Hall Jackson Kelley 185
due to the desire of the Hudson's Bay company to persecute him. He concluded the preface with the following paragraph, with its naive prediction of the millennial dawn certain to follow from an awakened public confidence in him :
"When the nefarious plans and plottings and murderous pur- pose of the conspiracy at Three Rivers — one as diabolical as was ever known in Christendom — conspiracy, I say ; diabolical, with emphasis I repeat, have been described, and the public understand about them, then will persecutions cease, and the deep-rooted prejudices on the minds of men will be removed, public confidence in my statements and character be restored, my household and my kindred so long gone from me, will return, and all, I trust, will treat me with respect and visit me in my 'afflictions'."
The nature of these aflFlictions is set forth in detail in all of these pamphlets. The selections that follow will serve as illus- trations. They do not make pleasant reading, but they are es- sential to an understanding of the man and his environment.
"Causes and effects alternately changing are traceable from the widely separated places, London, Vancouver and Boston, to the little village of Three Rivers ; even to my humble and lonely cottage ....
"The Appendix shows how cruelly certain persons in the neighborhood of my desolated residence — hirelings under the powerful men above described, have used me. It particularizes many ways by which I have been made to suffer, but not all. Within the last twelve years, they have dragged me into fifteen lawsuits; and brought great pecuniary embarrassments upon me. In a single transaction* I have been defrauded of $1,500, of property and caused a further loss of more than $1,000, — partly expenses incurred in a suit of nine years' pending."^®
- *'A contract was made in 1842, with three certain men to cut from my
forest wood and timber sufficient to pay a debt of $1,500, which they bad assumed. B7 the last of i843f they had cut enough to pay the debt, and $1,500 more. As they refused to settle or to account for any considerable part of the property; an action in Chancery, in i845> wis brouf^ht against them, a hearing was had in 1853; and an award rendered for the plaintiff. Exceptions were taken by the defendants. This is the state of the case, March, 1854.
19 Narrwog of Events and DifficulfUs, Preface, 2-3. See also pp. 78-9.
