Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/341

 1777:^^ and the plea insists, that the debt in the decla- ration mentioned, was personal property of a British subject, forfeited to the commonwealth under the first mentioned act, and a demand, whose recovery in the courts of the commonwealth, was barred by the last.

4. The fourth plea takes the ground, that the king of Britain and his subjects were still alien enemies, and that the state of war still continued, on the ground of the several direct violations of the definitive treaty of peace, which follow: — 1. In continuing to carry off the negroes in his possession, the property of American citizens, and refusing to deliver them, or permit the owners to take them, according to the express stipula- tions of that treaty: — 2. In the forcible detention of the forts Niagara and Detroit, and the adjacent territory: — 3. In supplying the Indians, who were at war with the United States, with arms and ammunition, furnished within the territories of the United States, to wit, at the forts Detroit and Niagara, and at other forts and sta- tions forcibly held by the troops and armies of the king, within the United States, and in purchasing from the Indians, within the territories aforesaid, the plunder taken by them in war, from the United States, and the persons of American citizens made prisoners; which several infractions, the plea contends, had abolished the treaty of peace, and placed Great Britain and the United States, in a state of war; and that hence, the plaintiff, being an alien enemy, had no right to sue in the courts of the United States.

5. The fifth plea sets forth, that at the time of con- tracting the debt in the declaration mentioned, the plaintiff and the defendant were fellow-subjects of the sarpe kmg and government: that on the fourtli of July

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