Alexander McLeod
| Alexander McLeod | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 January 1796 |
| Died | 27 September 1871 |
| Nationality | Scottish-Canadian |
| Occupation | Sheriff |
| Criminal charge | Murder |
| Spouse(s) | Ellen Morrison |
| Conviction(s) | Not Guilty |
Alexander McLeod was a Scottish-Canadian who served as sheriff in Niagara, Ontario. After the Upper Canada Rebellion, he boasted that he had partaken in the 1837 Caroline Affair, the sinking of an American steamboat that had been supplying William Lyon Mackenzie's rebels with arms. Three years later, he was arrested by the United States and charged with the murder of the sailor killed in the attack, but his incarceration infuriated Canada and Great Britain, which demanded his repatriation in the strongest terms; suggesting that any action taken against the Caroline had been taken under orders, and the responsibility lay with Great Britain, not McLeod himself.
President Martin van Buren ignored the demands for repatriation, leading Lord Palmerston to threaten that a continued refusal to repatriate McLeod would result in "war immediate and frightful in its character, because it would be a war of retaliation and vengeance".
McLeod was tried in a "curious spectacle". He was acquitted on the basis of an alibi that supported his non-participation in the Affair.
During the Upper Canada Rebellion, it was believed that the American Caroline had been used to ferry weapons to a group of 200-300 Canadian rebels on Navy Island. Her owner, William Wells, had purchased the boat six months earlier after it was seized for smuggling, and claimed to have unloaded a cask for the insurgents but to have been ignorant of its contents. The British troops organized a militia that traveled to New York, where they found the ship in dock, and set upon it - destroying the ship, and shooting a man.
Described as "a man of gentlemanly bearing and demeanor", McLeod was arrested on November 12, 1840, after visiting Lewiston, New York and boasting that "his sword had drank the blood of two men on board the Caroline" three years earlier. He was subsequently charged with the murder of Amos Durfee - an African American sailor found dead near the dock after the boat was destroyed, and held in Lockport Jail. On April 17, Michael Hoffman of the New York State Assembly moved the Committee of the Judiciary to pass a bill granting McLeod safe conduct out of the state and the abandonment of criminal charges against him, stating that "if it be true that the local authorities of Canada under the belief that they were imminently endangered by the hostile gathering on Navy Island, did order this expedition", then McLeod did not bear the blame for the death of any killed as a result. However this was ignored, and a trial date was set for the following October.
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