55 HISTORICAL NARRATIVE LORD DURHAM HISTORY RECORDS ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN

55

When word of the rebellions in both Upper and Lower Canada wafted across the water to London, the British government was stunned, angered and embarrassed, and what was even worse, it had absolutely no idea how to solve the problem.

The ascension of young Queen Victoria to the throne was heralded as the commencement of a great new age for Britain. To the consternation of all, however, it began inauspiciously, with news of rebellion, death and destruction in one of the Britain’s largest colonies. Shocked disbelief greeted word that this first year of Her Majesty’s reign was being rocked by rebellion in the Canadian colonies.

Prime Minister Lord Melbourne’s administration was weak and under bitter attack by opposition that eagerly seized upon this negative news of turmoil in the Canadian colonies as additional proof of administrative neglect and petty oppression. Complaints of corruption and gross misconduct had been made about public affairs in Canada for some time, but nothing had been done. The consequence was chaos in the colonies. Shades of 1776!

The core of the crisis in Upper Canada was the inability of the popularly elected Legislative Assembly to influence the actions of the executive. The cause was the constitution and the Imperial government’s failure to find a remedy for the growing list of colonial grievances. Anger and frustration at the futility of it all finally flared up into rebellion.

The Imperial government sought someone to blame and who better than the Colonial Secretary, Lord Glenelg. He had failed to find a peaceful resolution of the crises in Canada, and was replaced early in 1839. Something had to be done, but what and by whom?

If the truth were really known, Lord Melbourne was not overly concerned about Canada. In fact, he felt

In His Own Words

“that Britain’s failure to hold Canada might not be at all detrimental.”

Its loss, however, would lead to the fall of his government, and that was unacceptable. While a few members of his Whig party were concerned about the legitimate aspirations of Canadians, most feared they were facing a replay of the American revolution. Clashes occurred within the cabinet, while without the Tory opposition attacked the government with “vigor and venom.”

Melbourne was fully occupied keeping his cabinet quiet and the Queen happy, and the Canadian problems were an irritable complication whose timing was most inopportune. He cast about anxiously for a man equal to the mission.

P rovidentially, the hour and the individual came together in the person of John George Lambton, who had recently been created Baron Durham. Lord Durham was undoubtedly the undisputed champion of liberal reform. His activities were not limited to parliament. He supported the “march of mind,” the popular name given to improving public education. He enhanced conditions of work in his mines and supported the development of the safety lamp for use by miners. He organized and subsidized benefits for his mine workers and provided them with libraries and schools for their children. He supported voting by secret ballot and extending the franchise to all male taxpayers. For his efforts he was honoured and raised to the rank of Viscount.

W hen Lord Melbourne became prime minister, he appointed Durham ambassador to Russia and on his return to England two years later, Durham was awarded the prestigious Order of the Bath. At the same time he was asked to undertake the mission to Canada.

Durham (inset) was a man of medium height and elegant bearing. He had intelligence, energy and imagination and seemed a suitable candidate for the Canadian crisis for three very good reasons. He was a shrewd political analyst who could cut through the bull to the business. He was liberal enough to ensure a measure of justice for those who pressed for change, and the assignment would remove him from England.

While Durham was brilliant and considered to be the ablest man in the Liberal party, he was also obstinate, tactless and unpopular with most of his political contemporaries. Too shy for society and too reserved for popularity, his haughtiness of manner “wounded his inferiors and irritated his equals.” Better, therefore, to have him in Canada than in the cabinet.

When first asked by Lord Melbourne to accept the Canadian assignment and solve a political problem many thought was insoluble, Durham flatly refused. When conditions in the Canadas worsened, he was asked once again, this time pressed to accept by young Queen Victoria. Durham consented

In His Own Words

"If England requires my services, she shall have them."

Durham was appointed Lord High Commissioner. His commission placed "a special trust and confidence in his courage, prudence and loyalty." Durham possessed these attributes in full measure, but his health and his humour were bad and both were to play a part in his early return.

J ohn George Lambton cried himself into this world on April 12th, 1792. He was a distant relative of royalty, and born into a life and lineage of privilege, power and pelf. A tradition of political service was firmly rooted in the family, one of the oldest and richest in the north of England.

Durham’s father, William, like his father before him, was a Member of the House of Commons for Durham City. William had a reputation as a reformer, which he bequeathed to his son along with a fatal disease. William died from tuberculosis at age 33 and he left his five year old son a lethal legacy that led to his early death.

