Walker was an Englishman who had lived for many years in Boston, coming to Montreal some time after the close of the war in 1760, where he engaged in trade with the upper country. He was a bold, aggressive man, full of democratic notions, who set himself up as the agent of the people, opposed the actions of Governor Murray in every way, and afterwards had endeavoured to use his influence to have Murray recalled. In many ways he showed that he was no great friend of the Military then established in Montreal. The outrage on him, dated on the night of the 6th, he attributed to the Military, and was the occasion of the seizure of “John Fraser, Esq.,” Deputy Grand Paymaster; “John Campbell, Esq.,” now Captain of His Majesty’s Twenty-seventh Regiment; “Daniel Disney, Esq.,” now Captain of the Twenty-fourth Regiment; “St. Luke La Corne, Esq.,” (Knight St. Louis), “Samuel Evans,” Lieutenants in His Majesty’s Twenty-eighth Regiment, and “Joseph Howard,” Merchant, all of the City of Montreal, being to their great surprise seized and taken out of their beds in the middle of the night of the 18th inst., November, 1766, by “Edward William Gray, Esq.,” Deputy Provost Martial in and for the district of Montreal, assisted by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and by them hurried down to Quebec, where they were in close custody on the charge of having on or about “the sixth day of December, 1764, feloniously and with malice forethought, and by lying in wait assaulted, wounded and cut off part of the ear of ‘Thomas Walker, Esq.,’ of Montreal in this Province, with intention in so doing to disfigure the said ‘Thomas Walker.’” The informant was “George Magovock” late soldier in the Twenty-eighth Regiment of foot, making oath before “William Hey,” Chief Justice in and for the Province of Quebec. The Chief Justice was petitioned by the prisoners to be released on bail, but apparently the influence of Walker was so great, that this was not easy. The whole of Montreal was in a great state of irritable excitement, a deputation of the members of the Council, the principal merchants of Montreal and the officers of the Fifteenth, Twenty-seventh, Fifty-second and Royal American Regiments entreated the Chief Justice to grant the petition of the prisoners for bail, asking him to interpose his authority and to mitigate the rigour of the law for gentlemen, “whose honors we are so well convinced, that we offer to become their bail until the trial.”