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•!/ St. J'lhn, Vixcimnt lioUnghrokc. " William Lyon Mackenzie was the leader of the real strujfgle for Responsible Govern- ment in Canada. He conducted the political sieg-e, and headed the storming party that effected the breach. Mackenzie personified the vim and virtues, personal and political that fought the fight and v.'on it."— AViw York Tribune. ' " That Jlr. Dent is bent on exalting Dr. Rolph at the expense of other characters, and notably at the expense of Lyon Mackenzie, . . . nobody can fail to remark. He has a right to the indulgence of his fancy : these are the days of hero worship, reliabilitations rnd hi-itorical paradox ; but he cannot expect us all at oiu'e to bow down to the iniag'e which he has set up, and to tramjile on the image which he has cast down." — The Week. " Truly, no man is ever so effectually written down as when he himself holds the pen." —J. C. Dent. TORONTO: James Murray & Co., Printers, 26 and 28 Front .Street West. 188G. INTRODUCTORY. Few words .,f introduction are needed for this brochure, and none to justify Its appearance at the present time. The prospectus of tJie btory of tlie Upper Canadian Rehellion " promised tlie public tliat it would be written "from a Liberal but non-partisan point of view " Had this pronnse been kept, these pages would never have seen the light. But the faith ijlighted in the word has been broken in the deed. It has been broken repeatedly-may we not say deliberately ^- throughout the volume. Mr. Dent's Story is not Liberal in any proper sense of the term A Liberal in political or historical authorship is not only a friend to liberty but to liberty's friends, whether living or dead. To all alike he is or at least ought to be, fair and considerate, just and generous. To those who have battled and suffered for popular rights in freedom's cause, he should never be anything else. X,,r is the Story non-partisan. It is a fierce, and in many respects, vindictive arraignment of the Oligarchy of ante-Rebellion times Not a few may say that this is right. Others-and we think many of the most intelligent adherents of the Liberal party in Canada-while aclmittmg considerable justification, will not go the lengths that Mr Dent has gone, and will have little sympathy with his injudicious and intemperate methods. Only the strongest provocation can justify venomous detraction of bhe dead. The writer of the narrative has received none such in the case of Chief Justice Robinson, Bishop Strachan, William Lyon Mackenzie, and others whom he has relent- lessly pursued beycnid the grave. Authorship of that stamp is not Liberal ; it is no honour to the name ; it is the narrowest kind of in- tolerance and bigotry. In regard to William Lyon Mackenzie and John Rolph, the partisan- ship of the Story is beyond all question. A single paragraph in the chapter on the "Fathers of Reform" proves this conclusively, wliile the whole volume is a standing witness against its pretended imparti- ality. In so far as both rtiese historical personages are concerned, this bulky book 18 partisan from the circumference to the core 4 The iii)i)uiimnce of so extnionliimry ii Story at once clmlleiiL^od criti- cisMi from the press. In tliis tlie leadiny orgiuis of the rival i)artieH took op{)osite sides. IJut considering the manifest, disfavonr witli which lifodong and jminounced Reformers received this new conception of Rebellion history, the Mail'n editorial review was mildness itself. ( )ther Conservative newspapers have been more distinctly hostile. The irlohf conunitted itself strongly at the outset to the general scope of the narrative, especially those portions of it denu.iiatory of Family Com- pact rule. It praised the l»ook, and defended it against the M((iJ\ review. But, if there be any truth in a startling rumor afloat as to the paternity of its own reviews, their laudatory tone can occasion no surprise. With respect to the Mackenzie-Rolph analyses, criticisms and contrasts, it was for a long time silent. But when the storm of controversy fairly broke, it had honestly to admit that such a con- troversy was "inevitable." Mr. Dent's indiscretions had too plainly precipitated the issue to make any other statement jxissible. The outside organs of Reformers have concurred with their leading journal on this jjoiut, but not in its estimate of the book Jis a whole. As to this there have been differences of opinion, with, in a nund)er of Cfices, strong disap])roval of Mr. Dent's historic.d treatment of his two most prominent " persimaiities." Up to the present time not a single newspaper, expressing the views ni('iit «»t' the central idea of the book — that Dr. Holjth WHS a hero whom the world has hithtM-to uii^i'at(^fully iief,de(;ted is set about without cireundoeution, and in a way whieli shows that the authoi' intends to (h) his best in the per- t'ornwinee of his task. Unth'i' Mr. Dent's ina,nipulatif)n Di*. Ilolph, who read his lii'dithumiU' and t ipounded his j)ills like any ordinai-y physician, becomes " un(|uestionably one of tlie most e.xtraordinary per.son.s who ev(M' ti;j;ured in the annals of Upper Canada." To this extent critical readers, with a living knowle(l;j;e of the facts, would probably be willing,' to <.,'(). 15ut the dii-ections in which an individual nuiy differ from the ordinary run of mortals are various, not lUHies.sarily admi?'al)Ie. " Like l?ac()n," Ml-. Dent says of his hero, " lu^ set'ms to have tak who outwei;>,d.s any other man with who.n he may be favourably contrasted. A somewhat minute examination of the manner in whieh Mr. Dent does his work may n..t, p(>,'haps, be amiss. Let us " taste" the book at the lirst chapter. The theme is the " Manished Bri- ton," and it profe.sses to be an account of the j.ersecutio), which Robert Gourlay suffered at th.. hands of the Family (Jompact. Let us premise, that, for the treatment of M.-. Gourlay, we have not one word to offer by way of j.alliation. He was arbitrarily ordennl to leave the province, under cover of the Ali(.n Act, the charge biMng that he had endeavoured to alienate tlie minds of the Kiiig's subjects from th.'ir attachment to his pe.-son and (Gov- ernment, and to raise a rebellion. On one point the evidence against liiin, if technically true, was substantially false. No one, who had been in the province more than six months, could be legally tried under the Alien Act. One of the witnes.ses swore that Gourlay had not been in the province long enough to exemi)t hnn from trial under this Act. One of the magistrates before whonj Gourlay was tried, Dickson, Mr. Dent says, " had been in constant and familiar intercourse with him for sixteen months '" The inference intended to be d.-awn is that (Jourlay, at the time of the trial, December 21, iSlS, had been continuously in the country for a period of sixteen months. It is certain that, on the 17th September, 1818, three months and four days before the trial, Gourlay was in New York, where he ha.l arrived on the 1.3th. But the fact, if it enabled the witness to quiet his con- science, would not affect the question of domicile in ordinary cases. Still, it is at least possible that, in this state of the facts Isaac Swayze did not feel the guilt of perjury on his soul ; a man under the influence of party passion may well have believed that the prisoner, who had been in New York three months before, had not, within the meaning of the statute, been a resident of the 10 I province for the last six inontlis preceding the date of tlie infoi- mation. Of the Alien Act Mr. Dent says, "This statute, be it observed, was not passed at Westminster during the supremacy of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, but at York, Upper Canada, dui-ing the 44th year of Geo. 1[I." Was this stittute, as Mr. Dent would liave us believe, so anti-British in spirit as to have been unlieard of even in the times of the Plantagenets and the Tudors ? We need not go back to these remote times for examples. So late as 1816, the Solicitor-Oeneral of England stated in the House of Commons, that the Crown possessed the power of sending aliens out of the country by an act of prerogative, witliout tlie sanction of the statute law. And the Alien Act, passed during the admin- iutratiou of Pitt, threw the burdeu of proof on the accused — a departure from a general rule of law which, as one of Mr. Gour- lay's counsel, Mr. McAdam, told him afterwards, had become not uncommon. At the time of Gourlay's trial it was a standing order of the House of Lords that no naturalization bill should be read a second time, unless a certificate of the person to be naturalized was signed by the Secretary of State. The Alien Acts of Uppei- and Lower Canada, concerning as they did matters of Imperial interest and Imperial policy, were no doubt passed in pursuance of orders sent out from Downing-.street. Both were directed against oft'ending British subjects as well as aliens. All Bi-itish subjects who had resided in Fi-ance for the space of six months subsetpient to the 10th June, 1789, were brought under purview of tlu! Lower Canada Act. The Alien Act of the United States confet'red on tlie President authority to depoi't by his mere tiat, and without any form of trial, aliens suspected of designs against the Republic ; and, at one time, there were no less than seventy thousand persons who were liable to be sent out of the country in this arbitrary way. Compared with the powers vested in the Pi-esident of the United States, the Alien Act of Uppei- Canada under which (lourlay was tried, was, in the procedure wldch it sanctioned, mild aiK^ juerciful. But it suits the purpose of Mr. Dent to describe the Alien Act of Upper Canada as a measure of 11 unknown seventy, as one wliich would not have been passed at Westminster during tlie supremacy of the Phmtagenets or the Tudors. Nor is Mr. Dent's account of the causes and consequences of (rourlays trial a whit n(>arer the mark. He says ; " To what, then, was his long and bittej- persecution to be attributed ? Why had he been deprived of his liberty ; thi'ust into a dai'k and unwhol- some dungeon ; refused the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act [he was in fact brought up under a writ of Ihtbeas Corpus^ ; denied his enlargement uj)()n bail oi' main})rize ; branded as a malefactoi' of the most dangerous kind ; badgered and tortured to the ruin of his health and his reason? Merely this: he had imbibed, in ad- vance, the spirit of Mr. Artliur Clenman, and had ' wanted to know.' He had disj)layed a persistent determination to let in the light of day upon the inicpiities and I'ascalities of })ublic officials. He had denounced the system of pati'onage and favoritism in the disposal of the Crown lands. He had inveighed against some of the human bloodsuckers of that day, in language wiiich certaiidy was not gracious or pai-liamentaiy, but which as certainly was most forcible and true. He had ventuj-ed to sjieak in contumelious terms of the reverend rector of York himself, whom he had stig- matized as 'a lying little fool of a renegade Presbyterian.' Nay, he had advised the sending of commissioners to England to entreat Impei'ial attention to colonial grievances. He had been the one man in Upper Canada possessed of sufficient courage to do and to dare ; to lift the thin and Himsy veil wliich only half concealed the corruption whei-eby a score of greedy vampires were rapidly en- riching themselves at the public co.st. He had dared to hold up to genei'al inspection the baneful ett'ects of an irresponsible Executive, and of a dominating clique whose one hope lay in preserving the existing order of things undisturbed. It was for this tlint the incjuisition had wreaked its vengeance U])on him ; for this that the vials OI Executive wrath had been poured upon his head ; for this that his body had been subjugated and his nerves lacerated by more than seven months' close imprisonment ; for this that he had been " ruined in fortune and overwhelmed in mind.' " Mr. Dent had the means of knowing, and we fear it must be said ii 12 that he could not help knowing, the untruthfulness of the state- ment which he endorses, that Gourlay, through his imprison- ment, " had been ruined in fortune and overwhelmed in mind." (rourlay was bankrupt when he left England. No less than !ir20,- 000 would have been necessary to put his affairs on a secure foun- dation. He tried to bori'ow in various dii'ections without success, and came to Canada mainly with that ol))('ct. If his atfairs were wound up, he admitted, befoi-e he reached Canada at all, that none of his creditors would get much (lettei- to Mrs. (Jourlay, Api-il 17, 1817). The charge that he was overwhelmed in his mind by poli- tical persecution will not stand the test of investigation. The nervous weakness which ovei-came him on his trial before Judge Powell in August, 1819, which took place in consequence of his not having obeyed the order of the magistrates to leave the coun- try, did not then show itself for the tirst time. In a letter to the Hon. Thomas Clark, dated Niagara Falls, September 1, 1817, lie says : — " A nervous weakness, which got hold of me at Liverpool [in the previous April], but which ray voyage and travels so far dissipated, has inci'eased with my confinement till I find myself totally unable to speak with you on the state of iny affairs —the prime object of my crossing the Atlantic." The " confinement " here mentioned probably had I'efei-euce to a change in his mode of life which depiived him of his accustomed exercise. Seven months' imprisonment, which he afterwards underwent, would not be likely to make a mental wreck of a person who was previously in a sound mental condition. About half that time Gourlay was kept in close confinement. " AVhile yet I had free range of the prison," he says (Sfafisfiral Arrounf, vol. II., page 401), " it was my custom to sit from seven till ten at night in the doorway, noting the course of nature and inhaling the very air of heaven, balmy and sweet, and invigorating." In January, 1819, he reported himself as being "in comfortable winter quarters," and on the 27th April he wrote : — " My confinement is not .severe upon me, now that I have the whole range of a large house." But still, even then, a giddiness in the head marked the continuance of the nervous symptoms which first showed themselves at Liverpool, and which were his early companions in Canada. On the 26th July he complains of close confinement and unreasonable surveillance. 13 Mr. Gourlay " wanted to know, you know," and, wj.mi he found out, he intended to let the public know by publishing " a statistical account of Upper Canada." And he, at one tin.e, cherished the fond hope that the ''lying little fool of a renegade Presbyterian," as he politely styled Dr. Strachan, and the hated Family Compact would liand over a heap of shekels to aid him in the ;nterprise: But Governor Gore s Administration turned a deaf ear to his lovin^ appeals. Notliing daunted by the rebuff; Gourlay made up his nnnd to return to the charge when a new governor had come to I pper Canada. AVriting to Mrs. Gourlay from New York Sep teniber 1 7tl, 1818, he said, " My plan is to return to Canadl and solicit Ins (Sir Perigrine Maitland's) patronage to my statistical enquiries which the old (Gore's) administration would not counten- ance. To Mr. John Rankin this statement was repeated in an- other letter of the same date. A writer who asks a grant of public money, to enable him to publish a statistical work, n.ust l,e pre- sumed to imply that, in such work, he will at least abstain from g^ross abuse of liis patrons. But Maitland's Administration T)roved as obdurate as that of Gore had been ; and when Mr. (Jourlay tailed to get the grant for which he had twice sent up a beseeching cry to the Council Chamber, he must have felt the refusal as con- ferring on him a grateful license of freedom, not quite e,,ual per- haps to tlie hard cash, but still a species of con.pensation which It not complete, might be enjoyed to the full. The result was that statistics occupied but a small part of the three volumes, and abuse ot the iaimly Compact a very large part. From this pure source Mr. Dent has drawn great store of seraphic inspiration Another conspicuous merit of Mr. Gourlay was that - he had denounced the system of patronage and favouritism in the disposal of Crown lands." This he did with great good will ; but he did something more. After he was utterly ruined and was in desper- ate circumstances, he magnanimously offered to begin to take over to hxrnself Crown lands by the round million of acres at a time Of course, his object must have been io save the lands from the clutches of " the bloodsuckers of the day." He wished to follow the example of Col. Talbot, to whom an immense grant of lands had 14 be(!n niado. He was willing to be anothor Penn, to trade in philan- thropy and work his worthy way to wealth. The naivete of his letters to Lord Bathurst is quite refreshinj^. " I could afford to pay the Government,'' lie blandly suf^gested, " one dollar per acre, say foi' one million acres to begin with, by three instalments, at the end of five, six, and seven years, and so on for an indefinite term, receiving more and more land f "om the Crovernment, to settle as the process went on and payments were made good." He wrote to Lady Torrance, trying to get fier aid in forwarding his scheme. In these letters he represented that the public lands, managed aftei' his fashion, would yield enough to support two regiments ; though, several years aftei-, over half a million of acres, brought to sale for ta.ves, fetched oidy thirteen cents an acre. If (TOU>'lay had got his way he would have reformed the land-granting system with a vengeance. He inveighed against the " bloodsuckers," but he showed that he had the capacity to suck more blood than all the Family Compact taken together, if he had got tlie opportunity. Mr. Dent has failed to point out to public reprobation the " score of greedy vampires who enriched themselves at the public cost, ' and, if called upon to make good the sweeping charge, he would be obliged to confess a failure. It is not necessary to stop to apportion the degree of merit due to a critic who covered himself with glory by stigmatizing the Rector of York as " a lying little fool of a renegade Presbyterian." "It was for this," Mr. Dent tells us in his summing up, " that the inquisition had wreaked its vengeance upon him," with much more ornate denunciation to the same effect. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that Gourlay gives a totally different reason for his prosecution. "What do you think," he said, writing to Mrs. (lourlay after his conviction before the magistrates, " pushed Dickson and these people on to such lengths, but a paragrajjli in the London Courier, stating that I was concerned with Hunt at Spa Fields." And in another place ((jsneral Introduction, cc, xvi.) he says : — " It was, no douVjt, the Courier's false report which worked up the frenzy of the poor madman at York ; and such was the silliness of many othei' people they also gave credit to it. To outstare the audacious falsehood, I published in the Nia'jara Spectator the fact that I had 15 been at Spa Field meetiufjf." On the previous page (ifturlay reports the following colloi])ji. 1 Jie latter is agani, SiR,--I write you as one of the " Mackenzie K-idi<..,l. " . Ht by the autho^^ of this "8tory " manv of wl ' ""'^ tl.e day .hen all the great reW^^, ^Z m: ^f '? ''' -unnphed, to protest against the manner 'Z ^^Tl!:^^: ■■- f . ■■ 20 of Iloforin " is troiitnd by a writiM- who protends to bo u L;l)oi'iil. The Glohe, oyerlookinjj tho j^ross injusti(.n then' saw one of their own trusted leaders in the .service of the Governnumt against which they were arrayed. The evidence taken before the Commission on Treason in Dec- ember, 18.'57, supplies overwhelming proof of Ilolph's treacheiy to his friends, and his betrayal both of them and of Baldwin Poor Samuel Lount, who was with Mackenzie on Yonge Street at the time, and who was shortly aft(M'wards executed, made a sworn statement before the comini.ssioner. Lount said : — "When the flag of truce came up Dr. Rolpli addressed himself to me ; there f] } 22 were two other persons with it Ix'sides Vr, Kolph and Mr. naUlwiii. |)r. Ilolph said he hrctiij^ht ii iiicssa^^o from his Kxcclh'iicy thf Li»nit(!iiunt-(}(>v('riior to prcxent the cfl'usioii «»l' hlood, or to that otfect. At the suiiic time h»> ^ave uie a wini< to walk on one side, when he rcMpiested me not to heed the inessa;;e, hut to ;jfo (»n with our proeeedinjifs. What he meant was not to attend to tiie mes- sa^^e. Mackenzie^ observed to me that it was a verbal messaj^e, and tliat it had better be submitted in writiuj^. T took the reply t(» tin* Lieuteiuint-(rovern*^r's messa<;e to Ix' merely a })ut-ofr. I heard all that was said by l)r. Rolph to Mr. Macken/ie, whieh is above relatf^l." (lAHMICHAKLS SPOKV. When the bearers of the Ma;; of ti-uee appeared the Hrst time — because, as will be seen, they came a second time they asked the insurgents what they wanted. Helieving this message to be a stratagout an hour's time they came back again to the rebel camp with the (rovernoi-'s rej)ly, which was un- favorable. llol])h was with them on both occasions. A man named Hugh Carmichael carried the flag of truce, and, in IH/i'i, Rolph got Carmichael to make this .statement: "During the going out and staying on the gi-ound, and returning to th(> city, as above statt^l (all of which was [)romptly done), Dr. Rolph, Mr. Baldwin and my.self, l)eing all on horseback, kept in close plialanx, not a yard apart. Neither of the persons mentioned could have got off his hor.se, noi- could he have winked to Mi'. Lount and walked aside and eomniunicated with him, nor have said anything irrele- vant to the flag of truce, or against its good faith, as is untruly alleged, without my knowledge." This statement was prepared in Quebec, dated there and sent to Toronto for signature. It was generally believed to liave been Rolpli's production, and no doul)' it was. Frequenters of the old Parliament House may remember Carmichael, who was appointed a messenger, doorkeeper, or some- thing of that sort, wlien Rolph was afterwards a member of the MM 2:j Caiuulian (JoverniiuMit. (^innicluu'rs .statcincnt Just <|U()t<'(l it HCJMiis Ik' iinidc . several ditrcfciit statciiiciits of the atliiir — is defee- tive ill oiK^ vei'v important point ; it does not ;;o the h'n<(th of say. in^ that, after th(^ lla;^ of truee was at an end by the deli\ cry of the (tovernor's rei)ly, Kolph did not do and say what Lount says he did, vi/., tell Ijount to march iiis men into the city. It matters little when llolph said this. The (|uestion is. Did he say it at all ? Mr. Baldwin's evidence shows clearly that Holph had ain])le ojjpor- tunities to act as he did, and is (l(>eid|^lly contradict oiy of (^'ar- michaels .statement that while " returning' to the city ' tliey all thret^ kept together. BALDWINS KVIDKNCK. Mr. lialdwin swore before tlie Commission that, "On the return (tf the doctor and myself, the second time, with the Lieutenant- (iovernor's reply that he would not <^ive anything; in writinj^, we found the insurgents at the tirst toU-^'ate, and tui-ned aside to the west of Yonjj;e street, wimre we delivered this unswer ; after which Dr. llolph requested me to wait for him. I did wait some time, (lurimi ir/iic/i /if vuin out of my xiylit and Iifdrint/. 1 was then directed to lide westerly. This occupied tlu' time while I was riding at a common walk fi'om Youge street to the College avenue, probably three-eighths of a mile. The direction to lide westerly, as I then supposed, was for the pui-pose of the tlag being carried to the city by way of the College avenue. Shortly after reaching the avenue, however, I was joined by Dr. Rolph, and we i-eturned together by way of Yonge street. I have no reason to know what communication took place between Dr. Uolj)h and the in- surgents wlien he was out of my sight and hearing." This evidence appeirs at page 406 of the Legislati\e Assembly Journals for 1H37-8. A man named William Alves, who was with Mackenzie and Lount at the time, stated that when the bearers of the Hag of truce returned with the message, Rolj)h advised the insurgents to go into the city. Another insurgent, P. C. H. Brotherton, swore to the .same thing on the 12th Decem- ber, 1837, before Vice-Chancellor Jameson, saying that Rolph had told him on the Sth that " Mackenzie had acted unaccount- ably in not coming into the town, and that he ex})ected him in 24 half an liour aftor he returned with tlie Hag." Mackenzie and Louut say Rolph's o"der was given on the first occasion ; tlieir two friends, Alves and Brotlierton, tliat it was on the seconent exalts as a hero, and glorifies in his book at the expense of William Lyon Mackenzie, whom liis hero basely sold ! If . !l HOMMI S rilAHArTKU AND IHSPOSITIOX. Mr. Dent's description of Rolph is a grandilocjuent nnd ridi- culous panegyric. "John Rolph,"' he says, " was un(piestionably one of tlie most extraordinary personalities who Jiave ever' figured in the annals of Upper Canada.'' That is (piite true. A man wltn, at a vital moment, was a traitor to both his political and personal friends was "unquestionably an extraordinary" sort of man. But besides this he had "a comprehensive, subtle intel- lect.'" " Like Bacon ho seems to have taken all knowledge to be his province." There is a good deal more of the .same fulsome flattery. Then he had also "a noble and handsome countenance." "a voice of silvery sweetness," "a flignity and even majesty in his presence that gave the world assurance of a sti'ong man," "a well rounded chin, a firmly set nose, and a somewhat large and flexible mouth, capable of imparting to the countenance great variety of expression," while " his smile had a winsome sweetness about it."' Mr. Dent certainly makes the most of John Rolph's heroic fea- tures. But then, we are told, "there Avas un(|uestionably a jy'r cnntniy " There was probably no human being who ever pos- sessed John Rolph's entire confidence"; "the quality of caution seems to have been preter-natu rally developed within his \irea.st" ; 25 he was not "open to the imputation of wealing his heart upon his sleeve"; " never abandoned himself to frolicsomeness or fun"; his indulyeuce in "hearty laughter" was " a very rare occurrence"; "he could successfully simulate the most contradictory feelings and emotions." So, I may add, could Catiline, wlio was described as a simulator and a dissimulator. This last characteristic of Mr. Dent's hero was, it seems, shown "in his addresses to juries and public audiences." His panegyrist adds, "one who judged him simply from such exhibitions as these nr'ght well have set him down for an emotional and impetuous man, apt to be led away by the fleeting passions and weaknesses of the moment." This is a surprising admission on Mr. Dent's part, because it is what, the author says, Mackenzie was during his whole life. We are next told that tliis " exti'aordinary ])Pi-sonality " "certainly never acted without a motive."' For so exti-aordinary a personality this was certainly very strange. It seems, however, that " his motives were sometimes dark and unfathomable to everyone but himself," and that "there were depths in his nature which were never fathomed by those nearest and dearest to liim — possibly not even himself." This was also extraordinary, and, most people will say, somewhat contradictory. But the riddle is solved when we are told that even Mackenzie regarded the hero "as a Sphinx, close, oraculai', inscrutable." Mr. Dent, however, rather puts his foot in it when he says that " not one among his contemporaries Avas able to take his moral and intellectual measure with anything approa-ching to completeness ; and througliout the entire length and breadth of Canadian biography there is no man of equal eminence respecting whose real individuality so little is known." A PEX PICTURK. This is not true. The Globe was one of Rolph's " contempor- aries." It was, as it is still, the leading contemporary organ of the Reform party, and there were able, shrewd men on the staff of that paper who knew a good deal more about Rolph than Mr. Dent knows, or at least more than he chooses to tell us. Taken in connection with some of Mr. Dent's expressions quoted above, the following " moral and intellectual measure " of the great i 5 ft 1^ i 26 mail is exceedingly suggestive. It appeared in the Globe of July, 1854:- I " He is a sleek-visaged man, of low stature, with cold grey eyes and treacherous mouth, lips fashioned to deceive, and whose mildest lines are such as Nature cuts solely for the passage of insincerities. His countenance seems so complacent — wears an expression so bland and guileless that no person would dare venture to suspect him of any- thing — even of being an honest man. To the superficial observer, his contour jjresents a riddle in physiognomy ; but the connoisseur reads studiously — and with feelings of connuiseration for the depravity of human nature, he mentally ejaculates, ' C), what a goodly outside falsehood hath.' "Deep, dark, designing, cruel, malignant, traitorous, are the deeps revealed to a student. His manners are civil and insinuating ; his con- versation soft, sparkling and instructive ; a cold, distrustful sneer and grin ('tis not a smile) plays habitually about his oily lips, while at times there glances forth expressions indicative of jjolished ferocity of soul, revealing hard and stony dejjths beneath, that make honest be- holders shudder to think that s(mie unfortunate believer in his fair seeming may be doomed to sound and fathom. In short, he is a kind of highly jiolished human tiger I Cat-like in his demeanour — tiger- like in the hateful ferocious despotism of his unfeeling soul. One who, as a judge, would pass sentence of death in the polite eloquence of a Frenchman, and with the civil cruelty of a demon. It is thought he is an agile man. He certainly is a slippery (me. " I commend the above porti'ait to Mr. Dent as a suitable addi- tion to the second volume of his " Story,'' and, foi- the time being, dismiss his hero ofi' the scene. A historian's qualifications. As a wliole tliis work will be acceptable only in so far as it is reliable. leaving heard that its author had once been a writer for the (ihtbt', that he was a Liberal in politics, and that the sub- ject would be handled acceptably and satisfactorily to Reformers, I subscribed for the book. Hundreds of others proljably did so for tlie same reasons. It is impossible to say that faith has been kept with us. On all sides I have heard exprirauts." Atone time "the farmers Jiud mechanics" were his "satellites," at another "the rural and uneducated por- tion of the community." And then we are told of his "origin,'' " social grade," etc., and the Canadian Macaulay's picture of "the noisy little firebrand" and his "unlettered" followers is complete. All this is really very dreadful ; to the higlily refined intellect and high born soul of this cultui-ed man of letters, it is unspeakably shocking. Mr. Dent is constantly parading Mackenzie's want of tact, discretion and judgment, yet one would have supposed that in thus winning his way and extending his influence among the masses of the Canadian people, he was not altogether devoid of worldly wisdom. If Mr. Dent had i-ead history to any purpose — if he had studied it as well as he has studied human nature ill, he would have discovered that amongst politicians and public men there is a good deal of consorting with the "unlettered" farmer and mechanic. It may seem very strange to Mr. Dent, but it is nevertheless a fact that tliey are a power in the country. Leaders of men, who respect public opinion, consult and consider them, and horrifying as it may be to Mr. Dent, they will continue doing so to the end of time. No man in his day did it more successfully than Mackenzie, because he was in thorough sympathy with the people. He had faith in them and they in him, because they knew how unselfish and patriotic his motives were. He believed in trusting them, and gloried in being the champion of their rights, and in making their cause his own. These supercilious sneers by Mr. Dent at the " social grade " of an old Liberal leader and those who were proud to follow him — their intelligence, their worthy employments, and their honest toil, recjuire no answer. They are simply pitiable, and coming from a professed Liberal, show how utterly unfitted he is to wiite the history of a popular struggle. Weak-minded persons, who fancy they have a pedigree, sometimes exhibit their weakness in this way ; but it is more often exhibited by unmitigated snobs, or persons who have no pedigree at all. Fi'om what I have heard of Mr. Dent's antecedents he can hardly afford to sneer at the "social grade" of any person. Mackenzie, it is well known, never ri y; ■ f .