The Earl of Derby to Wickham Hoffman, March 8, 1876
Lord Derby to Mr. Hoffman.
March 8, 1876. (Received March 9.)
Sir: I referred to Her Majesty’s secretary of state for the home department General Schenck’s notes of the 1st and 2d instant, applying for the surrender, to the United States officer authorized to receive him, of Ezra D. Winslow, charged with having committed certain crimes within the jurisdiction of the United States of America; and I have the honor to inform you that, the requisite proof having been laid before him, the chief magistrate of the Bow street police court has formally committed Winslow to prison, and Mr. Cross has forwarded to Sir Thomas Henry his order, under section 8 of the extradition act, 1870, signifying that a requisition has been made for the surrender of the prisoner.
The chief magistrate will, upon the committal being completed, forward to Mr. Cross a certificate of such committal, together with his report upon the case, and nothing would, in the ordinary course of things, remain but for Her Majesty’s secretary of state for the home department, at the expiration of the fifteen days prescribed in the eleventh section of the act of 1870, to issue his warrant for Winslow to be surrendered to the person duly authorized to receive him. But, in view of the difficulty created in consequence of what has recently occurred in the case of Lawrence, as well as the positive enactment of section 3, subsection 2, of the extradition act of 1870, quoted in the second paragraph of my note to General Schenck, of the 29th ultimo, Her Majesty’s government do not feel themselves justified in authorizing the surrender of Winslow until they shall have received the assurance of your Government that this person shall not, until he has been restored or had an opportunity of returning to Her Majesty’s dominions, be detained or tried in the United States for any offense committed prior to his surrender other than the extradition crimes proved by the facts on which the surrender would be grounded; and I have the honor to request that you will communicate this decision to your Government, in order that some arrangement may be come to in the matter.
I have, &c.,