CHAPTER XI.

Visit to the United States-Admires Cameronian Preaching and Scottist Psalmody-Letter to the National Gazette-Comparisons between the State and Canada-A Charge of Disloyalty met—Mr. R. Baldwin elected to the Assembly, but does not take his Seat-Action for Libel, growing out of this Election, brought by Mr. Small against Mr. Mackenzie-The Legislative Session of 1830-The House Unanimous in demanding a Change of Administration-The Lieutenant Governor sends a Contemptuous Reply-Mackenzie proposes to send a Commissioner to England to lay the state of the Province before the Imperial Government-Is Chairman of the Committee on Banking-The Government hold one-fourth of the Shares in a Bank-The Chaplain Question-Revenue-Libel Laws-Disgraceful State of PrisonsPlacemen in the Legislative Council-The Canal Era-Financial Jugglery— Effect of the Canals on the Price of Produce.

ENGLISHMEN travelling in the United States may be divided into two classes: enthusiastic admirers or critical objectors. British subjects of all ranks and conditions have been found in each class. Young and inexperienced persons, who are willing to accept appearance for reality, were most likely to become the admirers of American institutions. Nothing short of a fixed residence in the States, for some years, would cure these persons of their predilections. The ardent temperament of Mr. Mackenzie was well calculated to betray him into admiration with specious appearance, the real value of which could only be detected by years of observation.

In the spring of 1829 he visited New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and other places in the United States, with a disposition to view every thing he saw there in couleur de rose; adding brilliancy to the hues and tints by hideous contrasts. The alarming sound of a threatened dissolution of the Union even then fell upon his ears; he could detect in them nothing but the complaints of disappointed faction. He, however, learned something of the American character which he did not know before, and his mind was taken back to the Alien question. In one of his letters, written on the 14th May, he confessed: "I have never yet seen an American who would prefer another system of government to his own: local circumstances. may cause him to emigrate, but an American is, in his heart, an American still;* and the more I see of this country the better I can account for the objections made by persons in office, in Canada, to the admis

It was evidently not Mr. Mackenzie's intention to say this in dispraise of the Americans, for he noticed with disapprobation the following versified and offensive expression of the same idea in The Upper Canada Courier :-

"I turn my lay, a feeble lay, I fear,

To those small men who've just departed here,

And meet for legislation once a-year.

But let me say, before my bark I launch,

I sing the lower, not the higher branch.

First-who's their head? A man of solid sense,

A Mr. Bidwell, saving of his pence.

By birth a Yankee—what can you expect

From Democrats with British honors decked?

Though they may crouch and cringe to you, and pray,
Their natal feeling ne'er will wear away.

And e'en when cherished far above the rest,
Still rankling venom works within their breast.
Still they'll contend that happiness or bliss
Is not beneath a Government like this.""

sion of its citizens to naturalization among us. A Scotsman "in feeling and principle," he looked upon the United States as an asylum for the oppressed of all countries, in spite of that slavery which was "the worst and darkest blot on its escutcheon."

Two things, mentioned in his letters from New York, serve to show that the influence of the principles which had been instilled into him from his earliest days had not been effaced in the rude collision with the outer world. "In the afternoon," he writes, "I went to hear Dr. McLeod, a steadfast Presbyterian of the old school; the genuine Cameronian, and a good preacher. There the old and solemn tunes of our fathers have not yet made way for ballad rhymes; there the single line of old Scottish Psalmody is given out by the preacher in truly national style; there the discourse is divided and subdivided into heads and observes in true covenanting fashion. I felt more at home in this church, the members of which are either Scotch, or generally from the north of Ireland, than I have often done while listening to the splendid eloquence of much more popular orators." The other instance is to be found in a reference to Tom Paine, of whom he says: "Had he had sense enough to remain contented with his ample share of fame as the author of The Rights of Man,' and 'Common Sense,' without interfering with revealed religion, he would at this day have probably stood next to Washington and Franklin, as a promoter of the glorious revolution which gave freedom to America."

When Mackenzie republished some of Paine's political works, political malice ascribed to him a participa

tion in the skeptical opinions expressed by the author in some other works. On the injustice of an imputation made on such grounds, and upon such a pretext, there cannot be two opinions.

While on his visit to the United States, Mr. Mackenzie wrote a long letter, on the political condition of Canada, to the editor of the National Gazette. The authorship was not avowed, and though various conjectures were hazarded on the subject, it is difficult to see how it could have been a question at all. The letter bore the strongest internal evidence of its authorship, and was besides little more than an amplification. of the thirty-one resolutions he had brought before the Legislature in the previous session. The principal points in the letter, that were not urged in the resolutions, were an elective Legislative Council, which, like so many other changes which found in him an early advocate, has since been effected, and an elective Governor, which nobody now asks for. He regarded the Legislative Council as serving in some sort as a shield to the Lieutenant Governor, by relieving the Executive of a responsibility which it must otherwise often have assumed. But as its members owed their appointment to the Crown, and most of them were office-holders of one grade or another, the instrument did not conceal the hand that had used it.

The contrasts made between the government of Canada, as then administered, and that of Washington, could hardly be otherwise than of dangerous tendency. An English statesman might make them with impunity; but if a Canadian followed his example, his motives would not fail to be impugned. So it was

with Mr. Mackenzie, who claimed to be, in English politics, neither more nor less than a Whig. These contrasts obtruded themselves by the propinquity of the two countries; and there is no reason to suppose that in Mr. Mackenzie's case, they, at this time, implied any disloyalty to England.*

* Attached to one of the letters which Mr. Mackenzie addressed to the Earl of Dalhousie, in May, 1827, is a manuscript note: "I was for England in 1820, 1824, 1827, 1833, 1834; but 1836-7 choked off my loyalty." As the general election of 1831 approached, the misrepresentations of the object of Mr. Mackenzie's mission to the United States continued to be repeated with increased virulence and rancor. He met them by the publication of the following letter:

"SIR-Your letter of the first of this month to the Secretary, on the subject of an article which appeared some time ago in the columns of the New York Courier and Enquirer, and has since been re-published in other public journals, both of Canada and the United States, with additional innuendoes and particulars, was received on the 19th inst. at this office, during his absence; but I lost no time in communicating its contents to him. The object of the article or articles referred to, is, to indicate a visit to the United States and to its capital during the last summer, as connected with some revolutionary movement in the Canadas, in relation to which your agency was employed with the Federal Government; and you call upon the Secretary, in his official capacity, positively and decidedly to contradict it.

"I have, accordingly, just received a letter from Mr. Van Buren, the Secretary, dated at Albany, the 23d of this month, expressly authorizing me to deny all knowledge of or belief, on his part, in the designs imputed to you, as I now have the honor of doing, and to state, moreover, that he has not the smallest ground for believing that your visit had anything political for its object. He directs me also to add, that if the President were not likewise absent from the seat of Government, he is well persuaded he would readily concur in the de claration which I have thus had the honor of making in his behalf.

"I am, Sir, respectfully,

"Your obedient servant,

"DANIEL BRENT, Chief Clerk.

“WILLIAM L. MACKENZIK, Esq, York, Upper Canada.”

The narrative would be incomplete if it were not added that the late Mr. George Gurnett, as publisher of the Upper Canada Courier, was active in cir