XX.

QUEEN STREET, FROM GEORGE STREET TO YONGE STREET.--MEMORIES OF THE OLD COURT HOUSE.

When we pass George Street we are in front of the park-lot originally selected by Mr. Secretary Jarvis. It is now divided from south to north by Jarvis street, a thoroughfare opened up through the property in the time of Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, the Secretary's son. Among the pleasant villas that now line this street on both sides, there is one which still is the home of a Jarvis, the Sheriff of the County.

Besides filling the conspicuous post indicated by his title, Mr. Secretary Jarvis was also the first Grand Master of the Masons in Upper Canada. The archives of the first Masonic Lodges of York possess much interest. Through the permission of Mr. Alfio de Grassi who has now the custody of them, we are enabled to give the following extracts from a letter of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, bearing the early date of March 28th, 1792:--"I am in possession of my sign manual from his Majesty," Mr. Jarvis writes on the day just named, from Pimlico, to his relative Munson Jarvis, at St. John, New Brunswick, "constituting me Secretary and Registrar of the Province of Upper Canada, with power of appointing my Deputies, and in every other respect a very full warrant. I am also" he continues, "very much flattered to be enabled to inform you that the Grand Lodge of England have within these very few days appointed Prince Edward, who is now in Canada, Grand Master of Ancient Masons in Lower Canada; and William Jarvis, Secretary and Registrar of Upper Canada, Grand Master of Ancient Masons in that Province. However trivial it may appear to you who are not a Mason, yet I assure you that it is one of the most honourable appointments that they could have conferred. The Duke of Athol is the Grand Master of Ancient Masons in England. Lord Dorchester with his private Secretary, and the Secretary of the Province, called on us yesterday," Mr. Jarvis proceeds to say, "and found us in the utmost confusion, with half a dozen porters in the house packing up. However his Lordship would come in, and sat down in a small room which was reserved from the general bustle. He then took Mr. Peters home with him to dine: hence we conclude a favourable omen in regard to his consecration, which we hope is not far distant. Mrs. Jarvis," the Secretary informs his relative, "leaves England in great spirits. I am ordered my passage on board the transport with the Regiment, and to do duty without pay for the passage only. This letter," he adds, "gets to Halifax by favour of an intimate friend of Mr. Peters, Governor Wentworth, who goes out to take possession of his Government. The ship that I am allotted to is the _Henneker_, Captain Winter, a transport with the Queen's Rangers on board."

The Prince Edward spoken of was afterwards Duke of Kent and father of the present Queen. Lord Dorchester was the Governor-General of the Province of Quebec before its division into Upper and Lower Canada. Mr. Peters was _in posse_ the Bishop of the new Province about to be organized. It was a part of the original scheme, as shewn by the papers of the first Governor of Upper Canada, that there should be an episcopal see in Upper Canada, as there already was at Quebec in the lower province. But this was not carried into effect until 1839, nearly half a century later.

When Jarvis Street was opened up through the Secretary's park-lot, the family residence of his son Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, a handsome structure of the early brick era of York, in the line of the proposed thoroughfare, was taken down. Its interior fittings of solid black walnut were bought by Captain Carthew and transferred by him without much alteration to a house which he put up on part of the Deer-park property on Yonge Street.

A large fragment of the offices attached to Mr. Jarvis's house was utilized and absorbed in a private residence on the west side of Jarvis Street, and the gravel drive to the door is yet to be traced in the less luxuriant vegetation of certain portions of the adjoining flower gardens. Mr. Secretary Jarvis died in 1818. He is described by those who remember him, as possessing a handsome, portly presence. Col. Jarvis, the first military commandant in Manitoba, is a grandson of the Secretary.

Of Mr. McGill, first owner of the next park-lot, and of his personal aspect, we have had occasion to speak in connection with the interior of St. James' Church. Situated in fields at the southern extremity of a stretch of forest, the comfortable and pleasantly-situated residence erected by him for many years seemed a place of abode quite remote from the town. It was still to be seen in 1870 in the heart of McGill Square, and was long occupied by Mr. McCutcheon, a brother of the inheritor of the bulk of Mr. McGill's property, who in accordance with his uncle's will, and by authority of an Act of Parliament, assumed the name of McGill, and became subsequently well known throughout Canada as the Hon. Peter McGill.

(The founder of McGill College in Montreal was of a different family. The late Capt. James McGill Strachan derived his name from the marriage-connection of his father with the latter.)

In the _Gazette and Oracle_ of Nov. 13th, 1803, we observe Mr. McGill, of York, advertising as "agent for purchases" for pork and beef to be supplied to the troops stationed "at Kingston, York, Fort George, Fort Chippewa, Fort Erie, and Amherstburg." In 1818 he is Receiver-General, and Auditor-General of land patents. He had formerly been an officer in the Queen's Rangers, and his name repeatedly occurs in "Simcoe's History" of the operations of that corps during the war of the American Revolution.

