LETTER XLVIII.--TO CHARLES HELLSTEDT, February 14,1791

TO CHARLES HELLSTEDT, Swedish Consul.

Philadelphia, February 14,1791.

Sir, I now return you the papers you were pleased to put into my
hands, when you expressed to me your dissatisfaction that our court of
admiralty had taken cognizance of a complaint of some Swedish
sailors against their captain for cruelty. If there was error in this
proceeding, the law allows an appeal from that to the Supreme Court;
but the appeal must be made in the forms of the law, which have nothing
difficult in them. You were certainly free to conduct the appeal
yourself, without employing an advocate, but then you must do it in the
usual form. Courts of justice, all over the world, are held by the laws
to proceed according to certain forms, which the good of the suitors
themselves requires they should not be permitted to depart from.

I have further to observe to you, Sir, that this question lies
altogether with the courts of justice; that the constitution of the
United States having divided the powers of government into three
branches, legislative, executive, and judiciary, and deposited each with
a separate body of magistracy, forbidding either to interfere in the
department of the other, the executive are not at liberty to intermeddle
in the present question. It must be ultimately decided by the Supreme
Court. If you think proper to carry it into that, you may be secure of
the strictest justice from them. Partialities they are not at liberty to
show. But for whatever may come before the executive, relative to
your nation, I can assure you of every favor which may depend on their
dispositions to cultivate harmony and a good understanding with it.

I have the honor to be, with great esteem, Sir, your most obedient and
most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XLIX.--TO M. DE PINTO, February 21,1791

TO M. DE PINTO.

Philadelphia, February 21,1791.

Sir,

I have duly received the letter of November the 30th, which your
Excellency did me the honor to write, informing me that her Most
Faithful Majesty had appointed Mr. Freire her minister resident with us,
and stating the difficulty of meeting us in the exchange of a _charge
des affaires_, the grade proposed on our part. It is foreseen that a
departure from our system in this instance will materially affect our
arrangements with other nations; but the President of the United States
has resolved to give her Majesty