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"United States Should Not Interfere with Amistad Quarrel." New York
Morning Herald, 31 Oct., 1839.
[Private Correspondence of the Herald.]
New Haven, Oct. 28.
DEAR SIR:--The cutter Walcott, Capt. Mather, returned from Culloden Point yesterday
morning, whither she went last week, with the Marshal and District Attorney and several
other gentlemen. The object was to make a critical and accurate examination of the
place where L’Amistad was captured, and thus ascertain positively whether the case
can be litigated in the District Court of Connecticut, or whether it must be taken
to New York for trial. It was decided by Judge Thompson, that the jurisdiction of
a State extends, on the open sea, where there is neither harbor, bay, nor inlet,
only to low water mark; and therefore, if it should appear that L’Amistad was seized
on the open sea, beyond low water mark, then she could legally be taken into any
convenient port of the United States, and the District Court of the State where this
port was situated could take cognizance of, and adjudicate the case.
Ever since the interlocutory discussion before the District Court at Hartford, and
the refusal [of] Judge Thompson to liberate the blacks on the habeas corpus, the
abolitionists have had their heads together endeavoring to devise some plan, amidst
their other mischievous projects, to take the Amistad, negroes and all, out of the
custody of our faithful and discriminating marshal, and carry them to New York. Whether
they expect greater sympathy and encouragement there, or whether they are vexed at
their inability to bring the federal officers here into their views, or what particular
advantage they expected to gain by the manoeuvre, it is difficult to say; but it
is certain that, for some cause or other, they have been especially anxious to get
their pupils out of our territory. The result of the examination, however, has put
all hopes on this score to flight. L’Amistad was captured at least a mile without
the jurisdiction of the State of New York, as defined by Judge Thompson, and was
of course on the high seas, within the jurisdiction of the United States, and subject
to trial in any judicial district. This fact will be amply and satisfactorily proved
before the District Court, which sets on the third Tuesday of next month.
The abolitionists, therefore, will set their minds at rest on this point, and direct
their efforts to prolonging the persecution of Messrs. Ruin and Montez. I observe
that the papers almost uniformly concur in censuring the conduct of the misguided
zealots who, by fraud and falsehood, procured the imprisonment of these unoffending
foreigners. But, while Tappan and his fellow incendiaries are held up to the indignant
scorn of the community, it is surprising that the judges who granted the writs should
have escaped animadversion. The Spaniards were arrested on a charge of assault and
battery and false imprisonment, alleged to have been committed on board L’Amistad,
while she was under a Spanish flag and in the Spanish waters. Judge Thompson, of
the Supreme Court, the highest judicial tribunal in the country, decided that our
courts could not take cognizance of any crimes committed on board L’Amistad; that
the murder of the captain and cook, and the robbery of the vessel, were offences
against the laws of Spain, over which our courts had no jurisdiction. Is the decision
of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States to be set at nought and treated
with contempt, and are two respectable citizens to be imprisoned on a frivolous and
miserable pretext, with impunithy? If the ridiculous allegation, which is made the
ground for arresting these gentlemen was true, they could not be punished here, but
they are not amenable to our laws. But the charge itself is false--willfullly and
maliciously false. In what terms, then, ought we to characterise [sic] the conduct
of Tappan and his coadjutors, who thus, for their own despicable purposes, make sport
of the laws, and pervert the powers of courts of justice to factious and fanatical
ends?
It seems to me that the ultimate consequences to which this matter may lead, are
not adequately considered by the public generally. The manifest injustice of the
act, and the vindictive malice which prompted the imprisonment, on false affidavits,
surreptitiously obtained, of two unoffending foreigners, addresses itself at once
to the feelings and sympathy of all. But there is another aspect in which this affair
is to be viewed, and one fraught with results far more important than the sufferings
or wrongs of an individual. Will the Government of Spain submit to such an indignity?
Is not the Government bound to protect her citizens?
Let us reverse the circumstance, and see how they would look. Suppose a Georgia planter
was to buy a dozen slaves in Charleston, and put them on board a vessel to go round
to Savannah. The negros rise, murder the captain, seize the vessel, and carry her
into Havana. Here they get out a process, and throw the planter into prison on a
charge of false imprisonment, battery, &c. Is there an individual in the country,
(except the abolitionists, who are not to be suspected of any patriotic sensibilities)
that would not insist on a prompt and ample reparation for the outrage, no matter
at what hazard? And how does the case of Ruiz and Montez differ from the one supposed?
Three fourths of the wars that have deluged the earth in blood, have proceeded from
causes of far less pith and moment. In a just cause, we do not deprecate the displeasure
of any nation on earth; but we hope to be spared the mortification of a quarrel with
any government, originating in such miserable pretences as that of undertaking to
annul, through our judicial tribunals, the relations of master and slave, under governments
foreign to our own. It is as much as we can do to manage that question among ourselves.
We have no color of authority to interfere with it as it exists in other countries.
And what renders the outrage more aggravated, and places the conduct of Tappan &
Co. in a still more detestable light, is the character of the blood-stained wretches
in whose behalf they are endeavoring to turn the world upside down. Jinqua, by his
own confession, is a ravisher, a pirate, and murderer--a precious object of sympathy,
truly, and one worthy to be cherished by Tappan and Sedgwick.
