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controversy is in custody of the law, or subject to the process and jurisdiction of the courts. In such cases the judicial tribunals are accessible to all who claim an interest in the property. Foreigners as well as citizens can there appear, and claim and prosecute for themselves; and if they are absent from the country, the consul or other official functionary of their government is permitted to appear in their stead, and vindicate their rights. 

The fact that the restoration of property in legal custody is claimed under a treaty, and demanded of the Executive by a foreign minister, in behalf of the subjects of his government, imposes no duty on the Executive in regard to it. The property is not under his control; and the judicial power, being sovereign within its sphere of action, must decide on the claims of the litigating parties without reference to the wishes or suggestions of the Executive. 2 Mason, 436, 463. La Jeune Eugenie. 
 
It is unlike the case of a national demand for a national purpose; such, for example, as a demand of the extradition of a fugitive criminal to a foreign government for punishment, as in the case of NASH, under the treaty with Great Britain; (Bee's Admiralty, 286, note,) or a demand for the surrender of a public armed vessel of a foreign government wrongfully subjected to judicial process, as in the cases of the Cassius (3 Dall. 121) and Exchange, (7 Cranch, 116.) 

Those are cases which, from their very nature, pertain to the Executive, and not to the judicial cognizance. But there are a great variety of stipulations in all our treaties for the security of private rights, which are necessarily enforced by the judicial tribunals alone, without the interference of the Executive power. Bee's Admiralty, 286, 7, note. 

In cases of capture of belligerent vessels made within our jurisdiction in violation of our neutrality, we are bound by treaty to restore the property, if within our power, to the original owner. "Doubts were at first entertained," during the administration of General Washington, "whether it belonged to the Executive Government, or the Judiciary, to perform the duty of inquiring into captures made within the neutral territory, and of making restitution to the injured party; but it has been long since settled that this duty appropriately belongs to the Federal tribunals, acting as Courts of Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction." Wheaton's El. 289; 4 Wheat. 65, note; 7 Wheat. 284. 

While those doubts existed, it was never supposed that the Executive could call upon the courts to aid him in the performance of a duty pertaining to that department. President Washington, in his message of Dec. 3, 1793, (1 Waite's State Papers, 39,) says "If the Executive is