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Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Casey, Chief Justice, \n      Loring, J., \n      Nott, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE MEADE CASE. Richard W. Meade, Administrator, v. The United States.
    
      On the Proofs.
    
    
      An American merchant in Spain has claims against the Spanish government arising on contract and for personal injuries'. Prior to the treaty with Spain of 1819 he files notice of his claim with the Secretary of the United States. The treaty includes all claims thus filed pi'ior to its date. It is signed by both parties and ratified by the United States. Spain refuses to ratify; the time within which it mustberatified expires, and the United States give notice that ilall causes of difference" between the parties “will stand inihesame situation as if that convention had never been made." The mei'chant then presses his claims directly, and procures their acknowledgment and liquidation from the Spanish government, through the report of a royal junta, in the nature of a decree. This decree covers the contracts and personal injuries and includes intei’cst. It is approved by the King, and by the laws'and customs of Spain is of as high and binding a nature as the judgment of a/mj tribunal. On thetrial before the junta the mei'chant puts in evidence and surrenders all his vouchers and evidences of indebtedness. They are cancelled and filed in the finalice department of Spain. The Cortes determined to provide for the payment of the decree. They areinformedby the Spanish secretary of'state and by the American minister at Madrid that if the treaty of 1819 be ratified, and certainprivate grants in Florida be annulled, the United States will pay the claim of the mei’chant. On the faith of these representations the Cortes annul the private grants, Spain ratifies the treaty, the United States accept the ratification, and acquire thereby the Floridas, free from the private gra/nts. While the final acceptance of the treaty is under consideration, the merchant notifies the President and Senate that if special provision is not made for the full and immediate payment of his claim, heprefei's to remain a creditor of Spain, and objects to the indebted/ness being appropriated by the United States. No such provision is made, and he is sent, with olhei' claimants, before a commission established by the treaty. The commissioners refuse to recognize the Spanish decree, and require him to produce the original vouchers. The government sustains the commissioners and demands the vouchers. Spain refuses to deliver them, and the commission expires. The United States pay to other claimants the $5,000,000 provided for by the treaty. The claim of the merchant is lost 
      
      by the refusal of the United States to recognize the Spanish decree, and of Spain to furnish the original vouchers. By the convention of 1834 (Q Stat. L., p. 460J> the United States again release Spain from all claims of American citizens.
    
    I. The government may take private property for public use by the terms of a treaty, and may release the clioses in action of American citizens to a foreign government.
    A debt due to an American citizen from a foreign government is as much property as houses and lands, and when taken for public use is to be paid for in the same manner.
    A release by the United States to a foreign government (in part consideration of a cession of territory) of an indebtedness to an American citizen, acknowledged to be valid, is a taking of private property for public use. But where a special mode for obtaining compensation is designated by statute or by treaty, or where the power of assessing or deciding is lodged in a special tribunal, the remedy designated can alone be pursued, and no action therefor can be maintained in this court.
    II. The commission established by the treaty with Spain of 1819 (8 Stat. L., p. 252) was a special tribunal, having exclusive jurisdiction of claims arising under the treaty, and no other court can correct its mistakes or revise its decisions.
    ni. The commission established by the Spanish treaty of 1819 (8 Stat. L., p. 252) had jurisdiction of a claim founded on the award or decree of a Spanish junta, rendered subsequent to the dale of the treaty, even though it embraced interest to the day of its date, where the original claim existed prior to the date of the treaty and was embraced in its terms.
    Mr. Joseph H. BRADLEY for tbe claimant:
    I shall endeavor to maintain the following propositions :
    I. Mr. Meade, the intestate, had valid claims on the Spanish government prior to ’February 22, 1819, originating after the year 1802.
    The evidence on this point is full and very conclusive. He had claims for “ damages ” arising out of breaches of contract; 2d, for “ injuries.”
    
    II. The United States, for a consideration received by them from Spain, have released, Spain from all obligation to pay those claims.
    
    1st. Under the treaty of February 22, 1819 ; 2,d. Under the treaty of February 17, 1834.
    The words of the 19th article treaty of 1819, 1st clause, are: “ Reciprocally renounce all claims for damages or injuries which they themselves, as well as their respective citizens and subjects, may have suffered until the time of signing of this treaty;” and in the 5 th clause the renunciation of the United States will extend * •* “ to all claims
    of the citizens of the United States upon the Spanish government, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the government of the United States, have been presented to the Department of State, or to the minister of the United States in Spain, since the date of the convention of 1802, and until the signature of this treaty.”
    
      As to the minister of tlie United States in Spain, Mr. Meade bad, as early as July 27, 1818, applied to Mm. And tbis application was followed incessantly until a final adjudication was made.
    These facts bring tbe case witbin tbe provisions of tbe treaty above cited.
    Tbis construction is supported by tbe action of tbe commissioners under it; and by tbe reply of Mr. Adams, March 9,1822, to tbe commissioners.
    Tbe meaning of tbe parties is clear. Their language is to be understood in its ordinary sense. Vattel, book ii, ch. 17, § 262, (and note by Chitty,) 263, 268, 271. Marry at t v. Wilson, 1 B. & P., 439. Tlie Arredondo, 6 Pet., 610.
    Tbe United States received tbe Floridas as tbe consideration.
    Tbe renunciation as between tbe two governments was absolute, and Spain was unconditionally released. Tbe United States undertook to satisfy her citizens. She supposed tbe five millions would be abundantly sufficient; if not, she claims the right to pay them pro rata. But Spain was released. That Mr. Meade’s case was witbin the very terms of tbe treaty is indisputable.
    It was also clearly witbin its intent. But it is made more clear by tbe conduct of tbe parties.
    The government of Spain, in tbe most formal and authentic manner, announced that they were provided for in tbe treaty.
    Tbe United States, through her minister, demanded of Spain tbe vouchers and proofs of these claims at tbe instance of the commissioners.
    Tbis could not have been done under tbe provisions of tbe 11th article, unless tbe United States was prepared to admit,and did thereby virtually admit, that tbe renunciation extended to these claims.
    But if tbis claim was not embraced witbin, and released by, tbe treaty of 1819, it continued to be a subsisting valid claim against Spain, tbe amount of which bad been ascertained and admitted by Spain, and was a liquidated demand.
    Its condition was known to tbe United States, and was made the subject of instructions to her minister in Spain, and while denied by tbe officials of that government, it bad been asserted by tbe United States as a subsisting claim.
    If these facts be so, although it may not be found among tbe enumerated claims referred to in tbe treaty of 1834, tbe United States are estopped by tbe sweeping terms of that treaty, and Spain is released.
    
      III. This release ivas granted without the assent of Mr. Meade, without his authority, and against his protest.
    
    1st. It was without the assent of Mr. Meade. He was a citizen of the United States, domiciled in Spain, subject to her jurisdiction.
    He was still under the protection of his own government. His debtor was the country in which he resided, his wrongdoer the sovereign who should have protected him.
    The United States were seeking the acquisition of territory, and they sought to employ the claims of their citizens on Spain as a means of purchase.
    They do not stipulate with the citizens for a power to compromise. They stipulate with Spain only to release her from those claims, a statement of which shall be presented as provided in the treaty.
    They must place this right to compromise on their sovereignty, and an implied assent, or upon an express assent.
    If they rest on their eminent domain, it must he with the implied understanding that they are to make full compensation. Yattel, book 1, ch. 20, § 244. Bowyer, Pub. Law, 228, (note 1.)
    If it is private property taken for public use, it is within the spirit of the provision of the Constitution, art. 5 of amendment.
    2d. If it was with the assent of Mr. Meade, the government are bound to show it.
    This Mr. Adams has sought to establish in his report, (IV State Papers, Foreign Eelations, p. 704.) He puts it on the - ground that the government had no right to interfere without the solicitation of the claimant.
    This, then, is the postulate. When a citizen appeals to his government to seek and demand redress against a foreign nation, “he thereby voluntarily makes his claim a subject of negotiation, and of those compromises in which all national adjustments of individual claims must, and do always consist.”
    It rests, then, on an implied assent.
    
    The proposition is not only unsupported by any authority, it is directly opposed to well known and recognized general principles. From these certain corollaries are the result.
    
      a. The right of a nation to demand of another satisfaction for damages and injuries done by it to the citizens of the country making the demand is clear. Vatt., b. ii, ch. 6, § 71. Ib., ch. 8, § 342. And the authorities are copiously collected in 1 Wildm. Int. Law, 193; and 2 Phill. Int. Law, chs. 2 and- 3, pp. 4 and 5. See also the message of President Monroe, 9th May, 1820.
    
      The obligation or duty of the nation upon whom the demand is made to make satisfaction is perfect, because the right and power to enforce it exist in the other. Vatt. Introduc., lvii, § 16, 17.
    
      b. The obligation to make the demand is imperfect, because that depends on questions of internal policy, to be decided by the nation for itself. See the authorities above.
    c. The right and duty of the nation making the demand, if it shall interpose, is to seek full reparation. Vatt., b. ii, ch. 6, § 71, and authorities above, and also the letter of Mr. Fitzherbert to the Spanish minister, and his reply. New Ann. Register, 1790, pp. 76, 77, &c.
    From these principles it results, that when application was made by Mr. Meade to his government for its aid, it was with the understanding on the part of the claimant that full satisfaction was to be demanded, and it was with this view that he asked that interposition ; and that the United States having decided for themselves the question of internal policy, and made the demand without any stipulation to qualify this understanding of the claimant and their national duty, undertook to obtain full satisfaction, and thereby their obligation was complete and perfect to enforce satisfaction, or themselves to indemnify. De Bode v. Regina, 3 Clark, & F., 449.
    The opinion of Mr. Clay in this very case, dated 12th March, 1821, says : “ In regard to contracts or commercial operations between the •citizens of our country and a foreign power, which withholds from them justice, there is no absolute right of interposition on the part of that country, since those citizens have voluntarily put their trust in the foreign power. The country may interpose at the instance of the citizens, but the extent of that interposition must depend upon the request of its citizens. The country then becomes a sort of agent, of a high and dignified character, to ask justice for its injured citizens. It must not abuse this agency, which is submitted to the laws of all delegated powers. * * * Now, if a country is not bound to go to war to support the rights of its citizens, if it is not even compelled to interpose its good offices in cases where those citizens have, with their eyes open, confided in a foreign state, by contracting or voluntarily dealing with it, neither has it a right, especially in the latter case, to extinguish the just rights of its citizens, arising out of such contract or voluntary dealing. The treaty extinction of them is probably binding on them; but if it is, it appears to me that the rule of equity, furnished by our Constitution, and which provides that private property shall not be taken for public purposes without just compensation, applies and entitles the injured citizen to consider his own country a substitute for the foreign power.”
    But this adjustment, compromise, and release by the United States were not only without Mr. Meade’s assent or authority, expressed or implied; they were against his most deliberate, considered, and advised objection, under all the forms and solemnities which could give it sanction or force.
    IV. The validity and amount of Mr. Meade’s claim against Spain was adjusted and liquidated by the intercession and through the aid of the United States under circumstances which make that adjudication evidence against the United States conclusive, and only to be impeached for fraud.
    
    Mr. Meade had been imprisoned by Spain, and his release was demanded by the United States ; he was released on or about the 20tk of April, 1818.
    As early as the 13th of May, 1818, he invoked the aid of Mr. Er-ving, United States minister in Spain, to obtain satisfaction for the sufferings and losses which his illegal imprisonment had brought upon him. Mr. Erving interposed with the government. On the 6th of June, 1818, Mr. Meade applied to Mr. Adams, the Secretary of State, and from that time forth Mr. Meade’s claims for indemnity and satisfaction were diligently prosecuted against the Spanish government.
    It has been contended that the United States is not to be held responsible for any act of Spain, in regard to this claim, after the 22d February, 1819.
    So far as the mode of adjusting'those claims, supposing the United States to have remained perfectly quiescent, the proposition may be true; but, in this case, it proceeds on a false assumption, because it rests on the postulate that Spain, of her own volition, and without the concurrence of the United States, had assumed to settle with Mr. Meade.
    It cannot be disputed, successfully, that after and notwithstanding the treaty, it was entirely competent for the parties thereto to make a separate adjustment of each and every of those claims with the assent of the claimants; and this could have been accomplished without changing a single one of the articles.
    It is equally true that, after the period stipulated for the ratification of the treaty had passed, it was quite competent for the United States to press on Spain the liquidation of any of those claims.
    The only question is one of fact — did the United States so demand, and did Spain accede ?
    
      The fact is indisputable that the United States, before the 22d of February, 1819, did, through her minister in Spain, press upon the latter in regard to this case a distinct mode of ascertaining and settling the amount and validity of Mr. Meade’s claim. Spain did yield to that demand, and did liquidate it in the very mode suggested by the United States. But that is not all. It was apparent to every one, and an inevitable consequence of that mode of adjustment, that Mr. Meade should deliver to Spain all the vouchers to procure that settlement. The United States were acting under his delegated authority. The whole transaction was between the two nations. It was no longer a private controversy — the actors were sovereigns. The one, in the language of Mr. Adams, under a “ perfect obligation to support ” the claims; the other under a perfect obligation to pay all such as were just and right.
    The surrender of these vouchers was as much the act of the United States as if Mr. Meade had been dead.
    Besides, it was the most fit mode of procuring the adjustment of claims so complicated, and of so long standing. Parol proof was then accessible; documents were within reach; every part of each claim was open to the severest scrutiny, and the means of examination and correction were at hand.
    The liquidation was finally had when there was no treaty, and Mr. Meade was to be paid out of the Spanish treasury. The United States congratulated him on his success. The Cortes inquired especially after this claim, both of their own government and the minister of the United States. By both they were assured it was provided for; they understood from both it was to be paid in solido.
    
    The government of the United States was formally notified by Mr. Meade of his position, and they were requested either to exclude his claim from the operation of the treaty, or by express provision to cause it to be embraced in it. Tet, by their agency they deprived Mr. Meade of his only means of obtaining satisfaction under the treaty.
    They stipulated that he should prove the amount and validity of his claims before commissioners to be appointed by them, and by their active instrumentality all his vouchers were in the possession of the very party against whom the claim is to be proved.
    Forced by his condition to appear before those commissioners under protest, he is by them required to furnish his vouchers. By the terms of their treaty the United States have stipulated with Spain that on their demand she will furnish those proofs. On the 18th April, 1823, the commissioners furnished the Secretary of State with a list of the necessary vouchers, to be demanded from Spain in this case. No formal demand was made on Spain until the 19th of December, 1823. None of the vouchers were obtained.
    The commission expired on the ZSih May, 1824, and Mr. Meade’s claim was rejected for want of the very proofs then lost to him by the act of the United States; and Spain was released by the operation of the treaty.
    But take another view of it: Spain insists, and the United States admit, that she is by the terms of this treaty released from this claim. Spain insists that the decision of the commission appointed by her at the instance of the United States is final and conclusive. The United States admit that commission was created at their instance, but deny the conclusiveness of the adjudication under the treaty ; they say it is binding on Spain; they admit that Spain is released, and the debt is unpaid, but they insist they are only bound to pay such claims as their, commissioners shall allow.
    Again: the comity of nations and the sanctity of judicial proceedings required that it shall be received as evidence.
    It has the sanctity of a judicial tribunal, and is not to be impeached or questioned — a judicial tribunal of the highest grade known to the law.
    And though the United States was not a direet party, nor named in the proceedings, she is to every intent to be charged as a privy, with full notice of the consequences legitimately resulting from the decision of the tribunal thus constructed.
    There is still another view of this question. The consideration to be paid by Spain, undoubtedly, was intended to cover this demand, and the United States so understood it. Spain, then, having yielded to the instances of the United States, and having settled and allowed this claim, and ordered it to be paid out of her treasury when there was no treaty, afterwards ratifies the treaty, and pays to the United States the full consideration for this claim, and retains the evidence because it had been adjusted in the precise manner the United States had desired, and there was a finality to all controversy about it. If Spain had paid the debt, would she not clearly have been entitled to deduct it from the consideration to be paid by her to the United States, and would not the action of the United States, through her minister, and the decision of the Spanish commission, have been conclusive proofs as against the United States of the validity and amount of the claims ?
    
      V. Although the claim of Mr. Meade was in one form submitted to the commissioners under the treaty of 22d February, 1819, and not alloived by them, that fact is no bar to his right to demand satisfaction from the United States.
    
    Mr. Meade is not bere claiming -under the compromises effected by that treaty, or to be paid out of the fund provided for in that treaty. His case was not within the class of those over which the commissioners appointed under it had or could have had jurisdiction. If his case was not within their jurisdiction under the law by which they were created, no consent of his could give it.
    But the case had, by the act of the United States, been taken out of the provisions of that treaty, so far as the ascertainment of the amount and validity of the sums due by Spain.
    In February, 1819, Mr. Meade’s claim was “unsettled and unliqui-dated.” But when the treaty was finally ratified it had been definitively settled and liquidated by competent authority, at the instance of the United States.
    The commissioners themselves ultimately decided that the claim as presented (and there could be no other claim) was not within their jurisdiction.
    We have the concurrent sense of the three parties directly interested in the question and the commissioners themselves that Mr. Meade’s claim, under the Spanish liquidation, was not subject to the jurisdiction of those commissioners.
    VI. Finally. Consequently the United States are now bound to pay Mr. Meade’s representatives the full amount adjudicated to him by the special commission in Spain, approved by the King, in the same manner and to the same extent as Spain was bound.
    
    How far a government is responsible to its respective and individual citizens having claims against another nation, when that government has for an ample consideration released that foreign nation from such claims, so far as my research has led, has not,' in England or this country, ever been decided by any court of competent jurisdiction.
    Two objections have been urged to the powers of this court over the subject, the answers to which necessarily involve the inquiry as to its jurisdiction in the present case:
    1. It is objected that when the sovereign power of the State deals with a foreign nation it exercises a discretion for which it can only be responsible to the people of the country in their aggregate, and that the private losses or injuries are merged in the public interest.
    
      2. That for acts within the scope of their respective powers, of any one of the three great departments, or, .more properly speaking, the four great branches into which for the public convenience the sovereignty has been distributed, to wit, the legislative, executive, judicial, and treaty-making powers, there is no redress for the private citizen except the favor of the government; there is no strict right on the one side, or perfect obligation on the other.
    The first proposition confounds two totally distinct things, to wit: discretion as to the foreign nation, for which it can never be called to account, and injury to the private citizen, resulting from the exercise of that discretion.
    It makes no distinction between power and right. As to the maxim that the King can do no wrong, see Boyer, Pub. Law, 213, 299, 312 ; 1 Black Comm., ch. 7, pp. 345, 244; lb , ch. 2, pp. 154-5.
    The treaty-making power exercises so much of the sovereignty as is necessary to carry on our intercourse with foreign nations, yet it is kept in subordination to and in harmony with the other powers granted to other branches of the government in the Constitution. Sto. Con., § 1, 502. Mr. Wirt, Atty. Geni. Op., 20th November, 1821.
    So long as it acts within the scope-of its authority it is sovereign. But, by the public law in the case first put, it must make just compensation to those citizens. Boyer, Pub. Law, 228 and note. 2 Phill. Int. Law, chs. 3 and 5. Poison’s Laws of Nations, § 5, pi. 5. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Da 11., 199; 5111 article of the amendment of the Constitution.
    The second proposition is still less tenable. If it were true, all jurisdiction would at once be taken from this court.
    There are three classes of cases in which there is no remedy in the ordinary courts :
    1st. Where an officer or agent is charged with discretion, yet is obliged to act, and acts in good faith, as in Dinsman v. Wilkes, 12 How. Rep. p. 390.
    2d. Where he acts merely as the ministerial agent of government, as in Hodgson v. Dexter, 1 Cranch, 345.
    3d. Where both parties are equally bound to know the law, and the injured party interposes no objection until the agent has fully executed his duty, although he would have been liable if the objection had been sooner interposed, as in Elliot v. Swartwout, 10 Pet., 137.
    But when the agent is charged with knowledge of the law, assumes the responsibility, and acts against the will of the other, and not in the discharge of a paramount duty, he is liable for the consequences of the act, as in Tracy v. Swartwout, 10 Pet., 80.
    
      This court was established to supply a remedy iu cases where, if the actor had been a private citizen, or not thus protected by the sovereignty, he would have beesn responsible.
    It is, therefore, immaterial whether the thing complained of was done by the treaty-making, the legislative, the executive power, or by some individual agent invested with authority sufficient for the infliction of the wrong. The maxim, interest republicce sit finis litium, is of universal application; it is founded on experience, and is interwoven with the organic law of the State. (See Bowyer, 236, 237, 238.)
    But I am by no means prepared to say that, if Congress should, refer to this court a case in which the Supreme Court had decided in favor of the United States, and against a right claimed by a citizen, it could not take jurisdiction.
    The case now under consideration has been so referred; it is, there-' fore, open to inquiry. The United States stand here as an individual suitor; they are to be tried by the same laws as would apply to individual citizens in like predicament, except in those few cases in which the common law will not apply to the government.
    The Assistant SolicitoR for the defendants:
    It may not be unimportant to give here a brief statement of the action heretofore taken by this court upon this case. That action is briefly as follows:
    At the October term of this court, A. D. 1859, the above-entitled cause was decided adversely to the claimant. On the 9th day of February, 1860, the decision of the court upon said claim was reported to Congress, as provided in the 7th section of the act of Congress for the organization of this court. (10 Stat. at Large, p. 612.)
    On the 26th day of February, A. D. 1861, the Senate, neither affirming nor reversing the decision of the court rendered upon the hearing of this cause, passed the following resolution, to wit:
    “ Resolved, That the papers in the case of Richard W. Meade’s administrator, reported adversely from the Court of Claims, be referred back to said court for a rehearing, and for such further action as, in the opinion of the said court, may be necessary and proper.”
    Upon the passage by the Senate of said resolution, the papers relating to this case, which had been sent to that body with the adverse report .upon the case, were brought back to this court, and a motion entered by the counsel of Mr. Meade to reinstate the case upon the trial docket; and that it stand for rehearing upon the papers on file herein, for the reason that the former decision was against the law, and not warranted by the evidence. This motion was resisted by the defendant, who entered a cross motion to strike the cause from the docket; and in support of said motion assigned the following reasons :
    1st. Because the same cause and claim, on the petition of the same party, was by this court heretofore, at the October term, 1859, finally acted upon, decided and reported adversely to the Congress of the United States, in which body said decision and report were still pending and undetermined.
    2d. Because it does not appear from the papers on file herein that Congress has referred the same back to this court.
    3d. Because until Congress has acted finally upon said decision so reported to them, this court has no power to again examine and consider said claim.
    While said motion was still pending and undetermined in this court, Congress adopted the joint resolution.
    The court, upon motion of the claimant’s counsel entered in said cause at the present term, directed that the case be transferred to the trial docket for hearing, in accordance with the provisions of said joint resolution.
    In collating this statement of facts I shall endeavor to arrange the evidence so as to enable us to determine the following questions in the order which I here present them:
    1st. Was the government of Spain indebted to Richard W. Meade, deceased, at the time of the signature of the treaty between the United States and Spain, entered into on the 22d day of February, 1819 1 If so, what was the amount of such indebtedness, and what is the evidence to establish it ?
    2. Was tbe indebtedness of Spain to said Richard W. Meade can-celled, and Spain discharged from the payment thereof by the United States, under the provisions of said treaty of February 22, 1819 ?
    3d. If his claim was so cancelled, and Spain discharged from its payment, was the action of the commission provided by the terms of that treaty to investigate the claims under it conclusive as to the rights of Mr. Meade under that treaty.
    As to the evidence of the indebtedness, it will be found that there is no legal or sufficient evidence upon this subject.
    [The learned Assistant Solicitor then went into a statement of the evidence which he deemed to have a bearing upon the case.]
    This is all the evidence submitted in support of this claim; it has been given to the court in full, and without any attempt to detract from its full force.
    A mere inspection of this evidence will establish, we think, conclusively, the following propositions:
    1st. That it does not establish, by sufficient legal evidence, either the validity or the amount of the indebtedness of the government of Spain to Mr. Meade, as it existed at the date of the signing of the treaty of February 22, 1819.
    2d. That there has been no recognition of the validity of the ad-' judication of the claims of Mr. Meade by the Spanish authorities, by either the treaty-making power, or by any other power of the government of the United States, which would entitle it to be regarded as evidence in a court of law.
    Was the claim of Mr. Meade embraced in the provisions of the treaty between the United States and Spain of the 22d February 1
    
