Property and crime

The energies of law enforcement were focused on maintaining order and defending property. The late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century saw major changes in Britain.[1] This was bound to have an impact on crime. Highway robbery died out as roads became less isolated with more traffic, more patrols and more turnpike gates. For example, the last series of prosecutions for highway robbery were heard at the Old Bailey were in 1830. In the next eighty years, only three more cases were tried; in 1832, 1877 and a final case in 1897. Robbing travellers on the railways was a new crime, especially before the introduction of corridor trains.[2] Huge business venture, operating with little supervision, provided opportunities for crooked dealings and the development of white-collar crime. [3] Many investors lost money in the 1840s railway fraud scandal. In 1882, over a £1 million was embezzled from Jardine Matheson and in 1897 millions were embezzled from Baring Brothers Bank. Both crimes were hushed up. Although the behaviour of corrupt businessmen led to social outrage and often long prison sentences, they were generally seen as ‘rotten apples’ rather than as members of the ‘criminal classes’.

The sharp increase in crime figures after 1825 that continued until mid-century is well known, though not thoroughly explained. The increase in population was significant during these years but it was well below the increase measured in crime statistics. Moreover, the increase seems to have been as marked in rural counties like Bedfordshire as it was overall. What is noticeable about the peaks in crime, from 1825 to a peak in 1832, a decline followed by another upswing to a peak in 1842 and again in 1848 is that they coincided with years marked by economic depression and political unrest.

The correlation suggests that victims might have been more ready to prosecute because of the general feeling of insecurity and offenders more likely to steal because of economic hardship. Political unrest weakened some of the usual factors that discouraged crime. The number of new magistrates increased from about 300 per year in 1820 to 400 by 1830. More active JPs meant more men available to hear complaints and issue warrants and the effective prosecution of crime increased.

Property crimes were frequently commented on in the Victorian press. Those who owned property and who, as a result, had the vote tended to live in areas where violence was less common. Britain’s propertied classes felt themselves under attack from two directions. First, there was the potential for revolution to be export from the continent. There were revolutions in France in 1789, 1830 and 1848 and revolutions across other parts of Europe in 1830 and 1848. These created considerable fear that the same thing would happen in Britain. The late 1830s and early 1840s were years of acute anxiety fed by the economic depression as well as by Chartist and industrial agitation culminating in Newport rebellion in 1839, the Plug Plots in 1842 and the Kennington Common meeting in 1848.[4] Secondly, attacks were expected from the ‘dangerous classes’ in the growing slums of urban Britain. As towns grew, and the slum areas expanded the middle-classes felt that they were losing control of these inner-city areas. Many people were convinced by the writings of Malthus and his pessimistic picture of the poor implying that it was their own improvidence and immorality that led to problems of over population, food shortage and, consequently, high poor rates.

In the mid-nineteenth century, 60% of larceny charges were for less than five shillings. [5] Larceny statistics in the second half of the century also show some link between the peaks of offences and years of high unemployment.[6] But, after the 1840s, the working-classes rarely had to contend with the coincidence of high food prices and economic depression that was so marked in the first half of the century. This was due, in part, to a rise in the export market for industrial goods that enabled firms to offset short-term contractions in the home market. At the same time stable, even declining food prices helped many section of the working-class to ride out short periods of unemployment. These elements help to explain the overall decline in theft and violence: put at its simplest, during this period the poor became less habituated to theft because they were less subjected to periods of severe unemployment coinciding with serious subsistence problems. In addition, the growth and professionalism of the new police force probably acted as a deterrent; the destruction of the rookeries for urban improvement removed some of the worst criminal areas; the Vagrancy Acts meant a stricter supervision of the casual poor.

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[1] Bailey, V., (ed.), Policing and Punishment in Nineteenth century Britain, (Croom Helm), 1981 contains several important essays and ibid, Philip, D., Crime and Authority in Victorian England: The Black Country 1835-60 and Jones, D., Crime, Protest, Community and Police in Nineteenth Century Britain, (Routledge), 1982 and Crime in Nineteenth Century Wales, (University of Wales Press), 1992 are useful collections of thematic and regional essays.

