f the matter in hand.[94] Some years before this time, when
the Compact were all-powerful in the Assembly, as well as in the Upper
House, a custom had been introduced of notifying the Lieutenant-Governor
whenever it was proposed to examine any of the Government officials as
witnesses before a Parliamentary committee. It had been customary to
specify, in the address of notification, the subject on which it was
intended to take evidence. This, however, had been a mere matter of
courtesy and conventionality, upon which nobody had any right to insist;
and the practice had not been uniform or consistent, various instances
having occurred where Crown officers had been summoned and examined as
witnesses without any such notification having been given. Upon such a
flimsy pretext, however, did Sir Peregrine Maitland base his refusal to
permit the two witnesses to attend for examination in the Forsyth case.

The Chairman of the Committee duly reported to the Assembly the
non-attendance of the witnesses, and that body determined that its
authority should not thus be defied and set at naught with impunity. The
chief offender, the Lieutenant-Governor--or the Commander of the Forces,
if he was to be considered as acting in that capacity--was of course
beyond reach, but proceedings were forthwith instituted against the
recalcitrant witnesses. Warrants were issued against them by the
Speaker, in order that they might be brought up before the House, in
custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, to answer for their contempt. Acting
under legal advice, they declined to submit to such authority unless
compelled to do so by force; and they boldly threatened that in case of
force being resorted to they would prosecute the Speaker. It is to be
presumed that the warrants would in any case have been acted upon, but
this impudent threat left the Assembly no alternative. If Government
officers, paid out of the public purse, were to be allowed to defy that
branch of the Legislature which alone represented the popular voice--if
they were to be permitted to treat its mandates with contempt, and to
threaten its representative with ulterior consequences in the event of
those mandates being enforced--then, indeed, liberty and equal rights
were at a low ebb in Upper Canada. The warrants were promptly executed,
the house in which the two officials had ensconced themselves being
forcibly entered for the purpose. Being brought to the bar of the House,
and charged wit