cast his eyes anxiously
towards the setting sun, with a view to the rehabilitation of his broken
fortunes. After weighing the matter carefully, he resolved to cross the
Atlantic and pay a visit to Canada, in order to ascertain whether it
would be prudent to remove his family thither. He seems to have been
very deliberate about making up his mind, as he did not set sail from
Liverpool until the month of April, 1817, and did not reach Canada until
early in June. The country delighted him, more especially the Upper
Province; but one with so keen an eye for abuses had not far to look
throughout our fair land in those days for subjects of criticism. Having
made himself acquainted with some of the most glaring iniquities of the
ruling faction, and with the various causes which tended to retard the
progress of the colony, he began to liberate his mind by written and
spoken utterances such as had not theretofore been heard in the
Province. The effect of these appeals to popular sentiment was soon
apparent. People who had long smarted silently under injustice did not
hesitate to make known their discontent. The disturber of the public
tranquillity continued to speak and write, and he made his presence felt
more and more from month to month. Having resolved to engage in business
as a land agent, and to set on foot a huge scheme of immigration to
Canada from Great Britain, he went diligently to work to gather specific
and definite information, and to attack one abuse after another. He
travelled about the country hither and thither, addressed public
meetings, and wrote letters to all the papers that would publish his
animadversions. He was in deadly earnest, and put all the energy of his
impassioned nature into his appeals. In commenting upon the
delinquencies of public officials he did not mince matters, though I
search in vain throughout his voluminous writings for any evidence that
he was ever guilty of a misstatement, or even an exaggeration. He
regaled his readers and hearers with indubitable facts--facts which, for
the most part, were easily susceptible of proof, and which were
eminently calculated to arouse public indignation against the harpies
who reaped where they had sowed not, and who gathered where they had not
strawed.

These proceedings, as may readily be believed, rendered him
inexpressibly obnoxious to the Executive, and to the horde of myrmidons
who held office at their sufferance. But the cup of his transgressio