328 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
soldiers drawn up in a hollow square around the gallows: “You with 
arms in your hands, you are not secure here, even with your arms, 
I am going where I shall be secure without them.’’ He immediately 
drew the cap over his face, exclaiming; ‘““O God, receive my soul, I 
long to be with my Jesus.” and dropped his handkerchief as a signal - 
for the executioner who at once turned him off. The death struggle 
was short; after hanging about twenty-five minutes he was cut down; 
a platform with a raised block on it was brought near the gallows, and 
a fire kindled for executing the rest of the sentence. The head was 
cut off and held up by the executioner with the time-honoured words 
“Behold the head of a traitor!’’, an incision was made in the abdomen 
and part of the bowels taken out and burned; then the four quarters 
were marked with a knife, nicked but not divided. 
“The whole of the execution took up about two hours; and the 
conduct of the unfortunate sufferer was in every respect composed and — 
becoming his situation” (18). | 
WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL. 
NOTES. 
(1) This was certainly the first case of trial for High Treason in Canada under 
British Rule. The Attorney-General, Jonathan Sewell, who was well qualified to 
speak, said that it was the first in America “if we except the shameful proceedings 
had in the year 1701 against Colonel Nicholas Bayard in the late Province of New 
Yorks | oo) upon aïlocal statute ip at13): 
Bayard, the nephew of Peter Stuyvesant, whose secretary he was, became 
Secretary of the Province after its conquest by the English. He was also Mayor, 
and became Commander-in-Chief of its Militia. On the opposition (Leisler) party 
obtaining the upper hand in the Colony, he ‘‘was imprisoned, kept in irons & exposed 
as a show and carryed about in a Chair at the Pleasure and for the Diversion of a 
tumultuating mob.’’ He succeeded in leaving the Colony, and on the turn of the 
wheel he had a triumphant return. In 1699 he was accused of complicity with 
Captain Kidd in his piracy, but cleared himself of the charge. In 1701-2 he was 
convicted of High Treason in attempting to introduce Popery, Piracy and Slavery 
into the Colony of New York. The death of King William III, saved him from 
death; he was released and restored to all his possessions by order in council by Queen 
Anne. The curious will find a reasonably full account of Bayard in Vol. IV of the 
“Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York.”’ published 
in Albany, 1854. Bayard’s brother Peter was the ancestor of the Bayards so well 
known in American politics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. z 
(2) His name is variously spelled McLane, M’Lane, Maclane, McLean, M’Lean, 
McLeans—the well known Lorenzo Dow calls him McClen. I have followed the ortho- 
graphy of the shorthand report of the trial, ‘‘The/Trial /of /David /McLane /for / 
High Treason /at the /City of Quebec in the Province of Lower Canada /on /Friday / 
the Seventh day of July A.D. 1797:/Taken in Shorthand at the trial /Quebec / 
Printed by W. Vondenvelden /Law Printer to the King’s Mcst Excellent Majesty / 
1797. The trial will also be. found reported, 26 St. Tr. 722, but I have used the 
Quebec print—the report on the State Trials seems to be practically identical 
and was no doubt taken from it. 
