corder_, "we think people must have their wits about them now-a-days,
if such things as these are to be construed into disaffection."

But though Captain Matthews had been cleared by the Legislature, he had
still to run the gauntlet of the military inquisition. They could not
compel his attendance during the existence of the Parliament then in
being, but they possessed an effectual means of reducing him to ultimate
submission. This power they exercised. His pension was stopped--a very
serious matter to a man with a large family and many responsibilities.
He continued to fight the battles of Reform with dogged courage and
pertinacity as long as his means admitted of his doing so, but he was
soon reduced to a condition of great pecuniary distress, and was
compelled to succumb. Broken-hearted and worn out, he resigned his seat
in the Assembly, and returned to England, where, after grievous delays,
he succeeded in getting his pension restored. He never returned to
Canada, and survived the restoration of his pension but a short time.
Thus, through the malignity of a selfish and secret cabal, was Upper
Canada deprived of the services of a zealous and useful citizen and
legislator, whose residence among us, had it been continued, could not
have failed to advance the cause of freedom and justice.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] That spies were employed by Sir Peregrine Maitland and his Council,
and that certain Government officials were encouraged to act in that
capacity, are facts which will be denied by no one who familiarizes
himself with the local legislative, official and newspaper literature of
the time. An apparently well-informed contributor to _Blackwood's
Magazine_ for September, 1829, in an article headed "Colonial
Discontent," comments on this retrograde system in the following
terms:--"A system of espionage assumes that there is something which
ought to be watched and to be prevented; and as the existence of such a
system probably did exist in Upper Canada during the administration of
Sir Peregrine Maitland, it may be said that so far his Government was
led to act on false principles.... We do not suppose that there was
anything like an organized system, but only that tales to the personal
disadvantage of the Anti-Ministerial party were too readily listened to.
No doubt the members of that party were as credulous in listening to
tales to the prejudice of the adherents of Government, but then they had
it not in their power, lik