The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-29 00:00:00

AMERICAN NEWS

MOST IMPORTANT FROM AMERICA.
LIVERPOOL, TUESDAY MORNING,
THREE O'CLOCK.
By the arrival of the New York packet-ship
Independence, Captain Nye, we have advices
from that city to the Sth instant inclusive. This
arrival furnishes us with President Tyler's Ad-
dress—a most important document as regards

this country :-
THE PRESIDENT'S
MESSAGE.

To THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF
THE UNITED STATES.
In coming together, fellow-citizens, to enter again
upon the discharge of the duties with which the people
have charged us, severally, we find great occasion to re-
joice in the general prosperity of the country. We are in
the enjoymentaif all the blessings of civil and religious
liberty, with unexampled means of education, knowledge,
and improvement. Through the year which is now
drawing to a close, peace has been in our borders,
and plenty in our habitations ; and although dis-
ease has visited some few portions of the land wi:h
distress and mortality, yet in general the health of the
people has been preserved, and we are all called upon. hp
the highest obligations of duty, to renew our thanks and
our devotion to our Heavenly Parent, who has continued
to vouchsafe to us the eminent blessings which surround
us, and who has so signally crowned the year with his
goodness. If we find ourselves increasing, beyond ex-
ample, in numbers, in strength, in wealth, in knowledge,
in everything which promotes human and social happi-
ness, let us ever remember our dependence, for all these,
on the protection and merciful dispensations of Divine
Providence.
Since your last adjournment, Alexander M'Leod, a
British subject, who was indicted for the murder of an
American citizen, and whose case has been the subject
of a correspondence heretofore communicated to you,
has been acquitted by the verdict of an impartial and
intelligent jury, and has, under the judgment of the
Court, been regularly discharged.
Great Britain having made known to this Government
that the expedition which was fitted out from Canada for
the destruction of the steamboat Caroline in the winter of
1837, and which resulted in the destruction of the said boat
and in the death of an American citizen, was undertaken by
orders emanating from the authorities of the British Go-
vernment, in Canada, and demanding the discharge of
M'Leod upon the ground that, if engaged in that
expedition, he did but fulfil the orders of his Govern-
ment, has thus been answered in the only way in which
she could be answered by a Government, the powers of
whi2h are distributed among its several departments by
the fundamental law. Happily for the people of Great
Britain, as well as those of the United States, the only
mode by which an individual, arraigned for a criminal of-
fence. before the Courts of either, can obtain his dis-
charge, is by the independent action of the judiciary, and
by proceedings equally familiar to the Courts of both
countries.
If in Great Britain a power exists in the Crown to
cause to be entered a nolle prosequi, which is not the case
with the Executive power of the United States, upon a
prosecution pending in a State Court ; yet there, no more
than here, can the chief Executive power rescue a pri-
soner from custody without an order of the proper tribu-
nal directing his discharge. The precise stage of the
proceedings at which such order may he made, is a matter
of municipal regulation exclusively, and not to be com-
plained of by any other Government. In cases of this
kind, a Government becomes politically respon-
sible only, when its tribunals of last resort arc
shown to have rendered unjust and injurious judg-
ments in matters not doubtful. To the establishment
and elucidation of this principle, no nation has lent its
authority more efficiently than Great Britain. Alex-
ander /il‘.Leod having his option either to prosecute a
writ of error from the decision of the Supreme Court of
'New York, which had been rendered upon his appli-
cation for a discharge, to the Supreme Court of the
United States, or to submit the case to the decision of a
Jury, preferred the latter, deeming it the readiest mode
of obtaining his liberation and the result has fully
sustained the wisdom of his choice. The manner in
which the issue submitted was tried will satisfy the
English Government that the principles of justice will
never fail to govern the enlightened decision of an Ame-
rican tribunal. I cannot fail, however, to suggest to Con-
gress the propriety, and, in some degree, the necessity,
of making such provisions by law, as far as they may
constitutionally do so, for the removal at their commence-
ment, and at the option of the party, of all such cases as
may hereafter arise, and which involve the faithful
observance and execution of our international obli-
gations, from the State to the Federal Judiciary,
This Government, by our institutions, is charged
with the maintenance of peace and the preservation of
amicable relations with the nations of the earth, and
ought to possess, without question, all the reasonable and
proper means of maintaining the one and preserving the
other. IVhilst just confidence is felt in the Judiciary of
the States, yet this Government ought to be competent
in itself for the fulfilment of the high duties which have
been devolved upon it under the organic law, by the
States themielves.
