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law of our own country, the law of nature, or the law of God." 9 Eng. C.L.R. 149. And that the laws of a nation proprio vigore have no force beyond its own territories, except so far as it respects its own citizens, who owe it allegiance, is too familiarly settled to need the citation of authorities. See 9 Wheaton 366: Apollon, 2 Mason, 151-8. The rules on this subject adopted in the English Court of Admiralty are the same which prevail in their courts of common law, though they have decided in the case of the Louis (2 Dodson, 238) as the Supreme Court did in the case of the Antelope, (10 Wheat.66,) that as the slave trade was not, at that time, prohibited by the law of nations, if a foreign slaver was captured by an English ship, it was a wrongful act, which it would be the duty of the Court of Admiralty to repair by restoring the possession. The principle amoveas manus, adopted in these cases, has no application to the case of fugitives from slavery.

In this case the wrongful act was done to the Africans, by the seizure of them by Lt. Gedney without warrant or authority. An officer of the United States is not invested with the power of seizing the person of a citizen or a stranger, unless he has committed some crime for which he is liable to be punished by the Courts of the United States. See Doc. 199. H. Rep. 26 Cong. 1 sess.p.57. (Mr. Wirt's Opinion as Attorney General in the case of Manning.) The principle adopted in the cases of the Louis and the Antelope would require the restoration, if not of the property in their possession, at least of their liberty, to the Africans, who were in the exercise, when seized of their rights as freemen. Certainly it does not warrant their delivery by the Courts of the United States as property to their captive Spaniards.

But it is claimed that if these Africans, though "recently imported into Cuba," were by the laws of Spain the property of Ruiz and Montez, the Government of the United States is bound by the treaty to restore them; and that, therefore, the intervention of the Executive in these proceedings is proper for that purpose. It has already, it is believed, been shown that even if the case were within the treaty, the intervention of the Executive as a party before the judicial tribunals was unnecessary and improper, since the treaty provides for its own execution by the courts on the application of the parties in interest. And such a resort is expressly provided in the 20th Article of the Treaty of 1794, with Great Britain, and in the 26th Article of the Treaty of 1801 with the French Republic, both of which are in other respects similar to the 9th Article of the Spanish Treaty, on which the Attorney General has principally relied.