There was a great enthusiasm for old songs the country people sang, and when they were collected and studied, many proved to be from the Middle Ages. Poets like Sir Walter Scott began to imitate these forms and churned out endless books of mediaeval novels and ballads:<\/p>\n
O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
\nThrough all the wide Border his steed was the best;
\nAnd save his good broadsword he weapons had none,
\nHe rode all unarm\u2019d, and he rode all alone.
\nSo faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
\nThere never was knight like the young Lochinvar.<\/p>\n
Another first-generation Romantic was Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote his very long, very captivating Rime of the Ancient Mariner<\/em> with its gripping first stanza.<\/p>\n It is an ancient Mariner, <\/p>\n And who can forget Kubla Khan, written in 1797 but published in 1816, with the \u201cwoman wailing for her demon lover?<\/p>\n In Xanadu did Kubla Khan But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Wordsworth and the younger Keats were gentler types, with extreme sensitivities to nature. Keats writes an Ode to Autumn,<\/em> not the usual joyful cry to Spring, freshness and vigour, but to the beginning of ripeness and decay:<\/p>\n \u201cSeason of mists and mellow fruitfulness\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This was also a time where the cult of personality flourished, and its most amazing actor was George Gordon, Lord Byron<\/strong>. He wrote about bad boys having wild adventures and in his new wild verses, revived the sexual profligacies of Don Juan. Early in his career he wrote an immortal stanza where the roar of distant cannon captures the attention and sobers the mood of the exuberant dancers on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo:<\/p>\n There was a sound of revelry by night, And there is this stanza from the blazing poem, The Isles of Greece,<\/em> that still makes people cry, and which inspired an entire generation to turn to revolution in all its forms to set Greece free from the Turks.<\/p>\n The mountains look on Marathon\u2014 \u2026that Greece might still be free<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the face of the poet, engraved by H. Meyer in 1816, after a watercolour sketch by G. H. Harlow, that Europe fell in love with, and emulated in costume and manners; and this is the man, who, in the swamps of Missolonghi in 1824, died a miserable death, funding, and urging on, confused Greeks to drive out the Turks.<\/p>\n In time they did, and perhaps they succeeded because of wildly popular art like this, inspired by Byron\u2019s poetry and actions. In the same year as Byron\u2019s death, the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix painted this tearing scene of the Turkish Massacre at Chios<\/em>, now one of the treasures of the Louvre.<\/p>\n A teenaged Bavarian prince, Otto, became King of Greece on 27 May 1832. No Greeks qualified for the job. Otto\u2019s father, a great philhellene, had poured a lot of money into the war against the Turks. In his official portrait by Gottlieb Bodmer, Otto has himself portrayed in Greek national dress, just like Byron, as seen in Phillips\u2019 portrait now in the British Embassy in Athens. It was Hero Worship in its most elevated form.<\/p>\n The art of the Early Nineteenth Century became filled with works that implied criticism of the time and of the monarchies. You may recall the small 1799 etching by Goya called The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters (Caprichos – No. 43 – El sue\u00f1o de la razon produce monstruos)<\/em>, where the sleeping artist is being destroyed by nightmares filled with nameless horrors. The bright mind of the Enlightenment was becoming sickened by social and technical progress. It is no wonder that various attempts at understanding mental illness were being made in those years. These theories would evolve, and survive into our times as psychoanalysis.<\/p>\n Not very much later, a brilliant young French Romantic painter called Theodore G\u00e9ricault, in 1819 painted The Raft of the Medusa<\/em>, showing the moment of salvation for the survivors \u2013 ordinary emigrants \u2013 of a naval disaster caused by bureaucratic corruption – but not before some had resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.