Here it is made the subject of complaint from a foreign ambas. sador to the Executive Government of the United States, that in a court of the United States, in a trial for the life and liberty of forty human beings, the testimony of "an English doctor" was received. And this complaint also was received without a reply. The "English doctor," thus spoken of, was Doctor Madden, a man of letters, and in the official employ of the British Government, in a post of much importance and responsibility, as the superintendant of liberated Africans at Havana. His testimony was highly important in the case and was admitted in the court below, and now forms a part of the record now before your Honors. He does not use the word bribery in reference to the Governor General of Cuba.

DEATH OF JUDGE BARBOUR-THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COURT SUS

PENDED.

Washington, Feb. 25, 1841. The proceedings of the Court in this solemn case have been interrupted by the solemn voice of death. One of the learned and honorable judges of the Court, who sat yesterday in his place, listening with profound and patient attention to the argument of a counsellor many years older than himself, reasoning eloquently in behalf of justice on earth, has been summoned to his own dread account, at the bar of Eternal Justice above. Judge Barbour, of Virginia, the seventh in rank on the bench, died last night in his bed-in his sleep, it is probable, without a groan or a struggle. The servant at his lodgings went at the usual hour this morning to the rooms of the different Judges, to call them to breakfast. As the Chief Justice was passing the door of Judge Barbour's room, the man said to him, "Chief Justice, will you please to come here, sir-I think Judge Barbour is dead." Judge Taney went to the bed, and there saw his associate lying on his side, as if in a gentle sleep, but dead and cold, with the exception of a slight remaining warmth at the chest. Not a muscle was distorted, nor were the bed-clothes in the slightest degree disturb. ed, so that it is probable his heart ceased to beat in an instant, while he was asleep!

At the usual hour for opening the Court this morning, none of the Judges were seen in the court-room, which was already filled with persons come to hear the continuation of Mr. Adams' speech.

At length the Judges came in together, and their countenances looked pale, distressed, and sorrowful. As soon as they had taken their seats, the Crier opened the Court in the usual form, and the Chief Justice addressed the gentlemen of the bar-" Gentlemen painful event has occurred-Judge Barbour died suddenly last night—and the Court is therefore adjourned until Monday."

The Crier then made proclamation to that effect, the Judges all rose, and retired again to their private apartment, and the assembly withdrew.

I did not expect an announcement of so overwhelming a Providence in a manner so severely simple and subdued, but it struck me as eminently appropriate for the Supreme Court of this nation. It was in keeping with the strictest propriety and suitableness. It was sublime.

RESUMPTION OF THE TRIAL.

Washington, March 1, 1841. On the re-opening of the Court, the Attorney General of the Unit ed States, H. D. Gilpin, Esq. presented a series of appropriate resolutions in reference to the decease of Judge Barbour, which had been adopted on Friday, at a meeting of the Bar of officers of the court, and which he moved to have entered on the records of the court. The Chief Justice responded in a short address, and concluded with ordering the resolutions to be entered on the records. Mr. Adams then resumed his argument, as follows:May it please your Honors, The melancholy event which has occurred since the argument of this case was begun, and which has suspended for a time the operations of the Court itself, and which I ask permission to say that I give my cordial, and painful concurrence in the sentiments of the Bar of this Court-has imposed on me the necessity of re-stating the basis and aim of the argument which I am submitting to the Court, in behalf of the large number of individuals, who are my unfortunate clients.

I said that my confidence in a favorable result to this trial rested mainly on the ground that I was now speaking before a Court of JUSTICE. And in moving the dismissal of the appeal taken on behalf of the United States, it became my duty, and was my object to show, by an investigation of all the correspondence of the Executive in regard to the case, that JUSTICE had not

been the motive of its proceedings, but that they had been prompted by sympathy with one of the two parties and against the other. In support of this, I must scrutinize, with the utmost severity, every part of the proceedings of the Executive Government. And in doing it, I think it proper for me to repeat, that in speaking of the impulse of sympathies, under which the government acted, I do not wish to be understood to speak of that sympathy as being blameable in itself, or as inducing me to feel unfriendly sentiments towards the Head of the Government, or the Secretary of State, or any of the Cabinet. I feel no unkind sentiments towards any of these gentlemen. With all of them, I am, in the private relations of life, on terms of intercourse, of the most friendly character. As to our political differences, let them pass for what they are worth, here they are nothing. At the moment of the expiration of this administration, I feel extreme reluctance at the duty of bringing its conduct before the court in this manner, as affecting the claims of my clients to JUSTICE. My learned friend, the Attorney General, knows that I am not voluntary in this work. I here descended to personal solicitation with the Executive, that by the withdrawal of the appeal, I might be spared the necessity of appearing in this cause. I have been of the opinion that the case of my clients was so clear, so just, so righteous, that the Executive would do well to cease its prosecution, and leave the matter as it was decided by the District Court, and allow the appeal to be dismissed. But I did not succeed, and now I cannot do justice to my clients, whose lives and liberties depend on the decision of this Court-however painful it may be, to my. self or others.

