Colonial justice

the long version

"In 1791, when the Constitutional Act created a legislative assembly for Upper Canada, the colonists and their British rulers decreed that the operating criminal justice system in the area be adopted from England, to avoid any undue influence from the nearby United States. In this study of early Canadian law, David Murray delves into the court records of the Niagara District, one of the richest sets of criminal court records surviving from Upper Canada, to analyse the criminal justice system in the district during the first half of the nineteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.