Chapter I: AM becoming so sadly neglectful of my duties, as a correspondent, that

I not only richly deserve from my friends their censure, but a total discontinuance of their kind communications. To yourself and respected sister, however, my neglect assumes the aspect of ingratitude; you have so diversified and heaped on me your kind and delicate attentions. I can say so little that is apologetic, that I will not make the attempt; but, as in my approach to a Higher Power, I would at once acknowledge the fulness of my delinquency, and solicit from your united kindly feelings that indulgence which I am in nowise entitled to expect. I trust, however, that your forbearance will not be exercised in vain, and that it will be long before I again trespass to a similar extent.

But though I have no apology to offer for my long silence, it may in some measure be accounted for in the present uncertain state of our affairs; for I have long been hoping that something definite would arise, and I was unwilling to write to you before. But week passed on after week, and we are still in statu quo. The B—s have probably informed you of our intention to remove to some other situation, for the sphere is exceedingly limited, and the church-people unusually few; so that, after a four years’ trial, I should hardly feel justified in spending my little residuum of strength in a spot where the deficiency of proportionate result is so great. Our accommodation, too, in our confined lodgings, are far from suitable, and all our personal attempts, as well as expectations from others to amend them, have hitherto failed. This minor matter, indeed, would not, of itself, have been sufficiently strong, to induce us to remove, but, taken in conjunction with all the other matters, I have, at length, felt it my duty either to fix in some other mission, as our cures are here denominated, or else to retire altogether from public to more private engagement. I have written to our good bishop on the subject, expressing a preference for the vicinity of our children, or some more southerly and more genial part of the province near the lake shores. He has kindly promised to do all in his power to meet my wishes, but he has not hitherto been able to succeed, and we are waiting the result of his further endeavours. You have heard enough, I doubt not, of our political affairs to need any enlargement on this point. Very nearly, indeed, were we on the point of provincial ruin. But through God’s mercy the decision and good sense of the Lieutenant-Governor have saved us from anything immediate, and, I hope, also, from ultimate evil; for there is a strong conservative feeling brought into exercise, which is not very likely soon to subside. In our last Parliament, which the Lieutenant-Governor dissolved, there was a large Radical majority; but from the recent return for the ensuing Parliament, out of sixty-two members forty-four are Conservative, and only eighteen Radical; so that we have good reason to expect an amended state of things. It will be months and years, however, before we attain to a sound, healthy, and flourishing state; for emigration is very nearly at a stand; capitalists, of course, have no courage to venture among such a set of revolutionary ruffians. The less monied, who are compelled to go somewhere, proceed to the States to the far west by hundreds and thousands. Labourers and mechanics not only turn aside from us, but leave us after settling among us from want of employment, or, rather, from want of money to pay them for their labour. Toronto, for months past, has had quite an appearance of gloom; so many shops shut up, and so little trade done; and other towns complain in like manner. Farming, too, where farming labour is paid for, is so losing a concern, that, if it were not absolutely necessary for the supply of their family in country places, there is scarcely a gentleman but would give it up. I have annually lost by mine—little indeed, but still, lost; and the general cry among my neighbours is, Nothing is to be got by farming. Indeed, were it not for the comparative poverty of the settlers, the tide of emigration would soon set homewards: but, to realize the means of return would, on a general scale, be impossible; were they to attempt to sell, no sufficient number of purchasers could be obtained, and the sum realized would go but a little way towards living in the same style in England; so tarry they must. Still, the hearts of many are turning towards their beloved country, and they would soon rejoin their friends if they could.

TO MRS. WHITMORE.

Thornhill, near Toronto, Upper Canada,
November, 12, 1836.