<\/p>\n Paintings like these \u2013 and this one in the Louvre is enormous! \u2013 drew huge crowds, and circulated by means of prints, reached even more people who, horrified that this could happen in their society, began to change their attitudes toward governments in irreversible ways.<\/p>\n Byron\u2019s example would inspire years of civil unrest in Europe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By 1830 Revolution was in the air all over Europe and the streets of major cities were filled with blockades of household furniture, as earnest hot-headed youth faced the troops. This painting of Liberty leading the People<\/em>, painted by Eugene Delacroix in 1830 and now in the Louvre, captures most powerfully that particular moment. It has become the everlasting icon of popular revolt.<\/p>\n In the end the people brought about changes in the monarchies of France and Belgium. The Poles made progress against Russian tyranny and the Italians, hiding in dense forest thickets, made the first assaults that, a generation later, would result in the creation of the modern state of Italy. It Switzerland and Portugal small revolts brought about changes in government and in Brazil, of all places, the Emperor was forced out. There were no major confrontations in Great Britain, but a tone had been set, and a fear set free, that such events, if allowed to happen, might disrupt Britannia\u2019s Rule.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1848, building upon the upheavals and dissatisfaction of the 1830s, there were a series of quick violent revolutions in Europe, the most extensive and passionate in European history. The ultimate goal was the establishment of democratic institutions that would make life easier for everybody while limiting even more the power of the aristocrats. The planners with their ever-changing coalitions were not united in their goals and were weakened to the point where, ten years later, the aristocrats regained control. But the seeds of democracy had been laid.<\/p>\n These years saw the great potato failures in Europe that were behind the great migration of Irish country people to the British Colonies in America. It is remembered as the Potato Famine. General agricultural failure caused vast numbers of rural people to emigrate to the cities which led to even more problems.<\/p>\n And there was the Industrial Revolution which, for 75 years or so had created machines and processes that destroyed the traditional crafts at the base of rural society, leading to unrest, always on the verge of breaking out into violence. The air was filled with the claims and counter-claims of those who favoured a whole collection of -isms: liberalism<\/a>, radicalism<\/a>, nationalism<\/a>, and socialism<\/a> and democracy. The world as we know it today was being very agonizingly born.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the Nineteenth Century progressed in some lots with supportive and progressive landlords, settlements grew, and the 20,000-acre townships began to be divided into individual farms. Settlers came from different parts of the British Isles and, in a very small way, a mini-Britain began to appear here and there across the Island.<\/p>\n Not everything was sweetness and light, however. As early as 15 June, 1833, a little-known but highly symbolic riot took place in New London in Lot 20. Crops were particularly bad that year and rents could not be paid. There were violent altercations and five men were brought before a judge for “riot, assault and obstruction of an officer of the Crown.” As an example to others, the judge gave a very harsh sentence. Tenant\/landlord relations, already bad, were soured for years. This story is told in some detail by Katherine Dewar in the Island Magazine (see reference section). It is a sickening story about greed, warped justice and the lack of care landlords had for their tenants in times of crop failure.<\/p>\n Discontent was spreading across the Island. On several occasions in these blog posts I have referred to events in my home township, Lot 1, which, you may remember, was first settled in 1799 by a number of Acadian families who left Lots 16 and 17 where they had established themselves under the mostly benign eye of their landlord. Before being joined by Irish immigrants in 1811 they had settled mostly around the Tignish River and Harbour and around the big lagoon now know as The Green to the west of the harbour. In two generations they had reclaimed marshland and opened up new farms in the wilderness. This 1853 map shows the forms and extent of the settlement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1853 \u2013 John Ball, detail of PLAN\/ of\/ LOT N 1\/ shewing the Extent of the\/ Fishery Reserve to the\/ Crown.