whenever it was proposed to examine any of the Government officials as witnesses before a Parliamentary committee. It had been customary to specify, in the address of notification, the subject on which it was intended to take evidence. This, however, had been a mere matter of courtesy and conventionality, upon which nobody had any right to insist; and the practice had not been uniform or consistent, various instances having occurred where Crown officers had been summoned and examined as witnesses without any such notification having been given. Upon such a flimsy pretext, however, did Sir Peregrine Maitland base his refusal to permit the two witnesses to attend for examination in the Forsyth case. The Chairman of the Committee duly reported to the Assembly the non-attendance of the witnesses, and that body determined that its authority should not thus be defied and set at naught with impunity. The chief offender, the Lieutenant-Governor--or the Commander of the Forces, if he was to be considered as acting in that capacity--was of course beyond reach, but proceedings were forthwith instituted against the recalcitrant witnesses. Warrants were issued against them by the Speaker, in order that they might be brought up before the House, in custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, to answer for their contempt. Acting under legal advice, they declined to submit to such authority unless compelled to do so by force; and they boldly threatened that in case of force being resorted to they would prosecute the Speaker. It is to be presumed that the warrants would in any case have been acted upon, but this impudent threat left the Assembly no alternative. If Government officers, paid out of the public purse, were to be allowed to defy that branch of the Legislature which alone represented the popular voice--if they were to be permitted to treat its mandates with contempt, and to threaten its representative with ulterior consequences in the event of those mandates being enforced--then, indeed, liberty and equal rights were at a low ebb in Upper Canada. The warrants were promptly executed, the house in which the two officials had ensconced themselves being forcibly entered for the purpose. Being brought to the bar of the House, and charged with their contempt, they sought to vindicate themselves by pleading the action of the Lieutenant-Governor in refusing to sanction their attendance. The House then adopted a resolution under which they were handed over to the custody of the Sheriff, and committed to the common jail of the Home District. They formally notified the Lieutenant-Governor, through his private secretary, of the calamity which had come upon them through obedience to his behests, and requested that the advice and assistance of the Crown officers--that is to say, of the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General--might be vouchsafed to them. They however remained in confinement only three days, for the