* * * * During most of the time since I last wrote to you, we have been in great uncertainty concerning our movements. At one time I felt so sinking under my ministerial duties, combined with the peculiarities of the climate, that my wife and Cecil were strongly urgent on me to retire from all public and obligatory duty, and to do no more than what my strength or spirits would enable me occasionally and privately to attend to. With this intention, after inspecting numerous places, we made a purchase in the salubrious and delightful district of Niagara, and were just on the point of removing thither; but, on inspection, the title did not appear satisfactory, and, at the suggestion of the solicitor, I did not complete the purchase. While, however, this matter was pending, my people, at a public meeting, strongly expressed their hope, that I would not adhere to my intentions of removal, and so unanimously and affectionately pressed my continuance among them, that I at length consented; and have since made arrangements for building a house at my own expense, on some land I had previously purchased near the church, and am intending now to go on with as much prudence as I can; but still to go on, and to die, if it please God, in the harness. Of late, however, the Lord has been pleased so to enable me to use appropriate exercise in the open air, and so to husband my little strength, that all the unfavourable symptoms under which I was labouring some few months ago, have altogether disappeared; and with present adequacy of physical powers and with more than usual encouragement in spirit, I am proceeding with my work, and trust all will be well.

* * * * *

After speaking of his family, he adds,

* * * * * Much have we, indeed, of God’s temporal smile, nor is the light of his gracious countenance withheld. All, all is love, and we would not only submissively, but gratefully adore. Permit me to assure you of our best wishes for the months or years, which may yet be in reserve, may they prove pre-eminently the best! “For such power belongeth unto God;” and believe me, Yours, my dear Madam, very sincerely,

G. MORTIMER.

* * * * *

Mr. Mortimer left England in part to avoid the storms and tempests which overhung that country, little thinking that in attempting to avoid a _possible_ danger, he ran into an _actual_ one; so very dim is our foresight and so weak our power of resistance. A destructive rebellion took place in Canada in 1837, which, from his residence being on one of the main roads to Toronto, whither the rioters were proceeding, put even the personal safety of his family in great jeopardy. He refers especially to this event in the following letter:—

TO MRS. HOLLAND.

Thornhill, April 3, 1838.

You kindly allude to the circumstance of apparent danger in which we have been placed during our recent revolt, but God has been very merciful to us, and, not merely screened us under the sheltering wing of his good providence, but graciously kept our minds in sweet serenity and peace. You may judge of the apparent peril to which we were exposed, when I tell you, that on the afternoon of the evening on which they (the rebels) proceeded to Toronto, two parties passed our door, the one consisting of 200, and the other of 300 persons; and were, under God’s providence, kept from the execution of their murderous and destructive designs against the persons and houses of the more loyal and opulent, merely in consequence of their being obliged to hurry past us to Toronto two or three days sooner than they had anticipated. As a clergyman too, and more especially as a beneficed one, noted and vilified as possessing one of the obnoxious rectories, concerning which they have so loudly clamoured; on this account I was a doubly marked man; my name was inserted in their list of intended arsons, and my family as well as myself were to be shot, as we were attempting to escape the flames; at least, such were the pleasing tidings which were widely circulated among us, and the fearful and timid found it no easy matter to restrain their feelings, or to exhibit calmness of spirit, or manliness of conduct. Many passed sleepless nights, and all around us gave indication that there were solid and extensive grounds for alarm. Colonel M—, the person who was shot on the first night of the revolt, was an attendant on our church and a resident in our neighbourhood, and, in the very midst of the excitement, was brought to our churchyard for interment. A hostile attack was expected by many, and the mob, who assembled to pay the last sad offices to their veteran friend and neighbour, came accoutred in their swords, daggers, pistols and fowling pieces. A novel and a painful scene, but which was altogether uncalled for; no attempt having been contemplated. My eye glanced on one of the assembly; a loyal, but strange and penurious man, whose habits had never suffered him to become possessed of anything in the shape of arms, and he was leaning on his trusty lengthened pitch fork, a weapon, of which I heard, he was afterwards vaunting that there was nothing like that. His presence, however, to my mind at least, was far from pleasing; it ill-accorded with the scene before us, and seemed so ridiculous, that I could hardly refrain from a momentary smile. Of the general and more public details you are doubtless most fully apprized; for I perceive that our Canadian affairs are exciting a peculiar interest in our fatherland, and are commented on with an accuracy, which shows that they must have been perused with every means of the fullest information lying before them. All is now, through God’s providence, in a state of quietness; while, therefore, we feel indebted to our friends for their kind sympathy, and their affectionate expressions of hope, that our provincial troubles may cause us either quickly, or eventually to retrace our steps towards our beloved native land, we must still assure them that nothing is further from our thoughts; our path has been deliberately chosen, our objects have been extensively gained, much of God’s temporal smile is resting upon us, we are now established in our ample, commodious, and, I might say, beautiful house, the society around us is superior to what is found in most country places in England; our income is ample and enough for all exigencies. Life is gliding gently along with as little disquietude and as much comfort as we can ever expect to find in the present world; peace and tranquillity reign in our domestic circle, God’s spiritual blessings are experienced by the majority of our family, and some hopeful indications given by all, and, therefore, why should we wish for a change? Of myself and my own immediate duties, I would say, but little good is being done. Ministers are much wanted, and, were I in England, it would be only to extrude and thrust out some of the partially engaged or wholly unoccupied with which you are overburdened already. No, my endeared sister, much as we love our native land, much as we value our still more beloved friends, we ought not to close our eyes on our present mercies, or so mix up the cherishing of regret with causes for thanksgiving, as to destroy their efficacy, or to diminish their heart-stirring effect.