[2] Ireland, R.W., ‘“An increasing mass of heathens in the bosom of a Christian land”: the railway and crime in the nineteenth century’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 12, (1997), pp. 55-78 focuses on Carmarthenshire in Wales between 1850 and 1880 and Quick, Michael, ‘The Garrett Gang: luggage thefts in the 1840s’, Journal of the Railway & Canal Historical Society, Vol. 187, (2004), pp. 437-445.

[3] Robb, George, White-collar crime in modern England: financial fraud and business morality, 1845-1929, (Cambridge University Press), 1992 provides a detailed study. Sindall, R.S., ‘Middle-class crime in nineteenth century England’, Criminal Justice History, Vol. 4, (1983), pp. 23-40, Barnes, Paul, ‘A Victorian financial crisis: The scandalous implications of the case of Overend Gurney’, in ibid, Rowbotham, Judith and Stevenson, Kim, (eds.), Criminal conversations: Victorian crimes, social panic, and moral outrage, pp. 55-69. See also, Locker, John P., ‘The Paradox of the ‘Respectable Offender’: Responding to the Problem of White-Collar Crime in Victorian and Edwardian England’, in Johnston, Helen, (ed.), Punishment and control in historical perspective, (Palgrave), 2008), pp. 115-134, Wilson, Gary and Wilson, Sarah, ‘“Getting away with it” or “punishment enough”?: The problem of “respectable” crime from 1830’, in Moore, James Robert and Smith, John, (eds.), Corruption in urban politics and society, Britain 1780-1950, (Ashgate), 2007, pp. 57-78 and Colley, Robert, ‘The Arabian Bird: A Study in Income Tax Evasion in Mid-Victorian Britain’, British Tax Review, (2001), pp. 207-221.

[4] Royle, Edward and Walvin, James, English Radicals and Reformers 1760-1848, (Harvester Press), 1982, Stevenson, John, Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1870, (Longman), 1979.  Hunt, E.H., British Labour History 1815-1914, (Weidenfeld), 1981 and Wright, D.G., Popular Radicalism: The Working-class Experience 1780-1880, (Longman), 1988 contain useful material on radicalism. Thomis, Malcolm and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789-1848, (Macmillan), 1974 and Royle, Edward, Revolutionary Britannia?, (Manchester University Press), 2000 provide different perspectives on the threat of revolution.

[5] Gatrell, V.A.C., ‘The decline of theft and violence in Victorian and Edwardian England’, Gatrell, V. A. C. et al, (eds.), Crime and the law: a social history of crime in Western Europe since 1500, (Europa Publications), 1980, pp. 238-370 and Godfrey, Barry S. and Locker, John P., ‘The nineteenth-century decline of custom, and its impact on theories of “workplace theft” and “white collar crime”’, Northern History, Vol. 38, (2001), pp. 261-273.

[6] Ferris, Graham, ‘Larceny: Debating the “boundless region of dishonesty”‘, in ibid, Rowbotham, Judith and Stevenson, Kim, (eds.), Criminal conversations: Victorian crimes, social panic, and moral outrage, pp. 70-90.

The Declaration of Independence and Lower Canada

The Declaration of Independence by the American colonies in 1776 played an importance role in the political thinking of the rebels during the rebellions in the Canadas. During each political crisis of the 1820s and especially the 1830s, people in the two Canadas looked with some envy at their neighbours in the American republic.[1] The admission of Canada into the Union when it requested it was included by the Founding Fathers of the American Nation in the Articles of Confederation.[2] However, this article was not included in the subsequent Constitution and the question of the possible annexation of Canada remained a recurring and, especially in the southern states, contentious issue in American politics.[3]

The Proclamation of the Independence of the United States followed the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 3 September 1783 that recognised the independence of the thirteen colonies.[4] The treaty was ratified by Great Britain and the United States and by France and Spain that both had interests in the region. Great Britain was the big loser. As well as losing the thirteen colonies, the most prosperous area in its Empire, it also ceded Florida to Spain and several islands in the Caribbean to France.  The idea for a republic came from the Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century. The Americans were the first to put it into practice. The Canadian colonies obtained these revolutionary ideas from American travellers and settlers. They developed slowly in French Canadian society and finally emerged during the rebellions of 1837-1838.[5] It was not the Treaty of Paris per se that played the critical role in spread America ideas to Canadian reformers but the more important Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 and the American Constitution of 25 May 1787.[6]

