Irving has signified to you that the Part of my Conduct
you think worthy of your Reprehension happened by Accident
let him explain his reasons for so doing. He had no
authority from me.' Carleton then went on to say that he
would consult any 'Men of Good Sense, Truth, Candour,
and Impartial Justice' whenever he chose, no matter
whether they were councillors or not.

The Walker affair, which now broke out again, was much
more serious than the storm in the Council's teacup. It
agitated the whole of Canada and threatened to range the
population of Montreal and Quebec into two irreconcilable
factions, the civil and the military. For the whole of
the two years since Murray had been called upon to deal
with it cleverly presented versions of Walker's views
had been spread all over the colonies and worked into
influential Opposition circles in England. The invectives
against the redcoats and their friends the seigneurs were
of the usual abusive type. But they had an unusually
powerful effect at that particular time in the Thirteen
Colonies as well as in what their authors hoped to make
a Fourteenth Colony after a fashion of their own; and
they looked plausible enough to mislead a good many
moderate men in the mother country too. Walker's case
was that he had an actual witness, as to the identity of
his assailants, in the person of McGovoch, a discharged
soldier, who laid information against one civilian, three
British officers, and the celebrated French-Canadian
leader, La Corne de St Luc. All the accused were arrested
in their beds in Montreal and thrown into the common