Alexander McLeod convicted or lynched, 1841

We have mentioned the *Caroline* affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Affair a few times here, but I would like to examine in a bit more detail than has been done here previously the case of Alexander McLeod, which seemed to once again bring the United States and Great Britain to the brink of war well after the original tensions resulting from the affair had greatly eased. My account is based mostly on two books: Thomas A. Bailey, *A Diplomatic History of the American People* (tenth edition), pp. 209-210 and Francis M. Carroll. *A Good and Wise Measure: The Search for the Canadian-American Boundary, 1783-1842.* According to Carroll (p. 213):

"Alexander McLeod was a deputy sheriff from Niagara, Upper Canada, whose duties took him into the United States to monitor the activities of Canadian Patriots and their American supporters. Although McLeod was not a spy, he, and numerous others, were clearly engaged in intelligence activities against William Lyon Mackenzie and his supporters, and it was entirely predictable that these missions were strongly resented in the border regions of New York. McLeod seemed also to have been a person whom it was easy to dislike. He had been involved in some questionable financial matters, and he was having an affair with a woman whose husband lived in the United States. He was alleged to have bragged, both in Canada and the United States, that he had been with the party that sank the *Caroline,* though this was never proved. His dislike of both the rebels and the Americans, however, was never in question. On 2 September 1840, McLeod was arrested in Manchester, New York, south of Rochester, but released for lack of evidence. Shortly afterwards he was again arrested in Niagara Falls but was released because the warrant was made out for Angus McLeod, rather than Alexander. [In a footnote Carroll adds: "Alexander McLeod was said to have resembled his brother Angus, and Angus was known to have been a member of the *Caroline* raid. Given the inflamed passions along the border, the people of the Niagara region may have been just as pleased to convict the brother, or they may have hoped that Angus would have submitted himself to the New York courts rather than see Alexander hanged." Bailey asserts that Alexander "was probably confused with his brother, who did take part in the raid."] A more prudent man might have stayed away from New York, but McLeod returned to defend himself in a civil suit concerning his misappropriation of funds. The result was that he was arrested in Lewiston on 12 November 1840 on a charge of murder and arson and lodged in the Lockport jail. Several people came forward to testify that he had been in the party that sank the *Caroline* and killed Amos Durfee in December 1837."

https://books.google.com/books?id=1AjlS20Q5J8C&pg=PA213

Anyway, the British Foreign Office, headed by Lord Palmerston, was indignant, protesting to the US government that the party which had attacked the "pirates" on the *Caroline* was a regular military expedition, and that the participants, even assuming Alexander McLeod had been one of them, could not properly be held for murder. The immediate release of McLeod was demanded. Both the Opposition and public opinion in Great Britain took Palmerston's side. (Incidentally, the first reactions of Crown authorities in Upper Canada to McLeod's arrest had been considerably less indignant, because of their knowledge of McLeod's character. Sir George Arthur, lieutenant governor, told the new Governor General, Lord Sydenham, that he understood that McLeod had not been a part of the *Caroline* expedition but had boasted several times that he had, and Arthur suspected McLeod of attempting to manipulate the situation for his own benefit. Still, Arthur and Sydenham did help to finance his defense.)

Palmerston, however, reckoned without the vagaries of American federalism, under which the federal government generally had no right to interfere with proceedings in a state court. (One consequence of the affair was to be an 1842 law providing that persons accused of committing crimes under the orders of a foreign government were to be tried in federal courts.) Secretary of State Webster did try to get New York to release McLeod or transfer his case to a federal court, but to no avail. Sentiment in the border region was too strong. One New York state legislator insisted that "there was not power enough--there was not gold enough in Great Britain to take this man's body out of the county of Niagara, until he shall have gone through the form of a trial." The state of New York would stand on its legal rights and go ahead with the trial. Tensions rose ominously. Palmerston wrote bluntly to the British minister in Washington, "McLeod's execution would produce war, war immediate and frightful in its character, because it would be a war of retaliation and vengeance."

The trial finally took place in October 1841 in Utica; Governor Seward had transferred it there from Lockport, in Niagara County, in order to make a more impartial jury and a calmer atmosphere possible. Even so, Utica was filled with strangers and there was even talk of lynching. Webster took precautions to protect the prisoner, writing to President Tyler that "if a mob should kill him, War w'd be inevitable, in ten days. Of this there is no doubt." Fortunately, the trial went ahead without violence. Fortunately, also, the prosecution presented a weak and inconsistent case against McLeod, who maintained that he was five or six miles distant at the time of the raid, and was backed by a credible witness who said that McLeod had spent the entire night of the raid at his house. The jury took only twenty minutes (or a half hour, according to other accounts) to acquit him on October 12, 1841. One indication that vigilante activity was still feared is that he was carefully transported back to Upper Canada by way of Lake Champlain, rather than through the Niagara region.

Anyway, suppose McLeod had been convicted? This would not necessarily have led to war. It was McLeod's *execution,* not his *conviction,* which Palmerston said would lead to war, and Seward had privately assured Webster that if McLeod would be convicted (which Seward doubted on the basis of the evidence) he would pardon him. (It's interesting to speculate what effect that would have on Seward's political career. It would make him less popular in the border region, but probably only briefly, and in OTL Seward chose not to run for a third term as Governor in 1842, anyway.) But suppose New York had had a more belligerent Governor than Seward at the time. (Or what if instead of an outright pardon, McLeod's sentence was merely commuted to a long prison sentence?) And anyway, given the state of feeling in the Niagara area, I don't think the possibility of a lynching could be ruled out.

Any thoughts?
 
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