From that work we learn that in 1779 he, with the commander himself of the corps, then Lieut.-Col. Simcoe, fell into the hands of the revolutionary authorities, and was treated with great harshness in the common jail of Burlington, New Jersey; and when a plan was devised for the Colonel's escape, Mr. McGill volunteered, in order to further its success, to personate his commanding officer in bed, and to take the consequences, while the latter was to make his way out.

The whole project was frustrated by the breaking of a false key in the lock of a door which would have admitted the confined soldiers to a room where "carbines and ammunition" were stored away. Lieut.-Col. Simcoe, it is added in the history just named, afterwards offered Mr. McGill an annuity, or to make him Quartermaster of Cavalry; the latter, we are told, he accepted of, as his grandfather had been an officer in King William's army; and "no man," Col. Simcoe himself notes, "ever executed the office with greater integrity, courage and conduct."

The southern portion of Mr. McGill's park-lot has, in the course of modern events, come to be assigned to religious uses. McGill Square, which contained the old homestead and its surroundings, and which was at one period intended, as its name indicates, to be an open public square, was secured in 1870 by the Wesleyan Methodist body and made the site of its principal place of worship and of various establishments connected therewith.

Immediately north, on the same property, the Roman Catholics had previously built their principal place of worship and numerous appurtenances, attracted possibly to the spot by the expectation that McGill Square would continue for ever an open ornamental piece of ground.

A little farther to the north a cross-street, leading from Yonge Street eastward, bears the name of McGill. An intervening cross-street preserves the name of Mr. Crookshank, who was Mr. McGill's brother-in-law.

The name that appears on the original survey of York and its suburbs as first occupant of the park-lot westward of Mr. McGill's, is that of Mr. George Playter. This is the Captain Playter, senior, of whom we have already spoken in our excursion up the valley of the Don. We have named him also among the forms of a past age whom we ourselves remember often seeing in the congregation assembled of old in the wooden St. James'.

Mr. Playter was an Englishman by birth, but had passed many of his early years in Philadelphia, where for a time he attached himself to the Society of Friends, having selected as a wife a member of that body. But on the breaking out of the troubles that led to the independence of the United States, his patriotic attachment to old far-off England compelled him, in spite of the peaceful theories of the denomination to which he had united himself, promptly to join the Royalist forces.

He used to give a somewhat humorous account of his sudden return to the military creed of ordinary mundane men. "Lie there, Quaker!" cried he to his cutaway, buttonless, formal coat, as he stripped it off and flung it down, for the purpose of donning the soldier's habiliments. But some of the Quaker observances were never relinquished in his family. We well remember, in the old homestead on the Don, and afterwards at his residence on Caroline Street, a silent mental thanksgiving before meals, that always took place after every one had taken his seat at the table; a brief pause was made, and all bent for a moment slightly forwards. The act was solemn and impressive.

Old Mr. Playter was a man of sprightly and humorous temperament, and his society was accordingly much enjoyed by those who knew him. A precise attention to his dress and person rendered him an excellent type in which to study the costume and style of the ordinary unofficial citizen of a past generation. Colonel M. F. Whitehead, of Port Hope, in a letter kindly expressive of his interest in these reminiscences of York, incidentally furnished a little sketch that will not be out of place here. "My visits to York, after I was articled to Mr. Ward, in 1819," Colonel Whitehead says, "were frequent. I usually lodged at old Mr. Playter's, Mrs. Ward's father. [This was when he was still living at the homestead on the Don.] The old gentleman often walked into town with me, by Castle Frank; his three-cornered hat, silver knee-buckles, broad-toed shoes and large buckles, were always carefully arranged."--To the equipments, so well described by Colonel Whitehead, we add from our own boyish recollection of Sunday sights, white stockings and a gold-headed cane of a length unusual now.

According to a common custom prevalent at an early time, Mr. Playter set apart on his estate on the Don a family burial-plot, where his own remains and those of several members of his family and their descendants were deposited. Mr. George Playter, son of Captain George Playter, was some time Deputy Sheriff of the Home District; and Mr. Eli Playter, another son, represented for some sessions in the Provincial Parliament the North Riding of York. A daughter, who died unmarried in 1832, Miss Hannah Playter, "Aunt Hannah," as she was styled in the family, is pleasantly remembered as well for the genuine kindness of her character, as also for the persistency with which, like her father, she carried forward into a new and changed generation, and retained to the last, the costume and manners of the reign of King George the Third.

Immediately in front of the extreme westerly portion of the park lot which we are now passing, and on the south side of the present Queen Street in that direction, was situated an early Court House of York, associated in the memories of most of the early people with their first acquaintance with forensic pleadings and law proceedings.

