Page:Canadian notabilities 2.djvu/105

 whom, he called his friend, that he would not be able to protect him, and that his safety depended upon his departure from the Province. At that time the popular excitement and turmoil were very great, and the extent of the rising throughout the Provinces, and its probable duration, could not be known. However free, Mr. Bidwell may have been from all taint of complicity in the rebellion, the imminence of martial law, and the prospect of indefinite imprisonment, might have been sufficient to appal the stoutest heart. A consciousness of innocence, with no hope of being heard in declaring it until after long deprivation and suffering, would not have given the most sanguine man much strength. It has been believed, and, perhaps justly in view, of Sir Francis's character, and of strictures published by him in England unfriendly to Mr. Bidwell, that the consent thus wrung from the latter was not unwisely given.

After the first shock of the rebellion was over, his return to Canada was earnestly desired by many of its best and most prominent citizens, and he received assurances of the welcome and preferment which would await his coming. Upon the accession to power of the Reform Party a seat on the judicial bench was offered to him. As his return to this country, however, was necessarily a condition precedent to the actual making of the appointment, he felt himself compelled to decline the proffered honour. He had already found abundant professional occupation and social sympathies in his new home, where he determined to remain; though his interest in the home and friends of his earlier life never failed, and his friendships and intercourse with them continued to the end. The thrrty-four years of his residence in New York were a period of unbroken, active, distinguished professional labour and usefulness, and at the same time of devoted service in the great religious and charitable institutions with which he was connected. Prominent among the latter were the American Bible Society, of which he was a Director, and the Bank for Savings, of which he was President. The first case of importance in the Courts in which he was concerned, after his arrival in New York, was that of James Fenimore Cooper, the well-known novelist, against William L. Stone, for libel, founded on criticisms by the defendant on certain literary labours of the plaintiff. Mr. Bidwell conducted the defence with ability so distinguished as to place him at once in the front rank of the New York Bar. From that time forward he was engaged in very many most