Shortly after her husband's death, John's mother remarried and quickly relegated her shy, delicate, hypersensitive son to the care of a family friend. The young boy suffered despair and depression from the early loss of his father and the indifference of his mother. The trauma he experienced as a result of this abandonment and neglect shaped his character.

D urham was proud and shy, at ease only with friends and the family circle. He neither danced nor played cards and was very intolerant of tobacco at a time when its use was wide­spread. He was a serious student of the arts, history and politics and an outdoorsman who loved fishing and riding to the hounds.

Durhan was an intense, somewhat sullen individual, who was highly sensitive and very self-conscious. His social reserve resulting from his shy, awkward insecurity was misinterpreted by many as disdain and contempt. His critics considered him vain and arrogant, a person addicted to the love of personal power, pomp and show. He was referred to as ”his carbonic majesty” because his quick temper was the least of his faults. Durham was an excellent person to work for, but a cutting colleague to work with.

I n spite of his aristoc­ratic superiority with his peers, Durham, who was known as “King of the Coal Country,” maintained excellent rela­tions with the men who worked his coal mines.

Durham’s independent spirit and the qualities of courage, frankness and sincerity he demonstrated throughout his tragically troubled lifeⁱ were never questioned. The changes he worked to bring about, however, were put forward by him in such a high-handed, autocratic manner that he usually created hostility rather than harmony.

He was given the nickname Radical Jack because he often proposed changes his more cautious colleagues considered extreme. Durham was a genuine liberal, a true reformer, but most of his contemporaries found his fervor for change more revolutionary than reforming. They resented his radical ideas and the strong influence he had on the Whigⁱⁱ party.

Durham suppor­ted the great reform measures of his time, including such impressive policies as: dissenters' rights; the emancipation of Catholics; free trade; universal educa­tion; the founding of mechanics' institutes - forerunners of libraries, and the establishment of the University of London. He was a major participant in work on the great Reform Bill of 1832 for which he was made Earl of Durham.

Many considered Durham an odd choice for the Canadian assignment. He was one of the most splendid dandies of his time, a widely recognized dude who made the distinctly undemocratic comment that anyone should be able “to jog along on 40,000 pounds a year.” He was an aristocrat who was both handsome and highhanded, just the kind of man, some suggested sarcastically, to drive the Canadian reformers into a rerun of the American revolution.

Durham knew he was being sent abroad to get him out of the country, but he had been given a free hand and it was to be a short term assignment. He was also allowed all the assistance he needed, so he decided to accept the challenge. Prime Minister Melbourne's parting comment to him was

In His Own Words

"As far as I am concerned, you will receive the firmest and most unflinching support.”

By 1838 things were calamitous in the Canadas. There was no sense of drive or purpose among the population. Business was at a stand still, and fear, dissension and distrust were widespread.

T he prisons were full of rebels awaiting judgement, and outraged demands were widespread from those insisting on the death sentence for the leaders of the rebellions. From Reformers came furious demands for democracy, which were met with incensed charges of treason from the Tories. Persecution and punishments that included the death penalty haunted the country.

In Lower Canada racial strife was rampant, anarchy was imminent and the colony was only kept under control by harsh martial law. In Upper Canada tensions along the border were high, as outraged Americans demanded revenge for the British destruction on American territory of the Caroline, an American steamboat that was ferrying supplies from the United States across the Niagara River to Navy Island.

The island was occupied by Upper Canadian rebels led by the Little Rebel, William Lyon Mackenzie. Mackenzie had declared the island the Republic of Canada, created himself president pro tem, and raised the Patriot flag with its twin stars for the two Canadas.

Meanwhile, loaded with Durham’s luggage, his finest silver plate and a large group of servants and staff, the ship Hastings sailed from Portsmouth on April 24^th, 1838. It arrived at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River on the 27^th of May, a beautiful spring day. Durham’s baggage took two days to unload.

Who better to resolve the rebel problem plaguing Canada than the man who set foot on Canadian soil on May 29^th, 1838, a life-long rebel himself. Firmly believing that a man must be his own trumpeter, Durham was a master of spectacle who flawlessly demonstrated the dictum: “As I see thee, thy worth I deem.”

