Misplaced loyalty?

Some time ago, a negro at Lisbon, named Firmien da Costa, gave the following most surprising instance of fidelity and affection.

Hearing that his master, Emmanuel Cabral, was taken up for killing a soldier, he quitted the woods to which he had fled for refuge, and voluntarily surrendered himself into the hands of justice, declaring that he alone was guilty of the assassination, and that his master was innocent.

Accordingly, the master, after a long examination, appearing innocent, he was set at liberty, and the negro hanged.