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Regulations Established by His Excellency the Governor, Respecting American Subjects, now residing in the Province of Lower Canada.
Montreal: Government House, 10 July 1812. Broadside, 9” x 7.25”, affixed to larger sheet, 16.5” x 10”, with partial sheets of manuscript in ink above and below. Autographs, cards, and other scrapbook material affixed to verso. CONDITION: Very good, some foxing. A scarce broadside issued just three weeks into the War of 1812, ordering American citizens to take an oath of allegiance or leave—with a few exceptions—and accompanied by a manuscript account of an American businessman in Quebec at the time. This broadside softens the orders of a proclamation issued ten days earlier by allowing certain American citizens in Lower Canada—those “having visible property and of good character, and who will take the Oath of Allegiance”—to remain where they are until “whenever the Government shall deem it necessary” that they depart. (That dismissal came in October, just a few days before Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer crossed the Niagara River in the Battle of Queenston Heights.) It also allows “American Subjects who shall refuse to take the Oath” to obtain permission of “His Excellency the Governor to remain for a limited time, for the purpose of settling their affairs.” Other numbered regulations account for Americans taking the oath, variously with and without agreeing to bear arms. The example offered here was once in the annotated scrapbook of one Lyman Barker Langworthy, an American jeweler and watchmaker, and is accompanied by his account of his experience of the hurried expulsion orders and their subsequent (in his case useless) modification: I was in Quebec doing a large business at the declaration of War in 1812. The first proclamation ordered all Americans who would not take the Oath of Allegiance in 24 hours to quit the Province, which after sacrificing almost everything I had was extended in my case 12 hours. At Three Rivers an express overtook us with the above, extending the time when it was too late for me. I lost all the property & demands I left, at the close of the war my agent failed. The sheriff who collected my wifes fortune became bankrupt shut himself up in his own house & died there being without Bail. Above the broadside is an original ink sketch, presumably by Langworthy, depicting “part of the Plan of the Theatre at Montreal, with the Governors & private Boxes.” Langworthy’s note recalls the fit of patriotism and poor behavior by which the theatre “was destroyed in the Winter of 1809 in a row between the Yankees & Royalists about taking off Hats when God Save the King was played[.] The Yankees cleared the house tore up the seats in the Pit & retreated across the Stage.” Lyman Barker Langworthy (1787–1880) worked in Quebec for many years before being forced to return to the U.S. at the start of the War of 1812 (with, as he notes, disastrous consequences). Langworthy was active in Ballston Spa, Rochester, and other New York locales, and in addition to his regular trade served stints as Sheriff of Saratoga County and Superintendent of the Tonawanda Railroad. As the Langworthy family history outlines, “He was a prominent Mason, trustee of the Rochester Savings Bank, trustee and deacon of the First Baptist Church, associate editor of the Rural New Yorker and prominent in many other ways” (p. 223), and is also the author of his own family history, entitled Memorandum and Reminiscences: Personal Sketches and Memoirs of the Family Langworthy. We locate just one holding, at the Public Archives of Canada. Rare evidence of the experience of an American citizen living and working in Canada at the outbreak of the War of 1812. REFERENCES: Langworthy, William Franklin. The Langworthy Family : Some Descendants of Andrew and Rachel (Hubbard) Langworthy (Hamilton, NY, 1940).
Item #10413
Price: $3,750.00
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