WASHINGTON, _February 27, 1843_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit to Congress sundry letters which have passed between the
Department of State and the Chevalier d'Argaïz, envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary of Spain near the Government of the United
States, on the subject of the schooner _Amistad_ since the last
communication of papers connected with that case. This correspondence
will show the general grounds on which the Spanish minister expresses
dissatisfaction with the decision of the Supreme Court in that case and
the answers which have been made to his complaints by the Department of
State.
In laying these papers before Congress I think it proper to observe that
the allowance of salvage on the cargo does not appear to have been a
subject of discussion in the Supreme Court. Salvage had been denied in
the court below and from that part of the decree no appeal had been
claimed.
The ninth article of the treaty between the United States and Spain
provides that "all ships and merchandise of what nature soever which
shall be rescued out of the hands of any pirates or robbers on the high
seas shall be brought into some port of either State and shall be
delivered to the custody of the officers of that port in order to be
taken care of and restored entire to the true proprietor as soon as due
and sufficient proof shall be made concerning the property thereof." The
case of the _Amistad_, as was decided by the court, was not a case of
piracy, and therefore not within the terms of the treaty; yet it was a
case in which the authority of the master, officers, and crew of the
vessel had been divested by force, and in that condition the vessel,
having been found on the coast, was brought into a port of the United
States; and it may deserve consideration that the salvors in this case
were the officers and seamen of a public ship.
It is left to Congress to consider, under these circumstances, whether,
although in strictness salvage may have been lawfully due, it might not
yet be wise to make provision to refund it, as a proof of the entire
good faith of the Government and of its disposition to fulfill all its
treaty stipulations to their full extent under a fair and liberal
construction.