    The treaty itself, and the action of Mr. Meade, before and subsequent to its execution, will enable us to determine this question.
    Mr. Meade authorized and requested the government to make provision for the payment of his claims.
    1st. Letter of Mr. Meade to Mr. Adams, dated June 6, 1818.
    2d. Indorsement of President Monroe on said letter, of June 6, 1818, as follows :
    “ The injuries of Mr. Meade have been deeply felt by the government and people of the United States; but no 'particular arrangement for the payment of his claims by the government of Spain in lands in the Floridas can be countenanced or admitted by the Executive.
    “ His claims, with those of every other citizen, will be carefully attended to and provided for as far as the government may be able.”
    3d. Letter of Mrs. Meade to the Secretary of State, dated January 17, 1819.
    4th. In the letter of Hon. John Sargent, enclosing Mrs. Meade’s letter to the Secretary of State, there is the following expression of the purpose of Mr. Meade in transmitting his statement of his claims against Spain to the Secretary of State. He says :
    “ I have the honor to enclose you a letter and some papers transmitted by Mr. Meade, to place his claims upon Spain under the protection of the government, in ease a treaty should be made with that power.” — (Mr. Everett’s report — 1854—No. 109, p. 15.)
    In the same document (pp. 14, 15) is Mrs. Meade’s letter to Mr. Sargent, dated the 17 th of January, in which she says:
    “ Sir : By a letter from Madrid, of November 17, Mr. Meade had just received the opinion given by you on tbe course best to be proceeded on for the protection of his claims by our government. He had merely time to make out the statement which I now enclose you to be delivered to Mr. Adams, with a few lines addressed to him by me, in case you should think proper to present them.”
    There can be no doubt that Mr. Meade designed to have his claim against Spain protected and provided for by the treaty. It was for this purpose that he presented the statement of his claims to the Department of State, and in other ways sought the intervention of the government.
    The treaty, signed February 23, 1819, contained the following article, embracing the renunciations of the respective governments of the United States and Spain. Its language is as follows :
    “Artiole 9. The high contracting parties reciprocally renounce all claims for damages or injuries which they themselves, as well as their respective citizens and subjects, may have suffered until the time of signing this treaty.” And these renunciations extended “ to all claims of citizens of the United States upon the Spanish government, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the government of the United States, have been presented to the Department of State, or to the minister of the United States in Spain, since the date of the convention of 1802, and until the signature of this treaty.” — (8 Stat. at Large, 258.)
    This clause of the treaty received a construction from both Mr. Adams and Mr. Meade. Both of these gentlemen conceded that the claim of Mr. Meade, as it existed at the time of signing the treaty, was embraced in, and provided for, by it.
    As there is no limitation in the words of this renunciation with regard to the nature of the transactions in which the claims originated, whether by contract or by tort, so none was intended. They were claims, of all of which it was believed that the only possible chance of obtaining any satisfaction to the claimants consisted in the execution of the treaty.
    Of the absolute obligation of this government to interpose in behalf of their'fellow-citizens possessing such claims, and imploring the aid of their country to obtain satisfaction for them, no very subtle or punctilious scrutiny had been made. It was the need of the claimant, and not the legal classification of his claim, for which the assistance of his government had been solicited. The delay or denial of justice, which it was desirable to remedy, was the same, whether it was for a wrong committed or a contract broken. The claimants have alike been promised that, at tbe ■ negotiation of the treaty, their claims would be considered, and endeavors made to provide for them, in common with others.
    
    Whether, among the contracts provided for, there were some upon which the government of the United States, hut for the treaty, must have eventually abandoned the claimants to the fate of war was never a subject of inquiry. Those claims, it is presumed, were not the less valid against Spain, nor were their prospects of real satisfaction by Spain in any other manner believed to be different from the rest. The government was, indeed, aware that the abstract right to its interposition of citizens who had suffered by acts of foreigners, without any co-operation of their own, was more clear and imperative than that of others who had voluntarily staked their property upon the good faith of Spain; and, in the course of the negotiation, a proposal was made to omit the renunciation which included the latter class of these claims. It was, however, finally agreed to, with the full understanding that all the claims should have the same benefit of the provision, be subjected to the same investigation, and be decided upon, not by any subsequent transaction between the claimant and the Spanish government, but by the commissioners, in the manner prescribed by the treaty, and upon such proof as they should think proper to require for ascertaining its amount and validity.
    
    Mr. Meade recognized the fact that his claim was within the provisions of the treaty in his repeated memorials to the board of commissioners.
    The action of the board of commissioners upon- this claim was final and conclusive.
    The 11th article of the treaty was as follows :
    “ The United States, exonerating Spain from all demands in future on account of the claims of their citizens, to which the renunciations herein contained extend, and considering them entirely cancelled, undertake to make satisfaction for the same to an amount not exceeding five millions of dollars.” That—
    “ To ascertain the full amount and validity of these claims, a commission, to consist of three commissioners, citizens of the United States, shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, which commission shall meet at the city of Washington, and within the space of three years from the time of their first meeting, shall receive, examine, and decide upon the amount and validity of all claims included within the descriptions above mentioned.” That “ the said commissioners shall take an oath or affirmation, to be entered on tlie record of their proceedings, for the faithful and diligent discharge of their duties;” and that “the said commissioners shall be authorized to hear and examine, on oath, every question relative to the said claims, and to receive all suitable authentic testimony concerning the same. And the Spanish government shall furnish all such documents and elucidations as may be in their possession for the adjustment of the said claims according to the principles of justice, the law of nations, and the stipulations of the treaty between the two parties-of October 27, 1795; the said documents to 'be specified, when demanded, at the instance of the said commissioners.” (8 Statutes at Large, 259.)
    The principles referred to in the treaty of 1795 are thus expressed in that treaty, (Art. 21, 8 U. S. L., 150:) “ They (the commissioners) shall have power to examine all such persons as come before them, on oath or affirmation, touching the complaints in question, and also to receive in evidence all written testimony, authenticated in such manner as they shall think proper to require or admit.
    These provisions declare the duties of the commissioners, and direct as to the evidence which they were authorized to receive to establish claims. They are required—
    1. To “receive” the claims.
    2. To “examine” them.
    3. To “decide” the “amount” due upon them.
    4. To determine their “ validity.”
    Before they could allow a claim they must also decide that it was “within the descriptions above mentioned,” that is, had been filed with the secretary or minister, and the government solicited to attend to it for the claimant, prior to the signing of the treaty. This receiving, examining, and determining the validity and amount, the commissioners were bound to do for themselves. They could not take the certificate or appraisement of another and adopt it as their own judgment or determination.
    The treaty had excluded such evidence by providing what might be received.
    1. They might examine persons on oath.
    2. They might receive in evidence written testimony authenticated in such manner as they might require.
    3. They might receive suitable authentic testimony, and this would exclude certificates of the conclusions of third persons.
    4. It was clearly contemplated that the original evidence of indebtedness would be presented and acted upon by the commissioners, because the Spanish government stipulated to ‘‘ furnish all such documents and elucidations as may be in their possession.”
    This refers to written evidence then in the possession of the Spanish government, and not to such as its officers might thereafter make.
    
    This tribunal was a special one, and its jurisdiction limited. No appeal from its decisions was provided. Its decisions were final and conclusive. This view of the character and powers of this tribunal is sustained by Mr. Adams in his letter to Mr. Solomons, dated April 29, 1823. He uses this language in regard to it:
    “ No appeal from the decision of the commissioners, either to the government of the United States or of Spain, was reserved. By the transfer to the United States of the obligation of making payment, conformably to the treaty, of those claims, Spain deliberately, and with full knowledge, transferred also the right of examining and deciding their amount and validity.”
    And Mr. Forsyth, in a report made by him to the House of Bepre-sentatives, speaking of the effect of a decision by these commissioners of the claims submitted to them, says :
    “ The committee consider that the decision of the commissioners, forming a tribunal of limited and specified jurisdiction under a treaty, ought to be considered conclusive, and would recommend that the whole subject of claims of citizens of the United States or Spain prior to 1819 should be deemed settled.”
    It is admitted that the claimant’s intestate submitted his claims to this tribunal, and that for want of competent evidence to support them they were not allowed. The decision of that tribunal as to the validity of this claim must be considered as conclusive. This court has not the power to review or call in question the correctness or legality of any of its decisions. The question here is not different from that decided by this court at the October term, 1864, in the case of the New England Mississippi Land Company v. The United States. There, as here, there had been an adjudication of the subject-matter by a tribunal specially constituted for that purpose. And the court held that the adjudications of that tribuual were final. There the commission or tribunal was only authorized by act of Congress; here it was authorized by solemn treaty between two sovereign nations. If the decisions of the first were final, how much more ought the decisions of the last to be so.
    The claimant’s counsel based his right to recover upon the following propositions:
    I. B. W. Meade, the intestate, had valid claims on the Spanish government prior to February 22, 1819, originating after the year 1802.
    II. Tbe United States, for a consideration received by them from Spain, have released Spain from all obligation to pay these claims.
    III. This release was granted upon certain terms without the assent of Mr. Meade, without his authority, and against his protest.
    IV. The validity and amount of Mr. Meade’s claims on Spain was adjusted, liquidated, and adjudicated at the instance, by the intervention and with the aid of the United States, under circumstances which make that adjudication evidence against the United States conclusive, only to be impeached for fraud.
    V. Although the claim of Mr. Meade was in one form submitted to the commissioners under the treaty of 22d February, 1819, and not allowed by them, that fact is no bar to his right to demand satisfaction from the United States.
    VI. Consequently, the United States are now bound to pay to Mr. Meade’s representatives the full amount adjudicated to him by the special commission in Spain, approved by the King, in the same manner and to the same extent as Spain was bound.
    Against these assumptions, however, the United States will endeavor to establish the following :
    I. That there is not sufficient legal evidence of the existence of any indebtedness- from the government of Spain to Mr. Meade, and that the present claimant must fail in this proceeding for want of such evidence. •
    II. That the evidence produced of the liquidation of the claims of the Spanish government is not conclusive upon the United States for the following reasons :
    1st. Because the United States were not a party to that liquidation, and have never accepted or adopted it as conclusive upon them.
    2d. Because the United States only consented to be concluded and bound by the adjudication and decision of the board of commissioners provided by the 11th article of the treaty. This was the tribunal of ultimate resort, and Spain had also consented that the extent of the liability of the United States under the treaty should be ascertained by this commission. It was not competent, therefore, for Spain to conclude the United States by an adjudication in which she took no part, and to which she has never given her assent.
    III. The liability of the United States to Spain, or to those citizens of the United States for whom provision was made in the treaty, was limited to the sum provided in the treaty, to wit, the sum of five millions of dollars.
    IV. Mr. Meade, having requested the interposition of the United States to secure an adjudication and settlement of his demands against Spain, thereby made the United States his agent for that purpose. He is concluded by the action of his agent, unless the agent has exceeded his authority, or has acted fraudulently. Mr. Adams, in his letter to the President, dated February 13, 1821, has stated the rule upon this subject with such conciseness and clearness that it is here inserted. He says :
    “ The claimant by contract cannot resort to the interposition of his own government to obtain from the other the satisfaction for his claims to the same extent as the claimant from wrong. The government of the claimant by contract can interpose in his behalf only by its good offices, and cannot, as the memorial states, press to the extent of reprisals for satisfaction of the claim. It has no right to interpose’at all without the solicitation of the claimant himself, who, having staked his interest upon his own confidence in the government with which he contracts, may properly abide by the result of that confidence without calling upon his country to make itself a party to the demand. But if he does appeal to his own government for that adventitious aid to which other contractors with the same party and on the same security cannot resort, he thereby voluntarily makes' his claim a subject of negotiation and of those compromises in which all national adjustments of individual claims must and do always consist.”
    V. That Mr. Meade having by his own action caused provision to he made for his claims in the treaty of February 22, 1819, he is limited in his demands against the United States to the measure of relief provided by that treaty.
    VI. There is no evidence of the exercise by the United States of the right of eminent domain over the claim of Mr. Meade, or that his claim has been appropriated to the use of the United States without his assent.
    VII. That the protest, which, it is claimed, was interposed by Mr. Meade against the right of the United States to include his claim in the treaty of February 22, 1819, was ineffectual for that purpose, because the protest was not interposed until after the power he had conferred upon the United States in that behalf had been completely executed by the signing a^d ratification of the treaty on the part of the United States. The solicitor for the United States is aware that be has not been able to give as thorough and careful consideration to this case as its importance demands. It has been so constantly pressed upon the public attention for the last forty-five years, both in Congress and before the executive department of the government, that it has become intimately connected with the history of our relations with Spain. It is important in its results to the United States, but vastly more important to these claimants. It is the desire of those who represent the government here that their rights should be determined with a due regard to those principles of justice and law which should characterize the action of a generous government towards its citizens. It will be the misfortune of these claimants rather than any desire to do them the least injustice, if the inflexible rules of law shall defeat their long-cherished expectations.
    Mr. Caleb Cushing in reply:
    I became familiar with this affair, in all its documentary history, as a member of Congress, on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, thirty years ago and more. I studied it then as a matter of public duty, wholly apart from any expectations of professional relation to the subject; and came to conclusions of fact and of law founded upon what then existed in the archives of the government, and which conclusions of fact and law are not affected by anything which has happened since, because those facts have not changed, and that law has not changed.
    I differ from his honor Judge Loring, who delivered the judgment of the court, and I differ also in reasoning from the dissenting opinion of Judge Scarburgh. I may as well state also, that, with the highest possible deference to the superior attention my brother Bradley has given to this case, I shall still endeavor to present to the court a view of the subject which varies from his.
    Before I come to the affirmative exhibition of the ease, is the idea presented by my brother the Assistant Solicitor, and relied upon, it would seem, that the case of Mr. Meade is that of a merchant of the United States domiciled in Spain, and that therefore he has less claim to the consideration of the United Slates than any other person. He assumes, apparently, that, because of this commercial domicile in Spain, the United States were under no obligation to defend his person and his rights.
    Is it to lie in the mouth of the United States, to-day, to say that they were under no obligation to defend the interests of Mr. Meade to-day? Upon these State papers it appears that, in the year 1818, the United States were so conscious of their right and duty towards Mr. Meade, that, by the interposition of Congress, a ship of war of the United States was despatched to Cadiz expressly to defend Mr. Meade, his honor and interests.
    Then, in 1819, he is absolutely made a party to the treaty. The United States insist that he is a party. He petitions the United States for redress against Spain, and the United States accept the commission of redressing him.
    My brother, the Assistant Solicitor, has assumed that the whole claim of Meade was one of contract. He has forgotten that a large part of the claim is tort. I do admit, in regard to all claims whatsoever, whether tort or contract, that the government has a right to exercise discretion as to the manner and degree in which it will interpose. It should exercise more discretion in contract than in tort.
    The true principle is thoroughly stated in the famous despatch of Lord Palmerston, (2 Phillimore, p. 9,) in which he says that as to mere contracts, public debts, for instance, Mexican bonds, it is the unquestionable right of every government to protect the interests of its subjects. It has been done by every government; and by the United States more frequently than by any other whatsoever. The United States, even in their feebleness of youth; steadily, from the year 1789 down to this day, have uniformly and consistently insisted upon redress in behalf of subjects of the United States in foreign countries.
    I come now to what I call my affirmative conception of this case.
    In the first place, subsequently to the year 1802, which is the date of the prior negotiation with Spain, and previous to the 22d of February, 1819, Richard W. Meade, an American in Spain, had claims both of contract and of tort against the Spanish government. He presented a statement of these claims to the State Department, asking the United States to interpose for his redress. The United States undertook to procure such redress. That is the initiation of the case.
    Secondly, thereupon was negotiated the treaty of the 22d of February, 1819, called the “ Florida treaty,” because the cession of Florida -was the main object of the treaty. The ninth article of that treaty is as follows :
    “ The renunciation of the United States will extend *
    “ 5. To all claims of citizens of the United States upon the Spanish government, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the government of the United States, have been presented to the Department of State, or to the minister of the United States in Spain, since the date of the convention of 1802, and until the signature of this treaty.”
    
      So that Mr. Meade’s claim was comprehended in the latter of these renunciations.
    Then, article eleventh runs thus :
    “ The United States, exonerating Spain from all demands in future on account of the claims of their citizens to which the renunciations herein contained extend, and considering them entirely cancelled, undertake to make satisfaction for the same to an amount not exceeding five millions of dollars.”
    It then provides for the ascertainment of these claims by commissioners, with stipulation as follows :
    “ And the Spanish government shall furnish all such documents and elucidations as may he in their possession, for the adjustment of said claims according to the principles of justice, the laws of nations, and the stipulations of the treaty between the two parties of 27th October, 1795 ; the said documents to be specified, when demanded, at the instance of the said commissioners.”
    So, here are two clauses of absolute renunciation and cancellation. The phrase “ cancellation ” is used as well as “ renunciation.”
    Immediately after the negotiation of this treaty information came to the United States that the King of Spain had made large grants of land in Florida during the negotiation to three palace favorites, and the fact at once gave rise to allegations of fraud against the Spanish government, on which new negotiations ensued, which negotiations suspended the ratification of the treaty, and in consequence of that the six months provided for the ratification elapsed, and there grew up doubt whether the negotiations could be favorably resumed. The treaty was not finally ratified until October, 1820. *
    Now, in this interval, at the precise time when it seemed tobe doubtful whether the negotiations could be favorably resumed — whether the treaty would not lapse for want of ratification — at that time Mr. Meade, being notified by the United States of the new phase of the negotiations, and of the apparent loss of the security of his claim by the loss of the treaty — Mr. Meade was advised by the United States to make another application to the Spanish government. He did make it, and was backed in it by the American minister at Madrid.
    That application ended in auditing his accounts under date of the 20th May, 1820, by which there was found due to him most of the sums of money which he had claimed, and a statement of which had been presented to the State Department.
    No new items were allowed; and this auditing comprehended only such items as had been previously presented to the State Department. Some of these items were reduced, but no new ones were introduced. The claim of tort was reduced, by compromise, to $75,000.
    This auditing consisted of the admission of the Spanish government that certain part of the items of the balance claimed by Mr. Meade was due, no new ones being introduced, and the conclusion was made by crediting interest on this balance down to the date, and adding $75,000 for the tort.
    Nothing is contained in the auditing which had not been presented to the United States, and which was not, as a separate item, covered by the treaty of 1819 in terms.
    Commissioners were appointed, and Mr. Meade’s claim was presented to them. Doubt occurred whether it was comprehended within the treaty, whether the treaty did not apply to torts alone, and the commissioners accordingly addressed a letter to Mr. Adams, asking his opinion. Mr. Adams stated in reply, explicitly, that contracts, equally with torts, were comprehended in the treaty.
    Thus things stood until the 27th of June, 1822, when the commissioners delivered an opinion in Mr. Meade’s case.
    I confess it seems to me to have been unworthy of the commissioners. They had the original accounts in copies, in addition to the audited accounts. It was competent for them to make up an account on these items, and, if they saw fit, to call for proof of the correctness of the copies. It is apparent that public documents in the archives of foreign governments are provable by well authenticated copies.
    The next stage in the cause is the demand of papers from Spain in support of Mr. Meade’s memorial, dated the 16th of April, 1823 ; and less fhan one month afterwards Mr. Adams addressed a le'tter to our minister, Mr. Nelson, instructing him to call on Spain for them, dated May 13, 1823. Mr. Nelson did not communicate this to the Spanish government until the 19 th of December, 1823, and all this time of seven months was allowed to elapse, during the short statute life of the commission, in absolute inaction.
    Nothing more occurs ; there is no further action in this behalf; and that is a remarkable fact, that there is no further call on the Spanish government by the’United States until in the year 1853, when Mr. Everett, being Secretary of State, repeats the demand.
    On the day before the commission expired by force of statute — on the 7th of June, 1824 — Mr. Meade’s claim was rejected for. want of this evidence, and the commission was dissolved on the 8th of June, 1824.
    Thereupon, application in behalf of Mr. Meade begins to Congress. From the year 1825 there is uninterrupted demand on the United States, through Congress.
    The court will find most instructive arguments in the successive reports of committees of Congress — I- think triumphant arguments — I think conclusive, unanswerable arguments — more especially from four gentlemen, who have written papers which I think are models .of composition on this class of subjects. They are that of Mr. Archer, (22d Congress, 1st session, House of Eepresentatives, 316 ;) Mr. Porter, (1st session, 24th Congress, House of Eepresentatives, 236 ;) Mr. Ingersoll, (1st session, 30th Congress, House of Eepresentatives, 94;) Mr. Everett, (1st session, 33d Congress, House of Eepresentatives.)
    Such are the facts on which I rely. The only question then is, what are the doctrines of law applicable to these facts ?
    As to persons, my proposition is : That all which individual men have a right to, is so much of liberty as may be compatible with order and the common welfare. But it is the right of each man to be protected by the government in his person and property, at home and abroad, so far as is compatible with the general welfare.
    I cite a recent report of Mr. Sumner, as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Eelations of the Senate of the United States, page 23.
    I refer to the case my brother has cited in another sense; that is, the case of De Bode vs. The Queen, (in 3 Clarke’s House Lords, pp. 449, 465 :)
    “The Lord Chancellor, (Lord Truro:) It is admitted law that if the subject of a country is spoliated by a foreign government, he is entitled to redress through the means of his own government. But if, from weakness, timidity, or any other cause on the part of his own government, no redress is obtained from the foreign one, then he has a claim against his own country.”
    Now, my brother, the Assistant Solicitor, seeks to break the force of this emphatic declaration of the public law, because it appears that the House of Lords rejected the petition. Therefore, I must ask the court to look into the whole history of the case of De Bode.
    The case begins in 1838, with a petition for a mandamus, reported in 6 Dowling’s Pr. Eeports, p. 776. On the .mandamus De Bode failed.
    He then went to the lord chancellor, in 1845, with a petition of right, (8 Adolphus and El. Q. B., p. 208 ;) and the court there decided merely that inasmuch as the question was a bare question of statute, and De Bode did not bring his petition within the statute, while not denying bis right theoretically or legally, therefore he could not have redress.
    The Baron De Bode was a British subject, of British birth, although of mixed parentage, French and English. In the middle of the last century he owned estates in that portion of France which in the old books of history is called Alsace, on the Lower Rhine. He owned a baronial estate there, and held that estate at the opening of the French revolution. The estate was confiscated by the convention, and thus things remained until the peace of Paris, one of the conditions of which was that all British subjects despoiled by France, in the interval between the commencement of the war of the French revolution and that treaty, should be indemnified out of a fund paid over to England by France. A commission was appointed to adjudicate in behalf of the various claimants ; and the Baron De Bode, before that commission, presented his case, proved that he was a British subject, proved the confiscation, and claimed indemnity. The commissioners, marvellous to relate, decided against him, by reason of ignorance of geography on their part — what may be termed not only crass, but crassissima. The commissioners conceived that Alsace was, in the reign of Louis XYI, a portion of Germany, not of France, and therefore De Bode did not come within the treaty. Then he came to England, prepared his mandamus and petition of right, and failed on the ground that the act of Parliament had so disposed of this money that the petition of right did not reach it; not that he was not entitled to redress, but that by force of the construction of that act of Parliament he could not receive it on petition of right.
    Then the petitioner carried his case, in 1849, before all the judges in the exchequer chamber, (13 A. and El. lb, p. 364,) where the decision of the Queen’s Bench was affirmed.
    After that decision in the exchequer chamber the case finds its way, in 1851, to the house of Lords, and finally is adjudged on an opinion pronounced by the lord chief baron, and confirmed by the lord chancellor, on this single ground, that the petition of right as a remedy, and as exhibited in the cause, could attach only to the specific fund provided by the treaty; and as that specific fund was disposed of by act of Parliament, therefore the party could not have redress by this petition of right. (3 Clarke’s House of Lords R., 469.)
    ' Thus, in our case, the act of Congress provides that the fund of the treaty should be distributed by the commissioners. So it was with the English act of Parliament. It could only be distributed by the method described by the act of Parliament, which was by adjudication of the commissioners, and the court said that the petition of right could not attach to that act of Parliament. The act of Parliament appropriated five hundred thousand pounds sterling, and provided that none of the money should be paid out of that fund except upon the certificate or decree of the commissioners. De Bode could not produce a decree of those commissioners, and therefore the court said to him, you have no ground for petition of right. The act also provided for the investment of the surplus, which prevented his reaching the surplus.
    Yet that is the single technical point made in the House of Lords, that the special fund was otherwise disposed of and could not he used. On the contrary, if the petitioner here in any case before this court makes out his right, it is no answer to his right to say that the appropriation, out of which he should have been paid twenty years ago, has been expended or passed to a balance in the treasury. If he makes out his case the court must award him damages, and he is to get the damages from a new fund appropriated by act of Congress to satisfy the judgments of this court.
    The doctrine of the case of De Bode sustains' this claim in all its parts,, and the particular decision does not at all affect the doctrine. (2 Phillimore, p. 8 to 14; Story’s Conflict of Laws, sections 308, 313; Hansard’s Debates of June, 1850, in the Pacifico case.)
    I have a series of authorities in the United States also, which I think are quite pertinent and conclusive. In Jfamham v. Brooks, 9 Pickering, 239, Chief Justice Parker distinctly recognizes the obligation of governments to procure redress of foreign governments for injured citizens, or itself to reimburse such citizens. The commissioners for the adjustment of claims of February, 1853, between the United States and Great Britain, p. 319, say:
    “ A settlement fly tAe governments of the ground of international controversy between tflero, ipso facto settles any claim of individuals arising under such controversies against the government of the other country, unless they are specially excepted ; as each government fly so doing assumes, as principal, the adjustment of the claims of its own citizens, and becomes itself solely responsible for them.”
    I refer to the learned decision of the Court of Claims in the case of the brig General Armstrong.
    
