Don Gutteridge - Turncoat

In 1836, Upper Canada is a colonial province in turmoil. William Lyon Mackenzie, sometime member of the Legislative Assembly, editor of the radical Colonial Advocate , and a left-wing rabble-rouser, has just sent the Assembly’s Seventh Report on Grievances to the imperial government in England.

The farmers in Upper Canada have many legitimate complaints-domination of the political and financial spheres by an aristocratic elite known as the Family Compact, the Clergy Reserves law that sets aside every seventh lot in a concession to support the Anglican church, the Alien Act (recently repealed but whose spirit lives on) whereby American immigrants were limited in their property rights and freedom to hold office, and a governor-appointed Tory Legislative Council that has turned down dozens of bills from the Reform-controlled Legislative Assembly. The province is plagued by political gridlock, firmly in the hands of a military governor. Dissident farmers have pinned their hopes on the Reform Party, but are becoming more and more militant. Whispers of rebellion are in the air.

American-syle republicanism is seen as a possible resolution of the grievances, and its support among the populace is abetted from the United States by the Hunters’ Lodges, an organization dedicated to the annexation of Upper Canada by the Republic. Other American groups, like the Lofo Foco Democrats, are likewise sympathetic to their cause. To make matters worse, drought struck the province in 1834 and 1835, bringing many farmers to the brink of starvation. The Family Compact and their Tory counterparts in the legislatures have turned a blind eye, branding as disloyal all critics of the regime, while claiming as their due all the privileges and entitlements of their class.

Amidst this and the possibility of insurrection stands a small garrison at tiny Fort York in Toronto, the provincial capital. It is a town of only three thousand souls, a dozen taverns and half as many churches, plunked down in the mud and gravel of ten blocks by five. The fort itself is a series of jerry-built structures erected in haste following the War of 1812. To add to the general uncertainty, Sir John Colborne, the lieutenant-governor, has just been transferred to Quebec, where rebellion of a different kind is brewing.

All that is needed now is some spark to ignite the flames of civil war.

Toronto, Upper Canada: January 1836

The message that was to change Ensign Marc Edwards’s life forever was simple enough. It was relayed to him by a chubby-cheeked corporal as Marc came out of the Cock and Bull, a tavern frequented by officers of His Majesty’s 24th Regiment of Foot.

“You are to report to Government House immediately, sir,” the corporal said nervously.

“But I’m due back at Fort York within the hour,” Marc said. “Colonel Margison is expecting me.”

“It’s the governor, sir. He wants to see you, personally. I’ve got a sleigh waiting around the corner.”

“Very well, then.” Marc tried not to let his excitement show, but after eight long months of barracks life and daily military routine in this far-flung colony of the British Empire, the possibility of something-anything-out of the ordinary was enough to set a young man’s heart racing.

Government House had once been the country residence of a local grandee, a rambling wooden structure sporting several ornate verandas and a dozen chimney pots above its numerous wings and belvederes. It was set in a six-acre park at the corner of King and Simcoe streets, well out of view of those who might be envious of its splendour. As Marc was driven through the park and down a winding, snow-packed lane at breakneck speed, he tried to guess what was so urgent that an ordinary ensign like himself had to be summoned into the august presence of Sir John Colborne. But he had come up with no answer by the time he was ushered through the foyer into an office on the left-hand side of the carpeted hallway.

The lieutenant-governor’s office was not the luxuriously appointed room Marc had expected. It was small, with a single window and a plain desk, upon which several neatly stacked piles of papers were strategically arrayed, like figures on a model battlefield. Beside it stood a simple table, cluttered with notes and binders-the secretary’s desk, now unoccupied.

Behind the larger desk, in a wooden captain’s chair, sat the man himself. Sir John was a veteran of the Peninsular War and the decades-long fight against Napoleon, culminating in Waterloo, where he had been instrumental in securing the allied victory. As Marc was shown in by the duty corporal, Sir John rose and offered a brief, tight smile of recognition and welcome. For a moment his tall, austere figure and intelligent, appraising gaze left Marc speechless. He had, of course, chatted with Sir John several times at various galas in the fall, and most recently at the New Year’s levee, where the governor had gone on at some length about Marc’s uncle Frederick, who had served under him during half a dozen campaigns on the Continent. But Marc knew he had not been summoned here for polite chit-chat about his uncle.

“Come in, Marc-I’m going to call you that, Ensign, if you don’t mind-and take a seat. We have much to discuss and too little time in which to do it.”

Sir John began without further ceremony.

“I will tell you as much as I know and am able to reveal to you at this time. As you are probably aware, having been abroad in the countryside on several occasions last year, I have numerous agents and correspondents in the districts who keep me informed on a regular basis of matters pertinent to His Majesty’s interests in Upper Canada. Joshua Smallman was one such man.”

“The chap who used to run the dry goods store on King Street?”

Sir John smiled, as if some portion of his judgment had been confirmed. “Yes. He packed up and moved off to Crawford’s Corners, a hamlet near Cobourg about seventy miles from here, after his son died, to assist his daughter-in-law and her brother in the operation of their farm. A Christian gentleman and a loyalist through and through. For the past twelve months he has been sending me sealed letters that have provided me and His Majesty with invaluable information regarding agitators and would-be insurrectionists in the Cobourg region-men who would have us yoked with the United States and its insidious republicanism.”

It was little wonder, Marc thought, that Britain was hypersensitive to the threat of democracy from the south and the passions it stirred among the disaffected in Upper Canada. She had lost her Thirteen Colonies in the Revolutionary War, and then had barely hung on to the remaining ones up here during the American invasions of 1812 and 1813.

“And I needn’t remind you that that area is Perry terrain,” Sir John continued.

Peter Perry, Marc recalled, was a leading light among the radicals in the Legislative Assembly-Reformers they were called-and an outspoken critic of the governor and his conservative administration.

“You think, sir, that Mr. Perry may have gone over to the annexationists or the Mackenzie republicans?”

“He’s been conspiring with Willy Mackenzie on this latest so-called Report on Grievances cooked up by the Legislative Assembly. But no, it is not Perry or Reformers like Rolph or Bidwell or Baldwin I am concerned about-troublesome though they may be. In fact, it is precisely the inability of old conservatives and Tories like Allan MacNab or Orange fanatics like Ogle Gowan to discriminate between a loyal dissenter and a committed seditionist that has caused so much of the present confusion and discontent. Even Mackenzie does not concern me: he abides and caterwauls not half a mile from this office. His movements and nefarious doings are reported to me before they occur, and quite often when they don’t.” Sir John, whose military bearing dominated any room he chose to grace, glanced up from the papers on his desk to see what effect his modestly ironic sally might have had on the youthful ensign.