[coYNE] THE TALBOT PAPERS 51 
XXX.—TaALBoT’s PoLiITICAL MEETING at Str. THOMAS, 1832. 
From the considerable volume of papers preserved by Colonel 
Talbot, relating to the great political meeting at St. Thomas on St. 
George’s day in 1832, it would appear that he regarded his success on 
this occasion as the crowning triumph of his career. A brief reference 
to the meeting and the Colonel’s speech, the only political address he 
is known to have delivered, will therefore not be out of place. 
The accession to power of a Reform Government in England and 
the passage by the British Government of the Reform Bill, greatly 
extending the franchise and wiping out many “ rotten boroughs,” gave 
the Liberals in Upper Canada grounds for hoping for a change in the 
system of administration here. Anxious for the overthrow of the 
Family Compact and for urgently desired reforms, responsible govern- 
ment being as yet hardly dreamed of, they began to hold caucuses and 
public meetings for the formation of what were called political unions, 
and to petition for the recall of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Col- 
borne, a well meaning military officer of high character, who was believed 
to have placed himself entirely in the hands of the Family Compact. 
The Liberals included almost all Methodists, Baptists and Scotch- 
men, and a very large proportion of the immigrants from the States. 
They represented an overwhelming majority of the electorate. But the 
Family Compact, occupying all the places in the Provincial Government, 
Legislative Council and all official positions great and small throughout 
the province, went on serenely vetoing bills passed by the assembly for 
furthering the development of the Province, punishing the popular 
leader with repeated expulsion from the Legislature, to which he was 
repeatedly re-elected, and contemptuously disobeying explicit instructions 
of the home government to put themselves in touch with popular senti- 
ment, until the crash came in the rebellion of 1837. Then followed 
Lord Durham’s famous report, the introduction of responsible govern- 
ment, and the downfall of the Compact. 
In the spring of 1832 the spirit of reform was in the air. The 
temperance question began to loom up large, and was favourably consid- 
ered by religious bodies. Temperance societies were formed. Their 
members were to a considerable extent, and in some places exclusively, 
Liberals. The rigid conservatism of the day regarded with suspicion 
all innovation of whatever character it might be. 
Colonel Talbot snuffed rebellion in the air, and made up his mind 
to put down the movement at once as far as the Talbot Settlement was 
concerned. Fly leaves were distributed as follows: 