    And, at a still later day, in an opinion and a judgment, which are alike honorable to this court, (TheUnited States v. Grant, 1 C. Clms. K., Vol. 1, p. 41,) your honors say, after citing some of the very books of international jurisprudence cited by me in this argument:
    “ It may safely be allowed as the settled and fundamental law of Christian and civilized States, that governments are bound to make just indemnity to the citizen or subject whenever private property is taken for the public good, convenience or safety.”
    I proceed to the application. That application consists of a series of propositions: First, the United States released Spain from the payment of the claim absolutely by the terms of the treaty. Secondly, the United States neglected to demand in season the evidence from Spain, and neglected to insist on it when, after long delay, a demand was made.
    Now, I think, as a doctrine of universal law, it cannot be denied that any attorney who should lose a debt due to his client by putting off the measures of recovery for seven months, and then acting but feebly, with another delay of six months, so that the claim is, by the statute of limitation or otherwise, lost, is guilty of negligence, and would be responsible to his client in any court of common law. I cannot imagine any answer to such a case of laches. And we have seen that, as laid down in books of international law; in the adjudications of the English courts; in the adjudications of the American courts, including this-; and in the very distinct and emphatic enunciation of the doctrine by the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, in respect to any claim which the United States undertakes to conduct, they stand in the relation of attorney to the client in the prosecution of that claim, and are responsible for laches under precisely all the stringent rules of common law applicable to the personal relations of client and counsel.-
    It remains now only to consider what was the effect of the action of the Spanish government in May, 1820. Let us look at the question of novation.
    At the date of the treaty of 1819 Mr. Meade’s claim consisted of detached contract claims and a general claim in tort for imprisonment, of all which statements had been presented to the Secretary of State, and that these claims were included in the terms of the treaty for indemnification and included in the renunciations of the treaty. I go one step further, and say that the claims thus included in the treaty could not be got out of it. Not by Mr. Meade, because he was a citizen of the United States, and that treaty was the law of the land, binding upon him. The Spanish government could not get out of ■ it, for the Spanish government was bound in contract with the United States. Nor can the United States escape from that treaty, for it is the law of the land, binding still on the government as on the subject.
    We have here an intermediate act. Upon all established rules of public law and the practice of all governments, if it involved consequences, it was to be provided for either by new treaty or by condition inserted in the ratification. For example, the treaty between the United States and France of the 30th September, 1800. (U. S. Laws, vol. 8, p. 708.)
    And in this very treaty we have another example to the same effect. (Treaty of 1819, Stat. L, Yol. 8, pp. 264, 265, 266.) In the ratification is inserted a new provision concerning the three great grants of laud in Florida made to the king’s favorites.
    There was a memorial to the President by Mr. Meade, (4 State Papers, 704, p. 67,) which was communicated by the Secretary of State to the Senate, and before them during the discussion on ratification, in which he insists that his status relative to treaty, and the effect of the auditing in Madrid, in 1820, shall be determined. And then, if that act affected in any way either the condition of Mr. Meade, or the condition of Spain, or the condition of the United States, it was the right and duty of the United States, following all diplomatic precedents- established in course of public law, to make provision in the ratification for the inclusion or exclusion of the claim of Mr. Meade. But the Senate ratified it without change.
    He, as a citizen of the United States, was bound by the treaty; he preferred his claim before the commissioners, and the commissioners assumed, as the Senate had assumed, that this auditing had no effect upon the question whether the treaty did bind Mr. Meade. They recognized that Mr. Meade’s claim was within the treaty and was renounced.
    The question for the commissioners was a very simple one. A claim was before them which had been doubly vouched; first, by the original documents, notes of hand, or accounts, and with ample evidence of correctness; second, by the auditing. '
    If the commission at Madrid had swollen the account, there might be some reason for this imputation; but the Spanish commission reduced it, introduced no new items.
    The court may think that the accounting at Madrid extinguished the pre-existing accounts and created a new debt of Spain to Meade. Mr. Adams thought so. But if the opinion of Mr. Adams were correct, then the right of Meade to recover here is still more certain, absolute, incontestable.
    For if that claim which existed in 1819 ceased to exist in 1820, it was not comprehended within the indemnities, and was not within the renunciations of the treaty.' Thus, on the 20th of May, 1820, Spain became the debtor of Mr. Meade. Then that would be a new claim not comprehended in the treaty of 1819. And the theory of novation would reduce the present to the case of a new claim on Spain. And if that were so, then, by the express terms of the treaty of 1834, this claim was renounced by the United States. The language of the renunciation of that treaty is absolute and complete.
    Then, in 1834, there was an abandoning by the United States of his claim against Spain. The United States renounced it. Did they provide for it 2 Look at the fourth article of the treaty :
    “On the request of the minister plenipotentiary of her Catholic Majesty at Washington the government of the United States will deliver to him, in six months after the exchange of the ratifications of this convention, a note or list of the claims of American citizens against the government of Spain, specifying their amounts respectively, and three years afterwards, or sooner if possible, authentic copies of all the documents upon which they may have been founded.”
    That list exists, and shows that the United States did not put the name of Meade in it. If the government understood that the treaty of 1819 comprehended Mr. Meade, then I submit that by the force of this very treaty of 1834 we are bound here to say the treaty of 1819 comprehended Mr. Meade. If, on the other hand, the government knew the treaty of 1819 did not comprehend Mr. Meade, it has been guilty of laches more flagrant than ever before was committed by any government — laches committed considerately, and with a perfect consciousness. By the treaty of 1834, unless Mr. Meade was covered by the treaty of 1819, the government deliberately confiscated the debt of Mr. Meade, the validity of which it could not deny, and which was recognized by every department of the government, executive and legislative. It must either pay this claim under the renunciations of the treaty of 1819, or under the renunciations of the treaty of 1834.
    And I make these further remarks : I trust that this court is not to be turned from the determination of the right of the case before it, by any consideration of whether the amount of the suit is small or large. This court has labored for some years under the obstacles which stand in the way of any new institution occupying its proper place in the government of the country. I think it has overcome all those obstacles. I think we may all fairly assume now that, under the recent legislation and the existing organization of this court, the court is a court of justice equally, although of different jurisdiction, with any one of the judicial tribunals of the country, and entitled to equal consideration from the bar and the community; and, above all, that it is entitled to equal consideration from itself, and subjected to the equal duty of self-assertion in the performance of its functions.
   Casey, Chief Justice,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The action is brought to recover $373,879 88, with interest from the 19th of May, 1820, and comes before us upon the following facts :

Between the Spanish convention of 1802 and the treaty of 1819 there had accumulated and were filed in the Department of State a large number of claims by American citizens against the government of Spain. Among them was the claim of Bichard W. Meade, an American merchant, resident in Spain, for $400,000. It differed from the others in this.: that while they were claims arising from spolia-tions and injuries which Spain neither acknowledged nor denied, this one was founded, though not entirely founded, upon contract, being in part for injuries suffered by illegal imprisonment, but chiefly for supplies sold to the Spanish government at various times of national trouble and distress, and which Spain considered she was, in honor and good conscience, bound to pay.

This distinctive fact is important as a fact because it was after-wards asserted that the former class of claims were srrch as a government is bound to investigate and enforce, while the latter, or Mr. Meade’s, was one voluntarily created by the party, and which a government only can take up and enforce at the request of and as the agent of the claimant.

The aid of the United States had been repeatedly invoked and had been repeatedly given, when, in June, 1818, Mr. Meade wrote to John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State: “ It has been insinuated to me that if I could procure and advance a further sum in cash, that a cession of lands might be procured in either of the Florida's to cover the probable amount of said advance and my claims. No specific proposal has been made to me, nor have I dared indeed to listen to any, till I should receive the approbation of the President on the subject, as I have been led to suppose that th^ government'of the United States has required or said that no cessions of lands made after a certain date would be admitted, in case of the Floridas being ceded in sovereignty to the United States. Tet, as the subject, of the demand on those provinces, and their cession to the United States, if it should take effect, is designedly and expressly for the purpose of remunerating the citizens of the United States for injuries sustained or damages claimed by them from Spain, which is the precise nature of my claim, I conceive no objection could occur to the arrangement proposed. I have, however, abstained from receiving or making any formal proposal, till I should receive a specific answer from the President or you on the subject. Should I be fortunate enough to make an arrangement of the kind, I shall always he willing, if the government of the United States think proper to assume the grant made me, to give it up to them for a sum equal or equivalent to my demand on the government.”

But Mr. Adams replied, September 13, 1818: “It has been contemplated that means might be found by the cession of Florida for obtaining this satisfaction in a manner which may not he burdensome to Spain, which expectation will be disappointed if the property of all the vacant lands in the province should he granted by the King of Spain to individuals before the cession of the jurisdiction to-the United States. It is expected, therefore, that in case of the conclusion of a treaty, including this cession, all grants after a certain date to he agreed upon will be annulled.”

And Mr. Meade thereupoh abandoned any further attempt to collect his claim in this way, by procuring a grant in the Floridas, and on the 17th January, 1819, through his wife, and on the 20th January, 18Í9, through his counsel, John Sergeant, esq., submitted his claims upon Spain “for that protection which his government may think proper to grant.”

On the 22d February, 1819, the treaty with Spain was signed and immediately ratified by the United States. There were several provisions in it directly affecting the claim:

1. The treaty ceded Florida to the United States.

2. The high contracting parties (Art. 9) reciprocally renounced “all claims for damages or injuries which they themselves as well as their respective citizens and subjects may have suffered until the signing of this treaty’’

3. The United-States exonerated Spain "from all demands infuture on account of the claims of their citizens,” and undertook "to make satisfaction for the 'same to an amount not exceeding five million dollars.” (Art. 11.)

4. “ To ascertain the full amount and validity of these claims a commission, to consist of three commissioners, citizens of the United States,” was to he appointed, which should meet at Washington, “and within the space of three years from the time of their first meeting ” should “ receive, examine, and decide upon the amount and validity of all claims.” And it also was provided that they should “have power to examine all such persons as come before them on oath or affirmation, touching the complaints in question, and also to receive in evidence all written testimony, authenticated in such manner as they shall think proper to require or admit.”

5. The treaty contained a renunciation on the part of the United States which covered, and was intended to cover, the case of Mr. Meade.

6. The ratifications of the treaty were to be exchanged within six months.

The claim of Mr. Meade, therefore, at the time of the signing of the treaty, came within its provisions and was provided for by it, precisely as all other claims' were provided for; and, moreover, this was understood, as it was desired, by the three parties interested, who at the time believed that the fund of $5,000,000 would be more than sufficient to pay this and all other claims.

The treaty, with authority to exchange ratifications, was committed to the charge of Mr. John Forsyth, our minister to Spain, on the 8th March, 1819. (4 Am. State P., 650.) But on the 10th March the Secretary of State wrote to Don Luis de Onis, the Spanish minister in Washington, relative to an article of the treaty which provided that all grants of lands in tlje Floridas made by Spain “since the 24th January, 1818, when the first proposal on the part of his Catholic Majesty for the cession of the Floridas was made,” were “declared and agreed to be null and void.” This date had been “ agreed to .on the part of the United States with a full and clear understanding that it included the grants alleged to have been made in the course of the preceding winter by the King to the Duke of Alagon, Count Puñon Eostro, and Mr. Yargas,” but which were in fact made previously. The Secretary of State therefore requested an acknowledgment of this statement from the Spanish minister, and on the same day instructed Mr. Forsyth “ to explain and declare, upon the exchange of the ratifications,” that it was done “with a full and clear understanding between the plenipotentiaries of both the high contracting parties” that these grants were “ among the grants thus declared nulj. and void.”

On the part of Spain there was a refusal to ratify the treaty, and General Francisco Yives was sent out as envoy extraordinary “ to request certain explanations relative to the future policy of the United States, which,” he stated in his first official note to the Secretary of State, (4 Am. S. P., 680,) “were motives of sufficient weight imperiously to dictate the propriety of suspending the ratification ef the treaty, even although the American envoy had not at first announced in the name of his. government, and subsequently required from that of Spain, a declaration which tended directly to annul one of its most clear, precise, and conclusive articles” The period within which the ratifications were to have been exchanged consequently expired without Spain baying ratified tbe treaty, and Mr. Forsytb, on tbe 21st August, 1819, (4 Am. S. P., p. 661,) notified tbe Spanish government that “as the ratifications of the convention of tbe 22d February will not have been exchanged, all tbe claims and pretensions of tbe United States which, with tbe spirit of moderation, the love of peace, and tbe delusive expectation that all causes of difference and dispute with Spain would be thereby adjusted and settled, they consented to modify or waive, will stand in the same situation as if that convention had never been made ; and the United States will hold themselves free to press and enforce them in any and every mode, consistent with honor, that their interests may require.”

Before tbe signing of tbe treaty, on tbe 18th January, 1819, tbe American minister at Madrid bad transmitted to the Spanish government two memorials of Mr. Meade, relating to bis claim, and requesting that tbe King would “appoint a commission to liquidate tbe several demands which Mr. Meade has against the government on account of supplies furnished for the support of its armies and otherwise during tbe late war, as well as to consider tbe compensation due to him for bis losses and personal sufferings under a late, proceeding of tbe council of war, already declared by his Majesty to have been illegal,” and in this request tbe American minister joined. On tbe 7th May, 1819, tbe King also bad appointed a commission, consisting of tbe minister of the Council of tbe Indies, tbe fiscal “of tbe Council of Finance, the senior minister of tbe comptroller general’s department, and a clerk of tbe secretary’s office of the finance department, and bad charged them with tbe settlement of all tbe claims and compensation that might result from Mr. Meade’s documents.

On the 18fch May, 1819, this commission had notified Mr. Meade that they were prepared to receive bis proofs and bear his explanations.

This was tbe condition of affairs when the time for exchanging ratifications of tbe treaty expired, and the American minister notified Spain that all tbe claims of the United States would stand “in the same situation as f that convention had never been made.” Subsequently to this notice, on tbe 31st August, 1819, the royal commission called on Mr. Meade for the “ original documents” establishing bis claims, and on tbe 1st and 19th September Mr. Meade transmitted them to tbe commission. These original documents were regarded by Spain as the vouchers of Mr. Meade’s accounts ; they were accordingly placed in tbe archives of tbe Spanish government and have never been restored to him or to the United States.

Tbe royal commission or junta made an award upon the claim, or rather upon the various claims of Mr. Meade. They compromised his claim for personal injuries by reducing it from 8,500,000 reals to 5,461,500 reals; they allowed the amount the proofs established upon his commercial transactions; and they added interest thereon, “ calculated, down to the date of the liquidationThe King approved the award on the 19th May, 1820; the junta “extended in legal form a certificate ” to Mr. Meade, and the award became final and conclusive against Spain.

This fact was reported to the United States through two channels. On the 10th June, 1820, the Spanish secretary of state wrote to the American minister at Madrid as follows :

“ Sir : I have the satisfaction of informing you that the Spanish government, always upright and honorable in its decisions, has determined to acknowledge, with the sanction of Ms Majesty, Don Richard Meade, a citizen of the United States, its creditor for nine millions eight hundred and twenty-three thousand and seventy-two reals vellón and llmaravedis; for which a competent security, in writing, has been given him.

“As your government, sir, has taken part in the fortune of this individual, I hope you will he pleased to communicate this favorable determination to the President of the said States, inasmuch as the respect which he deserves has had much influence in it; and also the hope that Spanish subjects may, by a just reciprocity, find equal protection and consideration in the United States.”

Mr. Forsyth replied, (June 29th:)

“Sir: I have had the honor to receive your excellency’s note of the 10th instant, wherein it is stated that your government had liquidated the claim of Richard Meade, a citizen of the United States. I shall, as your excellency requests, communicate this information to the government of the United States, which receives with pleasure every indication of good will from that of his Catholic Majesty.”

And he communicated a copy of these notes to the United States.

On the 17th August, 1820, Mr. Meade wrote to the Secretary of State:

“ Sir : I beg leave to transmit herewith for your information and that of the President, (if you will please to communicate them to him,) three documents received by me from the Spanish, government, relative to my claims, their final liquidation, and the ackowledgment of the sum due me hy the Spanish government. A perusal of these documents will, I trust, convince the President and yourself that the interference of the government has not been bestowed on a person unworthy of the high protection he has received.”

To this Mr. Adams replied, (September 6, 1820 :)

“ SiR: The acknowledgment of the receipt of your letters of the 10th aud 17th ultimo has been thus long accidentally delayed. In making it now it gives me pleasure to offer you my congratulations upon the adjustment of your accounts with the Spanish government, and to assure you that this government feels not a little gratification in having at all contributed to the satisfactory result.”

Such was the condition of the claim, when in August, 1820, the constitutional government of Spain resumed the consideration of the treaty. The constitution of 1812 had been re-established, and the general Cortes restored on the 10th March, 1820. Under this constitution the King could not ratify the treaty without the assent of the Cortes, nor could he cede the public lands of Spain. The Cortes assembled on the 7th July, 1820, and the subject of the treaty was referred subsequently to a special committee. A memorial had been sent previously to the Cortes by Mr. Meade, bearing date the 20th June, 1820, which claimed an appropriation for the sum acknowledged to be due to him by the King. The same committee reported to the Cortes that it was necessary to ascertain whether the amount due to Mr. Meade had been included among those claims which the United States had undertaken to pay, and from which it was wholly to exonerate Spain, and that if this had not been done, then the debt in particular ought to be paid, as it was a national debt arising out of contracts made by him in aid of the liberty and independence of Spain at the most critical periods of the revolution. (4 State Papers, Foreign Relations, p. 726.) In consequence of this report it was proposed that the Cortes address a letter to the Spanish Secretary of State to ascertain whether or not the debt had been included among those which the United States undertook to discharge. Such a letter was accordingly written by the secretary of the Cortes, and a reply from the secretary of state was received stating distinctly that the debt was expressly included in the treaty, and that the nature and amount of the debt had been officially communicated to the American minister. But in order to prevent any possible misunderstanding or mistakes on this subject, a committee of two members was appointed by the Cortes to wait upon the American minister and ascertain the views of his government. Mr. Forsyth did not understand that the members called upon him a3 a committee, but he gave them a “clear atid distinct assurance that the debt due to Richard W. Meade would certainly be -paid to him by the United States, if ike treaty were ratified by the Spanish government, and the cessions [to tbe Duke of Alagon and tbe Count Puñon Rastro and Mr. Vargas] totally annulled.’' Upon tbe faitb of these assurances thus conveyed to the Cortes, that body, after annulling tbe three private grants, ratified tbe treaty, and the Floridas passed to tbe United States. (Id., p. 727.)

■ It was now supposed by all of tbe contracting parties that tbe debt bad been assumed by tbe United States. But it had been discovered that tbe aggregate of the claims against Spain would far exceed the amount of $5,000,000, which limited tbe liability of tbe United States. Tbe treaty bad yet to be confirmed by the American government, inasmuch as its tardy ratification by Spain was a violation of the terms which bound both parties; and Mr. Meade therefore addressed a memorial to tbe President, which was transmitted by him to the Senate.

By this memorial Mr. Meade clearly and distinctly notified tbe President that tbe Cortes bad decreed tbe assumption of tbe debt by tbe American government, or its immediate payment by Spain; that tbe claim bad been a subject of express negotiation between tbe two governments; that the 5th renunciation bad been introduced into tbe treaty by Spain for tbe express purpose of providing for this-debt; and that tbe Spanish government bad been assured, and believed, and were warranted in concluding, that “they were to be as effectually exonerated and discharged from their debt” to him “as if it had been mentioned by name in tbe treaty.” He also said : “The terms of tbe treaty, taken simply and strictly, without being interpreted by any such supplemental arrangement or understanding, clearly import that all tbe claims embraced by all tbe five renunciations on tbe part of the United States are to be thrown into one heterogeneous mass and placed on tbe same level, and subject to tbe same rule of compensation. Whereas nothing could be more unjust and injurious than such an operation in regard to my claim, because nothing can be more dissimilar in their nature, in their origin, and in all their circumstances, and nothing more unequal in tbe cogency of tbe legal and moral obligations out of which they arise, than my claim and tbe mass of others with which it is apparently confounded.”

“All that can be required to make out my case is this brief and simple statement of it: My property, to tbe value of nearly half- a million, is taken to pay for the Floridas. Then upon any principle of-public law or of a constitutional bill of rights, what is there to cast the shadow of a doubt over my claim to be compensated and reimbursed that instant tbe cession of tbe Floridas is consummated ?”

And be finally requested tbe Senate “to annex to tbe ratification of tbe treaty, by way of rider, a distinct recognition of my claim, so that it may be specifically provided for, among tbe appropriations necessary to carry the treaty into effect, or to have tbe fifth renunciation distinctly exce-ptcd from the ratification and expunged from the treaty ; or at least, to have my claim excepted from it by name

And with perhaps a prophetic sense of what was to follow, be added:

“ 1 have tbe most assured confidence that Spain, when tbe moral sense ' and good faith of tbe nation are no longer perplexed by tbe salvo of that renunciation, cannot resist one moment my instances for an immediate liquidation of tbe debt. In all events, it is my clear and decided election to abide the issue of such an appeal to the moral sense and good faith of that nation, rather than the chances of that contingent .and long-deferred indemnity, provided for the other claims.”

