Mr. Burnley to Mr. Seward
My Dear SIR: In response to your official note of the 7th instant, and referring to Mr. Gordon’s despatches of the 7th and 18th ultimo, communicated to you on the 15th and 25th ultimo, about Linus Seely, of the Chesapeake, you may depend upon it that the lieutenant governor of New Brunswick will do what he properly can, in conformity with the laws of the province, either to surrender the criminal or to bring him to trial in the province. Everything, however, must depend upon the nature of the evidence to be produced against him, and, as in your private letter of the 23d ultimo you inform me that measures were being taken to meet the requirements of the provincial law, I presume that the United States consul at St. John’s has already received his instructions accordingly.
It may, however, be well to observe here that this same man was, with the other captors of the Chesapeake, examined before the police magistrate last year and committed for extradition; but that committal was overruled by a judge of the supreme court on the ground (among others) that the offence was cognizable by the courts of New Brunswick, and this ruling has since received the sanction of of the English judges, who, in a precisely similar case of the Joseph L. Grerrity, pronounced this summer a similar judgment.
I am, therefore, inclined to think that if Seely is committed by Judge Parker it will not be for extradition, but for trial in the province of New Brunswick.
Believe me to remain, my dear sir, yours, very faithfully,
Hon. William H. Seward, &c., &c., &c.