The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion - John Charles Dent (best historical biographies .TXT) 📗

effect that object was introduced into the Assembly by Mr. Jonas Jones, member for Grenville. The Bill was supported by twelve out of the thirteen members present, and was speedily passed into law; but, as will hereafter be seen, it was not destined to a long life.
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After a brief delay in the State of New York, Mr. Gourlay repaired to Boston, and thence took ship for Liverpool. On a subsequent page we shall catch one more brief glimpse of him, but with that exception the present work has no further concern with his chequered existence. He will be referred to from time to time, but only incidentally, and for purposes of illustration. Those who may feel sufficient interest in him to follow his fortunes and misfortunes to the bitter end, will find some account of them in the authority quoted below.[23]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Not, however, his _immediate_ judicial successor. Mr.--afterwards Sir William--Campbell became Chief Justice in 1825, and Mr. Robinson's succession did not take place until four years later.
[2] "Upon my soul, you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know! You have no right to come this sort of move!"--_Little Dorrit._
[3] For a much more comprehensive account of Mr. Gourlay's life than the one here given, the reader is referred to a sketch by the author of this work in _The Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. III., pp. 240-256.
[4] More than half a century later the venerable Doctor thus wrote to his old school-fellow: "... I received your interesting letter ... with no slight emotion of kindness and respect, having ever regarded you as one of the ablest of my fellow-students at St. Andrews; and who, if human life had not been the lottery it is, would have earned by his talents, and merited by his friendly disposition, a place of high and honourable distinction in society."
[5] The following observations, written concerning Mr. Young by Mr. Gourlay many years afterwards, contain, so far as they go, a singularly accurate portraiture of the Banished Briton himself:--"He was an enthusiast, and of course honest: he was well educated, and a gentleman. In all his voluminous writings a mean sentiment is not to be found. His habit of making free with people's names, and taking liberties with their writings, arose from an uncontrollable ardour in the cause of improvement.... His inclination to accumulate crude and undigested information, sufficiently evinced in some of his tours, had their full scope: he then lost himself, and bewildered others, in the confusion of detail. I question if he ever had the power of correct abstract reasoning. His imagination was too busy for it: his eye was too ravenous, devouring all within its reach."--_General Introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada_; p. xcvii.
[6] _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. III., p. 241.
[7] _Ex. gr._:--"The law! the law!" impatiently exclaimed the Reverend Doctor, in his most strident vernacular, when the question of Barnabas Bidwell's expulsion from the Assembly was under discussion in his hearing--"Never mind the law; toorn him oot, toorn him oot."
[8] "The local situation of Upper Canada exposes it to the inroad of aliens of all nations, who, having no tie of allegiance or affection to Britain, may thence be suspected of evil designs; and for that reason terrors may be held out to keep them at a distance; but for British subjects to be suspected and made liable to penalties on mere suspicion, is contrary at once to nature and the spirit of our constitution. It is more especially absurd when we consider that the law was expressly made for _their_ protection."--_General Introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada,_ p. lxviii.
[9] Seven or eight years after this time Swayze narrowly escaped prosecution for the murder of Captain William Morgan, who is presumed to have been slain for his threatened disclosure of the Masonic Ritual. Swayze openly boasted that he had been concerned in the abduction of Morgan, and in the execution of Masonic vengeance upon him. He professed to be able to indicate the precise spot where the body was buried--which spot, he declared, was not far from the bottom of his garden. Upon investigation these vainglorious boastings proved to be utterly without any foundation in fact.
[10] Dickson had originally made Gourlay's acquaintance in 1810, when he visited and spent a week with him at his farm in Wiltshire. See Gourlay's _Statistical Account of Upper Canada,_ Vol. 2, p. 494.
[11] _General Introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada_, p. ix.
[12] In these times there was but one jail delivery per annum in Upper Canada.
[13] _Statistical Account_, Vol. II., p. 342. In a note to p. xv. of the _General Introduction_, Mr. Gourlay says further: "The jury in this case was notoriously packed. To guard against the effects of this as much as possible, I had, in the expectation of trial for libel, obtained lists of inimical jurymen, and had people willing to appear in court to swear that many of them had prejudged me openly, in the rancour of party dispute. These lists were handed to me through the door, before and during the assizes; but all caution and care forsook me in the time of need."
[14] Referring to a letter written to attract sympathy to the case of the editor of the Niagara _Spectator_, who had been imprisoned and shamefully abused for publishing several of Mr. Gourlay's criticisms. Some account of the persecution to which this gentleman was subjected will be found on a future page.
[15] _Statistical Account_, Vol. 2, pp. 393, 394.
[16] _General Introduction_, p. xv.
[17] _General Introduction_, pp. ccviii., ccix., and note.