The Senate did neither tbe one nor the other, but on tbe 19th February, 1821, accepted and assented to tbe treaty as ratified by Spain, ¡leaving Mr. Meade to pursue tbe only remedy which it gave.

We have now to inquire as to the fate of this claim under tbe treaty. 'The commissioners who were to ascertain “tbe amount and validity” of tbe claims met and organized at Washington on the 9 th June, 1821. ■On tbe 6th January, 1822, Mr. Meade filed with them a memorial in •which he states that be has been personally informed by tbe Secretary • of State, and officially advised by tbe Spanish government, since tbe ratification of tbe treaty, that bis claim was intended to be, and in fact •.is, included in tbe ninth article. He also gives a history of tbe claim, .and hopes to have established certain conclusions beyond doubt or , controversy, viz :

1. That tbe United States bad no power to release tbe debt due •from Spain “upon any other terms but tbe payment of tbe debt as guarantee of Spain; in other words, that tbe treaty-making power is per se utterly incompetent to exert its jurisdiction over tbe rights of a . creditor claiming a mere pecuniary debt.”

2. “ That no authority whatsoever has, in fact, been supplied by tbe agency or consent of tbe creditor, who, in point of fact, has never com¡mitted .bis claim to tbe management or discretion of tbe government' any further than to invoke tbe interposition of tbe good offices of tbe American government in aid of tbe claims and petitions, which claims . and petitions, in all instances, went tbe length of demanding full and complete satisfaction.”

3. “That the claim is, nevertheless, comprehended in tbe 5th renunciation, in virtue of .which, connected with tbe express stipulation in the 11th article, the United States are absolutely and unconditionally bound, in consideration of a valuable equivalent received of Spain, to exonerate her from the debt, and by that means have interposed a bar to remedies otherwise clear and indisputable, by which the creditor' might have secured his debt from the original debtor.”

4. “That by the force and effect of these stipulations the public faith of the United States is solemnly pledged equally to Spain, as the debtor, and to your memorialist as the creditor, to discharge the debt without defalcation or delay, and without reference to the stipulated and limited fund provided by the treaty.”

The memorial then concludes with a prayer that the commissioners “will proceed to investigate the circumstances of his claim, in order that it may be officially decided and promulgated what provision is intended for your memorialist by the treaty, that is to say:

“ 1st. Whether his claim be not clearly comprehended in the list of renunciations declared on the part of the United States in the 9th article of the said treaty.

“2d. Whether, being so comprehended, your memorialist be not clearly entitled to a substantive and full satisfaction of his claim, whatever may be the pro rata allowance to the general mass of claimants out of the specific fund provided by the said treaty.”

The first determination of the commissioners was to reject the claim because it was for acts performed under.contract, “ which he could not have performed without transgressing the acknowledged belligerent rights of other nations,” acts “which would have required the United States to abandon such citizen to the state of war without making any reclamation on his behalf.” But by a communication bearing date the 5th March, 1822, the commissioners submitted this opinion to the Secretary of State, and said :

“As such a construction, if contrary to the intent of the high contracting parties, as is suggested, may possibly impair the faith of the United States and lead to consequences violating even their peace, the commissioners beg leave to submit to you the propriety of adopting some course which may bring before them any document or suggestion by which the object and intent of the United States in concluding the treaty may be disclosed more fully than they are now exhibited by the article before mentioned.

“ If the President is content to adopt that construction of the treaty which the commissioners, as at present advised, are disposed to give it, no suggestion need be made to them. But if this should not be the case, as nothing will most probably operate to change the opinion which the commissioners are disposed at present to entertain upon this subject but a clear communication that such a construction would he violative of the intention of the high contracting parties, it will he necessary that a communication to this effect should be made to them.”

On the 9thMarch, 1822, the Secretary, by direction of the President, officially replied :

“ In providing for the claims of the citizens of the United States upon Spain, by the treaty of the 22d February, 1819, it was not understood or intended by the government of the United States, nor, as is believed by the other party to the treaty, that claims arising from contract, as they existed at the time of the signature of the treaty, should be excluded from the benefit of the treaty. The claims intended to be provided for were those specially enumerated in the renunciations, and embraced all claims, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the government, had been presented to the Department of State, or to the minister of the United States in Spain, since the convention of 1802, and until the date of the signature of the treaty."

The Secretary of State went still further, and virtually instructed the commissioners as to the construction to be given to the treaty, so far as regarded the proceedings in Mr. Meades’s case and the nature of the proofs to be required, for he said :

“ Whether, among the contracts provided for, there were some upon which the government of the United States, but for the treaty, must have eventually abandoned the claimants to the fate of war was never a subject of inquiry. Those claims, it is presumed, were not the less valid against Spain, nor were their prospects of real satisfaction by Spain in any other manner believed to be different from the rest. The government was, indeed, aware that the abstract right to its interposition of citizens who had suffered by acts of foreigners, without any co-operation of their own, was more clear and imperative than that of others who had voluntarily staked their property upon the good faith of Spain; and, in the course of the negotiation, a proposal was made to omit the renunciation which included the latter class of these claims. It was, however, finally agreed to, with the full understanding that all the claims should have the same benefit of the provision, be subjected to the same investigation, and be decided upon, not by any subsequent transaction between the claimant and the Spanish government, but by the commissioners, in the manner prescribed by the treaty, and upon such proof as they should think proper to require for ascertaining its amount and validity.”

On the 16th April, 1823, the commissioners, through their president, Judge White, delivered an elaborate opinion, by which they determined to continue the case, and to call upon Spain for the original proofs and documents of her indebtedness to Mr. Meade, and in which they expressly held with regard to the liquidation and settlement of the claim by Spain, That no person, either natural or artificial, can, by his acknowledgments or admissions, create an obligation to be discharged by and at the expense of another, unless that other has, by some means, authorized him to do so. If Spain did not owe this debt to Mr. Meade at the date of the treaty, but contracted it afterwards, it is not one of those renounced, and Spain is still responsible for it, not the United States; and ought therefore to be rejected, because it would prove a fact which would avail nothing. If Spain did owe it at the date of the treaty, there must have been some evidence then existing of the demand, for which the extent of liability could .be ascertained. That evidence would he better than the mere settlement with the Spanish officers, and ought to he produced.”

As the proceedings to procure that evidence constitute a distinct branch of the case, we may add here that it never was procured; and that on “ the 39th day of May, 1824, as appears by the journal of proceedings, the claim set forth in the memorial on the part of the said Riehard W. Meade was by the said commission rejected, on the alleged ground that the evidence produced was not sufficient to establish the same.”

On the 8th June following the commission expired. “ The full amount of the sums allowed to the different claimants” by the commission was “$5,454,545 13, while the treaty limits the extent of the liability of the United States 1 to an amount not exceeding $5,000,000.’ ” So that the commission found it necessary “ to abate each claim allowed pro rata 8J per cent.” The fund thereby was exhausted, and Mr. Meade left without redress.

The treaty contained this express stipulation: “The Spanish government shall furnish all such documents and elucidations as may be in their possession, for the adjustment of the said claims, according to the principles of justice, the laws of nations, and the stipulations of the treaty between the two parties of 27th October, 1795; the said documents to be specified, when demanded, at the instance of the said commissioners.”

During the months of October and November, 1822, Mr. Meade had filed with the commissioners two supplemental memorials. In the first of these “ he prays the commissioners, in case the originals of any documents of public acts in Spain should be wanted, where he has only annexed copies, or in case any other documents are wanted to elucidate bis claim, to call for them from the Spanish government, according to the provision of the eleventh article of the treaty.” And in the second he “ respectfully suggests, that if it will be deemed right and just, though he confidently hopes it will not, to regard the Spanish liquidation as wholly null, and to revise its foundations and proofs, a resort must be had to the eleventh article of the treaty, which points out the course to be pursued in all similar cases; a course mutually agreed upon by the United States and Spain, which the commissioners alone are competent to take, and the only one from which a satisfactory result can be reasonably expected.”

The decision of the commissioners upon these memorials, which has been before quoted, was not rendered till the 16th April, 1823. On the 17th Mr. Meade filed a list of the documents required from Spain, and on the 18th the commissioners transmitted their application to'the Secretary of State.

This application of the commissioners was given to Mr. Nelson, the newly appointed minister of the United States, on the 13th May, .1823, with written instructions by the Secretary of State. Mr. Nelson was then at Washington, and his first communication to the Spanish government respecting the application bears date at Madrid, the 19 th December following, and the first intimation which he gave to Spain that any documents would be wanted in this case was on the previous day, (letter to Mr. Adams, 26th December, 1823.) But a previous application for documents relating to other claims was then pending. On the 8th March, 1824, the Conde de OfMla, the Spanish Secretary of State, in regard to all of these applications, replied :

His Majesty being informed, he commands me to say to you that the papers of this office (secretaria) have been thrown into great confusion by their removal to Seville and Cadiz, whence they are expected in a few days. As soon as they shall arrive, we will proceed to search for those which yon demand, and all those originals whose delivery may not be inconvenient shall be at your disposal; those, also, which are found to be not of this character shall be furnished, that true copies of them may be had, conformably with the treaty.” The papers never were furnished, though, as appears by a letter from Mr. Nelson to the Secretary of State, bearing date the 31st July, 1824, “ the Spanish officers” entered into the work “ apparently in good faith to supply them.” (4 Am. Stat. P., p. 731.) This was after the commission had expired.

But before the claim was submitted to the commission, Mr. Meade wrote to the Spanish minister at Washington, (January 2, 1822,) protesting that, “ being compelled by the treaty between Spain and the United States to have recourse to the latter for the payment of his credit,” he still reserved his right (in case of not obtaining it in whole or in part from the United States), against Spain; and requesting that this protest be transmitted to the Spanish court. The minister replied on- the 11th January, 1822, (4 Am. Stat. P., p. 729,) that he had lost not a moment in transmitting to the Spanish ministry a copy of the letter, and he proceeds to reassure Mr. Meade by saying:

“ When his Catholic Majesty decided on making the sacrifice of such important provinces as those of the Floridas, it was with the object of satisfying in full, and without any deductions, the credits which the citizens of the United States might have against Spain.” “ This is so much the more true” (he proceeds) “ as relates to your credit, as it is of a distinct character from all the others. It is the only one which, after the most scrupulous or minute investigation, has been liquidated and acknowledged by Spain; the only one, for the same reason, that does not require the examination of the commissioners; and the only one, in fine, on which there can be no cavil or discussion.”

After thus notifying the Spanish government of the course he was compelled to pursue, but more than a year before the decision of the commissioners of April, 1823, Mr. Meade transmitted to the Spanish minister at Washington (April 4, 1822) the letter from the commissioners to the Secretary of State, (March 5, 1822) and his reply, (March 9, 1822,) which have been previously cited, and he at the same time preferred to the minister this request: “ To obtain for me all documents, vouchers, and evidence whatsoever in the possession and under the control of Spain appertaining to my demand, that I may prepare them, in case of need, for exhibition to the commissioners.”

On the 10th October, he renewed this request, and on the 16th of the same month the Spanish minister replied :

“ I have been surprised beyond measure at what you are pleased to impart to me respecting the determination of -the commission, and I flatter myself that it will not persist therein when it reflects on the injustice it involves and' on the libel it imports on my government. The duty and the wishes of the commission in the examination of your claim can have no other object than that of convincing itself of its justice in order to adjudicate to you its amount. To obtain this it ought to require of you the presentation of the most authentic documents known to the country in which your claim originated; and if you exhibit these, and prove them to possess the highest character of authenticity, and that they are sanctioned by the established tribunals for such purposes in that country, and by those persons to whom, as the beads of that government, entire credit should be accorded, no corporations or individuals existing of higher grade, or in whom greater confidence can be placed, it is obvious that the commission cannot ask for evidence more satisfactory.”

He then proceeds:

“ The liquidation made of your demands by the Spanish government took place at the particular instance of the minister of the United States at Madrid; it was not the work of persons selected by the ministry of Spain, but of its most respectable tribunals ; it was not investigated by one alone, but by various commissions, composed of individuals of the strictest probity, of the highest rank, and of no disposition to favor you; and, finally, after the most rigorous examination, it received the sanction of the King himself. It is also well worthy of remark that when all this was effected, it by no means appeared that the United States would assume to pay this debt; and when the liquidation which had been accomplished was communicated by the minister of state to the minister of the United States at Madrid, he not only did not make any objection to it, but in the name of his government returned his thanks and manifested every satisfaction with it. This liquidation, thus sanctioned by his Catholic Majesty, and admitted and approved by the minister of the United States, is the one which you present to the commission. And what document can my government give you that would be more conclusive ? Will the commission place greater faith in the authentication of a notary public, or of a merchant, than in the attestation of the Council of Finance, the supreme tribunal of auditors, the Treasurer General, the Minister of Finance, or, in a word, the King himself?”

And the minister then concludes : The Spanish government will regard as a serious insult that what in Spain is acknowledged as most sacred and respectable, should here be pronounced of no value; that it will never consent to have questioned the legality and purity with which your liquidation was made, and which is accompanied by all the marks of authenticity which it can give; and in fine, though it should he practicable to reunite all the documents upon which that liquidation w&s made, his Catholic Majesty knows too well what is due to his own dignity, to the reputation of his ministers, and to the integrity of his tribunals, to consent that a foreign commission shall deem itself authorized to revise their decrees.”

In this communication the Spanish minister raised no objection to the form or manner of the application, or to the fact that it did not come from the commissioners, or through the government of the United States, but made it absolute and unconditional, and his refusal went directly to the merits and substance of the application.

This refusal on the part of the minister received the approval and became the act of his government; for, on the 15th of April, 1823, his successor addressed a note to the American government, in which he says :

“ His Majesty has been pleased, to approve and sanction said answer of my predecessor to Mr. Meade, and he further commands,me to support his reclamations, and represent to your excellency, in the most friendly hut at the same time in the most forcible and solemn manner, against every opposition that may be pretended to be set up with a view of not paying the private debt which the aforesaid Meade holds against the Spanish nation, but which, in virtue of the late treaty, has been assumed by the government of the United States.”

And in what appears to be a postscript to the same communication, he adds:

“ I have the order of my government to manifest to you that it cannot remain silent when it is endeavored to place in doubt an act so undeniable; and I beforehand solemnly and respectfully protest against any division of the commissioners named in virtue of the treaty that may in any manner invalidate the acknowledgment made by my government of the total debt of Mr. Meade, agreeable to the certificate which has been furnished him, and which he has in his possession.”

It must now be borne in mind that the liquidation of Mr. Meade’s various claims by the Spanish government, and the royal decree for the payment thereof, were subsequent to the signature of the treaty, and also that the treaty provided only for claims that had accrued between the convention of 1802 and its own date of February 22,1819. Therefore, if that liquidation and decree constituted a legal novation of the debt so as to take it out of the terms and intent of the treaty, it is evident that it remained a legal debt from Spain. It must also be borne in mind that the Spanish government were bound by the treaty “ to furnish all such documents and elucidations as may be in their possession for the adjustment of the said claims,” and that they had once positively refused to furnish the documents relating to Mr. Meade’s claim, and had at best failed to do so. Mr. Meade might, therefore, have had a claim against Spain founded upon the award of the junta, or upon her refusal to furnish the documents when requested by himself, or upon her neglect to do so when requested by the United States. Between tbe rejection of bis claim by tbe commission of 1824 and tbe convention with Spain in 1834, all of these facts were pressed upon the attention of both tbe President and Congress by various memorials, and were tbe subject of at least five reports by congressional committees ; yet,nevertheless, on tbe 17th of February, 1834, tbe United States united in a convention with Spain, whereby Spain “ engages to pay to tbe United States as the balance on account ” of “tbe claims preferred by each party against the other,” “ the sum of twelve millions of reals vellón, in one or several inscriptions, as preferred by tbe government of tbe United States.” “ And said inscriptions, or tbe proceeds thereof, shall be distributed by tbe government of tbe United States among the claimants entitled thereto, in such manner as it may deem just and equitable.” (Art. I.) In consideration of these stipulations tbe United States, as one of “the high contracting parties,” “ reciprocally renounce, release, and cancel all claims which either may have upon the other, of whatever class, denomination, or origin they may be, from the 22d of February, 1819, until the time of signing this convention.” (8 Stat. L., p. 460.)

After tbe rejection of bis claim by tbe commissioners, Mr. Meade applied to Congress for payment of it, and continued to press it upon tbe attention of tbe government by every means in bis power until bis death, in 1828. His widow and executrix neglected no opportunity or method of keeping it, before Congress until she also died, in 1852. Tbe eldest son of tbe claimant, Captain R. W. Meade, then became tbe representative of tbe estate, and has manifested tbe same persistence and diligence in urging tbe satisfaction of tbe claim which characterized the unsuccessful efforts of bis parents.

Tbe history of tbe claim in Congress it is unnecessary to pursue, except to state generally that in tbe thirty years it was before tbe two bouses of Congress it received tbe support of many, and encountered tbe opposition of some, of tbe ablest minds of tbe nation. A number-of reports of committees in both bouses were made in favor of its payment; several against it. It was supported by reports from Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Archer, Mr. Porter, Mr. Ingersoll, Mr. Everett, and Mr. Buchanan. It encountered tbe opposition of Mr. Clayton, Silas Wright, and others. Out of Congress it was sustained by tbe opinions of such eminent counsel as Mr. Clay, John Sergeant, and Horace Binney. A number of times bills for its payment or adjustment passed one house of Congress, but failed in tbe other, either for want of time or lack-of votes.

After tbe establishment of tbe Court of Claims, 11th of February, 1856, tbe Senate, by resolution, referred the claim to the court for adjudication, and on the 17th of October, 1859, a decision was rendered by two of three judges then constituting the court, adverse to the claim. At that time the decisions» of the court were reported to Congress, and consequently the claim went back and received the further consideration of Congress. On the 27th of February, .1861, another resolution passed the Senate, transmitting it for a second time to this court. But before a second trial took place the act of 1863, reorganizing the court, was passed. Proceedings were then taken by the Solicitor of the United States to dismiss the case, upon the ground that the Senate alone had not power to re-refer a case which had been reported to and was pending in Congress. But before any action was taken on this motion Congress passed the joint resolution of July 25, 1866, (14Stat. L.,) which is as follows :

“Whereas doubts are entertained whether the claim of the estate of Richard W. Meade, deceased, upon the government of the United States, is covered and embraced by the ninth section of the act of third March, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, entitled ‘ An act to amend an act to establish a court for the investigation of claims against the United States,’ approved February twenty-four, eighteen hundred and fifty-five, which case was referred to the said court by resolution of the Senate, passed twenty-seventh February, eighteen hundred and sixty-one: Now, in order to remove all doubts on that subject,

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the said claim of Richard W. Meade, administrator of Richard W. Meade, deceased, be, and the same is hereby, referred to the Court of Claims for, adjudication thereof, pursuant to authority conferred upon said court by any existing law to examine and decide claims against the United States, referred to it by Congress.”

At the present term the case has been reheard and fully and ably argued by the eminent counsel of the claimants on the one side, and the Assistant Solicitor on the other. The judges have given to it a long, careful, patient, and anxious examination and consideration. On a question of so much importance, it is to be regretted that their views and opinions should not entirely harmonize. Under these circumstances, we do not feel like entering upon any discussion of the great principles involved in the case. They have been exhaustively treated in the diplomatic discussions on the subject between the United States and Spain; in the opinions delivered by the commissioners under the treaty; in the memorials of the claimants presented to the President, the commissioners, and to Congress, prepared by counsel of great and commanding eminence; and by the reports and discussions in the two houses of Congress, written by and participated in by gentlemen of the highest attainments as publicists, statesmen, and lawyers.

In view of these facts, we do not feel called upon to enter upon any extended or elaborate discussion of the great principles involved in the case. Having carefully collated the 'facts, and concisely and briefly stated our conclusions upon them, the case will be in position for review before the Supreme Court of the United States, whose judgment alone can finally and authoritatively settle this long and difficult controversy.

The claimant’s counsel have rested his case mainly upon the following propositions: ,

I. That Meade, the claimant’s intestate, had valid claims on the Spanish government prior to the 22d February, 1819, originating after the year 1802 ; and that the United States, for a valuable consideration received from Spain, released her from the obligation to pay claimant, upon certain terms and conditions neither authorized by nor assented to by Meade.

II. The validity and amount of these claims were liquidated and adjudicated by Spain at the instance and by the aid and intervention of the United States, under circumstances which make that adjudication evidence against the United States, liable only to be impeached for fraud and collusion between Meade and Spain.

III. That under the facts of this case, the renunciation and release of the claim by the United States to Spain was a taking of Meade’s private property for public use, which entitles him to just compensation outside and irrespective of the treaty, and of which the commissioners under the treaty had no jurisdiction, and to the recovery of which their proceedings and decision interpose no bar.

IY. That the failure of the United States to enforce the production of the documents and evidence required by the commissioners from Spain in due season, was such a breach of the duty assumed in the treaty, to the injury of the claimant, as renders them liable for the loss sustained.

The solicitors for the United States, on the other hand, contend:

I. That the only liability ever assumed by the United States, either to her own citizens or Spain, was by the treaty, and that her obligations are to be measured by and determined under and according to the provisions of that instrument.

II. That the assistance afforded Meade, as matter of grace and favor, did not make tbe United States either a party or privy to tbe liquidation of tbe claim, so as to make the adjudication evidence against them under tbe treaty.

III. That Meade’s claim having been included in tbe treaty at bis own solicitation, be thereby voluntarily subjected it to tbe compromises and adjustments provided for other individual claims by tbe treaty.

IV. That in tbe renunciation and release of Meade’s claim to Spain, there was no exercise of tbe right of eminent domain by tbe United States, nor was there tbe taking of any private property for public use; but an agreement by tbe United States, with the acquiescence, legal or actual, of tbe claimants, to assume such claims against Spain, to tbe extent and in the manner stipulated in tbe treaty.

Most of tbe difficulties that have attended this case originated in what we deem a mistake of tbe commissioners under this treaty. They applied tbe strict, rigid, technical rules of. evidence that belong to tbe administration of municipal or criminal justice, in the adjustment of these international affairs, to which they were inappropriate. The engagement of nations, tbe adjustment of their claims upon each other, or those of their respective citizens and subjects, should not, and for obvious reasons cannot, be subjected to the narrow technical rules of ordinary tribunals.

On tbe 22d February, 1819, the evidence leaves no room for doubt, the claimant’s intestate had a large and valid claim on the Spanish government. Prior to that date he bad notified the United States, of which he was a citizen, of its existence, and claimed their assistance and good offices in obtaining satisfaction of it.

The claim as it then existed is plainly described by and embraced in the treaty of that date. Tbe 5th renunciation by the United States, in the 9th article of tbe treaty, comprehended Mr. Meade’s claim. By tbe 11th article, these claims, as against Spain, were to be considered as “entirely cancelled, the United States undertaking to make satisfaction for the same,” as therein provided. The final ratification of the treaty was delayed for nearly two years, instead of being exchanged within six months, as agreed upon in the treaty itself. In the meantime Mr. Meade, by his own exertions and through the favor and good offices of the United States, was earnestly pressing the adjustment and payment of his claims upon Spain, no one knowing what might or would be the fate of the treaty. His partial success in this matter proved to be his greatest misfortune.

The commissioners under the treaty refused at first to consider the case within the treaty, regarding it as a new and different claim from that provided for by its terms. Yielding that, they refused to receive as evidence the decree of adjustment and liquidation of the commission or junta.

