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![handle is hein.slavery/ssactsengr0120 and id is 1 raw text is: TOPAZ (THE) [1811.]
TOPAZ, NICOLL, Master [Feb. 9, 1811].
Resistance to the exercise of the right of visitation and search. An armed
American vessel having carried on the forced trade on the Spanish main,
and, while under a British flag, seized some vessels for the purpose of
ransoming part of the crew which had been detained on shore, etc., on
arriving off Macao attempts to resist a British cruiser in the exercise of the
right of visitation and search, captured after a desperate resistance.-Con-
demnation.
An armed American schooner, condemned in the Vice Admiralty Court of
Bombay, for resistance to the exercise of the right. of search by his Majesty's ship
Diana, in Macao roads in China.
This schooner having been equipped for and employed in the forced trade on
the Spanish main, arrived at Macao, where an attempt was made to search her
by the boats of the Diana, in consequence of information given by some of her
crew who had entered on board the Diana, that she had committed various acts of
piracy under a British flag during her cruise upon the Spanish main. A desperate
resistance was made by the Master and crew, in which the former was killed, several
of both parties wounded, and the vessel captured. An appeal from a sentence of
condemnation was prosecuted, on the presumption, that as the right of search had
been previously submitted to peaceably, the search, in the present instance, had been
attempted vexatiously in an improper manner and also in an im-[21]-proper place,
namely, within the limits of the neutral Portuguese territory or roadstead of
Macao.
King's Advocate [Sir Christopher Robinson] for the Captors.-The circumstances,
developed in the preparatory examinations of this case fully justify the captor in the
exercise of the right of search, which right the claimant now attempts to invalidate,
by a long train of evidence, introduced to prove that the captured vessel was situated
within the territorial limits of the Portuguese settlement at Macao. The question
of territory has, however, been most attentively considered by the Court below,
which, from its proximity to the scene of action, must have had more satisfactory
means of ascertaining -the validity of this objection than any we can obtain. The
Judge appears to have most judiciously referred the question respecting the local
situation of this vessel, with the ship's papers, logs, etc. to the decision of three
respectable nautical men, under the superintendence of the Registrar; the substance
of their report is, that upon examination it appears that the soundings of Macao
reach upwards of 10 miles from the town; that the term Macao road is quite un-
defined, meaning only the anchorage ground between Macao and that range of
islands of which Samcock and Tycock are the principal, which is open anchorage;
that from the log-book of the Topaz, it appears that the Topaz lay in four and a half
fathom, water ; that soundings of four and a half fathoms do hot come nearer Macao
than about four miles, nor nearer the Nine Islands, which are desert rocks, than
three miles; that upon the whole, from the evidence, it would appear that the
position of the schooner was about five miles from Macao, five and a half miles from
Cabretto Point, four [22] and a half miles from a point forming the opposite side
of the entrance to the Typa, and at least three miles from the Nine Islands; that
upon the 6th day of August 1807, the brig Diana lay with Macao town bearing
north-west by west four or five miles, and the Nine Islands north by east half east;
that at this time the Diana must have been about two miles and a quarter from
Cabretto Point, the nearest land; that next day, being the 7th August, the Topaz
came to anchor north-east by north, three and a half miles from the Diana; that
in the afternoon of that day the Diana shifted her berth to the north-east, but how
far the log-book does not specify, nor can the reporters discover by other means;
that this motion carried her still farther from the nearest shore, and nearer to the
Topaz; in this situation she was moored at day-light in the morning of the 8th; in
the afternoon the boats went to board the Topaz, and eventually took possession of
her; the schooner Topaz having just got'under weigh when taken, was then carried
towards the Diana, and at five in the afternoon brought to anchor with Macao town
north-west by north, the Diana bearing east north-east, and Cabretto Point south
HI ACTON, 21](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ssactsengr0120&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)