[CRUIKSHANK] A STUDY OF DISAFFECTION IN UPPER CANADA 35 
otherwise neither our life or property is safe when so many surround us 
as long as we are liable to be visited by the enemy’s vessels and boats.” ! 
Shortly afterwards an information was laid by : Allan McNab 
against William B. Peters, barrister at law, charging him with fre- 
quently expressing “his conviction that the enemy would conquer the 
country and according to the deponent’s observation, he seemed pleased 
at the idea of it.” ? 
Allan’s letter was considered of such importance by the Governor 
General that he directed it to be submitted to a committee of the 
Executive Council and the civil secretary informed the clerk that “the 
present circumstances of the country render it highly expedient that 
some mode of proceeding against persons detected in or suspected of 
traitorously corresponding with or affording information to the enemy 
tending to injure His Majesty’s service, besides the ordinary law” 
should be devised to meet the emergency.* 
While reconnoitering about this time along the shore of the Bay 
of Quinte, Major Drummond fell in with an old resident of that part 
of the province, named Connors, who mistaking him and his party for 
Americans, gave him voluntarily every information in his power that 
an enemy could have desired. He was promptly arrested and General 
de Rottenburg was instructed to issue a special commission to try the 
case “‘as a prompt trial and example would have the best effects of sup- 
pressing the disaffection so manifest among many inhabitants of the 
province.’’4 : 
Major Allan appeared before the committee of the Executive 
Council to whom his letter had been referred for investigation but he 
was unable to instance any specific acts of treasonable conduct on the 
part of any of the persons named by him. The committee, however, 
took this opportunity. of making a special report in which they 
remarked :— 
“Since the first organization in 1792 the adventitious increase of 
population has, with very few exceptions, proceeded from the United 
States, whose subjects, enticed by the facility of obtaining grants of 
land, have settled amongst us without any predilection for His 
Majesty’s Government. This District, it is but reasonable to suppose, 
from the period of its establishment, contains a very large proportion 
of such characters. To guard against the probable consequence of such 
a population in the event of hostilities with the United States, the 

‘Major William Allan to Baynes, August 3, 1813. Can. Arch. Sundries, U.C. 
1813. 
? Information of Allan McNab. Can. Arch. Sundries, U.C. 1813. 
3 MacMahon to Small, August 11, 1813. Can. Arch. Sundries, U.C. 1813. 
* Brenton to de Rottenburg, August 9, 1813. Can. Arch. C 1221, pp. 144-5. 
Sec. IT. 19125 3: 
