Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of OntarioScadding, Henry
History
Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario
Scadding, Henry
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
The _Weekly Register_ fell foul of the _Advocate_ at once. It appears
that the new audacious nondescript periodical, though at the time it
bore on its face the name of Queenston, was nevertheless for convenience
sake printed at Lewiston on the New York side of the river. Hence it was
denounced by the _Weekly Register_ in language that now astonishes us,
as a United States production; and as in the United States interest.
"This paper of motley, unconnected, shake-bag periods" cried the Editor
of the _Weekly Register_, "this unblushing, brazen-faced _Advocate_,
affects to be a Queenston and Upper Canadian paper; whereas it is to all
intents and purposes, and radically, a Lewiston and genu-wine Yankee
paper. How can this man of truth, this pure and holy reformer and
regenerator of the unhappy and prostrate Canada reconcile such barefaced
and impudent deception?"
Nothing could more promote the success of the _Colonial Advocate_ than a
welcome like this. To account for the _Register's_ extraordinary warmth,
it is to be said that the _Advocate_ in its first number had happened to
quote a passage from an address of its Editor to the electors of the
County of Durham, which seemed in some degree to compromise him as a
servant of the Government. Mr. Fothergill had ventured to say "I know
some of the deep and latent causes why this fine country has so long
languished in a state of comparative stupor and inactivity, while our
more enterprising neighbours are laughing us to scorn. All I desire is
an opportunity of attempting the cure of some of the evils we labour
under." This was interpreted in the _Advocate_ to mean a censure upon
the Executive. But the _Register_ replied that these words simply
expressed the belief that the evils complained of were remediable only
by the action of the House of Assembly, on the well-known axiom "that
all law is for the people, and from the people; and when efficient, must
be remedied or rectified by the people; and that therefore Mr.
Fothergill was desirous of assisting in the great work."
The end in fact was that the Editor of the _Register_, after his return
to parliament for the County of Durham, did not long retain the post of
King's Printer. After several independent votes in the House he was
dismissed by Sir Peregrine Maitland in 1826, after which date the
awkwardness of uniting with a Government Gazette a general newspaper
whose editor, as a member of the House of Assembly, might claim the
privilege of acting with His Majesty's opposition, came to an end. In
1826 we have Mr. Fothergill in his place in the House supporting a
motion for remuneration to the publisher of the _Advocate_, on the
ground that the wide and even gratuitous circulation of that paper
throughout Canada and among members of the British House of Commons,
"would help to draw attention in the proper quarter to the country."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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