THE GREAT STRUGGLE—FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE SETTLERS—IMPRISONMENT OF DUNCAN CAMPBELL.
A vague rumor had reached the people at the commencement of this year that a new arrangement had been entered into between the Chief and the Government, but of its nature and tendency they were kept in entire ignorance. It is true that the Chief came down from Toronto, and informed some of his toadies, so that the intelligence might spread through McNab that he had sold the township, and that all the settlers were to be turned off their lands, and set adrift with their families. But any news springing from that quarter was disbelieved, for they knew that Lord Durham's special commission had reported against the Chief, and in their favor; and they also were aware that a more sweepingly radical reformer than his lordship was appointed Governor-General. The Chief still claimed the timber of the township, under the Bond Head patent. That had not as yet been given up. He gave licenses as usual to cuttimber. Not only on the unlocated lots had he done so, but he had given liberty to Mr. Michael Roddy to cut timber on the lands of some of his settlers, principally upon those of Mr. Robertson, Daniel McIntyre (Paisley), and John Stewart. Roddy proceeded to the work of cutting down the trees. The parties came to the writer, and at once acted on his advice. They forbade Roddy to trespass on their lands. Roddy told them he was indemnified by the Chief, and he would go on in defiance of all they could do. Mr. D. C. McNab and Mr. Daniel McIntyre went immediately to Perth, and commenced suits in the Queen's Bench against Roddy, on the part of the three, for trespass. The three writs were simultaneously served upon Roddy. He immediately hastened to the Chief. McNab laughed him out of his fears, and scornfully exclaimed "When did any of the scoundrels prevail against me?" Although ostensibly carrying matters with a high hand and a proud bearing, the Laird was inwardly uneasy. He sent for Robert Robertson, because he was pretty well-to-do, and could carry the matter into court; and settled with him by paying the whole amount of his claims andthe costs. He imagined that Mr. McIntyre and Stewart could proceed no further. Little did he foresee the consequences. "We will become the assailants; we have acted too long on the defensive," exclaimed Mr. D. C. McNab, who then about nineteen years of age, threw all his youthful energies into the struggle. Both suits were carried into court, and in both verdicts were rendered for the plaintiffs. Poor Mr. Roddy was the sufferer. McNab never paid him a single farthing of the damages. Although he had paid the duties to the Chief, and he, by word only, had indemnified him, not one farthing of the duties was returned, not one penny of the costs paid. Mr. Roddy was nearly ruined. His misplaced confidence in McNab had led him on. He regarded not the wrongs of the settlers—McNab's word was hisÆgis, and it proved but a sorry protection. To the settlers this proved a great triumph. The Laird could be vanquished. The awe of his invulnerability was dispelled. The charm was broken. Onward was the word. Fresh attacks were planned. New methods of assailing their opponents were prepared and successfully executed. It was a beautifulmorning early in June. The day was balmy and mild. The lovely songsters of the grove warbled forth their notes of delicious music in joyful harmony. From all parts of the township horsemen and pedestrians were wending their way to one particular spot. This was the residence of Mr. Allan Stewart, in the very centre of the township, about a quarter of a mile distant from where the Town Hall now stands. It was then a romantic and sequestered spot, attractive by its lonely beauty. The stumps had nearly all decayed through age. A large barn in the midst of a level green pasture was the place of rendezvous. It was surrounded on all sides by the forest. The towering pine overtopping its less exalted fellows, in the dark sombre green of the Canadian livery of the woods, added a picturesque charm to the scene. At the foot of this plateau rolled the never-ceasing Madawaska, on its way to the ocean. The sullen roar of the surging billows of the Long Rapids was distinctly audible as they lashed the sides of its banks, and poured in continuous swells over the rocks and shoals that partially impeded its irresistible progress. The Piper of the Township andof the people, Murdock McDonald, was there betimes, and the loud swelling notes of the martial music of "Auld Gaul" calling the people together in thepibrochof the "Gathering of the Clans," were heard for miles reverberating through the woods, and echoed and re-echoed by the rocky ridges of the mountain heights surrounding the deep sunk Madawaska. All the settlers of the township were there assembled on that momentous day, with the exception of the Chief's Cabinet-Council ofFive(Anderson, Fisher, McCallum, Roddy and McDonnell). They believed in the Chief. They saw no grounds for the discontent of the settlers. They looked upon the people as disloyal and ungrateful. The Chief had been to the cabal all that was generous and noble. From him they had received favors in lavish abundance. To them he was a faithful friend and steadfast ally. Grants of land he had given to them with no sparing hand.
These henchmen of the Chief had no cause of complaint—no grievance to lay at the foot of the Throne; and they truly believed that the grievances of the people were exaggerated or imaginary. Theold, the middle-aged and the young—those who had hitherto kept aloof from fear or from interest—joined in that day's assembly. The venerable Donald McNaughton—the oldest settler in the township—was called to the chair. There he sat in all the glory of hoary old age, mildly tempered by the pious feelings of pure Christianity. His thin silver locks adorned a brow of no mean intelligence. His presence was august and serene. Virtue sat enthroned in noble and august benignity. Beside him the earthly majesty of monarchs paled. His was the nobility of integrity—the majesty of virtue. He had suffered and came out scathless. His deed he had lately obtained. His passage money, with law expenses, was paid in full. His share of Miller's bond was liquidated. His three stalwart sons had made the forest subservient to the demands of law. By the prostration of the king of the woods—the mighty pine—they had achieved independence and freedom.
