"Morrison's Pills, the Hygeia Vegetable Universal Medicines" are advertised by Robert Murray, Agent. Edward Hale had removed his "Stone Yard to the street leading from the main street to the Windmill." 10 W. Gibbons wanted to sell a house and lot on the Main Street, and F. Sprague, to sell or exchange his brick house on Division Street, 38 x 26, quite new, and the lot containing half an acre with a well and a living brook. 11 A couple of feeble jokes enliven the journal. "The weather continues hot and sultry. half an ox at a time." The butchers of Cobourg kill "A new idea. We understand that an order has passed the Board of Education which provides that Teachers of Common Schools must be able to read and write their own certificates." The latter was not much of a libel on the ordinary run of teachers at the time. And so we leave Mr. Hart, Radical Editor, and his Plain-Speaker-a very plain speaker in truth. A well-known proprietary remedy of that time-now quite forgotten. Morrison was an Englishman, and founded quite a school of medicine. 10 I cannot identify the site of the windmill. Hale had a brick yard; and afterwards removed back of Port Hope. "I presume Tannery Creek, still very lively at some seasons of the year. XI SOME REFERENCES TO NEGROES IN UPPER CANADA. BY THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL, LL.D., F.R.S.C., ETC. The report to the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada by Chief Justice William Dummer Powell dated Niagara, 25 September, 1821, contains the following: "In the Western District [the Assize Town of which was Sandwich] an indictment for a Riot disclosed certain transactions which may affect the general peace of the district. "It appears that runaway slaves from the United States receive great encouragement from the inhabitants of that quarter; and are residents there in great numbers, cultivating for Hire or on Shares excellent Tobacco equal to the growth of the Ohio or the Mississippi. The protection afforded by our laws to the personal freedom of all who live in the Province without offence induced a number of slave owners to employ an active agent to recover their property and this agent failing in many attempts to seduce his victims into the Territory of the U.S. engaged assistance, crossed the Streight in the night and attacked a house in Sandwich occupied by runaway negro slaves. The riot and panic occasioned by this attack created alarm and the assailants fled to their boats; but in the course of the day one of the principals ventured to cross again. was recognized, made prisoner and indicted. Upon the fullest conviction he was sentenced to fine, imprisonment and the pillory. It is said that the owners purpose a Deputation to his Excellency, the Lieutenant-Governor, for relief on failure of which application is to be made to the Government of the U.S." Such an application was made, accompanied with a complaint against the Chief Justice's charge to the Grand Jury. He transmitted to His Excellency copy of his charge which was to the effect that kidnapping was a serious offence but an attempt at kidnapping, which was unsuccessful, could be punished only as an aggravated assault. (Canadian Archives, Sundries, U.C., 1821). Of course the indictment for a riot was at the common law. Perhaps the most interesting of all the papers in that series is the following petition: To His Excellency Sir Peregrine Maitland Knight, Commander of the most Honourable Military Order of the Bath, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Upper Canada, and Major General Commanding His Majesty's Forces therein, etc., etc., etc.: The Petition of Richard Pierpont, now of the Town of Niagara, a man of Color, a native of Africa, and an Inhabitant of this Province since the year 1780. Most humbly showeth, That Your Excellency's Petitioner is a Native of Bondon in Africa;--that at the age of sixteen years he was made a Prisoner and sold as a slave; that he was conveyed to America about the year 1760; and sold to a British officer; that he served his Majesty during the American Revolutionary War in the Corps called Butler's Rangers; and again during the late American War in a Corps of Color raised on the Niagara Frontier. That Your Excellency's Petitioner is now old and without property; that he finds it difficult to obtain a livelihood by his labor; that he is above all things desirous to return to his native country; that if His Majesty's Government be graciously pleased to grant him any relief, he wishes it may be by affording him the means to proceed to England and from thence to a Settlement near the Gambia or Senegal Rivers, from whence he could return to Bondon. Your Excellency's Petitioner therefore humbly prays that Your Excellency will be graciously pleased to take his case into your favorable consideration, and order such steps to be taken to have him sent as to Your Excellency may seem meet; or to afford him relief in any manner Your Excellency may be graciously pleased to order. And Your humble Petitioner as in duty his RICHARD X PIERPONT. York, Upper Canada, 21st July, 1821. A true Copy, James FitzGibbon. Adjutant General's Office, I do hereby certify that Richard Pierpont, a man of color, served His Majesty, in North America, during the American Revolutionary War, in the Provincial Corps called Butler's Rangers. I further certify that the said Richard Pierpont, better known by the name of Captain Dick, was the first colored man who proposed to raise a Corps of Men of Color on the Niagara Frontier, in the last American War; that he served in the said corps during that War, and that he is a faithful and deserving old Negro. N. COFFIN, Upper Canada Sundries (1821). It does not appear what was done on this petition; but that a Negro Corps was raised at Niagara during the war of 1812 is certain, e.g., there is in 1821 a petition by the widow of Peter Lee, who had been "a private soldier in a colored corps raised by Captain Robert Runchey . . . in the course of the late war, he received an . . . injury to his shoulder." "WAS MOLLY BRANT MARRIED?" BY THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL, LL.D., F.R.S.C., ETC. "Sir William Johnson . . . married Molly Brant by Indian custom, and later, to legitimize his children under British law, had the marriage sanctioned and celebrated by the Church." This passage is found in an official publication by the Province of Ontario. 1 It contains by implication at least two errors and as I think one serious misstatement of fact. In the first place there is no such thing as "British Law": there is English law, and there is Scottish law; but they are not the same. The English law is based upon the Common Law of England; the Scottish law, upon the Civil Law of Rome. 2 Again it is indicated that if Sir William Johnson married Molly, even upon his deathbed, their previously born children would be legitimized. The different rules of English and Scottish law in that regard are perfectly well known to every lawyer. As is generally believed, Constantine, on the urgent advice of the higher clergy, made a temporary law that subsequent marriage should legitimize offspring born previously thereto; his successors renewed the law from time to time and it was made perpetual by the Emperor Justinian, in his memorable codification3 The doctrine made its way into most of Continental Europe; and it was introduced into Scotland before the Reformation. In England, as elsewhere, the Canon Law of the Church took over the principle from the Civil Law; and in 1235, there was a memorable attempt on the part of the Bishops to have it adopted as the Law of England. Parliament met at the Priory of Merton, in Surrey, about nine miles from London and there In Crasino Sancti Vincentii (i.e. January 23) was passed the famous Statute of Merton, which confirmed the Common Law rule that for a child to be legiti 1 "Thirty first Annual Archæological Report, 1919 printed by Order of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario," Toronto, 1919, p. 50. On p. 37 appears the statement concerning Sir William Johnson, "Molly Brant, the sister of Captain Brant, became his housekeeper and later, his wife." 'Of course, in many matters, especially commercial matters, the rules of the two systems are the same or almost the same; and there is much statutory law which applies to both countries. The object of the law was to put a decorous end to the concubinage widely prevailing, which was looked upon by most as wholly creditable and by the law as semimarriage. The law of legitimation per subsequens matrimonium was declared by Constantine in a Constitution now lost, renewed by Zeno (Code v, 27.5) and confirmed by Anasta sius and Justin (Code v, 27, 6 and 7) Justinian's Code is Code, v. 27, 9 and 11. See the very able and interesting work on Parent and Child by Lord Frazer, a Scottish Judge, 2nd Edition, 1866, p. 32. This work is very accurate and may be confidently relied upon. |