The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion | Page 9

in the Crown Lands Department, and it would probably have been difficult to find a jury anywhere in Upper Canada, some members whereof had not had personal experience of those abuses. Having failed in two attempts to convict him of libel, Mr. Gourlay's foes hit on another and more effectual method of accomplishing his destruction.
By a Provincial statute known as the Alien Act, passed in 1804, authority was given to certain officials to issue a warrant for the arrest of any person not having been an inhabitant of the Province for the preceding six months, who had not taken the oath of allegiance, and who had given reason for suspicion that he was "about to endeavour to alienate the minds of His Majesty's subjects of this Province from his person or government, or in anywise with a seditious intent to disturb the tranquillity thereof." In case the person so arrested failed to prove his innocence, he might be notified to depart this Province within a specified time, and if he failed so to depart he was liable to be imprisoned until he could be formally tried at the general jail delivery. If found guilty, upon trial, he was to be adjudged by the court to quit the Province, and if he still proved contumacious he was to be deemed guilty of felony, and to suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy. This statute, be it observed, was not passed at Westminster during the supremacy of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, but at York, Upper Canada, during the forty-fourth year of the reign of George the Third. More than one eminent authority has pronounced it an unconstitutional measure. There was, however, some show of justification for it at the time of its enactment, for the Province was then overrun by disloyal immigrants from Ireland and by republican immigrants from across the borders, many of whom tried to stir up discontent among the people, and were notoriously in favour of annexation to the United States.[8] It was against such persons that the Act had been levelled, and there had never been any question of attempting to apply it to anyone else. Now, however, it was pressed into requisition in order to compass the ruin of as loyal a subject as could have been found throughout the wide expanse of the British Empire; who had resided in Upper Canada for a continuous period of nearly eighteen months; who was no more an alien than the King upon the throne; and whose only real offence was that he would not stand calmly by while rapacious and dishonest placemen carried on their nefarious practices without protest.
Among the various dignitaries authorized to put the law in motion, by the issue of a warrant under the Act, were the members of the Legislative and Executive Councils. William Dickson and William Claus, as has been seen, were members of the former body; and as such they had power over the liberty of anyone whose loyalty they thought fit to call in question. Dickson was a connection by marriage of Mr. Gourlay, and for some months after that gentleman's arrival in this Province had gone heart and hand with him in his schemes of reform. For Mr. Dickson then had a grievance of his own, arising out of the partial interdict of immigration from the United States which had been adopted after the War of 1812-15. He was the owner of an immense quantity of uncultivated land in the Province, including the township of Dumfries already mentioned, which he was desirous of selling to incoming settlers. The shutting out of United States immigrants tended to retard the progress of settlement and the sale of his property. His anger against the Administration had been hot and bitter, and he had even gone so far as to state publicly that he would rather live under the American than under the British Government. But he had managed to induce the Assembly to pass certain resolutions, recognizing the right of subjects of the United States to settle in Upper Canada. The restrictions being relaxed, his only cause of hostility to the Administration vanished, and he ceased to clamour against it. His sympathy with Mr. Gourlay's projects vanished into thin air. Those projects contemplated enquiry and reform. Dickson, having accomplished his own ends, desired no further reform; and as for enquiry, he had excellent reasons for burking it, as it would probably lead to the disclosure of certain reprehensible transactions on the part of himself and Claus, the Indian agent. He therefore presented a sudden change of front, and, so far from continuing to act with Mr. Gourlay, he became that unfortunate man's bitterest foe.
How far Dickson's enmity was stimulated by co?peration with the leaders of the Compact party at York will