-\ M 82 Bet much stoi-e on birtli or lineage, and he liad no reason to feel ashamed of his own. His fatlier was a poor man like the fathers of hundreds of men in tliis country who have risen to tlie liighest piositions. His mother was related to some of tlie first families in the Highlands of Scotland, but of this he never made a boast. Unlike Mr. Dent, he loved and honoured men for their stei-lincr manhood, no matter how high or humble their origin niiglit Jiave been. Any person aspiring to be a public teacher and instructor, who writes in such a strain, will speedily ii:id his level, and I am much mistaken if Mr. Dent has not greatly lowered himself in public estimation — assuming that he has any " social " status from which to fall — by this gratuitous display of snobbishness. Yours, etc., Ottawa, December 24th. A Refohmeh. MACKENZIE AND ROLPII. Tlie pen and ink sketch from the Gloht of July, 1854, quoted in the above communication, seems to have revived old memories of t!ie men of '37, and the estimation in wliicli they were held by the Reform press of succeeding years. It called forth the following interesting letter from "Another Reformer," who quotes again from the Ulithe in a letter to that journal from its chief n^presentative in the Press Gallery of the old House of Assembly at Quebec. It seems the correspondent of the leading Liberal newsi)a2>er knew Rolph well. The latter is liere descried fleeing from tlie countrj', and from those whom lie had shame- lessly betrayed, and eftecting his release from arrest in a thoroughly charauteristic fashion . — To the Editor of The Mail. Sir, — To what was said on this subject by " Reformer," whose letter you published on Saturday, perhaps you would be good enough to add what the Glohe^s parliamentary correspondent said when the subject of the flag of truce was brought up in Parlia- ment at Quebec. The letter, dated " Quebec, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1852," is accredited "^ From Our Own Correspondent" : — ii 38 " Previous to the retjular businoss of the House commencing yesterday, Mr. Mackenzie informed the Speaker, in his ])lace, that he had a personal matter to bring up. Tlie gallery, as I informed you yesterday, was cleared ; and lie then went on to aay, that Dr Uolph had procured a certificate of one Hugh Carmichael, and published it in the Quebec (tazeife, to the effect that he (Dr. Rol[)h) had not acted in the manner, on the occasion of the well- known flag of truce in IH.'JT, which he had been accused of -his former principal accuser being Mr. Lount, "who was executed, and his latter Mr. Mackenzie himself. Mr. Mackenzie then stated, in substance, that all that Mr. Lount had stated, and more, was strictly true ; that Dr. Rolph was the Executiiie of the insurrec- tionists in 18;57, of whom Mr. Mackenzie was one of the leaders, at (rallows Hill; that all he had directed to be done was done; he being obeyed in all things as the Executive, and looked up to as director ; that on the occasion of the Hag of truce, he did tell — after the more formal message was delivered in presence of Mr. Baldwin Mr. Lount to come into Toronto at once, for the people were frightened, and the place could be taken. Whatever name such an act might be called by, or however Dr. Rolpli might seek to .shield himself, by false statements, from the responsibility of it, these, he alleged, were the facts ; and no certificate, subterfuge, or falsehood, could make them otherwise. " Dr. Rolph denied the whol,en,U..) ThU appeared n. the Maa of January 4th, 1880. It corroborates Mr Li„d- Bcy 8 denial, f.dly exonerates him from any responsibility f,.r the writer's Tlirslttr :- "' '"'' "'' '" "" ^"'"'^ "^"^'' ""*^^"'^' '" Mr. To the. Editor of The Mail Sir,— The Ghhe of Thursday last contains a letter from Mr T J. Rolph, in which the writer charges Mr. Charles Lindsay the author of "The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie," wih being "the responsible author" of my communication pubhshed m Thk Mail of the 26th ult. The letter is not very original either in matter or sty e. But as its inditor has shown no discretion in assailing an innocent person, his mode of doin so IS of little moment. He repeatedly borrows and adopts as his own expressions used by me in my communication, and is other- ill *■ N 36 i :■ wis*' a iiw'iv Hiifjry eelio of Mr. Dent in his "Story of the K«'l)(^llion." It is plain that, in more ways tlian one, " the voice is Jacob's voice, hut the hand is the hand of Esau." Mr. T. J. Rolph, it seems, Is a .son of Dr. Jolin l^ilj)li the " e.xtiviordinary personality" and " stron;^ man"" of the story and I am told he is a lawyt^r by profession. It is (juite natural that he should seek to defend his father, and had lie done ho in a proper .spirit I should not have replied to his letter. Hut he has robbed him.self, and the subject of his defence, of all .sympathy, by his wanton reckle.ssness of a.ssertion and utter (lisrejj;ard of tin? trutli. It is no ])art of my present busine.ss to defend Mr. Lindsay, who,s(! tah^nts and abilities as a literary man are widely known and ueknowledfj;ed. That gentleman is (juite able to defend him.self, and to make his assailant regret rushing headlong into a controversy for which Mr. Dent is solely to blame. In justice to Mr. Lindsay, however, I desire at once to say tluit this reckless young lawyer's badly drawn indictment against him is utterly false and unfounded. Mr. Lindsay had as much to do with my communication as Mr. Uoijih himself. He did not write it or cause it to be written, nor did he inspire, prompt or instigate it, either directly or indirectly. If Mr. Ilolph is a gentleman he will at once reti'act his dishonest charge, and pro{)erly apologize to the gentleman whom he has foully maligned. I have also a few words, on my own account, to address to this double-voiced and indiscreet young man. He speaks of my letter as ** one of the most disgracc^ful and unwarranted attacks on the memory of the dead that lias characterized journalism in this country for the last half century." These be brave words, and if Mr. Dent's detraction of "the memory of the dead" Mackenzie had been included in his anathemas, there would have been some truth in them. Mr. Rolph's knowledge of Canadian journalism is evidently not very extended. He can carry it about with him without much trouble, and, for the future, I M'ould advise him to be a little more guarded in writing about matters which he does not understand. With his prompter and inspirer, Mr. Dent, at his back, tlie least said by either of them about disgi:aceful journalism the better. The dastardly attacks on public and 87 private cliaraoter which appo/irod in th«' Toronto Xpifs, in the first days of its existence, iirr n(»t yet forgotten, f am told that sonio of thj'se w(!rc tlici product of Mr. Dent's jhmi. I nitist also rnrnind Mr. Rolpli4.hat all that has been said, or that may hcrc/iftcr ho .said, in the public press in rej^jard to his fiithci-, has been provoked by Mr. I)cnt. The Story-teller has forced the issue l)y his inch'fen- sible slan(h'rs and lainpooneries of Mac^kjMi/ie, jiiid his ^ushin^ and ridiculous MattcM-y of Dr. Kolph. The very edition of tht, (ilohc which published the younj,' man's foolish lett«M* candidly admits this. liefcrrinj; to the letter the editor .says ; " fn another column will be foinid a lettei- re|)lyin^ to letters which have appeared in another journal concerning the connection of Dr. Rolph with the rebellion of IM.'IT. That such a controversy should have arisen was inevitable, h«)wever much it may be regretted." In fa(!t the (ilohr itself is one of the most formidable antagoni.sts thnt the great I^)lphite apostle and his y<»ung discij)Ie liave to encounter. The .severest pai't of niy last o ■I'-nuiication was taken from one of the numbers of that journal t luly, 1854. The extract was quoted in reply to Mr. Dent's statenn ,, ;is to none of Dr. llolph's contemporaries being able to take his " moral and intellectual measure." As I knew tlie (ilohc had measured him pretty accurately, I thought I would turn uj) the record. And there it is in black and white. The sauK! e.Ktract appeared in tlie Citizen newspaper of this city on the 14th November last, and excited some comment at the time. It revived in my mind the generally accepted estimate, by the great body of llefoi-mers in Canada, of John Rolph's political crookedness and base treachery. That estimate will be hard to disturb, and Mr. Dent is not the man to do it. The Globe\'i pen and ink portrait was not compli- mentary, but it was life-like, and it had tlie .solid substratum of trutli to rest upon, wliich is more than can be said of a large part of the Story-book. Why this piteous whine in i)rint by the Story- teller and his mouthpiece, the } oung lawyer ? Mr. Dent has been dragging the sea of political literature with his net for anything and everything to make Mackenzie odious in the eyes of the world. He has made the most of his catch, sucli as it is. He has undoubtedly found niuch intinitely more damaging to Dr. Rolph, » i I I ami ■ I « 1 38 fl I but he has not h.'ul the niajiliuess or honesty to say a word about it. Yet Mackenzie s friends must grin and bear all this with ecjuaniniity ! They must rake nothing from the ashes of the past, and must be dumb as an oyster ! Or, if they resent it^ as it well deserves, a long whining complaint must be poured into the public ear about "justice" and "fair play!" Has this exceedingly innocent young man never heard of jug-handled justice ? Mr. Lindsay's biography of Mackenzie is also assailed in the same reckless style by the (jlohc's sapient young ci'itic. I am not concerned about defending it, except in so far as it bears on my last communication and supports my statements. As a historical and literary work it must, like Mr. Dent's, stand or fall on its merits. If time be any test of its value, it has stood the test well. Altliough published in 1860, in Dr. Rolph's lifetime, its accuracy, truthfulness, and honesty have never before been impeached. It has maintained a place in Canadian history for over twenty-live years. Any person who has read the two works (Lindsay's and Dent's) with any care must have been struck with the bold freedom with which Mr. Dent borrows from this biography. In fact he often uses the very same expressions in describing the same incidents. It is plain to any discerning reader that he is greatly indebted to Mr. Lindsay's book (in fact he often (juotes it approvingly in his Story) for information disclosed in his own, that he has founded his work very largely upon this biogi'aphy, and that weie it not for the industry and research shown in its pages the gaudy, padded out superstructure reared by himself would have been a much more ricketty concern than it is. Sir Francis Hincks, in the " Reminiscences of his Public Life," speaks of the biography of Mackenzu as trustworthy. He had every means of satisfying himself on this point, and no one can doubt that he was perf(;ctly honest in his statements about it. Yet we tind young Mr. Rolph in his letter referring to the biography as " replete with errors of fact and detail," as " fictitious," and as " bolstering up Mackenzie's reputation " with forgeries ! To say nothing of his audacity, this is exceedingly rich. But is the person who addresses the public in this reckless fashion not aware that he is playing with edge tools ? 1 39 So far as the flag of truce episode is concerned, it is very evident that the whole truth as against Rolph has not yet been told. This appears from the letter of your Newmarket correspondent. Rolph is therein descried as a fugitive fleeing for his life, begging for release from arrest on the plea that he was a loyal man — one of the bearers of the Government flag of truce — and excusing his hasty flig' ' to a political friend on the score of the illness of a relative ! The extract froni the (ilohe's parliamentary corres- pondent, ill November, 1H52, published in that letter, also shows what the leading organ of the Reform party then thought of Rolph. It was far from flattering. The extract in my former communication, from the (jlobe of July, 1854, jiroves that in the interval he had sunk still lower in the estimation of the Reform party, and that he was at about as low an ebb in theii- res- pect and contidence as it was possible for any public man to be. These extracts from the leading Liberal newspaper of Canada are intinitely more cutting and severe than anything I have said about Dr. Rolph ; they corroborate and conflrm all that 1 said, all that Baldwin and the others, mentioned in my letter, said about him, and show that my letter, instead of being "a disgrace- ful and unwarranted attack " on Dr. Rolph, was not only perfectly justifiable, Ijut far milder and more lenient than it might have been. Mr. Lindsay, in his biography of Mackenzie, has been even more generous to the father of his recent assailant ; in fact when his book appeared it was a matter of surprise to Reformers, and a subject of animadversion by many, that Rolph had been let down so easily. The little that is said by Mr. Lindsay is said tem- perately, but it contains the elements of a direct charge of treachery on the part of Rolph to Mackenzie and his friends ; it produces evidence in support of the charge ; "the testimony of witnesses," that young Mr. Rolph in his letter says " will com- pletely refute and overthrow " the charge, could then have been easily got ; Dr. Rolph himself was then living and lived for years afterwards ; and yet from that day to thistliat charge one of the blackest and most dishonouring that could be made against any man — has never been answered, much less refuted. And I make bold to say that it never will be. '4 I I -1 i li 40 The statement by Mr. Rolph that many of the i)atriots of '37 were " basely misrepresented and maligned by Mackenzie '' is on a par with the rest of his letter. It is too puerile and absurd to notice, and cari'ies its refutation on its face. The writer fails to give a tittle of evidence in its support, and, like the unsupported opinions of Mr. Dent, his bai-e assertion is worthless. The patriots of '37 were, and always continued to be, Mackenzie's staunchest friends. Tlie relations between him land them were always of the most friendly and affectionate nature, and to this day, tlie men of that time, who were identified with him, can scarcely mention his name without evincing an emotion which speaks volumes for the love and admiration which he inspired in tlieii- hearts. This " consistency," if we except the marvellous " consistency " of their betrayei', John Rolph, was never called in (juestion either by Mackenzie or his biographer, as is suggested in this young man's letter. The loyality between them and their old leader was mutual and lasting. It was strengthened by their common suffer- ings and sacrifices ; and so far f i-om being abated, it was only intensified as the years rolled on, and they saw that their once " lost cause " was fully vindicated by their united struggles, and that its principles were triumphant in the permanent establish- ment of responsible government. Mr. Rolph speaks of the nature of the correspondence between his father and Mr. Baldwin up to 1849, as enabling him to contra- dict my statement " that Mr. Baldwin never spoke to Dr. Rolph after the pretended violation of the Flag of Truce in 1837." I made no such statement, and, with my hotter before him, Mr. Rolph knew I did not. I said there was no " friendly communication' between them, and I say so still. When this much vaunted " cor- respondence" is forthcoming, the public can judge from the nature of it as to who is in the right. I say here confidently, in advance of its production, that what I have already said on tliat point will be literally verified. Rolph very probably tried, in his wily fashion, to explain away his traitorism to the friends who had once trusted him, and whom he heartlessly deceived. He did so to others, and to the Assembly at Quebec in 1852, when the (juestion was discussed with closed doors, and when Mackenzie nailed th>^ 41 accusation against liim on the floor of the House. " Correspond- ence" of tliat kind with Baldwin can scarcely be called "friendly communications." Neither can formal or business letters between two men whom an act of treachery-never forgiven on Baldwin's part-had alienated. No, Robert Baldwin, like all the Reformers of his day, had too strong and conclusive proofs o." Rolph's dishonour ever to treat him as a friend again, and he certainly never was so treated. As to the further assertion, in this letter, that Mackenzie, in 1852, publicly declared that he had taken no part, "civil or military," in the insurrection, and had " merely acted as an individual friendly to a change in the Canadas"-we shall see when the whole case is presented, what this pretended inconsist- ency on Mackenzie's part amounts to. Garbled quotations of Mackenzie's public declarations are not evidence. There has been so much garbling already in Mr. Dent's description of his public conduct and career, that I may be forgiven for believing that the same sort of shamelessness will be continued to the end of this precious historical romance. Mackenzie, as everyone knows never denied the part which he had taken in the revolt • he manfully accepted his full share of the responsibility ; and he was made to feel it in his long years of bitter exile. And I am crreatly mistaken if the public opinion of to-day, and the public opinion of the future, do not mark in a signal manner their condemnation ot the conduct of a writer, professedly Liberal, who seeks to heap obloquy on the dead patriot's grave. I have now done with this youthful indiscretion of revising the Canaaian "journalism" and political history of the past. I have given the letter a somewhat lengthy consideration for obvious reasons. " The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hand is the hand of Esau." Yours, etc., „ 'A Refohmer. Ottawa, Jan. 1. i 42 ROLPII AND MACKENZIE. At this point the diacuaaion takes a new and rather unexpected turn for the Rolphites. Mr. T. T. Rolph's letter (.sec appendix), in which Mackenzie was assailed ao maliciously, had been just four days in print. It excited, as we believe, the strongest indignation and resentment, and calledforth the following letter from Mr. John King, Barrister, Berlin, a son-in-law of Mackenzie. The war is here carried into Africa. In his perusal of the Rolph i)apers, Mr. Dent is shown to have dis- covered "the most damning proofs of Rolph's treachery," and the larger question of the honesty and good faith of the author's narrative is thus distinctly opened up. The circumstances are clearly set forth, and proof is offered, if necessary, in support of Mr. King's statement. This letter appeared in the Mail and World of January 9th, 188(5 : — To the Editor of the Mail. Sir, — I would gladly refrain from interfering in a controversy respecting Dr. Rolph's connection with the rebellion of 1837-38, but the violent letters to the G'lobe of his son (see appendix), Mr. T. T. Rolph, in which the writer denies liis father's treachery to Mackenzie, and makes a counter-charge of wholesale treachery against Mackenzie himself, compel me to give to the public information of a most material nature on the question. It seems that, with a view to his writing the " Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion," the author, Mr. Dent, had placed in his hands Dr. Rolph's private papers relating to the movement. These he perused, and I am credibly informed that, in the course of his perusal of them, he fell upon evidence which perfectly convinced him of Dr. Rolph's guilt. He, as I am advised and as I fully believe, told my informant that he had discovered in those papers the most damning proofs of Rolph's treacliery to Mackenzie. My informant is a gentleman of acknowledged abilities, well-known reputation and undoubted veracity, whose word, 1 think, even Mr. Dent will not question. He told me what I have stated under circum.stances which entr'i'ly rebut any imputation of unfriendliness to Mr. Dent, or of a breach of private confidence on his own part, and I have his authority for making the state- ment. This information has been in my possession for a long time tummmmmmBstns 43 past. I was loth to make use of it an^ainst a gentleman wliom I have known for many years, and with whom I liave always held the most friendly relations, until, as the public have seen, tolera- tion of venomous attacks on Mackenzie's name and memory Ims ceased to be a virtue on the part of any of his friends or rela- tives. Although I have made tlie disclosure under great provoca- tion, it is made solely in the interests of truth and justice In giving it publicity at this time, I feel 1 am not charg^al^le in any way with unfairness to Mr. Dent. His first volume of the "Story of the Rebellion/' shows very plainly that he has accepted a brief as a professional writer in the Rolpl, interest, with all that that means, and that lie intends to do his best to earn his retai.,er The letters which Mr. T. T. Rolph has written to the G'lohe bear the impress of being inspired by him, and clearly indicate that Mackenzie is to be pursued to the end of the " Story " with even greater injustice and calumny than have marked the pages of the first volume. On some future occasion I shall ask the Toronto press to do me the favour of publishing a letter dealing more fully with Mr Dent's narrative. There will at all times, I have no doubt be manhood enough in Canada to vindicate William Lyon Mackenzie, if vindication be at all necessary against his defamers. Mean- while I may surely ask my brother Liberals and the Liberal press-the press of all parties-to see to it that a spirit of generous fair play and just consideration be shown to a man whose patriotic services, sufferings and sacrifices are, I believe, not yet forgotten by liis country. ■ Hi "• Yours, etc.. Berlin, January 7. John King. i. i V I I k I 44 THE MACKENZIE-ROLVll CONTROVERSY. It seems the above letter was also sent to the Glolw for imblication. It did not aj)i)ear in that journal on account of the editor's having previously shut down on the contnwersy with the second letter of Mr. T. T. Rolpli. Ml-. King's letter was, however, made the subject of a short article in the (ilohe. of the 11th January, 188(J, in which a kindly, well-meant endeavour was made to smooth over the whole matter, and pour oil on the troubled waters. In stating the (juestion at issue the writer said, "It is interesting to note that the whole con- troversy is as to who was most active and influential in opposition to the Family Compact." This remark, and the article as a whole, called forth the following second letter from Mr. Kiijg to the Daily World of Januarj' 13th, 1880 : — To the Editor of the World. Tlie Globe of to-day has an article under this heading in which it refers to a letter received from me a triplicate of that published in the Mail and World of Saturday. It says " that tlie whole controversy is as to wlio was most active and influenti.al in opposition to the Tory Family Conii)act." That, I respectfully submit, is not wliat the controversy was about. The real cpiestion is, whetlier the charge of treachery to Mac- kenzie, Baldwin and their friends, preferx'ed by a correspondent of the Mail against Dr. Rolph, is well founded. The Mail's cor- respondent produced evidence in support of his statements. Mr. T. T. liolph, evidently speaking for Mr. Dent, the author of tlie *' Story of the Rebellion," as well as for liimself, and without offering a scintilla of evidence in reply, denied the charge in toto, and brought a counter charge of universal treacliery against Mackenzie. It was this last statement particularly which called forth my letter in which I alleged, on good authority, that Mr. Dent had found in Dr. llolph's private papers " the most damning proofs of Rolph's treachery to Mackenzie." The controversy has in fact broadened out into a question of the honesty and good faith of the author and his narrative. If Mr. Dent found such proofs of Rolph's treachery, and I am satis- fied he did, no language is too strong, even at this stage of the 45 " Story," in condemnation of the author and his book. I don't think Mackenzie was faultless, but I do say that he has been most unfairly dealt with in this narrative, and I shall very soon convince the public of this, if they are not fully convinced already. 1 shall also have something to say about John Rolph, the only perfect personage in Mr. Dent's gallery of "personalities." I agree with the Globe that " difterent views may witli perfect honesty be held over the relative merits of two such men." But what should V)e said about Mr. Dent's " honesty," in view of the statements in my last letter that are as yet unanswered Berlin, January 11. Jonx King. The above letter was written, as would appear from its date, on the 11th January, 1880, the same day on which the Globes editorial appeared. The next issue of that journal contained the following paragraph amongst its editorial " Notes and Comments" : — " With respect to the article on Mackenzie and Rolph in the Globe of yesterday, Mr. Dent wi-ites us to say that he is too much occupied, with hard work upon the second volume of liis Story, ta reply to the numberless attacks upon him which have appeared in the columns of a contemporary. He, however, gives the most emphatic denial to the statements in a letter which appeared in the Mail of Saturday last, to the effect that he admitted having found among Dr. Rolph's papers conclusive evidence of the Doctor's treachery. He expresses his intention of dealing with the other charges contained in that letter before another forum." i >| ist ng THE MACKENZIE-ROLPH CONTROVERSY. of If bis- Ithe The above ])aragraph in the Globe was not allowed to pass. It was replied to by Mr. King in the following third letter published in the Mail and World of January 15th, 1880. The writer here gives his authority for his statement, previoualy made, that Mr. Dent had discovered amongst lf — *' II 4(5 the Ilolph papers "the most (lainiiing proofs of Rolph's treachery. " He also fully oxculi)ate8 his informant, Dr. Bingliani, of Waterloo, from any improper broach of private confidence with respect to Mr. Dent : — To the Editor of the Mail. Sir, — I notice tliat Mr. Dent indirectly, through to-day's (ilohe, " gives the most emphatic denial to the statements in uiy letter, which appeared in the Mail and World of Saturday last, to the efiect that he admitted having found among Dr. Rolph's papers conclusive evidence of the doctor's treachery." I have now to say that T was told the admission, as I stated it, was made to Dr. Bingham, of Waterloo, who is my informant in the matter. In justice to that gentleman, who is a very old friend of Mr. Dent's, I should explain that the information was given to me without the slightest desire or intention to injure or prejudice Mr. Dent in any way. On the contrary, it was disclosed with the view of remov- ing what the doctor thought was a misapprehension, on the part of another member of the family and myself, of the attitude likely to be assumed by Mr. Dent in his book in regard to Mackenzie and Rolph. We had at the time, for various reasons, formed the opinion that the " Story of the Rebellion " would be unfriendly to the one and exceedingly favourable to the other, and, in a conver- sation with Dr. Bingham on the subject, we expressed that opinion. He at once took the part of his friend, said he was sure from what Mr. Dent had told him about the Rolph papers that we were under a false impression in regard to Mr. Dent's intentions, and, in order to disabuse our minds of the feeling which we entertained, he made the statements referred to in my letter of Saturday last. Nothing could be more evident than that he wished to jJace Mr. Dentin a favourable light. We were, I must confess, more or less reassured by what we were told, but you may judge of our painful surprise when the book itself appeared, and was followed up by Mr. T. T. Rolph's letters to the (Hobe foreshadowing, to a certain extent, the scope of the second volume. An indictment for wholesale treachery against Mackenzie was plainly indicated in those letters, and cer- tainly that was something that could not be lightly overlooked. While I must not, from anything I have written, be understood 47 as imputing any mere mercenary motives to Mr. Pent in tlie stand which he has taken with respect to Mackenzie and Ilolph, I know I am not alone in th(^ opinion, already expressed, that he is employ- ing his pen in the Ilolph interest. He has a perfect riglit to do so, but, if he voluntarily undertakes such a task, l»e has no right to expect immunity from ho.stile criticioHi. T)r. Bingham, 1 feel assured, stands ready to make good his statement. John Kin(}. Yours, etc., Berlin, Jayiuary 12. To the above letter no reply has ever yet appeared from Mr. Dent. THE MEN OF THE REBELLION. \ The two following extracts are from the Toronto World of October 5th, 1885. After speaking of Mr. Dent's treatment of the leaders of the Family Compact, it goes on to show how grave an error the author has made in trying to detract from Mackenzie's position as the true cham- pion of the cause of the peojjle, and says : — Let us turn to the other side, the leaders of the Reform party. If Mr. Dent has ruffled the feathers of descendants of the Family Compact, he has equally upset the conceptions that men held of the prominent Reformers. What the second volume will develope we do not know ; but, in the first, there is ample evidence that, ac- cording to the author, Mr. Rolph and Robert Baldwin were, if not the leaders of the rebellion — " an ill-planned and feebly conducted movement " — they were at least the true champions of the cause of the people. Public opinion long ago made William Lyon Mac- kenzie the hero of the cause of the struggle ; we shall see what success attends the historian who proposes tf) reverse this recog- nized order. Already the champions of Mackenzie are furbishing up their armour, and, from what we know of them, they will not die without a struggle. * * * 48 Our only commentary, for tho proseui/, on Mr. Dent's portraits of tlicse n\eii is that, if Mackenzie was as he draws hini, and llolph and iJaldwin were the men he paints them, why thcui did they not so size liim and keep him in liis phice? How was it that "the little j)roletarian " got the stars ? Next day there appeared in the same paper the following spirited letter : — MACKENZIE AND ROLPII. To (Iw. Editor of the World. Of all the Reviews of Dent's Story of the Rebellion yours is the only one that dares touch the real purpose of the book ; the setting up of Rolph in the place held by Mackenzie, I am the son of an old rebel, and my training and information go to show that Mackenzie was the one man, of the Reform leaders in those trying times, who had the conrnge. to act. Mac- kenzie had faults, n)any of them, but he had the courage to do, and it is because of that that he is the hero of the people's rights. Flaws can be picked in anyone's character ; courage in supreme moments falls to few ; Mackenzie happened to be one of those few. Vaugiian Boy. A ROMAN CATHOLIC OPINION. \ From the Irish Canadian of January 1/jth^ 1886. In dealing with these [Mackenzie, Baldwin and others] our author [Mr. Dent] seems to regard Mackenzie as if with aversion. We regret this exceedingly, for we believe that the depreciation of Mackenzie's abilities is undeserved ; and that no matter what our author may say derogatory to the personal habits and charac- ter of the " 'ittle Scotchman," the latter will always be regarded as the head and front of the movement which culminated in the obtainment of the liberties now enjoyed by the people of Canada. 