APPENDIX TO CHRONICLE. 



295 



libel, and for having suspend- 

 ed the plaintiff from his office as 

 Surveyor-general of the crown 

 lands in that piovince, without 

 any sufficient ground, whereby 

 he sustained considerable damage. 

 Mr. Sergeant J3est conducted 

 the prosecution. He said tliere 

 were three grounds of complaint 

 upon the record ; first, that the 

 plaintiff, being Sui-veyor-general 

 of the crown lands in the province 

 of Upper Canada, had been sus- 

 pended by the defendant, who 

 was Governor-general of the same 

 province, from his office, without 

 any just cause or reason : second- 

 ly, that, after having so suspend- 

 ed the plainlifiF, he wrote letters 

 to the Secretary of State for the 

 Colonial Department containing 

 such representations as prevented 

 the plaintiff from being restored 

 to his situation : and thirdly, that 

 the defendant published against 

 the plaintiff a most false, scanda- 

 lous, and infamous libel. With 

 regard to the second charge, he 

 would candidly state that it must 

 fail, as it was not in his power to 

 support it by evidence. The let- 

 ters which the Governor-general 

 wrote home to the Secretary of 

 State had been applied for, but 

 the government refused to grant 

 the use of them. They could not 

 therefore be produced. Heshould, 

 therefore, confine himself to the 

 first and third charges, both of 

 which he had no doubt of being 

 able to prove to the satisfaction of 

 the Court and the jury. It ap- 

 peared that the defendant sus- 

 pended the plaintifiF from his 

 office, and of course depiiived him 

 of its emoluments, without any 

 just cause or pretence. In the 

 pamphlet (the publication of 



which constituted the libel com- 

 plained of in the last charge), he 

 assigned his reasons for suspend- 

 ing the plaintiff ; and it would be 

 proved, not only that all those 

 reasons were false, but that Gen. 

 Gore knew them to be so, at the 

 time he assigned them. The 

 learned Sergeant then read ex- 

 tracts from the pamphlet, which 

 purported to be a letter from 

 General Gore to Lord Castlereagh, 

 complaining of the conduct of 

 certain factious and turbulent in- 

 dividuals, whose intentions were 

 to disturb the peace and tranquil- 

 lity of the province. Among 

 those individuals the plaintiff was 

 included by name, together with 

 Judge Thorpe, Mr. Wilcox, and 

 others. In another part of the 

 pamphlet it set forth, that the 

 plaintiff turned out of his office 

 an old man, who had been many 

 years in the service, merely be- 

 cause he voted for the govern- 

 ment (an allegation completely 

 false, for the individual in qvies- 

 tion had solicited permission to 

 retire) ; and it further affirmed, 

 that the plaintiff, iiaving obtained 

 a grant of 1200 acres of land, 

 fixed his eye upon 200 acres near 

 Niagara, which had been cleared 

 and cultivated by a man of the 

 name of Young, a disbanded ser- 

 geant belonging to Butler's Rang- 

 ers. The plaintiff, supposing 

 Young's title to the land to be de- 

 fective, had set to work, and in 

 the most oppressive and unfair 

 manner robbed the aged veteran 

 of his hard-earned rewards, and 

 turned him out to be'^gary. 

 Young soon after died, and left a 

 large family in great distresB. 

 The case was mentioned to Go- 

 vernor Gore, who ordered an in- 

 vestigation 



