32 | THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
A contemporary Buffalo newspaper stated that many residents 
of Canada opposite that place had come into the American garrison es- 
tablished at Fort Erie to be paroled and seemed “well suited by the re- 
cent charge.” <A list containing the names of more than five hundred 
persons thus placed under parole was actually forwarded to Washington. 
A letter from the American camp at Fort George, dated June 9 and 
printed in the Richmond Enquirer states :— 
“There is a number of Yankees here from the Grand River — 
They come to obtain paroles and say that if our army leaves them, they 
dare not return to their homes for fear of the Indians. Norton and 
other Scotch chiefs have lists of suspected Yankees whom they will 
plunder and murder without remorse. What distresses our friends have 
suffered for refusing to take the oath and perform militia duty is in- 
credible. Some died in jail and others have been robbed of their prop- 
erty by being fined eighty dollars at every draft. I pity them and I 
am (as our officers are), astonished that General Dearborn has confirmed 
the old magistrates in their appointments who used to oppress and pillory 
our American adherents. ’”’? 
Another letter written from the same place under date of June 22, 
apparently by an officer in the United States army, relates that: 
“Many of the inhabitants of this country when we were up towards 
the head of the lake showed us every favor and attention. But on our 
retreating the scene was truly distressing. To see them of every age 
and sex weeping and bewailing their fate, nothing more than an antici- 
pation of their distress; they believed the tales we told them too soon. 
Many of them have been thrown on board the British fleet whilst others 
had their property given up to pillage and desolation. I feel it the more 
sensibly as the inhabitants on this side have been infinitely more kind 
than those on the other. ”* 
These statements are to some extent corroborated by the reports 
of British and Canadian officers. Among the latter, Lieut. Colonel 
Pierre de Boucherville, Provincial aide-de-camp to the Governor General, 
who had been despatched to Upper Canada on a special mission, wrote 
that “the disaffection of the settler was shocking and deserved an 
exemplary chastisement. ” 4 
Eventually several persons were prosecuted for seditious conduct 
at this time. 
Elijah Bentley of the township of Markham, an Anabaptist 
preacher, was indicted on the charge that on the 2nd day of May, 1813, 


! Buffalo Gazette, June 8, 1813. 
* Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, June 23, 1813. 
* United States Gazette of Philadelphia, July 8, 1813. 
* De Boucherville to Prevost, June 13, 1813. Can. Arch. C 679, p. 88. 
