of the bark William was an illegal voyage; that its paramount purpose was to obtain a cargo of negroes, either by purchase or kidnapping, and bring them into slavery in the state of Louisiana, and that the load of lumber and the profession of a purpose to go for a cargo of guano were mere covers to conceal the true character of the enterprise. In my opinion, it is beyond doubt that had the bark been captured and brought into an American port, when she was seized at Fort Liberté, she would have been condemned by the United States courts as an intended slaver. And I think the Haytian authorities had such reasons for suspecting, even believing, that she was a slaver, with evil designs against their people; that they were justified in seizing her in one of their ports; and arresting the master, at least for examination. If the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Moses is to be believed, the voyage was concerted between Delaunay and Pelletier; the bark was procured for the illicit use; it was manned and supplied suitably for such a purpose, and its subsequent conduct down to its hovering along the coast and entering an obscure and private harbor of Hayti under false colors when a better one was easily accessible are all consistent with such a purpose. The suspicious circumstances begin at the beginning. The transfer of the title to Delaunay, as stated by Pelletier, in order to obtain registry at New Orleans; the registry at Mobile, in the name of Lee Launda, or Edward De Launa or Edward Lee Launa; the taking powder, pistols, and guns in quantities on board without mentioning them in the manifest; the loading of about one-third of the lumber on deck when the hold was more than sufficient for it all, the assumption of a false name by the mate; the character of the crew, all foreigners and roughs; the obviously fallacious pretense that a cargo of guano was sought; the concealing the name of the ship, and false representations respecting her nationality, the port from which he sailed, and her destination; the change of the name of the master; the unusual number of manacles on board, the large number of watercasks, including barrels capable of holding water all speak with one voice. They all tend in the same direction, and collectively they almost force to the conclusion that the voyage was illicit, and that slave trading was its object. Add to these the fact that Pelletier had applied to a Haytian to obtain fifty men and some women (blacks, of course) to assist him in obtaining guano, and I can not avoid thinking the Haytian Government, though all these facts may not have been known at the time, had ample reason for suspecting, if not believing, that the bark was a slaver, and that

the design of Pelletier was to obtain cargo of blacks from their country. Even the representatives of foreign governments then present in Hayti unanimously expressed to the government their opinion that Pelletier had been guilty of piracy, and that the government was authorized to put in force against him judicial proceedings. And Mr. Lewis, commercial agent of the United States, joined Mr. Byron, consul-general and acting chargé d'affaires of Great Britain, in asking that the captain and bark, then under arrest, should not be set at liberty.

Having now reviewed and stated what, in my judgment, the evidence exhibits respecting the character and conduct of the voyage down to the entrance of the bark into Fort Liberté, and noticed also the false pretenses of the claimant there, I proceed to examine the action of the Haytian Government, of which he complains. Shortly after the bark's arrival, and while the falsity of the assertion that she was a French vessel on a voyage from Havana to Havre was still undiscovered, one Miranda, who had shipped at Port au Prince on the bark as boatswain, escaped to the shore and denounced to the authorities the vessel and the master. What the charge he made was, whether it was of piracy or slave trading, or a false pretense of nationality, does not distinctly appear, though from his subsequent testimony it seems probable that it was an accusation of all those offenses. It led to the discovery that the vessel and the master were not what had been pretended, but that the vessel was the William, which had been suspected at Port au Prince, and that her master was Pelletier. He was therefore ordered to come on shore and to bring the ship's papers. This he refused to do. The French consul also sent a similar order, which Pelletier disregarded, and, having obtained the pintles he desired, he endeavored to escape at night out of the harbor. He was then arrested and taken on shore with the ship's papers.

The bark and the crew were also seized. The consul then examined the papers, and, finding that the vessel was American, turned it, together with Pelletier and the crew, over to the Haytian authorities, who committed the master and crew to jail in irons. Some time afterward they were sent to Cape Haytien and imprisoned there, still in irons, and within a few days they were sent to Port au Prince and marched in irons to the criminal prison there. The statements made by Pelletier and Collar, the mate, of abuse and cruelties inflicted upon them during their transfer from Fort Liberté to Port au Prince are extremely sensational, and if they are true they reveal barbarous treatment by the populace and needless severity of the government officers. But

the testimony of these two persons, I think, is very highly colored and in many particulars quite unreliable. Doubtless the populace was much excited, and not without reason.

