Part 36

This course of procedure could have but one result. It influenced the poor against their landlords, who looked upon Gourlay as a visionary and mischievous demagogue. The Duke of Somerset's ardour for improving the condition of his tenants suddenly cooled, and he began to regret that he had imported this pestilent Scotchman, whom he stigmatized as a "republican firebrand," into the hitherto quiet vales of Wiltshire. The pestilent Scotchman, however, had an agreement for a lease of his farm for twenty-one years, drawn up by the Duke's own solicitor, and had expended several thousands of pounds in improvements and farm-stock. He had faithfully performed all the conditions on his part, and his farm was a model throughout the county. He gained premiums from various agricultural societies for the best ploughing and the best crops. No matter; it was necessary that he should be got rid of, at any cost. A cunning solicitor found a pretext for filing a bill in Chancery against him, and he was thus involved in a protracted and ruinous litigation, whereby it was sought to avoid the agreement on certain technical grounds into which it is unnecessary to enter. After much delay a decree was pronounced in his favour; whereupon he filed a bill against the Duke for specific performance of the agreement. This occasioned further delay and expense, for the Duke's solicitors fought every inch of ground, and resorted to every conceivable means to embarrass the plaintiff. When the suit was finally decided in the latter's favour, he was a ruined man. His farming operations had never been profitable, for his object had been to carry on a model farm rather than to make money. The lawsuits had been attended with great expense, his mode of living had been suited to his condition and expectations, and his charities to the poor had been abundant. Worse, however, remained behind. His father had become bankrupt, and his own expectations of succeeding to an ample fortune were at an end.

The bankruptcy of the elder Gourlay was due to various causes. The close of the war between Great Britain and France had produced a great fall in the price of real estate throughout the United Kingdom. Mr. Gourlay's property consisted chiefly of land, and he was thus shorn of much of his wealth. This might have been borne up against, but he had unfortunately engaged in some injudicious speculations which collapsed at this time, and rendered it necessary that he should pay a large sum of money. His only means of obtaining the requisite amount was by sale of his real estate, and the small prices realized for the latter were absolutely ruinous to the seller. So far as can be judged, he seems to have been an honourable, high-minded man, but--at any rate in his declining years--with little capacity for business. There is no doubt that his affairs were wofully mismanaged, and that a man of more tact and experience might have steered clear of insolvency. The crash came, however, and he was reduced to ruin. This was in 1815. He survived his reverse of fortune about four years, and died towards the close of the year 1819.

Meantime five children--a son and four daughters--had been born to Robert Gourlay, and his wife was in delicate health. After casting about in his mind what to do, he resolved to visit Canada, where he owned some land in right of his wife, and also a block in the township of Dereham, in the county of Oxford, which he had purchased on his own account in 1810. He looked across the Atlantic with wistful eyes, and thought it possible that he might to some extent retrieve his broken fortunes there. Leaving his family on the farm in Wiltshire, where he had then resided for more than seven years, he sailed from Liverpool in the month of April, 1817. The expedition was intended to be merely experimental. In the event of his prospects in Canada turning out equal to his anticipations he purposed to remove his family thither. In any case he did not intend to fight the Duke of Somerset any longer, and before his departure he offered to surrender his tenancy of Deptford Farm, upon terms to be settled by mutual arbitrators. The offer was declined, the Duke foreseeing that he would be able to get rid of his refractory tenant upon his, the Duke's, own terms. Such was the state of affairs at the time of Mr. Gourlay's departure from England.

