“ All the settlers of the township were there assembled on that momentous day, with the exception of the Chief's Cabinet-Council of Five (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. ”

“ My Dear Sir Francis,—The spirit of my fathers has been infused into my soul by recent events, and has roused within me the recollection and memory of the prestige of my race. The only Highland chieftain in America offers himself, his clan, and the McNab Highlanders, to march forward in the defence of the country—
"Their swords are a thousand, their hearts are but one." ”

“ A horseman had just fastened his pony at the outskirts of the park, nigh to the Callender road, on the Loch Earn side of the village; and now on foot, and enfolded in a tartan plaid so as almost to conceal his person, was threading the mazes of the wood, and stealthily approached the house of Leney. This was Archibald MacNab, the last chieftain of the MacNabs, who had that morning, for the last time, left his paternal estate of Kennell, on the banks of Loch Tay to take refuge with his cousin, the last Buchanan of the ancient house of Arnprior. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When such men sign a document of the above description, the oppression must have been great—the tyranny intolerable. It is true the petition is not exactly according to form, and has a few Scottish idiomatic expressions embodied in it; but it tells in clear and forcible language the wrongs the settlers had endured, and the grievances they still expected to bear. It breathes forth a spirit of loyalty to the throne: "they were willing to go to any part of British America to defend their country under any other leader than McNab." ”

“ When he appeared at Kennell, McNab read the communication and asked poor Sandy to confess. Mr. McNab stoutly denied it. He was completely astonished and indignant at being thus charged and asked to acknowledge a crime he had never contemplated, and which, if his name had been affixed to it, would have been a privileged communication and beyond the bounds of prosecution. ”

“ Canada 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. ”

“ Family Compact, with their little bantam, Sir Francis, began to crow; the people of McNab were fast verging to a state of revolt themselves, when the news reached this side of the Atlantic that the Earl of Durham and a special set of Commissioners were coming out to investigate all complaints and redress all grievances. This was news, indeed! It gave hope to the desponding, and inspired the settlers with new vigor. All hope was nearly crushed out by the supercilious mockery of their petition by Sir Francis and his Executive Council, and the delusive falsehoods which his reply contained ”

“ When pressed to take bail the noble old man rose immovable as a statue, his white locks hanging over his shoulders in profuse masses like a patriarch of old, and exclaimed, "I will have no one suffer for me. My earthly pilgrimage will soon [Pg 89] be over; and if I end my life here, no one will be the worse. I will not undertake to do what I cannot perform. It was a weary day for me when I left Scotland. I have suffered trials and hardships ever since."
The old man remained imprisoned for three months, receiving the allowance of five shillings per week. ”

“ There is not a grist-mill at present in the township and many of the settlers have to travel fourteen, fifteen and sixteen miles to mill, through roads which in any part of the country as long settled as McNab would be deemed disgraceful. The system of rent and mortgage, added to an arbitrary bearing and persecuting spirit, seems to have checked all enterprise, and paralyzed the industry of the settlers. In fine, had the McNab studied it he could not have followed a course more calculated to produce discontent and disaffection amongst a people. ”

“ Taking advantage of a large assembly, and seizing the opportunity of making a durable example before the eyes of all the settlers, that they might continue true to their allegiance and not swerve in the slightest degree from their future [Pg 73] loyalty to the Chief, McNab improvised the occasion, and completely effected his purpose. This judicial raid filled the minds of the people with anxiety and apprehension, blended with pity for the sufferers. To assist the McIntyres was to impoverish themselves, and provoke the undying enmity of their leader. ”

“ The roads, except where naturally hard and dry, are in a most miserable condition; and the settlers state that they have been prevented from working upon the regular lines of road by the McNab's exercising his authority as a magistrate, and calling them to work upon roads which they allege was either to conduce to his own personal advantage, or gratify his caprice. They state that they have been frequently called upon by him to expend their statute labor upon a new road in one season, and before the next, it was laid aside and another projected. ”

“ Deprived of his township, stripped of his power, the Chief would not forego his revenge. Now that everything had been arranged, a spirit of [Pg 190] 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. ”

