"A course of careful observations during the last eleven years has fully satisfied me that, had the violent movements in which I and many others were engaged on both sides of the Niagara proved successful, that success would have deeply injured the people of Canada, whom I then believed I was serving at great risks; that it would have deprived millions, perhaps, of our own countrymen in Europe of a home upon this continent, except upon conditions which, though many hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been constrained to accept them, are of an exceedingly onerous and degrading character. . . . There is not a living man on this continent who more sincerely desires that British Government in Canada may long continue, and give a home and a welcome to the old countryman, than myself."
Of Mackenzie's imprisonment and career in the United States, nothing need be said here. I saw him once more in the Canadian Parliament after his return from exile, in the year 1858. He was then remarkable for his good humour, and for his personal independence of party. His chosen associates were, as it seemed to me, chiefly on the Opposition or Conservative side of the House.
Before closing this chapter, I cannot help referring to the unfortunate men who suffered in various ways. They were farmers of the best class, and of the most simple habits. The poor fellows who lay wounded by the road side on Yonge Street, were not persons astute enough to discuss political theories, but feeble creatures who could only shed bitter tears over their bodily sufferings, and look helplessly for assistance from their conquerors. There were among them boys of twelve or fifteen years old, one of whom had been commissioned by his ignorant old mother at St. Catharines, to be sure and bring her home a check-apron full of tea from one of the Toronto groceries.
I thought at the time, and I think still, that the Government ought to have interfered before matters came to a head, and so saved all these hapless people from the cruel consequences of their leaders' folly. On the other hand, it is asserted that neither Sir Francis nor his Council could be brought to credit the probability of an armed rising. A friend has told me that his father, who was then a member of the Executive Council, attended a meeting as late as nine o'clock on the 4th December, 1837. That he returned home and retired to rest at eleven. In half an hour a messenger from Government House came knocking violently at the door, with the news of the rising; when he jumped out of bed exclaiming, "I hope Robinson will believe me next time." The Chief Justice had received with entire incredulity the information laid before the Council, of the threatened movement that week.
CHAPTER XXVI.
RESULTS IN THE FUTURE.
Whatever may be thought of Sir Francis B. Head's policy—whether we prefer to call it mere foolhardiness or chivalric zeal—there can be no doubt that he served as an effective instrument in the hands of Providence for the building up of a "Greater Britain" on the American continent. The success of the outbreak of 1837 could only have ended in Canada's absorption by the United States, which must surely have proved a lamentable finale to the grand heroic act of the loyalists of the old colonies, who came here to preserve what they held to be their duty alike to their God and their earthly sovereign. It is certain, I think, that religious principle is the true basis, and the one only safeguard of Canadian existence. It was the influence of the Anglican, and especially of the Methodist pastors, of 1770, that led their flocks into the wilderness to find here a congenial home. In Lower Canada, in 1837, it was in like manner the influence of the clergy, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, that defeated Papineau and his Republican followers. And it is the religious and moral sentiment of Canada, in all her seven Provinces, that now constitutes the true bond of union between us and the parent Empire. Only a few years since, the statesmen of the old country felt no shame in preferring United States amity to Colonial connection. To-day a British premier openly and even ostentatiously repudiates any such policy as suicidal.
That Canada possesses, in every sense of the word, a healthier atmosphere than its Southern neighbour, and that it owes its continued moral salubrity to the defeat of Mackenzie's allies in 1837-8, I for one confidently hold—with Mackenzie himself. That this superiority is due to the greater and more habitual respect paid to all authority—Divine and secular—I devoutly believe. That our present and future welfare hangs, as by a thread, upon that one inherent, all-important characteristic, that we are a religious community, seems to me plain to all who care to read correctly the signs of the times.
The historian of the future will find in these considerations his best clue to our existing status in relation to our cousins to the south of us. He will discover on the one side of the line, peaceful industry, home affections, unaffected charity, harmless recreations, a general desire for education, and a sincere reverence for law and authority. On the other, he may observe a heterogeneous commixture of many races, and notably of their worst elements; he will see the marriage-tie degraded into a mockery, the Sabbath-day a scoffing, the house of God a rostrum or a concert-hall, the law a screen for crime, the judicial bench a purchasable commodity, the patrimony of the State an asylum for Mormonism.
I am fully sensible that the United States possesses estimable citizens in great numbers, who feel, and lament more than anybody else, the flagrant abuses of her free institutions. But do they exercise any controlling voice in elections? Do they even hope to influence the popular vote? They tell us themselves that they are powerless. And so—we have only to wish them a fairer prospect; and to pray that Canada may escape the inevitable Nemesis that attends upon great national faults such as theirs.