He arrived in Upper Canada early in June. He was delighted with the appearance of the country, and pronounced it "the most desirable place of refuge for the redundant population of Britain." A man with an eye for abuses, however, could not be long in Upper Canada in those days without being greatly dissatisfied with the management of public affairs. He formed the acquaintance of Mr. Barnabas Bidwell, the father of Marshall Spring Bidwell, and received from that gentleman a great deal of valuable information respecting Canadian history and statistics. He also derived from him a tolerably accurate notion of the evils arising from an irresponsible Executive and the domination of the Family Compact. He found the management of the Crown Lands and the Clergy Reserves in the hands of a selfish and grasping oligarchy, who cared very little for the advancement of the country, and whose attention was chiefly directed to enriching themselves at the public expense. There was corruption everywhere, and some of the officials did not even deem it necessary to veil their unscrupulousness. With such grievances as points of attack, Robert Gourlay was in his element, and he soon began to make his presence felt. He determined to engage in business as a land-agent, and to set on foot a gigantic scheme of emigration from Great Britain to Canada. As we have seen, he had obtained much statistical information from Mr. Bidwell. With a view to supplementing this knowledge, and making the condition of the Upper Province known to the world, he addressed a series of thirty-one questions to the principal inhabitants of each township. Looking over these questions at this distance of time, the reader, unless he be minutely acquainted with the state of affairs in Upper Canada in 1817, will be amazed to think that the seeking for such information should have been regarded by any one as criminal or objectionable. Not one of the questions is unimportant, and the answers, taken collectively, form a photographic representation of the condition of the country which could not readily have been obtained by any other means. They relate to the date of settlement of the various townships; the number of people and inhabited houses; the number of churches, meeting houses, schools, stores, and mills; the general character of the soil and surface; the various kinds and quantities of timber and minerals; the rate of wages; the cost of clearing the land; the ordinary time of ploughing and reaping; quality of pasture; average crops; state of public highways; quantity and condition of wild lands; etc., etc., etc. It will be observed that information relating to such matters was of the utmost importance to the public, and more especially to persons in Great Britain who were desirous of emigrating to Canada. It is also apparent that the particular questions propounded by Mr. Gourlay had no direct bearing upon politics. The stinger, however, was the thirty-first question, which was in the following words: "What, in your opinion, retards the improvement of your township in particular, or the Province in general, and what would most contribute to the same?" In the phraseology of this momentous question, it is not difficult, we think, to detect the cunning hand of Barnabas Bidwell.

Readers of "Little Dorrit" cannot have forgotten the dread and horror of the brilliant young gentleman of the Circumlocution Office, when Mr. Arthur Clennam "wanted to know, you know." He regarded the querist as a dangerous, revolutionary fellow. The horror of Barnacle Junior, however, was not one whit more pronounced than was that of the ruling faction in Upper Canada when this other dangerous, revolutionary customer put forth his famous thirty-one queries. "Upon my soul, you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know, you know. You have no right to come this sort of move." Such was the language of the heir of Mr. Tite Barnacle, and it faithfully mirrors the sentiments of the Canadian oligarchy and their hangers-on towards Mr. Gourlay in the year of grace 1817. Most of them had a pecuniary interest in preserving the existing state of things undisturbed. No taxes were imposed on unsettled lands, and a goodly portion of the Upper Canadian domain was in the hands of members of the Compact and their favourites. Being exempt from taxation, these lands were no expense to the proprietors, and could be held year after year, until the inevitable progress of the country and the labours of surrounding settlers converted the pathless wilds into a valuable estate. If this man Gourlay were allowed to go on unchecked, they would be compelled either to pay taxes or to throw their lands into the market. It was imperative for their selfish interests that he should be silenced. Strenuous exertions were made to prevent the persons applied to from furnishing any answers to the thirty-one queries. In many cases the exertions were successful, for the faction had various means of bringing influence to bear, and were not backward in employing them. The Home District, including the counties of York and Simcoe, contained numerous large tracts of land forming what is now the most valuable part of the Province, but which were then lying waste for want of settlement. The owners were in nearly every instance subject to Compact influence. They would not sell at any price, and the country was kept back. Owing chiefly to the efforts of Dr.--afterwards Bishop--Strachan, not a single reply was received by Mr. Gourlay from this District. Many replies came in from other parts of the Province, but in a few instances the stinging thirty-first question was ignored or left unanswered. In cases where it was replied to, the almost invariable tenor of the reply attributed the slow development of the townships to the Crown and Clergy Reserves, and to the immense tracts of land held by non-residents. A reply received from Kingston may be taken as a sample of the prevalent sentiment in the frontier townships wherein public opinion was unshackled. It says: "The same cause which has surrounded Little York with a desert creates gloom and desolation about Kingston, otherwise most beautifully situated; I mean the seizure and monopoly of the land by people in office and favour. On the east side, particularly, you may travel miles together without passing a human dwelling. The roads are accordingly most abominable to the very gates of this, the largest town in the Province; and its market is supplied with vegetables from the United States, where property is less hampered, and the exertions of cultivators more free."

