The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-19 00:00:00

AMERICAN NEWS.

LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY.

By the United States' mail steamship Arctic',
Luce commander, we have advices from New York
to the 7th instant. She has 384,000 dollars in specie
on freight.
The Arctic passed the steamship Pacific, Bence for
New York, at 5 50 r.sr. on the 7th.
The Royal mail steamship Niagara, Stone, com-
mander, arrived at Boston on the Gth inst.
The adjourned discussion in the Senate on the
fisheries question was to be resumed on the 12th inst.
Washington letters of the 4th state that Mr. Web-
ster and Mr. Crampton would be there in a week,
that the fisheries question bad been temporarily set-
tled, and that Mr. Crampton had sent a dispatch to
the British Government, urging it to suspend orders
and to withdraw the naval force. _ _

The following dispatch from Commodore Perry to
the United States' Secretary of the Navy had been
received at Washington :
" Eastport, Maine, Aug 5.
" I have been collecting information. Everything in-
dicates a favourable issue. I shall leave for St. John's,
New Brunswick, to-morrow, fog permitting."
The Halifax papers publish the following extract
of a dispatch from Sir Alexander Bannerman to Earl
Grey, dated February, 1852, on the subject of the
fisheries :

" In regard to bounties, the United States' Govern-
ment pay large ones, and, as I stated to the Assembly,
we have no business to complain of whatever policy that
Government may consider most conducive to the inter
eats of their subjects. But I am of the same opinion
with your Lordship—averse to impose a tax on the
whole community to benefit one particular class, for a
trade requiring a bounty (I mean a continued one), will
turn out to be a fictitious one. Our neighbours, and the
French Government, will fled out this in due time; but
that is no business of ours. The Act of the Assembly
of this island passed in 1851 only lasts for three
years. I understood it to be merely an encourage-
ment by the Legislature to give premiums, as they
very properly do, for improvements in agriculture to
another important branch of industry and commerce—
the fisheries; but should the colonists find out—which
they are sure to do—before the expiry of the Act,
that its provisions will be a considerable drain on
their limited finances, they will themselves remedy
the evil—in my opinion the best remedy that
can be applied in the present state of Prince Edward's
Island. As to the fisheries, about which I have troubled
your Lordship so much, I have no hesitation in saying
that were I the sole proprietor of this island, and look-
ing to the question as one involving my own interests,
and not as a national one, I would petition her Majesty
to abrogate the convention of 1818, and graciously ask
fur permission to invite the American fishermen to visit
our shores, to carry on their trade, and make the best
arrangement I could with them. But this cannot be
done at present, and I would fain hope the question may
be easily and amicably adjusted; and if that could be ac-
complished, nothing, I think, would tend more to cement
amity and friendship with Great Britain and the United
States."
St. John's, New Brunswick, papers of the 2d inst.
state that Vice-Admiral Seymour had purchased a
brig and a schooner, which had been manned and
armed to protect the polonial fishermen from the en-
croachments of the Fiench. The papers re-assert that
the British Government had no intention of enforcing
the headland to headland part of the fisheries treaty,
nor of demanding reciprocal free trade as the price of
arranging the question.
At Halifax a remonstrance to her Majesty's Go-
vernment was in circulation against allowing Ameri-
cans to fish within three miles of the shore, even if
reciprocal free trade is granted.
In the case of Thomas Keine, Judge Nelson had
allowed a writ of habeas corpus, bringing the prisoner
before him on the 11th inst. Accompanying the writ
was a lengthy opinion on the case as it stands, where-
in he doubts the legal authority of the United States'
Commissioner to act in the matter. The effect of the
writ would be to remove the whole of the proceedings
before the Supreme Court. The following is Judge
Nelson's opinion :

" IN THE MATTER OF THOMAS KAINE, CLAIMED AS A
FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE, UNDER THE TREATY BE-
TWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN OF

