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My friend, the Chevalier
Macdonell, recently Vice-Consul of France at Toronto, states that this
distinguished man was born in Glen Urquhart, on the borders of Loch
Ness, Inverness-shire, Scotland, on the 17th July, 1762. As to the place
of his birth, however, as not infrequently happens, some doubt exists.
[A striking instance in point is that of the Duke of Wellington although
the son of an Irish Peer, the Earl of Mornington, it is uncertain
whether he was born in Dublin or at Dungan Castle, Meath, nor is the
date of his birth certain. It was in the spring Of 1769, in the latter
end of April or beginning of May.] Few men were in a better position to
speak authoritatively on the subject than the Bishop's grand-nephew, Mr.
John Allan Macdonell, J.P., of St. Raphael's, and in a memorandum given
to me by him some years since, it is stated that the Bishop was born at
Inchiaggan in Glengarry, Scotland, in 1760. I am now unable, owing to
Mr. Macdonell's state of health, to obtain from him the source of his
information. It may or may not be traditionary, but I am free to state
that it accords with the views of most of the people in Glengarry to
whom I have spoken on the subject.
Unfortunately, the
greater portion of the Bishop's papers are lost, I fear irretrievably,
and excepting what found its way into print from his own pen during his
lifetime, facts concerning him especially personally, now largely rest
on tradition. But the exact date and exact place of his birth are of no
very great importance. It is of the great use he made of the life God
gave him, of the talents and great parts with which he was so liberally
endowed, of his usefulness to the Church of his forefathers, of his
stalwart loyalty to his Sovereign, of his services to his adopted
country, and of the all-abiding love he bore his Scottish
fellow-countrymen—that we have to do.
His parents were
respectable people of Glengarry's clan—of much the same class and walk
in life as those of that other great Scottish-Canadian of his own time,
his colleague in the Legislative Council and intimate friend of many
years, Bishop Strachan, the head and front in this Province of the
Anglican Church, as Bishop Macdondell was of that to which he belonged.
They were people who were unable to give their children any great
advantages in a worldly point of view, but who instilled into them from
the cradle those great principles which became of themselves a heritage
of inestimable value, and of which both so largely availed themselves to
the benefit of the hock over which were respectively called upon in time
to become the shepherds in a common and far distant country.
Being destined for the
Church, and there being no Catholic Colleges in Scotland at the time,
Mr. Macdonell was at an early age first sent to the Scottish College in
Paris, and subsequently to the Scots' College at Valladolid in Spain.
While in Paris, the students at his Seminary were on one occasion
brought from their peaceful retreat by some revolutionary enthusiasts
and forced to dance around a Liberty Pole. Mr. Macdonell, who in early
life, as in more mature age, was an ardent Royalist, was much shocked at
such an outrageous proceeding, and with a ready wit bound a
handkerchief around his knee and feigning lameness, thus managed to
escape the threatened indignity.
He was ordained Priest at
Valladolid, in Spain, on February 16th, 1787 and on leaving there
returned to Scotland, and was stationed as a Missionary Priest in the
Braes of Lochaber, where he remained for several years.
