Henry More Smith: The Mysterious Stranger

by Walter Bates

Of the particular manner of his escape, and his adventures on his way through to Canada we can state nothing with certainty; but like all his previous movements, we may hazard the conjecture that they were such as would do the usual honor to his wretched profession. Yet, with all his tact, he could not always escape the hands of justice; and hence his course is not unfrequently interrupted, and his progress impeded by the misfortunes of the prison. It is owing to this circumstance that we are enabled to keep pace with him in Upper Canada, where we find him confined in the gaol of Toronto under the charge of burglary.

For this information the writer is indebted to his brother, Mr. Augustus Bates, residing in Upper Canada. From his letter, dated 4th August, 1835, we make the following extract, which will point out the circumstances which have guided us in endeavoring to follow up the history of the Mysterious Stranger to the present time:

Dear Brother—I now sit down to acknowledge the receipt of a number of your letters, especially your last by Mr. Samuel Nichols, in which you mentioned that you were writing a new edition of ‘More Smith.’ I have to request that you will suspend the publication until you hear from me again. There is a man now confined in Toronto gaol who bears the description of More Smith, and is supposed to be the same. Many things are told of him which no other person could perform. I will not attempt to repeat them, as I cannot vouch for their truth. From current reports I was induced to write to the sheriff, who had him in charge, requesting him to give me a correct account of him. I have not heard from the sheriff since I wrote; perhaps he is waiting to see in what manner he is to be disposed of. Report says the man is condemned to be executed for shop-breaking—he wishes the sheriff to do his duty; that he had much rather be hanged than sent to the penitentiary. Many are the curious stories told of him, which, as I said before, I will not vouch for. Should the sheriff write to me, his information may be relied on.

Several communications from Upper Canada have reached us between the date of the letter from which the above extract is made and the present time, but none of them contained the desired information as to the particular fate of the prisoner, and the manner in which he was disposed of, until the 8th of September last, 1836.

By a letter from Mr. Augustus Bates, bearing this date, it would appear that the prisoner had not been executed, but had been sentenced to one year’s confinement in the penitentiary. We make the following extract:

“I give you all the information I can obtain respecting the prisoner enquired after. The gaoler, who is also the deputy sheriff, that had him in charge, says he could learn nothing from him; said he called his name Smith, that he was fifty-five years old, but denies that he was ever in Kingston, New Brunswick. The jailer had one of your books and showed it to him, but he denied any knowledge of it, and would not give any satisfaction to the enquiries he made of him. The sheriff says he believes the person to be the same mysterious stranger; that he was condemned and sentenced to the penitentiary for one year. His crime was burglary.”

It would have afforded the writer of these Memoirs great satisfaction, and, no doubt, an equal satisfaction to the reader, had it been in his power to have paid a visit to Upper Canada that he might be able to state from his own certain and personal knowledge of the prisoner at Toronto, that he was indeed the self-same noted individual that was in his custody twenty-two years ago, and whom he had the gratification of seeing and recognizing subsequently at the Simsbury Mines, where he played off his affected fits with such art and consequent advantage.

But although it is not in the writer’s power to close up his Memoir with so important and valuable a discovery—yet, keeping in view the characteristic features of the man—his professed ignorance of Kingston in New Brunswick—his denial of ever having seen the first edition of the Memoirs, and the care which he took to keep himself enveloped in mystery, by utterly declining to give any satisfactory information concerning himself; all these circumstances united, form a combination of features so marked as to carry conviction to the mind of the reader who has traced him through this narrative, that he is no other than the same mysterious Henry More Smith.

There is another feature in the prisoner at Toronto that seems strangely corroborative of what we are desirous properly to establish, that is his age. He acknowledges to be fifty-five years of age, and although this would make him somewhat older than his real age, yet it fixes this point—that the prisoner at Toronto is well advanced in years, and so must the subject of our Memoirs be also.

From information which we have obtained it seems that he has undergone his trial, and was committed to the penitentiary for a year’s confinement. Whether he found any means of effecting an exemption from labor in the penitentiary and then reconciling himself to his confinement, or whether he accomplished one of his ingenious departures, we are unable to determine. One thing however, is highly probable—that he is again going up and down in the earth in the practice of his hoary-headed villainy, except Power from on High has directed the arrow of conviction to heart; for no inferior impulse would be capable of giving a new direction to the life and actions of a man whose habits of iniquity have been ripened into maturity and obtained an immovable ascendancy by the practice of so many successive years.