se, by direct falsehoods, the
most upright, serviceable and esteemed persons in the Province." For
once public opinion proved too strong for Family Compact influence.
Judge Thorpe was returned, and great things were hoped for from his
career in Parliament. But the triumph of freedom was short-lived. The
Compact was too strong to be opposed by the multitude with impunity.
Lieutenant-Governor Gore was subservient to its wishes, and besides he
had by this time come to hate the popular judge on his own account, and
his mind was fully made up to solicit from the Colonial Secretary Judge
Thorpe's recall. One of his private letters, written from Kingston,
during a journey from York to Montreal, several months after the Judge's
election to the Assembly, announces this resolution in unmistakable
terms. "The object of Mr. T.'s [Thorpe's] emissions," he writes,
"appears to be to persuade the people to turn every gentleman out of the
House of Assembly. However, keep your temper with the rascals, I beseech
you. I shall represent everything at St. James'." He was as good as his
word, and in October, 1807, the announcement was made in the _Gazette_
that the Lieutenant-Governor had been instructed to suspend Mr. Thorpe
from his judgeship, which we may be quite sure was done without
unnecessary loss of time.

Thus did might continue to triumph over right. There was not the
slightest imputation of any sort against the Judge's character. His
professional attainments were high; his personal character without a
stain. His continued presence in Canada would have been a blessing to
all but the race of tyrants who trampled on popular liberty. Yet he was
removed because he respected himself and his office too highly to
pervert judgment, and because he bade fair to abridge the rule of
corruption. Upon his return to England the Colonial Office urged nothing
whatever against him, and merely suggested, by way of justification for
his recall, that his stay in Upper Canada would have led to perpetual
disturbance of the public tranquillity. He instituted proceedings in one
of the English courts against Mr. Gore, who was convicted of libel, but
who escaped much more easily than he deserved with a fine of trifling
amount. By way of recompense for his recall from Upper Canada, Judge
Thorpe was appointed Chief Justice of Sierra Leone. There he remained
for two years, by which time his constitution had become so much broken
by the climate that he was compe