Note 86 — Chapter VI

That spies were employed by Sir Peregrine Maitland and his Council, and that certain Government officials were encouraged to act in that capacity, are facts which will be denied by no one who familiarizes himself with the local legislative, official and newspaper literature of the time. An apparently well-informed contributor to Blackwood's Magazine for September, 1829, in an article headed "Colonial Discontent," comments on this retrograde system in the following terms:—"A system of espionage assumes that there is something which ought to be watched and to be prevented; and as the existence of such a system probably did exist in Upper Canada during the administration of Sir Peregrine Maitland, it may be said that so far his Government was led to act on false principles.... We do not suppose that there was anything like an organized system, but only that tales to the personal disadvantage of the Anti-Ministerial party were too readily listened to. No doubt the members of that party were as credulous in listening to tales to the prejudice of the adherents of Government, but then they had it not in their power, like them, to inflict punishment. It is unnecessary to explain in what manner a system of espionage begets heart-burnings. It is to the public what tattle and malicious gossip are to private society, with this essential difference, however, that the tale of the slanderer is in time forgotten or refuted, whereas the report of the spy is received in secret, placed in the confidential archives of office, and referred to as a testimonial of character, in which such set of testimonials can be applied with effect when the occasion arises."

[87] Mr. Mackenzie, in his Sketches of Canada and the United States, p. 419, denies that Captain Matthews called for these airs, as stated in the text. But anyone who carefully examines into the Provincial events of those times will not be long in arriving at the conclusion that Mr. Mackenzie's unsupported testimony, more especially as to matters in any way coming within the scope of politics, is of very little value. The evidence as to the Captain's having called for "Yankee Doodle" is conclusive. That his doing so constituted a serious offence is another matter, as to which there will, at the present day, be very little difference of opinion.

[88] Sketches of Canada, etc., p. 419.

[89] See Journal of Assembly for 1826-7, Appendix P. See also Journal for 1828, p. 122.