In Montreal in May, 1818, an action was brought before Chief Justice Monk and Justice Bowen against Colin Robertson and four others, charging them with riotously destroying Fort Gibraltar, the Nor'-Wester fort. A number of witnesses were called, including Miles Macdonell, John Pritchard, Auguste Cadot, and others. A verdict of not guilty was rendered. In September of the same year a charge was laid against Lord Selkirk and others of a conspiracy to ruin the trade of the North-West Company. This was before the celebrated Chief Justice Powell. The grand jury refused to give the Chief Justice an answer in the case. The Court was summarily adjourned, and legislation was introduced at the next meeting of the Legislature of Upper Canada to remedy defects in the Act in order that the case might be tried. Afterward the cases were taken up in York, and Deputy-Sheriff Smith was given a verdict against Lord Selkirk for 500_l._, and McKenzie, a North-West partner, a verdict of 1,500_l._ for false imprisonment at Fort William. The general impression has always prevailed there that the whole procedure in these cases against Lord Selkirk was high-handed and unjust, though it is quite possible that Lord Selkirk had exceeded his powers in the troubled state of affairs at Fort William. On his Lordship's side charges were also brought in October, 1818. In the full Court Chief Justice Powell and Justices Campbell and Boulter presided. The most notable of these cases was against Cuthbert Grant, Boucher, and sixteen others as either principals or accessories in the murder of Robert Semple on June 19th, 1816. A few days later, in the same month, a slightly different charge was brought against six of the North-West partners in connection with the murder of Governor Semple. Upwards of three hundred pages of evidence gave a minute and complete account of the affair of Seven Oaks and of the whole conflict as found in a volume of Canadian trials. In these two cases a verdict of not guilty was also rendered. Two other trials, one by Lord Selkirk's party against Paul Brown for robbery of a blanket and a gun, and the other against John Cooper and Hugh Bannerman for stealing a cannon in a dwelling-house of Lord Selkirk, were also carried through, with in both cases a verdict of not guilty. The evidence in these cases was printed by both parties, with foot-notes, giving a colour to each side concerned of a more favourable kind.