<\/em> \u2026 PARO 1052 03.<\/strong><\/p>\n The first landlords may have been asleep in 1799, and if they heard rumours of a few illegal settlers, would not have been much disturbed. But by the 1840s ownership of land had changed hands and Lot 1 was now owned by Edward Palmer (1809-89) and Samuel Cunard (1787-1865). Palmer was a politician and jurist and a reluctant Father of Confederation. Cunard was involved in many things, starting with whaling. In time he became the greatest shipping magnate in the world. He became a landlord on Prince Edward Island and in time owned 1\/7 of the entire Island, some 200,000 acres.<\/p>\n https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Samuel_Cunard<\/a><\/p>\n This manuscript map in the Public Archives shows the Palmer and Cunard holdings in Lot 1. It is not dated but probably was made in the 1850s.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1850s?] – Plan of Township Number One, comprising the Palmer and part of the Cunard Estates.\/ Partially corrected from Surveys by V. S. Gillis L.S<\/em>., 127 x 55.4 cm, PARO, Lot 1 cartouche.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can see in this detail of the larger map how quickly, at mid-century, the Lot has filled up. Soon the new Roman Catholic church, a masterpiece of the Gothic Revival, will be built and in a few years after that the railway will push its terminal into the centre of what will then become known as Tignish.<\/p>\n The cartouche, below a very fancy wind rose, describes this as a correction of an earlier map.<\/p>\n This was a time when very little money was in circulation and throughout the whole Island rent, and many other kinds of bills, were paid in kind. This could be in the form of farm produce or animals, and in some cases, labour. A few receipts issued by landlords survive from this time and are very informative. Take for example this one. On May 5, 1846 James Horsefield Peters (1811-1891), who had married Cunard\u2019s daughter and acted as his collections agent, receive from Romain Arsenaux in Lot 1 one pound, six shillings and three pence paid by means of 5 bushels of wheat (photo: Tignish Arts Foundation Collection of Negatives).<\/p>\n One wonders how that transaction went. Two years before, in February 1844, at a time when Cunard was experiencing severe financial problems, the rent collectors were out in large numbers to collect what no doubt were considerable arrears from the residents of Lot 1. Quite amazingly an account, in French, was written by Gilbert Buote, the Editor of the Impartial newspaper in Tignish, probably at the time of the 1899 Centennial of the coming of the Acadians. The manuscript is among the papers I inherited from his granddaughter Alma Buote and tells of a very violent nighttime encounter where pistols were brandished by the rent collectors and the sheriff Warburton having his horse knocked to the ground by an Acadian woman wielding a log from a woodpile. I give you first the original French version, with its very rich picturesque language. I append my English translation below.<\/p>\n L\u2019ann\u00e9e des \u00ab Constables \u00bb Toute la famille \u00e9tait \u00e0 la maison. Le p\u00e8re, dans le grand fauteuil qu\u2019il avait confectionn\u00e9 de ses propres mains, \u00e9tait assis pr\u00e8s de l\u2019\u00e2tre … la m\u00e8re … tricotait. Le vieux et la vieille s\u2019entretenaient des temps sombres par lesquels on passait et des mis\u00e8res auxquelles ou \u00e9tait en proie \u00e0 cause des pers\u00e9cutions des propri\u00e9taires. Les enfants, au nombre de sept, moins soucieux des inqui\u00e9tudes qui d\u00e9vorent la vie, occupaient le reste de la maison qui \u00e9tait toute d\u2019une pi\u00e8ce.