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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0397 and id is 1 raw text is: legal effect is different. The accident has turned up in his favour-the criminal act
intended has not been committed, and the man is innocent of the legal offence. So,
if the intent was to trade with an enemy (which, I have already observed, cannot be
ascribed to the party at the commencement of the voyage, when hostilities were
not yet declared), but at the time of carrying the design into effect the person is
become not an enemy, the intention here wants the corpus delicti. No case has
been produced in which a mere intention to trade with the enemy's country, contra-
dicted by the fact of its not being an enemy's country, has enured to condemnation.
Where a country is known to be hostile, the commencement of a voyage towards that
country may be a sufficient act of illegality ; but where the voyage is undertaken
without that knowledge, the subsequent event of hostility will have no such effect.
On principle, I am of opinion, that the party is free from the charge of illegal trading.
Then, as to the other ground, there appears to me to have been neither intention nor
act. The former supposition of Demerara being a foreign colony, rebuts the inten-
tion of importing into a British colony, in a manner not authorised by law. Indeed
the instructions of the master were to call at Demerara for orders, which [255] orders
must have been, not to deliver there according to the first design, but to go elsewhere,
since the facts on which the speculation was founded had entirely failed ; those
facts being, that the colony was a Dutch (a) and neutral colony. There was in fact
no actual importation ; nor was this, as far as I can perceive, made the ground of
condemnation in the Court of Martinique, since the sentence seems to have gone
upon the act of sailing without a British register. On both these points, therefore,
I am of opinion, that the claimant is entitled to the restitution of his property. On
the first there was no illegal act ; on the second there was neither intention nor act.
On the first ground the Court would have expected the party to have exone-[256]-
rated himself from the intention of trading with the enemy, after the knowledge of
hostilities, if the colony had remained hostile. As the colony was not hostile at the
time of the supposed importation, I think that is not necessary in this case, and I
shall decree the property to be restored, on payment of the captor's expenses.
THE ADONIS -(Gottschalk). Sept. 4, 1804.-Blockade of Havre-Excuse
o ver-ruled. -Condemnation.
[S. C. 1 Eng. Pr. Cas. 467. See note, 6 C. Rob. ix. Referred to,
The Kim, [1920] P. 331.]
This was a case respecting a vessel captured on the evening of the 13th July,
standing towards Havre, east-south-east of Cape Barfleur, after having been warned
by one of the blockading frigates that Havre was under blockade. The excuse
offered on the part of the master was, that the mate had asserted the land to be
English land ; that the master was doubtful as to that fact, and for the purpose of
ascertaining it had continued this course towards the land.
Judgment-Sir W. Scott : In deciding questions of this kind, the Court cannot
(a) Since the decision of this cause, an objection has been taken to the legality
of a trade like the present, on the part of British merchants fitting out from British
ports slave adventures in foreign bottoms to the colonies of foreign nations, as being
in breach of the regulations prescribed for British trade. This objection had been
raised principally on the regulations of the 39 G. 3, ch. 80.-In The Ramsdyche,
before the Lords, March 1806, still reserved for judgment, this argument was pressed.
The regulations of the 30 G. 3, c. 80, which forbid British slave ships to be fitted out
from other ports except London, Bristol, and Liverpool, were subsequent to the
discussion of this case ; and therefore the argument in its present form did not
present itself. But since the trade to the coast of Africa was thrown open to all
British subjects, 5 G. 3, ch. 44, § 4, several Acts of Parliament have passed for the
regulation of collateral points, as respecting numbers, and the forms to be observed, on
landing in British islands, &c. &c.-28 G. 3, ch. 54; 29 G. 3, ch. 66; 31 G. 3, ch. 54;
35 G. 3, ch. 90; 37 G. 3, ch. 118. In all these acts, the terms of the provisions seem
to relate only to the regulation of a trade exclusively British, viz. To ships cleared out
as British slave ships, and destined to British islands.-The same modes of expression
are preserved in the late Act, 39 G. 3, ch. 80. If the argument, as it now stands, is
sustainable, it may be a question whether it might not also have been applicable to
the operation of former acts.
TEE ADONIS
767
5 C. ROB. 255.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0397&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)