Charles XII. was called Demirbash by the Turks--a man who fancies his head made of iron, who may run amuck without any fear for his skull. Sir Francis lost no opportunity to test the thickness and hardness of his.
His troops gone, the militia disorganized and never out but for one training day since 1815, he found his forces consisted of about three hundred men, and the work before him was to overcome a bad, bold plot, “which appears unequalled by any recorded in history since the great conspiracy of Cataline for the subversion of Rome!”
“Must I stand and crouch under thy testy humour!” might have cried Sir Francis; and quick as echo came the answer, “He’s but a mad lord, and naught but humour sways him.”
Search through his literary contemporaries, from Galt, who calls him the sly, downright author of the “Bubbles of the Brunnens,” to the somewhat bilious sketches of “those dealers in opinions, journalists,” confirms Lord Gosford’s saying that one of the essential elements of fitness for office is to be acceptable to the great body of the people. Sir Francis had a great reputation for literary smartness; he was on excellent terms with himself, and there are a few other writers of his time who have recorded things to his credit which are hard to believe in the after-light of condensed history. But most people never tired of either abusing or ridiculing him.
“‘Where are you from?’ asked a worthy but inquisitive landlord of a distinguished traveller, evidently just from Downing Street, who arrived in Canada at this solemn juncture. The testy Englishman made a laconic reply, that he had come from a very hot place. ‘And where are you going?’ continued Boniface. ‘To the devil,’ roared the traveller. And then they knew he was going to dine with Sir Francis Bond Head.”
Phrenology was a popular study then, and it afforded opportunities to those who never tired of punning in doggerel and skits on this Head. The cranium must have presented a remarkable assemblage of bumps; for, according to his many detractors and his few admirers, Sir Francis was a remarkable man. Not that he required a Boswell or Anthony Hamilton to say for him that which he was unequal to say for himself. There are no blushes on the pages of either “Narrative” or “Emigrant.”