We think this was a serious error. It was beyond all controversy the same claim that Mr. Meade filed with the Secretary of State in 1819. The evidence of that was not only convincing but conclusive. The decree and certificate were excluded because res inter alios acta, and which I venture to doubt has any place, or at least any such application, in international affairs. There was no doubt of the jurisdiction and competency of the court, either as to the parties or the subject-matter. The proceedings were invested with all the formalities and solemnities incident to a judicial decree. As between the parties and privies, it was like the judgment of any other court of exclusive jurisdiction, as a plea bar, and as evidence conclusive upon the same matter, coming either directly in dispute or incidentally in question between such parties or privies in another court for a different purpose. (Chief Justice De Grey, in the Duchess of Kingston’s case, 11 St. Tr., 261.) In The United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet., 691, in a case arising under this same treaty, the Supreme Court of the United States held that “ an inquisition having been taken under the Spanish authorities, by which it was found that the Indians had previously abandoned the lands granted, this was held to be res judicata.” The only question could be whether the United States stood in such privity to the proceedings as made the judgment evidence before the commission. The solicitor for the United States insists they did not. So the commissioners decided. In ordinary judicial proceedings it is not necessary that a person should be an actual party on the record to make the determination evidence against him. Sureties and guarantors are sometimes concluded by judgments againts their principles, and e converso. So a judgment rendered against a tenant or bailiff may in some cases be given in evidence against the landlord or master in other suits where they had due notice of the former actions. Where one man agrees with another that he will pay the debt of such other due to a third party, the creditor brings suit against his debtor, the latter notifies the party assuming the debt, he participates in the suit, or may do so. Can it be doubted that he would be bound by the judgment 1 Or in case the original debtor pays the amount recovered and brings suit against the party making the assumption, is it not perfectly clear that the recovery would be not only evidence against him, but actually conclusive 1 How does this case differ in principle from that supposed ? Here, as between Spain and the United States, the latter assumed to pay the debt owing by tlie former to Meade. He presses bis suit against Spain. His efforts are seconded by tbe United States. They have full, clear, aud distinct notice. Upon what principle, then, are they exempt from the ordinary rule of being bound in such ■ease 1 Upon even the narrow, technical rules applied by the commissioners the decree qf liquidation was evidence. I think it should have been conclusive.

For our purpose it is not necessary, nor do I deem it proper, to apply such rules in affairs of international concern. As the solemn judgment of a judicial tribunal of a foreign nation with whom we were on terms of peace and amity, it was at least prima facie evidence of the matter it adjudicated. Both international law and comity gave it this effect, if no more. It was evidence in the first place that Spain owed Meade the amount found due. (Westlake’s Priv. Int. L., p. 375 et seq.; Franklin v. McGusty, 1 Knapp, 274; Ricardo v. Garcias, 12 C. & F., 368; Ostell v. Le Page, 2 D. M. G., 895; Henderson v. Henderson, 6 Q. B., 735; Ranh of Australasia v. Nias, 16 Q. B., 735.) Like all other judgments, it was liable to be impeached for fraud. But it would be a rash and unfair presumption that Spain and Meade had entered into collusion to defraud the United States, especially as it was uncertain at the time of the liquidation whether the treaty ever would be finally ratified.

So far as the immediate parties to the treaty were concerned or affected, the United States and Spain, the ratification related back to the signing of it, and it took effect from that date. But as to the rights and interests of third parties, it affects them only from the time of the final ratification. (United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet., 691.) As the treaty conferred no rights upon Meade until its ratification, so it could impose no obligations or restrictions upon him. The release and cancellation of the claim in favor of Spain only became operative at that time. Until then her obligations to Meade remained in full force. He had no claim whatever upon the United States in respect of his debt against Spain. He could have compromised with and released Spain from the debt. And such a release would have discharged both Spain and the United States and debarred him from all participation in the fund provided by the treaty. So if Spain had paid the debt. Phe rejection of the decree of liquidation assumes what cannot be maintained, that the treaty binds those whose claims were provided for by it from its date instead of from its ratification.

Nor do I think these positions are at all shaken by the fact that the treaty itself provided that the commissioners should have the right to determine the validity and amount of the respective claims. Without that provision they would have had .the same power, But the ascertainment of those facts must he understood to he by the usual and ordinary methods and proofs. Not by any arbitrary rule of exclusion or admission, The eleventh article of the treaty stipulates for this when it provides that the adjustment of the claims before the commissioners shall be “according to the principles of justice, the laws of nations, and the stipulations of the treaty betwen the two parties of 27th October, 1795.” The treaty of 1795, in its 20th article, made provision for suits by the citizens or subjects of the one nation in the courts of the other, and gave full and liberal effect to the judgment or decrees entered in such cases. Provision was made in the 21st article of the same treaty for a mixed commission to adjudicate the claims of citizens of the United States against Spain.

These commissioners were to “be sworn impartially to examine and decide the claims in question according to the merits of the several cases, and to justice, equity, and the law of nations.” Power was conferred “to examine all-such persons as come before them on oath or affirmation, touching the complaints in question, and also to receive in evidence all written testimony, authenticated in such manner as they shall think proper to require or admit.” These were the rules by which it was intended the commission should be governed. They were such as were worthy of two great enlightened nations treating with each other, and settling their national disputes, and adjusting the claims of their citizens upon enlarged and liberal views of international justice and comity. Had they been permitted to control, the decree of the Junta would not have been excluded. If Spain’s indebtedness to Meade had been in'the form of treasury notes, or certificates of indebtedness issued by the financial department, it would certainly not have been necessary to show item by item the multifarious dealings which formed the consideration of them. His claim, covering a number of years of extensive commercial and monetary transactions with the government, in their unliquidated state, doubtless depended largely upon information in the archives of the Spanish government ; upon the testimony of officials; upon a knowledge of the habits and modes of transacting business in the various departments of the Spanish government; upon Spanish laws and customs — much of which it would be impossible to bring before a commission sitting at Washington, and of most of that which could be obtained the commissioners, from previous habits and training, would be but poorly prepared to judge aright. In adopting a different rule and excluding the liquidation the commissioners committed an error which has been productive of great loss and hardship to the claimants.

Have we the right and power now to correct their mistake and render to the claimants what should have been awarded to his intestate forty-five years ago ? The claimant’s counsel contend that we have. They predicate it, first, upon the ground that the United States applied Meade’s claim, his private property, to public use, which gives him a claim to compensation outside and irrespective of the treaty. That from the moral and natural as well as constitutional obligations to make just compensation for property so taken, the law infers or super-adds a promise to pay its fair value. That upon such implied promise this action may be sustained and judgment given for the claimant. Such was the case of Grant v. The United States. (C. Cla. Rep., vol. 1, p. 41.)

The right of the government to take for public use or public welfare the property of a citizen by virtue of the right of eminent domain, and the obligation to make compensation to' the citizen for it, are universally admitted as concurrent and correlative powers and duties. They are coexistent and coextensive.

Was the release and cancellation of Meade’s claim against Spain such an appropriation of private property to public use as comes within the rule of law and the provision of the Constitution 1 The court think it was. A man’s choses in action, the debts due him, are as much property and as sacred in the eye of the law as are his houses and lands, his horses and his cattle. And when taken for the public good, or released or cancelled to secure an object of public importance, are-to he paid for in the same manner. In all such cases the right of the citizen and the obligation of the sovereign are perfect. The remedy is to be provided by the government. While the right cannot be destroyed, the remedy may be denied, or an inadequate one supplied. And here lies the difficulty in the claimant’s case. In a case where property has been so taken by the United States an action will lie, upon the implied promise, as is held in the Grant case cited above. But where a special mode of obtaining compensation is designated by the sovereign, or the power of assessing or deciding upon it is lodged in a particular tribunal, are not the ordinary means superseded 1 Must not the remedy designated be pursued alone ? Is not the jurisdiction of the special tribunal exclusive ? These questions, we think, must all be answered in the affirmative. Such is now in this country, and to a great extent also in England, the mode of determining the compensation of persons through or upon whose lands public highways or other public easements have been authorized. And, so far as we know, these remedies have been held exclusive of the common law action or other modes of redress. (Mason v. The Kennebeck R. R. Co., 31 Me. Rep., 215; S. C., 1 Am. R’w’y Cases, 162; Stowell v. Flagg, 11 Mass., 364; 12 id., 446; Cushing v. Baldwin, 4 Wend., 667; The London and N. W. R’w’y Co. v. Bradley, 5 Eng. L. and Eq. Rep., 104; Knorr v. The Germantown R. R. Co., 5 Whart., 256; Rogers v. Bradshaw, 20 John., 735.) It is upon the principle cited in Dwarris on Stat., 641: “If an affirmative statute which is introductive of a new law direct a thing to be done in a certain manner, that thing shall not, even although there are no negative words, be done in any other manner.” (1 Am. Railway Cases, 206, 1 Fost., 359; Bloodgood v. The M. and H. R. Co., 14 Wend., 51; Beekman v. Saratoga and Sch. R. Co., 3 Paige, 45, S. C., 2 Am. Railway Cases, 503.)

The doctrine and principles cases are in hand. By this treaty-, which has all the force and authority of an act of Congress, the claimant’s property is taken for and appropriated to the public use. Spain is released; all her obligation to the claimant is cancelled. By the same instrument it is transferred to, and and assumed by, the United States. But the mode, and manner of making compensation are prescribed by the same instrument. A special tribunal, with specific powers and special jurisdiction, is created to adjust and award that compensation. Can the person whose property has been taken resort to any other means, or sue in any other tribunal ? We think not. The case is still stronger against the claimants, that their case, the same claim, for the same identical money, was presented to that special tribunal. Their decision was made, and it is nothing to the purpose to say that it was erroneous. It is not for us, nor for any other court, to overturn or disregard that decision. No appeal was given, no power of revision lodged anywhere, in any person or tribunal, and their decision was therefore necessarily the conclusion of the whole matter. We are not left without precedent, and those of the highest authority, upon this great question. A case most closely resembling this in its principles and history, is that of De Bode v. Regina 3 Clarke’s Ho of Lords Rep., 449. The history of that case is succinctly as follows :

The Baron dé Bode was a British subject, of British birth, although of mixed parentage — French and English. In the middle of the last century he owned estates in that portion of France which in the'old books of history is called Alsace, on the lower Rhine. He owned a baronial estate tliere, and held that estate at the opening of the French revolution. The estate was confiscated by the convention, and thus things remained until the peace of Paris, one of the conditions of which was, that all British subjects despoiled by France, in the interval between the commencement of the war of the French revolution and that treaty, should he indemnified out of a fund paid over to England by France. A commission was appointed to adjudicate in behalf of the various claimants; and the Baron de Bode, before that commission, presented his case, proved that he was a British subject* proved the confiscation, and claimed indemnity. The commissioners decided against him, by reason of ignorance of geography on their part. They conceived that Alsace was, in the reign of Louis XVI, a portion of Germany, not of France ; and therefore De Bode did not come within the treaty. Then he came to England, presented his petition of right, and failed on the ground that the act of parliament had so disposed of this money that the petition of right did not reach it..

The various reports of the case will be found in 6 Dowl. Prac. Cas., 776 ; 8 Q. B. Kep., 208, 285; 13 Q. B. Bep., 364; Id., 381.

So the Supreme Court of the United States in Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Pet., 212, where the effect of a finding by the commissioners under this very treaty came directly in question, held that the jurisdiction of the commissioners was exclusive and their award final and conclusive. Mr. Justice Story, in delivering the judgment of the court, after quoting the 11th article of the treaty, says : “ The object of the treaty was to invest the commissioners with full power and authority to receive, examine, and decide upon the amount and validity of the asserted claims upon Spain for damages and injuries. Their decision, within the scope of this authority, is conclusive and final. Tf they pronounce the claim valid or invalid, if they ascertain the amount, their award in the premises is not re-examinable ; the parties must abide by it as the decree of a competent tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction. A rejected claim cannot be brought again under review in any judicial tribunal. An amount once fixed is a final ascertainment of the damages or injury. This is the obvious purport of the language of the treaty.”

These precedents are so full and pointed, that in our judgment they authoritatively rule the case. However erroneous the decision; upon whatever mistakes of fact or of law it was based; whatever hardship or injustice it inflicts, give us no right and confer no power to re-open and re-examine the question. In our opinion, it is like any other matter that has been finally judicially decided by a competent court. It closes tbe controversy; and however injured or dissatisfied any party may be, there can be no redress in any other tribunal.

The right and power of the United States to treat with Spain on the subject of Meade’s claims, and to release them under all the circumstances of this case, cannot well be denied. It may be that Mr. Meade had no right to call upon the United States beyond their own policy or convenience to interpose in his behalf. Nor could they, probably, without his consent have subj ected his claim to the terms and conditions of the treaty. But when he solicited their aid, and they did interpose at his instance and with his consent, I see no reason for the application of any other rules than obtain in cases that come legitimately within the range of national adjustment of private claims.

Mr. Adams in his communication to the President of February 13, 1821, expresses this aptly and correctly :

“ The claimant by contract cannot resort to the interposition of his own government to obtain from the other the satisfaction for his claims to the same extent as the claimant from wrong. The government of the claimant by contract can interpose in his behalf only by its good offices, and cannot, as the memorial states, press to the extent of reprisals for satisfaction of the claim. It has no right to interpose at all without the solicitation of the claimant himself, who, having staked his interest upon his own confidence in the government with which he contracts, may properly abide by the result of that confidence without calling upon his country to make itself a party to the demand. But if he does appeal to his own government for that adventitious aid to which other contractors with the same party and on the same security cannot resort, he thereby voluntarily makes his claim a subject of negotiation and of those compromised in which all national adjustments of individual claims must and do always consist.”

Nor do the facts in relation to the demand upon Spain for the documents and proofs called for by the commissioners, create any new and substantive cause of action cognizable by us. If done purposely and fraudulently by the officers of the government it would constitute a tort of which we have no jurisdiction, and for which the United States is not liable if we had. But we must presume that the delay was not from design to injure the claimant or to hinder him in the establishment of his claim. The fact, doubtless, is, that it was owing to the confusion incident to the wars in which Spain was then engaged, the blockade of her ports, and the removal of her public records and archives to places of safety from the invading armies. What the result would have been had the documents been obtained we cannot conjee-ture. Whether the final decision of the commissioners would have been different it is impossible to know. And, therefore, any supposition we might make would he a most uncertain and insufficient basis to found a judgment upon. They had already discarded the only proofs upon which, we think, they could have based a correct, intelligent, and just award. When they attempted or proposed to go beyond that, it is hard to divine where or in what it might end. If the United States have ever made a bona fide effort to obtain the proofs, as we think they did, and failed from causes which they could not overcome or control, they are in nowise responsible for the failure.

The majority of the judges do not construe the joint resolution of Congress of 25th July, 1866, as indicating any intention to change the grounds or rule of decision, but merely to remove any doubts as to our jurisdiction. It seems to us that the particular object sought to be accomplished by sending the case back was to secure to the parties a judicial determination of the controversy under the enlarged powers and extended jurisdiction of this court, with the right of review by the Supreme Court of the United States. They would thus secure to the litigants the judgment of that high tribunal upon the important principles and questions involved. Should that judgment be other than ours, the full analysis and classification of the facts already made will relieve the case from much of the labor and consequent delay incident to the present trial.

In rendering judgment adverse to the claimants, we yiéld obedience to authorities which we cannot disregard. We feel most keenly the hardships that have attended and surrounded the case. The fruits of a laborious and successful life of a meritorious citizen, who honored the name of American merchant abroad, have been appropriated by the United States nearly fifty years ago. To this hour not a farthing’s compensation has been made. He long since died, struggling to obtain from his country some recognition of his claim. His faithful wife pursued the same object for a quarter of a century longer, with that hope deferred which makes the heart sick, until the grave closed over her labors and her disappointments. It has descended to their family, now rendered illustrious by the great and patriotic services of one of their sons, rendered to the country in the hour of her peril. That we cannot now award them what their father was justly entitled to forty-five years ago is to us a matter of sincere regret.

We therefore dismiss the petition and adjudge that the defendants go thereof without day.

Judge Peck concurs in this opinion.

Loring, J.,

concurring:

The question bere is as to the legal obligation of tbe United States for tbis claim; whether it has those equities which make it of moral obligation, is for Congress to determine. And, though persistently-urged, Congress has never admitted in this case such equities or such obligations.

As to the legal obligation of the United States, I adhere to the opinion of the majority of this court at the last trial of the case. No new evidence has been adduced, and only one new ground of claim has been suggested by the counsel for the petitioner.

Previous to the treaty of 1819, Spain claimed that her provinces of East and West Florida extended westward to the Mississippi river, including a large portion of what is now the State of Alabama, and that her province of Texas extended eastward from the Rio Grande to the river Mermenteau, including a large part of what is now Louisiana. While the United States claimed that their territories, ceded by France by the treaty of 1803, extended eastward from the Mississippi to the Perdido river, the present western boundary of West Florida, and southward from the Mississippi to the' Rio Grande. This wide extent of debatable land had led to disputes and collisions between the inhabitants, citizens of either nation, and to this had been added alleged wrongs on either side. Spain complained that her territory had been invaded, her cities captured, and her citizens despoiled. While the United States complained that her people, on the sea and the land, had been assailed by force, their ships captured, their property seized, and they imprisoned in dungeons and irons. Angry correspondence had ensued between the governments, and ended in the rupture of diplomatic relations. This state of things continued till mutual aggravations made it intolerable, and then, on overtures from Spain, diplomatic relations were renewed, and negotiation followed on the subjects of dispute, i. e., of limits and the claims of citizens, and resulted in the treaty of 1819, significantly declared in its title to be “ a treaty of amity, settlement, and limits.”

By the second article of the treaty Spain ceded to the United States the Floridas; and the United States relinquished to Spain the territory from the Sabine river to the Rio Grande, comprising the whole of the State of Texas, which, as claimed by the Spanish negotiator, (4 State Papers,) far exceeded, in extent and fertility, the Floridas. And thus the question of limits was settled.

The question of settlement of claims of citizens was adjusted by the ninth article of the treaty, by which the high contracting parties renounced the claims of their respective citizens, to the extent set forth in specific renunciations. Of the five specifications of renunciation by the United States, the fifth was declared to extend “to all claims of citizens of the United States upon the Spanish government, statements of which, soliciting the interposition of the government 'of the United States, have been presented to the Department of State or to the minister of the United States in Spain, since the date of the convention of 1802 and until the signature of this treaty.”

Then for the execution of the five renunciations on the part of the United States, the eleventh article declared as follows: “The United States exonerating Spain from all demands in future on account of the claims of their citizens, to which the renunciations herein contained, extend, and considering them entirely cancelled, undertake to make satisfaction for the same, to an amount not exceeding five millions of dollars.” Then the same article provided for three commissioners to he appointed by the President, by and with the advice of the Senate, to receive, examine, and decide upon, the amount and validity of all the claims included within the renunciations.

The words “not exceeding five millions of dollars,” of their own force limited the liability of the United States to the sum specified. So that the dollars enumerated make the only fund and the only property subject to claim under the treaty. And all that any claimant can be entitled to by the treaty is his proportion of that fund, adjudged by the commissioners.

The treaty signed February 22, 1819, was the same treaty ratified and exchanged between" the high contracting parties February 19, 1821. And the delay of its ratification by Spain, submitted to by the United States, only extended the time for its ratification, and in no way or degree annulled ox remitted its obligation as an agreement authoritatively made. This was held by the government of the United States always and persistently, audit was a political question affecting the foreign relations of the government; and; therefore, its decision by the political branch of the government was and is conclusive on the judiciary. And, as a matter of fact, the treaty was not altered or modified in any way; not a word or letter was changed. And it was ratified by Spain and the Senate of the United States exactly as it was originally signed, and in its ratification by the Senate it was declared to be “ the treaty made and concluded on the 22d day of February, 1819.” (4 Am. St. P., p. 703.)

It is claimed here as before, in behalf of the petitioner, that the United States, by the treaty of 1819, released Mr. Meade’s claim on Spain without bis assent or authority. But, by the express terms and admitted operation of the treaty, it released only those claims which had been filed for that purpose by the claimants themselves, before its signature on February 22, 1819. Mr. Meade so filed his claim on January 17, 1819, and thus released it himself by his own voluntary act. And in this Mr. Meade sought to place his claim within the treaty on the same ground as the claims of other claimants. And this the government permitted, with an advantage to him much more clear than its equity to others, for their claims were on torts for which the government was bound to procure redress, while his claims were, for the greatei: part, on contracts for which the government was not bound to intervene. And this action of the government in Mr. Meade’s favor is its only special action on his claim shown in the case.

It'is stated in the petition and in the brief of the counsel for the petitioner, and was emphasized in their arguments, that the release of Mr. Meade’s claim was the consideration for the cession of the Floridas, and this was urged as if that release had acquired for the United States the Floridas and their territorial advantages. This may as well be claimed for all the other claimants, of whom many had borne larger losses and greater sufferings than Mr. Meade. But I think it is true of none, and that it mistakes the facts and perverts the relation of the parties, and that the claims released did not enter into the consideration of the cession, and in no way connected the claimants under the treaty with the Floridas. The consideration of the cession of the Floridas was the release of territory made by the United States, and five million of dollars paid by them to Spain through her creditors ; and their claims being of the amount contemplated, it was, as a matter of pecuniary interest, entirely immaterial to the United States whether they paid the sum stipulated to the creditors of Spain or into her treasury.

In the next place, the release of those claims was by the free and voluntary act of the claimants in filing their claims, made by them to Spain, and it inured to her benefit only ; and its only consideration was their receipt of her money which she raised by the sale of the Floridas to the United States. And this makes the position of the parties, in which the United States are the vendee who has hona fide paid in full the price stipulated. And at law and equity such a vendee takes the land discharged of all claims and equities of the vendor or his creditors, especially when, as in this case, the vendee, by an arrangement made by him for the benefit of the creditors, has secured to them the money paid, instead of giving it into the hands of their needy and bankrupt debtor.

The eloquent counsel who closed the case for the petitioner urged upon the court the constitutional provision which prescribes compensation for private property taken for public use. As that provision .is in the Constitution, it cannot be and, I believe, never has been questioned in any court of the United States. It certainly has never been questioned, and has been often applied in this court, but I think it has no application in this case; because Mr. Meade released his claim for a stipulated consideration, and under a special contract, and his rights and the obligations of the United States are under and according to that contract, which necessarily precludes any resort to the constitutional provision. The learned counsel, referring to Mr. Meade’s claims, said, “these claims were included in the terms of the treaty for indemnification,” and he added, “I go one step further and say that the claims thus included in the treaty could not be got out of the treaty.” I so understand the law and the facts, and so did the ma--jority of this court in its former decision of this case, and, therefore, they held that Mr. Meade’s rights were under and according to that treaty, and that only.

This claim to the constitutional provision is rested on the assertion that the United States released Mr. Meade’s claim under their right of eminent domain. But the circumstances furnished no occasion and no opportunity for the exercise of that right. The release to Spain of the claims upon her of American citizens, was not a public necessity nor a public advantage; nor, as has been said, was it the means of, or incidental to, the cession of the Floridas; by it the United States gained, and sought to gain, nothing. And they paid the same price for the Floridas with as they would have paid without such release, and that inured in no way to their benefit. And their only action in the matter was, that at the request and for the benefit of the claimants, and with the assent of Spain, the United States paid the purchase money of the Floridas to such claimants instead of to Spain. And Mr. Meade’s claim was released to Spain, not under the right of eminent domain, or by any right inherent in the treaty-making power, but at his requirement and in execution of the authority given by him.

