146

140.

Kelly the Sympathizer.

Another of these outlaws Kelly by name, alias
Berth alias Millis an Irishman by birth who left
his native country at a very early period sometimes
canadian sometime yankee, possessing all the idle
habits of a border smuggler. At the breaking out of
the rebellion in 1837 bands of such men associated
themselves together, took advantage of the times invaded
Canada, where they indulged in the most
cruel hostility and robbery towards the peaceable
unoffending inhabitants, with a malevolence
and complete disregard to all the ties of that moral
feeling, and a bitter contempt for those institutions which
bind mankind and civilized nations together

It was amongst the labyrinth of the thousand
Islands that this brigand associated himself
with the notorious Bill Johnson, a sketch of whose
(life) character has been given in the preceeding chapter
where they contrived and concerted their schemes
of plunder and divided the spoil of their nocturnal
robberies concealed and protected by the mazy intricacies
of these woody isles. The lawless and outrageous
conduct of these reckless men knew no bounds
encouraged and excited by the disaffected they rose the Standard
of independence proclaimed liberty and freedom in
Canada where they were upheld by the rebels as patriots,
whilst on the American border they were lauded as
sympathizing brethren ready to shed the last
drop of their blood in the