Joseph Story

“ It is, in this respect, like a case of capture, which, although well made, gives no authority to the prize Court to proceed to adjudication, if it be voluntarily abandoned before judicial proceedings are instituted. ”

“ It is not meant to assert that a tortious ouster of possession, or fraudulent rescue, for relinquishment after seizure, will divest the jurisdiction. The case put (and it is precisely the present case) is a vountary abandonment and release of the property seized, the legal effect of which must, as we think, be to purge away all the prior rights acquired by the seizure.
On the whole, it is the opinion of the majority of the Court that the decree of the Circuit Court ought to be affirmed. ”

“ She was seized by a revenue cutter of the United States, on her passage toward New York, while in Long Island Sound, about midway between Long Island and Falkland Island, and carried into the port of New Haven about the 7th of October, 1812, and immediately taken possession of by the collector of that part, as forfeited to the United States. ”