“ Even as late as 1827 the settlers looked up to the Laird of McNab with that degree of dread and awe that Highlanders regarded the Chief of a Highland Clan, and that deference was kept up for a long period, and not till every tie that binds man to friendship and respect was severed did it entirely cease. Miller's treatment perpetuated a sentiment of respect in some, of fear in others, so that nearly at the very outset of its settlement the Township of McNab was divided into two parties, [Pg 39] the Opposition and the staunch adherents of the Chief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They then discovered that a lien upon their lands of three barrels of flour a year in perpetuity, was a heavy tax upon their industry and the proceeds of their labor, crippling their resources and cramping their energies, when they considered that it was imposed on themselves and descendants for ever. Both the settlers and the government were imposed upon, the settlers in being led to believe the township was bona fide the Chief's, the government that there were new settlers brought out at McNab's expense. ”

“ Donald McNaughton—one of the first settlers—a man of the most pure and genuine Christian principles; one who, like Enoch, daily walked with his God; who was a perfect Ebenezer in Israel; a man over eighty at the time; who daily silently glided into the darkest and deepest glades of the forest, and there poured forth the ardent desires of his soul in unrestrained communion with his Maker ”

“ I hereby bind myself, my heirs and successors, to give you the said land free of any quit rent for three years from this date, as also to procure you a patent for the same at your expense, upon your having done the settlement duties and your granting me a [Pg 25] mortgage upon said lands, that you will yearly thereafter pay to me, my heirs and successors for ever one bushel of wheat or Indian corn, or oats of like value, for every cleared acre upon the said Lot of Land in name of Quit Rent for the same, in month of January in each year. ”

“ Then the township of McNab was thinly peopled, having only 102 inhabitants all told; now, including Arnprior, it can number upwards of 6,500. Then the people were poor, struggling for a miserable existence, ground down by oppression; now the great majority are independent, and many are in affluent circumstances. Then McNab was the poorest and most miserably wretched township on the Ottawa; now its assessed value is by far the greatest of any municipality in the County of Renfrew. ”

“ Thus, fourteen poor settlers and three commissioners, in the midst of their harvesting labors, were forced to go to Perth at their own expense, and when they applied to the Chief for compensation, his reply was, "My men, it is a Queen's case. I have nothing to do with it; every man is bound to obey the Queen's summons." In the meantime the commissioners had obtained judgment against the Laird for the money granted by the House of Assembly. ”

“ Whenever a stranger appeared in the Flat Rapid settlement, a horn was blown as a signal, guns were fired at every house and the male inhabitants hid until the stranger disappeared. It was after many months of strategic manoeuvering that four of the six "black sheep" were served, and they subsequently had to pay the amount. Alex. Miller left the township entirely, and for many years taught school in the township of Beckwith. His death occurred as late as 1867. He was the first martyr to the Laird of McNab's despotism, and he was thus victimized as an example to the rest. ”

“ To submit to this oppression was criminal. To apply to the courts for protection would entail enormous expense; but no alternative presented itself. Remonstrance had been used repeatedly and ineffectually. Every pacific effort had been tried in vain. The Chief was obdurate. A narration of the whole transaction, from first to last, had been prepared by the writer. Mr. Paris went to Perth and applied to Mr. Radenhurst and some of the veteran practitioners, who advised unfavorably as to the commencement of legal proceedings. ”

“ Allan value the spot on lot McNab has built his cottage, at 15 shillings per acre?—by much the highest price he has valued (but which comes the nearest to the real value of any one he has valued) , for MacNab most positively avers, and that without doubt, that the one-half of the township as settled is as good, if not better, than it. ”

“ The poor settlers were looked upon by the ultra loyal as rebels, not only to their Chief, but to the Government; and to punish them severely was now the object of the Irishmen of Pakenham and Fitzroy. Although they numerically surpassed the McNab settlers, about five to one, the Highlanders fought bravely. ”

“ When his funds had dwindled away by this exhaustive line of conduct, he returned to Kennell, and there his hospitality was proverbial. No weary and travel-worn wayfarer ever reached his Highland home in McNab without receiving a cordial welcome. Honorable poverty was treated with as much kindness as titled wealth. Prodigal in his hospitality, as well as in his promises, settlers from Perthshire and other places flocked to his Township, and in 1832 his domain began to show signs of life and prosperity. ”