The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, John Charles Dent [read a book TXT] 📗

but henceforth he was able to carry out his designs as the accredited emissary of the Reformers of Toronto, a fact which of course gave him additional importance in the eyes of the Reformers generally. His appointment was due to his own manoeuvres, but it must be confessed that he was in many respects well qualified for the post.
He addressed himself to his tasks with redoubled assiduity. The Province was mapped out into four districts, each of which was again subdivided into minor divisions. Local branch societies were formed or remodelled in all neighbourhoods where Reformers were numerous. Each of these was directed to report regularly to a central society, and all the latter were to report to the Corresponding Secretary, by whom the reports were classified, digested, and laid before the central committee in Toronto. Mackenzie at once proceeded to hold a fresh series of meetings, beginning with the townships in which he was best known, and thence flitting hither and thither as was deemed advisable. In this way, in the course of the late summer and autumn he went over the whole of the Home District, and over a great part of the adjoining country. His soul was in the work he was doing, and he put into it all the energy which he could command. He did not succeed in arousing such a feeling in the west as Papineau did in the east. He had not Papineau's marvellous Gallic eloquence, nor were the farmers of Upper Canada composed of such inflammable material as the _habitans_ of the Lower Province. But Mackenzie, when thoroughly aroused, as he now was, had considerable power to move the masses, and he exerted himself to this end as he had never done before. The manifold wrongs he had endured had exasperated his nature almost beyond endurance, and he could lash himself into a storm of indignation at a moment's notice. He succeeded in awakening enthusiasm in persons who had formerly been remarkable for stolidity. He presented few new subjects for the consideration of his auditors, but he presented old subjects in a light which was suggestive of new ideas. He declaimed against the iniquities of the Executive, the supineness of the Imperial Government, and the culpable indifference of the British Parliament. The Declaration, in fact, was the test upon which his harangues were founded, but he presented its respective clauses in ever-recurring novelty of aspect. The document was itself submitted to the various meetings for approval, accompanied by Mackenzie's fiery commentary. As a general thing the Radical element was largely in the ascendant at the gatherings, and he had no trouble about carrying his resolutions, frequently by very large majorities. He adapted his oratory to his audience. Where he knew that he would encounter little or no opposition he was much more outspoken than where the feeling was less favourable to him. Wherever he felt that he could carry his audience with him, he boldly advocated separation from the mother-country, and the establishment of elective institutions under an independent Government; though he took care to deprecate any appeal to physical force,[282] and generally advocated a money payment to the British Government as the price of a full release and quittance of all Imperial claims upon the colony. He employed all the paraphernalia which he thought likely to impress the people, and banners bearing revolutionary inscriptions were freely displayed from the platform in neighbourhoods where such a course was deemed safe. Lount, Gibson, Nelson Gorham and others occasionally reinforced him by their presence and their oratory. These gentlemen were all gifted with more than ordinary powers of expression. The subject-matter was one which they all had deeply at heart, and upon which they could speak with never-failing freshness and vigour. The audiences were sometimes moved to rapturous demonstrations of applause. Even in communities where the popular sentiment was less enthusiastic the recommendations embodied in the Declaration were generally assented to, and local vigilance committees were formed. Delegates to the proposed Toronto convention were appointed, but the date of holding it was for the time left open. About seventy of these delegates were appointed in the Home District alone. The necessity for making common cause with the Lower Canadian Opposition in their efforts to establish civil and religious liberty was vehemently pressed by the speakers, and commonly recognized by the audiences. Any reference on the part of the speakers to what "our brethren in Lower Canada" were doing for the cause of liberty was almost certain to evoke applause. A trusted emissary--Jesse Lloyd of Lloydtown--acted as a medium of communication between the Radical leaders in the two Provinces, and passed to and fro from time to time with despatches and intelligence between Papineau and Mackenzie. By this and other means the Lower Canadian leaders were from first to last kept promptly informed of the progress of the movement in the Upper Province.
Sometimes--not often--Mackenzie met with considerable opposition. The idea of separation from Great Britain was a stumbling-block to a few even of the ultra-Radicals, and had to be handled with extreme delicacy. Others were chary of any concerted action with the Lower Canadians on account of the latter's religious faith. In several instances, moreover, the meetings were actually broken up by the Tories, in whose ears the language used by Mackenzie and his coadjutors was neither more nor less than treason. In other instances, though the opposition was not effective enough to actually break up the meetings, it was found impossible to carry any resolutions founded upon the Declaration. In two cases the meetings were broken up in confusion by local bodies of Orangemen, and a number of persons sustained more or less physical violence. Such incidents as these, however, were the exception, and not the rule. Out of all the meetings--considerably more than a hundred in number[283]--held between the adoption of the Declaration and the actual outbreak of rebellion, seventy-five per cent seem to have passed off without serious disturbance or interference. Most of those who disapproved of the meetings staid away from them, and regarded those who promoted them with settled hostility, frequently accompanied by contempt. Of those who attended and supported the resolutions, a very small number had any suspicion that matters were shaping themselves, or were being shaped by Mackenzie, towards rebellion.