<\/p>\n Soudain le cri per\u00e7ant du borgo (porte-voix) se fait entendre de la cabane des sentinelles post\u00e9es dans le portage \u00e0 McNeill. Depuis le commencement des troubles deux hommes, \u00e0 tour de r\u00f4le, occupaient cette cabane, le jour et la nuit, et chaque fois que quelque \u00e9tranger arrivait, ces sentinelles donnaient l\u2019alarme en faisant retentir l\u2019air de l\u2019\u00e9cho de leur porte-voix, et ces \u00e9trangers, quels qu\u2019ils fussent, \u00e9taient arr\u00eat\u00e9s sur la route et oblig\u00e9s de rendre compte de leur mission. En moins d\u2019un quart-d\u2019heure les porte-voix se faisaient entendre dans toutes les parties de la paroisse et tout le monde, hommes, femmes et enfants \u00e9tait sur pied, les uns arm\u00e9s de b\u00e2tons, d\u2019autres de fourches de fer ou de haches. Tous, au nombre de pr\u00e8s de trois cents, se rendirent \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e des chemins devant la porte \u00e0 Firmin Julien. Presqu\u2019en m\u00eame temps arriv\u00e8rent les officiers de la loi qui venaient d\u00e9termin\u00e9s de faire main basse sur les propri\u00e9t\u00e9s de plusieurs habitants contre lesquels ils avaient des mandats de saisie et de faire prisonniers plusieurs autres personnes contre lequelles ils avaient des warrants … Ces \u00e9missaires \u00e9taient au nombre de seize: le grand sh\u00e9rif Bearsto, le d\u00e9put\u00e9 sh\u00e9rif Warburton, et quatorze constables.<\/p>\n Arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e des chemins, la foule qui \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 arriv\u00e9e l\u00e0, les attendait et leur barra le chemin. Le d\u00e9put\u00e9 sh\u00e9rif venait le premier. Arr\u00eat\u00e9 par la foule, il commanda, au nom de la loi, qu\u2019on les laissat passer. Personne ne fit cas de ses paroles. Alors se tournant vers le grand sh\u00e9rif qui venait apr\u00e8s lui il cria: pass me your pistol. \u00c0 peine avait-il prononc\u00e9 ces paroles que son cheval tomba comme un corps mort. La grand\u2019 Nannette \u00e0 B\u00e9lone, une des femmes qui \u00e9tait venue avec les autres pour d\u00e9fendre ses foyers s\u2019\u00e9tait arm\u00e9e d\u2019un rondin sur le b\u00fbcher \u00e0 Firmin, et d\u2019un coup port\u00e9 entre les deux oreilles du cheval du d\u00e9put\u00e9 sh\u00e9rif, abattit l\u2019animal qui, les yeux hors de leurs orbites, resta \u00e9tendu comme un corps mort sur le chemin.<\/p>\n Gilbert Buote<\/p>\n And here is my English translation:<\/p>\n The Year of the \u201cConstables\u201d<\/p>\n It was mid February 1844. It was nine o\u2019clock in the evening. A mantle of snow two feet thick covered the ground. There was not a breath of wind. The weather was fine and clear as glass. You heard the trees snapping with the frost. The moon was full, and in its majestic course, covered the earth with its silver rays.<\/p>\n The entire family was at home. The father [was] in the big armchair that he had made with his own hands, sitting next to the fire, [and] the mother was knitting. The elders were talking about bad time they were going through and the evils they were prey to because of the proprietors\u2019 persecutions. The children, seven of them, less aware of the anxieties that dominated their lives, were\u00a0 [busy] elsewhere in the one-room house.<\/p>\n Suddenly the piercing sound of the borgo (alarm) was heard from the sentinels\u2019 cabin at McNeill\u2019s Portage. Since the beginning of the troubles two men took turns staying in the cabin, day and night, and each time a stranger arrived, those sentinels sounded the alarm and made the air ring with their borgos, and these strangers, whoever they were, were stopped and asked to give an account of themselves. In less than a quarter of an hour the alarm was heard in the rest of the parish and everybody, men women and children, were up and ready, some with sticks, others with iron forks or axes. Nearly three hundred of them gathered at the cross-roads in front of Firmin Julien\u2019s house. Almost at the same moment the officers of the law arrived. They were determined to grab hold of anything they could that belonged to those people against whom they had seize warrants, and to take prisoner several other people against whom they had arrest warrants … There were sixteen of them: Bearsto, the high sheriff, deputy-sheriff Warburton and fourteen constables.<\/p>\n When they arrived at the cross-roads the waiting crowd barred their way. The deputy sheriff advanced first. Stopped by the crowd he demanded, in the name of the law, that they be allowed to pass. His words were ignored. Turning to the High Sheriff who was behind him he cried, \u201cPass me your pistol!\u201d Scarcely had he uttered these words than his horse fell from under him, as if dead. Big Nanette \u00e0 B\u00e9lone, one of the women who had come with the others to help defend their homes, was armed with a log from Firmin\u2019s wood pile. With one blow between the ears she knocked the deputy sheriff\u2019s horse to the ground, and, with eyes protruding from their sockets, it lay there like a corpse on the road.