“Attorney-General (with a sneer)—Pray, sir, what are you?
“A victim chosen for the slaughter; but you are mistaken if you think to coax or drive me to plead at present; I understand your wishes and my own interests too well.
“Chief Justice—Prisoner at the bar, three weeks have passed since your capture, and you have had sufficient time to prepare your defence. This Court has been convened for the express purpose of trying you, and the Government cannot be put to so much expense for nothing. I have taken care myself that all witnesses which you can possibly require in your defence should be present to-day, and they are here. You can have, therefore, no excuse whatever for wishing to postpone your trial, and your only object is to give the Government and this Court unnecessary trouble; but your stubbornness shall avail you nothing, for the Court will order the usual course in case of stubborn and wilful prisoners, who refuse to plead, to be pursued in this case. I now ask you for the last time—what say you, Linus Wilson Miller, to the charges preferred against you: are you guilty or not guilty?
“My Lord, I am informed by your lordship that I have had sufficient time to prepare for my trial, having been in custody three weeks. How was I to prepare my defence before I had been indicted—how know what charges, if any, would be preferred against me? I have but now heard them read, and am required, without one moment’s warning, to plead to charges of the most serious nature, affecting my life! I am likewise informed by your lordship that all the witnesses requisite for my defence are present in Court, that in the present enlightened age, a judge, in a British Court of Justice, will tell a prisoner arraigned under such circumstances, that the witnesses for his defence are all present by order of the Court, and that too in the presence of a jury empanelled to try him. Is a Chief Justice of a British Court thus to sit upon a bench and pre-judge a case of life and death? Have I consulted any legal gentleman in this Province upon my case whereby by any possibility your lordship could have been apprised of the witnesses I may require, or of the nature of the defence which in so serious a case I may deem it necessary to make? How long have I known that charges were preferred against me which require either a defence or the surrender of my life without a struggle? And yet I am told by your lordship that I shall abide my trial upon the testimony of witnesses of your lordship’s own choosing, in a defence predetermined by your lordship long before a grand jury had found a true bill against me. Is this your boasted British justice? Am I indeed within the sacred walls of a court, a British Court, the pride and boast of Englishmen? Shame, my l——
“Chief Justice (in a great rage)—Silence, you d—d Yankee rebel! Not another word or—
“My Lord, I will not keep silence when my life is at stake.... A jury did I say? They are all strangers to me, but from the proceedings I have witnessed to-day, I have no doubt they are mere tools of the Government, pledged to render a verdict of guilty and perjure their own hearts.
“A Juryman, from the box—My Lord, are we honest men to be insulted and abused in this manner?
“No doubt the gentleman is an honest man.... My Lord, I have done—but I again demand from your lordship the full time allowed by law for my defence.... At present I have only to request to be furnished with a copy of my indictment.
“Chief Justice—The Court will not allow you a copy.”
There is no reason to infer that this is misquoted in a single letter. In fact current testimony will bear out all that Miller says, and the reading of this court scene will give us a very true insight into life in Canada in 1838, and will be quite new to the present generation of Canadians. The author gets this court scene from “Notes of an Exile, on Canada, England and Van Diemen’s Land,” by Linus Wilson Miller, and it is probable that the copy of Miller’s book that I possess is the only one in Canada to-day.