* * * * *

While Mr. Mortimer’s friends did not approve of his expatriating himself and family, so some of them, who visited him in Canada, were by no means convinced of his having improved on his lot and position in life by his change of country. The Rev. B. Luckock was one of these, who was so struck with the inferiority of everything which he saw, that he afterwards wrote to him in no very measured terms of his dislike and almost detestation of what he called his wretched situation. These condoling and sympathizing notes produced no echo in the mind of Mr. Mortimer, and he wrote to his friend in the following playful terms, united to strains of piety and seriousness, very expressive of his own satisfaction with the change which he had made:—

“Both your letters found me at Thornhill, and from the same miserable
and deserted place, I date, as you will perceive, my present letter.
It is difficult to determine what class of feelings we should indulge
in at the accumulated epithets of loathing and abhorrence with which
you speak of our delightfully happy sojourn; our disposition,
however, to merriment prevailed, and we all laughed most heartily at
your intemperate and ill-timed abusings, so completely and so
pleasantly had the whole class of our own feelings and circumstances
been changed since your visit to that anything but “happy valley.” I
need not detail to you the various incidents which, through the kind
providence of our God, have tended both to fix our steps and to
settle our minds; the hundreds of miles which were previously
travelled—the ineligibility of every spot and every abode in some
important particular—the striking Providence which put some
unexpected and final stop to our negotiations in each of the matters
on which we were disposed to venture—the altered feeling and conduct
discovered by my people, when they perceived me fully resolved to
leave—their solicitations, accompanied with proffered, though not
accepted, pecuniary liberality to remain among them—the erection of a
large, commodious, and tasty, not to say beautiful, house, on the few
acres of my own, near the church, which I had some time before
purchased—the settling of a most esteemed, and delightful,
intelligent, well-educated, Christian family, within a few stones’
throw of our residence—and, finally, the induction and installing of
the long unbeneficed curate into that most lucrative and honourable
piece of preferment, “the Rectory of Thornhill.” Happy consummation
of the most ambitious wishes, or only to be credited by the envied
and enviable dignitaries of our Church, of which “I am proud to
think” that my valued and respected friend is one! But I wander;
there, then, we are at Thornhill; but, through God’s mercy, under
circumstances of great comfort, much, very much, indeed, which calls
forth our gratitude and praise; so that what I partly smilingly,
partly ironically, and partly believingly, predicted, has been
strongly fulfilled; the course adopted by the Abyssinian Prince has
been closely followed by ourselves, and not an atom of wish do we now
feel to exchange the place of our abode for any other in the
province, and we may say even in the world. Of the younger branches
of the family, I am not of course speaking; they may possibly be far
from the rest and quiet, a and satisfaction of the older folk. As to
ourselves, however, we wish for no change; to live and to die where
God’s good providence has now at length fixed us is the ultimatum of
all our wishes.”

TO THE REV. JOHN ARMSTRONG.

Thornhill, Upper Canada,
Feb. 11, 1840.

My dear Armstrong,