overnment was, therefore, called upon to return
these prisoners to the United States. Upon examining the record in the
case, however, the Attorney General of Upper Canada in reply to the
Governor for information in the case, advised that the so-called
offences of Thornton Blackburn in trying to effect his own escape from
persons seeking to return him to slavery could not be construed as
rioting or rescuing a prisoner from an officer of the law as had been
set forth in the requisition papers from the Michigan authorities and
certainly could not be applied to Thornton Blackburn's wife who, as
the evidence showed, had taken no part at all in the rescue.

The council[14] was thereafter called upon to consider the question
whether, if a similar charge had been committed in Canada, the
offenders would be liable to undergo any of the punishments provided
for in the act passed at the session of the Canadian Legislature in
1833. The Attorney General[15] was of the opinion that had the
government been confined to the official requisition that had
accompanied it, he might have been warranted in delivering up these
persons inasmuch as there was evidence on which, according to the
terms of the Canadian law, a magistrate would have been warranted in
apprehending and committing for trial persons charged with riot,
forcible rescue and assault and battery. The Attorney General
believed, however, that the Governor and the Council were not confined
to such evidence since, though limited in their authority to enforcing
the provisions of the act against fugitives from foreign States, on
being satisfied that the evidence would warrant the commitment for
trial, yet in coming to that conclusion, they were bound to hear not
ex parte evidence alone but matter explanatory to guide their
judgment; for even with the authority so to do, they were not required
to deliver up any prisoner so charged, if for any reason they deemed
it inexpedient so to do.

The conclusion of the Attorney General, therefore, was that Blackburn
and his wife were not charged with any of the offences enumerated in
the statute of Canada and that the Governor and Council were not
authorized by its provisions to send them out of the province. He
said, moreover: "It has not escaped our attention as a peculiar
feature in this case that two of the persons whom the Government of
this Province is requested to deliver up are persons recognized by the
Government of Michigan as slave