The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion, Volume 1

by John Charles Dent

There could be no doubt, however, that the Reformers in both town and country were more thoroughly in earnest than they had ever been before. Energetic measures were in favour among them, and the number of advocates of passive endurance was very small. There were regular communications between them and the opponents of the Government in Lower Canada. They held frequent meetings, at which schemes of agitation were discussed, and where every member was encouraged to speak his mind without fear or favour. A very frequent place of meeting in Toronto was Elliott's tavern, on the north-west corner of Yonge and Queen Streets. A place for holding more secret and confidential caucuses was the brewery of John Doel, situated at the rear of his house on the north-west corner of Adelaide and Bay Streets.[276] Towards the end of July a number of leading Radicals assembled at Elliott's for the purpose of discussing the draft of a written Declaration, which was intended to embody the platform of the local members of the party. It reads very much like a cautious parody on the Declaration of Independence of the United States, upon which it was evidently modelled. It set forth the principal grievances of which the Reform party complained; declared that the time had arrived for the assertion of rights and the redress of wrongs; and expressed the warmest admiration of Papineau and his compatriots for their opposition to the British Government. It further expressed the opinion that the Reformers of Upper Canada were bound to make common cause with their fellow-citizens in the Lower Province; and to render their coöperation more effectual it recommended that public meetings should be held and political associations organized throughout the country. Finally, it recommended that a convention of delegates should be held at Toronto to consider the political situation, "with authority to its members to appoint commissioners to meet others to be named on behalf of Lower Canada and any of the other colonies, armed with suitable powers as a congress to seek an effectual remedy for the grievances of the colonists." Mr. Lindsey,[277] doubtless upon the authority of Mackenzie, represents this Declaration as having been the joint work of Dr. Rolph and Dr. W. J. O'Grady, somewhile editor of The Correspondent and Advocate. I can find no confirmatory evidence of this statement, and some of Dr. Rolph's letters would seem, at least by implication, to contradict the assertion that he had any hand in its preparation. The question of authorship, however, is not important. The document was discussed at considerable length. Dr. Morrison, who was present, fully approved of its contents, but objected to sign it, as he would thereby place himself in a dubious position as a member of Parliament. This argument was not acquiesced in by James Lesslie, and the Doctor finally appended his signature. His example was followed by all the other members present except James Lesslie, who withheld his name until the document should be signed by Dr. Rolph, who was absent from the meeting.[278]

On the afternoon of Friday, the 28th of the same month, the Declaration was submitted to and discussed for the second time by a number of Reformers assembled at Elliott's. There was to be a large meeting the same evening at Doel's brewery, at which it was thought desirable that the platform should be adopted. Some discussion arose as to several clauses, however, and one or two immaterial alterations were made, after which it was thought best to postpone the final adoption of the Declaration in its entirety until a subsequent meeting. The meeting held during the evening at Doel's was very numerously attended. About three hundred persons were present,[279] and a good deal of important discussion took place. A motion expressive of sympathy and admiration for Papineau and his compatriots was proposed by Mackenzie, and passed without a dissentient voice, and it was resolved that "the Reformers of Upper Canada" should make common cause with those of the Lower Province. The persons present at this meeting of course had no authority to speak on behalf of the Reformers of Upper Canada as a whole, but they fairly enough represented the Radical wing of the party, which was quite large enough to be formidable. The meeting further resolved that a convention of delegates should be assembled at an early period in Toronto, "to take into consideration the state of the Province, the causes of the present pecuniary and other difficulties, and the means whereby they may be effectually removed;" and that persons be appointed by the said convention to proceed to Lower Canada, "there to meet the delegates of any congress of these Provinces which may be appointed to sit and deliberate on matters of mutual interest to the colonies during the present year." The Declaration was not submitted, as final judgment had not been passed upon it by those who had it in charge. After a long and busy session, the assemblage adjourned to meet in the same place on the evening of Monday, the 31st.

