EARLY STRUGGLES FOR FREEDOM. 175 the United States, nothing was done against Edwards, the editor of the Gazette. Four days afterwards the Sergeant-at-arms was ordered to bring Thomas Cary, the editor of the Quebec Mercury before the House to answer for his conduct in giving the public a report of its proceedings. Cary had to apologise in a most humble fashion. But as we might expect, he did not cease to attack people who had acted against him so vindictively. The result was the establishment in the opposite interest in 1806 of Le Canadien and the controversy of journals commenced with its stimulus to thought, and its unequalled safeguard to liberty. Up to this, liberty of the press could not be said to exist in Canada. Little over twenty years before an Irishman had fought a great battle for freedom of the press in the mother land. "Even a hundred libels," said Sheridan, "had better be ushered into the world than one prosecution be instituted which might endanger the liberty of the Press of this country." At another and a later period he cried in words which produced a great effect on Parliament:-" Give them a corrupt House of Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give them a tyrannical prince, give them a truckling Court, let me have but an unfettered Press, I will defy them to encroach a hair's-breath upon the liberties of England." When in 1808 Le Canadien commented adversely on the intrigues of the Government-Sir J. H. Craig's view of his duty as a Governor, being to act with a party-M. Panet, as supposed proprietor of that journal, was stripped of his rank as Lieutenant-Colonel of Militia. Other officers were in like manner degraded for having used their influence in favour of M. Panet's candidature. At a later period Sir James Craig thought fit to condemn the conduct in very unmeasured terms, of a portion of the Assembly, which was opposed to the election of judges as members of Parliament. The menacing state of things in the neighbouring republic made him (he not having the wisdom of Carleton) lean too openly on the inhabitants of British origin. When the election took place the Canadien attacked His Excellency with unmeasured violence, and the most part of those who had taken a course offensive to him were elected. Parliament was opened on the 20th January, 1810. The Assembly passed a resolution that it was a violation of the Statute by which the Assembly was constituted, an infraction of its privileges, and a menace to the liberties of the subject for the Governor or the other branch of the Legislature, to censure its proceedings, especially when that censure took the form of approving the conduct of a part of the House, and condemning that of another part. After some discussion on financial questions they came to the conclusion that the Province was in a position to pay all the expenses of Government with which they readily charged themselves. There was a dead lock. The Legislative Assembly expelled the single judge who sat as member of it. The Governor dissolved the Chamber. During the election, which was a violent one, six members of Parliament and the proprietor of the Canadien were thrown into prison. They were released ultimately; the judges were disqualified; and so the crisis was got over. In New Brunswick, the dead-lock came in the closing years of the eighteenth century, though the brother of Lord Dorchester, Colonel Carleton, administered its affairs with great tact from 1782 to 1802. It We return to Upper Canada. There was but one newspaper in the Province, the Upper Canada Gazette, the honour of establishing which, with so much else, belongs to Governor Simcoe. was, however, a government organ; and started by a governor and supported by government, and without competition it could have no life. The Rev. Dr. Carroll speaking of this paper for Nov. 13th, 1801, describes it as a coarse, flimsy, two-leaved paper of octavo size, the department of news large, but the "news much older than their ale." Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe having been recalled in 1796, the Province was administered by Mr. Russell, senior member of the Executive, until the arrival of LieutenantGovernor Hunter, in 1799, who was succeeded six years afterwards by Mr. Gore, the country having been, during a brief interregnum, governed by Mr. Alexander Grant. The administration of justice had fallen into a disgraceful condition, and despotic power had, as it never fails to do, rendered its possessors impatient of opposition. To use our party watchwords now, and apply it to the events of those days would be misleading. There is, for instance, no Conservative to-day who is not more "advanced" than the EARLIEST ORGAN OF OPINION IN UPPER CANADA. 177 leader of the Reform Party in 1841. How impossible then to use the party designations of the present in 1806. The ground was being broken up for the seed of party, but the present struggle was between the people and an oligarchy. At this period, Mr. Thorpe, an English lawyer, was sent out as one of the judges of the Court of King's Bench. His impartial administration of justice had made him popular. Grand juries entrusted him with their grievances to be laid before Mr. Gore, the Lieutenant-Governor, who naturally fell into bureaucratic hands, and conceived prejudices against the judge, who unfortunately, considering his office, allowed himself to become a candidate for a seat in parliament. An Irish gentleman, Joseph Wilcox, voted for him and was deprived of the Shrievalty of the Home District. He then started, practically, the first real organ of public opinion in Upper Canada-the