rected to be taken before the Justices of the Peace at the Quarter Sessions without the intervention of a jury for, as Haldimand says, "the Old Subjects who give the Ton on Juries are Traders and few of them have any objection or scruple to get money whether by ingrossing, forestalling or regrating."

At the sitting of the Court of Quarter Sessions at Montreal in January 1780, Powell, defending his client, sprung upon the astonished Court the fact that the statute under which the prosecution was brought and all amending statutes had been repealed some years before in 1772, by the Act 12 Geo. III, c. 71. It was not long before he was employed by the various Departments of the Government. This led to much other business; Montreal was a thriving, busy and litigious city, then as now. The Bar was not at that time very crowded; it had probably not more than half a dozen practitioners, French or English; 29 and Powell rapidly attained a leading position financially and otherwise. So successful was he that in 1780, he thought it safe to send to England for his wife and three boys. She arrived at Quebec in the Autumn of 1780 "after a long and adventurous voyage, in which she had been captured and carried into the fort of the enemy, by whom however she was treated with hospitality and afforded the means of pursuing her voyage the same season." In these few words Powell gives his account of a very interesting occurrence. Mrs. Powell, with her children, leaving her people at Norwich, took ship for Quebec, braving not only the terrors of the deep but also the hostile armed vessels, privateers and others, of the revolted American Colonists. These had from as early as 1776, haunted the Gulf of St. Lawrence and adjoining waters to intercept British transports and storeships with ordnance and supplies3° while endeavouring to keep a safe distance from the Ships of War. A New England privateer captured the ship upon which the young wife was coming to her husband and brought ship, passengers and cargo to Boston, then wholly under the control of the insurgents.

William and Jeremiah Powell, the uncles of her husband, were men of influence in Boston, the latter being President of the Council. Mrs Powell went with her boys to her aunt, Mrs. Inman, and she used her influence in favour of her niece. The Powells added their efforts in the same direction; and at length, Mrs. Powell and her children were sent to Quebec under a cartel, with such English prisoners as she selected. The husband and father met his family, and a happy reunion took place at Beauport, near Quebec, at the house of an old and valued friend of the Powell family, Peter Stewart.

B'

CHAPTER III

FURTHER INCIDENTS AT MONTREAL

Y 1780, Powell was becoming well established in his practice; he had won the favour of the "Civilians" i. e. the principal merchants, by his skilful and fearless defence of Du Calvet. Austere, stiff, almost stilted in manner and appearance, not given to open display of affection or dislike, he during all his long life, won the implicit confidence of those best able to judge of character; and in the main, he was eminently worthy of the trust. His capacity and reliability were early recognized by the class of the community which furnish by far the greatest part of a lawyer's practice.1 Powell does not seem to have applied for or obtained a commission as Notary Public, but to have confined himself to a commission which permitted him to practise in the Courts and to transact all kinds of legal business except those formally notarial.3

2

But the official class still stood aloof-the Government circles, the Military, the Judiciary-the last named had indeed been taught a bitter lesson of the estimate in which their partial conduct was held by the respectable people by the verdict of acquittal in the Du Calvet prosecution: and we hear of no further complaint of partiality in the Courts for some time. Impartiality in official position, however, is quite consisent with personal coldness or aversion-and this Powell experienced from the official class. By the end of the year, had happened "an incident of a romantic cast" which he says "secured the good will and respect of the Military"--and this incident is now to be told.

Before Powell tells the story in his own way, some explanation should be given of the mise en scène.

Even before but especially after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, thousands of loyal citizens in Virginia and the Carolinas, some from Pennsylvania and other northern provinces, left their homes to avoid the persecution of their rebel countrymen. Canada was not at first the goal of most of those

who loved

The cause

and kept their faith To England's Crown;

they for the most part went westward into the wilds of the

hinterland. Kentucky-or Kentuck as it was often called-the "dark and bloody ground”, had been explored in the seventh decade of the eighteenth century by the celebrated Daniel Boone, and others of the same type: a few settlers had made their way into this wilderness before 1776. It was in Kentucky and the hinterland of North Carolina that many Loyalists determined to seek a refuge and a quiet habitation-they were not alone, for many disloyal were soon to be found scattered throughout this vast territory. This was the Indians' best hunting ground, and the settlements, however few and scattered, disturbed the game-moreover the settlers had continued the inveterate frontier custom of whites in America, and killed "every defenceless Indian they met with." They lived up to the hideous maxim, "There is no good Indian but a dead Indian", formulated it may be in our time but felt long before.

