Gourlay, one of those restless and
indispensable cranks who make the world turn round, active,
obstinate, imprudent, uncompromisingly devoted to the common good
as he saw it, came to Canada in 1817 on settlement and
colonization bent. Innocent inquiries which he sent broadcast as
to the condition of the province gave the settlers an opportunity
for voicing their pent-up discontent, and soon Gourlay was
launched upon the sea of politics. Mackenzie, who came to Canada
three years later, was a born agitator, fearless, untiring, a
good hater, master of avitriolic vocabulary, and absolutely
unpurchasable. He found his vein in weekly journalism, and for
nearly forty years was the stormy petrel of Canadian politics.
From England there came, among others, Dr. John Rolph, shrewd and
politic, and Captain John Matthews, a half-pay artillery officer.
Peter Perry, downright and rugged and of a homely eloquence,
represented the Loyalists of the Bay of Quinte, which was the
center of Canadian Methodism. Among the newer comers from the
United States, the foremost were Barnabas Bidwell, who had been
Attorney General of Massachusetts but had fled to Canada in 1810
when accused of misappropriating public money, and his son,
Marshall Spring Bidwell, one of the ablest and most single-minded
men who ever entered Canadian public life. From Ireland came Dr.
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