The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion by John Charles Dent (short novels in english .TXT) 📖

which the offensive letter appeared in print a public meeting had been called to protest against the disloyal sentiments embodied in it. It was numerously attended, and, though a good many Reformers were present, a vote of censure on Mackenzie was passed without a dissentient voice. The matter was brought up in the City Council, and, though the support of the Reform members enabled him to escape the official censure of that body, he was compelled to submit to a series of criticisms which must have been exceedingly galling to his feelings. By this one misguided act he had contrived to do enough harm to far more than counterbalance any good which had been effected through his mission to England; and there were many Reformers who, in spite of all his protestations, never again felt any confidence in him, politically or otherwise.
In his capacity of mayor he was fairly assiduous in his attention to his duties. The city was subjected to a visitation of Asiatic cholera during the year, and he appears to have done his utmost to stay the progress of the pestilence, as well as to provide for the treatment of the stricken patients. He was nevertheless guilty of a number of indiscretions which rendered him odious to a large proportion of the population. His pettiness of spirit was incessantly asserting itself. No person in the community, however insignificant, was beneath his wrath when his sense of personal dignity was wounded. On one occasion a wretched woman of intemperate habits and loose character was brought before him in the Mayor's Court. She was loquacious and abusive, and Mackenzie, in a rage, ordered her to be placed in the public stocks. There were still a public pillory and stocks within the city, but, like those in Squire Hazeldean's parish, they had long been disused. Mackenzie had probably never heard of the maxim _Quieta non movere_. At any rate, the greater part of his life was spent in efforts in an opposite direction. His sentence was carried out, and the culprit was placed in the stocks. Had this been the act of a fossilized member of the Compact it would not have appeared very incongruous, but in Mackenzie it seemed ludicrously out of keeping with his professions. It aroused the popular indignation against him to a higher pitch than ever; but it had one good effect: it led to the removal and destruction of the barbarous relics of mediaevalism. To Mackenzie belongs the questionable credit of reviving their use when Tory magistrates had become ashamed to employ them any longer. He is entitled to the further distinction of being the last magistrate in Upper Canada to sanction their use; and that, too, in the case of a poor and defenceless woman, whose wretchedness ought to have removed her far from the possibility of his vengeance.
A considerable part of the summer was spent by both the political parties in the Province in preparing for the general election contest which was to take place before the close of the year. It was held in October. Had it been held some months earlier, while the public sympathy with Mackenzie in consequence of his repeated expulsions was at its height, an overwhelming preponderance of Reform members would have been returned. The publication of Mr. Hume's letter in the interval had alienated many sympathies and lost many votes to the Reform cause. Still, there was a strong tendency throughout the greater part of the Province in the direction of Reform, and the Reformers made unprecedented exertions. They succeeded in winning to their side a large number of the Roman Catholic electorate, and they absorbed most of the recent arrivals from beyond sea. Bidwell and Perry were re-elected for Lennox and Addington. William Benjamin Wells, a young lawyer of twenty-five, who afterwards made some mark as a newspaper writer on the Reform side, and from whose "Canadiana" several extracts have already been made in these pages, was returned for the County of Grenville. He was an Upper Canadian by birth, of U. E. Loyalist stock, and the grandson of a volunteer who fought at the siege of Louisbourg. Oxford returned for one of its members Dr. Charles Duncombe, who was destined to take a conspicuous part in the insurrectionary events of two years later. He was a medical practitioner of great intelligence and wide influence, an eloquent and forcible speaker, and an ardent Reformer. He resided on the Burford Plains, near the present village of Bishopsgate, a few miles west of Brantford. The two members returned for the County of Simcoe represented very nearly the two extremes of political opinion. William Benjamin Robinson, a brother of the Chief Justice, was, as became one of his race, the incarnation of Family Compact Toryism. His colleague was Samuel Lount, whose name, owing to his untimely fate and the melancholy circumstances attending it, arouses a host of sad memories. It may safely be said that of all the victims of the rising of 1837 none has been so sincerely and generally mourned. His execution is justly regarded in the light of a judicial murder and a stain upon our country's annals. As a peculiar interest has ever since attached to his name, and as but little is generally known with respect to him, it may be proper to record a few particulars. He was born on the banks of the Susquehanna River, in the State of Pennsylvania, on the 24th of September, 1791. His father, Gabriel Lount, was an Englishman, and a native of Bristol, who settled in the United States after the close of the Revolutionary War, and married an American lady of English descent. Gabriel Lount never lost his British proclivities during his residence in the republic, and in the spring of the year 1811, accompanied by his son and the rest of his family, he removed to Upper Canada. He settled in the township of Whitchurch, where he practised as a surveyor, and in the course of the nest few years laid out many official surveys for the Provincial Government. Samuel, prior to his removal to Canada, had learned the trade of a blacksmith, which he carried on for some years at Holland Landing. He had a farm in the same neighbourhood which he cultivated with much pecuniary success. Being a man of great industry and intelligence, he gradually amassed considerable property, and became what for those days might be regarded as wealthy. Better still, he acquired the respect and confidence of the people around him, for he was kind-hearted and generous, and spent much of his time in ministering to the necessities of those incoming settlers who were less advantageously situated than himself. To this day the neighbourhood abounds with traditions of his noble unselfishness, and there are old men and women who, after the lapse of half a century, cannot speak of Samuel Lount without a dimness of vision and a huskiness of the voice.[187] Though a zealous loyalist, he was an enthusiastic Reformer, and vehemently opposed to the domination of the faction whose selfishness went far to paralyze the life of the Province. He was an excellent speaker, and during election contests did much to awaken public opinion on the fruitful subject of Executive abuses. He now, in response to pressing solicitations, allowed himself to be nominated as a candidate for the representation of Simcoe in the Assembly, and, as has been seen, was returned for that constituency along with an ultra-Tory. In personal appearance he was considerably above the medium height, and of robust figure; of dark complexion, and with a pleasant, intelligent expression of countenance.
