The Daily Telegraph - 1883-05-17

Year
1883
Month
5
Day
17
Article Title
The Event We Celebrate
Author
<Anonymous>
Page Number
n/a
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
The event we shall celebrate to-morrow has for a hundred years past been kept fresh in the recollections of large numbers of people. The landing of the Loyalists on the 18th of May, 1783, in one of the coves of the harbor of St. John, has been celebrated with more or less solemnity and observance every 18th of May since. The people who played the chief part in the event were a notable body of men. They were among the most intelligent men of their day on this continent, and some of them were men of high culture and wide information. The most conspicuous among them were men of high character and stern principle, for which they had perilled life and sacrificed property and possibilities, by most men held dear. They had passed through one of the great struggles of history, in which the souls of men are tried as if by fire. They had come out of the contest sorely eaten, victims of a rebellion that had triumphed. Some of them, perhaps, held extreme views as to the Divine right of George III to rule, but all of them had felt it an imperative duty to do what they could to prevent the disruption of the empire, the only empire in the wide world in which freedom flourished. The Great Britain of their day was far in advance of any other country on earth in respect to political and religious liberty and popular government, great as was the need of enlargement in it in all these matters. The landing Loyalists held that the disruption of the British Empire was a great calamity and a great wrong, wholly unnecessary. They saw in it not merely the triumph of rebels against lawful authority, but also the victory of England's natural enemy, Francs, without whose aid the rebellion must have been suppressed. It is not easy to determine to what extent their views were erroneous and their feelings unjustified by the facts. The success of the American Revolution had a great effect on the course of history. Out of it grew the French Revolution with its far-reaching consequences. The establishment and development of the Republic of the United States have had apparently immense influence on the course of civilization. But who can prove that had there been no American Revolution the condition of the world would be worse in any respect than it is to-day. The position of the great English speaking race in the world divided into two great powers, the grandest of the empires and the greatest of Republics is, without doubt a commanding one. But would not that position be still more splendid were that race grouped in some way in one grand confederation. What an influence such a confederation could use for good. What a peace maker it might be? Was it impossible to prevent the disruption of the empire without conceding victory to mere tyranny? The Loyalists did not think so, and they deplored the disruption. They stood to the last by the cause they had supported. They clung in disaster to the idea for which they had fought and suffered, and for which they were prepared to suffer to the end. They were martyrs to principles which they held sacred. And their memory deserves to be held in immortal honor. They came hither at this season a century ago. They had left their own land in the leafage time. On their arrival they were greeted with the familiar spectacle of the greenery of the spruce, the cedar and the pine. But the few deciduous trees visible were only just budding. They glided in their little fleet up a harbor known to be the mouth of a beautiful river, along whose middle reaches they had heard there were wide spreading intervales, fertile, beautiful, picturesque. But the shores of the harbor were, even in the bright light of May, forbidding of aspect. It was no rich far-extending prairie, ready for the plough, the spade and the hoe, that presented itself to their view. It was a harsh and rugged scene that met their gaze— a landscape of stunted forest, half clothing rocky ranges, with miserable marshes sheltered here and there. The prospect was uninviting. But they faced it bravely, toiling with the energy natural to them and suffering with the courage belonging to them. They planted their city, leveling the trees, draining the marshes, tracing the streets. They began a work, which, in winter or summer, in triumph or tribulation, in prosperity or adversity, has been going on ever since. What the coming history of their city is to be does not yet fully appear. But its past history does honor to its founders. It is the chief city of New Brunswick, in some respect the chief city of the Maritime Provinces, and its people, in whose veins runs a large infusion of Loyalist blood, displays the characteristics of the great mixed race to which they belong. And it seems destined to flourish. Could these Loyalist heroes take part on this occasion in the celebration of the landing, and ere they retired to the shadow world again make themselves familiar with the great deeds done, the great changes wrought since they first saw our shores, what astonishment would be theirs. St. John and New Brunswick generally would surprise them much. They would feel proud of the work of their descendants in town and hamlet, on the sea and on the land. Canada, stretching from ocean to ocean, possessed of varied and boundless resources, and with a marvelous future unfolding to it, would fill them with wonder. The extent, the population, the power and glory of the empire which they saw dismembered, bleeding and weak, would surely rejoice their hearts to witness. How surprising to them would appear the development of the Anglo-Indian Empire, and the rise of the New England of the far distant Southern seas! With what feelings of admiration, too, would they not survey the work of their kinsmen's hands in the great Republic from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the St, Croix to the Rio Grand. What wonders of cunning contrivance, and of scientific achievement would meet their eye throughout the world, undreamt of by the most far-seeing among them! What bridges, what labor saving machinery, what a wonder in the steam-engine! what notions embodied in all shape in wood, iron, brass, what ships, what guns, what fire arms, and what a busy time for the school master! Truly, they might envy their privileged descendants the privileges they enjoy in this wonderful age. Well, they will not be with us; but the memory of all they did and dared for the cause they held sacred will swell many and many a heart not throbbing with blood of theirs, but thrilled with admiration for their noble characters and heroic life. The hearts of their descendants will beat high, with loving pride in the brave and faithful men and the sweet-hearted and tender women who cheered them in the early dark days of exile as wives and mothers, sisters and daughters. Honor without stint to the noble founders of St. John.