Upper Canada Guardian-the legitimate forerunner of the Globe, the Mail, the Leader, the London Advertiser, the London Herald and their contemporaries. He opposed the Government and was prosecuted for libel, but acquitted. He became popular, and was returned to parliament where he was equally outspoken. The result was, he was arrested and thrown into York gaol. When liberated, he became leader of the opposition and had a majority in the House. When the war of 1812 broke out, he gave up his paper, and went into that war to defend his adopted country, and fought gallantly at Queenston. "Still," says McMullen, " Government treated him harshly, and at length, thoroughly disheartened and disgusted, he deserted to the enemy, taking a body of Canadian militia over with him." The Americans rewarded him with a Colonel's commission, and he fell at Fort Erie, while planting a guard, a musket-ball finding its billet in his restless frame. Had he remained true to Canada, he might occupy a proud place in our bead roll of heroes. No excuse could be made for the harsh conduct of Government. anything be said to palliate the treason of this pioneer of an independent press, this forerunner of our popular tribunes. Parliament made provision for appropriating £809 for the salaries of masters of grammar schools, in the eight districts of Upper Canada. The patronage being vested in the Government, and £100 a year being an object to a "gentleman" with nothing par Still less could ticular to do, and full capacity to do that, some abuse arose in consequence. This led to trouble in the case of another Wilcocks, also an Irishman, whom we have already mentioned in connection with the Baldwins. He was member for the First Riding of the County of Lincoln, the West Riding of the County of York, and the County of Haldimand. In a private house he seems to have made use of some strong language regarding his brother members. For this he was "tried" before the house on the 30th of January, 1808, found guilty, and committed to the Common gaol of the Home District, there to remain during the sitting of Parliament. He had given notice that he would bring in a bill to repeal the District School Act. The day after he obtained leave to bring in the bill, he was sent to a dungeon. No wonder the two things were put together. He was placed in a cell where there were none of the conveniences which the baldest decency requires. It seems, he was also opposed to some other bills which it was thought desirable to pass. The population has been increasing, the work of government going forward, wealth accumulating, political ideas ripening, and as we have seen an Irishman here and there and everywhere, doing his part of the work. Mind only his part. But it is not my province, the title of the book precludes me from mentioning particulars regarding other nationalities, and yet I have in passing, perhaps, done them some small share of justice. For there has been no Carleton sent us save from Ireland, and Col. Talbot stands without parallel, working away there in the west, letting out London in lots, and superintending the planting of the rich and extensive acres placed by Providence under his auspices. Let us turn once more to the arduous religious field of that day, and see whose hands are at work clearing it. In 1790, the first Methodist Circuit in Canada was defined, and in 1792, at Adolphustown, the first Methodist chapel in Canada was built. In 1802, the honoured name of Nathan Bangs was on the minutes for Canada, and he soon had as fellow-labourers, William Case and Henry Ryan, all of them men of apostolic mould. In 1855, the venerable Mr. Case addressed a letter to his old co-labourer, Nathan Bangs, which, as Mr. Crook says, sheds "a beautiful light upon Canadian Methodism in Canada in early times." In this letter he recalls the scenes and changes through which they had passed; how they assembled in private houses and barns; how they toiled on horseback through wild forests from two-and a-half to four miles an hour, and he asks him to revisit these scenes before leaving for the fairer climes. How beautiful and cheerful does religious faith make the aged! It lights up with glory their grey hairs. It compensates with a nobler fire for the loss of the glory of youth within the eye. It is as though a traveller should come on others benighted, and while with them illumine the darkness with a strange unexpected light of a mysterious morning, and break the sombre silence with voices of distant melodies, having nothing mortal in their notes of subtle stimulation. Mr. Case goes on to tell how he had made a journey through Hallowell, Belleville, Kingston, Elizabethtown, Brockville, Augusta, Matilda, Bytown (Ottawa City), Perth, Walford, and home to Alnwick, through a portion of the northern new settlements. Only a few of their former friends were living. A poet, whose inspiration was remorse, and whose mighty magnificent song so full of noble feeling, so disfigured with mockery, a song which was the cry of a nature at war with itself, the wail of a man who loved what was good, and could not be that which he loved and fain had been, that poet writes: "What is the worst of woes that wait on age? No such cry breaks from the old Methodist preacher gazing round on the tombstones of those he loved, for, for him, there was no bowing with despairful head "O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed." No indeed. He had a talisman against gloom and could sing with a happier poet "On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." He found one or two or three of his old friends of long ago living, |