Note 181 — Chapter XIII

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 acknowledged that if he has achieved any distinction, it is mainly due to the love of knowledge with which he was inspired by the eloquence and example of Dr. Rolph." Such was the late Dr. Ryerson's own testimony, as published in the Journal of Education, upon Dr. Rolph's death in 1870.

[183] The phrase is Mackenzie's own. See his remarks preceding the extracts in the Advocate of May 22nd.

[184] By Dr. Morrison in the Toronto City Council. See the report of the proceedings of that body at the meeting held on Monday, June 9th, 1834. On the subject generally, see the pamphlet published in Toronto in 1834 entitled The Celebrated Letter of Joseph Hume, etc.

[185] In a letter dated 14th July, 1834, and published in the Advocate of September 25th. Mr. Hume there states his meaning to have been "that the misrule of the Government in Canada, and the monopolizing selfish domination of such men as had lately (though but a small faction of the people) resisted all improvement and reform, would lose the countenance of the authorities in Downing Street, and leave the people in freedom to manage their own affairs."

[186] The following extract is from a cleverly-written letter signed "O. P. Q.," which appeared in the Courier of June 5th, 1834. It spoke the sentiments of nearly all the newspapers in the country, of whatsoever shade of politics: "But for that letter the people of this Province might long remain in ignorance of the real motives by which your conduct has been actuated. They might long regard you as a persecuted patriot.... But your imprudence or your vanity has been the means of completely unmasking and placing you before the people of this country in all the naked deformity of an acknowledged traitor. Henceforth you must be content to be regarded as the secret abettor of a heartless conspiracy.... Do not think, Sir, that these are the sentiments of a violent political opponent who approves of the measures adopted towards you by the House of Assembly.... These views, Sir, are the views of a man who has ever denounced the course your adversaries have pursued towards you as unwise, unjust and unconstitutional. They are the sentiments of a man who, if he had the power to punish the persons who first rose you from poverty, ignominy and ruin, to comparative affluence and popular notoriety, would have sent the destroyers of your press to less favoured regions. They are the sentiments of one who had up to the publication of the letter ... regarded you as a man attached to the institutions of your country.... It is an old adage, 'Give him rope enough,' etc. You have a moderate quantity, and if the avowal of such sentiments as you have lately promulgated do not afford you a few yards more, you may regard yourself as infinitely more fortunate than many better and bolder men."

[187] "To the many poor settlers who came from Europe, and obtained grants of lands from the government, he was a friend and adviser, and in cases of necessity their wants were supplied from his purse or his granaries. Many is the time, said some of our fellow-prisoners, that we have seen him, after the toils of the day were over, leave his home to carry provisions for miles through the pathless forest, to the shanty of some poor and destitute settler, who with wife and family were rendered by want and sickness utterly destitute. Those acquainted with the history of new settlements need not be told how often those who have been accustomed to better days are obliged to embark in a new career of life, the duties of which they are totally ignorant and wholly unfitted for, nor how often sickness is engendered by their great bodily exertions, by neglect and deprivation. In a country like that in which Mr. Lount was settled, the inhabitants resided far apart, and consisted generally of old, worn, and superannuated British officers, who, at the close of the war, pitched their tents, for the last time, in the wilderness. The sums which they obtained from the sale of their half-pay, almost expended in the transportation of their little families, before arriving on the lands assigned them by government—unfitted, from their former pursuits, to bear the drudgery their new course of life required, it was frequently the case, that before they could raise anything from their lands, they became perfectly destitute of the necessaries of subsistence. Too proud to seek assistance, they would starve rather than communicate their situation; but in Lount, their generous neighbour, they found one quick to discover and prompt in affording relief, and he would minister to their wants with such delicacy that the most sensitive would experience a pleasure rather than the pang of wounded pride."—Theller's Canada in 1837-38, vol. i., pp. 233, 234. I transfer these remarks, not because I have any respect for Theller's personal testimony on any subject, but because in the present instance his language clearly expresses the general sentiment of the period with regard to Samuel Lount, and is confirmed by the remembrance of many persons still living in and near Holland Landing.

[188] 3 Wm. IV., c. 15, passed 13th February, 1833.

[189] In the preceding February Dr. Baldwin had thus written in reply to a notification to attend as a delegate at the District Convention: "This honour I beg leave to decline, and for this reason: that having heretofore served the country to the utmost of my humble abilities as their representative in Parliament, with the sincerest integrity of purpose in maintenance of popular rights, unspotted, I trust, by one single vote of a contrary tendency, I, together with many others of the staunchest friends of those rights, experienced such extreme fickleness of popular opinion that this conclusion has long been formed in my mind: that the great body of the people of this Province (without doubt there are many honourable exceptions), in no wise ignorant of their rights or the great value of them, are nevertheless shamefully indifferent into whose hands they commit their preservation and due exercise. Experience alone must teach the people. This experience is coming to them by painful lessons.... Under these circumstances I beg you will make my apology," etc. The letter appears in the Advocate of March 13th, 1834, following one to a similar purport from Dr. Rolph.

[190] It was continued for some time after by another hand, under the name of The Correspondent and Advocate.