After several postponements on account of the illness of the presiding Judge, the case was resumed on Monday, February 2d. The defence relied upon, was the deficiencies in the evidence for the Government, and the uniform good character of the defendant. After able argument, the case was given to the jury on Wednesday, February 4th. On Thursday they returned a verdict of “_not guilty_.”
In the meantime the State authorities had been proceeding in the matter. On Monday Jan. 12, 1852, the Lancaster County Court of Oyer and Terminer and Quarter Sessions, met at Lancaster city. On Thursday the 15th, the District Attorney of Lancaster sent up to the Grand Jury a number of bills charging Castner Hanway, E. Lewis, J. Scarlett, and the other defendants in the treason cases, (some of whom were in prison, not having been able to procure the bail required,) with riot and the murder of Edward Gorsuch. The next day, about one P. M. the bills were returned to Court, all IGNORED. That afternoon those “Traitors” in prison were released, and the bonds of those on bail were cancelled.
Thus ended the prosecutions growing out of the Christiana riot. The great mistake made in the whole proceeding, from first to last, was, that those men who might perhaps have been indicted with some show of justice, for riot, though not for treason, _were never arrested_. The outrage was committed on the 11th of September, before five o’clock A. M. The oath of Kline before Joseph D. Pownall, upon which the warrants were issued for the arrest of the guilty parties, was not made until more than twenty-eight hours afterwards. From that time the most unrelenting vigilance was observed, and the neighborhood virtually placed under martial law. But measures were taken too late. Only those men remained within the reach of tardy justice who _felt_ and _knew_ they were guilty of no crime. The rest preferred flight to dangerous delay.
When time and opportunity permit, guilty men _will_ avoid the penalty imposed by law, whether the crime be treason, murder, riot or larceny; and active, energetic officers usually pursue before the modern facilities for travelling have carried a criminal beyond their reach.
Those in authority are often compelled to rely upon the representations of their subordinates, and in this case the rumors which at first started the public and the braggadocio telegraphic dispatches, _probably_ led the higher officers of justice to suppose that the guilty had been secured. The array of soldiery, the special police force detailed from Philadelphia, and the levy of extemporaneous troops from the neighborhood, _certainly_ induced the uninitiated public to believe that the net had been properly cast. But when drawn ashore it was found to contain a few persons who had been led to the scene of action from the best and most philanthropic motives, some of whom, instead of “levying war against their native country,” or “aiding and abetting in the murder of Edward Gorsuch,” had bravely interposed between the infuriated blacks and their assailants, and by their conduct saved the lives of the remaining companions of this unfortunate stranger;--men who, instead of a felon’s cell, shattered health, and the total wreck of their worldly prospects, merited the thanks of all who would spare the shedding of innocent blood.