This was a momentous meeting—the most vitally great ever held in the Township of McNab. Two important questions had to be discussed: a fresh appeal to the Government, and the distribution ofthe statute labor. In March, the Chief and Mr. John Ritchie of Fitzroy had held a session as magistrates, at the inn of Mr. Duncan Anderson, Burnstown, to apportion the statute labor for the year. Due notice had been given to Mr. Peter Campbell, the Town Clerk, to attend. All the pathmasters assembled, and a large number of the settlers were there also. However, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the Town Clerk and the people, they were ordered to perform their labor on two roads—the Arnprior road, leading to Duncan Anderson's; and those on the east side of the Madawaska, on a road from the White Lake to Baker's mills, far away from their own roads. The average distance from each settler's residence to where work was to commence, in both cases was about eight miles. The meeting took this case up first and resolved to send the writer and Mr. James Morris, jr., the present Sheriff of Renfrew, to Perth to attend the Quarter Sessions, and lay their grievances before the bench of Magistrates; and Mr. Donald Mohr McNaughton was to procure a sum of money, by subscription or otherwise, to defray their expenses.
The next and most important matter was the state of the township. Mr. Alexander McNab, one of the Laird's martyrs, had just arrived from the west. He first addressed the meeting in a fiery speech, replete with vengeance and vindictiveness, urging the people to take up arms, bring him before the meeting at once, try him, and execute him on the spot. He cited the case of Charles I. and Louis XVI as examples. Mr. John Forrest then arose, and in a mild and sensible address urged upon the people to use pacific measures, and try all constitutional means to obtain redress. Mr. D. C. McNab and others followed in the same strain, and it was finally resolved to send Mr. D. C. McNab as a special delegate to Lord Sydenham at once, with a petition signed by all the settlers; that a sum sufficient to defray expenses should be immediately subscribed and paid; and that the delegate after returning from Perth should proceed to Toronto. A sum of fifty dollars was collected on the spot, and more promised, to carry out the views of the meeting. The writer drafted the celebrated petition for the meeting, which is worded as follows:—
To the Right Honorable, His Excellency Charles Poulett Thompson, Governor-General of British North America, etc., etc., etc.The Humble Petition of the Settlers in the Township of McNab,Respectfully Sheweth:—That your Petitioners approach Your Excellency with feelings of loyalty to Her Majesty, our most gracious Queen, and with sentiments of the utmost respect towards Your Excellency as Her Majesty's representative.That your Petitioners sincerely hope that the object of Your Excellency's great mission to Canada may be speedily and successfully accomplished.That for the last fifteen years your Petitioners, as settlers under the Laird of McNab, have been persecuted, harassed with law-suits, threatened with deprivation of their lands, and subjected to threats by the McNab, of being driven from their present locations by the Government, for disobedience to the Chief.That the said Chief has impoverished many families, and completely ruined those of Alex. McNab, Peter and John McIntyre, whom he brought out to Canada.That there are now sixteen families still remaining in the township whom his friends sent out to Canada as settlers under him, who are willing to pay to the Chief any reasonable sum as passage-money, that Your Excellency in Council may deem just to impose; but on the other hand your Petitioners have hitherto resisted, and will continue constitutionally to resist any attempts to impose the feudal system of the Dark Ages upon Your Petitioners or their descendants.That whatever representations the McNab has made to the Government about the expenditure of money for theimprovement of the Township, Your Petitioners beg leave to assure Your Excellency that the said McNab has never expended a single shilling of his own money for such a purpose on their behoof.That Your Petitioners beg to assure Your Excellency that the Chief has received since he first came to the Township about £30,000 from the dues of timber cut on the Township, besides what he has plundered off the lands of the settlers.That he has received money from lumberers for passing rafts as made in the Township of McNab, the timber of which was manufactured on the Bonnechere and in Westmeath.That Your Petitioners have sent Mr. D. C. McNab to Your Excellency as their accredited delegate, who will fully explain to Your Excellency the condition of the Township and the state of the people, and give Your Excellency detailed information respecting the rents the Chief has exacted from them and of every matter connected with the Township of McNab.That Your Petitioners therefore pray that Your Excellency will send a special Commissioner to investigate the truth of this petition, and be pleased to carry out the original Order in Council, which made aFree Grantof the lands of the township to those settlers who had come out at their own expense, and also to grant their patents to the first settlers upon paying a reasonable amount for their passage money, and not the exorbitant sum charged by the Laird. And by acceding to Your Petitioners' respectful requests, Your Excellency will do an act of justice as great and noble as it is imperatively necessary.Dated 3rd June, 1840.(Signed){Angus McNab,Donald McNaughton, Sr.John Forrest,And 130 others.Township of McNab, 4th June, 1840.T. A. Murdoch,Private Secretary.Sir, I herewith enclose, to be presented to His Excellency the Governor-General, the petition of the inhabitants of the Township of McNab. I have taken the liberty to forward it by mail, as the Laird of McNab is quite unscrupulous as to the means he may adopt to frustrate the end in view, and prevent a personal interview with His Excellency.I beg leave also to request that His Excellency will appoint a time for an interview, so that I may have the honor of laying the grievances of the settlers of McNab personally before His Excellency, with such documents and paper as may substantiate the allegations made in their petition.I have the honor to be, etc.,Dugald Campbell McNab.
