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Cartier: New France
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Within the coalition ministry, Cartier was one of the men chiefly responsible for the birth of confederation. After the setback of 1858, he was convinced that a plan emanating from a coalition government would be more acceptable to the mother country. The British government was ... now in favour of such a plan, as a result of the inquiry that the secretary of state for the colonies, the Duke of Newcastle [Clinton], had circumspectly conducted when he had accompanied the Prince of Wales to Canada in 1860. Cartier became the advocate of a federation of the provinces of British North America because it appeared to him the best way of extrication from the political difficulties of the period, created especially by the question of representation by population. Lower Canada, which in 1840 had received representation equal to that of the less populous Upper Canada, now was favoured by the subsequent reversal in proportions. Cartier realized that Lower Canada could not hold out indefinitely against rep by pop, and that acceptance of it would not have as many disadvantages in a federative state: several areas important for French Canadians, such as education and justice, would be dependent on a local legislature.
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Cartier's report of his second voyage was not cheering. The rigors of the climate on the St. Lawrence in winter; the ice-bound condition of that stream for several months, and the barrenness of the land in precious stones and metals, were so discouraging that more than four years passed away before another like expedition from a French port was planned. The king was then fighting Charles with more intense hatred than ever under the impression that the emperor had caused the death of the eldest son of Francis, who died from the effects of poison. For two years the father could think of nothing but revenge, when through the intervention of the Pope and the Queen of Hungary, the two monarchs whose mutual exasperation was intense, became reconciled and embraced and kissed each other as friends. But the French treasury was drained by long wars, and Francis would not listen to propositions for colonization in America, until late in 1540. Then Francis de la Roque, Lord of Robertval, in Picardy, importuned the king for permission to make further discoveries and plant a colony in New France.
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It was in the sphere of the administration of justice, and in that of law, that Cartier was to accomplish his greatest reforms. In 1857 he got parliament to enact that in the Eastern Townships, populated mainly by Anglophones, French laws would apply as elsewhere in Lower Canada (20 Vict., c.43). The uncertainty that had hitherto prevailed threatened to create a system of personal law under which persons of the same territory were judged according to different law, by reason of their origins. In the same year, going against old traditions, he brought about the decentralization of the judiciary (20 Vict., c.44). By this measure, the number of judges in Lower Canada was considerably augmented, and new judicial districts were instituted outside the large towns. The work of which he was most proud was the codification of civil law.
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This time Cartier set up camp a few miles above Stadacona, wintered more comfortably than before, and, finding no sign of Roberval in the spring, set off for France in June 1542. At St. John's harbor, Newfoundland, Cartier met Roberval, who ordered him to return to Quebec. For a variety of reasons, some of them related doubtless to deteriorating relations with the native population, Cartier preferred not to return and slipped away for France under the cover of darkness. He settled down at a country estate not far from Saint-Malo. In 1520 he had married Catherine des Granches, but they had no children. Cartier died on Sept. 1, 1557, at Saint-Malo.
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Cartier was born in the French seaport town of Saint-Malo and later studied navigation in Dieppe. His early activities remain somewhat murky, but some historians have advanced the idea that he accompanied fishermen to Newfoundland in the 1520s. Other believe that Cartier sailed with Giovanni da Verrazzano on at least one of his voyages of discovery.
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Since LaFontaine had departed and Taché was growing old, Cartier had become the most influential man in the Lower Canadian section. At the elections held at the end of 1857, following the formation of the ministry, Cartier was re-elected in Verchères over his former opponent Préfontaine but was defeated in Montreal, where he had ... stood, by Antoine-Aimé Dorion*. (In the general election of 1861, Cartier stood only in the newly created riding of Montreal East, and this time he emerged victorious from the battle against A.-A.Dorion.) For some years the assembly had been discussing the selection of a permanent capital: the cities of Quebec, Montreal, and Bytown (Ottawa) had been suggested. In 1857, nonplussed by varying opinions, the Macdonald–Cartier ministry obtained approval for an address to the queen in which she was requested to choose a capital. On the advice of her Canadian ministers, she decided on Ottawa. At first a supporter of Montreal, Cartier had finally come round to Ottawa, a choice which at the time seemed surprising, but which was consistent with the development of Canada westwards.
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