To the Editor of the Commercial:

Your admirable and interesting sketch of the career of the late
Thomas Garrett contains one or two statements, which, according
to my recollection of the facts, are not entirely accurate, and
are perhaps of sufficient importance to be corrected.

The proceedings in the U.S. Circuit Court were not public
prosecutions or indictments, but civil suits instituted by the
owners of the runaway slaves, who employed and paid counsel to
conduct them. An act of Congress, then in force, imposed a
penalty of five hundred dollars on any person who should
knowingly harbor or conceal a fugitive from labor, to be
recovered by and for the benefit of the claimant of such
fugitive, in any Court proper to try the same; saving, moreover,
to the claimant his right of action for or on account of loss,
etc.; thus giving to the slave-owner two cases for action for
each fugitive, one of debt for the penalty, and one of trespass
for damages.

There were in all seven slaves, only the husband and father of
the family being free, who escaped under the friendly help and
guidance of Mr. Garrett, five of whom were claimed by E.N.
Turner, and the remaining two by C.T. Glanding, both claimants
being residents of Maryland.

In the suits for the penalties, Turner obtained judgment for
twenty-five hundred dollars, and Glanding, one for one thousand
dollars. In these cases the jury could give neither less nor
more than the amount of the penalties, on the proper proof being
made. Nor in the trespass case did the jury give "larger damages
than were claimed." A jury sometimes does queer things, but it
cannot make a verdict for a greater sum than the plaintiff
demands; in the trespass cases, Glanding had a verdict for one
thousand dollars damages, but in Turner's case only nine hundred
dollars were allowed, though the plaintiff sued for twenty-five
hundred.

It is hardly true to say that any one of the juries was
_packed_, indeed, it would have been a difficult matter in that
day for the Marshal to summon thirty sober, honest, and
judicious men, fairly and impartially chosen from the three
counties of Delaware, who would have found verdicts different
from those which were rendered. The jury must have been fixed
for the defendant to have secured any other result, on the