Peter Vivian Daniel

“ That the admiralty court in the District of Columbia, having jurisdiction of the case, it was its duty to order the captors to institute proceedings in that court to condemn the property as prize, by a day to be named in the order; and in default thereof to be proceeded against upon a libel for an unlawful seizure; because the property of the claimant is not devested by the capture, but by condemnation in a prize court-is not devested until condemnation, though such condemnation will relate back to the capture. ”

“ We have seen, by the authorities cited, that intercourse with the enemy is sufficient cause for personal punishment, and for the confiscation of property; that it is a cause originating in, and inflexibly enforced by necessity for guarding the public safety. In this cause are established against the claimants of this vessel, not only intercourse, but trading, in its common acceptation. ”

“ Petersburg, that by undertaking such a voyage he would violate no law of the United States although these considerations, if founded in truth, present a case of peculiar hardship, yet they afford no legal excuse which it is competent to this court to admit as the basis of its decision.'
The same course of decision which has established that property of a subject or citizen taken trading with the enemy is forfeited, has decided also that it is forfeited as prize. ”

“ We think, then, that by the evidence found in the possession of the master of The Admittance, there is shown a complicity in all the respondents in premeditating, and as far as they had power in executing, a scheme for effecting intercourse and trade with the open enemies of the United States-an offence such as rendered all the means and instruments for the accomplishment of such a scheme lawful prize of war. ”

“ It embraces neither the question of power of the captor to seize, nor that of the character of the subjects of capture as lawful prize of war. Moreover, this exception, if allowable, would seem to have no other object or purpose, but that of securing the ends which the proceedings and decree of the court have in fact accomplished ”

“ With respect to the respondents, Jecker, Torre, and Co., and Quintana, claimants of the cargo, the written documents found on board the captured vessel, and surrendered to the libellant by the master, fasten upon these claimants not only a knowledge of the design, under the pretext of a voyage to the Sandwich Islands, of trading with citizens of the United States, a belligerent nation, but they fix upon those parties strenuous and active efforts to possess themselves of the fruits of that traffic-the cargo of the ship ”

“ Taking, in connection with the charter-party and the bill of lading, the instructions from the respondent, Fessenden, to the master of the ship before sailing from New Orleans, it seems almost incredible that the owners should have been ignorant of the character of the voyage, and of the hazards incurred by their vessel resulting from that character. ”

“ Lieutenant Revere [one of the remaining lieutenants on board] has given an opinion-no doubt an honest one-that he might have been spared; but it is an opinion formed under no responsibility of command ”