he
manufacture of rude pike-heads, which, after being fitted to hickory
handles of five or six feet in length, formed no contemptible weapons
for either attack or defence. Lount's blacksmith shop at Holland Landing
was for some weeks largely given up to this manufacture. As there was no
attempt at interference with these proceedings, the disaffected became
bolder, and began to assemble at regular periods to engage in rifle
practice, pigeon-matches, and the slaughter of turkeys. As intimated in
a previous note,[285] Mr. Bidwell was applied to for a legal opinion as
to the lawfulness of such gatherings. He advised with great caution,
specifying how far he conceived this sort of thing might be carried with
impunity. Gatherings for the slaughter of birds and for trials of skill
with the rifle he conceived to be clearly within the law.

Before the middle of October the movement had extended in all
directions. The four districts into which the Province had been mapped
out were called respectively the Toronto Division, the Midland Division,
the Western Division and the Eastern Division. The first-named consisted
of the counties of York, Simcoe, Durham, Halton, Wentworth, Haldimand
and Lincoln. The second included the counties of Northumberland,
Hastings, Prince Edward, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington. The Western
Division consisted of Oxford, Norfolk, Middlesex, Huron, Kent and Essex;
and the Eastern included all that portion of the Province to the east
and north-east of the Midland. Preparations for the demonstration were
more or less active everywhere, and there were nights when the whole
country side might be said to be in arms. In some portions of the
Western Division, which was under the direction of Dr. Charles Duncombe,
the feeling against the Government was as intense as in any part of the
Home District, and the preparations there were carried on with special
activity. Dr. Duncombe and a few leading personages among the Radicals
were entrusted with the full plan of the conspiracy, so far as it had
been matured; but in no part of the Province were the rank and file
taken into anything like full confidence. Most of those who engaged in
drill, and in the manufacture of pike-heads and handles, supposed that
they were merely getting ready for a formidable procession which was to
intimidate the Government by reason of its numerical strength. The
enquiry may not unnaturally be made: What were the Government about all
this tim