information, claiming a forfeiture under the second section of the Slave-Trade Act of 20th April, 1818. The counsel for the claimants interposed the objection that the owner was innocent of the offence charged. To this Judge Sprague replied:

The construction contended for, will not only violate the language, but defeat the purpose of the Act. For an owner might send his vessel on a lawful voyage to New Orleans, for example, and there his master fit her out for the Slave Trade; nay, even in the home-port, the owner has only to keep behind the curtain, while his master is fitting his vessel for the criminal enterprise, and make, at the proper time, such declarations and manifestations as may repel the presumption of complicity, and the vessel will be liable to no forfeiture. But it is urged, that it is unjust to deprive the owner of his property, when he has been guilty of no criminal purpose. No doubt it may sometimes bear hard on innocent owners. But this hardship is imposed by the general policy of our laws, when vessels are employed for criminal purposes.

The Legislature, to insure not only good faith, but the utmost vigilance on the part of the owners, says to them emphatically, you must, on peril of losing your vessel, see to it that she shall not be made use of as an instrument for violating the law. And if this is deemed necessary, merely for the protection of the revenue, for a much stronger reason should it be enforced against vessels to prevent their being used as instruments to carry on a trade, which not only in the eye of morality, but also in the eye of the law, is the most atrocious that man can be engaged in. We must recollect that a traffic so denounced and so criminal, will assume every disguise, false pretence and deception, which fraud and ingenuity can devise, and calls for the most stringent measures for its prevention, one of which is to enlist the owner of the vessel to prevent her being so employed in violation of the law, by holding him responsible for such use to the extent of his ownership. For these reasons, I do not think it necessary to go into the question which has been so much contested, whether Lamar had knowledge of Martin's criminal intent. * In this case Martin was in possession, with the consent of the owner, and I am not called upon to decide what would have been the result, if he had been a mere trespasser from the beginning.

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When that case shall arise, and an owner shall leave his vessel so exposed, that a wrong-doer can seize, fit and convert her to such an unlawful purpose, it will be for the Court to consider, whether both the language and the spirit of the law do not require her condemnation. But that question is not now before me.'

The closing remark of Mr. Justice Sprague may fairly be taken as a clear indication that a condemnation would be decreed if ever such question came legitimately before him.

The effect of innocency of the owner of a vessel, inculpated for violation of law, and proceeded against in rem, has

very recently been before this court in a prize case, and your Honor, in rendering an opinion, expounded with clearness the true relation of owner and vessel, under such circumstances. In that case, which was, the Napoleon, the wellknown high commercial character, and moral worth of the owner, were strongly pressed upon your Honor, but to no avail. The Court said:

"The question before the Court on this trial is as to the innocency or guilt of the vessel, as if the transaction in which she was implicated was one of personal volition on her part; and that inquiry may be resolved quite independently of the individual intentions or cognizance of the parties who are made pecuniarily responsible for acts of the vessel or of the property, which incur or have imputed to them forfeitures, because of such acts. It is, accordingly, not sufficient for the claimant, in defence of this suit, to establish his own loyalty of character, and his disapproval of the connection of the vessel with the enemy, or with the illicit conduct alleged against her. The evidence on the first hearing was amply satisfactory in that respect, without the corroboration of subsequent proofs, which also show his unquestioned patriotism and rectitude as a citizen and a merchant, and that his most earnest efforts were exerted to prevent the prize from being in any way employed in aid of the enemy. But, notwithstanding his individual integrity, the vessel is responsible, in law, in rem for the malfeasance of the agent who had the control of her, in violating the penal laws of navigation. The most distinguished and unblemished reputation on the part of a shipowner will not protect his vessel from confiscation, when it is engaged, though through untrustworthy agents, and without his knowledge and against his prohibition, in illicit employments, in infractions of revenue and fiscal laws, and preëminently in violating the laws of war. The res culpabilis has meted out to it the mulct or confiscation legally applicable to the Agent acting voluntarily in violation of law. Ships and cargoes of the largest values are constantly subject to forfeiture, without regard to the intentions of their owners, for being the means of smuggling property of trifling value into port, in evasion of restrictive laws of trade; and in time of war, a neutral ship is subject to forfeiture, if run into a blockaded port by her commander, independently of proof of instructions by or actual intention on the part of the owner, to evade the blockade, he having previous due notice of its existence and efficiency. "Admitting, then, to the fullest extent the probity of the claimant in all his personal transactions in respect to the vessel and her voyages, and his loyalty and fair conduct, towards the laws and the rights of his own government, so far as his personal intentions or authority were concerned, the considerations set up and pressed in his behalf cannot be admitted as constituting a legal defence to the suit. They may supply a forcible ground of appeal to the executive department of the Government, in respect to the ulterior disposition of the proceeds of the prize, but the judiciary have no competency to control that matter."

