The Canadian Portrait Gallery Part 19

Brougham's a.s.sailant--who of course turned out to be Mr. Gourlay--was taken into custody for a breach of privilege, deprived of his whip, and handed over to the Sergeant-at-Arms. The _Courier_ of the next morning (June 12th) contained the following account of the poor man's aspect and conduct after his arrest: "From the appearance of the individual yesterday, coupled with the eccentricity of his recent conduct, an inference would arise more of a nature to excite a feeling of compa.s.sion for this person, who once moved in a different situation of life, than to point him out as a fit person to be held sternly responsible for his actions. His appearance is decayed and debilitated; and, when removed into one of the committee-rooms of the House of Commons, in the custody of the constable who apprehended him, he let fall his head upon his hand, as a person labouring under the relapse incidental to violent excitement. He complained of some neglect of Mr. Brougham's respecting the presentation of a pet.i.tion from Canada, which, we understand, has no foundation, and the course taken by Mr. Canning in postponing the consideration of the breach of privilege supports the inference of the irresponsibility of the individual, for a reason apparent from the very foolish nature of the act itself. On being, in the course of the evening, told that, if he would express contrition for his outrage, Mr.

Brougham would instantly move for his discharge, he refused to make any apology to Mr. Brougham, but said he had no objection to pet.i.tion the House. He added, that he was determined to have a fight with Mr.

Brougham, because he had shamefully deserted his cause, and taken up that of a dead missionary. It is hardly necessary to add that Mr.

Brougham is totally unconscious of the alleged desertion, and that Gourlay labours under a complete and melancholy delusion."

While detained in custody in the House of Commons he was visited by Sir George Tuthill and Dr. Munro, two eminent "mad-doctors," who concurred in p.r.o.nouncing him deranged, and unfit to be at large. He was accordingly detained in custody until the close of the session several days afterwards, when he was set at liberty. He walked out of the committee-room in which he had been detained, and proceeded up Parliament Street and along the Strand. As he was walking quietly along he was again arrested by a constable, not for the breach of privilege, but for a breach of the peace in striking Mr. Brougham. He was consigned to the House of Correction in Cold Bath Fields, where he lay for several years. The sole grounds of his detention after the first day or two were the medical certificates that he was unfit to be at large. He might have had his liberty at any time, however, but he persistently refused either to employ a solicitor or to give bail for his good behaviour. To several persons who demanded from him his reasons for horsewhipping Mr. Brougham in the sacred purlieus of the House of Commons, he quoted the ill.u.s.trious example of One who scourged sinners out of the temple. During part of the time of his imprisonment he occupied the same cell with Tunbridge, who had been a warehouseman of Richard Carlile, and had been sentenced to two years' confinement for blasphemy. The cell was during the same year occupied by Fauntleroy, the banker and forger, whose misdeeds form one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of English criminal jurisprudence.

While he lay in durance he was an indefatigable reader of newspapers, and took special note of everything relating to Canada. He was also a persistent correspondent, and in a letter written to his children, under date of July 27th, 1824, we find this quasi-prophetic remark with reference to Canada: "The poor ignorant inhabitants are now wrangling about the Union of the Canadas, when, in fact, those Provinces should be confederated with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland, for their general good, while each retained its Local Government, as is the case with the United States."

How he at last contrived to procure his liberty from Cold Bath Fields Prison we have not been able to ascertain. He persisted in his refusal either to give bail or employ a solicitor. It is not improbable that he was permitted to depart from prison unconditionally. In 1826 we find him publishing "An Appeal to the Common Sense, Mind and Manhood of the British Nation;" and two years later a series of letters on Emigration Societies in Scotland. For some time subsequent to this date we have no intelligence whatever as to his movements. He came over to America several years prior to the Canadian rebellion, but the sentence of banishment prevented him from entering Canadian territory. While the rebellion was in progress, he resided in Cleveland, Ohio, where he saw a good deal of the American filibusters who took part in the attempt to capture Canada at that period. We have said that Robert Gourlay was a loyal subject of Great Britain. He proved his loyalty at this time by doing his utmost to dissuade the conspirators from their enterprise, and by sending over important information to Sir Francis Bond Head as to their movements. For this he received several letters of thanks from Sir Francis, and an invitation to return to Canada, which, however, he declined to do until the sentence of banishment should be reversed. This was done by the House of a.s.sembly after the Union of the Provinces in 1841, upon the motion of Dr. Dunlop. A pension of fifty pounds a year was at the same time granted to him, which, however, he refused to accept. He was not satisfied with a mere reversal of his sentence and the granting of a pension. He said, in effect, "I do not want mercy, but justice. I do not want to have the sentence merely reversed, but to have it declared that it was unjust from the beginning, that I may not go down to the grave with this stain resting on my children." Nothing further was done in the matter at that time, and for some years we again lose sight of him. He seems to have returned to Scotland, and to have contrived to save from the wreck of his father's estate sufficient to maintain himself with some approach to comfort. He resided for the most part in Edinburgh. It might well have been supposed that all the trials and sufferings he had undergone would have taught him a lesson, and that he would not again be so ill-advised as to recklessly bring trouble upon himself by interfering in public affairs which did not specially concern him. But his foible for searching out abuses was ineradicable and ingrained in his const.i.tution. He could not behold injustice without showing his teeth, and his b.u.mptiousness was destined to bring further suffering down upon his head. When he was not far from his seventieth year some land in or near Edinburgh which had theretofore been unenclosed, and which, in his opinion, should have continued unenclosed, was in some way or other appropriated, and the public were debarred from its use. We are not in possession of sufficient details to go into particulars. Mr. Gourlay denounced the enclosure as an act of high-handed tyranny, and harangued the common people on the subject until he had worked them up into a state of frenzy. Something resembling a riot was the result, in which he, while attempting to preserve the peace, was thrown down, and run over by a carriage. One of his legs was broken; a serious accident for a man of his years. The fracture refused to knit. He was confined to his bed for many months, and remained a cripple throughout the rest of his life.