This building was a notable object in its day. In an old plan of the town we observe it conspicuously delineated in the locality mentioned--the _other_ public buildings of the place, viz., the Commissariat Stores, the Government House, the Council Chamber (at the present north-west corner of York and Wellington Streets), the District School, St. James's Church, and the Parliament House (by the Little Don), being marked in the same distinguished manner. It was a plain two-storey frame building, erected in the first instance as an ordinary place of abode by Mr. Montgomery, father of the Montgomerys, once of the neighbourhood of Eglinton, on Yonge Street. It stood in a space defined by the present line of Yonge Street on the west, by nearly the present line of Victoria Street on the east, by Queen Street on the north and by Richmond Street on the south. Though situated nearer Queen Street than Richmond Street, it faced the latter, and was approached from the latter.--It was Mr. Montgomery who obtained by legal process the opening of Queen Street in the rear of his property. In consequence of the ravine of which we have had occasion so often to speak, the allowance for this street as laid down in the first plans of York had been closed up by authority from Yonge Street to Caroline Street.

It was seriously proposed in 1800 to close up Queen Street to the westward also from Yonge Street "so far as the Common," that is, the Garrison Reserve, on the ground that such street was wholly unnecessary, there being in that direction already one highway into the town, namely, Richmond Street, situated only ten rods to the south. In 1800 the southern termination of Yonge Street was where we are now passing, at the corner of Montgomery's lot. At this point the farmers' waggons from the north turned off to the eastward, proceeding as far as Toronto Street, down which they wended their way to Richmond Street, and so on to Church Street and King Street, finally reaching the Market Place.

Of the opening of Yonge Street through a range of building lots which in 1800 blocked the way from Queen Street southwards, we shall speak hereafter in the excursion which we propose to make through Yonge Street from south to north, the moment we have finished recording our collections and recollections in relation to Queen Street.

_Memories of the Old Court House._

In the old Court House, situated as we have described, we received our first boyish impressions of the solemnities and forms observed in Courts of Law. In paying a visit of curiosity subsequently to the singular series of Law Courts which are to be found ranged along one side of Westminster Hall in London--each one of them in succession entered through the heavy folds of lofty mysterious-looking curtains, each one of them crowded with earnest pleaders and anxious suitors, each one of them provided with a judge elevated in solitary majesty on high, each one of them seeming to the passing stranger more like a scene in a drama than a prosaic reality--we could not but revert in memory to the old upper chamber at York where the remote shadows of such things were for the first time encountered.

It was startling to remember of a sudden that our early Upper Canadian Judges, our early Upper Canadian Barristers, came fresh from these Westminster Hall Courts! What a contrast must have been presented to these men in the rude wilds to which they found themselves transported. Riding the Circuit in the Home, Midland, Eastern and Western Districts at the beginning of the present century was no trivial undertaking. Accommodation for man and horse was for the most part scant and comfortless. Locomotion by land and water was perilous and slow, and racking to the frame. The apartments procurable for the purposes of the Court were of the humblest kind.

Our pioneer jurisconsults in their several degrees, however, like our pioneers generally, unofficial as well as official, did their duty. They quietly initiated in the country, customs of gravity and order which have now become traditional; and we see the result in the decent dignity which surrounds, at the present day, the administration of justice in Canada in the Courts of every grade.

Prior to the occupation of Mr. Montgomery's house as the Court House at York, the Court of King's Bench held its sessions in a portion of the Government Buildings at the east end of the town, destroyed in the war of 1813. On June 25, 1812, the Sheriff, John Beikie, advertises in the _Gazette_ that "a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the Home District will be holden at the Government Buildings in the town of York on Tuesday, the fourteenth day of July now next ensuing, at the hour of ten o'clock in the forenoon, of which all Justices of the Peace, Coroners, Gaolers, High Constables, Constables and Bailiffs are desired to take notice, and that they be then and there present with their Rolls, Records, and other Memoranda to do and perform those things which by reason of their respective offices shall be to be done."

It is with the Court Room in the Government Buildings that the Judge, Sheriff and Crown Counsel were familiar, who were engulfed in Lake Ontario in 1805. The story of the total loss of the government schooner Speedy, Captain Thomas Paxton, is widely known. In that ill-fated vessel suddenly went down in a gale in the dead of night, along with its commander and crew, Judge Cochrane, Solicitor-General Gray, Mr. Angus McDonell, Sheriff of York, Mr. Fishe, the High Bailiff, an Indian prisoner about to be tried at Presqu'Isle for murder, two interpreters, Cowan and Ruggles, several witnesses, and Mr. Herchmer, a merchant of York; in all thirty-nine persons, of whom no trace was ever afterwards discovered.

The weather was threatening, the season of the year stormy (7th October), and the schooner was suspected not to be sea-worthy. But the orders of the Governor, General Peter Hunter, were peremptory. Mr. Weekes, of whom we have heard before, escaped the fate that befel so many connected with his profession, by deciding to make the journey to Presqu'Isle on horseback. (For the seat in the House rendered vacant by the sudden removal of Mr. McDonell, Mr. Weekes was the successful candidate.)

