_Mr. Evarts_: No, sir, it is not specific. Now, in the Act of March 3d, 1819, entitled, "An Act in addition to the Acts prohibiting the slave trade," which will be found at page 532 of the 3d volume of the Statutes at Large, a general authority is given to the President, "whenever he shall deem it expedient, to cause any of the armed vessels of the United States to be employed to cruise on any of the coasts of the United States or Territories thereof, or on the coast of Africa, or elsewhere," "and to instruct and direct the commanders of all armed vessels of the United States to seize, take, and bring into any port of the United States, all ships or vessels of the United States, wheresoever found," engaged in the slave trade. And then comes this distinct provision in reference to the apprehension and the bringing in for adjudication of persons found on board of such vessels. It is the last clause of the first section: "And provided further, that the commanders of such commissioned vessels do cause to be apprehended and taken into custody every person found on board of such vessel so seized and taken, being of the officers or crew thereof, and him or them convey, as soon as conveniently may be, to the civil authority of the United States, to be proceeded against in due course of law, in some of the Districts thereof." This Act is the one referred to by Judge Sprague in the case of _The United States_ vs. _Bird_ (_Sprague's Decisions_, 299) _Judge Nelson_: There is limitation to that Act, is there? _Mr. Evarts_: No, sir; it is unlimited in duration, and a part of the law now administered. Now, I need not ask your honors' attention to the familiar act which gives to Consuls of the United States direct authority to take offenders into custody and detain them, and send them by the first convenient vessel to the United States, to be delivered to the civil authorities to be proceeded against. Now, my proposition is this,--that neither under the slave-trading Act, nor under the Act for the prevention and punishment of piracy passed in 1819, does the extra-territorial seizure, control and transmission of offenders, exclude the plain terms of the alternative of the statute, which makes jurisdiction dependent, not on apprehension merely, but on apprehension within a District; and that, even though there is a governmental introduction of the offender into a District, making that District, in a proper sense, the one into which he is first brought, yet that does not in the least displace the alternative of jurisdiction of an apprehension within a District, there having been no prior apprehension, by process, within any other District, as the consummation and completion of the delivery of the offender to the civil authorities for the purpose of a trial, the transaction having been instituted on the high seas or in a foreign port.