Viewing page 39 of 69

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

tries, which was thus officially sanctioned, and yet the government did not dare to do it. Why did they not do it? If this opinion had been carried into effect, it would have settled the matter at once, so far as it related to these unfortunate men. They would have been wrested from that protection, which above all things was their due after they had been taken into custody by order of the Court, and would have been put into the power of "public vengeance" at Havana. Yet there was not enough. There seems to have been an impression that to serve an order like that would require the aid of a body of troops.—The people of Connecticut never would, never ought to have suffered it to be executed on their soil, but by main force. So the Spanish minister says his government has no ship to receive these people, and the President must therefore go further, and as he is responsible for the safe-keeping and delivery of the men, he must not only deliver them up, but ship them off in a national vessel, so that there may be no Habeas Corpus from the State Courts coming to the rescue as soon as they are out of the control of the judiciary. The suggestion, which first came from the District Attorney, that the Court would undoubtedly place the Africans at the mercy of the Executive, is carried out by an announcement from the Secretary of State, of an agreement with Mr. Argaiz to send them to Cuba in a public ship. Here is the memorandum of the Secretary of State to the Secretary of the Navy.

"DEPARTMENT OF STATE, January 2, 1840.
"The vessel destined to convey the negroes of the Amistad to Cuba, to be ordered to anchor off the port of New Haven, Connecticut, as early as the 10th of January next, and be in readiness to receive said negroes from the marshal of the United States, and proceed with them to Havana, under instructions to be hereafter transmitted.
"Lieutenant Gedney and Meade to be ordered to hold themselves in readiness to proceed in the same vessel, for the purpose of affording their testimony in any proceedings that may be ordered by the authorities of Cuba in the matter.
"These orders should be given with special instructions that they are not to be communicated to any one."
Well, the order was given by the Secretary of the Navy, that the schooner Grampus should execute this honorable service.

The Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of State.

"NAVY DEPARTMENT, Jan. 2, 1840.
"Sir,—I have the honor to state that, in pursuance of the memorandum sent by you to this department, the United States schooner Grampus, Lieutenant Commanding John S. Paine, has been ordered to proceed to the bay of New Haven, to receive the negroes captured in the Amistad. The Grampus will probably be at the point designated a day or two before the 10th inst., and will there await her final instructions in regard to the negroes."
A celebrated state prisoner, when going to the scaffold, was led by the statue of Liberty, and exclaimed, "O, Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!" So we may say of our gallant navy, "What crimes is it ordered to commit! To what uses is it ordered to be degraded!"
On the 7th of January, the Secretary of State writes to the Secretary of the Navy, acknowledging the receipt of his letter of the 3d, informing him that the schooner Grampus would receive the negroes of the Amistad, "for the purpose of conveying them to Cuba, in the event of their delivery being adjudged by the circuit court, before whom the case is pending." This singular blunder, in naming the court, shows in what manner and with how little care the Department of State allowed itself to conduct an affair, involving no less than the liberties and lives of every one of my clients. This letter inclosed the order of the President to the Marshal of Connecticut for the delivery of the negroes to Lieut. Paine. Although disposing of the lives of forty human beings, it has not the form or solemnity of a warrant, and is not even signed by the President in his official capacity. It is a mere order.
"The Marshal of the United States for the district of Connecticut will deliver over to Lieut. John S. Paine, of the United States Navy, and aid in conveying on board the schooner Grampus, under his command, all the negroes, late of the Spanish schooner Amistad, in his custody, under the process now pending before the Circuit court of the United States for the district of Connecticut. For so doing, this order will be his warrant.
"Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 7th day of January, A. D. 1840. "M. VAN BUREN.
"By the President:
"JOHN FORSYTH, Sec. of State."