Epilogue: The Protagonists' Fate

• Author: Craig Forcese
• Pages: 251-262

251

Epilogue

The Protagonis’ Fate

As a naval ocer, drawing near to the close of a long life spent, as I tru,

not without credit in the service of my country, I address your Lordship in

the conf‌ident hope of obtaining a candid and favourable consideration of a

claim . . . That claim is one for indemnity again losses brought upon me by

the performance of a dicult and important duty.

— rear adMiral andrew drew to visCount PalMerston, PriMe Minister of

Great Britain (3 noveMBer 1863)1

T   north of Buf‌falo, New York, on the Canadian

side of the Niagara River, a plaque marks the spot where

William Lyon Mackenzie f‌led Upper Canada in December

1837, to renew his insurgency among his American supporters. That

brief memorial reveals nothing of his fate, or the consequences of

his actions.

After his occupation of Navy Island failed in January 1838, Mack-

enzie opposed further invasion attempts by the insurgents and their

“Patriot” supporters, seeing them as disorganized ventures that simply

drove persecution of reformers in Upper Canada. His inf‌luence while

in exile in New York State soon waned. In 1839, a US court convicted

him of violating the US neutrality law. Beset with f‌inancial dicul-

ties and in ill health, he was pardoned in less than a year after Presi-

dent Martin Van Buren responded to domestic political pressure.2

Mackenzie then worked as an itinerant journalist in New York State.

Among his publications was The Caroline Almanac — described by

the Canadian Newspaper Directory in 1892 as “a curious publication

altogether. On the cover was a picture of the steamer Caroline as she

was going over Niagara Falls, and in the foreground was a prostrate