Horace Gray

“ Insurance Co., 13 Pet. 415, 420, before quoted, if the executive, in his correspondence with the government of Hayti, has denied the jurisdiction which it claimed over the island of Navassa, the fact must be taken and acted on by this court as thus asserted and maintained; it is not material to inquire, nor is it the province of the court to determine, whether the executive be right or wrong; it is enough to know that in the exercise of his constitutional functions he has decided the question. ”

“ If any persons in the employment of that government should be found upon the island, an offer may be made to land them at Port au Prince, or at any other point which they may designate, and their superiors may be informed of the occasion for this proceeding, and of the determination of this government not to allow the removal of guano from that island by citizens of the United States to be interfered with in any manner by the citizens or authorities of Hayti, or by persons claiming to act under them. ”

“ In the ascertainment of any facts of which they are bound to take judicial notice, as in the decision of matters of law which it is their office to know, the judges may refresh their memory and inform their conscience from such sources as they deem most trustworthy. ”

“ The power, conferred on the president of the United States by section 1 of the act of congress of 1856, to determine that a guano island shall be considered as appertaining to the United States, being a strictly executive power, affecting foreign relations, and the manner in which his decermination shall be made known not having been prescribed by statute, there can be no doubt that it may be declared throught the department of state, whose acts in this regard are in legal contemplation the acts of the president. ”

“ France, in 1825, through her chief, Charles X., acknowledged the independence of Hayti, and thereby vested her with a perfect title to the 'French part' (popularly termed) and all its dependencies, among which dependencies the islands of Tortugas, La Vache, Cayemete, Navassa, and Gonaive island are declared to be. ”

“ The indictment, after charging the murder in usual form, alleged that the district of Maryland was the district of the United States into which the defendant was afterwards first brought from the island of Navassa. ”