The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
matrimony, and if he did so he was subject to fine and imprisonment. It
is said that Mr. Wilmot's father, William Wilmot, who was a member of
the Assembly, was refused admission to the House upon the ground that he
was in the habit of conducting religious services on the Sabbath day.
It at one time seemed not improbable that the subject of this sketch
would be subjected to a similar indignity. The latter was a Dissenter
from conviction. He had been awakened to an active sense of religion by
the ministrations of the Rev. Enoch Wood, now of Toronto, but then
pastor of the Methodist Church in Fredericton. No account of Mr.
Wilmot's life which does not take cognizance of the devotional side of
his character can give anything like an accurate estimate of the man.
Further reference to it will be made at a later stage. When he first
took his seat as a member of Parliament he felt that it was incumbent
upon him to contend, not only for his political freedom, but for his
rights as a member of a religious body which was practically proscribed.
The oligarchy, it is to be presumed, well knew that the end of their
reign was at hand, but they fought every inch of the ground with a
spirit and determination worthy of a better cause. There is no need to
go through the _minutiae_ of the struggle. Though differing as to local
details, the principles at stake in New Brunswick were precisely the
same as in Upper Canada and Nova Scotia, and readers of the sketches of
Robert Baldwin, Lord Metcalfe, and Joseph Howe, are sufficiently
informed as to how much was involved in those principles. Mr. Wilmot
soon became the acknowledged leader of the Reformers of his native
Province, and to his vigour, eloquence, and statesmanship the successful
establishment of Responsible Government there in 1848 is mainly due. In
this connection it would be unjust to omit a reference to the late Hon.
Charles Fisher, Mr. Wilmot's colleague in the representation of York
County, who for some years prior to his death in the month of December
last occupied a seat on the Bench of the Supreme Court of New Brunswick.
A sketch of Mr. Fisher's life will appear in due course in these pages,
but a casual reference to him in this place seems to be imperatively
called for. Throughout all the contest which resulted in the triumph of
Liberal principles, and in the establishment of Executive
Responsibility, Mr. Fisher seconded his leader, Mr. Wilmot, with a
loyalty and integrity which entitle him to a high place in the
Provincial annals. His learning and eloquence gave him great influence
in Parliament, and his name is associated with some of the most
important legislation in the colonial jurisprudence, as well as with the
cause of popular freedom. To Lemuel Allan Wilmot and Charles Fisher the
inhabitants of New Brunswick owe a heavy debt, and their names will
deservedly go down to posterity side by side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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