[17] General Introduction, pp. ccviii., ccix., and note.
[18] The sheriff was Thomas Merritt, father of the gentleman who afterwards became the Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, to whose enterprise, more than to that of any other man, we owe the Welland Canal. It is right to add that most of the subordinate duties of the office of sheriff were discharged by an underling, and that Thomas Merritt may have been personally free from blame in respect of Mr. Gourlay. Assuming him to have been blamable, his son, the Hon. W. H. Merritt, in after days, did his utmost to atone for it by espousing Mr. Gourlay's cause in the Canadian Assembly, as will be seen by reference to the Parliamentary debates of 1856, 1857 and 1858.
[19] Statistical Account, Vol. II., pp. 400, 401.
[20] Ib., p. 401.
[21] Mr. Gourlay was in error as to the date of the Duke's death. He represents him as "writhing in agony at the self same hour," and as dying on the same day when he, Mr. Gourlay, crossed over into the United States.—Statistical Account, vol. 2, p. 401. He was astray by exactly a week. By reference to the precept of the court, I find that Mr. Gourlay's trial took place on the day specified in the text—Friday, the 20th of August. He left the Province on the following day—Saturday, the 21st. The Duke's death took place on Saturday, the 28th.
It may perhaps be as well for me to refer here to a story which seems to have obtained some currency, to the effect that the Duke of Richmond's death was due, not to hydrophobia, but to delirium tremens. There is not the shadow of truth in the story. The evidence as to the Duke's having been bitten at Sorel by a tame fox; as to his showing the healed wound on his thumb several weeks afterwards; as to his dread of water during the day before his death, and as to all the circumstances attending that tragical event, is as clear as evidence can very well be. Moreover, his habits were by no means such as to lead to mania a potu. He was a bon vivant, but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, he did not drink to excess, and was always master of such brains as he possessed. His end was one which his family might honestly mourn, and there was little in his life, nothing in his death, of which they had any cause to feel ashamed.
[22] "Major-General" D. McLeod, in his "History of the Canadian Insurrection," p. 75, incorrectly states that Ferguson "died in jail from extremely cruel usage."
[23] Canadian Portrait Gallery, Vol. III., pp. 240-256.
