Knight de Lorimier:
Political legacy “I die without remorse.” |
Prison of Montreal
February 14, 1839
11 hours PM
Perhaps the public and my friends in particular await a sincere declaration of my feelings. At the fatal hour which must separate us from ground, the opinions are always looked at and received with more impartiality. The Christian man strips himself in this moment of the veil which darkened many of its actions to let itself see in full day.
The interest and passions expire with its heart. For my part, with the day before to return my spirit to his creator, I wish to make known what I feel and what I think. I would not take this party if I did not fear that one did not represent my feelings under a false day. It is known that dead does not speak it any more and the same reason of State which makes me expier on the scaffold my control political could forge tales on my subject well. I have time and the desire to warn such manufacture and I do it in a true and solemn way, at my last hour, not on the surrounded scaffold of an insatiable of blood and stupid crowd, but in the silence and the reflexions of the dungeon.
I die without remorse. I wished only the good of my country in the insurrection and independence. My sights and my actions were sincere and were sullied with no (of) crimes which dishonour humanity and which are not that too much common in the effervescence of unchained passions.
Since 17 to 18 years I took an active share in almost all popular measurements, and always with convictions and sincerities. My efforts were for the independence of my compatriots. We were unhappy so far. Death already decimated several of my collaborators. Many groans in irons, a greater number on the ground of the exile, with their destroyed properties and their families given up without resources with the one Canadian winter rigours. In spite of so much misfortune, my heart still maintains its courage and the hopes for the future. My friends and my children will be born better, they will be free. An unquestionable presentiment, my quiet conscience ensure it to me.
Here what fills me of joy when all is desolation and pain around me. The wounds of my country will be healed. After misfortunes of the anarchy of a bloody revolution, the peaceful Canadian will see reappearing happiness and freedom on the St. Lawrence. All contributes to this goal; executions even. Blood and the tears poured on the furnace bridge of freedom sprinkle today the roots of the tree which will make float the marked flag of two stars of Canadas.
I leave children who have as a heritage only the memory of my misfortunes. The orphan poor; it is you whom I lime pits. It is you whom the bloody and arbitrary hand of the martial law strikes by my death. You will not have known softnesses and the advantages of kissing your father at the days of joy, at the feastdays. When your reason enables you to reflect, you will see your father who expié on the gibet actions which immortalisé other happier men. The crime of your father is in the irréussite. If success had accompanied its attempts, one had honoured his actions with a sizeable mention. “The crime makes shame and not the scaffold.” Men of a merit higher than the mien already beat me the sad career which remains me to be run of the obscure prison to the gibet. The poor children! You will have nothing any more but one mother tender and sorry for support (and) if my death and my sacrifices reduce to you with indigence, ask some times on my behalf, I were not insensitive with misfortunes of misfortune.
As for you my compatriots! Can my execution and that of my companions of scaffold to be useful for you. Can they show you until you must wait of the English government. I do not have any more that a few hours to be lived, but I wanted to share this invaluable time between my religious duties and those with my compatriots. For them, I die on the gibet of the infamous death of the murderer, for them I separate from my young children, of my wife, without another support that my industry and for them I die by cleaning me: Live Freedom, Vive independence.
Knight de Lorimier
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Letter preserved in Quebec Public records. This letter is regarded as the political legacy of Knight de Lorimier.
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