40 THE yi:W ''STORY OF TIIK UrrER i'ASAhlAX liEliELIJOXr A I'llOSE EPIC IIKV ELATION. our •siou. iition what larac- arded 11 the lUada. In coTiiinon witli others who siihsciihod for the work, I Imve rend witli curious iiitfi-cst INlr. John Cliarli's Dont's "Story ot" the Upper Canadian Kcbcllion." It is not tiu^ first nariativo of a historical or semi-historical chai-acter which has reviewed that period in our history. Nor will it be the last. The materials for even a prose epic on the subject-for such the author seeks to make it — are neither few noi* far between. There is abundance of sources whence an imi)artial hand may draw as it needs. De- spite this, the story is to all intents and purposes a new story. To all wiio have studied the causes and i)rogi"ess of tlie niovenient, or wlio knew the prominent per.souages who figured therein, it will be a marvellous revelation. With i-espect to these latter, Mr. Dent does not accept the popular gospel of the struggle. He ap- pears not only as a skeptic but as a denouncer of the old faith, fortified by authority, which has been handed down to tlie Liberals of to-day in regard to William Ly,on Mackenzie. He proclaims, with much unction, a new and stai'tling creed in regard to John Kolph. To accomplish this refpiired rare ingenuity, and the writer has shown that he is endowed with that gift in a remark- able degree. It is manifest in his manipulation of materials which are always within reach of a reviewer of the period in question, in his artful methods of introducing new subject matter, and the dramatic surprises of the narrative, not less than in his confident statements and suppressions of facts, liis criticisms of public and private character and reputation, his strong contrasts of some of the Reform leaders of the time, and his sensational judgments upon them. All this is done in vigorous English and attractive style. The graces of description, the beauties of prose and poetical quo- .".() tatioii, .ire saitU'ird with ii frcr liiiiid. Kvt'ii tlif Imlo of i-u- iimnce is not wantiiij^. Tin' narrative opens, as did that of the " fjast Forty Years," like a New York Lriitjev noveh'tte. Its |)aj;es sj)arkle very often with the same sort of fascinatin;^ lietiiin. However much oi- little this new Story may eateh the popular eye, its literary sa^^acity and judgnu'ut will never win the jiopular heart. Assuming the alUigations of fact *<' bo indisputable, there will be H general consensus of opinion ii ird to n nund)er of topics discussed by tiie authoi-. The treat. .ieut of Robert (rourlay was cruel iind inexcusable, even under an alien law that was not more exeeptionally scnere in Canada than it was in England, and less so than it was in the United States. Few in our day di'fond the odiousness of a system which developed the jmlitical Oligarchy of 1S;?7-3S. The evils of State-Churc^hism, in a young country for which it was utterly unsuited, are pretty generally admitt(!d. The abuses of the then land-granting system in Upper Canada, and the prostitution of the Royal j)rerogative, and the revenues of the Crown for purely pai'ty pui-poses, cannot be justified. Political tyranny is always hateful, liut, notwithstanding all this, the story-tellers impassioned and part- treatment of the wJiole subject is fairly open to criticism. The author jirobably feels strongiy, at" all events he writes fitrongly, indeed vehemently, in regard to these and many other things which he passes in review. T do not at present (jue-stion his .sincerity. He is a professional writer who lives by his pen, and lias, 1 believe, been a contributor to publications in the inter- est of all j)olitical parties. He is here professcnlly a Liberal, and in espousing that view of the principles and issues involved, Liberals will consider he has taken the right side. It is very doubtful if there will be the same unanimity of opinion in regard to his judgment and disci-etion as a writei-. The complaint has been made — and 1 have heard it made by intelligent persons holding all sorts of political views — that there is little of the philosophy of history in this nai-rative : that it lacks that judicial tone and temper that are always beKtting a historic pen ; that its authoi- appears rather as a hired advocate than an independent thinker 51 and wi'itur; and that a mncorouH, bittor and vindictive spirit not init"r»'<|mMitly niai-s its paj^cs, Sui-li a spirit ii such a theme is not inj^ratiatinir ; it does not woo (Conviction ; it is more apt to repel than to pe>'suaiudic<^ or bias, and with a Just rej^ard to tiie cir- rumstances and the polity of tlie tin»e. We expect moderation of tone, and, above all, perfect tVJi'uess and impartiality. None of these is inconsistent with vigorous diction. There is no reason why all this Story of the j)ast should not be cahniy told, ( at etiV'te political abuses nevei- yet turned a vote worth liaviii<(. rf it be ti'ue, as J understand its authoi' insists, that sucii a Story can be told only from a Reform standpoint, there is all the more reason for doin«( so with e((uanimity. Just consideration of poli- tical aiitafifonists, who have long since gone down to their grave.s, is never thrown away ; venomous personal detraction is far from seemly. THK OLKJAROIIV. Jt has been the fashion among extreme partisans to decry the dominant party of Rebellion times as irredeemably bad, and to stigmatize the faintest praise of them as rank heresy. Is not this tile creed of a bigot? It certainly proceeds from a mistaken idea of the facts, and is no proof of undying devotion to the true faith. A narrow spirit of intolerance and injustice is nf)t Liberal ; just we can at least aftbrd to be. The system of Government which then prevailed was unciuestionably bad, and practices had grown uj), under the forms of law, that were extremely vicious. It was a system, the full conception of wliich it is hard to grasp, living as we now do in the hey-day of civil and religious liberty. It was really the reign of military Governors, accustomed all their 52 lives to liarsli military discipline, with little or no experience in civil administration, and who were given the great powers and responsibilities of civic rule, arl)itrary and unrestrained, over the Canadian people. For this the Robinsons, If agermans, Strachans, Jioultons and others of that time were not resj)onsible. The i-e- sponsibility lay with the Imperial authorities ; it was part and parcel of Imperial policy. Tlit^ Toi'\ party in U])pei- Canada ac- cepted the system, a- ' administered it ajk they found it. They abused the power entrusted to them, but most men, even the best of them, will do this when they get the opportunity. They are more apt to abuse it in aflbirs of (government in which there is so much at stake, and in which the combined influences of self-interest are so often irresistible. There are some other tyran- nies (juite as hateful as that of a political Oligarchy. In the sys- tem, such as it was, the leading Tories of that day had the fullest faith ; they believed it was the best for the country ; as such it had come down to them, and they reg.arded it as a trust to be preserved and kept with all the jjower at their connnand. Mac- kenzie rather unsettled their minds on some of these points : he was one of the first to do so ; but the facts nevertheless are unde- niable. AVith all their faults the Tories of that day ai'e entitled to the credit of some good legislation, more, in fact, than is gen- erally supposed. No one but a blind, unreasoning partisan would say otherwise. There were, too, amongst them numy men of high personal character, and unsulli(!d private virtues. Mackenzie, who knew them well and had no reason to love them, has left behind him some generous testimony in their behalf, Mr. Dent' paints them always in the blackest colours, with scarce a single redeeming trait. TIIK AUTIIOH's likes AND DISLIKES. If this mueli may be said for political opponents, what should be said for political friends who, under the cover of sympathy for their principles and their cause, are pursued with the shafts of calunniy? In reading this narrative one cannot repress the feeling that the author is very intense in his likes and dislikes. This idiosyncrasy — to use no harsher term — permeates 1? 53 and colours the whole. The facts and evidence are digested, adjusted and embellished accordingly ; the balance, which should be fairly lield, is often held very unfairly ; the scale is made to kick the beam when it suits the i)ur])ose ; and there is little scruple about using false weights when those of the standard order might fail of the desired effect. Tn one chapter we find the late Chief Justice Robinson, and the late Bishop Strachan, compared to "half famished tigers of the jungle." In another Goui'lay's description of the Bishop, as " a lying little fool of a renegade Pi-esbyterian," is approvingly (juoted. Here, there and everywhere the most oH'ensive epithets are applied to William Lyon Mackenzie, while John llolph is little short of an angel of light. Hysteria is not history. THE ASSUMPTIONS OP THE ONLY TRUS: STORY-TELLEK. Of Mr. Dent's assumptions in the task he has undertaken, I wish to say a few words. Of this he cannot complain. In his prospectus of the Story, and in the Stoiy itself, he has arrogated to himself a very high place as a writer and authority on the subject. He atlirms tliat his is the only true narrative. He says further that no accurate account of the movement has ever been wi'itten, and that although Mr. Charles Lindsey's Life and Times of Mackenzie " is a work of much value," it has a " strong bias." Let iiic here say that I think the imputation of bias in Mr. Lindsey's biograpiiy is undeserved, and I am certain it will not be concurred in by intelligent persons who have read it. It is well known that the authoi' and the subject of his work differed widely in their political views, but tlieir personal and j>rivate relatitms were necessarily most intimate. The biogi-aplicr has truly said that Mackenzie " never concealed his hand" to him. Ml". Lindsey was, at the time of writing it, the editor of the leading Con.servative journal in Upper Canada, and, i)olitically at least, he had and could have no bias whatever in Mackenzie's fa\(>ui'. If anything it was a bias the other way. One of the high(\st c()mi)limeiits paid the work was that of a prominent Liberal newspaper which praised its impartiality, and said that it was impossibh; from its perusal to detect tlie politics of its author. 1 I I \ • i i ■ 54 Sir Francis Hincks, no mean authority, considers it trustworthy. In the " Reminiscences of his Public Life," lie says : " I have no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the account given in Lindsey's ' Life and Times of W. L. Mackenzie ' of the circum- stances which preceded the actual outbreak." And he straight- way proceeds to adopt these .as strictly reliaVjle. Mr. Dent might have deserved equal credit if, like his historical predecessor, he liad simi)ly stated facts and plain inferences from facts, and modestly refrained from putting forth i)age after page of mere opinions, in a large measure inisupported and unwarranted l)v th<' general data. He should be the last man in the world to impute bias of any soi't to any pi'evious narrator. His own book is surcharged with that (]uality from beginning to end. " Strong bias'' is one of its distinguishing and crowning characteristics. THK author's sour(ies of information. Mr. Dent also declares that, since the biography appeared, "much additional light has been thrown upon the subject maiter from various sources." What that light is, the reader of this volume will fail to discern. The eft'ulgeuce shed by the authors pen is not particularly bright or shining, in so far at least as new informa- tion is concerned. The real pith and marrow of the Stoiy have been long since given to the public. Without the aid which he has recei^'ed in this way, his narrative would, T fear, be a sorry production. Nor is he always as grateful as he should be in making use of the labours of others. He speaks with contem})t of Mac- kenzie's Sketches of Canado and the United States, but is not above using them as an effective help in the compilation of his own work. In resorting to old materials he has pursued two courses : he has eitlier elaborated the facts with most artistic tediousness, oi- has coloured and distoi'ted them to suit liis own purpose. This is onc^ mode of writing history, but it is not the most meritorious one. A writer in the }f. He complained, and with just cause, of the author's manipulation of these as pajpably one-sided and unfair. Mr. Dent was charged with concealing or suppress- ing important inforniiition set forth in those works, and wi<#) making quotations fi-om them for a partisan purpose. The accu- sation is, in my opinion, well founded. The writer might have gone further. He might have shewn, as I shall show later on, that the author of the Story has been guilty of what he lias unscrupulously charged Mackenzie with, viz. ; of giving "various and conflicting accounts " of the same transaction in Rebellion histoi''-, and of imposing these on the public in eacii case as tlie ti'ue version. For this sort of "additional light," I fancy the long suflei-ing public will feel anything but grateful. Mr. Dent also claims ci-edit for having accumulated a mass of written informa- tion on the subject that is " not elsewhere to be found." As yet we jiave seen very little of this, unless we except a mass of opinions by tlie author, the most of which are quite unwarranted by tlie facts. THE MACKENZIE PAPERS; Although Mr. Dent affects to attach little importance to the Mackenzie papers, their great and permanent value as a historical collection is uncpiestionable. Most competent judges have so attested. The collection would till a fair-sized room, and in Mac- kenzie's lifetime in the old Bond Street homestead, a single room of fair dimensions was allotted to them. They were added to, presei'ved and guarded by him with sacred cai-e, and their arrange- ment and tabulation are most complete. He spent an hour or two each day, even during his busiest moments, in this work, and the result shews what a systematic worker he was, and how mar- vellous was his industry. An exjimination of tliese pa{)ei's will satisfy ajiy intelligent person that there is a great deal of impor- tant information, bearing upf)n the Rebellion movement and subse- ([uent political events, which has never yet been disclosed. I have, within the past two or three months, seen documents of a most material nature relating to these which, I am sure. Mi'. Dent has never heard or even dreamt of. WJien his Story is finished, m i * ! !■ 1 ■" i • ► 66 publicity may very properly be given to these, and to much more in the same coiniection. Tliere is no person, I am as- sured, wlio more envies Mr. Lindsey the possession of those pjipers than Mr. Dent. THE ROLPII " MEMORIAL." Whatever merit may be claimed fi tlie Rolph papers, and for Rolp.h's "review of the facts and circumstances bearing upon the rising,'' Mr. Dent is of course entitled to. Rolph has a right to be heard even in his posthumous defence. How far it will redeem his reputation, which he was unable to redeem in his lifetime, remains to be seen. The " Review " will certainly lose notliing in the hands of his panegyrist. In this criti(iue I have no desire to bear with undue severity upon Rolph ; but, it must be remem- bered, Mr. Dent has made him his hero, has contrasted him with Mackenzie in the most invidious fashion, and has provoked the most unsparing criticism of Rolph's character and career as a public man. The author has in this way signally defeated one of the main purposes — if not the only main purpose — of JUS book. There Avould have been no strong desire to re- arraign t^olph, and parade the guilt of his treachery, if he and his principal associate haa been ti'eated with anything like • even-handed justice and open-handed equity. At all events, under such circumstances, thei-e is ample justification for plain speaking, and, unlike Mr. Dent, I am under no obligation to speak otlier than plainly. MR. DENTS PRETENSIONS AND QUALIFICATIONS. Mr. Dent himself does not mince matters in announcing liis call to the sacred office of a Rolphite missionary. He boldly declares that the true 8tory of the Rebellion has never l)een told, and that, through the pages of his revelation, the great truth will be proclaimed for the first and only time. We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea, * * * 57 " The time has come," he says, and " the author of tlie present work has undertaken to tell the Story." Judging by the first volume, Mr. Dent's lofty pretensions are not likely to be sustained. The reflecting reader of its 384 pages will hai-dly be prepared to admit that the " aching void " in historical literature has been filled, or that either the time has come, or the man. The author's pretensions would scai*fcely be admitted even with a better imjiriinntur than he can boast of. Be this as it may, what are his credentials as the sole and only bearer of this message of truth 1 He is still a young man, and his life and experience as a practising attorney at the quiet little village of Ayr, and afterwards at Toronto, did not, as far as I can learn, imbue him deeply with the lore of Rebellion history. Neither did his long subsequent residence in England. His knowledge of public men as such is plainly very shallow ; of intuitive knowledge he has evidently little or none. His acquaintance with politics is in no sense practical ; it is book knowledge pure and simple, and seemingly 'ill digested at that. Some of the theories of legislative and party government, which he has propounded, are of the crudest possible kind. A young men's political club would tear them into tatters in less time than it takes to formulate them. Mr. Dent is not and never has been a politician. He seems incapable of conq)rehending the true meaning of the term, or what is implied in it, in the wear and tear of rugged political life. Yet, in this Story, he assumes to be a politician prescient and far seeing to the last degree, and to pro- nounce upon the minutest phases of politics, and the judgment and sagacity of politicians, fifty years ago, with absolute infalli- bility. He throws liimself into the struggle with all the self- confidence of a veteran diplomat, and, at the same time, with all the ritn and heat of the keenest combatant in the fray. There are able living politicians in Canada, and more experieiiced political writers than he, who would hesitate to do this. Mr. Dent does not hesitate a mon>ent. The proverbial folly of rushing in where angels durst not, is no part of his creed. He rushes in headlong, and liits out right and left — often in the blindest and wildest sort of way. He prol)ably thinks this is doing the thing " witli- out fear or favour.' just as he thinks that an entirely different 58 version of some well ascertaiiu'd fact is an evidence of orii^inal- ity. This is surely a self-delusion. It leads into all sorts of historical pit-falls, and. into sf)nie of these Mr, Dent lias cei-tainly stumbled. With the public men of his Story Mr. Dent's ac(|uaint!UK(> is clearly of one kind : it is that of a book-worm. This may Vie estimable enough, but it does not entitle him to speak with th<^ unerring wisdom which he assumes. Although he is the tirst missionary of the truth, he will liardly claim to be iusjjired. He has probably, like many othei' pef)ple, read and lieard a good deal about those of whom, in these pages, he writes with sucii st^lf- contained assuiunce. T question if he ever knew or spoke t(j any one of them. He has, in short, had no means or opportunities not open to hundreds of other intelligent persons, and certainly none phenomenally fa\'oural)le, of foi-ming a judgment upon those leaders of I'ival parties long since dei^arted. Y(>t he presumes to pass the most sweeping judgments upon them -upon the minutest points in their public and private life, with all the wisdom of a Solomon. Less fallible men than Mr. Dent would have thought twice before doing this. His Irmg sojourn in England, amongst contributors to a i)i'ess that is notoriously ignoi'ant of Canadian atiairs, might have made him more chaTy of vaulting at one bound into the judgment seat of a court of tinal appeal in Canadian history. I respectfully submit that His Lordship in so doing is labourinij under a danjierous liallucination. Such a court is not yet constituted, and is not likely to be for some time. In seeking to create it in his own person, Mr. Dent is, to say the least, presumptuous. OPINIONS OK rriK BOOK. There are hundreds of persons living, whose judgments, as to the men and events of '37, are of infinitely moiv value than Mr. Dent's. During the period in «piestiou they knew the leading men on both sides personally very Avell, and, some of them, intimately ^ knew their true characters, what they really were in themselves, and not merely by reputation, knew them and their manner of living and acting under all sorts of conditions and circumstances. Many 59 of these, of course, are now old men ; liut, like all old men, their recollections of those times are far more vivid and i-eliable than of the men and things of recent years. T have seen and sj)oken with a numl)er of such persons, and have letters from some of them, since this book was published. Their estimate of Mr. Dent's work is not flattering to his judgment and discretion as a writer of the history of the period. With .some divergencies of opinion on some minor points, I have found them singularly unanimous in tliis : that the author does not appear to gra.sp the real state of society, or to discern the true force of the under currents of politics, of the time ; that, in the purely descriptive paits of his Story, there is too nuich straining after mere theatrical effect that is false and delusive; and that the analyses of the "personalities" of tlie Story are highly exaggerated, and veiy much overdone. I lind this opinion strongly prevailing, not only as to Mackenzie and Rolph, but as to some others on the .same side, and also as to the leading spii-its of the Tory party of that day. I have the best reasons for saying that Mr. Dent has l)een plainly told this, and much nioi-e in the same strain, by not a few who ai-e not unfriendly to him. Mr. Dent's capabilities as the only true story-teller are evinced in still another way. His conception and disci-imination of evi- dence, for one who has had some professional training as a lawyer, are confused in the extreme. He violates its commonest rules repeatedly. The best available evidence should alone be admis- sible, yet he admits mere gossip and hearsay, where there is no necessity for it, where better evidence is unHriencies by additions of liis own." "lie must also possess surtii;ient self coinmand to abstain from castiiiju; liis facts in the mould of his hypothesis."' These canons an; suitj;;estive in the present case. Mv. J)ent has a vivid imagination, but, in so far as Mackenzie and Rolph are concerned, he makes no attempt to control it. He draws upon it for liis facts with the greatest self-complacency. He has 2)ut before him the unenviable task of degrading Mackenzie in popular estimation, and of exalting l{(»Iph as the great hero of his epic, and the incarnation of all the refoiiu virtues of the time ; and in this he gives his imagination full play. He is not satisfied with what any honest searcher after truth can easily tind in the way of materials. When deficiencies are wanting to make the hero — and those who knew the man know how. many there are — he is ever ready with his imaginative additions, and " piles on the agony " to an excruciating extent. V The mould of his hypothesis " has been contrived with the same set purpose, and lie casts his facts in it accordingly. In a word, as I have stated once before, " Mr. Dent has accepted a brief as a professional writer in the Rolph interest, with all that that means, and he intends to do his best to earn his retainer." Of anything like mere mercenary motives, I have already acquitted him, but, of the employment of his pen on the Rolph side there is abundant proof, and will be, I ven- ture to say, stronger proof still. Mr. Dent has a perfect right to do this, only let him do it in a fair, open and manly way. This he is not doing when he is falsifying the recoi^d, and >^ithholding evidence that is notorious to. the world. He is not doing it when striving for a snap verdict by perversions of fact and misrepresentation of the truth. He may suppress or distort the testimony, but it is becoming clearer every day that he cannot pack the jury. It is not my present purpose to vindicate William Lyon Mackenzie. That, I imagine, is not retpiired as against the author of this Story. I desire rather to point out to my brother Lil)erals, and to the Liberal press, the false impression which has been created with respect to a book which, it was believed, would voice their opinions in regard to the two " Fathers of Reform " above 1 i 02 WW iiuMitioiiofl. 1 iiin Ji Libei'iil luysflf, mh\ Have been all my life, aiul r must confess to a feelinj^ of painful disappointment that any ])ul)lic writer elaiiiiinf^ the name, should deliberately seek to fasten odium and dishonour upon a man who waged a long and hard life battle for Liberal principles, who sutl'ered so much in their behalf, and who sacrificed his all in the struggle. Had this unsavoury task been performed by some one with the '* fiendish and unrelenting spirit " of the Family Con»pact, we should have bet^n less sur))rised. But proceeding, as it does, from a professed fi-iend, who can wonder that it has roused indignation and resentment / The flimsy veil of friendship is easily j)enetrated. If John Holph is to l)e made the great hero of the epic, no su])erior, no etjual, must be brooked near his throne. The ground must be carefully prepared beforehand ; mine and countermine must be insidiously lun ; reputations must be sapped by every device of litei'ary art ; this one and the otiier of the old leadei's of refoi-ni must be belittled oi- passed over with a mild platitude of praise ; above all Mackenzie, who thoroughly unmasked the hero, must have his influence broken and his testimony destroyed. Then shall the way be fairly opened foi' the (/ram/ coup in the second volume of the Story when the unmasker shall be covered witii ignominy, and the un- masked shall be completely rehabilitated. Such a consunnna- tion is no doubt ardently desired, but I am confident it will never be reached. It would be an everlasting disgrace to the Liberal party if it were. PKOMISES AND PEKFOHMANCKS. :M ' I: l When this work first appeared a number of Reform news- l)apei's, looking at it in its broad outlines, received it with considei-able favour. It met their views as to some things, and, I am free to admit that, to a limited extent, it always will. As to some others, I am satisfied it did not, and that it never will. To Mackenzie, it is not too much to say, a large and generous measure of justice was due, and it was confidently expected that this would be ungrudgingly given. This expectation has been far from met. Assuming, as Reform journalists had a right to assume, m that the hook would (Usui fairly hy Miickeuzit', some few were ready at the first bhish to say so, and to pay the autlior some polite foiiij)liments which he reiiUy did not deserve. In most cases, doubtless, oj)inions were expiessed without a careful p(!rusal of the hook. A ^(mh\ deal was taken foi' ;,f ranted; its misrepresentations were inconceivable by honest men. Although Mr. Dent was not known as a historical expei-t, he was generally sujtposed to be a gentlenuin of Libei-al instincts. He had been connected in a sort of way with Liberal journalism, just as he had been connected, in a similai" way, with journalism that was not Libei-al. Some of his previous essays in literature had prepared the jiublic to believe that his historical treatment of the rppei' Canadian liebellion would b»? at least fail- tr> all the leaders of Reform in those early years. I venture to say that nine-tenths of those who revere the memories of tlie men of 'U7, sukscribed for tiie Ijook, in the implicit trust that this would be done. They have been egreg- iously deceived. It was also suppo.sed that there would be much new information, fresh contributions to the history of the {)eriod, and that, although old facts would be shown in a new light, and old faniilar Hgures in a different fiameworl-, the facts would not be distorted, nor the figures discoloured. It was naturally thought that no author of honest purpose, and desiring to give a true and faithful record of the period in (juestion, would strive to bestow honour where it was not due, to disj)arage, de[)reciate or defame where it was ill de- served, to extol one historical character — and he of all others the least worthy of it at the expense of anf)ther, and to be- little and sneer at patriotic self-sacritice as if it were made for the mei-e sake of vuk'ar " notoriety '' instead of from the highest motives, and the most unselfish aims. In all this, and much more besides, the readers of this book have been grievously disappointed. Ire Ids m\ THE AUTlIOli'.S " DEAD SET " ON MACKENZIE. In dealing with individuals especially, Mr. Dent neai'Iy always Hies to extremes, and in regard to no two " personalities," as he calls them, is this more noticeable than William Lyon Mackenzie 04 and John liolpli. Ho is cnmjx'llcd to ^[w Markoii/io some credit as a |>r)|(ular icadur and public man, hm it is ;L;ivcn vcvy lialt'-luNiitcdly, and in tho most stinted measure. Mi'. l)(!nt seems to \n' always tryin;,' "how not to do it." His portraiture of him as a whole is most unfair aiul untrutlifnl, while, in some respects, it is positively oH'ensive. No person can perustj tliis volume without feelin«,' that th(!re is through- out a decidedly stroniu; tone of depreciation of Mackcn/ic at almost every step in his career. He is contrasted with Maid- win, I5idw(!ll, Uolph, and others, with the most in^'enious in- vidiousness, and " (hmnied with faint praise" in nearly every other para;j;raph. tfis motives, actions and conduct are con- tinually placed in the most sinister li,!,dit, and his influence is mininuzed at almost every turn in tli(^ sti'UL,'i,de in which he was enga;,'ed. His shortcoming's are ma«,'nitied to the last de- gree — ])ourtrayed as tiio ruling passions of his life ; liis virtues are eitluM' concealed altogether, or are darkly shaded l)y his shortcomings. Is this mean sort of microscopic portraiture fair, or just, or honest? Who of our public men, living or dead, could stand such a test? We are told that it was the persecution to which lie was subjected that alone made Mac- kenzie, and that if the leaders of the reactionary party had treated him with contempt, he would have been a political nobody, would spcicdily have found his level, and would have sunk into his native obscurity ! Yet even leading between the lines, in Mr. Dent's partisan narrative, and supplying mentally the omissions which he has not the common honesty to furnish, the truth is not wholly hidden away. Amidst the devious windings of the Stoiy we discern traces of the well known his- torical fact that the Oligarchy dreaded Mackenzie more than any man living, and that they appreciated to the fullest extent his widely felt power and inllueiK'^ -n .