"Fully persuaded that the great object of your heart is the advancement of public prosperity, the observance of the laws, and the practice of religion and morality, we hasten with assurances of our warmest support, to invite you from your retreat to represent us in Parliament. Permit us, however, to impress upon you, that as subjects of a generous and beloved King; as a part of that great nation which has for so long a time stood the bulwark of Europe, and is now the solitary and inaccessible asylum of liberty; as the children of Englishmen, guarded, protected and restrained by English laws; in fine, as members of their community, as fathers and sons, we are induced to place this confidence in your virtue, from the firm hope that, equally insensible to the impulse of popular feeling and the impulse of power, you will pursue what is right. This has been the body of your decisions; may it be the spirit of your counsels! (Signed by fifty-two persons, residing in the Town and Township of York.)" The names not given.
These words were addressed to Mr. Justice Thorpe. His reply was couched in the following terms: "Gentlemen: With pleasure I accede to your desire. If you make me your representative I will faithfully discharge my duty. Your confidence is not misplaced. May the first moment of dereliction be the last of my existence. Your late worthy representative I lament from my heart. In private he was a warm friend; at the Bar an able advocate, and in Parliament a firm patriot. It is but just to draw consolation from our Governor, when the first act of his administration granted to those in the U. E. list and their children, what your late most valuable member so strenuously laboured to obtain. Surely from this we have every reason to expect that the liberal interests of our beloved sovereign, whose chief glory is to reign triumphantly enthroned on the hearts of a free people, will be fulfilled, honouring those who give and those who receive, enriching the Province and strengthening the Empire. Let us cherish this hope in the blossom; may it not be blasted in the ripening." A postscript is subjoined: "P. S. If influence, threat, coercion or oppression should be attempted to be exercised over any individual, for the purpose of controlling the freedom of election, let me be informed.—R. T."
In 1806 Judges were not ineligible to the Upper Canadian Parliament. Mr. Justice Thorpe and Governor Gore did not agree. He was consequently removed from office. Some years later, when both gentlemen were living in England as private persons, Mr. Thorpe brought an action for libel against Mr. Gore, and obtained a favourable verdict.
We now proceed on our prescribed course. So late as 1833, Walton, in his "York Commercial Directory, Street Guide, and Register," when naming the residents on Lot Street, as he still designates Queen Street, makes a note on arriving at two park lots to the westward of the spot where we have been pausing, to the effect, that "here this street is intercepted by the grounds of Capt. McGill, S. P. Jarvis, Esq., and Hon. W. Allan; past here it is open to the Roman Catholic Church, and intended to be carried through to the Don Bridge."
The process of levelling up, now become so common in Toronto, has effectually disposed of the difficulty temporarily presented by the ravine or ancient water-course, yet partially to be seen either in front of or upon the park lots occupied by the old inhabitants just named; and Queen Street, at the present hour, is an uninterrupted thoroughfare in a right line, and almost on a level the whole way, from the Don in the east to the Lunatic Asylum in the west, and beyond, on to the gracefully curving margin of Humber Bay.—(The unfrequented and rather tortuous Britain Street is a relic of the deviation occasioned by the ravine, although the actual route followed in making the detour of old was Duchess Street.)
