On May 23, 1814, Judges Thomas Scott, William Dummer Powell and William Campbell opened an assize at Ancaster to try nineteen men with high treason.
On May 23, 1814, Judges Thomas Scott, William Dummer Powell and William Campbell opened an assize at Ancaster to try nineteen men with high treason. Eight Americans and Canadian "renegade settler" sympathizers were found guilty of treason and spying in the so-called "Bloody Assize". At the beginning of the war of 1812, Americans thought Canadians would welcome their invading troops as liberators from British rule. They were eventually awakened to a much different reality. Still there were Americans who had moved north, and some Canadians who were sympathetic to the American ideal and others who were indifferent to the Empire and might be persuaded to the American cause. As the war was fought in battles and skirmishes back and forth across what are now the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, serious concerns were raised about “Canadians” who may have joined the American cause and taken up arms against fellow citizens. Any traitors caught could expect the most severe ...