d before Dickson and Claus, both of
whom were specially and personally interested in putting him to silence.
The examination and hearing before them, which took place on the 21st of
December, was a transparent mockery of justice. Dickson, Claus and
Swayze, in common with nearly every one in Upper Canada, well knew that
their victim had been resident in the Province for nearly three times
the period specified in the Act. Dickson had been in constant and
familiar intercourse with him for sixteen months. Claus had known him
nearly as long. Swayze had conversed with him at York more than a year
before, and had been acquainted with his proceedings from month to
month--almost from week to week--during the entire interval. The charge
of being an evil-minded and seditious person was too absurd to be
seriously entertained for a moment by any one who knew Mr. Gourlay as
intimately as Dickson had done for more than eight years.[10] As for his
not having taken the oath of allegiance, it had never been required of
him, and he was both able and willing to take it with a clear and honest
conscience. But as matter of fact no one suspected his loyalty, and the
charge against him was the veriest pretext that malice could invent.
When he appeared before his judges, however, Messieurs Dickson and Claus
professed to be dissatisfied with his defence, and alleged that his
"words, actions, conduct and behaviour" had been such as to promote
disaffection. They accordingly adjudged that he should leave the
Province within ten days. A written order, signed by them, enjoining his
departure, was delivered to him. "To have obeyed this order," writes Mr.
Gourlay,[11] "would have proved ruinous to the business for which, at
great expense, and with much trouble, I had qualified myself. It would
have been a tacit acknowledgment of guilt, whereof I was unconscious. It
would have been a surrender of the noblest British right; it would have
been holding light my natural allegiance; it would have been a
declaration that the Bill of Rights was a Bill of Wrongs. I resolved to
endure any hardship rather than to submit voluntarily."

He paid a heavy penalty for his disobedience. On the 4th of January,
1819--the third day after the expiration of the period allowed him for
departure--Dickson and Claus issued an order of commitment, under which
he was arrested and lodged in Niagara jail, there to remain until the
next sitting of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. His p