Jeremy Kane

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

The Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 has had little impact on our popular
culture, notwithstanding the release of the 1985 theatrical film Samuel
Lount. The award-winning military historian and novelist Sidney Allinson
tries to rectify this situation with this historical drama about a
former Toronto law clerk who is exiled to Australia as a punishment for
having joined William Lyon Mackenzie’s revolt.

Allinson has thoroughly researched his topic, using historical accounts
and contemporary narratives. His efforts are reflected in his clever
observations of life in 1837 Toronto. The title character notes that
from “his father’s cottage ... on The Esplanade,” he was once
“able to shoot duck ... from his own front garden.” Today, of
course, The Esplanade is a thoroughly urbanized older downtown street.

Such efforts also highlight errors. In one scene, tanner Tobias Mosely
chides a group of boys for singing a ribald version of “Yankee
Doodle,” shouting “Don’t you be singing that trash tune here!”
Did 19th-century colonials actually use expressions associated with
contemporary one-dimensional black characters?

Melodrama occasionally overshadows drama. Alice Van Wyck, Kane’s
underage sweetheart, tries to have his life spared by offering herself
to D’Arcy Renard, the slimy colonial attorney general. The callous
brute and the historical author both exploit the situation in a
(penny-)dreadful manner. Surprise—Van Wyck learns that the villain has
countersigned the royal commutation order.

Allinson eloquently condemns imperial British justice, attacking the
practice of exiling minor offenders to Australian penal colonies. The
redheaded convict who heckles a minister turns out to be an “innocent
servant [from] Cumberland” whose superior frames her for theft after
she rebuffs his advances.

In any case, Kane’s North American and Australian adventures give the
story an epic sweep that will maintain reader interest.