The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 4, 1861.

.M~ +t.i

,at it is "sufficient to sustain the charge accord-
ing to the laws of this province, if the alleged
offence had been committed therein," or that he
has certified his decision on the evidence, toge-
ther with a copy of all such evidence, to the Go-
vernor. By this commitment the prisoner is not "in
custody awaiting a surrender under the treaty with
the United States," but is in gaol awaiting dis-
charge according to law. Then, as to the designa-
tion of the offence with which it is alleged the
prisoner
was charged on the 28th of September
last,, it is stated that he was on that day charged
on the oath of William C. Baker and others, with-
out stating who those others were, for that he did,
in Howard county, in the State of Missouri, on the
28th day of September, 1853, wilfully, and mali-
ciously, and ferociously stab and kill ene Seneca
T. P. Digges. There is no charge of murder in the
offence alleged against Anderson by William C.
Baker, and we cannot assume that it was intended
to prefer a charge for murder, for, in truth, the
deposition made by Baker before the justice of the
peace, which is returned with the evidence, contains
no charge whatever against the prisoner. He
expressly says in his deposition that he did not see
the wound made of which Digges is said to have
died, and that he came to the province employed
and paid by the county of Howard, for the purpose
of identifying the prisoner. He does not pretend
to give any statement of his own, or to make any
charge against the prisoner. All he does say as to
the cause of the death of Digges, he says Digges
told him, so that in truth the greater portion of
what his deposition contains is a detailed statement
of his several conversations with Digges. That
statement, in the absence of any proof that it was
made by Digges, in the full belief that his life was
drawing speedily to a close, ought not to have
been received, and cannot be considered as legal
evidence, so that, without the necessary requisites
to confer that character on the hearsay statements
of Baker, they cannot possibly form the founda-
tion of a criminal charge against the prisoner.
Then there is the testimony of Benjamin F. Digges,
a son of Seneca T. P. Digges, who was with his
father at the time he was stabbed, and who at that
time was a little better than eight years of age.
This witness says very candidly that he had never
seen the coloured man who stabbed his father
before that time; that the prisoner was about the
colour and size of the man, but "he would not
swear he was the man." Looking, then, at all the
testimony taken before the justice of the peace, and
rejecting such portion as is wholly unnecessary and
inadmissible, there is not a witness who connects
the prisoner with the stabbing of Digges, unless it
be Thomas L. Digges, in his statement of the death-
bed declarations of his father to him, and these only
show that the negro by whom Digges was stabbed
made certain declarations as to himself and his
identity which would be true if made by the pri-
soner. On the grounds, therefore, that the prisoner
was arrested in the first instance on an insufficient
complaint, and that he is now detained in custody
on a warrant of commitment until discharged by
due course of law for an offence committed in a
foreign country, and on the further grounds that
the offence stated in the warrant of commitment is
not one for which the prisoner is liable to be
detained under the Provincial Act for carrying out
the treaty with the United States for the surrender
of certain fugitive criminals, and that the evidence
as given before the justice of the peace is of too
vague a character to establish the offence of murder
against the prisoner according to the laws of this
