The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion | Page 8

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 to, it was certain to elicit facts which
would form the groundwork of damnifying strictures on the principal
abuses of the time. "What, in your opinion," asked Mr. Gourlay,
"retards the improvement of your township in particular, or the
Province in general?" Throughout the Home District the influence of
the Compact was sufficient to prevent any replies from being returned
to these queries. Elsewhere that influence was partial only, and many
answers were received from other districts. The all but invariable reply
to the thirty-first question attributed the slow development of the
country to the Crown and Clergy Reserves. Mr. Gourlay did not
attempt to conceal his intention of publishing the results of his
investigations, and of circulating them all over Great Britain and
Ireland. Having succeeded in arousing a good deal of popular
enthusiasm, he proceeded to strike what he intended to be another
damaging blow. Owing to his exertions, a convention was held at York,
whereat he advocated a petition to the Imperial Parliament, praying for
an investigation into the public affairs of Upper Canada. He also
suggested the sending of deputies to England in support of the petition,
and it is not improbable that such a course would eventually have been
followed, but the petitioners were as yet not fully organized, and before
any of their plans could be brought to maturity their champion's career
of agitation received a sudden and, for the time, an effectual check.

The oligarchs had taken alarm. If this man were permitted to go on as
he had begun, there would soon be an end of the existing order of
things, which they had so tremendous an interest in preserving. At any
cost, and by whatever means, he must be suppressed. There must be a
general and determined advance against him all along the line.
The prime organizer of this most unrighteous crusade is believed to
have been the Reverend Dr. John Strachan, Rector of York, member of
the Executive Council, supreme director of the lay and ecclesiastical
policy of the Church of England in Upper Canada, champion of the
Clergy Reserves, and what not. It may seem a thankless task to write in
strong depreciation of a man who, in his day and generation, was
looked up to with reverence by a large and influential portion of the
community, and whose memory is still warmly cherished by not a few.
But truth is truth, and the simple fact of the matter is that Dr. Strachan
did more to stifle freedom and retard progress in Upper Canada than
any other man whose name figures in our history. His baneful influence
made itself felt, directly or indirectly, in every one of the public offices.
Wherever liberty of thought and expression, whether as affecting things
spiritual or temporal, ventured to lift its head, there, bludgeon in hand,
stood the great Protestant Pope, ready and eager to strike. It may
perhaps be conceded that he acted according to his earnest convictions.
So, doubtless, did Philip of Spain and Tomas de Torquemada. It is not
going too far to say that Dr. Strachan was utterly incapable of seeing
more than one side of any question involving the interests of himself
and his church. When his cause was a just one, who so fond as he of
appealing to the majesty of the law. When he wished to pervert the law
to his own purposes, who so apt at enjoining a disregard therefor.[7]
There is abundant reason for believing that he was the original
instigator of the Gourlay prosecutions. They were at all events carried
on by his satellites, and fostered by his fullest concurrence and
approval. Their object was to drive Mr. Gourlay out of the country, and
to this end it would appear that the Compact were prepared to go
whatever lengths the necessities of the case might require. A criminal
prosecution for libel was set on foot against the doomed victim of
Executive malevolence, who was arrested and thrown into jail at
Kingston, where he lay for some days. The trial took place on the 15th

of August, 1818, when Mr. Attorney-General Robinson put forth the
utmost power of his eloquence to secure a conviction. In