Chapter XV

1835-1836.

The "Grievance" Report; its Object and Failure.

Amongst the Committees of the House of Assembly at this time was a useful one called the "Committee on Grievances." To this Committee was referred all complaints made to the House, and all projects of reform, etc. At the close of the Session of 1835, Mr. W. L. Mackenzie, as Chairman, brought in an elaborate Report which, without being read, was ordered to be printed. In that Report, Mr. Mackenzie endeavoured to create a diversion in his favour by showing that while Dr. Ryerson professed to be opposed to Government grants to religious bodies, yet he was willing to receive one for the Wesleyan Conference. The Report stated that:--

The "British Wesleyan Methodist Conference," formerly the M.E.
Church, received £1,000 in 1833, and £611 in 1834, to be applied
... "to the erection, or repairing of chapels and school-houses,
and defraying the general expenses of the various missions."

This appropriation to the Methodists, as an Ecclesiastical
Establishment, is very singular. In the year 1826 ... Dr. Strachan
informed the Colonial Minister that the Methodist ministers
acquired their education and formed their principles in the United
States.... They appealed to the House of Assembly, which inquired
into and reported on the matter in 1828.

Upon another occasion they received a rebuke from Sir John Colborne
... in answer to the Address of the Conference requesting him to
transmit to His Majesty their Address on the Clergy Reserves.
Since, however, a share of public money has been extended to and
received by them, there seems to have been established a mutual
good understanding.

To this Report, Dr. Ryerson replied to the effect--

That the grant was made to the British Conference in England (over
which we had no control) and not to the Canada Conference; that the
grant in question was made by Lord Goderich, as part of a general
scheme agreed upon in 1832, to aid Missionaries in the West Indies,
Western, and Southern Africa, New South Wales, and Canada, "to
erect chapels and school-houses in the needy and destitute
settlements;" that the Rev. R. Alder had come from England, in
1833, to establish separate and distinct missions from those under
the Canada Conference with a view to absorb this grant; that when
the Union was formed, in 1833, the missions in charge of the Canada
Conference became the missions of the British Conference, and were
managed by their own Superintendent; that the Canadian Missionary
Society from that time became a mere auxiliary to the parent
Society in England; that the Canada Conference assumed no
responsibility in regard to the funds necessary to support these
missions; and that, in point of fact, they had cost the British
Methodists thousands of dollars over and above any grant received
from Lord Goderich as part of the general scheme for the support of
missionaries in the extended British Colonies.

Dr. Ryerson, in concluding these explanations, adds:--

We trust that every reader clearly perceives the unparalleled
parliamentary imposition that has been practised upon the public by
the "Grievance Committee," and their gross insinuations and
slanders against the Methodist ministers.

In 1836, the Report of the Grievance Committee came up in the House again. On this subject Rev. John Ryerson wrote in March, 1836, to Dr. Ryerson, in London, as follows:--

The altercations and quarrels which have taken place in the
Assembly this session on the part of Peter Perry and W. L.
Mackenzie, especially about the "Grievance Report," have raised you
much in the estimation of the people. The correctness of your views
and statements are now universally acknowledged, and your defamers
deserted by all candid men. Political things are looking very
favourable at the present time. The extremer of the Radical party
are going down headlong. May a gracious Providence speed them on
their journey!

To Mr. Perry, Dr. Ryerson replied fully and explicitly. He said:

Mr. Perry has charged me with departing from my former ground in
regard to an ecclesiastical establishment in Upper Canada. My
editorials and correspondence with Her Majesty's Government will be
considered conclusive evidence of the falsity of the charge, and
will again defeat the attempts of the enemies of Methodism to
destroy me and overthrow the Conference. Another cause of attack by
Mr. Perry is, that amongst several other suggestions which I took
the liberty to offer to Lord Glenelg, Colonial Secretary, was the
appointment of a certain gentleman of known popularity to the
Executive Council. Mr. Perry seemed to consider himself as a sort
of king in Lennox and Addington, and appears to regard it as an
infringement upon his sovereign prerogatives that I should be
stationed so near the borders of his empire as Kingston. But many
of his constituents can bear record whether the object of my
ministry was to dethrone Peter Perry, or to break down the power
and influence of a much more formidable and important
personage--the power of him that ruleth in the hearts of the
children of disobedience.[47]

_March 30th, London._--During his stay in England, Dr. Ryerson had been able to look upon public affairs in Upper Canada with more calmness, and more impartiality, than when he was there in the midst of them as an actor. In that spirit he, at this date, addressed a letter to the _Guardian_ on what he regarded as an approaching crisis of the highest importance to the Province. He said:--

It is not a mere ephemeral strife of partizanship; it is a
deliberate and bold attempt to change the leading features of the
Constitution--a Constitution to which allegiance has been sworn,
and to which firm attachment has been over and over again expressed
in addresses to the Governor up to 1834. Such being the case, it
becomes every man who fears God and loves his country to pause, to
think, to decide. I have told the Colonial Secretary, that whilst
the Methodist Church asked for nothing but "equal and impartial
protection," yet I believed the attachment to the Constitution of
the country and to the British Crown, expressed in petitions and
addresses from the Methodist Conference and people of Canada, to be
sincere, and that they would prove to be so in their future
conduct. They had been falsely charged as being Republicans, but
they had always repudiated this charge as a calumny. Nor would they
be found among those who, like Messrs. Peter Perry and W. L.
Mackenzie, had recently avowed their intention to establish
republican elective institutions in the Province.

As to the charges of the "Grievance Committee" party, I can truly
say that I have never received one farthing of public money from
any quarter, and my humble support to my King and country is
unsought, unsolicited, and spontaneous.

_May 21st--London._--At this date Dr. Ryerson wrote:--

During my exile here in England I have more and more longed for news from Canada, and cooling water to the panting hart could not be more refreshing than late intelligence from my dear native land has been to me. I can now listen with an interest and sympathy that I never did before, to the patriotic effusions of the warm-hearted and eloquent Irishmen, whom I have recently heard, respecting "the first flower of the earth, the first gem of the sea."

The news from Canada presents to my mind strange contrasts. A few years ago efforts were made to prove that the Methodist ministers were the "salaried hirelings" of a foreign republican power. Now efforts are being made to persuade the Canadian public that the same ministers are the salaried hirelings of British power, because they refuse to be identified with men and measures which are revolutionary in their tendencies. Our motto is "fear God and honour the King," and "meddle not with them that are given to change." Many who were influenced to take part in the former crusade have long since given proof of a better spirit; so it will be, I trust, with those who have now been hurried on into the present shameless and malignant opposition, against a cause which has confessedly been of the highest spiritual and eternal advantage to thousands in Upper Canada. I venture to predict that not a few of our partizan adversaries will ere long lament their madness of political idolatry and religious hostility. In the former case, Methodism survived, triumphed, and prospered; in the present case, if we are true to our principles and faithful to our God, He will again "Cause the wrath of man to praise Him, and restrain the remainder of that wrath."

FOOTNOTES:

[47] Dr. Ryerson's reply to Mr. Perry was afterwards reprinted as an election flysheet, headed "Peter Perry Picked to Pieces by Egerton Ryerson," and circulated broadcast in the counties. It resulted in Mr. Perry being rejected as M.P.P. for Lennox and Addington in the elections of 1836. (See Chapter xxiii.)