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Updated: May 27, 2025
Bidwell and Perry suffered defeat in Lennox and Addington; Lount underwent a similar fate in Simcoe; and Mackenzie was signally worsted in the Second Riding of York by a man of no political standing.
Lount was a misled person, who, imbued with strong republican feelings, and forgetting the favours of the government he lived under, which had made him what he was, took up arms at Mackenzie's instigation, and thought he had a call a call to be a great general.
Powerful appeals were made to him on behalf of Lount and Matthews, but not even the tears and prayers of Lount's distracted wife could reach his heart. Such clemency as was shown by Lord Durham would have been a bright incident in Sir George Arthur's career in Canada, but he looked only to the approval of the Loyalists, deeply incensed against the rebels of 1837.
When Sir Francis Bond Head was very properly recalled from the province whose affairs he had so badly administered, he was succeeded by Sir George Arthur, who had been governor of Van Diemen's Land. Both Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews suffered death.
The names of these filibusters are forgotten, but those of Lount and Matthews, who perished on the scaffold, have been inscribed on some Canadian hearts as patriots. Sir George Arthur, who succeeded Sir Francis Head, was a soldier, who had had experience as a governor among the convicts of Van Diemen's Land, and the negro population of Honduras, where he had crushed a revolt of slaves.
By the common law of nations they were traitors; but they are still named and accounted 'patriots. At Toronto, Lount and Matthews, two of the rebel leaders of Upper Canada, were hanged in the jail-yard on April 12, 1839. A petition for mercy was set aside; Lount's wife on her knees begged the lieutenant-governor to spare her husband's life, but in vain.
Bidwell appears to have steadily kept aloof from the disloyal party, but Dr. Rolph was secretly in communication with Mackenzie, Lount, Matthews, Lloyd, Morrison, Duncombe, and other actors in the rebellion.
To this day the neighbourhood abounds with traditions of his noble unselfishness, and there are old men and women who, after the lapse of half a century, cannot speak of Samuel Lount without a dimness of vision and a huskiness of the voice.
He employed all the paraphernalia which he thought likely to impress the people, and banners bearing revolutionary inscriptions were freely displayed from the platform in neighbourhoods where such a course was deemed safe. Lount, Gibson, Nelson Gorham and others occasionally reinforced him by their presence and their oratory.
Mackenzie succeeded in escaping across the Niagara frontier, but Matthews was taken prisoner as he was leading a detachment across the Don into Toronto. Lount was identified at Chippewa while attempting to find his way to the United States and brought back to Toronto.
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