The Declaration of Independence was an indictment against the British government especially its attacks on the freedoms of its subjects in the American colonies, a breach of the social contract between the colonists and the British Crown. Its drafters denounced colonial taxation, the arbitrary power exercised by the colonial authorities, the suspension of colonial legislatures elected by the people and other injustices and were left with no alternative but to declare their independence from London. The Patriotes used the same rhetoric in sending the Ninety-Two Resolutions to London in 1834 in which they denounced the abuses of colonial government, seigneurial tenure, the nomination by the monarch of members of the Executive and Legislative Councils etc. Although most Patriotes still had faith in British institutions, these Resolutions were a warning that independence remained a credible alternative to colonial rule. The American Constitution was also an important reference point for the Patriotes especially its principle of the separation of powers initially developed by Montesquieu.[7] The opening words of the Constitution, ‘We The People’ was revolutionary since it replaced the power of the Crown with the legitimacy of the people.

These two documents played a central role in the debates between Patriote leaders and the assemblies in the Canadas. After the defeat of the first rebellion in December 1837, Robert Nelson[8] proclaimed the Déclaration d’indépendance de la République du Bas-Canada on 28 February 1838, a document that was a mixture of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.[9] Nelson took the principal articles of the American Constitution that allowed a separation of powers and combined them with the notion of popular legitimacy. The failure of the second rebellion in November 1838 meant that his declaration of independence was not put into practice.

Appendix: Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Lower Canada

Written by Dr. Robert Nelson, who played a major role in the 1838 revolt, the Declaration was read by him as President of the Republic of Lower Canada before a crowd first on 28 February 1838 and later on 4 November 1838. [10]

February 1838

Déclarons solennellement:

1. Que de ce jour et à l’avenir, le peuple du Bas-Canada libre de toute allégeance à la Grande-Bretagne, et que le politique entre ce pouvoir et le Bas-Canada, est maintenant rompu

2. Qu’une forme républicaine de gouvernement est celle convient le mieux au Bas-Canada, qui est ce jour déclaré être une république.

3. Que sous le gouvernement libre du Bas-Canada, tous les individus jouiront des mêmes droits: les sauvages ne seront plus soumis à aucune disqualification civile, mais jouiront des mêmes droits que tous les autres citoyens du Bas-Canada.

4. Que toute union entre l’Église et l’État est par la présente déclarée être dissoute, et toute personne aura le droit d`exercer librement telle religion ou croyance qui lui sera dictée par sa conscience.

5. La tenure féodale ou seigneuriale des terres est par la présente abolie, aussi complètement que si telle tenure n`eàt jamais existé au Canada.

6. Que toute personne qui prendra les armes ou qui donnera autrement de l’aide au Canada, dans sa lutte pour l’émancipation, sera et est déchargée de toutes dettes ou obligations réelles ou supposées résultant d`arrérages des droits seigneuriaux ci-devant en existence.

7. Que le douaire coutumier est. pour l`avenir, aboli et prohibé.

8. Que l’emprisonnement pour dettes n`existera pas davantage excepté dans certains cas de fraude qui seront spécifiés, dans un acte à être plus tard passé à cette fin par la Législature du Bas- Canada.

9. Que la condamnation à mort ne sera plus prononcée ni exécutée, excepté dans les cas de meurtre.

10. Que toutes les hypothèques sur les terres seront spéciales et pour être valides seront enregistrées dans des bureaux à être établis pour cette fin par un acte de la Législature du Bas-Canada.

11. Que la liberté et l’indépendance de la presse existera dans toutes les matières et affaires publiques.

12. Que le procès par jury est assuré au peuple du Bas-Canada dans son sens le plus étendu et le plus libéral, dans tous les procès criminels, et aussi dans les procès civils au-dessus d`une somme à être fixée par la législature de l’État du Bas-Canada.

