The new Lieutenant-Governor then found himself involved in a peculiar international situation. Were these American sympathizers foreigners who were levying open war against the province committed to his charge, or were they merely marauders to be classed as pirates? This problem complicated another question of the utmost and pressing importance which was, in what way were the leaders of the late rebellion to be treated? The Family Compact men and the Tories generally thirsted for their blood. Two of the leaders of MacKenzie's rebellion, Lount and Matthews, were already in prison and were shortly to be put on trial for their lives. The problem which Sir George Arthur had to settle was whether or not the extreme penalty of the law should be exacted. It was not to be expected that the ex-governor of a penal colony would show much mercy towards these men who had taken up arms against constituted authority. Nor did he. Lount and Matthews pleaded guilty and were on March 29th sentenced to death. The execution was to take place on April 12th. Sir George Arthur had, of course, no part in sentencing them to death. That was done by Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson, who, Kingsford tells us, pronounced sentence "with that felicity of language ever at his command, but its tone was merciless."[12] Sir John Beverley Robinson's son and biographer, Major-General C. W. Robinson, quotes from the _Law Journal_ of Upper Canada for March, 1863, to show that "of the three individuals concerned, the Chief Justice was most certainly the most painfully affected." But whatever his private feelings may have been the Chief Justice was unbending in his determination that no mercy be shown. He refused to advise the Lieutenant-Governor that Lount and Matthews be either pardoned or respited.[13] In this opinion of the Chief Justice the Attorney-General, Hagerman, concurred, and although there was great excitement in the province and "petitions signed by not less than 8,000 persons"[14] were presented, a reprieve was not granted and the two rebel leaders were executed on the day set. Two days later, on April 14th, Arthur penned a long dispatch on the subject to Lord Glenelg. This document shows clearly how completely the new Lieutenant-Governor was in sympathy with the Family Compact and how entirely he failed to understand the point of view of the Reformers. The despatch professes to deal with the cases of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, "with a general view of the course to be taken with respect to persons committed for High Treason." Arthur begins by combatting a statement made by Lord Glenelg in a despatch dated January 6th, 1835, addressed to Sir John Colborne and marked "separate," to the effect that,