To the Right Honorable, His Excellency Charles Poulett Thompson, Governor-General of British North America, etc., etc., etc.
The Humble Petition of the Settlers in the Township of McNab,
Respectfully Sheweth:—
That your Petitioners approach Your Excellency with feelings of loyalty to Her Majesty, our most gracious Queen, and with sentiments of the utmost respect towards Your Excellency as Her Majesty's representative.
That your Petitioners sincerely hope that the object of Your Excellency's great mission to Canada may be speedily and successfully accomplished.
That for the last fifteen years your Petitioners, as settlers under the Laird of McNab, have been persecuted, harassed with law-suits, threatened with deprivation of their lands, and subjected to threats by the McNab, of being driven from their present locations by the Government, for disobedience to the Chief.
That the said Chief has impoverished many families, and completely ruined those of Alex. McNab, Peter and John McIntyre, whom he brought out to Canada.
That there are now sixteen families still remaining in the township whom his friends sent out to Canada as settlers under him, who are willing to pay to the Chief any reasonable sum as passage-money, that Your Excellency in Council may deem just to impose; but on the other hand your Petitioners have hitherto resisted, and will continue constitutionally to resist any attempts to impose the feudal system of the Dark Ages upon Your Petitioners or their descendants.
That whatever representations the McNab has made to the Government about the expenditure of money for theimprovement of the Township, Your Petitioners beg leave to assure Your Excellency that the said McNab has never expended a single shilling of his own money for such a purpose on their behoof.
That Your Petitioners beg to assure Your Excellency that the Chief has received since he first came to the Township about £30,000 from the dues of timber cut on the Township, besides what he has plundered off the lands of the settlers.
That he has received money from lumberers for passing rafts as made in the Township of McNab, the timber of which was manufactured on the Bonnechere and in Westmeath.
That Your Petitioners have sent Mr. D. C. McNab to Your Excellency as their accredited delegate, who will fully explain to Your Excellency the condition of the Township and the state of the people, and give Your Excellency detailed information respecting the rents the Chief has exacted from them and of every matter connected with the Township of McNab.
That Your Petitioners therefore pray that Your Excellency will send a special Commissioner to investigate the truth of this petition, and be pleased to carry out the original Order in Council, which made aFree Grantof the lands of the township to those settlers who had come out at their own expense, and also to grant their patents to the first settlers upon paying a reasonable amount for their passage money, and not the exorbitant sum charged by the Laird. And by acceding to Your Petitioners' respectful requests, Your Excellency will do an act of justice as great and noble as it is imperatively necessary.
Dated 3rd June, 1840.
Township of McNab, 4th June, 1840.
T. A. Murdoch,Private Secretary.
Sir, I herewith enclose, to be presented to His Excellency the Governor-General, the petition of the inhabitants of the Township of McNab. I have taken the liberty to forward it by mail, as the Laird of McNab is quite unscrupulous as to the means he may adopt to frustrate the end in view, and prevent a personal interview with His Excellency.
I beg leave also to request that His Excellency will appoint a time for an interview, so that I may have the honor of laying the grievances of the settlers of McNab personally before His Excellency, with such documents and paper as may substantiate the allegations made in their petition.
I have the honor to be, etc.,Dugald Campbell McNab.
[copy.]{Government House,Toronto, 11th Jun 1840.Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing the petition of the settlers in the Township of McNab, complaining of the conduct of the McNab, and in reply beg to state that I have laid it before His Excellency, the Governor-General.I am commanded by His Excellency to state that free access to His Excellency is permitted by any of Her Majesty's subjects at all times upon public matters; and that noprivate individual has the right to interfere with, or prevent the exercise of this privilege.I am further directed to state that the memorial and complaint of the McNab settlers will receive His Excellency's immediate consideration, and that in the meantime it has been referred to the Lieut.-Governor and Executive Council of Upper Canada.I am, Sir, etc.,(Signed),T. A. Murdoch.D. Campbell McNab, Esq.,Township of McNab,Bathurst District.
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Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing the petition of the settlers in the Township of McNab, complaining of the conduct of the McNab, and in reply beg to state that I have laid it before His Excellency, the Governor-General.
I am commanded by His Excellency to state that free access to His Excellency is permitted by any of Her Majesty's subjects at all times upon public matters; and that noprivate individual has the right to interfere with, or prevent the exercise of this privilege.
I am further directed to state that the memorial and complaint of the McNab settlers will receive His Excellency's immediate consideration, and that in the meantime it has been referred to the Lieut.-Governor and Executive Council of Upper Canada.
I am, Sir, etc.,(Signed),T. A. Murdoch.D. Campbell McNab, Esq.,Township of McNab,Bathurst District.
MISSION TO PERTH—THE LAIRD PRESENTED AS A PUBLIC NUISANCE—MR. FRANCIS ALLAN SENT TO INVESTIGATE GRIEVANCES.
