The Stewarts and their allies did not, however, choose to fight the election on the confiscation issue. Instead, they hit upon a tax which Patterson proposed to levy, as being more likely to rally popular support for their candidates. Patterson and his Council had indeed decided to impose a tax, but the matter was still secret, and the commodities to be taxed had not as yet been selected. These circumstances, Patterson claimed, did not deter the Chief Justice , a Council member, from making the secret public. And so, in Patterson's words, John Stewart , "a very intemperate young man, so far eluded my vigilance, as to travel through the country unknown to me, and by every artifice in his power infused into the people's minds the dread of a general tax." In order, however, to account fully for the frenzy with which the youthful Stewart advanced the interests of his "Country Party" during the election, it is necessary to probe deeply into the family's personal affairs. This is how the Chief Justice explained the situation to Lord Sydney : "From the commencement of our acquaintance Gov. Patterson made numberless professions of friendship for me, and I then thought them sincere. While I was confined fall before last with an obstinate acute rheumatism in much danger and distress he attended me constantly and prescribed and administered a multiplicity of medicines, there being no surgeon or physician settled on the Island, and while I attributed his ap¬ parent anxiety to disinterested friendship, was he using his utmost efforts to seduce my wife with whom I had always lived in the most cordial affection. At last, when my life was much despaired of, he succeeded, of which there is the clearest proof possible in my possession. Sometime after ... he sent the unhappy deluded woman and one of our sons from the Island. He not only conducted them from this place in daylight on the 6th of August last, but carried the boy behind him on his own horse to the north coast where he had a schooner prepared for their reception and shipped them off for Canada where they still remain...." Spurred on, therefore, by a variety of motives, the Stewarts pro¬ secuted the election with such vigor that upwards of two-thirds of the members returned were of the Country Party. When the Assembly met on March 6th, John Stewart was chosen speaker. This first taste of office was, however, brief, as Patterson lost no time in dissolving the House and calling another election, which, with the help of an influx of Loyalist voters, he won. His triumph was equally brief, as the powerful proprietory interest was at length able to effect his dismissal in 1787. As for Sarah Hamilton Stewart , suffice it to say that she and her husband were even¬ tually reconciled and that she cared for him during his last illness. In 1808, the House of Assembly unanimously voted her a pension of £20-0-0 per annum. She died in July, 1829, aged 82 years and was buried in St. Andrew's Cemetery, Mount Stewart . Her monument bears a Latin inscrip¬ tion, which, according to Rev. Terence Campbell , a one-time pastor of St. Andrew's, could best be summed up with the words, "She lived a hectic life!" Before Patterson departed for England, he had the satisfaction of seeing his enemy discomfited over the affair of the mutilation of the jour¬ nals. When the Patterson supporters were returned to power in 1785, it was reported that the journals of the last session of the House of Assem¬ bly and many public papers were in the possession of John Stewart , the —14—