Well, it is one of the proudest boasts I can make to-day to be able to say that I had an uncle who was in jail.

But, ladies and gentlemen, my uncle went to jail to vindicate the rights of public assembly." (Mackie.)] Serious trouble was feared, for the populace threatened to rescue him, and, as we learned afterwards, he had been induced by the provost of the town to step forward to a window overlooking the High Street and beg the people to retire.

This he did, saying: "If there be a friend of the good cause here to-night, let him fold his arms." They did so.
And then, after a pause, he said, "Now depart in peace!"[7] My uncle, like all our family, was a moral-force man and strong for obedience to law, but radical to the core and an intense admirer of the American Republic.
[Footnote 7: "The Crown agents wisely let the proceedings lapse....
Mr.Morrison was given a gratifying assurance of the appreciation of his fellow citizens by his election to the Council and his elevation to the Magisterial Bench, followed shortly after by his appointment to the office of Burgh Chamberlain.

The patriotic reformer whom the criminal authorities endeavored to convict as a law-breaker became by the choice of his fellow citizens a Magistrate, and was further given a certificate for trustworthiness and integrity." (Mackie.)] One may imagine when all this was going on in public how bitter were the words that passed from one to the other in private.

The denunciations of monarchical and aristocratic government, of privilege in all its forms, the grandeur of the republican system, the superiority of America, a land peopled by our own race, a home for freemen in which every citizen's privilege was every man's right--these were the exciting themes upon which I was nurtured.