The name of the Indian who was on his way to be tried was Ogetonicut. His brother, Whistling Duck, had been killed by a white man, and he took his revenge on John Sharp, another white man. The deed was done at Ball Point on Lake Scugog, where John Sharp was in charge of a trading-post for furs belonging to the Messrs. Farewell. The Governor had promised, so it was alleged, that the slayer of Whistling Duck should be punished. But a twelvemonth had elapsed and nothing had been done. The whole tribe, the Muskrat branch of the Chippewas, with their Chief Wabbekisheco at their head, came up in canoes to York on this occasion, starting from the mouth of Annis's creek, near Port Oshawa, and encamping at Gibraltar Point on the peninsula in front of York. A guard of soldiers went over to assist in the arrest of Ogetonicut, who, it appears, had arrived with the rest. The Chief Wabbekisheco, took the culprit by the shoulder and delivered him up. He was lodged in the jail at York.

During the summer it was proved by means of a survey that the spot where Sharp had been killed was within the District of Newcastle. It was held necessary, therefore, that the trial should take place in that District. Sellick's, at the Carrying Place, was to have been the scene of the investigation, and thither the _Speedy_ was bound when she foundered. Mr. Justice Cochrane was a most estimable character personally, and a man of distinguished ability. He was only in his 28th year, and had been Chief Justice of Prince Edward Island before his arrival in Upper Canada. He was a native of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, but had studied law in Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar in England.

In the old Court House, near which we are now passing, were assigned to convicted culprits, with unflinching severity and in a no inconsiderable number of instances, all the penalties enjoined in the criminal code of the day--the lash, the pillory, the stocks, the gallows. We have conversed with an old inhabitant of Toronto, who had not only here heard the penalty of branding ordered by the Judge, but had actually seen it in open court inflicted, the iron being heated in the great wood-stove that warmed the room, and the culprit made to stretch out his hand and have burnt thereon the initial letter of the offence committed.

Here cases came up repeatedly, arising out of the system of slavery which at the beginning was received in Canada, apparently as an inevitable part and parcel of the social arrangements of a colony on this continent.

On the first of March, 1811, we have it on the record, "William Jarvis, of the Town of York, Esq. (this is the Secretary again), informed the Court that a negro boy and girl, his slaves, had the evening before been committed to prison for having stolen gold and silver out of his desk in his dwelling-house, and escaped from their said master; and prayed that the Court would order that the said prisoners, with one Coachly, a free negro, also committed to prison on suspicion of having advised and aided the said boy and girl in eloping with their master's property." Thereupon it was "Ordered,--That the said negro boy, named Henry, commonly called Prince, be re-committed to prison, and there safely kept till delivered according to law, and that the girl do return to her said master; and Coachly be discharged."

At the date just mentioned Slavery was being gradually extinguished by an Act of the Provincial Legislature of Upper Canada, passed at Newark in 1793, which forbade the further introduction of slaves, and ordered that all slave children born after the 9th of July in that year should be free on attaining the age of twenty-five.

Most gentlemen, from the Administrator of the Government downwards, possessed some slaves. Peter Russell, in 1806, was anxious to dispose of two of his, and thus advertised in the _Gazette and Oracle_, mentioning his prices:--"To be sold: a Black Woman named Peggy, aged forty years, and a Black Boy, her son, named Jupiter, aged about fifteen years, both of them the property of the subscriber. The woman is a tolerable cook and washerwoman, and perfectly understands making soap and candles. The boy is tall and strong for his age, and has been employed in the country business, but brought up principally as a house servant. They are each of them servants for life. The price of the woman is one hundred and fifty dollars. For the boy two hundred dollars, payable in three years, with interest from the day of sale, and to be secured by bond, &c. But one-fourth less will be taken for ready money. York, Feb. 19th, 1806. Peter Russell."

According to our ideas at the present moment, such an advertisement as this is shocking enough. But we must judge the words and deeds of men by the spirit of the age in which they lived and moved.

Similar notices were common a century since in the English newspapers. It is in fact asserted that at that period there were probably more slaves in England than in Virginia. In the London _Public Advertiser_, of March 28th, 1769, we have, for example, the following: "To be sold, a Black Girl, the property of J. B----, eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper, and willing disposition. Enquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, in the Strand." And again, in the Edinburgh _Evening Courant_ of April 18th, 1768, we have, "A Black Boy to sell. To be sold a Black Boy with long hair, stout made and well limbed; is good tempered; can dress hair, and take care of a horse indifferently. He has been in Britain near three years. Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for L40. He belongs to Captain Abercrombie, at Brighton. This advertisement not to be repeated."

The poet sings--

"Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country and their shackles fall."

But this was not true until Lord Mansfield, in 1772, uttered his famous judgment in the case of James Somerset, a slave brought over by a Mr. Stewart from Jamaica. Cowper's lines are in reality a versification of a portion of Lord Mansfield's words. A plea had been set up that villeinage had never been abolished by law in England; _ergo_, the possession of slaves was not illegal. But Lord Mansfield ruled: "Villeinage has ceased in England, and it cannot be revived. The air of England," he said, " has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man who comes into England," Lord Mansfield continued, "is entitled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin: _Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses._ Let the negro be discharged." But this is a digression.