■• ising the ilominaiit misrule of the time, and rou' indignation against it. Even MackenzieV , lal " staiiding, con- nections and surroundi ae i. th' iibject of a species of criticism which no one AMtii the .ustincts of a gentleman would 65 isli, ous lis- lau >iit lilt iust 3011- of )uld rcsdit to, iiiiil wliicli it is s<' tliMt tlir fuitlidf Ii.hI some "social' ^I'lulv'*' to j^i'iitity iij,'iiiiist ii iiiiiii \s lio was posHCHHcd of tlic most kindly mid jj^encrous iiuturc, iiiid the wiiniicst syiii|iiitlii('s. Mcun Hjiiritcd sneers like these sliow tlie "true iiiwiirdiiess " of the wfilef. As eoiupiifed with l{ol|th who wiis ii tiiiitor to Mac- kenzie, hiildwin and their friends, if miy man over was Mac- kenzie, it will Ih" seen, always suflers. In )»i'oj)ortion as [{olph is sought to be exalted, Mackenzie is sonyht to he lowered, in |)iil)lic estimation. In short, it is very evident toe\ery fair minded reader that no o]t|)ortiinity is lost to place Mackenzie in a false and unfavourahh^ li<,dit liefoi-e the world, to dis])ara<;-e his life woi'k in the caus(^ of j^ood government, an with bringing about the change. The Compact found it.sr3if iu a minority." Although very coyly put, there is a strong sugges- tion hereof Mackenzie's power as a journalist. The Advocate had been only two months in existence in Toronto when the House met, and only eight months in existence altogether. Mr. Dent's story-telling discrepancies, as we shall see, are of frequent occur- rence, especially where Mackenzie is concerned. Tliey are one of many phases of his general unfairness. Wiierever he has a choice of two aspects of a public transaction that aiiects Mackenzie — which is not often — he is very ready to choose the one that i.s least favourable. He never gives him the benetit of a reasonable doubt, and not unfrequently where there is no doubt at all, and no reason for critical censoriousness, he will be found playing his old game of cynical depreciation. He speaks of Mackenzie's '' holding some of his opponents up to public ridicule " in his newspapei', as if it were a breach of every article in the moral law. Ridicule, as a journalistic weapon, never seems to hav*; entered Mr. Dent's head. Mr. Dent is not a humourist. Nor does he appreciate humour in others. He delights iu telling us tliat Kolph had scarce an atom of " f rolicsomeness or fun" in him, and that he I'arely indulged in "hearty laughter." His book, J need hardly say, is not a funny book in that sense ; but it is a very funny book otherwise. The merest glint of humour would liave been an oasis in its desert of ***** jiirs, Suspicions, quiirrels, reconcilements, wars ; but there is none. The whole Story is about as genial as a butt of white wine vinefrar. SOMK WANTON SLANDEUS. In the same strain the writer elsewhere says : " The instability of his (Mackenzie's) opinions was one of his most dangerous char- acteristics, and this alone marked him out as untit to be trusted of others." In another place his opinions are spoken of as l)eing with the guidance " as chpaigeable as the hue of the chameleon." This only shows " how unfit to be trusted " is Mr. Dent himself in criticizing. There probably never was a man in public life in 'm' 72 I- f- I Canada who liad more decided ;m(I unwavering views on |uil)lic uHairs. It was the soundness and lionesty of his opinions, and his steadfastness in niaintaininjj; them, tliat gave him his wide )i()])idarity, and made him the })ower he was in the country. What is more, lie knew his power and was self-conii(h'nt in liis assertion of it. Few men liad a quicker and deeper insiglit into the inthiences that controlled public oi)inion. Yet, according to this profound critic, " Mackenzie, from liis cradle to his grave, was never tit to walk alone and without guidance through any great emergency ! " This grim piece of humour is refreshing. If that "extraordinary i)ersonality " and "strong man," John Koljih, had only been by his side, how majestic would have been his strides throu thiiti tlwiso usually following an unsiccossfiil insui'rcc'tion, the author docs not tell \iH. Tlii'V wtM'o no worst* than till' i(!sults in Lower (janada, and notliini^ to hv oouipai-ct' to those in tiio Great North-West. Holph was the adviser-in-cliio,' ; Mackenzie acted in conjunction with him iiiid others ; he couh' not act alone ; and the event of failure must have been fully con- sidei'ed by all of them alike. Wiiy make Alackeii/ie the (udy sca])e-<,'oat ? Tin* brief do(*s not contain the d child. lie underwent no chanife in this r(!sj)(!ct, and was th(! same in youth, manhood and old a;;-e. A more unfit person to bcH'nti'usted with the management of any ^reat enttM-prise, or with the control of his fellow creatures, 1 can hardly conceive." And Mr. Dent calls this idle o^ossip histoi-y ! It is as likely as not a concoc- tion, more or less, of the authoi', but, assumin<^ it to have l)een said at all, was there I'vcy before a book dij^niHed as historical that traduced a pui)lic man in such a fashion ? Y^et I am told, on ifood authoi'ity, that an imi)ortant part of the story is made up of information ac(pured fi'om just such sources. Fancy any work, seriously called by the authoi- a history, foundcnl in any tnatei'ial part on tlu^ haii" i, centuiy old gossip of the streets ! Were I to a[)ply th(^ saiMe kind of criticism to the fictions of this nai'i'ative, the result would be infinitely nearei- the tiaith, and far less complimentaiy. in A " niT O MAVKI{IN(i 0\ PARTY STHATKCiV. In the chapter on " Parliamentary Privilege" the author gives us what, to us(^ a Scotch phrase, may be called a " muckle bit o" havering." He bewails the want of " union "" between the moderate Conservatives of the time, who " wer(^ disgusted with the greedy self-seeking Compact,'" and "the men of moderate views in the Reform i)arty like the Rolj)hs," etc. We are told that if such a ''union' could have been efiected, the Compact would have been ai't of unlettered farmers and recently arrived innnigrants," prevented this hapjty issue. As to how any " union " of the kind could possibly have ou.sted the Compact, the reader is not informed. He is left in a " Serboniau 7S It t It It II II bog." The autlior says the Mi(»tU'iiit« Conservatives dreaded the " I'adieal element," and tliat they suppoiied the junto "as the less of two evils." He also tolls us that the moderate Keforiiuu-s "composed fully two-thirds" of the Uefoi-m party in the Le/.,'isla- ture, and yet he wants us to believe that they, along with the moderate Conservatives, could not have ki^pt tlie nasty I'adicals in order. After setting up his beautiful theory in one paiagi-aph, he demolishes it in the next by showing that the " Mm-ken/ie I'.idieals " were not the lions in the path at all. [n one breath he says that the Reformers "had e.xerted a predominating inHuence during the last two Pai-liaments," and in the next he declares that, even with that superiority, "they possessed the shadow of powei' without the reality." With the Executive Council entirely under the control of the Compact, and conse(|uently a complete block to any Kefoi'm legislation in the Lower House by any Tiibei-al-Con- servative alliance that could have been foiined, wluit rial jirogress could have been made? ^Ir. Dent doesn't tell us. It is just at this point that we are dropped into his " Serbonian bog." The plain truth is, as every politician and reader of history knows, that in those times party lines were most rigidly drawn, and while there might liave been shades of diflerence of opinion in both parties, as there always are, each party in the House answered, was in fact forced to answer, as one man to the ring of the division bell. The Compact wei'c securely entrenched in their stronghold, the Executive Council. The Lieutenant-Governor was on theii- side. All the official power and patronage of the country was at tlieir disposal. They were in fact in a position safely to defy any liostile combiiuition against them in the Assembly, and all the " moderate views " under heaven could not have advanced good government a hair's breadth. It was for this reason, as I shall show, that Robert Raldwin declined for a long time to re-enter public life. He despaired of real Reform under such circumstances. There are some other disquisitions in this Story, light and nebulously airy like the foregoing, that a breath of common sense can just as easily blow away. As a political strategist on papei', ISIr. Dent is not an unqualilied success. 79 MAOKKVZIK's AOITATIOV AND THE AUTIIOR's OENKUOSITY (?). U(!f(!renc() is also inado — and it is tlio cartel possiblo i-ofcrjnce — to a most important movoment in UppiM- (>anada, orij^itiativl and successfully carried out mainly through Mackonzio's exertions. Tliis w/u durin::^ the pii'liamcMitaiy reaess of IH.'JI, when, as the author puts it, "Mackenzie turned his notori(!ty to account in getting up a sjries of p:jtitio;i-i to thn King and tha Impjrial Parlia- m Mit, calling attontiou to the? various grievances wherewith the in- habitants wore burdened, and praying for redress." It is in this slip-shod, indiffjrent style that Miokende's services are passed over in an agitation which, as has b^en truly said, "shook Uj)per Ciinada throughout its whole extent," and for which he deserves th(( largest measure of credit. The reader will iind none 5m3nts, the S33ulari//ition of the Clergy Reserves, law reform, etc., were prayed for as vital t) the welfare His Majesty's Cinadian C )m uouwoilth. Mi'. Dent disposes of all this in a couple of sentences, one of which I have quoted. The same excsedingly gensrous spirit is displayed throughout the book. THE EXPULSI0X3 PllOM TIIIC ASSEMBLY. Mackenzie afterward? b33im3 th3 bsirerof tlioio petitions to England, "turned his notority to account" again in that patriotic mission. These appeals to tlr3 H>ni3 authorities, signed by some 25,000 persons, and backed by tin b3ar3r's p3rsonal representations, were of imm3ns3 s3rvio3. As will h9reaft3r appear, they secure 1 the redress of a number of very serious giievaneei, and were t'le commencement of a powerful populai* movement which revolution- ized the government of the country. The expulsions of Mackenzie from th3 Assembly are treated of in this connection, and in a man- ii Nj SO iHT tlwit iiii^lit h;i\(' l)ccii cxiiected from INIr. Dent's pen. Tt is n wpU-knowii fiU't that lie was really ;'X|)elle(l five times, and liis seat declared \araiit,aiid lliat lie was re-elected twice 1)V overwlielmii'n' majorities, anlf-delusion of the patentee : its ])i'etcnded ho)ui fid''n is simply an imjuisition on tlie pul)lic. 'S H' If lit is- ,ir ■d cSl inSTOUIC INCONSISTKNCIES. Having thus settled tlie heroic part of Mackenzie's composition, the author proceeds in tlie same oracular strai. : — "Had the Government been wise enough in their own interests to let him (Mackenzie) have his say in the Assembly, he would soon have found his proper level, and would have ceased to carry any weight there. He would undoubtedly have raised a good deal of temporary excitement by unearthing abuses, and by vituperating persons whom he disliked. But he could never have seriously threatened tJie supremacy of the Compact, for the very sutlieient reason that lie could not command the sympathies or respect of the leading spirts of liis own party. Rolph, the Bidwells and tlie Baldwins had by this time come to rate Mackenzie at about his true value," etc. This is just one of Mr. Dent's "unsupported" statements which are of "little value," and for which he gives no "sufficient reason," in fact no reason at all. It is also a fair sample of his self-contradic- tions as a story-teller. As against Mr. Dent 1 will cite Mr. Dent himself, in another statement which is borne out by the judg- ment of history. Towards the close of the same chapter he says: — "The plain fact of the matter is, that ao sentiment of either loyalty or disloyalty had anything whatever to do with the treat- ment to which Mackenzie was subjected at the hands of the Compact and their supporters. It was simply this : Mackenzie was a thorn in their sides. He watched them closely, and exposed their conduct in language which was telling and vigorous. * * * They felt that their supremacy was menaced, and largely by his instrumentality." This is " the plain fact of the matter," but the author seems to have forgotten that lie had just before expressed a directly contrary opinion. The Story abounds in similar inconsistencies. A writer who employs detraction should have a more convenient memory. The Compact must have known who was their most formidable opponent, and I fancy the reader will prefer to take their deliberate judgment and action, at the time, to that of a prejudiced story-teller who has his eye at this point upon his patent, and is evidently jealous of Mackenzie's rising ascendancy in the Liberal party. 6 82 THE GRKAT "UNLETTERED." i« I III i i Mr. Dent thereafter demonstrates to his own satisfaction that Mackenzie's " true value " was very little. He says : — *' His in- fluence was pretty much confined to the farmers and meclianics of that portion of the country wliere his paper was chiefly circulated ; and even there his influence would never have been anything like so great as it actually became had it not been for the persecution to whicli he was subjected. Over and beyond, he could not be said to have any distinctive locus standi in the Reform party. ■* * * The structure of his mind prevented him from seeing a question in its various aspects, and, in judging of future political events, lie was much more often wrong than right. * * * He seemed to be utterly incapable of keeping his own counsel, and a secret once told to liim was a secret no longer. * * * It was surely a short-sighted policy which gave to a man so constituted a factitious importance, and whicli made liin. for some years the most notorious personage in Upper Canada." This is another deliverance which is to settle the points referred to for all time to come. It will be seen that Mr. Dent's idea of " the farmers and mechanics," as a vit d foi'ce, is not a very exalted one. In other places he speaks with less disguised contempt of Mackenzie's " satellites among the rural and uneducated portion of the com- munity," " the unlettei'ed yeomen of Wentworth," "the unlettered farmers and recently arrived immigrants," etc. This sublime posing as the elegant and cultured man of letters is a phase in literary aesthetics that " the so-called historians " will please make a note of. The intellectual refinement of lofty minds may at once dismiss the " bone and sinew of the country " as a mere vulga- metaphor of the hustings. It is no less suggestive to our political leaders of all parties who are periodically striving to ' influence " the great "unlettered" of the country. They have had fair notice of the estimate to be put upon their " influence " and their political " locus standi" hy future writers "from a Liberal but non-partisan point of view," if that low sort of popularity- hunting is persisted in. Leaving out Mr. Dent's canaille — ^the farmers, mechanics and immigrants, all of whom felt honoured in I 88 following Mackenzie, and whom he was proud to lead, will our very literary Yellowplush kindly tell us who was left to follow Rolph ? In the name of goodness, Mr. Dent, who in those primitive days were the people ? A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. Mackenzie was essentially a man of the people. He could say, as Charles Dickens once said, that he " had unlimited faith in the People with a big P." He was a man of action with a passion for ideas, and he well knew that if his ideas were ever to be carried out. he must have the sympathy and support of the yeomanry and the artisan class who composed tlie great mass of the population. He was heart and soul with them in tlieir aspirat. ns, and, if they gave him their confidence in no unstinted measure, it was because they felt it would never be betrayed. And it never was. Mr. Dent has surely read history to little purpose, and has gained less from its teachings, when he makes it a reproach to Mackenzie for having successfully extended his influence amongst those who were a tower of strength in a great political struggle. " The persecution to which he was subjected " was due to his fearless championship of the popular cause, and, unlike Mr. Dent, those for whom he fought and suffered gratefully gauged their opinion of him by his untiring devotion to their service, and his cheerful sacrifices in their behalf. ONE OU TWO ROLPIIITE SLANDEHS. The threadbare tiradfe about his want of judgment is revived in this (juotation. It is a sweet morsel for the author, and he is constantly rolling it under his tongue. That Mackei'zie committed errors of judgment, like every man who has been in public life, is not denied. He was not immaculate in this respect like the hero of the epic Story. "The structure of his mind" had not the mani- fold, rotund perfections of that "extraordinary persoiinlity," but it served his purpose as a lover of his country w(!ll enough, and it had none of the Benedict Arnold fibre in its composition. "Weak judgment is not crime, nor is indiscretion always the greatest guilt." Let Mr. Dent remember this when he next undertakes 84 to euliji;l)ten the world with his anatomy and physiology of politicians' hearts. Mackenzie's deliberately expressed convictions with respect to British American Union, the Provincial Uni- versity, the Municipal Loan Fund Scheme, and Reciprocity of Trade, have already been referred to. These were a few of many great questions that miglit be mentioned, of the "various aspects" of wiiich he showed the fullest com})rehension, and in which the accuracy of his judgment and foresight was strikingly manifest. The charge of disclosing confidences, brought agairist him for the first time by Mr. Dent, is a calumny that no one who knew Mackenzie, and his fidelity as a political and per- sonal friend, will ever belie\e, even if it Jiad a better basis to i-est upon than the calumniator's worthless statement. To those who did not know him his reputation is a sufficient answer to so un- founded a slander. The charge is varied afterwards in the assertion that, after his return from oxile, he "was ready enough to^ betray the secrets of his soniewhile coadjutors." This refers of course to his exposure of llolph in his Flag of Tr^ice pamphlet, and explains the origin of the whole calumny. From fii'st to last it is an enven- omed product of the Rolph papers, manufactured out of whole cloth, and worthy of its author, who never, as long as he lived, cleared himself from one of the foulest stains that could rest upon the name and character of any public man. ANOTHER SAPIENT POLmCAL THEORY. Mr. Dent's theory of the " short-sighted policy " of the Compact in giving Mackenzie "a factitious importance," is une of those sapient political theories that are frequently encountered in this book. It shows how "short-sighted" and befogged the writer is in comprehending the political situation of the time. Mackenzie was one of the leaders of the Reform Opposition ; he controlled their leading organ ; he was a power with his voice as well as his pen, both in Parliament and tlie country, and his " im- portance " could not be ignored. A closely besieged garrison might as well have tried to igi^ore their most determined foe. A leading New York journal once said of him that " his powers of agitation were almost equal to those of the great Daniel O'Connell.' I 8.5 The " importance " of sucli a man was created by himself, and not factitiously by his adversaries. It was forced upon them in a thousand ways, and, although they might have pursued a different course of action towards him, they would have been arrant fools to have adopted, even if they could, the course indicated by this visionary theorizer. THE AUTHORS POLITICAL ACUMBN. The passr j[e above (] noted is not the only one which proves Mr. Dent's ur/itness to deal with the period in question. His literary taionts I freely admit, and I only regret that, for his own sake, he Ins not employed them to better advantage in this Story. But tricks in style, and deft turning of periods, are of small importanxje in tlie performance of such a task, when political acumen and other substantial qualities are wanting. Many a writer of mere paragraphs of Rel)ellion history has hit the nail on the head far better, with his limping sentences, than has Mr. Dent with all his flowery rhetoric of over three hundred pages. Of the human nature of the public life of the time, he shows as little knowledge as he does of the human nature of those who figured in it. He has little or no sympathy with the trials of public men, and is quite incapable of appreciating them. He makes no allowance for the unseen, potent influences which sway their action, and which, as I heard i distinguished policician once say, so often "make of public life the life of a galley slave." He cheats himself into the belief tnat his hard, surface glance at the political situation, as a professional reviewer, has enabled him to fathom all its problems to their farthest deptlis. Assuming hiui to be perfectly sincere, no one who knew the men will say that he has any true conception of Mackenzie's " personality " any more than he has of Rolph's. He has overdone both in opposite directions, ;ukI his blunder is almost incomprehensible. Personal qualities, which men carry on their sleeves, any penny-a-liner can hit off. But Mr. Dent is not a penny-a-liner ; he is the historian— ^/'at-i^e princeps in his own estimation — of Rebellion times, the guide, philosopher and candid friend of the " so-called historians " who preceded him. He is the great high priest, the Alpha and Ornega, of his craft. If a merely 86 readable book, " pleasant to the eye," be the object of Mr. Dent's ambition, he has perhaps succeeded ; if it be one that is "good for food," his success is certainly far from assured. A historian whose pen is steeped in flagrant prejudice never can be a success. " LIUKHAL " STOUY-TELLIN(; WITH A VENGEANCE. 11 The author follows up with another of his peculiar criticisms on Mackenzie's career in the Canadian Parliament after liis return from exile. He says : " He adopted pi'ecisely the same roh as of yore, and delivered himself with great vehemence on matters wliich he did not understand. The inevitable result was that the Assembly soon ceased to attach any weight to his opinions. He had lived . long enough to repudiate many of liis old doctrines, and to eat many of his past words. His views on Tuesday were frecjuently the very opposite to what they had been on Monday, and neither were any indication of what they vvould be on Wednesday. Mem- bers ceased to attach any importance to his statements, or to think of tliera as calling for serious consideration. He came to be re- garded as a sort of unlicensed jester who might be permitted to amuse the House by his antics when there was no pressing business on hand ; but, as to any real influence, he had no more than the junior messenger. It took him several years to find this out, and when it was brought thoroughly home to him, he resigned his seat." A more insolent fabrication is not to be found in this book, and it is as heartless as it is insolent. The reader may well ask, is the fabricator a Liberal and a friend of Liberals, or is he the bitter, vindictive mouthpiece of Family Compact journalism ? An anony- mous libel in a newspaper is a tribute, however small, to jcdrnalistic decency ; it shows the author has a remnant of shame. But there is none of this in the paragraph just quoted. Mackenzie had been over twelve years in banishment when the general amnesty was proclaimed in February, 1849. He was the last of the proscribed patriots who were pardoned. He had drunk the bitter draught of exile to its very dregs ; those who were dearest to liim alone knew the sufferings he underwent during those twelve long weary years. That he admitted his errors in promoting an armed revolt — errors for which he thus dearly paid — is true. It is the ; 87 one mutilated grain of truth in Mr. Dent's elo,'.'.».nt phraseology of his eating his past words. He wrote a simple li tter to Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary, expressing his regret foi- much that ho had said and done in inciting insurrection. That his manly action was fully appreciated by the British Government, there is ample testimony. It was no humilation to Mackenzie, and no one but Mr. Dent would ever make it a reproach to him. His honesty in confessing his error is an example that the defamer of his name and memory may profitably follow. THE UETURNED EXILE. Mackenzie's terrible trials as an exile would have completely broken a spirit less proud and gallant than his own. The wonder is that he should ever afterwards have regained his old position in public life. He did regain it. He came at once to the front, with all his old lire and energy, to the discomfiture of some who supposed he was forever undone, and of others whose quailing consciousness of their past betrayal of him made of them his meanest foes. His manner of doing so and his public record afterwards, Mr. Dent, with l»is usual fairness, studiously conceals. In less than a year after his return to Canada with his family he stood for Haldimand, the first open constituency, defeating the late Hon. George Brown, the most formidable opponent he could have encountered, by a considerable majority. That he was for a number of years a power in other constituencies, the record of their electoral contests abundantly proves. He was far from being " downed " by adversity, crushing as that had been. During his absence the principal political reforms, for which he had no long struggled, had been gradually conceded, and it was naturally difficult for him for a time to realize the marvellous change. But he had lost none of his old-time independence ; he had learnt something of the hoUowness of professed friendship ; and, reading between the lines in the above (^[uotation, it is very evident that his well-founded distrust of the political sincerity of Rolph and his parasites has incurred Mr. Dent's displeasure. This appears in the author's poor sneers at the weight and import- ance of Mackenzie's parliamentary opinions, and their reception 88 by the Assembly. Petty gibes like these are not very gracious complinients to some of tlio able men in the House who shared, and publicly endorsed, the sentiments of the returned exile. They are quite as api)lii'able to the minority who so often agreed with Mackenzie, with whom he so often voted, and who comprised some of the first men in the old Parliament of Canada. Experi- ence repeatedly proved that the judgment of tliat minority, thus scouted at by Mr. Dent in the person of Mackenzie, embodied the real wisdom of the Legislature, and by far the best policy for the country. Mr. Dent's allusion to Mackenzie as the " unlicensed jester " is worthy of its author. The dramatist has said that A jest's pr()f?pcrity lies in the ear Of him that liears it, * * * Mackenzie humour had tliis pro.sperity. It is still a pleasant tradition of by-gone parliamentary life. His jests were tender in their mirthfulness ; they never left a wound behind. They were not the scornful jests of a Jeremy Diddler " raising the wind " in literature by fictitious stories of the past. Mackenzie's later parliamentary influence. The author's closing reference to Mackenzie's influence in the Assembly as being "no more than the junior messenger's" is of a piece with the rest of this insolent quotation. It is a simple fact of history that, in 1851, this insignificant "junior messenger" moved, and supported in a powerful speech, a motion to abolish the Court of Chancery. The Bald win- Lafontaine Ministry was then in oftice. They did their utmost to defeat the proposal, which was hostile to their views as a Government, but, notwith- standing this, Mackenzie carried his motion. Baldwin, the Premier and Attorney -General, surprised and mortified by the vote, at once resigned his seat, and sougiit re-election in North York, his old constituency. He was defeated by a well-known Reformer, Mr. Joseph Hartman, and thereafter retired from public life. One of the most powerful governments that ever existed in Canada, prior at least to Confederation, was thus 89 efl'ectunlly broken uj). Of the merits of the (juostion nothing need be said, except tliat Haldwin's retirement was a source of regret to all his friends. T merely mention the fact, as one proof out of many that miglit be given, to sliovv that the author's estimate of Mackenzie's j)arlianientni-y intluence, or of his influence in any way, is never to \h'. trusted. How true it is, as Hutler says, that " prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing things ?" What 1 have just mentioned is, however, something more than this : it is a mean, cold-hearted misrepresentation of historical fact by a writer who loudly vaunts his truthfulness. Mackenzie's exit fho.m tjie le(;islatuke. Mackenzie resigned his seat in 1858. He disagreed with some of his constituents in regard to a certain railway l)ill afi'ecting their interests, but, as I also learn from the letter of a gentleman who knew him most intimately, he had a strong conviction that there was not that disposition in the Legislature totrust themasses which he believed should prevail in their representative body. That he should be forced to leave the arena some time, was of course to be expected. His life there liad been one of incessant strain and toil. He had secured none of the plunder, had impoverished him.self for the rest of his days, and had reaped many a bitter disappoint- ment in the cause that was very dear to him. But he had fought a hard fight, had fought it bravely and well, and he could at last aflbrd, when the day was won, to cpiit the field with honour. His exit from such a scene surely deserved a parting tribute less harsh and unfeeling than his relentless critic has given him. This whole paragraph, upon which I have been commenting, is exceedingly suggestive of a series of disgraceful personal articles which appeared in a Toronto journal a little over two years ago. In these some of our most distiuguislied public men of all parties were assailed in the most infamous terms. It was said at the time that " a gang of libellers " had appeared in the metropolitan press. A well-known writer in the Week described them as " waifs of the Canadian or rather of the continental press, who have sold their pens to journals of all parties in turn, and, except I i 1 ^T» ■ It I 90 when thoy wf^ro givinj^ vtnit to thoir malignity, have probably never written a sincere line." Mr. Dent knows full well who got the credit of being in the " gang." ' A LITTLE COCK AND HULL STOUY. When Toronto was incorporated as a city, in March, 1834, Mackenzie was elected its first Mayor - the lirst Mayor in Upper Canada. This was a distinctive honour, and its bai-e mention in the narrative would have been suilicient as evincing the then state of popular feeling in the chief city, and political capital, of the Province. In Mr. Dent's hands the (;l(H'tion is made to serve several sinister purposes. The purpose which it ought to serve is entirely ignored. The author uses it, in the first place, to eulogize llolph at the expense of Mackenzie, to slander the latter as " a snarling little upstart," " the mere tool and mouthpiece of a low Radical clique," etc., and to detract in every possible way from the credit justly due him as the recipient of this mark of civic conlidence. A cock and bull story is told about Rolph's having beei\ first selected by the Reformers of the city as their candidate for the office, and of his sub.sequently " waiving his claims " in favour of Mackenzie. The latter, it is gratuitously insiimated, intrigued with their mutual friends against the great man to secure his own elevation to the position. This little story, like many parts of the big Story, is exceedingly thin. It differs very materially from Mr. Dent's version of the matter in his sketch of " Toronto : Past and Present," in the Memorial Volume of the city, published in 1884. Assuming for the moment that there is any truth in it, it only shows that Mackenzie had more influence with his party than Rolph. The insinuation is a characteristically mean one, and, 1 believe, is without a shadow of foundation. Had there been a particle of proof to warrant it, the reader may depend it would have been blazoned forth with all the verity of Holy Writ. If there is one thing more than another in which Mr. Dent's industry is shown, it is in hunting up and parading, with the most hypocritical professions of fairness, everything that could possibly disparage Mackenzie in the eyes of the world. Of this the chapter, in which the Mayoralty election 91 is roforrod to, furnishos abuiulaiit proof. It is atissuoof slanders. Not an iota of ovidonco is jjroduccjd in support of the char;i[o of *' doublcdoalinj,'," which is a pure invention. It is posNihlc that Mack(Mizic! a.si)irod to the Mayoralty, and why shouUhi't ho? That Holph certainly did, and that he was keenly disa]>p()inted at bein^ pitched overlH)ard, is proved by the fact that, when he found Mackenzie was the candidate fixed upon by the Reforniers, he 'took the sulks" and resigned his neat in the council, thereby saving hiins(!lf the inortilication of a defeat at the luinds of his own political friiMids. In his "Toronto: Past and Pre.sent," Mr. Dent says IJolph "was far from satisfied, and, on the following day, deterniined to withdraw from the council altogether." For so great a man this was a very small thing to do, and for a hero it was anything but a heroic thing. It was simply cliildish. TIIK TKUK INWAUDNESS OF TIIK MAYOUALTY HUSINESS. Mr. Dent's palaver about his " waiving his claims " is a good one. Rolph w.as not the man to waive his claims to anything if he were in a position to enforce tliem. In tiie sketch referred to the same writer says, " lie (Rolph) bowed to the will of the (Reform) majority." In other words he was compelled to waive his claims, was in fact dropped from the outset as an unpopular candidate, or, at all events, as a less acceptable and popular candidate than Mackenzie. I am speaking advisedly when I say that the latter was, from the first, the deliberate choice of the Reformers. Undoubted proof of this can be pro- cured at any moment. Rolph's historical touter says the Conservative members of the Council would have supported his candidate, and that they with thr R^^forniors could have elected him easily. No doubt they could, if they had all been united, but the trouble with Mr. Dent's candidate was that the Reformers did not want him, and would not have him. If, as we are told, he was so transcendently the superior " of any other man in the city " in his fitness to "grace the position," it is very strange that the Reformers did not join with the (\)nservatives in running him in. They wanted a Reform Mayor ; they would liave had one in Rolph; but why didn't they take him up? I fear there was a IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) • ^ ■■■' -^tf !.0 I.I IIIM ilM IIIM 111^ II 2.2 1 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 < 6" — ► V, & n '<5. e". e/A S" ■^/ c^ "# .'■>■' V «' 6^ ^ .x% #.5W '^^ 23 'JVEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y 14580 (716) 872-4503 W ^ Ms', Q- W., w t ; J ■ I n 92 larger Ethiopian in the fence than Mr. Dent permits us to see, and that the " strong man " of the Story was too heavy a man to carry. It was not the first time that his party found him a poli- tical dead-weight. His subsequent conduct increased his avoir- dupois in that way to an incalculable degree. That he was ever seriously thought of for the Mayor's chair,- as against Mackenzie, is incredible. The latter was preferred for many good reasons, and he was unquestionably the free and voluntary choice of the electorate. His election was fully in accord with popular sentiment. Conservative at other timet), the oity had just bexore this returned a Reform majority to the council board. The strong sympathy for Mackenzie, on account of his expulsions from Parliament, and his great popularity otherwise, made him the natural choice of the people who would, if necessary, have elected him either as Mayor, or member for the city, by an open popular vote. THE doctor's "dignity." Mr. Dent consoles himself over his hero's discomfiture in characteristic style. He says, " Dr. Rolph needed no accession of dignity." This dignity of the Doctor is everlastingly cropping up in this Story. It is occasionally interspersed with the " majesty of his presence," and his Baconian grasp of " all know- ledge." If one half that Mr. Dent says about it is true, this heroic quality must have been perfectly overwhelming. It was probably too much so for the lilliputian commonalty amongst whom the great man moved, and from whom he vainly sought the highest civic honours. Can we wonder that they preferred a man who was not so august a " personality," and who could be a simple human being like themselves in the hum-drum of every day life 1 The great marvel to every one who reads this Story will ever be how all this wealth of human perfection should have been so long undiscovered. The ignorance of the past two or three generations of Canadians must have been truly deplorable. MACKENZIE AS MAYOR. The author's opinion of Mackenzie's performance of his duties is of little consequence. He does not record the fact that, at a l:^i 98 ill large public meeting held on the 5th of January, 1835, and which was attended by persons of all political parties, Mackenzie received a unanimous vote of thanks " for the faithful discharge of his arduous duties during his period of office." This would have proved Avhat the Mayor's fellow citizens thought of him, and that, too, at a time when party feeling ran very high. But as Mr. Dent wants posterity to have a very different opinion of Mackenzie, he sup- presses the fact, and is as silent about it as the grave. The truth is that while Rolph was reaping profit in attending the cholera patients, Mackenzie was reaping honour as an unsalaried public servant. He dared death intrepidly scores of times in ministering to the stricken patients in their homes, and in placing them with his own hands in the cholera carts, and driving them to the hospital. Mr. Dent gives him credit for pluck and courage, but he conveniently omits mention of tliis chivalrous service. In his "Toronto: Past and Present," he says it was "heroic," but in this new Story he '' eats his past words," and says Mackenzie had " very little of the heroic in his composition." There is one little incident that he makes the most of b^use it • presents a rare chance for a slap at the city's chief Magistrate. The latter, it seems, put a notoriously abandoned and bad-tongued woman in the public stocks, as a warning to others in the like case offending. This harrows the inmost soul of the author to its very depths ; he grows purple with manly indignation, and reels off a resentful screed against the barbarous tyranny of the Court. He takes good care, however, to say nothing against the law which enacted, and which, with the practice, fully sanctioned the sentence. One would have thought that this was at least equally open to his highly virtuous censure. He also conveniently fails to notice the fact that the prime cause of the woman's punish- ment was her hurling one of her muddy shoes at the occupant of the judgment seat. The incident only illustrates what I have said before, that the best of men v/ill sometimes err in the exercise of legal authority. I sincerely hope, for the credit of the Magis- trate, that the woman whom he thus reformed was as ugly as she was bad. If she were a good looking woman, what possible pallia- tion could there be for conduct so ungallant 1 94 A BIT OF DENTINE LOGIC. Hf Jt would puzzle any person to know what the author's rig- marole about Mackenzie's course as a civil official has to do with Rebellion history. More puzzling still is what the publication, in the Colonial Advocate, of Mr. Joseph Hume's " baneful domina- tion letter " has to do with the conduct of its editor and publisher as Mayor of Toronto. It is only by a logical process, peculiar to Mr. Dent, that any sort of connection can be traced between the one and the other. Yet the author blends the two, and makes a sustained attack, as unfair as it is illogical, on the " indiscretion " of the publisher. No writer of sense would do this. In assuming official duties as a citizen, Mackenzie did not abnegate his func- tions as a journalist. Does Mr. Dent want any intelligent person to believe that everything that its editor wrote or published in his newspaper was in his capacity as Mayor of the city 1 THE "baneful domination" LETTER. Mr. fiume's letter, looking at the circumstances under which it was written, and the very reasonable explanation of its meaning given by the writer, was a very harmless and innocent production. It raised some well-feigned ire at the time on the part of a few lip- loyalists, but all the fuss made about it, either by them or their latter-day mouthpiece, Mr. Dent, is a veritable tempest in a tea- pot. Mr. Hume was a well-known British statesman of the Liberal school, and a life-long friend of Mackenzie. He took a warm interest in Canadian affairs, and his letters to the editor frequently appeared in the Advocate. In one of these, written just after Mackenzie's repeated expulsions from the" Assembly, the writer gave it as his opinion that these events would hasten a crisis in Upper Canada that would " terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the mother country." In the same letter Mr. Hume replied to an attack made upon him, publicly and privately, by the late Dr. Ryerson, and it is evident he was smarting under a sense of injuries so received when he penned this " baneful" opinion. The writer subsequently explained his meaning to be " that the misrule of the Government 95 in Canada, and the monopolizing selfish domination of such men as had lately (though but a small faction of the people) resisted all improvements and reform, would lose the countenance of the authorities in Downing street, and leave the people in freedom to manage their own affairs." The result proved that he was not far astray in his calculations. Before this explanation reached Canada, an attempt was made in the city council to censure Mackenzie for publishing the letter. It failed, and the amend- ment that was adopted in place of the motion of censure, expressed Mr. Hume's meaning substantially as he gave it himself, without any knowledge apparently of the council's action. This shows that the letter was fairly open to an innocent construction, and was so understood by an intelligent body of representative men. Mr. Dent, like a true pai-tisan, makes the barest reference to this significant incident, and rings the changes on the point he wants to make against the publisher. He rakes through the Canadian newspapers, from Dan to Beersheba, for all the violent denunciations he can find of Mackenzie, and quotes these with much gusto as the expression of public opinion. And he calls this the " true story !" The whole thing is a glaring exhibition of partisanship. Its animus is self-evident, more especially as the author is forced, later on in his book, to admit that Mackenzie's loyalty at this time was undoubted. Yet nowhere, amidst his array of one-sided, senseless quotations, has he the common honesty to say so. Mackenzie's acknowledged leadership. If the publication of the Hume letter was so indiscreet and mischievous as the story-teller seeks to make it out to be, it is very strange that, at the general election right afterwards in October, 1834, the Liberals carried the Say. But such is the fact. Mackenzie was again returned for York. Baldwin and Rolph did not offer themselves as candidates in any constituency, and the author says that, although the Reformei-s had a majority, yet " with the exception of Bidwell and Perry, their best and most trusted chiefs had no seats " in the new Parliament. Although Mackenzie is not classed by Mr, Dent with the "best ii 96 and most trusted chiefs " of the Reform party, it goes without saying that he was one of them. He in fact overshadowed the others, and the author makes this plain by the false interpre- tation which he puts upon Baldwin's motives in declining to stand as a candidate. He declares this was due to " the ascend- ancy of Mackenzie and his satellites aradng the rural and uneducated portion of the community " — which is simply a- Dentine way of saying that Mackenzie had the country at his back. He also says that Rol^ii declined re-election for the same reason. While few will believe — even if it were not contrary to the fact — that Baldwin acted from any such small- minded motives, we can all readily believe that Rolph did. A man who had shortly before this sulked his way out of the city council through sheer jealousy of Mackenzie's superior standing with his party, would not be above sulking his way out of Parlia- ment for the same reason. It was very like the great man to do this, and Mr. Dent has rather re-exposed Rolph's infirmities, and the weakness of his own advocacy of that heroic soul, in making so damaging an admission. TWO DIFFERENT LITTLE STORIES. jiji iiJ The extract from Baldwin's letter of the 13th March, 1834, given as proof that its writer was so actuated, is no proof at all. On the contrary, it is more consistent with the writer's friendly feeling towards the editor of the Advocate, in whose columns it appeared, and with his conviction that a Reform Assembly could accomplish nothing substantial with an irresponsible Executive in power. And such, I believe, is the fact. Mr. Dent, who gives the false version of Baldwin's motives in this Story, gives the true version in his sketch of Baldwin's life in the " Political Portrait Gallery." He there says that " he (Baldwin) had been irresistably led to the conclusion that his presence in the House at that time would be of little service to the country. He clearly perceived that a Reform House of Assembly could make little headway in the direction of constitutional progress so long as that House was hampered by an irresponsible Executive." Mr. Dent, in telling historical stories, should try and make them agree. He should m--mm> 97 have gumption enough to avoid contradicting himself, and not tell one story about a certain thing at one time, and a different story about the same thing when he has an unworthy object to .erve. Students of history don't like that sort of historical teaching, and they are very apt to put down the methods of the professor as somewhat of a historical imposition. Baldwin's positijn. Although nothing is adduced to show that Baldwin and Mackenzie were not, at the time referred to, in perfect accord it may be stated that such was the case in later years, not only so far as Mackenzie was concerned, but the other Reform leaders as well Baldwin was then regarded by them, and many of their principal supporters, as being too Conservative and Mr. Dent himself admits this, although not in this book. On the Clergy Reserves question he was not in harmony with the great bulk of his party On the motion moved by Mackenzie in 1851 for the abolition of the Court of Chancery, there was an Upper Canadian majority" against him. This comprised not a few Reformers, and some members of his own profession. This want of accord, it is said was one of his principal reasons for retiring from public life' Baldwin was undoubtedly a high type of a Canadian public man, but he differed from Mackenzie in this that he was neither bold , nor aggressive. The Hon. Alex. Mackenzie, a high authority who has spent the greater part of his life in studying men, has stated that Baldwin was «'a pure-minded but timid statesman" In some things, I may add, he had the right sort of timidity • in others, he might well have laid his timidity aside. AN AMUSING DUAL ATTITUDE. UOLPH's MAGNANIMITY. Keeping all this in mind, Mr. Dent's description of Baldwin's and Rolph's mental attitude towards Mackenzie in 1834 is very amusing. They are both represented as feeling that he was a break on the Reform wheel retarding its onward progress. In other words, that Baldwin, who is always spoken of by the author as ex- ceedingly -moderate" in his political opinions and actions, was then 7 f I I' I t I i u w ■■ ■ t 98 wanting to nmve faster in the direction of reform than Mackenzie, who was not moving fast enough ! Mr. Dent has only thus to be quoted against liimself to show the absurdity of the views which he presents of the political situation. Rolph is evidently coupled with Baldwin, in this opinion of Mackenzie, in order to give an air of respectability to Rolph's I'^itriotic trouble of mind. Not a tittle of proof is offered to show that Baldwin ever held such an opinion ; it is simply one of those gratuitous assertions for which the author of this Story will always be famous. I am told that Baldwin's father, Dr. W. W. Baldwin, always voted for Mackenzie. And Mr. Dent plainly intimates, what I believe is the fact, that the father had gi-eat influence with the son, who reverenced his sire's precept and example in all matters political. Robert Baldwin was a gentleman, and his admirers will not thank Mr. Dent for striving to make him anything else. In another place tht; author imputes aversion to Mackenzie as the reason of Robert B. Sullivan's " retrogressive tendency " in politics. In his " Toronto : Past and Present" he gives a different reason. Sullivan's "social" surround- ings and influences are there mentioned as the prime cause. They would no doubt be mentioned again in this Story, were the writer not elaborating a new slander against Mackenzie. That slurs are cast upon other worthies in so doing, is nothing to Mr. Dent. Mackenzie must be hit, no matter who is wounded. Sullivan was a Liberal, but Mr. Dent makes him out to be a political turn-coat mainly on account of " personal rivalry between Mackenzie and liimself in municipal mattei's !" The imputation is no doubt as false and far-fetched in Sullivan's case as in Baldwin's, and is a precious poor compliment to both of them. • The funny part of the whole thing is, that Rolph is represented as taking a "broader view" than Baldwin of Mackenzie's character, and his capabilities as a director of the party's counsels, and we are told, with refreshing coolness, that " he (R.) did not feel disposed to throw him overboard ! " I should rather think not, and for the best of reasons. He had tried it once befoiO in the Mayoralty business, and was made a Jonah himself in short order. Rolph's magnanimity, in not desiring to be a Jonah again, is one of the most beautiful tributes to his memory that his panegyrist has paid him. 99 That lie should not wish to be -but why dwell on the virtues of this truly noble man ? Are they not all manifest to the world " hitherto lying in darkness " in this touching Story of his life-long constancy to his friends ? MACKKNZIK PEUSONALLY. The author's unwarranted representatioiis as to Baldwin and Sullivan, noticed in the last paragraph, are (juite in keeping with his slanderous methods generally. He never hesitates oiv the flimsiest basis possible, and often on no basis at all, to hold up his victim to jiublic contumely. Tiie species of odium which he there seeks to attach to him is ingeniously paltry. It is that of a man who inspired in the breasts of others feelings of personal aversion, and wjio on that account either repelled intercourse or association Avith him, or provoked hostility on their part. We shall see some fresh illustrations of this further on, in the case of the late Dr. Ryerson. Meanwhile, let me say that this method of attack is sui (/eneris. Mr. Dent is the only writer, claiming to be historical, who has so demeaned himself. A more false and unfair impres- sion of Mackenzie personally, than that which he tlius seeks to convey, it would be hard to conceive. All who Ifnew Mackenzie at all well will bear me out in the statement that he was a pleas- ant companion and associate. He was full of vivacity and good humour, and the ready mother wit of a Highlander. He had strong convictions, and these he never concealed, but there was a great deal of thorough geniality in his nature. Despite all the buffetings of fortune, he never wholly lost, even in his declining years, the freshness, buoyancy and brightness of youth. He froliced with his childi'en, delighted in their society, and was as young in spirit as any of them. He had many bitter public antag- onists, because he was a hard hitter. No man in his day took and gave more in that way than he did ; but, in the wide circle of his personal acquaintances, on both sides of politics, he had perhaps, all things considered, as few personal enemies as most public men of his time. As is often the case with politicians who are vituperated in the press, those who hated him most were those who knew him least, or who did not know him at all. In the Conservative party, ' i' . r li' !!![ I 1. ' H 100 to say nothing of his own, he had many warm personal friends and aflmirers. I have it, on the authority of members of his family, that many of his old political opponents visited and min- istered to him during his last illness. On these occasions his sick chamber was the scene of not a few touching and tender inter- views. He was indeed all his life a most kindly, warm-hearted, and generous man — generous to a fault. Nationality, creed, or party was nothing to Mackenzie whenever his ready, helpful hand, or a good word in season, could be of any avail. Men of that stamp, from whose hearts flows the true " milk of human kindness," never want friends. He always had " troops of friends," who appreciated his virtues and his worth. This was shown most toucjiingly in his days of darkest adversity. He returned from exile broken in fortune. No sooner was it known than private munificence at once came forward with manifold proffers of assist- ance. Mr. Robert Hay, M.P., the present member for Centre Toronto in the House of Commons, liberally off'ered to furnish his house from top to bottom. The late Hon. Isaac Buchanan — big hearted Scot that he was — placed his ample purse at his disposal Other wealthy men did likewise ; their bounty was pressed upon him in the most delicate way. Mackenzie would accept nothing ; he thought his doing so would hamper his political independence. The moral that r'ches must reinforce such a virtue, and are neces- riary in the practice of it, he never believed in ; he at least taught the world differently. He was a frank and sincere man as well, and had a holy hatred of all that was false or mean. There were not in his nature, as Mr. Dent says there were in Rolph's, " depths which were never fathomed by those nearest and dearest to him — possibly not even by himself." He wore his heart upon his sleeve, and loved those who were as ingenuous as himself, but he was none the less quick to fathom the " ways that are dark" of deep men. When in Par- liament he sometimes attended caucuses of his party, but he did not regard them with a favouring eye. He thought that a repre- sentative of the people, charged with great individual responsibil- ities, should exercise these without the trammels which a caucus sometimes imposes. There was " the machine" in politics then as 101 there is now ; but it was far from lieing one of his idols. Theae convictions of political action and {)ublic conduct occasionally placed him in a seemingly awkward position, and exposed him to misconception when there was really room for none. His influ- ence, too, upon public men, even of market, individuality, was, I have reason to believe, a good influence. I have heard the late Hon. John Sanfleld Macdonald acknowledge this in his own case. Mr. M Hidonald once told me that, whatever errors he himself might have committed, he owed very much of the political good that was within him to Mackenzie. The tirst premier of Ontario was not a man to pay idle compliments, and this was said under cir- cumstances that made its sincerity undoubted. Mackenzie is long since beyond the reach of either praise or censure. When old age came with muifled drums That beat to sleep his tired life's story, the voice of generous praise was not silent. It was heard even where it was least expected, and has been heard very often since. The voice of " Liberal" censure is Mr. Dent's alone ; his only is the harsh grating of the insectile cynic's pen. THE UPPER AND LOWER CRUST OF REFORM. Besides being the only true history of the Rebellion, this book assumes to be a very high-toned work as well. The vein of hauteur,thsit runis through some of its personal allusions and criti- cisms, quite accords with its aristocratic airs and graces generally. The insensate snobbism of these allusions is apparent to any per- son of refined feeling : a snob is a snob always, masquerade as he will. The author has got the idea that there were two classes of Reformers in those days, viz., the exceedingly genteel and emi- nently respectable "like the Rolphs.the Bidwells, and the Bald- wins," who formed the upper crust of reform, and the hoi polloi or <« noisy Radicals of the Mackenzie stamp," who composed the lower and vulgar strata of the party. The former come in for all the literary tit-bits of compliment, praise and adulation, the latter for all the cuffs, coppers and small beer. This is not a very happy way of writing the history of a soldier's battle for good govern- w K I '■ |-< n I 102 ment, but there is no accounting for tastes wlien a writer with a great nnsaion appears on the scene. The line must be drawn some- where, you know. The Pharisees did that in tlie olden time, and the phylactered race is not yet extinct. In accordance witli this beautiful fitness of things, the ai or, without properly stating the facts, is constantly harping on Mackenzie's "birth and breeding," his "low social grade," etc. Mr. Dent having a patent of nobility, and having been hob-nobbing all his life at Ayr and othei' places with aristocrats of the purest cerulian tint, can of course aftord to do this without a (juiver of discomposure. Seriously speaking, does Mr. Dent really think he can ? But I sliall spare his feelings. I have no desire to wound, although he lias not scrupled to do so repeatedly. His pettiness in these sneering allusions to Mackenzie is simply pitiful. He has truly .said that " there must surely be some foul taint in the blood of any man who can stoop to such methods." In a country like Canada, whose rulers in every department of human activity are self-made men, they will be received with the contempt which they richly deserve. .. 'I !, MAOKKNZIKS ANCESTRY. Mackenzie had no reason to feel ashamed of the race from which he sprung. He had some of the best Highland blood in his veins and his life proved that he inherited many of the famous clans- men's virtues. He never boasted of his ancestry. Once or twice only, when charged with disloyalty, did he refer to it, and then in language wliich no one can read without a thrill of admii-ation. He was a Mackenzie through and through, both his paternal and maternal ancestors being of that name. His paternal grandsire, he tells us, was a Highland farmer, under the Ear] of Airlif in Glenshee, Perthshire, and joined the Stuart standard as a volun- teer in the famous 1745. His mother's father also served under " bonnie Prince Charlie " as an officer in the Highland army. ** My ancestors," he says, " stuck fast to the legitimate race of kings, and though professing a different religion, joined Charles Stuart whom (barring Ins faith) almost all Scotland considered as its rightful sovereign." . . " Both my ancestors fought for the royal descendant of their native kings ; and after the fatal battle list 103 'X of Cullodeii, my maternal grandfather accompanied his unfortunate Prince to the low countries, and was abroad with him on the con- tinent, following his lulverse fortunes for years. He returned at length, married, in his native glen, my grandmother, Elizabeth Spalding, a daughter of Mr. Spalding, of Ashintully Castle, and my aged mother was the youngest but two of ten children, the fruit of that marriage." His father was, comparatively speaking, a poor man. Hut wlio in a country where, from the laj) of poverty, so many have risen to the most exalted positions, will say aught of this ? " My mother," he says, " feared (k)d, and He did not forget nor forsake her : never in my early years can I recol- lect that divine worship was neglected in our little family, when health permitted ; never did she in family prayer forget to implofe that He, who doeth all things well, would establish in righteous- ness the throne of our monarch, setting wise and able counsellors around it. Was it from the precept— was it from the (example of such a mother and such relations, that I was to imbibe that disloyalty, democracy, falsehood and deception, with which my writings are charged ? Surely not." He respected rank when it had the attributes of true nobility, but he admired such attri- butes far more whoever might be their possessor. Whatever his station in life might be, the man who had manly worth had always a friend in William Lyon Mackenzie. ROLPH's " EXTRAOltDlNAUINESS." The author's description of Rolph is one of the most unique things to be found in history or biography anywhere. It is, to use a German phrase, "the only one." "John Rolph," he says, "was unquestionably one of the most extraordinary personalities who have ever figured in the annals of Upper Canada." This is a pretty good lift to start with, and, what is very rare in some of Mr. Dent's descriptions, it has the merit, in a certain sense, of truth. Good old Isaac Taylor, speaking of some persons he knew, says—" Their extraordinary did consist especially in the matters of prayer and devotion." That, I need scarcely say, was not Rolph's "extraordinary." Another old writer, Dr. H. More, quaintlysays "I chuse some few for the extraordinariness of their guilt," etc. llf^ i 104 '^ n I m i This is a little more apt in its application. To put it mildly, Rolph's " extraordinariness" consisted mainly in his falseness to his friends. Did he not betray Mackenzie, Samuel Lount, David Gibson and all the rest of his confederates who anxiously awaited him at Montgomery's on the ill-fated 4th of December, 1837 ? Did he not l)etray the (Tovernment as their trusted emissary on that day 1 And Robert Baldwin, one of his best friends, who accompanied him ? Has Mr. Dent not stated that he discovered in the Rolpli papers the most damning proofs of Rolph's treachery ? Does Mr. Dent not know, was he not told, on undoubted author- ity, that Baldwin, from that day forward, always considered tliat Rolph had betrayed liim as a personal friend, and that he never afterwaj-ds had any friendly intercourse with him ? Has Mr. Dent himself not said this in his sketch of Baldwin's life in the Canadian "Political Portrait Gallery"? Was Mr. Dent not also told at tha same time, and by the same high authority, that on one occasion when Baldwin and his eldest son visited Dr. Widmei', who was ill, Baldwin treated the attendant physician. Dr. Rolph, with the silent contempt begotten of the latter's prior personal treachery ? When Mr. Dent was giving Baldwin's hypothetical opinion of Mackenzie, why did he conveniently for- get Baldwin's well-known opinion of Rolph 1 Why, too, did he fail to recall the continuity of Rolph's falseness ? Does he not know that it was consistent and persistent ? Has Mr. Dent never heard that this model of all that was high-minded and honourable in old Reform, tried to compass the defeat of Sir Francis Hincks, his political leader in the same Cabinet, when the latter sought re-election in Oxford? That he tried to bring influence to undermine and destroy his own colleague in his old constit- uency ? Does lie not know that this fact can be established by living witnesses 1 Mackenzie has been recklessly and falsely charged by a correspondent in a leading journal with whole- sale treachery. But what should be said of a man who was guilty of Rolph's triunity of baseness ? Yet this man is the author's hero ! Most people will agree with Mr. Dent — John Rolph was a " most extraordinary personality." *-« m... 105 SOME MORE LITERAUT "TAFFY. I need not dwell on the author's mellifluous description of all the " sweetness and light " of this model Reformer. I leave the reader to wonder over his "comprehensive, subtle intellect," his " noble and handsome