The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion | Page 7

Some of his letters to the newspapers were remarkable for nothing but their indiscretion, violence and bad taste, and he came to be looked upon by the landlords of Wiltshire as a visionary and dangerous man. His own landlord, the Duke of Somerset, was of this way of thinking, and after some remonstrances at second-hand which proved unavailing, his Grace resolved that this "pestilent Scotchman" must be got rid of. A bill in Chancery was filed against him on some pretext or other, with the view of putting an end to his tenancy. Years of irritating and ruinous litigation followed, the ultimate result of which was a decision in Mr. Gourlay's favour. But it was the old story of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. The protracted litigation had eaten up the substance of the successful litigant, and upon the promulgation of the decree the Wiltshire Radical was a ruined man. This would have been a matter of secondary importance to the heir of a wealthy Fifeshire laird, but unhappily his father had also come to the end of his resources. Injudicious speculation and the mismanagement of an agent, combined with the necessity of placing a large quantity of real estate in the market at an inauspicious time, were the causes which led to the bankruptcy of the elder Gourlay, who was stripped of his great possessions and left with a bare subsistence. The son's prospects of inheriting a fortune were thus at an end, and at thirty-seven years of age he found himself almost wholly without means, and with a family of five children and a wife in delicate health dependent upon him for support. The howl of the wolf began to be audible to him; distant, as yet, but still gradually drawing nearer. To his mind, a change of the base of his operations was clearly indicated.
Five years before this time he had acquired a block of land in the Township of Dereham, in the County of Oxford, Upper Canada, where his wife also owned some property. He now began to cast his eyes anxiously towards the setting sun, with a view to the rehabilitation of his broken fortunes. After weighing the matter carefully, he resolved to cross the Atlantic and pay a visit to Canada, in order to ascertain whether it would be prudent to remove his family thither. He seems to have been very deliberate about making up his mind, as he did not set sail from Liverpool until the month of April, 1817, and did not reach Canada until early in June. The country delighted him, more especially the Upper Province; but one with so keen an eye for abuses had not far to look throughout our fair land in those days for subjects of criticism. Having made himself acquainted with some of the most glaring iniquities of the ruling faction, and with the various causes which tended to retard the progress of the colony, he began to liberate his mind by written and spoken utterances such as had not theretofore been heard in the Province. The effect of these appeals to popular sentiment was soon apparent. People who had long smarted silently under injustice did not hesitate to make known their discontent. The disturber of the public tranquillity continued to speak and write, and he made his presence felt more and more from month to month. Having resolved to engage in business as a land agent, and to set on foot a huge scheme of immigration to Canada from Great Britain, he went diligently to work to gather specific and definite information, and to attack one abuse after another. He travelled about the country hither and thither, addressed public meetings, and wrote letters to all the papers that would publish his animadversions. He was in deadly earnest, and put all the energy of his impassioned nature into his appeals. In commenting upon the delinquencies of public officials he did not mince matters, though I search in vain throughout his voluminous writings for any evidence that he was ever guilty of a misstatement, or even an exaggeration. He regaled his readers and hearers with indubitable facts--facts which, for the most part, were easily susceptible of proof, and which were eminently calculated to arouse public indignation against the harpies who reaped where they had sowed not, and who gathered where they had not strawed.
These proceedings, as may readily be believed, rendered him inexpressibly obnoxious to the Executive, and to the horde of myrmidons who held office at their sufferance. But the cup of his transgressions was not yet full. His next proceeding filled it to overflowing. He addressed a series of thirty-one printed questions to prominent persons in different parts of the Province, asking for topographical and other information. The thirty-first question was so framed that, if truthfully replied