During the first year of the rebellion the dwellers on the St. Clair frontier felt themselves aggrieved, as not of sufficient interest at military headquarters. They were particularly open to attacks from those who were called pirates, brigands, outlaws and robbers, from across the border, while singularly free from “rebels” among themselves. They were so convinced that the punishments meted out to offenders were not heavy or frequent enough that they emphasized the opinion in meetings called for the purpose of recording them, en passant displaying a rich sense of their own heavy sufferings “both by day and night, which can scarcely be described and perhaps never be surpassed,” and they were incensed at the respite accorded Theller and Sutherland, the two aggressors at whose hands they had suffered most. They were not to be conciliated by Sir George Arthur’s answer, giving legal reasons for the kind of justice dealt to such prisoners. That Lord Glenelg cautioned that every precaution should be taken against any semblance of retaliation upon the people who by their deeds were brought within the operation of martial law; that in courts-martial regular and not militia officers should preside; and that great circumspection be exercised in regard to capital punishment, had no weight with them. They deemed their own “the circumstances of peculiar and pressing urgency” which alone justified extreme measures, in Lord Glenelg’s opinion, and differed from him heartily in “the extent of punishment to which it may be necessary to subject them, will be more safely estimated at a distance from the scene of action.” They did entirely concur with him in that “it was impossible for him at that distance to give specific instructions.” Nor could they agree with Sir George Arthur, that in spite of prearranged plunder, and spontaneous outrages committed, the rebellion had political motives only for its raison d’être. Those who had been the plundered and were victims of outrage were for shooting first and trying after; and at a public meeting called to denounce past action of the patriots and lay down rules for the future it was decided that all invaders--ruffians who had not even the alleged right of being Canadians who were rebelling for what seemed to them good reason, but who came to murder, pillage and burn, under pretence of “liberating” a country unwilling to be liberated--should be treated as pirates; no quarter should be given, and any commander who found himself in such a position would be more than justified in acting on the publicly expressed opinion of that meeting. When occasion occurred and the right man for such work was on the spot a certain portion of those who previously represented public opinion found they could not endorse their own words. Attorney-General Hagerman approved; but then Lord Brougham said that although he might be a good soldier the Attorney-General could not have been much of a lawyer, or he never would have dared to say so.