would order
the vessels to be delivered to the owners; or if overweighed in your
judgment by any contradictory evidence which you might have or acquire,
you would do me the favor to communicate that evidence: and that the
Consuls of France might retain the vessels in their custody, in the
mean time, until the executive of the United States should consider and
decide finally on the subject.

When that mode of proceeding was consented to for your satisfaction, it
was by no means imagined it would have occasioned such delays of
justice to the individuals interested. The President is still without
information, either that the vessels are restored, or that you have any
evidence to offer as to the place of capture. I am, therefore, Sir, to
repeat the request of early information on this subject, in order
that if any injury has been done those interested, it maybe no longer
aggravated by delay.

The intention of the letter of June the 25th having been, to permit such
vessels to remain in the custody of the Consuls, instead of that of a
military guard (which in the case of the ship William appeared to have
been disagreeable to you), the indulgence was of course to be understood
as going only to cases which the executive might take, or keep
possession of, with a military guard, and not to interfere with the
authority of the courts of justice in any case wherein they should
undertake to act. My letter of June the 29th, accordingly, in the same
case of the ship William, informed you that no power in this country
could take a vessel out of the custody of the courts, and that it was
only because they decided not to take cognizance of that case, that it
resulted to the executive to interfere in it. Consequently, this alone
put it in their power to leave the vessel in the hands of the Consul.
The courts of justice exercise the sovereignty of this country in
judiciary matters; are supreme in these, and liable neither to control
nor opposition from any other branch of the government. We learn,
however, from the enclosed paper, that the Consul of New York, in the
first instance, and yourself in a subsequent one, forbid an officer of
justice to serve the process with which he was charged from his court,
on the British brig William Tell, taken by a French armed vessel within
a mile of our shores, as has been deposed on oath, and brought into New
York, and that you had even given orders to the French squadron there,
to protect the vessel