Brown was “disloyal”, a shameless Yankee-lover pandering to the North.87 Sheppard was a miserable turncoat, a one-time annexationist who was still quite prepared to see Canada destroyed.88 The Globe traced Sheppard’s many shifts and swings, the number of papers that had died under him. The Leader printed old and new charges against Brown: that he had absconded from Scotland, defrauded creditors in New York, intrigued “with a foreign government”, and was now debt-ridden and insolvent.89 Brown promptly brought an action of libel against the Leader’s owner, James Beaty.90 And as the North-South conflict raged between the two chief newspapers of Upper Canada, it seemed that the Trent affair might almost be forgotten in their vicarious Civil War at home.
Meanwhile, however, the crisis was coming to a head. The anxiously awaited news from Britain at last arrived in Canada on December 16 – by courtesy of George Brown: he had bought exclusive Canadian telegraph rights for the occasion.91 When the fast steamship Europa docked in New York with the crucial report of Britain’s official rejoinder to the Trent affair, the Globe gave it to the Canadian people before any other paper or official source. Its headlines were black, in type and meaning: “Intelligence Very Warlike! ” “Law Officers Declare Seizure Illegal! – Reparations Demanded! – 10,000 troops for Canada!”92 Nevertheless, Brown’s paper still dared hope that war would be avoided, for it observed that the precise British demands on the American government would not be known until presented at Washington. If Britain asked, quite justly, for the surrender of the Confederate commissioners, then surely the United States would have the good sense to accede?93
Hence there was more waiting. But now war fever was at a peak on both sides of the Canadian-American border, and Brown and his journal no longer wholly escaped it. As British troopships steamed full speed westward against the freezing of the St. Lawrence, and as the Canadian government called for 40,000 volunteers, the Globe was vigorously exhorting: “Boats for the Lakes, Men for the Boats” – conscious that Upper Canada might only be saved from American conquest by a re-established Great Lakes fleet.94 “Form, Riflemen, Form”, it cried, while in the general turmoil the old crumbling fort at Toronto was hurriedly reoccupied and repaired.95 Sir Fenwick Williams, commander of the forces in British North America, advocated sinking block-ships across Toronto Harbour.96 Port Dover was planning heavy fortifications; Simcoe and Dundas sought batteries of artillery, while throughout the province hastily armed militiamen were drilling.97 It was a grimly ominous, cold Christmas, as the Globe wondered gloomily how many now at the fireside would be in the battlefield next year.98 Still, it talked bravely of peaceful settlement, and of certain British victory if war should really come. But its fears for Canada were much in evidence indeed.
Then suddenly, on December 30, “Peace!” The peril was over: “All doubt is at an end.” Britain in a judiciously worded note had asked for the release of Mason and Slidell. The American government, no less judiciously, had accepted that necessity. Canada was jubilant – but much, much more relieved. And so, of course, were Brown and the Globe, who now found salutary lessons in the vanishing crisis. Canadians, they said with satisfaction, could see in Britain’s swift dispatch of troops a sure and ample pledge of aid, if war should ever threaten them again. Americans would understand that Canada stood solidly with Britain, and Britain with her – that talk of annexation, willing or otherwise, was futile. And the British equally should recognize that Canada, which would bear the brunt of conflict and destruction if the Empire ever warred with the United States, stood staunchly ready to accept her role.99 This last, indeed, was almost the prime consideration, as Brown and the paper reflected on the defence question, which the Trent affair had thrust into the foreground and which seemed likely to remain there, as long as the Civil War and its accompanying stress should last.
5
There was a major public meeting in Toronto on December 31, to discuss the problem of colonial defence; but Brown did not attend. He was ill again, confined to his room for nearly two weeks more.100 Conceivably, the strain of the crisis and perhaps the row with Sheppard had proved too much for his health. Yet there were some consolations. Early in January of 1862, the Leader announced that Mr. Sheppard had left its employ and ran an article disclaiming any governmental responsibility for its own late incendiary career.101 It was apparent that Sheppard’s course as editor had not been much appreciated either by proprietor James Beaty, who faced a suit for libel, or by a weak coalition ministry that had sufficient troubles without being stamped as far more warlike than the imperial government itself. The ill-fated Sheppard moved on again, this time to try his luck in Lower Canada at Quebec. But soon there would be one more shift, to the New York Times, where at last he would find an enduring haven for his undoubted journalistic talents.102
The libel action came up in February, when Adam Wilson and Skeffington Connor argued the plaintiff’s case before the justices.103 Beaty, through his lawyer, M. C. Cameron, retracted most of the charges that had been made; namely, that Brown had skipped from Edinburgh with the money of widows and orphans, that he had intrigued with a foreign (presumably the American) government, that he had exploited friends to raise money for himself and now was hopelessly in debt. “Defrauding” American creditors was reduced to leaving New York without paying all his debts. On this and a charge of “swindling” in four minor business transactions they stood ready to justify a case. The justices rejected the first plea a few weeks later, and the second was set aside by mutual agreement.104 Thus the grand press libel suit evaporated, like so many others of the day. But Brown had forced his attackers to give most of their ground, and once more exhibited his own swift readiness to fight for his personal reputation.
Of much more public interest through the troubled winter of 1862 was the question of colonial defence. As a postscript, or perhaps an anticlimax, to the Trent affair, the troops sent from Britain to reinforce the small imperial garrison of regulars continued to arrive throughout January and February. The bulk of them had been compelled to land in Maritime ports because of the St. Lawrence ice barrier, and to proceed to Canada in long sleigh convoys through the empty, snowy wilderness of upland New Brunswick. The lack of effective year-round communications between Canada and Britain’s Atlantic provinces was thus graphically displayed.
The long-debated project for an Intercolonial Railway to join Halifax with Quebec received new impetus from this practical indication of its need. The scheme had never completely lapsed, ever since the breakdown of negotiations between the British American provinces and the imperial government in 1851 had led instead to the building of Canada’s own Grand Trunk. There had been further Intercolonial missions to the Mother Country in the decade thereafter, largely pressed by Maritime enthusiasts – and explained by the Toronto Globe as chiefly useful for “the possible presentation at court of Mrs. Bluenose and the Misses Bluenose”.105 But now it seemed that both the colonies and Britain might be readier to shoulder the heavy financial outlay for such a line, because of its political and military value. Actually, there was an Intercolonial mission waiting on the Colonial Office when the Trent affair occurred, and the delegates had not been slow to point out the necessity of the railway for successful British North American defence.106
If Brown had not necessarily opposed the Intercolonial in itself, he had given it a very low priority. Now in February of 1862, as the ministerial press was exclaiming over the project, he used the Globe to criticize its “fictitious importance”.107 It would no doubt serve to tighten “the friendly bonds which already unite us to our kindly fellow countrymen”, and could be a boon to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.108 Yet the line would never be a great highway to the sea: the St. Lawrence furnished that. And, while it would have some military merit, the Americans still might cut it at the narrow neck of land