treaty differs from Jay's. Under his treaty, the delivery was a ministerial act, referring itself to the authority of the governor: under this treaty, it becomes a judicial act, referring itself to the discretion of the judge, who must twice decide against the slave (first, in issuing the warrant; and next, in trying it) before the governor can order the surrender. Twice judicial discretion interposes a barrier, which cannot be forced; and behind which the slave, who has robbed or killed his master, may repose in safety. What evidence of criminality will satisfy the judge, when the act itself is no crime

Striking as these differences are between the present article and that of Mr. Jay's treaty, there is a still more essential difference in another part; and a difference which nullifies the article in its only material bearing in our favor. It is this: Mr. Jay's treaty referred the delivery of the fugitive to the executive power. This treaty intervenes the judiciary, and requires two decisions from a judge or magistrate before the governor can act. This nullifies the treaty in all that relates to fugitive slaves guilty of crimes against their masters. In the eye of the British law, they have no master, and can commit no offence against such a person in asserting their liberty against him, even unto death. A slave may kill his master, if necessary to his escape. This is legal under British law; and, in the present state of abolition feeling throughout the British dominions, such killing would not only be considered fair, but in the highest degree meritorious and laudable. What chance for the recovery of such a slave under this treaty? Read it-the concluding part-after the word "committed," and see what is the process to be gone through. Complaint is to be made to a British judge or justice. The fugitive is brought before this judge or justice, that the evidence of the criminality may be heard and considered-such evidence as would justify the apprehension, commitment, and trial of the party, if the offence had been committed there. If, upon this hearing, the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, the judge or magistrate is to certify the fact to the executive authority; and then, and not until then, the surrender can be made. This is the process; and in all this the new

sympathies are on the side of the slave? What chance would there be for the judicial surrender of offending slaves in the British dominions, under this treaty, when the provisions of our own constitution, within the States of our own Union, in relation to fugitive slaves, cannot be executed? We all know that a judicial trial is immunity to a slave pursued by his owner, in many of our own States. Can such trials be expected to result better for the owner in the British dominions, where the relation of master and slave is not admitted, and where abolitionism is the policy of the government, the voice of the law, and the spirit of the people? Killing his master in defence of his liberty, is no offence in the eye of British law or British people; and no slave will ever be given up for it.

(Mr. WRIGHT here said, that counterfeiting American securities, or bank notes, was no offence in Canada; and the same question might arise there in relation to forgers.)

Mr. BENTON resumed. Better far to leave things as they are. Forgers are now given up in Canada, by executive authority, when they fly to that province. This is done in the spirit of good neighborhood; and because all honest governments have an interest in suppressing crimes, and repelling criminals. The governor acts from a sense of propriety, and the dictates of decency and justice. Not so with the judge. He must go by the law; and when there is no law against the offence, he has nothing to justify him in delivering the offender.

Conventions for the mutual surrender of large offenders, where dominions are coterminous, might be proper. Limited, as proposed by Mr. Jefferson in 1793, and they might

be beneficial in suppression of border crimes and the preservation of order and justice. But extended as this is to a long list of offenders unrestricted as it is in the case of murder-applying to dominions in all parts of the world, and to ships in every sea-it can be nothing but the source of individual annoyance and national recrimination. Besides, if we surrender to Great Britain, why not to Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and all the countries of the world? If we give up the Irishman to England, why not the Pole to Russia, the Italian to Austria, the German to his prince; and so on throughout the catalogue of nations? Sir, the article is a pestiferous one; and as it is determinable upon notice, it will become the duty of the American people to elect a President who will give the notice, and so put an end to its existence.

Addressing itself to the natural feelings of the country, against high crimes and border offenders, and in favor of political liberty, the message of the President communicating and recommending this treaty to us, carefully presents this article as conforming to our feelings in all these particulars. It is represented as applicable only to high crimes-to border offenders; and to offences not political In all this, the message is disingenuous and deceptive, and calculated to ravish from the ignorant and the thoughtless an applause to which the treaty is not entitled. It says:

"The surrender to justice of persons who, having committed high crimes, seek an asylum in the territories of a neighboring nation, would seem to be an act due to the cause of general justice, and properly belonging to the present

state of civilization and intercourse. The Brit

are often applied to for their surrender; and questions of a very embarrassing nature arise from these applications. It has been thought highly important, therefore, to provide for the whole case by a proper treaty stipulation. The article on the subject, in the proposed treaty, is carefully confined to such offences as all mankind agree to regard as heinous and destructive of the security of life and of property. In this careful and specific enumeration of crimes, the object has been to exclude all political offences, or criminal charges arising from wars or intestine commotions. Treason, misprision of treason, libels, desertion from military service, and other offences of a similar character, are excluded."

