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1839, before the intervention of the Spanish minister as Washington, the Africans were placed in the custody of the law, under process of the District Court of the United States, as a Court of Admiralty, against them as property, on the libel of the Lieutenant Gedney and his officers for salvage. 

On the 6th of September, 1839, the Spanish minister wrote to the Secretary of State, demanding that the schooner and her cargo, be delivered to the owner without salvage; and that "the negroes" (whom he represented to belong to Ruiz and Montez,) "be conveyed to Havana, or be placed at the disposal of the proper authorities in that part of her Majesty's dominions, in order to their being tried by the Spanish laws which they have violated; and that in the mean time they be kept in safe custody in order to prevent their evasion." 

Subsequently to this requisition by the Spanish minster, viz., on the 18th of September, 1839, Josè Ruiz and Pedro Montez, respectively, filed their libels in the District Court, and prayed process of attachment against the Africans as their property, averring that they were within the jurisdiction of the court, and insisting that they "ought, by the laws and usages of nations and of the United States, and according to the treaties between Spain and the United States, to be restored to them, without diminution and entire." The process of the court was issued according to their request, and the appellees were again taken into custody thereon as property. Claims were, at the same time, filed by Ruiz and Montez, respectively, in answer to the libel of Lieutenant Gedney for salvage. 

After the parties in interest were thus before the court, the District Attorney of the United States on the 19th of September, filed a suggestion that the Spanish minister had presented to the government of the United States a claim, that the appellees are the property of Spanish subjects, and that they carried within the jurisdictional limits, and were taken into possession of by a public armed vessel, of the United States, under such circumstances as to make it the duty of the Government to cause them "to be restored to the true proprietors and owners thereof, as required by the treaty subsisting between the United States and Spain." 

And therefore the District Attorney, in behalf of the United States, prays the Court, on its being made legally to appear that the claim of the Spanish minister is well founded and conformable to the Treaty, to make such order as may best enable the United States to comply with their Treaty stipulation; but if it should appear that the  negroes were transported from Africa, and brought within the United States,