Of the events of the
following years in which he took an active part and until his arrival in
Canada, we fortunately have his own account published in the Canadian
Literary Magazine of April. 1833, Volume i, page 3. et seq. After
explaining how, consequent upon the abolition of the feudal system of
clanship which had obtained from time immemorial, and had been based
upon the mutual interest of Chieftain and clansmen, by the influence and
consequence in proportion to the number of his followers if afforded the
former— and the protection and support it gave to the latter—the "bleak
and barren mountains of the north," which had previously raised man, had
been converted into sheep walks, and the suffering thus necessarily
entailed upon the people—their utter misery in fact—he proceeds:—"It was
in this conjuncture that the writer of these pages, then a missionary on
the borders of the Counties of Inverness and Perth, in the highest
inhabited parts of the Highlands of Scotland, affected by the distressed
state of his countrymen, and hearing that an emigrant vessel which had
sailed from the Island of Barra, one of the Hebrides, had been wrecked
and had put into Greenock, where she landed her passengers in the most
helpless and destitute situation—repaired in the spring of 1792 to
Glasgow. Having secured an introduction to several of the professors of
the University and to the principal manufacturers of that city, he
proposed to the latter that he should induce the Highlanders who had
been turned out of their farms, and those lately escaped from the
shipwreck, to enter into their works if they (the manufacturers) would
but encourage them, and this they readily promised to do upon very
liberal terms. There were two serious obstacles, however, to the
usefulness of the Highlanders: the one that they did not understand the
English language, the other that a large portion of them were Roman
Catholics. The excitement raised by Lord George Gordon about Catholics
twelve years before- when the Catholic chapels of Edinburgh and Glasgow,
and the clergymen's houses, were burned, had not yet subsided; and a
strong and rancorous feeling against the professors of the Catholic
religion still remained amongst the lower orders of the people of
Glasgow; so much so. indeed, that no Catholic clergyman could with
safety reside there from the time of the burning of the chapels to the
period we are now speaking of. The manufacturers represented to the
missionary that although perfectly willing themselves to afford the
Catholics all the countenance and protection in their power, yet, as the
Penal laws still remained in full force against them, they could not be
answerable for the consequences in the event of evil-designed persons
assailing or annoying them; and they represented that the danger was
still greater to a Catholic clergyman, who was subject not only to the
insult and abuse of the rabble, but to be arraigned before a Court of
Justice. To this the missionary replied that although the letter of the
law militated against Catholics, the spirit of it was greatly mitigated,
and that if they would but assure the Highlanders of their protection,
he himself would take his chance of the severity of the law and the
fanaticism of the people, and accompany the Highlanders to the
manufacturers, in order to serve them in the double capacity of
interpreter and clergyman; for the missionary saw that it was a
notorious fact that Catholics following the dictates of their religion
and restrained by its morality made faithful and industrious servants;
but discarding those ties and obligations, they became vicious and
unprincipled.
"The manufacturers,
appearing much pleased with this proposal, offered every protection and
encouragement in their power to himself and followers. Accordingly, with
the approbation of his Bishop, he took up his residence in Glasgow in
June. 1792, and in the course of a few months procured employment for
upwards of 600 Highlanders.
On the few occasions
Previous to this, that a Priest had officiated in Glasgow. he was
obliged to hold his meetings up two or three pairs of stairs, and to
station at the door a sturdy Irishman or Highlander armed with a
bludgeon to overawe the intruders who might attempt to disturb the
service. But the missionary, by the advice of one of the most
influential Presbyterians of the city, [Dr. Porteotis, a nephew. by
marriage, of Sir John Moore.] opened his chapel to the street and did
not close the door during the service. Two respectable members of the
congregation attended to show any decent persons, attracted thither by
curiosity, into a seat; and several who thus came were repeatedly heard
to say that this was not Popery at all, although the principal tenets of
the Catholic religion were taught and explained both in English and
Gaelic; and because they saw neither pictures nor images, and the Mass
was said early in the morning, before those who might be disposed to
give annoyance were up, and who, being of the lower class of laborers
and tradesmen, generally spent the Saturday evenings in a tavern and
Sunday mornings in bed.
"For two years the
manufacturers went on with astonishing prosperity and success, but in
the year 1794 the principles of the French revolution spreading rapidly
over Great Britain, and meeting with the warmest abettors in the
manufacturing districts, the English Government found it necessary to
adopt measures to check its progress and to prevent intercourse between
the two countries.
"War was at length
proclaimed between England and France. The export of British
manufactures to the continent was stopped; the credit of the
manufacturers was checked; their works were almost at a stand; frequent
bankruptcies ensued; a general dismissal of laboring hands took place,
and misery and distress overtook those thus suddenly thrown out of
employ.
'Among the sufferers were
the poor Highlanders above mentioned. Unaccustomed to hard labor and
totally ignorant of the English language, they became more helpless and
destitute than any other class of the whole community. |
