brethren, but who wished to
live in peace and quietness, with the supply of his wants assured
to him in his old, lonely Indian Mission at Alnwick, near Cobourg,
isolated alike from the white inhabitants and from other Indian
tribes, where he continued until his decease.

The character of this untoward contest with the British Conference
party--so far as it related to Dr. Ryerson--can be best understood from
the conclusion of his five hours' speech before the Special Conference.
He said:--

I am aware that a combined effort has been determined upon and is
making to destroy me as a public man, and to injure this Connexion,
as far as my overthrow can affect it. I rejoice to know that the
strength and efficiency of our Church are not depending upon me;
but I am not insensible to the advantages which it is supposed will
be gained over the Church if I can be put down. Our adversaries
seem to have abandoned the idea of answering my arguments, or of
diverting me from my purposes, in regard to my position, and views
and feelings towards this Connexion. The only expedient left is
that which requires no strength of intellect--no solid
arguments--no moral principle--but abundance of confidence,
malignity, and zeal. It is the expedient of impeaching my moral
integrity, and blackening my character. And this is attempted to be
accomplished. One class of adversaries, not by an appeal to reason,
or even to official documents, but by the importation and retail
from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and one end of the
province to the other, and from house to house, of bits and parcels
of perverted private conversations--a mode of warfare disgraceful
to human nature, much more to any Christian community. History
apprizes me that, in such a warfare, some of the best of men have
not triumphed until long after they slept in death, when the hand
of time and the researches of impartial history did them that
justice which the cupidity and jealousies of powerful
contemporaries denied them. I know not the present result of
existing combinations against myself. On that point I feel little
concern, though I am keenly alive to their influence upon my public
usefulness. I engaged in the Union, because I believed the
principles upon which it was founded were reasonable, and the
prej