with intent to murder, both these crimes being specified by the treaty, and both being equally clear under the laws of either country. That the circumstances under which the two steamers were captured and plundered, and one of the engineers shot, within our jurisdiction are sufficient to charge the parties concerned with either crime, there can not be the slightest doubt, or that the same circumstances would justify the apprehension of the perpetrators and their commitment for trail if they had taken place within the jurisdiction of Great Britain, thus making the duty of extradition unquestionable. For whichever of the last two crimes the Government shall decide to demand the surrender, the demand may properly be made for all the criminals. All were engaged in the robbery, and, if any one of the party fired on one of the crew with the intention of killing him, all are guilty, and the demand may be made for all.

A careful examination of these distinctions is the more important, as the criminals, if apprehended, will doubtless resist the surrender in the Canadian courts, and will be aided by the ablest counsel money can procure. The expedition having been undertaken and executed with the knowledge, sanction, and aid of agents of the authorities at Richmond, they will spare no expense to prevent the conviction of the parties concerned in it in the Canadian courts, should they be prosecuted for a violation of the laws of Canada or their delivery for trial in the courts of the United States. If the enterprise is regarded as piratical and the work of unauthorized individuals, the British authorities will have discharged their duty when they shall have exhausted every effort to detect the perpetrators of the our take and bring them to punishment. But it is more than probable, should any of them be arrested, that the attempt will be made to show, with a view to prevent their delivery, that the expedition was organized and executed under the direction of individuals holding commissions from the Confederate authorities at Richmond, and, therefore, an act of war. The leader and one of his subordinates declared that they were Confederate officers. Under this aspect the question would assume an international character of the highest importance and delicacy. It would present the case of a band of rebels arming and organizing of British territory, sallying forth on a predatory enterprise against the United States, capturing two steamers within our jurisdiction, returning with one of them to a British port, plundering her and landing their plunder, and then scuttling her in the presence of at least one Government official; and although the steamer was well known to belong to citizens of the United States, two of the criminal parties after being arrested and brought before two magistrates of the place, who must have been cognizant of the principal facts, were discharged without any formal examination. If it be conceded that the expedition was organized by rebel officers, and is to be regarded as an act of war, a grosser violation of British territory and of the neutral character in which Great Britain has assumed to stand in this domestic conflict cannot well be conceived, and she may be properly called on to take such precautionary measures as to guard against a repetition of the outrage. Nothing can be clearer than her duty, under the laws which govern the conduct of neutral nations in time of war, to prevent the organization within her territory of expeditions against our citizens and property, to refuse a shelter to our enemies while preparing to attack us, or an asylum when returning with their booty for the purpose of remaining to watch the opportunity for further depredations.