BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE IN QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA. NO. 28, JULY, 1918 SIR GEORGE ARTHUR AND HIS ADMINISTRATION OF UPPER CANADA. BY WALTER SAGE _The Jackson Press, Kingston_ SIR GEORGE ARTHUR AND HIS ADMINISTRATION OF UPPER CANADA. The last Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada before the Union of 1841 was Sir George Arthur. To most Canadians of to-day he is little more than a name, but still he played an important part in the stirring events of our political life fourscore years ago. He lacked the picturesqueness of that extraordinary personage, his predecessor in office, Sir Francis Bond Head, and he was overshadowed completely by both Lord Durham to Poulett Thomson, better known as Lord Sydenham, who were in succession as Governors-General placed in authority over him. None the less he lives in Canadian history as the man who refused to reprieve Lount and Matthews, and who made common cause with the Family Compact against the Reformers. Although nominally he was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from his appointment in 1837 until the Act of Union went into force, his real term of office lasted only a little more than a year and a half, from March 23rd, 1838, until November 22nd, 1839. After that time he was directly subordinate to Sydenham. During that brief period Sir George Arthur proved himself an energetic if not always merciful governor. It was unfortunate that Arthur come to Upper Canada at a time when Mackenzie's rebellion had just been crushed and when party feeling was still running very high. Sir Francis Bond Head left Toronto on the very day that Sir George Arthur arrived and so the new Lieutenant-Governor was unable to obtain much information from his predecessor. There is reason to believe, none the less, that Sir Francis put in a good word for his old friends the Family Compact and that Arthur from the beginning of his term of office favoured that party. In his first official despatch to Lord Glenelg dated March 29th, 1838, Sir George makes mention of the "large preponderating party looking to the Executive Government to put down treason by energetic measures," as opposed to "the party styling themselves Reformers" who were "hoping for the most lenient course."[1] These phrases, written when Arthur had been only about a week in Upper Canada, stamp the new governor at once as an opponent of reform. If further proof is needed it can readily be found in Arthur's reply to a congratulatory address from seven hundred and fifty citizens of Toronto upon the occasion of his arrival in that city. In that address reference was made to the fact that "in the promotion of public order, and the adoption of measures for the pacification of the country" Arthur would have "the prompt and energetic support of the loyal, patriotic and constitutional reformers of the Province."