Beschreibung:

Robert Field (17869-1819) - Portrait of Sir George Prevost (1767-1816) Oil on canvas 69 x 53 cm (27 x 21 in) Beginning in 1810 Sir George Prevost undertook to buttress the tenuous establishment of the Church of England, thereby risking his hard-won popularity since that church’s claims on government alienated other denominations in the colony. He persuaded the British government to permit the use of surplus revenue in the arms fund for completion or repair of Anglican churches and the enlargement of King’s College at Windsor. Moreover, he appointed Anglican clergy as civil magistrates, took steps to protect school and glebe lands from encroachment or alienation, and placed Bishop Charles Inglis on the council. He also obtained an increase in Inglis’s salary, provided the bishop, who preferred to rusticate at Aylesford, resided in Halifax. In 1811 Prevost sought to improve clerical salaries by offering to suspend the unpopular collection of quitrents on land grants if the assembly made annual financial provision for Anglican ministers; the proposal was ultimately rejected. Perhaps to reduce criticism from the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, in 1810 Prevost had also appointed a number of their clergy to be magistrates, and the following year he acknowledged the respectability of the Church of Scotland, if not a semi-official status for it, by authorizing a grant from the arms fund to one of its churches. By May 1811 Prevost was prepared to risk his good relations with the assembly over its annual appropriation to compensate members for their expenses, feeling that it was irregular, liable to abuse, and “an evil highly dangerous to the prerogative of the Crown.” Before he came to blows with the assembly over payment of expenses, however, Prevost left Nova Scotia for Lower Canada with instructions to replace Governor Craig. Though Prevost was politically conservative, he had nevertheless remained pragmatic during his administration in Nova Scotia. He considered the contests of factions an unavoidable characteristic of colonial politics, which governors should accept philosophically and seek to temper by diplomacy and conciliation. Prevost also foresaw the drift towards greater local self-government. “My observation leads me to believe,” he wrote to the Colonial Office, “that as Nova Scotia becomes sensible of her adolescence, her dislike to control will become more evident, and her attempts to shake off the restraints of the Mother Country more frequent. - In short her ties in my estimation are those of necessity and convenience, more than of gratitude and affection.” On 21 Oct. 1811 Prevost was commissioned governor-in-chief of British North America; having been promoted lieutenant-general on 4 July 1811, he was also made commander of British forces in North America. In this latter capacity he took over the presidency and administration of Lower Canada from Thomas Dunn on 14 September, the day after his arrival at Quebec, and he continued to govern as president until 15 July 1812. As commander-in-chief he was preoccupied with military preparedness. Because of the British army’s commitments in Europe, no significant reinforcement could be expected of existing forces in the Canadas, then numbering some 5,600 regular troops and fencibles, of which about 1,200 were stationed in Upper Canada in small, widely scattered garrisons. The Lower Canadian militia could boast 60,000 men on paper but was “ill armed and without discipline.” That of the upper province totalled 11,000, of which Prevost thought “it might not be prudent to arm more than 4000,” because many inhabitants, recent immigrants from the United States, were of doubtful loyalty. Worried as well about the disposition of the Canadians if war broke out, Prevost sought to conciliate Canadian political leaders, who had been estranged by the partisan alliance that Craig had formed with the British oligarchy. Prevost soon concluded that the Canadian politicians were men “s