WESTERN HERALD.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1842.
THE CASE OF NELSON HACKETT.
The circumstances attending the delivery of this person to the authorities of Arkansas, having been brought up in the House of Commons in England, and having merely elicited the fact that his surrender had been made in a legal manner by the proper authorities in Canada, the next question which suggests itself is, whether our Governor in Council have or have not been imposed upon by the official documents produced by the slave agent, in support of the charge alleged against the supposed delinquent. Of course it is impossible for us, without possessing the facilities necessary for acquainting ourself more intimately with the subject, to answer this question satisfactorily. However, in the absence of the explanations which we before said had been offered to us by the Sheriff, through his Deputy, we have no hesitation in letting the public know all we have been able to gather from individuals in our neighborhood.
Nelson Hackett was arrested in the town of Chatham, and committed to the custody of the Sheriff, by James Read and Thomas McCrae, Esquires, on the 7th of September, 1841. Mr. Abraham Unsworth was then Jailer of this District, and into his custody Hackett was delivered. We are informed by Lord Stanley, in the House of Commons, that the first application for Hackett’s surrender; being unsupported by the requisite “forms,” was refused. Consequently Hackett should, in our judgement, have been immediately set at liberty. But we find that he was kept in prison until the slave agent obtained these “forms,” in the pursuit of which we have learned that he was directed by his legal adviser, Mr. Prince, to get a Bill of Indictment found against the prisoner. To make assurance doubly sure, he procured, as we believe, no less than eight Bills, besides a host of other documentary evidence. While all this was doing, the former jailer died, and the present gentleman succeeded to the situation: but he never saw the commitment of Hackett: and if it had ever been in the hands of his predecessor, it must, assuredly, have been afterwards withdrawn, as it was not to be found among his other papers handed over to the new incumbent. So that the prisoner was kept in jail without even the authority of a commitment, and this, too, after the Government had refused to give him up, and when, therefore, there could be no sufficient reason for his further detention. By what authority, then, was he detained? Who took upon himself the responsibility of dispensing with the usual forms of law upon this occasion? It cannot surely be that the more ipse divit of the Sheriff or the Queen’s Counsel was sufficient authority? However, as we before stated, on the night of the 8th of February last, at about 10 o’clock, Hackett was removed from the jail in the presence of John Mercer Esquire, Deputy Sheriff, who, in the discharge of his duty, agreeably to the instructions of the Governor in Council, surrendered him to Mr. Louis Davenport, the person appointed by the Arkansas authorities to receive him, and who has been heard to say that the principal inducement in getting Hackett back, was to deter other slaves from running away.
In reply to Mr. Hawse’s question, in the Commons, Lord Stanley is reported to have said that Hackett was charged with “burglary and robbery.” Now what does Mr. Davenport say? To ourself he said that he (Hackett) had committed a rape on the person of a young lady of respectability. That Hackett did steal a worse and a watch, when he absconded, no one pretends to deny, but the other, and more flagrant crime, we do not believe to have been mentioned in the documents from Arkansas. Mr. Davenport also assured us that it had cost at least fifteen hundred dollars to get Hackett back; this we suppose was expended in feeing Counsel and Agent, and, possibly, the immaculate Grand Jurors of Arkansas, for finding some of the Indictments. Can it for a moment be supposed that the love of justice so predominate a feature in the character of the people of Arkansas, as to induce them to resort to so much trouble and expense for the sake of a mere horse theif? Assuredly not. The motive then that induced them to pursue Hackett was to show his fellow slaves that there was no security for them in Canada, and that if they ran away, they could and would be brought back.