province, I am of opinion that the prisoner is now
entitled to be discharged from custody. In conclu-
sion, the learned judge said the law of England, or
rather of the British Empire, not only does not
recognise slavery within the dominions of the
Crown, but imposes upon any British subject who
shall have become the owner of slaves in a
foreign State the severest penalties, and declares
that all persons engaged in carrying on the
slave trade, when captured at sea, shall be
liable to be treated as pirates. The prisoner Ander-
son, as appears by the statement of Baker, who
came to this province to identify him, has felt
the horrors of such treatment. He was brought up
to manhood by one Moses Burton, and married a
slave on a neighbouring property, by whom he had
one child. His master, for his own purpose, dis-
regarding the relation which had been formed, sold
and transferred him to a person at a distance, to
whose will he was forced to submit. The laws of
Missouri, enacted by their white oppressors, while
they perpetuate slavery, confer no rights on the
slaves, unless it be the bare protection of their lives.
Can it, then, be a matter of surprise that the pri-
soner should endeavour to escape from so degrading
a position—or rather, would it not be a cause of
surprise if tho attempt were not made ? Dig :go!,
though he could have had no other interest in it
but that which binds slaveholders for their common
interest to prevent the escape of their slaves, inter-
fered to prevent the prisoner getting beyond the
bounds of his bondage, and with his slaves pursued
and hunted him, with a spirit and determination
which might well drive hire to desperation ; and
when at length the prisoner appeared within reach
of capture, he, with a stick in his hand, crossed
over a fence, and advanced to intercept and seized
him. The prisoner was anxious to escape, and in
order to do so made every effort to avoid his pur-
suers. Digges, as their leader, on the contrary,
was most anxious to overtake and come in contact
with the prisoner, for the unholy purpose of rivet-
ting his chains more securely. Could it be expected
from any man indulging the desire to be free,
which Nature has implanted in his breast, that he
should quietly submit to be returned to bondage and
to stripes, if, by an effort of his strength or by any
means within his reach, he could emancipate him-
self ? Such ail expectation, it appears to me, would
be most unreasonable, and I must say, to my judg-
ment, the prisoner was justified in using any neces-
sary degree of force to prevent what to him must
inevitably have proved a most fearful evil. He
was committing no crime in endeavouring to escape
and to better his own condition ; and the fact
of his being a slave cannot, in my hum-
ble judgment, make that a crime which would
not be so if he were a white man. If in this country
any number of persons were to pursue a coloured
man with the avowed determination to return him
into slavery, it cannot, I think, be doubted that
the man pursued would be justified in using, in
the same circumstances as the prisoner, the same
means of relieving himself from so dreadful a
result. Can, then, or must, the law of slavery in
Missouri be recognized by us to such an extent as
to make it murder in Missouri, while it is justifiable
in this province to do precisely the same act ? I
confess that I feel it too repugnant to every sense
of religion and every feeling of justice to recognise
a rule, designated as a law, passed by the strong
for enslaving and tyrannising over the weak—a law
which would not be tolerated a moment if those
who are reduced to the condition of slaves and de-
prived of all human rights were possessed of white
instead of black or dark complexion. The decla-
ration of independence of the present United
States proclaimed to the world that all men are

