d to which I
feel little or no attachment whatever. When the heart is sick, the
whole body is faint.

Dr. Ryerson (in the _Guardian_ of 22nd January, 1840) thus referred to
Mr. Dunn as one of the speakers in the Legislative Council on the
popular side of the clergy reserve question:--

I was glad to hear Mr. Dunn speak so well and so
forcibly,--universally and affectionately esteemed as he is beyond
any other public functionary in Upper Canada.

* * * * *

Some months after the exile of Mr. Bidwell, Mr. James S. Howard was
dismissed by Sir F. B. Head from the office of Postmaster of Toronto.
The alleged ground of dismissal was that he was a Radical, and had not
taken up arms in defence of the country. Dr. Ryerson, with his usual
generous sympathy for persons who in those days were made the victims of
Governor Head's caprice, at once espoused Mr. Howard's cause. In his
first letter in the Defence of Sir Charles Metcalfe, he said:--

After the insurrection of 1837-8, unfavourable impressions were
made far and wide against the late Postmaster of Toronto, and Mr.
Bidwell. But subsequent investigations corrected these impressions.
The former has been appointed to office, and Sir F. B. Head's
proceedings against the latter have been cancelled by Sir Charles
Metcalfe. (Page 16.)

Again, in the "Prefatory Address" to the Metcalfe Defence, he said:--

While God gives me a heart to feel, a head to think, and a pen to
write, I will not passively see honourable integrity murdered by
grasping faction.... I would not do so in 1838, when an attempt was
made to degrade and proscribe, and drive out of the country all
naturalized subjects from the United States, and to stigmatize all
Reformers with the brand of rebellion.... I relieved the name of an
injured James S. Howard from the obloquy that hung over it, and
rescued the character and rights of an exiled Bidwell from ruthless
invasion, and the still further effort to cover him with perpetual
infamy by expelling him from the Law Society. (Page 7.)

FOOTNOTES:

[61] According to the books of the Law Society, Mr. Bidwell commenced
his legal studies in Kingston, the 14th March, 1816, in the office of
Mr. Daniel Washburn, and completed them in the office of Mr. Daniel
Hagerman, of Ernestown. He was admitted as a barrister-at-law in April,
1821.