But at this juncture, Mr. Gourlay's unfortunate faculty for putting himself in the wrong asserted itself, and seriously retarded his efforts for the public good. His pugnacity, querulousness and egotism displayed themselves in various ways, and rendered him offensive even to many persons who would willingly have been his friends. He wrote violent letters to the newspapers, wherein Dr. Strachan and everybody else connected with the Executive were stigmatized in terms of which no sober-minded citizen could approve. The Reverend Doctor was referred to as "a lying little fool of a renegade Presbyterian." Other prominent personages came in for scurrility equally coarse. This sort of writing, however, was not without its effect upon a certain class of minds, more especially as the grievances complained of were patent to all the world. A feeling of hostility against those in authority began to make itself apparent throughout the Province, and at the next meeting of the Legislature the Assembly passed a vote in favour of a commission of inquiry into the state of public affairs. The Family Compact were alarmed, and before any steps could be taken towards entering upon the proposed inquiry they prevailed upon the Governor, Francis Gore, to prorogue the House. For this prorogation there was not the slightest legitimate ground, as a great deal of the public business was necessarily left unfinished. The alleged pretext for the step--a dispute with the Legislative Council--was not looked upon with more favour than the act itself, for the dispute was believed to have been artificially fermented with a view to lending some sort of colour to the prorogation. The popular discontent was very great, and made itself heard in unexpected quarters. Mr. Gourlay eagerly availed himself of this discontent, and suggested through the public press that a convention should be held at York, for the purpose of drafting a petition to the Imperial authorities. He himself drafted a petition to the Prince Regent as a basis, to be approved of by the proposed convention. The manuscript was submitted to a meeting of sixteen respectable persons, among whom were six magistrates. These gentlemen approved of the contents, and had the entire petition printed in pamphlet form. Several thousand copies of it were gratuitously circulated throughout the Province, and it was also placed on sale in book-stores in the various towns and villages. Its contents produced considerable effect on the public mind, which had become thoroughly aroused. The people caught at the suggestion of a convention, which was in due course held; but in the meantime the Executive had also become thoroughly alarmed, and they now determined that this interloping Mr. Gourlay should be silenced or got rid of. They bestirred themselves to such good purpose that the action of the convention came to nothing, it being arranged that the subject-matter of the petition should be inquired into by the Lieutenant-Governor and the House of Assembly. The Executive next instituted proceedings against Mr. Gourlay. In the draft petition published by him, there was a passage which reflected very strongly upon the way in which the Crown Lands were administered. As there is no more faithful picture of the state of the Province to be found, and as the work containing it has long been practically unprocurable for general readers, we reproduce the passage entire: "The lands of the Crown in Upper Canada are of immense extent, not only stretching far and wide into the wilderness, but scattered over the Province, and intermixed with private property, already cultivated. The disposal of this land is left to Ministers at home, who are palpably ignorant of existing circumstances; and to a Council of men resident in the Province, who, it is believed, have long converted the trust reposed in them to purposes of selfishness. The scandalous abuses in this department came some years ago to such a pitch of monstrous magnitude that the Home Ministers wisely imposed restrictions on the Land Council of Upper Canada. These, however, have by no means removed the evil; and a system of patronage and favouritism, in the disposal of the Crown lands, still exists, altogether destructive of moral rectitude, and virtuous feeling, in the management of public affairs. Corruption, indeed, has reached such a height in this Province, that it is thought no other part of the British Empire witnesses the like; and it is vain to look for improvement till a radical change is effected. It matters not what characters fill situations of public trust at present--all sink beneath the dignity of men--become vitiated and weak, as soon as they are placed within the vortex of destruction. Confusion on confusion has grown out of this unhappy system; and the very lands of the Crown, the giving away of which has created such mischief and iniquity, have ultimately come to little value from abuse. The poor subjects of His Majesty, driven from home by distress, to whom portions of land are granted, can now find in the grant no benefit; and Loyalists of the United Empire--the descendants of those who sacrificed their all in America in behalf of British rule--men whose names were ordered on record for their virtuous adherence to your Royal Father--the descendants of these men find now no favour in their destined rewards; nay, these rewards, when granted, have, in many cases, been rendered worse than nothing; for the legal rights in the enjoyment of them have been held at nought; their land has been rendered unsaleable, and, in some cases, only a source of distraction and care. Under this system of internal management, and weakened from other evil influences, Upper Canada now pines in comparative decay; discontent and poverty are experienced in a land supremely blessed with the gifts of nature; dread of arbitrary power wars, here, against the free exercise of reason and manly sentiment; laws have been set aside; legislators have come into derision; and contempt from the mother country seems fast gathering strength to disunite the people of Canada from their friends at home."