Conscious of the power of colour and costumes to make the mob stare and gape, Durham delayed his entry into town until a ceremonial spectacle was arranged befitting an emperor’s pomp and dictator’s power.

As guns roared and scarlet-coated Guards snapped to attention, Durham disembarked dressed in a magnificent uniform heavily embroidered with silver and decorated with the Order of the Bath. Accompanied by bands, red-coated regulars and blue-uniformed Hussars, Durham rode up to the old Castle of St. Louis in Quebec on a prancing white charger.

The cheering throngs were thrilled with pageantry and pomp such as they had never seen before. As they roared their approval of the dramatic display, they were totally unaware of the impact this illustrious nobleman with black curls, black brows and brilliant eyes would have on their future and that of Canada and the British Empire. His handsome face was haggard and he had the look of a man who had not long to live and knew it.

Despite his imperious nature, Durham was gracious and intensely compassionate. He also possessed the happy faculty of being able to grasp all the essential facts of a complex problem and suggest the best remedy under all the circumstances.

Durham was the proud leader of the small group of ‘Colonial Reformers’ from England, who had faith in the future of the Empire. Compared by some to a doomed Don Quixote, who had no chance of halting the havoc, Durham and his clever young staff took up the challenge.

As Governor-General with a dictator’s power, Durham had been given a free hand – or so he thought - to restore tranquility and recommend some effective means of governing these fractious colonies in the future. Only time would tell whether “the idol of the hour would become the martyr of tomorrow.”

The most critical problem was what to do with some 161 political prisoners in jail awaiting judgement for the parts they had played in the rebellion. “Enough death.” said Durham. He favoured clemency, but in the tense climate that pervaded the colony, he questioned the impartiality of the local system of justice and feared the outcome of the trials.

Durham quickly convinced eight of the rebellion ring­leaders to confess to their guilt and agree to banishment to Bermuda, never to return on penalty of death. Melbourne wrote to approve this measure saying, “Go on and prosper.” Sixteen others, who had already fled to the States, faced the death penalty if they returned. With the excep­tion of six accused of murder, all others were granted amnesty on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s coronation.

Durham was relieved that the guilty parties had been given justice, the misguided had received mercy, and society had been accorded security, all without shedding a drop of blood. His actions won general acceptance in Canada.

D urham and his aides spent only 11 days in Upper Canada, most of which time was at Niagara Falls, where his large staff stayed at the Clifton House Hotel for $150 a day. The eleven days cost the British taxpayer 7000 pounds, but it was money well spent.

In a letter to Lord Melbourne, Durham inserted the following personal observation regarding the great cataract. “I am now writing you in sight of the grandest and most magnificent spectacle which ever presented itself to my eyes – the Falls of Niagara. They infinitely surpass the most extravagant notion I ever entertained of their sublimity. No man ever lived, but Milton, who could adequately have described them.”

Durham did what no Canadian governor had ever done: opened communications through the British ambassador at Washington with the republic to the south. Durham recognized the rebellion in Canada invited American intervention, but that it was necessary to make clear to the Americans that Britain would deal with the rebellion, repress border incidents and, if need be, repel invasion.

D urham sought to sooth angry American feelings over the violation of their territory by extending every cordiality to them. To do this he spent some eight hundred pounds on hospitality and lavish displays, wining, dining and dancing "our republican neighbours."

H e arranged for an impressive display of British military might on the Canadian bank of the river above the Falls, as an audience of hundreds of American spectators looked on. The heights above the falls within sight of the border were white with the canvas tents of the King’s Dragoon Guards and the 43^rd Regiment of Foot. To a reveille of cavalry trumpets and skirling highland pipes, the Governor-General reviewed the troops on the flat ground below the encampments, the martial sound of drums, trumpets and fifes accompanied by the thundering roar of the Falls.

The purpose of this display of military might was

In His Own Words

"to impress upon our American neighbours the value the British Government attaches to the maintenance of her empire in Canada."

July 15^th, 1838 was a memorable day in the history of North American relationships, for it marked the first time a British governor- general had ever stood on American soil.

Durham crossed the Niagara River to Lewiston and with Lady Durham moved freely through a curious and friendly crowd. His pleasant personality and gracious conduct went a long way towards neutralizing American sympathy and support for the Canadian rebels, many of whom had sought shelter and succor along the American side of the border.