In my examination of the first proceedings of the Executive in this case, I did scrutinize and analyze, most minutely and particularly, the four demands first made upon our government by the late Spanish minister, Mr. Calderon, in his letter to the Secretary of State of Sept. 5, 1839. I tested the principles there laid down, both by the laws of nations and by the treaties between the two nations to which he had appealed. And I showed that every one of these demands was inadmissible, and that every principle of law and every article of the treaty, he had referred to, was utterly inapplicable. At the close of my argument the other day, I was commenting upon the complaint of the present minister, the Chevelier d'Argaiz, addressed to the Secretary of State on the

25th of December, 1839, in relation to the injustice he alledges to have been done to the two Spanish subjects, Ruiz and Montes, by their arrest and imprisonment in New York, at the suit of some of the Africans. He says he "does not comprehend the privilege enjoyed by negroes, in favor of whom an interminable suit is com. menced, in which everything is deposed by every person who pleases; and, for that object, an English doctor who accuses the Spanish Government of not complying with its treaties, and calumniates the Captain General of the island of Cuba, by charging him with bribery."

This English Doctor is Dr. Madden, whose testimony is given in the record. He certainly does not charge the Captain General with bribery, although he says that both he and the other authorities of Cuba are in the habit of winking or conniving at the slavetrade. That this is the actual state of affairs, I submit to the Court, is a matter of history. And I call the attention of the Court to this fact, as one of the most important points of this case. It is universally known that the trade is actually carried on, contrary to the laws of Spain, but by the general connivance of the Governor General and all the authorities and the people of the island. The case of this very vessel, the visit of Ruiz and Montes to the barracoon in which these people were confined, the vessel in which they were brought from Africa, are all matters of history. I have a document which was communicated by the British government to the Parliament, which narrates the whole transaction. Mr. A. here read from the Parliamentary documents, a letter from Mr. Jerningham, the British Minister at Madrid, to the Spanish Secretary of State, dated January 5th, 1840, describing the voyage of the Tecora from Africa, the purchase of these Africans who were brought in her, with the subsequent occurrences, and urging the Spanish Government to take measures both for their liberation, and to enforce the laws of Spain against Ruiz and Montes.

He says "I have consequently been instructed by my government to call upon the government of her Catholic Majesty to issue, with as little delay as possible, strict orders to the authorities of Cuba, that, if the request of the Spanish minister at Washington be complied with, these negroes may be put in possession of the liberty of which they were deprived, and to the recovery of which they have an undeniable title.

"I am further directed to express the just expectations of Her

Majesty's government that the Government of her Catholic Majesty will cause the laws against the slave-trade to be enforced against Messrs. Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes, who purchased these newly imported negroes, and against all such other Spanish subjects as have been concerned in this nefarious transaction."

These facts, said Mr. A., must be well known to the Spanish minister. If he complains of injustice in the charge of general connivance made by Dr. Madden, why has he not undertaken to prove that it is a calumny? Not the slightest attempt has been made to bring forward any evidence on this point, for the very plain reason that there could be none. The fact of the slave trade is too notorious to be questioned. I will read, said he, from ano> ther high authority, a book filled with valuable and authentic in formation on the subject of the slave trade, written by one of the most distinguished philanthropists of Great Britain, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. Mr. A. then read as follows:

"It is scarcely practicable to ascertain the number of slaves imported into Cuba: it can only be a calculation on, at best, doubtful data. We are continually told by the Commissioners, that difficulties are thrown in the way of obtaining correct information in regard to the slave trade in that island. Everything that artifice, violence, intimidation, popular countenance, and official connivance can do, is done, to conceal the extent of the traffic. Our ambassador, Mr. Villiers, April, 1837, says, 'That a privilege (that of entering the harbor after dark) denied to all other vessels, is granted to the slave-trader; and, in short, that with the servants of the Government, the misconduct of the persons concerned' in this trade finds favor and protection. The crews of captured vessels are permitted to purchase their liberation; and it would seem that the persons concerned in this trade have resolved upon setting the government of the mother country at defiance.'. Almost the only specific fact which I can collect from the reports of the Commissioners, is the statement 'that 1885 presents a number of slave vessels (arriving at the Havana) by which there must have been landed, at the very least, 15,000 negroes.' But in an official letter, dated 28th May, 1836, there is the following remarkable passage: 'I wish I could add, that this list contains even onefourth of the number of those which have entered after having landed cargoes, or sailed after having refitted in this harbor.' This would give an amount of 69,000 for the Havana alone; but is Ha