FORE:The next who took his trial was Horne Tooke. The evidence was much the same, but the man was different. Tooke was one of the keenest intellects of the time, full of wit and causticity, by which he had worsted even Junius. He summoned as witnesses the Prime Minister himself, the Duke of Richmond, Master-General of the Ordnance, and others of the Cabinet, who had all in their time been ardent Reformers, and cross-questioned them in a style which, if he were guilty, showed that they had once been as much so. Tooke's trial was very damaging to the Government, and he was also acquitted after a trial of six days, during the whole of which the jury had not been allowed to separate, that they might not receive any popular impressions from withouta course which was not calculated to put them in a particularly good humour with the prosecutors.Lord Durham at once resigned, and was succeeded by Mr. Poulett Thomson, afterwards Lord[448] Sydenham, who fully adopted his policy, which was ably expounded in an important report from the pen of Mr. Charles Buller, with additions by Gibbon Wakefield. It was characterised by profound statesmanship, and was the basis of the sound policy which has made united Canada a great and flourishing State. Meanwhile, the returned prisoners from Bermuda showed their sense of the leniency with which they had been treated by immediately reorganising the rebellion. Sir John Colborne, the commander-in-chief, who had, on Lord Durham's departure, assumed provisionally the government of the colonies, thereupon proclaimed martial law, and stamped out the insurrection. Only twelve of the principal offenders were ultimately brought to trial, of whom ten were sentenced to death, but only four were executed. The persons convicted of treason, or political felony, in Upper Canada, from the 1st of October, 1837, to the 1st of November, 1838, were disposed of as follows:pardoned on giving security, 140; sentenced to confinement in penitentiary, 14; sentenced to banishment, 18; transported to Van Diemen's Land, 27; escaped from Fort Henry, 12. The American prisoners had been sent to Kingston, and tried by court-martial on the 24th of November. Four of them were sentenced to death, and executed, complaining of the deception that had been practised on them with regard to the strength of the anti-British party, and the prospects of the enterprise. Five others were afterwards found guilty and executed. The American Government, though deprecating those executions on grounds of humanity, disclaimed all sanction or encouragement of such piratical invasions, and denied any desire on its part for the annexation of Canada.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec tincidunt dolor et.
