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have full confidence that the laws have provided some tribunal, where justice will be done them. .1 enclose the opinion of an advocate, forwarded to me by a gentleman whom I had desired to obtain, from some judicious person of that faculty, a state of their case. This may perhaps give a better idea than I can, of the situation of their cause. His inquiries have led him to believe they are innocent men, but that they must lose their vessel under the edict, which forbids those under thirty tons to approach the coast. Admitting their innocence, as he does, I should suppose them not the objects, on whom such an edict was meant to operate. The essential papers, which he says they re-demanded from him, and did not return, were sent to me, at my desire.
I am, with sentiments of the highest respect, your Excellency s most obedient and
most humble servant,
TH: JEFFERSON.
The case of Lister Jlsquith, owner of the schooner William and Catharine, William MNeil, captain, William Thomson, Wil liam Neily, Robert Anderson, mariners, and William Fowler, passenger.
Lister Asquith, citizen of the State of Maryland, having a law suit depending in England, which required his presence, as in volving in its issue nearly his whole fortune, determined to go thi ther in a small schooner of his own, that he might, at the same time, take with him an adventure of tobacco and flour to Liver pool, where he had commercial connections. This schooner, he purchased as of fifty-nine and a quarter tons, as appears by his bill of sale, but she had been registered by her owner at twenty- one tons, in order to evade the double duties in England, to which American vessels are now subject. He cleared out from Balti- jnore for Liverpool, the llth of June 1785, with eight hogsheads of tobacco and sixty barrels of flour, but ran aground at Smith s point, sprung a leak, and was obliged to return to Baltimore, to refit. Having stopped his leak, he took his cargo on board again, and his health being infirm, he engaged Captain William M Neil* to go with him, and, on the 20th of June, sailed for Norfolk in
- This was the officer, who, on the evacuation of Fort Mifflin, after the Bri
tish had passed the chevaux de frise on the Delaware, was left with fifteen men to destroy the works, which he did, and brought off his men successfully. He had before that, been commander of the Rattlesnake sloop of war, and had much annoyed the British trade. Being bred a seaman, he has returned to that vocation.
