In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the disputes between the executive and legislative authorities were characterised by much acrimony, but eventually the public revenues were conceded to the assemblies. In Prince Edward Island the political difficulties arose from the land monopoly, and the efforts of the lieutenant-governors to govern as much as possible without assemblies. In these provinces, as in Canada, we find--to cite Lord Durham--"representative government coupled with an irresponsible executive, the same abuse of the powers of the representative bodies, and the same constant interference of the imperial administration in matters which should be left wholly to the provincial governments." In the maritime provinces, however, no disturbance occurred, and the leaders of the popular party were among the first to assist the authorities in their efforts to preserve the public tranquillity, and to express themselves emphatically in favour of the British connection.
In Upper Canada an official class held within its control practically the government of the province. This class became known, in the parlance of those days, as the "family compact," not quite an accurate designation, since its members had hardly any family connection, but there was just enough ground for the term to tickle the taste of the people for an epigrammatic phrase. The bench, the pulpit, the banks, the public offices were all more or less under the influence of the "compact." The public lands were lavishly parcelled out among themselves and their followers. Successive governors, notably Sir Francis Gore, Sir Peregrine Maitland, and Sir Francis Bond Head, submitted first to its influence and allowed it to have the real direction of affairs. Among its most prominent members were John Beverly Robinson, for some years attorney-general, and eventually an able chief-justice, and the recipient of a baronetage; William Dummer Powell, a chief-justice; John Henry Boulton, once attorney-general; John Strachan, the first bishop of the Episcopal Church in Upper Canada; Jonas Jones, the Sherwoods, and other well-known names of residents of York, Niagara, Kingston, and Brockville.
It was not until 1820 that a strong opposition was organised in the assembly against the ruling bureaucracy. The cruel treatment of Robert Gourlay, an erratic Scotch land-agent, by the ruling class who feared his exposure of public abuses, had much to do with creating a reform party in the legislature. Gourlay was a mere adventurer, who found plenty of material in the political condition of the province { 345} for obtaining the notoriety that he coveted. In the course of some inquiries he made in connexion with a statistical work he published in later years, he touched on some points which exposed the land monopoly and other abuses. He was immediately declared by the "compact" to be a dangerous person, who must be curbed by some means or other. He was tried on two occasions for libelling the government, but acquitted. Then his enemies conspired to accuse him most unjustly of being a seditious and dangerous person, who came under the terms of an alien act passed in 1804. He was arrested and kept in prison for seven months. When he was at last tried at Niagara, the home of Toryism, he was a broken-down man, hardly in full possession of his senses. A severe judge and prejudiced jury had no pity, and he was forced to leave the province, to which he did not return until happier times. The injustice which was meted out to a man who had thrown some light on public corruption, stimulated the opponents of the "family compact" to united action against methods so dangerous to individual liberty and so antagonistic to the redress of public grievances.