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Attorney, it was no part of the business of the American Secretary of State to look after the evidence. Still, if he had requested the minister to communicate the evidence to the Court, it might not have been exactly improper, but only officious. If the Spanish Minister chose to go into our courts in support of the private claims of Spanish subjects, he could do it, and it was his business to bring forward the proper evidence in support of his claim. Why, then, does the Secretary call upon him to furnish these documents to the Executive Department? Your Honors will judge whether this letter is or is not evidence of a determination then existing on the part of the Executive, to decide this case independently of the judiciary, and ex parte.

Mr. Calderon replies that he has no other evidence to furnish. The next document is the letter of his successor, the Chevalier d'Argaiz:

NEW-YORK, October 3, 1839.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Her Catholic Majesty, has the honor of commencing his official correspondence with you, sir, by soliciting an act of justice, which, not being in any way connected with the principal question as yet remaining unsettled by the cabinet, relative to the negroes found on board the schooner Amistad on her arrival on these coasts, he does not doubt will be received by you in the manner which he has every reason to expect, from the circumstance that all preceding acts of the department under your charge have been dictated by the principles of rectitude and reciprocity.

Her Majesty's vice-consul at Boston, under date of the 24th of September last, says, among other things:

"As it appears from the papers of the papers of the schooner that she, as well as her cargo, are exclusively Spanish property, it seems strange that the Court of New London has not yet ordered the delivery of one or both to the owners, if they are present, or to me, as their agent, born in that part of the Union"-[This is a mis-translation; it means the official agent in that part of the Union]- "agreeably to the articles of the treaty now in force between the two countries. The delay in the delivery would not be of so much consequence to the proprietors if the vessel did not require immediate repairs, in order to preserve her from complete destruction, and if it were not material that a large part of the cargo should be sold on account of its bad condition. 


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Here we see the same unfortunate misapprehension continued. The new Spanish minister calls upon the Secretary of State to put the "Court of New London" into speedy action, to lessen the danger of loss to the proprietors by delay, and the Secretary of State takes no pains to correct the error. 

On the 24th of October, the Secretary of State wrote again to Mr. Argaiz, on another subject, which is not now before this Court,-the arrest of Ruiz and Montes, at the suit of some of the Africans, in the courts of the State of New York. Mr. Argaiz protested against the arrest, and claims "the interposition of the Executive in procuring their liberation, and indemnity for the losses and injury they may have sustained." To that the Secretary applies:

"It appears from the documents accompanying the note of the Chevalier d'Argaiz, that the two Spanish subjects referred to were arrested on process issuing from the Superior Court of the city of New York, at the suit of, and upon affidavits made by certain colored men, natives of Africa, for the purpose of securing their appearance before the proper tribunal, to answer for wrongs alleged to have been inflicted by them upon the persons of the said Africans; and, consequently, that the occurrence constitutes a simple case of resort by individuals against others to the judicial courts of the country, which are equally open to all without distinction, and to which it belongs exclusively to decide, as well upon the right of the complainant to demand the interposition of their authority, as upon the liability of the defendant to give redress for the wrong alleged to have been committed by him. This being the only light in which the subject can be viewed, and the constitution and laws having secured the judicial power against all interference on the part of the Executive authority, the President, to whom the Chevalier d'Argaiz's note has been communicated, has instructed the undersigned to state, that the agency of this government to obtain the release of Messrs. Ruiz and Montes cannot be afforded in the manner requested by him. The laws of the state of New York, of which the constitution and laws of the United States and their treaties with foreign powers form a part, afford to Messrs. Ruiz and Montes all the necessary means to procure their release from imprisonment, and to obtain any indemnity to which they may be justly entitled, and therefore would render unnecessary any agency on the part of this department for those purposes."