himself to the petty appointees in local areas.
The latter were drawn largely from the commissioned or warrant
officers of the discharged soldiery. In this group also were
civilians who, by reason of their place in professional or business
life, expected a measure of deference from the immigrant community.
Usually people with authority lived in the towns and villages.
A much larger group in
the pioneer society consisted of those commonly know as "the
settlers". They were the immigrants hungry for land and
the relative independence which ownership of Britain. Some of
these were civilians, some discharged soldiers. They were a virile
people. They were capable of unremitting toil, or enduring much
hardship. Their eyes were set upon the day when the woods would
have become farms and a cleared homestead would assure them the
necessities of life. Freely accepting this as their role in the
community, the majority conceded to "the officials"
the particular role these latter had been assigned or had assumed.
But not all! For among
these "settlers" in almost every community were a few
who did not accept so readily the class distinctions subtly establishing
themselves in the new world. They were at one with their fellow
"settlers" in the struggle for daily living. They differed
from the majority, however, in being less willing to receive
without question the dictum of "the officials" in matters
which would affect them vitally. Some of them may have had more
formal education than their neighbours, yet seldom were they
highly educated men. Most of them became the spokesmen for their
group simply because of some personality characteristic. They
were, naturally, singled out for criticism. Their moderate claims,
no less than their more excessive demands, were often denied
with strictures upon their persons rather than their requests.
It was from this element that there ultimately arose many of
the leaders who established representative democracy in the Canadas.
They might even be considered a third group in any immigrant
settlement and not an unimportant one.
John Holliday was one of
these independent pioneers in the settlement of Perth.
It is difficult to discover
an unbiased opinion of John Holliday's character. Most surviving
descriptions of him were made by people in conflict with his
opinions or his conduct. These may fairly be considered less
than objective. To reach a fair conclusion about him one must
take into consideration the person making the statement and the
circumstances which called it forth, as also the degree of support
his position was receiving from his peers.
John Holliday emerges as
a man with strong convictions whether they were concerned with
Church or State, a man determined to state these convictions
openly and forthrightly, and ready to pursue a given course of
action in the matter to the ultimate. In any such conflict of
opinion there was no "sweet reasonableness" in this
matter. Rather, there was a directness of speech which angered
the other party. So that is could be described by a military
official as "insubordination" or by his minister as
"insolence."
The unfavourable characteristic
implied in these descriptions of John Holliday's manner is modified
by consideration of two or three concomitant factors. First,
the settlement was being administered by half-pay army officers.
Their idea of the "settler" - "official"
relationship was that of the private-officer relationship in
the army. In 1817 after a few months of life in Canada, Reverend
William Bell, the Presbyterian minister at Perth, could write:"None
but those who have felt it can understand what an aggressive
and tyrannical course some of the underlings of Government in
the colonies sometimes pursue towards those who are not inclined
to fall down and worship them....Woe to the unhappy wight that
dares to gainsay their mandates". (1)
Now, according to Andrew
Haydon "John Holliday, like most of his companions, doubtless
thought that saying good-bye to the old land meant a farewell
also to a time and a country overwhelmed with military demands,
and certainly sick of everything that savoured of war. Coming
as a civilian settler, little wonder that he became restive under
the military discipline" (2). Given these conflicting attitudes
on the part of the administrator and the settler it is small
wonder that a settler of John Holliday's temperament should react
vigorously or that the administrator should consider such independence
as "insubordination".
Another fact which modifies
the unfavourable description of John Holliday's character is
that most of the descriptive adjectives come from the Reverend
William Bell. They include such uncomplimentary remarks as the
following:
"It is natural to
him to be insolent to everyone in authority in church or state."
(3); "This bigot gave me much trouble." (4); "Mr.
Holliday had for some time past discovered a very turbulent disposition."
(5); "Mr. Holliday is an enemy to all improvement".
(6)
On more than one occasion
Mr. Bell included other settlers on the Scotch Line in similar
criticism, as when he wrote:
"Some of (the Scotch
settlers) were of a very factious and troublesome disposition".
(7)
Mr. Bell's sharp comments
appear to have been influenced by his concept of his own place
in the community as a clergyman. He expected unquestioning acceptance
of his rule in matters of faith, order and conduct, so that he
could be described by his biographer as "a man muffled up
in positive sureness" (8). This applied equally to the members
of his own communion and, as he himself said, to "the half-pay
officers (who) wished to enjoy the privileges of the Church though
they neither submitted to its discipline, nor attended to the
duties of religion" (9). Mr. Bell not only expected submission
to his discipline, he was always severe, perhaps not even fair,
in his assessment of any individual who refused to submit, who
refused obedience to his dictum or questioned his ruling. And
undoubtedly John Holliday was one such. Devotedly religious though
he was, John Holliday was assuredly a non-conformist. As Senator
Haydon put it, "If military establishments were not to his
liking in 1815 (back in Scotland), ecclesiastical establishments,
according to the practice of the time, brought even less cheer
before many years passed over the settlement" (10). Mr.
