cruise against the commerce and mercantile marine of Spain. What follows, therefore, is, that the cause may take its course, always on the supposition that the vessel be not given up.

Hoping this as well from the justice as the good faith of the United States, the undersigned avails of the occasion to reiterate to the Honorable Secretary of State the assurance of his highest consideration.

The Honorable Secretary of State

of the United States, &c., &c., &c.

GABRIEL G. TASSARA.

Then yesterday morning, if your Honor please, we received the following communication from the Secretary of State, enclosing the letter of the Spanish Minister to him:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

WASHINGTON, March 10, 1866.

SIR, I give you herewith a copy of a note which I have just had the honor to receive from His Excellency, Mr. Tassara, the Minister of Spain, in which he states that he is advised that the owners of the Meteor have applied to the District Court for, a release of that vessel under security.

An application has heretofore been made to the President to favor such a proceeding. It has been considered with the following result, namely, "That the executive authority finds no sufficient grounds for interfering with the due and the regular course of the administration of justice."

It is expected, therefore, that you will take such course in regard to the present question as shall be best calculated to maintain the neutrality laws of the United States in their full force and virtue.

I am, with much respect, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

The HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON,

United States District Attorney, New York.

If your Honor please, we oppose this motion on the grounds I have stated, and which I do not desire to repeat. I will merely state, in addition to what I have said, that to bond this vessel would be, in my humble opinion, an exercise of the jurisdiction of this Court unwarranted under the circumstances. It would be a mere evasion of the neutrality laws of the government, and I think a breach of good faith which ought not to be tolerated or encouraged by the Court. If the Meteor were a merchant vessel, if she were not a ship of war, it would be a different case entirely. If it came under the provisions of the Revenue Act, it would be a different case. But here is a vessel, a formidably-armed ves

sel, a ship of war, arrested by the government for an alleged violation of the neutrality laws

JUDGE BETTS. Have you any affidavits concerning this vessel? MR. COURTNEY. Yes, sir. Affidavits have been made.

MR. EVARTS. The fact is, your Honor, that she is not a ship of war, but a simple merchant vessel.

MR. COURTNEY. Then I misunderstand the position of the vessel. I understood, and my learned friend will agree with me — MR. EVARTS. Yes, if you agree with me; no affidavits set forth that she was an armed vessel.

MR. COURTNEY. The libel is here before the Court.

MR. CHOATE. That does not say she was an armed vessel. It purposely omits to say so. If she had been armed, you would have said so.

JUDGE BETTS. How is she described in the pleading?

MR. CHOATE. She is described merely in the words of the statute.

MR. EVARTS. The vessel may be confiscable, but not as an armed ship, for she never was an armed ship.

JUDGE BETTS. Were there any arms found on board?

MR. EVARTS. No, sir.

MR. COURTNEY. I will here disagree with you (to Mr. Evarts). That is not the question; the Act says

Mr. Courtney quoted the Act.

MR. COURTNEY. Was this vessel not going to be armed and equipped?

MR. EVARTS. No.

THE COURT. Is there anything in the libel denoting that she was being prepared as an armed vessel?

MR. EVARTS. Not the least.

MR. COURTNEY. I will read further.

Mr. Courtney continued his quotations from the Act.

JUDGE BETTS. That is pretty significant. She is there stated to have been armed.

Mr. Courtney completed his reading from the Act.

JUDGE BETTS. You contend that she was to be used for warlike purposes?

MR. COURTNEY. No doubt of it, your Honor.

MR. EVARTS. Nothing about it in the averment. You speak of her merely as an armed vessel.

MR. COURTNEY. The libel shows she was fitted out for warlike

purposes.

MR. EVARTS. I have no objection to your stating so.

MR. COURTNEY. I am sure my learned friend will agree with me that this vessel was built at Boston, with some others, for the purpose of going to sea after the pirate Alabama, built expressly for that purpose.

JUDGE BETTS. Going where?

MR. COURTNEY. Your Honor, this vessel was built and armed for the purpose of going after the Alabama, and she is now brought before the Court on a libel charging her with being an armed ship destined to be used in hostilities against a power with which this country is at peace. In my humble opinion, therefore, if this vessel were bonded under the circumstances, it would be an encouragement to future violations of the Neutrality Act of the United States. I do not think the good faith of our government,

the true meaning of this statute, the object, extent, and nature of it, tolerates or requires such an exercise of the discretion of this Court as is here invoked on the part of these claimants. I, therefore, submit, that in any aspect of the case there is no just ground for the application. The vessel should, at least, remain here till the question of her ownership is disposed of. These exceptions are to be heard and argued next week before Judge Benedict, and as far as the office of the District Attorney is concerned, and so far as the government is concerned, we ask no delay, but, on the contrary, we are desirous to press on the case with a view to have it determined by the Court, as soon as possible, whether or not this vessel comes within the purview of the third section of the act of 1818.