[Illustration: I am your obt Servant David Gibson][TR: Handwritten.]
The County of York, smarting under a sense of indignity and partial disfranchisement, rendered itself specially conspicuous in the contest. During the preceding year an Act[188] had been passed extending and readjusting the representation of the County, and dividing it for electoral purposes into four Ridings, designated respectively the First, Second, Third and Fourth. Each of these now returned a Radical Reformer. The First Riding returned David Gibson, a land surveyor who resided on Yonge Street, about eight miles north of the city, near the present village of Willowdale. He was of Scottish nationality, having been born in the parish of Glammis, Forfarshire, on the 9th of March, 1804. Within legitimate bounds there was no more pronounced Reformer in the Province than Mr. Gibson, whose house was a sort of rendezvous or place of meeting for party caucuses. He was an honourable and high-minded man, much esteemed by his neighbours, and in high favour with his party. The Second Riding chose Mackenzie. Many of the voters disapproved of some of his acts, but his paper was largely read among them, and it was felt that some recompense was due to him for the indignities which he had suffered. The Third Riding returned Dr. Thomas David Morrison, of Toronto, who has already been referred to in connection with the municipal affairs of the city. He was a physician enjoying a good practice; a man of good sense and wise counsels, and a prominent personage in the ranks of Reform. For the Fourth Riding was returned John Mackintosh, a resident of Toronto, and a connexion, by marriage, of Mackenzie. He was a steady Reformer, of no remarkable abilities, who a few months previously had been elected President of the Metropolitan District Reform Convention, and was known to be to a large extent under Mackenzie's control. Such were the four York representatives.
At the close of the contest the Reformers of the Province had secured a certain majority, which led them to look eagerly forward to the meeting of Parliament, although, with the exception of Bidwell and Perry, their best and most trusted chiefs had no seats therein. Rolph and the Baldwins had positively refused to stand for any of the constituencies, although strongly urged to do so. They seem to have felt that the political pulse was not healthy, and that no credit was to be won, either for themselves or for the Reform cause, while the morbid symptoms continued. The worst symptom of all in their eyes was the ascendency of Mackenzie and his satellites among the rural and uneducated part of the community.[189] With this ascendency they were wholly out of accord, and they awaited the time when he should find his proper level in public opinion. Dr. Rolph had brought himself to acquiesce in this estimate of Mackenzie with great reluctance; and it is probable that his strong suspicions of double-dealing in the matter of the mayoralty election had something to do with his change of views.
By this time Mackenzie had become tired of publishing the _Advocate_, which was not a commercial success. Early in November the last number published under his auspices made its appearance, and the editor was at liberty to devote his chief energies to his legislative duties.[190] During the second week in December he and a number of his political friends formed what they called the Canadian Alliance Society, for the promotion of Responsible Government, the abolition of the law of Primogeniture, the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, and other needful reforms, most of which have since been conceded. At the beginning of the new year (1835) Mackenzie again offered himself as a candidate for the representation of St. David's Ward in the City Council of Toronto, but he was defeated by Robert Baldwin Sullivan, a brilliant Toronto lawyer, and a kinsman of Robert Baldwin. The Council elected the successful candidate as mayor for the ensuing year.
FOOTNOTES:
[181] _Ante_, p. 187.
[182] "To his instruction, and the love of knowledge which he never failed to inspire in those who came within the magic of his eloquence, many men who have since made their mark on the history of Canada owe their first start in intellectual progress. Notable among these is the present Chief Superintendent of Education, who has