Brown’s continuing troubles with the moderates in his party were plain enough. Any doubts raised as to his political morality could only embarrass the Reform leader further, and especially might rouse those left-wing Clear Grits who had almost a conditioned, mouth-watering reflex to the bare mention of the word “corruption”. As if by set design, through early August, journals from Quebec and Montreal to Hamilton and London raised such an entanglement of inferences based on presumptions against Brown, that their original guesses began to look like fact; and the Globe and its master were furiously battling what another age would call a smear campaign.
In vain did the Globe and its allies point out that Allan and Company had provided the $20,000 credit in a regular business transaction months before the subsidy bill had been drafted by the government. They were the same concern that wanted the bill, came the reply: hence Brown was guilty, by association. In vain did the Globe recall the patent fact that Brown had actually spoken and voted against the measure. His votes and speeches, retorted the Toronto Leader, had been “so severely innocent, so cruelly harmless” that they had obviously been pre-arranged.99 Seemingly, he had not tried hard enough to hinder the bill’s passage by the government majority. Thus he again was guilty – by imputation.
And when the Globe reiterated that the money had been an ordinary commercial credit for the export of goods, backed by “ample securities”, the Quebec Morning Chronicle affected to believe that the only goods paid for had been George Brown’s brains; while the London Prototype bluntly doubted that he could have had ample securities to offer – “if current reports as to the financial standing of the hon. member are to be relied on”.100 Now, indeed, the campaign broadened to attack Brown’s whole business reputation. The Leader was especially extreme. And who was its editor now? Why, George Sheppard, who had moved there when the backers of his Hamilton Times had failed. “In Bothwell,” said the Leader vengefully, “schoolboys make kite-tails of Brown’s ‘ample securities’,” while in Toronto, “Mr. Brown’s business character and standing are matters of common gossip… we know of no man so reckless and few so unprincipled in his business transactions.”101 Sheppard threw in new charges for good measure: that the Globe owner had filled his pockets as Minister of Finance in 1858 (surely a record for two days in office), that three banks had recently paid him sums ranging from $8,000 to $20,000 for “patriotic services” – and, at the same time, that no bank would give him facilities for his debts.102 The Leader even demanded a parliamentary inquiry!
Altogether, it was a shot-gun blast of defamation, which seemed likely to injure if it did not kill. Of course, there was not much new in this procedure to the rowdy provincial press of either side. But the point that grew increasingly apparent here was how little fact Brown’s defamers had to go on in making their vague charges, whereas the Globe’s own accusations had normally been much better grounded and thus much more devastating in their total effect. In this instance, within three weeks Brown was able to collect and publish documents and letters clearly demonstrating that the $20,000 was truly a commercial credit for lumber that was really being cut, and that there was no cause for believing that he had received special favours from Allan and Company or done any in return.103 The ministerial press turned off to other issues, naturally claiming to be unconvinced, while Sheppard (now “disgusted with my Canadian experiences”) left the Leader and the country for the United States.104
Unquestionably, however, some harm had been done George Brown, although it was more personal than political. His finances could hardly be in an easy condition now. He had already put a decided strain on them by his improvements at the Globe and his large indebtedness at Bothwell. And the systematic press abuse had not enhanced his credit standing: inevitably some doubts would cling. Concerned about his personal reputation – which always mattered fiercely to him – and concerned over his business affairs, the Reform leader was still in no position to improve his party cause.
7
Perhaps it had been a concerted plan to disable him politically by distracting him with business troubles. At any rate, Brown grimly agreed afterwards with a sympathetic Holton that it had been “a regularly got-up attack”. Apologizing as usual for being slow to write, he added soberly, “I am indeed incorrigible in the matter of correspondence – and the knowledge of that fact makes another argument in favour of my getting out of public life – which I very much long to do.”105
Yet a different and pleasantly exciting distraction soon appeared. Edward, Prince of Wales, the twenty-year-old heir to the throne of empire, was now en route to Canada for the eagerly anticipated royal visit. When he landed at Quebec on August 18, in stifling heat, Brown went there to greet him with the other members of the loyal and perspiring legislature.106 As Canada’s first royal tour moved grandly forward, all eyes were fastened on its heavy daily schedule of public welcomes and processions, official receptions and farewells: partly because reverence for the Crown and belief in the British connection were real indeed; partly because Canada itself was on display, a Canada enjoying its first great chance for self-appreciation. But the sharp strains and conflicts within the province could only be momentarily obscured by the radiance of this princely visit, as briefly dazzling as the late summer sun. Suddenly, at Kingston early in September, they broke through.
Kingston was an Orange Conservative stronghold: the very citadel of Upper Canada Conservatism. The Orangemen of Kingston had erected a splendid arch, suitably adorned with Orange emblems, to welcome the Prince with all the loyalty due from British subjects, but specially claimed by the Orange Order as its own particular prerogative. Yet while this loyal and Protestant order was lawful in Canada, in Great Britain it was still an illegal body, a secret society linked with age-old Irish troubles. And the Duke of Newcastle, now Colonial Secretary, who was travelling with the young Prince as his official guardian, was determined that Her Majesty’s government should not be embarrassed by Her Majesty’s heir’s recognizing this disreputable and proscribed organization in any way.107
The Orangemen of Kingston were no less determined to display their loyalty and themselves; and to their loyalism was added a righteously indignant Protestantism, mindful that in French Lower Canada the Prince had received the leaders of Roman Catholic bodies readily enough. Again the rallying cries of race and religion were sounded, as Kingston stood defiantly to its Orange arch and banners. On September 5, therefore, the royal steamer moved on past the town, bearing Prince and Duke away uncompromised, but leaving the Orangemen to an angry anticlimax, Kingston merchants and mamas to deepest disappointment, and John A. Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues in Upper Canada to no little embarrassment of their own.
As party leaders they were committed to the Orange Order, which provided them with so much organized and lusty election support. But as provincial ministers they were inevitably involved in the official repudiation of Orangeism, whether it was a matter of high imperial policy or not. Nor did the Orange issue stop at Kingston, for, as the tour went on across the West (still amid most loyal enthusiasm), Orangemen several times sought to entice the Prince under their arches, and the Duke repeatedly had to take hurried evasive action to save his bewildered charge.
The game was played in Toronto, for example. As the royal party drove to St. James’ Cathedral on Sunday morning,