Peter Russell's Peggy had been giving him uneasiness a few years previous to the advertisement copied above. She had been absenting herself without leave. Of this we are apprised in an advertisement dated York, September 2nd, 1803. It runs as follows: "The subscriber's black servant Peggy, not having his permission to absent herself from his service, the public are hereby cautioned from employing or harbouring her without the owner's leave. Whoever will do so after this notice may expect to be treated as the law directs. Peter Russell."

In the papers published at Niagara advertisements similar to those just given are to be seen. In the Niagara _Herald_ of January 2nd, 1802, we have, "For sale: A negro man slave, 18 years of age, stout and healthy; has had the small pox and is capable of service either in the house or out-doors. The terms will be made easy to the purchaser, and cash or new lands received in payment. Enquire of the printer." And again in the _Herald_ of January 18th: "For sale: the negro man and woman, the property of Mrs. Widow Clement. They have been bred to the business of a farm; will be sold on highly advantageous terms for cash or lands. Apply to Mrs. Clement."

Cash and lands were plainly beginning to be regarded as less precarious property than human chattels. In 1797 purchasers, however, were still advertising. In the _Gazette and Oracle_ of October 11th, in that year, we read; "Wanted to purchase, a negro girl from seven to twelve years of age, of good disposition. For fuller particulars apply to the subscribers, W. and J. Crooks, West Niagara, Oct. 4th." At York, in 1800, the _Gazette_ announces as "to be sold"--"A healthy strong negro woman, about thirty years of age; understands cooking, laundry and the taking care of poultry. N.B.--She can dress ladies' hair. Enquire of the Printers. York, Dec 20, 1800."

In respect to the following notice some explanation is needed. We presume the "Indian slave" spoken of must have been only part Indian. The detention of a native as a slave, if legal, would have been difficult. Mr. Charles Field, of Niagara, on the 28th of August, 1802, gave notice in the _Herald_: "All persons are forbidden harbouring, employing, or concealing my Indian slave Sal, as I am determined to prosecute any offender to the extremity of the law; and persons who may suffer her to remain in or upon their premises for the space of half-an-hour, without my written consent, will be taken as offending, and dealt with accordingly."

In the early volumes of the _Quebec Gazette_ these slave advertisements are common. A rough wood-cut of a black figure running frequently precedes them. It appropriately illustrates the following one: "Run away from the subscriber on Tuesday, the 25th ult., a negro man, named Drummond, near six feet high, walks heavily; had on when he went away a dark coloured cloth coat and leather breeches. Whoever takes up and secures the said negro, so that his master may have him again, shall have Four Dollars reward, and all reasonable charges paid by John McCord. Speaks very bad English and next to no French." Another reads thus: "To be sold, a healthy Negro Boy, about fifteen years of age, well qualified to wait on a gentleman as a Body Servant. For further

## particulars inquire of the Printers."

Mr. Sol.-General Gray, lost in the _Speedy_, manumitted by his will, dated August 27th, 1803, and discharged from the state of slavery in which, as that document speaks, "she now is," his "faithful black woman servant, Dorinda," and gave her and her children their freedom; and that they might not want, directed that L1200 should be invested and the interest applied to their maintenance. To his black servants, Simon and John Baker, he gave, besides their freedom, 200 acres of land each, and pecuniary legacies. The Simon here named went down with his master in the _Speedy_; but John long survived. He used to state that his mother Dorinda, was a native of Guinea, and to describe Governor Hunter as a rough old warrior, who carried snuff in an outside pocket, whence he took it in handfuls, to the great disfigurement of his ruffled shirt-bosoms. His death was announced in the public papers by telegram from Cornwall, Ontario, bearing date January 17, 1871. "A coloured man," it said, "named John Baker, who attained his 105th year on the 25th ult., died here to-day. He came here as a chattel of the late Colonel Gray, in 1792, having seen service in the Revolutionary war. Subsequently he served throughout the war of 1812. He was wounded at Lundy's Lane, and has drawn a pension for fifty-seven years." Mr. Gray, it may be added, was a native of our Canadian town of Cornwall. His place of abode in York was in what is now Wellington Street, on the lot immediately to the west of the old "Council Chamber" (subsequently the residence of Chief Justice Draper.)

We ourselves, we remember, used to gaze, in former days, with some curiosity at the pure negress, Amy Pompadour, here in York, knowing that she had once been legally made a present of by Miss Elizabeth Russell to Mrs. Captain Denison.

But enough of the subject of Canadian slavery, to which we have been inadvertently led.

The old Court House, when abandoned by the law authorities for the new buildings on King Street, was afterwards occasionally employed for religious purposes. By an advertisement in the _Advocate_, in March, 1834, we learn that the adherents of David Willson, of Whitchurch, sometimes made use of it. It is there announced that "the Children of Peace will hold Worship in the Old Court House of York, on Sunday, the 16th instant, at Eleven and Three." Subsequently it became for a time the House of Industry or Poor House of the town.

