From the 2nd until the 6th we were busily engaged in asking our friends to attend the meeting. The Mayor and Corporation were requested to make the refugees the guests of the City during their stay in Toronto, and quarters were taken for them at the Queen’s Hotel. Foster’s articles in the Telegraph were beginning to have their influence, and when Schultz, Lynch, Monkman, and Dreever arrived at the station on the evening of the 6th April, a crowd of about one thousand people met them and escorted them to the Queen’s. The meeting was to be held in the St. Lawrence Hall that evening, but when we arrived there with the party, we found the hall crowded and nearly ten thousand people outside. The meeting was therefore adjourned to the Market Square, and the speakers stood on the roof of the porch of the old City Hall.
The resolutions carried covered three points. Firstly, a welcome to the refugees, and an endorsation of their action in fearlessly, and at the sacrifice of their liberty and property, resisting the usurpation of power by the murderer Riel; secondly, advocating the adoption of decisive measures to suppress the revolt, and to afford speedy protection to the loyal subjects in the North-West, and thirdly, declaring that “It would be a gross injustice to the loyal inhabitants of Red River, humiliating to our national honour, and contrary to all British traditions for our Government to receive, negotiate, or treat with the emissaries of those who have robbed, imprisoned, and murdered loyal Canadians, whose only fault was zeal for British institutions, whose only crime was devotion to the old flag.” This last resolution, which was carried with great enthusiasm, was moved by Capt. James Bennett and seconded by myself.
Foster and I had long conferences with Schultz, Mair, and Lynch that evening and next day, and it was decided that I should go to Ottawa with the party, to assist them in furthering their views before the Government. In the meantime Dr. Canniff and other members of the party had sent word to friends at Cobourg, Belleville, Prescott, etc., to organise demonstrations of welcome to the loyalists at the different points.
A large number of our friends and sympathisers gathered at the Union Station to see the party off to Ottawa, and received them with loud cheers. Mr. Andrew Fleming then moved, seconded by Mr. T. H. O’Neil, the following resolution, written by Foster, which was unanimously carried:
That we, the citizens of Toronto, in parting with our Red River guests, beg to reiterate our full recognition of their devotion to, and sufferings in, the cause of Canada, to emphatically endorse their manly conduct through troubles sufficient to try the stoutest heart, and to assure the loyal people of Canada that no minion of the murderer Riel, no representative of a conspiracy which concentrates in itself everything a Briton detests, shall be allowed to pass this platform (should he get so far) to lay insulting proposals at the foot of a throne which knows how to protect its subjects, and has the means and never lacks for will to do it.
At Cobourg, where the train stopped for twenty minutes, we were met by the municipal authorities of the town, and a great crowd of citizens, who received the party with warm enthusiasm, and with the heartiest expressions of approval. This occurred about one o’clock in the morning. The same thing was repeated at Belleville about three or four a.m., and it was considered advisable for Mr. Mair and Mr. Setter to stay over there to address a great public meeting to be held the next day. At Prescott, also, the warmest welcome was given by the citizens. Public feeling was aroused, and we then knew that we would have Ontario at our backs.
On our arrival in Ottawa we found that the Government were not at all friendly to the loyal men, and were not desirous of doing anything that we had been advocating. The first urgent matter was the expected arrival of Richot and Scott, the rebel emissaries, who were on the way down from St. Paul. I went to see Sir John A. Macdonald at the earliest moment. I had been one of his supporters, and had worked hard for him and the party for the previous eight or nine years—in fact since I had been old enough to take an active part in politics; and he knew me well. I asked him at once if he intended to receive Richot and Scott, in view of the fact that since Sir John had invited Riel to send down representatives, Thomas Scott had been murdered. To my astonishment he said he would have to receive them. I urged him vehemently not to do so, to send someone to meet them and to advise them to return. I told him he had a copy of their Bill of Rights and knew exactly what they wanted, and I said he could make a most liberal settlement of the difficulties and give them everything that was reasonable, and so weaken Riel by taking away the grievances that gave him his strength. That then a relief expedition could be sent up, and the leading rebels finding their followers leaving them, would decamp, and the trouble would be over. I pointed out to him that the meetings being held all over Ontario should strengthen his hands, and those of the British section of the Cabinet, and that the French Canadians should be satisfied if full justice was done to the half-breeds, and should not humiliate our national honour. Sir John did not seem able to answer my arguments, and only repeated that he could not help himself, and that the British Government were favourable to their reception. I think Sir Stafford Northcote was at the time in Ottawa representing the Home Government, or the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Finding that Sir John was determined to receive them I said, “Well, Sir John, I have always supported you, but from the day that you receive Richot and Scott, you must look upon me as a strong and vigorous opponent.” He patted me on the shoulder and said, “Oh, no, you will not oppose me, you must never do that.” I replied, “I am very sorry, Sir John. I never thought for a moment that you would humiliate us. I thought when I helped to get up that great meeting in Toronto, and carefully arranged that no hostile resolutions should be brought up against you, that I was doing the best possible work for you; but I seconded a very strong resolution and made a very decided speech before ten thousand of my fellow citizens, and now I am committed, and will have to take my stand.” Feeling much disheartened I left him, and worked against him, and did not support him again, until many years afterwards, when the leaders of the party I had been attached to foolishly began to coquette with commercial union, and some even with veiled treason, while Sir John came out boldly for the Empire, and on the side of loyalty, under the well-known cry, “A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die.”
After reporting to Schultz and Lynch we considered carefully the situation, and as Lynch had been especially requested by his fellow prisoners in Fort Garry to represent their views in Ontario, it was decided that he, on behalf of the loyal element of Fort Garry, should put their case before his Excellency the Governor-General himself, and ask for redress and protection. After careful discussion, I drafted a formal protest, which Lynch wrote out and signed, and we went together to the Government House and delivered it there to one of his Excellency’s staff. Copies of this were given to the Press, and attracted considerable attention. This protest was as follows: