The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion | Page 4

was yet known as Newark, where he had first kept a general store, and afterwards practised law and speculation with great pecuniary success. Like the Jarvis above mentioned, he was disfigured by a red right hand, having shot his man in a duel fought in the autumn of 1808 behind the United States fort on the opposite bank of the river. It is fair to Mr. Dickson, however, to say that he was the challenged party, and that the duel was in a measure forced upon him by the barbarous usages of society in those (happily) far-off days. The other witness, Mr. Claus, was at the head of the Indian department at Niagara, the abuses in the administration whereof were notorious. It was well understood throughout the district that Dickson and Claus between them had contrived to make a tolerably good thing out of the Indians, and that they had been concerned in some decidedly shady transactions. If it be true that Heaven helps those who help themselves, certainly both those gentlemen were entitled to look for divine assistance. They possessed and exercised a wide influence throughout the settlements in the Niagara peninsula, as well as at the Provincial capital, and were commonly regarded as being on the high road to great wealth. Two years before the date of the trial forming the subject of the present chapter, Dickson had purchased the whole of the splendid township of Dumfries, comprising 94,305 acres, at a trifle over a dollar an acre; and he had already begun to realize upon his investment. Claus and he occupied seats at the barristers' table, in close proximity to the Attorney-General. The spectators included pretty nearly every prominent resident of the town of Niagara and its immediate neighbourhood.
But the most conspicuous figure in that crowded court-room yet remains to be considered. It has been mentioned that the prisoners' dock was large enough to hold five or six persons. On this occasion it held but a single, solitary prisoner. A man large and bony, who, when in his ordinary state of health, must have weighed not less than fifteen stone. Just at present he was very far from being in ordinary health, for during the preceding twelvemonth he had undergone sufficient worry and suffering to destroy the life of any man of average vitality. After having successfully defended himself through two criminal trials, he had been cast into prison, where he had languished for more than seven months. During his long confinement he had been subjected to a course of treatment which would have been highly culpable if meted out to a convicted criminal, and which was marked by a malignant cruelty hardly to be comprehended when the nature of the offence charged against him is considered. His own account of the matter is a plain and simple narration of facts, the truth whereof rests upon the clearest and most indisputable evidence. "After two months' close confinement," he writes, "in one of the cells of the jail, my health had begun to suffer, and, on complaint of this, the liberty of walking through the passages and sitting at the door was granted. This liberty prevented my getting worse the four succeeding months, although I never enjoyed a day's health, but by the power of medicine. At the end of this period I was again locked up in the cell, cut off from all conversation with my friends, but through a hole in the door, while the jailor or under-sheriff watched what was said, and for some time both my attorney and magistrates of my acquaintance were denied admission to me. The quarter sessions were held soon after this severe and unconstitutional treatment commenced, and on these occasions it was the custom and duty of the grand jury to perambulate the jail, and see that all was right with the prisoners. I prepared a memorial for their consideration, but on this occasion was not visited. I complained to a magistrate through the door, who promised to mention my case to the chairman of the sessions, but the chairman happened to be brother of one of those who had signed my commitment, and the court broke up without my obtaining the smallest relief. Exasperation of mind, now joined to the heat of the weather, which was excessive, rapidly wasted my health and impaired my faculties. I felt my memory sensibly affected, and could not connect my ideas through any length of reasoning, but by writing, which many days I was wholly unfitted for by the violence of continual headache."
There is a pathos about this plain, unvarnished story that appeals to every heart. That a man, no matter what his crimes, should have his nervous system thus cruelly undermined; that his physical and mental faculties should be slowly but surely