THE 9TH OF AUGUST, 1842.
" Nelson J.—This is an application on the relation of
Maine, for a writ of habeas corpus, a prisoner in gaol,
under the custody of the marshal for the southern dis-
trict of New York, charging that he is detained in
prison by virtue of an order made by the Circuit Court
of the United States of said district, dated July 9,
1852, of the April Term of said Court, purpor-
ting to be made under the treaty bitween the
United States and Great Britain of the 9th of
August, 1842, and which order remands the prisoner
to the custody of the said marshal, to be detained under
a commitment previously made by Commissioner Bridg-
man, under the provisions of the aforesaid treaty; and
that since the granting of the said order by the Circuit
Court the acting Secretary of State for the United
States has issued a warrant directing the marshal to
surrender the prisoner to the Government of Great Bri-
taid, in pursuance of the provisions of the said treaty.
The case having been fully heard in the original pro-
ceedings before the commissioner, in accordance with
the requirements of the treaty, and act of Congress in
pursuance thereof, and the decision of that officer com-
mitting the prisoner for the purpose of a surrender to
the authorities of Great Britain, as a fugitive from
justice, having been subsequently revised and confirmed
by the Circuit Court, I have declined granting the writ
of habeas corpus, or taking any step in the matter of
the application, until the whole of the previous pro-
ceedings in the case, including the evidence, points of
counsel before the commissioner, and opinion of
the court, were laid before me, that I might be
fully apprised of the grounds of the commit-
ment, and of the objections to the same It is proper
to say, also, that I have entertained the case and
called for these proceedings, not with a view to an ori-
ginal hearing of the matter on habeas corpus for the
purpose of passing any opinion upon the legality or
illegality of commitment by the commissioner, or with a
view to a decision of the order of commitment by the
Circuit Court, and a final disposition of the same at
chambers; but solely for the purpose of ascertaining
whether or not the questions involved, or any of them,
were of a character so difficult and doubtful, and their
final determination by the highest authority was of suffi-
cient public interest to require or justify the submission
of them to the Supreme Court of the United States. By
a series of decisions in that court the questions involved
present appropriate subjects of examination in the exer-
cise of its appellate powers.
od•7 wh , 38; 3 Peters, 193; 7 ib., 568; and 5 How., 189,
thislion(3iog a
C raatinpect, and with this
ueehg,m4i4oBo; 4is,ibt.o, 75;the
view,ile9o.oa,
1)i
t;yLfiooef od k
thetihn go
fia
rt
eta the se
commitment by the commissioner (and
the lawfulness of the detention of the prisoner depends
commitmenttcase , aied
was void.
on this, as will be seen hereafter), namely, that ho
pqouseseetsisyedthnaot jurisdiction
warrant
The treaty provides ' that the respective judges
and other magistrates of the two Governments
shall have power, jurisdiction, 86e.' to issue
a warrant,' &c. The
over
of he
Act of Congress of
the 12th of August, ;1848, passed to give effect to the
provisions of this treaty, with others, for extradition,
provides, ' That it shall and may be lawful for any of
the justices of the Supreme Court, or judges of the
several district courts of the United States, and the
judges of the several State courts, and commissioners
authorized so to do by any of the courts of the United
States, are hereby severally vested with powers, jurisdic-
tion,' &c. Another section provides—' That it shall be
lawful for the courts of the United States, or any of
them, to authorize any person or persons to act as corns
missioner or commissioners under the provisions of this
Act,' &c. The commissioner before whom the proceed-
ings were had has not been appointed under, and in pur-
suance of this Act of Congress as one of the officers to
carry into execution the provisions of the treaty, but
acted in pursuance of his powers derived from an ap-
pointment under previous Acts of Congress, for the dis-
charge of other special and limited duties; and, were it
not for a contrary opinion expressed by the Learned
district judge sitting in the circuit, I should have enter-
tained a very decide d opinion that he possessed no power
under the Act of 1848 to entertain the proceedings
in question, and that en appointment by the Court, in
pursuance of the power conferred by that Act, was es-
sential to give the commissioner jurisdiction. It is said,
however, that, admitting the commissioner possessed no
jurisdiction under and in pursuance of the Act of 1848,
still he was competent to act under and by virtue of the
Power conferred by the treaty, independently of the Act
of Congress, and that the limitation of authority by s that
Act would not control the provisions of the treaty, oven
if in conflict with them. We have seen that, according
to the treaty, ' the respective judges and other magi.
strates of the two Governments are empowered to
arrest and examine the fugitive; and the argument is
that the commissioner is a magistrate of the Govern-
ment of the United States within the meaning of
tne treaty. Besides taking bail and depositions
of witnesses in civil cases, these officers, by
the Act of Congress of the 23d of August,
1842, are authorized to arrest offenders for any crime
or offence sgain,st the United States, and imprison
or bail the same. The thirty-third (33) section
of the Judiciary Act conferred the same power upon
justices of the peace of any of the states. The possession
of these powers by the commissioner whose proceedings
are in question, constituted him, as alleged, a magistrate
within the terms of the treaty, and by virtue of which,
as such magistrate, he had a right to act in the premises
notwithstanding the omission, it not exclusion, of these
officers by the terms of the Act of Congress passed to
carry into execution the provisions of the treaty.
Whelher or not this view will sustain the competency
of the commissioner to act under the treaty, indepen-
dently of any power conferred upon him by the Act of
1842, i.; a question upon which I do not propose, at this
time, to express an opinion. It is sufficient to say that
it is one, at least, involved in much difficulty and doubt,
and well deserves the consideration and judgment of the
Supreme Court. If the view is a sound one, it would
seem to follow that any justice of the
in the se-
veral states, possesses the like power to arrest and
commit under the treaty, by virtue of their character,.
as magistrates derived from the powers conferred
under the 33d section j" - • Act of
don of the uotelar3
1789. We can hardly suppose this to have been the
intention of the framers of the treaty. Another ground
of ohjection to the jurisdiction of the commissioner is,
that it was not shown before this officer, previous to the
' institution of the proceedings, or pending the same, that
the Government of Great iritain, or any officers au-
therized by the Government, had applied, or made a