The week after the great meeting described in the foregoing chapter, Mr. James Morris and the writer proceeded to Perth, to attend the Quarter Sessions, with the people's petition respecting the Statute Labor. The Court opened in due form.—There sat the Hon. William Morris, as Chairman, the apparent impersonification of stern integrity. On his right was seated Capt. Joshua Adams and Mr. John McIntyre, of Dalhousie; and on his left was supported by the half-pay military magnates of Perth.—The petition was presented through the Clerk of the Peace, Mr. Berford, to the Chairman. Its prayer was strongly advocated by the writer and by Mr. T. M. Radenhurst. It was useless. The Hon. Chairman and the magisterial wiseacres who surrounded him scouted the idea of yielding to the settlers' wishes. "We have appointed two of our number to apportion the statute-labor, and that appropriation must be final." Only one gentleman advocatedthe prayer of the petition, and worked long and strenuously for its adoption, and that gentleman was Mr. McIntyre, of Dalhousie. It was futile. It was out-voted, and the petition was thrown under the table. Not satisfied with the decision of the Bench, the writer and Mr. Morris went before the Grand Jury, and laid the case before them. That popular body, feeling for the settlers, at once perceiving the justice of their claims, brought in the following Presentment:—
[copy.]The Grand Jurors of Our Lady the Queen on their oaths present. That having fully investigated the complaints of the inhabitants of the Township of McNab, they on their oaths say, that Archibald McNab of McNab and John Richey, of Fitzroy, Esqs., have not apportioned the statute-labor of the township of McNab for the present year equitably or according to justice; that the said Archibald McNab has acted tyrannically and oppressively, and is a nuisance to the public at large, and especially to the people of McNab; and they recommend that the statute-labor be laid out according to the wishes of the settlers of McNab, as represented by the Pathmasters of the said Township.(Signed),John King,Foreman.
[copy.]
The Grand Jurors of Our Lady the Queen on their oaths present. That having fully investigated the complaints of the inhabitants of the Township of McNab, they on their oaths say, that Archibald McNab of McNab and John Richey, of Fitzroy, Esqs., have not apportioned the statute-labor of the township of McNab for the present year equitably or according to justice; that the said Archibald McNab has acted tyrannically and oppressively, and is a nuisance to the public at large, and especially to the people of McNab; and they recommend that the statute-labor be laid out according to the wishes of the settlers of McNab, as represented by the Pathmasters of the said Township.
(Signed),John King,Foreman.
When this Presentment was read by Mr. Berford, the Chairman, Morris, turned almost purple with rage. Even his immobile features were moved.The cast-iron lineaments gave way to anger at the presumption of two young men questioning the decision of that august Court, and at the temerity of a Grand Jury for making such a Presentment. "File that away, Mr. Berford," exclaimed the Chairman; "but take no action upon it. The Bench will not interfere with action of magistrates out of session."
The writer and Mr. Morris finding they could get no further satisfaction, and having done all that it was possible for men to do under the circumstances, returned home and met the settlers, to whom they related all that occurred. A bright idea struck the writer.—A law had passed the Legislature of Upper Canada appointing Town-Wardens for each township. Among their other duties, they had the power of commuting each ratepayer's statute-labor for five years. It was resolved instantly to take advantage of this clause of the Act.—The writer pointed it out, and advised this mode of procedure; and it was at once put into execution. The three Wardens, with the writer, proceeded through the whole Township, and gave written contracts and commutationsto all the settlers for four years. McNab was foiled. The arbitrary conduct of the military magistrates and the fossil-Tory abettors was set at naught. They were ridiculed and mocked at. The law had rendered their power for evil nugatory and void. The people of McNab that year performed their labor on their own concessions and side-lines. The Chief was incensed; the magistrates were furious. They wrote a letter, embodying the whole facts of the case, to the Hon. W. H. Draper, then Attorney-General. The reply they received was that the Wardens and the people had acted strictly in accordance with the law. The benchers of the Solomon's Temple at Perth, had to "grin and bear it." Their oppressive dicta and autocratic propaganda were treated with contempt. Two mere youths had circumvented the legal and military sagacity of the sages of Perth.
Their maxim was to keep down the people, to trample intelligence under foot, to protract the reign of semi-military despotism, to extend the influence of the Family Compact, and to crush anyone who dared to advocate the rights of the people; butCanada was on the eve of a bloodless revolution which in less than two years would deprive the magistrates of all municipal power, and leave the management of local affairs in the hands of the people alone.—Their support of the Chief was carrying out and extending the principle of ultraism, and at its shrine they were prepared to sacrifice truth, justice, integrity and honor.
This was the year of the great battle, and it was a year of signal triumph to the settlers. Threats were made of indicting the leaders for conspiracy. Threats could not now intimidate, or stay their proceedings. To indict a whole community was preposterous. Yet, incredible as it may appear, the attempt was made. The Chief went before the Grand Jury at the Fall Assizes, preferring a charge against fifty of the settlers. The Grand Inquest took no notice whatever of the accusation.