countenance," his " voice of silvery sweet- ness," " the dignity and even majesty in his presence that gave the world assurance of a strong man," his " fixity of purpose," his " well-moulded chin," his " firmly-set nose," his " smile that had a winsome sweetness," and all his other perfections physical, moral and intellectual. It is the portrait of one who is only a little lower than the angels. What wonderment, what awe he must have inspired ! And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, That one small head should carry all he knew. , A GREAT man's " PER CONTRA." " But," says Mr. Dent, " there was unquestionably a /)er contra." " Ah ! now," says the confiding reader, " the truth is surely coming." But the truth does not come at all. Mr. Dent strug- gles agonizingly with his hero's per contra, and only evolves " peculiarities " and " idiosyncrasies " that are simply virtues of another order. " No human being possessed John Rolph's entire confidence " ; he had " no such thing as self-abandonment " ; his " quality of caution" was " preternaturally developed"; he did not " wear his heart upon his sleeve " ; " not one among his contemporaries was able to take his moral and intellectual measure " ; he "seldom or never abandoned himself to frolicsome- ness or fun "; — ^these were a few of the peculiar traits of the great man. And they are always coupled with such words of honeyed sweetness that the writer seems truly .sorry when the jmr contra runs out. One startling and momentous truth, however, Mr. Dent has vouchsafed to a gaping world. He solemnly tells us that Rolph "certainly never acted without a motive." This is " certainly " a metaphysical gem of the first water. It ought to have a whole museum to itself. That a personage so extraordinary '3 "ii ; ¥ 1 V 106 never acted without a motive is one of those profound discoveries in mental science that marks a new departure in psychology. How Sir William Hamilton would have exulted in a revelation so wondrous ! Mr. Dent should take a long vacation in story -telling, and devote his talents to mind-reading. THE FLAO OF TIIUCE EPISODE. Frequent reference has been made to Rolph's treachery. The facts, as generally stated and accepted, are briefly these ; Rolph, who was at the time unknown to the authorities as the executive head of the insurrection against the Government, at the retjuest of that same Government, accompanied Baldwin and one Hugh Carmichael as bearers of a flag of truce to the headquarters of the insurgents at Montgomery's on Yonge-street. The truce- bearers first met Mackenzie, Lount and others with an oflicial verbal message to the effect that the Government wished to know the demands of those in arms, and to prevent bloodshed. Mac- kenzie, wlio suspected that the mounted embassy was a mere sub- terfuge to gain time, demanded a message from the Governor in writing. He also demanded " Independence and a convention to arrange details," and went forward with his force. The truce- bearers returned to the city for the written message asked for, and came back without it. The Governor, it seems, had got over his first real fright, and declined to give anything in writing. In the course of the parley between tlie opposite parties, Rolph called Lount aside and told him not to heed the message, but to march his men into the city. Tliis, in a word, is the great damning fact against Rolph whose treachery was threefold — to the Government, to Baldwin, and to his own confiding but deceived confederates. The proof rests so far on the statements of five persons, viz., Mackenzie, Lount, Alves, Brotherton and Baldwin. Those of tlie first four are positive and direct on tlie point. Baldwin's is of a circumstantial, but strongly confirmatory, character. On the other side are Rolph's and Carmichael's. Theii' statements cannot, I submit, be accepted. Both are interested, and the weight of evi- dence is against them. Carmichael's, besides being exceedingly dis- ingenuous, is interested in this respect, that it was a written 107 statement prepared, it is generally believed, by Rolph, and signed by Carmichael either just before or after he had had procured for him a Government appointment through llolph's influence. Apart from this, his account of the affair is contradicted materially by Baldwin. There is no doubt Carmichael gave different versions of what occurred, and I have good reasons for saying, from docu- ments which I have seen, that his statement is simply incredible. The full particulars of this painful episode would be somewhat pro- lix. They have appeared in print many times already, but the above is a fair digest of the facts. Rolph fled the country, and the evidence against him came out clearly before the Special Com- mission appointed to enquire into the whole matter, and whose proceedings are reported in the Legislative Assembly Journals for 1837-8. Baldwin testified before the Conmiission, as did others, including poor Lount, who told his honest, sad tale of false friendship and wrecked hopes almost within the dark shadow of the scaffold upon which he perished. He was executed a few months afterwards, and his fate was universally lamented. No one who has enquired into the facts has ever, from that day to this, doubted Kolph's guilt. The Glohe was for many years the organ of all parties in denouncing it. My brief recital corresponds substantially with that given by Mr. Dent in his sketch of Bald- win's life, and subseijuently, in his "Toronto : Past and Present." Speaking in the sketch of the direction given by Rolph to Lount, Mr. Dent says : " Assuming this message to have been i-eally deliv- ered by Dr. Rolph, it must be admitted that it places him in an un- enviable liglit, for, in that case, he was guilty, not merely of treason to his country, but of treachery to his friend. Mr. Baldwin never forgave him, and was never again on Hjxiakiny terms witli him." Re- ferring, in the Memorial Volume, to Rolph's denials of his guilt, Mr. Dent again says that "it can hardly be said that his (Rolph's) presentation of the case has ever been satisfactorily established." We shall see whether, like Carmichael, or whether like himself, the author will give still another version of the same matter, when he has Rolph for a prompter and inspirer, and has a different purpose to serve. I r I 108 THE AUTHOR AS A QUOTATIONIST, Some statements in the Narrative of the Lien temint-Gover nor, Sir Francis Bond Head, may also be mentioned in this connection. I cite these for two reasons. One is to show that the opinion enter- tained of Rolph's conduct, from a high official point of view, was in the main in accord with the opinions of men of all parties, and of the Globe as their universal exponent in after years ; and the other is to prove the one-sided character of Mr. Dent's histor- ical references and quotations in regard to both Rolph and Mac- kenzie. One very remarkable feature of the Story is this ; that no end of quotations, from different sources, is given derogatory to Mackenzie, and scarcely one of the thousands that might be given in hih favoiu", while, as to Rolph, everytliing laudatory of him is sedulously hunted up and cited, without a solitary syllable that is disparaging. Could any stronger proof be requii-ed of the author's deliberate partisansliip ? The reader of the Story will see that Mr. Dent has culled from Head's Narrative several of the most offensive passages he could find against Mackenzie, but not a word against Rolph. And so it is in regard to every other reference in the author's book. It is notorious that Rolph's baseness, and his consequent unpopularity amongst the people of Upper Canada, made him the common target for many years of the strongest attacks and denunciations. Of these not even the most distant echo is heard in this bulky, gilt-edged volume. Is it any wonder, then, that the hero appears " without spot or wrinkle or any such thing ?" Or that the whole portraiture of Mackenzie is marred, blotched and blemished ? A NEW RULE OF CUITICISM. Apply this new canon of story-telling all round, and see the effects of it. There is not a statesman or politician of prominence anywhere whose character and career have not been both praised and censured by their contemporaries in the press or otherwise. Yet, according to the novel rule laid down in this highly judicial narrative, we must accept as final, in every case, a judgment based on the voice of praise or censui'e alone ! Run down the compara- 109 tively long roll of Canadian public men living and dead — and it is for our young country a roll of honour — and who in the list could stand in history were he thus left at the mercy of the garbler ? And who, on the other hand, through this patent winnowing process of Mr. Dent's, might not, like Rolph, come out an embodi- ment of perfection ? Take as a single illustration another " per- sonality " amongst the author's Patres Conscripti — llobert Bald- win. I will concede to him as much of immaculateness as will any one, but had he no frailties or shortcomings ? And how would it be if, in the pages of historic story-telling, all these were studiously and continuously elaborated and magnified with every artifice of literary ingenuity ? What if the portrait of him in John William Kaye's " Life of Charles, Lord Metcalfe " were taken as the only true portrait from life? What if every line and feature there were enlarged or distorted? Kaye's limning of Baldwin is far from in- gratiating. It is not true, no more true, although more flattering to the original, than is Mr. Dent's unsightly limning of Mac- kenzie. Or, suppose wef take Baldwin, as he appears in the Memoir, by G. Poulett Scrope, M.P., of Charles, Lord Sydenham, and the Narrative of his Administration in Canada ? Scrope there charges Baldwin with political ignorance, tergiversation and dis- honour, and states why he has been led to such conclusions. I do not sympathize with his views, but I am not called upon to discuss them, nor shall I do so. But what if Baldwin were dealt with, ?n the light of such a narrative, as mercilessly as is Mackenzie in Mr. Dent's ? Mr. Dent does not mention Kaye or Scrope, but who that has cast a stone at Mackenzie has he not mentioned ? If the " so-called historians " had winnowed political literature in this way, giving all the wheat to one personage and all the chaff to another, we should not have been surprised, be- cause they, according to Mr. Dent, are a lot of ignoramuses. But Mr. Dent, be it said again with all reverence, is not of these. Not much. He is the only true story-teller, the Gamaliel of Canadian annals, at whose blessed feet the great " So-Called " must sit and learn — the self-appointed Lord Keeper of our his- torical conscience. 110 ;!ii if SIR FRANCIS BOND IIKAD TO TlIK FORE. The following (juotiition occurs in Siv Francis Bond Head's des- patch to Lord (irhMK'lg, the Colonial Secretary, dated January 26th, 18.38. The writer was protesting against Rolph's being made a member of the Executive Council, and, after giving Mac- kenzie the place of honour in his anathemas, he proceeds : — " Dr. Ilolph has been proved to have been the most insidious, the most crafty, the most bloodthirsty, the most treacherous, the most cowardly, and, taking his character altogether, the most infamous of the traitors who lately assailed us. After having been the person who fixed the day on which Toronto was to be attacked, he hyprocritically undertook to be the bearer of my appeal to the rebels, to avoid the eftusion of human blood ; and it has actually been proved before the Commission, which is investigat- ing this treasonable affair, that, after Dr. Rolph and Mr. Robert Baldwin had delivered this message irom me, the former, Dr. Rolph, went aside with two of the principal traitors, and diaboli- cally recommended them to come and attack i,he town. 1 Avill only add that Dr. Rolph's consciousness of the part he had acted prompted him to fly to the United States (befoi-e any idea was entertained of ari'esting him) the moment it became evident that the treacherous attack he had planned would not succeed. As a fugitive traitor, his seat in the House of Assembly has just been declared void, with only two dissentient voices, which merely disagreed on a question of form." A CHRONIC DISORDER. When Mr. Dent was pelting Mackenzie with some of the nastiest missies he could pick from this self-same Narrative, he forgot the above fragrant little nosegay from the library window of the old Government House at Toronto. His forgetfulne.ss in this line is, I fear, chronic. Mr. Dent is a great book-maker, but one of his iulirmities is that hi^ different books on the same subjects do not always tally. Nor do they always tally as to the same transactions in the same book. He is tr©ubled with a men- tal disorder called in classical times lubrica memoria, which, in Ill our " low radical " vernacular, simply means lubricity of memory. It has affected him a good deal during the past few years. For example, he says one thing in one book about Mackenzie and Baldwin, and, forgetting all about it, says a very different thing in another, tie says one thing in one place about Mackenzie in his present book, and, forgetting all about it, says a different thing in another place in this same book. His forgetfulness about Rolph is merely another symptom of the same unfortunate ail- ment. He forgets everything that would soil the stainless name aiad character of that monument of political constancy, and even manufactures virtues out of his per contra ; he remembers every good word that ever has been penned about him. Mr. Dent's fits of mental lubricity are a good deal like the lazy boy's attacks of " school fever " : they come on just when he wants Miem. They are as handy as a pocket in a shirt — to bo used or not at the owner's convenience or pleasure; but I'ke the "tricks that are vain," of the Heathen Chinee, they are also very "peculiar." Mil. DENT RESPONSIBLE. But why, some may ask, do you now unearth this old story of Rolph's besetting sin? Why, when even the Globe declared, so early as the 31st of December last, thut this controversy " con- cerning the connection of Dr. Rolph with the Rebellion of 1837," was "inevitable?" When the Rolph papers, and Rolph's memoranda of the movement, are manifestly the source of many of the -vorst calumnies against Mackenzie ? When Mr. Dent has given the strongest provocation for unearthing everything by the lofty pedestal of goodness and worth on which he has placed his hero ? When he has challenged the strictest scrutiny into every motive and action of his hero's public life ? When he has sought, by every means in his power, and notably by the most offensive sort of contrasts with Rolph, and the most unworthy aspersions of the latters associate, to degrade in the eyes of the world one whose transparent honesty and sincerity alone should have shielded him from such wanton insults ? When a scion of the Rolph family has, in the leading journal of the Liberal party of Canada, reck- lessly and falsely charged the victim of his father's malice with I 112 universal treacliery 1 Surely the limit of endurance was reached, was passed, when calumnies so vindictive were sown broadcast in the fierce light of the public eye 1 Do I ask for justification or excuse in raking up the ashes of the past under such circum- stances ? For exposing this white sepulchre of a Story 1 For stripping its slanders to their rotten framework ? For unmasking the author, and condemning his partisan production ? For promptly casting back upon his traducers the ignominies heaped upon the dead patriot's grave ? I ask for none, for none is required. But if I do ask, upon whom rests the responsibility for all this crimina- tion and recrimination, no one can mistake the certain and only answer. The ripping open of old wounds and sores, as yet unhealed and irritating, is an extremely unpleasant, a very painful operation. But it is Mr. Dent who has forced the fighting ; he has been the heartless, rancorous aggressor ; his barbed javelins have been hurled everywhere ; and upon his shoulders alone must the res- ponsibility — be it heavy or light — remain. A CHARACTERISTIC CONTRAST OP MACKENZIE AND ROLPH. The author's contrasts of Mackenzie and Rolph are also rather edifying. Here is one of them : — " No two human beings could well be more unlike than were William Lyon Mackenzie and John Rolph. They were compelled to work together in a common cause for many years, but the two entities were thoroughly antagonistic, and there was never much personal liking between them. The structure of their bodies was not more dissimilar than was that of their minds. The one, slight, wiry and ever in motion, seemed as though it might be blown hither and thither by any strong current. The other, solid almost to portliness, was suggestive of fixity — of self-dependence, and unsusceptibility to outside influ- ence. The one was suggestive of being in a great measure the creOrture of circumstances ; the other of being a law unto himself — one who would be more likely to influence circumstances than ^to be influenced by them. Mackenzie's nature, though it could not strictly be called a shallow one, at any rate lay near the surface, and its characters were not hard to decipher, even upon a brief acquaint- ance. There were depths in Rolph's nature which were never 113 fathomed by those nearest and dearest to him —possibly not even by himself. Mackenzie seems to liave long regarded Rolph with a sort of distant awe— as a Sphinx, close, oracular, inscrutable," etc. CHIEFLY CONCEKNING " STKUOTUIJE." The first three sentences in the above are more or less true. We have seen already in what respects "the two entities " were " unlike " or " antagonistic." A.s to some of these, it will be univer- sally admitted, they were as far apart as the poles. As well could oil and water mix, as could several of the crowning qualities of each blend in either " personal " or, for that matter, jjolitical combina- tion. Honest frankness and wily deceit were never twin " entities," and never will be. M)-. Dent, it will be seen, is great on " .struc- ture," mental, bodily, and, let me add, book structure as well. We have noticed before how he analyzed Mackenzie's "structure of mind." He is here investigating, in pretty much the same style, his " structure " of body. All this kind of historic anatomy is exceedingly interesting. It is indispensable in graphic story- telling, as witness Charles Dickens' subtlety in the same line. But the English master of fiction Went deeper into the subje(!t than his Canadian rival. Mr. Dent has strangely enough passed over a most absorbing line of enquiry in regard to lioth " person- alities." He has entirely omitted the " structure " of their clothes. For a C^ourt historian and literary dandy who only aflfects the " bloorls " of Reform, and looks awry upon the " unlettered " hewers of wood and drawers of water for the party, what a field for his genius was here? Clothes are a powerful element in politics. It is not so many years ago since we had an animated discussion in the Toronto press as to which of the rival parties wore the best clothes. Some journalistic Yellowplush .started the momentous question, and finally proved to his own satisfaction, that his political leaders were " the glass of fasliion and the mould of form " in this respect. Ergo they had the best right to rule the party which ruled the country. Now Rolph, according to Mr. Dent, was a great leader of a political party, the greatest in fact in it, and we are told that he had an " unerring instinct " which always enabled him to lead it aright, but that Mackenzie. 8 f -I «» I" * t I f 114 whom KoriK! nii.sj^uidnd jum'soiis think was also a leader ot" some merit in the same party, was always sure, when the great man allowed him, to lead it wrong, l^ursuing the very nice analysis, which he is here engaged in, of the miimtest traits and peculiari- ties of "the two entities," how brilliant Mr. Dent might hav»! been had he only gone into the (lucstion of the influence of their respective tailor shojis on their nwpective pul)lic careers? How thrilling would havt^ been the thenu! a.s a starting point for "all the worst consequences of the movement"? How tame and com- monplace beside it would have appeai'ed that noble burst anent the naughty woman in the stocks ? Did Holpli sport a broad- cloth cut-a-way with brass buttons, a "dignified" satin stock, unspeakable knee breeches, silk stockings and pumps all so "suggestive of ti.xity, of self dependence and unsusceptibility to outside influence," and liencn; his splendid success ? And did Mackenzie take to " low radical " collars, a tweed shooting jacket, wide-awake unmentionables and Cobourgs — all so "suggestive of being the creature of circumstances," not knowing where he would get his next change of linen, and hence his dismal failure? The ecjually interesting problem of which style the great " uid(!ttered " preferred, might be tackled at the same time. This is a " pointer " for the author's second volume, and he must not miss it. Mr. Dent has shone already like the character in Hudibras who was An haberdasher of small wares In pcjlitics and State affairs. But what is all this to an exhaustive discjuisition, even in a third volume, on the relative merit and influence of two "personalities,'' the one "extraordinary" and the other "notorious," from an every- day and Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes point of view ? The vexed (piestion, as to the " heroic " in their composition, might at once be settled forever, THE " SPHINX "-LIKE " PERSONALITY." As I have said elsewhere, there is not much humour in this Story. The author is in too dead earnest in proclaiming his long pent-up message, too seriously sober in telling the momentous, B 5' j£. i9 115 solemn trutli for the tirst tiiiic, iiud K"'"n iilxxit liis inissioiiary business generally, to attempt the jocMtse in any shajxi. Hut after all there is a good deal of jocoseness in this last extract from his book. The "awe" with which Holph inspired Mackenzie is al)out as waggish as anything can be. After gazing in agony on Gour- lay's "slow cru<;ifixion," having our blood curdled with a duel that was a " rcd-hajuled '' nuirdcr, and escaping frou) the jaws of the " half-famish(Hl tigers'" of thaidy killed every one who was unable to gue.ss it. Ojnlipus, the king of the TheVwins, solved the riddle, wlu^eupon the Sphinx .shiw herself. According to Mr. Dent the hero of his Story was a whole "riddle" in himself. The " facts of his early life," he says, " affcM'd no clue to the reading of the riddle " of his " peculiarities." What is more, he was always propounding riddles to his friends and follow ers, and chief amongst the.se was — whether they could count upon him or not when he was most needed 1 This was summarily solved at last, and the legend is that the political Sphinx thereupon suf- fered political strangulation. I don't know whethei- I have traced out the parallel very lucidly. But that is doubtle.ss what Mr. Dent meant, and the comparison is probably as lucid as his own. At all events, Mr. Dent is in a little difficulty just here. He has got himself into a "Serbonian bog," and I want to help him out of it if I can. My "intentions," like Mackenzie's, are "good," and as the author appreciates Mackenzie's "good intentions," the least he can do is to extend his appreciation to those of his critic. But surely the author must have been wool-gathering when he hit upon Rolph as a Sphinx. The comparison is not a bit compli- mentary ; it is really " the unkindest cut of all." The Sphinx suicide that Oedipus got rid of was by no means a lovely "person- ality." She was a " tyrant-monster who had very little regard for the feelings of the unlettered farmers and mechanics," and "the rural section of the community " around old Thebes. But did Mr. Dent never hear of another Sphinx — "The Sphinx of theTuileries," celebrated in John Hays' verse ? They call him a Sphinx, — it pleases him, — And if we narrowly read. We will find some truth in the flunkey's praise, — The man is a Sphinx ihdeed. ••I inrr|||jj||. 117 For tlio r>j»liinx with bruiiat of woman, And fiico Hit (loboniiir, Hatl tho aluuk, falso paws of a lion, That couUl furtively Hoizo and toar. So far t*^* the Hhouldors, — but if you took Tho boast in rovorHo, you would find Tho ignoblo form of a craven cur VVaH all that lay behind. Mr. Dent will at once see how cynical is his comparison. He has evidently got it in the wrong place. Why didn't he dovetail it and gild it ovei- amongst the hero's per contra 'I There in little to be added about the "extraordinary personality." Kolph's abilities are uncjuestionable, but with his use or abuse of them, outside the line of criticism here pursued, I have nothing at present to do. Even were this not "the other side of the 'Story,' " I feel that Mf. Dent's patent is too sacred a thing for unhallowed hands to touch. The least said, and the least that is provoked to be said, aboui his epic hero the better. Since the appearance of the author's "extraordinary" estimate of his character, I have heard from those who had the best means of knowing him, much that has astonished me, and that would astonish any person. But I have no desire to travel beyond the record, or to deal with Rolph other than the actual necessities of the case require. Mr. Dent has called forth all that has appeared about his hero in the news- paper press, or in these pages. Those who are most interested in shielding Rolph's reputation, and defending him before the world, may thank the story-tellei-'s indiscretions for it all. The extract from the Globe contained in " A Reformer's " letter is far less sur- prising to me now than when I first read it; I know some persons to whom it caused no surprise whatever. There is little doubt that the late Hon. George Brown knew more about the man whom he thus etched in a leading article than Mi-. Dent has ever " dreamt of in his philosophy ; " and, after all said and done, the fact remains that the Globe has dealt leniently with Rolph. In speaking of Mackenzie's personal relations with Sir Francis Bond Head, Mr. Dent gleefully announces that the former was "inexpressibly odious " to " this diner-out of the first water." But why did he w I IP 1 if Ui' 118 fail to announce tliat, during the last years of his achninistration, the Lieutenant-Governor never invited Rolph to his table? An old resident of Toronto is authority for the statement once made by Rolph, that he (Rolph) cared less about effecting a political change by violent means than he did about ruining Sir Francis Bond Head as a public man forever. Why was all this ? John Rolph was in truth far better known and understood than the author of this Story has for a moment supposed, and I can well believe that, had Mr. Dent exercised that prudent spirit of enquiry which every writer of history should exercise, and which is very properly lequired, he would never have blundered into such ex- travagances of adulation. THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1836. I now come to the author's lucubrations on the general election of 1836. This was brought on by a stretch of the Royal preroga- tive in dissolving Parliament with the deliberate intention, as afterwards appeared, of securing a Tory victory at any price. The election was, from all accounts we have of it, carried against the Reformers by improper and unfair means. Mr. Dent being corroborated by other more trustworthy writers, we can readily believe him when he says that " the official part" entered upon the contest witli loaded dice and a determination to win." The " loaded dice '' were a profuse expenditure of money, partisan returning officers, the personal intervention and assistance of the Lieutenant-Governor, intimidation at tlie polls, and a free and lavish distribution of Crown lands patents amongst the most needy of the electors. This last, as most writers on the period agree, was by all odds tlie most potent influence. The loyalty trumpet wps also sounded through the land. The author declares that ''the issue was an exciting, but not a doubtful one." He is quite correct. The Reformers were utterly worsted at the polls by their opponents determined and successful interference every- where with the freedom of election. They had gone in to win at all hazards, and they did win. Speaking of the use made of the nearly fifteen hundred patents issued by the Government, Mr. Dent says : " Freedom of election was paralyzed. Reform voters 119 wore literally overwhelmed, and their franchise rendered of no avail." And, speaking of other adverse influences, he also says: " They (the Reformers) needed all the courage of their opinions to support them against the oblofjuy which official slander had aroused. The courageous among them faced the polls in the spirit of a forlorn hope. The more timid quietly remained at home and refrained from voting, rather than subject themselves to certain insult and probable physical violence." The victory, at all events, was dearly bought. It brought on a political reaction which plunged the country into a species of civil war, and thereby hastened, by many years, the victors final overthi'ow. A SLIGHT INCONSISTKXCY. We must, as I have said, accept the author's statements on these points, because they are more or less corroborated by other and better authorities. The triumph of the Tories by such means being thus a foregone conclusion, and IVIr. Dent having, as we have seen, fully committed himself to that view of the matter, what is to be thought of his consistency a few pages farther on where he ascribes the defeat of the Reformers to other and diflerent causes? He there (at page 333) says that "the ignomi- nious discomfiture of the Reformers had been brought about by defections from their own ranks." His somersault is at once explained. It arises from tlie natural l)eut of his mind as a story- teller. He fancies he sees an opening to "gee in" another staggering blow at Mackenzie, and, without stopping to consider that it may prove a boomerang, he straightway delivers it. In explanation of the Reform defeat he declares in the very next sentence to that just quoted, that " modeiate-minded Reformers had come to think, with the Conservatives, that even Family Compact domination w\as preferable to the ascendancy of such men as Mackenzie." In other woi-ds, coolly disregarding all that he had stated just before about " freedom of election " being "paralyzed," etc., he audaciously turns around and says that Mackenzie was the bete noirwho had caused the wliole catastrophe ! Poor Mackenzie ! When will his sins of omission and commission ever be condoned 1 II 120 DENT OS. DKNT. Mackenzie was certainly not responsible in this instance any more than the rest of his party. And it is perfectly clear froni this very portion of the narrative itself — if any more proof be required — that the author is extremely unfair in his attempt to make him responsible. That Mr. Dent has here misrepresented the real state of feeling amongst lleformei's at that particular time, is evident from certain circumstances stated by himself, which are also corroborated. The principal of these is that, in the period intervening between the prorogation of the House of As- sembly and the dissolution immediately pi'eceding the general election, there was a great deal of public excitement which tended to thoroughly unite and consolidate the Reform party. In proof of this I quote Mr. Dent at pages 320 and 326 of his Story, where he has no object to prove, and is plainly telling the unvarnished truth, against Mr. Dent at page 333 bofore mentioned, where he wishes to deal a foul blow at Mackenzie, and, for tliat purpose, does not scruple to distort the truth. At page 320 he says : " During the weeks following the prorogation the public excite- ment continued to increase until it had reached a height without precedent in the history of the Province. The Reformers felt that they had been wofully deceived in the Lieutenant-Govenor, and many of them placed no bounds to their censure. Some of the Reform newspapers hinted pretty strongly that no people could be