336 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Gagnon, in the second volume of his “Essai de Bibliographie Canadienne” 
(Montreal, 1913) at p. 185, mentions this English version of the Report of this trial 
and in his first volume, Quebec, 1895, at p. 318, mentions a French version as follows: 
“2315. McLane, Le /procès de David McLane /pour haute trahison /devant /une 
cour spéciale D’oyer /et Terminer [à Québec /le 7éme juillet 1797. /Québec: /Imprimé 
et à vendre chez J. Neilson [1797. 22 p. in-8. 
‘Procès politique dont la sentence sera toujours considérée d’une grande cruauté. 
McLane, récemment arrivé des Etats-Unis, ne s'était pas suffisamment surveillé 
dans ses conversations sur les choses de la politique; il fut dénoncé comme travaillant 
à annexer le Canada aux États-Unis. Il fut condamné par le juge Osgood à être 
pendu par le col; mais non jusqu’à ce que mort s’ensuive, car vous devez être ouvert 
en vie, et vos entrailles arrachées et brûlées sous vos yeux, alors votre tête sera 
séparée de votre corps, qui doit être divisé en quatre parties, etc. Que le Seigneur ait 
pitié de votre âme. 
“Ce pauvre McLane fut exécuté sur les glacis, suivant le programme d’Osgood, 
a peu près a l’endroit où se trouve aujourd’hui la nouvelle maison des Soeurs Grises, 
à l'extrémité Est des rues Richelieu et d’Aiguillon, dans le haut de la Côte à Cotton.” 
Gagnon’s note is interesting. I translate: 
“A political prosecution, the sentence in which will always be considered. one of 
great creuity. McLane, recently come from the United States, was not sufficiently 
guarded in his conversation concerning political affairs. He was denounced as 
endeavoring to annex Canada to the United States. He was sentenced by Judge 
Osgood(e) ‘to be hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, for you must be 
cut open alive, your entrails taken out and burned before your eyes, then your head 
separated from your body and the body divided into four parts &c. &c. And may 
the Lord have mercy on your soul.’ 
“Poor McLane was executed on the glacis in accordance with Osgood(e)’s 
sentence, near the place where now stands the new building of the Grey Nuns, at the 
eastern extremity of Richelieu and d’Aiguillon Streets on the summit of la Côte a 
Cotton.” 
This is not a very good specimen of a literary note; the facts are misstated and 
the connotation is misleading: 
(1) McLane—unless all the evidence was false, and even he did not contend 
that—plotted in the United States against British rule in Canada, and he came to 
Canada purposely to further the plot. 
(2) His words were not simply incauticus statements concerning political (or 
State) affairs in Canada, but direct persuasion addressed to persons thought to be 
disaffected toward Britain. 
(3) His object was not the annexation of Canada to the United States, (which 
might possibly be regarded as a venial offence in an American) but to substitute a 
foreign power—that of France—for that of Britain, a project which should have 
been as abhorrent to an American as to an Englishman. 
(4) He was not charged with endeavoring to annex Canada to the United 
States, but with his real offence. 
(5) The sentence was the only sentence which the existing law of Quebec per- 
mitted in cases of treason. The Legislature of Lower Canada had not changed it in 
in its five years of existence—and it was not changed till long after. If it was cruel, 
it was the cruelty of the Common Law, which no one, judge or other, had any power 
to alter. The punishment must needs be public, as were all executions for half a 
century after this date. It is one of my earliest recoNections seeing from my father’s 
house the crowds around the Cobourg jail, covering fences, trees and elevations, some 
