Canadian State Trials 1 Law, Politics, and Security Measures 1608–1837 ed. by F. Murray Greenwood, Barry Wright (review)

600 The Canadian Historical Review No less critical to his success was the movement of British capital to Canada, initially lured by prospects of growth in transportation and mining, but shifting to industrial investment by the time Aitken had come onto the scene in Montreal. As Marchildon suggests, Aitken's timing, either through luck or prescience, was perfect. By 1912-13, when the Laurier boom drew to a close, bringing eventual ruin to contemporary financial imperialists like William Mackenzie and George Cox, Aitken had moved on to greater glory in British industry and politics. While Aitken might well have thrived in a different era, his particular legacy to Canadian industry and his reputation as a successful , if not wholly admirable, financial entrepreneur was shaped largely by the circumstances of his time. GRAHAM o. TAYLOR Dalhousie University Canadian State Trials 1: Law, Politics, and Security Measures 1608-1837. Edited by F. MURRAY GREENWOOD and BARRY WRIGHT. Toronto: University of Toronto Press for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History 1996. Pp. xvi, 744. $75.00 This volume, the first of a series on 'state trials,' is an ambitious start to an ambitious project. Its scope is broad, as it deals with situations in New France, Acadia, all the colonies of post-American Revolution British North America and Newfoundland, and includes some discussion of comparable British and American laws. Although it falls short of its stated goals and suffers from indulgent editing, it is a qualified success. In the short but dense introduction, which warrants a review of its own, the editors try to provide a context for the current and future volumes. This series is not about state trials, but about the use or contemplated use of state legal or extra-legal power to counter 'threats to security.' The legal situations described are to be put in a legal and social context, with references to British, and to a lesser extent American , laws of the day and with a discussion of the prevailing mood and issues of the society at the time. Despite claiming that the articles do not deal with the interaction of politics and the law in the broad sense of law being used to shape society, there is no doubt that a central goal is to illustrate how elements of government used the law to defend themselves and their conception of how society should operate. The most successful articles in reaching all these goals tend to be , those that cover a broad topic. One of the best is Peter Moogk's examination of the crime of lese-Majeste in New France. Other articles that integrate a discussion of how the law was used with a discussion Book Reviews 601 of the social context are more complex, since they must explain the degree to which British law of the day was used, or ignored, and how local interpretations of British laws were employed to the best advantage of the local authorities. These colonial interpretations were often wildly at odds with contemporary practice in Britain. Among the best of this type of article are Thomas Garden Barnes's on the treatment of the Acadians; Jean-Marie Fecteau and Douglas Hay's examination of Quebec during the American Revolutionary War; D.G. Bell's look at sedition among the Loyalists of St John; and Paul Romney and Barry Wright's look at the maintenance of security in Upper Canada during the War of 1812. With the exception of the last two articles, there is a tendency in the longer articles to include more detail than is necessary. When read as part of a large collection designed to create an overall impression, the effect is to divert the reader's attention from the larger picture. The opposite can be said about other parts of the work. Barry Wright's discussion of the Gourlay affair and Paul Romney's look at libel law in Upper Canada are short on social context, being mainly discussions of the legal situation. In a couple of instances, space has been saved by leaving out essential details. The Zenger case is mentioned in the introduction as important, but an explanation appears only in the last article. And Barry...