Page:Address of the Hon. L.J. Papineau to the electors of the West Ward of Montreal.djvu/13

, and , the blood of —the blood of would not have since been shed—that if the murderers of the first had not been set at liberty without bail, the murderers of  would not have been enlarged under trifling and ridiculous securities, which serve as a mere pass-port to a foreign country.

It is evident that the blood of a Canadian is of no more value in the estimation of the British Judges of the District of Montreal, that the blood of an Irish Catholic before an Orange Judge and Jury previous to Catholic emancipation.

With those facts before their eyes, how could the liberal party desire violence which would have only brought about the repetition of the same disaster and the distribution anew, by false weights and false measures, of that justice which is humane and protecting to loyal slaughterers—infernal and revengeful towards those who would defend themselves from their blows. Were not the Magistrates, with a few honorable exceptions, as corrupt this year as in thirty two? They are the same, rewarded, moreover, with the price of their iniquity. Has he who in 1832 regretted that a fool of a constable as he called him, came between the Soldiers' Muskets and Mr., whereby the latter was saved, has he, I ask, a soul less atrocious in 1834? And if an armed force had been called on to interfere, would he have directed it against his political adversaries less certainly than it was directed in 1832 by those ferocious brutes, called Justices of the peace, who, armed with stones and clubs, pursued the people and cried out to their partizans; "friends of Bagg, fall back—fall back—the troops are advancing as far as Dr. Robertson's, and there they will fire on the Rebels." A fanatick brute, like Colonel Mc. Intosh, because he was in the habit if dining every day wit the other fanatick brutes, Councillors, and employees, who spoke to him about the burning of the town and the cutting the Soldiers' throats, may well say upon reflection in Scotland, that "he bitterly regretted not having fired on the place D'Armes when both parties were pell mell, and having marched under Dr. Robertson's direction as far as his house in order to allow the complete separation of the one party from the other," but after what had occurred there, the generality of the Liberal party had reason to suppose that the military even to-day might erroneously have considered themselves as blind and passive instruments obliged to go wherever the fury and vengeance of the Magistrates would order them to fire.

Ought the various obstacles to procuring justice induce the Liberal party to support for a still longer time the indignities of which they are the daily victims? Certainly not. It could have surmounted all those obstacles during the Election, and every day of the Election. It has not, it ought not to entertain, a shadow of hope that it will obtain any justice whatsoever, from any of the authorities, constituted as they are at present in the Country. If it entertained the same opinion of the authorities in England, that it entertains of the authorities in the Country, all those obstacles it had overthrown. Hope is not dead in all hearts. Many demand and except justice yet from the English Parliament. This is the clue to the enigma which explains why citizens, too moderate perhaps, have prevented Electors, disposed to do themselves justice, from shewing themselves sufficiently strong to remain at the poll where the law was too weak to protect them.

The poll commenced on Friday morning the 31st ult. at the hour agreed to: but seven votes to one having been given by the Liberal party, and Walker's committee being certain from the great number of Reformers in the neighbourhood of the poll, that the majority would go on increasing all the day in the same proportion, nothing more was necessary to persuade the loyal party—the Government party—that they had the right to knock down the Liberal Electors, in support, after their accustomed manner, of our good Provincial Government which, according to these knock-me-down apostles, has so many titles to our love. A band of several hundred infuriated wretches sallied suddenly out of English's Tavern—the Head Quarters of the Walker Party—for the purpose of committing an aggression the least foreseen, and the least provoked that it is possible to imagine. This was the first appearance of a horde of unknown people, not belonging to the city, who were previously collected in the house from which Walker and Donnellan had come out only within the preceding half hour, and drilled to attack and disperse the Electors. The Returning Officer immediately adjourned the poll. Fortunately Walker had not yet thrown off the hypocritical, but transparent mask under which he as yet only half shewed his inordinate love of the most excessive violences such as he has since openly approved and excited. He approved of the adjournment, but notwithstanding this forced approval, the lives of his adversaries and of the Returning Officer continued to be a moment in danger, when those furious ruffians endeavored to burst open the poll room door, if the reflection had not immediately presented itself that forced to sell their lives, that of Walker would probably be the first part of the price of the sale. For more than three quarters of an hour after the close of the Poll, and the dispersion of all opposition, those cannibals continued yelling, dancing, threatening and committing assaults throughout the adjacent streets