There is no way to review court records concerning Brown's trial, if one was held, because of the courthouse fire in Prince Frederick in 1882. None of the sources reviewed for this article provided direct evidence of such a trial.

In his affidavit, Brown described whippings inflicted on two occasions, one hundred lashs each time, during the thirty-three days he spent in the Calvert County jail. Then he was sold to Samuel Y. Harris, a slave trader who immediately turned him over to Hope H. Slatter. In a Pennsylvania court, Thomas C. Wilson testified that he worked for Slatter who owned a slave yard in Baltimore and bought slaves to sell in the South. 

In mid-December 1845, Brown was shipped to New Orleans on the Victorine. The manifest lists his age as 30. He was sold to a plantation owner in Louisiana, but was residing in Philadelphia by the next spring. Presumably he had run away. At some point, his wife and nine children joined him in Phildelphia. 

Maryland officials became aware of Brown's presence in Philadelphia through a letter he wrote to someone in Calvert County. On April 26, 1847, Governor Thomas G. Pratt issued a requisition to the governor of Pennsylvania for the apprehension of Brown on 
 
 

the attempted murder charge and delivery of him to agent John Zell. Through a warrant issued by the mayor, Brown was arrested around May 1. His attorneys filed for and were given a writ of habeas corpus by Judge Parsons. By May 4, the day of the hearing, the judge had received his copy of the precept from Governor Shunk for an arrest warrant. The judge ruled that the "command of the Governor" took precedence and dismissed the habeas corpus. 

Judge Parsons ordered a hearing for May 5 to prove the identity of the prisoner. Harris and Wilson, the two slave traders, provided this testimony. Brown's attorneys objected to the narrowness of the hearing and requested an opportunity to present arguments on the merits of the whole proceeding, including habeas corpus. One counsel declared that Brown could not be a fugitive from justice, having been sent out of the state of Maryland against his will and that the assault charge was a ruse to evade a recently passed Pennsylvania law on kidnapping.

During a two-day recess, Governor Shunk asked Judge Parsons to suspend proceedings until he obtained an opinion from the Attorney General. On the basis of that opinion saying the evidence submitted by Maryland was insufficient, the governor on May 21 revoked his precept. But, at the same time, he sent a second precept to issue an arrest warrant because Governor Pratt had issued another requisition on May 11 accompanied by a bill of indictment. Since the man in question was still in jail, the judge declared it unnecessary to issue a new warrant and set a hearing for May 24.

In the meantime, Brown's attorneys went before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and on May 22 obtained a rarely used writ de homine

Judge Parsons did not learn about the release until the 24^th.  He accused the jailer of allowing Brown to escape and even, after seeing a copy of the writ, ordered him to post bail to appear at a later date to answer the charge. The judge declared the Supreme Court had no right to order the discharge of a prisoner held under a warrant from his court.

Isaac Brown did not remain in Philadelphia to see the result of all this legal maneuvering. He and his family fled to Canada. 

The case of Isaac Brown received considerable publicity in both Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Baltimore Sun published several articles in May 1847, based mostly on coverage by the Philadelphia Ledger. Abolitionists in Philadelphia produced a pamphlet entitled "Case of the Slave Isaac Brown: An Outrage Exposed." Governor Pratt included the incident in his last annual message to the General Assembly in December 1847. 

Sources:
· Maryland Republican, Nov. 1, 1845, SC3655
· Baltimore Sun, May 5, 1847 - May 26, 1847, State Law Library
· Library of Congress, American Memory, Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860, Case of the Slave Isaac Brown
· General Assembly (Public Documents) A, Annual Message of the Executive, December Session 1847, 812036
· Governor (Proceedings) April 26, 1847, S1072-3
[Special thanks to Millington Lockwood for his research assistance.] 

Excerpts from Case of the Slave Isaac Brown

"The time fixed by the laws of Maryland for holding the Courts in Calvert County, is the second Monday in May, and the second Monday in October in each year. It would seem, then, that the Court was actually in session in Prince Frederick, when Isaac Brown was taken from the jail of that town to Slatter's yard in Baltimore! He was in jail upon legal process and could only be taken from it by legal process, issuing from the Court then in session...."

"Every reader must therefore see, from the law and the facts here presented, that Isaac Brown, whether guilty or not, was actually punished in 1845, under the laws of Maryland, for the alleged assault and battery upon Somerville! He was both lashed and banished "by transportation and sale into" the State of Louisiana, and Somerville was paid for him, "as directed by law." And yet a grand jury of Calvert County, twenty months after the alleged commission of the crime, and eighteen months after Isaac Brown was punished for it, finds a bill of indictment against him, and lends itself to this outrage of Somerville and his confederates, to trick the Governor of Pennsylvania, evade our laws, insult our people, and kidnap the man!