John Quincy Adams to United States District Attorneys At New Orleans, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Portsmouth, and Rhode Island, December 13, 1817

[79]*Mr. Adams, Secretary of State, to district attorneys.

Sir: I have to request you to transmit to this Department, at as early a day as you may find convenient, a statement of every case in which you have, since the last session of Congress, instituted a process before the courts of the United States, for the execution of the laws to enforce a due observance of the neutral obligations of the United States in the contest between Spain and the American Provinces, claimed by her as colonies; specifying those in which you have proceeded in consequence of applications from the Spanish consuls, together with the decisions of the courts in the cases upon which any decision has been had.