resolutions to be proposed were based on these admissions, and went to show that emigrants from the United States might still lawfully settle in the country, and that any prohibition to the contrary ought to be rescinded. A ninth resolution averred that the large tracts of Crown and Clergy Reserve lands throughout the province prevented the formation of connected settlements, so necessary for opening and keeping the roads in repair, and offered a temptation to future wars with the United States, by presenting the means of indemnifying themselves, and rewarding their soldiers, in the event of conquest. The tenth resolution recommended the sale of the Crown Reserves, instead of leasing them, as was then the practice; while the eleventh condemned the appropriating oneseventh of all the lands in the province for the support of a Protestant clergy, as altogether too lavish, proposed that the Imperial Parliament should be petitioned to sell a part of the lands already reserved, and that a less quantity should be retained in future.

These resolutions embodied the opinions of the bulk of the people at this period, who accordingly denounced the conduct of the Governor, in preventing their discussion, as arbitrary and unconstitutional. While in this disposition the question of responsible government began gradually to present itself, though as yet very dimly, to the public mind. As time progressed its achievement was regarded as the only mode of getting rid of an arbitrary oligarchy, who seriously retarded the prosperity of the country.

While the incipient seeds of discontent and agitation were thus being firmly planted in the community, Robert Gourlay, destined to figure somewhat prominently in the affairs of this country for a short time, came out in the month of July, attracted hither by the Government proclamation inviting respectable emigrants to settle in Canada West; he had formed, however, no definite plan as to his future course, and was desirous, in the first place, merely to examine the capabilities of the country, with a view to a general system of emigration.

Mr Gourlay was descended from an old and respectable Scottish family. His father, at one time an Edinburgh lawyer of some repute, had purchased a considerable quantity of landed property, and for several years was regarded as a person of wealth. The close of the war with Bonaparte reduced the value of land in Great Britain very materially, and from this circumstance, and some other unexplained causes, the elder Mr Gourlay became bankrupt. His son, Robert, was fated to be equally, if not still more, unfortunate. In 1809 he

leased the Deptford farm in Wiltshire, England, for twenty-one years, and expended a large sum of money in making improvements. But he speedily quarrelled with his landlord, got involved in lawsuits, became distinguished for a litigious and dissatisfied, though benevolent disposition, and finally, to escape the troubles his imprudence had gathered round himself, came out to Canada, leaving his friends to arrange his embarrassed affairs with his creditors, which office, to judge from his own account of the matter, they performed very little to his satisfaction.

Robert Gourlay possessed very respectable natural abilities; was energetic, restless, ambitious, desirous to distinguish himself and advance his fortunes, but lacked that prudence necessary to command success. His genius was of a flighty and erratic, rather than a sober stamp; he belonged to a class, existing more or less in every age, fated to injure themselves, while they benefited humanity at large. His father's estimate of him was singularly correct. "Robert," said he, "will hurt himself, but do good to others."

While in a moral point of view Mr Gourlay did not occupy by any means a high position, he was very far from being a bad man. As one wades through the three ponderous octavos, of all manner of odds and ends, which he bequeathed to Canada, his coarse abuse of individuals, intemperate language, thirst for personal revenge, and self-conceit, must lower him seriously in the estimation of the impartial reader. Still, he was evidently more sinned against than sinning; and honest criticism must make due allowance for his difficulties and misfortunes. Indefatigably industrious, enterprising, shrewd, fearless and honest in dealing with public questions and abuses, he struck boldly out for the welfare of Canada after his own odd fashion, and had its leading men sufficient patriotism to turn his abilities to account, he must have effected some good. But it is evident they were all more desirous to benefit themselves individually than the province generally. Upper Canada was too young a country as yet to have its patriots; and the public welfare was lightly considered when balanced against personal profit.

While in England, Mr Gourlay had engaged in an agitation for the revisal of the poor-laws; wrote letters to the newspapers and pamphlets supporting his views, which were in some cases of an enthusiastic and visionary character; and leaned undoubtedly to the extreme opinions advocated by the celebrated William Cobbett, the great stickler for royalty and aristocracy in republican America, for the people and democracy in monarchical England. Like him, Gourlay was indefatigable in hunting up abuses. Circumstances

had tended to produce a plentiful harvest of these in Canada; and, without stopping to consider the wisest mode of procedure, he ran full tilt against them, offended the prejudices of men in power by the unceremonious manner in which he spoke of their conduct, and by other imprudence, likewise, speedily made himself a host of bitter enemies, who destroyed whatever prospects of usefulness he might have had. A little more tact would have enabled him to steer clear of the difficulties he met with in this country. But the morbid passion for hasty notoriety which had distinguished him in England, and a disposition to treat the authorities with contempt, as his inferiors in intelligence, made speedy shipwreck of his hopes.