In his letter to Mr. Adams, of June 6, 1818, Mr. Meade, after referring to his claims on -Spain and the treaty then under negotiation, declares his reliance on his government to support his just claims, and concludes thus : being convinced that whenever such an event does take place, provision will be made for the claims of our citizens.” Thus claiming for bimself the provision that might be made for his fellow-citizens, and no other. And in his reply, Mr. Adams stated the intention of the government to provide for “just claims of many of its citizens,” and then added these words : “ among which every attention which may he proper will be shown to yours.” Thus placing Mr. Meade’s claims on the same ground as those of other claimants, and declaring expressly, what would have been a necessary implication from the circumstances and the relation of parties, that, in the negotiation between the two nations, it would be for the government of the United States to determine what action would be proper for it in regard to the individual claims of our citizens, in the course of a negotiation involving national interests also. And the President, as the petition shows, indorsed on Mr. Adams’s letter this direction as to Mr. Meade’s claim: “ His claims, with those of every other citizen, will be carefully attended to and provided for as far as the government may he able.” Thus declaring what was self-evident, that for him and for all, the degree or amount of redress attainable must depend on negotiation. And thus advised, Mr. Meade filed his claims of tort and contract, and invoked the interposition of his government, upon the terms stated to him.

I do not propose to reargue the law of this case, but only to consider the evidence relating to the facts alleged by the petitioner, and on which his counsel have rested his case.

First. It was contended for the petitioner that the United States assumed or became liable to pay Mr. Meade’s claim by reason of its liquidation between Spain and Mr. Meade, with the co-operation of the United States.

It is observable that this wa3 never claimed by Mr. Meade till after it was known that the treaty fund of five millions would pay but a percentage on the claims filed; and then, as now, it was not claimed on any express undertaking on the part of the United States, but only as an inference from facts in evidence, and the question is, whether that inference is the proper inference from the facts shewn.

The gist of the allegation is the co-operation of the United States in the liquidation of Mr. Meade’s claim between him and Spain ; and in reference to that the whole action of the United States consists of two facts: First. That our minister at Madrid, Mr. Erving, at Mr. Meade’s request aided him in his affairs with the Spanish government, and transmitted to the Spanish secretary of state Mr. Meade’s memorials to the King, and the manner of this is thus described by Mr. Meade in his memorial to Congress, (4 Am. St. P., 713:) “ He” (the memorialist) “ bad from tbe commencement of his difficulties invoked and obtained the good offices and active assistance of his country’s representative at the court of Madrid, and enjoyed the benefit of them throughout the whole of his toilsome and long-deferred solicitations for justice; but he availed himself of them merely to reenfore his own personal exertion to obtain a specific settlement between the Spanish government and himself, and by no means as committing the claim to any negotiation between the two governments on affairs of national import.” And of the transmission of the memorials he says, (lb., p. 705,) “ Having experienced throughout the whole affair the greatest inconvenience from the dilatory proceedings of the Spanish government, I presented in the month of December, 1818, a memorial to the King, backed by an official letter from Mr. Erving, urging the appoint-men, of two or three persons in the entire confidence of the King, to audit and settle my claims.”

The second fact is, that after the Spanish liquidation was made, Mr. Meade and Mr. Erving severally informed Mr. Adams of it, and he made a courteous reply to Mr. Meade. Mr. Meade in his letter to Mr. Adams, which enclosed certificates of the liquidation, wrote as follows : “ The perusal of these documents will, I trust, convince the President and yourself that the interference of the government has not been bestowed on a person unworthy of the high protection he has received.” And Mr. Adams in his reply .says : “ It gives me pleasure to offer you my congratulations upon the adjustment of your account with the Spanish government, and to assure you that this government feels not a little gratification in having at all contributed to the satisfactory result.”

Now every citizen in a foreign country is entitled to what Mr. Meade terms “ the good offices and active assistance of his country’s representative” there, who is the proper medium of communication between the citizen and the foreign government; and in rendering such aid and protection our government performed only its duty, and that, therefore, is to be taken as the intent and the only intent of all acts referable to it. And if the facts stated, viz., the action of Mr. Erving and the letter of Mr. Adams, can be accounted for by that duty of the government and the usual courtesy of diplomatic correspondence, then they cannot be referred to anything else, or used as the evidence of anything more. It never has been held that the attorney who in the performance of his legal duty files his client’s writ in court thereby assumes or becomes liable to pay the judgment recovered against the defendant. Yet the grounds for such an inference seem to me quite as strong as those for the inference claimed here.

But this ground of claim is not left to inference. Mr. Erving testifies that his services to Mr. Meade were rendered on the ground that he was an American citizen in a foreign country needing his official aid. After stating his own position as minister and Mr. Meade’s residence in Spain, Mr. Erving says as follows : “ In all my correspondence and communications with the said .Richard W. Meade I constantly considered and treated him as a citizen of the United States, and when he was unjustly imprisoned by an arbitrary act of the Spanish government I demanded his release, as well before as subsequent to the proceedings of Congress in that case, and after his release I transmitted sundry of his memorials to the secretary of state of the Spanish government demanding compensation for the damages which he had sustained by the aforesaid unjust and arbitrary imprisonment, as well as the liquidation of his other claims on that government.” Here Mr. Erving not only refers “ the good offices and active assistance” which he officially rendered to Mr. Meade to his American citizenship, but he adduces them as evidence of that citizenship, and Mi. Meade took the testimony to be so used before the American commissioners under the treaty of 1819. (P. 98, Record.)

And Mr. Meade himself states very emphatically in what intent “ the good offices” of his government were solicited, received and rendered. In his memorial to the American commissioners, (4 Am. St. P., 734, Rec., 74,) after stating that as the creditor of Spain he has never committed his claim to the management and discretion of the government any further than to invoke the interposition of its “ good offices,” he thus concludes : ‘‘ So that the entire agency of the American functionaries, as auxiliary to individual demands and resources of the creditor, was merely gratuitous and in the ordinary routine of diplomatic comity.”

That a citizen in a foreign country is entitled to “ the good offices and active assistance of the representative of his government” there, and that it is the duty of the government to render them, is of universal acknowledgment among all civilized nations. But probably never before were such services converted by the citizen who received them into a ground or evidence of a pecuniary claim against the government who rendered them.

Then the evidence shows that the United States in no way intervened in the litigation before the Spanish junta or commission, and was not called upon to do so by either of the parties to it. When the junta convened it notified Mr. Meade and Mm only to attend it. It specified a full bearing for bim, and no one else. It called on bim, and bim only, for proof, and Mr. Meade alone furnished the evidence and conducted the procedure in what he terms “ a laborious and minute investigation of six or seven months’ durationand when the liquidation was made, its certificate and authentication were given to him. And all this confirms and. verifies Mr. Adams’s official statement that “ the liquidation was made without the privity of this government,” (4 Am. St. P., 704;) and certainly this official statement of the Secretary of State of a matter of fact necessarily within his personal knowledge is entitled here to respect and credence; and if it is, then as there is no evidence that conflicts with it, and no fact that militates against it, I think it disproves the allegation that the liquidation of Mr. Meade’s claim against Spain was made with the co-operation of the United States.

Second. It is contended in behalf of the petitioner that the circumstances stated, viz., the extension of the time for the ratification of the treaty, and the liquidation of Mr. Meade’s claim between him and Spain, with such action and knowledge on the part of the United States as is shown in the evidence, removed Mr. Meade’s claim from the treaty, so that the United States had no right to release it.. But Mr. Meade, Spain, and the United States. all held that Mr. Meade’s claim remained in the treaty after and notwithstanding all the circumstances stated; and it would seem that as between them the fact should be, and necessarily is, fixed by their concurrence in it and action upon it. The purpose of filing Mr. Meade’s claim under the treaty was to secure a lien for its payment from the provisions of the treaty, and it is not obvious why the agreement as to its amount between him and Spain should forfeit the lien he had thus acquired, for it might be a means of furthering it, and the evidence shows that it was thus intended, and that the liquidation was made by Mr. Meade with the avowed purpose of presenting his liquidated claim under the treaty if that was ratified.

The Spanish commission or junta which made the liquidation, in their official report to the King, state as follows: “ The junta heard Mr. Meade, * * * * he expressing verbally to the junta that his desires were to have his claim settled in order to claim the amount from the government of the United States in case that the treaty pending between the two nations should be ratified.” At this time, May, 1819, no question had arisen as to the sufficiency of the treaty fund to pay in full the claims upon it. But after that question bad arisen, and in reference to it in June, 1820, Mr. Meade, in bis memorial to tbe Cortes, stated tbe liquidation of bis claim and tbe condition of tbe Spanish finances, and then said as follows : “ In consideration thereof Meade has determined to propose to tbe Spanish congress that if it should adopt the resolution of ratifying tbe treaty of cession of tbe territory of tbe Floridas to tbe American republic, it would keep in mind this debt, in order that, as being comprised in the stipulated indemnities, tbe payment of this sum should enter as a consideration with that preference which justice, tbe privileged nature of tbe demand, and its merit require, for which purpose it ought to be excluded from all pro rata payment, and that the total amount should be paid with interest from tbe date of tbe liquidation,” &c., &c. (Record, p. 5.)

Then, in October, 1820, when tbe Spanish Cortes was considering upon its assent to tbe ratification to tbe treaty, and as a preliminary to that, they sought to verify Mr. Meade’s statement in bis memorial, and to fix tbe fact that bis claim was included in tbe treaty; they inquired of tbe Spanish secretary of state and of our minister at Madrid, and they were informed by both of these officers that Mr. Meade’s claim was included in tbe treaty. (4 Am. St. P., 726, 727, and 728.) And on that understanding tbe Cortes assented to tbe ratification, and tbe King made it, and with tbe knowledge of all this our government accepted it and gave their own. Against facts like these I think it cannot be argued or asserted that tbe claim of Mr. Meade was removed from tbe treaty by tbe circumstances stated or any other.

After Spain bad ratified tbe treaty and tbe protracted negotiation by which tbe United States.bad labored to secure tbe treaty as it was signed bad thus been brought to a successful close, Mr. Meade, in bis memorial to tbe President dated February 8, 1821, claimed that tbe United States should pay him bis debt in full or alter the treaty by expunging from it tbe fifth renunciation and all provisions for our citizens, or else bis individual claim; and then be for tbe first time contended that bis claim was removed from tbe treaty by tbe circumstances I have considered. The United States did not accede to either of these propositions ; they did not by a payment in full prefer Mr. Meade to other claimants whose rights and equities were stronger than bis, or defeat tbe treaty and tbe public interests and tbe public faith involved in it, but ratified it, as Spain bad at last ratified it, as it was originally agreed and signed between them.

It was claimed on behalf of tbe petitioner that tbe liquidation removed Mr. Meade’s claim from tbe treaty, “except so far as to release Spain from all responsibility for its payment — sbe paying to the United States the original consideration agreed upon between them.” But so did the United States pay to Spain the original consideration agreed upon between thenú and all they would have paid had Mr. Meade’s claim been proved and satisfied under the treaty; and if the liquidation removed the claim from the treaty as to either party, it must be as to Spain, for she and she only was actor, both in the treaty and the liquidation, and was therefore chargeable with privity in both and its full legal consequences. And if the claim was removed from the treaty, then it would not be released by the treaty, and the United States would not be liable upon it at all, for their only connection with it was by the treaty, whereas Spain would remain liable on her liquidation, which was her free and voluntary act affirming her original indebtedness; and this, Mr. Moade claims, would be the consequence of removing his claim from the treaty, in his memorial to the President, dated February 8, 1821. ’

Third,. It is alleged in the petition as' follows : that “ the ratifica • tion of the said treaty by Spain was obtained on the assurance of the minister of the United States that the said claim, as allowed, would be paid by the United States, they receiving as an equivalent the abrogation of certain grants which had thereupon delayed its ratification.”

This allegation requires stringent evidence, for it is extreme. In substance it is this : that this important treaty between the nations, by which they mutually arranged territories large enough for kingdoms, and established their limits, redressed mutual wrongs, closed the angry dissensions of years, averted war, and secured peace that has now lasted half a century; that all this was conditioned by Spain on the difference to Mr. Meade between a payment pro rata and a payment in full.

Now, the evidence shows that the United States insisted, arid the Spanish government admitted, that after the inception of the negotiation of the treaty of cession no grants of lands in the Floridas could be made by Spain to individuals, because such grants would diminish or destroy the value of the contemplated cession to the United States. And Mr. Meade, in his first letter to Mr. Adams, of June 6, 1818, states his knowledge of this as follows : “ It has been insinuated to me that if I could procure and advance a further sum in cash, a cession of lands might be procured in either of the Floridas to cover the probable amount of said advance and my claims. No specific proposal has been made to me, or have I dared indeed to listen to any, till (lest) I should receive the approbation of the President on the subject, as I have been led to suppose that the government of the United States have required or said that no cession of lands made after a certain date would he admitted in case of the Floridas being ceded in sovereignty to the United States.” And this Mr. Adams confirms in his answer.

Then, it is certain on the evidence that the abrogation of all the grants was provided for in the terms of the treaty as it was signed, as an indispensable part of its consideration, and by words advisedly adopted and agreed upon for the purpose ; and this was formally declared in writing by the Spanish and American negotiators, and the French minister who acted in the negotiation ; and the evidence of this was sent to Mr. Forsyth, with the treaty signed, to exchange ratifications with the Spanish government; and as to the abrogation of grants he was instructed as follows : “You will explicitly declare that the United States have no compromise to make, and will listen to none.” And this was all of Mr. Forsyth’s authority on the subject. (4 Am. St. P., 650 to 660.) And in the protracted negotiations that the Spanish government interposed between the liquidation and its ratification of the treaty, it attempted to use the abrogation of the grants to gain something, not for Mr. Meade, but for Spanish claimants under the treaty of 1802, and then for the Spanish grantees of the abrogated grants, {lb., 703;) and this was peremptorily refused by our government, and the Spanish government was told by Mr. Forsyth, at Madrid, (lb., p. 695,) that he had no authority to make any stipulations; and by Mr. Adams, at Washington, that the United States could not stipulate new engagements as the price of obtaining the ratification of the old, (lb., p. 683 ;) and in this Spain acquiesced, and thereupon the ratifications were exchanged. (lb., 703.) And in all the negotiations between the two governments, which the evidence exhibits in full, there is not one-word connecting Mr. Meade’s claim or name with the abrogation of the grants, nor a particle of evidence of the alleged intent in his favor, on the part of the Spanish government, nor of the communication of any such intent to our government; and the first suggestion of it to them is the allegation of Hr. Meade, in his memorial to Congress, (4 Am. St. P., 732,) which he himself says (lb., p. 733) was not presented till after the treaty had been ratified by the Senate, and which the evidence shows was dated December 24, 1821, three days after such ratification.

And, moreover, Mr. Meade’s statement, and its only evidence, Mr. Guerra’s deposition, (4 Am. St. P., 727,) refer to the alleged intent of tbe Cortes in Mr. Meade’s favor, not as expressed in any vote or act of tbe Cortes, but only as tbe motive and inducement of its members in giving tbeir assent to tbe ratification of the treaty to their King. But tbe proceedings of a legislative body are not determined by tbe secret motives which actuate its members in giving tbeir votes, but by tbe official action of tbe collective body as shown and promulgated in its formal enactments ; and it is not claimed or suggested that tbe vote of tbe Cortes giving to tbe King their assent to tbe ratification, contained any condition or qualification or any reference to Mr. Meade; and tbe evidence makes it certain that the ratification by tbe King officially communicated to our government was of tbe treaty as it was signed, and without any qualification or reservation whatever; and so it was ratified by our government.

In bis memorial of February 6, 1821, addressed to tbe President and submitted by him to Congress, Mr. Meade argued bis case in extenso, and all be says as to the action of tbe Cortes is as follows : “ They ordered that my memorial should be united with tbe papers relative to tbe treaty and submitted to tbe King, in order to have it ascertained whether tbe American government bad consented to tbe introduction of my individual claim into tbe negotiation of tbe treaty, and if so, that tbe American government bad distinctly assumed upon itself tbe payment of my claim, and bad wholly exonerated Spain from it.” Now, the only fact stated here is that tbe Cortes, before giving tbeir assent to the ratification of tbe treaty, sought to ascertain that Mr. Meade’s claim was included in it, so that it would be paid under it, and tbe Spanish treasury exonerated from it; and the rest of Mr. Meade’s statement is referable to bis misapprehension, as the evidence shows that tbe Spanish Cortes by their committee sought tbeir information from Mr. Forsyth and tbe Spanish secretary of state, and that our government in no way acted on bis individual claim, and that in tbe negotiation of tbe treaty neither bis name nor that of any individual claimant was even mentioned. (4 Am, State Papers, 704.)

Then, as to tbe evidence of Mr. Forsyth’s assurances; and in considering them it is to be remembered that the only matter of pecuniary interest to tbe Cortes was that Mr. Meade’s claim was included in tbe treaty, because if it was, then Spain would be exonerated from it, and equally so whether it was paid under tbe treaty in full or fro rata, and tbe Spanish government claimed this, as Mr. Meade states in bis memorial to the President of February 8, 1821. (Record, p. 60.)

Now, one witness only testifies as to Mr. Forsyth’s assurances, Mr. Guerra, who, after stating that be and Mr. Isturiz were a committee of the Cortes, and waited on Mr. Forsyth, proceeds thus: “ and obtained from that gentleman the clear and distinct assurance that the debt due to Richard W. Meade would certainly be paid to him by the United States, if the treaty were ratified and the cessions above mentioned totally annulled.” This is all the evidence of Mr. Forsyth’s assurances, and it is given not as his words, but as Mr. Guerra’s conclusion from them, and it is observable that it does not refer to the Spanish liquidation, or any special provision for Mr. Meade, but only states as a consequence of the ratification of the treaty, and the abrogation of the grants the treaty provided for, that Mr. Meade’s claim would be paid under it by the United States, and this was the necessary consequence of Mr. Meade’s claim being included in the treaty. And in reference to his conversation with the gentlemen named, Mr. Forsyth says : “ The Cortes may have given them such a commission, and the conversation may have been held in consequence thereof. If it was, I have no recollection of it, and do not know that they were conversing with me officially, and certainly did not say more than that Mr. Meade’s claim was included in the treaty of 1819.” And six other members of the Cortes testify as to its understanding of Mr. For-syth’s assurances, and not one of them says more than that it was -understood Mr. Meade’s claim was included in the treaty; and four of the six expressly mention, as the claims of other American citizens •were.

But the point of the allegation is : a separate provision or preference for Mr. Meade outside of the treaty, founded on the assurances of Mr. Forsyth. As to this, Mr. Forsyth testifies as follows in the deposition before quoted from: “ The only conversation I distinctly recollect was held with Martinez de la Rosa, also a deputy of the Cortes and of the commission to whom was referred the treaty of 1819. Having ■heard by accident that an attempt was to be made to make a distinction, favorable to Mr. Meade, between his claim and the claims of other persons embraced in the treaty, I expressed my conviction to Mr. de la Rosa that the claim was just and was provided for in the treaty, but that it ought to be left to share the same fate as to its payment with the equally just claims of other citizens of the United ' States.” This, certaiuly, is entirely at variance with any idea of a special provision for Mr. Meade outside the treaty, for it places him within the treaty, to stand there as other claimants stood. And it went to the Cortes and the commission charged with the treaty as the authoritative declaration of our minister.

And it is certain that the Spanish Cortes and government had the treaty before them, and knew it included Mr. Meade’s claim and what provision it made for all elaims included in it. And they had also Mr. Forsyth’s credentials, and knew what his authority was, and that it was confined to the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty as it was signed, and that he had no authority to make any other compact, and that none could be made except by and with the advice of the Senate. And with this knowledge the Spanish government assented to and ratified the treaty as it was signed, and exchanged its ratifications with the United States.

And I think that as to the allegations so far considered, the evidence shows that Mr. Meade filed his claim, seeking the provision to be made by the treaty for all claimants under it. ' That he sought and made the liquidation of his claim with Spain for the purpose of presenting it for payment under the treaty. That after it was ascertained that the claims to be presented would exceed the fund provided by the treaty for their payment, he claimed first of Spain and then of the United States that his claim should be preferred above all others, and he be paid in full, while other claimants were paid only pro rata. This was not acceded to.

Then the evidence shows that Mr. Meade carried his claim before the commissioners under the treaty, and as its proof, offered the Spanish liquidation, which they rejected, and required of him the original evidence. ' '

This was the action of the commissioners, and not of the United States, who had no control over it and are not responsible for it, even if it were erroneous ; for, as declared by the Supreme Court, (1 Peters, 212, Comegas v. Vasse,) the jurisdiction of the commissioners was exclusive, and their judgment conclusive, and it was for them, and them only, to determine what effect comity required should be given to the decision of a foreign tribunal under a treaty which expressly required that the decision of all claims should be by an American tribunal which it constituted.

To this decision of the commissioners Mr. Meade objected, but he had anticipated it, for in his memorial to the President, dated February 8, 1821, before the appointment of any commissioners or the ratification of the treaty by the Senate, he refers to the action to be had on his claim under the provisions of the treaty, as follows : “It is to be re-examined and adjudicated over again by a new commission, which may not and probably will not be closed in a less period than three years, commencing from some undefined point of time hereafter, viz : the meeting of the commissioners in Washington, and which, if it he decided, as possibly it may, to investigate over again tbe merits and details of my claim, will have to invoke documentary evidence from tbe bureaus of a foreign country peculiarly tenacious of its archives.”

After tbe decision of tbe commissioners Mr. Meade waited a year, and then filed with the commissioners a specification of tbe evidence he wished to be demanded by them of the Spanish government, as the treaty required. The commissioners transmitted their demand to Mr. Adams, and he instructed Mr. Nelson, then appointed minister at Madrid, to make the necessary requisition on the Spanish government. This was done; but the evidence did not arrive before the expiration of the commission limited by the treaty, and Mr. Meade thus failed of a'hearing before them. This brings the case to the remaining allegations made in behalf of the petitioner.

It is claimed that the United States are legally bound to pay Mr. Meade’s claim, because of the delay in calling on Spain for its vouchers at the instance of the commissioners. The only evidence of this is the fact that Mr. Adams’s letter of instructions to Mr. Nelson was dated 13 th May, 1823, and.Mr. Nelson’s letter to the Spanish minister in Madrid was dated December 19, 1823. But this does not prove remissness in Mr. Nelson, or that his remissness was the reason the vouchers were not had in season. At the most it can only raise a presumption of that which is abundantly rebutted in the evidence. It is observable that this claim of remissness in Mr. Nelson was never made by Mr. Meade, and the reason for that is much more obvious than the reason why it is made now. The report of Mr. Everett, to which we have been referred by the counsel of the claimants, shows that when Mr. Nelson arrived off Cadiz the port was bockaded, and he could not enter it then, and did enter it when the blockade was raised, and Spain was at war, and her archives and records scattered through her cities. Mr. Meade’s personal and accurate knowledge of the circumstances of his case is not to be questioned, and he says in his memorial to Congress, January 10, 1825, (Am. St. P., 716:) “ The various circumstances and accidents that delayed Mr. Nelson's departure, and' after his departure, his arrival at Madrid, which he did not reach till December, 1823, are well known. Indeed, if his arrival had been in better season, it is not probable that his application could have availed to obtain the documents alone necessary to fulfil the rule of evidence laid down by the commissioners in the case of your memorialist, and after the documents had been procured there would have been wide gaps in the evidence to fill up, in the way of which obstacles of equal magnitude presented themselves.”

The fact stated by Mr. Everett, and the testimony of Mr. Meade, sufficiently rebut the presumption raised by the counsel for his representatives, as to the remissness of Mr. Nelson, without recurring to the rules of law that the government is not liable for the delinquencies of its officers, and that laches cannot be imputed to the sovereign.

Since the death of Mr. Meade, in 1828, another ground of claim has been founded by his representatives on the treaty made between the United States and Spain, 1834; and it is alleged that Spain was in default under the treaty of 1819, in not furnishing the documents called for in Mr. Nelson’s communication to the Spanish minister on December 19,1823, and that by the treaty of 1834 the United States released Spain from her liability, and thus became liable themselves to pay Mr. Meade’s claim.