In these phrases the message recommends the article to the Senate and the country; and yet nothing could be more fallacious and deceptive than such a recommendation. It confines the surrender to border offenders-Canadian

fugitives: yet the treaty extends it to all persons committing offences under the “jurisdiction" of Great Britain—a term which includes all her territory throughout the world, and every ship or fort over which her flag waves. The message confines the surrender to high crimes yet we have seen that the treaty includes crimes which may be of low degreelow indeed! A hare or a partridge from a preserve; a loaf of bread to sustain life; a sixpenny counterfeit note passed; a shed burnt; a weapon lifted, without striking! The message says all political crimes, all treasons, misprision The treaty shows that these offences are not of treason, libels, and desertions are excluded. excluded-that the limitations proposed by Mr. Jefferson are not inserted; and, consequently, under the head of murder, the insurgent, the rebel, and the traitor who has shed blood, may

"Offenders against the law on the one side transfer themselves to the other. Sometimes, with great difficulty they are brought to justice; but very often they wholly escape. A consciousness of immunity, from the power of avoiding justice in this way, instigates the unprincipled and reckless to the commission of offences; and the peace and good neighborhood of the border are consequently often disturbed.

"In the case of offenders fleeing from Canada into the United States, the governors of States

once surrendered, he may be tried for any thing. The fate of Jonathan Robbins, alias Nash, is a good illustration of all this. He was a British sailor-was guilty of mutiny, murder, and piracy on the frigate Hermione-deserted to the United States-was demanded by the British minister as a murderer under Jay's trea.ygiven up as a murderer-then tried by a courtmartial on board a man-of-war for mutiny, murder, desertion, and piracy-found guilty-executed-and his body hung in chains from the yard-arm of a man-of-war. And so it would be again. The man given up for one offence, would

be tried for another; and in the number and insignificance of the offences for which he might be surrendered, there would be no difficulty in reaching any victim that a foreign government chose to pursue. If this article had been in force in the time of the Irish rebellion, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald had escaped to the United States after wounding, as he did, several of the myrmidons who arrested him, he might have been demanded as a fugitive from justice, for the assault with intent to kill; and then tried for treason, and hanged and quartered; and such will be the operation of the article if it continues.

from the negotiators themselves, I am driven to glean among the scanty paragraphs of the President's message, and in the answers of the naval officers to the Secretary's inquiries. Though silent as to the origin and progress of the proposition for this novel alliance, they still show the important particular of the motives which caused it.

no

CHAPTER CVI.

BRITISH TREATY; AFRICAN SQUADRON FOR THE

TON'S SPEECH; EXTRACT.

THE suppression of the African slave-trade is the second subject included in the treaty; and here the regret renews itself at the absence of all the customary lights upon the origin and progress of treaty stipulations. No minutes of conference; no protocols; no draughts or counterdraughts; no diplomatic notes; not a word of any kind from one negotiator to the other. Nothing in relation to the subject, in the shape of negotiation, is communicated to us. Even the section of the correspondence entitled "Suppression of the slave-trade"-even this section professedly devoted to the subject, contains not a syllable upon it from the negotiators to each other, or to their Governments; but opens and closes with communications from American naval officers, evidently extracted from them by the American negotiator, to justify the forthcoming of preconceived and foregone conclusions. Never since the art of writing was invented could there have been a treaty of such magnitude negotiated with such total absence of necessary light upon the history of its formation. Lamentable as is this defect of light upon the formation of the treaty generally, it becomes particularly so at this point, where a stipulation new, delicate, and embarrassing, has been unexpectedly introduced, and falls upon us as abruptly as if it fell from the clouds. In the absence of all appropriate information VOL. II.-29

annum, exclusive of repairs and loss of lives. I speak of the whole expense, as part of the naval establishment of the United States, and not of the mere expense of working the ships after they have gone to sea. Nine thousand dollars per gun is about the expense of the establishment; 80 guns would be $720,000 per annum, which is $3,600,000 for five years. But the squadron is not limited to a maximum of 80 guns; that is the minimum limit: it is to be 80 guns "at the least." And if the party which granted these 80 shall continue in power, Great Britain may find it as easy to double the number, as it was to obtain the first eighty. Nor is the time limited to five years; it is only determinable after that period by giving notice; a notice not to be expected from those who made the treaty. At the least, then, the moneyed expense is to be $3,600,000; if the present party continues in power, it may double or treble that amount; and this, besides the cost of the ships. Such is the moneyed expense. In ships, the wear and tear of vessels must be great. We are to prepare, equip, and maintain in service, on a coast 4,000 miles from home, the adequate number of vessels to carry these 80 guns. It is not sufficient to send the number there; they must be kept up and maintained in service there; and this will require constant expenses to repair injuries, supply losses and cover casualties. In the employment of men, and the waste of life and health, the expenditure must