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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0406 and id is 1 raw text is: party, (a) that the destination to Antwerp was the plan of the original voyage;
as such, it is to be considered, for all purposes of reasonable construction, as a voyage
from Bourdeaux to Antwerp.
It is said, that there has been no fraud practised ; that the parties were doing
no more, than they might have done in a direct way. But is it no fraud ? Is it
not rather a double fraud, to represent the voyage from Bourdeaux to have been to
Embden, and the voyage to Antwerp to have been from a neutral port ? Is the
holding out Embden as one of the terms of each voyage, nothing to lull to sleep
the suspicions of British cruisers ? And when I say suspicions, I mean legal suspicions,
as to the presumption of enemies property, and the rules under which that presump-
tion would become a subject of more rigorous investigation. Deceit was practised,
as to the destination ; and I must think, a fraudulent deceit, for the express purpose
of evading the jealousy and vigilance, with which a direct destination in such a trade
would have been considered; I shall therefore reject this claim.
The ship had been restored by consent, but the King's Advocate prayed the Court
to pronounce against the claim of freight and expenses.
Court.-I shall not do that, because it is possible that the owner of the ship might
not be conusant of the intention under which the original destination was continued.
Freight and expenses given.
[257] (INSTANCE COURT.)
LA DAME CECILE -(Barret, Master). Feb. 28, 1806.-Prize slaves, taken to
Barbadoes for importation, if under the restriction of the Revenue Laws? Restored.
[Affirmed : see note, p. x. ante.]
This was a case on appeal from the Vice Admiralty Court of Barbadoes, as to a
prize ship and cargo of slaves, which had been seized by the garrison of Goree, who
took the usual examinations, and forwarded them, with the ship papers, to the
High Court of Admiralty for adjudication, where the ship and cargo were con-
demned. They were in the meantime sold to a British merchant, who sent them
to the island of Barbadoes for sale. On their arrival in that port, a seizure was made,
and proceedings were instituted against the ship and cargo as imported into a
British island in violation of the 26th Geo. 3, c. 60, and 29th Geo. 3, c. 80, and a
sentence was pronounced upon them.
In support of the sentence of the Court below, the King's Advocate and Arnold
contended-That it was a case similar to The Eole (supra), and was on the same
principle subject to condemnation ; as a breach of the Navigation Act, and also of
the Act (39 G. 3, c. 80, § 39) passed for the regulations of the slave trade, which
prohibited British subjects from carrying on that trade otherwise than under certain
restrictions therein specified, and in vessels which had been fitted out from the ports
of London, Liverpool, or Bristol ; that if the breach of the Acts of Parliament
could, in any case, be justified by circumstances of necessity, no such excuse could
be pretended in this instance, since it would [258] have been an easy expedient
for the purchasers to have sent the cargo for sale to some neutral island.
On the part of the claimants, Laurence and Swabey contended-That the statutes
under which this ship and cargo had been condemned in the Court below, were
meant only for the regulation of the ordinary trade of British merchants, and that
they did not apply to cases of prize ; that the purchasers, in this instance, stood
precisely in the place of the original captors, and had interposed only for the purpose
of bringing the prize to sale, which the captors themselves, being the garrison of
Goree, were incapable of doing ; that in this respect it differed materially from the
case lately decided, in which the property in question was not prize property, but
only the proceeds of prize, which had been acquired by the captors in traffic on the
coast of Africa ; that with respect to prize goods, under the Navigation Act (sect. 15),
an exception had always been allowed in favour of captors, or those purchasing of
them, under the advice of the law officers of the Crown (Reeves on Shipping, p. 24).
Judgment-Sir W. Scott: This case comes by appeal from the Vice-Admiralty
Court of Barbadoes, where the ship and cargo, being undoubtedly a French prize,
(a) The master had said, that on his arrival he was ordered to go on under a
new verbal agreement as to the freight, as there was no time for a regular charter-
party.
44 LA DAME CECILE
923
6 C. ROB. 257.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0406&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)