alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence.” In all other cases, within the broad compass of the common or statute law of Great Britain or of this country, a party litigant may give evidence pertaining to the suit. In some cases, he may give evidence on the merits; in all cases, he may make affidavit on interlocutory matters. A man who has been in the state prison, a felon scarred with crime, may still make affidavit, in his own case, under certain circumstances, though he can testify neither for nor against any other person. But an alleged fugitive can make oath to no fact, and under no circumstances, for delay or other cause. It would conflict with that “summary manner” in which it is deemed expedient to dispose of human liberty. Look at this provision under the light of a few facts. In the case of _Mahoney_ vs. _Ashton_, (4 Harris & McHenry’s Maryland Reports,) the petitioner for freedom claimed that a maternal ancestor, _four generations back_, who had been brought over by Lord Baltimore, in the early days of the colony, was free; and, by an extraordinary chain of evidence, he traced his descent from that free source. It was a claim which any court in Massachusetts would have sustained without hesitation. Now how much evidence of history, of record, of parol, does the bare mention of such a case suggest? Who could have been prepared to try it in three hours; ay, as soon as he could be seized and hurried to a lawyer’s office? Among the alleged fugitives in the “Pearl cases,” so called, which I assisted in trying in Washington, in the years 1848 and ’49, was the family of Daniel Bell, consisting of his wife and eight or ten children. The mother and children had been freed many years before by deed of manumission, executed by their master in his last sickness, and they had been reputed free ever afterwards. Soon after the grantor’s death, the device was started of proving him to be of “unsound mind,” and thus reclaiming the family to bondage. But the magistrate who prepared the deed, witnessed its execution, and took the acknowledgment, declared that he stood ready to testify to the _competency_ of the grantor, and the validity of the instrument. Years passed away and _he_ died. Immediately the heirs claimed the family as slaves; and, after the loss of the deceased magistrate’s testimony, proved the grantor of “unsound mind,” and so set aside the deed and were adjudged owners of the _chattels_. On the ground of newly-discovered evidence, application for a new trial was made; but the family becoming alarmed lest they should be secretly seized and sent to the south, attempted to make their escape on board the “Pearl,” on the night of the 15th of April. Now, suppose that they had succeeded, and that, after arriving in a free state, they had been seized and carried before a commissioner, to be tried in this “summary manner,” without even waiting for a crier to open the court, and