244 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



similar language. "I believe" he says "there never was a soldier of more perfect moral 

 character than Sir John Colborne — a Bayard without gasconade, as well as sans peur et sans 

 reproche." — The title " Seaton," we may add, was taken from the name of an ancient seaport 

 itown of Bevon, the Moridunum of the Roman period. 



IX.— KING STREET: ST. JAMES'S CRVUCK— {Continued.) 

 At the southern end of the Church, in which we are supxK)sing ourselves to be, opposite the 

 Lieutenant-Governor's pew, but aloft in the gallery, immediately over the central entrance 

 underneath, was the pew of Chief Justice PoweU, a long narrow enclosure, with a hi^ 

 screen at its back to keep off the draughts from the door into the gaEeiy, just behind. The 

 whole of the inside of the pew, together with the screen by which it was backed, was lined with 

 dark green baize or cloth. The Chief's own particular place in the pew was its central point. 

 There, as in a focus, surrounded by the members of his family, he calmly sat, with his face to 

 the north, his white head and intelligent features well brought out by the dark back-ground of 

 the screen behind. The spectator, on looking up and recognizing the presence of the Chief 

 Justice tlius seated, involuntarily imagined himself, for the moment, to be in court. In truth, 

 in an absent moment, the Judge himself might experience some confusion as to his whereaboutSr. 

 For below him, on his right and left, he would see many of the barristers, attorneys, jurors and 

 witnesses (to go no further), that on week-days were to be seen or heard before him in different 

 compartments of the Court-room. Chief Justice Powell was of Welsh descent. The name is, 

 of course, ap Hoel:; of wliieh "Caer Heel," "Hoel's Place," the title given by the Chief Justice 

 to his Park-lot at York, is a relic. An excellent portrait of him exists. He was a man of 

 rather less than the ordinary stature. His features were round ia outline, unmarked by the 

 painful lines whicli usually furrow the modern judicial visage, but wakefully intelligent. His 

 hair was milky wliite. The head was inclined to be bald. We have before us a contemporary 

 brochure of the Chief's, from which we learn his view of the ecclesiastical land question, which 

 for so long a period agitated Canada, After a full historical discussion, he recommends the 

 re-investment of the property in the Crown, "which," he says, "in its bounty, will apply the 

 proceeds equally for the support of Christianity, without other distinction :" but he comes to 

 this determination reluctantly, and considers the plan to be one of expediency only. We give 

 the concluding paragraph of his pamphlet, for the sake of its ring, so to speak — which is so 

 thorouglily that of a by-gone day and generation : "If the wise provision of Mr. Pitt, " the writer 

 Says, "to preserve the Law of the Union [between England and Scotland], by preserving the 

 Church of England predominant in the Colony, and touching upon her rights to tythes only for 

 her own advantage, and by the same course as the Church itself desiderates in England (the 

 exchange of tythes for the fee simple), must be abandoned to the sudden thought of a youthful 

 speculator [i. e., Mr. Wilmot, Secretary for the Colonies, who had introduced a bUl into the 

 Imperial Parliament for the sale of the Lands to the Canada Company], let the provision of his 

 bill cease, and the tythes to which the Church of England was at that time lawfully entitled be 

 restored ; she wUl enjoy these exclusively even of the Kirk of Scotland : but if aU veneration 

 for the wisdom of our Ancestors has ceased, and the time is come to prostrate the Church of 

 England, bind her not up in the same wythe with her bitterest enemy; force her not to an 

 exclusive association with any one of her rivals ; leave the tythes abolished ; abolish aU the 

 legal exchange for them ; and restore the Reserves to the Crown, which, in its bounty, will 

 apply the proceeds equally for the support of Christianity, without other distinction." 



In the body of the Church, below, sat another Chief Justice, retired from public life, antj 

 infirm — Mr. Scott — the immediate predecessor of Chief Justice Powell ; a white-haired, venera- 

 ble form, assisted to his place, a little to the south of the Governor's pew, every Sunday. We 

 have ah-eady once before referred to Mr. Scott. — And again: another judicial personage was 

 here every week long to be seen, also crowned with the snowy honours of advanced age — Mr. 

 Justice Campbell — afterwards, in succession to Chief Justice Powell, Chief. Justice Sir William 

 Campbell. His place was on the west side of the central aisle. Sir William Campbell was born 

 so far back as 1T58. He came out from Scotland as a soldier in a Highland regiment, and was 

 taken prisoner at Yorktown when that place was surrendered by CornwaUis in 1781. In .1783 

 he settled in Nova Scotia and studied law. After practising as a barrister for nineteen years. 



