by him in a duel two years before, and never to
be effaced from the tablets of his memory. There, too, sat Henry John
Boulton, a young man of much pretension but mediocre intellect, who had
been appointed acting Solicitor-General during the previous year, and
who united in his own person all the bigotry and narrow selfishness of
the faction to which he belonged. He, also, had been concerned in the
shedding of young Ridout's blood, having acted as second to the
surviving principal in that affair. With this exception his past life
had been uneventful, but his future was fated to be marked by
considerable variety of incident, and by actions which even the most
favourable judgment cannot regard with unmixed complacency.

The twelve jurymen sat in their places, in the jury-box to the left of
the judge. The witnesses summoned on behalf of the Crown were the
Honourable William Dickson and the Honourable William Claus, both of
whom were members of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. The former
gentleman was an enterprising Scotchman who had settled in Niagara while
it was yet known as Newark, where he had first kept a general store, and
afterwards practised law and speculation with great pecuniary success.
Like the Jarvis above mentioned, he was disfigured by a red right hand,
having shot his man in a duel fought in the autumn of 1808 behind the
United States fort on the opposite bank of the river. It is fair to Mr.
Dickson, however, to say that he was the challenged party, and that the
duel was in a measure forced upon him by the barbarous usages of society
in those (happily) far-off days. The other witness, Mr. Claus, was at
the head of the Indian department at Niagara, the abuses in the
administration whereof were notorious. It was well understood throughout
the district that Dickson and Claus between them had contrived to make a
tolerably good thing out of the Indians, and that they had been
concerned in some decidedly shady transactions. If it be true that
Heaven helps those who help themselves, certainly both those gentlemen
were entitled to look for divine assistance. They possessed and
exercised a wide influence throughout the settlements in the Niagara
peninsula, as well as at the Provincial capital, and were commonly
regarded as being on the high road to great wealth. Two years before the
date of the trial forming the subject of the present chapter, Dickson
had purchased the whole of the splendid township of Dumfr