26 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
this province. A determination now prevails among the people to de- 
fend their country.’’! 
At the court of Oyer and Terminer held at Niagara on August 26, 
and 27, 1812, the Grand Jury presented true bills for sedition against 
Joseph Bastedo and Abraham Lazalere. Bastedo pleaded guilty but 
Lazalere was tried and acquitted. 
At the court held at Charlotteville in the County of Norfolk and 
District of London true bills for sedition were found against John 
Beemer and Joseph Willcocks. The presentment against the latter is 
a singular document and indicates that in his case at least the jurors 
were easily satisfied of his guilt. 
“Friday, 4th September, 1812. 
“The Jurors of our Lord the King upon their oath present that 
Joseph Willcocks, late of Niagara, Esqr., on or about the last of May or 
the first of June, 1811, at the Township of Walsingham in the District 
of London, in conversation with Mr. Backhouse in the house of the said 
Backhouse in Walsingham aforesaid, declared that he had obtained a 
power of attorney from the Six Nations of Indians on the Grand River 
as their public agent to transact all their business on account of their 
bad usage from their superintendent, Colonel Claus, and that said 
Indians had promised to stand by him or with him, that the Govern- 
ment of the Province had ill used him but that now he had the power 
of declaring to him that the country would shortly be taken possession 
of by the Americans; that a Mr. Dickson had offered him 200£ to be 
quiet and become a Government man but that he had refused it and said 
that he would not take less than five hundred pounds; that he now 
had Government in his power; that he would run his risk to make his 
fortune another way; that the Province would soon be overrun; that 
there was not one man in ten would defend it except the few old Tories 
and that the Indians would soon put them aside or cut them off; that 
in the latter part of January, 1812, he, the said Joseph Willcocks, at 
Walsingham, entered into conversation with the said Backhouse rela- 
tive to the revolutionizing the Province, observed that he was then 
going to the House of Assembly; that it was the last time the Assembly 
would sit in the Province under the British Government; that on or 
before the fourth of July the Province would be in possession of the 
Americans; that he would be raised to an elevated station or placed 
high in power under the American Government. He then asked the 
said Backhouse to join him; he asked him for money which the said 
Backhouse refused and he, Willeocks, said the Americans had men 


! Anonymous letter to Major-General Van Rensselaer, September , 1812. 
Tompkins Papers, VIII, p. 177. 
