266 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
gentlemen, to our militia, then, as well as to the regular forces for our 
protection, but I should be wanting to that important trust committed 
to my care if I attempted to conceal that experience, that great instructor 
of mankind, and especially of legislators, has shewn that amendment is 
necessary in our militia laws to render them efficient. 
“It is for you to consider what further improvement they may still 
require.” 
He then strongly urged the immediate suspension of the Habeas 
Corpus Act, and concluded with these resolute sentences: 
“A few traitors have already joined the enemy; have been suffered 
to come into the country with impunity and have been harboured and 
concealed in the interior, yet the general spirit of loyalty which appears 
to pervade the inhabitants of this province, is such as to authorize a 
just expectation that their efforts to mislead and deceive will be un- 
availing. The disaffected, I am convinced, are few. To protect and 
defend the loyal inhabitants from their machinations is an object worthy 
of your most serious deliberations. 
“We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity 
in our councils and by vigour in our operations we may teach the enemy 
this lesson: That a country defended by Freemen enthusiastically 
devoted to the cause of their King and country can never be con- 
quered.” 1 
Lieut.-Colonel Allan Maclean, of Kingston, was elected speaker of 
the Assembly, and the loyal disposition of the majority of the members 
could not be doubted for an instant, but several of them were evidently 
irresolute and averse to accept responsibility for any measure that seemed 
likely to be unpopular. 
“A more decent House has not been elected since the formation 
of the Province,’ Brock wrote next day, “ but I perceived at once that 
I should get no good of them. They, like the majority of the magis- 
trates and others in office, evidently mean to remain passive. The 
repeal of the Habeas Corpus will not pass, and if I have recourse to 
the law martial I am told that the whole armed force will disperse. 
Never was an officer placed in a more awkward predicament. The 
militia cannot possibly be governed by the present law — all admit that 
fact — yet the fear of giving offence will prevent anything effectual 
from being effected.” * 
The Hon. James Baby came from Amherstburg to take his seat in 
the Legislative Council, bringing with him the dispiriting intelligence 
* York Gazette, August, 1812. 
?Brock to Prevost, 28th July. 


