Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/234

 The narrative of events has been interrupted in order to give the exact status of these negroes under our laws of that date, because we are thus enabled to appreciate better the attitude of the Government officials toward this case. The Spanish Minister, Calderon, claimed them not only as slaves bunt as murderers, and asserted that if the leaders were executed for crime in Cuba the effect would be more salutary than if they were convicted and executed in Connecticut. Our Government officials were anxious to sustain this view. United States District Attorney William 8. Holabird, of Connecticut, was soanxions in the matter that he wrote to Secretary of State Forsyth to ask whether there were no treaty stipulations under which the negroes might be given up "before our court sits."

There were none, but Secretary Forsyth instructed him to "take care that no proceedings of your Circuit Court, or any other judicial tribunal, place the vessel, cargo, or slaves beyond the control of the Federal Executive." Attorney-General Grundy wrote an opinion saying he could not see any "legal principle" that would justify the Government in questioning "the papers clearing the vessel from one Spanish port to another." He added that as the negroes were charged with violating Spanish law they ought to be delivered over to Spanish courts for trial in order that the guilty "might not escape punishment." The President, he thought, ought to order the vessel, cargo, and negroes delivered to the Spanish Minister at once without any investigation.

President Van Buren did not go so far as that, but Captain Gedney was ordered to hold his vessel in readiness to go to Cuba with the negroes, and for the