This passage was fastened upon as libellous, and a criminal prosecution was set on foot against the author. He was arrested, and on the 14th of August, 1818, thrown into jail at Kingston, where he remained until the day of his trial, which was the 20th. He conducted his own defence, and, although the Attorney-General, John Beverley Robinson, pressed hard for a conviction, he was triumphantly acquitted. A few days afterwards he was again arrested and placed on trial at Brockville for another alleged libel contained in the petition. He was once more successful in securing his acquittal. These triumphs roused his egotism to a high pitch. He became for a time a sort of popular idol, who had suffered grievously for endeavouring to obtain justice for the people. Public meetings and banquets were held in his honour, and he was in his element. His complacency, however, was doomed to receive a severe check. The Compact, with Dr. Strachan at their head, finding it impossible to convict him of libel, resolved that he should literally be driven out of the country. He was represented to the public as a man of desperate fortunes and vicious character. Rumours were set afloat that he entertained projects of rebellion, and that he had attended a treasonable meeting in England prior to his arrival in Canada. As matter of fact, Mr. Gourlay, both then and throughout the whole course of his life, was a loyal man, but his effervescing radicalism seemed to lend some sort of colour to the accusation. The word "convention," too, under which name the meeting at York had been summoned, and which word was often in Mr. Gourlay's mouth, had a republican sound about it which was not grateful to the ears of the loyal Upper Canadians. The Assembly also modified its hitherto kindly feelings towards him, and regarded the holding of "conventions" as an unconstitutional infringement of its own prerogatives. In the meantime Sir Peregrine Maitland had succeeded to the Lieutenant-Governorship. It was a matter of course that he should have no sympathy with a man of Mr. Gourlay's views, and the latter had prejudiced the new Lieutenant-Governor against him by a foolish letter, in which he had offered to wait upon the representative of royalty and give him the benefit of his knowledge and experience of Canadian affairs. When Parliament met on the 12th of October, the Lieutenant-Governor's speech contained a sentence that was well understood to be levelled directly at Gourlay. "In the course of your investigations,"--so ran the sentence--"you will, I doubt not, feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to excite discontent, and to organize sedition. Should it appear to you that a convention of delegates cannot exist without danger to the Constitution, in framing a law of prevention your dispassionate wisdom will be careful that it shall not unwarily trespass on the sacred right of the subject to seek a redress of his grievances by petition." This cunningly-constructed sentence, in which the hand of Dr. Strachan is sufficiently apparent, was well calculated, not only by its characterization of Mr. Gourlay's projects, but by its covert flattery of the Assembly, to increase the hostility of the latter against the former. And thus the injudicious champion of popular rights found himself in conflict with the entire Legislature. The Assembly--the special guardian of popular rights--in its reply to the speech of the Lieutenant-Governor, even went so far as to use these words: "We lament that the designs of one factious individual should have succeeded in drawing into the support of his vile machinations so many honest men and loyal subjects of His Majesty." Two or three weeks later, a Bill was introduced and passed to prevent the holding of conventions. It was introduced by Mr. Jonas Jones, the member for Leeds, a man whose public career and conduct, as Mr. Lindsey truly remarks, present as few points on which admiration can find a resting-place as any Canadian politician of his time.[14] It was significant of the state of public opinion that only one vote was recorded against this measure. It was equally significant of the fluctuating nature of public opinion that when the Act was repealed, two years later, there was only one vote recorded against the repeal. In the latter instance the dissenting vote was given by the Attorney-General, Mr. John Beverley (afterwards Chief Justice) Robinson.