View Document Frames
"Present State of the Amistad Case,"New York Commercial Advertiser., 1 Oct. 1839.
For the Commercial Advertiser.
Present State of the Amistad Case
Messrs. Editors, -- I find that many persons do not understand the present state of the case with reference to the schooner Amistad, its cargo, Messieurs Montez and Ruiz, and the African prisoners. May I occupy a brief space to inform them? Judge Judson, after examination on board the U.S. cutter Washington, ordered Jingua and his comrades, including the little boy Carre, about seven years old, to stand committed to answer to the crime of murder; but as the grand jury did not find a bill, under instructions from Judge Thompson that no criminal charge could be sustained in this country against a foreigner alleged to have committed a crime on board a foreign vessel on the high seas, and as the Judge denied the motion to discharge the prisoners under the writ of habeas corpus, the Africans are held, with the vessel and cargo, to abide the decision of the District Court. The three girls are held also as witnesses.
Lieut. Gedney, of the U. S. Navy, has filed a libel on the vessel and cargo, including the prisoners, for "meritorious services" performed; Montez has filed a claim for the four children as his property; and the district attorney has filed a mixed claim and libel, first on behalf of the U. S. at the instance of the Spanish minister, for the restoration of the Africans to the Spaniards, and secondly, in behalf of the U. S. claiming that they are free persons, wrongfully brought into this country, and ought to be returned to their native land.
These libels and claims will be tried at the adjourned District Court, on the third Tuesday in November, at Hartford. Meantime the prisoners will be removed to New Haven, and kept in a large house in the suburbs, under the care of the marshal, who is authorised to supply them with sufficient food, clothing and medical aid, at the expense of the United States. Rev. Messrs. Leonard Bacon and H. G. Ludlow, and Amos Townsend, Jr. Esq., have been requested by the committee in this city to see that instruction, intellectual and moral, is given to all the prisoners; and it is intended to employ an interpreter to be with them constantly. By order of the district judge measures will be taken immediately to ascertain where the seizure was actually made. If found to have been made in the district of New York, a question will arise whether the vessel, cargo and prisoners can be transferred to this district.
If the libels for salvage are sustained by the District Court, and the dead property is insufficient to pay the amount decreed, (as it probably will be, the presumption being that the value of the vessel and cargo will be nearly or quite adsorbed by expenses,) a curious question will arise--how are the salvors to be paid? Judge Judson has already decided that the live "property" cannot be sold in his district. If, however, the Africans are property, consistency, if not humanity, requires, it would seem, that they be sold to pay the salvors; and if they are not property, and cannot be sold, then they are free. If dissatisfaction is felt at the decision the district judge may make, an appeal can be taken to the Circuit Court, which sits next March; and if the decision of this Court is not satisfactory, no appeal can be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, which will sit in January, 1841. The friends of the prisoners, therefore, need entertain no apprehension that they will be out of the custody of the law for eighteen months at least, from the present time. If the Court in the last resort decide in favor of the prisoners, they are free, of course; but if they decide otherwise, our government can then deliver up the prisoners to the Spaniards under our treaty with Spain. But although they can do this, it is not to be presumed they will, for they may say to the Spanish government, this is wholly a question of property on your part, and we prefer to pay the estimated value of the slaves rather than to outrage the feelings of the people of this country by surrendering them.
If, however, the libels should be abandoned, and all proceedings be discontinued, another difficult question will arise--can the government of the United States, under such circumstances, take hold of these Africans for the purpose of delivering them up to the Spaniards? We think not, for it is expressly provided in the treaty that the ships and merchandise are to be restored as soon as due and sufficient proof shall be made concerning the property, and this must be determined by the tribunals of justice. If then no judicial adjudication should take place, the Executive cannot, it would seem, restore these Africans to the Spaniards.
It is confidently believed that proof can be obtained at Cuba that these Africans were never legally enslaved on that island, and a person intimately connected with the Spanish claimants has admitted this. We may well suppose also that some action will be taken by the British government on the subject, for the intelligence will doubtless create some sensation in England, and perchance in Spain also.
It seems a Providential occurrence that these Africans were rolled upon the shores of a free state in this union; that the great questions arising out of the case will be examined and discussed by the learned lawyers and jurists of this country; that the sympathies of the people, without party bias, will be aroused on behalf of the oppressed; that the atrocities of the slave trade will be renewedly exposed; that the important fact will be more deeply considered that it is in vain to attempt to abolish this nefarious trade while SLAVERY--the market that invites the supply--exists; and that multitudes of the American people will have the opportunity of personally acquainting themselves with the African character, as developed before the natives have been corrupted by intercourse with the white man. As to the few misguided men among us, who, recreant to the holy principles of impartial liberty, urge that these poor Africans should be given up, without legal investigation, to the tender mercies of those who may wish to make a terrific example on their plantations, or who slander those who labor for the benefit of those negroes, and the honor of our country, they must be left to the enjoyment of their notions of freedom and the rights of man, and to the contempt of conscientious men, in the slave states, who will exclaim against the outrage of dooming these strangers to slavery, either by Spain or the United States, in violation of plighted national faith.
T.
