Indeed, if a glance is taken behind the curtain, English
statesmen will be noticed to have been liberal and well inclined
towards the colonists, and have only erred when purposely misled by
those whom they had appointed to places of which it was and is a
serious mistake for any ministry to have the patronage. Sir Peregrine
Maitland did not confine his persecuting operations to gentlemen who
gathered statistics, or printed newspapers, and wrote political
articles, commenting on an administration for which he only was
responsible to the Secretary of State for the colonies. He was not
satisfied with having seen a printing press destroyed and the types of
a newspaper office sunk in Ontario, but must needs throw a building
belonging to a private gentleman over the Falls of Niagara. He was
recalled because, in the supposition that the law was too slow for
redress, and impatient of contradiction, as some military men are, he
caused an armed force to trespass on the property of a gentleman named
Forsyth, on the plea that his land belonged to the Crown. The property
was situated at the Falls of Niagara. A building stood upon a part of
the land claimed for the Crown by Sir Peregrine. The soldiery tumbled
the building over the precipice, and the land was free of all
incumbrances. The House of Assembly interfered in this matter too. They
attempted to obtain the evidence of the officers engaged in the
business, but the government would not permit them to testify, the
consequence of which was that the Assembly imprisoned them for
contempt. So far was their reluctance to give evidence carried, that
the Serjeant-at-Arms was compelled to enter by force the house in which
they had barricaded themselves. The king was made aware of the whole
proceedings, Mr. Forsyth's claim for redress acknowledged, and Sir
Peregrine Maitland recalled. It was not too soon. Before this, His
Excellency managed to juggle Mr. Robert Randall, the agent of the
people to England, against the alien bill, and who was, therefore, one
of the proscribed, out of his ample estates on the Niagara frontier,
and out of his valuable mill privileges on the Ottawa, by the formality
of law, so that he was left bankrupt and penniless, and died in sorrow.
Indeed anything in the semblance of a liberal was in those days
proscribed in a country possessed of the image and transcript of the
British constitution. A peninsular officer, Captain Matthew, a member
of the Assembly, who wou