1. Treason.  This, when real, merits the highest punishment.  But most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one’s country.  They do not distinguish between acts against the government and acts against the oppressions of the government:  the latter are virtues; yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former; because real treasons are rare, oppressions frequent.  The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason-laws in all countries.

Reformation of government with our neighbors; being as much wanted now as reformation of religion is, or ever was any where, we should not wish then, to give up to the executioner, the patriot who fails, and flees to us.  Treasons then, taking the simulated with the real, are sufficiently punished by exile.

2.  Crimes against property; the punishment in most countries, immensely disproportionate to the crime.

In England, and probably in Canada, to steal a horse is death, the first offence; to steal above the value of twelve pence is death, the second offence.  All excess of punishment is a crime.  To remit a fugitive to excessive punishment is to be accessary to the crime.  Ought we to wish for the obligation, or the right to do it?  Better, on the whole, to consider these crimes as sufficiently punished by the exile.

There is one crime, however, against property, pressed by its consequences into more particular notice, to wit;

Forgery, whether of coin or paper; and whether paper of public or private obligation.  But the fugitive for forgery is punished by exile and confiscation of the property he leaves:  to which add by convention, a civil action against the property he carries or acquires, to the amount of the special damage done by his forgery.

The carrying away of the property of another, may also be reasonably made to found a civil action.  A convention then may include forgery and the carrying away the property of others, under the head of,

3. Flight from debts.

To remit the fugitive in this case, would be to remit him in every case.  For in the present state of things, it is next to impossible not to owe something.  But I see neither injustice nor inconvenience in permitting the fugitive to be sued in our courts.  The laws of some countries punishing the unfortunate debtor by perpetual imprisonment, he is right to liberate himself by flight, and it would be wrong to re-imprison him in the country to which he flies.  Let all process, therefore, be confined to his property.

Murder, not amounting to treason, being the only case in which the fugitive is to be delivered;

On what evidence, and by whom, shall he be delivered?  In this country let any justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, or other judge of the district where the fugitive is found, use the same proceedings as for a murder committed on the high seas, until the finding of the ‘true bill’ by the grand jury; but evidence on oath from the country demanding him, though in writing and ex parte, should have the same effect as if delivered orally at the examination.