The Indians felt deeply the loss of their hunting grounds upon which they depended in part for food and almost wholly for furs to barter with the Whites. Massacres took place on either side; torture and death or slavery were the lot of the unfortunate prisoner, male or female, infant or adult. The Indians were soon convinced that they could not drive out the intruder by their own efforts, and they demanded help from the British posts at Detroit and Michilimackinac. Each of these places had a small garrison of the regular army and a considerable number of fur traders, fearless and adventurous. At first the Commandants or "Lieutenant-Governors" of the Forts turned a deaf ear to the suppliants-they had no desire to take part with the Redman against their own kin, and moreover the posts themselves were not too secure and required for their defence all the available military force. A few volunteers joined the Indian expeditions, for such expeditions were at that time looked upon by the semicivilized, and even by some who believed themselves to be civilized, as an interesting vacation not unlike our own present hunting trips, and not much more dangerous. But the American became aggressive: the safety of Detroit, Michilimackinac, Niagara, became still more doubtful, the Indians began to be disaffected and threatened to take the side of the rebels: and when Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit, was captured by "the backwoodsman of Kentucky", Colonel George Rogers Clark, at Vincennes early in 1779, it was obvious that something must be done to hold the Indians as well as to check the rebels.

8

Not much was done in that direction in 1779; but in 1780,

Captain Henry Bird' of the 8th Foot who had acted with the Indians in 1779 was placed in command of a force of about 150 White soldiers and some Indians by Major Arent Schuyler De Peyster, who had succeeded Hamilton as (acting) Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit-Bird was to gather Indians about him and with them attack the Fort at the Falls of the Ohio, i. e., Louisville, which had been built and was garrisoned by the Americans: if successful in this, he was to attack other Forts in Kentucky.

With him went "the three Girtys", Simon, George and James of "Injun story" fame; 10 and at the Miami, he was joined by Captain Alexander McKee, then the Deputy Indian Agent at Detroit." The expedition was at first successfulFort Liberty or Ruddle's Station fell, then Martin's Fort or Martin's Station followed; and Louisville was next to be attacked. But Bird ran out of provisions, because of the wanton destruction of cattle by the Indians,12 his prisoners were in danger of starving, the Indians were getting wholly beyond control-they had captured a few small forts or stockades of settlers and had slain at will and constantly hankered after the delights of the torture-stake-nothing was open to the perplexed Captain but to return as quickly as possible to Detroit with his prisoners and the remains of his force.

As was the case in many former raids, some negro slaves were taken; 13 they were divided among the Indians and the whites and some were sold. Of the white prisoners taken, some were put to hard labour in retaliation for the cruelty practised on Hamilton. Some, including several of those who claimed. to be loyal, were sent east by way of Niagara to Montreal11 and some of these to Quebec.

Now we shall allow Powell to tell his story in his own words:

THE TRAGEDY OF THE LA FORCE FAMILY15

"The Story so much resembles romance that if some documents did not support it there might be ridicule in the relation. "Meeting in the Street of Montreal an armed Party escorting to the Provost Guard several Female prisoners and Children; curiosity was excited and upon engaging the Non-Commissioned Officer commanding the Escort Mr. P. was informed that they were Prisoners of war, taken in the Kentucky country and brought into Detroit by a Detachment from the Garrison and now arrived from thence. Further Enquiry after

procuring necessary relief to the first wants of the party, drew from Mrs. Agnes La Force the following Narrative:

"That her husband was a loyal Subject in the Province of North Carolina,16 having a good Plantation well stocked and a numerous family. That his political Sentiments exposed him to so much Annoyance from the governing Party, that he determined to retire into the wilderness, that he accordingly mustered his whole family, consisting of several Sons and their Wives and Children, and Sons-in-law with their Wives and Children, a numerous band of select and valuable Slaves Male and female, and a large Stock of Cattle, with which they proceeded westward, intending to retire into Kentucky.

"That after they had passed the inhabited Country, they preposed to rest a few days; and having formed their camp, towards Evening a fat beeve was selected and two of his Sons undertook to kill him; one fired and the ox fell, when the other laid down his Rifle near the Tent and ran in to assist in flaying and dressing the Carcase. In the meantime the old Gentleman, fatigued with the day's march retired to his Bed in his Tent and was asleep when upon the loud report of a Gun, she found he was wounded mortally as he lay by her side. Her unhappy Son, when retiring to rest, recollected his rifle, and in feeling round in the dark among the Tent Cords, it went off and killed his father. This melancholy Event did not however arrest their Progress more than one day; but pursuing their Route to the westward, they made a Pitch in the wilderness considered to be five hundred miles from any civil establishment. Here they surrounded a Piece of Ground with Pickets as a Defence against the Indians and built their hutts for themselves with their Slaves within it. With the strength they possessed in their own party, the wilderness soon changed its appearance, and promised amply to repay their Labours; but after a residence of three years without communication with the world, a Party of regular Troops and Indians from the british Garrison at Detroit appeared in the Plain and summoned them to surrender." Relying upon british faith, they open'd their Gate on condition of Protection to their Persons and property from the Indians; but they had no sooner surrendered and received that promise than her sons and sonsin-law had to resort to arms to resist the Insults of the Indians to their wives and Slaves.18 Several lives were lost and the whole surviving Party was marched into Detroit, about six hundred Miles, where the Slaves were distributed among the Captors and the rest marched or boated eight hundred miles