The gist of this accusation is that Spain was in default, as alleged, under the treaty of 1819. Therefore it is necessary to determine what her obligation under that treaty was. Now, the obligation of Spain under the treaty was to furnish “ documents to be specified when demanded at the instance of the commissioners,” so that by the words of the treaty her obligation extended only to documents demanded at the instance of the commissoners and the record shows that the parties so construed and acted on the treaty. Mr. Forsyth, in his official letter to Mr. Adams of April 20, 1822, states his application to the Spanish secretary of state for papers relating to another claim, that of Mr. Prible, and he says as follows : “After stating the obligation of Spain under the treaty to deliver the papers when demanded at the instance of the commissioners, I desired to know if there could be any objection to furnishing such as I could specify in anticipation of the commissioners. He replied that by the treaty the commissioners were made the judges of what documents were necessary, and that this government could not know but by their decision what documents it was under the obligation to deliver. I stated to him that as a matter of right we could claim the documents when called for at the instance of the commissioners; but as a matter of accommodation we should be glad to receive them in the way proposed. He said he thought it was best to adhere strictly to what was stipulated ; it was the only way to avoid a great deal of unnecessary trouble.” And then Mr. Forsyth adds : “ From this conversation I consider it useless to make further efforts.” This shows, I think, clearly the claim of Spain that her obligation extended only to documents demanded at the instance of the commissioners, and the assent of the United States to that, and that documents could only be asked for, otherwise, as “ an accommodation.”

And such is the necessary effect of the words of treaty by the rule “ expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” which is as applicable to treaties between nations as to contracts between individuals; and though it has been claimed otherwise in Congress in this case, it certainly was never judicially held that where a party to a treaty or contract agreed to do a thing in a specified way, he was bound to do it in that way, and also in every and any other way.

The only demand made on Spain for documents at the instance of the commissioners was that transmitted to the Spanish secretary of state by Mr. Nelson, on the 19th December, 1823, and the commission exposed by its limitation in the treaty, on June 8, 1824, so that Spain had less than six months in which to perform the task required of her. What that was is shown by the record. .

The evidence shows that the Spanish government was called upon for the papers of eight other cases besides this, (C. C. Reports, 300, S., 3,) and ‘in this case alone the mere specification of papers by their titles fills nine printed pages of the record, and in many instances the specifications of the papers relating to an item of claim is thus concluded, “and all other papers relating to said claim.” And for many of the items of claim the call is for official papers in various offices specified, as thus: “all the documents and official papers in the offices of the intendant of Cadiz, the treasurer general, and of the minister of finance, from the year 1814 to the year 1819, on this subject.” Then another part of the call is for the papers and records in eight different legal proceedings or suits at law in different cities ; and again for the correspondence of the Spanish ministers and officials as to the claims specified, and for certificates of official transactions and of the facts, and of the Spanish law involved in them. Then the record shows that in the troubles of the country the public records had been removed from the capital, and were scattered to different cities, from which the Spanish government had to collect them to return them to the capital; and the Spanish minister, in his first reply to Mr. Nelson, refers to this fact, and says “ as soon as they arrive we will proceed to search for those which you demand ;” and in another reply to Mr. Nelson, he says : “Your penetration saved me the trouble of pointing out the absolute impossibility of collecting in a very short time the documents which are required, either on account of their extent in some of the said cases, or their great number in others, especially that of Mr. Richard W. Meade.” And Mr. Nelson, in bis report of these things to Mr. Adams, says “the Spanish government seems disposed to proceed with the calls made upon them for papers, and we may now be permitted to hope that most of the records which have been asked for will be supplied before a very distant day. From this calculation, I fear, we must exclude the papers in Meade’s ease, which being so voluminous, although entered upon by the Spanish officers apparently in good faith to supply them, seem to forbid any well-founded expectation that they can he very speedily furnished ; and much stronger and conclusive evidence against the alleged default in Spain is given by Mr. Meade, in his memorial last cited. He says “ the troubles and commotions by which the whole country had been convulsed and distracted in consequence of the re-establishment of the constitution in 1820, and the subsequent struggle to maintain it against the united forces of legitimacy at home and abroad, are too well known to require any illustration of the impediments they must necessarily have presented to such minute, diversified, and laborious researches into the public archives as would have been necessary in the single case of your memorialist. * * * * No reluctance whatever has been manifested by the Spanish authorities to comply with these calls for papers, which in fact have been attended to with as much alacrity and expedition as are at all consistent with the habits of business, or perhaps practicable in the existing state of affairs. The delay has been produced solely by imperious circumstances beyond any human control, and by the lateness of the hour at which the application has been made, itself the effect of the same imperious circumstances.”

And the declarations of Mr. Meade, the intestate, are evidence against his administrator who represents his estate here. And as nothing conflicts with them they are conclusive, and they prove against him that Spain was not in default under the treaty of 1819 in not furnishing the documents before the commission expired. And if there was no such default, then there could be no claim upon it, either in the United States or Mr. Meade or his representative, to be surrendered by the treaty of 1834.

It was alleged by the counsel for the petitioners that Spain had not furnished the documents called for by Mr. Nelson since the commission expired. But when the commission expired Spain’s obligation to furnish evidence ceased, for then there was nothing left for litigation or evidence under the treaty. All the claims proved within the time limited by the treaty had been adjudged and the fund distributed ; final judgment had been rendered by the tribunal constituted by the treaty, whose jurisdiction was exclusive and whose judgments were conclusive. From this final judgment there was no appeal, and there was no power or authority to reopen the litigation or recall the fund or revive the tribunal. As to all these the provisions of the treaty -weiejioncti officio. And Spain was under no obligation except by the treaty, for there is no rule of the law of nations which requires a nation to furnish evidence from her archives ,to all foreign litigants, or subjects her to compulsion if she does not do so. By the terms of the treaty the obligation of Spain was to furnish evidence for the adjustment of the claims included in the treaties and no others. And as the treaty contemplated and provided for the adjustment of all those claims by the commissioners and not otherwise, Spain was bound to furnish evidence for their adjustment and no other. And when that was expressly limited to three years her obligation could not be extended beyond that.

Besides this, I think the allegation that Spain has not furnished the evidence she was bound to furnish, since the commission expired, is not warranted by the evidence and is impugned by Mr. Meades own declaration. In his memorial last cited, (4 Am. St. P., 717,) of January 10, 1825, he says, “ Tour memorialist has recently received from Spain a large mass of documentary and other evidence in addition to what was laid before the commissioners.”

Now there is no evidence that Spain ever had in her possession all the documents which Mr. Meade specified to the commissioners; and there is nothing in the case to show or indicate that this “large mass of documentary and other evidence” which Mr. Meade received was not all the evidence Spain had in her possession when the call was made on her or thereafter; so that all, the evidence as to the alleged default of Spain in not furnishing evidence is Mr. Meade’s declarations, that Spain responded to the only call made upon her under the treaty “ with as much alacrity and expedition as was at all consistent with the habits of business,” and furnished afterwards “a large mass of documentary and other evidence.” And on this evidence it would appear that Spain had fulfilled and transcended all her treaty obligations.

On the whole case I am of opinion that the allegations of the petitioner are not proved, but are disproved by the evidence, and that he has no claim against the United States in law or equity, and that they are entitled to judgment.

Nott, J.,

dissenting:

I approach the consideration of this remarkable case with reluctance. Not only its great magnitude and grave questions of constitutional and international law, but a long train of complex and conflicting circumstances, difficult to he justly comprehended, combine to render it perplexing, so that of the eminent jurists and statesmen who have from time to time examined it, hardly two have placed their favorable views upon precisely the same facts; and even the learned counsel who now present it are not wholly agreed among themselves as to the principles upon which it should rest or the rules by which it should be decided.

For more than fifty years this claim has been pressed upon the attention of two governments. Its equity has never been denied. The American government has urged its payment upon Spain, and the Spanish government has alleged that its payment involved the honor of the United States; and each has admitted that it should be paid. It has received the commendation of the second Adams, of Monroe, Everett, Buchanan, Olay. It has received the favorable reports of three committees in the Senate and of ten committees in the House; and a bill providing for its payment has twice passed the former and once passed the .latter, but never so as to become an act of the same Congress. It also has been once tried by this court and divided the judges, who have given conflicting opinions of unusual learning, ability and research. Finally, the debt was due to an eminent merchant who always received from the two governments of America and Spain, distinguished, and, perhaps, unequalled consideration, and whose name is now honorably stamped, by illustrious public services, upon the greatest successes of our national arms. With all these great advantages and while a thousand unworthy claims have been successfully carried through Congress, this one remains unsettled to-day as when it was first presented to the government in 1808, having well nigh worn out two generations in the weary pursuit of tardy and uncertain justice. Whether that justice can be awarded by a court of law is the important question which I now with reluctance proceed to examine.

Without attempting to follow at length the learned and ingenious arguments that have been addressed to us, I propose to examine some of the grounds upon which the case is pressed and to point out the principles by which I think it must he considered and governed.

It is undoubtedly true, that when the citizen of a State is injured by a foreign power, he has no lawful means of redress of his own and must seek relief through his government and through it alone. When such cases are brought to the knowledge of a government there is placed upon it an obligation to pursue the remedy which justice to its own citizen demands and which the law of nations gives. Whether such claims arise from personal injuries, or whether they spring from contracts voluntarily accepted, there is still an obligation greater or less which requires the active aid and interposition of the government. If, moreover, for the sake of adjusting national difficulties, or from inability to contend with a more powerful antagonist, or from any other cause, the nation of the injured citizen shall not seek the redress it owes to him, there is said to be an obligation resting upon it to make good to him his losses. So, too, if there should be a class of cases which for the national welfare the government should abandon or formally renounce and agree to release to the offending party, there might be an obligation arising to make good the losses which individuals were compelled to bear for the benefit of the body politic. But these duties which a government owes to its citizens, I understand to be political and not legal obligations. Of them the judiciary has no jurisdiction, and they must be examined and adjudged by another tribunal, which in this country is Congress. When such a claim is brought before Congress they are the proper and exclusive judges. It is for them to determine whether the obligation existed — whether the course pursued by the government was warranted or excused by the circumstances — whether the claimant suffered damages, and whether he is entitled to relief. Political obligations resting upon governments are analogous to, though not identical with, moral obligations resting upon individuals, which ethical writers may point out and assert in strong language, but which courts, either of law or equity, cannot enforce.

There is also a class of injuries arising from acts on the part of government which resemble the misfeasance of an agent; and in this case the United States have been likened to an attorney who has given away his client’s case, wherein the compromise with the adverse party would stand, yet the attorney be held liable for the wrong done to his client. We have so frequently held that in this court a party can recover against the government only upon contract express or implied, that it is needless to repeat the reasoning or to cite the cases; it is enough to say that when the illustration points to the delinquency of an individual as the groundwork of the action, it only establishes the fact that the claimant cannot recover here. If in this case the United States were guilty of such acts as would render an ordinary agent or attorney, liable, the case is confessedly beyond our jurisdiction.

It is evident that this conclusion will remove from our contemplation a large mass of the evidence and much of the laborious arguments which have merited and received our attention. We may he of the opinion that the defendants were remiss in not pressing the claim, or delinquent in compromising it; that there was inexcusable delay in demanding' the original documents ; that the positive refusal of Spain to furnish them, or her neglect to furnish them promptly, constituted a new injury for which the defendants were bound to seek reparation; that this new claim was wrongfully renounced by the defendants under the convention of 1834, and yet be obliged to say that these were all political obligations, not to be enforced in a court of justice.

As much has been said about the convention of 1834, and one of the claimant’s counsel has even insisted that if ‘‘ the accounting at M.adrid extinguished the pre-existing accounts and created a new debt of Spain,” then that the right of the claimant to recover here under this convention of 1834 is “ certain, absolute, and incontestable,” I may remark that by that convention the United States simply became the trustee of Spanish “ inscriptions ” to the amount of twelve millions of rials vellón, which “inscriptions” 11 or the proceeds thereof,” they were bound to distribute “ among the claimants entitled thereto.” (8 Stat. L., p. 460, art. I.) The “ note or list of the claims of American citizens against the government of Spain” (art. IV,) cited by the learned counsel as fixing the liability of the United States, was something posterior to the payment of the fund and something which was intended merely for the information of Spain, and which it was optional with her to demand or not. The fund conveyed was also to be “ in one or several inscriptions, as preferfed by the government of the United States,” and it was either the “ inscriptions or the proceeds thereof ” which were to he distributed “ among the claimants entitled thereto ” in such manner as they, the United States, might “ deem just and equitable.” It may be that Mr. Meade, as one of those claimants, possessed a legal or equitable interest in the fund, but that interest cannot possibly be the object of this action, for the petition neither avers nor attempts .to aver that Mr. Meade ever sought to share in the proceeds of those “ inscriptions,” nor that the United States ever refused to award him the share to which he was entitled. Neither is there a particle of evidence to sustain such a declaration nor to raise such a presumption.

It has been argued, also, that these claims against a foreign government are property, and that the renunciations of a treaty are an appropriation of them by the government for public purposes; and Vattel is cited to prove that if they are taken by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, the full consideration must be paid.

These claims, which are neither authorized nor allowed by a foreign power, are something too shadowy in law to be termed property. Even if they arise from contracts they lack the essential element of “choses in action,” and possess no remedy which, in a legal sense, can be enforced.

The renunciations of a treaty ordinarily do not mean that the claims are taken by the one government to be given to the other, but simply that the former will refrain, as the representative of its citizens, from longer vexing the latter. If, in such cases, there is an injury suffered by the individual for the public good, it is not through the action of the government, but by its refusal to act; and of this injury, and of its merits and extent, the legislature is the only and the appropriate judge.

Yet I do not mean to say that where money has been paid by a foreign government under a treaty which in terms appropriates it to certain parties, there is not such an implied contract or equity as would uphold an action in this court. In such a case the suit would be an equitable proceeding against the fund, analogous to an action at law for money received by A to the use of B. Yet where there was no legal obligation to act, the government may prescribe by treaty or by statute the terms and conditions upon which the fund shall be distributed, and it may designate or appoint the tribunal to whose scrutiny and decision all claims shall be subjected. And this brings me to the real difficulty of this case — the rock upon which it has always struck.

If Mr. Meade was simply a claimant under the treaty of 1819, were not all his rights and remedies bound and limited by the treaty ? It created a special .tribunal to adjudicate the validity and the amount of all such claims; and it prescribed, in unmistakable terms, the means by which such claims should be investigated and established. Is not the decision of that special tribunal final ? Conceding that the commissioners erred in rejecting the claim; conceding that the award of the junta was as evidence final and conclusive upon all the parties ; conceding that the United States were estopped from questioning either the validity or the amount of this award ; still, if the commissioners had jurisdiction of the claim, can their errors be corrected in this court or by this action 1 In the case of the New England Mississippi Land Company (1C. Cls. B.., 135) it was held “ that money retained hy the government under an award of a tribunal specially clothed with jurisdiction of the subject-matter,” “ is in legal effect money paid under a judgmentand that an action in this court to recover it back “is not maintainable, because a judgment cannot be set aside in that way.” There are other cases in other courts to the same effect; but is there a single case reported in any of the books where it is held that the award of such a tribunal can be disregarded or its errors and mistakes corrected in a collateral action ? I am pursuaded that if there were such a case, the indefatigable counsel for the claimant would have brought it to the light and have pressed it upon our attention.

There is, however, the celebrated case of De Bode v. Regina, which occupied much of the attention of the English courts during a period of fourteen years, and which in a number of points, including its large amount, its unquestioned equity, and the long train of harassing mischances that fatally attended upon it, is remarkably like the present one.

The government of France had paid to that of Great Britain a sum in gross for spoliations of British subjects, and by the terms of the treaty France was released and Great Britain assumed the claims. There were “ commissioners of liquidation, arbitration, and award,” to whom all claimants were to prefer their claims. The Baron de Bode was one of these parties, and possessed an undoubtedly just and proper case, which these commissioners erroneously and improperly rejected. There was a balance remaining of the fund when the commission expired, which was paid over to the Lords of the Treasury; wherein the case differs from, and is stronger than the case at bar. The Baron de Bode sought to recover payment of his claim out of this balance; first by mandamus, and then by that proceeding which so closely resembles an action in this court, the petition of right. In these attempts he was utterly unsuccessful. Mr. Justice Coleridge, sitting at chambers, decided against him, (6 Dowling Pr. R., 787;) the Queen’s Bench decided against him, (8 Ad. and Ellis., Q. B., 208;) the Exchequer Chamber decided against him, (13 Ad. and Ellis, 364;) and finally the House of Lords decided against him, (3 Clarke, H. L. Cases, 469.) In all of these decisions the judges expressed sympathy and regret, but were firm in their conviction that the " suppliant,” as the party is termed in the petition of right, had no legal case. One of the learned counsel who have addressed us has met these decisions boldly, and indeed insists that “ the doctrine of the case of De Bode sustains this claim in all its 'parts''’ To sustain this assertion he argues that it was decided “ on this single ground, that the petition of right as a remedy, and as exhibited in the cause, could attach only to the specific fund provided by the treaty ; and as that specific fund was disposed of by act of Parliament, therefore the party could not have redress by this petition of right.”

The learned counsel then makes this distinction between the rule applied in the case of De Bode and the law applicable here. “ The single technical point made in the House of Lords was that the special fund was otherwise disposed of and could not be used. On the contrary, if the .petitioner in any case before this court makes out his right, it is no answer to his right to say that the appropriation, out of which he should have, been paid twenty years ago, has been expended or passed to a balance in the treasury. If he makes out his case, the court must award him damages, and he is to get the damages from a new fund appropriated by act of Congress to satisfy the judgments of this court.”

I do not think that this view of that case can be entertained. It is true that the case was encumbered with a number of perplexing circumstances, and that the language of some of. the decisions does not clearly set forth the point on which the case was finally determined. It is also true that the opinions of the judges are tinctured with the views of English lawyers touching the infallibility of Parliament, and that when they say that Parliament “ was unquestionably competent to dispose of all the money as it thought fit, and might have applied it to the public service of the year or given it for any other purpose, and so disappointed the just expectations of the claimants,” (Parke, Baron, 13 Ad. and Ellis, 384,) the reasoning is entirely inapplicable to the law of the United States. Yet, nevertheless, as the case of De Bode passed through the different courts these supernumerary questions and this unnecessary reasoning dropped off; -so that when it came to be decided in the House of Lords the decision was narrowed to this single point: “ That the suppliant has no claim except under the statute and in the mode 'pointed out by its provisions.’’’ (3 Clarke, H- L. Cases, p. 468.) The Lord Chief Baron does not indeed call the commission a tribunal, nor pronounce its awards judgments, as this court has done in the New England Mississippi Land Company’s case; but he does say that the act of Parliament, which, in that case, takes the place of the treaty in this, “meant to provide for the application of the whole fund, and leave no part to be dealt with except under its enactments. Any claimant, therefore, upon the fund must proceed according to the provisions of the statute, and has no other remedy.”

I am, therefore, unable to accept the deduction drawn by the learned counsel. If the premises are alike, the conclusions to be drawn from the two cases appear to me to be identical. Both substantially pursue the same remedy and seek the same relief. In the English case there was a fund received under a treaty, in which fund the “suppliant” bad possessed an interest, and. which had been paid into the national treasury. In this case there was a fund derived from and being the consideration of a treaty, in which the claimant possessed a like interest, and which has been paid away to other parties. The case of De Bode holds that the statute provided the “ suppliant” with a remedy, and failing in that, his remedy was exhausted. In other words, I think that if Mr. Meade was bound to go before the commission to establish his case, then, that it was a tribunal whose judgment, however erroneous, cannot be questioned collaterally or corrected in this court, and that the ease of De Bode is an authority in point and fatal to a recovery here.

Since I arrived at this conclusion my attention also has been called to the case of Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Peters, 212, a case which seems to have escaped the research of all the learned counsel, who on this and former trials have presented the interests of the defendants with ability and care. There the Supreme Court reviewed this article of the treaty. The point was not necessarily before the court, but the opinion of Mr. Justice Story is unmistakable and clear. He says :

“ The object of the treaty was to invest the commissioners with full power and authority to receive, examine, and decide upon the amount and validity of the asserted claims upon Spain for damages and injuries. Their decision within the scope of this authority is conclusive and final. If they pronounce the claim valid or invalid — if they ascertain the amount, their award in the premises is not re-examinable. The parties must abide by it as the decree of a competent tribunal of exclusive jurisdiction. A rejected claim cannot be brought again under review in any judicial tribunal; an amount once fixed is a final ascertainment of the damages or injury. This is the obvious purport of the language of the treaty.”

I now proceed to examine the case under the principles by which I think it should be considered and decided.

The treaty of 1819, while it is an instrument for the adjustment of international differences, is something more, being for all intents and purposes a grant or conveyance of an estate. With the political obligations we have nothing to do; but with the legal obligations growing out of this bargain and sale, I perceive no reason why we may not deal. The illustration of the ease, to my mind, as between individuals is not that of an agent neglecting the interests of his principal; not that of an attorney sacrificing the rights of his client; not that of a creditor creating a fund for his debtors, but that of an estate conveyed,, subject to an encumbrance. 'It is perfectly well settled that where.a man makes a deed subject to a mortgage, which the grantee assumes, the latter cannot question either its 'validity or its amount, and the courts even have gone so far as to hold that if the mortgage is. tainted with usury, and by statute declared to be absolutely void, it does not lie in the mouth of the grantee to make that objection. Post v. Dart, 8 Paige R., 641. In this case it is not open to dispute, but that Spain 'sold the land subject to the encumbrance; the question is, “Have the United States performed their covenant ? Have they complied with the condition ? ”

A majority of this court on the former trial answered that they had; and that all which they were bound to do was to establish the com-. mission provided for by the treaty and to pay the claims which it decided to be valid. I am not satisfied with the reasoning.

In the first place, I am not satisfied with the assumption that the rule1 of the municipal law, which prevents a written instrument from being waived by parol, has a place in the law of nations. In this instance, the treaty had hardly left the country when Mr. Adams gave notice to the Spanish minister that it must be understood to mean something entirely different from its text. The difference, too, was material and not formal; for the treaty provided that all private grants made after a certain day by Spain should be void, and that all before that day should be valid; and the United States sought to change the terms of the treaty by an ‘‘ understanding,'’ and by a reference to what was said during its negotiation. If the treaty had been ratified by Spain after receiving this notice without revoking these private grants, would the United States have been bound by its terms ? If the three Spanish grantees had come to this country and claimed their grants by the very letter of the treaty, would the United States have acknowledged their legality ? Mr. Adams has answered explicitly that they would not.

But passing this question as to the law of nations, how does the - case stand under the municipal law? In 1819, when the agreement was executed by the one party and bears date, there were certain claims existing against the other party of which neither the validity nor the amount was established nor acknowledged. It was therefore agreed that there should be a special tribunal to examine the claims and to establish their validity and amount. Mr. Meade’s claim was one of those contemplated by the treaty and by the parties. It was not established; it was not liquidated; it was not even acknowledged. A large part of it was for personal injuries unlawfully inflicted by the Spanish government, and the true valué thereof was necessarily a matter of opinion, and until fixed by a verdict could not be estimated or known. But the agreement was not executed by Spain, witbin the ■time appointed, and became, in the words of the American minister, as if it had never been made.” Then Mr. Meade did what he undoubtedly had a right to do; he surrendered his various former claims to Spain and acquired a new claim which embraced and consolidated in a single amount the substance of his contracts with the Spanish government, his damages for personal wrongs, and an entirely new element or item, being interest on the first-mentioned items down to the date of the liquidation. It is at this point that this dilemma seems to have presented itself: If there was a novation, did not that remove the claim from the benefits of the treaty 1 And if there was not a novation, then was not the claim to be established in the manner prescribed by the treaty ? And it is at this point that the counsel for the claimant have insisted that there was no novation, and that if there was, the defendants would still be liable by their acts under the convention of 1834. I am compelled to dissent from both of these conclusions.