Another attempt was this year made by the Chief to ruin Mr. Allan Stewart and Mr. John Campbell (blacksmith). The scheme had been conceived two years before, but it was only now that McNab endeavored to complete it. To keep his own grant of5,000 acres, or its equivalent in cash value unimpaired, he, in the spring of 1838, surreptitiously obtained a patent for Lot No. 13 in the 7th concession of McNab, the lot upon which Donald Stewart (the father of Allan Stewart) and John Campbell were located, in the name of "Archibald McNab, a settler under McNab of McNab," in all confidence imagining that he could easily obtain a transfer from any of the Archibald McNabs then residing in the township. There were two of that name from Isla—very illiterate and simple-minded men—old Archibald and his son Archibald McNab, Jr. Having procured the patent on the representation that they had fulfilled their terms of settlement, and had paid them up in full, he, in 1840, procured a conveyance to himself to be drafted, and proceeded to their residence. He represented to the old man that the patent had issued by mistake, and wished either of them to execute the conveyance to him. The old man having been warned beforehand absolutely refused to do anything of the kind. The son was equally obdurate. The Chief could not get the patent cancelled without going into Chancery and falsifying all therepresentations he had made to the Government respecting the lot. He was in a dilemma. So the matter stood. Mr. D. C. McNab having heard of the attempt, strongly advised Archibald McNab to execute a conveyance to Donald Stewart. If it was legal for him to convey the lot to the Chief, it was equally legal to transfer it to any other person. The honest old man at once yielded to the claims of justice. He was saving two men from further persecution, and effectually frustrating the inimical designs of the Chief. The conveyance to Stewart and Campbell was executed and registered before the Chief knew anything of the transaction. He only discovered it some months afterwards, when he heard that both Stewart and Campbell had voted at the election of March, 1841, the first election under the "Union Act." Then his fury knew no bounds. He consulted his legal adviser. The courts of common law could give him no redress. He petitioned the Government to cancel the patent, as it had been issued in a mistake. He was met by his own report when the patent was applied for. "How could it have been a mistake," exclaimed Lord Sydenham,"when the McNab himself states in his written application to Sir Francis Head in Council—'Archibald McNab, a worthy old settler, has performed all the settlement duties upon lot No. 13, in 7th concession, and has paid me up in full all the outlay in bringing him to this country—therefore I apply for his patent, and enclose the fee for it.' The patent must stand." Some years afterwards, the Chief got the Hon. J. H. Cameron to bring an action of Ejectment against Allan Stewart and Campbell, on the grounds of a mistake in the deed; but the conveyance was held to be good, and the case was laughed out of court, and the parties, Mr. Stewart and Mr. John Campbell are still in possession, and own the property. Thus his weapons of vengeance were turned against the Laird, and what he meant for evil and injury turned out for the benefit and advantage of the locatees. In August, 1840, Lord Sydenham as before stated, sent the late Francis Allan, Esq., of Perth, an impartial and upright man, as special commissioner to investigate all matters connected with the township of McNab. Mr. Allan was, before he undertook the mission, being a strongConservative, rather biased against the settlers than otherwise, and favorable to the Chief; but when he discovered upon personal inspection how matters stood; when after a month's diligent enquiry from settler to settler, and upon the examination of both oral and documentary evidence, ascertained the real state of affairs, his strong integrity of soul, throwing aside all foregoing conclusions, all political bias, all hearsay reports, gave birth to that celebrated report already published which broke the chains of the settlers, and emancipated them from the trammels of feudalism forever. The lands of the settlers were valued at their real worth, and a price fixed on each lot, in the event of their being sold to the people. They had strong hopes that the Government would carry out the original grant in all its integrity, as recommended by Lord Durham's committee.—Their hopes were elevated into bright anticipations for the future, on the advent of a special commissioner; but it was not for two years afterwards they knew the result of the investigation, or the decision of the Executive.
THE CHIEF'S REPLY—PERSECUTION OF MR. PARIS—THE LIBEL SUIT AGAINST MR. HINCKS.
A copy of Mr. Allan's report was sent to the Laird by the order of Lord Sydenham. He sent a characteristic mass of answers and explanations which were manufactured for the purpose and had existence only in the fertile imagination of the writer. That they were plausible, any person who has carefully perused the reply in a preceding chapter must at once admit.—But many of the charges were left unanswered, some slightly glanced at, others entirely passed over, and some of the graver charges he attempted to extenuate. Lots of land either sold or given away to his friends, or for private reasons not suited now to publish, were set down as grants for carpenter-shops, school institutions, ferries, blacksmith shops. Donald Fisher, to whom one of these grants were made or sold, was a tailor and knew about as much about carpentering as the writer does about the literary institutions of Timbuctoo. Again, John McCallum received his lot, according to theChief, for "erecting a school establishment," and his acquaintance with erudition was of such a profound nature that he could scarcely spell his own name properly. It is true the people of Goshen built a school-house on another lot about a half a mile from his house. This suggested the scholastic idea to McNab, and he improvised it for the purpose.—David Bremner is stated to have received his land for a "blacksmith establishment." Mr. Alex. McDonald for "putting up an inn," and McNab himself a lot bounded by the very centre of the roughest rapids of the Madawaska (the Flat Rapid), when in fact Bremner's lot was sold to him by McNab for clearing 40 acres of land at the Chief's White Lake farm, McDonell's for hard cash, and Mr. Roddy's for a similar consideration. These representations might serve a temporary purpose and hoodwink the authorities at a distance, but Lord Sydenham was not so verdant as the Chief imagined, as his remarks were treated as meregasconade. Mr. Allan's truthful report was made the basis of the future operations of the Government, and was their guide in dealing with the settlers. McNab's aim in makinghis remarks upon the report was to preserve his £4,000, and to induce the Executive not to curtail it in the slightest. There is one case narrated by both parties of peculiar hardship, and the Government of the present day, late as it is, should make the necessary restitution. Donald McIntyre had paid upwards of £100 to the