T he Americans respond­ed enthusiast­ical­ly to this genial gentleman, the most important British official many of them had

e ver seen. Complaints were made regarding the high cost of Durham’s brief visit to Upper Canada, but it was said that “a million of money would have been a cheap price for the single glass of wine which Lord Durham drank to the health of the American president.” Everyone was impressed by Durham’s diplomacy, which produced "great and good effects on the feelings between the two nations."

E ven the most militant American Democrats were loud in their praise of Durham’s courteous manner and “Lordly Court,” the American name for the banquet hosted by Durham on July 17^th.

In spite of being widely accepted in Canada, Durham’s action led to an uproar in the British Parliament, where his enemies in the House of Lords were determined to ridicule his work. They eagerly seized any opportunity to discredit him and bring down the government, anxious to find any stick with which to beat “the Dictator”, as he was commonly called.

Durham’s detractors declared his actions illegal. Banishment and sentences of death were supposed to follow, not precede, a trial and conviction. He was labelled a despot who had exceeded his powers, and there were cries for his actions to be disallowed.

Lord Melbourne’s promise of his full support sounded like an unkind joke, for fearing for the life of his government, Melbourne folded after the faintest show of defence, and overturned Durham’s Bermuda banishments. Durham’s House of Commons’ colleagues had betrayed him.

The manner in which Durham would react to this negative news was clearly predicted by this personal glimpse of him given by a colleague before Durham learned of the betrayal. “The truth is that Lord Durham’s health and character utterly unfit him for such service as the one he is now on. He would do it better than any other of our public men, because he is thoroughly honest and has larger and better views than any of them. But he is so anxious and nervous that he literally cannot bear the burden of distant responsibility.”

To make matters worse, Durham learned of Melbourne's disallowance by chance through reading an American newspaper. He immediately dispatched his resignation to the government. However, because of the Imperial Parliament’s “lamentable want of information” about Canada, he determined to complete his inquiry.

He laid his case before the Canadian people in a farewell Proclamation in which he defended his public acts. This totally unconventional action was greeted with horror in Britain. This highly controversial act was considered a dangerous innovation, since it represented an appeal by a public official to the general public against an order of parliament.

There was no doubt about how Canadians felt. There were tears and mourning on November 1^st, a snowy day with a dark sky when Durham departed. Durham left Quebec amidst pomp and pageantry on the ship Inconstant.ⁱⁱⁱ “The streets were crowded, the spectators filled every window and every house-top, and though every hat was raised as we passed, a deep silence marked the general grief for Lord Durham’s departure. Their mood matched the weather that day, for “the sky was black with clouds bearing the first snowstorm of the winter, and hardly a breath of air was moving.”

Concern for people was the distinguishing feature of Durham’s short stay in Canada, and outraged crowds of Canadians, who fully supported Durham’s initiatives, burnt Melbourne in effigy.

Durham arrived home on the 30^th of November and by the middle of January, 1839 he had completed his Report. In only five months at a cost to the British taxpayer of some 60,000 pounds, Durham and his staff had accomplished a monumental task. Their Report on the Affairs of British North America became one of most remarka­ble of all state docu­ments and served for years as the guide for British imperial policy.

Of the Report’s four parts, the largest dealt with Lower Canada, the second with Upper Canada, the third with the Maritimes and the fourth contained recommendations to resolve the rancor.

Durham summed up the cause of “deadly animosity” in Lower Canada with his famous sentence: “I expected to find a contest between a government and a people; I found instead two nations warring in the bosom of a single state.” In the words, said Durham, of one of Lower Canada’s ablest advocates, “Lower Canada must be English at the expense, if necessary, of not being British.”

Durham’s cardinal error for which he and his report are rigorously criticized by some historians was his denigration of the French-speaking Canadians. He recommended uniting the two provinces in order to assimilate them for their own good. The report had to reverse effect and served to strengthen the resolve of French-speaking Canadians to fight to retain their language, their culture and their institutions.

British officials who followed Lord Durham, chief among whom was Lord Elgin, openly disagreed with Durham, charging that attempts “to denationalize the French, produce the opposite effect, causing the flame of national prejudice and animosity to burn more fiercely. Let them feel rather that their religion, their habits, their prepossessions, their prejudices are more considered and respected here than in any other portions of this vast continent.”

Lord Elgin and others recognized the valuable role French Canadians played in Canada’s society and acted to ensure their language, religion, customs and contribution would continue to make Canada a unique country.

