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Updated: April 30, 2025
His name was Bartemus Ferguson, and he had on several occasions manifested his sympathy with projects of reform. The discipline inflicted upon him was swift and severe. He was seized while in bed, in the middle of the night, a hundred and fifty miles from home, conveyed to jail at Niagara, and thence to York, where he was detained in prison for some days out of the reach of friends to bail him.
Certainly it was no wonder that the little world of upper Canada opened its eyes at such a Star Chamber sentence as this, pronounced in the year of Grace 1828. It seemed as if the whirligig of time had brought back the days of Bartemus Ferguson and The Niagara Spectator.
Gourlay's case, to say nothing of that of Bartemus Ferguson, affords a sufficient illustration of the extent to which the traditions of the Star Chamber were revived in Upper Canadian practice, when it was thought desirable to crush a champion of popular liberty and equal rights.
In order that public journalists of the present day may note in what comparatively pleasant places their lines have fallen, I transcribe the sentence of the court, which was as follows: "Therefore it is considered by the said court here that the said Bartemus Ferguson do pay a fine to our said lord the King of fifty pounds of lawful money of Upper Canada: That he, the said Bartemus Ferguson, be imprisoned in the common jail of the District of Niagara for the space of eighteen calendar months, to be computed from the eighth day of November, in the sixtieth year of the reign of our said lord the King: that in the course of the first month of the said eighteen months he do stand in the public pillory one hour, between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and two o'clock in the afternoon: and that at the expiration of the said imprisonment he do give security for his good behaviour for the term of seven years: he the said Bartemus Ferguson in the sum of five hundred pounds, and two sureties in the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds each; and further, that he, the said Bartemus Ferguson, do remain imprisoned in the said jail until the aforesaid fine be paid and security given."
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