crew, killed the captain, a slave of his, and two sailors, and while they permitted most of the crew to escape, they took into close custody the two owners, Ruiz and Montes.  Montes, who had some knowledge of nautical affairs, was ordered to steer the vessel back to Africa.  So he did by day, when the Negroes would watch him, but at night he tried to make his way to some land nearer at hand.  Other vessels passed from time to time, and from these the Negroes bought provisions, but Montes and Ruiz were so closely watched that they could not make known their plight.  At length, on August 26, the schooner reached Long Island Sound, where it was detained by the American brig-of-war Washington, in command of Captain Gedney, who secured the Negroes and took them to New London, Conn.  It took a year and a half to dispose of the issue thus raised.  The case attracted the greatest amount of attention, led to international complications, and was not really disposed of until a former President had exhaustively argued the case for the Negroes before the Supreme Court of the United States.

In a letter of September 6, 1839, to John Forsyth, the American Secretary of State, Calderon, the Spanish minister, formally made four demands:  1.  That the Amistad be immediately delivered up to her owner, together with every article on board at the time of her capture; 2.  That it be declared that no tribunal in the United States had the right to institute proceedings against, or to impose penalties upon, the subjects of Spain, for crimes committed on board a Spanish vessel, and in the waters of Spanish territory; 3.  That the Negroes be conveyed to Havana or otherwise placed at the disposal of the representatives of Spain; and 4.  That if, in consequence of the intervention of the authorities in Connecticut, there should be any delay in the desired delivery of the vessel and the slaves, the owners both of the latter and of the former be indemnified for the injury that might accrue to them.  In support of his demands Calderon invoked “the law of nations, the stipulations of existing treaties, and those good feelings so necessary in the maintenance of the friendly relations that subsist between the two countries, and are so interesting to both.”  Forsyth asked for any papers bearing on the question, and Calderon replied that he had none except “the declaration on oath of Montes and Ruiz.”

Meanwhile the abolitionists were insisting that protection had not been afforded the African strangers cast on American soil and that in no case did the executive arm of the Government have any authority to interfere with the regular administration of justice.  “These Africans,” it was said, “are detained in jail, under process of the United States courts, in a free state, after it has been decided by the District Judge, on sufficient proof, that they are recently from Africa, were never the lawful slaves of Ruiz and Montes,” and “when it is clear as noonday that there is no law or treaty stipulation that requires the further detention of these Africans or their delivery to Spain or its subjects.”