Thornhill, April 3, 1838.
You kindly allude to the circumstance of apparent danger in which we have
been placed during our recent revolt, but God has been very merciful to
us, and, not merely screened us under the sheltering wing of his good
providence, but graciously kept our minds in sweet serenity and peace.
You may judge of the apparent peril to which we were exposed, when I tell
you, that on the afternoon of the evening on which they (the rebels)
proceeded to Toronto, two parties passed our door, the one consisting of
200, and the other of 300 persons; and were, under God’s providence, kept
from the execution of their murderous and destructive designs against the
persons and houses of the more loyal and opulent, merely in consequence
of their being obliged to hurry past us to Toronto two or three days
sooner than they had anticipated. As a clergyman too, and more
especially as a beneficed one, noted and vilified as possessing one of
the obnoxious rectories, concerning which they have so loudly clamoured;
on this account I was a doubly marked man; my name was inserted in their
list of intended arsons, and my family as well as myself were to be shot,
as we were attempting to escape the flames; at least, such were the
pleasing tidings which were widely circulated among us, and the fearful
and timid found it no easy matter to restrain their feelings, or to
exhibit calmness of spirit, or manliness of conduct. Many passed
sleepless nights, and all around us gave indication that there were solid
and extensive grounds for alarm. Colonel M—, the person who was shot on
the first night of the revolt, was an attendant on our church and a
resident in our neighbourhood, and, in the very midst of the excitement,
was brought to our churchyard for interment. A hostile attack was
expected by many, and the mob, who assembled to pay the last sad offices
to their veteran friend and neighbour, came accoutred in their swords,
daggers, pistols and fowling pieces. A novel and a painful scene, but
which was altogether uncalled for; no attempt having been contemplated.
My eye glanced on one of the assembly; a loyal, but strange and penurious
man, whose habits had never suffered him to become possessed of anything
in the shape of arms, and he was leaning on his trusty lengthened pitch
fork, a weapon, of which I heard, he was afterwards vaunting that there
was nothing like that. His presence, however, to my mind at least, was
far from pleasing; it ill-accorded with the scene before us, and seemed
so ridiculous, that I could hardly refrain from a momentary smile. Of
the general and more public details you are doubtless most fully
apprized; for I perceive that our Canadian affairs are exciting a
peculiar interest in our fatherland, and are commented on with an
accuracy, which shows that they must have been perused with every means
of the fullest information lying before them. All is now, through God’s
providence, in a state of quietness; while, therefore, we feel indebted
to our friends for their kind sympathy, and their affectionate
expressions of hope, that our provincial troubles may cause us either
quickly, or eventually to retrace our steps towards our beloved native
land, we must still assure them that nothing is further from our
thoughts; our path has been deliberately chosen, our objects have been
extensively gained, much of God’s temporal smile is resting upon us, we
are now established in our ample, commodious, and, I might say, beautiful
house, the society around us is superior to what is found in most country
places in England; our income is ample and enough for all exigencies.
Life is gliding gently along with as little disquietude and as much
comfort as we can ever expect to find in the present world; peace and
tranquillity reign in our domestic circle, God’s spiritual blessings are
experienced by the majority of our family, and some hopeful indications
given by all, and, therefore, why should we wish for a change? Of myself
and my own immediate duties, I would say, but little good is being done.
Ministers are much wanted, and, were I in England, it would be only to
extrude and thrust out some of the partially engaged or wholly unoccupied
with which you are overburdened already. No, my endeared sister, much as
we love our native land, much as we value our still more beloved friends,
we ought not to close our eyes on our present mercies, or so mix up the
cherishing of regret with causes for thanksgiving, as to destroy their
efficacy, or to diminish their heart-stirring effect.
* * * * *
While Mr. Mortimer’s friends did not approve of his expatriating himself
and family, so some of them, who visited him in Canada, were by no means
convinced of his having improved on his lot and position in life by his
change of country. The Rev. B. Luckock was one of these, who was so
struck with the inferiority of everything which he saw, that he
afterwards wrote to him in no very measured terms of his dislike and
almost detestation of what he called his wretched situation. These
condoling and sympathizing notes produced no echo in the mind of Mr.
Mortimer, and he wrote to his friend in the following playful terms,
united to strains of piety and seriousness, very expressive of his own
satisfaction with the change which he had made:—
“Both your letters found me at Thornhill, and from the same miserable
and deserted place, I date, as you will perceive, my present letter.
It is difficult to determine what class of feelings we should indulge
in at the accumulated epithets of loathing and abhorrence with which
you speak of our delightfully happy sojourn; our disposition,
however, to merriment prevailed, and we all laughed most heartily at
your intemperate and ill-timed abusings, so completely and so
pleasantly had the whole class of our own feelings and circumstances
been changed since your visit to that anything but “happy valley.” I
need not detail to you the various incidents which, through the kind
providence of our God, have tended both to fix our steps and to
settle our minds; the hundreds of miles which were previously
travelled—the ineligibility of every spot and every abode in some
important particular—the striking Providence which put some
unexpected and final stop to our negotiations in each of the matters
on which we were disposed to venture—the altered feeling and conduct
discovered by my people, when they perceived me fully resolved to
leave—their solicitations, accompanied with proffered, though not
accepted, pecuniary liberality to remain among them—the erection of a
large, commodious, and tasty, not to say beautiful, house, on the few
acres of my own, near the church, which I had some time before
purchased—the settling of a most esteemed, and delightful,
intelligent, well-educated, Christian family, within a few stones’
throw of our residence—and, finally, the induction and installing of
the long unbeneficed curate into that most lucrative and honourable
piece of preferment, “the Rectory of Thornhill.” Happy consummation
of the most ambitious wishes, or only to be credited by the envied
and enviable dignitaries of our Church, of which “I am proud to
think” that my valued and respected friend is one! But I wander;
there, then, we are at Thornhill; but, through God’s mercy, under
circumstances of great comfort, much, very much, indeed, which calls
forth our gratitude and praise; so that what I partly smilingly,
partly ironically, and partly believingly, predicted, has been
strongly fulfilled; the course adopted by the Abyssinian Prince has
been closely followed by ourselves, and not an atom of wish do we now
feel to exchange the place of our abode for any other in the
province, and we may say even in the world. Of the younger branches
of the family, I am not of course speaking; they may possibly be far
from the rest and quiet, a and satisfaction of the older folk. As to
ourselves, however, we wish for no change; to live and to die where
God’s good providence has now at length fixed us is the ultimatum of
all our wishes.”