The Mercy Coles diary gives us a direct look back in time. Her breezy notations, with their lack of pretence, give every indication that she didn’t intend her diary to be published, and that she wasn’t thinking about how what she wrote might sound later, after people had died, or events had become significant. With its simple, unaffected tone, the diary seems to offer the reader the possibility of a clear view of the past.
This seeming straightforwardness is not quite as simple as it seems, however. Things are complicated by the fact that another version of the diary exists. The Charlottetown Guardian published a piece entitled “Reminiscences of Confederation Days: Extracts from a Diary Kept by Miss Mercy A. Coles When She Accompanied Her Father, the Late Hon. George Coles, to the Confederation Conferences at Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa in 1864,” on June 30, 1917.***** It was the fiftieth anniversary of Confederation in 1917, and the First World War was raging. Many thousands of Canadians had been killed, and the now seventy-nine-year-old Mercy Coles may have hoped to lighten the spirits of her fellow Islanders and offer some distraction from the war by recalling long-ago events. She may also have thought it was an opportunity to share her knowledge of the history of Prince Edward Island and her family. She had preserved her diary those many long years, and she didn’t want it to be forgotten.
In this newspaper extract of 1917, Mercy definitely takes more care with what she says than she had in her original accounts. There are significant differences between the newspaper article and the handwritten diary. First, the newspaper account is only an excerpt. Further, there are notable omissions from this newspaper extract, such as how miserable Mercy found Quebec City, and about D’Arcy McGee getting drunk at a dinner. These omissions may have resulted from Mercy censoring herself, or they may have been the product of actions by the editors of the Guardian. Another difference, even though much of the diary is quoted word for word, is the many places in which the events are told in past tense in a type of summary. Again, whether this was done by Mercy Coles herself or the newspaper isn’t known. The result of this summarizing is that the diary loses some of its immediacy and vividness. There are also errors, such as in the name of the hotel in Quebec City at which the Coles family stayed.
Interestingly, there are also additions to the newspaper extract not contained in the handwritten diary, such as the reason why Mercy and her family did not travel to Quebec City on the Queen Victoria, the muddiness of D’Arcy McGee’s riding in Montreal, and the wonderful hotel room John A. Macdonald arranged for her in Montreal. Perhaps these are remembrances or afterthoughts; still, the existence of these additional notes is curious, and one wonders if another version of the diary might exist, and what other extra notes there might be. The newspaper extract is also the only place where Mercy documents the brief tour through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia from September 8 to 18 that the delegates and she took after the Charlottetown conference ended on September 8, 1864.
Mercy’s momentous trip was six weeks in length, and the diary entries, ten thousand words long, were written in a small, blue, hardcover book. The entries are often brief, with fleeting references to events, people, and places — they are, to some extent, similar to our social media postings of today. If, however, we pay close attention to Mercy’s writings, and explore them in a deeper way than we would such postings, we can (re)learn what was considered of significance in 1864.
So, pour yourselves a bumper or two (or more) of champagne, have your booster shot for diphtheria, and come along on this Confederation ride.
* No young women from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or Canada, accompanied their fathers to the Charlottetown conference in September 1864. No doubt the men didn’t view the time in Prince Edward Island (which had nowhere near the opportunities and entertainment that Quebec City had) as an opportunity for their daughters to meet potential husbands. The women of PEI, however, including Mercy Coles and Margaret Gray, were part of the social events at Charlottetown.
** Newfoundland did not take part in the Charlottetown conference, however representatives from there did go to the Quebec conference.
*** It wouldn’t be uncommon then for women to marry in their late twenties, but given Mercy’s situation with her many sisters and no apparent suitor in sight for her, we can see that she was feeling the pressure of time and opportunity.
**** There has been a lot of academic research on the subject of women and the creation of identity through life writing. The Small Details of Life: 20 Diaries by Women in Canada, 1830–1996, edited by Kathryn Carter, Helen M. Buss’s Mapping Our Selves: Canadian Women’s Autobiography in English, and Felicity A. Nussbaum’s article “Towards Conceptualizing Diary” in Studies in Autobiography are useful in understanding the area.
***** The full newspaper article is reprinted in the Appendix. As well, much of the additional information has been added and noted as such in the transcription of the full original diary presented here.
Two
Charlottetown: The Circus, Champagne, and Union
Thursday September 1, 1864, was a momentous day in Canadian history, the start to one long, sun-drenched, champagne- and circus-filled party.
On September 1, the Fathers of Confederation landed in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, to almost complete indifference, to talk about the possibility of a union of the British Provinces, or Confederation.
There was certainly political indifference, as it was the Canadians themselves who had wrangled an invite to a Maritime conference discussing a Maritime Union. The Maritimers weren’t interested in that union either, but were forced to consider the proposal by Arthur Gordon, the power-driven lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. As Christopher Moore writes in 1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal, Gordon was “unshakeably certain that he was meant to rule New Brunswick as an Imperial potentate.” Gordon assumed he would have more power if the Maritime provinces united. He was definitely not interested in a union of all the British provinces.
There were many contentious issues in any discussion of Maritime Union: Where would the capital be? Who would head that government? How would issues of commerce, schools, shipping, or trade be decided, and by whom? All these questions and more made the Maritime politicians less than keen to join their three small provinces together, and so, in a brilliant effort to be free of any blame for what could develop from any union, or discussion of a union, the politicians and parties in power made sure to also include the Opposition. It was a bipartisan approach to a singular and significant event in Canada’s history, and the very bipartisan nature of the talks are what helped make Confederation successful. Moore attributes the initial bipartisan move to Charles Tupper. Delegates from all the political parties were invited to, and were part of, the Charlottetown conference. Further, the Canadians’ proposal for a union of all the British provinces was welcomed as a proposition that would sideline the issue of Maritime Union. This larger union would also, later, be viewed by the Maritimers as a way to extend their influence, and Maritime issues, beyond the narrow confines of their small provinces.
Prince Edward Island would not even have participated in the talks if they hadn’t been held on the Island. Living on an island, residents were self-sufficient. They didn’t feel they needed anyone else; indeed, they felt that they would only lose out in any federation, or larger union. They believed that such a union would deprive them of the fruits