George Tuthill and Dr. Munro, two eminent "mad-doctors," who concurred
in pronouncing him deranged, and unfit to be at large. He was
accordingly detained in custody until the close of the session several
days afterwards, when he was set at liberty. He walked out of the
committee-room in which he had been detained, and proceeded up
Parliament Street and along the Strand. As he was walking quietly along
he was again arrested by a constable, not for the breach of privilege,
but for a breach of the peace in striking Mr. Brougham. He was consigned
to the House of Correction in Cold Bath Fields, where he lay for
several years. The sole grounds of his detention after the first day or
two were the medical certificates that he was unfit to be at large. He
might have had his liberty at any time, however, but he persistently
refused either to employ a solicitor or to give bail for his good
behaviour. To several persons who demanded from him his reasons for
horsewhipping Mr. Brougham in the sacred purlieus of the House of
Commons, he quoted the illustrious example of One who scourged sinners
out of the temple. During part of the time of his imprisonment he
occupied the same cell with Tunbridge, who had been a warehouseman of
Richard Carlile, and had been sentenced to two years' confinement for
blasphemy. The cell was during the same year occupied by Fauntleroy, the
banker and forger, whose misdeeds form one of the most remarkable
chapters in the history of English criminal jurisprudence.
While he lay in durance he was an indefatigable reader of newspapers,
and took special note of everything relating to Canada. He was also a
persistent correspondent, and in a letter written to his children, under
date of July 27th, 1824, we find this quasi-prophetic remark with
reference to Canada: "The poor ignorant inhabitants are now wrangling
about the Union of the Canadas, when, in fact, those Provinces should be
confederated with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and
Newfoundland, for their general good, while each retained its Local
Government, as is the case with the United States."
How he at last contrived to procure his liberty from Cold Bath Fields
Prison we have not been able to ascertain. He persisted in his refusal
either to give bail or employ a solicitor. It is not improbable that he
was permitted to depart from prison unconditionally. In 1826 we find him
publishing "An Appeal to the Common Sense, Mind and Manhood of the
British Nation;" and two years later a series of letters on Emigration
Societies in Scotland. For some time subsequent to this date we have no
intelligence whatever as to his movements. He came over to America
several years prior to the Canadian rebellion, but the sentence of
banishment prevented him from entering Canadian territory. While the
rebellion was in progress, he resided in Cleveland, Ohio, where he saw a
good deal of the American filibusters who took part in the attempt to
capture Canada at that period. We have said that Robert Gourlay was a
loyal subject of Great Britain. He proved his loyalty at this time by
doing his utmost to dissuade the conspirators from their enterprise, and
by sending over important information to Sir Francis Bond Head as to
their movements. For this he received several letters of thanks from Sir
Francis, and an invitation to return to Canada, which, however, he
declined to do until the sentence of banishment should be reversed. This
was done by the House of Assembly after the Union of the Provinces in
1841, upon the motion of Dr. Dunlop. A pension of fifty pounds a year
was at the same time granted to him, which, however, he refused to
accept. He was not satisfied with a mere reversal of his sentence and
the granting of a pension. He said, in effect, "I do not want mercy, but
justice. I do not want to have the sentence merely reversed, but to have
it declared that it was unjust from the beginning, that I may not go
down to the grave with this stain resting on my children." Nothing
further was done in the matter at that time, and for some years we again
lose sight of him. He seems to have returned to Scotland, and to have
contrived to save from the wreck of his father's estate sufficient to
maintain himself with some approach to comfort. He resided for the most
part in Edinburgh. It might well have been supposed that all the trials
and sufferings he had undergone would have taught him a lesson, and
that he would not again be so ill-advised as to recklessly bring trouble
upon himself by interfering in public affairs which did not specially
concern him. But his foible for searching out abuses was ineradicable
and ingrained in his constitution. He could not behold injustice without
showing his teeth, and his bumptiousness was destined to bring further
suffering down upon his head. When he was not far from his seventieth
year some land in or near Edinburgh which had theretofore been
unenclosed, and which, in his opinion, should have continued unenclosed,
was in some way or other appropriated, and the public were debarred from
its use. We are not in possession of sufficient details to go into
particulars. Mr. Gourlay denounced the enclosure as an act of
high-handed tyranny, and harangued the common people on the subject
until he had worked them up into a state of frenzy. Something resembling
a riot was the result, in which he, while attempting to preserve the
peace, was thrown down, and run over by a carriage. One of his legs was
broken; a serious accident for a man of his years. The fracture refused
to knit. He was confined to his bed for many months, and remained a
cripple throughout the rest of his life.
