A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose

in 1884. He has been for many years rural dean of the District of St. Francis. * * * * * =Power, Michael Joseph=, was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 23rd day of February, 1834. He is the son of Michael Power. His mother’s maiden name was Ann Lonergan. Both parents are natives of Waterford, Ireland. Mr. Power received his early education at the Union Academy, in Halifax. He is a prominent representative of the Roman Catholics in that city. Mr. Power has taken an active interest in civic affairs for many years. He was an alderman for six years, representing ward 4. He has also been chairman of the City Board of Works for one term; chairman of the Fire department for eight years; vice-chairman of the Board of School Commissioners for two years; and president of the Charitable Irish Society. He does business at 75 Buckingham street, Halifax. He is the Imperial government army contractor for land transport. In his younger days he took considerable interest in militia affairs, holding various commissions in the 63rd battalion of Rifles, and is now retired with the rank of captain. Mr. Power’s connection with the city council brought him into relations with the Commissioners of Public Gardens, of which body he is vice-chairman. He is also a justice of the peace for Halifax county. At the general election of 1878, Mr. Power, together with Hon. P. C. Hill, then Provincial Secretary and Premier, and Donald Archibald, M.P.P. for several terms, and now high sheriff of the county of Halifax, were the candidates of the Liberal party, running in opposition to Charles J. McDonald, W. D. Harrington and John Pugh. The Conservatives carried the elections and the Liberals were out of power for one term. But in the next elections in 1882, Mr. Power, running with Hon. W. S. Fielding, now Provincial Secretary and Premier, and Jas. G. Foster, against W. D. Harrington, Jonathan Parsons and John Pugh, was elected. Messrs. Fielding and Harrington were also elected, Halifax being represented in that legislature by two Liberals and one Conservative. At the general election of 1886, Mr. Power, Hon. W. S. Fielding and William Roche, jr., defeated John Y. Payzant, W. D. Harrington and James N. Lyons by over 1000 majority. On the assembling of the Local parliament, Mr. Power was elected Speaker of the House. He married on the 20th November, 1860, Ann Sophia, daughter of the late Patrick Kent, a Halifax merchant. In politics Mr. Power is a Liberal. * * * * * =Paquet, Rev. Benjamin=, Priest and Household Prelate to his Holiness Leo XIII., Doctor of Theology, Superior of the Quebec Seminary, and Rector of Laval University, was born at St. Nicholas, county of Levis, in 1832. His father was Etienne Paquet, husbandman, captain of militia, and descendant of an old French family. He was one of the most remarkable citizens of the county of Levis. His mother was Ursule Lambert. He received his education at the Quebec Seminary and Laval University. After having finished his classical course, he gave himself up to theology, to prepare for the priesthood. After having been employed in the active ministry for five years as priest at the Basilica, Quebec, he entered the Seminary of Quebec as professor of belles-lettres about a year. In 1863, he went to Rome to complete his theological studies, with the intention of teaching in the faculty of theology at Laval. He studied at Rome for three years, at the celebrated Roman College, where he took his degrees. He returned to Quebec, and taught moral theology at Laval University for a great number of years. He was afterwards purveyor of Quebec Seminary for five years. During this interval, he built the new Quebec Seminary, one of the most beautiful edifices of the Dominion. After having been director of the Grand Seminary for two years, he was, in 1887, appointed Superior of the Seminary and Rector of Laval University. In 1878, he was appointed secret domestic to his Holiness Pope Pius IX., on account of his eminent services to religion in the cause of Laval University. In 1888, he was given, by Pope Leo XIII., the title of household prelate to his Holiness, which entitles him to take part in the court of honor of his Eminence Cardinal Taschereau. Doctor Paquet has made five trips to Europe in the interests of Laval University, and sojourned in Rome eight years. * * * * * =Campbell, Sir Alexander=, K.C.M.G., Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, residence Toronto. Like several of Canada’s leading statesmen, Sir Alexander Campbell was not born in this country, but he was only two years old when his father, an English physician, came to Canada in the year 1823, and took up his residence at Lachine, in the province of Quebec. Sir Alexander’s birthplace was the village of Hedon, near Kingston-upon-Hull, in Yorkshire, England; and he has ever retained the warmest sentiments of loyalty and attachment to the British empire. Sir Alexander’s parents gave him the best educational advantages the country afforded. They placed him first under the tuition of a Presbyterian clergyman, and afterwards sent him to St. Hyacinthe College, Quebec, and still later to the Royal Grammar School at Kingston, Ontario. He was of a studious turn of mind; and, although he left school at what would now be considered a comparatively early age, he had imbibed all the essential elements of a liberal education. At St. Hyacinthe College he acquired a