ft it open when slavery was
abolished in that State (Commonwealth _v._ Aves, 18 Pick. 193, 209).
(See Cobb's _Slavery_, pp. clxxi, clxxii, 209; Sir Harry H. Johnston's
_The Negro in the New World_, an exceedingly valuable and interesting
work, but not wholly reliable in minutiae, pp. 355 et seq.)

[10] Russell became administrator of the Government of Upper Canada,
July 21, 1796, and held that position until the arrival of the new
Lieutenant-Governor General Peter Hunter, August 16, 1799.

[11] _Ont. Arch. Rep. for 1909_, pp. 64, 69, 70, 71, 75; _ibid._ for
1910, pp. 67, 68, 69, 70.

The bill was introduced in the Lower House by Christopher Robinson,
member for Addington and Ontario. He was a Virginian Loyalist, who in
1784 emigrated to New Brunswick, and in 1788 to that part of Canada,
later Lower Canada; and in 1792 to Upper Canada. Accustomed from
infancy to slavery, he saw no great harm in it--no doubt he saw it in
its best form.

The chief opponent of the bill was Robert Isaac Dey Gray, the young
Solicitor General, the son of Major James Gray, a half-pay British
Officer. He studied law in Canada. He was elected member of the House
of Assembly for Stormont in the election of 1796, and again in 1804.

The motion for the three months' hoist in the Upper House was made by
the Honorable Richard Cartwright seconded by the Honorable Robert
Hamilton. These men, who had been partners, generally agreed on public
measures and both incurred the enmity of Simcoe. He called Hamilton a
Republican, then a term of reproach distinctly worse than Pro-German
would be now, and Cartwright was, if anything, worse. But both were
men of considerable public spirit and great personal integrity. For
Cartwright see _The Life and Letters of Hon. Richard Cartwright_,
Toronto, 1876. For Hamilton see Riddell's edition of _La
Rochefoucault's Travels in Canada in 1795_ (Toronto, 1817), in _Ont.
Arch. Rep. for 1916_; Miss Carnochan's _Queenston in Early Years,
Niagara Hist. Soc. Pub._ No. 25; _Buffalo Hist. Soc. Pub._ Vol. 6, pp.
73-95.

There was apparently no division in the Upper House although there
were five other Councillors in addition to Cartwright and Hamilton in
attendance that session, viz.: McGill, Shaw, Duncan, Baby and Grant;
and the bill passed the committee of the whole.

[12] Slaves were valuable even in those days. A sale is recorded in
Detroit of a "certain Negro man Pompey by name" for L45 New York
Currency ($112.50) in O