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The learned counsel says that it would be contrary to the There is a

4

and inter

egislative, first principles of justice to forfeit a man's property for acsı national jus- in which he was not shown to have participated, when the

tice, to be

adminis

court, in

character.

tered by the forfeiture is part of the punishment for what is made a percases of this sonal crime. But he certainly does not need to be told that in matters of high concern to the peace of a nation, its honor and dignity and good faith, there is a legislative justice; and that, when the principles of that justice have been clearly enunciated in statute law, which affects the rights of friendly nations, they have reason to demand such an administration of its provisions as shall protect them from the mischiefs against which protection has been solemnly promised to the full extent of the enacted law. In the present case, this legislative justice is undeniably founded upon the principle that owners of vessels shall not, either designedly, or passively, or blindly, suffer their property to be tampered with by the agents of foreign belligerents, to the injury, the annoyance, or even the alarm, of nations with whom we are at peace; and the comprehensive and searching provisions of this law, which punish not only completed wrongful acts, but attempts at wrongful acts, and conscious concernment in wrongful acts, although they are never carried into perfect. execution as means of injury, evince the clear purpose of Congress to protect, not only the actual and material interests, but even the public tranquillity and national sense of security of friendly nations. If this great policy works a hardship in an individual case, that hardship is for the consideration of another department of the Government, and it can afford the judiciary no reason for overturning the will of Congress, or for declaring, by a captious construction, that we have lived for eighty years under a law that kept the word of promise to the ear, only to break it at last, to the hope of the world at large.

This court

has jurisdic

this vessel

Again the learned counsel for the claimant contends. tion to forfeit that this court has no jurisdiction to forfeit this vessel for the offences described in this act, by a proceeding on its admiralty side in rem; and by way of supporting this

for the of fence set, forth in the litel.

proposition, he proceeds to the extremity of asserting that it could be done, and must be done, if at all, under a common law indictment, by passing a sentence of personal conviction, and making the forfeiture a part of that sentence. That he really expected to convince an intelligent court of either branch of this proposition, is scarcely to be presumed.

The cases already cited of the Palmyra, the Malek Adhel, the Little Charles, not to say hundreds of others, which have proceeded under statutes which authorize forfeitures of vessels for unlawful acts, which are also punishable in those who commit them, by fine and imprisonment, although the particular statute does not expressly provide an admiralty jurisdiction for the particular forfeiture-will put him upon the inquiry whether there is not a general provision of admiralty jurisdiction which reaches all such forfeitures, but which he has ignored. He is doubtless familiar with the ninth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which vests in this court, as a Court of Admiralty, jurisdiction of all civil causes, of admiralty jurisdiction, and of all seizures. under laws of impost, navigation, or trade, where the seizures are made on navigable waters; he has read the case of the Sarah (8 Wheaton, 391), which long ago pointed out that this court has both a common law and an admiralty side, that in cases of seizures made on navigable waters, it sits as a Court of Admiralty to enforce forfeitures in rem, and that the two jurisdictions, although vested in the same tribunal, are as distinct from each other, as if they were vested in different tribunals. It would be somewhat difficult for him, therefore, to show how this forfeiture is to be enforced on the common law side of this court, unless, indeed, he could make it appear that this vessel of fourteen hundred tons was seized on dry land.

That an information against a vessel to enforce a forfei ture, unless the seizure is made on land, is a civil cause of admiralty jurisdiction, triable without a jury and not a criminal proceeding, is rather conclusively settled by La Ven

Proposi

tions of law contended for by the : govern*ment.

geance (2 Dallas, 27), the Sarah (8 Wheaton, 691), the Abby (1 Mason, 360), the Little Ann (Paine's Cir. Ct. Reps., 40), and hosts of other cases.

It is wholly immaterial, therefore, what the English neutrality statute does, or does not provide, in the way of a special jurisdiction, to reach the forfeiture. Our jurisdiction is fixed by our Judiciary Act of 1789, and it is never necessary for Congress in declaring the forfeiture of a vessel to provide special jurisdiction; nor does the jurisdiction ever fall to the common law side of this court, unless the seizure is made on land, or on waters that are not navigable by vessels of ten or more tons.

In conclusion, therefore, of our argument on this branch of the case, we respectfully insist that the following propositions are fairly to be deduced from the legislation of 1818:

First. If the court shall be satisfied that any person. whatsoever was knowingly concerned in fitting out the Meteor, whether armed or unarmed, with the intent that she should be employed in the service of the Chilean Government, to commit hostilities against Spain, or the subjects of Spain, we are entitled to have the forfeiture decreed; and the offence of being knowingly concerned is complete, if anything was put on board, or anything was done to the vessel in furtherance of that intent.

Second. If the court shall be satisfied that any person whatsoever was knowingly concerned in furnishing, or offering the Meteor for sale to the Chilean Government, with the intent aforesaid, we are entitled to have the forfeiture decreed; and such intent is complete if the vessel was offered to be put under the control of the Chilean Government, or its agents, for the purpose aforesaid.

Third. If the court shall be satisfied that any person whatsoever was knowingly concerned in arming this vessel, with the intent aforesaid, we are entitled to have the forfeiture decreed; and this offence of being knowingly concerned in arming, is complete, if any warlike instruments, or stores,