considerable knowledge of the French language, and a consequent interest in French literature which has accompanied him through life. On occasion he could make a French speech in the Senate; though he rarely exercised the gift, and only perhaps to meet some playful challenge of the French members. He studied the classics also up to a certain point; but above all he acquired a knowledge and command of his own language, and a habit of using words with a peculiar force and directness. The phrase may not always be the smoothest, but it has a quality that tells—something a trifle Cæsarean in its brevity and point. However this is a good opportunity for reminding ourselves of Buffon’s dictum that “_le style c’est l’homme_.” Mere school education does not give this. A man may learn at school to avoid technical errors of speech; but the style he eventually acquires will be more or less the reflex of his own personality. Mr. Campbell was only seventeen years of age when he entered on the study of the law at Kingston, whither his family had some years previously removed. No stories have reached us of his student days, but he seems to have applied himself earnestly to his work, seeing that he was able, on completing his course and being called to the bar, to form a partnership immediately with John A. (now Sir John) Macdonald, whose reputation even then was rapidly growing. The partnership subsisted for many years under the name of Macdonald and Campbell; and the business, in the hands of these two exceptionally able men, was a lucrative one. Politics, however, soon began to absorb the attention of the senior partner, and the burden of the office work fell upon Mr. Campbell. The experience which the latter thus acquired, aided by his studies, made him one of the soundest lawyers at the bar of Upper Canada; and had he not, while still a comparatively young man, diverged into politics, there is little doubt that he might long since have occupied a distinguished position on the bench. It was in the year 1858 that Mr. Campbell made his _début_ in politics by carrying an election for the Cataraqui division, and taking his seat in the Legislative Council of Old Canada. He very quickly familiarised himself with his new surroundings, and became an efficient and highly esteemed member of the Upper House. No new member probably ever had less crudeness or inexperience to rub off; and no one seemed at all surprised when, in three or four years after his first election, the member for Cataraqui division was placed in the Speaker’s chair. The position was, indeed, one for which, by temperament and character, he was pre-eminently fitted, but not one in which his practical energies could find much scope; and a wider sphere of usefulness was opened up to him, while the administrative strength of the government of 1864 received a great reinforcement when the Speaker of the Council was assigned to the position of Commissioner of Crown Lands. Here his knowledge of law and prompt business methods found ample exercise, and it was admitted on all hands that he filled the office in an admirable manner. From this time forward Mr. Campbell was looked upon as one of the strong men of his party, though one whose strength was shown rather in council than in fight. His was the balanced judgment and sound knowledge of affairs, and one can only regret that the influence he was so fitted to exert, and must at many critical moments have exerted, in favor of sound, safe and honorable methods of party management, could not have asserted itself at all times. A very ugly chapter of Canadian political history might then never have been written. In 1867 the first government of the Dominion was constituted under the leadership of the then newly knighted Sir John A. Macdonald, and Mr. Campbell was sworn in as Postmaster-General. The new position did not call, to the same extent as the previous one, for the exercise of legal acumen, but it involved dealing with large public interests and a very extended patronage. During the period that Mr. Campbell remained at the head of the post office much solid progress was made, in all of which he took a lively interest, and exerted a judicious control. As regards the patronage of the department, it was administered by the Postmaster-General with a constant eye to the good of the service, and occasionally with a wholesome indifference to mere party demands. One of the chief characteristics of Mr. Campbell during his administrative career was that he was never willing to descend to the level of the mere party politician. Some have said that this was due to the fact that his position exempted him from dependence on the popular vote; but we have seen other senators whose high position did not seem to exercise any very elevating effect on their political methods. After a six years’ tenure, exactly, of the Post Office department, Mr. Campbell accepted the portfolio of the newly constituted department of the Interior. Here everything was to create, order had to be called out of a most discouraging chaos; but the new minister was proceeding bravely with his task, when the government of which he was a member met an inglorious defeat over the “Pacific Scandal.” The operations which led to this result had been carried on wholly without Mr. Campbell’s knowledge: he was not indeed the kind of a man to whom the schemes formed at that time for creating an election fund were likely to be confided. He did not, however, like Sir Richard