His case was again brought before the Canadian a.s.sembly during Lord Elgin's Administration of affairs in this country, but nothing final was accomplished on his behalf. In 1857 he once more came out to Canada in person, and remained several years. He owned some property in the township of Dereham, in the county of Oxford, and took up his abode upon it. At the next general election he announced himself as a candidate for the const.i.tuency, and put forth a printed statement of his political views. He received, we believe, several votes, but of course his candidature never a.s.sumed a serious aspect. In 1858 the late Mr. Brown, Mr. M. H. Foley, and the present Chief Justice Dorion took up his cause in the a.s.sembly, and procured permission for him to address the House in person. On the 2nd of June he made his appearance at the Bar, and liberated his mind by a speech in which he commented rather incoherently on his banishment and subsequent life, and concluded by handing in certificates from Dr. Chalmers and other eminent men in Scotland as to his personal character and abilities. The final result was that an official pardon was granted by the Governor-General, which pardon Mr.

Gourlay repudiated as an insult. He also continued to repudiate his pension. Having completed his eightieth year, he married a young woman in the township of Dereham, who had been his housekeeper. This marriage was a source of profound regret to his friends, and especially to his two surviving daughters. The union was in no respect a felicitous one, for which circ.u.mstance the proverb about "crabbed age and youth" is quite sufficient to account, even had there not been other good and substantial reasons. In course of time the patriarchal bridegroom quietly took his departure for Scotland, leaving his bride--and of course the farm--behind him.

He never returned to this country, but continued to reside in Edinburgh until his death, which took place on the 1st of August, 1863. He had completed his eighty-fifth year four months previously, and the tree was fully ripe.

At the time of his death he had two daughters surviving, and we understand that all arrearages of pension were paid to them by the Canadian Government. One of these ladies went out to Zululand as a missionary several years since, but was compelled by ill health to return to her home in Scotland, where she has since died. The youngest daughter, Miss Helen Gourlay, still resides in Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Navy Hall was the Lieutenant-Governor's residence at Newark. See the sketch of the life of Governor Simcoe, in the first volume of this work.

[2] From correspondence and doc.u.ments laid before the Upper Canadian House of a.s.sembly in 1836, and published in the appendix to the Journal for that year, we learn that the total quant.i.ty of land placed at Colonel Talbot's disposal amounted to exactly 518,000 acres. Five years before that date (in 1831) the population of the Talbot settlement had been estimated by the Colonel at nearly 40,000. It appears that the original grant did not include so large a tract, but that it was subsequently extended.

[3] See "Portraits of British Americans," by W. Notman; with Biographical Sketches by Fennings Taylor; vol. I., p. 341.

[4] See "Life of Colonel Talbot," by Edward Ermatinger; p. 70.

[5] A sketch of the life of Edward Blake appears in Vol. I. of the present series. Since that sketch was published the subject of it has succeeded Mr. Mackenzie as leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.

[6] A full account of this interesting case will be found in Mrs.

Moodie's "Life in the Clearings, _versus_ the Bush."

[7] See "Life of Rev. James Richardson," by Thomas Webster, D.D.

Toronto, 1876.

[8] See "Case and his Cotemporaries," by John Carroll; Vol III., p. 17.

[9] See "Nova Scotia, in its Historical, Mercantile and Industrial Relations;" by Duncan Campbell; p. 427.

[10] Mr. Lafontaine was in reality the head of the Administration, which should strictly be called--and which is sometimes called--the Lafontaine-Baldwin Administration. In common parlance, however, and in most histories, Mr. Baldwin's name comes first, and we have adopted this phraseology throughout the present series.

[11] See "The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, with an Introduction and Biographical Sketch by Mrs. J. Sadlier." New York, 1869.

[12] See a sketch of Judge Wilmot's life by the Rev. J. Lathern (published at Halifax in 1880), p. 45.

[13] It was administered to an Indian child. The great-grandfather of Madame Tache and the mother of M. Varennes de la Verandrye acted as sponsors.

[14] See Lindsey's "Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie," vol i., p. 147.