f seizing the city is for them to come
sooner; and MacKenzie arrives at the tavern on December 3, with only a
few hundred followers, who have neither food nor firearms; and I doubt
much if they had even definite plans; of such there are no records.
Before Van Egmond comes from Seaforth, doubt and dissension and
distrust of success depress the insurgents; and it does n't help their
spirits any to have four Toronto scouts break through their lines in
the dark and back again with word of their weakness, though they plant
a fatal bullet neatly in the back of one poor loyalist. If they had
advanced promptly on the 4th, as planned, they might have given Sir
Francis Bond Head and Fitzgibbons a stiff tussle for possession of the
city, for Toronto's defenders at this time numbered scarcely three
hundred; but during the days MacKenzie's followers delayed north of
Yonge Street, Allan McNab came up from Hamilton with more troops. By
Wednesday, the 6th, there were twelve hundred loyalist troops in
Toronto; and noon of the 7th, out marches the loyalist army by way of
Yonge Street, bands playing, flags flying, horses prancing under
Fitzgibbons and McNab. It was a warm, sunny day. From the windows of
Yonge Street women waved handkerchiefs and cheered. At street corners
the rabble shouted itself hoarse, just as it would have cheered
MacKenzie had he come down Yonge Street victorious.

MacKenzie's sentries had warned the insurgents of the loyalists'
coming. MacKenzie was for immediate advance. Van Egmond thought it
stark madness for five hundred poorly armed men to meet twelve hundred
troopers in pitched battle; but it was too late now for stark madness
to retreat. The loyalist {423} bands could be heard from Rosedale; the
loyalists' bayonets could be seen glittering in the sun. MacKenzie
posted his men a short distance south of the tavern in some woods; one
hundred and fifty on one side of the road west of Yonge Street, one
hundred on the other side. The rest of the insurgents, being without
arms, did not leave the rendezvous. In the confusion and haste the
tragic mistake was made of leaving MacKenzie's carpet bag with the list
of patriots at the tavern. This gave the loyalists a complete roster
of the agitators' names.

[Illustration: ALLAN McNAB]

Fifteen minutes later it was all over with MacKenzie. The big guns of
the Toronto troops shelled the woods, killing one patriot rebel and
wounding eleven, four fatally. In a