ounsels. John Carey, editor of the York
_Observer_, who was present on the occasion, testified that the Judge's
charge appeared to him to outrage law and common sense.[128] Then, the
sentence itself was so grossly out of proportion to the offence as to
shock all ideas of justice, and to form a standing menace against the
liberty of the press in Upper Canada. Yet Judge Sherwood, in pronouncing
it, had expressly stated that it should be light, in consequence of its
being awarded for a first conviction. It would be curious to know what
punishment he would have awarded if the defendant had been previously
convicted on a similar charge.

All these circumstances went far to prove that the defendant had met
with considerably more or less than justice. And there were other facts
which had an ugly look. The defendant, as already mentioned, was a Roman
Catholic; yet, out of a large and respectable population professing the
same religious faith, not one was to be found on the panel, although at
the Quarter Sessions, held a few days later, the number of Roman
Catholics summoned to serve on juries was exceptionally large. The
Sheriff who empanelled the jury was a political enemy of the accused. So
was each individual member of the Grand Jury who found the true bill
against him. So were a large majority of the petty jury by whom he was
tried. So was the Attorney-General who prosecuted him. So were the two
Judges who presided at the trial. Taken in connection with the specific
facts mentioned in the preceding paragraph, these matters gave rise to
many unpleasant conjectures, and it was no wonder that the public voice
exclaimed against the verdict as an unrighteous one. It was no wonder
that public meetings were held in some of the rural districts to protest
against what was almost universally pronounced to be a tyrannical abuse
of the process of the Courts. It was no wonder that hisses and groans
were sometimes heard from quiet nooks and corners when the
Attorney-General passed along the streets of York. And it was no wonder
that, coming, as it did, on the heels of other trials that differed with
it only in degree, the case of Francis Collins caused many theretofore
loyal subjects to ask themselves whether their loyalty demanded that
they should forever continue to bend their necks to the yoke of the
oppressor. What was Collins's case to-day might possibly be theirs or
their sons' on the morrow.

On the 26th of November Collins sent