ARGUMENT OF MR. EVARTS.

MR. EVARTS. If your Honor please, the claim is put in here in the ordinary manner required by the rule of the Court, the ship lying in the port of New York, but belonging to Boston.

JUDGE BETTS. Is this one branch of the case set down for hearing before Judge Benedict?

MR. EVARTS. No, sir: the whole of the case is set down for hearing. The exception now taken by my learned friend on the other side is to the fact of the claimants here being the owners.

This he denies. The District Attorney does not except to the form in which the owners come in through their agent or consignee. Not at all. His exception now is, that the Messrs. Forbes are not the owners; that is simply joining issue with us on that point. We say that if we do not prove ourselves the owners, then the prosecution of the United States remains undefended.

JUDGE BETTS. What necessity is there for splitting the case into two trials?

MR. EVARTS. It is not to be split up. We decline to have it so; in other words, we consider exceptions of the counsel as joining issue on the fact of ownership, and having joined that issue, it becomes part of the trial in the cause to prove the ownership on our part, as it is for them to prove the forfeiture.

MR. COURTNEY. We have a right to try that first. I do not care whether all the exceptions are tried together or not.

MR. EVARTS. The exception is not that the owners, the Messrs. Forbes, have not put in a proper claim. That exception could not have been made, because, where possession of the ship is taken, a claim on the part of an agent or consignee, representing the owners, whether they are residents or non-residents, is always admitted. As your Honor knows, the representation of a ship, as through its owners, is a matter only limited in a private suit by the interest of the libellant, in a public prosecution by the interest of the government. The ship has to answer the claim, whether of forfeiture or of debt. And if the rightful man does not come along, the rightful man is taken by proclamation. If a wrong claimant comes in, he cannot substantiate the claim, and, therefore, so much the better for the libellant, for the claimant is not permitted to contest the case on its merits.

That being the case, application is made to take from the custody of the Court the res itself and to substitute its value in a bond. That is all. Now the utmost the Court needs to look at in deciding whether the claimants should be permitted to bond this vessel, is, whether they are the parties from whom the ship was taken by the process of this Court. If so, the Court puts back the res where it found it, taking a bond as the representative of its value, and the bond, if the principal is good, and the securities are good, and the stipulators satisfactory, is the res back in Court; and whether the ship be delivered to the wrongful

claimants, or to the rightful owners, does not in the least touch the validity or value of the bond. These are familiar suggestions, suggestions which your Honor has had occasion to consider many times.

Now, these owners are well known to my learned friend and to the public generally, as the Messrs. Forbes, representing, in Boston, the great China house of Russell & Co., and they are now here as the owners of the Meteor, and as its claimants. And now, I ask your Honor that the ship be delivered to them on their bond.

Now, as to the Secretary of State or President of the United States having anything to say on the subject; your Honor knows very well, and the District Attorney knows very well, that properly the President has nothing to say in the case, and that any intervention of the executive will or purpose, through letters, or by official presence through the District Attorney, is not a matter that the Judiciary of the United States listens to in the ordinary administration of justice. In all legal proceedings for enforcing the laws of the United States, whether it be the laws prohibiting the slave-trade, protecting the revenue, or enjoining neutrality, the Executive has rightful control of the prosecution. It is for it to say whether it desires to have the prosecution proceeded with, and it can withdraw the suits from the courts, if it so wish, or it can apply all manner of stimulus to the prosecuting officer, if it desires such suits to be carried on. But that is the limit and the just limit of executive control, or of the intimation it can rightfully give concerning the conduct of judicial proceedings. If the case proceeds in your Honor's Court, it proceeds according to the law and the Constitution of the United States. The Judiciary of the United States is the complete, independent, and final interpreter and arbiter in all matters coming judicially before it, and the Secretary of State or the President of the United States, in their wishes and views as to what shall be the course and termination of judicial proceedings, are no more to be regarded in the presence of the Court, than the editor of a newspaper or the leader of a political party. So much for that. Now, it is but fair to say, that I do not regard the letter that my learned friend has read from the Secretary of State as attempting, in the least, to express a wish, much less to give a law, concerning any judicial action of your Honor. On the contrary, I do understand him to be a states