Parallel To Them And Distant About Half A Mile,
The Highway, Over Which H.R.H. Prince Edward's Equipage Pranced
Daily,
during the summers of 1791-3, now a macadamized road, ascends by a gentle
rise, through a double row
Of whitewashed cottages, about seven miles, to
the brow of the roaring cataract spanned over by a substantial bridge,
half way, looms out the Roman Catholic temple of worship - a stately
edifice, filled to overflowing on Sundays, the parochial charge in 1841 of
the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, under whose auspices was built the Temperance
Monument on the main road, a little past the Beauport Asylum. This
constitutes the parish of Beauport, one of the first settled in the
Province. It was conceded by the Company of New France, on the 31st
December, 1635, to a French surgeon of some note, "le sieur Robert
Giffard." Surgeon Giffard had not only skill as a chirurgeon to recommend
him, he could plead services, nay captivity undergone in the colonial
cause. An important man in his day was this feudal magnate Giffard, to
whom fealty and homage were rendered with becoming pomp, by his
consitaires, the Bellangers - Guions - Langlois - Parents - Marcoux, of
1635, whose descendents, still bearing the old Perche or Norman name,
occupy to this day the white cottages to be seen on all sides.
On the highest site of this limestone ridge, a clever, influential,
refined, and wealthy Briton, the Hon. Henry Wistius Ryland, for years
Civil Secretary, Clerk of the Executive Council, a member of the
Legislative Council, with other appointments, purchased from Col.
Johnston, a lot, then a wilderness, for a country seat in 1805. Mr. Ryland
had come out to Canada with Lord Dorchester in 1795, as his secretary, at
the instance, we believe, of Lord Liverpool, his protector, at the age of
21 he was acting as Paymaster of two army corps, during the War of
Independence in America.
For more than thirty years, Mr. Ryland enjoyed the favour, nay the
intimacy of every ruler (except Sir George Prevost) which this then mis-
ruled colony owed to Downing Street.
Antipathies of race had been on the increase at Quebec, ever since the
parliamentary era of 1791; there was the French party, [300] led by fiery
and able politicians, and the English oligarchy occupying nearly all the
offices, and avenues to power. French armies under Napoleon I. swayed the
destinies of continental Europe, their victories occasionally must have
awakened here a responsive echo among their down-trodden fellow-countrymen
cowardly deserted by France in 1759, whilst Nelson's victories of the
Nile, of Trafalgar, of Copenhagen, and finally the field of Waterloo, had
buoyed up to an extravagant pitch the spirits of the English minority of
Quebec, which a French parliamentary majority had so often trammelled. It
was during the major part of that stormy period that Hon. Herman Wistius
Ryland, advised by the able Chief Justice Jonathan Sewell, - was in reality
entrusted with the helm of state. He was, as Christie the historian
observes, considered the "Fountain head of power." This subtle diplomat
(for such will be his title in history), however hostile in his attitude
he might have appeared towards the French Canadian nationality, succeeded
in retaining to the last the respect of the French Canadian peasantry who
surrounded him.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 331 of 451
Words from 173740 to 174291
of 236821