Known as The Report On Canada, Durham’s opinion documented the tumult in clear, concise, forceful language that made exceptionally good reading then, and is equally appealing now. The assumption of his report was that “the British possessions in North America” existed for the “suffering masses of the mother country.” The New World was a place where impoverished Britons might migrate for a better life, while not abandoning their British manners or citizenship.

Durham identified two problems which hampered the realization of this role. One was the system of land distribution, which Durham said aided speculators and “land jobbers” more than immigrants. He recommended the abolition of the Clergy Reserves and land speculation in order to create a sound system of colonization.

The other flaw was a constitutional arrangement that impeded the provision of “good government.” Upper Canada’s "defective constitution" gave power not to a party, but to "personalities" whose control of the governor obstructed the efforts of the reformist opposition that dominated the popularly elected Assembly. Durham described this combination "as representative and irresponsible government, an evil which no civilized community could bear. It was a question between a petty, corrupt, insolent Tory clique and the mass of the people.”

The solutions were obvious to Durham. He denounced the assertion that representative institutions in the mother country and the colonies were two entirely different things. He argued that the colonies must have full authority to conduct their own internal affairs by men in whom the people had confidence, and from whom the governor would then select his advisers. “The change would amount simply to this, that the Crown should henceforth consult the wishes of the people in the choice of its servants.”

Colonial governors should no longer be autocrats decreeing the course of local events, but should be responsible to the elected legislatures of the provinces.

The Family Compact, which Durham referred to as ‘a party,’ had come into power in the days of Simcoe. Of it Durham wrote “Fortified by family connection and the common interest felt by all who held and all who desired subordinate offices, that party was thus erected into a solid and permanent power controlled by no responsibility, subject to no serious change, exercising over the whole government of the province an authority utterly independent of the people and its representatives and possessing the only means of influencing either the government at home or the colonial representative of the Crown.”

Sir Francis Bond Head, whose confrontational behaviour as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada resulted in the rebellion, recorded his views regarding the rebellion in a book he titled, A Narrative of the Canadian Rebellion written in 1839. In it he set down this description of the Family Compact.

In His Own Words

“The family compact of Upper Canada is composed of those members of its society who, either by their abilities and character, have been honoured by the confidence of the executive government, or who, by their industry and intelligence have amassed wealth. The party, I admit, is comparatively a small one; but to put the multitude at the top and the few at the bottom is a radical reversion of that pyramid of society which every reflecting man must foresee can only end by its downfall.”

Of Head and other governors, Durham stated “Successive Governors submitted or yielded to this well-organized party [Family Compact] the real conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the Church of England, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of this party. By grant or by purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the wastelands of the province and the chartered banks and shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit.”

Durham recommended the immediate union of the two Canadas and looked ahead to the eventual confederation of all the Canadian colonies. “Confederation would enable all the provinces to cooperate for all common purposes and above all form a great and powerful people possessing the means of securing good and responsible government.” He recommended the estab­lishment of municipal govern­ments to ensure local control over "the parish pump."

Durham's Report was laid before the British parliament on the 11^th of February, 1839. Instead of fame and acclaim, Durham received only blame and criticism. Melbourne found the idea of ministerial responsibility “a logical absurdity” for a colony. The London Quarterly sarcastically commented “The Report will be made the excuse for future rebellions and perverted into the gospel of treason. The rank and infectious Durham Report should receive high, marked and energetic discountenance and indignation or British America is lost.”

The Report reached Canada in the early summer and was the discussed widely in the press and in the provincial legislatures. “Durham Meetings” were held throughout the province, all of them adopting resolutions in favour of the Report. Tories hated the Report, called it “horrid, disgraceful and mischievous” and immediately identified it with radical, democratic, responsible government.

T hey denounced Durham as the “Lord High Seditioner,” and rejected his report outright.

Reformers hailed the report, emphasizing its conservative and more moderate proposals. Represented by Egerton Ryerson, a disillusioned Tory who became an ardent “Durhamite”, they argued that other than the union of the Canadas, little would be changed if its recommendations were adopted, except that Canadians would be “governed as in England by men as well as institutions of their choice.”

The British Government thought the idea of giving a colony responsible government was “absolutely absurd because it would be impossible for the Governor to be responsible to his Sovereign and to the local legislature at the same time.”

