on for
extradition in a case in which the offence had been recently
committed, and because of this fact the requisition was honored. In
the case of Jesse Happy, however, the alleged offence had been
committed four years prior to making an effort to have him extradited.
No process had been issued in the State of Kentucky nor had any steps
been taken to punish him for felony. It was suggested, therefore, that
the real object of this apprehension was to give him up to his former
owners and to deprive him of the personal liberty secured to him by
the laws of Canada.

As the delivery of the slave under these circumstances would subject
him to a double penalty, the one of being punished for the crime and
the other of being returned to a state of slavery even if he should be
acquitted, the Canadian authorities were in a dilemma; for punishment
of the felony was in strict accordance with the statutes of Canada
whereas the enslavement of the fugitive was in direct opposition to
the genius of its institutions and the spirit of its laws. Yet as the
council[19] could not take the position that because a man happened to
be a fugitive slave he should escape the consequences of crime
committed in a foreign country to which a free man would be amenable,
action was suspended so as to give the accused time to furnish
affidavits of the facts set forth in the petition on his behalf, and
not wishing to make of this a precedent without the support of the
highest authority, the matter was submitted to the Government in
England with a request for their views upon this case as a matter of
general policy.[20]

Lord Palmerston having had the matter brought to his attention by Lord
Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, recognized its
very great importance. He accordingly had it submitted to the Law
Officers of the Crown. The opinion of these officers Sir John
Campbell and Sir Robert Mousey Rolfe appears from a letter from W.T.H.
Fox Strangeways, Parliamentary Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
addressed February 25, 1838, to Sir George Gray of the Colonial
Department. This officer said:

"I have received and laid before Viscount Palmerston your Letter to me
of the 6 December 1837 with its accompanying copy of a Dispatch from
Sir Francis Head, in which that officer requests Instructions for his
guidance, in the general case of Fugitive Slaves who, having escaped
to Canada may be demanded from the Canadian Authorities by the