He wrote and was responsible for the legislation of the new Province, which stemmed from the partition of Quebec in the Constitutional Act of 1791.
He was recommended to William Osgoode by his friend and brother-in-law Samuel Shepherd as a possible attorney general for Upper Canada and was appointed in 1791.
[1] He arrived in 1792 at Kingston, where he was elected to the 1st Parliament of Upper Canada as the member for Leeds & Frontenac.
White played an important role in founding the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1797 and was its first treasurer.
Four of the original sixteen members of the Legislative Assembly were slave owners: John McDonell, Hazelton Spencer, Peter Van Alstine and David William Smith, and a significant number of landowners.