[No. II.] Letter from the Attorney-General, concerning the Claim of John Jacob Astor and others. SIR Albany, December 29, 1830. Since the adjournment of the Legislature, two of the suits brought upon the claim of John Jacob Astor, and others, to certain lands in the counties of Putnam and Dutchess, have been tried, and judgments have been rendered therein in favor of the plaintiff.Bills of exceptions were prepared for the purpose of reviewing those judgments in the Supreme Court of the United States, pursuant to the acts of the legislature of the years 1827 and 1828, upon that subject.. I had hoped that nothing would prevent a decision of the causes, at the next January term of the appellate court; but a difficulty that has arisen about the settlement of the cases, has rendered such a result impracticable, without the abandonment on the part of the defence, of what I consider important and legal rights. Upon each of the trials, a very able charge was delivered to the jury: the substance of which was inserted in the bills of exceptions, because the counsel for the defence believed it objectionable in point of law. The counsel for the plaintiff proposed to strike out this part of the case, and the whole was struck out on the settlement of the bills by the court. Upon learning this result, I lost no time in asking the Circuit Court to reconsider its determination, and respectfully insisted on the insertion of the charges as matter of legal right. But the court adhered to its first determination, and the bills as settled, do not even mention that a charge was delivered to the jury. Although I was very desirous to terminate this litigation as soon as possible, and in any event to avoid any complaint of delay from the opposite party, I could not without a dereliction of duty, proceed to bring writs of error, until a further effort had been made to correct the bills of exceptions. I have therefore declined engrossing the bills to be signed; and shall (if not otherwise instructed) take the proper measures to bring the subject before the Supreme Court of the United States, at its next term, by way of a motion for a mandamus to the Circuit Court; and whatever may be the result of this proceeding, I shall then have done all that the forms of law either authorise or require, for obtaining a proper settlement of the cases. I am, with great respect, Your Excellency's Ob't. humble servant, His Excellency, Governor THкOOP. [No. III.] Letter from the Special Counsel, concerning the Morgan Trials. To his Excellency ENOS T. THROOP, Acting Governor of the State of New-York: SIR It is my duty to report to you the progress I have made in the discharge of the duties of Special Counsel for conducting the prosecutions against those alleged to be concerned in the outrages committed on William Morgan. The very late period at which I received your letter intimating your wish to devolve this business on me, left me but a few days to arrange my business, so that I could leave it and travel post haste to the place assigned for holding the special circuit designed for the trial of a part of these causes. Not having been previously initiated into the peculiar questions which these causes involved, and a stranger to the witnesses, their habits, character and inclinations towards the prosecutions; and finding on my arrival there, many of the material witnesses absent, I was necessarily tardy in the commencement and progress of the causes. I found there four indictments to be tried; and tried two of them. One against Brown and Wright, who were both acquitted; and one against Ezekiel Jewit and another. Jewit alone was tried and acquitted. The other defendant in that indictment was represented to the court by his counsel to be so sick, that his life was despaired of. His counsel opposed his trial then on that ground. Under that suggestion I moved the separate trial of Jewit the co-defendant. The time consumed in preparing for these trials and getting through with them, and the incidents occuring on the trials, imposed, as I thought, a duty upon me to move an adjournment of the court. As to one indictment against several yet untried, a very material witness in behalf of the prosecution was found to be so situated that he refused to testify, and under the decision of the court in the case of Mather, I thought the objection well taken. This witness had been included in that indictment as one of the defendants, and the supreme court, on the motion of my predecessor, had ordered a nolle prosequi as to him on the indictment. This course had been taken with a view to use him as a witness. He was called upon the stand to testify in one of the causes tried, and refused to testify on the ground that there was still another indictment pending against him for the same matter. This was probably unknown or not adverted to by my predecessor. It was unknown to me until the fact came out on the trial. That indictment was pending in the oyer and terminer of Niagara county. But at the time the fact came to my knowledge, the court of oyer and terminer (in session in connection with the special circuit) had been adjourned without day, the judges being impatient to be dismissed, and no business occurring to me as likely to need their attendance. Under those circumstances, a necessity seemed to be imposed upon me to have the special circuit adjourned to some day beyond the then next oyer and terminer for the county of Niagara, so that at such court a nolle prosequi might be had on the old indictment. That next court being the sixteenth of November, it was adjourned over to the second Monday of January; a nolle prosequi has been had upon the former indictment, and the objection is now removed. The course taken by some of the witnesses at the Lockport circuit, and the satisfactory evidence that we had, that other material and important witnesses had either voluntarily absented themselves, or been persuaded to abscond, were additional considerations, as i thought, why it was not my duty to put any more on trial then, for the mere purpose of a formal acquittal. The course of witnesses alluded to, was that of one who refused to answer questions decided by the court to be proper and pertinent, and that of two others who refused to be sworn at all. These were promptly punished by the court for the contempts. Another absconded during the trial in which his testimony was wanted, How far the contumacious witnesses were influenced to the course they took, by the persuasions or advice of interested friends, I have no means of knowing, but presume that the ascertained legal consequences of such conduct, or the manner in which public opinion has relished it, will prevent a repetition of such acts of defiance against the authority of the government. At the recent trial of Gillis, Whitney, one of the witnesses who refused at Lockport to be sworn, altered his course and testified.Had he testified at Lockport to what he has since, and had Bruce testified there to what he had before, I believe the only possible point of uncertainty with the jury in the case of Brown and Wright, (that of Morgan's being in the carriage with which they had to do,) would have been dispelled. As to Turner, who refused on the trial of Ezekiel Jewet, to testify to the facts believed to be within his knowledge, we have not the same certain means of knowing that his testimony should have convicted the defendant. As to the witness Giddings who absconded during the trial of Jewit, his course was equally a surprize upon the prosecution. It is known that he had once before been presented before a court in Ontario county and there rejected for the want of the supposed requisite religious belief. Soon after my arrival at Lockport, I was addressed by the defendant's counsel to know if I should examine him. I took time to ascertain all the facts so as to answer understandingly, but reciprocating the freedom which dictated the inquiry, I asked the defendant's counsel to say to me whether, if he were examined, any attack would be made upon his character for truth and veracity. I received for answer that his character in that respect would not be attacked, for they knew it could not be. Having made deliberate examination as to the extent of the testimony in the power of the prosecution to produce, to sustain him on the matter of fact ruled against him in Ontario; and also having formed a most deliberate conviction that |