McLEOD CASE, The (IN U. S. HISTORY). In 1837, after the suppression of the Canadian rebellion, or patriot war, a number of Canadian refugees and Americans, using New York state as a base of operations, seized Navy island, in the Niagara river, about two miles above the falls and within British jurisdiction, in order to keep the war alive. Col. McNabb, commanding the Canadian militia, sent a party, on the night of Dec. 29, 1837, to capture the steamer Caroline, which carried supplies to Navy island. The attacking party found her at a wharf on the American side of the river, captured her, after a conflict in which one American, Amos Durfee, was killed, and sent her over the falls in flames. In January, 1838, the British government, in an official communication to the government of the United States, assumed the entire responsibility for the burning of the Caroline.
In November, 1840, Alexander McLeod, while in New York state on business, aroused intense feeling among the people there by boasting of his exploits in the attack on the Caroline. He was arrested, lodged in jail in Lockport, and indicted in February, 1841, for murder. At first, bail was accepted, but this increased the excitement, and he was remanded to jail. The British minister demanded his release, in a note to the secretary of state, for the reasons that McLeod was acting under orders in an enterprise planned, executed and avowed by his superiors; that the question was one of international law, to be settled by the two national governments; that the courts of New York had not the means to judge or the right to decide such a question; and that the British government could not recognize the state jurisdiction of the case, but must hold the government of the United States responsible for McLeod.
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