"Or we should be on his side, Mr. Attorney-General," said Lady
Sarah, with a meaning glance at Rose Macleod.
At this juncture, the Attorney-General, having to address the House, took leave of the ladies, and the Government House party rose and left the Chamber.
Later in the day, the Attorney-General took occasion to refer to Dunlop's speech, and to commend its temperate and courteous tone, though the matter his young friend brought to the notice of the Government, said the Attorney-General, if true, severely reflected on the management of one of the Departments, which, the speaker added, he would take care at once to inquire into.
Other matters occupied the attention of the House for the remainder of the afternoon, and when the Speaker rose to retire a buzz of conversation ensued on the stirring topics to be brought up at the evening's sitting. Two of these topics related to matters which, at the period, convulsed the community, and threatened to overthrow the fabric of society in the colony, if not the Constitution itself. One was the case of Captain Matthews, a member of the Assembly, who was charged with disturbing the tranquillity of the Province by requesting the orchestra, at the theatre of York, to play sundry seditious tunes at the close of an entertainment, and thus inferentially to pay disrespect to His Majesty's crown and person. The other was the escapade of a number of young people in York, of respectable standing, who had committed a gross breach of the peace in breaking into and ransacking the printing-office of Wm. Lyon Mackenzie, smashing the presses of that martyr to Reform, and throwing into the lake the type which had been used in setting up some pungent articles against the Government.
"Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" the moralizing bystander of the period might have observed, as he took note of the electrical condition of the political atmosphere of York, and, indeed, of the whole Province—the result of the indiscretion of one man, and the partisan frolic of half a dozen lads, who had inherited, with the bluest of Tory blood, the prejudices of their fathers. The wrecking of the Mackenzie printing-office was, of course, a serious conspiracy against the peace of a youthful and law-abiding community. But it will occur to the modern reader of the transaction, that the act was scarcely so heinous as to bring it before the country's legislature, and become the subject of a grave Parliamentary inquiry.
The act has to be viewed, however, in the light of preceding events, and with a knowledge of facts in the thrilling drama of Reform, at the time being enacted on the political stage of Upper Canada. Society in the Province was long wont to poise itself between two opinions, as to the degree of justification for the course which Reform took at the time of the Gourlay agitation, and which, in Mackenzie's day, culminated in rebellion. The issues of the conflict have, however, settled that point; and though Tory bias loves still to stand by the "Family Compact," the popular sympathies are with the actors who were whilom outlawed, and on whose heads the Crown did them the honour, for a time, to set a high value.
Chief among these actors, at the time of which we are writing, was he whose printing-presses had just been ruthlessly demolished, and whose fonts of type youthful Torydom had gleefully consigned to the deep. The provocation had been a long series of intemperate newspaper criticism of the Government, numerous inflammatory appeals to the people to rise against constituted authority, and much scurrilous abuse of leading members of the "Family Compact," who wished, as a safeguard against revolution and chaos, to crush the "patriot" Mackenzie, and drive him from the Province. But though thorny as was then the path of Reform, and galling the insult and injury done to its martyrs, Mackenzie did not shrink from pursuing the course he had cut out for himself; and his intense hatred of injustice, and sturdy defiance of those whom he held responsible for the maladministration of affairs, gained him many adherents and sympathizers. The outrage that had just been committed on his property vastly increased the number of the latter, while popular indignation compelled the Government to disown the act, and to make it, as we have seen, the subject of Parliamentary inquiry. From the Parliament the matter went to the Courts, and there the scapegraces, who had been concerned in the outrage, were mulcted in a large amount, which their parents, high government officials, had ruefully to pay over to the aggrieved printer and incipient rebel. Thus ended one act in the drama of these distraught times. How shall we keep our countenance and deal with the other?
Let us first tell the story, as we gather it, in the main, from the Journals of the House. For some time previous to the meeting of the Legislature, in 1826, partisans of the Administration had got in the habit of noting defections from the loyal side among men of substance and position in the colony, and particularly among members of the representative Chamber, where the cry for Responsible Government was waxing loud, and where sullen protests were almost daily heard against the system of official patronage and favouritism that prevailed in the government of the Province. The Administration being now in the minority in the popular Chamber, and "the long shadows of Canadian Radicalism" having begun to settle upon the troubled "Family Compact," it became important to note the increasing defections, real or fancied, in the Legislative Assembly, so that, if possible, the "bolters" might be coaxed or bribed back, or, failing that, that they might, in some way, be jockeyed out of the House and made to suffer for their defection. Among those who had recently taken the bit in their teeth was a Captain Matthews, a retired officer, in receipt of a pension, who represented the county of Middlesex, and had of late gone over to Democracy. For this act he was "put upon the list," and became a marked man on the mental tablets of the myrmidons of the Executive.
About this time there came to York a company of strolling actors from the neighbouring Republic, whose fortunes were at a low ebb, and whose dignity had very much run down at the heels. To revive their fortunes, they gave an entertainment in the extemporized theatre of the town, under the kindly proffered patronage of the members of the Legislature. It was New Year's Eve, and the fun—the age was still a bibulous one—waxed fast and furious. At last the curtain dropped, and the modest orchestra struck up "God save the king!" Hats were at once doffed, and from among the standing audience came a loud but unsteady voice, calling upon the orchestra to "play up" Hail Columbia! or Yankee Doodle.
The sober section of the play-house was stunned. Was it possible that Democracy could go to such lengths—within sight of the "royal arms," over the Lieutenant-Governor's box, and with the decaying notes of the national anthem in Tory ears?