We trust that every reader clearly perceives the unparalleled parliamentary imposition that has been practised upon the public by the "Grievance Committee," and their gross insinuations and slanders against the Methodist ministers.
In 1836, the Report of the Grievance Committee came up in the House again. On this subject Rev. John Ryerson wrote in March, 1836, to Dr. Ryerson, in London, as follows:—
The altercations and quarrels which have taken place in the Assembly this session on the part of Peter Perry and W. L. Mackenzie, especially about the "Grievance Report," have raised you much in the estimation of the people. The correctness of your views and statements are now universally acknowledged, and your defamers deserted by all candid men. Political things are looking very favourable at the present time. The extremer of the Radical party are going down headlong. May a gracious Providence speed them on their journey!
To Mr. Perry, Dr. Ryerson replied fully and explicitly. He said:
Mr. Perry has charged me with departing from my former ground in regard to an ecclesiastical establishment in Upper Canada. My editorials and correspondence with Her Majesty's Government will be considered conclusive evidence of the falsity of the charge, and will again defeat the attempts of the enemies of Methodism to destroy me and overthrow the Conference. Another cause of attack by Mr. Perry is, that amongst several other suggestions which I took the liberty to offer to Lord Glenelg, Colonial Secretary, was the appointment of a certain gentleman of known popularity to the Executive Council. Mr. Perry seemed to consider himself as a sort of king in Lennox and Addington, and appears to regard it as an infringement upon his sovereign prerogatives that I should be stationed so near the borders of his empire as Kingston. But many of his constituents can bear record whether the object of my ministry was to dethrone Peter Perry, or to break down the power and influence of a much more formidable and important personage—the power of him that ruleth in the hearts of the children of disobedience.[47]
March 30th, London.—During his stay in England, Dr. Ryerson had been able to look upon public affairs in Upper Canada with more calmness, and more impartiality, than when he was there in the midst of them as an actor. In that spirit he, at this date, addressed a letter to the Guardian on what he regarded as an approaching crisis of the highest importance to the Province. He said:—
It is not a mere ephemeral strife of partizanship; it is a deliberate and bold attempt to change the leading features of the Constitution—a Constitution to which allegiance has been sworn, and to which firm attachment has been over and over again expressed in addresses to the Governor up to 1834. Such being the case, it becomes every man who fears God and loves his country to pause, to think, to decide. I have told the Colonial Secretary, that whilst the Methodist Church asked for nothing but "equal and impartial protection," yet I believed the attachment to the Constitution of the country and to the British Crown, expressed in petitions and addresses from the Methodist Conference and people of Canada, to be sincere, and that they would prove to be so in their future conduct. They had been falsely charged as being Republicans, but they had always repudiated this charge as a calumny. Nor would they be found among those who, like Messrs. Peter Perry and W. L. Mackenzie, had recently avowed their intention to establish republican elective institutions in the Province.
As to the charges of the "Grievance Committee" party, I can truly say that I have never received one farthing of public money from any quarter, and my humble support to my King and country is unsought, unsolicited, and spontaneous.
May 21st—London.—At this date Dr. Ryerson wrote:—
During my exile here in England I have more and more longed for news from Canada, and cooling water to the panting hart could not be more refreshing than late intelligence from my dear native land has been to me. I can now listen with an interest and sympathy that I never did before, to the patriotic effusions of the warm-hearted and eloquent Irishmen, whom I have recently heard, respecting "the first flower of the earth, the first gem of the sea."