Page:Address of the Hon. L.J. Papineau to the electors of the West Ward of Montreal.djvu/15

 By the bye lying and deceitful Magistrates represented the placing of these articles for sale in the same house in 1832 as the bringing them there by the partizans of Dr. Tracey for the purpose of mastering the Election, of beating the Magistrates, Special Constables, perhaps the Garrison, as Doctor Robertson, who of all the Magistrates, was the one who most violently desired, and most diabolically planned, the catastrophe of the 21st May, on several occasions, assured Colonel McIntosh, that the Civil Authorities had received the most positive information that a conspiracy was formed to set fire to the town and suburbs at several points, in order to attract the troops in squads, to different and opposite directions, so that they may be the more easily overpowered. Verily, verily, there is not another man in the world, with a soul so satanic under the meinmien [sic] so smooth and so false. When he smiles on a Canadian, be persuaded that it is with the same smile with which the Serpent smiled on Eve to destroy her and all her posterity.

After having hawked his lies about during the day, he proceeded, in the evening, to deliberate on the Affidavit of alleged High Treason, and on the means of seizing upon the direction of the Election, as he seized on that of 1832, with results so satisfactory to himself.

Well assured by the deliberations of the magistrates that it may dare anything, Walker's party dared every thing. The liberal party found in these new circumstances new motives for endurance, because its inexhaustible patience towards its enemies would prove, more and more, that the same men, with the same depravity which caused them to spill Canadian blood in 1832, had the same inextinguishable thirst to spill it afresh, and would furnish a foretaste of the horrors of their regime if their ravings after domination were to be realised. A great number of Canadian families have been separated—wives and children sent to the country—houses invaded—some fortified for defence—others abandoned to the fury of the Loyals, after reflecting that having provided for the safety of the dearest objects of their affections, the preservation of property was of secondary importance, and that its destruction would have shown that the British Government under the presidency of Matthew Lord Aylmer, will not, and cannot, make the laws be respected, because this Governor, and the authorities by him chosen, and integrant parts, the slaves of that power, which they have put in motion, and cannot arrest, through dread of being branded by it, traitors to their party.

In the midst of such grave disorders, the minority of the magistrates, acting with a view to the public interest proposed precautionary measures. The majority spoke against their adoption but voted in their favor, so as not to compromise itself too much. Thus, among other things, a Proclamation prohibiting meetings at night, which had already caused so much evil and uneasiness to peaceable citizens, was published in accordance with their orders by the Town Crier. The troops were placed under the direction of the magistrates. If the latter had acted honestly they would have energetically condemned their friends, the ruffians who, to the imminent danger of the citizens by whom they were met, paraded the streets in such numerous bands, to confine themselves within their frightful dens. They would have peremptorily signified to them that the public force would constrain them. Instead of making themselves respected and obeyed the magistrates preferred posting up how insincere was their prohibition, for several of them paraded the streets along with the prohibited processions. Several of them did so, no doubt, with the intention of praying the gentlemen bandits not to have recourse to extremes. Silliness, not malice was apparent in these contradictions; in their orders to the people to remain quietly in their houses, and in their accompanying the riots which they had prohibited. As for the other magistrates who notoriously participated in the fears and hopes of the hottest of Walker's partizans concerning the result of the election; who, by all means, honest and dishonest, by tales, and stories, similar to that Doctor Robertson retailed about the axe-handles, in their zeal to bring up voters, and who by the dirtiest intrigues in favor of Walker and against his adversaries, were among the most active of his supporters—the public, on seeing them mixed up with mobs, never accused them of having done so connivingly, for it had good reason to regard them as chiefs of the band—as the instigating agents of all the violence that was committed.

On Friday the 14th Nov. the adjournment took place at 4 o'clock. At the moment when it was about to take place, some Electors stepped aside, to resolve on demanding the adjournment to eight o'clock in the morning in order to force Walker to exhaust during a longer time of polling his reserve, many of whom had voted on that day so as to prevent the lapse of the fatal hour after the proclamation. He had the art and artifice to succeed, under the pretext of the bad state of his health, in obtaining the adjournment of the poll to eleven o'clock in the forenoon. When the electors came forward to demand the adjournment to eight o'clock, he told them that Mr. Nelson had just promised him that it should remain closed until eleven o'clock. This feeble state of his health was but a lying pretext, since, long before 11 o'clock, he left English's accompanied by several hundred men armed with clubs, caused the poll booth to be opened—took possession of it and of the environs with a force sufficiently large and sufficiently threatening to prevent the approach of any person otherwise than with the permission, and under the controul of those club bearers unless they came in as great numbers, with similar arms, and with the determination already repudiated of doing themselves justice. The Returning Officer fully convinced that he was perfectly at liberty, if he came, to proclaim Walker and Donellan or to be left under the blows of their body guard, did not go to the poll, but sent to adjourn the poll by proclamation to Monday at 8 o'clock.

Then commenced the most gloriously degrading farce that the British gentry ever performed in a country where they often shewed off in tragico comic character. At this very instant no less than five or six hundred cudgellers—a proof that they came prepared to make themselves masters of the poll—accompanied by four privy cleaners, and a number of other worthy gentlemen were on the ground, all ready marshalled, with flags flying and drums beating, to draw the four victors. They were anxious to afford by this solemn spectacle, the greatest possible illustration of the ever memorable deeds and achievements of the proudest names belonging to the Montreal aristocracy—Donellan the first & Walker the last. They were anxious to celebrate their future election—the triumph of good principles over bad—the reign of order, decency and of good breeding personified in the four patricians who sat in the curule