16 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
This memorial bore the signatures of John Stuart and eighteen other 
magistrates, the Reverend John Strachan and the Reverend John 
Bethune, Sheriffs Alexander Macdonell and Neil Maclean, Thomas 
Fraser and Abraham Marsh, members of the Legislative Assembly, and 
many other leading residents of the district. 
It cannot be deemed surprising that in view of the secret and public 
information in their possession, Clay, Calhoun, Grundy and other 
members of Congress felt fully justified in their assertions of the ease 
with which the conquest of the British provinces might be effected. 
On the 22nd of January, 1812, Thomas Barclay, the British consul 
in the city of New York wrote to Prevost warning him that resolute 
efforts would be made “to seduce the inhabitants of Upper Canada 
generally and the French Canadians in Lower Canada from their alleg- 
lance” and “to introduce characters fitted to persuade and delude 
the ignorant.” He advised that a watch should be particularly kept 
on the movements of a well known man named Rous living on the 
frontier as “he is a sensible, intriguing, cunning man, eminently qualified 
for such purposes and well acquainted with all the disaffected Cana- 
dians. ’’? . 
A month later, (February 24), Major General Brock on whom the 
civil administration of Upper Canada had devolved in the absence of 
Gore, published a proclamation announcing that “divers persons had 
recently come into the province with a seditious intent and to endeavor 
to alienate the minds of His Majesty’s subjects” and instructing the 
commissioners lately appointed to enforce the act of the Legislature 
for the better security of the province to be vigilant in the discharge 
of their duty. 
On the following day he was obliged to report his bitter disap- 
pointment at the defeat of an important amendment to the militia act 
which had been proposed at his request. 
“The many doubtful characters in the militia,’’ he wrote, “made 
me anxious to introduce the oath of abjuration into the biil. There 
were twenty members present when this highly important measure was 
lost by the casting vote of the chairman. The great influence which the 
fear and number of settlers from the United States possess over the 
decisions of the Lower House is truly alarming and ought by every 
practical means to be diminished. 
“To give encouragement to real subjects to settle in this Province 
can alone remove the evil. The consideration of the fees ought not to 
stand in the way of such an arrangement. . . . . . The bill for 


1 Petition in Can. Arch. Sundries, U.C. 1812. 
? Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, p. 304. 