Besides the legal cases tried and the judgments pronounced within the homely walls of the Old Court House, interest would attach to the curious scenes--could they be recovered and described--which there occurred, arising sometimes from the primitive rusticity of juries, and sometimes from their imperfect mastery of the English language, many of them being, as the German settlers of Markham and Vaughan were indiscriminately called, Dutchmen. Peter Ernest, appearing in court with the verdict of a jury of which he was foreman, began to preface the same with a number of peculiar German-English expressions which moved Chief Justice Powell to cut him short by the remark that he would have to commit him if he swore:--when Ernest observed that the perplexities through which he and the jury had been endeavouring to find their way, were enough to make better men than they were express themselves in an unusual way.--The verdict, pure and simple, was demanded. Ernest then announced that the verdict which he had to deliver was, that half of the jury were for "guilty" and half for "not guilty." That is, the Judge observed, you would have the prisoner half-hanged, or the half of him hanged. To which Peter replied, that would be as his Lordship pleased.--It was a case of homicide. Being sent back, they agreed to acquit.

Odd passages, too, between pertinacious counsel and nettled judges sometimes occurred, as when Mr. H. J. Boulton, fresh from the Inner Temple, sat down at the peremptory order of the Chief Justice, but added, "I will sit down, my Lord, but I shall instantly stand up again."

Chief Justice Powell, when on the Bench, had a humorous way occasionally, of indicating by a kind of quiet by-play, by a gentle shake of the head, a series of little nods, or movements of the eye or eyebrow, his estimate of an outre hypothesis or an ad captandum argument. This was now and then disconcerting to advocates anxious to figure, for the moment, in the eyes of a simple-minded jury, as oracles of extra authority.

Nights, likewise, there would be to be described, passed by juries in the diminutive jury-room, either through perplexity fairly arising out of the evidence, or through the dogged obstinacy of an individual.

Once, as we have heard from a sufferer on the occasion, Colonel Duggan was the means of keeping a jury locked up for a night here, he being the sole dissentient on a particular point. That night, however, was converted into one of memorable festivity, our informant said, a tolerable supply of provisions and comforts having been conveyed in through the window, sent for from the homes of those of the jury who were residents of York. The recusant Colonel was refused a moment's rest throughout the live-long night. During twelve long hours pranks and sounds were indulged in that would have puzzled a foreigner taking notes of Canadian Court House usages.

When 10 o'clock a.m. of the next day arrived, and the Court re-assembled, Colonel Duggan suddenly and obligingly effected the release of himself and his tormentors by consenting to make the necessary modification in his opinion.

Of one characteristic scene we have a record in the books of the Court itself. On the 12th of January, 1813, as a duly impanelled jury were retiring to their room to consider of their verdict, a remark was addressed to one of their number, namely, Samuel Jackson, by a certain Simeon Morton, who had been a witness for the defence: the remark, as the record notes, was in these words, to wit, "Mind your eye!" to which the said Jackson replied "Never fear!" The Crier of the Court, John Bazell, duly made affidavit of this illicit transaction. Accordingly, on the appearance in court of the jury, for the purpose of rendering their verdict, Mr. Baldwin, attorney for the prosecution, moved that the said Jackson be taken into custody: and the Judge gave order "that Samuel Jackson do immediately enter into recognizances, himself in L50, and two sureties in L25 each, for his appearance on the Saturday following at the Office of the Clerk of the Peace, which," as the record somewhat inelegantly adds, "he done." He duly appeared on the Saturday indicated, and, pleading ignorance, was discharged.

In the Court House in 1822 was tried a curious case in respect of a horse claimed by two parties, Major Heward, of York, and General Wadsworth, commandant of the United States Garrison at Fort Niagara. Major Heward had reared a sorrel colt on his farm east of the Don; and when it was three years old it was stolen. Nothing came of the offer of reward for its recovery until a twelvemonth after the theft, when a young horse was brought by a stranger to Major Heward, at York, and instantly recognized by him as his lost property. Some of the major's neighbours likewise had no doubt of the identity of the animal, which, moreover, when taken to the farm entered of his own accord the stable, and the stall, the missing colt used to occupy, and, when let out into the adjoining pasture, greeted in a friendly way a former mate, and ran to drink at the customary watering place. Shortly after, two citizens of the United States, Kelsey and Bond, make their appearance at York and claim the horse which they find on Major Heward's farm, as the property of General Wadsworth, commandant at Fort Niagara. Kelsey swore that he had reared the animal; that he had docked him with his own hands when only a few hours old; and that he had sold him about a year ago to General Wadsworth. Bond also swore positively that this was the horse which Kelsey had reared, and that he himself had broken him in, prior to the sale to General Wadsworth. It was alleged by these persons that a man named Docksteader had stolen the horse from General Wadsworth at Fort Niagara and had conveyed him across to the Canadian side.

In consequence of the positive evidence of these two men the jury gave their verdict in favour of General Wadsworth's claim, with damages to the amount of L50. It was nevertheless generally held that Kelsey and Bond's minute narrative of the colt's early history was a fiction; and that Docksteader, the man who transferred the animal from the United States side of the river to Canadian soil, had also had something to do with the transfer of the same animal from Canada to the United States a twelvemonth previously.

