e clique has prevented official inquiry,
gagged the press, bludgeoned conventions out of existence, and thrown
leaders of opposition in prison.

MacKenzie now makes the mistake of publishing in his papers a letter
from the English radical Hume, advocating the freedom of Canada "from
the baneful domination of the mother country." At once, with a jingo
whoop, the loyalty cry is emitted by "_the family compact_." Is not
this what they have been telling the Governor from the first,--these
reformers are republicans in {421} disguise? By trickery and
manipulation they swing the next election so that MacKenzie is
defeated. From that moment MacKenzie's tone changed. It may be that,
losing all hope of reform, he became a republican. If this were
treason, then the English ministers, who were advocating the same
remedy, were guilty of the same treason. With MacKenzie, secretly and
openly, are a host of sympathizers,--Dr. Rolph, Tom Talbot's old
friend, come up from the London district to practice medicine in
Toronto, and Van Egmond, who has helped to settle the Huron Tract of
the Canada Company, founded by John Galt, the novelist, and some four
thousand others whose names MacKenzie has on a list in his carpet bag.

[Illustration: WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE]

All the autumn of 1837 Fitzgibbons, now commander of the troops in
Toronto, hears vague rumors of farmers secretly drilling, of workmen
extemporizing swords out of scythes, of old soldiers furbishing up
their arms of the 1812 War. What does it mean? Sir Francis Bond Head,
the new governor of Ontario, refuses to believe his own ears. Neither
does _the family compact_ realize that there is any danger to their
long tenure of power. They affect to sneer at these poor patriots of
the plow, little dreaming that the rights which these poor patriots of
the scythe swords are burning to defend, will, by and by, be the pride
of England's colonial system. The story of plot and counter plot
cannot be told in detail here; it is too {422} long. But on the night
of Monday, December 4, Toronto wakes up to a wild ringing of college
bells. The rebel patriots have collected at Montgomery's Tavern
outside Toronto, and are advancing on the city.

Poor MacKenzie's plans have gone all awry. Four thousand patriots had
pledged themselves to assemble at the tavern on December 7, but Dr.
Rolph, or some other friend in the city, sends word that the date has
been discovered. The only hope o