[18] The sheriff was Thomas Merritt, father of the gentleman who afterwards became the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, to whose enterprise, more than to that of any other man, we owe the Welland Canal. It is right to add that most of the subordinate duties of the office of sheriff were discharged by an underling, and that Thomas Merritt may have been personally free from blame in respect of Mr. Gourlay. Assuming him to have been blamable, his son, the Hon. W. H. Merritt, in after days, did his utmost to atone for it by espousing Mr. Gourlay's cause in the Canadian Assembly, as will be seen by reference to the Parliamentary debates of 1856, 1857 and 1858.
[19] _Statistical Account_, Vol. II., pp. 400, 401.
[20] Ib., p. 401.
[21] Mr. Gourlay was in error as to the date of the Duke's death. He represents him as "writhing in agony at the self same hour," and as dying on the same day when he, Mr. Gourlay, crossed over into the United States.--_Statistical Account_, vol. 2, p. 401. He was astray by exactly a week. By reference to the precept of the court, I find that Mr. Gourlay's trial took place on the day specified in the text--Friday, the 20th of August. He left the Province on the following day--Saturday, the 21st. The Duke's death took place on Saturday, the 28th.
It may perhaps be as well for me to refer here to a story which seems to have obtained some currency, to the effect that the Duke of Richmond's death was due, not to hydrophobia, but to delirium tremens. There is not the shadow of truth in the story. The evidence as to the Duke's having been bitten at Sorel by a tame fox; as to his showing the healed wound on his thumb several weeks afterwards; as to his dread of water during the day before his death, and as to all the circumstances attending that tragical event, is as clear as evidence can very well be. Moreover, his habits were by no means such as to lead to _mania a potu_. He was a _bon vivant_, but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, he did not drink to excess, and was always master of such brains as he possessed. His end was one which his family might honestly mourn, and there was little in his life, nothing in his death, of which they had any cause to feel ashamed.
[22] "Major-General" D. McLeod, in his "History of the Canadian Insurrection," p. 75, incorrectly states that Ferguson "died in jail from extremely cruel usage."
[23] _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, Vol. III., pp. 240-256.


CHAPTER II.
A BILL OF PARTICULARS.
The course of bitter persecution sustained by Mr. Gourlay was really the first remote germ of the Upper Canadian Rebellion. In making this statement I would not be understood as asserting that Gourlay was the first person to set himself up in opposition to authority in the Province, or even that he was the first victim of Executive tyranny. There had been more or less of dissatisfaction at the selfish and one-sided policy of the Administration ever since shortly after the departure of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe in 1796. Between that date and Mr. Gourlay's arrival in the Province several personages of some local note had paid heavy penalties for daring to have opinions of their own. Mr. Wyatt, the Surveyor-General, had been dismissed from office because he had presumed to point out certain official irregularities, and because he would not betray the trust reposed in him. Joseph Willcocks had been goaded into treason by a long course of persecution. Judge Thorpe had been driven from the country quite as effectually as Mr. Gourlay, for no other reason than that he had persisted in holding up official corruption to the public gaze. But none of these manifestations of "the oppressor's wrath, the proud man's contumely," had taken so deep a hold upon the public mind as did the case of Mr. Gourlay. The injuries inflicted upon him had been so cruel, the perversion of justice so vile, that the public conscience received a shock from which it did not recover during the existing generation. For the first time in Upper Canada's history signs of an organized Opposition began to appear upon the floor of the Assembly. Thenceforward the antagonism between the two parties grew in intensity from year to year. In process of time the Opposition frequently became the controlling power in the House. At a later stage of its development it divided into two parts. One of these constituted the moderate Reform Party of the Province. The other was made up of the advanced Radical element, whence emanated the Rebellion which forms the especial subject of the present work. All of which will hereafter be narrated with greater amplitude of detail.
It has been intimated that traces of dissatisfaction began to be apparent soon after Governor Simcoe's time. Upon his demission of authority the direction of affairs devolved upon the Honourable Peter Russell, as senior member of the Executive Council; and that gentleman had not been long in authority before murmurs began to be heard about the partial and defective administration of the important department of Crown Lands. There were comparatively few men in the country possessed of sufficient education and business experience to admit of their being entrusted with the charge of public affairs; and where all the offices were necessarily in the hands of a small number of persons, it was a foregone conclusion that irregularities should creep in, and that cliquishness and favouritism should prevail to a greater or less extent. When Lieutenant-Governor Hunter arrived, in 1799, he found that certain objectionable practices had become common, and that the foundation had been laid of serious public evils. Greed and favouritism had obtained a strong foothold, and scarcely any branch of the public service was efficiently managed. The sin of covetousness was not confined to subordinate officials, but included among its votaries some of the highest dignitaries of the Province.