From the Model Worker.

THE CROSSWHITE CASE.

MARSHALL, Michigan,

Jan. 1st, 1849.

SIR: - Three or four years previous to January 27th, 1847, resided in Marshall, Calhoun county, Michigan, a colored family, consisting of Adam Crosswhite, his wife and five children, the youngest born in Marshall. Crosswhite was sober, industrious, honest, and intelligent, and had won the regard of all by whom he had been employed. His wife was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and his children were regular attendants on the public and Sabbath schools. Early in the morning of the day above-mentioned, a rumor ran through the village of Marshall, that the house of Crosswhite had been forcibly entered by three or four men from Kentucky, and that they claimed, and were about to remove him and his family as fugitive slaves.

The rumor in a short time drew round the house of Crosswhite a crowd, variously estimated, as consisting of from one to two hundred people. Some of them were drawn thither from friendship, some from curiosity merely, and others, including the responsible Defendants, were actuated by their interest in the cause of liberty, and by a desire to preserve the peace and order of the neighborhood undisturbed.

They found at, or near the house, Francis Troutman, and three other persons, who represented themselves as agents of Francis Giltner, the former master and owner of the unfortunate family. Among the first of the citizens of Marshall that arrived at the house, was Calvin Hacket, a colored man, who approached with the intention of entering, but Mr. Troutman, with a pistol in his hand, ordered him back.

In regard to what was actually said by the people at the time, the accounts given by different witnesses are various and contradictory. It is not pretended that any violence whatever was offered to Mr. Troutman or his associates, except by one or two of the blacks, who approached Troutman in a menacing manner, but as soon as they were observed, others interfered to check them, and they desisted, and this took place before the crowd were apprised that Troutman was present under a claim of right.

The crowd was somewhat excited; the general impression was, that the proceedings of Mr. Troutman were not authorized by law, and it is conceded that Mr. Troutman was given to understand that any but a strictly legal interference would not be tolerated.

While the people were conferring with each other and the Kentuckians, Hacket had obtained a warrant against Troutman for an assault upon his person, and Crosswhite a warrant for a trespass upon his house.

Mr. Troutman's associates left the neighborhood of the house, and a large part of the crowd at the same time went away. Mr. Troutman continued in conversation with those who remained, but finally, upon his suggestion, the crowd separated and retired. The trial of the complainants, upon which the warrants were issued, occupied the remainder of the day, and a part of the next.

In the course of the intervening night, Crosswhite procured a team, proceeded with his family to Jackson, and there, the next morning, they took the rail-cars for Detroit, and thence escaped into the British Dominions.

The summer following, the claimant instituted a suit against several of the individuals that constituted the crowd, for the purpose of recovering damages occasioned by obstructions to his agents in their attempt to recover his slaves. The suit was founded on a Statute of the Union, passed in 1793, and was brought in the Circuit Court of the United States. It was commenced against thirteen defendants; one was not served with a process, and against five a discontinuance was entered; and among those retained, the only ones of pecuniary responsibility were Charles T. Gorham, Jarvis Hurd, and Oliver C. Comstock, Jr., and upon whom the whole burden of liability was thrown.

The case was tried for the first time at the term of June, 1848, when the jury, after a long hearing, [were] unable to agree.

A second trial was had at the term in November last, and a verdict was rendered for the plaintiff, assessing his damages at nineteen hundred and twenty-six dollars.

This sum, added to the taxable costs of the plaintiff, and the expenses incurred in the defence, will swell the amount, which the defendant will be forced to pay, to six thousand dollars, in addition to the serious loss they have already encountered, in the attention which they have been obliged to devote to their defence for more than a year, and the neglect of their personal business, which has necessarily followed.

The defendants are able to meet this amount from their own resources, but of course not without personal inconvenience and embarrassment.

Their friends believe that there are circumstances in the attitude of the defendants, that cannot fail to awaken general sympathy in their behalf.

The Statute on which the suit is founded, is in opposition to the spirit and tenor of the common law, and in the opinion of many, inconsistent with the rights of the Free States.

The Statute, rigorous in itself, has been in the present instance rigorously applied. The testimony relating to that part of the case from which the liability of the defendants was deducible, was directly contradictory. It was natural in a case resting on such evidence, reasonable doubts would have been entertained, and that these doubts, being allowed, in conformity to a familiar principle of law, to weigh for the defendants, would turn the balance in their favor.

The worst imputation that can be laid to the charge of the defendants, taking the facts in the light most unfavorable to them as detailed by the principal actor and witness, (Troutman,) is, that they were less sensitive to the mandates of an odious and oppressive law, than they were to the dictates of humanity. The friends of the defendant persuade themselves that very many of the community will be glad of an opportunity of manifesting their respect for the meritorious motives that actuated them, and their sympathy for the peculiar hardships to which they have been exposed, by contributing, each according to his means, to relieve them from the heavy responsibilities they have incurred.

With these views, a large and respectable meeting of the citizens of Marshall assembled on the 20th ultimo, adopted the resolution, a copy of which is subjoined, and appointed the undersigned a Committee of Correspondence to submit the claims of the defendants to the community. In pursuance of the duty with which we have been charged, we take the liberty to transmit this circular to your address, to solicit from you a contribution towards the relief [?] of the defendants, and to ask your influence in obtaining a similar contribution from others in your vicinity, in such a manner as you may think best.

The judgment in the case will not probably be enforced till after June, and an obligation to contribute, within the intervening period, will be as available as money.

For the fund that may be created by the expected contributions, George F. Porter, Esq., of Detroit, has consented to act as Treasurer, and contributions forwarded to him will be promptly acknowledged. It has been suggested that a record of subscribers' names, and of the doings of all public meetings on the subject, be preserved, and a copy transmitted to the Committee of Correspondence, in order, should circumstances make it expedient, that they may hereafter be published.

ROBERT CROSS,
CHARLES DICKEY,
J. WRIGHT GORDON,
J. CHEDSEY,
HOVEY K. CLARKE

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