In 1837 the British manner of ruling the Canadian region created so much opposition among the settlers there that a small insurrection broke out. It was suppressed, but only to break out again, and at this time a number of American sympathizers joined the insurgents. A band of the insurgents having taken possession of Navy Island, in the Niagara River, the American sympathizers went in the American steamer _Caroline_ to join them, and carried arms and supplies. The steamer then returned to American waters, but the British loyalists crossed over the line, captured the steamer, set her on fire, and sent her over Niagara Falls. One American was killed in the attack. Later a Canadian deputy sheriff boasted that he had killed the man whose life was taken, and then, in 1840, incautiously came across to Lockport, New York, where he was arrested for the murder. His name was Alexander McLeod. Thereupon the British government, with the aggressive Palmerston in the lead, avowed that the _Caroline_ was seized on the authority of the nation, and peremptorily demanded McLeod's release. The Washington authorities were disposed to yield, but Governor Seward, of New York, declared that McLeod should stand trial; and he did. But having proved an alibi, he was acquitted, and on October 12, 1841, he was returned to Canada. In the meantime an American had been seized as a hostage to abide McLeod's fate. He was of course released at last. In the course of the year 1841 an American coaster named the _Creole_, while carrying a cargo of slaves from the breeding grounds in Virginia to the ever eager market in the Southwest, was taken from her officers and crew by the slaves, who then ran the vessels to the Bahamas, where the slaves, 125 in number, were protected. The slave owners of the United States had been restive because of frequent reports that British cruisers, engaged in suppressing the slave trade upon the coast of Africa, had "exercised the right of search" by boarding ships under the American flag, and when the story of the protection of the _Creole's_ cargo reached the country, the excitement rose toward the war heat.