How the Pinkertons unearthed the $254,000 wrapped in old clothing in Mac's trunk at the European Express Office, 44 Broadway, would take too much time to tell here, or how circulars were sent out to the banks and trust companies warning them to hold all funds deposited by any of our party, or how Pinkerton and his men recovered large sums in various places, must all be passed over here. Suffice it to say that the fatal piece of blotting paper was produced in New York along with many lesser points of evidence, and after a hard legal fight Mac was finally ordered to be given up to the English Government to stand his trial for complicity in the great bank forgery.
The legal proceedings before the commissioner lasted three full months. The array of counsel on both sides made it a forensic contest between giants, in which all past history was invoked for precedents. This extradition case attracted wide attention.
After United States Commissioner Gutman had finally decided to surrender him to the demand of the British Government, appeal was made to the United States Circuit Court, Judge Woodruff, then to the Supreme Court, Judge Barrett, before whom Mac was brought by writs of habeas corpus; but the commissioner's decision was sustained. Mac was sent to Fort Columbus for safe-keeping while counsel were vainly arguing on new writs of habeas corpus and certiorari, but before any conclusion could be reached, he was hurried away by his custodians. He had scarcely time to bid good-bye to his counsel, when with a United States officer he was hurried into a carriage in Chambers street, guarded by Chief Deputy Marshal Kennedy and Deputies Robinson and Crowley, and driven rapidly down Broadway to the Battery, so that the large crowd who gathered to witness his departure from the metropolis had very little time to feast their eyes.
He was transferred from the Battery to Governor's Island by a tugboat and subsequently handed over by the deputy marshals to the charge of Major J. P. Roy, who had him escorted to Fort Columbus.
The following morning United States Marshal Fiske, with Deputies Crowley and Purvis; Mr. Peter Williams, solicitor of the Bank of England; Sergt. Edward Hancock, a London detective; Deputy Marshal Colfax and others, boarded the steam tug P. C. Schultze at the Battery and steamed across to Governor's Island. At 10.30 o'clock Capt. J. W. Bean, on post at the fort, received an order to deliver him over.