The excitement caused by this affair extended throughout the country. The President of the United States placed a company of forty-five marines at the disposal of the United States marshal, and these proceeded under orders to the place of the riot. A large number of police and special constables made search far and wide for those concerned in the rescue. Their efforts were rewarded with the arrest of thirty-five negroes and three Quakers, among the latter Hanway and Lewis, who gave themselves up. The prisoners were taken to Philadelphia and indicted by the grand jury for treason. Hanway was tried before the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in November and December, 1851. In the trial it was shown by the defence that Mr. Hanway was a native of a Southern state, had lived long in the South, and, during his three years' residence in Pennsylvania, had kept aloof from anti-slavery organizations and meetings; his presence at the riot was proved to be accidental. Under these circumstances the charge of Justice Grier to the jury was a demonstration of the unsoundness of the indictment: the judge asked the jury to observe that a conspiracy to be classed as an act of treason must have been for the purpose of effecting something of a public nature; and that the efforts of a band of fugitive slaves in opposition to the capture of any of their number, even though they were directed by friends and went the full length of committing murder upon their pursuers, was altogether for a private object, and could not be called "levying war" against the nation. It did not take the jury long to decide the case. After an absence of twenty minutes the verdict "not guilty" was returned. One of the negroes was also tried, but not convicted. Afterward a bill was brought against Hanway and Lewis for riot and murder, but the grand jury ignored it, and further prosecution was dropped.[819] [819] Still's _Underground Railroad Records_, pp. 348-368; Smedley, _Underground Railroad_, pp. 107-130; 2 _Wallace Jr.'s Reports_, pp. 134-206; M. G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_, pp. 50, 51; Wilson, _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power_, Vol. II, pp. 328, 329.