They probably did insult and abuse the captives. There is other evidence to show it. But both Pelletier and Collar assert unqualifiedly as positive facts many things of which they could have had no knowledge, even if they existed, and they assert some things which are proved to have had no existence. One illustration will suffice: Pelletier states that during the march from the landing at Port au Prince to the prison, Louis Legallin, one of his boys, being weak, fainted from fatigue and loss of blood and fell, when the Haytian officers put a stick through his shackles and dragged him over the pavements and rough stones, so that his skull was worn through and he was dead on arrival at the prison, when his body was thrown into the yard and some small boys were allowed to beat out his eyes with sticks for their amusement. This was horrible, if true; but the statement is not true, and it was known by Pelletier to be false when he made it. Legallin was subsequently indicted, tried, and acquitted in Pelletier's presence. Many other assertions of sensational facts have been made by this witness which have been disproved or which were beyond his possible knowledge. The same thing may be said of the testimony of Collar. They tend greatly to impair my confidence in any portion of their testimony where it is not corroborated. Soon after they had been taken to Port au Prince Pelletier and Collar, with ten of the crew, were indicted for piracy and attempted slave dealing on the coast of Hayti. The indictment charged also that Pelletier had at sea extorted from Cortez a promise to pay a large sum of money for consenting to land him on the nearest land, and that at Grand Cayman he had compelled Cortez, by threats of murder, to give him a deed for all the merchandise intrusted to his (Cortez's) care by one Antonio Cano amounting to more than $ 3000. Prior to the presentation of this indictment the accused had been severally subjected to an examination according to the criminal practice of Hayti.

Meanwhile, Cortez and Cano had come to Port au Prince, and the question arose whether they could join in the criminal prosecution in order to recover thereby compensation for the injuries they alleged they had sustained at the hands of Pelletier.

This question came before a court consisting of Judge Boco and two others, and the court decided that Cortez and Cano could not join the prosecution; that the courts of Hayti had

no jurisdiction over their claims but that the criminal courts of the country had jurisdiction of the prosecution for piracy and slave trading. Pelletier states that the court decided to release him. This was not so. The decision was directly to the contrary. But as it was decided that the claim of Cortez and Cano could not be joined with the criminal proceeding, an appeal was taken to the court of cassation, where that decision was reversed. The judgment that the Haytian courts had jurisdiction of the criminal proceeding was left undisturbed, and the prosecution was sent down for trial. Pelletier further asserts that the three judges who made the first decision were sent to jail. Of that there is no proof beyond his assertion. The records show no such thing, and the statement is altogether improbable. Allowance should doubtless be made for mistaken assertions of a witness indicted and tried in a foreign country before strange judges, and in accordance with a course of criminal procedure not familiar to him, but positive misrepresentations respecting the trial are hardly excusable.

The court building and the records of judicial proceedings at Port au Prince have been destroyed by fire since 1861, but official reports of the trial of Pelletier and the others indicted, attested, and signed by the judges, and published at the time in the government official journal, are before me. I think them entitled to credit. They reveal a very different conduct of the judicial proceedings anterior to and during the trial from that testified to by him. Waiving, for the present, consideration of the question whether the Haytian courts had jurisdiction, to which I shall return hereafter, I can discover in those proceedings, including the trial, no satisfactory evidence that they were oppressive or unfair, or that they were not conducted temperately and according to the ordinary course of criminal trials. There are statements of Pelletier to the contrary, but I think them unsustained.

The main trial commenced on the 25th of August 1861, and continued five days. It was at no time hurried. At its beginning the court provided an interpreter for Thomas Collar, the only defendant who did not understand the French language, the language of Hayti. Indeed, all the defendants except Collar were natives of France.

