The Last Laird of MacNab Part 9

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 a.s.sizes, 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 of 5,000 acres, or its equivalent in cash value unimpaired, he, in the spring of 1838, surrept.i.tiously 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 the representations 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 pet.i.tioned 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 strong Conservative, 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 doc.u.mentary 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 emanc.i.p.ated 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 antic.i.p.ations 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.

CHAPTER XVI. (1840.)

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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 inst.i.tutions of Timbuctoo. Again, John McCallum received his lot, according to the Chief, 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 mere _gasconade_. 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 making his 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 rest.i.tution. Donald McIntyre had paid upwards of 100 to the Chief for his pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sertion. All the inhabitants know that there is no slate in McNab, and when they read the Chief's remarks they cannot refrain from sending forth e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns 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 pa.s.ses. 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 a narrative 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 the _Examiner_, 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 the _Examiner_, 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 princ.i.p.al members of the oligarchy that had for years ruled Canada, an action for libel against Mr. Francis Hincks, the editor of the _Examiner_. 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 a.s.sizes.

All improvements were now stopped in the township. 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 pet.i.tioned 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 const.i.tutional 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 emanc.i.p.ation. At length in May, 1841, they sent another pet.i.tion, 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 to acknowledge the receipt of a pet.i.tion signed by you on behalf of the inhabitants of the township of McNab, praying for a decision on their pet.i.tion of June, 1840, preferring complaints against Mr. Archibald McNab, the Township Agent.

In reply, I am to inform you that the pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 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. }

CHAPTER XVII.

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 pa.s.sed 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 these means 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 trespa.s.ser'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 a discontented rabble, from them they received neither advice nor a.s.sistance. 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 const.i.tutional 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 of reconciliation 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, turned the 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 circ.u.mstances 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 McVicar immediately 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 a.s.sizes. 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 pa.s.s 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 and trampled 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 a.s.sizes, 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 a.s.sembled 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 of McNab'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 pa.s.sed, 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 and malicious 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.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE M'NAB AND HINCKS TRIAL--1842--SECOND PERSECUTION OF MR. JOHN PARIS.

The Provinces had been united. A new Parliament had been convened. In September of the former year Lord Sydenham had been thrown off his horse and died in consequence of his fall. He was succeeded by Sir Charles Bagot. The union had scarcely been inaugurated, when the mighty genius that had perfected its consummation had been called away by a fiat that there is no resisting. The seat of Government was removed to Kingston.

The celebrated resolutions establishing "Responsible Government,"

introduced into the House by the late Hon. S. B. Harrison, were now the law of the land. The irresponsibility of the Executive was no more.

Munic.i.p.al Inst.i.tutions were accorded to the people, and in the commencement of the year the first District Councillors were elected.

Each township sent one representative to the District Council. It controlled the statute labors, district treasury, and the several munic.i.p.al officers required by the Act. It also had under its direction the educational affairs of the District. Mr. James Morris, Sr., was the first District Councillor elected for McNab, and Mr. David Airth for Horton; the townships in the rear were being surveyed and had not yet been organized into munic.i.p.alities. A new county was formed in the Ottawa from Pakenham upwards, called the County of Renfrew and for electoral purposes was attached to the County of Lanark. The Hon. M.

Cameron was the first member for Lanark and Renfrew under the Union Act.

He defeated Mr. John Powell, the then Sheriff of the Bathurst District, by a large majority. Such was the social and political condition of the people in the spring of 1842, when the tocsin of war again sounded. The Chief had determined to press on his libel suit. The roads were in an execrable condition. Access to Toronto was almost an impossibility.

Navigation had not yet opened, and he imagined that none of the settlers could be induced to go to Toronto, and if they started they could not reach their destination in time. Only eight days' _notice of trial_ had been given, and it was only three days before the opening of the a.s.sizes that the subpoenas for the witnesses reached the writer. He immediately filed them all. The following witnesses were summoned:--Messrs. W. R. Bereford, Francis Allan, John Robertson, Daniel McIntyre (Dancie), Alex. McNab (the martyr), Duncan McNab, (Paisley), D.

