I am, with great respect and esteem, dear Sir, your friend and servant. 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. TO MR. HAZARD. Philadelphia, February 18, 1791. Sir,--I return you the two volumes of records, with thanks for the opportunity of looking into them. They are curious monuments of the infancy of our country. I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident. This being the tendency of your undertaking, be assured there is no one who wishes it more success than, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant. TO ----.[3] Philadelphia, February 19, 1791.