The long
letter transcribed below from Robert Sympson Jameson to his wife Anna in Europe
was written a few months after his arrival in Upper Canada from England,
following his appointment as its Attorney General based in Toronto. He
describes in lively terms the election campaign which has just ended in Leeds
County and resulted in his election alongside the prominent “Orange” Irishman
Ogle Robert Gowan (1803-1876) whose active support he enjoyed. Gowan was based
in Brockville, the principal town of Leeds County and named in the letter.
Jameson fears that there will be a challenge to the result and, indeed, there
was and it was successful.
He goes
on to describe his work and life in Toronto where he has been visited by a
physician, Dr Julius from Berlin, who is researching Canada’s economy and
politics and has been travelling with a party headed by Harriet Martineau, mentioned
in the letter. The book which Jameson gives him is almost certainly the Lexicon,
o Vocabulario de la lengua general del Perú, by the Spanish Dominican friar
Domingo de Santo Tomás and first published in 1560. Their dinner companion is
Dr William “Tiger” Dunlop (1792-1848), an adventurous army officer and surgeon
who fought in the war of 1812 and later was a leading figure in the development
of the Huron Tract in southern Ontario.
The
letter concludes with expressions of hope that his better-known author and
activist wife Anna Brownell Jameson nee Murphy (1794-1860) will join him and
describes the beginnings of a project to build a house to her taste. The
marriage had not been a success and though Anna did join him in 1836 she left
after less than a year.
Robert Sympson Jameson circa 1840
*
Transcription
Addressed to: Mrs Jameson 7
Mortimer Street Cavendish Square London
Re-directed:
à Madame Mde Jameson Poste restante
à Vienna
Postmarked: TORONTO OC 30 1834; Transit
marks of Liverpool, London, Amsterdam; arrival mark of WIEN 17 DEC
Datelined: Upper Canada Lake of a Thousand Islands 12 October
My dearest Anna
I commence this on the river
Laurence where I am on board one of our splendid steam packets gliding up
towards lake Ontario. I left Brockville late last night a Knight of the Shire
having carried the County most conclusively – to the astonishment and dismay of
the enemy who retired from the contest on the fourth day of the poll. I have
gone through a fortnight of such exercise in all weathers enough to knock up a
weak man; but the only inconvenience I feel is literally that my right hand is
benumbed and in pain from the grips and thumbscrewing of the Leeds yeomanry,
whose hands have exercised the axe to some purpose and whose manual expression
of devotion often compelled a tear as well as a smile. I did not like to speak
with much confidence of my return for the County, which as it is the largest &
by far the most populous in the province has always appeared to be the most
disaffected to the Government. When therefore previous to the General Election
I accepted the Requisition it appeared both to the Government and their
opponents a most hopeless attempt. I had never been in the County and had
nothing to rely on but a little personal popularity, which some very ardent
friends made the utmost use of – except indeed that the unprepossessing manners
and stupidity of my two competitors was so much in my favour that I would give
them any start they chose in a canvas and beat them.
Another thing in my favour too is
that my colleague is an Irishman, also a new aspirant to political distinction,
and having unbounded influence among his countrymen who are very numerous in
that county, had predisposed them in my favour, and they to a man were warm
supporters. When I entered the County for the first time a fortnight ago and
spent a week in galloping over it or as much of it as I possibly could I was
received everywhere in a manner which perfectly astonished me – and when the
contest commenced I never in England saw anything exceeding the enthusiasm.
Some trifling instances of vivacity on the part of my Irish friends, who were
not inclined to bear very tamely anything like an affront to themselves or
their favourites, are made a pretext on the part of the disappointed candidates
for withdrawing from a contest which they had no chance of winning. It
certainly required all the influence and ingenuity which myself or my colleague
could exert to guide and temper the ardour of our supporters. They are as fine
a set of intelligent independent fellows as the whole world can produce, and
having been for many years kept in the background by a faction of grovelling
wealthy exclusives, their delight on the present occasion, when they felt they
were exercising their rights in favour [of] those of so different
principles, knew no bounds. Nothing however could be less alike in some
respects than Mr Gowan’s Orange politics and mine. He was
supported exclusively by his party but I had not only their support & of
the Europeans generally but that of the best of the Canadian population. Know
madam, in short, that I performed the part of a canvasser &c so well as to
acquire the appellation of the Pet of the People! And then came the glories of
the Chairing, through deluges of rain, about which no mortal present cared a
straw – there were songs sung about “our brave Attorney General” and in fact
all the captivating abominations of a successfully contested county Election –
very much after those delightful models exhibited in England.