Chief for his passage money. McNab gave him a bond for his deed. The bond and receipts were placed in Mr. Allan's hands. They were by some unaccountable accident mislaid, and Mr. McIntyre had a second time to pay for his land (a lot of 100 acres) the sum of $50 and was never remunerated for his loss. We will now dismiss the subject of the report and reply. While the former was all that truth, facts and justice could sustain, the latter was a tissue of wild inventions, fabricated for the occasion, and had as much real existence as the "slate quarries"—mineral productions never heard of before until their locality was fixed in the Chief's bouncing remarks. Slate is not to be found anywhere in the township, and the whole tenor of the reply may be judged from this one assertion. All the inhabitants know that there is no slate inMcNab, and when they read the Chief's remarks they cannot refrain from sending forth ejaculations of astonishment and surprise. The Chief had completed his saw mill, and had erected it and a portion of his dam on the 4th concession line, in the very place where the main road to Renfrew and Pakenham now passes. No one could yet define his object for fixing it in that particular locality. There were plenty of mill-sites on Waba-Brook without interfering with the public highway; but this did not suit his purpose, and he appropriated the public road and made another way round it, which his convenient friend, Manny Nowlan, surveyed. About the time of its completion, Mr. John Paris, a young man from Ramsay, located in the township. He had been invited thither by Mr. Duncan McLachlin and a number of the settlers, to erect a grist-mill. The settlers had to travel to Pakenham or to Horton to get their wheat to mill. The Arnprior mill was in ruins, and there was not a single grist-mill in McNab. The inconvenience of the settlers was in this respect very great. Many had to travel between sixteen and seventeen miles to procure flour for their families.At length Mr. McLachlin induced Mr. Paris to select a site on a clergy-lot near the Lake, over which the Chief had no control. Mr. Paris set to work energetically, and notwithstanding every discouragement and opposition on the part of the Chief, had the mill in operation by the fall. McNab had leased his saw-mill, and he forbade his tenant to sell any boards or planks to Mr. Paris; yet, notwithstanding these obstacles the mill was built, and this great boon was finally afforded to them by the exertions of Mr. Paris. The Chief's enmity did not end here. As soon as the winter had finally set in, he caused fresh planks to be nailed on the dam, so as to prevent the lower mills from getting any water. Fortunately for the country that year the water was high in White Lake and a sufficiency flowed over the dam to drive the grist-mill. The Chief did not stop at this. His persistence in endeavoring to ruin Mr. Paris are the events of a subsequent period; and the persecution on one side, and the resistance on the other culminated in a lawsuit, which will be rendered in its proper place.
The settlers in August of this year drew up anarrative of their sufferings, and the hardships and injustice they had endured under the Chief. It was prepared by Mr. D. C. McNab, and forwarded to Mr. Hincks for publication in theExaminer, at Toronto. Mr. Hincks, with all the ardor of a warm Reformer, not only published it, but called public attention to the township of McNab and its grievances in a series of well-written editorials. He entered into the question with commendable zeal and warm-hearted enthusiasm. These articles exposed the whole management of the affairs of McNab at the very seat of Government. Simultaneously with Mr. Allan's report, it struck the Chief's moral standing as the battle axe of a puissant knight would fell his mailed antagonist, crashing through shield and helmet and prostrating the foe. The Chief now trembled for his position. It is true he had received £1,000, but £3,000 were remaining in the background. The damaging articles in theExaminer, were opening the eyes of the Government as well as the people. Even the Family Compact were amazed that such things were permitted under their regime. They hitherto were indifferent—careless of the poor settlers'interests. These searching and vigorous attacks roused them to action. So long the aggressors on popular rights, they were now put on the defensive. No longer able to oppress or to dominate over their fellows, they were now compelled to defend their own acts, which in law and justice and morality were in themselves indefensible.
McNab resorted to his usual weapons. He commenced, by the Hon. H. Sherwood, one of the principal members of the oligarchy that had for years ruled Canada, an action for libel against Mr. Francis Hincks, the editor of theExaminer. If the articles before the commencement of the action were severe, those published afterwards were doubly so. The Chief's private and domestic life was attacked with no sparing hand. The settlers backed up Mr. Hincks, and the trial was fixed for April, 1841. Mr. Hincks justified the alleged libel; there were eight pleas of justification placed upon the record, and everything was prepared for bringing the issue to trial, when McNab, not being prepared, countermanded notice, and the case was delayed till the Fall Assizes.
All improvements were now stopped in thetownship. The people were awaiting the action of the Executive. Until their affairs were decided, all systematic labor was paralyzed. The spirit of enterprise was chilled, and the stupor and numbness of despair seem to be fast settling over them. They had petitioned over and over again. Favorable replies were transmitted. A commissioner was sent to investigate their complaints. He had espoused their cause warmly; yet no definite decision had been made. Lord Sydenham was absorbed in constitutional changes. The union of Upper and Lower Canada was occupying all his attention, and towards the close of this year (1840) he had effected his object. The Union was proclaimed. The Chief pressed for a settlement of his claims. The settlers urged for their final emancipation. At length in May, 1841, they sent another petition, praying for a decision; and the reason of the delay is fully explained in the following letter to Mr. Allan Stewart:—
[copy.]Secretary's Office, Kingston,24th June, 1841.}Sir,—I am commanded by the Governor General toacknowledge the receipt of a petition signed by you on behalf of the inhabitants of the township of McNab, praying for a decision on their petition of June, 1840, preferring complaints against Mr. Archibald McNab, the Township Agent.In reply, I am to inform you that the petition alluded to was referred, by command of Sir George Arthur, for the consideration of the late Council of Upper Canada; but it appears that no decision had been come to on the subject previously to the re-union of the provinces. I have, however, been directed by His Excellency to refer your present petition to the Hon., the Executive Council, with a request that the matter may receive their early and attentive consideration.I have the honor to be, etc.,(Signed)S. B. Harrison.Allan Stewart, Esq.,Township of McNab.}
[copy.]
