[93] There was a very general belief throughout the Niagara District at the time that Major Leonard, who was an obedient servant to the Executive, had manipulated the lists from which the jurors in those cases were selected. The truth or falsity of the belief cannot now be pronounced upon, the circumstances upon which it was founded being buried in oblivion. [94] "He [Sir Peregrine Maitland] must have inferred that the Committee proposed to examine these officers respecting the employment of a military force for the ejecting of Forsyth from the land."--See Despatch from the Colonial Secretary, Sir George Murray, to Major-General Sir John Colborne, dated 20th October, 1828, appended to the Report on Forsyth's petition. [95] See the despatch, appended to the Report on the Forsyth Case, at end of Grievance Committee's Report. The Colonial Secretary's despatch quoted in the text will be found appended to the same Report. CHAPTER VIII. THE "AMOVAL" OF MR. JUSTICE WILLIS. The Forsyth embroilment extended over a long period, and from time to time during several years it continued, at longer or shorter intervals, to thrust itself upon public attention. Meanwhile it was not the only instance of abuse of power on the part of the Executive to which the people of Upper Canada were constrained to submit. Several other notable contemporaneous examples shared with it in the unenviable work of widening the breach between the Government and the people, and in destroying popular confidence in the impartial administration of justice. It is a rather singular fact that of all the many high-handed measures resorted to during the existence of the Ninth Parliament, the one which aroused the greatest indignation was perhaps the least blameworthy of them all. It has been the fashion with writers who have dealt with this period of our history to represent the amoval of Justice Willis as being upon the whole the most glaring iniquity of the time. This view is not borne out by the facts. In the Willis affair Sir Peregrine Maitland had recourse to the espionage system, and certainly went to the utmost verge of his authority, but he cannot be said to have run violently in the teeth of precedent and good sense, as was done, for instance, in the Forsyth case. Nor can it be said that he acted with despotic rashness or precipitation. His decade of misrule in Upper Canada was characterized by many cruel, tyrannical and shameful deeds: deeds which stare out from the pages of the past with lurid distinctness. He has enough to answer for at the bar of history; and it is quite unnecessary to load the formidable indictment against him with surplusage or dubious matter. A careful and dispassionate examination of all the circumstances in the Willis case must convince the inquirer that the faults were not all on one side, and that the Judge himself is bound to at least share with Sir Peregrine the responsibility for the bitterness arising out of the "amoval."