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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0473 and id is 1 raw text is: I HAGG. 79. THE PARTRIDGE 29
been provided or done by the agents. Even on the day of trial he had been com-
pelled to find the law and the logic for himself ; for I infer from the sentence, that
he had been compelled to put himself into the unfortunate situation of being his
own lawyer, and pleading his own cause. It travels up here at last, loaded with
an enormous expense and loss, which this Court cannot contemplate without horror
and concern, and certainly the more of both because it has all been most unnecessarily
produced, and the matter is now placed beyond the reach of any redress which this
Court can administer.
The ship was most rightly seized in the execution of those laws, which the Legis-
lature has pro-[79]-vided for the suppression of slavery. There is no doubt but
that such laws must produce occasionally enormous losses of private property, to
be defended only by the very beneficial purpose they are intended to effect. It
must happen, that in remote parts of the world, where the execution of such laws
naturally commences, there must be some improper seizures, and sometimes, I may
say, improper adjudications-want of credit in the distant settlements whither the
parties are carried, or where they are found-want of confidence in the agents whom,
though total strangers, they are obliged to employ-appeals to be prosecuted at a
great distance of time and place. These are evils generally and, I presume, un-
avoidably incident to the system; and the zeal and acuteness of those who have
attended to this great subject, aided by the same qualities on the part of
the Government and the Legislature, have not been able to provide a better
system.
On weighing the pretensions of the two parties, I must allow Captain Purvis
the credit of having done nothing wrong except the non-prosecution of the enquiry
upon the first seizure : in which he has suffered very severely by not being allowed
his costs in the first instance. I say severely, because it is evident from the pro-
ceedings with which this cause has been loaded, that those expenses must have been
inordinately oppressive. Nothing that follows, on his part, is taxable with blame.
He had a right to demand and compel the production of papers and of witnesses ;
he had a right to appeal, and a sufficient ground for appeal; he had a right to demand
bail upon that appeal, and to detain the ship if bail was not given ; and he [80]
had a right to give up his appeal upon the opinion of his European lawyers, without
subjecting it to the imputation of being frivolous and insincere. On the part of
Mr. Munnings, I see much of that sort and degree of passion which is apt to lead a
man up to the very confines of irregularity of conduct. He hesitates about the
delivery of his papers, and expresses that hesitation in improper terms. His papers
are polluted by very offensive terms, trenching, certainly, upon that decent respect
which is due to a Court of Justice, and clearly attributive either to himself or his
agent: add to this, his entire inattention to the ship after she is restored, and his
quitting the place without leaving instructions with his agents, from which all these
heavy losses have accrued to himself.
Upon the whole, I shall not disturb the sentence by which Captain
Purvis was left to pay his own costs in the Court below, nor shall I give him
the whole costs of the appeal; but I am disposed to allow a particular
sum nomine expensarum; what its amount may be I shall leave to future
enquiry and consideration with the registrar, who will signify it in due time to
the parties.
The Court pronounced against the appeal, and condemned the appellant in the
sum of £130 nomine expensarum.
[81] PARTRIDGE -(Betham). July 25, 1822.-In a dispute between the
original owner of a ship, and the purchaser, upon a sale by the master abroad,
possession decreed upon bail.
This was a cause of possession civil and maritime, promoted by Henry Blanshard,
the sole owner of the above ship, against Robert Baxter and others, the asserted
proprietors. It appeared that this ship, at the time she left England in 1820, on
a voyage to the East Indies, was, with her stores, worth about £10,000 ; and that
having suffered some inconsiderable damage, by striking upon a shoal in the Bay of
Bengal, upon her return voyage, put into Bengal to repair; when the captain,
without any authority whatever, either express or implied, and without any legal](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0473&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)