your mission, I shall have the honour immediately to send you passports. Accept, sir, the assurances of my very sincere consideration. CH. MAU. TALLEYRAND. MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. FEB. 7, 1800. IN In consequence of your request to me, conveyed in your resolution of the 4th of this month, I directed the Secretary of State to lay before me, copies of the papers intended. These copies, together with his report, I now transmit to the House of Representatives, for the consideration of the members. JOHN ADAMS. ' REPORT. Department of State, Feb. 6, 1800. THE Secretary of State, has prepared, as directed, and now respectfully submits to the President of the United States, copies of the papers which probably were contemplated by the House of Representatives in their resolve of the 4th instant; although no requisition, as the resolve supposes, has ever been received, nor any communication made to the judge of the district court of South Carolina, concerning any man by the name of Jonathan Robbins. But by the proceedings before that judge, as they have been published, it appears that a seaman named Thomas Nash, the subject of the British minister's requisition, did assume the name of Jonathan Robbins, and make oath, "That he was a native of the state of Connecticut, and born in Danbury in that state." The Secretary, therefore, besides the copy of the requisition, and the copies of his letter to the judge of the district court of South Carolina, and of the judge's answer, has prepared, and herewith encloses, copies of the certificates of the selectmen and town-clerk of Danbury, and extracts of letters from admiral sir Hyde Parker, satisfactorily proving, that the Thomas Nash, calling himself Jonathan Robbins, who, on the requisition of the British minister, was delivered up by the judge aforesaid, with the assent of the President of the United States, was not an American citizen, but a native Irishman, who to his other crimes added perjury, in the hope, thereby, to escape the punishment due to piracy and murder. The original certificates of the selectmen and town-clerk of Danbury, are in the Secretary's possession; and he has compared the extract of admiral Parker's letter to Mr. Liston with the original, and the extract of the admiral's letter to the British consul at Charleston, with the passage as recited in the consul's original letter to Mr. Liston. All which is respectfully submitted. TIMOTHY PICKERING. No. 1. [Copy of a note from Robert Liston, Esquire, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannick Majesty, to Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, of the United States.] R. LISTON, presents his respects to col. Pickering, Secretary of State. A seaman of the name of Thomas Nash, having been committed to gaol, in Charleston, (South Carolina) at the instance of his majesty's consul there, on suspicion of his having been an accomplice in the piracy and murder committed on board his majesty's ship Hermione, and information of the circumstance having been transmitted to vice admiral sir Hyde Parker, a cutter was despatched to Charleston, with an officer on board, to whom the man was well known, in order that his person might be identified, and that he should be carried to the West Indies for trial. But on the application of the consul for the restoration of Nash, in conformity to the treaty of 1794, judge Bee, and the federal attorney, were of opinion that he could not with propriety be delivered up without a previous requisition, on my part made to the executive government of the United States. May I therefore request, sir, that you will be pleased to lay this matter before the Presi dent, and procure his orders that the said Thomas Nash be delivered up to justice. Philadelphia, May 23, 1799. No. 2. Letter from the Secretary of State to Judge Bee. Depart ment of State, Philadelphia, June 3, 1799. SIR. Mr. Liston, the minister of his Britannick majesty, has requested, that Thomas Nash, who was a seaman on board the British frigate Hermione, and who he is informed is now a prisoner in the jail of Charleston, should be delivered up. I have stated the matter to the Presi dent of the United States. He considers an offence committed on board a publick ship of war, on the high seas, to have been committed within the jurisdiction of the nation to whom the ship belongs. Nash, is charged, it is understood, with piracy and murder, committed by him, on board the above mentioned British frigate, on the high seas, and consequently "within the jurisdiction" of his Britannick majesty; and therefore, by the 27th article of the treaty of amity with Great Britain, Nash ought to he delivered up, as requested by the British minister, provided such evidence of his criminality be produced, as by the laws of the United States, or of South Carolina, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial, if the offence had been committed within the jurisdiction of the United States. The President has in consequence hereof authorized me to communicate to you "his advice and request" that Thomas Nash may be delivered up to the consul or other agent of Great Britain, who shall appear to receive him. I have the honour to be, &c. The Honourable Thomas TIMOTHY PICKERING. of the district of South Carolina. No. 3. Letter from Thomas Bee, Esq. to the Secretary of State, dated Charleston, South Carolina, July 1, 1799. In compliance with the request of the President of the United States as stated in your favour of the 3d ult. I gave notice to the British consul that at the sitting of the district court on this day, I would order Thomas Nash, the prisoner charged with having committed murder and piracy on board the British frigate Hermione, on such strong evidence of his criminality as justified his apprehension and commitment for trial, to be brought before me on habeas corpus, in order to his being delivered over agreeable to the 27th article of the treaty of amity with Great Britain. The consul attended in court and requested that the prisoner should remain in jail until he had a convenient opportunity of sending him away. I have therefore directed that he remain in prison, until the consul shall find it convenient to remove him. I have the honour to be, &c. THOMAS BEE, District Judge of South Carolina. Hon. Timothy Pickering, No. 4. Danbury, September 16, 1799. WE the subscribers selectmen of the town of Danbury, in the state of Connecticut, certify that we have always been inhabitants of said town, and are from forty-five to fifty-seven years of age, and have never known an inhabi. tant of this town by the name of Jonathan or Nathan Robbins, and that there has not been nor now is any family known by the name of Robbins within the limits of said town. Danbury, September 16, 1799. THE subscriber late town clerk for the town of Danbury in the state of Connecticut certifies that he kept the town records twenty-five years, viz. from the year 1771 until the year 1796, that he is now 56 years of age, and that he never knew any person by the name of Robbins born or residing in the said town of Danbury during that term of twenty-five years, before or since. MAJOR TAYLOR. No. 5. Extract of a Letter from Admiral Sir Hyde Parker to Robert Liston, Esq. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Britannick Majesty to the United States, dated in Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica, Sept. 9, 1799. 66 "I HAVE had the honour of receiving duplicates of your excellency's letters, numbered 10, 11, and 12, and in answer thereto, acquaint you that in consequence of Nash, one of the ringleaders in the mutiny, murders, &c. on board the Hermione being delivered up by the United States to me, he has been tried at a court martial, and sentenced to suffer death, and afterwards hung in chains, which sentence has been put into execution. He acknowledged himself to be an Irishman. No. 6.. Extract of a Letter from Benjamin Moodie, Esq. Consul of his Britannick Majesty, at Charleston, (South Carolina) to Robert Liston, Esq. Envoy of his said Majesty, to the United States, dated November 19, 1799. In consequence of many obstacles I had to encounter in obtaining the delivery of Thomas Nash, late of his majesty's ship Hermione, and of the numerous publications to the Northward, and in this place, I wrote to admiral sir Hyde Parker, requesting he would be good enough to send me minutes of the court martial, to which he answered under date 13th Sept. last:-"I am to acquaint you |