Pelletier declined his right to select six of the jury, denying the jurisdiction of the court, though that had previously been decided against him. Counsel were offered to him by the court, but he declined them because he had counsel of his own selection. Very soon, however, he refused to make any defense and requested his

counsel to withdraw. Of this he gives two accounts, not quite harmonious. One is that the pilot he had taken from Carthagena, the seaman Lobos he had shipped there, and whom he had caused to be imprisoned, and the boy he had left at Port au Prince were seized without any charge and imprisoned, so that he was unable to procure their attendance, and that he declared, as his defense was thus gagged, he should make no defense, but deny the jurisdiction of the court, and begged his counsel to withdraw.

But the facts were that he had left the pilot he took at Carthagena at Georgetown, in Grand Cayman. He was not, therefore, seized and imprisoned by the Haytian authorities, and Lobos was a witness and testified during the trial Pelletier's presence. At another time Pelletier testifies that he refused to make any defense, and dismissed his counsel because the ship's papers were refused to him. Of this hereafter.

He makes another statement. It is that Mr. Laveau, one of his counsel, was sent to jail for alluding to the extraordinary means resorted to the produce a conviction, and to the abstraction of his papers so that they could not be used in his defense. But the official report gives a different account. It is that 'the acting government attorney again requested the court to appoint a lawyer to defend Pelletier, whereupon the latter arose and reiterated the declaration which he had already made, viz, that he would not accept the services of any lawyer for his defense. I shall offer no defense, said he; I have resolved not to defend myself in view of the base intrigues that have been resorted to in order to gag my defense. > The judge of the criminal court requested the accused to be more moderate, and told him he must retract the words « base intrigues ». Mr. Laveau then proceeded to create a disturbance, and was called to order. He again interrupted, whereupon the judge ordered him to be led out of the court room.' It thus appears that he was led out for a contempt. He had been dismissed as counsel previously. There was no order for imprisonment.

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Pelletier also states that he was shut up in a box having only a small aperture, through which he could see the court proceedings only imperfectly. There is no other evidence to sustain this statement, and a witness resident in Port au Prince at the time, familiar with the courtroom, and who had served as a juror, has testified that there was no such box or close dock in it.

The trial proceeded, numerous witnesses were examined, each in the absence of all others, and at the close of each one's testimony the accused were severally asked whether what had been testified was true. To these questions they all,

except Pelletier, gave affirmative answers. He refused to make any answers. Among the witnesses was Miranda, the boatswain. He testified inter alia that Pelletier had told him he intended to take from Hayti 150 men to sell as slaves. There was also evidence that Pelletier had said he intended to give a ball on the bark at Fort Liberté and carry off a number of young men and women. To this Pelletier made no denial, though asked what he had to say in reply to the charge.

His application to Maximilian at Port au Prince was also proved. This was but a part of the evidence. After a trial, lasting five days, the jury returned a verdict convicting Pelletier of piracy, of the fraudulent abstraction of goods at sea, or Grand Cayman Island, and convicting him also of an attempt at piracy and the slave trade committed on the coast of Hayti. Three others of the accused, Collar, Brown, and the captain's clerk, were convicted as accomplices, and the remainder of the accused were acquitted. On this conviction Pelletier was sentenced to death, and the bark and its contents were adjudged to be confiscated. On appeal to the court of cassation the judgment of the criminal court was in all respects affirmed, except so far as it adjudged death to Pelletier.

That was set aside, for the reason that the statutes of Hayti imposed the penalty of death for piracy only in cases when murder has been committed, and the case was sent to the criminal court, sitting at Cape Haytien, that without the assistance of a jury, basing its judgment upon the verdict already rendered', it might enforce the penal law of Hayti according to the Haytian statutes of 1815 against piracy. The criminal court thereupon sentenced the claimant to five years imprisonment, and the court of cassation on a second appeal confirmed the judgment.

There are some other averments of Pelletier impugning the fairness of the judicial proceedings against him that require notice. The principal one is that copies of the ship's papers needed for his defense, and to which he was entitled by the Haytian law, were withheld from him. He asserts that application had been made for them before the trial; that the minister of foreign affairs promised he should be present when the package containing them should be opened, and should see them and take what would be necessary; that his lawyers took every means to get the papers, even applying to Judge Boco for an order on the clerk to exhibit them; that on the presentation of the order to the clerk, and his going into another room to get them, a subordinate officer seized them and carried them away.