It was matter of much regret among the Radical leaders that Dr. Rolph had not up to this time taken any active part in their deliberations. He was known to be in sympathy with the project of a movement in concert with the Lower Canadians for the purpose of impressing the Imperial Government with the necessity of changing their colonial policy. He had become the trusted counsellor of all the leading Radicals, who looked up to him as the one man in the Province who was capable of directing any large or wise measure of Reform. But he had not identified himself with them by actual coöperation in their projects, and had attended none of their secret meetings, although he was kept fully informed of all that occurred thereat. The Radicals, recognizing how much would be gained by securing the presence among them of Rolph and Bidwell, resolved to press both those gentlemen into service. At the adjourned meeting on the evening of the 31st, the movement made considerable progress. The Declaration was formally adopted clause by clause. According to a contemporary newspaper report,[280] it "called forth from the meeting the most unequivocal marks of approbation." As already mentioned, one of its clauses recommended the holding of a convention at Toronto. A resolution was accordingly unanimously adopted appointing Rolph, Bidwell, Dr. Morrison, James Lesslie and others as delegates to the proposed convention. This, it was confidently believed, would have the effect of identifying Rolph and Bidwell with the Radical cause, for it was not thought that either of them would refuse to attend as delegates. Other resolutions were adopted with a view to placing the party in a state of efficient organization throughout the Province. The persons who had previously appended their names to the Declaration[281] were appointed "a permanent Committee of Vigilance, for this city and liberties, and to carry into immediate and practical effect the resolutions of this meeting for the effectual organization of the Reformers of Upper Canada." John Elliott, a Toronto scrivener, who was also Assistant Clerk of the City Council, was requested to continue to act as Secretary-in-Ordinary, and Mackenzie to act as "Agent and Corresponding Secretary." Both of these requests were assented to. A resolution, doubtless adopted in emulation of similar resolutions at meetings held under Papineau's auspices in Lower Canada, pledged the members to abstain as far as possible "from the consumption of articles coming from beyond sea, or paying duties." A sort of rider to this was moved by Mackenzie, and adopted by the meeting: "That the right of obtaining articles of luxury or necessity in the cheapest market is inherent in the people, who only consent to the imposition of duties for the creation of revenues with the express understanding that the revenues so raised from them shall be devoted to the necessary expenses of Government, and appointed by the people's representatives; and therefore, when the contract is broken by an Executive or any foreign authority, the people are released from their engagement, and are no longer under any moral obligation to contribute to or aid in the collection of such revenues." On Wednesday, the 2nd of August, the Declaration was published in full, together with the names of the committee, in The Correspondent and Advocate, and in Mackenzie's Constitution. Each of these papers also published a report of the proceedings at the meeting.

The part assigned to Mackenzie—that of "Agent and Corresponding Secretary"—was an important one, and involved him in the necessity of giving up all his time and energies to the cause. In so far as his abilities enabled him to do so, he was to virtually play the same part in Upper Canada that had long been enacted by Papineau in the Lower Province. He was to be a supreme itinerant organizer, and was to go about the country stirring up opposition to the Government. This would involve the arranging and holding of public meetings and secret caucuses, the selection of local correspondents, the supervision of local reports, and various other duties not definitely specified, much being necessarily left to his own discretion. He had been engaged in precisely similar tasks for some weeks previously, but henceforth he was able to carry out his designs as the accredited emissary of the Reformers of Toronto, a fact which of course gave him additional importance in the eyes of the Reformers generally. His appointment was due to his own manœuvres, but it must be confessed that he was in many respects well qualified for the post.