Sir,—I am commanded by the Governor General toacknowledge the receipt of a petition signed by you on behalf of the inhabitants of the township of McNab, praying for a decision on their petition of June, 1840, preferring complaints against Mr. Archibald McNab, the Township Agent.
In reply, I am to inform you that the petition alluded to was referred, by command of Sir George Arthur, for the consideration of the late Council of Upper Canada; but it appears that no decision had been come to on the subject previously to the re-union of the provinces. I have, however, been directed by His Excellency to refer your present petition to the Hon., the Executive Council, with a request that the matter may receive their early and attentive consideration.
I have the honor to be, etc.,(Signed)S. B. Harrison.
FINAL DECISION OF THE GOVERNMENT—BURNING OF DUNCAN M'NAB'S (ISLA) HOUSE, BARN, AND PROVISIONS—WATER STOPPED ON MR. JOHN PARIS.
In August the long suspense was ended. The Government had decided. The settlers were free. Mr. Allan's report was adopted, and made the basis of Executive action. An Order-in-Council was passed that McNab should immediately give up to the Government all undelivered patents he had drawn up for any of the settlers, and his patent for the timber—that the settlers were to receive their lands at the valuation put on them by Mr. Allan, which they were to pay to the Crown Lands Department in four annual instalments—that all labor they had performed for McNab, and all rents they had paid to him were to be deducted from these payments, and all these to be withheld from the money payable to the Chief, as fixed by the Order-in-Council of September, 1839. Thus McNab's £4,000 was reduced to £2,500, of which he had already received £1,000. Many of the settlers had paid by thesemeans for their lands in full. McNab's receipts for rent were accepted as payment. They now flocked in with their first instalments. Mr. Duncan McLachlin and Mr. Donald Mohr McNaughton were the first two who commenced the joyful expenditure. They were no longer feudal serfs. The lands were their own in perpetuity. No landlord could now lord it over them with arbitrary haughtiness. No Highland Chieftain, his heirs, or successors, could claim their allegiance, or call them "my tenants." They felt they were free—that in four years no one could put a trespasser's foot on their soil. An universal jubilee pervaded the whole township. The leaders of the movement, Mr. Allan Stewart, Donald McIntyre, Mr. McNab, and others, were feted to their heart's content. Fresh energies were infused into their labors. The clearances began to increase, and new inroads were made in the forest. Fresh settlers came; New Glasgow and Lochwinnoch were occupied, and all the arable lands taken up. The people had, single-handed and unaided, achieved the victory.—Looked down upon by the neighboring townships as rebels, as ungrateful malcontents and as adiscontented rabble, from them they received neither advice nor assistance. All the magnates of Perth beheld them with a holy horror, and did all that lay within the scope of their feeble efforts to oppose them—all but Mr. Hincks and Mr. Malcolm Cameron.—They stood true, but the battle was fought and the victory achieved before these gentlemen came into the field. The spirit of their ancestors—that same British pluck that obtained the Magna Charta, swept away the throne of the Charles's, obtained the Bill of Rights, enthroned William III. and established popular and constitutional government in the old country—animated the settlers in McNab to struggle even against hope, to battle for their rights—and amid poverty, persecution, and imprisonment, win one of the greatest moral victories ever recorded in the historic annals of Canada, or of any other country. They were essentially alone in all these struggles—their triumph was the more glorious, their victory more satisfactory and praiseworthy.
Deprived of his township, stripped of his power, the Chief would not forego his revenge. Now that everything had been arranged, a spirit ofreconciliation might have supervened and he could have settled down and still lived happily among the people. But no; he still had some power over one or two individuals. The dying struggles of the leviathan of the deep are attended with the greatest peril. The "flurry" of the whale in its expiring agonies, is most dreaded by its captors. So it was with the Laird. The Judgment in Ejectment against Duncan McNab (Isla) was held in abeyance. Now that the decision of the Government was given, and that, too, hostile and prejudicial to the Chief's interests, which no cajolery could alter, and no persuasion overcome, there was nothing to gain in withholding its execution. The writ of possession was in August placed in the hands of the Sheriff, and his deputy, accompanied by the Chief and a creature of the name of Lipsy, proceeded to put it into force. They accordingly proceeded to the premises. Mrs. McNab and the children were in the house; her husband and Mr. James McKay were in the bush at the time chopping for potash. The Deputy-Sheriff proceeded to his duty; took everything out of the house, turnedthe family out of doors, gave the Chief possession, and immediately went away. The Chief ordered Lipsy to draw everything to the concession line. Forcibly he dragged Mrs. McNab thither. Then ordering Lipsy to set fire to the shanty, he himself applied the burning brand to the barn and outhouses. Mrs. McNab saw the smoke rising. She missed two of her children. With frantic shrieks she rushed up to the burning buildings, called her children by name, and almost in despair ran into the burning barn. There, under the straw, frightened at what was taking place, the two children had concealed themselves. To drag them out from amidst the flames was the work of a moment; and had the mother been a few minutes later, two helpless infants would have perished in the flames, and been the martyred victims of revenge and malevolence. When Mr. James McKay and Duncan McNab saw the flames rising they hurried to the spot, and found the buildings in ruins and the family of the latter on the concession line, in all the misery of despair. Prompt measures were taken to remedy the evil. For the present the ejected ones took refuge in Mr.McKay's house, about half-a-mile distant. Together with all his summer's provisions and a barrel of pork, a number of Duncan Isla's agricultural implements were consumed in the flames.