“The charm of responsible government turned every head in the province” and the spirit of North Americans in the New World was to prevail. Before the rebellions, it was popular to label all reformers as disloyal republicans. Now the Reformers could identify themselves with the powerful voice of Durham and his Report’s recommendation of “responsible government.”

It became impossible for the Tories to label responsible government an irresponsible American import. The Reformers’ request was nothing more than a plea for the implementation in the colony of the British constitution as it existed in Britain. Canadians could be trusted.

Within ten years much of what Durham had recommended was implemented in British North America. A new age began for the British empire, which was held together not by force, but by freedom bound by “ties though light as air are as strong as links of iron.”

Durham was a man before his time. He never knew the full impact his famous report was to have on British colonial policy, for he died from tuberculosis on 28th July, 1840. Praise for the report that reconciled colonial autonomy with unity of the empire came after his death.^iv Canada, men said, had killed Durham. They were to find the converse to be true – Durham had given life to Canada.

Although recent history has tended to be more critical of Durham’s recommendations regarding the French in Lower Canada, he remains pre-eminent among the founders of the modern Commonwealth.

I
n keeping with the Lambton family motto: Le jour viendra (The Day Will Come), Durham’s last words as he lay dying on the Isle of Wight were prophetic: "Canada will one day do justice to my memory."

In his Report Durham defined responsible government “as the entrusting the management of public affairs to persons who have the confidence of the representative body.”

By responsible government, the Reformers meant that the government should be carried on, not by an executive nominated by the governor and independent of the vote of parliament, but, as in England, by a cabinet dependent for its tenure of office on the vote of the House of Commons [Assembly]. They meant, in short, that supreme power should be transferred from the Crown to the representatives of the people. It was nothing less than a revolution under a mild and constitutional name.”^v

To some the old struggles were so long ago and seem so petty and unimportant, but during those critical times in the little colony, certain obscure persons set Canada free to become the great nation she now is.

Lord Durham

Vocabulary:

1. Why do you think the British government would have been embarrassed when word of the rebellions reached London?

2. Lord Melbourne’s administration “was already weak.” What does this mean?

2. (a)Account for Melbourne’s true feelings regarding the Canadian colony.

3. Explain: ‘Shades of 1776.’

4. What was the crux of the problem with the Canadian colonies?

5. “Conflicts raged within the cabinet.” About what were the members of the same party arguing?

6. Why did Melbourne choose Durham for the Canadian problem?

[The diagram^vi below depicts the differences between representative [1792]and responsible [1849] government.]

7. “Better in Canada than in the cabinet.” Why?

8. Durham maintained excellent relations with the men working his mines. What does this tell you about him?

9. Durham supported the great reform measures of his time. Identify and explain each of these.

10. Explain: (a) anarchy was imminent; (b) Durham’s toast to the American president was worth a million pounds in public relations; (c) bring down the government; (d) Lord High Seditioner; (e) create municipalities to ensure control over the parish pump; (f) the legitimate aspirations of Canadians; (g) the literary reference: a doomed Don Quixote; (h) the idol of the hour would become the martyr of tomorrow.

11. Explain the difference between representative and responsible government.

12. Explain the difference between a Reformer and a Tory.

13. Why was responsible government referred to as “nothing less than a revolution?”

14. Durham showed great skill in his dealings with the Americans. How?

15. Explain the saying, “As I see thee, thy worth I deem.”

16. Why did Durham leave Canada so abruptly?

17. Why was Durham’s departure such a sad occasion?

i Family misfortunes overwhelmed Durham. His eldest son died at age 13 and his mother the following year. Then in the space of four years he lost three daughters.

ii A political party which favoured limiting the king’s authority and increasing parliamentary power

iiiDurham’s hasty departure from Canada meant he missed an opportunity to be regally welcomed in Washington. Durham was held in such high honour by Americans, he would have been asked to stay with the President at the White House as a national guest. This honour had only been conferred once before on the French general, Lafayette.

iv Fifty thousand people attended his funeral. In 1844 a memorial to Durham was paid for by public subscription and constructed in his own home county between Durham and Sunderland. It is a many-columned Doric temple situated “proud, high and lonely”’ on Penshaw moor.

v Goldwin Smith, 1891

viDiagram from Herstein, Hughes and Kirbyson’s Challenge & Survival, 1970