Bernard Devlin

Bernard Devlin, (15 December 1824 – 7 February 1880) was an Irish-born lawyer, counsel to the Abraham Lincoln administration of the United States Government during the most northerly engagement of the United States Civil War, Quebec-based political figure and Canadian parliamentarian, and peer and political competitor of Thomas D'Arcy McGee. A champion of many causes, generally of a liberal persuasion, his abilities as a criminal advocate and oratorical skill established for him a wide reputation throughout the then-Dominion of Canada, and his motto: "justice and equality to all classes and creeds, undue favor to none" was far in advance of the tenor of the times. son of extensive landed proprietor The medical tradition ran strongly in the family, with two uncles (the aforementioned Dr. Charles Devlin, MD and his brother Mark Henry Devlin, MD) and two brothers (John Joseph Devlin, MD and Mark Devlin, MD) all qualifying and later serving as doctors either with the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, or its counterpart in England. Dr. Charles Devlin gave his life in 1847 at the age of 44 during the worst year of the Irish famine, serving the sick poor of a workhouse in Ballina, County Mayo. He had contracted "fever" (likely typhus) from his patients.

Leaving Ireland for Canada along with his father in 1844, the latter having suffered financial misfortunes, Devlin settled initially at Quebec City. Devlin's brother Charles, the future pioneer Mayor of Aylmer, Quebec, had arrived two years earlier, and his younger brother by 12 years, Owen Joseph Devlin, a notary, arrived some years afterwards. Devlin's preferred location for business socializing was the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel at 13 Great St. James Street, then considered the finest hotel establishment in the city. The St. Lawrence Hall had many prominent guests at the time, including the Prince of Wales (in 1861), Charles Dickens, John A. Macdonald and George Brown.

Noted for his "splendid abilities" and as "Canada's most prominent criminal lawyer", it was said of Devlin that "There may have been his equal but never his superior in Canada. Wonderful stories are told of the effects of his oratory and pleading upon the jury, and, as an old Montrealer remarked: "Many a man was saved from the gallows by his matchless pleading".

Devlin rapidly established a large and lucrative practice For many years he served as counsel to the Montreal Harbor Commissioners, and joint City Attorney for Montreal up to December, 1875. Created a Queen's Counsel (QC) by the Joly Government of Quebec in 1878, few cases of major importance of a criminal nature took place without his taking part on one side or the other. Among other important causes Devlin was retained, in 1864, by the administration of Abraham Lincoln to serve as counsel in the prosecution at Montreal of the participants in the celebrated St. Albans, Vermont Raid, the most northerly incident of the United States Civil War. Devlin, on behalf of the United States Government, argued the raiders were criminals, not enemy combatants, and should be prosecuted accordingly. However, the court ultimately deemed the raiders legitimate soldiers of the Confederacy who could not be extradited, and they were freed, though shorn of their remaining cash from the raid.

The decision to release the raiders was seen by the Northern states as hostile to the Northern cause. Consequently, American troops were ordered to in future pursue raiders into Canada and destroy them if necessary. However, realizing that such a move would violate Canadian neutrality and precipitate war between the Union and Great Britain, thereby achieving one of the key goals established for the raid by the Confederacy and only serving to help the South, President Lincoln revoked the order. Drawing heavily on European and North American sources and precedents, quoting frequently in Latin and sometimes in French, Devlin's closing remarks to the judge and jury on the occasion provide an excellent overview of the state of international law and extradition law at the time.

Fenian Raids and military service Lt. Col. Bernard Devlin in the regalia of the Prince of Wales Rifle Regiment, ca 1865, age 41thumb The St. Alban's Raid of 19 October 1864 was an incident unconnected to later raids from the vicinity of St. Albans, Vermont, on the Eastern Townships of Quebec in June 1866 and again in May 1870, by the Fenian Brotherhood, a group of Irish Americans whose goal was to free Ireland from Britain. Formed in 1857, the Fenians' plan was to attack British colonies in North America, thereby forcing Britain to send troops, weakening her defenses in Ireland. Fenian raids into Canada occurred in 1866 (New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec), 1870 (Quebec) and 1871 (Manitoba). The Fenian threat helped forge a sense of unity among the British North American colonies, and added impetus to the move toward Canadian confederation, which occurred 1 July 1867, a year after the initial raid.

Opposed to the Fenian raids into Canada, although not unsympathetic to their cause of freedom for Ireland, Devlin was for fifteen years (1851-1866) closely identified with the active volunteer militia force. Devlin organized an Irish Company for the 1st, or Prince of Wales Rifle Regiment, serving initially as a captain, later as Lieutenant-Colonel, of the unit. In this capacity he commanded the regiment during the Fenian raids of 1866, assigned to guard the border from Huntingdon to Hemmingford, Quebec, opposite New York State. For his services Devlin was publicly commended by Charles Stanley, Lord Monck, then Governor-General of Canada. He retired his command, retaining his rank, in August 1866. All the while he was rapidly establishing a burgeoning practice in criminal law, achieving success in the courts and renown for his oratory.

An Irish nationalist, though not a Fenian, and a highly visible and articulate champion of justice, Devlin had broad appeal among the Irish working classes of Montreal, and a reputation as the 'stormy petrel' of the Irish community.