In the month of September. a party of armed men
from Upper Canada invaded the territory of the United
States, and forcibly seized upon the person of one Gro-
gan, and, under circumstances of great harshness, hur-
riedly carried him beyond the limits of the United States,
and delivered him up to the authorities of Upper Canada.
Hii immediate discharge was ordered by those authori-
ties, upon the facts of the case being brought to their know-
ledge—a course of procedure which was to have been
expected from a nation with whom we are at peace, and
which was not more due to the rights of the United
States, than to its own regard for justice. The corres-
pondence which passed between the Department of
State, and the British Envoy, Mr. Fox' and with the
Governor of Vermont, as soon as the facts had been
made known to this Department, are herewith commu-
nicated.
I regret that it is not in my power to make
known to you an equally satisfactory conclusion in
the case of the Caroline steamer, with the circum-
stances connected with the destruction of which,
in December, 18.7, by an armed force fitted out in
the Province of Upper Canada, you are already made
acquainted. No such atonement as was due for the
public wrong done to the United States by this invasion
of her territory, so wholly irreconcileable with her
rights, as an independent Power, has yet been made. In
the view taken by this Government, the inquiry whether
the vessel was in the employment of those who were
prosecuting an unauthorised war against that Province,
or was engaged by the owner in the business of trans-
porting the passengers to and from Navy Island in hopes
of private gain, which was most probably the case, in no
degree alters the real question at issue between the two
Governments. This Government can never concede to
any foreign Government the power, except in a case of
the most urgent and extreme necessity, of invading its
territory, either to arrest the persons or destroy the pro-
perty of those who may have violated the municipal
laws of such foreign Government, or have disregarded
their obligations arising under the law of nations.
The territory of the United States must be regarded
as sacredly secure against all such invasions, until they
shall voluntarily acknowledge their inability to acquit
themselves of their duties to others. And in announcing
this sentiment I do but affirm a principle which no na-
tion on earth would be more ready to vindicate, at all
hazards, than the people and Government of Great
Britain.
If, upon a full investigation of all the facts, it shall
appear that the owner of the Caroline was governed
by a hostile intent, or had .made common cause with
those who were in the occupancy of Navy Island,
themselves, so far as he is concerned, there can be no
claim to indemnity for the,destrnction of his boat, which
this Government would feel itself bound to prosecute—
since he would have acted not only in derogation
of the rights of Great Britain, but in clear viola-
tion of the laws of the United States ; but that is a
question which, however settled, in no manner involves
the higher consideration of the violation of territo-
rial sovereignty and s jurisdiction. To recognise
it as an admissible practice that each Govern-
ment, in its turn, upon any sudden and unautho-
rised outbreak, which, on a frontier, the extent of which
renders it impossible for either to have an efficient force
on every mile of it, and which outbreak, therefore,
neither may be able to suppress in a day, may take ven-
geance into its own hands, and without even a remon-
strance, and in the absence of any pressing or overruling
necessity may invade the territory of the other, would
inevitably lead to results equally to be deplored by both.
When border collisions come to receive the sanction, or
to be made on the authority of either Government, gene-
ral war must be the inevitable result. While it
is the ardent desire of • the United States to culti-
vate the relations of peace with all nations, and
to fulfil all the duties of good neighbourhood
towards those :who possess territories adjoining
their own, that very desire would lead them to deny the
right of any foreign power to invade their boundary with
an armed force. The correspondence between the two
Governments on this subject, will, at a future day of
your session, be submitted to your consideration; and in
the meantime I cannot but indulge the hope that the
British Government will see the propriety of renouncing,
as a rule of future action, the precedent which has been
set in the affair at Schlosser.
I herewith submit the correspondence ,yhich has
recently taken place between the American Mine ter at
the Court of St. James, Mr. Stevenson, and the Mit:ls-
ter of Foreign Affairs of that Government, on the right;
claimed by that Government to visit and detain vesseN
sailing under the American flag and eringelt -
ln prose-
cuting lawful commerce in the African
Our commercial interests in that re
rbri on have
become
exile'
rienced considerable increase, and have,
object of much importance, and it is the duty of
this Government to protect them against all improper
and vexatious interruption. However desirous the
United States may be for tho suppression of the slave
trade, they cannot consent to interpolations into
the maritime code, at the mere will and pleasure
of other Governments. We deny the right of any
such interpolation to any one, or.Aighe nations of