as been a
legislative councilor for life, but it is not on record that he ever
attended the council in Toronto. Still he views with high disfavor
this universal discontent with "being governed." The secret meetings
held to agitate for responsible government, Tom Talbot regards as "a
pestilence" leading on to the worst disease from which humanity can
suffer, namely, democracy. The old bear stirs uneasily in his lair, as
reports come in of louder and louder demands that the colony shall be
_permitted to govern itself_. What would become of kings and colonels
and land grants by special favor, if colonies governed themselves?
Colonel Tom Talbot doffs his homespun and his coon cap, and he dons the
satin ruffles of twenty-five years ago, and he mounts his steed and he
rides pompously forth to the market place of St. Thomas Town on St.
George's Day of 1832. Bands play; flags wave; the country people from
twenty miles round come riding to town. Banners {414} inscribed with
"Loyalty to the Constitution" are carried at the head of parades. The
venerable old colonel is greeted with burst after burst of shouting as
he comes prancing on horseback up the hill. The band plays "the
British Grenadiers." The Highland bagpipes skurl a welcome. Then the
old man mounts the rostrum and delivers a speech that ought to be
famous as an exposition of good old Tory doctrine:

Some black sheep have slipped into my flock, and very black they are,
and what is worse, they have got the rot, a distemper not known in this
settlement till some I shall call for short "rebels" began their work
of darkness under cover of organizing Blanked Cold Water Drinking
Societies, where they meet at night to communicate their poisonous
schemes and circulate the infection and delude the unwary! Then they
assumed a more daring aspect under mask of a grievance petition, which,
when it was placed before me, I would not take the trouble to read,
being aware it was trash founded on falsehood, fabricated to create
discontent.

At the end of a half hour's tirade, of which these lines are a sample,
the good old Tory raised his hands, and in the words of the Church's
benediction blessed his people and prayed Heaven to keep their minds
untainted by sedition.

Looking back less than a century, it is almost impossible to believe
that the colonel's speech--it cannot be called reasoning--was applauded
to the echo and regarded as a masterly justification of people "bein