The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion

The Story of the Upper Canada
Rebellion, by

John Charles Dent This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
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Title: The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion
Author: John Charles Dent
Release Date: July 24, 2007 [EBook #22131]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE STORY OF THE UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION.
[Illustration: Yours truly, John Rolph]

THE STORY
OF THE
=UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION=
JOHN CHARLES DENT
AUTHOR OF "THE LAST FORTY YEARS" &C.
VOL. I.
[Illustration]
TORONTO.
PUBLISHED BY C. BLACKETT ROBINSON
1865
New York

THE STORY
OF THE
UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION;
LARGELY DERIVED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES AND
DOCUMENTS.
BY JOHN CHARLES DENT,
Author of "The Last Forty Years," etc.
* * * * *

"Well, God be thanked for these rebels."--I Henry IV., Act iii, sc. 3.
"Truth is not always to be withheld because its expression may wound
the feelings of public men, whose official acts have subjected them to
public censure. If it were, history and biography would cease to be
guiding stars, and, above all, would offer no wholesome restraint to the
cruel, or corrupt, or incompetent exercise of authority."--Tupper's Life
and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock.
"We rebelled neither against Her Majesty's person nor her Government,
but against Colonial mis-government.... We remonstrated; we were
derided.... We were goaded on to madness, and were compelled to
show that we had the spirit of resistance to repel injuries, or to be
deemed a captive, degraded and recreant people. We took up arms, not
to attack others, but to defend ourselves."--Letter to Lord Durham from
Dr. Wolfred Nelson and others, confined at Montreal, June 18th, 1838.
* * * * *
=Toronto:=
C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, 5 JORDAN STREET.
1885.

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
1885, by C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, in the office of the Minister of
Agriculture.

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY ESTEEMED FRIEND,
GEORGE STEWART, JUN'R.
OF QUEBEC:
WHOSE RESEARCHES IN A KINDRED DIRECTION WILL

ENABLE HIM TO
DO FULL JUSTICE TO WHATEVER IS MERITORIOUS IN IT;
WHILE
HIS GENEROUS APPRECIATION OF THE EFFORTS OF HIS
LITERARY BRETHREN WILL RENDER HIM
INDULGENT TO ITS DEFECTS.
JOHN CHARLES DENT.
Toronto, 1885.
[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors, including punctuation, have
been corrected. All other inconsistencies have been left as they were in
the original.]
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE BANISHED BRITON 9
CHAPTER II.
A BILL OF PARTICULARS 46
CHAPTER III.
THE FAMILY COMPACT 71
CHAPTER IV.
FATHERS OF REFORM 96

CHAPTER V.
A "FREE AND UNFETTERED" PRESS 122
CHAPTER VI.
THE CASE OF CAPTAIN MATTHEWS 144
CHAPTER VII.
THE NIAGARA FALLS OUTRAGE 151
CHAPTER VIII.
THE "AMOVAL" OF MR. JUSTICE WILLIS 162
CHAPTER IX.
THE CASE OF FRANCIS COLLINS 195
CHAPTER X.
LIGHTS--OLD AND NEW 213
CHAPTER XI.
PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE 231
CHAPTER XII.
DISENFRANCHISEMENT 253
CHAPTER XIII.
MR. HUME'S "BANEFUL DOMINATION" LETTER 264
CHAPTER XIV.

"SEE, THE CONQUERING HERO COMES!" 282
CHAPTER XV.
"A TRIED REFORMER" 296
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TRIUMPHS OF A TRIED REFORMER 324
CHAPTER XVII.
REACTION 342
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FORGING OF THE PIKES 354

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
John Rolph Frontispiece
David Gibson 284

THE STORY
OF
THE UPPER CANADIAN REBELLION.
CHAPTER I.
THE BANISHED BRITON.
[Sidenote: 1819]

In the afternoon of a warm and sultry day, towards the close of one of
the warmest and most sultry summers which Upper Canada has ever
known, an extraordinary trial took place at the court-house in the old
town of Niagara. The time was more than threescore years ago, when
York was a place of insignificant proportions; when Hamilton could
barely be said to have an existence; and when the sites of most of the
other towns of the Province whose names are now familiar to us still
formed part of the hunting-grounds of the native Indian. The little town
on the frontier was relatively a place of much greater importance than it
is at present; though its fortunes, even at that early period, were
decidedly on the wane, and such glory as it could ever boast of
possessing, as the Provincial capital, had departed from it long before.
To speak with absolute precision, the date was Friday, the 20th of
August, 1819: so long ago that, as far as I have been able to learn, there
are only two persons now living who were present on the occasion. The
court-room,