The _Canadian Freeman_ joined for a time in the general opposition clamour against Dr. Strachan,--against the influence, real or supposed, exercised by him over successive lieutenant-governors. But on discovering the good-humoured way in which its fulminations were received by their object, the _Freeman_ dropped its strictures. It happened that Mr. Collins had a brother in business in the town with whom Dr. Strachan had dealings. This brother on some occasion thought it becoming to make some faint apology for the _Freeman's_ diatribes. "O don't let them trouble you," the Doctor replied, "they do not trouble me; but by the way, tell your brother," he laughingly continued, "I shall claim a share in the proceeds." This, when reported to the Editor, was considered a good joke, and the diatribes ceased; a proceeding that was tantamount to Peter Pindar's confession, when some one charged him with being too hard on the King: "I confess there exists a difference between the King and me," said Peter; "the King has been a good subject to me; and I have been a bad subject to his Majesty."--During Mr. Collins' imprisonment in 1828 for the application of the afterwards famous expression "native malignity" to the Attorney-General of the day, the _Freeman_ still continued to appear weekly, the editorials, set up in type in the manner spoken of above, being supplied to the office from his room in the jail. In the early stages of society in Upper Canada the Government authorities appear not only to have possessed but to have exercised the power of handling political writers pretty sharply. In the Kingston _Chronicle_ of December 10th, 1820, we have recorded the sentence pronounced on Barnabas Ferguson, Editor of the Niagara _Spectator_, for "a libel on the Government." Mr. Ferguson was condemned to be imprisoned eighteen months; to stand in the pillory once during his confinement; to pay a fine of £50, and remain in prison till paid; and on his liberation to find security for seven years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each. No comment is made by the _Chronicle_ on the sentence, and the libel is not described. The local government took its cue in this matter from its superiors of the day in the old country. What Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer says in his sketch of the life of Cobbett helps to explain the action of the early Upper Canada authorities in respect to the press. "Let us not forget," says the writer just named, "the blind and uncalculating intolerance with which the law struggled against opinion from 1809 to 1822. Writers during this period were transported, imprisoned, and fined, without limit or conscience; and just when government became more gentle to legitimate newspapers, it engaged in a new conflict with unstamped ones. No less than 500 venders of these were imprisoned within six years. The contest was one of life and death."