C. McNab, Peter Campbell (Dochart), and Andrew d.i.c.kson, Esq., of Pakenham. They reached Toronto in safety and in good time. Two days after their arrival the case was called. Mr. Justice McLean held the a.s.sizes, and the evening before the eventful day in April the Judges had a consultation among themselves which of them would try the case. Judge McLean was loath to do so. He was a Highlander and was on intimate terms with the Chief, and felt delicate on the subject. Mr. Justice Macaulay was away on circuit. Chief Justice Robinson declined to have anything to do with it. In fact the Judges were more or less afraid of Mr. Hincks and the terrible _Examiner_. At length Mr. Justice Jonas Jones exclaimed, "I'll try the case, I'm not afraid of Hincks or any of the radical crew." Accordingly he took his seat on the bench and a special jury was empanelled. A brilliant array of talent was engaged on both sides. On part of the plaintiff appeared Attorney-General Draper, Solicitor-General Sherwood and Mr. Crawford. On the side of defence were ranged the Hon. Robert Baldwin, the Hon. Mr. Blake (late Chancellor), and Mr. (afterwards Judge) Adam Wilson.

Mr. Henry Sherwood in a flowery and harum-scarum speech opened the case for McNab, and as the publication of the alleged libel was admitted called no witnesses.

The Hon. Robert Baldwin rose in reply and opened the case for the defence in a speech of two hours duration. He detailed the wrongs of the settlers and the exactions of the Chief in glowing terms, and was extremely severe on the "Family Compact." The first witness called was Mr. Francis Allan who proved everything that had been stated in his report as published in a former chapter. Point by point of the pleas in justification was sustained by evidence. That the Chief had exacted rent--that he had represented the Township of McNab as his own private property--that he had sold and received the value of the timber on the settlers' lots--that he had used his people harshly and oppressively--that he had imprisoned several of his leading and more intelligent followers causelessly, or when a milder course would have been attended with better or more advantageous results, both to himself and his people--that he had hara.s.sed them with lawsuits--that his private life was not in accordance with the strict principles of domestic morality--that he had in procuring grants for a few favorites made false representations to the Government in stating that they were for school, carpenter, blacksmith and other establishments for the benefit of the township--that he had attempted to get deeds of the settlers' lands in his own name, by representing to the executive that the locatees had died or absconded--that he had been presented by a Grand Jury as a public nuisance--were all proved upon oath and clearly sustained by unimpeachable evidence except the last point. Mr. Bereford, Clerk of the Peace, had searched, but could not find the "presentment."

Secondary evidence was admitted, and an argument arose as to the exact wording of the doc.u.ment, whether it was a legal presentment or not. The court ruled this point to be obscure and left it to the jury. The Attorney-General replied in an able and eloquent speech. The Judge then charged the jury, leaning if anything towards the Chief. One remarkable point in his charge is worthy of notice. He said, "The Chief could not have stated that the Township was his own property, and even if he did say so it was impossible the settlers could have believed him, because in the location tickets he agreed to procure them patents from the Crown. Now, if he had undertaken to give them transfer deeds, then there might have been some grounds for such a belief." This was casuisty of the most refined complexion. How could poor, ignorant, verdant emigrants know the difference between a patent and a transfer deed? They took everything the Chief said for granted, and implicitly believed all his statements. Even the inhabitants of all the townships in the Bathurst District firmly believed that the land was wholly McNab's. The Judge concluded his charge, which many thought was far from being impartial.

The jury retired and after two hours' deliberation brought in a "verdict for the plaintiff, 5 _damages_," stating at the same time that that part of the justification respecting "public nuisance presentment" was not clearly proved. This was a great triumph. The exposure was overwhelming and disgraceful. The eyes of the whole Province were opened to the wrongs of the settlers and the oppressions of McNab. His glory had departed, his _prestige_ was gone. Although nominal damages were given for the failure of substantiating an immaterial point in the justification, the great and important charges in the alleged libel were by an intelligent jury of the Metropolis of Upper Canada declared to be true, and that the wrongs of the settlers were not imaginary but real.

This great trial for some time occupied the attention of the Canadian and American press. It was commented upon in the leading journals of the continent. The New York _Albion_, at that time a great stickler for rampant toryism, had the following paragraph in its issue of May, 1842:

SMALL POTATOES.--"The McNab of McNab, a _quasi_ Canadian n.o.bleman and Highland Chieftain, obtained from a Toronto jury the sum of 5 for the loss of his character."