rs of other nations. We had
taken upon ourselves the burden of preventing any such abuse by
stipulating to furnish an armed force regarded by both the high
contracting parties as sufficient to accomplish that object.

Denying as we did and do all color of right to exercise any such general
police over the flags of independent nations, we did not demand of Great
Britain any formal renunciation of her pretension; still less had we the
idea of yielding anything ourselves in that respect. We chose to make
a practical settlement of the question. This we owed to what we had
already done upon this subject. The honor of the country called for it;
the honor of its flag demanded that it should not be used by others to
cover an iniquitous traffic. This Government, I am very sure, has both
the inclination and the ability to do this; and if need be it will not
content itself with a fleet of eighty guns, but sooner than any foreign
government shall exercise the province of executing its laws and
fulfilling its obligations, the highest of which is to protect its flag
alike from abuse or insult, it would, I doubt not, put in requisition
for that purpose its whole naval power. The purpose of this Government
is faithfully to fulfill the treaty on its part, and it will not permit
itself to doubt that Great Britain will comply with it on hers. In this
way peace will best be preserved and the most amicable relations
maintained between the two countries.

JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, _February 27, 1843_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I transmit to Congress sundry letters which have passed between the
Department of State and the Chevalier d'Argaiz, envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary of Spain near the Government of the United
States, on the subject of the schooner _Amistad_ since the last
communication of papers connected with that case. This correspondence
will show the general grounds on which the Spanish minister expresses
dissatisfaction with the decision of the Supreme Court in that case and
the answers which have been made to his complaints by the Department of
State.

In laying these papers before Congress I think it proper to observe that
the allowance of salvage on the cargo does not appear to have been a
subject of discussion in the Supreme Court. Salvage had been denied in
the court below and from that part of the decree no appeal had been
claimed.

The ninth article of the treaty between the United Sta