expected to remain permanently loyal when they were deprived of their rights year after year, and when all theii" petitions were set at naught. The political atmosphere was charged with electricity. The outlook was lurid and ominous. Some of the loy^ilists began to dread an actual uprising of the people." And at page 326 he says : " The Refoi-mers, moderate and radical, were brought closer together by the agitated state of the public mind, and by the efforts of the official party to destroy their influence. Several weeks be- fore the dissolution actually took place, it became known that such a step was imminent, and quiet preparations were made for the general election which was to follow." What is the only reasonable and legitimate inference to be drawn from these state- 121 meats? Is it not tliat, amongst Reformers generally, the fears of " the ascendancy of such men as Mackenzie " were not, as Mr. Dent would have us believe at page 333, the predominating cause of the Reform disaster ? Are not these statements wholly inconsistent with his previous absurd assertion that " moderate- minded Reformers " preferred " Family Compact domination " to this so-called " ascendancy "1 How could there be any pernicious Mackenzie "ascendancy" about it, because that is what he means, when, on his own showing, '• moderate and radical " were united 'I As often happens in the practical working of political parties, a great common danger had brought the Reformers into thorough harmony, if indeed that was retiuired. But it really was not. They had been thoroughly united during the last Parliament, and tlie principal effect of the crissis that had arisen was to make them show a more determined front than ever. At all events, there was no change in Reform sentiment, as Mr. Dent has here stated it, prior to the election. Mackenzie and his party were in perfect accord. VV^hy then should the misfortune of defeat be laid at his door 1 Mr. Dent, be it observed, has also told us that " the more timid " Reformers " quietly remained at home and refrained from voting." The probabilities are that there were very many who acted in this way. The intimidation that was being exercised was noised about everywhere. The polling lasted for a week, and, in sparsely settled sections of the country especially, timid Reform \oters were not likely to travel for miles over bad roads to the polling places on what, they might well believe, would be a "fool's errand." From this it plainly appears that the whole of the Reform vote proper was not polhid. Mackenzie was certainly not to blame for that, unless Mr. Dent wants us to infer that the Reform leader ought to have been omnipresent as well as omni- potent. Such an inference would be no more unreasonable than many others in the same connection. i; i ^- 1: •i^ A NiiST OF SKLF-COXTRADICTIONS. Further proof of this specious, but none the less studied, injustice to Mackenzie is furnished by the author at page 321. He there says that " it was no secret that the Upper Canadian ¥ ir i i' i k tic 1' ll |v fP 11 * T 1^ ' ,'■ N' I r ■I. j^l: ii(, — ■ : 1 L ; \ iii 122 Reformers generally were in sympatliy with the projects of Reform entertained by the Lower Canadian agitators ; and it suited the Tories to assume that the sympathy extended not only to legiti- mate projects of Reform, but to less openly-avowed schemes of rebellion." So that their identification with their friends in the Lower Province had also something to do with the disaster which befell the Reformers in the Upper Province. It suits Mr. Dent, however, " to assume " that Mackenzie was the rock that had made shipwreck of their fortunes. Still discussing the same subject in the same stumbling way, the author, at another place in the same chapter, says : " The con- duct of the party in power had been such as to make temporary radicals of not a few persons who had heretofore been known as moderate Reformers. It may be said, indeed, that nearly all the moderates had either made common cause with the Government party for fear of the radicals, or had coalesced with the radicals from a sense of officia,l tyranny and injustice. Public meetings were held, at which the Lieutenant-Governor and his myrmidons were subject to the most vehement denunciations. At a meeting of the Constitutional Reform Society, Dr. Baldwin, George Ridout, James E. Small and others referred to His Excellency's conduct in terms which public audiences had never before heard from their lips." He also says, speaking of the same thing in another place, that " these feelings were participated in by Reformers generally." Here we have a still different account of the influences at work amongst the people, and which at the same time throws a flood of light on the author's pet theory of the baneful Mackenzie " as- cendancy." Robert Baldwin's father, and other leading men of the Reform party, as well as " Reformers generally " are shown to be quite as violently disposed against the (>overnment as Mackenzie. According to one opinion of the author, expressed in the above quotation, the " moderate Reformers " were not perverts at all, but as radical as Mackenzie or any of his party, This is most probably the correct statement of the case, although, as we have seen, it is directly opposed to previous statements on the very same point. Then again, according to another opinion in the very next sentence, " the moderates " were divided between the 128 two parties, Reform and Tory. What tlien becomes of that little pet theory, so ilippantly advanced just before, that all the " mod- erate-minded Reformers " were against Mackenzie whose terrible "ascendancy" had frightened them like a flock of sheep into the Tory ranks ? The only answer is that it is simply another con- tradiction and inconsistency. There is in short a whole series of contradictions and inconsistencies about the same public trans- action, and they are almost incomprehensible except on the well understood rule — which Mr. Dent hereafter would do well to follow — that a straightforward story can only be told straight- forwardly, and that a crooked story will almost cctainly trip the story-teller unless he be a very clever man who tells it. That species of cleverness Mr, Dent has not yet acquired. If he wanted his readers to place any credence whatever in his narrative, he should really have told it with some sort of consistency. There are, I dare say, some statements in it that they would like to believe. But when they find their author turning somersaults, displaying his agility as a literary acrobat, and swinging all round the circle in his explanation of a very simple occurrence, appar- ently for no other reason than to get a fling at one of the principal characters in his Story, they may well be excused for being strongly sceptical of the truth itself whenever they chance to come across it. Mackenzie's responsibility for the defeat. Amidst this beautiful medley of accounts of the state of feel- ing amongst Reformers, during this memorable election contest, it clearly appears that Mackenzie was not responsible, any more than the rest of his party, for the ruinous result. The Reformers as a party went into the struggle shoulder to shoulder, united in policy and sentiment, and the responsibility of defeat must be justly shared by all alike. Their fate was sealed from the outset, by reason of the agencies employed against them, and Mr. Dent concurs in this view. Why then censure any one man, or any one section of the party ? Mackenzie's publication of the Hume letter, which Mr. Dent also refers to, could not materially have affected the result. Its force, if it ever had any, 1 ?: ill 124 was long since spent. It appeared in tlie Advocate fully two years before this time, and, at the general election, a few months afterwards in the same year, when it was still fresh in the public mind, and when it was made to render all the Tory service pos- sible, the Reformers scored a victory. No doubt there were, as Mr. Dent says, defections from the Reform ranks. His princi- pal authority for the statement is Sir Francis Hincks' "Remini- scences." There are other authoi'ities as well, and being so cor- roborated, we must accept Mr. Dent again. The Methodists, influenced more or less by Dr. Ryer.son, who usually contrived to be on the side of the ruling powers, but really influenced far more, as we shall see, by a large money grant in aid of the Cobaurg Academy, went over in considerable numbers to the enemy. But their defection alone could not possibly have brought about the utter rout sustained by the Liberals. It was really due to a combination of influences which Mr. Dent rightly indicated when he followed in the beaten track of better authori- ties than himself, but which he wrongly indicated when he left the path of honest narration to hit Mackenzie below the belt. One of these influences, I venture to say, M^as one which is con- stantly upsetting the calculations of the most sagacious party politicians. I refer to that of the middle or no-party electo- rate — the political " residuum," as it may here be called — which had no strongly pronounced party leanings, which usually hovered between the contending forces, attaching itself at one time to one side, and at another time to the other. It goes without saying, that, on' some previous occasions, this middle party had joined the Reformers. If it had not done so, it i.s difficult to conceive liow the latter could have succeeded in securing the control of the Assembly, unsatisfactory as any such control was with an irresponsible Executive in power. But on this notable occasion, in the early summer of 1836, there can hardly be any c^uestion that this middle party gravitated towards the reactionist ranks, and fell into line under the Tory banner. Their numbers may not have been large ; they were probably small ; but it has been too often demonstrated within recent years how small is the actual number of votes essential 125 to the rise and fall of parties, and to make and unmake (irovern- menta, to leave any doubt as to the inevitable consequences, in a severe contest, of such an influence being transferred from one side to the other. MR. dent's " MODEKATK " POLITICIANS. This important factor in the struggles of anto-Rebellion parties does not seem to have come within the range of Mr. Dent's political ken. There is no mention of it anywhere in this volume. It would appear to be embraced in his idea of the '"moderate" Reform element. Such an idea is, to say the least, a very confused one. It was certainly quite as much, if not more, a Tory element, but it was in fact anything or nothing — a most tickle and uncertain, but none the less potent, influence in all general election contests. Moderation in politics is not to be despised. Many of thr; most intelligent politicians of our own time are moderate, but, all the same, their political principles are distinctive, and their o^iinions very pronounced. There is no reason why this should not be. They are in this respect very different from many of the "moderates" whom Mr. Dent is so fond of patting on the back. Those nonde script gentry were " neither fish, flesh, fowl nor good herring." They were evidently persons of very easy political virtue, and the author's unbounded admiration of their loose principles, and still looser practices, is not at all surprising. Mr. Dent may, however, be only in a secondary degree responsible for these free and easy notions of political morality. His ideas, on some of the points which I have noticed, are very probably derived from the Rolph memoriae. These Rolph papei's are the bane of his book. He will some day heartily wish that he had never seen them, ajid that, long years before he had taken the highest seat in the story-telling synagogue, they had been buried in the depths of oblivion. They have led him far astray from the straight way and the narrow path of literary rectitude, and have sent him nakedly wandering down the aisles of history in deep, delusive dreams of Mackenzie vicious- ness and Rolph virtue, to be awakened, T trust, some time, and again clothed and in his right mind. f i » i{ 126 rilE ONE 8TUKAK OF UKKillT LIGHT." N't i I ! Most of the promiueut Reformers, Mackenzie included, were defeated in this election. Mr. Dent, fancying that he has his victim nicely saddled with the discredit of the defeat, concludes his phenomenal description of it with a rhetorical sky-i'ocket for his hero. No sooner does down go Mackenzie than up goes the Doctor, in this Story. We are accordingly told that " the one significant gain to the Reform party arose out of the election of Dr. Rolph. His return was the one streak of bright light which appeared in the Reform horizon at the close of the campaign." It would be rather interesting,! finicy, to en(iuire how it happened that, in Norfolk, where the Metliodist vote and the Ryerson influence were pretty strong, the cunning " Oily Gammon " of the Globe managed to squeeze in. From what I have been able to discover, in old records of the campaign, of the influences employed by the Reform candidate there, Rolph in his private canvass was no more loyal to the leaders of his party than he was on numerous occasions aftei'wards. He was a professional man in more senses than one ; at times he made great political professions that were in inverse proportion to his performances ; and he was not above " running with the hare and hunting with the hounds " when he was not under proper surveillance. Be this as it may, no one will envy Mr. Dent his fresh extraction of sunbeams from cucumbers in the case of his hero. Mr. Dent sends Rolph up like a rocket, but he omits to add that he speedily came down like the stick. For all the good that that worthy could accomplish, even if he had had the chance, in the House of Assembly afterwards, he might as well have been tied hand and foot, with his back broke, in the depths of the Norfolk forest. RYERSON AND MACKENZIE. The meanly false impression which the author strives to create of Mackenzie personally has already been noticed. In these meanderings through the suburbs of old-time election history, Mr. Dent again favours us with his "non-partisan" views on the same point. It occurs in his remarks on the differences between St«i1« 127 Macken/io and the late Kev, Di'. Hyerson. He says tliat the t'oriiier " (juarreUed with Dr. Kyerson," who, " in common with a largo and respectable portion of tlie Upper Canadian population, cherished a feeling of personal contempt for Mackenzie, whose charactei- he thoroughly despised, and whose projects he regarded as prejudicial to the welfai-e of the colony." He then proceeds to speak of Dr. Ilyerson's taking j)art in the election of IS'M) against the Reformers and adds — "his (Ryerson's) dislike of Mac- kenzie probably imparted zeal to his opposition." Let me ask, has it never occurred to Mr. Dent, when writing in this uncalled- for and gratuitously offensive strain, that he is stepping on rather slippery ground ? That he is jeopardizing his own "character" amongst " a large and respectable portion " of our people '( Can Mr. Dent afford to do this ? I hardly think he can. I am not aware that he can afford to " thoroughly despise," even at second hand, the character of any Canadian public man, or to take the risk of imputing to any j)erson that sort of contempt for Mackenzie. He knows best whereof he writes, but those who think most highly of Dr. Ryerson, or who have any regard for him, will scarcely thank Mr. Dent for his wanton indiscretion in dragging their old friend into the miry ruts of his narrative, and leaving him there to be scoffed at. Stories like this, replete with "hypocrisies, and envies and all evil speakings," are very apt to provoke reprisals. They certcainly give rise to criticisms and animadversions of one kind or another that a fair and dispassionate presentation of the facts would never have called forth. I have every respect for Dr. Ryer- son, and for his services in the cause of education, but justice to Mackenzie, which Mr. Dent denies him in this instance, compels me to advert to the relations subsisting between the two men. This is all the more necessary from the fact, known to Mr. Dent and which probably gave zest to his insolent imputations, that Mackenzie has always had many warm friends and admirers in the influential religious body to which Dr. Ryerson belonged. THE AUTIIOn IN A NEW ROLE. Mr. Dent, as wc have seen, is gifted with many rare accom- plishments as a story-teller. He has enlarged the bounds of his- toric fiction to an indefinite extent, and has reduced story-telling, I f ii t Mi-- nn 128 both as a science and an art, to a very tine thing. But he is no less distinifuished as a literary juj^f^Ier and contortionist. Tn this very difHcult roli'. he is almost unecjuallod. No one who has faced the pjarish footlights for many years in this country can at all compare with him. He is the literary " Wizard of the North." He can swallow himself with the greate.st of ease in two diflerent treatises on the same subject ; ho can go through a similar per- formance in one and the same treatise ; nay, in one and the same chapter. He can do it, too, without so much as a wry face, and, having got through the deglutition process, can come up smiling and salute his wondering audience in the most approved fashion The old literary trick of opening one's mouth and putting his foot in it, is nothing new to Signer Del Dento. Indeed, he has rather improved on it. He can open his lustoric mouth, and put both his historic feet in it, without tlie slightest difficulty. He does it K J adroitly and gracefully that lie seems rather to like it. In fact, it has become a .sort of passion with him, and like all persons who have an oveimastering passion for that sort of display, the merest suggestion of his capabilities, as a leading performer in his favourite role, sets him oft' at once in a fresh exliibition of his skill. Signer's contortions, in what may be called his Ryersonian tricks of the stage, are superb. Mr. Dent alleges that Mackenzie " cjuarrelled w ith Dr. Ryer- son." "The art of putting things," as the "Country Parson" has told us in one of his best essays, is a inost relined art. Mr. Dent has evidently been studying the essay. In his way of putting the so-called " quarrel " between the two men, he conveys, as he no doubt means to convey, the most unfavourable inference as to Mackenzie. If he had stated the facts such an inference could not possibly Ije drawn ; but facts that tell in Mackenzie's favour are not what the author wants. In this case, as in many others, he suppresses them. He tries to lead his readers to believe tliat some wanton act of Mackenzie, which was intensified by "personal con- tempt" forthe suppo.sed wrong-doer, had driven Dr. Ryerson from the path of political rectitude, and that the Doctor, having the Metho- dist body pretty much in his breeches pockets, Mackenzie was the wolf who had also scared them from the true political fold. 121) MACKKNZIE's and HYKKHON'h KAIILY FKIKNIJHIIIK Up to 1831 or '35 Mackenzie and Dr. RyerHon were personal and political friends. In 182(5 the latter made his debut an a con. troversialist in a review of a sermon by Archdeacon Strachan on the death of Dr. Mountain, the Anglican Bishop of Quebec. The senaon \vm obnoxious to the " dissenters," as they were then called, and especially to the Methodist clergy, and the l^octor took up the cudgels valiantly in behalf of his own order. Mackenzie gave extensive circulation to the review through the Adrocdtc, and was largely instrumental in securing for the reviewer any credit which lie gained in the wordy war. Dr. llyerson was at that time an ardent Liberal, more extreme, it would appear, than Mackenzie himself. Tor some years afterwards, in fact up to the close of 18;};{, he strongly sympathized with Mackenzie's political "plans of operation," so much so that, as we shall see, he was " accused of originating and supporting them." The Reform editor, in sub- sequently stating the Doctor's opinions at this period, said that " he (Ryerson) was ultra-liberal, praised the United States as the best of all human governments, and, acting with Mackenzie, Bid- well, Rolph and others, exerted a strong influence over the public mind." And, as to the Lower Canadii Reformers, it was also said that "Papineau's and Viger's career he steadily defended like Dalton of the Patriot."' Corroborative proof of this is leadily procurable. THE "CriHISTIAN GUAKDIAN "' 0\ MACKENZIE. Dr. Ryerson was subsequently appointed to the editorship of the Christian Guardian, which was then the organ, political as well as religious, of the Methodist body. In the Guardian of Novem- ber 6th, 1833, we tind an article, signed by him as editor, in which the writer expresses himself as follows in regard to Mackenzie : "Of Mr. Mackenzie we have but little to say. We have never, directly or indirectly, expressed our opinion publicly of his merits or plans of operation ; though we have often been accused of originating and supporting them. Whatever measures Mr. Mac- kenzie may have originated and pursued, however beneficial many 9 of them may bo, and whatovor intlueiico ho may havo acquired, he is not indoVjlod to us for the in/^onuity, (fxcellonce, or success of the one, nor the power of the other, but to his own unparallolod industry, liis financial taste and talents, and his extraordinary public exer- tions. Wishing, in private life at least, to bo the ' friend of all and enemy of none,' we havo conversed, freely and friendly, in years past, with botii Mr. Mackenzie and his opponents, and have always found Mr. Mackenzie as a man open, genei'ous, ardent, punctual and honourable in all his enj,'afj;enients : and havo believed that, however exceptionable much of his proceedings and writings were, their general tendency would be to secure i-igid economy in the public expenditure, and remove alnises which candour must admit have gradually gi'own up in some parts of the administration of public afliiirs," etc. There can be no mistaking the meaning and force of these .senti- ments deliberately expressed, though necessarily guarded, in a religious newspaper. How did it happen, then, that the two friends became estranged 1 hn\ I, : I UOW THEY PELL OUT. The simple truth is th.at Dr. Ryerson "quarrelled" with Mac- kenzie, and t iitat the " quarrel " — if so inexpressive a woi'd may be used — was, so far as Mackenzie was concerned, on public grounds alone. It seems that in 1S;5.3 the Doctor went to England, as a delegate from the Canadian Conference, to submit a proposition of union between the l)ody which it represented and the English Methodists. He made a second visit in 1833 to obtain a Royal charter for the Upper Canada Academy, which was subsequently merged in the University of Victoria College, and to solicit sub- scriptions for that institution. On his tir.st visit he was met by Mackenzie, who was then conferring with the Colonial OlKce as to the grievances complained of in Upper Canada. Having all along been one of his staunch political f i-iends, the latter gave the Doctor all the assi.stance possible in the object of his mission by introduc- tions to eminent Englishmen whose friendship the Reform leader had formed. He also secured for him an introduction to the Colonial Minister, which, as will be seen, was then an exceptional 181 favour. What first inconsccl Mjickoiizir in Dr. lly(M-8oi»'H conduct was tliat ho abuHwl th(! i)rivih?gea thus aHbrdcd liini, by "artfully using them to injure th u.r;"that he "obtained an equivocal promise, returned to Ca.. ida, and came out in his press in fa vol:- of Sir Robert Peel ;" that he "slandered his old Reform friends," and "carried a majority of the Methodist preachers in Conference with him ; " that he " held out the hope to them of pecuniary benefit to their order, independent of the people, and of a $16,000 grant of money promised him by Glenelg to a college at Cobourg ; " and that he thereby " obtained the active and zealous co-opei-ation of the whole Conference, at the last Upper Canada election, of a Legis- lature to crush the Reform majority, who had .stood up so man- fully for a domestic, frugal, responsible Government." mackf:\zie as a constitutional ueformku. It is unnecessary to give the full (juotation in which these passages occur. They are merely cited as indicating some of the material arguments employed to carry the elections. Dr. Ryer- son had published, far and Avide in England, that his old Reform allies here were un-British and disloyal. They were, as a matter of fact, supreme in the House of Assembly prior to the dissolution, and had gone the length of stopping the supplies. The Imperial Government were naturally desirous of destroying a supremacy that was represented to them, and which they believed, to bo dangerous, and they were very ready to listen to any proposal that Avould weaken the Reformers in the contest. It was under these circumstances that Dr. Ryerson successfully pressed them to recommend to the Canadian Government a large money gi-ant to the Cobourg Academy in which his church was interested. No one can regret that the grant was made. The Academy was thereby enabled to blossom forth into a College and University that have done yeoman service in the cause of higher education in the Province. But all tliis might have been accomplished in a different way. At all events, the recommendation was carried 134 out despite the opposition of Mackenzie and tiie Reform party, and also against the plainly expressed wishes of the Lieutenant- GoA^ernor, Sir Francis Bond Head. The Reformers, who were in a majority in the Assembly, opposed it as unconstitutional, in as much as it did not originate here, and was really a grant by the Home Government of money which did not belong to them, but to the people of the Colony who had no voice whatever in its appropriation. Under responsible Government the grant would never have been made as it was. Mackenzie's references to this matter are fully borne out by Sir Francis Hincks, who, it seems, had very strong opinions on the subject. Writing editorially in the Montreal Pilot of August 19th, 1848, Mr. Hincks said: "Mr. Ryerson's grand weapon of attack, however, was the hostility manifested to the Wesleyan Methodist Church by the Reform majority in the 12th Parlia- ment of Upper Canada. This hostility was manifested simply by opposing an unconstitutional pecuniary grant made to that Churcli, and wliich there is no doubt wliatever was given for the very purpose of influencing their votes. It was indeed a paltry, very paltry bribe, but it was the means of creating discord."' And here let me ask again, was Mackenzie responsible for all this ? Surely Mr. Dent would not be so unfair as to say that all tliose whose votes were thus unduly influenced were " moderate- minded Reformers " who preferred " even Family Compact domina- tion " "to the ascendancy of sucli men as Mackenzie"? Yet, as I have already shoAvn, that is just what he does say. Why did he not plainly give the 16,000 golden reasons for their submitting to the yoke of the Compact, and not leave, as lie no doubt intends to leave, the odium upon Mackenzie of driving in a crisis a large number of honest and virtuous electors beyond the pale of hif party, and making them apostates to Reform ? The " modera- tion " of those who were thus won over may commend itself to Mr. Dent, but there are few moderate politicians in our day, either Reform or Conservative, who would care to accept so low a criterion of their political virtue. t : f \\ f3 135 OLD BONES OF CONTENTION. What I liave written fully explains the relations subsisting, during a long period, between Mackenzie and Dr. Ryerson. It shows very clearly, I think, that the former was not to blame for the rupture of their personal and political friendship. Dr. Ryerson had a game of his own to play, and he found a ready excuse for doing so when a fair chance of success was presented to him. Let me say, however, that in striving to get a slice of the Clergy Reserves for his own Church, he Avas only doing what he had a perfect right to do. A large section of the Presbyterians did the same thing. In fact all religious sects were then clamouring for u share in a fund which they claimed was not created for the exclusive benefit of any one Church or denomination. Mackenzie was then in favour of the secularization of the Reserves, which, as we have seen, was prayed for in the petitions which he carried with him to England. On this and a number of other questions, he and Reformers generally disagreed Avith the notions of Reform which Dr. Ryerson sought to inculcate amongst his co-religionists, combatted them in the press and on the platform, and this led to angry political as well as personal differences which may be called a " quarrel," or wliatever you will. There is this also to be said that, although not avowedly a politician. Dr. Ryerson was really a politician all his life. "The structure of his mind," if Mr. Dent will permit me to borrow one of his anatomical and physiological expressions, was largely political. Had he devoted himself to politics, and entered the parliamentary ai'ena, his success, as that quality is generally esteemed, would have been assured. As it was, he was very often a power behind, as well as before, the shifting scenes. It was the knowledge of this open secret, by all the politicians of his time, that so often brought him into collision with them. At the time that he fell foul of Mackenzie his ideas of Reform were just the same as they were in after years when he fell foul of the Hon. George Bi-own, the Hon. Edward Blake and other prominent Liberal leaders. His " Leonidas " letters, and his platform addresses, in defence of the arbitrary and unconstitutional policy of Sir Chai'les Metcalfe, a 186 are not yet forgotten. Nor is tlie fact that, for many years on the eve of ever} general election, he was ahvoys to the fore with a series of political letters, or a political brochure of some sort, in support of his old Conservative patrons, and against his old Re- form friends. Those most favourably disposed to Dr. Ryerson freely admit that the unaccountable attitude which he assumed as " Leonidas " was one of the greatest mistakes of his life. Noi* is this impression lessened by the fact that he got his reward, from the reactionary Governor, in his, appointment in 1844 as Chief Superintendent of the Public Schools of the Province. A PAMPHLET THAT PAID. There is a circumstance in connection with the publication of the " Leonidas " letters which, I believe, has never before been men- tioned. It is said that their author was paid by Sir Charles Metcalfe at the rate of four pence currency per printed line for the writing of them, and that the total sum which he thus realized was about nine hundi'ed or a thousand pounds. Mr. Gwatkin, who died a few years ago, and who was a partner of the late Mr. Hugh Scobie, the proprietor of the Colonist in which the letters appeared, said he was assured of this on the best authority. It is not at all improbable, and I do not mention it to Dr. Ryer- son's disci'edit. Lord Metcalfe was wealthy, and his liberality was well known. The Doctor proved to be a powerful champion, and his championship was apparently sincere. The late Hon. George Brown used to say that he never knew of but two pamphlets that paid both the author and the publisher. I think the " Leonidas " pamplilet must have been one of them. MACKENZIE AT THE COLONIAL OFFICE. Mackenzie's visit to England, at the time of which we have been speaking, was prolonged for about sixteen months. It had a very important influence on the early fortunes of Reform, and was at- tended with far-reaching results. Its success at once accounts fen- Mr. Dent's singular reticence on the subject. He says very little about it, and the little he does say is in the familiar strain of 137 ill-natured depreciation. At the request of Lord Goderich, the Colonial Secretary, Mackenzie drew up a Memoir of the most serious grievances complained of in Upper Canada. Counter petitions from the Tories had already been sent Home, and, as these were backed by all the influence