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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0399 and id is 1 raw text is: beaten in, and her rudder lost, when the first salvors went to her assistance, in a very
heavy sea, and succeeded in warping her off. She sunk afterwards, it is true ; but
it is not on that account to be said that the first salvors had lost her again, or that
they had abandoned their interest in her. They did not stay by the vessel ; but it
cannot be supposed that having risked so much for her recovery, they meant to
desert her, whilst others were employed in their sight in weighing her up and in
saving the cargo. If they took no part in those exertions, it could only be because
they perceived that the persons employed in that service would perform it as well
without them. They had [324] been the immediate instruments of saving her
from her original danger, and of bringing her to the place where these other parties
were enabled to complete her recovery. I am inclined to throw the salvage for the
former, as well as the latter services, into hotchpot, and to give all the persons con-
cerned equal shares. The persons employed are many, being the crews of six or
seven smacks. I shall direct them all to share alike, giving the owners and masters
of the smacks a double share, and one person, whose leg was broken in the service,
three shares.
On the part of the owners, Arnold then objected-That the salvage should be given
only to the amount of the cargo fished up; and that the bullion, which the master
had taken away with him, should not contribute.--But the Court over-ruled that
objection, and pronounced for a salvage of two-thirds of the whole property.
On a subsequent day (17th Feb. 1806), an application was made to the Court to
reduce the rate of salvage, as to certain articles composing the claim of one pro-
prietor, on a suggestion that the actual proceeds did not amount to so much as the
appraised estimate. On the other side it was contended, that the parties had taken
the property at bail, and were concluded by that valuation ; that it was according
to the amount of that bail that the salvors' demand was to be satisfied.
The Court rejected the application, and directed the former decree to be carried
into execution.
[3251 THE RIcHMOND -(Brattel). December 7, 1804. Contraband-Pitch
and tar concealed on a destination to the Isle of France-Ship and cargo con-
de'ned.
[Referred to, The Hakan, [1916] P. 283.]
This was a case of an American vessel, seized in port by order of the Governor
of St. Helena, and proceeded against as prize to the King in his Office of Admiralty,
on the ground that she was going under a false destination to the Isle of France,
with articles of a contraband nature concealed on board, and with a view of selling
the vessel there, as a vessel well adapted for a ship of war, and for the service of
privateering.
The case was argued much at length, as to the effect of the evidence on these
points.
Judgment-Sir W. Scott: This is a ship which is claimed as an American vessel,
by the master, describing himself as part-owner, in conjunction with another
person, who is also a citizen of America. In an affidavit, which enters very minutely
into the history of the voyage, he states, that the vessel sailed on a destination to
St. Helena, from thence to Mozambique, on the coast of Africa, with a design of
proceeding afterwards with a cargo of slaves to the Havannah, where the ship was
to have been sold, having been originally purchased there, though built in America.
The assumed voyage, on this representation, was for the purpose of procuring slaves,
a trade which, I am at liberty to observe, is strongly discountenanced by the laws
of America, since it was but very lately that a Proctor appeared in the Court of
Appeal, intimating an intention, on the part of the American Government, to inter-
pose a claim for the proceeds of all cargoes of [326] slaves that should be decreed to
be restored to American subjects, as property engaged in a trade which is strictly
prohibited by the laws of that country. I may, I think, without impropriety,
advert to this fact so conveyed to the knowledge of the Court.
All the formal papers on board express a destination to the Isle of France ; but
the master states, that there was no original intention of going to that port;
that as a clearance could not be expressed-to Mozambique, owing to the restriction
of the American laws as to such a trade, the Isle of France was put in as a convenient
place, on that account, and also for the purpose of avoiding the cruisers that are
792
THE RICHMOND
5 C. ROB. 324.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0399&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)