All this, if it occurred, he could have known only through the report of his counsel. It may be true, but it does not prove that at another time the copies could not have been obtained. There may have been some reason for the officers taking the papers at that time. Certainly no application for them to a judge or to the minister of foreign affairs was ever refused. Permission to have them was always granted, and it was not of this that Pelletier's counsel complained, although they did complain that the papers were withheld from them while the trial was proceeding.

It should require clear evidence to prove that an inferior officer causelessly interfered to defeat the order of the judge, and the ready offer made by the secretary of State and the minister of foreign affairs. Mr. Linstant, the leading counsel of Pelletier, complained of the action of the court respecting the papers at the trial. But the report shows that when the papers were demanded the demand was coupled with an application for delay. The latter application the court refused, but ordered the papers to be produced forthwith. This seems not to have been satisfactory. It was then that Pelletier declared, by the advice of this counsel, that his defense was gagged, declined to defend himself, and dismissed his counsel. The papers were not withheld, but a postponement of the trial was denied. Mr. Linstant in a letter to his client, reviewing the trial, says: We were offered the communication of the documents while the court was sitting, as if, while we were attending to the debates and while our attention was riveted upon the testimony of the witnesses we could withdraw ourselves from these important cases to read papers of such importance'. That is a complaint without much substance, intended perhaps as an excuse for having advised his client to make no defense.

Pelletier also asserts that attempts were made to bribe witnesses to testify falsely against him. The charge is a serious one, but I think it wholly unsustained by any reliable evidence. It rests upon two ex parte affidavits made in 1868 by two of the sailors, who had been indicted and tried with the captain and mate of the bark, and upon testimony of the mate, Collar. The affidavits are loose. They speak of attempted bribery at Port au Prince during the trouble there before the bark cleared for New Orleans, not of efforts to obtain testimony for the trial, and Brown's affidavit is principally, if not wholly, a hearsay statement. Collar has testified before me that the American consul came to see him in the hospital, to which he had been removed from the prison, and told him if he would testify falsely against Pelletier he would receive consi

derable money and get his liberty. If so, it was not the act of the Haytian Government. But the story is too improbable to be believed. The consul must have been Mr. Lewis, who was the only consul at that time, and it is inconceivable that he attempted bribery. Besides, Collar, when pressed by repeated inquiries whether the consul asked him to testify falsely, equivocated, and after some hesitation said he wanted me to testify Pelletier had done an injury there'.

There are other statements made by Pelletier respecting alleged wrongs of which he could have had no knowledge beyond hearsay, statements entirely uncorroborated. I do not think it necessary to review them. After his conviction, and some time in May 1862 he was removed to Cape Haytien-marched, as he says, about 250 miles. (The distance from Port au Prince to Cape Haytien is only ninety miles.) At Cape Haytien he was confined in prison until in the following November or December, when, at the request of Mr. Whidden, then American consul, he was sent back by sea to Port au Prince, where for a time he was confined, and then transferred to a hospital, from which he made his escape on the 11th day of November 1863 and succeeded in reaching Kingston in Jamaica.

I now come to consider the question which I have thus far waived. It is whether, in view of the law of nations as it was in 1861, the Haytian Government had jurisdiction to try, condemn, and punish the master and to confiscate the bark and other property. The bark was a vessel of the United States, duly registered as such, and the master was a naturalized American citizen. The ship's papers showed this, and they were in the possession of the Haytian authorities. They knew, therefore, that the bark was American. It is true that on the 3d of May 1861 Mr. Lewis, then commercial agent of the United States, joined the British consul-general in a request to the government that the bark and the captain, then under arrest, should not be set at liberty. It is also true that on the 15th of May 1861, upon being consulted by the secretary of state for foreign relations of the republic, the representatives of the foreign governments then present at Port au Prince, including the English, French, and six others, unanimously expressed their opinion that the Haytian Government had authority to take jurisdiction and proceed against Pelletier for the crime of piracy, though the bark was American. But this, while it tends to show that the government acted cautiously, without intention to violate the law of nations, was an insufficient warrant for taking jurisdiction, if in fact that law disallowed it. Later, on the 6th of August 1861, after the indictment had

been presented, Mr. Lewis protested against the exercise of jurisdiction in the case by Hayti, and demanded that, in accordance with the laws of nations and those of Hayti, Captain Pelletier, his vessel, and effects should be delivered over to him, in order that they might be sent to the United States, there to be tried. This protest and demand, however, did not avail. The Haytian courts had on that day decided, after a protracted discussion, that they had jurisdiction, overruling pleadings to the contrary.