of the Canadian Government, it was highly necessary that the Memoir, and the documents accom- panying it, should be considered by the Minister without delay. It was probably prepared with some haste, but even Mr. Dent .admits that the facts were " pretty comprehensively embodied." Some idea of Mackenzie's industry, and his powers of application to work of this nature, may be got from the well attested fact that, in the preparation of these papers, he spent six days and six nights continuously at his desk, snatching only a few minutes occasionally for sleep. Few men would be capable of such a task, but it was one that, in a minor degree, he very often performed in the course of his public life. Although, from the eftect which it produced, this Memoir must have been a powerful factum of the people's case, Mr. Dent cannot restrain his cynicism in regard to it. He says " the writer adopted a discursive and rhetorical style," bub he does not mention, as in fairness he should have done, that " the writer " was only following the strict line of his duty. His instructions were to bring before the Home Government every subject of politi- cal interest that affected the grievances set forth in the petitions. These he conscientiously carried out, and a lengthy commentary was inevitable. I shall not attempt to calculate the extent of Mi*. Dent's rhetorical discursiveness had he been in Mackenzie's position. Judging by the wordy dimensions of this 384-paged and padded out Story, we can form some idea of the quantity of politi- cal cant, rant and fustian that would have been unloaded at the Colonial Office door. It would have been something appalling. The author's further remarks are very brief and in his usual pleasant strain. He says : " The perusal of the Memoir seems to liave produced an impression upon the Colonial [Secretary's mind. He wrote a long and elaborate despatch to Sir John Colborne, in which the weak points of Mackenzie's arguments were exposed with cutting severity, and wherein it was evident that very little weight had been attached to most of his representations ; but at 138 the same time certain concessions to popular opinion were plainly hinted at." These " concessions " are dismissed by Mr. Dent in short order. In fact what he says altogether, about Mackenzie's mission and its results, takes up scarcely one page of the whole volume. He not only belittles Mackenzie's efforts, as he invariably does his public services genei-ally, but lie actually misrepresents them in his ungenerous allejiatioii that the Minister had attached very little weight to the representations addressed to him. Had Rolph been the people's Agent-General, and accomplished half as much as Mackenzie, what a prolonged trumpeting of praise there would have been ! SOME OF TJIE FliUITS OF UlS MISSION. The truth is that Mackenzie was received with great consider- ation by Lord Goderich, as well as by Mr. Stanley — afterwards Lord Derby — -his successor at the Colonial Office. He had frequent interviews with both of them, was detained much longer in his conferences than he had any reason to expect, and was treated with distinguished kindness during his whole stay in England. His mission, under all the circum.stances, was an unexampled success. He secured the payment of an indemnity to all members of the Upper Canada House of Assembly representing borough constituencies, thereby preventing the monopoly of the representa- tion by wealthy men exclusively, and inducing those of limited means, whose services it was desirable to obtain, to accept seats in Parliament. The conscientious objections by large numbers of people to taking an oath in the usual form in Courts of Justice, and otherwise, were removed. Before this only Quakers were exempt, and were permitted to affirm. Similar privileges were thereafter conferred upon members of all other religious bodies. Hitherto the public lands of the Province had been parcelled out by the Executive amongst their favourites without competition, in many cases at a mere nominal figure, and often gratuitously. It was a most crying grievance, and Mr. Dent devotes whole para- graphs to denouncing the iniquities of the system. But he has not a word, in connection with it, in favour of Mackenzie, who was mainly instrumental in having the iniquity swept I |..i ; 189 away. Prior to this British subjects, who had been abroad at any time in foreign countries, were, on their coming to Canada, deprived of one of the most valued rights of a British citizen. They were thereby disqualified from voting at elections. This hardship was also summarily removed. Public education was then at a low ebb in this country. It was practically confined to the children of the wealthy classes, and its priceless benefits virtually denied to those of the yeoman and the artisan. Mac- kenzie, who had always been foremost in his advocacy of the education of the masses, made a strong case on this point. The Colonial Government were instructed by their Imperial masters " to forward, to the utmost of their lawful authority and influence, every scheme for the extension of education amongst the youth of the Province, and especially the poorest and most destitute amongst their number." In those days, too, no statements of the public revenue and expenditure were laid before the Legislature. The Lieutenant-Governors pleaded their Royal instructions in bar of any such duty. Mackenzie had this grievance thoroughly rectified by a despatch from Lord Goderich, in which the Execu- tive were directed to practise no further " concealments upon questions of this nature." There was also the anomaly of ecclesi- astics of the Anglican Church holding seats in the Legislative Council. Of these Archdeacon Strachan was one of the most active and influential in supporting the policy of the ruling party. The Colonial Secretary's representations on this head were no less dis- tinct and plain. He advised that the political churchmen showld resign their seats in the Council, and attend solely to the " spiritual good of the people." A judiciary, independent of the government of the day, had all along been one of the principal planks in Mac- kenzie's platform. Mr. Justice Willis, who had shown a mind and will of his own on the Bench, had, some time before, been arbitrarily removed by the Executive. The Colonial Oflir for some reason or other, had determinedly opposed any change in these relations so compromising to the Government and the high- est functionaries of the law. Mackenzie and those who acted with him, had, on the other hand, pressed continuously for an independent judiciary. They were at last successful. The Upper If I 140 Canada Executive were directed to pass a bill for that purpose, and it was passed. Messrs. Boulton and Hagennan, two high Crown Officers and members of the Executive, had been most active in procui'ing Mackenzie's expulsions from the Assembly. Mackenzie urged their removal from office, and they were removed accordingly. While Mackenzie was still in England a change of Government occurred, Mr. Stanley taking Lord Codericli's place at the head of the Colonial Department. At the suggestion of Mr. Stanley, Mackenzie drew up an elaborate scheme of Post Office reform for the Province, and thereby compelled the disclosure of a vast amount of information about the Post Office revenue, and the de- partment generally, which had been persistently withheld from the Legislature. He had, as will be remembered, brought this same subject under tlie notice of Mr. Stanley's predecessor, wlio had then offered him the Postmaster-Generalship of Upper Canada. He also invoked successfully the Royal veto of an objectionable bill for increasing the capital stock of the old bank of Upper Canada. Such a proceeding, by one who was not even a member of Parliament, will appear extraordinary now, but those were the days of irresponsible government in Canada, and the only appeal possible was to England. Mackenzie was the only man who ever secured a Royal veto .single-handed and alone. Mackenzie's services and the author's thanks. These were a few of the concessions — only " hinted at," as Mr. Dent says- — which Mackenzie was instrumental in securing from the Imperial Government. The despatch of Lord Goderich, on the various subjects which had been brought under his consideration and pressed home with conviction, was one of the most important that had ever yet been received in Canada with respect to the ad- ministration of its Government. It was important not merely in its bearing on the general course of Canadian affairs, but in its hopefully liberal spirit, and its decided tone throughout. It was a despatch very different in these respects from any previous messages from the same quarter, and was pregnant with political meaning to all concerned. The best evidence of Mackenzie s Xjt 141 m [ whole work in Eiiglaiul was that tho happy issues of it, as set forth in this Imperial mandate, of reform, were gall and worm- wood to the all-poweriul Tory party in Canada. Their indigna- tion and resentment knew no bounds, and, in some instances, expression was given to these by utterances of marked disloyalty. Mackenzie had every reason to feel proud of the fruits of his errand across the sea. No other Canadian, who ever went there, had achieved anything lik(^ as much. And when it is considered that he went in no official capacity ; that he had been thrice expelled from the Assembly ; and that every (jftbrt was made in this and other ways, by the official party and their i-oady instru- ment, the Lieutenant-Govei'uor, to embarrass and defeat him in his mission, his success was truly a marvel. Surely in a narrative written from a " Liberal but non-jjartisan point of view," some grateful appieciation should have been shown of the task which , he discharged. But what does he receive 'i Mr. Dent awards him the barest pittance ; he had much better have awarded iiim none. He sneers, in the most churlish manner, at Mackenzie's pecuniary sacrifices in spending his own money in the people's service, leaves it to be inferred, as far as possible, that he was practising a fraud upon the Reformers of Canada, and says that " it would be much nearei- the truth to say that Mackenzie en- joyed a sixteen months' holiday at the expense of his political friends." The author's ti-eatment of this whole topic which is one of historic interest, is in the last degree unwortl.'y of any writer of Liberal instincts. Mr. Dent's Libeialism is as con- venient as his memory, and that is certainly a treasure which few men, of any literary pi'etensions whatever, would care to be blessed with. THE CLOVEN FOOT AGAIN. In dealing with this subject of political grievances the author again shows the cloven foot in a subsequent part of his Story. Speaking of the famous Seventh Report on grievances he says : " The famous Seventh Report, which did more to arouse the Home Government on the subject of Upper Canadian affairs than all previous efforts in that direction, was completed and presented >■ I I I B 142 to the Assembly on Friday, the 10th of April (1835). It was a truly formidable indictment. It recapitulated the various /2;riev- ances under which the Province laboured, and which called loudly for remedy. The prevailing tone of the Report was temperate and colni, and there is little or nothing in it to which serious exception can be taken." He then describes its " voluminous dimensions," and adds: "The first copy that left the binder's hands was forwarded to the Colonial Secretary. All the most pressing grievances were dealt with in greate,' or less detail, but special prominence was given to the necessity for a responsible Government — a Government responsible to pul)lic opinion, which must cease to exist when it ceases to command public confidence. * * More than a third of the lleport proper was devoted to dealing with the question in its various aspects," etc. Mr. Dent . mentions Mackenzie as Chairman of the Committee appointed to consider the whole question, and gives the names of the other members composing the Connnittee, but just at this point, his memory becomes as lubrical as ever. He entirely forgets to mention the very well known fact which, one would suppose, was of some consequence, that this " famous Seventh Report " was the work of Mackenzie's hand. Now notice the author's tactics. Some thirty pages farther on he describes an interview between the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, and Mackenzie and some other leading members of the Reform party. He there, for the first time, slyly unveils the paternity of the Report, according to his own imperfect idea, and with a chuckle tells us that Mackenzie and Dr. Morrison were " chiefly respon- sible " for it. And why ? The reader is not left long in the dark. After quoting one of the most offensive passages against Mackenzie which he can find in tlie Lieutenant-Governor's narra- tive of the interview, the author proceeds : " He (the Governor) attempted to discuss the merits of the Report with various persons, but encountei'ed what was to him an inexplicable reluctance to talk about it. All were ready to discuss the griev- ances themselves, but no leading Reformer was disposed to admit , the Report into the discussion. The reason of this was doubtless because the Report had been chiefly fathered by Mackenzie, and IF f «;jiit^ 14:] they were unwilling to accept him as their mouthpiece.*' A con- jecture so unfounded, and so pitifully contemptible, could only emanate frfn Rolph or his alte/r ego the author. J3ut Mr. Dent's fertility of conjecture has already been noticed. He is ever ready to supply the deficiencies of fact from the resources of his own corrupt suspicions. His object here is very poorly concmiled. Suggested by the words of a man whom he elscwliere brands as a liar of the first water, it is simply a very paltry attempt to discredit Mackenzie's standing and reputation at the time as a leader of the Reform party. After all said and done, what a beautiful personification of Liberalism in litei-ature Mr. Dent is ! And how faithfully he has mirrored it in tlie broad pages of this only truthful Story ! THE TUUK VKRSION BY AN OI-D JOURNALIST. I may here be permitted to quote something on the same subjecit from another and better source. Not long since I had a letter from a gentleman who was intimately ac({uainted with Mackenzie, and some of those who took part in this interview, and who " h;arned all the facts at the time from those who were present." Referring to Mr. Dent's recital of what occurred, he says : "I notice some remarks in this book as to how leading Reformei's dealt with the Report on grievances about Avhich Lord Goderich had written Sir John Colborne. It is said they did not want to discuss the Report at all, and the statement is volunteered by the author that ' this was doubtless because the Report had been chiefly fathered by Mackenzie,' whom • they were unwilling to accept as their mouth- piece.' I happen to know that this statement is as untrue as anything Can be. It is not true eithei' that Mackenzie absolutely I'ef rained from discussing the Report. The others, I believe, did, but their sole reason for so doing was the one given by Mr. Dent for Mackenzie's silence on the subject, viz. : ' The feeling that if> would be unwise for him to tie himself down to a particulai- record, beyond which he would not be permitted to travel.' I .say this with confidence because I learned all the facts at the time from those who were present. Mackenzie's paternity of the Report had nothing to do with it, and the slur ca.st upon him, whether an 144 invcMition of Uolpli or of tlio author, is entirely undeserved. Rolpli nmy be its real iiivcntor, because his jealousy of Mackeiizi(5 mid his iuMuencif was a well understood tliinj,' anion},'st the Reforiners of tJuit time. l[e fomented it amongst others as far as he could, but any feeling of that kind that existed was confined to a small section of the i)arty who liad neither the breadth of mind nor the toleration of true Liberals. '' -id n'.ay have had that id(vi impressed upon him, and it may ac ,it somewhat for his going over so compl((tely to Strachan, Robinson and the Family Comjjact. If he were led to believe that there were divisions amongst tiie Re- formers, he might well suppose that they were only pi'cl 'iiders to reform. And hence his violent and revolutionary pioceedings to control the elections, as he did, for the Compact, and his uttei- repudiation of the fact that there were any grievances to redress." The writer of the above is an old joui'iialist, long since retired from the profession, who had the best means of ascertaining the facts, and whose testimony is, I believe, unimpeachable. \ am quit(^ willing that his statement of the matter should stand along- side those of Mr. Dent a)'d Sir Francis Bond Head, a man whom Mr. Dent elsewhere char vith deliberate, unblushing falsehoods, but whom he is very re , echo and endorse when Mackenzif is made the subject of them. ADIEU TO THE " STOUY. ' I s i I am done for the present with this truly unitjue Story. Its "idiosyncrasies" have not been exhausted; they are legion, for they are many. But enough has been said, T trust, to shew the spirit which animates the author and the burthen of his theme. I am content to leave all to the scanty measure of evanescent credit to which they are evidently entitled. Conscious, no doubt, of his hazardous experiment in a familiar tield of enquiry — of his arrogant presumption in trampling under foot Old political traditions, and the well settled record of histoiy, the writer has striven to popularize his narrative with an endless garniture of words. These are a poor substitute for his conspicuous errors of judgment, and the obliquities of his story-telling generally. Mr. Dent has manifold tricks of style, and Sir Arthur H elps tells us f f M 145 that *' tlio style which has tricks in it is a bad style." Whe^tlier this aphorism apply or not, it is al)iindaiitly clear that th(^ body of the trim Htory of the ilebollion has Ix^rn sacriticod to tim false drapery that dis{)layH it. Tlie proportion of truth to error, in many parts of the nai'rative, is very like the proportion of bread to sack in Falstaff s tavern score. If there had been more of the substance and less of the drapery, more solid worth and less of tlie frij)[)eries and gew-j^aws of the literary |)awn shop, Mr Dent mi;,dit have gained soiriething for his reputallon. \h it is he has gaincid nothing, if indeed lu' has not blundered irretric^vably. I wish him w»'ll in his literary aspiration!:., but it would be uncandid to say that these have been helped by his present venture. He has thrown away a golden opportunity, and has strangely paltered with tlie rich bounty of material that fell lightly to his hand. 1 except, of course, the Rolpli biief, which is a bad one. Whether he be sincere or not, he has not accomplished the main purpose of his book, noi- the object of his own foolhardy ambition. His harshly inquisitorial and censorious spirit will not supplant, with a graven image of counterfeit heroism, the place which William Lyon Mackenzie has long held in the affections of Reformers, and the gratitude of the people. It has not made, and never will make, of John Rolph any more of a hero than he has ever been. This, in a word, is not a fair Story ; it is not a trust- worthy Story ; it is not a credible Story. It is not a Story that deserves to live, and, I believe, it never will live, as an authorita- tive record of the period which thus far it presumes to review. Not long since I came across an old pamphlet entitled, "The Answer to the awful Libel of the Spanish Freeholder against the Cardinal Alberoni." It is apparently a defence of an occupant of the Bench of Justice against a newspaper attack upon his character and reputation. There are two passages in the pamphlet that I shall not apologize for quoting, with some verbal alterations, leav- ing the application and the moral to Mr. Dent, and those who have perused his narrative. The anonymous pamphleteer, " Diego," says: "Calumny ever directs its acrimony against some par- ticular object ; fair and candid criticism spreads its remarks over the whole field of enquiry. Unrighteous resentment projects with 10 "rC 146 wanton fury against whatever accidentally provokes it ; bold and patriotic views rega)'(l the whole system with its general aberrations. Malevolence selects its victim ; honourable indignation animates to just and general scrutiny. Prejudice is pi-one to hasty and impassioned conclusions ; truth is displayed in the impartiality of research. The one riots in excess, and is, therefore, ever incon- sistent ; the ' .bter is an inmate of a wise and virtuous heart, and, therefore, blends capacity for general enquiry with fairness of induction." Dii'ecting his pen against the treatment which his distinguished friend had received from the Spanish Freeholder, " Diego " says furtlier : " There is indeed, as you observe, something admirable in iionesty and sincerity, and there is, too, commonly something in- solent in those who dispai-age such virtues. That honesty and sincerity about which you write with such seiitimental hypocrisy, neither silence you into I'espect, nor soften you into moderation. E\'ery base imputation that has been whispered about by the tongue of slander ; every unjust and designing charge which politi- cal envy has raised against him ; every idle report, which sprung up in malice and was for a season propagated by it, till each perished in its ephemeral course, is sought out by you with insect curiosity, and unfeelingly revived, and as unfeelingly recorded in a style which bespeaks well of your head, and, therefore, the worse of your heart.'' There is one good end wliich this new " Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion " will certainly serve. It will quicken a desire for a judicious, impartial and dispassionate narrative, complete in detail and from a cahnly philosophic point of view, of the whole movement that led up to the establishment of respon- sible Government in Canada. When such a narrative appears, Mr. Dent's will its per contra. Till then it will be simply a ponderous, tinselled, " extraordinary " monument of " extraor- dinary " story-telling. JOHN KING. Berlin, March 15th, 1886. APPENDIX. The following letter from a son of Dr. Rolph, a Toronto solicitor, appeared in the Globe of December 31st, 1885. The writer at once assumes the first letter from "A Reformer "of Ottawa to have been the production of Mr. Charles Lindsey, the well-known author of " The Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie," and he thereupon proceeds to make a violent attack t)n Mr. Lindsey and the Mackenzie biography. He also touches, in the same harum-scarum style, upon some controverted points in Canadian history, which are afterwards dealt with, as will be seen, in a second letter from "A Reformer." DR. ROLPH AND W. L. MACKENZIE. SiK,— Mr. Charles Lindsey, dating his letter from Ottawa, writes under the name <.f " A Reformer " to the Mail of thfe 26th instant, one of the most dis- graceful and unwarranted attacks on the memory of the dead tliat has cliarac- terized journalism in this country for the last half century. I am very much surprised to find that the Miiil should allow its cohmms to be prostituted in a mean attemjjt to bolster u]) \V. L. Mackenzie's reputation at the expense of Dr. Rolph 's, by the repetition of stale and untrutliful charges. Mr. Lnidsey evidently imagines that because he has jniblished a book on the Rebellion, no other nuist ever be written, that his fictions are to stand for liistoj-y to all future times, and that any attempt to show the truth and correct his errors must be rigidly sujjpressed. His book (of which large portions of the letter in the Mail are almost a verbatim rehash) is a fulsome laudation of Wil- liam Lyon Mackenzie at the expense of nearly every one of the i)atriots of the time. It is the only i)r(ifessedly authentic accoimt of the Rebellion ever pul)lishfd, but all the information in it relative to the rising itself is the produc- of Mackenzie's own pen, supported by two forged letters, one attributed to Wil- liam Alves and the other to Silas Fletcher. It is replete with errors of fact and detail. Realizing the weakness of his i)osition (and it is inconceivable that the iJ/rti7does not see it), Mr. Lindsey, without waiting for the publication of the whole of his rival's work, commences an anonymous and grossly vindictive attack on Dr. Rolph, who is of necessity mentioned in Mr. Dent's first volume, and will be treated of at length in his second. Such venom must be patent to everyone. As a citizen of Canada, and as a son of Dr. Rolph, I protest, in the name of fair play, against the unjiistifiablo course jmrsued. Mr, Lindsey bases all his charges and criticisms on fictitious statements long ago made by Mackenzie, and subsequently reiterated by liini- self, which the testimony of witnesses, living and dead, now in Mr. Dent's hands, will completely refute and overthniw. There is an>i)le material in his Jul I ill If. f Vf t I 111 IK r' 1 ;:; 148 hands to suhlaiii tlic niiisistency nf tlie cmuluct of Dr. Roljih, and many other of tlif) I'litriots, h«'rctoforc hasely iniKreiirt'sented and maligned by Mackenzie and his biograi)her. It will be jmjjjer, however, for me to nay here that the nature of the correal londence between my father and Mr. Baldwin u]> to 1K4'.) (without reference t<> living witnt^ssea) enables me to contradict the absurd and untrtith- ful statement that Mr. Baldwin never 8]K)ke to Dr. Rolj)!) after the pretended violation of the flag of truc(^ in 1837. Confident that the light of trutii is about to be shed on no unimportant jjortion of our country'.^ history, I am content to give a genezal denial to the rest of Mr. Llndsey's fictitious ciiarges without at ))resent furthei- exaniiniiig them and exposing their falsity, and to le.ave the public to judge of the unfairness of hi.s methods of anonymous criticism. T. T. RoLPH. P.S.— T have no doiibt Mr. Lindsey will rusli into i)rint with a denial that he wrote the letter signed " Reformer,"' and meanl.y (lated at Ottawa. He is, no doubt, cunning enough to have placed himself in a jiosition, with the hel]i of his friends and cimnections, to make such a denial. But whatever subterfuge may be resorted to between him and the ])ers<)n he got to father his letter, the {■.uVjlic may rest assured that he and he ahme is its resptmsible author. His hero, Mackenzie, in lHi)2, declared Ir. public jirint " that in the insurrection of 1837, I took no |)art civil or military, ))ut merely acted as an individual, friendly to a change in the Canadas." After such a d'^nital by Miickenzie of his earlier efforts (which is deliberately sui)))ressed iii "The Lif(! and Times "), we may ex])ect a prompt denial of authorshii) from the biogi'apher. T. T. R. In the editorial columns of tlie Globe containing the above ja-oduc- tion there appeared the following connnent thereon. The italics are cur own ; — " In another column will be found a letter rei)lying to letters which have ajjpeared in another journal concerning the connection of Dr. Rolj)}! with the Rebellion of 1837. That xuch a controvcrni/ should have aiiiicri icas inevitable, however nuich it may be regretted. But in these days nobody thinks of entering in the interests of Toryism into the nuich larger (juestion, whetlier the Family Compact was a blessing or a curse. Even the living representatives of the Family Compact fight shy of the task of defending the infamous tyranny of their ancestors." Mr. Charles Lindsey, the gentlem.an assailed in the above letter, made the following reply in the Globe of January 1st, 1880 : — ''ROLPH AND MACKENZIE." SiK, — In a letter jnibhshed in your issue of this date, Mr. T. T. Rolph attributes to me the authorship of a lette which appeared in the Mail of the 2t>th irist., dated Ottawa, and signed " A Reformer." I neither wrote the letter in question nor contributed in any way to its jiroduction. I demand that Mr. 149 Rolph at once make gdcid his charge, whicl) he cannot do, or unequivocally withdraw it. If it be any satisfaction to him. 1 may Hay that it is my intention to deal fully with Mr. Denfs book over my own signatin-e. Should Mr. Rolph refuse to do what, as a nuin of honour, is incumbent upon him, the iniblic will have no difficulty in deciding upon his conduct. m ,. ,w , Charles Lindsey. Toronto, Dec. :ilst. Mr. T. T. Rolph now reappears on the .scene witli a .second letter to the (Unh,' of January 5th, 188(1. In tins lie refu.se8 to accept Mr. Lind.scy's straightforward denial of the authorship of the Ottawa letter, to withdraw his unfounded statements against that gentleman, or to make any amemli' whatever. So far from that, he not only reiterates his former statements, but also endeavours to blacken the name and memory of William Lyon Mackenzie by a false and reckless charge against him of universal treachery : — ROLPH AND MACKENZIE. Sir,— It is too late for Mr. Lindsey to announce his intention of attacking Mr. Dent under his own signature. He should have come out like a man before he wrote iinonymously to the Week and Mail, etc. What right, I ask, has tlie son-in-law of William Lyon Mackenzie the author of the book, entitled his "Life and Times," etc., to attack Mr. Denf.s book, except under his own name ? Now, after having endeavoured to lead the l.ublic to suppose that independent writers were giving their views in advance of Mr. Dent's book, he volunteers the infonuation that he himself is going to do so in due time. Does Mr. Lindsey really believe that, as William Lyon Mackenzie endeavoured from the moment defeat stared him in the face on the outskirts of Toronto to criminate and betray friend and foe alike by a course of treachery defensible to posterity on the ground of insanity alone, that I am to betray the confidences re])osed in me on the mere ipse dixit of the son-in-law ? Do the i)ublic of Canada retpiire mathematical j.roof tiiat Mr. Lindsey and his connections are the oidy men in the country to-day who would gratuitously assail Dr. Rolph's memory and Mr. Dent's conduct bv disgraceful anonymous communications before even the comi)letion of the latter's story, building, too their furious slanders simply and solely (with one excei)tion) by\piotations'from Mr. Lindsay's own book? Mr. Lindsey will learn to his cost, before this di.s- cussion is ended, that he is not the only man who can (piote from the old files of the (ilobe. It will be for the public to judge when they have all the facts before them whether he or Dr. Rolph ai)pears to the better advantage. T. T. Rolph. [Note. -The personal part of this controversy must here cease so far as the Globe is concerned. It is instructive to note that no one defends the Tory Family Compact, however people may differ on other points. -j:n. Globe.] i ■<.'V i I 150 To the above Mr. Lindsey made the following brief reply, in which he announces his intention of bringing out a second enlarged edition of the Mackenzie biography. This letter, which was sent to both the Globe and Mail, appeared only in the Mail of January 0th, 1880 : — ROLPH AND MACKENZIE. To the i tor of the Mail. Sir, — Mr. T. T. R()l])h charged me, in a letter pul^lished in the Globe, with writing a conununication which appeared in your colunnis, dated Ottawa and signed " A Reformer." I met him with an unequivocal denial, and asked liim to do, what no man of honour would refuse, either to offer proof of his statement or withdraw it. Mr. Rolph is unable to offer proof, and refuses to make the amende which any gentleman in his positicm would make. I shall, therefore, take no further notice of what may be said by him or anyone who guides his l)en. Mr. Rolph charges that I made a statement in mj' " Lif« of Mackenzie " on the evidence of two forged letters. This statement, like the other, is false. The historical evidence on t\\v point in dis]mte will be fully treated by me in a work intended to take a pennanent form. Yours, etc.. TouoNTo, January 5th. Charlks Lindsey. The above letter was sent to the Globe for publication. It did not appear in that jounuil