John Marshall

“ Against it, it has been urged, and we think with great force, that the laws of the United States ought not, if it be avoidable, so to be construed as to infract the common principles and usages of nations or the general doctrines of national law. If the construction contended for be given to the act, it subjects to the same rate of salvage a recaptured neutral and a recaptured belligerent vessel. Yet according to the law of nations, a neutral is generally to be restored without salvage. ”

“ That a mere speculative danger will not be sufficient to entitle a person to salvage is unquestionably true. But that the danger must be such that escape from it by other means was inevitable cannot be admitted. ”

“ The taking must be lawful — for no claim can be maintained in a court of justice founded on an act in itself tortious. On a recapture, therefore, made by a neutral power, no claim for salvage can arise, because the act of retaking is a hostile act, not justified by the situation of the nation to which the vessel making the recapture belongs in relation to that from the possession of which such recaptured vessel was taken. ”

“ It is not unworthy of notice that the first regulation of the right of salvage in the case of a recapture, not expressly enumerated among the specified acts of hostility warranted by the law, is to be found in one of those acts which constitute a part of the very system of defense determined on by Congress, and is the first which subjects to condemnation the prizes made by our public ships of war. ”

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is France in any manner to be affected by the decree this Court may pronounce. Her interest in the vessel was terminated by the recapture, which was authorized by the state of hostility then subsisting between the two nations. From that time it has been a question only between the Amelia and the recaptor, with which France has nothing to do.
It is true that a violation of the law of nations by one power does not justify its violation by another, but that remonstrance is the proper course to be pursued, and this is the course which has been pursued. ”

“ Upon a critical investigation of the acts of Congress, it will appear that the right of recapture is expressly given in no single instance but that of a vessel or goods belonging to a citizen of the United States. ”

“ These are the laws of the United States which define their situation in regard to France and which regulate salvage to accrue on recaptures made in consequence of that situation.
A neutral armed vessel which has been captured and which is commanded and manned by Frenchmen, whether found cruising on the high seas or sailing directly for a French port, does not come within the description of those which the laws authorize as American ship of war to capture unless she be considered quoad hoc as a French vessel. ”

“ A ship on the rocks might possibly be got off by the aid of wind and tides without assistance from others. A vessel captured by an enemy might be separated from her captor, and if sailors had been placed on board the prize, a thousand accidents might possibly destroy them, or they might even be blown by a storm into a port of the country to which the prize vessel originally belonged. ”

“ The general principle is that salvage is only payable where a meritorious service has been rendered. In the application of this principle it has been decided that neutrals carried in by a belligerent for examination, being in no danger, receive no benefit from recapture, and ought not therefore to pay salvage. ”

“ It is not denied, nor in the course of the argument has it been denied, that Congress may authorize general hostilities, in which case the general laws of war apply to our situation, or partial hostilities, in which case the laws of war, so far as they actually apply to our situation, must be noticed. ”

“ The ship Amelia sailed from Calcutta in Bengal in April, 1799, loaded with a cargo of the product and manufacture of that country, and was bound to Hamburgh. On 6 September, she was captured by the French national corvette La Diligente, commanded by L. J. Dubois, who took out the captain, part of the crew, and most of the papers of the Amelia, and putting a prize master and French sailors on board her, ordered her to St. Domingo to be judged according to the laws of war. ”

“ Their obligation on their own courts must be considered as complete, and without resorting either to public notoriety, or the declarations of our own laws on the subject, the decisions of the French courts must be admitted to have conformed to the rules prescribed by their government. ”