In a letter to the Hamilton Spectator Freeman made this charge against the magistrate: "Mr. Matthews arrested him as having been guilty of murder without any legal evidence of a murder having been committed, or, in fact, of any one having been killed by him. And after he had him in custody he communicated with the authorities for the necessary evidence."[4]
On November 24 Anderson was brought before the Court of Queen's Bench consisting of Chief Justice Robinson and Justices Burns and McLean. S. B. Freeman appeared for the prisoner and Henry Eccles and R. A. Harrison for the attorney-general. Freeman read the warrant of committal by William Matthews and the two other Brantford magistrates who had been associated with him. The evidence was to the effect that on September 28, 1859 (sic), Anderson was on the estate of Seneca T. P. Diggs in Howard County, Missouri, and that Diggs, while attempting with Negro help to arrest Anderson, was stabbed twice and later died. The question was whether Canada was to administer the slave laws of Missouri. The counsel for the Crown admitted that Anderson's act, if committed in Canada, would not be murder.
The Anderson case was practically the last important case to come before Chief Justice Sir John Beverly Robinson, and around perhaps no decision of his whole legal career did more excitement center. While the justices were considering the evidence public meetings were being held, not only in Toronto but in other Canadian cities. Newspapers were furiously defending the fugitive and the judgment of the court was being awaited with tense interest.
It was understood on November 30 that the Chief Justice was ready to give decision but that he deferred for his associates. On that date there were special police on duty about the court in fear of an attempt at rescue by the Negroes and others. The Globe of that date contended that the question of surrendering the man, being a matter of a treaty, should have been dealt with by the executive and not by the courts at all.
"The universal heart and conscience of the people of Canada and of the British nation will say upon the facts of the case that Anderson is not a murderer in the sight of God, or under British law," was a part of its comment editorially upon the case. A day or two later the paper pointed out the significance of this particular case. If Anderson were given up, it maintained, "no fugitive slave in Canada is safe on our soil ... there is not a fugitive in Canada whose extradition may not be demanded upon evidence sufficient to put the accused upon his trial."[5]
The court finally gave its judgment on Saturday, December 15. The papers of the following Monday say, that as the decision was being given, police stood about the court with muskets and that a company of Royal Canadian Rifles were also under arms at the Government House.
In its decision the court was not unanimous. The Chief Justice and Justice Burns favored extradition while Justice McLean dissented. The biographer of the Chief Justice says of this judgment: "Their decision was neither in support of nor against slavery but was based entirely upon the consideration of the treaty existing between the United States and Canada." The biographer quotes also as follows from an English contemporary: "These judges, proof against unpopularity and unswayed by their own bitter hatred of slavery, as well as unsoftened by their own feelings for a fellow man, in agonizing peril, upheld the law made to their hands and which they are sworn faithfully to administer. Fiat justitia. Give them their due. Such men are the ballast of nations."[6]
Gerrit Smith, the famous abolitionist, was one of those who acted on behalf of the fugitive, and his plea made a strong impression. He argued that Anderson was not guilty of murder but at the worst of homicide, that the Ashburton case did not require the surrender of fugitives and that in any case Anderson's delivery was a matter for the English courts to decide.
On the evening of December 19, 1860, a huge mass meeting was held in St. Lawrence Hall. The mayor of the city presided and the chief speaker of the evening was John Scoble, the abolitionist.[7] He was able to throw considerable light upon the exact meaning of the extradition treaty, having interviewed both Lord Aberdeen and Lord Brougham on its terms in relation to fugitive slaves at the time that it was passing through the British Parliament. He was at that time the secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society of England which had become alarmed over the possibilities to fugitives in Canada of the extradition clauses.[8]