Page:Address of the Hon. L.J. Papineau to the electors of the West Ward of Montreal.djvu/11

 conscience and convictions, he might have obtained a great quantity of lands. Now, however improbable these disclosures are, I would not take upon myself to say that they are false. It is very probable that to the littleness of our administration, John Donnellan may be very great; in its distress he may appear a notable personage, with whom at last the bargain which he had so long repulsed was concluded. The aristocracy of the Banks, of the Government and of the Counter, must undoubtedly have been initiated in the secret, ere it came and democratized so strongly as it did by rendering homage to the marked superiority, enlightenment and influence which it attributed to John Donnellan, the new idol which it placed on the pedestal. As to the public, it could see nothing in these prostrations of the British nobility at the feet of the illiterate gardener, but the saturnalia of Demogogueism. As for myself the abjectness alone of their conduct convinced me that it was truly aristocratic, monarchical, loyal and British, and that it flowed from the maxim which our colonial government has ever placed above all laws, human and divine; Divide to reign. At the thought of the vast territorial possessions which his newly borrowed loyalty was about to procure for his fortunate colleague, what golden visions must have smiled upon the imagination of Mr. Walker if he became the chief of his Majesty's opposition in Parliament!! It was not then surprising that each time he seemed to feel the three-cornered hat tottering on his head in consequence of the rejection of a bad vote, or the retreat of an Elector too scrupulous to take the oath which Mr. Walker with clasped hands entreated him to take, his love of the public good threw him into convulsions. He had not to regret the bills of his creation which would have been rejected by a majority of twelve to one, which majority cherish the interests of Canada as much as they despise the venality of its administration and the meanness of ofof [sic] his Majesty's opposition in Parliament.

Prepared by the amount of their subscriptions, by their extensive enlistments of drunken ruffians, strangers to the town, where they might commit the greatest crimes without any risk of being recognized in a place in which they appeared for the first time; prepared by engaging a number of taverns and cellars from which hordes of hired murderers, placed under the command of the gentlemen, ordered, advanced or retreated by the sound of a bugle, with countersigns and watchwords, rushed suddenly forward upon inoffensive Citizens who were totally ignorant of their infamous manœuvres—better prepared than on any preceding occasion for the greatest violence that the honour of their correspondents and the good of the Government could require, every species of excess they could commit against their adversaries was considered by the loyalists, in their ardent loyalty, as most meritorious.

They have, therefore, gone very far, but not so far as they proposed, because they were thwarted in their designs. To the infamy of having committed crime, they super-add the infamy of imputing their crime, to those who have been their victims. It is not for Canada that they fabricate this tissue of absurd lies. It is for Downing Street where three hundred signatures breed six thousand seven hundred—where the intelligence of a Colonial Secretary has reckoned in the minority of a population of 20,000 souls who lose an Election, the seven thousand men who blame the seven thousand and one of the majority. All this is labour lost. All this will produce no more effect—although moulded in the columns of the Quebec and Montreal Gazettes, the Herald, the Mercury, the Settler, and the Ami du Peuple—than their learned lucubrations upon the issue of the General Elections. What a quantity of mercantile capital, and of filthy and British spirit has evaporated in pure loss! Yes! I repeat, to the infamy of having committed crime they add, ineffectually and without the least hope of being believed, the infamy of imputing their crimes to those who have been the victims.

The Reform party committed no violence. It was its interest that none should be committed. The servile party had from the outset an interest to commit violence.—That interest became every day more imperative, every day violence became greater. It was commenced on their part with a view of procuring a factitious majority, which it had no hope of obtaining by a free Election. They concluded in the hope when defeat had become certain, of preventing any return being made. It was the party of 1832, who followed even in that year similar tactics, that wished to-day, as it wished then, that there should be no Election—who wished to consecrate in principle and in practice that when it would have the majority, the West Ward of Montreal may have Representatives, but when it would be in a minority, the West Ward should not be represented.

The Liberal and Reform party had not, nor could it procure loans from the Banks.—All assistance from these Bodies are monopolized, with the greatest risque for their solvency, by the Bankrupt party. It was not in the nature of the Liberal party to foresee nor to desire violence. If it were, they would have been prepared to repel them. They were sufficiently strong to revenge themselves, and if they were not sufficiently strong of themselves, a call on the country, and then reprisals would have become, what necessary reprisals