most patriotic and praiseworthy spirit. When the verdict had been
rendered, and when it had become manifest that the defendants must pay
the penalty of their acts, the Colonel regarded them as martyrs. He
promptly volunteered to canvass the town for subscriptions to a fund for
discharging the liability, and thus saving "the boys," as he called
them, from loss. He was as good as his word, and the requisite sum was
soon forthcoming. Who the contributors to this fund were has never been
fully revealed, and the secret is likely to be well kept, for the list
was burned by Colonel Fitz Gibbon immediately after it had served its
purpose, and there is probably no man now living who can throw any light
upon the subject. Mr. Lindsey observes[84] that "it is believed the
officials of the day were not backward in assisting to indemnify the
defendants in the type-riot trial, for the adverse verdict of an
impartial jury"--a belief which, under the circumstances, is certainly
not an extravagant one. It was commonly rumoured that several heads of
departments had contributed twenty pounds each to the fund, and Francis
Collins gave currency to the rumour through the columns of his paper.
The controversy to which this gave rise was the indirect means of
furnishing almost the only evidence now obtainable as to the signatures
to the subscription list. Collins asserted that Sir Peregrine Maitland's
own name was understood to be at the head of the list, opposite to a
large contribution. Colonel Fitz Gibbon was so indiscreet as to write a
reply, in which he distinctly declared that the latter's assertion was
wholly untrue, _so far as the Lieutenant-Governor was concerned_. From
this letter, which was duly given to the public in the _Freeman_, it was
not unfairly to be inferred that the assertion, so far as it related to
the heads of departments, could not be truthfully denied. That some, at
least, of the members of the official body contributed to the fund was
matter of notoriety in York at the time, and, so far as I am aware, has
never been denied. The Honourable James Baby, indeed, who was then or
shortly afterwards the senior member of the Executive Council, and who,
as before mentioned, was the father of two of the young men concerned in
the raid, contributed his share with great reluctance. He was at this
time advanced in life--he was in his sixty-fifth year--and he had ceased
to carry much weight in the Great Council of the Province, havi