632 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 80 PART 4 JULY 2022
storms on that route, with some ships sinking and others (having cut their
anchors off France so later unable to shelter safely) running aground.
At the 36th annual Bench and Bar Dinner held in person on Thursday, June
16, 2022, Leonard Doust, Q.C., was finally awarded the 2020 Law Society
Award. This happy event was delayed from 2020 by the now well-known
pandemic response requirements.
Philip II noted, “I sent my ships to fight against the English, not against the
elements.”
Robert Southey, an English Romantic poet, reflected in his work “The Spanish
Armada” the longstanding English sentiment that victory and wind had
been divinely ordained (earlier captured in commemorative medals with
messages such as “Jehovah blew and they were scattered”):
Each like some moving citadel,
On through the waves they sail sublime;
And now the Spaniards see the silvery cliffs,
Behold the sea-girt land!
O fools! to think that ever foe
Should triumph o’er that sea-girt land!
O fools! to think that ever Britain’s sons
Should wear the strangers yoke!
For not in vain hath Nature rear’d
Around her coast those silvery cliffs;
For not in vain old Ocean spreads his waves
To guard his favorite isle!
On come her gallant mariners!
What now avail Rome’s boasted charms?
Where are the Spaniard’s vaunts of eager wrath?
His hopes of conquest now?
And hark! the angry Winds arise;
Old Ocean heaves his angry Waves;
The Winds and Waves against the invaders fight,
To guard the sea-girt land.
Howling around his palace-towers
The Spanish despot hears the storm;
He thinks upon his navies far away,
And boding doubts arise.
Long, over Biscay’s boisterous surge
The watchman’s aching eye shall strain!
Long shall he gaze, but never wing’d bark
Shall bear good tidings home.
July 18, 2022 sees the proclamation into force of the new Court of Appeal
Act, S.B.C. 2021, c. 6 and the new Court of Appeal Rules, B.C. Reg. 120/2022.