He
was the faithful friend and adviser of our first Lieutenant-Governor, and
it is doubtless to his legal acumen that we owe those eight wise statues
which were passed during the first session of our first Provincial
Parliament, which assembled at Newark on the 17th of September, 1792.
Nothing is definitely known concerning Chief-Justice Osgoode's ancestry.
A French-Canadian writer asserts that he was an illegitimate son of King
George the Third. No authority whatever is assigned in support of this
assertion, which probably rests upon no other basis than vague rumour.
Similar rumours have been current with respect to the paternity of other
persons who have been more or less conspicuous in Canada, and but little
importance should be attached to them. He was born in the month of March,
1754, and entered as a commoner at Christchurch College, Oxford, in 1770,
when he had nearly completed his sixteenth year. After a somewhat prolonged
attendance at this venerable seat of learning, he graduated and received
the degree of Master of Arts' in the month of July, 1777.
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