A ship-load of negroes had been stolen from Africa, contrary to the law of nations, of humanity and of God, and surreptitiously smuggled, in the night, into the Island of Cuba.  This act was piracy, according to the law of Spain, and of all Governments in Christendom, and the perpetrators thereof, had they been detected, would have been punished with death.  Immediately after the landing of these unfortunate Africans, about thirty-six of them were purchased of the slave-pirates, by two Spaniards named Don Jose Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes, who shipped them for Guanaja, Cuba, in the schooner “Amistad.”  When three days out from Havana, the Africans rose, killed the captain and crew, and took possession of the vessel—­sparing the lives of their purchaser’s, Ruiz and Montes.  This transaction was unquestionably justifiable on the part of the negroes.  They had been stolen from their native land—­had fallen into the hands of pirates and robbers, and reduced to abject slavery.  According to the first law of nature—­the law of self-defence—­implanted in the bosom of every human being by the Creator, they were justified in taking any measures necessary to restore them to the enjoyment of that freedom which was theirs by birthright.

The negroes being unable to manage the schooner, compelled Ruiz and Montes to navigate her, and directed them to shape her course for Africa; for it was their design to return to their native land.  But they were deceived by the two Spaniards, who brought the schooner to the coast of the United States, where she was taken possession of by Lieut.  Gedney, of the U. S. surveying brig Washington, a few miles off Montauk Point, and brought into New London, Conn., The two Spaniards claimed the Africans as their property; and the Spanish Minister demanded of the President of the United States, that they be delivered up to the proper authorities, and taken back to Havana, to be tried for piracy and murder.  The matter was brought before the District Court of Connecticut.

In the mean time President Van Buren ordered the U. S. schooner Grampus, Lieut.  John S. Paine, to repair to New Haven, to be in readiness to convey the Africans to Havana, should such be the decision of the Court.  But the Court decided that the Government of the United States had no authority to return them into slavery; and directed that they be conveyed in one of our public ships to the shores of Africa, from whence they had but recently been torn away.  From this decision the U. S. District Attorney appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

These transactions attracted the attention of the whole people of the Union, and naturally excited the sympathy of the masses, pro and con, as they were favorable or unfavorable to the institution of slavery.  Who should defend, in the Supreme Court, these poor outcasts—­ignorant, degraded, wretched—­who, fired with a noble energy, had burst the shackles of slavery, and by a wave of fortune had been thrown