His case was again brought before the Canadian Assembly during Lord
Elgin's Administration of affairs in this country, but nothing final was
accomplished on his behalf. In 1857 he once more came out to Canada in
person, and remained several years. He owned some property in the
township of Dereham, in the county of Oxford, and took up his abode upon
it. At the next general election he announced himself as a candidate for
the constituency, and put forth a printed statement of his political
views. He received, we believe, several votes, but of course his
candidature never assumed a serious aspect. In 1858 the late Mr. Brown,
Mr. M. H. Foley, and the present Chief Justice Dorion took up his cause
in the Assembly, and procured permission for him to address the House in
person. On the 2nd of June he made his appearance at the Bar, and
liberated his mind by a speech in which he commented rather incoherently
on his banishment and subsequent life, and concluded by handing in
certificates from Dr. Chalmers and other eminent men in Scotland as to
his personal character and abilities. The final result was that an
official pardon was granted by the Governor-General, which pardon Mr.
Gourlay repudiated as an insult. He also continued to repudiate his
pension. Having completed his eightieth year, he married a young woman
in the township of Dereham, who had been his housekeeper. This marriage
was a source of profound regret to his friends, and especially to his
two surviving daughters. The union was in no respect a felicitous one,
for which circumstance the proverb about "crabbed age and youth" is
quite sufficient to account, even had there not been other good and
substantial reasons. In course of time the patriarchal bridegroom
quietly took his departure for Scotland, leaving his bride--and of
course the farm--behind him.
He never returned to this country, but continued to reside in Edinburgh
until his death, which took place on the 1st of August, 1863. He had
completed his eighty-fifth year four months previously, and the tree was
fully ripe.
At the time of his death he had two daughters surviving, and we
understand that all arrearages of pension were paid to them by the
Canadian Government. One of these ladies went out to Zululand as a
missionary several years since, but was compelled by ill health to
return to her home in Scotland, where she has since died. The youngest
daughter, Miss Helen Gourlay, still resides in Edinburgh.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Navy Hall was the Lieutenant-Governor's residence at Newark. See the
sketch of the life of Governor Simcoe, in the first volume of this work.
[2] From correspondence and documents laid before the Upper Canadian
House of Assembly in 1836, and published in the appendix to the Journal
for that year, we learn that the total quantity of land placed at
Colonel Talbot's disposal amounted to exactly 518,000 acres. Five years
before that date (in 1831) the population of the Talbot settlement had
been estimated by the Colonel at nearly 40,000. It appears that the
original grant did not include so large a tract, but that it was
subsequently extended.
[3] See "Portraits of British Americans," by W. Notman; with
Biographical Sketches by Fennings Taylor; vol. I., p. 341.
[4] See "Life of Colonel Talbot," by Edward Ermatinger; p. 70.
[5] A sketch of the life of Edward Blake appears in Vol. I. of the
present series. Since that sketch was published the subject of it has
succeeded Mr. Mackenzie as leader of the Opposition in the House of
Commons.
[6] A full account of this interesting case will be found in Mrs.
Moodie's "Life in the Clearings, _versus_ the Bush."
[7] See "Life of Rev. James Richardson," by Thomas Webster, D.D.
Toronto, 1876.
[8] See "Case and his Cotemporaries," by John Carroll; Vol III., p. 17.
[9] See "Nova Scotia, in its Historical, Mercantile and Industrial
Relations;" by Duncan Campbell; p. 427.
[10] Mr. Lafontaine was in reality the head of the Administration, which
should strictly be called--and which is sometimes called--the
Lafontaine-Baldwin Administration. In common parlance, however, and in
most histories, Mr. Baldwin's name comes first, and we have adopted this
phraseology throughout the present series.
[11] See "The Poems of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, with an Introduction and
Biographical Sketch by Mrs. J. Sadlier." New York, 1869.
[12] See a sketch of Judge Wilmot's life by the Rev. J. Lathern
(published at Halifax in 1880), p. 45.
[13] It was administered to an Indian child. The great-grandfather of
Madame Taché and the mother of M. Varennes de la Verandrye acted as
sponsors.
[14] See Lindsey's "Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie," vol i.,
p. 147.
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