The proceedings of the Spanish junta, be they liquidation, novation, or award, entirely changed the claim of Mr. Meade in every leading characteristic, in time, in form, and in amount. The evidences of debt were not only surrendered but •'cancelledthe vouchers which he gave up were carried into the financial department of the government ; the interest which had accumulated was allowed to him; the personal cause of action was fixed; and finally all of these were compounded, and merged in one new amount, and a new evidence of debt given and accepted therefor. No court in the world would ever allow such a transaction-to be reopened. When, therefore, in August, 1820, the negotiation for the grant of the Floridas was renewed, there was a new element not provided for by the agreement. If this new claim was to be added to those enumerated in the treaty, the United States might have something more to pay as the consideration of the grant; and if, on the contrary, the claims of Mr. Meade were not to be included thus, they being merged and lost in a new debt, then the United States might have something less to pay. Now, when through the oversight of two individuals such a case comes into a court of justice, it is always a difficult and painful task to decide upon whom the loss shall fall; but when it can be shown that the parties themselves anticipated and provided for the contingency, then such evidence is admissible, not for the purpose of varying or explaining the written instrument, but to provide for a new matter which it did not provide for, and to show the construction which they themselves agreed to place upon it.

That evidence establishes certain facts which are not a subject of dispute. The royal commission, or junta, was instituted at the request of the United States, given before the signature of the treaty, and was composed of officers of the highest rank and position, viz : “Don Bruno Vallarino, minister of the Council of Indies; Don José Vazquez Ballasteros, fiscal of the Council of Finance ; the Marquis de las Hormazas, deacon minister of the comptrollers-general department ; and Don Juan Florin, clerk of the secretary’s office, finance department.”

The junta were, “ as special commissioners, invested with full powers to adjust and settle the several claims of the petitioner,” and “ to settle the compensation to which he may be entitled for losses and personal suffering.”

The principle upon which they proceeded is stated by themselves, thus: From the very beginning the junta thought that the business was of a mercantile nature, by itself and by the quality of the claimant, who was publicly known as a foreign merchant. They took into their consideration, as they ought, the supplies from which the claims proceeded, the circumstances under which he furnished them, the incalculable benefits they produced to the Spanish government, and what misfortunes these acts of beneficence had brought upon the dispenser of them, who, far from that satisfaction of acknowledgment and gratitude which he ought to have received, from accidents foreign to the royal mind of your majesty, not only has been deprived of a great part of his capital and interest, but he has suffered many ■ other losses, insults, and personal injuries which aggravate the wrongs of which he complains. With such precedents before them, the junta recurred to the principles of justice, equity, and policy, according to the character of their commission, and they proposed to determine this business accordingly, clearing, simplifying, and reducing the matter which had been the object of their greatest attention and the most extraordinary pains. They could not, therefore, lose sight of the principle of loss, of gain, and damage occasioned thereby, &e., on which Mr. Meade founded his claims. Besides the moral reason of these principles, they are acknowledged and have been adopted in the laws of all civilized nations.”

They performed their work with extraordinary particularity and care. On the 30th September they made a first report upon ufowteen claims presented by Mr. Meade,” which was referred back to them to “ consider and report about the justice of crediting interest in debts originating in contracts in which such interest was not expressly stipulated, and on the effect which such a precedent might produce.” On the 15th November they made a second report, giving their reasons for allowing interest. On the 3d January, 1820, the whole subject was referred hack to them because, as the order states, “ his Majesty cannot help observing that there is wanting in the report the ascertaining of the dates of many payments made to Mr. Meade; and this being an essential and indispensable requisite in liquidating accounts, and as there is no reason why this may not be done, when the public offices in which the payments were executed exist, his Majesty has determined that the whole body of documents shall be sent to your excellency in order that through the office of liquidation of supplies, and with the assistance-of Mr. Meade, a settlement may he made with all exactitude and despatch, subdivided into as many parts as there have been contracts ; that at the bottom of each of these, the delivery of the articles, dates of said delivery, amount of hills given, with their dates and the date of each payment, shall be expressed with all clearness and distinction, without omitting to mention the premiums or profits that were offered, and whether they have been paid or not; in short, everything that may contribute to fix a true adjustment and settlement must be therein expressed. It is the wish of his Majesty that the personal claims of Mr. Meade shall not, under any consideration whatever, be mixed with his claims as an agent for other persons, who, perhaps, are not so much entitled as he is to those considerations which are due to him for the important services which he has rendered. The King also wishes that no means or fatigue may be spared in the immediate despatch of this affair to avoid damages and losses, and that it may be decided according to justice.”

On the 9th May an order appears to have been made which states that “his Majesty having taken again into his consideration the whole matter, together with the report sent from the general comptroller’s department, upon the last reclamations of Mr. Meade, submitted to him, has been pleased to approve the liquidation of his credits against the royal finance as adjusted and settled by the royal junta appointed for that purpose, and to order that said junta shall extend the proper document thereof, and send it to this department for the sanction of his Majesty and for the other correspondent purposes necessary for the security of the interests of the nation. That respecting the five sums adjudicated for damages and personal injuries, they shall try to reduce them as much as possible in favor of the royal finances, compromising on this point with. Mr. Meade, and that the document which the junta shall make out must be couched in general t.erms, without making any mention about the particular mode of payment.”

Finally, on the 17th May, 1820, the junta made this last report:

“And, lastly, we do hereby certify that in compliance with the above-mentioned order of his Majesty, and having employed on our part all the means that prudence could suggest, and after holding several conferences with the concerned, we have compromised the matter, and agreed that the eight million five hundred thousand reals for damages and personal injuries claimed by him according to his reclamations shall be reduced to five million four hundred sixty-one thousand and five hundred reals vellón, making the sum total due to Mr. Meade for his own claims and for those of the persons he represents, nine millions eight hundred twenty-three thousand seventy-two reals and eleven maravedís, which amount he must receive from the royal finance for all his claims to principal and interest, (the latter calculated down to the date of the liquidation,) and for the damages and pergonal injuries above mentioned.

This report was transmitted to the minister of finance on the same day, in a letter which stated that “the junta have done everything in their power to settle and adjust said damages in the manner which they have thought most advantageous to the interests of the royal finance, before proceeding to extend said document, and after several official notes passed on the subject, and after having held repeated conferences with Mr. Meade, his reclamations have been fixed and reduced to the sum expressed in this document. It having been out of the power of the junta to obtain any further deduction, they have extended the document- in those terms which they hope will meet the views of his Majesty; the best terms they have been able to obtain being without any precedent to guide them on the occasion. We enclose your excellency said document, and likewise the original documents of the claims of Mr. Meade, in order that your excellency may give them the proper direction, and cause them to be respectively cancelled. Wishing to regulate our operations according to the will of his Majesty, please to inform the junta if the terms of the document and all the proceedings are correct and meet the approbation of his Majesty.”

These reports of the junta were accompanied by what were termed “plans,” showing with scrupulous minuteness each item allowed, whether of principal or interest. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the 19th May the King of Spain was “pleased to approve this liquidation.” Nor that on the 21st May the minister of finance transmitted to Mr. Meade the award of the junta with an official note, in which he said: “ The junta gave in their award, and consulted his Majesty on the subject, who having been pleased to approve thereof and adopt the same, the said junta has extended, in legal form, a certificate of the entire credit due to you by the nation, the sum of which amounts to Itv. 9,823,072 1 mrs., in the terms and for the reasons therein specified, which document, with his Majesty’s approbation thereunto annexed, and certified by me, I herewith transmit to you by his royal order, for your security, and for whatsoever other purpose or object conducive to your interest. • God preserve your life many years.”

It is proper here to say that the vouchers which passed from Mr. Meade, to be transmitted to the finance department and cancelled, did not come to the possession of Spain through the hands of the American minister, as has been assumed in some of the arguments, but were handed by Mr. Meade directly to the president of the junta; and I am also satisfied that after the signature of the treaty the United States took no part in procuring this liquidation of the claim. Yet, the thing was not done in a corner; for both of the parties immediately notified the United States, the Spanish government through the American minister, and Mr. Meade through the Secretary of State. Both of these officers replied, as cited in the opinion of my brother, the Chief Justice.

The evidence next shows that Mr. Meade endeavored to collect this new and established claim from Spain, and that on the 20th June, 1820, he addressed a memorial to the Cortes, in which he says : “ It is only necessary to state that at last, after innumerable steps adopted by him, he has been able to obtain from the government a liquidation of his demands, from which it results that the national finances are indebted to him in the sum of 9,823,072 reals of vellón, as more fully appears by the document whieh, with the approbation and by the order of his Majesty, has been delivered to him as a security by the minister of finance.” The memorial then states that “ Meade has determined to propose to the Spanish congress that if it should adopt the resolution of ratifying the treaty of cession of the territory of the Floridas to the American republic, it would keep in mind this debt in order that, as being comprised in the stipulated indemnities, the payment of this sum should enter as a condition, with that preference which justice, the privileged nature of the demand, and its merit require, for which purpose it ought to be excluded from all fro rata. But in case the ratification should not take place, and this agreement should not he made, it is then indispensably necessary that Congress should issue a corresponding decree in order that the government may pay this obligation by the national treasury.”

The Spanish Cortes referred this memorial to the committee charged with the consideration of the treaty, and received the assurances of the American minister “ that the debt due to Bichard W. Meade would certainly be paid to him by the United States if the treaty was ratified by the Spanish government” and “the large cessions made to the Duke of Alagon, Count Punon Rostro and Mr. Yargas” were totally annulled.” Mr. Forsyth did not understand that the members who waited upon him were a committee of the Cortes, and he did not report the affair to his government, but he has been careful to say : I wish it to be clearly understood that I do not question the accuracy of Joseph Moreno Guerra’s statement further than relates to my conversation with him and Yturis as a committee from the Cortes.”

On the faith of these assurances Spain did two things : first, she ratified the treaty of cession and thereby conveyed the Floridas to the United States. But, second, she went beyond the terms of the treaty and annulled the three large grants made to Spanish citizens. The leading and only consideration operating upon the Cortes for this last act was the agreement that the claim of Richard W. Meade should be paid.

If through the mistake of the American minister this agreement or understanding on the part of Spain had not been communicated to the United States before their final acceptance of the treaty as modified by the acts of the Cortes, it might be an embarrassing question whether the defendants are bound and estopped by the acquiescence and assurances of their agent, they being in ignorance of the belief in which Spain acted. But as if to provide for that difficulty, the memorial of Mr. Meade, addressed to the President on the 8th February, 1821, expressly said: “As soon as its definitive and official recognition, in the form of the certificate just mentioned, was communicated to me by the Minister of Finance, I petitioned the Cortes to order its immediate payment, and to designate the mode of payment. I could obtain no definitive resolution from the Cortes until the 5th October last, the day they decided in favor of ratifying the treaty for the cession of the Floridas to the United States, upon which occasion they ordered that my memorial should be united with the papers relative to the treaty, and submitted to the King, in order to have it ascertained whether the American government had consented to the introduction of my individual claim into tbe negotiations on the treaty; and, if so, that the American government had distinctly assumed upon itself the payment of my claim, and had wholly exonerated Spain from it; but if it should he found that my case had not been taken into view by the negotiators, and was not distinctly understood as embraced in the treaty stipulations, they, in that case, decreed the immediate payment of the debt by the Spanish government. Upon this reference from the Cortes the Spanish minister of state pronounced an unequivocal opinion that the debt had been distinctly and specifically assumed by the United States in exoneration of Spain, or would be so upon the exchange of ratifications; consequently I was referred to the eventual ratification of the treaty for the ultimate satisfaction of my claim.”

This memorial was transmitted to the Senate on the 14th February, 1S21, by a special message of President Monroe. The notice was therefore brought home to the treaty-makingpower of the government as completely as such a notice could be, and with this notice before them the President and Senate accepted the cession of the Floridas.

The case, as between Spain and the United States, was concisely, but with admirable clearness and effect, summed up by the Spanish minister, Don Fivas y Salmon, in his letter to the Secretary of State, April 15, 1823, while the Spanish claims were still before the commission :

This debt is, in truth, perhaps, the only one that has been solemnly acknowledged by his Catholic Majesty. It was done at the earnest solicitation of the minister of the United States at Madrid, and its final liquidation and acknowledgment took place at a time and under circumstances that cannot for one single moment authorize the slightest doubt as to its validity and amount.

“ The amount of the debt was laid before both governments during the negotiation. The liquidation of it could only be effected by the parties interested in the contracts and the wrongs and damages it claimed compensation for; and the ascertaining the precise sum due appeared to be a subject of equal interest to both governments. It was at last thus represented and earnestly insisted on by the American government both prior and subsequent to the date of the treaty, and his Catholic Majesty acceded to the wishes of the American government, and, anxious that there should be no further cause of complaint, selected four counsellors from distant tribunals, and instructed them to examine in the most scrupulous and minute manner into all the circumstances attending on so complicated an account, and which required all the knowledge and practical information of the Spanish laws and commercial rales of the nation to be enabled to form a correct view of the whole transaction. No affair of the kind ever underwent a more particular and thorough investigation, not only by the commissioners appointed for that purpose, but subsequently by the Treasurer General and the Comptroller General’s department and the Minister of Finance, and it finally received the full sanction of his Majesty himself.

“Under such circumstances, his Majesty feels that he cannot view with indifference or remain silent when it is attempted to invalidate so solemn an act. The Spanish nation was most certainly responsible for the full sum acknowledged due. The government of the United States, by the subsequent ratification of the treaty, assumed and took on itself this debt, in virtue of the fifth renunciation contained in the eleventh article, with a perfect knowledge of its amount, which had been officially communicated long prior to the conclusion of the treaty to the minister in Madrid, for the information of his government, by the Secretary of State of his Majesty, and most certainly, under' all these circumstances, it was not to be expected that any further information would be required on this subject.

“ There cannot exist a doubt that if the treaty of 22d February had not been concluded that Mr. Meade would have received from the Spanish nation the full amount of his debt. And his Majesty cannot perceive the justice of the commissioners in first attempting to disavow the debt in toto, as not included in the treaty, and much less would his Majesty have supposed that so solemn an act of his government— an act of concession which was founded in a great measure on the interposition of the American cabinet, and which was done in the most perfect good faith — would have been questioned by the agents of the American government.”

In this communication the Spanish minister refers to the treaty and insists that the claim was included in the fifth renunciation. The members of the Cortes who testify to the understanding in which that body assented to the ratification, also use the word “ treaty,” and speak of an assurance that the claim should be considered within the benefits the “ treaty.” Hence, it may be said that if the Cortes understood the claim to be merely within the treaty, they must also have understood that it would be examined and adjudicated in the manner prescribed by the treaty. Two very plain answers may be given to this inference.

In the first place, the witnesses manifestly refer to the treaty as a deed of cession, and say in the plainest and most positive terms, that the Cortes were assured and believed that this claim would be paid by the United States if the three 'private grants were annulled by Spain; and they most positively deny that the Cortes would have annulled those grants, if it had been for one moment supposed that this government would not have paid the claim without hindrance or evasion.

In the second place, if it be assumed that this was indeed the extent of the obligation, and that all which the United States had to do was to submit this claim to their own commission and pay it when the commission so decreed, the fact still will remain that the United States did not perform even this duty; for the claim, of 1820 never was submitted to the commission by the government, and the claim which the commissioners rejected was the old claim of 1819.

When this claim of 1820 came before the commission it was evident enough to the commissioners that they had no jurisdiction. The president of the commission was an experienced judge and he quickly apprehended the fact, though his opinion does not state it with desirable clearness. It was not for the commissioners to pass upon the subsequent agreement nor to do anything beside adjudicating the claims specifically enumerated in the treaty. Accordingly President White says:

“ To bring this claim within this treaty it must b.e shown to have existed before the date of the treaty. If it did exist before the treaty, and is one embraced within it, then the parties have, by mutual consent, provided for the establishment of a tribunal, whose duty it is to examine the validity, as well as the amount, of the claim; but if we admit this evidence, then Spain herself through her own officers, is still to adjudge the validity and full amount of the claim; and the commissioners have nothing to do but follow on, and, for form’s sake, reallow the claim, the validity and extent of which have been already ascertained.

And his meaning is further illustrated when analyzing the award of the junta.

“Attend to its contents” he says; “ some of the items possibly grew out of contracts, either express or implied; others undoubtedly out of tort. That of the imprisonment of Mr. Meade certainly had no existence as a contract until the time of this award, after the date of the treaty. If we view that item as existing in the light of contract, there is an end of that matter, because it must have been tort until merged in the award or judgment; and then the judgment being the only evidence of the contract, the contract and the evidence of it are one and the same thing; both too late to he compensated or renounced under this treaty.”

The commissioners therefore held that they could not entertain this claim of Mr. Meade, but they determined evidently to wink at the fact that the original claims were merged in and extinguished by “ the award or judgment,” as they themselves call it, and to allow Mr. Meade to exhume and prove them if he could.

But the error of this course did not lie with the commissioners. When the executive officers of the government found that the grant of the Floridas had been made by Spain upon the express assurance and with the express understanding that this claim of an American citizen, adjudicated with extraordinary care at the instance and with the approval of his government, was to take the place of one which had existed at the date of the treaty, but which had been extinguished before its ratification, and was to be considered as a part of the consideration for making the cession and annulling the private grants, then the State Department should have withdrawn it from the commissioners, and eventually should have allowed this award of the Spanish commission and the several awards of the American commission to participate equally in the common fund. That the government paid away the money with which they might have satisfied this claim is no concern of the claimant and was no concern of Spain. The chief and mortifying fact remains that the United States have not legally discharged the obligation which they assumed toward one of their own citizens, and have not honorably performed the agreement into which they entered with a foreign power.

Such, I think, was the law as between the United States and Spain, and such was the ground upon which I was disposed to rest the case. But further reflection has convinced me that an additional principle must be applied as between the United States and one of their own citizens, for reasons which I now proceed to state.

I assume the law to be as asserted by the defendants’ Secretary of State in 1821, and as claimed by their solicitor to day, viz :

“ The claimant by contract cannot resort to the interposition of his own government to obtain from the other satisfaction for his claims to the same extent as the claimant from wrong. The government of the claimant by contract can interpose in his behalf only by its good offices, and cannot, as the memorial states, press to the extent of reprisals for satisfaction of the claim. It has no right to interpose at all without the solicitation of the claimant himself, who, having staked his interest upon his own confidence in the government with which he contracts, may properly abide by the result of that confidence without calling upon his country to make itself a party to the demand. But if he does appeal to his own government for that adventitious aid to which other contractors with the same party and on the same security cannot resort, he thereby voluntarily makes his claim a subject of negotiation and of those compromises in which all national adjustments of individual claims must and do always consist.”

I also assume as a settled principle of international law that one nation has power to renounce or release the claims of its citizens upon a foreign government, and that when they are thus renounced or released the latter will be discharged from all obligations respecting them; or, as was said by Baron Parke in the case of De Bode, (13 Ad. and Ellis, 2 B. R., p. 383,) “ every subject is bound by the treaty of his sovereign just as if he had been a party to it.”

Under these rules and from the facts established in the ca¡se I draw these conclusions.

Before the 22d August, 1819, when the right of Spain to ratify the treaty ceased and the minister of the United States declared that all causes of difference and dispute would ‘‘stand in the same situation as if that convention had never been made,” Mr. Meade had submitted his various claims to the direction and control of the defendants, and the defendants had afforded him their aid and were invested with authority to compromise or adjust these claims in such way and upon such terms as to them might seem best.

After the 22d August, 1819, and before the ratification of the treaty by Spain, Mr. Meade, without the aid or interposition of the defendants, but with their knowledge and assent, prosecuted his various claims in a Spanish tribunal and procured therein a decree, judgment, or award, final and conclusive as against Spain, and forming as high an evidence of indebtedness as could be furnished under the laws and customs of that nation.

By this decree, judgment, or award, Mr. Meade ceased to be a claimant and became a CREDITOR of Spain. His previous unacknowledged claims which, as against a government, were not even choses in action, became merged and lost in the award of the Spanish junta, which was as much property as a treasury bond, or any of the national evidences of debts which are sold in the markets of the world.

By the 5th renunciation of the 9th article of the treaty of 1819, as construed, by both Spain and the United States, this property was taken from its owner against his wishes and without his consent, and was paid by the defendants to Spain as a part of the price and con'sideration given for the Floridas, and as the sole consideration for the annulment of the private grants to Spanish citizens. And it was taken by the defendants with full knowledge that Mr. Meade had ceased to be a claimant upon Spain, and that he regarded this evidence of debt as property of the full value which it professed to bear.

The defendants have never paid for this property nor afforded the •means of procuring yayment. The commission established by the 11th article of the treaty had jurisdiction only to establish the validity and amount of claims against Spain existing prior to the 22d February, 1819, and had no jurisdiction to award the value of property taken by the defendants on the 19 th February, 1821; and the award made by the commissioners against Mr. Meade was and purported to be an award on the Spanish claims which he no longer presented or owned, and was not and did not purport to be an award against his claim upon the defendants for the private property which they had taken for public uses.

The property of Mr. Meade was transferred by the 9th article of the treaty, not because the article in terms extended to the property, but because the article was thus construed by both Spain and the United States. The claim of Mr. Meade was not embraced by the 11th article because that article in terms related to other claims, and neither Spain nor Mr. Meade ever thus construed it, or consented to such construction.

The naked claims of American citizens against foreign governments, unestablished and unacknowledged, the government may renounce with or without consideration, and it can be held liable only for the consideration it receives and in the manner provided by treaty or by statute. But the property of an American citizen, whether it consists of material objects, or whether it be only an incorporeal evidence of debt, can be taken from him only upon the condition prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, and that condition is, that he shall receive just compensation.

The property of Bichard W. Meade was taken by the defendants without his consent and against his request; his claim has been referred specially by the Congress of the nation to this court that justice may be done, and I think judgment should be given for the claimant.

This case now goes off upon the ground of the decision of the commissioners under the treaty, and for the reason that it falls within the celebrated rule of Lord Chief Justice DeGray, in the Duchess of Kingston case. It Were easy to show that that rule has never been extended beyond the precise subject-matter, and that court after court have regarded it, not as a defence to the merits, but as a defence shutting out the merits, and have repeated the old comment of Coke, that estoppels are odious and not to be favored in law. In this case the same subject-matter, I think, was never brought before the commissioners, hut an essentially different claim, which they properly rejected.

But apart from that affirmative view of the legal question, I think that the defence is not presented here. The case comes back to us from Congress. If it had been referred in the ordinary routine I should say that Congrees had waived no legal defence. But it comes back to us by the special action of Congress, and its history was known then to Congress as fully as to the members of this court. For forty years it has been written and rewritten upon the journals of Congress. Its evidence lies all within the public records of the state papers printed by the will of Congress. It has been again and again investigated by the committees of Congress. There never was a case of which Congress had so full, and accurate, and thorough a knowledge. Nay, more than this, Congress had before them the decision of this court, dismissing the case upon this very ground. Must we say that the supreme council of this great nation, which established this court for great and beneficient ends of justice, has specially waived the former judgment of the court, and specially re-referred the ease, only that the court may repeat its former decision, and dismiss it upon a technical ground ? Could it have been the intention of Congress to send back such a case so thoroughly known, so favorably regarded, in order that it should not be heard upon its merits ? I cannot help thinking that the court are interposing a defence which the defendants have withdrawn. (See case, ante.)