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liberation of the Africans taken in her, even if they had been when taken, in the condition of slaves.  How monstrous, then, is the claim upon the Courts of the United States to re-inslave them, as thralls to the Spaniards, Ruiz and Montes! or to transport them beyond the seas, at the demand of the Minister of Spain!
I said, when I began this plea, that my final reliance for success in this case was on this Court as a court of JUSTICE; and in the confidence this fact inspired, that, in the administration of justice, in a case of no less importance than the liberty and the life of a large number of persons, this Court would not decide but on a due consideration of all the rights, both natural and social, of every one of these individuals.  I have endeavored to show that they are entitled to their liberty from this Court.  I have avoided, purposely avoided, and this Court will do justice to the motive for which I have avoided, a reccurrence to those first principles of liberty which might well have been invoked in the argument of this cause.  I have shown that Ruiz and Montes, the only parties in interest here, for whose sole benefit this suit is carried on by the Government, were acting at the time in a way that is forbidden by the laws of Great Britain and Spain, and of the United States, and that the mere signature of the Governor General of Cuba ought not to prevail over the ample evidence in the case that these negroes were free and had a right to assert their liberty.  I have shown that the papers in question are absolutely null and insufficient as passports for persons, and still more invalid to convey or prove a title to property.
The review of the case of the Antelope, and my argument in behalf of the captives of the Amistad, is closed.

May it please your Honors: on the 7th of February, 1804, now more than thirty-seven years past, my name was entered, and yet stands recorded, on both the rolls, as one of the Attorneys and Counsellors of this Court.  Five years later, in February and March, 1809, I appeared for the last time before this Court, in defence of the cause of justice, and of important rights, in which many of my fellow-citizens had property to a large amount at stake.  Very shortly afterwards, I was called to the discharge of other duties-first in distant lands, and in later years, within our own country, but in different departments of her Government.  Little did I imagine that I should ever again be required to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this Court; yet such has been the dictate of my destiny-and I appear again to plead the cause of justice, and now the liberty and life, in behalf of many of my fellow men, before that same Court, which in former age I had addressed in support of the rights of property I stand again, I trust for the last time, before the same Court - "hic caestus, artemque repono."  I stand before the same Court, but not before the same judges - nor aided by the same associates - nor resisted by the same opponents.  As I cast my eyes along those seats of honor and of public trust, now occupied by you, they seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose indulgence listened then to my voice.  Marshall - Cushing - Chase - Washington - Johnson - Livingston - Todd - Where are they?  Where is that eloquient statesma and learned lawyer who was my associate counsel in the management of that cause, Robert Goodloe Harper?  Where is that brilliant luminary, so long the pride of Maryland and of the American Bar, then my opposing counsel, Luther Martin?  Where is the excellent clerk of that day, whose name as been inscribed on the shores of Africa, as a monument of his abhorrence of the African slave-trade, Elias B. Caldwell? Where is the  marshal - where are the criers of the Court? Alas! where is one of the very judges of the Court arbiters of life and death, before whome I commenceed this anxious argument, even now prematurely closed?  Where are they all? Gone! Gone! All gone!- Gone from the servies which, in their day and generation, they faithfully rendered to their country.  From excellent characters which they sustained in life, so far as I have had the means of knowing, I humbly hope, and fondly trust, that they have gone to receive the rewards of blessedness on high.  In taking, then, my final leave of this Bar, and of this Honorable Court, I can only ejaculate a fervent petitsion to Heaven that every member of it may go to his final account with as little of earthly frailty to answer for those illustrious dead, and that you may, every one, after the close of a long and virtuous career in this world, by received at the portals of the next with approving sentence - "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."