"In the former cases the Committee have acted upon the principle which now seems to be generally understood that whenever a crime has been committed and the perpetrator is punishable according to the _Lex Loci_ of the country in which it is committed, the country in which he is found may rightfully aid the police of the country against which the crime was committed in bringing the criminal to justice--and upon this ground have recommended that fugitives from the United States should be delivered up. "But the Committee conceive that the crimes for which they are authorized to recommend the arrest of individuals who have fled from other Countries must be such as are _mala in se_, and are universally admitted to be crimes in every nation, and that the offence of the individual whose person is demanded must be such as to render him liable to arrest by the law of Canada as well as by the law of the United States. "The state of slavery is not recognized by the law of Canada nor does the law admit that any man can be the proprietor of another. "Every slave therefore who comes into the province is immediately free whether he has been brought in by violence or has entered it of his own accord; and his liberty cannot from thenceforth be lawfully infringed without some cause for which the law of Canada has directed an arrest. "On the other hand, the Individual from whom he has been taken cannot pretend that the slave has been stolen from him in as much as the law of Canada does not admit a slave to be a subject of property. "All of which is respectfully submitted to Your Excellency's Wisdom."[21] FOOTNOTES: [1] Under the Canada Act of 1791, the provinces had each a parliament or legislature, an upper house, the Legislative Council, of nominated members, not fewer than seven in Upper and not fewer than fifteen in Lower Canada, and a lower house, the House of Assembly, sometimes called the House of Commons elected by the people, not fewer than sixteen in Upper and not fewer than fifty in Lower Canada. [2] In the sister province a bill to the same effect was more fortunate in the same year a little later. This will be considered in the next chapter. [3] In a work of some authority, Bibaud's _Pantheon Canadien_, page 211, it is said that "Joseph Papineau, Notary Public, Member of the Legislature Assembly for Upper Quebec presented about 1797 a petition of the citizens of Montreal for the abolition of slavery." If that be the case there was nothing done on the petition, but it seems probable that the author refers to the petition of 1799 spoken of later in the Text.