CANADIAN NOMS-DE-PLUME IDENTIFIED, 341 



we liave the announcement tliat " On Monday last [tliis would be 

 March 5] the Grand Jury for this District found a bill of indictment 

 against the printer of this paper for a libel on the Commander-in- 

 Chief. On Wednesday [this would be the 7th], tivo bills were found 

 against the Editor for the same offences. To all the charges con- 

 tained in the indictments the defendants pleaded Not Guilty. They 

 readily found security to appear in another term for trial." We 

 have no notice given us in subsequent journals of the issue of the 

 prosecution. It may have been dropped in conseq\ience of the death 

 of Sir George Prevost in January, 1816. 



Mr. Mungo Kay, the editor, and Mr. W. Gray, the printer, did 

 not betray the confidence placed in them by the pseudonymous wi'ifcers 

 in their journal, except in one instance. It happened that Mr. 

 SeAvell, the Solicitor-General, whose duty it became to conduct the 

 proceedings against the alleged libellers, had himself on two occa- 

 sions, under the nom-de-plume of Colonist, contributed articles tO' 

 the Herald which could be interpreted as censure on the Commander- 

 in-Chief. As, in the opinion of the editor and printer, Mr. Sewell 

 exhibited an over- zeal in pressing the case against them, by summon-- 

 ing the employes of the printing office to give evidence, they con- 

 sidered themselves at liberty to disclose to Sir George Prevost the 

 authorship of the particular articles referred to, and this led to the 

 removal of Mr. Sewell from the Solicitor-Generalship. The result 

 of the prosecution was thus probably more serious to him than to 

 any one else ; his official advancement receiving on the occasion a 

 fatal check. 



Contemporary with Veritas and Nerva in the volumes of the 

 Herald was a writer who signed himself Le Bon Vieux Temps. He 

 was an exponent of the views of the loyally-disposed French Cana- 

 dians in regard to the politics of the day. I have not been able to 

 trace satisfactorily the authorship of the letters thus subscribed. 

 They have been attributed to a Viger and a Quesnel. 



In 1843 Sir Charles Metcalfe succeeded Sir Charles Bagot in the" 

 Governor-Generalship of Canada. Responsible Government had not 

 long been conceded ; and the Governors themselves had not yet quite 

 cordially come into the system. Their view of their own responsi- 

 bility to the Crown and people of England conflicted in some degree- 

 with the theory of Responsible Government as understood by Cana- 

 dians. Sir Charles Metcalfe, though nominally accepting Responsible; 

 5 



