n the King upon the throne; and whose only real
offence was that he would not stand calmly by while rapacious and
dishonest placemen carried on their nefarious practices without protest.

Among the various dignitaries authorized to put the law in motion, by
the issue of a warrant under the Act, were the members of the
Legislative and Executive Councils. William Dickson and William Claus,
as has been seen, were members of the former body; and as such they had
power over the liberty of anyone whose loyalty they thought fit to call
in question. Dickson was a connection by marriage of Mr. Gourlay, and
for some months after that gentleman's arrival in this Province had gone
heart and hand with him in his schemes of reform. For Mr. Dickson then
had a grievance of his own, arising out of the partial interdict of
immigration from the United States which had been adopted after the War
of 1812-15. He was the owner of an immense quantity of uncultivated
land in the Province, including the township of Dumfries already
mentioned, which he was desirous of selling to incoming settlers. The
shutting out of United States immigrants tended to retard the progress
of settlement and the sale of his property. His anger against the
Administration had been hot and bitter, and he had even gone so far as
to state publicly that he would rather live under the American than
under the British Government. But he had managed to induce the Assembly
to pass certain resolutions, recognizing the right of subjects of the
United States to settle in Upper Canada. The restrictions being relaxed,
his only cause of hostility to the Administration vanished, and he
ceased to clamour against it. His sympathy with Mr. Gourlay's projects
vanished into thin air. Those projects contemplated enquiry and reform.
Dickson, having accomplished his own ends, desired no further reform;
and as for enquiry, he had excellent reasons for burking it, as it would
probably lead to the disclosure of certain reprehensible transactions on
the part of himself and Claus, the Indian agent. He therefore presented
a sudden change of front, and, so far from continuing to act with Mr.
Gourlay, he became that unfortunate man's bitterest foe.

How far Dickson's enmity was stimulated by cooeperation with the leaders
of the Compact party at York will probably never be known. That there
was something more than a merely tacit understanding that Mr. Gourlay
was to be got rid of is beyond question.