p
Perche, David Kuhnagel, and many other involved intricate and
interesting questions of citizenship as well as damages for the
destruction of property. On May 10, 1884, Mr. Boutwell made an
exhaustive and final report on all these claims to the Secretary of
State, Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. Boutwell was one of the counsel for the government of Hayti in the
celebrated case of Antonio Pelletier against that republic in 1885, and
made a most interesting oral argument. This case was a romance of the
sea as well as of international importance, involving a claim of
$2,500,000 and questions of piracy and slave trading. In 1893-94 Mr.
Boutwell was retained as counsel on the part of Chili to defend their
government before an international commission created under a treaty
with the United States signed August 7, 1892. About forty cases were
presented, involving $26,300,000, and the final report was submitted
April 30, 1894. Among the more important were those of Gilbert B.
Borden, No. 9, and Frederick H. Lovett et al., No. 43, against the
Republic of Chili. These as well as nearly all the others were argued
by him with a brilliancy and eloquence that has marked his entire
career at the bar. Of the five courts martial that were held in
Washington between 1880 and 1892 for the trial of officers of the army
and navy Mr. Boutwell was retained for the defence in four cases, in
three of which the accused were convicted and in the other honorably
acquitted. In 1886 he was retained by the Mormon Church to appear
before the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives against
the Edmunds bill, which was modified in particulars pointed out in the
discussion. The same year he appeared before the House committee on
foreign affairs for the government of Hawaii in opposition to the
project for abrogating the treaty of 1875.
Mr. Boutwell's pleas and arguments have with few exceptions been
published in book or pamphlet form, or both, and form of themselves a
most valuable and interesting addition to legal literature. They bear
evidence of a profound knowledge of the law, of vast research and of
great literary ability. Among others may be mentioned those upon a
petition to the Massachusetts Legislature for the removal of Joseph M.
Day as judge of probate and insolvency for Barnstable County in March,
1881; in the matter of the Pacific National Bank of Boston before the
banking and currency committee of the United
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