92 CANADIAK LOCAL HISTORY: 



Mr. Solicitor-Geueral Boulton. The counsel for the prisoners were Samuel Sherwood, Livius V, 

 Sherwood, and W. W. Baldwin, Esq, The juries in the three trials were not quite identical. 



Those that served on one or other of them are as follows : George Bond, Joseph Harrison, 

 Wm. Harrison, Joseph Shepperd, Peter Lawrence, Joshua Leach, John McDougall, jun., Wm. 

 Moore, Alexander Montgomery, Peter Whitney, Jonathan Hale, Michael Whitmore, Harbour 

 Stimpson, John Wilson, John Hough, Richard Herring. 



The Earl of Seliiiric was not present at the trials. He had proceeded to New York, on his way 

 to Great Britain, He probably anticipated the verdicts that Were rendered. The North- West 

 Company influence in Upper and Lower Canada was very strong, 



At a subsequent Court of Oyer and Terminer held at York a true bill against the Earl and 

 nineteen others was found by the Grand Jury for "conspiracy to ruin the trade of the North- 

 West Compan^;" Mr, Wm. Smith, Undor^SherifF of the Western District, obtained a verdict 



£500 damages for having been seized and confined by the said Earl" when endeavouring to 

 serve a warrant on him. in Fort William ; and Daniel McKenzie, a retired partner of the North- 

 west Company, obtained a verdict of £1,500 damages for alleged false imprisonment by the 

 Earl in the same Fort. --Two years later, namely, in 1820, Lord Selkirk died at Pan, iu the 

 South of France. 



XXXIII.— QUEEN STREET— FROM YONGE STREET TO TERAULAY STREET; 



Leaving now the site of our ancient Coilrt House, the spot at which we arrive in our tour is 

 one of very peculiar interest. It is tlie intersection at right angles of the two great military 

 ways carved out through the primitive forest of Western Canada by order of its first Governor. 

 Dundas Street and Yonge Street were laid down in the first MS. maps of the country as high- 

 ways destined to traverse the land in all future time, as nearly as practicable in right lines, 

 the one from east to west, the other from south to north. They were denominated " streets,'' 

 because their idea was taken from the famous ancient ways still in several instances called 

 "streets," which the Romans, when masters of primitive Britain, constructed for military 

 purposes. To this day it is no unpleasant occupation for the visitor who has leisure, to track 

 out the lines of these ancient roads across England. We ourselves once made a pilgrimage 

 expressly for the purpose of viewing the intersection of Iknield Street and Watling Street in 

 the centre of Dunstable, and from our actual knowledge of what Canada was when its Yonge 

 Street and Dundas Street were first hewn out, we realized all the more vividly the condition of 

 central England when the Roman road-makers first began their work there. 



Dundas Street has its name from the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for the 

 Colonies in 1794. In that year Governor Simcoe wrote as follows to Mr. Dundas : " Dundas 

 Street, the road proposed from Burlington Bay to the river Thames, half of wliich is completed, 

 will connect by an internal communication the Detroit and settlements at Niagara. It is 

 intended, he says, to be extended northerly t6 York by the troops, and in process of time by 

 the respective settlers to Kingston and Montreal." In another despatch to the same statesman 

 he says : " I have directed the surveyer, early in the next spring to ascertain the precise 

 distance of the several routes which I have done myself the honour of detailing to you, and 

 hope to complete the Military Street or Road the ensuing autumn." In a MS. map of about 

 the same date Dundas Street is laid down from Detroit to the Pointe au Bodet, the terminus 

 on the St. Lawrence of the old boundary line between Upper and Lower Canada. From the 

 Rouge River it is sketched as running somewhat further back than the line of the present 

 Kmgston Road ; and after leaving Kingston it is drawn as though it was expected to follow 

 the water-shed between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence. A Road is sketched, running from 

 the Pointe au Bodet to the Ottawa, and this iioad is struck at an acute angle by Dundas Street. 



A manuscript note appears on the map, "The Dundas Street is laid out from Oxford to the 

 Bay of Quinty : it is nearly finished from Oxford to Burlington Bay." 



Iu 1799 the Constellation, a paper published at Niagara, informs us under the date of Friday, 

 Atigust 2nd, in that year, that "the wilderness from York to the Bay of Quinte is 120 mUes ; a 

 road of this distance through it is contracted out by Government to Mr. Danforth, it informs its 

 readers, to be cut and completed by the first of July next ; and which when completed will 

 open a communication round the Lake by land from this town [Niagara] with the Bay, Kingston, 