As for Mackenzie himself, he seems to have been intent on mischief during the whole summer of this eventful year. He however recognized the necessity of moving slowly, for no one knew better than he that a very small percentage of the Reformers of the Province could be brought to sanction such a project as rebellion under his auspices. What they might have been disposed to do if rebellion had been mooted by Robert Baldwin, Bidwell, Rolph, and other eminent Reformers, it would now be idle to inquire. It would be as profitless as to discuss what would have been the fate of the Revolution of 1688 if James the Second had died while he was Duke of York. The mental constitution of Baldwin and Bidwell were such that it would have been an impossibility for them to take part in a rebellion, and the general belief with respect to Rolph was that his doing so was equally out of the question. All this was well known to Mackenzie. He also well knew that the Reform press would have promptly denounced him had his designs been known. If he had encountered such denunciation his bubble would have burst there and then. But the Reform press knew nothing of his designs. He was believed to be agitating for constitutional Reform. It was of course known that he was carrying his agitation to an unprecedented length, but it was supposed that he was doing so for the purpose of intimidating the Government, and thereby coercing them into concessions; and the Reform press throughout the land was fully prepared to support him in such a course. He accordingly acted with much greater caution than he had been wont to display in the management of either public or private affairs. He perceived that the machinery of vigilance committees, branch societies, public meetings and what not, which had been so successfully set in motion under the auspices of the Reformers, might be turned to account for insurrectionary purposes. To a few of his friends in the country, over whom he possessed almost unbounded influence, and who, as he knew, felt almost as bitterly towards the Government as he himself did, he imparted a project involving a resort to arms. Among them were Samuel Lount, Jesse Lloyd, Silas Fletcher, Nelson Gorham and Peter Matthews. The communication was doubtless made to the several persons at different times, but all of those mentioned seem to have been made acquainted with the project before the beginning of autumn. They all yielded a ready enough acquiescence, but no thought of bloodshed was in their minds. It was intended to get together a great body of Reformers from all over the country, and then to advance upon the capital in the form of a monster demonstration. This idea seems to have originated with Lount. It was at first objected to by Mackenzie as unlikely to prove efficacious. He urged that demonstrations had been made in his favour several years before, and that none of them had had any effect in moderating the policy of the Government, or in inducing the Assembly to permit him to sit therein. He especially instanced the occasion upon which a great crowd of the York electors had accompanied him to the House of Assembly, and had filled the galleries and lobbies while Parliament was sitting.[284] All this, he pointed out, had been labour in vain, and if such a scene were to be re-enacted it must, in order to produce any satisfactory effect, be on a very large scale indeed. His argument was unanswerable. It was clear that any appeal to the Government's sense of right would be made in vain, and that they could only be influenced through their fears. If anything was to be effected by means of a demonstration, the number of persons taking part in it must be sufficiently numerous to overawe, and if necessary to coerce, the Government.
Some weeks appear to have elapsed before any scheme was definitely fixed upon and approved by all the nine or ten persons concerned, who thus took upon themselves the responsibility of directing the future course of our colonial polity. The understanding arrived at was that the time of holding the proposed convention in Toronto would also be the appropriate time for making the proposed demonstration. The convention would afford a reasonable pretext for the assembling of great numbers of Reformers at the capital. It will be remembered that no definite time had been fixed upon for the holding of the convention. It was now settled that it should be held early in the spring of the year 1838. When the gathering should be complete, it was proposed to wait upon the Government, as the barons waited on King John at Runnymede, and wring from them their assent to a constitution founded upon the propositions embodied in the Declaration. It was agreed that if this assent should be obtained, Sir Francis Head was, at any rate temporarily, to be left undisturbed in his position of Lieutenant-Governor, but that the Executive Council should be altogether remodelled, and that Rolph, Bidwell and Mackenzie should have seats therein. The Government was to be carried on upon the principle of Executive responsibility to the Assembly. This re-adjustment was to be followed by a general election, after which the future of the colony would be in the hands of the Assembly.
But how if the Government would not be coerced? What was to be done if they refused to be dictated to? In that case there was only one course open. The Lieutenant-Governor and his Council were to be seized with _as_ little violence as