To His Excellency John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts member, House of Representatives. I have understood from Mr. Joadson that you are acquainted with the plight of the Amistad Africans. If that is true, then you are aware that we have been at every step successful in our presentation of their case. Yet despite this and despite the unlikelihood of President Van Buren’s re-election, he has appealed our most recent favorable decision to the highest court in the land. As I’m sure you are well aware, seven of nine of these Supreme Court justices are themselves Southern slave owners. Sir, we need you. If ever there was a time for a man to cast aside his daily trappings and array himself for battle, that time has come. Cicero once said, appealing to Claudius in defense of the Republic, that the whole result of this entire war depends on the life of one most brave and excellent man. In our time, in this instance, I believe it depends on two. A courageous man at present in irons in New Haven, named Cinque… and you sir. Sincerely Robert S. Baldwin, attorney-at-law.
Yet the abduction of freemen from the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone and their illegal transportation to the New World, as described by Cinque, is not unheard of, is it?
On the other hand, let’s say they aren’t slaves. If they aren’t slaves, in which case they were illegally acquired, weren’t they? Forget mutiny, forget piracy, forget murder and all the rest. Those are subsequent irrelevant occurrences. Ignore everything but the pre-eminent issue at hand. The wrongful transfer of stolen goods. Either way, we win.
My clients’ journey did not begin in Havana, as they claim and keep claiming more and more emphatically. No, my clients’ journey began much, much further away.
I said this before the judge, this is almost how it works here, almost.
Yes. I deal with property. Sometimes I get people’s property back, other times I get it taken away, as in this case. Every one of the claims speaks to the issue of ownership.
Baldwin, Roger S, attorney-at-law.
Yes. Well… intending no disrespect, Mr. Tappan, but if that were the way to go, well, then… Well, I wouldn’t have bothered coming down here. Goodbye. I bid you gentlemen a good afternoon.
And this here, Cinque, is for me. More death threats. Some of them signed. By my own clients, no less. I should say former clients, shouldn’t I? There is one more consequence to having no clientele to speak of. I am now free to sit here as long as it takes for you to acknowledge me.
