the United Canadas in 1842 declared his arrest
to be "unjust and illegal," and his sentence "null and void," and he was
offered a pension as some compensation for the injuries he had received;
but he refused it unless it was accompanied by an official declaration
of the illegality of the conviction and its elision from the records of
the courts. The Canadian government thought he should be satisfied with
the action of the assembly and the offer of the pension. Gourlay died
abroad, and his daughters on his death received the money which he
rejected with the obstinacy so characteristic of his life.

During these days of struggle we find most prominent among the official
class Attorney-General Robinson, afterwards chief justice of Upper
Canada for many years. He was the son of a Virginian Loyalist, and a
Tory of extreme views, calm, polished, and judicial in his demeanour.
But whatever his opinions on the questions of the day he was too
discreet a politician and too honest a judge ever to have descended to
such a travesty of justice as had been shown by his predecessor in the
case of Gourlay. His influence, however was never in the direction of
liberal measures. He opposed responsible government and the union of the
two provinces, both when proposed unsuccessfully in 1822, and when
carried in Upper Canada eighteen years later.

The elections of 1825 had a very important influence on the political
conditions of the upper province, since they brought into the assembly
Peter Perry, Dr. Rolph, and Marshall Spring Bidwell, who became leading
actors in the Reform movement which culminated in the concession of
responsible government. But the most conspicuous man from 1826 until
1837 was William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scotchman of fair education, who came
to Canada in 1820, and eventually embraced journalism as the profession
most suited to his controversial temperament. Deeply imbued with a
spirit of liberalism in politics, courageous and even defiant in the
expression of his opinions, sadly wanting in sound judgment and common
sense when his feelings were excited, able to write with vigour, but
more inclined to emphatic vituperation than well-reasoned argument, he
made himself a force in the politics of the province. In the _Colonial
Advocate_, which he established in 1824, he commenced a series of
attacks on the government which naturally evoked the resentment of the
official class, and culminated in the destruction of his printing