This outrage filled the township and all the neighborhood with horror and dismay. A feeling was fast being discussed among the people that the Laird should be lynched. Mr. James McKay, a leading member of the church—a pious and good man, and a warm-hearted neighbor and friend—when he saw the house and barn in flames, exclaimed, "What a pity it is the good old times would not come back again, and a bullet would soon reach him for the deed!"
The people got up a subscription, turned out and put up a shanty on another lot, and rendered the family as comfortable as circumstances would permit. James McKay, Mrs. McKay, Duncan McNab, and the writer, two days after the perpetration of the outrage, proceeded to the residence of Mr. Alexander McVicar, the nearest magistrate, and laid the information necessary to commence criminal proceedings against the Chief. Squire McVicarimmediately issued his warrant. The Laird was arrested and brought to Pakenham village. All the witnesses for the prosecution were present; Squires Richey, Scott and McVicar took their seats on the bench, and without hearing a witness, or entering into the case at all, dismissed the case, and referred the parties to Perth—to the Assizes. Mr. McVicar did all that he could to get the examination proceeded with, and the Chief committed for trial, but it was useless. The Chief's partizans were on the bench, and they out-voted him, and referred the matter to the Crown officer. Duncan McNab (Isla) and his friends had not the means to go to Perth, or proceed further with the prosecution; and thus the matter rested, and one of the most daring and atrocious crimes in the category of criminal jurisprudence was allowed to pass over with impunity, and the perpetrators to stalk abroad in the land unwhipt of justice. Besides losing his land and provisions, Duncan McNab nearly lost two of his children; and he never received any compensation from the Government, or from the legal tribunals of the law. He was poor, and poverty could be outraged andtrampled upon without redress, and scarcely a single remonstrance.
In the fall of this year (1841), a number of witnesses were summoned to Toronto to give evidence on the part of the defence in the celebrated McNab and Hincks libel suit. They were Duncan Campbell, an old soldier, aged 75, who had two years before been imprisoned by the Chief for rent, Donald Mohr McNaughton, Daniel McIntyre, Alex. McNab, the Chief's first incarcerated victim, Andrew Taylor, and Dugald McNab. These parties arrived at Toronto on the second day of the Fall Assizes, remained in the City three days, when, on an affidavit and on payment of the costs of the day, the Laird procured a postponement of the trial till the spring. His object was to weary out the defence. He dreaded an exposure. An adjournment of six months might be attended with more favorable results. The witnesses then assembled to prove all the oppressions and exactions of McNab might not again appear. They were now present; but the distance was so great and the travelling communications so difficult of access that they might be deterred from again appearing.It was also questionable whether Mr. Hincks could afford the expense of bringing them to court again. On the whole the putting off the trial was advantageous to McNab and postponed the exposure he dreaded, and the domestic criminality involved, which would overwhelm him with shame and degrade him even in the estimation of his friends the "Family Compact." He had still hopes that they would be reinstated in power, and if so, he would reap some of the benefits of the restoration.
In the fall of 1841 and the winter of 1842, the water in White Lake was very low. The Chief caused fresh planks to be nailed on his dam and raised it to such a height as to keep the water entirely from getting out. Mr. Paris was the object of his vengeance, and through him he could punish his refractory and victorious settlers. For seven months Mr. Paris could not get a drop of water to grind the grists that were daily brought to him. At last the inhabitants had to remove their wheat and proceed to Pakenham to get their work done. During the whole of the winter this was the case. The Chief was remonstrated with without effect. Some ofMcNab's particular friends went to him and besought him to let the water go, but it was useless.
Mr. Paris even offered a sum of money for the water, but his answer was, "Go to Duncan McLachlin, he may get you water." In this oppressive transaction he had a willing coadjutor in the person of William Yuill, a lumberer at the time, but since he became a federal soldier and perished in the late American civil war. Yuill in the spring of 1842 pretended to lease the dam from the Chief, for the purpose, as he alleged, of getting out his timber, but would not open a sluice or let a drop of water out, and it was not till the end of April when the dam was opened, and when the grinding season was passed, that Mr. Paris could procure any water. Had Mr. Paris then appealed to the courts he would have obtained ample redress, but he was loath to go to law. He hated litigation and resolved to wait another season before he would take any steps, in order to see if a recurrence of the vexatious stoppage would again take place. Some of Mr. Paris's friends, among whom was the writer, advised him to proceed at once and prevent such an act of unmeaning andmalicious injury to the public as well as individuals from again being practiced; but that gentleman, deeming that there was as much courage evinced in quietly enduring wrong for a season than in at once resenting it, resolved to wait and see, a course, which however prudent in some respects was attended, in so far as Mr. Paris was concerned, as we shall hereafter see, with further vexation and more loss, damage and expense, than he could well afford, and which took a steady and possessing course of industry for years afterwards to make up.