Sir John Beverley Robinson: Bone and Sinew of the Compact (Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History) [first edition]

John Beverley Robinson (1791-1863) was one of Upper Canada's foremost jurists, a dominating influence on the ruling elite, and a leading citizen of nineteenth-century Toronto who owned a vast tract of land on which Osgoode Hall now stands.The loyalists had founded a colony firm in its devotion to the Crown, with little room for dissent. As a true loyalist son, educated by John Strachan, Robinson attempted to steer Upper Canada toward emulation of what he perceived to be Britain's ideal aristocratic society.As a young ensign in the York militia, he defended his sovereign at Queenston Heights, and as acting attorney-general he prosecuted traitors who threatened to undermine the colony. Later, as attorney-general and de facto leader of the assembly during the 1820s, he tried to mould the government to the British form. But factors he never understood--the influence of American democracy and liberalism in the Colonial Office--ensured that Upper Canada would never be a 'new Albion.'Robinson