13. Que comme une éducation générale et publique est nécessaire et est due au peuple par le gouvernement, un acte y pourvoyant sera passé aussit tôt que les circonstances le permettront.

14. Que pour assurer la franchise électorale, toutes les élections se feront au scrutin secret.

15. Que dans le plus court délai possible, le peuple choisisse des délégués, suivant la présente division du pays en comtés, villes et bourgs, lesquels formeront une convention ou corps législatif pour formuler une constitution suivant les besoins du pays, conforme aux dispositions de cette déclaration, sujette à être modifiée suivant la volonté du peuple.

16. Que chaque individu du sexe masculin, de l’âge de vingt et un ans et plus, aura le droit de voter comme il est pourvu par la présente, et pour l`élection des susdits délégués.

17. Que toutes les terres de la Couronne, et aussi celles qui sont appelées Réserves du Clergé, et aussi celles qui sont nominalement la possession d`une certain compagnie de propriétaires en Angleterre appellée ‘La Compagnie des Terres de l’Amérique britannique du Nord’ sont de droit la propriété de l’État du Bas-Canada, et excepté telles parties des dites terres qui peuvent être en possession de personnes qui les détiennent de bonne foi, et auxquelles des titres seront assurés et accordés en vertu d’une loi qui sera passée pour légaliser la dite possession et donner un titre pour tels lots de terre dans les townships qui n`en ont pas, et qui sont en culture ou améliorés.

18. Que les langues française et anglaise seront en usage dans toutes les affaires publiques.

Et pour l’accomplissement de cette déclaration, et pour 1e soutien de la cause patriotique dans laquelle nous sommes maintenant engagés avec une ferme confiance dans la protection du Tout-Puissant et la justice de notre conduite, - nous, par ces présentes, nous engageons solennellement les uns envers les autres, nos vies et nos fortunes et notre honneur le plus sacré.

Par ordre du gouvernement provisoire.

ROBERT NELSON, Président

November 1838

Whereas the solemn compact made with the people of Lower Canada and registered in the book of statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the 31st chapter of the Acts passed in the 31st year of the reign of George III, has been continually violated by the British Government and our rights usurped; and whereas our humble petitions, addresses, protests, and complaints against this prejudicial and unconstitutional conduct have been in vain; and whereas the British government has disposed of our revenue without the constitutional consent of our local legislature, that it has pillaged our treasury, that it has arrested and imprisoned a great number of our fellow citizens, that it has spread throughout the country a mercenary army whose presence is accompanied by consternation and alarm, whose path has been reddened by the blood of our people, that has reduced our villages to ashes, profaned the temples, and spread terror and desolation throughout the land; and whereas we can no longer put up with the repeated violations of our most cherished rights or patiently bear the multiple outrages and cruelties of the government of Lower Canada; We, in the name of the people of Lower Canada, recognising the decrees of Divine Providence that permit us to overthrow a government that has violated the object and the intention of its creation, and to choose the form of government that will re-establish the reign of justice, assure domestic tranquillity, assure the common defense, increase general well-being, and guarantee for ourselves and our posterity the advantages of civil and religious freedom;

Solemnly declare:

1. That from this day forward the people of Lower Canada are absolved of all allegiance to Great Britain, and that all political ties between that power and Lower Canada have ceased as of this day;

2. That Lower Canada shall take the form of a republican government and, as such, declare itself a Republic;

3. That under the free Government of Lower Canada all citizens will have the same rights; the savages will cease being subjected to any form of civil disqualifications and will enjoy the same rights as the other citizens of the State of Lower Canada;

4. That all ties between Church and State are declared abolished, and every person has the right to freely exercise the religion and the beliefs dictated to him by his conscience;

5. That feudal and Seigneurial tenure are abolished in fact, as if they never existed in this country;

6. That any person who bears or will bear arms, or will furnish the means of assistance to the Canadian People in its struggle for emancipation, is relieved of all debts or obligations, real or supposed, towards Seigneurs, and for arriérages[11] in virtue of Seigneurial laws that formerly existed.