The subject of this story survived to the year 1851, and was recognized and known among all old inhabitants as "Major Heward's famous horse Toby."

Within the Court House on Richmond Street took place in 1818 the celebrated trial of a number of prisoners brought down from the Red River Settlement on charges of "high treason, murder, robbery, and conspiracy," as preferred against them by Lord Selkirk, the founder of the Settlement. When our neighbourhood was itself in fact nothing more than a collection of small isolated clearings, rough-hewn out of the wild, "the Selkirk Settlement" and the "North West" were household terms among us for remote regions in a condition of infinite savagery, in comparison with which we, as we prided ourselves, were denizens of a paradise of high refinement and civilization. Now that the Red River district has attained the dignity of a province and become a member of our Canadian Confederation, the trial referred to, arising out of the very birth-throes of Manitoba, has acquired a fresh interest.

The Earl of Selkirk, the fifth of that title, was a nobleman of enlightened and cultivated mind. He was the author of several literary productions esteemed in their day; amongst them, of a treatise on Emigration, which is spoken of by contemporaries as an exhaustive, standard work on the subject. For practically testing his theories, however, Lord Selkirk appears to have desired a field exclusively his own. Instead of directing his fellow-countrymen to one or other of the numerous prosperous settlements already in process of formation at easily accessible and very eligible spots along the St. Lawrence and the Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron, he induced a considerable body of them to find their way to a point in the far interior of our northern continent, where civilization had as yet made no sensible inroad; to a locality so situated that if a colony could contrive to subsist there, it must apparently of necessity remain for a very long period dismally isolated. In 1803, Bishop Macdonell asked him, what could have induced a man of his high rank and great fortune, possessing the esteem and confidence of the Government and of every public man in Britain, to embark in an enterprise so romantic; and the reply given was, that, in his opinion, the situation of Great Britain, and indeed of all Europe, was at that moment so very critical and eventful, that a man would like to have a more solid footing to stand upon, than anything that Europe could offer. The tract of land secured by Lord Selkirk for emigration purposes was a part of the territory held by the Hudson's Bay Company, and was approached from Europe not so readily by the St. Lawrence route as by Hudson's Strait and Hudson's Bay. The site of the actual settlement was half-a-mile north of the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers, streams that unitedly flow northward into Lake Winnipeg, which communicates directly at its northern extremity with Nelson River, whose outlet is at Port Nelson or Fort York on Hudson's Bay. The population of the Settlement in the beginning of 1813 was 100. Mr. Miles Macdonell, formerly a captain in the Queen's Rangers, appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company first Governor of the District of Assiniboia, was made by the Earl of Selkirk superintendent of affairs at Kildonan. The rising village was called Kildonan, from the name of the parish in the county of Sutherland whence the majority of the settlers had emigrated.

The Montreal North West Company of Fur Traders was a rival of the Hudson's Bay Company. Whilst the latter traded for the most part in the regions watered by the rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay, the former claimed for their operations the area drained by the streams running into Lake Superior.

The North West Company of Montreal looked with no kindly eye on the settlement of Kildonan. An agricultural colony, in close proximity to their hunting grounds, seemed a dangerous innovation, tending to injure the local fur trade. Accordingly it was resolved to break up the infant colony. The Indians were told that they would assuredly be made "poor and miserable" by the new-comers if they were allowed to proceed with their improvements; because these would cause the buffalo to disappear. The colonists themselves were informed of the better prospects open to them in the Canadian settlements and were promised pecuniary help if they would decide to move. At the same time, the peril to which they were exposed from the alleged ill-will of the Indians was enlarged upon. Moreover, attacks with fire-arms were made on the houses of the colonists, and acts of pillage committed. The result was that in 1815, the inhabitants of Kildonan dispersed, proceeding, some of them, in the direction of Canada, and some of them northwards, purposing to make their way to Port Nelson, and to find, if possible, a conveyance thence back to the shores of old Scotland. Those, however, who took the northern route proceeded only as far as the northern end of Lake Winnipeg, establishing themselves for a time at Jack River House. They were then induced to return to their former settlement, by Mr. Colin Robertson, an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, who assured them that a number of Highlanders were coming, via Hudson's Bay, to take up land at Kildonan. This proved to be the fact; and, in 1816, the revived colony consisted of more than 200 persons. On annoyance being offered to the settlement by the North West Company's agent, Mr. Duncan Cameron, who occupied a post called Fort Gibraltar, about half a mile off, Mr. Colin Robertson, with the aid of his Highlandmen, seized that establishment, and recovered two field-pieces and thirty stand of arms that had been taken from Kildonan the preceding year. Cameron himself was also made a prisoner. (Miles Macdonell, Governor of Assiniboia, had been captured by the said Cameron in the preceding year, and sent to Montreal.) A strong feeling was aroused among the half-breeds, far and near, who were in the interest of the North West Company. In the spring of 1816, Mr. Semple, the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, appeared in person at the Red River, having been apprized of the growing troubles. During an angry conference on the 18th of June, with a band of seventy men, headed by Cuthbert, Grant, Lacerte, Fraser, Hoole, and Thomas McKay, half-breed employes of the North West Company, he was violently assaulted; and in the melee he was killed, together with five of his officers and sixteen of his people. Out of these events sprang the memorable trials that took place in the York Court House in 1818.