My dearest Anna. I have now been
five days at home but have not been able to finish my letter. I arrived here
just in time to recommence my law labours at the Home assizes which are now
going on and the Solicitor General is unwell and unable to give me any
assistance so that I have still everything upon my own shoulders. The Governor
was surprized and delighted at my success in my Election – but the defeated
candidates and their party are infuriated and are spreading such abominable
stories about our violence that you would suppose me a perfect mob leader,
breathing nothing but bloodshed. They avow their intention of controverting my
return when the parliament meets – and from the specimens before me they will
not stick at trifles. Parties are pretty equally balanced and if they get a
Committee suited to their purpose they may possibly succeed in unseating me –
and if they do I shall [word missing from breaking of letter seal]
go down and be re-elected. At all events there is a pretty stormy station for
me in the house; but I do not dread the thing in the slightest degree – on the
contrary I have more nerve now, and more experience – and no longer start at
the sound of my own voice in a popular assembly. The opposition newspapers have
already started with all their virulence upon me.
I was fortunate in getting back
just in time to meet your friend Dr Julius who left Miss Martineau at the falls
of Niagara, and spent two days here with me, much to my satisfaction, and some
little of his – if any credit is to be placed to the profuse gratitude he
desired to be conveyed to you for his introduction – which if expressed by a
Frenchman I should have taken as substantial as moonshine, but in the
philanthropic German seemed to mean something. Luckily Dr Dunlop happened to be
in town and dined with us, and astonished the professor at the universality of
his information and his humorous rich mode of conveying it. Of all men perhaps
in America the Doctor (that is my Doctor) was the best able to furnish your
Doctor with valuable facts upon those particular subjects which bring him to
America, I contributed something to his statistical acquisitions and have a
large package of provincial Laws and Parliamentary papers to send to him to New
York, to which city he is now on his way, after inspecting our penitentiary at
Kingston. The learned German has an amiable touch of antiquarian weakness, and
nothing could equal his delight when I compelled him to accept a little book so
deliciously useless and unique that perhaps a second copy does not exist. This
was a vocabulary in Spanish and Peruvian – the very language of the Incas –
compiled and printed two centuries ago in Peru by some learned old Spanish
padre, & is now destined to enrich the Royal Library in Berlin.
I have not yet acknowledged
receipt of your last letter dated 4th July which duly arrived. The
tone is more kind and charming than some of its predecessors. I hope you have
received the money safe. I shall send the second part of the Bill on London to
Henry perhaps by this packet. I wish it were a distinct Bill – but at this
moment it may not be. Dearest Anna let me look forward to our meeting with
hope. Let me not lose the privilege of loving you and the hope of being loved
by you. Let me come to my solitary house with the prospect that my daily labours
shall before any very lengthened day of trial be rewarded by your presence and
your most precious endearments even. I have no single hope that does not depend
upon that one – do not school your heart against me and I will compel you to
love me. I have been fencing in my nice little piece of ground on the banks of
the lake where I am promising myself the happiness of building you a pretty
little villa after your own taste. I have set a man to plant some trees and
shrubs also for the place was quite denuded – but by far the finest situation
near the Town. I have ground enough for a pretty extensive garden nearly three
acres.
The Cholera has entirely left us,
having carried off between seven and eight hundred persons from this town and
yet such is the increasing population that among all that number there was but one
person whom I knew. Adieu dearest Anna – believe me ever your faithful &
devoted R S Jameson
References
Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Jameson, Robert Simpson
Wikipedia: Anna Brownell Jameson