7. That the douaire coutoumier[12] is, in future, entirely abolished and prohibited;

8. That imprisonment for debt will no longer exist, except in cases of obvious fraud, which will be specified in an act of the Legislature of Lower Canada to that effect;

9. That the death penalty will be pronounced in cases of murder alone, and no other;

10. That all mortgages on lands must be special and, in order to be valid, must be registered in Offices created to that effect by an act of the legislature of Lower Canada;

11. That there will be full and entire freedom of the press in all public affairs and matters;

12. That trial by jury is guaranteed to the People of the State in criminal trials to its most liberal extent, and in civil affairs to the sum of an amount to be determined by the legislature of the State of Lower Canada;

13. That as a necessity and obligation of the Government towards the people, public and general education will be put in operation and encouraged in a special manner, as soon as circumstances permit;

14. That in order to ensure the franchise and electoral freedom, all elections will be held in the form of a ballot;

15. That as soon as circumstances permit, the People will choose its Delegates following the current division of the country in cities, towns and counties, which will constitute a Convention or Legislative body, in order to found and establish a constitution, according to the needs of the country and in conformity with the conditions of this Declaration, subject to modification according to the will of the people;

16. That any male person over the age of 21 will have the right to vote as above mentioned, for the election of the above-named delegates;

17. That those lands called Crown lands, as well as those called Reservations of the Clergy and those nominally in the possession of a certain company of speculators in England, called the ‘Company of the Lands of British North America’ shall become by law the property of the State of Lower Canada, except for those portions of land that are in the possession of farmers who hold them in good faith, for which we guarantee the title in virtue of a law which will be passed in order to legalize the possession of such lots of land situated in the Townships which are now under cultivation;

18. That French and English will be used in all public matters.

And for the support of this declaration, and the success of the Patriote cause that we support, we, confident of the protection of the All-Powerful and of the justice of our line of conduct, engage by these present, mutually and solemnly the ones towards the others, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

By order of the Provisional Government

Robert Nelson

President

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[1] Caron, Ivanhoe, ‘Influence de la Déclaration de l’Indépendance Americaine et de la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme sur la rebellion French Canadianne de 1837 et 1838’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 3^rd series, Vol. 26, (1931), pp. 5-26

[2] The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (commonly referred to as the Articles of Confederation) was the constitution of the revolutionary wartime alliance of the thirteen United States of America. The Articles’ ratification (proposed in 1777) was completed in 1781, and legally federated several sovereign and independent states, allied under the Articles of Association into a new federation styled the ‘United States of America’. The original five-paged Articles contained thirteen articles, a conclusion, and a signatory section. The pre-approval of Canada’s inclusion was in Article 11: ‘Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.’

[3] Corey, Albert B., The Crisis of 1830-1842 in Canadian-American Relations, (Russell and Russell), 1941, pp. 16-17. The attitude of the southern states was to a considerable extent influenced by the slave-free status of the Canadas.

[4] Bemis, Samuel Flagg, A Diplomatic History of the United States, 4^th ed., (Holt, Rinehart & Winston), 1955, p. 62

[5] Ibid, Caron, Ivanhoe, ‘Influence de la Déclaration de l’Indépendance Americaine et de la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme sur la rebellion French Canadianne de 1837 et 1838’, p. 5.

[6] Peyret, H, Les États-Unis, (PUF), 1961, p. 15.

[7] Ibid, Peyret, H, Les États-Unis, p. 15.

[8] Soderstrom, Mary, Robert Nelson, Le Medecin Rebelle, (L’Hexagone), 1999 is the most recent study; see also ‘Robert Nelson’, DCB, Vol. 9, pp. 544-547 and Messier, pp. 351-352..

[9] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 301-304.

[10] Nelson, Robert, Déclaration d’indépendance et autres écrits (1832-1848), édition établie et annotée par Georges Aubin, (Comeau et Nadeau), 1998, pp. 26-34.

[11] The amount due on the rent of a farm.

[12] That which the husband assigns to the wife for her use should she survive him.