“I told them,” (the men) says Mackenzie in his own account of his brief harangue, “that I was certain there could be no difficulty in taking Toronto, that both in town and country the people stood aloof from Sir Francis, that not one hundred men and boys could be got to defend him, that he was alarmed and had got his family on board a steamer, that six hundred Reformers were ready waiting to join us in the city, and that all we had to do was to be firm, and with the city would so at once go down every vestige of foreign government of Upper Canada.” “If your honour will but give us arms,” cried a voice from the ranks before Sir Francis, “sure the rebels will find the legs.” In the next hour both sides were to find they had their full complement of these useful limbs. “To fight and to be beaten,” says Dafoe, “is a casualty common to all soldiers.... But to run away at the sight of an enemy, and neither strike nor be stricken, this is the very shame of the profession.” About sundown the rebels, between seven and eight hundred strong, began their march, half of them armed with green cudgels, cut on the way, the riflemen in the van followed by two hundred of the pikemen. A score or so had old and rusty muskets and shot-guns. Most of them wore a white badge on the sleeve. Three abreast they went, Lount at their head, “Mackenzie here, there and everywhere.” They moved steadily and without mishap, taking prisoner some chance wayfarers and an officer of loyalist artillery, until the head of the column neared a garden, where Sheriff Jarvis and his picket of twenty-seven lay in wait for them. The sheriff gave the word to fire. This his men remained to do, then speedily stood not upon the order of their going, but went at once in haste, and ran into the city. The sheriff called to them to stop, but they were beyond his voice and control; whereupon he probably thought “I’ faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer,” and followed them.