Note 118 — Chapter IX

The Attorney-General, John Beverley Robinson, was ever valiant on the stronger side. He tried to induce the Assembly to compel Dr. Horne to insert in the next issue of the Gazette a paragraph in the following words: "From the incompetence or negligence of our reporter, the debates of the House of Assembly inserted in the last number of this paper were so imperfect and so untruly reported that no dependence can be placed in their accuracy." The Assembly, however, were satisfied with the humiliation to which the Doctor had been subjected, and would not compel him to further self-abasement.

[119] Mr. Fothergill held the office barely three years, when he was dismissed for voting with the Opposition in the Assembly against the Government. It was an anomaly to permit the King's Printer to hold a seat in the Legislative Assembly, and the Government could hardly be expected to tolerate opposition from such a quarter. Mr. Fothergill was the first incumbent of the office to develop liberal opinions. He was sufficiently deep in the secrets of the Administration to make him a dangerous opponent if he had felt disposed to wage war to the knife. Of this fact the Administration seem to have taken a sort of oblique cognizance. He had overdrawn his account by £360, and in settling with him this sum was not taken into consideration. In other words, the Government made him a present of £360. His successor in the office of King's Printer was Mr. Robert Stanton.

[120] Ante, p. 171.

[121] Ante, p. 13.

[122] Ante, pp. 171-174.

[123] Ante, p. 136.

[124] The charge, as reported by Collins, will be found in the Appendix to the Journals of Assembly for 1829, pp. 27, 28.

[125] Ante, p. 42 et seq.

[126] Sir Peregrine was gazetted to be "Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia and its dependencies" on the 14th of August, 1828. On the same date Sir John Colborne was gazetted as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, but he did not reach the seat of his Government until late in the autumn, and Sir Peregrine did not actually demit office until the arrival of his successor.

[127] William Davenish and Andrew A. Thompson. The former stated that in the event of his being called as a juror he would "put it on to" Collins. See the Freeman for Thursday December 25th, 1828.

[128] See Appendix to Journals of Assembly for 1829.

[129] Ante, pp. 101, 102, note.