Henry Samuel Chapman

“ Immediately at the back or north of Toronto is a road leading to Lake Simcoe, called Yonge-street. Its length is thirty-seven miles, and it is perhaps the best in the province. On each side of this road are extensive and well-cultivated farms, the land being extremely fertile, and the city affording a constant market. The Yonge-street farmers are intelligent and wealthy, and have generally been attached to the liberal party, being exempt from any of the influences described in the last chapter. Montgomerie's tavern is about four miles from Toronto, on this road. ”

“ Upwards of 10,000 men immediately marched towards the capital; and in the depth of a Canadian winter, with no clothes but those they stood in, without food, and, generally speaking, without arms, reformers as well as constitutionalists, nobly rushed forward to defend the revered constitution of their ancestors, although the rebel who had dared to attack it was offering to his adherents 300 acres of our land,140 and the plunder of our banks. ”

“ The modern houses are, for the most part, of brick or stone.
The legislature sits here, and there is a residence for the governor, besides the offices of the administration and the courts of justice. There is also a college for education, but it is, unfortunately, shut to a great portion of the people by its narrow and exclusive character.
Toronto is but ill protected from hostile attacks. Gibraltar point has, we believe, of late years been strengthened, but still the city is open on all sides to aggression. ”

“ It did not seem to me credible, that in the bosom of this peaceful country, where every one was enjoying the protection of equal laws, and reaping the fruit of his labours almost undiminished by taxes, any number of persons could be found willing to assail the lives, plunder the property of their unoffending fellow-subjects, and to attempt the destruction of a government from which they had received nothing but good. ”

“ The population of the Home District is now, perhaps, about 51,000, exclusive of the city of Toronto.
It is now necessary to state, that the evidence on which we have to depend for the details of the revolt in Upper Canada, is of a most scanty, unsatisfactory, and even suspicious nature. The Upper Canada papers being for the most part of a very inferior character, are scarcely noticed by those of New York; hence, their statements do not find their way into the London papers so constantly as those of Lower Canada do. ”

“ They had cried "wolf" too often to attract attention. They always write as it were in the clouds; so that had they affirmed that "M'Kenzie and the rebels" were on the point of entering the city, and burning it to the ground, sober-minded men would have translated such hyper expressions to mean, that a democratic township meeting, or something of the sort, was intended in the neighbourhood of the city.
Sir Francis Head's statements respecting his knowledge of the intended outbreak, are not consistent with each other. ”

“ They were principally armed with rifles; and, for a short time, favoured by buildings, they endeavoured to maintain their ground; however, the brave and loyal militia of Upper Canada, steadily advancing with a determination which was irresistible, drove them from their position, completely routed Mr. M'Kenzie, who, in a state of the greatest agitation, ran away; and, in a few minutes, Montgomerie's tavern, which was first entered by Mr. Justice Jones, was burned to the ground. ”

“ Intelligence having reached this place that a body of foreigners were threatening to cross the Niagara river, to join the rebels that may yet be found in the country, I have this moment been called upon by Colonel Rapeljis, Colonel Salmon, Colonel Aikin, Colonel M'Call, and the officers commanding the regiments of volunteer corps in this district, with a request that I will offer to your excellency their services, with 2000 or more of the gallant militia of the district, who will be ready, on the slightest notice, to march to the frontiers, should their country require their services ”

“ On the same day that Sir Francis Head made the above communication with the insurgents, M'Kenzie addressed the following letter to the editor of a Buffalo paper, requesting assistance from sympathising Americans: —
"The reformers of this part of Upper Canada have taken arms in defence of the principle of independence of European domination; in plain words, they wish the province to be a free state.
"They request all the assistance and skill which the free citizens of your republic may choose to afford. ”

“ To the militia, nobly commanded by Colonel M'Nab, speaker of the House of Assembly, upwards of 800 misguided men laid down their arms — craving pardon for their guilt — asking permission to assist the loyal militia in capturing the fugitive leaders, who they declared had not only deceived, but deserted them; and the affair being thus concluded, there remained not a rebel throughout the whole province in arms! — indeed so complete was their defeat^ that general orders were immediately issued by me, announcing that there was 'no further occasion for the resort of militia to Toronto' ”

“ From Gore, Niagara, Lake Simcoe, and from various other places, brave men, armed as well as unarmed, rushed forwads unsolicited, and, according to the best reports I could collect, from 10,000 to 12,000 men simultaneously marched towards the capital to support me in maintaining for the people of Upper Canada the British constitution. ”

“ In a former despatch, I respectfully stated to your lordship, as my opinion, that a civil war must henceforward everywhere be a moral one; and that, in this hemisphere in particular, victory must eventually declare itself la favour of moral and not of physical preponderance. ”

“ The formation of the peninsula itself is extraordinary, being a narrow slip of land, in many places not more than sixty yards in breadth, but widening towards its extremity to nearly a mile. It is principally a bank of sand, slightly overgrown with grass; the widest part is very curiously intersected by many large ponds, that are the continual resort of great quantities of wild fowl ”

“ Sir Francis Head speaks of allowing the insurgents "to make deliberate preparations for the revolt with as much coolness as though he were planning the catastrophe of a melodrama, or of a fashionable novel.
To return now to the narrative, Sir Francis Head states above, that M'Kenzie's force was about 600, but that report had stated it at 3000. We learn from a statement of M'Kenzie's, that upwards of 3500 men had assembled, but that they were obliged to dismiss them for want of arms. They had not 200 armed men among those assembled in Yonge-street ”

“ It was in attempting to pass towards the city, most likely with the express object of conveying intelligence, that Colonel Moodie lost his life. According to M'Kenzie's statement, he "was shot by a sentinel whilst attempting to escape," a statement which does not differ from Sir Francis Head's account, making allowance, for the different language in which men of opposite views would naturally clothe such a transaction. ”

“ In 1834, the city contained about 1200 houses, and 9252 inhabitants, which at the present moment do not probably fall far short of 12,000. It is very regularly laid out, on the American plan, of streets at right angles. The streets are wide ”

“ The following extract136 from Sir Francis Head's despatch to Lord Glenelg, dated 19th of December, giving an account of the insurrection up to the time, will bear out what is stated above.
"I have the honour to inform your lordship, that on Monday, the 4th instant, this city was, in a moment of profound peace, suddenly invested by a band of armed rebels, amounting, according to report, to 3000 men (but in actual fact about 600) , and commanded by Mr. M'Kenzie, the editor of a republican newspaper; Mr. Van Egmont, an officer who had served under Napoleon; Mr. Gibson, a land surveyor; Mr. ”