The Bishop's Pawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment Marc thought that the Speaker might bow to
the new member, reversing the tradition.
    Seconds later, McDowell stepped sprightly up
to the chair beside Ignatius Maxwell, shook hands with the
Receiver-General, tilted his head towards someone in the gallery,
and turned as the Speaker, by prearrangement, called on the Member
from Frontenac to deliver his maiden speech in Queen Victoria’s
colonial assembly.
    Thus did he begin. Coming from such a small
man, the voice startled the spectators: it was deep, richly
modulated, authoritative. There was no rant in it, no bombast, no
manufactured dudgeon. Here was a man reasoning with men, laying out
the home truths that they, like him, must come to accept because
all the alternatives were worse. Far worse. In spite of himself,
Marc was enthralled – and very worried. McDowell’s approach was
masterful. He began by pointing out a few sad but incontrovertible
facts. Whatever the merits or demerits of Lord Durham’s
recommendations, the earl had been chosen for the job because his
own caucus had found him too radical and unreasonable to bear, and
hence he was safer off in North America than in England. The earl
had then selected several advisors whose own past was morally
suspect. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who had undoubtedly penned much
of the Report , had once been imprisoned for kidnapping an
heiress. Moreover, the earl himself had spent less than a week in
Upper Canada, while devoting most of his time and effort to Quebec
– with his sights set on freeing the French rebels or ensuring that
those convicted were exiled to sunny Bermuda instead of Van
Diemen’s Land. This latter folly had broken the terms of his
commission, for which legal indiscretion he had been summarily
recalled. Back in England he had promptly fallen ill from some
mysterious ailment, letting his ill-starred advisors, and even his
wife, complete the Report. The Melbourne administration
balked at even tabling the document, but finally relented under
public pressure. It was clear to any objective eye that the Whig
government in London was in disarray, and due to collapse any day
now. Little wonder that the earl’s Report – whatever its
merits or demerits – was languishing in parliamentary limbo.
    Now what did all of this mean for Upper
Canada? It meant that fractious debate, of the kind heard here this
evening and earlier in the week, had split both parties several
ways. Why should this be so? Because Lord Durham’s recommendations
were a mishmash of contradictory and self-cancelling proposals!
Why, then, should a fledgling provincial legislature be saddled
with the responsibility of making sense out of nonsense – nonsense
penned by men whose probity itself was dubious? Surely what
esteemed members of this Assembly must do is cease and desist from
bootless debate, especially those who valued tradition and
authority. Within months the Whig government in London must fall,
and be replaced by a sane and just and loyal administration under
the stewardship of the great Robert Peel. Let that gentleman
and his cabinet propose a sensible solution to Canada’s
problems, using whatever aspects of the infamous Durham Report they deemed practicable.
    “Let each of us in this hallowed chamber
unite in our determination to wait upon developments in the mother
country, to wait upon proposals that are clear and unambiguous –
whether they be favourable to one side or the other. Then, and only
then, shall we be able to enter into a reasoned debate with any
hope of a just and durable outcome!”
    My God, Marc thought, the fellow has done it!
He’s articulated a strategy to hold the warring factions of his
group together until the Whigs reject the Report out of
expediency or the British Tory party recovers the power it lost in
1835! Robert and his fellow Reformers were going to have a tough
row to hoe, as were those who had agreed to write broadsides for
them.
    The roar of approval that cascaded down upon
the