The Lives and Times of the Patriots
was first published in 1938, the centennial of the Upper Canadian Rebellion and the subsequent Patriot raids over the border from the United States. The Canadian part of the agitation for constitutional and social reform, long a subject of controversy and bitterness, is now generally considered to be, as Sir Wilfrid Laurier put it, a fight "for constitutional rights, not against the British Crown"; but very little in the American movement, allegedly in sympathy, can be justified, its aims and conduct being no better than—and often interior to—the Fenian Raids of some thirty years later. The story of the events and their consequences is unfolded from a wide coverage of source materials, and described from both Tory and Reform, Loyalist and Patriot point of view. Exciting trails and escapes from jails and forts follow one another in quick succession, and the lives and experiences of participants are traced around the world to the prison colony of Van Diemen's Land and home again, as diaries, letters, and narratives tell their story, supplemented and verified by official documents, contemporary newspapers, obituary notices, and tombstone inscriptions. Rare illustrations complement this careful account of what must be taken to be, with all its deficiencies, a notable episode in the history of human freedom.