I struggled on through the session amid a hurricane of calumny and malicious opposition. The Queen's Printers, the former French contractor, and, above all, the principal defeated competitor in Toronto, joined their forces to destroy my credit, to entice away my workmen, to disseminate but too successfully the falsehood, that my contract was taken at unprofitable rates, until I was fairly driven to my wits' end, and ultimately forced into actual insolvency. The cashier of the Upper Canada Bank told me very kindly, that everybody in the Houses and the Bank knew my honesty and energy, but the combination against me was too strong, and it was useless for me to resist it, unless my Toronto friends would come to my assistance.
I was not easily dismayed by opposition, and determined at least to send a Parthian shaft into my enemies' camp. The session being over, I hastened to Toronto, called my creditors together at the office of Messrs Cameron & Harman, and laid my position before them. All I could command in the way of valuable assets was invested in the business of the contract. I had besides, in the shape of nominal assets, over a hundred thousand dollars in newspaper debts scattered over Upper Canada, which I was obliged to report as utterly uncollectable, being mainly due by farmers who--as was generally done throughout Ontario in 1857--had made over their farms to their sons or other parties, to evade payment of their own debts. All my creditors were old personal friends, and so thoroughly satisfied were they of the good faith of the statements submitted by me, that they unanimously decided to appoint no assignee, and to accept the offer I made them to conduct the contract for their benefit, on their providing the necessary sinews of war, which they undertook to do in three days.
What was my disappointment and chagrin to find, at the end of that term, that the impression which had been so industriously disseminated in Quebec, that my contract prices were impracticably low, had reached and influenced my Toronto friends, and that it was thought wisest to abandon the undertaking. I refused to do so.
Among my employees in the office were four young men, of excellent abilities, who had grown into experience under my charge, and had, by marriage and economy, acquired means of their own, and could besides command the support of monied relatives. These young men I took into my counsels. At the bailiff's sale of my office which followed, they bought in such materials as they thought sufficient for the contract work, and in less than a month we had the whole office complete again, and with the sanction of the Hon. the Speaker, got the contract work once more into shape. The members of the new firm were Samuel Thompson, Robert Hunter, George M. Rose, John Moore, and François Lemieux.