In this judgment, I think, the Haytian courts were mistaken. They seem to have been guided by the statute law of Hayti rather than by the law of nations, which should have been the rule of decision. I do not deem it necessary to inquire what the municipal law of Hayti was respecting piracy or slave trading.

What constitutes piracy by the municipal law of a state may not be piracy as understood by the law of nations. The slave trade has been declared to be piracy by the statutes of several nations. But the slave trade was not piracy in the view of that law in 1861, nor is it now, though repeated efforts have been made to have it so regarded.

It is the general rule of the law of nations that offenses committed by a vessel at sea or on board while in port of a foreign country are justiciable, or triable only in the courts of the country to which the vessel belongs. The rule is founded upon the accepted principle that the vessel is regarded as part of the territory of the country to which it belongs, and criminal laws do not extend outside of the country which has enacted them. There are, it is true, some exceptions to this rule. One is to its applicability to offenses committed in foreign ports. If they are committed against the peace of the country where the vessel lies, disturbing it, they are cognizable in the courts of that country. Not so if they are offenses committed by persons attached to the vessel upon others likewise attached and committed on board. But crimes and offenses committed even on board by persons not belonging to the ship are thus cognizable, so also offenses committed on shore, no matter who may be the offender. And piracy, as understood by the law of nations, is also an exception to the general rule. That is regarded as a crime against all mankind, and it is punishable wherever the offender is found, no matter where the offense was committed, and no matter what was the nationality of the vessel. These are exceptional cases. The present is not within the description of either. It is the general rule which must now be applied. I am of opinion, therefore, that under the law of nations the courts of Hayti had no

jurisdiction to try and punish the master of the bark William for any of the offenses he had committed, or to condemn and confiscate the vessel. The offenses charged in the indictment were piracy, misuse of a passenger at sea, extortion by threats from Cortez, at Grand Cayman, a British island, and attempted slave dealing at Fort Liberté, Hayti. The indictment set forth the acts alleged to have been done at sea and at Grand Cayman, which constituted the piracy charged, if there was any. But it is undeniable that none of them were piratical in view of the law of nations. It may be admitted that had any act been done which the law of nations regarded as piratical the Haytian courts would have had jurisdiction, though the bark was American, for the reason I have stated above. But though acts may have been done which by the Haytian law constitute piracy, those courts could have no jurisdiction over a foreign vessel or its master who had committed them, unless the acts were also piratical under the law of nations, or unless the offense had been committed on Haytian territory. Let it be conceded that a government may lawfully seize in its own ports a vessel and her master when there is probable cause for believing that they are piratical or have piratical intentions, yet, if they belong to another nation, they must be sent home for trial, for the courts of the country where they belong have, by the law of nations, the exclusive right to try them. I speak only of cases where no piratical act has been done within the port or territory in which the arrest is made. For an infraterritorial outrage, the vessel and master may be treated as having forfeited their nationality.

There has been one decision made by the court of cassation of France in 1832 that at first sight may appear to be in conflict with some of the opinions I have expressed, but a careful examination of it will reveal that it is in entire harmony with them. I refer to the case of the Carlo Alberto, reported in Devilleneuve's General Collection of Laws and Judgments for 1832.

The facts of the case as they appear in the report were as follows: A conspiracy had been formed between persons in Italy and others in France, principally in Marseilles, to execute a plot against the French Government. A commencement had been made by the Italian conspirators in the charter of the steamer Carlo Alberto at Leghorn for a pretended voyage to Barcelona. The steamer took on board clandestinely at night the Duchess de Berri and others, in number twelve, who assumed false names, and clandestinely landed the Duchess and six of her suite at night of April 28 or 29, with the aid of a fishing boat, which had watched the passage of