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The Green Bag
were quite as apt to convict the guilty as to acquit the innocent, wiser counsels prevailed. Matthew Crooks Cameron, Burleigh's counsel, who was really one of the ablest lawyers in the Province, put a quietus upon these demonstra tions at once by saying, with the inborn respect of an English gentleman for the forms of law, that Burleigh must obey the warrant and go before the Recorder, to whose court room we went at once,—prisoner, counsel and a motley crowd of refugees and 'other spectators. Burleigh was arraigned, and the examination of the complaining witness adjourned until the following day. On assembling the next morning, the court room was filled with Southern sympathizers, at the head of whom was Jacob Thompson, formerly Secretary of the Interior in President Buchanan's Cabinet, the political and financial backer of the whole enterprise. I met him twelve years afterwards at a dinner party in Memphis, and found him a somewhat uncouth but genial man, with nothing to justify the charges made in the Northern papers that he bad been instrumental in trying to introduce yellow fever into the Northern cities. In the absence of the Crown attorney, I was courteously permitted to conduct the prosecution, with the aid of Stephen Richards, a famous lawyer of the Prov ince. My witness told her story of the capture in a most convincing way, and bore a long cross-examination with per fect composure and dignity. She identi fied Burleigh without hesitation, and seemed acquainted with every detail of the case. *At the conclusion of the ex amination an adjournment was taken for a week to enable us to procure addi tional testimony, as well as to afford Burleigh an opportunity of introducing a commission from Jefferson Davis as an
officer of the Confederate navy. Indeed, Burleigh practically admitted the facts, and pleaded that the expedition was an act of war, for which he could not be held liable in a civil court. We returned to Detroit that night, and my official connection with the affair ceased, my superior, the District Attorney, having returned to the city and taken up the case. Upon final ex amination the Recorder held that the raid, being against peaceful citizens and involving a violation of neutral terri tory, was not justifiable as an act of war. His judgment granting the extra dition was reviewed upon habeas corpus by a bench of four judges, who unani mously affirmed his action. Burleigh was brought to Detroit and placed in the house of correction. I made his acquaintance there and showed him some trifling courtesies. He was an educated gentleman, a Scotchman by nativity, and a born soldier of fortune. It did not strike me that he was espe cially attached to the Southern cause, but took part in the raid simply from the love of adventure. He exhibited .no bitterness toward the North, but seemed glad of companionship. I would have invited him to my house but for fear of the possibility of an escape, and the certainty of adverse criticism. Good faith requiring that he be tried for the offense for which he was surren dered, he was, after some months deten tion in Detroit, sent to Ohio, within whose waters the Parsons was seized, and tried for robbery after the close of the war. Not only was the trial fair to the defendant, but the law as laid down in the charge was much more favor able to him than the view taken by the Canadian courts. The judge practically held that the seizure of the boat was an act of war, for which Burleigh was not liable, unless money was taken with the
