Mr. Sol.-General Gray, lost in the _Speedy_, manumitted by his will, dated August 27th, 1803, and discharged from the state of slavery in which, as that document speaks, "she now is," his "faithful black woman servant, Dorinda," and gave her and her children their freedom; and that they might not want, directed that £1200 should be invested and the interest applied to their maintenance. To his black servants, Simon and John Baker, he gave, besides their freedom, 200 acres of land each, and pecuniary legacies. The Simon here named went down with his master in the _Speedy_; but John long survived. He used to state that his mother Dorinda, was a native of Guinea, and to describe Governor Hunter as a rough old warrior, who carried snuff in an outside pocket, whence he took it in handfuls, to the great disfigurement of his ruffled shirt-bosoms. His death was announced in the public papers by telegram from Cornwall, Ontario, bearing date January 17, 1871. "A coloured man," it said, "named John Baker, who attained his 105th year on the 25th ult., died here to-day. He came here as a chattel of the late Colonel Gray, in 1792, having seen service in the Revolutionary war. Subsequently he served throughout the war of 1812. He was wounded at Lundy's Lane, and has drawn a pension for fifty-seven years." Mr. Gray, it may be added, was a native of our Canadian town of Cornwall. His place of abode in York was in what is now Wellington Street, on the lot immediately to the west of the old "Council Chamber" (subsequently the residence of Chief Justice Draper.) We ourselves, we remember, used to gaze, in former days, with some curiosity at the pure negress, Amy Pompadour, here in York, knowing that she had once been legally made a present of by Miss Elizabeth Russell to Mrs. Captain Denison. But enough of the subject of Canadian slavery, to which we have been inadvertently led. The old Court House, when abandoned by the law authorities for the new buildings on King Street, was afterwards occasionally employed for religious purposes. By an advertisement in the _Advocate_, in March, 1834, we learn that the adherents of David Willson, of Whitchurch, sometimes made use of it. It is there announced that "the Children of Peace will hold Worship in the Old Court House of York, on Sunday, the 16th instant, at Eleven and Three." Subsequently it became for a time the House of Industry or Poor House of the town.