The Chairman of the Committee duly reported to the Assembly the non-attendance of the witnesses, and that body determined that its authority should not thus be defied and set at naught with impunity. The chief offender, the Lieutenant-Governor—or the Commander of the Forces, if he was to be considered as acting in that capacity—was of course beyond reach, but proceedings were forthwith instituted against the recalcitrant witnesses. Warrants were issued against them by the Speaker, in order that they might be brought up before the House, in custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, to answer for their contempt. Acting under legal advice, they declined to submit to such authority unless compelled to do so by force; and they boldly threatened that in case of force being resorted to they would prosecute the Speaker. It is to be presumed that the warrants would in any case have been acted upon, but this impudent threat left the Assembly no alternative. If Government officers, paid out of the public purse, were to be allowed to defy that branch of the Legislature which alone represented the popular voice—if they were to be permitted to treat its mandates with contempt, and to threaten its representative with ulterior consequences in the event of those mandates being enforced—then, indeed, liberty and equal rights were at a low ebb in Upper Canada. The warrants were promptly executed, the house in which the two officials had ensconced themselves being forcibly entered for the purpose. Being brought to the bar of the House, and charged with their contempt, they sought to vindicate themselves by pleading the action of the Lieutenant-Governor in refusing to sanction their attendance. The House then adopted a resolution under which they were handed over to the custody of the Sheriff, and committed to the common jail of the Home District. They formally notified the Lieutenant-Governor, through his private secretary, of the calamity which had come upon them through obedience to his behests, and requested that the advice and assistance of the Crown officers—that is to say, of the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General—might be vouchsafed to them. They however remained in confinement only three days, for the Lieutenant-Governor, in accordance with an intimation previously given, prorogued the Legislature on the 25th of March—they had been committed on the 22nd—and the power of the Assembly to commit did not extend beyond the time when it was actually in session.

Colonels Coffin and Givins carried out their threat, and sued the Speaker for damages for false imprisonment. The right of the Assembly to commit for contempt was however a matter too well established, and was confirmed by the Court of King's Bench in another cause then pending. So that the Adjutant-General of Militia and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in addition to their respective bills of costs, had their three days' imprisonment as a reward for their fealty to Sir Peregrine Maitland, and for their disloyalty to the Canadian people.

Sir Peregrine appears to have felt a little dubious as to how his proceedings would be regarded at the Home Office. It was quite certain that the Colonial Secretary would hear of the affair, but that dignitary's approval was open to question. It would at all events be well that the official mind should receive its first impression on the subject from Sir Peregrine himself, who accordingly lost no time in sending over his own version of the transaction. His despatch, which bears internal evidence of having been written or revised by Attorney-General Robinson, is dated the 29th of March—the fourth day after the prorogation. Under the pretext of asking for advice as to how he should act in the future in case of any of the officials being summoned before Parliamentary committees without any notification having been made to himself, he recounts the story of the Niagara Falls outrage. His narrative, it is almost needless to say, is from first to last garbled and one-sided. Forsyth is referred to therein as "a person notoriously of indifferent character;" and the Assembly and its committees are maligned in language highly improper to be employed in a confidential communication from the Lieutenant-Governor of a colony to his superiors at home.[95] The Colonial Secretary, however, was shrewd enough to penetrate the veil of misrepresentation in which the despatch was enveloped, and to arrive at a pretty just appreciation of the merits of the case. He officially expressed his opinion that there had been adequate grounds for inquiry by the Assembly. "I cannot but consider," he wrote, "that Sir Peregrine Maitland would have exercised a sounder discretion had he permitted the officers to appear before the Assembly; and I regret that he did not accomplish the object he had in view in preventing Forsyth's encroachments by means of the civil power, which is said to have been at hand, rather than by calling in military aid." This despatch, however, was written, not to Sir Peregrine Maitland himself, but to his successor, Sir John Colborne. The Forsyth case, coming, as it did, in the wake of other ill-advised proceedings on the part of Sir Peregrine, determined the Home Government to withdraw him from Upper Canada, where it was quite evident that his usefulness—if he had ever had any—was gone. He was transferred to Nova Scotia, whither it is not necessary that this narrative should follow him.

With respect to Forsyth, it may he added that, being unable to obtain any recompense for the Phillpotts invasion, and being harassed by protracted litigation, he sold his property at Niagara Falls at a price considerably below its value, and removed from the spot. It cannot be said that he deserved much sympathy, for he had brought his losses on himself by his own selfishness. He took advantage of the situation to pose in the character of a martyr to Executive tyranny, and he succeeded in deceiving many of his contemporaries into the belief that he was a much injured man. The historical interest, however, centres not in him, but in the consequences arising out of the employment of soldiers to do the Sheriff's work in a time of profound peace, and without any initiatory civil process having been issued. The popular excitement consequent on the outrage encouraged Forsyth to petition the Assembly. The petition led to the appointment of the Committee of Inquiry, which in its turn led to the summoning of witnesses and the conflict between the Assembly and the Lieutenant-Governor. The conflict led to the latter's removal, and, from that point of view, is not to be regarded in the light of an unmixed evil.

FOOTNOTES:

[90] See the letter from Chief Justice Robinson to Lieutenant-Colonel Rowan, Secretary, etc., etc., dated at York, 31st December, 1832, and appended to the Report of the Committee of the House of Assembly on the Petition of William Forsyth, dated April 1st, 1835. In one part of this letter the Chief Justice says that the laying out of the lots took place "some time between the years 1785 and 1790, and while General Haldimand administered the Government of Canada." General Haldimand did not administer the Government of Canada during any part of the time thus specified—a fact of which Chief Justice Robinson ought to have been aware. In a subsequent part of the same letter he properly gives the date as 1786.

[91] See the report, p. iv., appended to the Seventh Report of the Grievance Committee.

[92] The defence of these two suits would seem to have been the means of considerably augmenting the Attorney-General's already ample income. From certain accounts sent down to the Assembly it appears that a sum of £127 6s. 6-¾d. sterling were paid to him during the year 1834 for "expenses incurred by him in defending two suits with costs in reference to the military reserve near the Falls of Niagara."

[93] There was a very general belief throughout the Niagara District at the time that Major Leonard, who was an obedient servant to the Executive, had manipulated the lists from which the jurors in those cases were selected. The truth or falsity of the belief cannot now be pronounced upon, the circumstances upon which it was founded being buried in oblivion.

[94] "He [Sir Peregrine Maitland] must have inferred that the Committee proposed to examine these officers respecting the employment of a military force for the ejecting of Forsyth from the land."—See Despatch from the Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray, to Major-General Sir John Colborne, dated 20th October, 1828, appended to the Report on Forsyth's petition.