t, against the _conspiracies_
of Forsyth, the Secretary of State, and the Spanish Ambassador. In his
first communication to the latter, Forsyth says:

"All the proceedings in the matter, on the part of both the
executive and judicial branches of the government, have had
their foundation in the assumption that Montez and Ruiz alone
were the parties aggrieved; and that their claim to the
surrender of the property was founded in fact and in justice."

The Spanish minister and his successor, complained bitterly, in the
course of a long correspondence, of the delay in giving up the Africans,
on the ground, as emphatically stated in one of their letters to the
Department of State, that "the public vengeance had not been satisfied;
for be it recollected that the legation of Spain does not demand the
delivery of slaves, but of assassins." In a previous communication it
was intimated that "the infliction of capital punishment in this case
(in the United States,) would not be attended with the salutary effects
had in view by the law, when it resorts to this painful and terrible
alternative, namely, to prevent the commission of similar offences."
Notwithstanding these dreadful intimations of the fate awaiting the
Africans in Cuba, the American Government deliberately adopted the
design of delivering them up, either as _property_ or as assassins. That
Government found willing agents in the United States' Marshal, and the
District Attorney of Connecticut. The following extracts from the
argument of John Quincy Adams, will explain these disgraceful
transactions:

"On the 7th of January, the Secretary of State writes to the
Secretary of the Navy, acknowledging the receipt of his letter
of the 3d, informing him that the schooner Grampus would receive
the negroes of the Amistad, 'for the purpose of conveying them
to Cuba, in the event of their delivery being adjudged by the
Circuit Court, before whom the case is pending.' This singular
blunder, in naming the Court, shows in what manner and with how
little care the Department of State allowed itself to conduct an
affair, involving no less than the liberties and lives of every
one of my clients. This letter enclosed the order of the
President to the Marshal of Connecticut for the delivery of the
negroes to Lieut. Paine. Although disposing of the lives of
forty human beings, it has not the form or solemnity of