A key platform for the enhancement and extension of his reputation was membership in the St. Patrick's Society of Montreal, a theoretically non-political organization founded in 1834 to care for Irish immigrants and to defend the local Irish-Canadian community's interests. Ultimately, Devlin went on to serve as President of the St. Patrick's Society for over ten years, the longest term of office held by any president of that association, which is still active (2013). He was elected in 1860, 1865, 1870 and finally in 1874.

It was in his capacity as a firmly entrenched leader maintaining a broad base of Irish nationalist support in the Montreal Irish community, that Devlin played a key role in the introduction of Thomas D'Arcy McGee to the St. Patrick's Society following his emigration to Canada from the United States in 1857, securing for McGee the support of Irish voters, and arranging his alliance with the so-called "anglo-rouges" in the election of 1857–58, an election that McGee went on to win. McGee, the ex "Young Irelander" rebel of 1848, had left the United States after becoming disillusioned with American republicanism and the position of the Irish there.

Following this promising start, the relationship between McGee and Devlin, and the broader mass of immigrant Irish voters in Montreal, deteriorated. In a speech given at Wexford, Ireland, in 1865, McGee came down heavily against Irish nationalism, describing the Young Irelanders with whom he had once shared common cause as a "pack of fools," castigating the Fenians as "Punch-and-Judy Jacobins," and arguing that the Irish in Canada possessed greater personal freedom, economic advantage, and religious equality within the British empire, than in the United States at the time. The Wexford speech enraged Irish republican-nationalists, especially in Canada, and by 1866 McGee's standing with his Irish constituents in Montreal, if not the conservative establishment sectors of society, had eroded significantly. The Fenians moved to take advantage of the situation, making inroads into the St. Patrick's Society, gathering support, and challenging their conservative opponents.

Devlin-McGee confrontation

As the federal general election of 1867 approached, Devlin, the incumbent president of the St. Patrick's Society, declared that he would oppose McGee in the riding of Montreal West, running for the Liberals against McGee's Liberal-Conservatives. For their part the Fenians believed a Devlin victory would remove their now greatest enemy from the political scene and advance their cause. Devlin was not a Fenian. He was vocal in his praise for the new Dominion of Canada, wrapped up his speeches with three cheers for Queen Victoria, and had demonstrated his commitment to his new country by helping lead the defence of the Quebec border against Fenian invasion. Nonetheless he was an Irish nationalist and sympathized with its more radical republican elements. Seeing an opportunity to make common cause, he invited Montreal's Fenians to join his campaign. Fenians such as Henry Murphy and Francis Bernard McNamee served on Devlin's election committee, while W.B. Linehan and Daniel Lyons were among Devlin's most active backers.

In the end, drawing on establishment support, McGee managed to squeak out a win on election day, but only by 197 votes (2,675 to 2,478). In the heavily Irish St. Ann's and St. Lawrence's wards, Devlin had edged out McGee by 70 votes. The Montreal Herald, summing up the matter, reported that "the persons who voted against McGee were not of those who are usually called the respectable classes". Physical intimidation by Devlin men of McGee supporters and even police during the polling included outright beatings and the near-death of a police officer. When the results came through, Devlin's supporters rioted outside McGee's campaign headquarters, and shots were fired on both sides. Several weeks later, Devlin spat in McGee's face when the two encountered each other in the street.

The election of 1867 had generated strong passions. McGee had received death threats and been assigned police protection. The Fenians, although not constituting the majority of Devlin's supporters, had nonetheless played a significant role during the election and fallen not far short of achieving their goal of defeating McGee. Denied that outcome, the Fenian members of the St. Patrick's Society instead moved a motion to expel McGee from the Society, and stopped its subscription to the pro-McGee Canadian Freeman. Among the militant Devlin supporters during the 1867 election campaign was an Ottawa tailor by the name of Patrick James Whelan, who had previously declared that McGee was a traitor, that he should be shot, and that if no one else would do the job, he would do it himself.

Known as 'Barney' to his family, Devlin and his wife had eight children, five of whom died before the age of maturity (then age 21). Of the three survivors, Mary Lillian married Arthur Turcotte Genest, a prominent civil engineer of old Quebec stock, whose descendants included Major John Cuthbert Wickham, MD, CM, a long-serving medical veteran of the First World War; Francis ("Frank") Eugene married Maude Steele and went on to become a physician, surgeon and psychiatrist, head of the very large St. Jean de Dieu Hospital, and Crown alienist for the Province of Quebec; and Mary Gertrude ("Gert") married wealthy construction magnate James Thomas ("JT") Davis, involved with the concrete construction elements of the Lachine Canal, Trent-Severn waterway, Quebec bridge, Tay canal and other major water works, and residing in a mansion in the Square Mile area of Montreal at 3554 Drummond Street, now part of McGill University.

Death Profoundly saddened by the early loss of the majority of his children and the premature death of his wife Anna Eliza at age 41 (13 June 1875), an event recorded for posterity by JC Walker, one of the better artists of the time. The funeral cortege wound its way through the heart of the city from the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel, along St. James Street, through Victoria Square past the statue of Queen Victoria and up the mountain along Cote des Neiges to Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery, where Devlin was buried at the Devlin monument (now Devlin-Wickham), ironically within clear sight of, and just down the same byway from, his former foe D'Arcy McGee's mausoleum.