born equal and possessed of certain ingiien-
able rights, among which are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness; but the first of
these is the only ono accorded to the unfor-
tunate slaves ;. the others of these inalienable
rights are denied, becausd the white population
have found themselves strong enough to deprive
the blacks of them. A love of liberty is inherent

i -
in the human breast, whatever may be the com-
plexion of the skin. "Its taste is grateful, and
ever will be so, till nature herself shall change ;"
and, in administering the laws of a British pro-
vince, I never can feel bound to recognise as law
any enactment which can convert into chattels a
very large number of the human race, I think
that on everyground the prisoner is entitled to be

discharged.
Mr. Justice Burns concurred in the opinion of
the Chief Justice.

Mr. S. B. Freeman, for the prisoner, said it was,
of course, the intention of the prisoner's counsel to
appeal the case to the Court of Error and Appeal.

Mr. M. C.
be necessary to make some order with reference to
Cameron (for the prisoner)—lt may
t'llePrisuner, to allow us tha necessary tiaie :dirty
for an appeal. - •

The prisoner
was then rewanded till SaturdV)

the 22d, when the Court again sits, and the ques-
tion of the right of appeal will be disposed of.
The Toronto Globe contains the following re-
marks :—" The prisoner is a stoutly built man, of
middle height, and of a very deep yellow com-
plexion, with a full development of forehead, and a
countenance in which'mildness and intelligence are
strongly marked. Look at him as close as you will,
you fail to find indications of the stern determina-
tion which would lead a man to turn upon his
tracks and slay his ruthless pursuer in the very mo-
ment of assault. One could not help thinking that
if this man did such a thing, it was not from natu-
ral love of violence or blood, but because he was
filled at the moment with the thirst of freedom
which has in all ages inspired deeds of heroic cou-
rage. The prisoner looked around the Court upon
the faces of the crowd, but apparently thinking
that their sympathy could not avail him, he turned
his gaze upon his judges, and listened with mani-
fest intelligence to their decisions, a deep sigh only
now and again heaving up his broad chest. It was
an anxious moment as the Chief Justice produced
his papers and began to read. The life or death of
a human being hung on a thread ; the liberties of
hundreds of freemen depended on the opinion of
three fallible men. Was this poor fellow, after he
had by desperate adventure achieved his liberty and
enjoyed with his wife the sweets of home for seven
years, to be sent back to certain slavery, if not
death ? Were the hundreds of fugitives in this pre •
vince who have committed what the laws of the
Slave States describe as felonies, in effecting their
escape, to be henceforth at the mercy of the man-
stealer ?"

Indeed it may here be mentioned that the manner in
which the extensive and important operations of the
Royal National Lifeboat Institution are carried out,
excites not only the admiration of Englishmen, but
also of many of our colonies, and nearly all maritime
nations throughout the world.
It was stated that the late Captain Bowerbank,
R.N., who had been a liberal contributor to the in-
stitution, left it a legacy of .£lOO ; and that the late
Mrs. Barber, of Warwick, had also bequeathed it
£5O.

The special thanks of the institution, inscribed
on vellum, were presented to Capt. Kennedy, RN.,
late Deputy Comptroller-General of her Majesty's
Coastguard Services, in testimony of his valuable
services during the past six years, and his cordial
co-operation in assisting to carry out the important
and philanthropic objects of the Royal National
Lifeboat Institution.

The thanks of the institution inscribed on vellum,
were also voted to G. H. Ackers, Esq., commodore
of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, in testimony of
his valuable and zealous services in obtaining from
the members of the club nearly £3OO to pay the
institution the cost of the lifeboat and transporting
carriage stationed at Grange, Isle of Wight.
Capt. WASHINGTON, R N., hydrographer to the
Admiralty, called the attention of the committee to
the desirability of erecting large barometer indica-
tors where practicable on the coast, so that seamen
and fishermen might be warned when in the har-
bour or offing, about two miles frem the land, of a
coming storm.
Mr. Sopwith, President of the Meteorological
Society, who takes great interest in the suceess of
the barometer department of the lifeboat institu-
tion's operations, exhibited at the meeting some fine
specimen models of the proposed indicators. The
institution decided that barometer indicators should,
in the first instance, be stationed in Northumber-
land in compliment to his Grace the Duke of North-
umberland, president of the society. Also, that one
be stationed at Wick, in Scotland, and another at
Arklow, in Ireland. To carry out effectually this
valuable suggestion a large sum would be required
by the institution to fit up the indicators. When it
is remembered that nearly 1,000 persons annually
perish from wrecks on our coasts, every friend of
humanity must rejoice in the establishment of any
practicable plan for the mitigation of the fear-
ful misery such a loss of life must cause in the
homes of our seamen and others. A good barometer
if carefully watched, is an infallible indicator of a
coming storm ; and the day cannot surely be dis-
tant when a barometer cannot be made as portable
as pocket chronometer. Mr. Glaisher, F.R.S.,
verifies each barometer of the Lifeboat Institution
by the Greenwich standard ; and it was decided to
request the makers not to sell any instruments in
its name which had not previously been so verified
by 2,r. Claisher, who takes much trouble in per-
forming this important, but gratuitous duty.
Payments amounting to £360 were made on
various lifeboat establishments.

After a very cordial vote of thanks had been
given to the chairman, Mr. Chapman, for the con-
tinued kind interest in, and his Tenable services
to, the society, the proceedings closed.