[239] Ib.
[240] Ib.
[241] Despatch of May 28th.
[242] Of April 28th.
[243] Ante, p. 281.
[244] See Dr. Rolph's Speech to the House in Committee on the Report of the Select Committee on the Petition of Dr. Charles Duncombe to the British House of Commons, delivered on Monday, January 30th, 1837.
[245] It was afterwards urged by Sir Francis that his replies to addresses were made before, and not during the election. The plea will not bear a moment's examination. The mischief was done by the inflammatory and menacing tone of the replies, and the mere question of the time of their delivery in of no importance whatever. An English writer thus effectually disposes of this attempted defence: "Surely he [Sir F. B. Head] must have some glimmering perception that this is not a question of time, and that, if promises or threats are addressed to the electoral body with regard to their exercise of the electoral franchise, it is a matter of no importance whether this is done before or at the time of the election. Illogical as he has proved himself, we cannot suppose him to be so utterly destitute of the reasoning faculty as a sincerity in this defence would imply; and we must therefore believe that he knows the charge to be well founded, and has recourse to this shuffling evasion in pure despair."—See London and Westminster Review, vol. xxxii., No. 2, article vi.
[246] During the contest people on the hustings actually demanded of the candidates: "Do you vote for the House of Assembly or for Sir Francis Head?"—a question which, as Sir Francis himself remarks, amounted in plain terms to this: "Are you for a republican government, or are you not?"—See Memorandum on the Present Political State of the Canadas, in Narrative, chap. vi.
[247] Lord Durham, reasoning from such evidence as he had before him, proceeds upon the assumption that no patents were issued except to persons entitled to the land. But, as his Lordship admits, the granting of patents at all under such circumstances was an act of official favouritism which no Lieutenant-Governor with a proper sense of his duty would have permitted. See Report, U.C. folio edition, p. 51.
[248] This was at Streetsville, while the contest for the Second Riding of York was in progress between William Lyon Mackenzie and Edward William Thomson.