, manhood and old
age. A more unfit person to be entrusted with the management of any
great enterprise, or with the control of his fellow-creatures, I can
hardly conceive." I have abundant written testimony to the same effect.

[142] _History of Canada_, p. 370.

[143] _Ante_, p. 100.

[144] _Ante_, p. 101.

[145] _Ib._

[146] _The Hamilton Outrage_, by "Vindex," p. 9. York, 1829.

[147] For the titles of these measures, see the _Seventh Report of
Grievance Committee_, pp. 266, 267.

CHAPTER XI.

PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE.

For several years before this time a quiet and almost imperceptible
change had been taking place in Upper Canadian politics. On one side was
the old High Tory or Family Compact party, who revelled in the spoils of
office, and held the representative of Majesty in the hollow of their
hands. The policy of this body was unchanged and unchangeable. The
Reform party, though it had not been in existence more than six years,
already began to show symptoms of want of cohesion. The men of moderate
views, like the Rolphs, the Baldwins and the Bidwells, composed fully
two-thirds of the entire number. The ultra-Radicals, composed for the
most part of unlettered farmers and recently-arrived immigrants, began
to show evidence of a desire to rally themselves under the banner of
Mackenzie, who, through the combined influence of his paper and his
election to Parliament, had of late come prominently before the public.
A large and intelligent body of electors had however grown up within the
last few years who, while they professed Conservative principles, were
disgusted with the greedy, self-seeking Compact, whose practices they
held in utter disdain. They held politicians of the Mackenzie stamp in
still greater abhorrence, to which was added a large modicum of
contempt. With the moderate Reformers, on the other hand, they had much
in common. Many of them approved of the doctrine of Responsible
Government, and almost all of them desired to see the end of Compact
domination. At the last general election their votes had been very much
divided. But they were now disposed to hold aloof from the Reformers in
consequence of the latter's being nominally of the same party as the
Mackenzie Radicals, who had only recently come into existence. The
exercise of a little diplomacy and mutual forbearance at this time
might, it is believed, have effected that union between these two
classes of persons which was actua