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April 12. 1838, Messrs. LOUNT and MATTHEWS, two of the bravest of the Canada patriots, were executed this day, by order of Sir George Arthur, and at the urgent request of Chief Justice Robinson; Hagerman the Attorney General; and Sullivan, Baldwin, Elmsley, Allan and Draper, the Executive Council. Petitions to Arthur, signed by upwards of 30,000 persons were presented, asking him to spare their lives, but in vain. Capt. Matthews left a widow and fifteen children, and Colonel Lount a widow and seven children. He was upwards of six feet in height, very good looking, and in his 47th year. Arthur was earnest to know of Lount who the leaders were, but, except that he told him that Dr. Rolph was the Executive, he answered him not a word. They behaved with great resolution at the gallows; they would not have spoken to the people, had they desire it. The spectacle of Lount after the execution was the most shocking sight that can be imagined. He was covered over with his blood; the head being nearly severed from his body, owing to the depth of the fall. More horrible to relate, when he was cut down, two ruffians seized the end of the rope and dragged the mangled corpse along the ground into the jail yard, some one exclaiming "this is the way every d___d rebel deserves to be used". Their families impoverished... Mr. Lount's wife was, for two months prevented from even seeing her husband, by the monster Head. When she was allowed to enter his dungeon (his son writes, that) "his eyes were settled in their sockets, his face pale as paper, he was worn down to the form of a living skeleton, and bound in heavy chains..."["The Arthurs Papers. Being the Papers Mainly Confidential, Private, and Demi-Official of Sir George Arthur, K. C. H., Last Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada in the Manuscript Collection of the Toronto Public Libraries", Ed. by Charles R. Sanderson. Toronto Public Libraries and University of Toronto Press, 1943,1947.]
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