the protection of its citizens_." This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commissioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and death, expressly authorized to act independently of "the laws of the land." The Constitution of the State of Mississippi, which no doubt many of the honorable Judges of the Court had on other occasions taken an oath to support, contains the following clause:--"No person shall be accused, arrested or detained, except in cases ascertained by law, and according to the forms which the same has prescribed; and no person shall be punished, but in virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied." _Previous_ to the organization of this Court, FIVE slaves had already been HUNG by the people. The Court, or rather, as it was modestly called by the meeting who erected it, "the committee," proceeded to try Dr. Joshua Cotton, of New England. It was proved to the satisfaction of the committee that he had been detected in many low tricks--that he was deficient in feeling and affection for his second wife--that he had traded with negroes--that he had asked a negro boy whether the slaves were whipped much, how he would like to be free? &c. It is _stated_ that Cotton made a confession that he had been aiming to bring about a conspiracy. The committee condemned him TO BE HANGED IN AN HOUR AFTER SENTENCE. William Saunders, a native of Tennessee, was next tried. He was convicted "of being often out at night, and giving no satisfactory explanation for so doing"--of equivocal conduct--of being intimate with Cotton, &c. Whereupon, by a unanimous vote, he was found guilty and sentenced to be HUNG. He was executed with Cotton on the 4th of July. Albe Dean, of Connecticut, was next tried. He was convicted of being a lazy, indolent man, having very little _pretensions_ to honesty--of "pretending to make a living by constructing washing machines"--of "often coming to the owners of runaways, to intercede with the masters to save them from a whipping." He was sentenced to be HUNG, and was executed. A. L. Donavan, of Kentucky, was then put on his trial. He was suspected of having traded with the negroes--of being found in their cabins, and enjoying himself in their Society. It was proved that "at one time he actually undertook to release a negro who was tied, which negro afterwards implicated him," and that he once told an overseer "it was cruel work to be whipping the poor negroes as he was obliged to do." The committee were satisfied, from the evidence before them, that Donavan was an emissary of those deluded fanatics of the North, the abolitionists. He was condemned to be HUNG, and suffered accordingly. Ruel Blake was next tried, condemned and HUNG. "He protested his innocence to the last, and said his life was sworn away."