In 1833, seventeen slaves effected their escape from Virginia in a boat, and finally reached New York. To recover their slaves _as such_, a judicial investigation in New York would be necessary, and the various claimants would be required to prove their property. A more convenient mode presented itself. The Governor of Virginia made a requisition on the Executive of New York for them as fugitive _felons_, and on this requisition, a warrant was issued for their arrest and surrender. The pretended felony was stealing the _boat_ in which they had escaped. In 1839, a slave escaped from Virginia on board of a vessel bound to New York. It was _suspected_, but without a particle of proof, that some of the crew had favored his escape; and immediately the master made oath that _three_ of the sailors, naming them, had feloniously STOLEN the slave; and the Governor, well knowing there was no slave-market in New York, and that no man could there be held in slavery, had the hardihood to demand the surrender of the mariners, on the charge of grand larceny; and, in his correspondence with the Governor of New York, declared the slave was worth six or seven hundred dollars, and remarked that _stealing_ was "recognized as a CRIME by all laws, human and divine." In 1841, a female slave, belonging to a man named Flournoy, in Georgia, was discovered on board a vessel about to sail for New York, and was recovered by her master. It was afterwards supposed, from the woman's story, that she had been induced by one of the passengers to attempt her escape. Whereupon Flournoy made oath that John Greenman did feloniously STEAL his slave. But the Governor of New York had already refused to surrender citizens of his State, on a charge so palpably false and absurd. It was therefore deemed necessary to trump up a very different charge against the accused; and hence Flournoy made a second affidavit, that John Greenman did _feloniously steal and take away three blankets, two shawls, three frocks, one pair of earrings, and two finger-rings, the property of deponent_. Armed with these affidavits, the Governor demanded the surrender of Greenman under the Constitution. Not an intimation was given by His Excellency, when he made the demand, of the _real facts_ of the case, which, in a subsequent correspondence, he was compelled to admit. It turned out that the woman, instead of being stolen, went voluntarily, and no doubt joyfully, on board the vessel; and that the wearing apparel, &c., were the clothes and ornaments worn by her; nor was there a pretence that Greenman had ever touched them, or ever had them in his possession.