14 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



by paying me compliments, the tendency of which I was at a loss to 

 understand until at last he said : ' I am sorry for your fate, for with 

 all this you will certainly be hanged.' And on my requesting an 

 explanation he proceeded: 'Why, man, you have to deal with a man 

 of the most formidable controversial powers of this or perhaps any 

 other age, and his interest requires that you should be disposed of. 

 By controversial powers, Sir' — ^my friend was fond of definitions — 

 ' I mean the power of proving anything a man chooses, and I believe 

 Lord S.'s powers in that way to be so great that he might even succeed 

 in burning a Cardinal. Perhaps, Sir, you do not know for what cause 

 a Cardinal may be burnt. A Cardinal may be burnt for either of two 

 crimes. Heresy or Adultery. Now as heresy is a sort of hypothetical 

 crime of which the proof is rather difficult, and of v/hich other Cardinals 

 are to be the Judges, it is not likely that a Cardinal should ever be 

 burnt for heresy — -but adultery is a matter that may be proved by 

 direct testimony, and to convict a Cardinal it requires seventy-two 

 eye-witnesses of the fact. Now, Sir, my Lord Selkirk shall turn you 

 out seventy-five.'" 



The New England theologian, Noah Worcester, who had been a 

 soldier in his youth and who took an active part in the Massachusetts 

 Peace Society founded after the close of the War of 1812, and himself 

 wrote practically all the contents of the quarterly, "The Friend of 

 Peace" (1819-1828), wrote, September 11, 1821, from Brighton, 

 Mass. (where he had settled in 1813), to Sir Peregrine Maitland 

 inviting his attention to the objects of his Society "to prevent another 

 war between Great Britain and the United States." 



The navigation of Rice Lake and the River Trent, "85 miles 

 from the head of Rice Lake to the Bay of Quinte," was urged upon 

 the Governor as of great importance.^" 



In legal circles there was still an occasional echo of the unsuccess- 

 ful attempt of Christopher Alexander Hagerman in 1815 to obtain 

 the distinction of King's Counsel. Sir Frederick Phipse Robinson 

 had passed his appointment and it was duly gazetted ; but before the 

 patent could issue, Robinson had lost the position of Administrator 

 of the Government and Gore had returned as Lieutenant-Governor. 

 Gore submitted the mal ter to the Judges, they reported against 

 the patent and no King's Counsel were in fact appointed until 1838.^^ 

 In 1822 Mr. Justice Campbell, one of the Judges who reported against 

 the project, writing to Major Hillier recommending Mi. (afterwards 



3»Letter from Charles Hayes, October 31, 1821. 



^'See my article, "The First and Futile Attempt to Create a King's Counsel in 

 Upper Canada, " in 40 Canada Law Times (February, 1920), pp. 92, sqq. 



