Joseph Story

“ The libel follows the language of the enacting clause of the act, which inflicts the forfeiture; and the exemption from forfeiture, when the collector or the Court shall be satisfied that the difference between the entry and the packages 'proceeded from accident or mistake, and not from an intention to defraud the revenue,' being found in a separate proviso, is properly matter of defence, to be asserted and proved by the claimant, and is not, according to the course of adjudications in this Court, essential to the structure of the libel itself. ”

“ It has been said, that unless the present libel can be maintained, a wide door will be opened for the admission of frauds in the importation of teas. If this be true, it forms no reason for a different judicial construction of the acts of Congress, much less for the enforcing a forfeiture where the facts will not warrant it. Congress can provide an easy remedy, by changing the specific duty to a duty ad valorem, a policy which has already obtained the sanction of other nations. ”

“ The same answer may be given to all the other circumstances relied on as badges of fraud. They become utterly unimportant, if there was not a real misrepresentation of the quality of the tea.
There is one cogent fact, which presses with peculiar weight in the consideration of this part of the case. It is, that after the present seizure was made, and the whole train of suspicions disclosed, the remaining teas, of the same denomination and importation, which were yet in the public stores at New-York, underwent a strict examination there under the authority of the officers of the customs. ”

“ The generic name bohea, comprehending under it all the varieties of black teas, whenever they are at the cheapest price in the market, or are of a very inferior quality, or are mixed up for sale, they lose their specific names, and sink into the common denomination. ”

“ Whether a particular article were designated by one name or another, in the country of its origin, or whether it were a simple or mixed substance, was of no importance in the view of the Legislature. It did not suppose our merchants to be naturalists, or geologists, or botanists. ”