state of Virginia, (if he may be found in your precinct), and
have him forthwith before me, one of the commissioners of the
circuit court of the United States for the Massachusetts district,
at the court house in Boston aforesaid, then and there to answer to
the complaint of John Caphart, attorney of John De Bree, of
Norfolk, in the state of Virginia, alleging under oath, that the
said Shadrach owes service or labor to the said De Bree, in the
said state of Virginia, and while held to service there under the
laws of the said state of Virginia, escaped into the state of
Massachusetts aforesaid, and praying for the restoration of the
said Shadrach to the said De Bree, and then and there before me to
be dealt with according to law.

Hereof fail not, and make due return of this with your doings
thereon, before me.

Witness my hand and seal at Boston, in the said district, on this
fourteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord, one thousand
eight hundred and fifty one.

(Signed) GEO. T. CURTIS,

Commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States,
for Massachusetts District.

* * * * *

The following return was endorsed upon the warrant:--

BOSTON, February 15th, 1851.

In obedience to the warrant to me directed, I have this day
arrested the within named Shadrach, and now have him before the
commissioner within named.

P. RILEY, U. S. Deputy Marshal.

A hearing was had in the U. S. court room, and several papers, being
affidavits and certificates of a record, were exhibited by the
complainant's counsel, as the evidence under the 10th section of the
Fugitive Slave Law so called, that Shadrach was a slave in Virginia,
that he was owned by said De Bree, and that he escaped on the 3d of May,
1850. At the request of counsel these papers were read and admitted as
evidence in the case, subject to such objections as might be made to
their admissibility as legal evidence thereafter.

There were present as counsel for Shadrach, S. E. Sewall, Ellis G.
Loring, Charles G. Davis, and Charles List, and as they had not had an
opportunity to examine the documents produced by the complainant, and
were therefore not satisfied of their sufficiency, they asked for a
postponement, to February 18th, and the commissioner adjourned the
further hearing of the matter until 10 o'clock, on Tuesday, Febr