"I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the 24th ult enclosing a Memorial presented to you by the
Proprietors of Slaves in the Western District of the Province of
Upper Canada.

"I regret equally with yourself the Inconvenience which His
Majesty's subjects in Upper Canada experience from the Desertions
of their slaves into the Territory of the United States, and of
Persons bound to them for a term of years, as also of His
Majesty's soldiers and sailors; but I fear no Representation to
the Government of the United States will at the present avail in
checking the evils complained of, as I have frequently of late
had occasion to apply to them for the Surrender of various
Deserters under different circumstances, and always without
success--

"The answer that has been usually given, has been. 'That the
Treaty between Great Britain & the United States which _alone_
gave them the Power to surrender Deserters having expired, it was
impossible for them to exercise such an authority without the
Sanction of the Laws--'

"I will however forward to His Majesty's Minister for Foreign
Affairs, the Memorial above mentioned in the Hope that some
arrangements may be entered into to obviate in future the great
Losses which are therein described." (_Can. Arch._, Sundries,
Upper Canada, 1807.)

3. John Beverley Robinson, Attorney General, Upper Canada, giving an
opinion to the Lt. Governor, York, July 8, 1819, says the following:

"May it please Your Excellency

"In obedience to Your Excellency's commands I have perused the
accompanying letter from C. C. Antrobus Esquire, His Majesty's
Charge d'affaires at the Court of Washington and have attentively
considered the question referred to me by Your Excellency
therein--namely--'Whether the owners of several Negro slaves from
the United States of America and are now resident in this
Province' and I beg to express most respectfully my opinion to
Your Excellency that the Legislature of this Province having
adopted the Law of England as the rule of decision in all
questions relative to property and civil rights, and freedom of
the person being the most important civil right protected by
those laws, it follows that whatever may have been the condition
of these Negroes in the Country