Cartwright, see in the occurrences to which we are referring sufficient reason for separating himself from his party. He probably judged that he could render better service to the country in the ranks of the Conservative party than anywhere else; and he looked forward, doubtless, to the time when that party, rendered wiser by experience, would again be called to control the destinies of the country. From 1873 to 1878 Mr. Campbell acted as leader of the opposition in the Senate, and discharged the duties of the position with the same ability as well as with the same fairness and moderation as when he had represented the government. To act a really factious part was, we may say, almost wholly out of his power: certainly, it would have been foreign to his nature. When the Conservative party returned to office in November, 1878, Mr. Campbell first accepted the position of Receiver-General, but in the spring of 1879 he returned to his old office of Postmaster-General. Thence he passed in the month of January, 1880, to the department of Militia and Defence, which, during a brief term of office, he did not a little to invigorate. The end of the year saw him back in the Post Office department, which he again left in the month of May of the year following (1881), to assume the portfolio of Justice. Meantime (24th May, 1879) he had been created by her Majesty a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, an honor which his eminent public services had very fully merited. Sir Alexander remained at the head of the department of Justice until the latter part of the year 1885, when he once more returned to the Post Office department, which he finally left in the spring of 1887 to accept the Lieutenant-Governorship of Ontario. His appointment to the latter office was viewed with pleasure and approval, even by his political opponents. On all hands it was felt that in Sir Alexander Campbell her Majesty would have one of the most constitutional of representatives, such a man as she probably would herself have delighted to choose for the position. Before proceeding to Toronto, however, Sir Alexander went to England at the request of the government, to represent Canada at the Colonial conference. That conference was not empowered to enact any measures, or even to concert any scheme, for the modification of the relations existing between Great Britain and the colonies; but it gave an opportunity for a confidential exchange of views between members of the British government and leading representatives of the colonies; and there is little doubt that it has smoothed the way for the future discussion of questions of the greatest moment. As a departmental chief, Sir Alexander Campbell was deservedly popular. He was not, perhaps, the most accessible of men, and his general manner may have been a trifle distant and brief; but it was soon discovered that he had a kind heart and a strong sense of justice. He was not a man to be trifled with; he believed in holding men to their duty; but on the other hand, he was always glad of an opportunity of rewarding faithful service. He had a keen insight into character, and had, consequently, little difficulty in dealing with men on their merits. His confidence was seldom given where it was not deserved, or withheld where it was deserved. He was always ready to form his own independent opinion on any matter properly submitted to him, and having formed his opinion, he knew how to stand by it. No department of the government came amiss to him, for the simple reason that his sound business methods were applicable everywhere. How useful such a man must have been to the cabinet as a whole, and particularly to its leader, may be imagined, but the full details are not likely ever to become known. It will be remembered that while Minister of Justice it became the duty of Sir Alexander to draw up a memorandum explaining and defending the policy of the government in executing Riel. This he did in a manner that for force, conciseness, and logic left nothing to be desired. Perhaps, however, the chief merit of the statement was the strong accent of conviction that pervaded it. It was not a partisan manifesto; it was the fitting utterance of the highest organ of executive justice in the country. * * * * * =Vidal, Henry Beaufort=, Major in the Infantry School Corps. He was born on the 16th of May, 1843, at the town of Chatham, in the county of Kent. He is the only surviving son of the late Alexander Thomas Emeric Vidal, a vice-admiral in the Royal Navy, and for some years a resident in the county of Lambton, and Marie Antoinette, his wife, daughter of the late Henry Veitch, for many years H.B.M’s Consul-General in Madeira. Vice-Admiral Vidal was the youngest, and Captain Vidal, R.N., of Sarnia, the eldest son of Emeric Vidal, who was for many years a flag officer’s secretary in the Royal Navy. He preferred to remain in the service of Britain at the time that the remainder of his family elected to return to France, from which country their forefathers had emigrated on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, being at that time settled at the town of Montauban, in the department of Tarn et Garonne. The subject of this sketch was educated by private tutors and at Trinity College School in Toronto. He was admitted as student-at-law in Easter term, 1860, and was called to the bar of Ontario, Michaelmas term, 1872. He entered the militia of Canada as ensign in the 24th battalion, Lambton, 3rd August,