<\/p>\n Gilbert Buote, L\u2019Impartial<\/em>, c. 1899<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Island\u2019s most spectacular revolution took place on election day, March 1, 1847 in the District of Belfast, seen here in a detail from the near-contemporary Cundall map of 1851.<\/p>\n Reform was in the air at that time and about 200 Irish supporters of the Reform movement were pitted against an equal number of Scottish followers of the Conservative candidates. It was also a crucial moment in the history of introducing the Bible into all school curricula, Protestant or Catholic. The repercussions of the Bible Question still reverberate today. Tempers flared in an encounter at Pinette Mills, a tiny confluence of roads shown here in a map from Meacham’s ATLAS<\/em>, and naked hatred made itself felt in murderous violence.<\/p>\n There were three deaths \u2013 two Irishmen and one Scotsman. It was a holy war in the guise of politics.<\/p>\n The best accessible account of this episode that took place just a few minutes from where I live is this article in the Island Magazine<\/em> by Harry Holman. I include it here as a pdf file.<\/p>\n Holman – The Belfast Riot – Island Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n A much more extensive discussion of the religious aspects of this revolt is to be found in this thesis by Callum Vere Beck, The Protestant-Catholic Divide on Prince Edward Island, Canada: Its Creation, Growth and Resolution<\/em>. I also include a pdf of it here.<\/p>\n
\nAnd he stoppeth one of three.
\n‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
\nNow wherefore stopp’st thou me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA stately pleasure-dome decree:
\nWhere Alph, the sacred river, ran
\nThrough caverns measureless to man
\nDown to a sunless sea.
\nSo twice five miles of fertile ground
\nWith walls and towers were girdled round;
\nAnd there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
\nWhere blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
\nAnd here were forests ancient as the hills
\nEnfolding sunny spots of greenery.<\/p>\n
\nDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
\nA savage place! as holy and enchanted
\nAs e\u2019er beneath a waning moon was haunted
\nBy woman wailing for her demon-lover!<\/p>\n
\nAnd Belgium’s capital had gathered then
\nHer beauty and her chivalry, and bright
\nThe lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
\nA thousand hearts beat happily; and when
\nMusic arose with its voluptuous swell,
\nSoft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
\nAnd all went merry as a marriage-bell;
\nBut hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!<\/p>\n
\nAnd Marathon looks on the sea;
\nAnd musing there an hour alone,
\nI dream\u2019d that Greece might still be free<\/strong><\/em>;
\nFor standing on the Persians\u2019 grave,
\nI could not deem myself a slave.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/narrow-b-223x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Eug\u00e8ne_Delacroix_-_Le_Massacre_de_Scio-1824-LOU-255x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Otto-and-Byron-300x186.jpg\")
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<\/p>\nThe Revolution of 1830<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Revolution of 1848<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Revolution on Prince Edward Island<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/1853-Lot-1-Fishery-John-Ball-ORIGINAL-SITE-300x278.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/0002-127x55.4cm-lot1-small-300x107.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n
\nC\u2019\u00e9tait vers la mi-f\u00e9vrier 1844. Il \u00e9tait neuf heures du soir. Un manteau de neige de deux pieds d\u2019\u00e9paisseur couvrait la terre. Il n\u2019y avait pas une haleine de vent. Le temps \u00e9tait fin et clair comme une vitre. On entendait les arbres craquer sous l\u2019effet de la gel\u00e9e. La lune \u00e9tait \u00e0 son plein, et dans sa course majestueuse, inondait la terre de ses rayons argentins.<\/p>\nRevolution<\/strong> spreads on the Island<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/1851-Cundall-Belfast-Riots-300x180.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/regporter.com\/pei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/1880-Meacham-Pinette-Mills-268x300.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n