After a residence of a few months in this country, during which he sedulously applied himself to acquire a knowledge of its natural resources, and the social and political condition of its people, Mr Gourlay conceived the idea of becoming a land-agent, and by the compilation of a statistical account of Canada West, to acquire the requisite information. This information, in the first place, he proposed to procure by addressing thirty-one queries to the principal inhabitants of each township, the answers to which must supply precisely what he sought. Thirty of these queries related merely to agricultural matters, or to that description of information usually embodied in census returns, and were perfectly innocent of themselves. Owing to the agitation already commenced in the province, the 31st query, however, possessed a pointed political meaning, and created an immediate alarm among the Family Compact people. "What," it asked, "in your opinion, retards the improvement of your township in particular, or of the province in general; and what would most contribute to the same?"

This question at once aroused a serious opposition to Mr Gourlay's plans. Government favourites who had got grants of valuable land, and held it in reserve, wild lands being then untaxed, till the labours of the surrounding settlers made it doubly valuable, as well as all those interested in the preservation of land monopolies of every kind, disliked that any light whatever should be thrown on a system so largely advantageous to themselves. By these parties a feeling hostile to Mr Gourlay was immediately excited. He was accused of sinister motives, stigmatised as a democrat and disloyal person, and in several instances the people were dissuaded from furnishing the information he sought. In the Home District, where large blocks of land were held by Government favourites, no return whatever was made to his queries, owing to the interference of

members of the executive. In other quarters, all his queries were answered but the 31st. In a majority of cases, however, this was broadly replied to, and the Crown, Clergy Reserves, and wild lands held by speculators, very generally stigmatised as interfering with local prosperity.

Mr Gourlay was not by any means disposed to allow his plans to be thwarted in silence, and his letters to the newspapers, of which seven were now published in the province, added to the 1818. growing discontent of the people. When the Legislature

next met, a vote of inquiry into the condition of affairs was carried in the Assembly. But before any further action could be taken in the matter, Government seized upon the pretext of a difference with the Legislative Council, and suddenly prorogued Parliament, leaving a large amount of public business unfinished.

Finding there was little prospect of anything being done by the Legislature to remove the evils they complained of, the people readily caught at a scheme, proposed by Mr Gourlay, of petitioning the Imperial Parliament to investigate the affairs of the province, and of employing an agent in England to support their views. He further proposed that deputies should be selected by the different townships, to meet at Toronto, and there decide on the draft of a petition, and the other necessary measures. This convention met during summer, and wholly unconscious of doing anything wrong or disloyal, had concluded its deliberations before the Legislature assembled. Owing to the opposition of Government, however, no decisive action was taken upon its resolutions. The agitation, nevertheless, had one good effect. The Colonial Office now determined that the promised grants of land should be made to the militia embodied during the war.

The executive now became seriously alarmed, and as it was found exceedingly inconvenient to have a person of such a curious and prying disposition as Gourlay in the country, it was determined to get rid of him on the first opportunity. He had already published the draft of a petition to the Crown, to be adopted by the people as far as they thought proper, and a passage in this was now fastened on as affording grounds for a criminal prosecution for libel. This passage, couched in the strongest language, alluded to the ignorance of the Colonial Minister of the wants of the country, the system of patronage and favouritism, and the universal corruption of the Canadian authorities. "Corruption, indeed, has reached such a height in this province," said the obnoxious passage of the proposed petition, "that it is thought no other part of the

British empire witnesses the like. It matters not what characters fill situations of public trust at present; all sink beneath the dignity of men, and have become vitiated and weak."

THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR PEREGRINE MAITLAND.

Meanwhile, Mr Gore had been recalled, and Sir Peregrine Maitland appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. In the interim of the general's arrival the government was administered by Samuel Smith, a U. E. loyalist, who, while entirely unconnected with the Family Compact, had raised himself, by integrity and ability, to the highest positions in the country. Sir Peregrine had possibly never heard in his life of Mr Gourlay till he arrived in his government in August, but that gentleman lost very little time in attracting his notice. He wrote a letter to him stating, "that he was under a charge of libelling the Government, that he was a year in the country, and would have no objection to wait upon him at any time, and give him the benefit of his experience." The Governor, however, had no disposition to avail himself of the one year experience of the egotistical Mr Gourlay, who four days after making what he no doubt supposed to be a very liberal offer, was shut up a close prisoner in Kingston jail. Here he remained for six days until brought to trial on the 20th of August, when he succeeded in beating the Government, and was acquitted. The sympathy of the community ran high in his favour. Ten days afterwards he was tried a second time at Brockville for another libel in the same petition, but was again honourably acquitted; and having now twice defeated the Government, was apparently in a fair way of becoming quite a popular personage. But his elevation had been too rapid to be lasting.

On the 12th of October, the Legislature was opened by the Governor with a short speech, one paragraph of which was levelled at Mr Gourlay. "In the course of your investigation," said Sir Peregrine, "you will, I doubt not, feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to excite discontent, and to organise sedition. Should it appear to you that a convention of delegates cannot exist without danger to the constitution, in framing a law of prevention, your dispassionate wisdom will be careful that it shall not unwarily trespass on the sacred right of the subject to seek a redress of his grievances by petition."

The Assembly were now as thoroughly alarmed by the convention as the Government, and regarded the movement as an infringeGourlay, vol. iii. p. 502.

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