He addressed himself to his tasks with redoubled assiduity. The Province was mapped out into four districts, each of which was again subdivided into minor divisions. Local branch societies were formed or remodelled in all neighbourhoods where Reformers were numerous. Each of these was directed to report regularly to a central society, and all the latter were to report to the Corresponding Secretary, by whom the reports were classified, digested, and laid before the central committee in Toronto. Mackenzie at once proceeded to hold a fresh series of meetings, beginning with the townships in which he was best known, and thence flitting hither and thither as was deemed advisable. In this way, in the course of the late summer and autumn he went over the whole of the Home District, and over a great part of the adjoining country. His soul was in the work he was doing, and he put into it all the energy which he could command. He did not succeed in arousing such a feeling in the west as Papineau did in the east. He had not Papineau's marvellous Gallic eloquence, nor were the farmers of Upper Canada composed of such inflammable material as the habitans of the Lower Province. But Mackenzie, when thoroughly aroused, as he now was, had considerable power to move the masses, and he exerted himself to this end as he had never done before. The manifold wrongs he had endured had exasperated his nature almost beyond endurance, and he could lash himself into a storm of indignation at a moment's notice. He succeeded in awakening enthusiasm in persons who had formerly been remarkable for stolidity. He presented few new subjects for the consideration of his auditors, but he presented old subjects in a light which was suggestive of new ideas. He declaimed against the iniquities of the Executive, the supineness of the Imperial Government, and the culpable indifference of the British Parliament. The Declaration, in fact, was the test upon which his harangues were founded, but he presented its respective clauses in ever-recurring novelty of aspect. The document was itself submitted to the various meetings for approval, accompanied by Mackenzie's fiery commentary. As a general thing the Radical element was largely in the ascendant at the gatherings, and he had no trouble about carrying his resolutions, frequently by very large majorities. He adapted his oratory to his audience. Where he knew that he would encounter little or no opposition he was much more outspoken than where the feeling was less favourable to him. Wherever he felt that he could carry his audience with him, he boldly advocated separation from the mother-country, and the establishment of elective institutions under an independent Government; though he took care to deprecate any appeal to physical force,[282] and generally advocated a money payment to the British Government as the price of a full release and quittance of all Imperial claims upon the colony. He employed all the paraphernalia which he thought likely to impress the people, and banners bearing revolutionary inscriptions were freely displayed from the platform in neighbourhoods where such a course was deemed safe. Lount, Gibson, Nelson Gorham and others occasionally reinforced him by their presence and their oratory. These gentlemen were all gifted with more than ordinary powers of expression. The subject-matter was one which they all had deeply at heart, and upon which they could speak with never-failing freshness and vigour. The audiences were sometimes moved to rapturous demonstrations of applause. Even in communities where the popular sentiment was less enthusiastic the recommendations embodied in the Declaration were generally assented to, and local vigilance committees were formed. Delegates to the proposed Toronto convention were appointed, but the date of holding it was for the time left open. About seventy of these delegates were appointed in the Home District alone. The necessity for making common cause with the Lower Canadian Opposition in their efforts to establish civil and religious liberty was vehemently pressed by the speakers, and commonly recognized by the audiences. Any reference on the part of the speakers to what "our brethren in Lower Canada" were doing for the cause of liberty was almost certain to evoke applause. A trusted emissary—Jesse Lloyd of Lloydtown—acted as a medium of communication between the Radical leaders in the two Provinces, and passed to and fro from time to time with despatches and intelligence between Papineau and Mackenzie. By this and other means the Lower Canadian leaders were from first to last kept promptly informed of the progress of the movement in the Upper Province.

Sometimes—not often—Mackenzie met with considerable opposition. The idea of separation from Great Britain was a stumbling-block to a few even of the ultra-Radicals, and had to be handled with extreme delicacy. Others were chary of any concerted action with the Lower Canadians on account of the latter's religious faith. In several instances, moreover, the meetings were actually broken up by the Tories, in whose ears the language used by Mackenzie and his coadjutors was neither more nor less than treason. In other instances, though the opposition was not effective enough to actually break up the meetings, it was found impossible to carry any resolutions founded upon the Declaration. In two cases the meetings were broken up in confusion by local bodies of Orangemen, and a number of persons sustained more or less physical violence. Such incidents as these, however, were the exception, and not the rule. Out of all the meetings—considerably more than a hundred in number[283]—held between the adoption of the Declaration and the actual outbreak of rebellion, seventy-five per cent seem to have passed off without serious disturbance or interference. Most of those who disapproved of the meetings staid away from them, and regarded those who promoted them with settled hostility, frequently accompanied by contempt. Of those who attended and supported the resolutions, a very small number had any suspicion that matters were shaping themselves, or were being shaped by Mackenzie, towards rebellion.

