Page:Address of the Hon. L.J. Papineau to the electors of the West Ward of Montreal.djvu/16

. We have often seen a chairing after an election had terminated, but what pretext was there for one before, and when there was a certainty of a defeat? Was it a drunken crowd who dragged through the streets their slaves, too vile and too trembling to offer any resistance, and whom they thus punished for having remained on the preceding evening in the minority when they had promised to be in the majority? The sick man who demanded the adjournment of the poll to eleven o'clock, because he could not bear the fatigue of opening it at ten, was carted, without any compassion for his bodily sufferings, (all moral sentiment appearing extinguished and dead with him) on one of the coldest days, for a much longer time than the poll continued, as well through the lanes and corners most frequently resorted by the four privy-cleaners, as thro' those noble quarters frequented by their genteel associates. This was a proof that his pretended sickness was a mere trick which he employed so as to be able to enjoy for a longer time, and in open day, the glory, festivity and pleasure which his trusty friends had for a long time promised him over the nocturnal potations which he partook with them in the cellars and grog ships where they conspired together. Days of triumph after an Election gained were formerly days of rejoicing when unarmed Citizens, without fearing or provoking their adversaries, bore on their serene countenance, the expression of happiness without alarm or danger to any person whatsoever. Was the delirious procession which drew the four delirious men, of this character? Did not half of the mercantile men of Montreal march, armed with sticks, pell mell in the midst of several hundreds of persons brought from a distance and paid and retained and armed with clubs, vomiting forth together the most sanguinary imprecations, uttering all together the most murderous imprecations against their political adversaries, halting with these same attitudes and dispositions before their residences, into which stones were thrown at noon-day, in the presence and from the midst of at least twelve hundred people? Did not Justices of the Peace form a part of this anti-pacific cortege? Did it not take place within eight hours of the publication of their Proclamation prohibiting tumultuous meetings? And having placarded their infamy in open day, is it not a proof of the much greater turpitude of which they may safely boast by night? It was to make us respect the statu quo, and the Legislative Council—the present Constitution—the whole Constitution, and nothing but the Constitution, that the noble British blood, inflamed with brandy and rage—the Loyals, par excellence—the British Aristocracy of Montreal—afforded us a spectacle approaching nearer to the Jacobinism of Paris, or Nantz, in 1794, than any thing previously seen in Canada. Honor be to the moralist Walker, and his Committee of Management, who panned and put such a grand machine in motion! Thrice honoured would he be who had the will and the power to arrest it!

It moved—it dragged every thing after it. Whoever appertained to it should be chastised and partake of its dishonor. It rolled through the mire on Monday morning. It dragged through the mud every thing connected with it. It bore to the poll, before eight o'clock in the morning, the shaper who was too sick to go there before eleven o'clock on Saturday, although he had endured all the disgraceful fatigue of his triumph. It rolled on, and would have crushed the Returning Officer, the popular candidates and the independent electors, if they had been in the way. It rolled on in order that there should be no election. It would have rolled on, like an avalanche, with constantly increasing destruction, up to the 22d Nov. in order that no return should be made. At the moment that it was bounding with frenzy, thirsting and hoping for vengeance, the Returning Officer in its rear preserved the rights of the electors: saved the town from destruction; declared duly elected those who had the votes of the majority, and overturned the baneful Colossus of Bureaucracy. The unwieldy machine was upset and broken, the object of the most justly deserved and indelible contempt and hatred.

In its fall it could not make itself obeyed even by Lord Aylmer. It transmitted its order to him for a new writ. He also laughed at it. The bundle of constitutional light and science of the Donellans, the Molsons, the Walkers, the Auldjos, the Joshua Bells, and of the tenebrous Committee who prepared wholly and entirely for their mutual and equal reputation for knowledge, the Cattle Market Resolutions, all joined together, could not impose upon him. More advanced in his constitutional studies than Walker and the tenebrous Committee, he have them a rational refusal, but in order not to be in contradiction with himself in the case of Mr. Mondelet he left them their appeal. They may submit the difficult examination of so thorny a question, as that which they have proposed, to the deliberation of Mr. Stanley and others as learned in constitutional lore as he, and of the same calibre.

Let Messrs. Donellan and Walker, and Joshua Bell (who in such case will not fail to come in opposition to them,) champ the bit with calmness and resignation whilst waiting a Writ from beyond the seas, or a report at least which will produce a powerful effect on the deliberations of the Assembly, if it be not erased from their Journals.

The other orders promulgated at the Tattersall Meeting, are not less sage, nor less true, nor less certain of the same result than that transmitted to Lord Aylmer. That which might appear the most alarming is, without exception, that which Mr. Auldjo framed and commented on. A species of seduction so unheard of as some slight degree of attention which so grand, so noble a personage as Mr. Auldjo paid a few Canadians must have intoxicated them with pride and happiness. The danger of defection in our ranks was imminent. The praises bestowed by a man so respected previous to as well as since his arrangements, or derangements with his creditors, upon eleven renegades from the interests and honor of their country, must certainly swell the ranks to the unfortunate number of thirteen Judases. Fortunately English pride and French vanity easily catch fire when they come into collision. The tenebrous committee not wishing to be eclipsed by the talents of too great a number of its new auxiliaries, and wishing to be just, decreed that one alone should represent the, and that the most brilliant of the flock should be chosen, Benjamin Berthelet, Esq., Doctor in Medecine, (and in what kinds of science is he not a most learned Doctor?) had the inappreciable advantage of being the only Canadian in Montreal chosen to see his name figure iniquitously and alone among