10 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



It was nearly a year before the pardon was decided upon, and the 

 boy lay in gaol at Cobourg. When the pardon was granted it was 

 on condition that the chiefs of the tribe to which he belonged should 

 give security that he would banish himself from Upper Canada for 

 life. On this being transmitted to the Sheriff of the Newcastle 

 District, John Spencer, he was in a quandary as to the form the 

 security should take and wrote to Major Hillier.^^ How the matter 

 was arranged does not appear, but it is quite certain that the boy 

 was not hanged.-/* 



John Brown, lying in the gaol at York sentenced to death for 

 stealing, is "unprepared to meet his Almighty Maker" and petitions 

 for a commutation.-^ Denis Sullivan, a lad of 17 recently arrived 

 from Ireland, lay in Cornwall Gaol sentenced to death for horse 

 stealing, but is pardoned on condition of banishing himself for life — 

 indeed John Beverley Robinson, when the question was raised during 

 the Willis controversy, was able to say that in his time in office, 

 going back to 1812, there had been no executions for simple horse 

 stealing.-- Philip Matheson, in the Johnstown District Gaol at 

 Brockville sentenced to death for the same offence, also found mercy. -^ 



The escape of prisoners from the district gaols was very common, 

 just as it has been 100 years later in this Province — ^to the indignation 

 of law-abiding citizens. 



The pillory was still in common use, and whipping was an ordinary 

 punishment for theft not punishable with death. 



Riding on a rail a man who is persona non grata to his neighbours, 

 the courts refused to look upon as a mere bit of fun ; the perpetrators 

 were imprisoned for a considerable time and found no mercy. 



i^The letter is dated Hamilton, 26th October, 1821, Can. Archives Sundries, 

 U.C., 1821. Several writers have been misled by want of caution in distinguishing 

 the two Hamiltons. 



2^1 1 is one of my earliest recollections seeing the crowd of people around Cobourg 

 Gaol at the "Court House" (formerly Amherst village) on the hill at the north of 

 the town to witness the execution of Dr. King for the murder of his wife by arsenical 

 poisoning. The trees giving on the gaol yard were crowded with men. This was 

 the first (and only) execution at Cobourg. 



The Indian was possibly of the Mississaugua Band of the Bay of Quinte who 

 a few years later were settled in the Township of Alnwick — -Chippewas they are 

 sometimes called — or he may have been one of the "Rice Lake Band," what is now 

 the Hiawatha Band on the north shore of Rice Lake. 



«iLetter, April 3, 1822. 



22 Petition, September 6, 1822; see papers printed by order of the (Imperial) 

 House of Commons relating to the removal of Mr. Justice Willis. 



^'Petition, September 9, 1822. 



