My letter of June the 29th, accordingly, in the same
case of the ship William, informed you that no power in this country
could take a vessel out of the custody of the courts, and that it was
only because they decided not to take cognizance of that case, that it
resulted to the executive to interfere in it. Consequently, this alone
put it in their power to leave the vessel in the hands of the Consul.
The courts of justice exercise the sovereignty of this country in
judiciary matters; are supreme in these, and liable neither to control
nor opposition from any other branch of the government. We learn,
however, from the enclosed paper, that the Consul of New York, in the
first instance, and yourself in a subsequent one, forbid an officer of
justice to serve the process with which he was charged from his court,
on the British brig William Tell, taken by a French armed vessel within
a mile of our shores, as has been deposed on oath, and brought into New
York, and that you had even given orders to the French squadron there,
to protect the vessel against any person who should attempt to take
her from their custody. If this opposition were founded, as is there
suggested, on the indulgence of the letters before cited, it was
extending that to a case not within their purview; and even had it been
precisely the case to which they were to be applied, is it possible to
imagine you might assert it within the body of the country by force of
arms?
I forbear to make the observations which such a measure must suggest,
and cannot but believe that a moment's reflection will evince to you
the depth of the error committed in this opposition to an officer of
justice, and in the means proposed to be resorted to in support of it.
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