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popular indigation to the point that Stewart experienced no difficulty in securing the signatures of forty prominent persons to a petition directed to John MacGregor, High Sheriff of Prince Edward Island, asking him to call a public meeting to consider the Governor’s high—handed behaviour. The address speaks of the present “very ‘alarming’ and ‘distressing’ state of the Island, threatened at this time with proceedings on the part of the Acting Receiver-General of Quit Rents, the immediate effect whereof cannot fail to involve a great part of the community in absolute ‘ruin’.” Smith secured a copy of the document, and his interlineations are worth noting: “Alarm — none exists but of Mr. Stewart’s exciting; distress — none exists but of Mr. Stewart’s creating. .; ruin — a couple of dozen eggs or two bushels of potatoes will pay the Quit Rents for 100 acres.”

Belittle the petition as he might, Smith saw fit to dismiss Mac- Gregor for authorizing three meetings, one in each county. Since no building in Charlottetown was large enough to accommodate the approx- imately 800 people who attended the Queen’s County meeting, it was held in Queen’s Square. A series of resolutions, covering “upwards of thirty pages of foolscap paper” was moved by Stewart and seconded by MacDonald. Highly critical of the Smith administration, these had been framed during the winter at numerous meetings held at an inn in Char- lottetown. John Stewart had presided over the meetings. Regarding the Queen’s Square gathering, an eye-witness described it as “quiet” and “orderly,” with not a man that day being “seen in liquor.” The same observer reported that “the only instance of misbehaviour was in two of Governor Smith’s sons, Henry and Sidney, who, I am told, conducted them- selves in a very provoking manner.” Nor was it the first occasion when Henry Smith was noted as a disturber of meetings. On Dec. 9, 1818, he smashed a window of the Assembly Room while the House was in session. Upon being questioned he said he “up with his fist and slashed it through the window,” assigning no reason for his conduct. As for the resolutions, an unknown chronicler reported that it was intended to raise about £500. to send Stewart to England to lay them in the form of a petition at the foot of the throne. Stewart was to “employ every assistance legal or otherwise to effect the removal of Governor Smith.”

Smith, of course, was not prepared to stand idly by and await the consummation of his own ruin. On the pretext that some of the charges in the resolutions were libelous, he moved to apprehend Stewart; his real object, of course, being to prevent him from going to England with the petition. On the evening of October 14, 1823, the Lieutenant Governor’s agent, John Stowe, sought for Stewart at the home of Mr. Sims where Stewart lodged while in town. Meeting with no success there, he next proceeded to the home of John MacGregor, but, upon attempting to effect an entry he was forcibly pushed from the door. He later claimed that he “plainly heard Mr. Stewart’s voice, conversing in the house, he being well acquainted with Mr. Stewart’s voice, which is very remarkable.” Stowe’s later attempts to lay his hands on Stewart, including a trip to Mount Stewart for the purpose, were equally futile. In the meantime Stewart had effected his escape, having been shipped from the Island, according to tradition, in a cask, as produce.

On Oct. 21, 1824, John Stewart, his popularity at its height, re- turned to Charlottetown, accompanied by Colonel John Ready, the new Lieutenant Governor. Thoroughly beaten, Smith had no recourse but to deliver over the administration of the Government and leave the Island.

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