Settlement. Ann Birch
sugar in one of the drawers in a small table and gave it to Mrs. Jameson.
Boulton slumped down into his chair, while Jameson’s glassy stare seemed locked with the protruberant eyes of King William, who looked down from his portrait above the sideboard.
In the brief lull that followed, Robinson spoke. “Has your lordship heard of Jarvis’s attack on the reptile?”
“I have heard something, to be sure. But I would most willingly hear it all again from your own lips, Jarvis.” Sir Francis pushed back his chair and stuck his tiny feet and short legs straight out in front of him.
Sam had expected to work in a word or two about the Indians, but the conversation had gone off on a tangent. Well, so be it. Wasn’t there a line somewhere for this moment? Ah yes, he had it. “The readiness is all.”
“It was almost ten years ago, sir, and the Colonial Advocate had printed the vilest slander against Governor Maitland—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Jarvis. The Colonial Advocate?”
Sam looked across the table at Mrs. Jameson. “That was the name of Mackenzie’s former paper, ma’am.” He turned his attention back to Sir Francis. “He didn’t stop with Governor Maitland. He attacked all the people whom the Governor appointed to the Legislative Council. ‘Obsequious, cringing, worshippers of power’ was what he called them. Indeed, sir, he implied that it was patronage, not merit, that prompted these appointments. In doing so, he struck at the very manhood of our society.”
“There wasn’t a decent household in this town that went uncontaminated by his pestilence,” Robinson said. Sam remembered Mackenzie’s snide revelation that Robinson’s mother had once kept a common ale-house.
“Continue, Jarvis,” Sir Francis said. “I am eager to hear it all.”
“Well, sir, in early June, 1826, I found myself the leader of a band of angry men heading towards Mackenzie’s print shop. We knew that he was away in Lewiston—getting an extension on his debts, no doubt—and that his foreman had left early for his daily binge at Simpson’s Hotel. We armed ourselves with clubs and sticks and pieces of cordwood, and we were united in a single purpose—”
“To destroy the demon’s presses!” This from Henry Boulton.
Fists thumped on the table.
“We smashed open the office door, pulled down the press, then went for the cabinets. We emptied the type cases and strewed them in the yard and garden. We kicked to bits a frame filled with type, ready no doubt for the printing of another piece of slander. We twisted and tossed aside the thin brass strips that held together the pieces of lead. Some of my friends even carried three or four of the type cases across the road and flung them into the bay.”
“Admirable, my dear Jarvis,” Sir Francis said.
“That day we were gods.” Sam smiled, remembering the exhilaration of the moment. Mrs. Jameson’s blue eyes locked with his. She did not smile.
“But this superhuman effort did not quell the rogue?” Sir Francis asked.
“He launched a civil suit which did not go well for me.”
“I’m not surprised,” the lady said.
What was that supposed to mean?
Sam continued. “The jury was a passel of low-born farmers and one Irish shopkeeper who sympathized with the scoundrel. They had the gall to tout the virtues of unrestrained freedom of speech.”
“But who was in the judge’s seat?” Sir Francis said. “Surely he could have spoken to the jury on your behalf?”
“I had the affliction of William Campbell, unfortunately the only member of the upper class whom Mackenzie had not slandered in his paper.”
“And?” Sir Francis pulled in his feet and sat upright in his chair.
“They brought in a verdict in Mackenzie’s favour, awarding him a settlement of six hundred and twenty-five pounds.”
Sir Francis sucked in his breath. “I cannot believe it.”
“Yes, it is true. And with this ridiculous boost to his coffers, he was able to pay off his debts, buy a new press and type cases, and put himself back in business.”
“The bastard!” Boulton shouted, knocking over his wineglass at the same time. “Whoops,” he added, “apologies to the lady.”
John Beverley Robinson spoke. “I must tell you, Sir Francis, that Jarvis had to mortgage a parcel of land to help pay the fine.” He stood up, placed a hand on the edge of the table to steady himself. “May I propose a toast, sir?”
“By all means, Robinson.”
“Then let us drink to Sam Jarvis for his heroic leadership in the attempt to quell Mackenzie and his press.” There was a clinking of glasses and a chorus of “To Sam” and “To Jarvis.” People always listened to Robinson. As Chief Justice, he got respect.
“And do I have the word of everyone here?” the Governor asked. “We will stay united in our resolve to oppose the scoundrel?”
The men staggered to their feet. “Down with Mackenzie!”
Boulton fell backwards, upsetting his chair.
“I shall join the ladies now,” Mrs. Jameson said, rising. “This has been most edifying. I thank you for including me.”
Her departure precipitated a flurry of activity. Jameson and Boulton went straight for the pisspot behind the screen. The butler set fresh decanters of port on the table. Sam drank his fill, confident that he had acquitted himself well.
At the end of the evening, as he and Mary took their leave at the front door, the Governor moved in close to him and said, “That was an impressive act you told me about this evening. I play fair, Jarvis. Merit must be rewarded.” He shook Sam’s hand and, taking the fur-lined coat from the footman, helped him into it.
“I do believe, my dearest husband, that you are on the Governor’s roster for promotions,” Mary said as they climbed into the phaeton. She took his hand and snuggled close to him.
Sam looked up at the stars in the quiet, clear night sky, and reviewed all the details he had not included in his heroic story, a story he had told so often that it had become more fiction than fact. He had not destroyed Mackenzie’s print shop out of any exalted sense of righting a wrong. He didn’t give a damn about Robinson’s mother. Or that Mackenzie had called Lady Sarah Maitland, the former governor’s wife, a “titled strumpet”.
No. The inciting words had been those applied to him. “A murderer,” Mackenzie had written. And said of his father-in-law, Chief Justice Powell, that his hands had “caressed a murderer”. Everyone had read those words. He had heard them spat at him oustide taverns in King Street.
He wanted to forget that Mackenzie’s small son had come downstairs from his grandmother’s room above the shop to try to stop the destruction. That one of the plunderers had struck the boy. That the child had stood there, helplessly listening to their curses against his father. That throughout the ransacking of the print shop, they could hear the boy’s sobs and the screams of the old woman upstairs. He hated to think of that part of it. He had not dared to tell Mary everything.
And the financial loss he suffered had not been quite as large as Robinson had implied, for Sir Peregrine Maitland had authorized the collection of money to help defray the huge fine. And Maitland had even rewarded him with the title of Deputy Secretary of Upper Canada, a useless position, true, but one that brought in a steady income. He remembered, too, that Mackenzie in the pages of his rag had called this sinecure “newly invented”.
He realized that his wife had said something to him. “Sorry, my dear.” He turned to her.
“I asked your opinion of Mrs. Jameson.”
“Courageous, I thought. It’s