The Daily Gate City

Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State, must share with Andrew Johnson the infamy of the most infamous administration the United States have ever known. Mr. Johnson's villainy has been like Falstaff's lies, 'gross as a mountain, open, palpable.' Mr. Seward's has been that of a Mephistopheles—an impish, cunning, secret villainy. Mr. Johnson is the meanest man that has ever been President; Mr. Seward is the meanest man that has ever been Secretary of State. It is now known why Jerry Black refused to be one of Mr. Johnson's counsel in the impeachment; it was on account of the Alta Vela case; it was because Seward was a so much greater scoundrel than Jerry Black, that Jerry quit Mr. Johnson and Mr. Seward in disgust.

A correspondent of the New York Tribune writes up a full history of that case. It is too long for repetition here. The facts are briefly these: It is a law of the United States, passed in 1855, we believe, that if a citizen, or citizens of the United States, discover a guano island, unclaimed by any other nation, it shall, upon notice and occupancy for a limited period, be considered as belonging to the United States, and as the property of the parties discovering it and opening the mines. In 1860 or '61 a Baltimore firm, Patterson & Murguendo, discovered in the Caribbean Sea, the island of Alta Vela, south of St. Domingo, and containing rich deposits of guano. They took possession of the island, gave the proper notice to the Government, and commenced work in the guano trade. After several months a Dominican cruiser, with full knowledge of the rights of Patterson & Murguendo, under American law, landed at Alta Vela, took forcible possession of the island, tore down the American flag, took Patterson and Murguendo prisoners, and kept them some time in custody; and shortly afterwards sold the island to Thurlow Weed, Clarence Seward and other of Mr. Seward's personal and political chums in New York. The latter commenced work at once, gathering, carrying away and selling the guano of the Baltimore owners, with full knowledge that the property lawfully belonged to Patterson & Murguendo. It was the basest kind of villainy and robbery on the part of Weed, Seward & Co. Mr. Black is the counsel of the Baltimore owners, and has vainly tried to get the Secretary of State to do justice in the premises. Mr. Seward has used all his arts to second the villainy of his nephew, Clarence Seward & Co., and enable them to make a fortune by robbing Patterson & Murguendo. He has acted throughout as the counsel of the New York company, and has invented innumerable dodges, to neglect doing justice to the rightful owners of Alta Vela. When Mr. Black applied to him, on behalf of his Baltimore clients during the war, Mr. Seward put him off by saying that any interference would beget troublesome complications, and that the Government was not in a condition to resent such outrages. Upon this pitiful plea he let a boatful of black robbers insult the American flag, and imprison citizens of the United States guilty of no wrong. Afterwards he tried to pettifog the case, and to show that the island really belonged to the Dominicans, and that they had a right to sell it. So he put Jerry Black and his clients off from month to month. Meantime Mr. Seward's New York friends were rapidly carrying away and selling the guano of Patterson & Murguendo. Only a few days ago they had a quarter of a million of dollars worth of it for sale in the markets of Baltimore, the home of the men whom they are robbing. Tired out, at length, Jerry Black appealed directly to Mr. Johnson for justice. He showed Andrew the villainy of Seward, and claimed that justice should be done his clients and Seward be kicked out of office. But Andrew is too greatly taken in the toils of the wily Secretary of State—he refused to interfere, and so Mr. Seward's friends are getting rich by robbing Jerry Black's clients, and Jerry refused to be counsel for a man that would knowingly tolerate Seward's rascality.