As for Mackenzie himself, he seems to have been intent on mischief during the whole summer of this eventful year. He however recognized the necessity of moving slowly, for no one knew better than he that a very small percentage of the Reformers of the Province could be brought to sanction such a project as rebellion under his auspices. What they might have been disposed to do if rebellion had been mooted by Robert Baldwin, Bidwell, Rolph, and other eminent Reformers, it would now be idle to inquire. It would be as profitless as to discuss what would have been the fate of the Revolution of 1688 if James the Second had died while he was Duke of York. The mental constitution of Baldwin and Bidwell were such that it would have been an impossibility for them to take part in a rebellion, and the general belief with respect to Rolph was that his doing so was equally out of the question. All this was well known to Mackenzie. He also well knew that the Reform press would have promptly denounced him had his designs been known. If he had encountered such denunciation his bubble would have burst there and then. But the Reform press knew nothing of his designs. He was believed to be agitating for constitutional Reform. It was of course known that he was carrying his agitation to an unprecedented length, but it was supposed that he was doing so for the purpose of intimidating the Government, and thereby coercing them into concessions; and the Reform press throughout the land was fully prepared to support him in such a course. He accordingly acted with much greater caution than he had been wont to display in the management of either public or private affairs. He perceived that the machinery of vigilance committees, branch societies, public meetings and what not, which had been so successfully set in motion under the auspices of the Reformers, might be turned to account for insurrectionary purposes. To a few of his friends in the country, over whom he possessed almost unbounded influence, and who, as he knew, felt almost as bitterly towards the Government as he himself did, he imparted a project involving a resort to arms. Among them were Samuel Lount, Jesse Lloyd, Silas Fletcher, Nelson Gorham and Peter Matthews. The communication was doubtless made to the several persons at different times, but all of those mentioned seem to have been made acquainted with the project before the beginning of autumn. They all yielded a ready enough acquiescence, but no thought of bloodshed was in their minds. It was intended to get together a great body of Reformers from all over the country, and then to advance upon the capital in the form of a monster demonstration. This idea seems to have originated with Lount. It was at first objected to by Mackenzie as unlikely to prove efficacious. He urged that demonstrations had been made in his favour several years before, and that none of them had had any effect in moderating the policy of the Government, or in inducing the Assembly to permit him to sit therein. He especially instanced the occasion upon which a great crowd of the York electors had accompanied him to the House of Assembly, and had filled the galleries and lobbies while Parliament was sitting.[284] All this, he pointed out, had been labour in vain, and if such a scene were to be re-enacted it must, in order to produce any satisfactory effect, be on a very large scale indeed. His argument was unanswerable. It was clear that any appeal to the Government's sense of right would be made in vain, and that they could only be influenced through their fears. If anything was to be effected by means of a demonstration, the number of persons taking part in it must be sufficiently numerous to overawe, and if necessary to coerce, the Government.

Some weeks appear to have elapsed before any scheme was definitely fixed upon and approved by all the nine or ten persons concerned, who thus took upon themselves the responsibility of directing the future course of our colonial polity. The understanding arrived at was that the time of holding the proposed convention in Toronto would also be the appropriate time for making the proposed demonstration. The convention would afford a reasonable pretext for the assembling of great numbers of Reformers at the capital. It will be remembered that no definite time had been fixed upon for the holding of the convention. It was now settled that it should be held early in the spring of the year 1838. When the gathering should be complete, it was proposed to wait upon the Government, as the barons waited on King John at Runnymede, and wring from them their assent to a constitution founded upon the propositions embodied in the Declaration. It was agreed that if this assent should be obtained, Sir Francis Head was, at any rate temporarily, to be left undisturbed in his position of Lieutenant-Governor, but that the Executive Council should be altogether remodelled, and that Rolph, Bidwell and Mackenzie should have seats therein. The Government was to be carried on upon the principle of Executive responsibility to the Assembly. This re-adjustment was to be followed by a general election, after which the future of the colony would be in the hands of the Assembly.

But how if the Government would not be coerced? What was to be done if they refused to be dictated to? In that case there was only one course open. The Lieutenant-Governor and his Council were to be seized with as little violence as possible. A Provisional Government was to be formed with Dr. Rolph at its head, provided that that gentleman could be induced to accept the position. It was not believed that the carrying out of this project would necessarily involve any sacrifice of life, for the force at the disposal of the Provisional Government would be such as to render any opposition futile. Moreover, the bulk of the population of the capital were known to be favourable to Reform principles, and it was believed that they would readily take part in the movement if they saw an assured prospect of success.

The conspirators were sanguine as to obtaining Rolph's coöperation, for, unlike Bidwell, he had not repudiated the position of a member of the convention, which had been thrust upon him by the meeting at Doel's brewery in July. Bidwell, immediately upon becoming acquainted with what had been done, had notified the secretary that he had withdrawn from political life, and that he could have nothing to do with the proposed convention. Rolph also had at first felt disposed to decline the appointment, but he had taken time to consider, and had talked the matter over with Dr. Baldwin, who had strongly counselled him to accept. I can find no documentary evidence of either acceptance or rejection on his part, but he seems to have been favourable to the holding of the convention, which he doubtless regarded as a possible means of consolidating the Reform party, and of rendering its opposition to the Government more effective. It was agreed that for the present nothing should be said to him about the contemplated subversion of the Government by force. The boldest features of the scheme were intended to be kept secret from nearly everyone until the time for action should be near at hand, but no oath of secrecy was imposed, and, in spite of all resolutions, more or less accurate hints of what was in contemplation were conveyed to hundreds of Radicals throughout the Home District and elsewhere.