The Earl of Selkirk being desirous of witnessing the progress made by his emigrants at Red River, paid a visit to this continent in the autumn of 1815. On arriving at New York he heard of the dispersion at Kildonan, and the destruction of property there. He proceeded at once to Montreal and York to consult with the authorities. The news next reached him that his colony had been re-established, at least partially. He immediately despatched a trusty messenger, one Lagimoniere, with assurances that he himself would speedily be with them, bringing proper means of protection. But Lagimoniere was waylaid and never reached his destination.

It happened, about this time, in consequence of the peace just established with the United States, that the De Meuron, Watteville and Glengarry Fencible Regiments were disbanded in the country. About eighty men of the De Meuron, with four of the late officers, twenty of the Watteville, and a few of the Glengarry, with one of their officers, agreed to accompany Lord Selkirk to the Red River. On reaching the Sault, the tidings met the party of the second dispersion of the colony, and of the slaughter of Governor Semple and his officers. The whole band at once pushed on to Fort William, where were assembled many of the partners of the North West Company, with Mr. McGillivray, their principal Agent. Here were also some of the persons who had been made prisoners at Kildonan.

Armed simply with a commission of a Justice of the Peace, Lord Selkirk then and there, at his encampment opposite Fort William across the Kaministigoia, issued his warrant for the arrest of Mr. McGillivray.

It is duly served and Mr. McGillivray submits. Two partners who came over with him as bail are also instantly arrested. The prisoners had been previously liberated and information was procured from them.

Warrants were then issued for the arrest of the remainder of the partners, who were found in the Fort. Some resistance was now offered. The gate of the Fort was partially closed by force; but a party of twenty-five men instantly rushed up from the boats and cleared the way into the Fort. At the signal of a bugle-call more men came over from the encampment, and their approach put an end to the struggle. The arrests were then completed, and the remaining partners were marched down to the boats. "At the time this resistance to the warrant was attempted there were," our authority informs us, "about 200 Canadians, _i. e._, French, in the employment of the Company, in and about the Fort, together with 60 or 70 Iroquois Indians, also in the Company's service."

The Earl of Selkirk was plainly a man not to be trifled with; a chief who, in the olden time, would have been equal to the roughest emergency.

The prisoners brought down from Fort William, and after the lapse of nearly two years placed at the Bar in the Old Court House of York, were arraigned as follows: "Paul Brown and F. F. Boucher, for the murder of Robert Semple, Esq., on the 18th of June, 1816; John Siveright, Alexander McKenzie, Hugh McGillis, John McDonald, John McLaughlin and Simon Fraser, as accessories to the same crime; Cooper and Bennerman, for taking, on the third of April, 1815, with force and arms, eight pieces of cannon and one howitzer, the property of the Right Hon. Thomas, Earl of Selkirk, from his dwelling house, and putting in bodily fear of their lives certain persons found therein." The cannons were further described as being two of them brass field-pieces, two of them brass swivels, four of them iron swivels.--In each case the verdict was "not guilty."

The Judges were Chief Justice Powell, Mr. Justice Campbell, Mr. Justice Boulton, and Associate Justice W. Allan, Esq. The counsel for the Crown were Mr. Attorney-General Robinson and Mr. Solicitor-General Boulton. The counsel for the prisoners were Samuel Sherwood, Livius P. Sherwood, and W. W. Baldwin, Esq.

The juries in the three trials were not quite identical. Those that served on one or other of them are as follows:--George Bond, Joseph Harrison, Wm. Harrison, Joseph Shepperd, Peter Lawrence, Joshua Leach, John McDougall, jun., Wm. Moore, Alexander Montgomery, Peter Whitney, Jonathan Hale, Michael Whitmore, Harbour Stimpson, John Wilson, John Hough, Richard Herring.

The Earl of Selkirk was not present at the trials. He had proceeded to New York, on his way to Great Britain. He probably anticipated the verdicts that were rendered. The North-West Company influence in Upper and Lower Canada was very strong.

At a subsequent Court of Oyer and Terminer held at York, a true bill against the Earl and nineteen others was found by the Grand Jury, for "conspiracy to ruin the trade of the North-West Company." Mr. Wm. Smith, Under-Sheriff of the Western District, obtained a verdict of L500 damages for having been seized and confined by the said Earl when endeavouring to serve a warrant on him in Fort William; and Daniel McKenzie, a retired partner of the North-West Company, obtained a verdict of L1,500 damages for alleged false imprisonment by the Earl in the same Fort.--Two years later, namely, in 1820, Lord Selkirk died at Pau, in the South of France.

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