HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.
![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0412 and id is 1 raw text is: THE CAROLINE
administered the law of nations with lenity, adopts a more indulgent rule, inflicting
on the ship only a forfeiture of freight in ordinary cases of contraband. But the
offence of carrying dispatches is, it has been observed, greater. To talk of the
confiscation of the noxious article, the dispatches, which constitutes the penalty in
contraband, would be ridiculous. There would be no freight dependent on it, and
therefore the same precise penalty cannot, in the nature of things, be applied. It
becomes absolutely necessary, as well as just, to resort to some other measure of
confiscation, which can be no other than that of the vehicle.
[460] Then comes the other question, whether the penalty is not also to be ex-
tended further, to the cargo, being the property of the same proprietors-not merely
ob continentiam delicti, but likewise because the representatives of the owners of the
cargo are directly involved in the knowledge and conduct of this guilty transaction ?
On the circumstances of the present case I have to observe, that the offence is as
much the act of those who are the constituted agents of the cargo as of the master,
who is the agent of the ship. The general rule of law is, that where a party has been
guilty of an interposition in the war, and is taken in delicto, he is not entitled to the
aid of the Court, to obtain the restitution of any part of his property involved in the
same transaction. It is said that the term interposition in the war is a very
general term, and not to be loosely applied. I am of opinion that this is an aggra-
vated case of active interposition in the service of the enemy, concerted and con-
tinued in fraud, and marked with every species of malignant conduct. In such a
case I feel myself bound, not only by the general rule, ob continentiam delicti, but by
the direct participation of guilt in the agents of the cargo. Their own immediate
conduct not only excludes all favourable distinction, but makes them pre-eminently
the object of just punishment. The conclusion therefore is, that I must pronounce
the ship and cargo subject to condemnation.
The Court observed afterwards :-I will mention, though it is a circumstance of
no great consequence, that I have seen the dispatches in this case, and that they are
of a noxious nature, stating the strength of the different regiments, &c., and other
particulars entirely military.
[461] THE CAROLINE -(Doah, Master). April 1, 1808.-Dispatches on board
a neutral ship, but going from the ambassador of the enemy's state, resident
in the neutral state.-Distinction from the preceding case, &c.
[S. C. 1. Eng. Pr. Cas. 607.]
This was a case of the same general class (a) as the preceding, on the question of
(a) Other cases that have occurred on the question of dispatches are The Con-
stantia, Holbec (15th March 1808), a Danish ship, taken on a voyage from the Isle
of France to Copenhagen, having on board a packet, which was to be delivered to the
French ambassador at Copengagen, to be by him forwarded to the departments of
Government in France. Hostilities with Denmark having intervened, the claims of
the Danish proprietor could not be given. The case was urged only with respect to
the interest in the prize between the Crown and the captors, and therefore no special
explanations were offered on the part of the master. The Court observed, upon the
evidence, that the master appeared to have taken charge of this packet knowingly ;
and though there did not appear to have been any fraudulent concealment, he had
been in the custody of a British frigatefifteen days without making any disclosure of
the fact ; that he was part owner of the vessel and of the cargo, and had been en-
trusted with the management of the expedition, as agent, by his co-partner; that the
case, therefore, must follow the course of the Atalanta, independent of the break-
ing out of Danish hostilities, on which only the claim of the Crown was founded.
That the captors were entitled to the condemnation of the ship and cargo.
The Susan (1st April 1808), an American vessel, captured on a voyage from
Bourdeaux to New York, having on board a packet, addressed to the Prefect of the
Isle of France (of which it did not appear that it contained more than a letter, pro-
viding for the payment of that officer's salary). The master had made an affidavit,
averring his ignorance of the contents, and stating that the packet was delivered to
him by a private merchant, as containing old newspapers and some shawls, to be
delivered to a merchant at New York. The insignificance of such a communication,
and its want of connection with the political objects of the war, were insisted upon.
999
6 C. ROB. 460.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0412&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)