Editing United States v. The Amistad (section)

===British pressure===
{{Slavery}}
As the British had entered into a treaty with Spain prohibiting the slave trade north of the equator, they considered it a matter of [[international law]] for the United States to release the Africans. The British applied diplomatic pressure to achieve that such as invoking the [[Treaty of Ghent]] with the U.S., which jointly enforced their respective prohibitions against the [[international slave trade]].

While the legal battle continued, Dr. [[Richard Robert Madden]], "who served on behalf of the British commission to suppress the African slave trade in Havana," arrived to testify.<ref name="Revolt"/> He made a deposition "that some twenty-five thousand slaves were brought into Cuba every year – with the wrongful compliance of, and personal profit by, Spanish officials."<ref name="Revolt">{{cite book|title=The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone |author=Iyunolu Folayan Osagie|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=2010|page=11|isbn=978-0820327259}}</ref> Madden also "told the court that his examinations revealed that the defendants were brought directly from Africa and could not have been residents of Cuba," as the Spanish had claimed.<ref name="Revolt"/>{{page needed|date=March 2013}} Madden, who later had an audience with [[Queen Victoria]] concerning the case,  conferred with the British Minister in Washington, D.C., [[Henry Stephen Fox]], who pressured U.S. Secretary of State [[John Forsyth (Georgia)|John Forsyth]] on behalf "of her Majesty's Government."<ref name="Congress">{{cite book|article=Deposition of Richard R. Madden|title=Public Documents Printed by order of The Senate of the United States, during the second session of the 26th Congress|author=United States Congress|volume=IV, containing documents from No 151 to No 235|date=January 20, 1841|location=Washington, D.C.}}</ref>

Fox wrote:

{{blockquote|...Great Britain is also bound to remember that the law of Spain, which finally prohibited the slave-trade throughout the Spanish dominions, from the date of the 30th&nbsp;of May, 1820, the provisions of which law are contained in the King of Spain's royal cedula of the 19th&nbsp;December, was passed, in compliance with a treaty obligation to that effect, by which the Crown of Spain had bound itself to the Crown of Great Britain, and for which a valuable compensation, in return, was given by Great Britain to Spain; as may be seen by reference to the 2d, 3d, and 4th articles of a public treaty concluded between Great Britain and Spain on the 23d of September, 1817.

It is next to be observed, that Great Britain and the United States have mutually engaged themselves to each other, by the 10th article of the [[treaty of Ghent]], to use their best endeavors for the entire abolition of the African slave-trade; and there can be no doubt of the firm intention of both parties religiously to fulfill the terms of that engagement.

Now, the unfortunate Africans whose case is the subject of the present representation, have been thrown by accidental circumstances into the hands of the authorities of the United States Government whether these persons shall recover the freedom to which they are entitled, or whether they shall be reduced to slavery, in violation of known laws and contracts publicly passed, prohibiting the continuance of the African slave-trade by Spanish subjects.

It is under these circumstance that her Majesty's Government anxiously hope that the President of the United States will find himself empowered to take such measures, in behalf of the aforesaid Africans, as shall secure to them the possession of their liberty, to which, without doubt they are by law entitled.<ref name="Congress"/>}}

Forsyth responded that under the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution, the President could not influence the court case. He said that the question of whether the "negroes of the Amistad" had been enslaved in violation of the Treaty was still an open one, "and this Government would with great reluctance erect itself into a tribunal to investigate such questions between two friendly sovereigns."<ref name="Congress"/> He noted that when the facts were determined, they could be taken into account. He suggested that if the Court found for Spanish rights of property, the Africans would be returned to Cuba. Great Britain and Spain could then argue their questions of law and treaties between them.<ref name="Congress"/>