Bell's portrayal of John Holliday's character must certainly
have been influenced by the latter's open criticism of the minister.
Over against these unfavourable
descriptions of John Holliday are some facts of his life, recorded
by disinterested parties, rather complimentary than otherwise.
Before the emigrants left Scotland their departure was being
organized by the government agent in Scotland, John Campbell.
He reported to Henry Goulbourn, Under-Secretary of State for
the Colonies, on June 28, 1815, "I beg to send the enclosed
recommendation from Settlers whose children amount to 128 in
favour of John Halliday (sic) to be their Schoolmaster. His certificates
for character and ability as an ordinary School teacher are satisfactory".
(11) The choice of John Holliday by his fellow emigrants, as
well as the favourable character references, must surely modify
some of the later strictures made on his character.
This confidence in the
man they had selected as schoolmaster did not change after the
settlers arrived in Canada. At Cornwall during the winter of
1815-16 he was recognized as the "ringleader" who placed
the colonists complaints about conditions there before the authorities.
(12) Later, at Brockville, he was an organizer of the petition
made by twenty-six of the thirty immigrant families to be placed
west of Kingston rather than in the Rideau Lakes region. (13)
After the settlement on the Scotch Line, when his schoolmaster's
salary had been withheld because he was alleged to have charged
fees from the scholars, "the settlers concerned, by certificate
which they all signed, vindicated Mr. Holliday". (14)
Perhaps the most unusual
tribute to the regard in which his fellow settlers held him was
paid, probably unwittingly, by Mr. Bell himself. In 1828 a bitter
controversy had raged between Mr. Bell and John Holliday over
the use of hymns in the church. When it had been settled officially
in Mr. Bell's favour, he decided to report the decision at a
church service. Of it he wrote, "Next Sabbath there was
a large congregation..... For tho' (the Scotch Line settlers)
saw nothing wrong in (the hymns) themselves, yet when a knowing
man like Mr. Holliday had denounced them, it created doubts".
(15) This description of him as "a knowing man" whose
opinion carried weight must surely be more than an acknowledgment
of his intelligence and of his competence to form a judgment.
on a matter of religion, though both these are implied. It indicates
also a willingness on the part of his neighbours to accept his
leadership tentatively even against established Church authority
and their disinclination to accept his detractors' estimate of
his character. And this twelve years after the Scotch Line settlement
had been founded!
Finally, his position among
the Scotch settlers was summed up by the biographer of Mr. Bell
in these words: "(John Holliday) had turned out to the too
independent a civilian to live in a military settlement where,
as the spokesman for the men on the Line, he had had more than
one clash with the authorities". Doubtless John Holliday
was a difficult person to get along with, yet one cannot but
wonder if a man rightfully described as insubordinate, a bigot,
insolent, turbulent, would have retained through the years the
confidence of his fellow settlers, so that he could be described
as their "spokesman".
A clue to this continuing
confidence may be found in the closing statement of one of his
letters to Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant-Governor of the
Province, about his unpaid teacher's salary. It makes clear that
John Holliday, while anxious to get the moneys due him, while
denying the allegations about his conduct, and while requesting
a complete investigation of the charges, was unwilling to have
the matter settled 'on the quiet'. He concluded his letter thus:
"(The writer) wishes
to have the privilege of knowing and facing his accusers".
(17)
Here was summed up John
Holliday's determination to have his character vindicated where
his fellow citizens could see it done. He was ready to place
the facts as he conceived them against those alleged against
him, and this in public. He seems to have had some understanding
of the basic right of a citizen in a democracy.
All aspects of John Holliday's
character will never be clear. Doubtless there were, by twentieth
century standards, some undesirable features about it. Doubtless,
also, by any standards, there were features in it which commanded
the loyalty and probably the respect of his fellow immigrants
to Upper Canada. As his story unfolds, many of these, desirable
and undesirable alike, are pointed up by the events of his life
and the way in which he met them. One indisputable element in
it, however is the fact that it could be said of John Holliday
as it was once said of a contemporary Scot, - the architect David
Bryce of Edinburgh -
"He was a forthright
man, who knew what he wanted and never hesitated to say it."
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