Before receiving this note, though subsequent to its date, I had applied
in the usual form for the surrender of the accused. Winslow was brought
before the sitting magistrate to-day, the necessary proofs and papers
were put in, and the prisoner was remanded till to-morrow to await
notice from the foreign office that his surrender had been demanded by
the United States Government.
[Inclosure in No. 884.]
Lord Derby to
General Schenck.
Foreign Office, February 29, 1876.
Sir: I have the honor to state to you, that
I have been informed by Her Majesty’s secretary of state for the
home department, that the chief magistrate of the Bow street
police-court issued, on the 13th instant, upon the information of
Colonel Chesebrough, of the United States legation, warrants for the
apprehension, under the 8th section, clause second, of the
extradition act, 1870, of Ezra D. Winslow, who is accused of the
crime of forgery within the jurisdiction of the United States of
America.
Her Majesty’s secretary of state for the home department, in
communicating this to me, has drawn my attention to the third clause
subsection 2 of the act, which is as follows:
“A fugitive criminal shall not be surrendered to a foreign state
unless provision is made by the law of that state, or by
arrangement, that the fugitive criminal shall not, until he has been
restored or had an opportunity of returning to Her Majesty’s
dominions, be detained or tried in that foreign state for any
offense committed prior to his surrender, other than the
extradition-crime proved by the facts on which the surrender is
grounded;”
And has inquired whether any provision has been made by the law of
the United States or by arrangement that Winslow, if surrendered,
shall not, until he has been restored or had an opportunity of
returning to Her Majesty’s dominions, be detained or tried in the
United States for any offense committed prior to his surrender other
than the extradition crime proved by the facts on which the
surrender is grounded.
The secretary of state for the home department fears that the claim
advanced by your Government to try Lawrence in the recent case of
extradition, with which you are familiar, for crimes other than the
extradition crime for which he was surrendered, amounts to a denial
that any such law exists in the United States; while the disclaimer
by your Government of any implied understanding existing with Her
Majesty’s government in this respect, and the interpretation put
upon the act of Congress of August 12, 1842, chapter 147, section 3,
preclude any longer the belief in the existence of an effective
arrangement, which Her Majesty’s government had previously supposed
to be practically in force.
The secretary of state for the home department is accordingly
compelled to state that, if he is correct in considering that no
such law exists, he would have no power, in the absence of an
arrangement, to order the extradition of Winslow, even though the
extradition crime for which he has been arrested were proved against
him, and the usual committal by the magistrate ensued thereupon.
I have thought it right to lose as little time as possible in calling
your attention to the intimation which I have thus received from Her
Majesty’s secretary of state for the home department; and I have the
honor to request that you will bring the circumstances to the
knowledge of your Government, in order that means may be found for
the solution of the present difficulty.
I have the honor, &c.,
